Amanda Weds a Good Man (28 page)

“So it's gut that you've come to me with your concerns,” he replied. “We should make such major decisions together, ain't so?”

Abby smiled. Why had she thought this would be such a difficult conversation? “I suspect Sam will fire me if I don't quit working at the store of my own free will,” she mused aloud. “But it wouldn't be that hard to do my sewing from home. . . .”

“Rosemary bakes pies in her kitchen for Lois Yutzy, after all,” James remarked, “and I don't see Matt or Katie suffering for it. Your Stitch in Time business is just one more way you connect with folks—and
help
them, Abby,” he insisted. “And that's important to you.”

“Jah, you said that just right. It's never been so much for the money as for the satisfaction of doing what I love.”

James's smile teased at Abby, yet it was a sure sign of how much he respected her, too. “Watching Wyman and Amanda deal with this very same matter has taught me a few things,” he said lightly. “I'd be foolish to ignore your needs, Abby, just for the sake of being a husband who ruled his roost.”

And didn't that clarify this whole matter? A satisfying marriage was more likely when both partners could express their needs and exert some control—and this wise, patient man was allowing her to do that. “You make a gut mirror, James,” she said softly. “When I stand before you, I see myself more clearly.”

“And when I stand before you, Abby, I see the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world,” he replied in a dreamlike voice. “I thank my lucky stars—and God—that you'll soon be mine. And then, honey-girl,” he added with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “there will be no end to the kissing and the caressing and the loving.
Because I said so!
”

James blew her a kiss as he walked toward the door. “Meanwhile, I'm back to work. The fellows must wonder if I've eloped during my afternoon break.”

As the bell jingled, Abby laughed. James had just told her in no uncertain terms how their marriage was going to be. And now, November nineteenth couldn't come soon enough.

S
aturday morning, Amanda was on pins and needles as Wyman kissed her good-bye and left for Clearwater. “Remember,” he whispered. “You're keeping all of this business about our move to Bloomingdale under your kapp. Maybe tonight at supper I'll have an announcement.”

Yesterday Amos Coblentz had presented the bid for repairing the Brubaker house, and her husband had passed it along to Ray and Trevor. And while Wyman had hardly slept for his excitement, Amanda had lain awake for a different reason.

“Sixty-five thousand dollars?” she had murmured over and over. “What if the Fishers won't want the farm, with that extra expense tacked on? And what if other buyers won't consider the property, either, unless we first make the repairs? And how will we come up with the money to—”

Wyman had shushed her with gentle kisses. “Have faith, Amanda. I have a gut feeling about this whole transaction,” he'd murmured. “When the bank's assessor told me the going rate for that eighty-acre tract was six thousand per acre, my eyeballs nearly fell from their sockets. So when I told Ray and Trevor I'd sell it to them for forty-five hundred an acre—three hundred sixty thousand dollars instead of the four hundred eighty thousand it's worth—that made the house repairs seem pretty reasonable.”

Amanda's brain was still swimming with such incredible figures. It boggled her mind, what farmland was selling for these days—but she set aside such calculations. No matter what the Fishers decided, Wyman had made up his mind. They would be living here at her farm permanently—because it made her happy. And
that
amazed her more than any of his other decisions.

He was such a good man, her husband. Wyman had changed lately: he seemed freer, more serene, as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders when he'd decided to leave the Clearwater district. And wasn't that worth more than any amount of money?

Amanda continued kneading the bread she was making for tomorrow's dinner with the Lambrights and the Grabers. Across the kitchen Lizzie and Vera raced to see who could fill her baking sheet with spoonfuls of oatmeal cookie dough first. The three youngest girls were cutting out sugar cookies under Jemima's watchful eye, while Eddie was painting the front room. Jerome, Pete, and Simon were assisting one of the mares with birthing her mule foal. Everyone had a task, and all were working together today . . . one big happy family.

Such a blessing that was.

“Mamm! Mamm, there's a big ole truck comin' up the lane!” Simon's voice rang out in the yard. “Come and see!”

Cora and Dora ran to the door, floury hands and all, followed by a toddling Alice Ann. As Amanda wiped her hands, she peered out the window, past the broadfall trousers that flapped on the clothesline. “That fellow must surely be lost,” she murmured. She slipped into her shawl and stepped out to the porch.

Up the lane trundled a delivery truck, and as Simon ran out to greet it Wags circled the boy, barking loudly. Amanda strode into the yard, hoping to redirect the driver before he got all the way up to the house. “What can I do for you?” she called out as the driver's window lowered. “You must've turned in at the wrong farm.”

The fellow replied, “If your name's Amanda Brubaker, we're right where we're supposed to be.”

“Jah, that's me, but—” What was going on here?

The driver pulled forward until he was closer to the house, then shut off his engine. As he and another fellow hopped out of the cab, he waved toward the barn. “You guys are just in time to help us unload, if you care to,” he hollered to Jerome and Pete. “Your backs are a lot younger than ours.”

Then he held out a square box with a plastic screen that displayed some writing. “If you'll just sign your name here, Mrs. Brubaker—”

“But I have no idea— What are you bringing us?” she asked in a flustered voice.

“Says here we've got an oak bedroom set, a potter's wheel, and a kiln,” he replied as he made the lines of tiny print move up and down on the screen.

Amanda gasped. “But I didn't order— Who could have—”

“You related to a Wyman Brubaker?” the driver asked. “His name's here at the top of the order. So if you'll sign off, we can get your stuff unloaded and be out of your hair.”

“It's okay, Amanda,” Jerome assured her with sparkling eyes. “Wyman told me to watch for a delivery, and it's arrived sooner than we thought.”

Dumbfounded, Amanda took the thick plastic tool the driver handed her and wrote a signature that didn't resemble her penmanship in the least. It didn't seem to matter: his partner was already lowering a large wooden crate from the back of the truck on a motorized platform. The crate sat on a wheeled cart, which Jerome and Pete rolled toward the back kitchen door, where there were no steps to contend with. Simon followed at a jog while Wags bounded around all three of them, barking excitedly.

Amanda watched, agog, while the deliverymen lowered another crate with a picture of a potter's wheel on the side. It looked just like the kick wheel Uriah had destroyed . . . but what did this mean? She would have jumped up and down, clapping her hands, had it not been for the two fellows watching her.

“You okay, lady?” the driver asked. “Most folks don't seem so befuddled when we bring 'em stuff.”

“You have no idea,” Amanda gasped. “
I
have no idea—oh, my, but this is quite a surprise! And you have a bedroom set, too?”

“Yup, from an Oak Ridge Furniture shop in Jamesport,” he replied. “Picked it up on our way. Nice folks there.”

“My stars,” she murmured, for she couldn't think of anything else to say. After the truck rumbled back down to the road, Amanda went inside—just in time to rescue two sheets of oatmeal cookies from the oven, because everyone else seemed to be in the other room, all talking at once.

“But why would Dat be buying her another kiln?” Vera asked.

“We dropped the other one, remember?” Pete replied.

“This wheel looks just like her other one—except newer, and not all busted up,” Eddie remarked.

“And what'll we do when the Schmuckers find out?” Lizzie asked in a shrill whisper. “I was hoping Teacher Elsie wouldn't have any more reasons to pick on me!”

“And a whole new bedroom set for him and Amanda,” Vera mused. “Something's going on here, and Dat's not been letting on. We'll have to pounce on him, soon as he gets home.”

Amanda smiled, feeling giddy. For just a moment she lingered in the kitchen while the children speculated about these new items . . . ate a warm cookie as she stepped onto the porch. The boys had left the glossy oak bedstead, dresser, and night tables out here with the new mattress so they wouldn't bump Eddie's wet walls when they carried them through the front room.

Vera wasn't the only one who would quiz Wyman the moment he stepped through the door. Most likely he had ordered the bedroom pieces because her old mattress was too soft to suit him . . . and because Atlee had made the set in their bedroom. Another fresh start for them, this furniture—and it had cost a pretty penny, too. She'd nearly fainted at the prices for the kiln and the wheel on the invoice . . . and he'd purchased all these items before they knew if the Fishers were buying Wyman's land, too. And Wyman would soon be constructing a new grain elevator. . . .

Does he think God's going to rain money on us?
After years of scraping by following Atlee's death—and months of lying awake, wondering how they would pay their bills before that—Amanda hoped her generous new husband hadn't overextended himself in his excitement over leaving Clearwater.

Have faith, Amanda.

She let Wyman's earlier words soothe her as she went inside again. When Jemima sent her a questioning look from across the kitchen, where the kids were snatching fresh cookies from a plate, Amanda shrugged. She feigned innocence when they all pelted her with questions, too. “It's a mystery,” she hedged. “Sometimes we must wait for all the reasons to be revealed, jah?”

“What's a
mystery
, Mamma?” Cora asked.

Dora sucked in her breath, excitement all over her face. “I know! Is a mystery like when we heard Eddie talking on the phone in the barn yesterday, like, to a
girl
?”

“And when we asked who it was,” her twin continued, “he told us to
leave
—”

“Because it was none of our beeswax?” Dora finished with a giggle.

Eddie let out an exasperated sigh, grabbing another cookie. “I wasn't talking to a—”

“Oh, jah, you were! The twins are callin' it like they saw it,” Pete countered mercilessly. “It was that blonde we met at church, ain't so? Fannie Lehman, the preacher's daughter.”

“Fannie?”
Simon piped up. “Isn't that another name for your
backside
?”

Amanda bit back a laugh, pleased that Eddie was already making new friends. It was a joy to watch her kids and Wyman's taking up for one another, having their fun even as they were undergoing such major changes. She slipped away as their animated discussion continued, to the little room where she'd previously made her ceramics.

Jerome was clearing away the boxes and crating. He had placed the wheel beside the windows, where she'd kept her old one, and he'd already hooked the kiln to the gas pipeline. With the pale yellow glow of the freshly painted walls reflecting the morning sunlight, Amanda yearned to be working in this cheerful room again. Her fingers itched to be covered with wet, pliant clay while she formed pitchers and bowls on the wheel.

“I'd say somebody loves you, Aunt Amanda,” her nephew remarked. “And I'm guessing you know some things we don't, too.”

“Maybe,” she hedged as she spun the wheel with her fingertips. “But that's for Wyman to say, not me.”

“Soon?” Jerome insisted.

Amanda laughed. “I hope so. This kiln and the wheel have
all
of us wondering what's going on. In God's gut time—and Wyman's—we'll have our answers.”

•   •   •

A
s he drove up Uriah Schmucker's lane, Wyman inhaled deeply to steady his nerves—and needed no further reminder that the bishop was a pig farmer. Even on this brisk November day, the stench from the manure pits enveloped him as he approached the house.
Smells like money,
farm folks joked.

And money was the reason that—except for this final visit—Wyman felt as bubbly as a bottle of soda pop. Ray and Trevor had gotten approval for a loan, and they also wanted to take over the remodeling of the house. Tyler was excited about becoming a full partner and setting up the computer and automation systems for the new elevator in Bloomingdale, too. Wyman felt as if all his ducks were in a row for a wonderful future—but he couldn't leave Clearwater like a thief in the night.

Guide my thoughts, Lord,
he mused as he knocked on the Schmuckers' door. It swung open as though Mildred had been watching him from behind her simple blue curtains.

“Jah?” she demanded.

Wyman blinked. Her jarring tone seemed yet another reason he and his family should no longer live here. “I've come to speak to Uriah, please.”

“Fine.”

Again Wyman was struck by this woman's lack of common courtesy, making him wait outside as though he were a stranger. Had the Schmuckers spread the word that he and his family had fled Clearwater rather than face up to Amanda's confession? If the bishop had gossiped this way, and the other members had believed him, well, that was just further proof that Wyman had made the right decision about selling his land.

Uriah appeared at the door, his eyes as hard as marbles. “Brubaker,” he muttered. “What brings you here with your hat in your hand? Come to repent, did you?”

Wyman paused. He didn't intend to sink to this man's level, or to flare up in anger, for neither trait exemplified the Christ they both worshipped. Best to state his case and leave. “I've sold my land. We'll be living in Bloomingdale,” he said. “I wanted you to hear it from me, firsthand.”

The bishop looked startled but then his eyes narrowed. “You can run but you can't hide, Wyman. Jesus said it best, asking what a man profits if he gains the world—or a big bunch of money, in your case—but loses his soul.”

“I have entrusted my soul to God. I'm leaving the district because I prefer to follow His ways rather than yours, Uriah.”

Wyman stepped into the doorframe to keep the bishop from shutting him out before he was finished. “You crossed the line when you destroyed Amanda's pottery—frightened our children with your violence—while she and I weren't at home,” he said. “That's hardly the way Jesus taught us to behave.”

“But Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple,” Uriah countered in a rising voice. “He was chastising sin and dishonesty, as I have been chosen to do in the district I serve. You've forgotten how to accept constructive criticism and you're too enamored of your new wife, Wyman. Your adoration of Amanda has eclipsed your devotion to God.”

Wyman's pulse pounded. This conversation was escalating into a heated exchange of Bible verses neither of them would win because they had already lost the trust and respect all servants of Christ should have for each other. “And you, Uriah, have lost your sense of humility, along with your
vision
for our district. Even my friends, the Fishers—”

“Puh. Mennonites.”

“—have told us you've spoken out against Amanda and me,” Wyman persisted. “And your lack of concern was blatantly obvious when you saw how the storm had damaged our home yet you didn't lift a finger to help us. That goes against all I've ever known about Plain ways.”

“So you've sold out. Turned tail and run off rather than making Amanda face up to the confession I prescribed for her.” Uriah widened his eyes, as he did during a dramatic moment of a sermon. “The wages of sin is
death
, you know.”