She shrugged. What did harvesting have to do with anything? There were plenty of farms around here—plenty of fields so fertile you could accidentally sneeze a seed into them and it would grow—but she had no plans to work in them.
Mark slid his phone from his pocket and glanced at it. “It’s five o’clock. I gotta get these kids out of here. But think about what I said.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Churchy people thought they had all the answers, didn’t they? “I don’t understand.”
“Pray about it.” He grinned, his eyes twinkling. “See what happens.”
He turned and cupped his hands around his mouth. “You don’t have to go home . . .”
As the students shouted back the expected reply, Rae mulled over Mark’s suggestion. He’d already encouraged her to pray about whether she should look into becoming a social worker or counselor or something, but she hadn’t done it. What was the point when law was already in her future? But now he wanted her to pray about understanding what the Bible said. As if prayer were the solution for every problem.
“God’s got big plans for you.”
Papa Tom’s words popped into her head and sank like teeth into her brain. If God really did have big plans for her, how would she know what they were? “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” That sounded like something Papa Tom would say.
As she waited for David to say good-bye to his students so they could walk out together, she stared at her phone. A goofy picture of her and Kylee making fish faces stared back. If she mentioned her fight with Kylee to Mark, would he say to pray about that, as well?
She studied the photo, smiling wistfully to herself at Kylee’s wild, hot pink hair and ridiculous amounts of facial jewelry. Her teal-blue leather jacket from the Goodwill. Her sharp edges that kept most people from seeing the softness of her heart.
Rae swallowed hard. How could she have believed . . . ?
She had no idea what praying about the situation with Kylee might accomplish. Or the situation with her parents, for that matter. But it couldn’t make things any worse.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Cinnamon. How could they be out of cinnamon? Gerrit slammed cupboard doors and jerked open drawers, muttering to himself. Evi and Noah were coming in two days, and how was he supposed to bake a Dutch apple pie with no cinnamon?
It had been Hannie’s idea to make a list of everything he needed for the party. He’d scoffed at first. How hard could it be to go to the grocery store if he needed to? But then he’d had a nightmare about a gallon of milk being so curdled it turned into cheese, and he changed his mind about the list.
Everything else seemed to be in order. He had the ribs. The pasta. The ingredients for the sauce. Food for the other meals besides the big party. He had vanilla ice cream to go with the pie and had even bought a half gallon of almond milk, though he still wasn’t sure how it was possible to milk an almond. Almonds don’t have nipples.
But there was no cinnamon to be found.
Daisy perked up when he strode to the back door and grabbed his keys. He held open the door. “Hurry up.”
The drive to Olsen’s Meat & Market was deafening as doubts and questions squabbled in Gerrit’s head. Why had he agreed to let Travis come to the party? What if he forgot something else important? Evi wasn’t going to be impressed by his efforts. She would just hate him more for trying. Who did he think he was, anyway?
By the time he pulled up to the market, his knuckles were white from gripping the wheel. He unclenched his fingers and gave Daisy a pointed look. “Stay.”
She frowned.
“I’ll be back in five minutes.”
It was busy in the market for a Thursday afternoon. He kept his head down. He didn’t know many people in town anymore unless they were old fogies like him, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
He’d become familiar with the store since taking over dinner duty and found the cinnamon easily. Though the price was high, he’d have to drive to the Walmart over in Riverton for a better deal, and that wasn’t going to happen. He grabbed the plastic container and headed for the checkout.
Oh, look at that. A box of cream cheese Danishes on sale for $2.99. He’d better grab one of those. The kids might like them for breakfast on Sunday. He could make scrambled eggs to go with it. Did he have enough eggs? Better grab another dozen just in case.
A young man in a blue apron saw him precariously balancing the items in his arms. “Would you like a cart, sir?”
Gerrit huffed. If he wanted a cart, he would have a cart. He grunted and continued on. Butter was on sale? He must’ve missed it in the weekly ads. Butter was never on sale. He should stock up.
Another man in a blue apron stood in his path. “Can I get you a cart, sir?”
Gerrit scowled and brushed by him. “No.”
He eyeballed the lines at each of the three open checkout lanes and chose the middle one. He liked to pretend he was always looking for the shortest line, but really the middle checkout lane was the one with the drink cooler. A 20-ounce Pepsi for $1.89. Nothing could beat that.
A hunched-over woman who must’ve been a hundred years old carefully removed five apples one by one from her basket onto the grocery belt. Gerrit shifted on his feet, feeling the weight and awkwardness of his armload. Condensation was making the butter slippery,
