Smoothing the quilt beneath her hand, Ruthy felt the empty silence of the little house. Her own quiet, empty house.
For sure this was the future God had waiting for her. Life as a maidle, forever unmarried, caring for other people’s houses and families. It wouldn’t be a bad life, giving herself in service to others.
Ruthy’s eyes stung. Ne, not a bad life, but not at all what she had dreamed of during the eight years Elam had courted her. The life she had planned was at Elam’s side, raising his children, building their future together. She rubbed her hands together, working some warmth into them. Her bony hands, too large for a woman. No wonder Elam had turned from her to pretty, petite Laurette.
Ruthy knew what she looked like in Elam’s eyes. She was too tall, too thin, her mouth too wide. Even though she tried to shrink down when she was near him, he must have felt small next to her. No man wanted a wife who towered over him.
Ja, a maidle. That’s what she would always be.
And if she wasn’t careful, she’d sink into that trap of self-pity she had tried to leave behind.
Work—hard work—was what she needed, and it looked like she had found it. Well, first things first. Unpack and then out to the main house to help Waneta with the afternoon chores. There were nine mouths to feed, and that meant there was no time for lazing around, even as exhausted as she felt.
At the sound of a knock on her door, Ruthy opened it to find a little girl on the other side.
“Hallo. Nellie, right?”
The girl giggled. “Ne, I’m Nancy. Nellie is my twin sister.”
Eight children? This was really too much. Levi Zook should have told her.
Nancy’s cheeks were rosy and chapped.
“Have you been outside in this cold?”
“Ja, I was helping Elias with the chickens, but when Dat and the boys came home he didn’t need me anymore.”
A cold knot tightened in Ruthy’s stomach.
“Nancy, who is Elias?”
“My oldest brother. He and Waneta are twins just like Nellie and I are twins.”
Ruthy gripped the door, watching the eight-year-old bounce on her toes as she spoke. She counted up in her head. Nine. Nine children. She smiled at Nancy, the innocent bearer of this shocking news.
“Where is your daed now?”
“In the buggy shed. Do you want me to get him for you?”
“Ne, denki. I think I’ll go out and see the buggy shed myself.”
Ruthy closed the door of the Dawdi Haus and headed through the short breezeway to the kitchen, with Nancy following. Waneta nodded a hello to her as she peeled potatoes, the noise of the children’s voices making it impossible to say anything more. As Ruthy opened the door to the back porch, she kept Nancy from coming with her.
“I want to speak to your daed alone.”
Nancy nodded as she closed the door, and then she twitched her winter shawl from the hook and threw it around her shoulders as she barreled out the door. Five boys were throwing snowballs at each other in the yard as she passed. Would she ever remember their names? As she reached the door of the buggy shed at the side of the barn she stopped with her hand on the latch, trembling. Five boys? Sam was inside the house. She turned to the boys in the yard again, counting. There was James, David and Jesse, the three she had met in town, and two older boys with them. One of them had to be Elias, the oldest brother, but who was the other big one?
Just then one of the boys shouted to him, “Hah, Nathan, you missed me again!”
Biting back her anger, she swung open the door of the shed and stepped in, face-to-face with Levi Zook as he rose from wiping the buggy wheels with a rag. He loomed over her in the confines of the room, suddenly dark as she shut the door on the bright midafternoon sunshine. But for all his size, his eyes were the gentlest she had ever seen, with lines that crinkled when he smiled at her.
A snowball hit the outside of the shed with a thud, bringing Ruthy back to the anger that had propelled her in here. She opened her mouth to speak, but Levi Zook only bent down to wipe the wheel hub again.
* * *
“Levi Zook, just how many children do you have?”
Levi gave the freshly greased wheel hub a final wipe with his rag before he looked into the face of the furious young woman. He knew this confrontation was coming—he had been dreading it ever since before Christmas, when she had agreed to take the job. He should have told her, but he hadn’t wanted to risk her turning down the job. If Ruth weren’t here, Eliza would be sure to take the younger girls to live with her as she had insisted she’d do ever since Salome died a year ago.
“Only ten.” He stumbled over his words as her face paled and she reached out to the wall for support. “But they’re gut children and they won’t be a bother to you.”
“Only ten? You didn’t think you should tell me this before I accepted your job?”
Levi rubbed his hand across his face and through his beard, sighing. “Ja. I should have told you.”
She stared at him, her mouth twitching. Was she going to break out into tears? He wouldn’t blame her if she insisted on going back to Lancaster County, but then what would he do? Finding a wife who would take on ten children wasn’t as easy as he thought it might be when he first started looking. He pushed up the front of his broad-brimmed hat and rubbed his forehead. Tension made his head ache.
All the single women he knew were either much too young or they had better offers than he could give them. Hiring a housekeeper was the only alternative he could think of to keep his family together. This situation had to work, but how could he make her stay?
Ruth covered her mouth with her hand, turning away from him. When she glanced back he could see she was laughing. Laughing at him?
“I’m sorry,” she said, her laughter bubbling up so that she could hardly breathe. “Ach, Levi Zook, you should see yourself. You just wiped grease all over your face.”
Levi pulled his hand away from his face. She was right. It was covered with black grease. He wiped at his face with his rag, but Ruth stopped him.
“There must be a clean cloth here somewhere,” she said between gasps. She sorted through the rags on the workbench and found a folded scrap at the bottom of the pile.
“Denki.” Levi took the rag and wiped his nose and forehead. His beard would have to wait. What must she think of him? He must have looked like some schoolboy the way he kept spreading the grease around. He tried to wipe his hands clean and waited for her to stop laughing. Could he live with a woman who laughed at him, no matter how her eyes danced in the dim light of the shed?
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the children earlier. I meant to, but I just didn’t know how to do it in a letter.”
“So you thought you’d let me figure it out as I met them.”
“For sure, I didn’t plan it that way.”
She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Her laughter still showed in the smile she gave him.
Levi turned the rag to find another clean spot and rubbed at his cheek. “I wouldn’t blame you if you decided not to stay. I shouldn’t have kept this from you.”
Glancing out the small window, she watched the boys playing in the yard. She chewed her bottom lip while he waited, and then she turned to face him. “You need me, Levi Zook, and your children need me. Waneta has been trying to run the house all on her own?”
He