She looked ready to dive right back into the English world. He knew how badly she wanted to stay Amish, but like her, he knew there was no way. It just wasn’t possible. Unless Melvin came back.
“Maybe,” was all she said.
And that meant this could very well be the last time he would ever talk to her, ever see her.
He wanted to peek in on Emmy, just one last time, but it was hard not to recognize that he didn’t have that right. Anyone should be able to look in on the baby, but his feelings weren’t so innocent. It was time he let it go.
“You take care of yourself, Tillie Gingerich.”
She gave him a sad smile as she walked him to the door.
“I’ll be seeing you, Levi Yoder.”
He loped down the porch steps even as he knew her last statement to him was nothing but a sweet lie.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Where’s Melvin?” Tillie asked a little while later. She had managed to keep everything together while Levi was there, but once he left, she went to her room on the pretense of feeding Emmy and allowed herself time to cry. Then she really did feed the baby as she pulled herself together. Melvin was back. He may have only come back because of Emmy, but he was back now, and everything had changed.
“He’s outside in your father’s workshop.”
Tillie met her mother’s steady gaze. Her father was what the English would call a workaholic, but even he would take Christmas Eve off. Normally this time of day he would be over with Jim and Anna visiting and making up for all the times he had been working instead. But if he was in the workshop now . . .
“I should go—” Tillie was on her feet before Mamm shook her head.
“Sit back down,” Mamm sternly said.
Reluctantly, Tillie returned to her seat at the table. Her mamm set a bowl of potatoes in front of her and handed her the peeler. There was a lot of work to do between now and supper.
“But I—” Tillie started to protest, though her voice was weak.
“What did you expect?” Mamm asked.
She was right. Wasn’t Mamm always right?
“I guess. Jah.” But she had never expected that she would be in the situation she was in right now. She never expected that she would have a baby without being married. She supposed she was lucky—or maybe Melvin was lucky—that Dat hadn’t talked to them both long before now.
But she had hoped that she and Melvin would have a little more time to talk to each other before he was subjected to her dat.
She picked up the peeler and started to work on the potatoes.
They hadn’t had any time to figure out what they were going to do. She hadn’t had a chance to ask him why he had come back, other than to see his daughter. He knew the rules of their community as well as she. If they were staying, they would have to be married.
There had been a time when she wouldn’t have thought twice about Melvin’s intentions toward her. She had known from the time that they were in school till now that she would one day be Melvin’s wife. That assurance had been shattered. He had changed while they were gone, and admittedly she had changed since she had been back. They needed a little time to get some of that straightened out before they had to deal with her parents. But it seemed that wasn’t the way it was going to pan out.
“Mammi Glick says she’s ready for another round of celery,” Libby said, coming into the kitchen with a tray of stuffed celery stalks.
It was a Gingerich tradition from way back. Tillie wasn’t even sure who had started it. But they always had stuffed celery. Stuffed with ham and cheese; pimento cheese; pineapple and cheese. The kids loved it, Mammi Glick was the official stuffer, and it made for smiles all around.
“Right there.” Mamm nodded to the next tray of celery just waiting to be filled.
Libby set down the tray she was carrying and picked up the next one. She started back toward the dawdihaus. “Was that Levi Yoder’s buggy I saw here a while ago?”
“Jah,” Tillie murmured.
Libby shot her a questioning look. “He’s not staying for—oh.” She stopped as if realizing what she was asking. “I guess we’ll see him tomorrow at church.”
“I suppose,” Mamm replied.
Libby nodded a bit awkwardly and made her way out to the dawdihaus.
“Levi’s a good man,” Mamm said.
Tillie nodded. Just not the man for her. “He is,” she managed to reply.
“It was kind of him to bring gifts for you and the baby.”
It was more than kind. And they both knew it.
“Ask me,” Tillie demanded.
“I have no call to question you about Levi Yoder.”
But Mamm wanted to know her feelings toward Levi. Well, that was something Tillie herself would like to be privy to, but the truth of the matter was she had no idea how she really felt about him. Her life had been nothing if not topsy-turvy over the last couple of weeks. She had thought that she might be growing feelings for Levi, but now that Melvin was back, did it even matter?
“Melvin’s here,” Tillie said as if that explained it all. Melvin was there. He had been her boyfriend for as many years as anyone could remember. They might have run off to the English world. They might have even had a baby together out of wedlock, they might face shunning and excommunication, but he was still Emmy’s father. And no matter how she felt about Levi Yoder, the only way she could stay in Pontotoc, in her Amish home, would be to marry Melvin. And that, as they say, was the long and the short of it.
* * *
When Melvin came into the house sometime later, Tillie couldn’t tell from his expression what had happened. He looked as he always did, a little dangerous and cavalier.
