Gott, this isn’t a good sign if I can’t even worship because I’m thinking about him. He isn’t for me! I know that. Help me to stop feeling this...
With that kiss, things had changed between them. For her, she felt even more drawn to the man, and his mother’s arrival had made that attraction more dangerous. Thomas was a man without the same deep roots that she had—his mamm had jumped the fence, and now Rachel was back in time to help with an Englisher child. Nothing here was easy or straightforward, and maybe that was Gott’s way of showing her that Thomas wasn’t for her. She might know it logically, but sometimes Gott had to “bapp her over the head with it,” as her mamm would say. So Patience had to admit that Thomas was right in keeping his distance.
Sitting on the bench, her back straight and her thoughts refusing to settle, Patience felt tears welling up inside her. Sunday service wasn’t supposed to be about Thomas Wiebe, and she wouldn’t let it become that, either. She fixed her mind onto the preacher’s words, and tried to find the peace that normally came with worship.
The next day, Patience had Samuel Kauffman give her a ride to the schoolhouse. She hadn’t heard from Thomas after service, and all she could assume was that he had things under control. He was Rue’s father, after all. He was the one raising the little girl, and it wasn’t like there weren’t three men in that house to pick up the slack when Mary wasn’t able to keep up. Among Thomas, Noah and Amos, they’d figure things out, she was sure.
That was what she told herself, at least. His absence stung, even if she didn’t have a right to feel the rejection. They’d talked this over—more than friendship wasn’t going to work, so she had no right to expect him to come by just to see her.
The schoolhouse was located on the corner of two rural roads. A field of young wheat rippled across the road from the school, and it was flanked by farmers’ fields on either side. Outside, there was some play equipment and some hitching posts in the parking lot. The schoolhouse itself was a squat, white building with a small bell tower on top.
Patience let herself inside with the key she’d been given when she first arrived, and Samuel helped her to unload the school supplies that the community had provided for her.
“Would you like me to stay and help at all?” Samuel asked. “It looks like a lot of work.”
“Oh, you’re too kind, Samuel,” Patience said. “But I’ll be fine. Thank you for the offer. I’d rather just putter about on my own and figure out how I want my classroom. It might take me some time to figure out.”
Samuel gave her a nod. “No problem. If you need anything, just ring the bell. We can hear it from our place.”
The schoolhouse was walking distance—a long walk, mind, but it was doable. When Samuel left, Patience set to work with some cloths and cleaning supplies, scrubbing the room from top to bottom.
Back in Beaufort, she and her mamm had shopped for some classroom decorations—paper birthday balloons for each student’s birthday, some hangable signs with multiplication tables, some math equations, some sight words for new readers that they had picked up at the dollar store... She would be teaching everything from the first grade through to the eighth, and while she had books to show her what information needed to be covered for each grade, it was daunting, to say the least.
Patience wiped down the last windowsill, cleansing away dust and a few dead flies, leaving the entire room smelling of Pine-Sol and possibilities. Just as she wiped off the last windowsill, there was a knock at the front door, and she startled. She wasn’t expecting anyone.
Patience went to the door and pulled it open, and she couldn’t help but smile when she saw Thomas standing there with Rue at his side. Rue had her hands folded in front of her and an excited smile on her face.
“Hello, Rue!” Patience said, then she looked up at Thomas. “Hi, Thomas...”
A smile tickled the corners of his lips. “We wanted to see if you needed help.”
So he’d come to see her after all, and she felt a sudden rush of relief that whatever they’d shared wasn’t completely changed and forgotten. But then another possibility occurred to her—this was Monday, after all. Was he here for a favor?
“Do you need me to watch her while you work?” she asked.
“No, I took the day off,” Thomas replied. “With Rue settling in still, Amos and Noah said they could handle things on their own for today.”
“I would have offered to watch her,” Patience said. “I did agree to help you out. It’s just... I thought you...were finished with me.”
“Finished—” Thomas swallowed. “No, not at all. I just—”
They stared at each other, without the words to capture it all, then Rue broke the moment by brushing past Patience and heading toward one of the boxes of supplies that sat on a desk. She stood up onto her tiptoes to look inside.
“Rue, do you want to play with some of that modeling dough?” Patience asked. “You can take it to one of the desks, if you want to.”
Rue liked this idea, and she grabbed a pot of red dough and went to a desk on the far side of the room next to the teacher’s desk.
“Daddy, I’m in school!” Rue announced.
Thomas smiled in his daughter’s direction, then turned his gaze back to Patience. “I didn’t mean to seem like I was pushing you off. It’s just been complicated lately, and I’m trying not to take advantage of our friendship here. I’m sure there are other men you’d like to meet.”
“Not really,” she admitted.
“Fine, then other friends you’d
