Mary came to the top of the staircase, and Thomas stared up at her mutely. She met his gaze for one agonizing moment.
“Rue,” Mary called. “Come upstairs with me.”
Rue looked at Thomas.
“Go on,” Thomas said. “You go with Mammi. This is grown-up business.”
“Mammi?” Rachel said softly. She looked like the endearment stung a little—technically, she was Rue’s mammi, too. Rue walked slowly past Mamm, looking at her in open curiosity as she went by, then headed for the stairs where Mary stood impatiently. The old woman snapped her fingers.
“Rue. Now,” Mary said curtly, and Rue picked up her pace as she went up the stairs. When Rue disappeared onto the second floor, Thomas rubbed his hands over his face.
“Did you talk to the bishop yet?” he asked.
“I wanted to talk to you first,” she replied. “I’ll talk with him afterward.”
“You know that’s the wrong way to do it,” Thomas said. “If you want to come back, you’ve got to go to him first! You have to talk to the church leadership, confess your wrongdoing, ask to be rebaptized and to be admitted into the community again. This—this is just more flouting of the rules, Mamm!”
“And who taught you those rules?” she snapped. “I did! I raised you to be good Amish men, and I did a good job of it, might I add!”
“So you really want to be Amish again?” Thomas demanded. “After all of it...after you halfway convinced me that this life isn’t even what Gott wants of us... Now you think you were wrong?”
“I...” She paused, and then shook her head. “I see things differently now.”
They all fell silent and Thomas looked over at his brother. Noah’s hands were balled up into fists on the tabletop.
“Are you coming back, then?” Noah asked curtly.
“Do you want me to come back, son?” Rachel asked, turning toward her oldest boy.
Noah was silent. He’d never admit it—he was too angry—but Thomas couldn’t let this spiral down into anger and emotional punishment.
“Yah, we want you to come back,” Thomas interjected. “Of course we do.”
“Will you...give me a place to live when I do?” Rachel licked her lips, and Thomas could see that was a hard question for her to ask.
“This is Amos’s house,” Noah said curtly. “And Mary’s.”
“Mamm, even if I have to find a house of my own, you’ll have a place to live,” Thomas said.
Tears welled in her eyes. “I miss you both so much... You don’t know how much I’ve missed you. I didn’t think I could face an Amish life without your daet. He was the one who was most convinced about the theology and all that... But I’ve had my own Rumspringa, I suppose you could call it. I craved some freedom, to just be my own woman again. I was raised to have a career and an education. I missed theater—operas and plays, especially. I missed that life I used to have... As you know, the Amish life doesn’t really allow for all the things that had made me who I was before I got married.”
“But do you believe in the church’s teachings?” Noah asked dubiously.
“I do. I’ve gone back to the Bible and looked at the teachings all over again,” she said earnestly. “It was having Rue come back to the family that gave me a good mental shake. Tina died so unexpectedly, and I realized that we don’t always have the time we think we do.”
She wanted to help with Rue, and while he could never turn his own mamm away, he couldn’t be sure that a mammi who’d jumped the fence was the answer for his daughter, either. What he needed most desperately was a deeply devoted Amish wife, and to begin growing the family that would give Rue her roots.
Coming back... Would his mother really do it? Would she come back to the life she found so stifling? Because ten years ago, she’d left this life for the rest of her Englisher family that she’d missed just as desperately. She missed being a “modern woman” with cultured interests and other opportunities. Even if Mamm did come back in earnest, Thomas didn’t know how she’d ever find a balance.
Would Rue have any more success than her grandmother?
Chapter Ten
The next day was service Sunday. It was a more leisurely morning than usual. Samuel went out to tend to the horses and chickens, but the regular work would wait until Monday and the family would get a semblance of a break.
Patience helped Hannah clean up the kitchen after breakfast, and they put some salad fixings aside to bring along for their contribution to the light meal served after worship was done. Last night, Patience and Hannah had baked cinnamon buns, some tarts and oatmeal cookies, and this morning they packed them into tubs to carry with them.
Patience couldn’t help but think about Thomas, though. She’d waited to see if he’d ask for her to come back and help with Rue, but he hadn’t, and she didn’t dare go back. It wasn’t her place to insert herself into their family problems, but she was concerned all the same. Thomas had been through more than most men had, and she suspected that his mother’s visit was an emotional confusion.
News of Rachel Wiebe’s visit had already spread. Samuel saw her waiting for a cab at the end of Thomas’s drive, and while he hadn’t spoken to her, they had exchanged a silent look.
“Will the Wiebe boys tell the bishop that their mother was here, I wonder?” Hannah said, closing a plastic container. She’d been talking about it all morning.
“I don’t know,” Patience replied. “Do they need to?”
“She didn’t do anything bad enough to get excommunicated from the church, but she’s not exactly Amish anymore, either, is she? All after she was baptized.”
“Yah, there is that...” Patience sighed. “But we’re talking about a mamm and her kinner.”
“A mamm who certainly knew better.” Hannah didn’t look inclined to feel much pity. “There are
