Patience turned away from Thomas and Mammi, who continued to talk together, their voices low. She took another bite of the buttery, sweet cinnamon bun. She should have told Ruben the truth when he proposed—told him that she could not have any children of her own—because marrying a man who needed a mamm for his children was the perfect solution, if that man could be happy with no more babies. If she’d told Ruben the truth about the surgery to remove the tumors and how it left her infertile, would he have still married her? Patience hadn’t been sure, and when faced with the older man’s hopeful gaze, the words had died on her tongue.
Patience would never be a mamm to her own children. She’d never be pregnant or have babies. And she’d wanted nothing besides a family of her own since she was a girl. So she was grieving all that she was losing, too, and she hadn’t had the strength to walk Ruben through it all. That surgery to remove the tumors might have saved her life, but it had ended any chance she had at living the life she longed for.
But work helped her not to think too much about the things she could not change, and teaching was supposed to provide that distraction for her. Until the teaching started, she could distract herself with this little Englisher child—there would be work enough to go around.
“Tomorrow, if you could find me some fabric, I could start making a dress or two for Rue,” Patience said, turning back.
“Our carpentry shop is right next door to the fabric store,” Thomas said. “I’ll bring you with us to work in the morning, and you can choose whatever you need. Then I’ll drive you both back.”
“Thank you. That would work well.” She glanced back at the men at the table, the old woman seated next to Rue, already coaxing a few smiles out of her. “Unless you need me for anything more, I could let you and your family have some privacy.”
Sewing some little dresses would not be difficult, and it would be good for the girl to wear some looser, more comfortable clothing. And it would also be good for Patience to keep her fingers busy. Work made the hours pass by and brought meaning to the daylight hours.
It was the evening that she dreaded, when the work was done and she crawled alone into her bed at night. It was then that she faced all the things she longed for but would never have.
Like children of her own.
Chapter Two
Thomas stepped outside, holding the screen door open as Patience passed through. He pulled it shut behind him, giving a thin screen between him and the others—it was something. Closing the door outright wouldn’t have been appropriate. They were both single, after all.
Thomas rubbed his hands down the sides of his pants, still feeling a little uncomfortable around this woman. The sun was sinking below the horizon, washing her complexion in a rosy pink, and Thomas did his best not to act like it mattered to him. He wasn’t some young man looking to take a girl home from singing—he was a daet now. And a mildly confused daet, at that.
Thomas glanced over his shoulder toward the back yard; a white chicken coop sat next to the fence. The chickens had all gone back into it for the night, the cock standing outside, surveying the bare dirt surrounding the structure like a guard. The rooster crowed hoarsely.
“If you could come back in the morning, that would be really helpful,” he said.
“I’ll see you in the morning, then,” Patience said, and as she looked up at him, he realized that her blue eyes were fringed with dark lashes. An odd detail to notice, but one that he liked.
“Yah. I’ll see you then,” he said with a quick nod. “Thank you. I appreciate you helping us.”
She shrugged. “We help where we can.”
“I’d like to pay you back somehow—”
“That isn’t necessary,” she said. “I was here, and I was able. That’s enough.”
And maybe she was right. The Amish helped each other in times of need—it was what bound them together. But she was new here, and she already had a classroom waiting for her. To take this preparatory time and use it with his daughter was a sacrifice that he appreciated.
“I’m a carpenter,” he said hesitantly. “I could help you, too. You should come by my shop. Maybe there is a piece of furniture, or—”
“I’d have nowhere to put it,” she said. “I’m a single woman teaching school. I have no home of my own.”
“Not yet,” he said with a wry smile. Did she have no idea how lovely she was? There would be men lining up in Redemption for a chance with her. And perhaps that was why she came to a new community—for new marriage options. “When you marry, you can count on me to make you a cabinet.”
“You’re very kind.” Her expression saddened and she dropped her gaze. Of course—he’d already forgotten about that man who had proposed... Maybe she’d loved him, and her reasons for turning him down had gone deeper.
“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I’d forgotten about...the proposal.”
“Life moves on,” she said.
“Why did you say no?” he asked. “If I can ask that.”
“Because I wouldn’t have made him happy,” she said, shrugging.
“He must have disagreed with that,” Thomas said. She wasn’t seeing herself through a man’s eyes, obviously.
“He didn’t know everything,” she said. “And I know myself better. I wouldn’t have been the wife he wanted.”
Patience knew her mind, and she’d been willing to not only turn down an offer, but move to a different community. Thomas could only respect that she knew what she was talking about. Not every woman had such high character. Uncle Amos’s wife ran away after less than a year of marriage, dooming Amos to a
