14.
Another church service, and G.o.d hadn"t talked to her.
Mary Katherine sighed as she watched the women sitting around her get up and leave the room.
She supposed it was ridiculous to expect G.o.d to talk to her while others were-while the lay ministers talked and everyone sang and attention was generally on other things.
Maybe He just wasn"t interested in communicating with her when she hadn"t talked to him much in a long time. But she"d had a good reason. He hadn"t listened to her when she"d been so unhappy on her parents" farm. She"d prayed and prayed and prayed, and the only reason she was out of there was because her grandmother had come to ask her parents if she could live with her and help her there and at the shop.
Funny, she thought now. It was the first time she"d seen her grandmother act . . . old and say that she needed help. But her grandmother still insisted on doing her own housework- Mary Katherine got to help only because she insisted-and any helping at the shop? She"d been encouraged to spend a lot of her time there working on her weaving.
"You"re looking thoughtful."
Mary Katherine looked up and saw Jenny Bontrager smiling down at her. "I . . . guess."
"May I?" Jenny gestured at the chair beside her.
Nodding, she watched the other woman take a seat.
"I should help with the food, but I thought I"d say h.e.l.lo. I wanted to tell you that the pillows I bought from you are really pretty in my living room. I thought I"d order another set in blue for my friend, Joy."
"I"m so glad you like them. And thanks for the order. I can have the new ones to you in a week. Is that okay?"
"Two weeks is fine. They"re for her birthday next month, so there"s time."
Mary Katherine withdrew a notebook from her purse and jotted a note to herself about the order.
The bishop walked into the room, stopped, and looked at them over the tops of his wire-rimmed gla.s.ses, then walked out, his hands clasped behind him.
Jenny shivered, and then she grimaced. "I"m sorry, that was irreverent. No, make that disrespectful. He"s the bishop, after all. But he just kind of scares me, he"s so stern. I liked the bishop we had when I joined the church."
She tilted her head and stared at the doorway the man had exited through. "He reminds me a little of Josiah, the elder who wasn"t very happy about me coming to this community or joining the church."
"The bishop isn"t happy that I"m taking so long to join the church."
"But it"s not like you"re old!"
"True." She hesitated, then took a deep breath. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
Before Mary Katherine could frame the question, Matthew, Jenny"s husband, appeared in the doorway. She held up two fingers in some kind of signal he understood, and he left them.
"I"m sorry, this isn"t a good time for you."
Jenny smiled. "It"s a fine time. What"s your question?"
"How did you make your decision to become Amish? I mean, you"d been Englisch all your life."
"I always felt very comfortable here." Jenny brushed at imaginary lint on the skirt of her dress. "My father grew up here, and though he chose not to become Amish and stay in the community, he let me come here during the summers to visit my grandmother."
Several men came in and began moving the chairs around for the snack that would be served.
"Let"s go out onto the porch, shall we?"
Mary Katherine followed her there, and they stood out of the way of people coming and going.
"I fell in love with Matthew, the boy next door, so to speak, but I went away to college. Then I went overseas, was injured, and ended up back here."
She stared off at the fields, and Mary Katherine wondered what she was thinking.
"I came back to Paradise feeling like G.o.d had abandoned me. But then after a while it seemed like everything became clearer. While I was recuperating, it seemed like everything clicked."
"Especially with a certain man," Mary Katherine teased.
"Yes," Jenny said with a reminiscent smile. "But it"s not an easy decision to change your faith to marry. Especially to this faith."
She glanced down at her Plain dress, then looked up as a buggy pa.s.sed. "It was still a bit of a culture shock, even though I knew more about it than most Englisch."
She looked at Mary Katherine. "Joining the church is a big decision. It can"t be done quickly or lightly. I think most everyone understands that. Don"t let the bishop or anyone else make you feel you have to do it by a certain time if you"re not comfortable."
"Anyone else?"
"The Amish grapevine is at work," Jenny said with a grin. "Jacob"s a nice man."
Mary Katherine rolled her eyes. "Not you, too."
Jenny patted her arm. "Sorry, I couldn"t help myself. I remember what it was like to have Matthew"s sister put in a good word for her brother, too. I haven"t known Jacob as long as you, but he seems like a very good man."
The door opened, and she brightened when she saw Matthew exit the house and walk toward her. "But she was right. My sister-in-law, I mean."
"Feeling allrecht?" he asked, his expression concerned.
Jenny covered a big yawn with her hand and then placed it on her rounded abdomen. "Yes, but I sure could use a nap."
"I"ll get the kinner and the buggy."
He strode away, a tall, handsome man who reminded her a little of Jacob. She remembered that they were distant cousins, third or fourth, something like that.
"Anything else you want to ask me?"
Mary Katherine shook her head. "No. Thanks."
Jenny touched her hand. "No, thank you."
"Me? For what?"
"For reminding me of all I have to be grateful for now."
Mary Katherine jumped when she heard a squeal from the other end of the porch.
She looked up and saw a little boy who was the image of Matthew come toddling toward them with outstretched arms.
"There he is!" Jenny exclaimed, chuckling. "Mr. Mischief!" She turned to Mary Katherine. "He kept us up with teething pain last night and then was out of his crib this morning playing with the cat."
Mary Katherine sat there for a long time after Jenny left, thinking about what she"d said. Then she realized that she should have been helping the other women with the food.
But the bishop was probably still inside. Sighing, she squared her shoulders and headed for the kitchen.
"I think someone"s looking for you," her grandmother told her as she entered the kitchen.
"Oh?" Mary Katherine"s shoulders slumped.
"In there," Leah said, jerking her head toward the living room.
With a feeling of dread, she started out of the room.
"Here, take this with you." Leah handed her a plate.
"Like I"m going to be able to eat," she muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing."
But when she walked into the room, instead of the bishop, she found her mother laughing and talking with her next-door neighbor.
"We came in late, so we sat in the back," her mother said. "I saw you talking to Jenny. Such a nice woman." She glanced at the plate in Mary Katherine"s hand. "That looks good. Lizzie, we should get something to eat."
"This is for you." She handed her the plate and kissed her on her cheek. "What would you like to drink?"
"That iced tea looks good," she said, jerking her head toward the woman at the next table who was drinking it. "Are you going to join us?"
"Sure. Let me go get your tea and some food for myself."
Her mind on the surprise, she didn"t see someone in front of her until she ran into him.
"Oh, sorry!"
"No problem," Jacob said, grinning. "I was just looking for you."
"I"m getting my mother something to drink," she told him.
His eyebrows went up. "She"s here? I"ll go say h.e.l.lo. Then maybe we can talk?" He turned, then glanced over his shoulder, and there was that look on his face-that look he"d been giving her-before he strode away.
Her face felt warm as she moved toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was crowded with women preparing the meal. Her cousin Naomi stood at the counter pouring gla.s.ses of iced tea.
"Can I get some iced tea for my mother?"
"Schur."
"Naomi!" A young man stuck his head in the doorway. "Let"s go. Now."
"John! Say h.e.l.lo to Mary Katherine."
Looking reluctant, he moved closer. "h.e.l.lo." He turned to Naomi. "Let"s go."
"I"ll be just a few more minutes," she said, handing Mary Katherine the gla.s.s of tea. "Why don"t you wait on the porch?"
"Five minutes," he said and turned on his heel.
"He wants to take me to lunch in town," Naomi explained, shrugging. "Tell your mother I said h.e.l.lo. I"ll stop by later this week to see her."
"Okay." Mary Katherine watched as Naomi hurried out of the kitchen.
After she fixed a plate of food, she picked up the gla.s.s of tea that Naomi had prepared but forgotten to give her. Anna hadn"t particularly cared for John, and he certainly wasn"t growing on Mary Katherine.
She found it hard to have a conversation with her mother when one person after another had to welcome her back after her absence, but it did Mary Katherine"s heart good to see that her mother had been missed. Through the years, Miriam had been overshadowed by her husband"s stronger personality; now, with him out of town on some errand, not being rushed off as was his habit to do after church, she clearly enjoyed the attention and knowledge that she"d been missed.
What Mary Katherine noticed was that few people asked Miriam about her husband"s absence. Maybe it was because they knew the reason. Mary Katherine might not get along with her father, but she derived no pleasure in the fact that he didn"t seem to get along all that well with others. It was sad, really.
"So you were talking really seriously with Jenny," her mother said when there was a lull in people stopping by to talk to her.
Mary Katherine found herself thinking about what Jenny had said.
Miriam cleared her throat. "That was a hint."
"Oh, sorry. We just chatted about this and that."
She was grateful when someone interrupted them and let her thoughts drift again. Maybe G.o.d hadn"t talked directly to her. But maybe He"d put Jenny in her path today to talk to her instead. It was something to think about.
Her grandmother had once said that there was a reason why we weren"t put on Earth by ourselves. We"re supposed to learn something from other people, and they from us, she"d said.
She was in this community for a reason, she was coming to realize, even as it had caused a restlessness in her. This faith-filled community had shaped everything about her-given her stability, loving relationships-well, all but the one with her father. Here she"d grown up with a man who was a friend, then a best friend who understood her better than anyone she knew. A man who wanted a deeper relationship with her but was willing to set aside his own needs so that she could make her own decisions about faith and about their spending the rest of her life with him.
She relaxed and breathed in the peaceful atmosphere of after-church here in the house of one of her longtime friends, and when Jacob walked into the room and his eyes searched for her, she smiled and lifted her hand.
And felt the restlessness leaving her like the tide on a sh.o.r.e.
There were some things that couldn"t be avoided. People, actually.