New Beginnings at Promise Lodge Page 11

  “Why not?” Gloria demanded tearfully. “If we see folks on the path to perdition, we’re to lead them away from temptation, ain’t so?”

  “It would be different if Allen were English, but he’s moved here to live closer to his dat and his family,” Frances pointed out quickly. “Maybe you should examine your motives for tattling on them. Maybe you’re upset because you want to be with Allen—”

  “See there? You’re no help at all, taking his side—and Phoebe’s,” she shot back. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

  Frances sighed. “If Allen had been kissing you in his house, you wouldn’t have seen a thing wrong with it, ain’t so?” she pointed out softly. “And if Phoebe had been watching you through the window, you’d be plenty upset about her spying on you.”

  “Puh,” Gloria said bitterly. “Allen will never be kissing me, so stop rubbing my nose in it! Don’t bother making me supper. Leave me be.”

  Frances turned to go, more brokenhearted for her daughter than Gloria would ever know. She reminded herself that when Mary Kate had fallen victim to an English stranger and borne his baby, she and Floyd had thought their happy family had been shattered—but God had led them to Missouri to start fresh. The Lord had also provided a decent, loving young man in Roman Schwartz to make things right for their younger daughter. Surely the Lord had a plan for Gloria, too . . . even if she tried His patience with her scheming to make love happen her way instead of waiting for it to unfold.

  Who could’ve guessed at the possibilities Marlin is bringing into your life? the happy voice in her head asked. You did nothing to attract him, yet he’s buzzing like a bee around a blossom.

  Frances couldn’t suppress a giddy smile as she went downstairs to the kitchen. After he’d so thoughtfully brought her those rosebushes, it seemed only right to make a snack to take along on their evening ride. If they were slipping out like a couple of kids, it seemed appropriate to make something quick and crunchy and spur-of-the moment that didn’t require utensils—because sometimes the snacks she whipped up from whatever she found in the pantry turned out to be her family’s favorites.

  She opened the cabinets where she kept her baking staples. Without thinking too much about it, Frances pulled out a bag of chocolate chips, a bag of butterscotch chips, ajar of peanuts, and the canister of raisins. She also grabbed an open box of apple-flavored cereal rings—and laughed when she saw that Gloria had opened a new bag of M&Ms, closed it with a twist tie, and then hidden it behind the flour canister. Frances tossed these ingredients into a large bowl and stirred them together, adding more until the blend looked right. Snack mix wasn’t a recipe so much as it was an answer to all the salty, sweet, crunchy, and chewy cravings it would satisfy with a single handful—not that anyone stopped with one.

  Frances filled a lidded container to take along on her ride with Marlin, and placed the rest of the mixture in a large jar on the table. Gloria wouldn’t make herself a meal—or even a sandwich—after she’d calmed down, but she’d probably soothe her soul with snack mix as soon as she spotted it.

  Frances made a bowl of oatmeal for her supper and carried it out to the porch swing. If you and Marlin start seeing each other, you’ll have to cook full meals again, she realized—and she would enjoy having an appreciative man to cook for again. After she tidied the kitchen and put coffee and water in the percolator—in case Marlin wanted to come in after their ride—she went outside to take the laundry from the clothesline. The sheets smelled like sunshine, and Frances laughed as the breeze blew them around her like hugs.

  As she was lifting her laundry basket, she spotted two lithe figures clasping hands, crossing the grassy area around Rainbow Lake. Allen and Phoebe, she thought as they headed for the shed where Preacher Amos had tumbled from the roof last fall . . . and where Floyd had called for Jesus to send His angels to catch Amos, but had ended up breaking the preacher’s fall with his own body.

  That moment had been the beginning of the end for her husband. Since his passing, Frances had told herself not to dwell on it—nor on the fact that angels hadn’t appeared. Had Floyd’s unusual outburst meant that he was delusional? Or had God ignored his cry for help?

  Frances sensed she’d never have an answer for that. There were mysteries that mere mortals weren’t meant to understand.

  But it’s no mystery how Gloria will behave if she spots Allen and Phoebe together, Frances realized with a sigh. She hoped her daughter was still in her bedroom on the front side of the house, where she wouldn’t see the young couple out having fun.

  As she went inside, the house was blessedly silent. Frances folded the laundry, deciding it was best to go about her household activities as though nothing unusual was going to happen around ten thirty.

  Had Gloria fallen asleep? Frances didn’t want to risk rousing her by peeking into her room at sunset. She lit a lamp and picked up the yellow blanket she was crocheting for one of the Helmuth babies, steeped in peacefulness marked by the quiet chiming of the mantel clock on the hour and half hour. Through the window she’d opened slightly, she heard the calling of birds as they settled into their nests.

  As dusk deepened into a clear evening and the glorious full moon bathed the front room in its light, Frances’s crochet hook flew across the rows of the yellow afghan. She smiled as she imagined sitting beside Marlin in his buggy, enjoying his sense of humor and the timbre of his low voice. At nine thirty, she put away her needlework and turned off the lamp. She slipped out of her shoes to climb the stairs, and padded down the hallway to her bedroom.

  While changing into a clean dress, Frances dared to consider wearing a color other than black someday soon—a startling thought for an Amish widow so recently bereaved. Was she being wicked, accepting Marlin’s invitation to a moonlight ride? Would her neighbors—and her girls—think she’d forgotten Floyd and was no longer honoring his memory? Marlin would understand if she told him she didn’t want to slip away with him this evening—

  But that would be a lie. You want to go.

  Frances blinked. The voice in her head had gotten more insistent lately, and it wasn’t necessarily telling her what Bishop Monroe or Preachers Amos and Eli might advise. Hadn’t Eve fallen for the serpent in the Garden of Eden because she’d listened to her own yearnings rather than following God’s commands?

  Marlin’s a preacher. You could ask him about this tonight.

  She clapped her hand to her mouth when a laugh bubbled up inside her. Frances doubted that matters of religion would be a topic of conversation on their first date—and she resolved to talk to God about these matters when she returned home without anyone being the wiser about her moonlight ride. As she turned out her bedside lamp and raised the sash of the window, Frances realized that it had been years since she’d felt so alive with secret joy.

  She stood absolutely still, listening carefully. Did she hear buggy wheels, along with slow hoofbeats that were muffled by the grass? Amish beaux who arrived after dark knew better than to drive a rig on gravel or a paved road if they wished to keep their courting private. Sure enough, Frances spotted a horse and then an open courting buggy—the sort of vehicle young couples used so they would be in full view of passersby, even if they drove into secluded areas on their dates. When Marlin smiled up toward her window in the moonlight, Frances thought she might pass out from the sheer excitement of what she was about to do.

  “I’ll be right down!” she called softly through her open window.

  With her shoes in hand, Frances quickly left her bedroom. She held her breath as she passed Gloria’s room in the darkness, reminding herself to remain calm as she descended the wooden stairs—and to step near the railing on the third one down, to keep it from squeaking. At the top of the stairway she paused so her eyes could adjust to the way the moonlight was shining on the bottom few steps while the top ones remained in the shadows.

  One, two—step over, she counted slowly, inhaling deeply to control her runaway heartbeat. Back to the center—fo
ur—

  When Frances’s foot landed on something soft, she cried out as she slipped and fell backward. Her shoes clattered on the wooden stairs as she instinctively grabbed for the railing—missed it—and then clutched at spindles. The weight of her airborne body wrenched her arm muscles mercilessly, and when she kept slipping, struggling in vain to find a foothold on the stairway, the pain in her hands was so severe, she screamed and let go. Down the steps she bumped, feeling each riser as it bruised her bottom and her left side. When she finally hit the floor of the front room, she landed in a dazed heap.

  “Frances? Frances, what happened?” a male voice called from the kitchen.

  Frances was too stunned to move. She heard rapid footsteps, and then Marlin was leaning over her with a worried look on his face.

  “You fell,” he said softly, cradling her head between his hands. “Where’s a lamp, so I can see—”

  “Mamm? What’s going on?”

  Frances closed her eyes in abject misery. Her body felt like one huge, throbbing bruise and her hands and arm muscles were on fire—and now Gloria had caught her sneaking out to be with Marlin, who was lighting the lamp beside the recliner.

  So much for our secret date. Gloria will never let us live this down.

  Chapter Eleven

  Marlin returned to Frances’s side, setting the lamp a few steps up on the stairway so he could see how badly hurt she might be. “Did you hit your head?” he asked quietly as he held up his hand. “How many fingers do you see?”

  Frances blinked rapidly to clear the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “Three,” she murmured. “The way I feel—the way I remember it—I must’ve hit just about everything except my head. It all happened so fast—”

  “Mamm, what were you doing?” Gloria demanded. She remained in the shadows at the top of the stairs, clutching her nightgown around her. “Why is Preacher Marlin here at this time of night?”

  Marlin bit back an irritated remark. It would be useless to ask Frances’s daughter why he’d made it to her mother’s side before she had, but as he looked away from Gloria, something in the shadows caught his eye. “Is that your shawl on the steps, Frances? Is that what you slipped on?”

  Her brown eyes widened. “Gloria’s shawl,” she whimpered. “I should’ve taken it to her room—”

  “Gloria’s shawl,” Marlin repeated, loudly enough for the young woman at the top of the stairs to understand her part in Frances’s accident. “Let’s figure out what to do, so you won’t hurt yourself any further. Don’t get up—but as you flex your legs and feet, does anything feel broken?”

  Frances pressed her lips together and gingerly did as he suggested. “I think I’m just sore,” she replied. “It’s my arms and hands that hurt like the dickens, from grabbing the spindles when my feet flew out from under me.”

  Marlin was watching her face closely. Its paleness told him she was in more pain than she was admitting to. “Shall I call an ambulance?”

  “No!” she blurted out stubbornly. “I’ll be all right if I can sit up for a minute . . . get my wits about me again.”

  Her response didn’t surprise him. Frances was slim, but she was as hale and hearty as any hardworking woman. “How about if I help you—”

  When he slipped an arm beneath Frances’s shoulders to help her sit up, her heartrending yelp told him that her arms had indeed sustained some damage. “Can you wiggle your fingers, honey?” he whispered. “Can you move your arms, or does something feel broken? I don’t want to touch you any more than I have to—much as I hate saying that,” he added in a voice Gloria wouldn’t hear.

  Frances seemed to understand what he’d meant. She focused on her hands and arms, bravely trying to move them. “Hurts pretty bad,” she admitted. “If you’ll help me sit up so we can figure out what to do, I promise not to scream or cry.”

  Marlin’s heart rose into his throat. He knew then, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he loved this woman—and that he would move heaven and earth to restore her to health. Although Amish folks often moved around after dark and in the wee hours without lighting lamps, it was his fault that Frances had been trying to sneak down the stairs to go riding with him.

  “Okay, here we go,” he said as he knelt to gently pull her close. “On the count of three. One, two—”

  With a groan and a grimace, Frances allowed him to lift her torso upright and then perch her on the bottom step. She was blinking rapidly when he released her. Despite the weight of Gloria’s accusing gaze bearing down on them, Marlin thumbed away a stray tear.

  “I’m taking you to the emergency room,” he told her quietly, even as his mind raced around the possible ways to get her there quickly without hurting her further. He looked up to meet Gloria’s gaze. “How about if you call Truman—please—and ask him to drive us to the nearest hospital.”

  “But I’m not dressed—”

  “Put on a barn coat on your way out to the phone,” Marlin cut in quickly. “And please pick up your shawl so you don’t fall on it. I’ll look the other way.”

  Gloria’s eyes shot him daggers, but after he turned his head her bare feet thumped down the stairs. She went around him and Frances in a whirl of white nightgown and unbound hair before she sprinted toward the kitchen. He held his tongue until he heard the mudroom door close behind her—not that it would help Frances if he expressed his impatience with her daughter.

  “Honey, I’m so sorry you fell,” Marlin murmured as he sat on the step beside her. “If I’d asked you to come with me in broad daylight, in front of God and everybody—this wouldn’t have happened.”

  Frances had folded her arms against her waist. Her kapp was askew and her dress was disheveled, but she was trying to regain control of her emotions. “Don’t blame yourself,” she murmured. “I went along with your plan to slip out in the night because I was so excited about—well, there you have it,” she added with a rueful laugh. “Jah, Gloria should’ve put away her shawl, but in my planning for my secret escape with you, I should’ve realized it might slip onto the stairs and trip me up. So we all share the blame, ain’t so?”

  Marlin’s mouth dropped open. “If I were the one who’d slipped on that shawl, I wouldn’t be nearly as patient and kind,” he remarked. He inhaled deeply, thinking carefully before he plunged ahead. “Love is patient and kind, Frances, so you surely must be made of pure, unadulterated love. Don’t argue with me on that,” he added quickly.

  Her eyes widened, brown and doe-like. “Just this once I’ll do as you say, Preacher Marlin—but only because my hands hurt too badly to smack you for ordering me around,” she teased.

  He smiled. It was a good sign that Frances was joking with him—and that she hadn’t clammed up when he’d talked about love, even though it had been a compliment rather than a declaration. Behind them, Gloria entered the kitchen. After a few moments she came into the front room wearing a knee-length barn coat over her nightgown.

  “Truman will be here in fifteen minutes,” she said as she crunched on a mouthful of something. Gloria studied them as they sat together on the step, as though assessing what this whole situation might mean. “What do you think they’ll do to you at the hospital, Mamm? I mean, your arms aren’t broken or anything.”

  Marlin wanted to reprimand Gloria for the sharpness of her tone, but he allowed Frances to answer.

  “I don’t think they are, but it might be a while before I have full use of them,” Frances put in. “You should be prepared to do our cooking and household chores for a while—”

  “I’ll tell Mary Kate what’s happened,” Gloria interrupted. “She’ll know what to do.”

  Marlin couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Most Amish daughters of Gloria’s age were in full charge of households and raising young children, yet this young lady sounded ready to shove all responsibility for Frances’s well-being onto her younger sister’s shoulders. “I’ll ask Minerva to check on you, too, Frances,” he volunteered. “And I’m sure the other women wil
l be happy to assist with whatever needs doing.”

  “I’m not worried about it.” Frances suddenly sounded weary and subdued by her pain. “I just want to find out what’s wrong and get back to full strength again soon, so folks won’t have to wait on me.”

  * * *

  It was after five in the morning—more than six hours after she’d fallen on the stairs—before Frances returned home from her long ordeal at the emergency room. Both of her arms were wrapped snugly in elastic bandages and suspended in slings, so she needed Marlin’s help to get out of Truman’s truck without falling.

  Without somebody’s help for the next month, I can’t even get dressed or go to the bathroom, she thought despairingly. All because a shawl had slipped from the newel post before she’d gone down the stairs in the dark.

  “I’ll help you get settled, Frances.” Rosetta’s voice broke through her gloomy thoughts. “Do you want something to eat—tea and toast, or breakfast, maybe?—before you go to bed?”

  Frances sighed. She was so tired she didn’t know what she wanted. “I can’t thank you enough for coming along, Rosetta,” she murmured as they started for the back door of the house with Marlin. “You and Truman were a godsend, and now it’s nearly time to get up so Truman can go to his work site, and neither of you have gotten any sleep.” She glanced ruefully at Marlin, who opened the door for them. “I kept you out all night, too—and we didn’t have any of the fun we were planning.”

  “I’m just glad I heard you holler when you fell,” Marlin put in gently. “Otherwise, I would’ve assumed you’d changed your mind about our ride and I’d have gone home. But we will take that ride,” he added softly.

  She blinked away tears of exhaustion and pain. As Rosetta lit the kitchen lamp and Marlin pulled out a chair at the table, it was all Frances could do to sit down without bawling like a terrified child. It was one thing to endure the pain of her sprained arms and wrists. It was another thing altogether to be so helplessly dependent upon other people to do every little thing for her. Without the use of her hands, she couldn’t eat or bathe or change into her nightgown—or do any of the normal, everyday activities she’d always handled without even thinking about them.