The Tempted Soul (21 page)

“Yes, but we always go, the whole family. It’s like Mamm and Daed’s place at Thanksgiving—the only time in the whole year that everyone is there at once.”

“It’s a lot of work.” Emma passed the letter to Carrie, who folded it up and put it in her apron pocket. “Maybe a holiday once every ten years isn’t so much for her to ask.”

“I just can’t help but feel she’s taking herself out of the picture so the whole baby mess doesn’t come up.”

“Does Melvin think she’s offended?” Amelia picked up her needle and kept stitching.

The quilt was nearly finished. In fact, today’s work would probably see it done—they were turning up the backing to the front side to bind it, with Emma and Amelia on the long sides and Carrie taking the two short sides. Today Emma would fold it up and take it home with her, and next week they would turn their minds to designing Lydia’s baby quilt.

“He hasn’t seen it yet. It just came today.”

“Well, he knows his mother best. Let his reaction tell you the truth.” Amelia’s advice was always sound. Carrie felt a sense of relief and got down to business with needle and thread.

“We saw Lydia Zook yesterday, on our way home from the train station.” Emma’s words fell into the room’s companionable silence like stones onto a pond rimed in ice, and Carrie felt her hard-won composure crack. “She was coming out of the fabric store and didn’t wave or even look at us.”

Amelia set three end stitches, snipped it off, and rethreaded her needle with a fresh length of green thread. “That baby looks like more than three or four months. More like five. She’s not a very big girl to begin with, and she’s carrying him all out front. I can’t believe none of us noticed long before this.”

“Maybe it is more,” Emma suggested. “Maybe it’s April, not June. Has Mary convinced her to see a doctor yet?”

“If she hasn’t, she will.” Carrie’s voice held all their knowledge of Mary Lapp. She was like a force of nature when she had a mission to accomplish. “And I hope it’s soon.” Time to turn the subject back to Emma—the whole subject of babies was so sensitive it made her stomach hurt. “How was Thanksgiving in Paradise?”

“Grant’s parents are wonderful,” Emma said. “They gave us his grandmother’s china, which means I don’t have to worry if Zachary or the girls break a plate. We’ll have a second set as backup. And it was nice to go to church with them, too. Both of his brothers want us to come for another visit before planting starts.”

“You’d better go,” Amelia said. “You don’t want to be traveling if you’re pregnant.”

“What?” The needle fell from Carrie’s nerveless fingers. “Are you—you can’t be—” It was too soon. She hadn’t even been married a month.

Emma shot a glare at Amelia. “Don’t be starting rumors, you. Carrie, don’t look like that. Amelia is just teasing.” She half rose. “Carrie? Are you all right?”

But she wasn’t. Black spots danced in front of her eyes, and the wind seemed to have picked up something awful, roaring around the room as though it meant to get in.

“Amelia, grab her! She’s going to fall.”

Amelia was a second too late.

C
arrie had fainted once or twice before, back in the hungry days, but time had not made it any more pleasant. She tried to sit up, but Amelia pressed her shoulders back.

“Put your head on the pillow,
Liewi
. I have a cold cloth here.”

“Did you eat lunch?” Emma asked, worry lines stamped between her brows. “How do you feel?”

“I’m fine. Truly.” Then, “That feels good.” She took the cloth from Amelia and pressed it to her forehead, then her cheeks and neck. This time, when she sat up, they let her. “And
ja
, I ate a good lunch. I don’t know what that was about.”

But she did. It was about babies, and about—

“Emma,
bischt du im e Familye weg
?”

“
Nei
, not that I know of.” Emma was no slouch. Her gaze met Carrie’s and held. “Did that—is that why you fainted? Because you thought I might be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” She got up slowly, half expecting the blood to drain out of her head again. But it didn’t. “Or maybe I just need to eat more spinach and broccoli.”

“I have broccoli.” Amelia watched her carefully, as though she would collapse again at any moment. “It’s growing nicely in the bed on the south side of the house. The boys will be delighted to give you their share.”

The fact that she could laugh was a good sign.

“I’m sorry I upset you with my teasing,” Amelia said more softly, contrition in her voice. “I should know better.”

“It would be a shame if you had to put a watch on every word because of me.” Carrie gripped her hand and then stood slowly. “Words don’t come between us, and I hope they never will.”

Even as they settled to their stitching again, her friends kept an eye on her. Not only that, they made sure their conversation touched on anything and everything but babies.

Carrie set the last stitches and snipped her thread. “I’m done.”

“I beat you.” Emma smiled with satisfaction, her shoulders relaxing when Carrie seemed to be breathing and acting normally again. “And Amelia is bringing up the rear.”

Amelia snipped her own thread, and together they shook the quilt out over the guest bed.

“It looks
wunderbaar
,” Emma said softly. “I can’t wait for Grant to see it.” She slipped her arms around their waists, one on either side of her. “
Denki
for giving it to us. Tonight we’ll sleep covered in love.”

Tears welled in Carrie’s eyes. “It belongs to you, and always has.”

“Even when I thought it was going to the auction—when I wanted it to go, so that Grant could make his house payment—the thought of giving it up hurt me.” She took a long breath. “The Lord always provides. I can keep our quilt, and with the money from my book, we’ve even been able to pay down the principal a little.”

Amelia released her. “Let’s fold it up and get you home. It looks like there’s going to be another storm.”

Emma hesitated. “Should we stay with Carrie until Melvin gets home?”

“No, you should not.” Pointedly, Carrie held open Emma’s big tote bag and Amelia slid the folded quilt into it. “I’m less likely to faint again than you are to get soaked. And I know how you hate driving in the rain.”

“That I do.” Emma pulled on her coat and her away bonnet. “Very well, then. Melvin should be home soon, shouldn’t he?”

“Within the hour.” Carrie hugged them both. “Be safe. It’s already getting dark. You’ll have to turn on the lamps.”

“
Ja, Mamm
.” Emma made a face at her, and she and Amelia ran down the steps to the barn, where the presence of another buggy told Carrie that Joshua was in there. He must have hitched up Emma’s horse while he was at it, because they were on their way in minutes, waving from behind the storm front.

Carrie pulled her shawl over her head and, pushed roughly by the wind, dashed across the yard and into the barn.

Joshua, wearing his tool belt, was standing below the loft looking up, hands on his hips.

“Thank you for hitching up for them,” she said a little breathlessly. Maybe running so soon after fainting was not the smartest thing to have done.

He turned. “What are you doing out here?”

“It was kind of you.”

“It was sensible. I know what time they usually leave, and I figured if I could save them a few minutes of getting wet, then that would be
gut
.”

She gazed at him for a moment. Would he be offended if she said what was on her mind?

“What?” he said. “I know that look. Spit it out.”

She smiled ruefully. “I was just thinking that when you first came here, I thought you were so self-centered and
batzich
. And now look at you, doing things for your friends.”

His eyebrows rose. “I have the least reason to be proud of anyone in the
Gmee
. But self-centered I probably am. Comes of not having anyone to put before myself.”

“Except for Jesus.” Her tone was dry. “Everything follows from that, you know.”

He kicked at a stray nail in the sawdust that lay in heaps and trails on the barn floor. “Trying out for preacher, are you?”

“No, just telling the truth.” Hopefully with more grace than Mary Lapp. But it did lead into something she wanted to know. “You put Lydia before yourself, too, I noticed. Do you happen to know if she’s been to the doctor?”

“I thought you women were making a project of her.”

“We are. But the first thing to do is to make sure she’s taking care of herself. Mary Lapp was going to kidnap her and take her in to Doctor Stewart. I haven’t heard if she succeeded.”

“You’d better ask Mary Lapp, then.” Bitterness flavored his tone the way a bit of mold could spoil a whole mouthful of food. “Lydia doesn’t talk to me.”

“I thought you were friends. Isn’t that what you told me when you were urging me to talk to her?”

“I thought we were, too.” He turned abruptly. “I should just marry the girl and give the
Gmee
what they all want—to be proven right.”

Carrie let that go and concentrated on the important part. “I think she’s a little young for you.” Though she hadn’t been too young to find an
Englisch
boyfriend and make a baby with him.

He hefted the hammer out of his belt and whacked a nail in the nearest post as though it were out of line. “Lydia might be young, but she’s no child. I know I don’t have much, but the hired man’s rooms at Hill’s are a sight better than what she’s got at home.”

Carrie couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she could hear a quality in his voice that had never been there before. “Do you love her, Joshua?” she asked softly.

“Love?” Something broke over his face, but whether it was pain or disgust, the light was too poor for her to tell. “Some folks don’t expect love to work into their plans, Carrie Miller. Some folks are happy to have a place to live and a good meal once in a while.” Still holding the hammer, he walked toward the ladder that led up to the new loft. “I expect that baby’d be happy to have both, no matter who offered it.”

Carrie turned when the sound of hammering up above told her that the conversation was done. Outside, the rain fell in skeins past the open barn door. The tears she had not allowed to fall earlier welled up and streaked down her cheeks.

Stubborn, foolish Lydia, taking her own way at the expense of her baby’s health and surely its future. What would become of her? What would become of the child?

O Lord, help us
, her heart cried silently.
Help Lydia. Help me, and Joshua, and my Melvin, who has hard places in the fields of his heart where no compassion lies. Your will be done, but O Lord, give me the strength to know it
…
and to do it. Somehow. Before it’s too late.

She should be chopping onions and getting down a jar of stewed tomatoes from the pantry for spaghetti sauce. But instead, Carrie spread her songbook on the windowsill and thought over what had happened upstairs earlier that afternoon.

Amelia had teased Emma about being pregnant, and Carrie had fainted. But in between…for a single moment, she had felt a wave of jealousy so huge that her heart had felt like it was going to explode. No wonder all the blood had drained out of her head.

As she stood there turning pages, her face heated with shame.

What a horrid, ugly moment. Jealous of her best friend, simply because of the possibility that she might be blessed with something Carrie was not. Thank goodness she had fainted, then. Better that than to blurt out what she felt and burden Emma with it.

Ah. Here it was.

She would take a lesson from this song she’d copied down, oh, nearly fifteen years ago. Yes, the green-eyed monster had raised its ugly head and roared. She had been jealous of Emma’s side of the road, and had completely forgotten the nearly eleven happy years she had already spent walking beside Melvin while Emma was treading her path all alone.

With prayer, she could overcome this fault.

When the happy day came that Emma actually told them such news, she would actually feel the joy that she’d make good and sure was on her face.

If the previous winter had been one of the wettest on record, Old Joe Yoder declared that this one was a deep freeze to rival any
Englisch
electrical freezer—in fact, Melvin told her with a laugh one Sunday after church, Old Joe had told them Sarah had put a plucked chicken down on the porch while she opened the kitchen door, and before she could turn around, it had frozen right through.

Old Joe had a tendency to pull people’s legs, but Carrie could half believe it. The days seemed frosted together, one very much like another. People stayed inside, their animals warm in sturdy barns. Carrie led the chickens through the snow into a fenced-in area inside the barn next to the horses when word went around that the wind chill was going to drop to thirty below. The coop was not heated, but with thick walls and horses in it, the barn was warm.

And every other week, they went to church, and the
Gmee
was treated to a front-row view of Lydia Zook, getting bigger and bigger as the winter limped on frostbitten feet toward what Carrie imagined was her due date.

Mary Lapp had indeed succeeded in getting her to Dr. Stewart, but whether the girl was taking her vitamins and paying attention to things like iron and folic acid was anybody’s guess. Inquiries were met with a shrug and a disappearing act. The only part of their project that seemed to have any success was the food-delivery part, and Carrie suspected that was only because Abe Zook was getting hungrier the more unwieldy and unable to work Lydia became.

On the last Sunday in March, when the thermometer climbed to a balmy thirty-eight degrees and everything from the trees to the sky to people’s noses seemed to be dripping all at once, Bishop Daniel called Carrie and Melvin, Joshua Steiner, and Abe Zook and Lydia into one of the spare bedrooms in his house, where church had been that morning.

When they were all inside and the door closed, he didn’t waste any time. “There is a matter that concerns Lydia and our brother Joshua Steiner. And Melvin, you and Carrie and Abe are involved too.”

Carrie couldn’t imagine what subject might concern the five of them, unless it was something to do with the baby. With an adoption. Her heart began to pound. She glanced at Joshua, who stared at the bishop, much the way a rabbit out in the field stares at a stooping hawk, wanting to run but knowing there is absolutely no escape.

Since Lydia would not stand next to her father, that meant Joshua was closest to her. It looked eerily like they were about to take wedding vows…except that she was heavily pregnant and he was as white as his good Sunday shirt.

“I regret that this is necessary,” the bishop began, “but the sin of fornication, while performed in secret, must be judged openly. Joshua, it has come to my attention that you and Lydia Zook committed this sin in the hired man’s rooms at Hill Farms, and in the barn at Melvin and Carrie’s place while they were away in the western part of the state. Is this true?”

Carrie’s mouth fell open. She didn’t dare look at Melvin.

Joshua’s throat worked, and it took a moment for any sound to come out. “
Nei
. She came into my rooms, and to visit one day at Millers’, but all we did was talk.”

“Lydia, is this true?”

“
Ja
. Someone is making up stories. Maybe that someone should be here in this room instead of Joshua.”

Abe shifted, and his hands twitched as though they were itching to smack something. Or someone.

The bishop looked at her over the rims of his spectacles. He was the father of five girls, which was evident in this moment. “You are not in a position to judge your brethren, young lady. Have all these months on that front bench taught you nothing?”

“I’m sorry.” Her head was bowed. She had one hand to her back as though it ached. How, then, was she able to inject so much defiance into two words?

The bishop’s face settled into lines of sadness. “Joshua, you have behaved foolishly and given the appearance of evil, which has caused distress among your brethren. You are older than Lydia and should have known better. You should have been an example to her.”

Abe Zook had been shifting his feet, and Carrie could hear his breathing becoming more agitated from across the room. At the bishop’s words, he could no longer contain himself.

“I don’t believe him!” He shook a finger in Joshua’s face. “No good Amish man lets a young girl into his room—and you’re no good. Everyone in Whinburg knows your reputation, Joshua Steiner. Everyone knows you can’t be trusted around anything in skirts. How dare you bring shame on my name like this!”