“The bishop’s going to ask, you know,” Mamm said.
“I know.” The bishop could ask, but it wouldn’t change one thing. It wouldn’t change how she felt. It wouldn’t change how Melvin felt. It wouldn’t change one single thing.
And she would be forced to leave. Shunned, excommunicated.
“Two weeks till Christmas,” Mamm reminded her.
Tillie nodded. “Are you telling me for Melvin? Or the bishop?”
Mamm took her eyes from the road for a moment and settled them on Tillie’s face. Her mother’s gaze was like a soft caress. Kind and loving. “It’s just . . .” Mamm turned her attention back to the road. “It’s very complicated.”
You can say that again. “I’m sorry.” Her voice caught on a sob, hitched, and raised an octave. She coughed and cleared her throat to ease the tears back down.
“I know.” Mamm’s voice was gentle. Soothing. Understanding. It made her want to cry all the more. How had she messed up so badly in such a short period of time? And what could she ever do to make it right?
“What do you think he’ll do?” Tillie asked.
Mamm shrugged. It was a unique situation Tillie found herself in, to be sure. Any couple caught in a compromising position before they were married were made to wed immediately. The bride wasn’t allowed to wear her white apron and cape and there was shame on the family. But this was something much, much worse, and heaping insult onto injury was the fact that the father of her child was gone. People could say that he would change his mind. People could say that they would talk to him. But she didn’t want Melvin to stay with her out of obligation. There was enough of that going around as it was.
So what did she want?
She wanted to live Amish, but she wanted to have her baby with the peace of the English girls who got pregnant without a husband. And again she thought of Mary on the road to Bethlehem. It was never that simple.
“Here we are.” Mamm pulled on the reins and turned the buggy down the narrow drive. A large tree stood at the entrance. Tillie remembered coming here once before, when she was little. But the property had belonged to someone else then, she couldn’t remember who. One of her friends’ families maybe. Then they had moved up to Adamsville to be closer to Ethridge, like so many did. Then when Levi had married Mary, they had bought the place and set up farm.
Mamm pulled the buggy to a stop and hopped down. She hobbled her horse and nodded toward the box of goods sitting on the back seat of the carriage.
“Can you grab that box?” Then she shook her head. “No, I got it.”
Tillie sighed. “I’m pregnant, not crippled.”
Eunice shook her head. “You’re testy, prickly as a cactus,” Mamm said. “I didn’t want you to get it because I want you to get the sack.”
The cool wind slapped against Tillie’s heated cheeks. “I guess you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Matilda Sue, stop apologizing. We are a family, and we will get through this no matter what. Because that’s what families do. Jah?”
Tillie had to blink back tears once again. “Jah.”
A screen door slammed and they both turned toward the sharp sound. Levi Yoder stood on the porch in his shirtsleeves. With his hat covering his dark hair and his beard shadowing the lower half of his face, he looked a bit menacing standing there, unwelcoming, like a bear who’d had his hibernation disturbed. It was so very obvious that the man was grieving.
All the more reason to be neighborly, Mamm would say.
“Hello, Levi Yoder.” Mamm waved cheerfully at him.
He raised one hand in a return salute. “Eunice Gingerich, what brings you here?”
“My daughter and I came out to make sure that you’re set for Christmas.”
He nodded but didn’t move from his place in front of the door. It was almost as if he was blocking them from getting any closer to his house. “I am. Danki.”
Mamm was not to be deterred. “Well, now you’ll be extra ready.” She grabbed the box from the back of the buggy and started toward Levi Yoder.
* * *
Levi wasn’t sure whether to help the ladies in order to expedite their trip or to go inside, lock the door, and hope they just went away.
Jah, he wanted to be left alone. Jah, his sister came out on a regular basis and aggravated him beyond belief. Jah, the rest of the women in the district had looked after him as well. And for that he was truly grateful. But what did a man have to do to be left alone for a couple of hours around here?
But he had lived in Pontotoc his entire life, and he knew the force that was Eunice Gingerich. If she set her mind to help someone, she did it. It seemed as if today, she had set her sights on him.
The worst bother of the company? It was Tillie Gingerich.
Tillie and the baby she carried.
He expelled a sigh that even to his own ears sounded a little more like a growl and made his way down the porch steps. He met her halfway between the buggy and the house. “Let me take that.”
She relinquished the box to him without argument. Wonderful smells emanated from it. More food. Perhaps the one thing he didn’t need. He had half a mind to take it down to the bridge under the freeway at the edge of town and leave it for some of the homeless people to have. He hated
