It was something she didn’t want to think about. Not until she was faced with the choice. “What kind of business?” she asked. Much better to keep on the current subject.
“We’ve started selling Mamm’s goat milk products in Leah’s store in town,” Hannah said.
“Gracie has them in her shop in front of the house, and Mamm has a few out here,” Leah added.
It was common in their community to have small stores in the front of their houses in which to sell homemade goods to the public—fresh vegetables and fruits in the summertime and canned goods, potholders, and other nonperishable items all year round.
“Sales drop in the winter,” Gracie went on. “So Leah set us up with a website.” She shook her head, but her smile remained in place.
Hannah laughed. “We had no idea people from all over would want to buy lotion and soaps made by a couple of Amish girls—”
“And one Mennonite,” Leah interjected.
“—from Mississippi,” Hannah finished.
“So you really need my help?” Tillie asked.
Hannah gave her sister a sympathetic look. “We really need your help.”
“But the Ordnung,” Tillie protested. Hadn’t they violated the rules enough?
“Pah,” Hannah said.
Tillie blinked back the tears that prickled at the back of her eyes. This was a happy moment, and yet all she seemed able to do these days was cry. She supposed everyone would blame it on the hormones, but Tillie herself knew the truth. She was simply very, very sad—torn between two lives. And now that she had managed to get herself in a family way, she belonged in neither of them.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, then stood up and raced from the room.
She heard them talking as she left, but she didn’t understand their words. Just their tone. Worry. Concern. Love.
Despite the cool temperatures that the nighttime brought, Tillie headed to the front door. She stopped on the porch, stunned and a bit embarrassed. She shouldn’t have run out on her family. She should have explained. They loved her, and they would understand that she was overwhelmed. But the deed was done. She would need to stay gone for a few minutes, at least to give time for the dust to settle on her departure.
She collapsed into the swing, rubbing her arms as the cold started to seep through the loose weave of her sweater. She couldn’t remain outside for long. Not without a jacket.
The screen door creaked open and Leah stood there, one of their mamm’s crocheted afghans in her arms. “You okay?” Leah asked. She stepped onto the porch as Tillie nodded. Behind her, Gracie and Hannah pulled on their coats before heading out after her.
Only three of them could fit on the swing. Leah and Hannah flanked Tillie while Gracie pulled up a chair and settled her girth into it. Her beautiful cousin rested a hand on her own rounded belly, and Tillie was filled with love and happiness for her. All Gracie had ever wanted was a family. Not only had she married a man with five children, she was due to have her own sometime after the new year, if the size of her belly was any indication.
Leah spread the afghan over the three of them while Gracie pulled her shawl a little closer around her shoulders.
How many nights had they sat out here just like this? Too many to count. Some with all four of them, then, later, after Hannah and Leah had gone, just Tillie and Gracie. She knew for a fact there weren’t many problems in life what couldn’t be solved on their front porch—her current state being one of them.
“So,” Tillie started before anyone else could find their words to ask her about her flight from the supper table. “You and Matthew Byler, huh?”
In the dim golden lamplight that filtered out from the front window, Tillie could see Gracie’s cheeks fill with color.
“Jah,” she said, “me and Matthew Byler.”
“Funniest story ever,” Leah added.
“No.” Gracie shook her head. “We’re not going to start—”
“So you remember Matthew’s wife, Beth? Well, she died,” Leah continued without waiting for Tillie’s answer. “That’s not the funny part. Anyway, Gracie goes over to Matthew’s to take him a pot of stew—”
“It was a casserole,” Gracie corrected.
“It matters,” Leah said with a scoff. “Anyway, she took him a casserole and then asked him to marry her.”
Tillie had been rocking the swing back and forth using the heels of her feet, but at this revelation she stopped dead. “You did that?”
If she wasn’t mistaken, Gracie’s color deepened until it was almost the same burgundy hue as her dress. “I was feeling a little desperate.”
Desperate or not, that was a very bold move for an Amish woman.
A moment of silence fell between them all before Gracie started up again. “It’s just that Matthew can be a bit stubborn,” she explained. “And he didn’t think he needed any help with the children. I knew that he did, but I also knew that the only way I would be able to truly help was as his wife.”
She didn’t need to say how much she wanted a family of her own and how hard it was to find a man in Pontotoc that they weren’t related to. It was a challenge they had all faced at one time or another.
“Well, I’m impressed.” Hannah used her feet to restart the swing while Tillie studied her cousin.
Gracie made tiny little folds in the fabric of her apron. She had seen what she had wanted, and she had gone after it. Bold; scary; commendable.
Tillie’d had that brashness once. It too had gotten her in the family way, but she didn’t have a home, a husband, and five little children to round out the one she carried. She hadn’t built the family that they had all been dreaming of since they were old enough to talk.
“Tillie.” Leah’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Is Melvin coming back?”
“No,” she quietly said. “I don’t think so.” She didn’t add that she hoped he would. This trip had
