“I don’t know,” Hannah said.
Leah shot their sister a look that could melt wax, then she turned back to Tillie. “You know.”
They all knew. She would have to leave. She would have to go back to the English world. She didn’t have to return to Melvin, but she couldn’t stay there.
“You just need to sit down with the bishop and work through this. Maybe he can help. There is a solution. There is an answer.”
She knew that, though she dreaded speaking with the bishop more than anything else she could think of. But she knew as well as her sisters that without that conversation, she would have no peace. She supposed she should settle that as quick as she possibly could. But knowing something and being able to do it were two very different things.
Hannah grabbed Tillie’s hand in her own. Leah laid hers on top of theirs.
“Just promise me one thing,” Hannah said.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Leah interjected.
“Hasty,” Hannah corrected her impetuous twin. “Don’t do anything hasty. There’s always an answer.”
“Have you prayed about it?” Leah asked.
Tillie shot her a look. “No, I hadn’t thought about that.”
Leah laughed and pinched the side of Tillie’s face in typical sisterly fashion. “You’re cheeky. I like that.”
“He hasn’t answered.”
“Melvin?” Hannah asked.
Tillie shook her head. “God.”
“Well, it is Christmastime. He’s probably busy,” Leah quipped.
“Give it time,” Hannah said.
There was the word again. Everything needed time. She just wasn’t sure how much of that she had.
“Gift time!” someone called from the back door.
“We better go back in,” Hannah said. She and Leah turned toward the house.
Tillie waved them away. “Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”
The sisters exchanged a look. Tillie knew they were both reluctant to leave her behind.
“Go on,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You got five,” Hannah said. “Then we’re coming after you.”
She just needed a breath of air. She had forgotten about all the differences between the English world and the Amish world. There were so many things that were so hard to adjust to when going from one to the other. All the things a person needed in the English world—electricity, water, money for gas. Food was more expensive. And everything seemed to be more spread out. Even a couple of English parties that Melvin had dragged her to weren’t as busy and noisy as one Amish wedding. She just needed a little more space. But she knew that if she took too long, her sisters would indeed come back for her.
Most everyone from outside had gone into the house. She was grateful for the added privacy, and yet at the same time she felt strangely alone. She rubbed a hand over her belly, something she didn’t allow herself to do often when she was out like she was right then. But there wasn’t anybody around to see her.
“We’ll get through this, baby,” she murmured. Some people would think she had lost her mind, talking to a baby that hadn’t even been born yet, but she couldn’t help it. She almost felt a stronger kinship with this child than she did her own sisters. Hannah and Leah had been through their own trials, but not the same as Tillie’s. This was something she and her baby were going through together. And even though the child wasn’t born and didn’t know, one day she would. Or he. Though Tillie was secretly beginning to think that the baby was a girl. And that made it all the more important for her to be among the Amish. The English world was just too rough on girls. Everything seemed to be a struggle and a fight. She knew people who thought the Amish way of life was confining. But she considered it to be delineated. She thought that was the right word. Maybe outlined. She knew what she was supposed to do, where she was supposed to be. She knew how she was supposed to act, she knew what she was supposed to wear. She knew what her job was. Always. She should be a wife and a mother, and there was no need to be anything more. What was so wrong with that?
Nothing, as far as she could see.
She rubbed her belly again, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She looked up to find blue eyes watching her. The blue eyes that belonged to Levi Yoder. He studied her for a moment. She didn’t breathe. Just stood there, chin lifted, one hand around her middle. She hated that she’d been caught acknowledging her pregnancy by a man, but it was done now.
I’m sorry sprang to her lips, but she bit the words back. What did she have to apologize for? She had thought she was alone. Why wasn’t he inside with everyone else?
He stared at her for what seemed to be an eternity. Then he turned and made his way in through the side door of the house.
Tillie almost wilted on the spot. She wanted to go home, avoid any more of the embarrassment that she faced. But she knew that if she left now, her sisters would worry about her, and she loved them enough not to want to cause them unnecessary concern. It was just the look in Levi Yoder’s eyes—almost a resentment. As if he had been asking God why. Why was his baby gone when her baby was still growing? It wasn’t fair; she knew it as well as he. But how many times in the English world had she heard of this same unfairness? Of couples who would give a baby a wonderful home with two loving parents but couldn’t have one of their own while a drug addict on the street gave birth to one and left it for someone else to raise. That was one thing her time in
