Before she could carry out this new mission, she heard a loud bang coming from the end of the barn. She jumped, the noise as loud as a thunderclap. The side door. She must not have closed it all the way when she came in. The wind caught it again and slammed it against the frame.
Tillie jumped once more. She blew on her fingers and hurried toward the door. It would do no good to stay in the barn if she let all the cold air in. Of course, her side still hurt and her ankle throbbed, the one she had twisted on the rock. So hurrying wasn’t quite best the option for her. The door slammed twice more before she got to it. She reached out with a very cold hand to pull it closed when suddenly her fingers were caught in a vice grip.
“You!”
Tillie stared at her hand, then up into the angry face of Levi Yoder.
* * *
Levi couldn’t believe the sight before him. Tillie Gingerich in his barn on the worst night of the year. Weather-wise, anyway.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. To hear her, a stranger would think it was her barn.
“I think that’s my question to you.”
She pulled her hand from his grasp, and he reluctantly let her go. She was frozen through. He didn’t know how long she had been in his barn, but she had pulled his extra coat on over a dress that was darkly stained with water. The spots had a stiff look to them, as if they were almost frozen themselves. Her teeth chattered and her hair was damp. Her prayer kapp had crumpled to a mess of linen on the back of her head.
“How did you get here?” he asked. That was probably a better question.
“I walked.”
He couldn’t believe it. “You walked in this weather?”
“It wasn’t like this when I started out.”
“Without a coat?”
She waved away his question.
“Why are you here? Why did you come here?”
She pulled on the ends of his coat, her hands covered by the sleeves. He hoped it was warming. She had been so cold when he touched her.
“I didn’t come here on purpose. I got caught in the storm.”
“Again, why?”
She shook her head.
Fine. She didn’t want to answer. It wasn’t any skin off his nose if she stayed in his barn overnight. It wasn’t like she was going to harm the animals or steal his coat. Though at this point he figured she needed that worse than he did.
“I just want to stay here till dawn,” she said.
“There’s a blanket in the tack room,” he grumbled after a few moments of thought. The last person he wanted in his barn was Tillie Gingerich. The fact that he didn’t want anybody in his barn was irrelevant. She was by far the worst person to be there at all. She constantly reminded him of everything he had lost. She constantly reminded him that Christmas was just around the corner. Somehow just by looking into her hazel eyes, he remembered how alone he was.
But he couldn’t turn her out in the cold. He couldn’t do that to anyone. Even his dog was sleeping in the house. He turned to go back that way. He could feel her eyes on him as he approached the door.
Even his dog was sleeping in the house.
Can you really do it?
Could he let his pregnant dog sleep in the house and leave a pregnant woman out in the barn just because she reminded him of the things that he loved and lost?
His feet stopped at the door. He didn’t tell them to; they just did it on their own. One more step and he would have been out of the barn. But there he stood. He sucked in a deep breath. Let it out. Turned to face her. “You can sleep in the spare room,” he grunted. His voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. One of those cavemen he had heard the English talk about. It was gruff and coarse, more guttural than anything. But that was only because his throat was clogged with so many emotions.
If the last thing he wanted was Tillie Gingerich in his barn, then the very last thing he wanted was Tillie Gingerich in his house. But it seemed he had no choice in the matter.
“Come on.” He motioned for her to follow him and didn’t look back to see if she did.
He couldn’t. He didn’t want to be inhospitable. He didn’t want to be unchristian-like, but he wasn’t sure his heart could take it.
Oh, Lord, why are you testing me? What have I done? But even as he said that small little prayer, he knew he would have no reply. God just simply wasn’t answering him these days. It was as if he was leaving Levi to fend for himself, like a sink-or-swim kind of thing. Sink or swim in life’s tragedies.
Up the porch steps, across the wooden planks of the porch itself, into the front door, and there he stopped. He sensed rather than heard her behind him. Even with the ungainly belly she was carrying around, she seemed to glide wherever she went. Graceful, at least all the times he had seen her before. He sucked in a deep breath and turned to face her once again. “The spare bedroom is upstairs. First door on the right. I’ll get some sheets. Maybe something for you to wear.”
What was she going to wear? One of Mary’s dresses? It should have been an easy yes, but it wasn’t. How could he look at her in Mary’s dress? He hadn’t even been in Mary’s closet since she died.
Lord, lord, why are you testing me?
“Danki,” she murmured. Then she turned and started toward the staircase. Gone was the grace he
