“You can’t keep running away, Levi. The people here care about you.”
He knew that. They cared, and some cared almost too much. It was him, that was the problem. He got upset with people who didn’t talk about Mary. He got upset if he thought they talked about Mary too much. He got upset when people told him that grieving took time, and he got upset when people told him that soon it would be time to move on. That it would be time for him to find his way. And he couldn’t do it in the shadow of conflicting advice, conflicting looks, and his own conflicting thoughts.
Levi sighed. And Mims smiled. She knew she had him.
“Let me get you a cup of coffee,” she said. She reached out a hand to him.
Levi started toward her. “One cup of coffee,” he said.
“And a plate of food,” she added.
“One cup of coffee, one serving of cup cheese with pretzels. Then I’m out of here.”
Mims slipped her arm through his. “One cup of coffee, one peanut butter sandwich with cup cheese, and a slice of cherry pie.”
“Cherry pie?” No one brought cherry pie to church; only snitz pie.
“At Mamm’s.” She smiled and patted his arm. “You can’t hide out forever.”
Great, he thought. Except that hiding out was exactly what he wanted to do.
Chapter Six
Tillie stood in the yard, her coat wrapped as tightly around her as she could make it. She crossed her arms over her middle, like that hid anything. But at least it made her feel a little better, as crazy as that thought was.
“What are you doing way over here?”
Hannah.
Tillie turned to her sister. “Just waiting.”
“If you’ve got to be outside and not in the barn, you should at least get close to one of the heaters.”
The day was sunny, bright, and clear, but there was a hard chill in the air. A few brave souls had spilled out into the yard, but most of them were collected around the gas heaters on the hardpacked drive. Huddling around a heater meant huddling around with people, and Tillie just wasn’t up for that. Not yet. And she had no idea when she would feel differently.
Hannah scooted in close to her sister. “Did you get something to eat?”
Tillie nodded. She had eaten a little. And only to say that she ate something. But being among all the friends, family, and church members with all their watching eyes took her appetite away. Maybe when she got home . . .
“Not much changes here,” Tillie mused.
Hannah glanced around the yard, then back to Tillie. “Nope. Not much at all.”
“Except for you and Aaron.”
Hannah gave a knowing smile and small shrug. “I guess.”
It was a big change. Hannah had left the Amish when she was eighteen or twenty—Tillie couldn’t remember—and she hadn’t come back until just a couple of years ago, bringing with her an English son, Brandon. As if that wasn’t enough shock for the community, Aaron discovered that he was Brandon’s father and not Mitch, Hannah’s English husband. Mitch had died, leaving Hannah and Brandon in serious debt and without any means to pay it off. And then she had been faced with an angry Aaron who had missed the last fifteen years of his son’s life. But it all worked out for the best, Tillie supposed. Even with anger and hurt feelings, they managed to pull themselves together and become a family. Aaron’s wife Lizzie had gone to her reward a year or so before, leaving behind three girls and a boy who needed a mother as much as Hannah needed a reason to come back home.
“And Leah and Jamie.” Hannah smiled.
“Don’t forget Peter,” Tillie added. She resisted the urge to cup her belly. It was an instinctive motion meant to protect, but all it would do in the yard full of all these people—friends, churchgoers, and family—was point out that her belly was huge, that she had sinned, that she was ashamed, and all the other things that she didn’t want to attract attention to.
“So is this where the party is?” Gracie waddled up.
Tillie had never seen her cousin happier. In her arms she carried baby Grace, her youngest child. Tillie had already heard the story of how Grace had been increasingly unhappy until Gracie came and took over as her mother. Though she didn’t know all the tragic events—or rather, all the details of the tragic events—surrounding Matthew’s wife’s death, she had heard enough to know that it was indeed a tragedy. Yet it was one thing that no one seemed to discuss. Kind of like Tillie and the baby she carried now.
“We’re talking about how not much changes here.”
Gracie looked around. “I don’t know about that. I think a lot of things have changed.”
Hannah shrugged. “I guess. But it seems there are some things that don’t ever change.” She nodded her head toward Nancy B, who had dragged the minister, Strawberry Dan, away from the warmth of the heater he had been standing by and over to a private spot just south of the barn. Nancy B had never married; never even pretended she wanted to. And Strawberry Dan felt that all women needed to be married, that all family needed to be made. It was something he preached about often and something that Nancy B felt just as passionate about, though on the opposite side.
Tillie couldn’t help herself; she chuckled at the pair. It was a common sight to see them talking after church. Nancy B usually had something to say about the sermon, and not always something complimentary. It was true what they said when it came to Nancy B—being selected a church leader was just as much of a curse as a blessing. Or at least it had been for Strawberry Dan.
“And then Levi Yoder,” Hannah said with a sad shake of her head.
Levi Yoder. She’d seen him in church.
