Not caring if she was alone still or not, Tillie rubbed another hand across her belly.
“It’s okay, little girl. We’ll find our way.” She wasn’t sure how, but she would make it right.
* * *
“Are you ready to go?” Mims asked.
I thought you’d never ask.
“Jah,” Levi said instead. It’d been a trying afternoon. Aside from the fact that he simply wanted to go home to peace and solitude, it had been an afternoon of celebration that he didn’t feel, talk of the weather that he was starting to get tired of, and heart-wrenching glimpses of Tillie Gingerich.
As he and Mims made their way to their buggy, she chatted in her typical Mims way. The color of the dresses, the desserts offered, the recipe for chicken and filling. He understood the need for tradition, but sometimes it could be a little overdone. Having the same food at every wedding only led to talk of recipes and who took whose and other rivalries that sprang up when people lived so closely together. But all he could think about was Tillie. He must’ve seen her a dozen times. Alone, together with her sisters. He could hardly stand to look at her. The sight of her hurt his eyes. Not because she was ugly or even not beautiful. She was . . . beautiful. She seemed hesitant and confident at the same time, unsure and yet determined. It was like a magnet drawing him in, but he could hardly stand it when his gaze fell upon her.
For even as much as she drew him in, she scared him. She was the embodiment of everything he had lost. And each glimpse of her reminded him of that loss. Of the things he’d once had, then an unmerciful God took away. A God he was struggling with daily. He hated those thoughts. He didn’t want them. Day by day he was losing his faith, inch by slow inch, and he couldn’t seem to stop. Even though he was trying, and he was praying.
“Are you even listening to me?” Mims asked.
Levi swung up into the carriage next to his sister. He took up the reins before answering. “Jah. Blue dresses. Chicken and filling.”
Mims harrumphed.
He knew what she was thinking. He would have to live again eventually. Eventually, but maybe just not right now. Right now, he was struggling. He was praying. Even when he wasn’t sure he could believe, he still prayed. Then his mind started to wander and he lost his focus. The thing that bothered him the most was once that happened his mind was filled with Tillie Gingerich. And that wasn’t helping at all.
Chapter Ten
“And you do this every Wednesday?” Tillie looked around her mother’s dining room. The table itself was covered with mixing bowls, little brown bottles of essential oils, and plastic bottles waiting for product. The sideboard had stacks of labels that Leah had printed out on her computer.
“Tuesday,” Gracie corrected with a smile.
“Right,” Leah said. “It’s only Wednesday this week because we went to the wedding yesterday.”
“So yes,” Hannah said. “We do this every week.”
Tillie couldn’t believe the number of lotion bottles, cakes of soaps, and other skin care products her sisters and cousin created each week. It was a booming business.
“I still think we need a few more of the Christmas scents,” Leah said. She picked up two of the small bottles of oil and examined them. “Especially cranberry vanilla and honey cinnamon. People will use those even after Christmas.”
“You’re right, of course,” Hannah said. “But we still have to get the rest of these orders filled before we can make bottles to just put up for sale.”
When they held cousins’ day, Gracie’s children went over to play with Anna and Jim’s for the afternoon. Baby Grace, who had become accustomed to more people since having Gracie in her life, went to stay with Mammi Glick in the dawdihaus. Brandon took care of the shop in town, allowing Leah to have a day off, and Hannah’s kids were in school. The only limitation was that she needed to be home soon after them in order to make sure Essie and Laura Kate didn’t somehow start a revolution.
“Just tell me what I need to do,” Tillie said. “I want to help, but I’m a little lost.” And she couldn’t help thinking she wouldn’t have been lost had she been here the whole time. Had she never left. She had talked over the idea of leaving the Amish with her sisters, and they had told her that it was a lot harder than most thought and that she would do well to stay right where she was.
What was that saying? Hindsight is twenty-twenty. She supposed it was, but to want to go back to before that time would mean she wouldn’t have the baby she carried. She wasn’t sure she would be okay with that. It might be that the pregnancy was causing her a great deal of grief at the present time, but she would not and could not call her baby a mistake. She would much rather think of it as a miracle. Maybe not a Christmas miracle. But still a miracle. Though it might be a miracle if she got through this without completely losing her mind.
“We sort of do an assembly line. So if you’ll get down on the end and make sure the labels go on the right product and look nice, that would be a great help,” Hannah said.
To Tillie it seemed like the least important job of all, but if they did indeed have as many orders as they talked about, she supposed they didn’t have time to teach her all about the business.
And what would be the point if she was going to leave again anyway?
She wanted to stay past Christmas and on into the future, but she wasn’t kidding herself. She knew that it would be hard. Leaving and
