Loving Lovina, page 4
“We’ll all stay friends, won’t we?” Johannes said, forcing a smile. “You’re very nice girls, and I’m glad we got to meet.”
The girls didn’t answer, and he didn’t really expect them to. There was no polite way to make this moment more comfortable.
“Let me get your bag,” Johannes said, and he grabbed Sovilla’s suitcase and hoisted it into the back of the buggy. She went inside and brought out one more bag, and she carried it down the steps before he took that one from her hands, too. The least he could do was carry her bags to her new home.
He opened up the back of the buggy and put her bags inside. There was a bench seat along one side, and when he stepped back, Sovilla lifted Becca up into the back. Johannes followed her lead and scooped up the smaller child and deposited her next to her sister.
“Now, you sit still. I want your dresses clean when we arrive, you hear me?” she said sternly to her daughters. “No fooling around. You sit nicely.”
Becca nodded, and Iris smiled sweetly. Somehow, Johannes doubted that the girls would be completely spotless by the time they arrived. He’d seen enough of their ability to play and get dirty over the last couple of weeks.
“Waneta Kauffman seemed very pleasant,” Sovilla said as she hoisted herself up into the buggy. Johannes followed her and picked up the reins.
“Yah, they’re a very nice couple,” Johannes agreed, perhaps more enthusiastically than necessary.
Johannes got the buggy turned around, and they headed back up the drive. People would talk—even though the wedding hadn’t been announced, people in the community were already aware of the plan to get Johannes safely married. This arranged marriage had been as much for him as it had been for Sovilla and her daughters.
“What will you do now?” Johannes asked, glancing over at the woman by his side. She sat straight in the seat, and she looked back at her daughters in the back of the buggy before answering.
“I’m going to get a job,” she said.
“I’m sure the bishop could find another man—” he began.
“No,” she interjected, then licked her lips. “I thought I could marry a man for reasonable, unromantic reasons. I think we both learned that it’s not quite so simple, is it?”
Johannes glanced over at her uncomfortably. “I suppose not.”
“So no more of that. I’ll get a job.”
“And the girls?” he asked. “Who will watch them?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, her voice low. “I’ll figure something out.”
Would she find someone to watch her children for her? He’d never seen her away from them yet, and he wondered how much she’d hated the idea of marrying him to make her willing to be separated from her little girls.
“If I see anyone hiring, I’ll let you know,” he said.
“Thank you.” She looked over at him. “And it’s okay, Johannes. I came to Bountiful to try to make a match. It didn’t work. These things happen, you know. I’m not angry or hurt or offended.”
“Okay . . .” He smiled hesitantly. “Because I really am sorry.”
“Oh, you’ll be much happier with Lovina,” she said, but her smile seemed forced.
Johannes reined the horses in at a four-way stop and waited while two cars went ahead of him. Then he flicked the reins and they carried on through.
“I might not end up with Lovina,” he said after a few beats of silence.
“After all of this?” she asked. “After loving her and losing her, and having her return—”
“She left for a reason,” he said. “And she’ll remember it soon enough. She didn’t come home to me. She was brought home because of the accident.”
“So you’re giving up?” she asked.
“I’m—” He shrugged. “I’m just trying to help her while she gets her memory back. That’s all.”
“Fair enough.” She didn’t seem to be ruffled by this at all, and she reached back into the buggy. “Iris, put that down. Brush off your hands—not your apron!” She sighed. “It’s dirty now.”
“No one will mind,” Johannes said.
“I’m trying to look our best.” Sovilla straightened her back again. “But sometimes we have to rely on personality.”
She shot Johannes a joking smile, and he laughed at her humor.
“Oh—” She reached back again and fiddled for a moment, then pulled out a small tin and handed it to Johannes. He took it with one hand and looked at it.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s for Daniel,” she replied. “He asked if I’d leave him some needles and thread, and I forgot to put it on the table for him.”
“What for?” he asked with a frown.
“Mending his clothes?” she replied, then shrugged. “I’m only guessing. Daniel is a sweet boy, and he’s pragmatic, too. Maybe he knows that without a woman around, someone has to mend the tears.”
Pragmatic, and used to being in a house filled with women. Was his nephew nervous at the thought of just the men fending for themselves?
“I’ll give it to him,” Johannes said.
“Thank you.”
She’d made such a difference in their home these last couple of weeks that Johannes had to admit that he’d miss her, too. A man could get used to some good cooking and a good-natured laugh around the house.
“I hope we can stay friends,” Johannes said. “I do mean that.”
“There is a certain bond that forms when the community tries to make you marry someone, isn’t there?” she asked with a rueful smile.
“I suppose,” he replied. “I just think you’re a good person, and you’re a good cook. You’re a great mamm, too. You’ll find a man who will be glad to call you his.”
“I want more than that,” she replied softly.
“Oh?”
“I want a man that I love.” Her smile dropped.
And that had not been Johannes, either. He felt a little tug of sympathy at that. Although loving someone wasn’t always the easier path—it certainly wasn’t proving to be for him.
He shouldn’t have agreed to the arranged marriage to begin with, but the fact that his community—the bishop and elders—had thought of him as a strong, reliable potential husband for Sovilla had tugged at that old yearning for respect. He’d never been a good student, a good reader, or even a brilliant dairy farmer. But he was a lot like his grandfather the deacon, Menno Miller, and he did have moral fiber, and in this situation, that had counted.
And he’d liked that feeling . . .
“And, Johannes?” Sovilla said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Yah?”
“Be gentle with Daniel. He’s a good boy, but he’s sensitive.”
Yes, Linda had sent Daniel to spend time with men, and it seemed that she’d noticed how sensitive he was, too. He was different from the other boys, and while Johannes and his family all loved this young man dearly, being too different wouldn’t give him the good, Amish life they wanted for him. He had to learn to be a man, and what better place to learn that right here?
Chapter Three
That evening, Lovina watched as the sitting room was transformed. All of the kitchen chairs were pulled into the other room and were placed around a large quilting frame. The stove in the kitchen was stoked up and four irons were heating on the stove top. An ironing board had been set up next to it. There were plates of cookies, muffins, pastries, and sliced, fresh peaches on the table. Kerosene lamps hissed softly from their hooks overhead, casting warm, golden light over the room. The neighbor women had come to help complete a wedding quilt in record time.
Of the fourteen women who arrived to help, every single one of them had to have Lovina’s situation explained.
She doesn’t remember anything . . . Please don’t ask her questions. We’re trying to give her a rest so that she can heal . . .
And then there were some more explanations murmured, lower so that Lovina couldn’t hear, and she watched their expressions change—curiosity, disbelief, worry. What were they saying?
But not all the conversation was about Lovina. She’d overheard a few snippets of discussion about Elizabeth’s choice in husband. Apparently, Solomon Lantz had a history of his own that worried everyone just as much as Lovina’s situation.
“The Yoder family has gone through so much,” one woman had said. “To choose to make things harder by marrying a man like that . . .”
Like what, though? Another couple of women had murmured close enough for Lovina to hear, and they’d been saying that Solomon was dangerous, that he scared them. But then they moved on into the other room and joined their work with the others. As much as they disliked the idea of Elizabeth’s upcoming wedding, it didn’t seem they were going to say anything about it openly.
Lovina sat at the kitchen table with a quilt block in front of her. The women’s gossip moved on. There was news about a girl who’d married a boy in another community and was now pregnant with twins. There was concern over an older man who was refusing to follow doctor’s orders about something to do with his diet—she couldn’t quite make that one out. There were some teenagers who were spending too much time with English friends.
They talked, and they shared, and they commiserated, and they sewed. Lovina had nothing to add, and right now the relative quiet in the kitchen was a relief. A portly woman stood at the stove with the irons, pressing down her quilt block with firm, practiced strokes.
“It’s a miracle that Lovina’s back . . .” someone said from the other room, the voice carrying.
The conversation in the sitting room had turned toward Lovina again, apparently.
“Gott does work in mysterious ways,” someone else agreed. “Maybe this is His way of changing her heart.”
Lovina froze. Changing her heart away from what? There was a murmur of remonstrance, and whoever had been speaking stopped. Lovina’s gaze flickered toward the middle-aged woman who stood with an iron suspended above the board, and their eyes met. The woman’s cheeks, already pink from the heat of the stove, deepened in color.
“We’re glad you’re back,” the woman said quickly.
“Thank you,” Lovina said weakly. “Do I know you?”
“I’m Dorcas,” she replied. “You used to play with my daughters when you were little.”
“Oh!” Lovina cast about in her mind—this was the first time anyone had mentioned her childhood.
“And of course Elizabeth played with my girls, too,” Dorcas said. “You and your sister were inseparable. All of you girls would plant your own garden with little stones, and then you’d set your dolls up and you’d feed them salad made of grass.”
Lovina smiled. “That sounds ... sweet.”
“You were very sweet. Do you remember any of that?”
Lovina shook her head.
“You haven’t remembered your sister yet?” Dorcas asked cautiously.
Lovina shook her head again.
“I think you will soon,” Dorcas said gently. “You two were always close.”
“I overheard some women saying something about her fiancé?” Lovina said. “What’s his story?”
“Solomon Lantz.” The woman nodded. “Yah, he’s got history. He left our community during his Rumspringa and he didn’t come back. While he was out there in the world, he got caught up with some bad Englishers. They were really bad—involved in crime and the like. Anyway, he was with them when they were robbing some store, and exactly how involved he was in that robbery is the question, isn’t it? Anyway, they claimed he knew everything, and he claimed that they’d just asked him to pick them up at a certain time in a car. He ended up spending a full year in jail.”
Lovina’s heart pounded to a stop. “Jail?”
“Yah. It was serious. He got out, and he came back to Bountiful, looking to start over. That’s when he and Elizabeth started getting to know each other again, and . . . well, here we are, working on the wedding quilt.”
There they were ... but no one had told her anything about this. How much were they holding back?
“My sister is marrying an ex-con?” Lovina asked.
“Well, I mean ... of all people, Elizabeth would understand him. And we’ve all known Sol since he was a baby. He’s got a good heart, but he had a rough time after his daet passed away, and his mamm really did her best, but Sol was the kind of boy who had to learn his lessons the hard way. Every time.”
“And you think he’s learned?” Lovina asked.
“He’s working hard, he’s attending worship services, he’s been baptized . . . If Gott could change Saul from the Bible on the road to Damascus, then we have to believe that Gott can change anyone. And whether or not he has been converted into a new creation or not ... that is Elizabeth’s chance to take.”
It seemed like a rather risky chance to take to Lovina, and she looked over her shoulder toward the sitting room again.
“And you all ... support the wedding?” Lovina asked at last. “I mean, you won’t warn her off of it?”
“The bishop supports the match,” Dorcas said. “And we all pray for the best.”
Another woman came into the kitchen and headed for the ironing board, and Dorcas fell silent.
Why would Elizabeth understand Sol best? But more things than just that felt confusing, and right now, she was clinging to that description of her childhood play with the other girls. She could remember something foggy—something to do with grass clippings, but she wasn’t pretending they were food, she was forming them into ... a bird’s nest? Was that right?
But she couldn’t remember where she was, or how old she was, or even if she’d been alone. That layer of mist over her mind was so frustratingly dense!
“I think I remember playing with grass clippings,” Lovina said, and Dorcas and the younger woman both turned toward her. “Except I remember trying to make a bird’s nest, I think.”
“Do you remember that?” the younger woman asked with a smile. “That was at recess at school when we were kinner. We spent weeks making huge bird’s nests out of grass clippings. And then it rained and our nests were all soggy and smelly, and we had to stop.”
Except Lovina wasn’t remembering a big pile of grass. She remembered her hands cupping a small woven nest, and she was holding it out for someone to look at ... But maybe there were more memories she could rustle out of the slog of her mind.
“Did I play with you?” Lovina asked.
“Yah—all us girls were playing,” she said.
“What’s your name?” Lovina asked.
“Sarah Helmuth.”
She couldn’t place that name, either. Was she expecting too much from herself? The doctor had said it would take some time ...
“Were we friends?” Lovina asked hopefully.
She seemed like a nice young woman.
“Yah . . .” But there was something in Sarah’s tone that sounded off. They likely hadn’t been friends—not good ones, at least. But it would be impolite to say so.
But there was a memory returned—it was coming back. Even if she couldn’t quite place the memory into a time and place, at least she’d started to remember something. And she didn’t have the emotional energy right now to tell these women that her sussed-up memory wasn’t one connected to them.
Lovina picked up her needle and thread again, and she started stitching the next piece of fabric into the pattern. Her fingers moved deftly on their own, and her stitches were neat and small. She seemed to not only know this work, but to be good at it.
Dorcas and Sarah finished ironing their squares and then headed back to the sitting room. For a couple of minutes, Lovina was alone in the kitchen, stitching. It was a soothing task, and as her fingers moved, she could let her mind rest.
“How’s it going, Lovina?”
Lovina looked up to see her sister. Elizabeth came to the table and picked up a cookie. She looked over Lovina’s shoulder.
“You always could stitch better than me,” Elizabeth said.
“Yah?” Lovina looked up at Elizabeth.
“Yah. You’ve always been a good seamstress.” She pulled up a chair next to her. “Sarah said you remembered a game from our school years.”
“Not really,” Lovina admitted quietly. “I remember weaving a bird’s nest and putting grass clippings inside, but I don’t remember the game she was talking about. I just didn’t want to disappoint her.”
“Oh . . .” Elizabeth nodded. “What do you remember?”
“Just that—weaving a small nest and padding it with grass clippings. I was holding it out to show to someone.”
“Who?” Elizabeth asked.
“I don’t know.”
They fell silent, and Lovina sighed. This should be a victory, but it felt small. So she said, “I heard a little bit about Solomon.”
“What did they say?” Elizabeth asked, and her tone turned tired.
“That he’s been to jail, but you both still seem to have the community support to get married,” Lovina said. “And Dorcas thinks that you’re someone who would understand him. You, particularly.”
Elizabeth was silent.
“Why?” Lovina pressed. “Why you?”
“Because I love him enough to look deeper,” Elizabeth replied. “And you should know that you and Johannes had the community’s support, too. You made a lovely couple.”
They had the support. They made a lovely couple.
“That sounds like it happened in the past,” Lovina replied.
“You make a lovely couple,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sorry. I misspoke. Do you remember anything about him yet?”
“Not unless I was showing him a bird’s nest,” Lovina said with a small smile. “I’m not working with much at the moment.”
Elizabeth smiled at Lovina’s humor, and for just a moment, Lovina felt a rush of warmth and comfort. This was what it was like to have a family, wasn’t it? She might not remember it, but this was a lovely life that she was leading—a brother and sister who loved her, a sister-in-law and a baby nephew who truly seemed to like her company ... and there was this community of people who made her feel safe. Even with no memory, she felt like she could trust them. If she needed help, these people would never turn her away—she could feel that on a heart level.
