Rebecca's Return (5 page)

When his mother didn’t reply, Luke looked at her.

“We’re not mailing it,” Rachel declared, her lips bloodless.

“We have to!” he said.

“Do your chores,” she said, rising and returning to her salad. “The Lord will help us somehow. We’ll yet overcome this evil. We have to.”

C
HAPTER
S
IX

J
ohn, his mind continually wandering to thoughts of Rebecca and when she might return, forced himself to the task at hand. He was in the middle of showing a midsized cherry wood chest, finished in a natural stain with recessed hinges, to a young couple who had just walked in a few minutes before. They would be, he hoped, his last customers of the day.

“We’re looking for something for our daughter for Christmas,” the lady told him, her blue eyes sparkling. Bending over the chest, she ran her fingers over the heavily grained cherry. “Perfect for Candice,” she half whispered, affection in her voice.

“How are you getting it home?” Candice’s father asked, standing back from the chest in question, more interested in the price tag at the moment, which he couldn’t seem to locate.

“That’s why I had you remove the backseat of the Navigator this morning,” she said. “I thought I might find something exactly like this. They have wonderful things here.”

He nodded, then asked, “Sure this fits? I still want that Panasonic screen. Today—if possible.”

“They don’t sell those here. Do you?” she asked, glancing at John.

“No,” he said, not certain what a Panasonic screen was, but assuming it had to do with television.

“See,” she told her husband, triumphantly, “You can get the Panasonic on the way home. Probably at Circuit City. With the size you want, it has to be delivered anyway. This now,” she said, her fingers following a V-shaped grain of dark cherry halfway across the top, “is the thing of dreams. It goes with us today.”

The man chuckled, glancing at John. “You watch football?”

“No,” John shook his head and replied, “not really.”

“Thought so.” His chuckle turned into a grin. “Watching the game on a new fifty-eight inch plasma is a dream.”

“Just ignore him,” the woman told John. “
This
is what we want. A real Amish hope chest for Candice. A quilt for her too. Just to start things off. A real jump-start to her
hope
life. Perhaps one of those.” She motioned across the room with her eyes. “From there Candice can come up with her own ideas. Isn’t that right?”

“What is Candice going to do with a hope chest?” he asked. “She’s only five.”

Her eyes regained the sparkle John had seen earlier. “You Amish have hope chests, don’t you?” She directed the question to John.

“I’m not sure.” John found himself searching for an answer. “My older sister had a cedar chest.”

“There you go,” she pronounced in victory, turning in her husband’s direction. “That’s what I want for Candice—what the Amish girls have. Something to keep her in touch with reality. The way things are messed up in this world—just look at the political situation. This is the perfect touch. A real Amish hope chest. Right in her own room.”

He shrugged. “I suppose she can use all the help she can get.”

“We’ll take it,” she announced with zest, turning toward John. “Let’s get it paid for and then packed into the Navigator. I’ve got some blankets to use so it won’t get scratched on the trip back home. You will help load it, won’t you?”

“Sure,” John assured her. “We have shipping too, at an extra charge if you want that. It then comes right to your door.”

“I thought the blankets were for the screen.” The husband was protesting the inevitable. “Why not ship this? Then we can have the screen home by tonight.”

“The screen can ship,” she told him firmly. “There’s nothing special about a new television. This,” she said, running her hand over the cherry grain again, “I want to bring home myself.” She smiled, but her husband was still looking for the price tag.

“Will that be all then?” John asked, clearing his throat and remembering her interest in the quilt but not wanting to push too hard. He flipped over the tiny price tag and busied himself writing the size and price on his clipboard. He saw the husband register the price and wince.

With that look, John figured the big screen he planned to purchase must have just gotten a few inches smaller and might get even smaller if the quilt was still in play. Feeling sympathy for the man, he was about to walk toward the checkout counter.

“The quilt,” she exclaimed into her husband’s ear. “Can’t forget that. Could be a long time before we get up here again. We can’t give Candice an empty hope chest for Christmas. What a horrible start to a dream—with an empty chest. Show me what you have,” she said, glancing in John’s direction, her eyes still carrying the alarm of her just spoken thoughts.

John avoided the man’s eyes, fell into his responsibilities as the salesman, and followed the wife over to where the quilts hung on a rack. The first one she stopped at had a floral arrangement design. The center was dominated by a flowerpot. Its flowers protruded up and down, past the sides, and everything was held visually in place by two circles.

“Don’t think so,” she muttered to herself, “a little overdone. Let’s see…” She moved over to the next quilt, nestled closely beside its companion. Her eyes ran over the cross in the center, its crossed arms of equal length, ends flaring with eight-sided stars. Another larger cross outlined the smaller one, the sort which graced the Christian shields of the knights of old. Beyond that was a repeat of an even larger version, going all the way to the edges of the quilt.

“No,” she said in John’s direction, who was waiting respectfully, his tablet ready. “Most certainly not hope chest material.”

John nodded because he agreed, sale or no sale, the truth was the truth. The husband, having done his own evaluation agreed for other reasons. “I think you’re right. Maybe this one over here…Now that’s perfect. Take a look at this one.”

She turned toward her husband and crossed the short space between the two racks to the quilt in question. Coming in close and then stepping back, she said nothing as she looked the quilt over. The center had a circle of squares, overlaying each other like fallen dominoes. Each square was made of multicolored squares within squares, and a six-sided, solid-lined hexagon surrounded the circle of squares. An outer border, made of many brightly colored rectangles, finished the design perfectly.

“That’s it,” she said firmly. “Perfect. The patchwork of life. So many different colors and ways of putting it together—then overlapping each other. We’ll take it.”

“I think it’s nice too,” the husband agreed, then tried quickly to cover up his pleasure at the lower price by a half-hearted protest. “It could be quite mature for a five-year-old. But I suppose Candice will grow into it.”

“It shows her where to go,” she said, standing in front of the quilt, her face contented.

The husband was obviously in a leaving mood. “So let’s get this stuff into the Navigator, then on the road.”

John wrote the price and description on his tablet, copying down the name of the maker of the quilt, which was how they kept track of quilt inventory. The price varied with each quilt, both from Aden’s evaluation of its intricacy and from the quilter’s own report on the time it took to make. This one had Mrs. C. Kemp’s name written on the back of the price tag.

Excusing himself, John went into the storage room at the back of the store. Finding a box and a step stool, John returned to where the quilt hung. All the quilts were fastened by their upper edges to the frames, a little out of reach of even someone of his height.

Asking both of them if they would stand on either side of the quilt to keep it from brushing the floor, John undid the snaps on top and released it carefully. The folding process began even before he was off the stool. “Makes it easier with help,” John said to express his thanks. Taking the half-folded quilt, he completed the task by himself.

When the woman noticed the tag on top of the quilt inside the open box, she bent over to look at the name. “Who is Mrs. C. Kemp? Is she the one who made this?”

John nodded.

“Can you give me any information about her? What she’s like?”

“Sure. That would be Clara Kemp, about sixty years old, I think. Her husband died of cancer some years ago.” John searched his memory. “Five years, now,” he concluded. “She lives by herself just outside Unity. Still keeps up the small farm her husband left her. Most of her income comes from these quilts though.”

“She’s Amish?”

John nodded, smiling and thinking of Clara sitting in the back row in church on Sundays. She often held a grandchild in her lap when one of her daughters needed help. Clara was as faithful and upbuilding a member as they came.

“Oh. That’s perfect!” she exclaimed, delighted with the news. “What an excellent role model for Candice. Hardworking woman, no doubt. Suffering her share in life. She must have a heart of gold—working with her hands.” She stroked the quilt lovingly, as if to reach out and touch the woman who had stitched the delicate threads in each design.

“Clara is a godly woman,” John agreed because Clara was just that, and he felt it was appropriate to mention it. Pride was a great pitfall, he knew, and praise could knock a person down quicker than anything. But Clara wasn’t there to hear him, and so he said it.

Lifting the box, with the quilt bulging out of the top, John walked to the back counter. “They’re ready for checkout,” he told Sharon. “A chest and one of Clara’s quilts. It’s the last one I think. You might want to tell your mother we need more.”

She reached for the invoice. “I’ll see that mother gets told. I think Clara’s working as hard as she can already.”

“Maybe one of her daughters can help,” John suggested, although he doubted whether they had time. As his memory told him, all three of them had large families.

“They’re all busy.” Sharon confirmed his thoughts. “I heard her tell mother that the other Sunday.”

John filed a note in his mind to tell Aden later that the price of Clara’s quilts needed to be raised, then went back to where the husband was ready to begin loading the cherry chest.

At the counter the wife waited while Sharon copied the numbers on the ticket and added them up with their solar-powered calculator. “You have a hope chest?” she asked as Sharon was writing the total on the bottom.

Sharon chuckled. “Do I have a hope chest? Don’t know if it’s a hope chest or not. It’s a cedar chest.”

“Why cedar?” she wondered more than asked, “John mentioned that back there too.”

“Keeps things nice,” Sharon volunteered. “Something about the cedar wood—I think. Mom says it preserves clothing—almost makes them better. It might even keep the bugs out too. I’m not sure.”

The thought crossed her mind in horror. “But the one I just bought was cherry. I’m sure of that. John just said—”

“Oh,” Sharon replied, quick to assure her, “all our chests are cedar-lined, even when they have different wood on the outside. You get a different look that way, but still the full benefits of the cedar.”

“Oh,” she said, sighing deeply, “that’s so good to hear. Here I thought I had just made a drastic mistake. Me and my haste. I do so want Candice to have a proper chest. She’s my daughter.”

“They’re all wonderful chests,” Sharon said, speaking from personal experience. “The different wood can make it more expensive, so we have simple cedar.” Sharon wrinkled up her face.

“Well,” the wife ventured, “I guess I don’t own a furniture store. I get to buy the nice wood instead of sell it.”

“Cedar is nice,” Sharon assured her, handing the bill across the counter.

She wrote out the check, gave it to Sharon, and laid the pen on the counter, finishing just in time to see John and her husband come through the front door.

“All set,” John announced. “Hope you like everything.”

She assured him that they would, and with thanks all around, they left.

It was then that thoughts of Rebecca returned.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN