“No,” Rachel agreed, shifting her gaze to the snowy road. “But it would tell us that there was a good explanation for how the cream was vanishing.”
* * *
Rachel dropped two bags of groceries on the kitchen counter. Ada paused in rolling out biscuit dough and looked at her. “Did you remember the stick cinnamon? And the nutmeg? We’re almost out of nutmeg.”
“Ya,” Rachel replied in the same dialect. Ada always spoke to her in Deitsch although her English was perfect. Her housekeeper didn’t even have the heavy accent that many of Rachel’s Amish friends and relatives did. “I’ll bring them right in.”
Ada shook her head. “Ne. I’ll send one of the girls. Mary Aaron needs you. She’s in your office.”
Delicious smells were seeping from the oven. Rachel wanted to peek and see what Ada was baking, but Ada said that opening the oven door spoiled the temperature and ruined the baked goods. Rachel spied a stuffed chicken sitting in a Dutch oven on top of the gas stove and guessed that would be tonight’s supper. “Have I told you how much I love you, Ada?” she teased.
The housekeeper grunted and returned to her biscuit dough.
“Don’t forget the groceries. The milk will freeze if it stays out there long,” Rachel reminded her and made hasty retreat from Ada’s domain.
“Lydie!” Ada called. “I need you in the kitchen.” Lydie was a sixteen-year-old granddaughter who’d finished school in the spring and now was in training with Ada. Fortunately, her grandmother seemed to approve of her, and Lydie was quick and hardworking. Rachel was imminently glad that she wasn’t one of Ada’s charges, although, at times, she wasn’t certain who was working for whom.
Rachel snatched up Bishop, who was stretched out in the hallway, hung her ski jacket in the hall closet, and stroked the big cat as she made her way to the office. “Ada said you wanted me,” she said to her cousin.
Mary Aaron glanced up, hastily shut down Facebook, and spun around in the high-backed office chair. “Babs called twice this morning. From the dress shop in State College.”
“I know where it is,” Rachel reminded her gently.
“Apparently, you were supposed to pick up your wedding gown?”
Rachel made a face. “Forgot.” Her inquiries into Daniel’s death were going nowhere. And she had so much to do before the wedding and honeymoon. She’d be away more than a week, and . . . Rachel rolled her eyes. Why had she agreed to go away with Evan next week? Wouldn’t it have been better to wait a few weeks or even a few months until this was settled with Moses and things had calmed down from the wedding? As much as she was looking forward to being Evan’s wife, she just wished all this fuss could be over with.
Mary Aaron stood up, and Rachel got a good look at her. Her outfits lately had been interesting when she’d been experimenting with English clothing, but this was a bit much. Her cousin was wearing a short plaid wool skirt, almost a kilt, with a big kilt pin, blue-and-yellow-striped tights, and a pink, fuzzy, oversized sweater with a cartoon snowman on it. The pièce de résistance was the high, fake-leather army boots, also pink, which had seen better days. “Have you been shopping at Second Chance again?” Rachel asked. “Are you planning on getting your ears pierced next? I saw some cute rhinestone cat earrings in the window this morning.”
“I’m not getting holes punched in my ears,” Mary Aaron responded tartly.
“Good, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about. But if you change your mind, I can always do it for you with a needle and a potato. It’s the way I pierced mine.”
Mary Aaron looked hesitant, which was difficult to do with the upswept ponytail on the left side of her head. Unconsciously, she began to worry the corner of her thumbnail with her teeth, something she only did when she was under stress. “Actually, Rae-Rae, there’s someone waiting in the little parlor.”
“Guests?” She tried to think if she was expecting anyone. And why had Mary Aaron put them in the private parlor? They rarely used that for their guests.
“Not guests, exactly. But I suppose you could say guests of a guest.”
Rachel put the cat down. “Why the mystery? Who is it?”
“Dr. Morris and his family.”
“Who?”
“Ssshh,” Mary Aaron cautioned. “Do you want them to hear you? It’s Mrs. Morris’s son and his family. They’ve come to see her.”
“Why, that’s wonderful.”
Mary Aaron shook her head. “It is except that Mrs. Morris isn’t down here. I think . . . that is . . . I thought you could talk to them . . . explain.”
“Explain what? Why isn’t Mrs. Morris here with them? Is she ill again?”
Mary Aaron tucked her hands behind her back.
“Maybe our minister was able to convince her to contact her son,” Rachel mused. “She must have called him. Oh, I’m so relieved.”
Mary Aaron shook her head. “Ne, she didn’t call her son. I did.”
Rachel stared at her. “You did?”
“I felt so bad because of what you said. That . . .” Her cousin lowered her voice to a whisper. “That she was dying and alone. So I tracked down her son and I called him.”
“How did you find him?”
Mary Aaron shrugged. “I Googled him. You can find anybody, especially a doctor. They’re both doctors. Did you know that? Bruce and his wife. They have a practice in Phoenix.”
Rachel couldn’t believe that Mary Aaron had the nerve to do what she hadn’t. “And you told him that his mother was dying?”
Rachel’s cousin shrugged. “Someone had to, didn’t they?”
Chapter 16
Rachel was momentarily stunned. This was out of character for her cousin; this was more her own MO. “I’m sure you only wanted to help, but . . .” She hesitated and then went on. “Mary Aaron, Mrs. Morris told me about her cancer in
