The Amish Sweet Shop, page 16
“When I was well enough to go back to the hymn sings, I would see my friends look away when I would come near. I tried to be the way I always was, to make everyone smile the way they once did when I was near, but soon, when that did not matter, I got quiet. That has made it easier for everyone.”
“How so?”
“Now a quick wave or an even quicker smile is enough when they see me. They don’t have to come close and look at—” She pointed at her cheek only to drop her hand at the sudden flash of light off to her right. “Look! The sun is just right! It is time to make your wish!”
“You first,” he said, his voice husky. “So I know what to do.”
Shrugging, she stepped closer, scanned the mass of shimmering sparkles, and, when she found her favorite, pointed. “That is the one I would wish on if I were going to make a wish.”
He pulled a face. “You are not going to make a wish?”
“No. It is silly to make the same wish again and again. Especially when it will not come true.”
“Then make a new one.”
“A new one?”
“Ya.”
“Okay. I-I guess I can think of something new.” She closed her eyes, discarded the wish that stood ready to go, and, instead, reverted to one from her childhood days.
“What did you wish for?” he asked as she opened her eyes.
“I cannot tell you that, silly! It won’t come true if I tell you!”
“Ahhh, I see. That is a rule I did not know.”
“Now it is your—”
“And the other wish?” He leaned forward. “The one you used to make? Can you tell me that one since it hasn’t come true anyway?”
She looked from the sparkling pond to Amos and back again, her answer barely more than a whisper. “If I tell you, you will think it is silly.”
“Did you wish for more of your mam’s apple pie?”
Her gasp morphed into a giggle as she stilled her head, mid-nod. “That was not my old wish.”
He, too, laughed. “Uh-oh.”
“Ya. Uh-oh.” She returned her attention to the waning rays dancing across the pond’s surface, wishing for the days when all she truly wanted was Mam’s apple pie. It was easier back then because most of the time, it came true. At least by week’s end, anyway. “Now, it is time for you to pick a sparkle and make a wish.”
“I will. But first, I want to know what your other wish was . . . The one you do not make anymore.”
She knew he was waiting, she could feel the warmth and intensity of his gaze just as surely as she could the certainty that her wishing days were over. “I wished to be special to someone in the way Mam is special to Dat.”
8:35 p.m.
Pulling her coat closer to her body, Sadie leaned against the stall’s half wall and watched as the colt wandered around its mother, exploring the hay, the walls, and the feed bucket. It was getting colder by the minute, but for some reason she couldn’t quite bring herself to go inside yet.
“Sadie?”
She turned toward the barn door, her surprise over seeing Mam standing there quickly offset by a familiar guilt. All throughout Sadie’s childhood, Mam had had the biggest smile. It, like the sun, had greeted Sadie’s days—always happy, always encouraging, always understanding. Yet because of Sadie’s choices six years earlier, it no longer shone as bright as it once did.
At least not in Sadie’s presence, anyway . . .
“Mam, I-I didn’t hear you coming.” Sadie stepped away from the wall only to retrace the same step just as quickly. Pointing to the foal, she tried to keep her voice light. “He is very curious about everything. He seems to like the hay in the back corner best.”
She felt her shoulders sag with quiet relief as Mam came to join her at the wall. “You were like that when you were little, too, Sadie. You would wander around the garden, asking about every plant and flower, and then run into the barn to do the same of Dat about . . .” Mam turned, a hesitant, yet no less surprising smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Dat said he brought you home again.”
“Dat didn’t bring me . . .” The rest of her words fell away as reality won over her confusion. “You mean, Amos—Amos Yoder. His dat owns the ice cream shop next to Miss Jenny’s. He drove me so I wouldn’t be late to help with dinner.”
“But you were still late,” Mam reminded, not unkindly.
“And I’m sorry for that. He wanted to see Lapp’s Pond and, well, we got to talking and”—shame cast her eyes to the floor—“then it was late.”
“Perhaps he will want to court you?” Mam asked.
“It was just one drive, Mam. That is all.”
“That is three drives, Dat said.”
“I told him he did not need to those other two times, but he wanted to make sure the Englisher did not come back.”
Mam’s eyebrows dipped. “Englisher?”
“It does not matter. I am used to it.”
“Sadie, please. I must know.”
“But—”
“Tell me, Sadie.”
And so she did. She spoke of the first time the red car appeared, how she thought the Englisher inside was just lost, and the mean things he said about her face. She heard Mam’s gasp, saw the sadness muting the pale blue eyes she’d known since birth, but still Sadie didn’t stop. Instead, she talked about his return the next day, and the next day, and every day since. She talked about how it scared her at first but that eventually, when it became routine, she challenged herself to find ways to ignore him by picking out shapes in the clouds, thinking up silly names for the cows she passed, and even the ideas she toyed with for a shop of her own one day.
“You cannot own a shop, Sadie! You must care for your husband and your children.”
The colt startled at Sadie’s humorless laugh. “There will be no husband and children, Mam. Not for me.”
“Sadie!”
Oh, how she hated being the cause of Mam’s sadness, but maybe, if she could make her see what was real, they could get back to the old smiles again one day. “Mam, no one will marry me. Not looking as I do.”
“Plain people do not concern themselves with such things,” Mam whispered, fiercely.
“They try not to, but this”—she pointed to her cheek—“is hard not to see.”
Mam pressed her knuckles to her face and closed her eyes as if in pain. “Oh, Sadie . . . It is not as bad as you think.”
“It is not as good as you want to believe.”
“But this boy—this Amos Yoder. Perhaps he—”
She shook away the rest of Mam’s hope. “Amos is just kind. I am sure he is courting someone in his own district.”
“Maybe there is someone else. Someone other than this Amos.”
“I thought there was. For a few days . . .”
Mam’s eyes lit with such hope, Sadie felt physically ill. “Oh?”
“It was not real, Mam.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Englisher left things that made Miss Jenny think I had a secret admirer. At first, I did not think I could have such a thing, but then I began to think she was right.” She heard the tremor in her voice and did her best to disguise it by making faces at the colt. When she felt as if she could speak again, she did. “The first gift was a book with beautiful words that made me smile and think in a way my other books do not.
“The second gift was a whittled bird—like the birds that sing from the trees in the spring and summer. It looked so real sitting on Miss Jenny’s back step that I was certain it was. But it was the third gift—the one he left today—that let me know it was not real.”
She looked up at the feel of Mam’s hand on her own. “What was the gift?”
“A mirror.”
“A mirror?” Mam echoed. “But why?”
“To hurt me. He knows what I look like, he knows that I am ugly, that—”
“Sadie Fisher you are God’s child!”
“God did not make me this way, Mam. I did. My choices did. I don’t blame God. I blame myself for tripping . . . for taking so long to get up . . . for not getting Gus out of the barn.”
Opening her arms wide, Mam beckoned Sadie in for a hug. Soon, a growing dampness on the top of Sadie’s prayer kapp let her know she wasn’t the only one crying. Before she could gather the courage she needed to step away, though, Mam’s warm breath filled her ear. “Do you really think someone who could give such a book and a treasure could also talk the way the Englisher does?”
She wiped the last of her tears from her cheek and stepped back, her gaze meeting Mam’s. “No, not really. But he is the only one who would leave a mirror.”
“If it was truly left to be mean . . .”
“Why else would someone leave a mirror for”—she tilted her scarred cheek forward—“me? It is not as if I want to look!”
“Sadie, please!”
“Mam, I know what I look like. Everyone does.”
“Maybe the person who left the mirror sees you as I do.”
“You mean with pity and sadness?”
Mam drew back, her eyes wide. “I do not look at you with pity and sadness!”
She grabbed hold of Mam’s hands and held them tight. “I don’t say that to be mean, Mam. I say it because it is what I see when you look at me. But I don’t want you to worry about me the way you do. A different life does not mean a bad life. Miss Jenny never married and she is okay. And maybe, if I can make a shop of my own, I can be happy, too!”
“Maybe the person who left the mirror is not the same as the one who left the book and the bird,” Mam protested.
“Mam, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Then maybe it’s someone other than the Englisher.”
She considered the possibility for less time than it took the colt to return to his favorite corner of the stall after wandering off for a moment. “There is no one else, Mam. Not for someone like me.”
Wednesday. 11:30 a.m.
She was reattaching a new price tag to one of the quilt displays when Miss Jenny breezed in through the back door, the woman’s very pace pulling Sadie to her feet. “Miss Jenny? Is everything o—”
“You got another gift, dear! It was on the back step just now. See?” Miss Jenny thrust the familiar navy-and-white-colored gift sack into Sadie’s hand and beamed. “It’s from Beechy’s Sweets across the street!”
Peeking between the simple white handles, she stumbled back a half step. “Are you sure it’s mine? Maybe someone dropped it or set it down and then forgot it was there . . .”
“It was on the back step, Sadie. With your name on it.” Miss Jenny reached forward, positioned the attached name tag in Sadie’s view, and then did a little dance. “See? It’s for you.”
She stared at her name. “It looks the same as it did in the book and on the tag that was attached to the—”
“That’s because it’s from the same person, dear! Your secret admirer!”
“There is no secret admirer.” Sadie closed the handles and held out the bag to her boss. “Please. Take this.”
Miss Jenny’s eyes widened in shock only to narrow to near slits as she refused to take the bag. “Do you still believe I’m behind all these gifts you’ve been getting? Because I’m not.”
“I know.” She tried, again, to hand the bag back, but when Miss Jenny’s hands remained folded, Sadie bypassed her boss and headed straight to the counter and the newly emptied trash can it shielded from customers’ view. “I know it is wrong to waste food, but I cannot keep this.”
Reaching inside the bag, she pulled out the single heart-shaped chocolate with its clear plastic covering and big red bow. So many times, she’d imagined this moment, yet never in all those instances had it ended with her throwing the treat away . . . until now—
“Sadie Fisher, freeze!”
She lingered the treat over the trash can and looked back at Miss Jenny. “I-I can’t keep this.”
“Why on earth not?”
“Because it is not from a true admirer. It is from someone who is not nice.”
“Not nice?” Miss Jenny crossed to the counter, her eyes locked on Sadie’s. “How could someone who leaves you a book, a hand-carved bird, and a heart-shaped piece of chocolate not be nice?”
She looked between the chocolate and Miss Jenny as the timing behind yesterday’s gift clicked in her thoughts. “You don’t know about the other gift . . . The one I found while I was closing up yesterday . . .”
Miss Jenny leaned forward with a smile. “Another gift?”
“Ya.”
“What was it?”
“It was something mean.” Aware of yesterday’s sadness returning, she swapped the chocolate heart for a dustcloth and ran it across the top of the already-clean counter. “He wanted to hurt me, and he did. For a while. But thanks to Amos and Mam, I did not go to bed sad.”
“What was the gift?” Miss Jenny repeated.
“A mirror.”
It was fast and it was fleeting, but there was also no denying the shock and subsequent sadness that dulled the woman’s normal sparkle. “But—”
She waved the dustcloth until Miss Jenny grew silent. “It is okay. It was because of that gift that I knew who was pretending to like me.”
“Pretending? Oh, Sadie you can’t know that.”
So she told Miss Jenny about her walks home and the cruel things the Englisher in the red car said to her each and every afternoon. As she spoke, she watched Miss Jenny’s reaction move from curiosity, to surprise, and, finally, to anger. And when she was done, she tossed the dustcloth back on the counter and grabbed hold of the heart-shaped chocolate once again. “So that is why I will not keep this. Because it is given in meanness.”
“But what if it’s not?” Miss Jenny said, resting her hand atop Sadie’s. “What if these gifts have nothing to do with that awful person?”
“A kind person would not give someone who looks like me a mirror!”
“Would a mean person give you a book of quotes? Would a mean person give you a hand-carved bird? Would a mean person give you”—Miss Jenny released Sadie’s hand just long enough to extract the chocolate and hold it up—“a heart-shaped piece of chocolate?”
“He gave me a mirror, Miss Jenny!” she protested.
“I don’t think that means anything, dear. Except that whoever your admirer is knows you’re beautiful even if you don’t.”
She didn’t mean to laugh, she really didn’t. But considering the pain her tears would likely cause Miss Jenny, it was preferable.
“You can laugh if you want, dear, but there is a very simple way you can find out once and for all.”
“Find out?” she echoed. “Find out what?”
“The identity of your secret admirer.”
Sadie drew back. “How?”
“Go across the street to Beechy’s Sweets and ask Clara who bought that chocolate.”
12:15 p.m.
In some quiet corner of her brain, she heard the welcoming jingle that greeted her first step into the sweet shop. She was even vaguely aware of the few sets of eyes that looked up from the various treat stations around the room. But the only thing she knew for certain was her stomach’s response to the mouth-watering smell of Jacob Beechy’s famous fudge. She’d sampled a piece on occasion thanks to Miss Jenny’s insatiable sweet tooth, but getting a quick sniff from a carefully packaged box was nothing compared to breathing it in, firsthand.
“Welcome to Beechy’s Sweets, how can we—oh, Sadie! Isn’t this a nice surprise . . .” With a quick word to her new employee, Rose Bontrager, Clara Beechy came out from behind the counter, wiping her plump hands on a simple white cloth. “How is your mam? Your dat?”
“They are well, thank you.”
“Come closer, child. Let me have a look at you.”
With quick steps, Sadie met the fifty-something halfway across the century-old hardwood floor and lowered her chin for the inevitable inspection. Clara, in turn, lifted her free hand to Sadie’s cheek and smiled. “It’s healing nicely.”
She knew it wasn’t true. Her scars were no different than they were a month ago, six months ago, even six years ago. But still, the fact that Clara could look at Sadie without wincing as so many others did, was refreshing.
“So what brings you by the sweet shop today?” Clara dropped her hand to her side and motioned toward the counter with her cloth. “Did you know Rose is working here now?”
“I did. Miss Jenny told me.”
“She’s working out very well.” Clara smiled at Rose and then turned back to Sadie. “Did Jenny send you over for some fudge? Because Jacob is making a fresh batch right now.”
Leaning to the left, Sadie followed Clara’s finger toward the swinging wooden door and the narrow view it afforded of the kitchen and the shop’s owner, Jacob Beechy. She couldn’t see much, but it was enough to know he was spreading chocolate across a wide slab.
“I’m surprised Jenny sent you. She usually likes to come herself.”
She turned back to Clara. “I’m actually here because I’d like to ask you a question. About a piece of heart-shaped chocolate you may have sold earlier today. I-I was hoping you could tell me who bought it?”
Clara’s laugh filled the room, earning them more than a few curious glances from the pair of customers happily indulging in some fudge samples at a nearby table. “You do realize Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, don’t you, Sadie?”
“I do.”
“Then you have to know that I’ve probably sold close to two dozen of those heart-shaped chocolates over the last day or so. And I expect we’ll sell ten times that amount”—Clara directed Sadie’s attention to the display case behind which Rose was standing—“between now and the big day.”
“But this one was in a clear bag and tied closed with a red ribbon.”
