The Warmth of Sunshine, page 1
Dedication
To my Kansas family,
love always.
Epigraph
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Featured Families
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Discussion Questions
Acknowledgments
Glossary of Deutsch*
About the Author
Acclaim for Kelly Irvin
Also by Kelly Irvin
Copyright
Featured Families
Chapter 1
Tractor engines made music. Even if only Abigail Bontrager could hear it. The deep-throated rumble of Grandpa’s old tractor accompanied Abigail on Highway 96, the quickest route from the Yoder restaurant where she waitressed to her parents’ farm outside Haven, six miles away. Others might fuss at the noise, but the sound served as a cheerful song to her ears after eight hours of dishes clattering, silverware clinking, and the steady buzz of mostly tourists talking at the Buggies and Bonnets restaurant.
Diesel fumes carried on black smoke perfumed the air in stark contrast to the mingled aromas of fresh bread, pot roast, fried chicken, and chocolate cream pie baked to perfection. Yep. The smell was Plain perfume. Plus it reminded her of family. When Grandpa and Grandma moved into the dawdy haus, Grandpa no longer needed the tractor.
Reveling in the sameness of it all, Abigail sang “Bringing in the Sheaves” at the top of her lungs to keep herself awake. The old John Deere’s vibrations loosened the aching muscles in her shoulders, arms, and legs. The thirty-two dollars in tips tucked into her canvas bag—along with the satisfaction of a job well done—more than made up for it. Other than dumping a piece of lemon meringue pie into a customer’s lap, today had been a good day. The money would help with expenses at home, and she would set aside a small portion in her nest egg for that day when she would set up housekeeping with her future husband.
Not too distant future, God willing. Sei so gut, Gott.
The image of towheaded Owen Kurtz with the bluest eyes in all of Haven floated in her mind. Stocky body, deep tan, calloused hands. Heat that had nothing to do with the Kansas late spring sun on her face warmed her. They’d taken a few buggy rides together. He hadn’t even held her hand yet, but something about him kept her awake at night, imagining the day he would.
A horn blared. Abigail smiled and waved at the impatient truck driver as he passed. Amazingly, he waved back. Mother said the high road had the best view. Mother was always right.
Abigail turned onto the gravel road that led to the farm. The winter wheat was heading in the field on her right. On her left the shorn plants indicated Father and the boys had put up the first cutting of alfalfa. Early May’s sunny days had been kind to their crops. Danki, Gott.
A dark-blue SUV sat at a precarious angle on the curve of the driveway in front of the sprawling house she’d grown up in. Someone had parked as if unsure of the proper etiquette. Or poised for a quick getaway. English guests for dinner? Mealtimes tended to be rowdy at the Bontrager homestead. Abigail’s three younger sisters would have it under control, but the oldest sibling should do her fair share. She rushed to park the tractor in the barn, where Doolittle greeted her with his usual tail-wagging enthusiasm.
“I’m glad to see you too.” She brushed back the long black bangs that hung in his eyes. “Did you defend the fortress from grizzly bears and four-eyed monsters while I was gone? Gut hund, gut hund.”
“Woof, woof.”
It was a family joke. Doolittle mostly lived up to his name. “Indeed! You’re the best do-little dog around.”
Bobbing left and right to avoid tripping over the furry mountain of a dog as he ran circles around her, Abigail traipsed up the steps and through the back door into the kitchen. “Mudder, I’m here.”
The aroma of chicken and onions simmering greeted her. But not her mother. An enormous pot of chicken soup bubbled on the stove. It bubbled so hard it had splattered the stove top. Hard, burned spots marred its surface. Chopped raw potatoes, carrots, and celery covered the cutting board next to the stove. Mother had stopped in the middle of making one-pot chicken stew. She called it her favorite—because it made a ton and it was filling—a must with four growing boys to feed. A pan of fresh-baked soda biscuits cooled on the trivet next to the board. Two peach pies shared the open window’s sill. “Mudder? Jane? Rose? Hope?”
Doolittle meandered toward the pies.
“Don’t you dare.” Abigail shook her finger at him. He ducked his graying head and whined deep in his throat. She turned down the stove’s flame and headed for the great room that served as both dining and living room. Doolittle followed, of course. The murmur of voices reached her. “Mudder?”
The murmuring ceased.
Mother sat in the pine rocker next to the empty limestone fireplace. She’d chosen the chair farthest from where an auburn-haired English woman perched on the sofa. Abigail’s sisters were nowhere to be seen. Why weren’t they in the kitchen?
The woman rose. She held out both hands. “You must be Abigail.”
Mother moaned an awful, guttural sound. “Please, don’t. Let me.”
Doolittle rushed to her side. He whined again. He nosed her hands in her lap. She patted him without seeming to notice.
“Hello, I’m back.” Silly thing to say. Of course they could see that. How did this stranger know her name? “The chicken was boiling. I turned down the flame.”
“I forgot . . . I forgot about it.” Mudder continued to smooth Doolittle’s thick fur. “This is Heather Holcomb, now Heather Hanson. She’s the daughter of the Holcombs who were neighbors to Mammi and Daadi way back before they moved into your onkel Warren’s dawdy haus.”
The Holcombs were nice. Grandma and Grandpa used to take them gingerbread men at Christmas and check on them after storms. They returned the favor by supplying cranberry-nut bread and offers of rides when the roads were bad during the winter. “Why aren’t the girls taking care of supper?”
“I sent them upstairs.”
That made no sense. Abigail opened her mouth.
“You look just like me.” The woman took two faltering steps toward Abigail. “I always imagined you would.”
Abigail looked nothing like her. Her hair was bobbed below her ears, while Abigail’s waist-length hair—neatly coiled in a bun under her kapp—was more blonde than strawberry. Sure, the woman had blue eyes, too, but lots of people had them. Mother and Father did. So did Jane. People always thought her younger sister and Abigail were twins even though they were born exactly eleven months apart.
Abigail peeked at her mother. Tears rolled down her plump face. Mother never cried. She found silver linings in every situation. When Grandma Evie died, Mother said she’d been whisked away to a better world. When lightning struck the barn and burned it to the ground, it was old and ramshackle and an eyesore. Besides, barn raisings were fun—the women laughing, talking, and working side by side to feed the men.
“What’s this about, Mudder? What does she mean, I look like her?”
“I’m sorry. We should’ve told you. Your daed and I meant to tell you, but we could never find the right time.” Mother’s voice cracked on the word father. Her nose was running. She swiped at her face with her sleeve. Another thing Mother would never do. “The older you grew, the less it seemed to matter. You’re ours. All ours.”
Of course she was. Who else’s would she be? “Tell me what?”
Mrs. Hanson stumbled forward, grabbed Abigail’s hands, and pulled her against her body, all bony angles and sharp points. Not anything like Mother’s round cushion of a body. “You’re my daughter,” she whispered into Abigail’s ear. Her breath tickled. “I’m your mother.”
Chapter 2
The English language ceased to make sense. Abigail ripped herself from Mrs. Hanson’s grip. “Mudder, wer iss sei?”
“Mudder—that’s me.” The woman reached for Abigail again, caught herself, and ran her hands through her hair instead. “It’s been twenty years since I’ve lived in Haven, but I still remember some of the words. I’m your mudder.”
&nbs
“My parents made me do it.” Heather spoke to Mother, but her beseeching gaze enveloped Abigail. “They forced me to break up with my boyfriend and sent me to live with my aunt in Abilene. I was sixteen. They didn’t give me a choice.”
The room shrank to a narrow funnel shape that spun wildly. Abigail put her hands to her ears. Her heartbeat cranked up to a hundred miles an hour. The chicken salad sandwich she’d eaten for lunch rose in her throat. “Nee, nee. Mei naame iss Abigail Bontrager. Dochder vun Freeman un Lorene Bontrager.”
“Of course you’re Abigail. Of course you’re our daughter. Nothing will change that. Not ever.” Mother hopped from the rocker and sped across the room. Doolittle, growling low in his throat, followed. Mother slid an arm around Abigail. Her fingers were cold. “You need to go, Heather. We had an agreement.”
Heather ignored her and Doolittle, even though the dog eyed her like fresh meat.
Gut hund.
Murmuring to herself, Heather dug a billfold from an enormous leather bag. From the billfold she produced a laminated photo yellowed with age. “I bet this is the only baby photo of you that exists. Me and you. Together.” She held it out. “I begged the nurse to take it before Freeman and Lorene showed up at the hospital.”
Her hands were shaking. Abigail closed her eyes and opened them. Heather’s offering still hung in the air between them. She blinked away unbelieving tears and took it. Heather had changed in twenty years. At the time of Abigail’s birth, if the woman was to be believed, Heather had long, curly red hair. Despite being a new mother, her arms and face were thin. She wasn’t smiling. The baby wasn’t much more than a fluff of reddish-blonde hair wrapped in a pink receiving blanket.
“You were small. Five pounds, four ounces. That’s because you came three weeks early.” Heather spoke fast, her voice filled with a fierce desire to get the words out, as if she’d been saving them up for a long time. “I sang ‘You Are My Sunshine’ to you as soon as they laid you on my chest. You stopped crying and stared at me wide-eyed. Like ‘I know you. You’re my mommy.’”
Abigail turned over the photo. On the back someone had scrawled the words Me and my baby, born at 3:34 a.m. on February 14.
Abigail’s birthday. Valentine’s Day. Lots of people had that birthday.
Her fingers let go of the photo. It plummeted through time to the pine floor. Heather swooped down and retrieved it. “I can see why you’d be upset. I’d hoped Lorene and Freeman had told you about me.” She slipped the photo back into the billfold. The billfold went back into the purse as if this action somehow assured her it would be safe. “I wrote letters. I told them I was coming.”
“And I wrote and asked you not to come.” Mother edged between Abigail and Heather. Doolittle growled and did the same. “I reminded you of our agreement. Abigail is our daughter. The adoption papers are in order.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t know my—can’t know Abigail.”
“What purpose would that serve?”
At the sound of Father’s voice thundering from behind her, Abigail turned. He had that look. The one she always tried to avoid. Red cheeks. Wrinkled forehead. Woolly black eyebrows drawn up. His full lips parted so his slightly crooked teeth showed above his John the Baptist beard.
His woodshed-whipping look.
“Abigail has a right to know who she really is.”
“I know who I am.” At least she had until a few minutes earlier. Now her world twirled airborne like a tree ripped from the ground, roots and all, by a tornado. “I left my bag in the tractor. I’ll be back.”
Abigail broke free of her mother’s grasp, dodged Heather, and darted toward the door. Doolittle tried to follow. “Nee, stay, hund.”
She needed to be away from these people—strangers, all of them.
She needed to be with people she could trust.
Chapter 3
“Are you even listening to me?”
The whine in his younger brother’s voice forced Owen Kurtz to shift his attention from the mare. Her restlessness suggested she would deliver her foal in the next few hours, if not minutes. “I’m listening. I’m also trying to make sure Daisy gets situated. She’s all over the place.”
Lee snorted. He sounded like barnyard livestock himself when he did that. “She’s a mare. This is her second foal. She knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t need your help. What’s going on? Why do you have that goofy grin on your face? You usually come home from work dragging like someone spit a big loogie in your kaffi.”
“Do not.” The smell of horse manure, dirty hay, and musty air calmed Owen’s spirit. The barn—or any place on his family’s farm—did that. Farming soothed his soul. Not building prefab structures with his father’s crew. “It just takes me a minute to throw off the day when I get home, that’s all.”
“But not today.” Lee pulled his straw hat back on his crazy wild hair and leaned against the stall gate as if to settle in for a long conversation. That was Lee. He could stretch a single thought into a daylong discussion. He would make a good bishop someday, if God decided to choose him. “What happened today?”
Nothing happened. Not yet. But there was still time. If Daisy would get busy, Owen would be done here in time to slip over to Abigail’s house and take her for a buggy ride. He’d only driven her home from the singings a few times, but they’d had fun. She was a sweet girl—nervous and awkward—but sweet. Why he made her nervous, he couldn’t imagine. Kayla insisted they were right for each other, but Abigail was like another sister—until recently.
Abigail had been a fixture in his life forever. His sister’s friend. His friend, if Plain girls and boys could be friends. His feelings had been like a fine mist that grew into a sweet, steady rain until suddenly they became a deluge. When his fingers brushed hers or their knees accidently touched in the buggy, a sudden, fierce thunderstorm ensued.
All of which had to be guarded behind the locked, thick doors of his heart until he could be sure she felt the same.
God’s plan for Abigail and for Owen surely meant for this meandering path to lead somewhere. On the other hand, a man who thought he knew God’s plan was surely in for a headfirst dive into an abyss that appeared in his path. If anybody knew that, Owen and his family did.
Still, a man had to swing for the fence and be prepared to accept the curveballs life threw at him. Baseball was the best sport bar none.
“There it is again. That loopy, goofy grin.” Lee chortled. He pointed his skinny index finger with the bruised, black nail from a misfire with a hammer at Owen. “This has something to do with Abigail, doesn’t it? Come on, courting her must be like kissing your schweschder.”
“There’s been no kissing.” Not yet.
“Why not?”
“Lee!”
“Well?”
“Well, nothing. A man doesn’t kiss and tell. Even if he’s not.” Especially a Plain man. “How are things with Jocelyn?”
Turnabout was fair play. Lee had been courting Jocelyn Hershberger since he turned sixteen six months earlier. They had a complicated relationship according to Lee’s long-winded descriptions. Owen kept his courtship stories—of which there were few—to himself.
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
“I’m not. You want to talk courting. How are things coming between you and Jocelyn?”
“That’s between Jocelyn and me.”
“Which is exactly what I’m saying about Abigail and me. Nothing to tell, anyway.”
“But there’s a spark, right?”
Owen turned at the sound of Kayla’s voice. His sister loped through the barn doors. Kayla never walked anywhere. She raced, she rushed, she ran. Just watching her made Owen tired. “That’s none of your business.”
“Help me saddle a horse real quick.” Kayla pulled the hood of her rain slicker over her head and buttoned the top button. “Daed says Abigail is out on the road in a buggy. He was turning in the drive and saw her. He stopped to ask what she was doing. She said she was driving by. But when he turned back, she was still sitting there in the rain and thunder and lightning.”
