Wonderful Lonesome (39 page)

“Rudy!” Abbie took a step away.

“Am I mistaken?” Rudy said.

Willem spread his feet in a solid stance. “Nothing in
Ordnung
prohibits a man from making a wise business transaction.”

Abbie’s mouth dropped open. “Would you really try to profit from Ruthanna’s loss? From my father’s concern for his sons?”

Her tone stabbed him, and he hoisted himself into his wagon without answering.

Abbie held still during the silent prayer before her family’s evening meal. Behind her closed eyes, while she smelled the roasted chicken whose neck her mother had twisted a few hours ago, Abbie saw Willem driving off in his wagon. She had expected him to deny Rudy’s accusation, but he had not. How was it possible that Rudy seemed to know Willem better than she did?

Her father murmured his “Amen,” and the family began to pass dishes around the table. Looking at chicken for the fourth night in a row, Abbie’s calculation of how many were left in the coop obstructed her gratitude. Esther could have sold her chickens, especially the ones that were laying consistently, but she seemed to have chosen to feed her family with them. Green beans from the plentitude of the Ordway Amish, potatoes Abbie had dug last week, and bread filled out the meal.

“Eat.” Esther urged Levi, who had passed the potatoes to Reuben without serving himself.

“I’m only a little bit hungry.”

Abbie heard the scuffling sound that meant Levi had hooked his ankles behind the front legs of his chair. He had been doing so well with eating until the last few days. She laid a piece of bread on his plate without asking if he wanted it. Levi tore off a corner and put it in his mouth.

“I have urged all of you to pack your things.” Ananias sliced off a piece of chicken breast. “If you have not done so, please do so soon. We leave on Monday.”

Abbie caught her fork just before it slipped from her grasp.

Ananias pulled a neat stack of small papers from his lap and spread them on the table beside his plate. Levi leaned over to examine them.

“Are those train tickets?” Levi asked.

Ananias nodded.

“But they didn’t give you enough. There are only five, and there are six of us.”

Abbie dropped her eyes to her plate and carefully set her fork down.

“Abigail has decided to remain here.” Ananias took a bite of potato. “And I have decided not to quarrel with her about it.”

Levi knocked the train tickets to the floor.

“Levi!” Esther pointed at the papers. “Pick those up right now.”

Despite the reluctance in his face and shoulders, Levi complied. “Why don’t you want to come with us, Abbie?”

“My heart would remain here.” Abbie reached to stroke Levi’s head, but he ducked away from her touch.

“Don’t you love us?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why aren’t you coming?”

“Love is complicated sometimes.”

Levi kicked the table leg.

“Levi, behave.” Ananias’s words stilled Levi’s agitation but not the sulk on his face.

Abbie glanced at Daniel and Reuben, neither of whom had stopped eating with their father’s announcements.

“It will likely take some time for the farm to sell,” Ananias said. “Abbie can remain in the house until then. She has found a job for the time being. We’ll leave enough furniture for her to get by. She can keep the buggy, since no one but an Amish family would want it and none of them can afford it. Once the land sells, she will be on her own, since that is what she has chosen.”

Abbie looked at her
daed
, but he did not meet her eyes.

“Who do you think will come?” Willem passed Jake a bowl of boiled eggs and then picked up a slice of Abbie’s bread.

Across the table in Willem’s kitchen, Jake cracked the shell and began to peel an egg for the simple breakfast they shared Friday morning.

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “I’ve spoken to a lot of families. People are polite, but that does not mean they will come. Perhaps we’ll have half a dozen for our first Sunday morning worship service. Even if it is just you and me, Christ will be present and glorified.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to wait until you’re certain more people will come?” Willem slathered butter on his bread.

“It’s time,” Jake said. “Mennonites have been scattered in the area for five years. And all the ministers agree it is time for a mission to the Amish around Limon, since you do not have a minister of your own. In a few weeks, I will be ordained as a bishop. When people see that this is not a passing desire on my part, they will give more serious consideration.”

Willem reached behind to the stove and brought the coffeepot to the table. “I’m serious, Jake. I hope you know that.”

“I do. I know it may cost you dearly.”

Willem filled his coffee cup. “Abbie has decided to stay when her family leaves.”

Jake gave a half smile. “So there is hope for the two of you?”

Willem shrugged, thinking of the way Abbie and Rudy had stood together at the edge of the street. “I don’t think that’s the reason she is staying, but I hold hope in my heart. All things are possible with God.”

Willem lingered over his sparse Sunday breakfast. He could have managed more than coffee and a thick slice of bread, which he did not even bother to butter, but his mind was hours ahead of a dawn meal. Morning farm chores did not pause for the Sabbath. Willem had always found it humorous that while God decreed in Deuteronomy that livestock should have a Sabbath from their labors, God did not spare their owners the chores of caring for the animals. One morning a week that did not start with milking would have satisfied Willem.

He swallowed the last of his coffee, pushed his chair back from the table, and paced to the stove. If he stoked it now, when he came back from the barn it would be hot enough to boil water and he could clean up properly for church.

Church
.

Willem spoke the word aloud to savor the sensation on his tongue.
Church
. Far too many months had passed since he last indulged in the anticipation of worship with others who believed. Occasionally he joined the Weavers for their somber family worship. Most Sunday mornings, after the chores, he sat alone with his Bible on his knees reading a favorite passage and trying to remember a sermon that taught him what it meant. Now he thought that if he had known he would be so long without preaching he would have listened more carefully when he had the opportunity.

But today would be different. Today he would ride in his new buggy to Limon, to Jake’s humble rooms, and pray for the others whom God would send to the gathering. Together they would pray for future worshippers who had not yet heard the call but would heed it in the months ahead. Willem would feel the Spirit move in his heart telling him the hymn they should sing, and he would intone the opening notes as the words rose from his throat. When he returned to his farm and sat at the table again, it would be with the drenching satisfaction of worship washing over his soul.

Abbie crossed her wrists and laid them in her lap, her head as still as a tongue settled into a groove at the back of a cedar chest.

Reuben and Daniel betrayed no emotion about this last Sunday as a complete family. Levi had refused to meet her eye all morning, and her mother’s face was drawn with unspoken resignation. When Abbie decided to stay in Colorado, she had not thought of this moment, this ache of the last.

The last full day they would have together.

The last time they would sit in the circle of their front room to hear her
daed
lead them in family worship.

She had missed the last smile on Levi’s face because she had not known it would be the last. Now she doubted he would relent. The sagging disappointment in his young face told her he knew she would not relent, either.

Her father had chosen to read from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, where God warned the people of Israel against the sin of disobedience.

“Beware lest thou forget the Lord,” he read. And a few verses later, “Ye shall not go after other gods.”

And then, “Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God.”

Is that what
Daed
thought she was doing? Chasing after other gods? Testing the Lord?

Perhaps he meant it as a warning against following Willem to the Mennonites.

A Mennonite church would never be the church of Abbie’s heart, but surely it did not have to mean that Willem did not love the one true God.

Rudy thought Willem was trying to serve two masters. Why else would he be trying to buy the Weavers’ farm, or Ruthanna’s land? Willem said all the right words about loving God, Rudy had observed, but he also did not want to pass up an opportunity to increase his worldly wealth at the expense of people he was supposed to care for.

Willem was with the Mennonites that morning. He had given up trying to be discreet about his intentions. All the Amish families knew this was the day Jake Heatwole had chosen to hold his first pubic worship service. Abbie supposed next Willem would be actively recruiting Amish families to join him.

Abbie allowed herself a slight shift in position. Why should she not tell Rudy she would marry him? He was right. They were well suited to each other in ways she had not realized until a few weeks ago. Together they could coax a living from the land and with their union announce that the core of Amish families did not have to dwindle away. It
was
still possible to think of a future. If she married, her father would not object—even in the guise of a family sermon—to her choice to remain in Colorado.

Yes. Rudy was right. Willem had staked his future in his decision to worship with the Mennonites, and now it was time for her to stake hers.