Leah nodded, sighing as her mother fastened the metal clasps of her suitcases. The sound had such finality to it—but when Stevie burst into the room, he drove out any possibility of Leah dwelling upon the way she already missed Mama’s company.
“Mammi Lenore, do ya really hafta go?” he asked, opening his arms to her.
Mama leaned down to hug him, kissing his cheek loudly. “You’re getting so big I can’t pick you up anymore, Stevie,” she said cheerfully, “but I sure am happy to see you so happy these days. And I’m leaving it up to you to look after your mamm, all right? Will you do that for me until I come back?”
“Jah, I’m on it!” the boy replied with a smile for Leah. “Me and Leah, we’re a team!”
As the three of them headed down the stairs, Alice and Adeline came through the front room to meet them—and to take the two suitcases. They had bread in the oven, and they’d been in the process of layering meat sauce and lasagna noodles into a pan while in the corner of the kitchen, Betsy went back and forth in the wind-up swing set.
Adeline smiled. “We really love our new dresses, Mammi Lenore—”
“And those pretty jackets you made us!” Alice added as they carried the luggage out the door Stevie held open for them.
“We hope you’ll come back and stay with us again!” one of them called over her shoulder.
“Jah, you’re an awesome cook, Mammi Lenore!” the other twin chimed in.
Mama leaned down to smile one last time at little Betsy. “I’ll see you again, wee girlie,” she whispered. “It’ll be a joy to watch you grow up.”
After one last crushing hug, Leah released her mother. She watched from the porch, waving when Mama, her mare Flo, and the buggy were headed down the lane toward the road. Her mother’s five-week visit had been such a blessing—a timely lifesaver—that Leah feared she would soon flounder again while trying to cook and clean and care for Betsy without Mama’s help.
God’s on it, she reminded herself as Stevie joined her on the porch. When he sighed contentedly and reached for her hand, Leah’s heart filled to overflowing. Why was she so concerned about running the household, when she had such a devoted son and husband, and three girls who made her life shine like the sun now that they all seemed so happy and settled?
* * *
Friday morning was a picture postcard of a spring day. From the kitchen window Leah noticed the redbud trees in the yard bursting with pinkish-purple blooms, as well as the dogwoods that were so full of blossoms they resembled huge popcorn balls. Cheerful red and yellow tulips filled the narrow flowerbed alongside the barn, and when the sun hit the grass at just the right angle, Leah held her breath. Every green blade was topped with a sparkling drop of dew, so the yard seemed to be covered with thousands of tiny glass beads. She took a moment to admire a sight that only God could’ve created.
“What kind of cookies do you want, Stevie?” one of the twins asked.
“We’ve got the makings for peanut butter, or oatmeal raisin, or soft sugar cookies with frosting,” her sister put in.
Leah turned in time to catch Stevie’s mischievous grin. He was seated at the kitchen table with a deck of playing cards, very carefully arranging them on their edges to make a simple house, as Jude had showed him. “All of ’em!” he replied. “Ya know how many cookies me and Dat’ll go through when he gets home from the sale barn this afternoon—and with the weekend comin’ up, we gotta be ready for that, too.”
Alice and Adeline rolled their eyes good-naturedly. “If we make peanut butter cookies, you’ll have to roll the dough into balls and then in the sugar,” Alice suggested.
“Because while you’re doing that,” Adeline said as she took the flour canister from the cupboard, “we can be making the dough for the sugar cookies.”
“And if you do a really gut job on the peanut butter balls, maybe we could be talked into making oatmeal raisin cookies, as well—if you’ll chop the walnuts for them,” Alice teased.
When Stevie jumped down from his chair, his house of cards collapsed, but he was too excited to care. “I’m goin’ to wash my hands! Fill up the nut chopper for me!”
Leah chuckled. It was such a pleasure to see the twins coaxing their little brother to help with the baking—and such a huge difference from the days when Alice and Adeline couldn’t have cared less about what sort of cookies Stevie wanted. Leah didn’t know why—and she didn’t want to jinx the situation by asking too many questions—but the twins had been staying home and behaving as though they’d forgotten all about the cell phone Jude had hidden in the barn, and about the boys who’d tempted them with it.
Leah went to the swing in the corner and cranked it again, making Betsy squeal and wiggle with delight. “Mah-mah-mah,” she babbled, waving her little arms. Even if it was probably too soon for the baby to form words, Leah wanted to think Betsy might be close to saying Mama . . . might be calling her that because she actually associated such a name with her, rather than just repeating the sound. Leah smiled at the happy baby, her heart filled with hope.
By the time Stevie returned to the kitchen and proudly held his clean hands up for Leah to inspect, she had poured walnuts into the jar with spring-loaded chopper blades built into its lid. “Here you go,” she said. “I’m sure glad you wanted all three kinds of cookies, Stevie, because they’re all my favorites, too.”
When he beamed at her, Leah shimmered with love for him. He was such a helpful son, so eager to please. Stevie climbed back into his
