Czytaj książkę: «Her New Amish Family»

Chapter One

Trina Smith expected to find a gas stove in the little Amish house, but the refrigerator surprised her. She hadn’t considered a fridge could be powered by gas, too. Not that she had much use for either appliance; Trina lost her appetite when her mother, Patience, died six months ago of leukemia. When Trina did eat, it was only to nibble a piece of toast or an apple, and even then she had to force herself to swallow. Just like she had to force herself to go to bed at night and then to rise in the morning. She was going through the motions because nothing seemed to come naturally anymore.

She set her suitcase down on the floor of the tiny kitchen. Although no one else was in the house, she tiptoed into the parlor. From the dark braided rug to the gas lamp to the sparse furniture, the room was exactly as her mother had described, right down to the ticktock of the clock on the wall.

“As loudly as that clock marked off the seconds, I felt like time was standing still,” her mother once said. “I think it was the clock that made me realize nothing would ever change unless I changed it for myself.”

And so, when she’d turned eighteen, Patience had left the little house. She left the Amish community in Willow Creek, Pennsylvania. And, most significantly, she left her family, which by that time consisted only of her austere, indifferent, drunkard father, Abe Kauffman. Now Patience’s daughter was returning in her place.

Trina walked down the hallway with its bare wooden floor and opened the door to a back room. This would have been where Abe slept. Trina quickly closed the door again. She peeked into the other bedroom, her mother’s girlhood room. It was furnished with a wooden chair, a plain dresser and a bed covered with a quilt that reminded Trina of those her mother had stitched for both of them to use in their own house. Trina remembered how, toward the end of her mother’s illness, no amount of blankets could keep Patience warm.

Trina shivered and walked back to the kitchen, hoping to find a canister of coffee or tea. The first cupboard she opened contained neatly stacked rows of white dishes. The second held glasses and mugs. The third was empty except for a small gray mouse that scurried to the back corner where it squeezed through a crack.

“Ack!” Trina yelped and slammed the cupboard door.

“What’s wrong?” someone asked from behind.

Trina shouted, “Ack!” a second time. Whirling around, she saw a short, plump, white-haired woman wearing glasses and traditional Amish attire.

Squinting, the woman repeated, “What’s the matter?”

“I-I saw a mouse,” Trina stuttered. “It startled me.”

“I dare say you startled it, too,” the woman said with a chuckle and set the basket she was carrying on the table. “I’m Martha Helmuth. I live next door. You must be Trina?”

Martha Helmuth—of course! Trina’s mother had often said she would have run away long before she turned eighteen if it weren’t for Martha Helmuth, whose door and arms were always open whenever Patience needed a place to escape to or someone to embrace her.

“Yes, I’m Trina. Trina Smith,” she confirmed, wondering how Martha knew her name, as her mother hadn’t been in contact with anyone from Willow Creek since Trina was born twenty-five years ago.

“Wilkom to your home, Trina,” the woman said warmly. “The Englisch attorney told us you wouldn’t arrive until the first of March on Tuesday. I would have stocked the cupboards with staples yesterday if I had known you’d be here today. I hope you don’t mind I held on to Abe’s spare key. I’ve been trying to clean up the place for you.”

“Denki,” Trina said, automatically using one of the many Pennslyfaanisch Deitsch words her mother had taught her. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“My, don’t you sound just like your mamm,” Martha replied. “Kumme closer, so I can get a better look at you. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”

Trina obediently took a step toward Martha, who reached out and clasped Trina’s hands in her own, squinting upward. Ordinarily Trina would have felt too self-conscious to allow a stranger to scrutinize her like this, but knowing how loving Martha had been to her mother, Trina was completely at ease in her presence.

“You’re tall, jah? And you’re a brunette, too. That means your eyes must be blue like your mamm’s, as well?”

“Neh, they’re green like my daed’s.” Trina immediately regretted mentioning her Englisch father, Richard Smith, who’d divorced her mother while she was pregnant with Trina. He’d promised to see Trina, but aside from visiting briefly one Christmas or sending an occasional belated birthday card, he rarely kept in touch. And although he became a successful property developer, he’d never contributed financially to Trina’s care; she and her mother had lived in near poverty for most of Trina’s childhood. She hadn’t even known how to contact him when her mother died. Not that he would have come to the funeral, but Trina thought he should at least have been informed his ex-wife had passed away. She hoped Martha wouldn’t ask questions about him.

But the woman just clucked her tongue and said, “I can’t get over how much you sound like Patience. Can you sing as beautifully as she did, too?”

Trina was surprised by Martha’s praise. The Amish rarely complimented someone’s singing voice lest she become proud about her abilities, which were a gift from the Lord. Yet she was pleased the older woman remembered this trait about her mother. Patience had taught Trina several songs from the Amish hymnal, the Ausbund. They were sung in German, a language her mother also made sure Trina knew as part of her homeschooling.

“Neh, no one has a voice like hers,” Trina answered more wistfully than boastfully.

Martha’s sunny countenance clouded when she murmured, “I was so sorry to hear of your mamm’s passing.”

Moved by the sincerity in Martha’s voice, Trina blinked back tears. “Denki.”

Then Martha said, “We heard you were a schoolteacher.”

“A preschool teacher, yes,” Trina replied, figuring the Englisch attorney managing her grandfather’s estate must have told Martha she was a teacher. Rather, she used to teach preschool until her mother became ill. Then Trina took a semester off to be with her mother as she went through chemotherapy. After Patience died, Trina was so devastated she could hardly take care of herself, much less manage a classroom of rambunctious preschoolers, and she lost her job.

Trina had depleted her savings account helping cover her mother’s medical expenses, and she’d racked up a substantial amount of debt, too. For the past four months, she had been living off her credit card. If she hadn’t been so impoverished, she never would have come to Willow Creek to claim the inheritance her grandfather bequeathed her. She figured the money she’d receive from selling his house would repay the debt Trina incurred from her mother’s hospital bills. It wasn’t for her own sake she wanted the restitution, but for her mother’s. Patience’s father owed her at least that much.

For some reason the attorney couldn’t explain, Abe Kauffman had attached an odd condition to Trina’s inheritance: she had to live in the house for two full months before it would be hers to sell. Otherwise, ownership would go to the Amish leit in Willow Creek. Trina suspected the stipulation was her grandfather’s way of making a point, but she could only guess what that point might be. Was he trying to punish her somehow because her mother left the Amish? Did he think Trina would be so intimidated by the prospect of living there she’d automatically forfeit the house? If so, he underestimated her determination as well as how desperate her situation had become.

She had no idea how she was going to pay for groceries and other necessities, but at least for now she had a place to live. Her mother had told her Main Street was within walking distance. Maybe there was an Englisch business owner in need of temporary help. Trina was certain she’d find a way to earn an income. As challenging as her financial and life circumstances had often been, she relied on the Lord to sustain her. Even during her mother’s illness and subsequent death, God had faithfully carried—was still faithfully carrying—Trina through her grief. Surely if He could help her survive that kind of loss, He would provide a way for her to earn enough money to cover her living expenses.

“It must have been difficult for you to leave your friends and job to kumme here,” Martha said. To Trina’s delight, the older woman pulled tea and honey from the basket.

“Mmm.” Trina’s boyfriend had broken up with her around the time her mother got sick, and Trina had spent so much time at the hospital with her mother she’d lost touch with the other teachers from school and acquaintances from church.

“Well, we’re glad to have you as our neighbor now,” Martha said. “As for that mouse, I’ll ask my groosskin, Seth, to see what he can do. Seth and his kinner, Timothy and Tanner, moved to Willow Creek from Ohio when Seth’s wife died. Now they live next door with me.”

“Oh, no need to bother him,” Trina said. While she was grateful for the offer, she didn’t want anyone else visiting her. She and her mother had managed without a man in the house for Trina’s entire life. She didn’t need one helping her now, especially not an Amish man.

* * *

When Seth and his sons returned from hiking along the creek that ran behind their yard and found their house empty, Seth’s first impulse was to panic. What’s happened to Groossmammi? Then he remembered she said she was taking a few items to Abe Kauffman’s old house for his granddaughter. Martha had already put fresh sheets on the beds and linens in the washroom, but she wanted to make sure everything else was clean and in place.

Personally, Seth thought Martha was getting too involved, acting as if she were preparing a homecoming for one of her own relatives, of which there were few still surviving. Yes, Martha had gotten to know Abe well in the past few years since he quit drinking. And, yes, she’d told Seth she had loved the young Patience Kauffman like a daughter. But it bothered him she was going to all this trouble for an Englischer she’d never met.

It’s as if she’s completely forgotten what happened with Freeman. Freeman was Seth’s older brother who’d left the Amish ten years earlier to marry an Englisch nurse, Kristine, who’d tended to him when he was in the hospital after injuring his back during a barn raising. What made the situation doubly painful was that Kristine initially insisted she wanted to join the Amish and had even quit her job in order to work and live in Willow Creek and learn Deitsch. But in the end, she’d decided she couldn’t leave her career and lifestyle behind, so Freeman had “gone Englisch.”

By that time, Seth and Freeman’s father—Martha’s son—had already died, but their mother was devastated by Freeman’s decision. She passed away less than two years later from what the doctor called congestive heart failure, which Seth translated to mean a broken heart. On some level, he blamed his brother’s leaving for his mother’s death. So, in light of the devastating influence an Englisch woman had had on their family, Seth was perplexed that Martha was eager to become involved with another one. But when he voiced his concern, she reminded him what the Bible said about loving one’s neighbors. Since he couldn’t argue with that, Seth kept his mouth shut, but it troubled him that Martha had wandered off to the little house next door. Her vision was too poor for her to navigate the bumpy yard, even if she did use a cane.

“Kumme, Timothy and Tanner. Let’s go next door to see if Groossmammi is there. On your feet, not on your bellies.”

The four-year-old twins were as imaginative as they were energetic, and they reveled in pretending to be various animals. Today they were acting like snakes, and they’d spent the afternoon trying to slither on their stomachs on the banks by the creek.

“Your boots are too dirty to go indoors, so you may play in the front yard. Stay where I can see you,” Seth instructed after they crossed their yard to the only house located within half a mile of them. He bounded up the porch stairs, pulled the door open and, before his eyes adjusted to the light, questioned the figure in the kitchen, “Groossmammi?”

But it was a young woman who turned from the stove with a teakettle in her hand. Her long dark hair was drawn up in a ponytail, accentuating the sharp angles of her face. Seth knew the Englisch considered thinness attractive, but this young woman was so spindly she appeared fragile. Dark eyebrows framed her big, upturned green eyes and her lips were parted as if she were about to speak, but she didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said, feeling self-conscious for entering her home uninvited. “My name is Seth Helmuth and I wondered if my groossmammi—my grandmother—is here?”

Before the woman had a chance to answer, Martha stepped into the kitchen. “Ah, Seth, there you are. This is Patience Kauffman’s dochder, Trina Smith.”

When Trina held out her hand, Seth reluctantly took it; shaking hands was an Englisch practice, not an Amish one. Her fingers were slender and icy but her grip was firm.

“Hello,” she said. Closer up, she appeared more mature and taller than she’d seemed at first glance, and her voice had a melodic quality when she gestured toward the kettle, explaining, “Mrs. Helmuth and I were about to have tea.”

“Mrs. Helmuth?” Seth repeated with a chuckle because he wasn’t used to hearing his grandmother referred to by that title. The Amish didn’t use Mr. or Mrs. to address each other; they simply used first names.

“Dear, you can call me Martha,” his grandmother said to Trina before giving Seth the eye. No matter that she could hardly see or that he was twenty-eight-years-old, when Martha gave Seth a certain look, he knew he had better watch his step. She told him, “Trina found a mouse in that cupboard over there. I’d like you to take a look.”

Seth obediently crossed the room. In his peripheral vision he saw Trina inch even farther away from the cupboard than she already was. Did she think the mouse was going to fly out and nip her nose? He tugged the door open.

“It’s empty, but there’s a crack in the wood. Since you saw the mouse in daytime, it was probably really hungry and searching for something to eat,” he said. Anticipating Martha’s request and eager to get out of the house, he added, “I’ve got a spare trap. I’ll go get it. Groossmammi, will you watch the buwe in the yard until I get back?”

“I’ll keep an eye on them, for what good that will do,” Martha joked. “You know what my vision is like. When we’re inside or they’re close by, it’s not difficult watching the buwe, but when they’re running around outdoors...”

“I’ll go watch them if you’ll stay here and listen for the teakettle,” Trina offered, following Seth to the door. “Just give me a call when it whistles.”

Seth hesitated to leave his sons in Trina’s charge, but since he’d only be gone for a few minutes, he said in Englisch to the boys, “Timothy, Tanner, this is, er, this is Miss Smith. She’s going to stay with you while I go get something from our house.”

“Miss Smith?” she repeated, pointedly imitating the tone Seth had taken when she referred to Martha as Mrs. Helmuth. “My name is Trina. It starts with the letter T, just like Timothy and Tanner.”

The boys raced to her side. “Do you want to see something?” they asked in Englisch.

Seth hurried home, grabbed the trap, a jar of peanut butter and a spoon, and then raced back to Trina’s house. As he crossed the yard, he spotted the boys and Trina taking turns jumping over a partially frozen mud puddle. Recently the deacon’s sons had returned from a family trip to a popular Amish vacation destination in Pinecraft, Florida, and they’d filled Timothy’s and Tanner’s heads with visions of alligators. Ever since then, the boys pretended puddles were swamps where the toothy creatures hid. They’d created a game in which they had to leap over these so-called swamps without falling in and being bitten. So far, they’d been successful, and it looked as if Trina was holding her own, too. Satisfied they’d all be fine, Seth went inside.

“The tea will be ready soon. Have a cup with us,” Martha coaxed him as he smeared peanut butter on the trap. “Trina is a lovely maedel. She’s a preschool teacher, you know.”

“Jah, I know,” Seth replied. “You’ve told me almost every day since the attorney told you, Groossmammi.”

“You ought to consider hiring her to watch the buwe, then. She’d be perfect.”

Seth glanced out the window. He had to admit, he would have expected someone as thin as Trina to be lethargic but she was matching Timothy and Tanner’s energy levels.

“Neh, I don’t think that would be right. She’s Englisch.”

Martha snickered. “What difference does that make? She seems to know plenty of Deitsch words and the buwe are almost fluent in Englisch. Besides, they’ll formally learn Englisch as soon as they enter school. This will help them along.”

“It’s not that,” Seth hedged. Even if he wasn’t already wary of Englisch women because of Freeman’s wife, he would have been reluctant to hire one to watch the boys. Seth owned a leather shop in town and he’d seen how Englisch customers behaved. In his opinion, the parents were too permissive with their children, allowing them to do and say whatever they wanted.

“Then what is it? Being Englisch isn’t contagious, you know!”

Martha was so shrewd about his bias that Seth had to try a different approach. “You told me the attorney said she only has to stay here for two months. After that, she’ll move on.”

“Which is exactly why you should hire her.” Martha was really digging her heels in about this. “It’s only a little over two months until school lets out and then there will be three or four meed vying for the opportunity to earn money taking care of the buwe.”

“That’s right. It’s only a couple more months. We can manage until then,” Seth insisted. He supposed if worse came to worst and Martha really couldn’t handle the boys at home, he could take them to work with him.

“The sooner you get someone to watch the kinner, the sooner you’ll have an opportunity to visit the matchmaker and begin courting. You won’t have to stay home every night in order to give me a break from minding the buwe.”

Clearly Martha was appealing to Seth’s expressed desire to remarry. It had been four years since Eleanor died in childbirth and he was ready to consider courting again.

“I’ve waited this long. A couple more months isn’t going to make a big difference,” Seth replied, but his resolve was wavering.

Martha pointed to the window. “Listen to how much fun they’re having out there.”

Seth glanced out at them. Just then Trina attempted to hurdle the puddle, but Timothy stepped into her path. Trying to avoid him, she veered and lost her footing upon landing. She fell backward, splintering the puddle’s thin layer of ice and landing on Tanner, who hadn’t given her enough time to clear it before he jumped over it, too. Seth charged out of the house and down the steps. By then the boys had untangled their legs and arms from Trina’s and they were pulling on her hands. Instead of helping her up they were stretching her forward and she struggled to rise.

“Stop that!” he yelled as he noticed Trina’s leg was bent awkwardly beneath her. The boys immediately released Trina’s hands and she dropped backward into the puddle again.

* * *

Thudding onto her backside in the mud a second time, Trina got the wind knocked out of her. Before she had a chance to catch her breath or unfold her leg, Seth slid one arm under her knees, wrapped the other around her waist and swooped her up. As he carried her to the porch, Trina’s cheek brushed against his woolen overcoat and she closed her eyes. Never had she felt so cared for by a man and she was overwhelmed by his chivalrous gesture.

“Are you alright?” he asked after gingerly placing her on the porch steps. He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. His own eyes were gunmetal gray, a few shades paler than his sons’ baby blues but just as big and round. They’d also inherited Seth’s curly blond locks, although his hair was more waves than curls. Wholesome was the clichéd word people used to describe anyone who lived in the countryside, but in Seth’s case, Trina found the adjective to be accurate. Not merely because of his looks, but because of the honest quality of his concern.

“I’m fine, just a little wet,” she replied, embarrassed. She could feel her skirt clinging to her skin.

“I’m sorry,” Timothy said mournfully. “I shouldn’t have stepped in front of you.”

“And I shouldn’t have stepped in back of you,” Tanner chimed in.

The boys looked so pitifully sad Trina forgot about her own discomposure. “It’s nobody’s fault but my own. I’m such a klutz,” she said, rolling her eyes. When the boys didn’t smile, she assured them, “I didn’t break any bones. My skirt got a little dirty, but I’ll wash it and it will be as good as new.”

Seth looked dubious. “It will get clean, but I doubt it will be as gut as new. Abe’s house doesn’t have an Englisch washing machine, you know.”

Now Trina couldn’t tell if he was speaking matter-of-factly or tongue in cheek. “I’m familiar with Amish wringers,” she replied. She was familiar with them in the sense that her mother had described how they worked—Trina hadn’t actually used one herself.

“Even so—” Seth started to say, but he was interrupted by a muted cry from inside the house.

“Fire! Help! Help!” It was Martha.

“Buwe, stay here!” Seth commanded. He vaulted past Trina and was up the stairs in two strides.

Chasing close behind, Trina peered through the smoky room to see Martha doubled over, coughing, as something burned atop the stove. Seth clicked off the burner, grabbed the flaming item by an edge and tossed it into the sink. Then he turned the faucet on full force.

While he was dousing the flame, Trina led Martha out of the house.

“Groossmammi, are you okay?” Tanner asked. The crease between his eyebrows made him appear like a wizened old man.

Martha nodded but she was still coughing and couldn’t answer. Trina and the boys eased her into a sitting position on the stairs and then Trina darted back into the house to fetch a glass of water.

Seth moved away from the sink. “Looks like my groossmammi started a towel on fire, but I don’t see any other damage. Is she alright?”

“Yes, I think so. She just needs to catch her breath.” Trina filled the glass and they both stepped outside, leaving the door open behind them.

By then, Martha was no longer gasping. “I spilled water on the stovetop when I was pouring tea, so I tried to dab it up with the towel,” she explained. “I was certain I had turned off the burner first.”

“Neh, you had turned it up,” Seth said.