A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series) (26 page)

She would certainly visit the place Grace had drawn.

It looked like a place where she could curl up and rest, a place that could restore your soul. It looked like a place of grace.

Gabe stepped into the sitting room, looking for Miriam. The fire was banked in the stove and a lantern was lit on the table, but no wife.

Both Grace and Rachel were asleep.

Everyone had finished with their baths and were ready for Sunday service the next morning. He’d rocked Rachel after Miriam had finished nursing the babe so she could have a few moments of rest alone.

Where was she?

He stood in the middle of the room, circling like a pony attached to a rope. The house wasn’t so large that he couldn’t see into the kitchen, which was empty, or down the hall, which was dark. Finally he noticed that the front door was cracked.

He pulled a lap quilt off the couch and grabbed a plate of cookies from the kitchen. What was he forgetting? Milk! Cookies without milk were no good at all. He snuck back into the kitchen, poured a tall glass they could share, and moved back across the sitting room as quietly as possible. Waking Rachel up at this point would be a disaster. His arms full, he nudged the door wide open with his toe.

There she was.

His Miriam, standing with her back to him, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, gazing up at the stars.

He pushed through the screen door, a witty remark on his tongue, just as she turned toward him, and his romantic plans came to a screeching halt.

Even in the little amount of light that came from the front room he could see the redness around her eyes and that her nose was still running a bit from her crying.

“I found you,” he said softly.

“You found me.” Her voice sounded as if it had been rubbed with the sandpaper David used on his toys.

“Come and sit in the swing. I have a blanket—”

“It’s a quilt.”

“And cookies—”

“Oh, Gabe. Those were for church tomorrow.”

“No one will miss these cookies at church. We’ll only eat a few. And I also have milk to ease your throat.”

She sipped the milk before pushing it back into his hands, but she did curl up into the crook of his arm as they sank back against the old wood and he set the swing into motion.

“Still worried about your
mamm
?”

Miriam nodded as she rubbed her nose against his shirt. “There was no message from Doc Hanson at the phone shack. I checked on the way back from the cabins.”

“Ah. So that’s the reason for your tears.”

“Shouldn’t we have heard by now?”

“I don’t know,
mi lieb
. I don’t understand much about doctors and tests and such.”

Miriam picked at the quilt he’d wrapped around their shoulders. The night was pleasant, but a quilt was always good for snuggling or settling a woman when she was weeping.

“But you have been through this, when Hope was sick.”

His wife’s body felt almost foreign next to him—all tense muscle and bone. All fear. He rubbed her arm and kissed the top of her head. “
Ya
. I do remember that. Would it help you if I told you about it?”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

Gabe understood this was one of those turning points in a man’s marriage. How he knew it, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the way he felt Miriam peering up at him in the dark.

“Of course I don’t mind. We can speak of anything, Miriam. If it will help your fears, I want to talk about it.”

“But if remembering hurts you…”

“There was a time when it did. Now it’s almost as if the pain happened to someone else, though the
gut
memories are still mine.”

For the next hour, he told her how quickly the ovarian cancer had claimed his first wife. How her menstrual cycle had changed and she’d finally become concerned and gone to the doctor. He’d found the mass in her ovaries. By the time they did the surgery to biopsy it, the cancer had spread.

“I’m sorry you and Grace had to go through that.”

“Miriam, it was
Gotte’s wille
.”

She was silent for a moment, clutching the quilt more tightly. Finally, her voice no more than a whisper, she asked, “Do you believe that?”

“I do, though I’ll admit I struggled against it for a long time. Each person’s life is written, our number of days are known to
Gotte
—”

“I know the Scripture.”

“And I would have chosen that Hope’s years reached far into her nineties, that she became a
grossmammi
with gray hair and wrinkled skin.” He pushed the swing with his foot. “But my ways aren’t
Gotte’s
ways.”

“And now you have me.”

“I have you and I have Rachel. Maybe we will have more children and maybe we won’t.” His plans for the night certainly weren’t panning out, but he didn’t think now was a good time to bring the matter to her attention.

Miriam sighed. “I understand what you’re saying. I do, but this is my
mamm
, and I love her. I don’t want her to hurt, and I don’t want her to go. I’m not ready.”

“We’re never ready,
lieb
, and perhaps now isn’t her time. Don’t be rushing Abigail off. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about her, it’s that she’s a strong woman.”

The night grew quiet around them, the single sound the squeaking of the swing.

“You may have a cookie now.”

“Oh, I may?”

“One. No, two.”

Gabe laughed as he removed the dish towel and reached for two of the peanut butter cookies. He handed one to Miriam.

“There’s a little milk left,” he said.

“I love milk and peanut butter.”

“Then I’ll share.”

The evening took on a pleasant, peaceful rhythm. It wasn’t a silent night, but the sounds he heard were ones familiar to him, ones that brought peace to any troubled spaces in his heart. The talk of Hope hadn’t bothered him.

What it had done was remind him again of those years alone with Grace. He would have survived them if that had been his future.

But this? It was better. Life with Miriam in his arms, Grace growing strong, and Rachel in her crib was
gut
. It was a future rich and bright. If it meant that he had more to risk losing, then so be it. He could trust all he had to a wise and loving
Gotte
. Already he had been more blessed than any man had a right to be.

How could he explain those things to Miriam?

Or were those truths that each man and each woman had to learn for themselves?

He didn’t realize immediately that Miriam had fallen asleep. He nudged her gently, but there was no response. Before she could wake enough to argue that he was too old for such foolishness and would surely throw out his back, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to bed.

Chapter 22

S
unday morning Miriam sat on the hard wooden bench, Grace to her right side, Rachel in her lap, and her
mamm
on her left. She wished she could stop the tears streaming down her cheeks. It wasn’t that she minded crying during church services. She understood that worshipping
Gotte
meant laying aside all pretense and coming before Him honestly—baring her fears and her worries.

But this ache in her heart, it hurt like a physical pain.

After talking to Gabe the night before, she had managed to bury her worries. This morning she’d managed to put on her Sunday clothes and act normal as they all prepared for church, same as she’d acted normal all week, every day since the visit to Doc Hanson’s. She’d kept herself busy and pushed away all the things that might be wrong with her mother.

But now as she sat worshipping, all those words the doctor had said came crashing back into her mind, pushing pressure against her heart—eleven pounds lost, possibly cancer, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, Hodgkin’s, Parkinson’s, or Addison’s disease.

One look at her mother this morning had stirred her fears to life. Seeing the way her father was with her, how he’d helped her carefully out of the buggy as if he were protecting the most precious thing in his life—and perhaps he was.

As they turned to go into Esther and Joseph’s home, Miriam saw that Abigail seemed to have lost even more weight since Tuesday. Was that even possible?

Miriam had rushed forward and tried to talk to her about it, but her
mamm
had only patted her arm. She hadn’t said a word to her! Instead she’d stooped to ask Grace how school had been.

As soon as the singing had started, Miriam’s tears began to fall. Music always had that effect on her during worship. While the spoken word touched her mind, the voices raised together in worship never failed to tap her heart.

Grace moved closer within the circle of her arm.

Abigail passed her a handkerchief, though she had one in her own pocket.

As they began to sing the last verse of the
Loblied
song, the
Praise Song
, Miriam wanted to run from the morning service, or at least scamper to the other side of the room and into Gabe’s arms. Could she praise God even as her mother stood beside her weak, frail, and hurting?

Thine only be the Glory, Lord,

Likewise all might and power.

Praise thee in our assembly, and

Feel grateful every hour.

How was she to feel grateful every hour? Would God’s might and power heal her mother?

She didn’t understand.

Why hadn’t Doc Hanson called? Why hadn’t God intervened? Her mother was wasting away before her eyes, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.

Was this
Gotte’s wille
? Miriam had heard the phrase all her life. Until this very moment, she had thought she understood it, but now her heart was breaking and she realized she didn’t understand anything.

The song ended and they all sat.

Grace twined their fingers together, sitting as close as she could.
Miriam wanted to assure her that everything would be all right, but would it? The child had lost one woman in her life. Was it fair that she lose another so soon?

She resettled Rachel on her lap. The baby slept on, blissfully unaware of the worries plaguing her
mamm
.