New Beginnings at Promise Lodge Read online

  Trying not to be obvious about it, Marlin looked at Frances. He suspected that Lester’s tone of voice had seemed heavy-handed to her, and that she probably wasn’t ready to consider taking another husband. Although it was customary for Amish men to look after the single and widowed women in their families—and it wasn’t unusual for in-laws to marry after they’d lost their spouses—he could understand why Frances wasn’t responding well to Lester’s remarks.

  When Lester enters a room, he sucks the joy right out of it.

  Marlin blinked at this unexpectedly harsh thought. He liked Lester—a lot—but it was a sad fact that Bishop Floyd’s brother wasn’t handling the loss of his wife nearly as well as Frances was bearing up after her husband had passed. Delores Lehman and their son had died in a nasty traffic accident only a month ago, so Lester had a lot of grieving to do yet. A lot of memories to deal with.

  Marlin had often seen this situation when the wife died first. Most men weren’t prepared to cook, wash clothes, or manage other household functions, and as the business of daily living overwhelmed them, they became crankier and more depressed.

  There but for the grace of God—and sharing a home with Harley and Minerva—I would have gone, Marlin acknowledged, thinking fondly of his son and daughter-in-law . Lowell and Fannie are blessings, too, because they make me laugh. His younger son and daughter certainly kept him on his toes as a parent.

  Lester’s two daughters, on the other hand, had recently married and remained in Sugarcreek, Ohio. Despite his girls insisting that he should live near them, Lester had returned to the new house he’d built for Delores at Promise Lodge. It had to be hard, waking up each day to see the furnishings from their house in Ohio—bleak reminders of his loss. Lester had no one to talk to at home, no one to love. If it hadn’t been for Truman’s finding him long-term siding and window work at the housing project he was landscaping, Lester would be even more emotionally adrift.

  Marlin glanced at Frances again. As sorry as he felt for Lester, he could certainly understand why Frances didn’t want to take up with her brother-in-law. Lester’s gloomy presence was enough to depress anybody.

  So talk to her about it. Be the light, like you’re always preaching. If anyone needs a friend, it’s Frances—and Lester, of course, he added quickly.

  He shifted on the wooden bench, suddenly enthusiastic about spending time with Frances. His barrel-making business had kept him indoors a lot recently, fulfilling orders for rain barrels, and the half barrels folks used for planting flowers, and decorative barrels with checkerboards on top, so he was due for some time outside. It was a beautiful spring day, with the lilac bushes in bloom and a cloudless blue sky that shimmered with sunshine. Surely he and Frances would both benefit from walking in the fresh air—nothing romantic, because he wasn’t looking for another wife, and he didn’t want Frances to think he was.

  If she’s out for a walk, she won’t spend the rest of the day washing dishes!

  Marlin nearly laughed out loud, anticipating the smile he’d bring to Frances’s face when he rescued her from yet another afternoon of kitchen duty. She helped the other women willingly, of course, but the ladies had cooked and cleaned up for several recent weddings—and everyone benefited from a break in routine now and then.

  He focused on the sermon Zachary Miller was bringing to its conclusion. If he planned for some happiness, who knew what might happen? Joy was like skimming pebbles across a pond: once a pebble splashed happily on the surface before it sank, the ripples would spread deeper and wider than the eye could see.

  But you have to pick up the pebbles. You have to be the initiator, with a positive, joyful intention, or you’ll just be throwing rocks.

  Chapter Two

  Frances sat up straighter, determined to share Rosetta and Truman’s joy as they repeated their vows—because it was a waste of her time to brood about her overbearing brother-in-law. Rosetta looked radiant in her beautiful blue dress and the special white apron Truman’s mamm, Irene, had sewn for her. What with milking her goats, making soap to sell, and managing the apartments in the lodge and the cabins behind it, Rosetta was usually up to her elbows in work. It was wonderful to see her beaming at Truman as though he was the only other person in the room—or in the world.

  To Frances, it seemed like only yesterday that she’d been standing in front of a bishop with a young, vibrant Floyd Lehman. Even before he’d become a preacher and then a bishop at a younger age than most men were called to serve, he’d been decisive and outspoken—a man who knew what he believed, and who could persuade others to follow the light of Christ, as well.

  The years had flown by and their lives had been filled with two daughters who’d brought much love and many challenges into their marriage. Even after the unthinkable had happened to Mary Kate, leaving her pregnant by the English stranger who’d attacked her in a ditch by the road, Floyd had prevailed over their tragedy: he’d moved them to Promise Lodge so Mary Kate could escape the gossip and stigma that would’ve come with raising a child out of wedlock in their very conservative Ohio church district.

  You took better care of us than you did of yourself, dear man, Frances mused as she glanced at Amos Troyer on the preachers’ bench. When Amos had been fetching a Frisbee from the roof of the barn beside Rainbow Lake, the corner of the building had collapsed—and Floyd had rushed over to break Amos’s fall. Both men had been hospitalized and wheelchair-bound . . . but Amos had taken physical therapy while Floyd had insisted that God was the only doctor he needed. A stroke had weakened him further, and from there, he’d simply faded away.

  But you followed God’s plan as He revealed it to you, Floyd. You stayed true to your convictions—and to your family.

  Frances smiled. Floyd’s convictions had sometimes rubbed her—and the other women here—the wrong way, but now that he was gone, she chose not to dwell on his stubbornness or his insistence that women were to be subservient to their men. When she thought of Floyd, she sensed his presence—as though his arms were wrapped around her, supporting and encouraging her—so she didn’t feel so alone. His spirit had helped her through a lot of desperate moments and sleepless nights as she’d thought about how she and Gloria would handle their finances without any income in their foreseeable future.

  Lord, I hope you’ll grant Rosetta and Truman as much love and joy as you gave to Floyd and me, she prayed, dismissing her thoughts about money. You obviously created them to be together, and we’re so blessed that Bishop Monroe has allowed interfaith marriages at Promise Lodge.

  Her heart thrummed as Rosetta’s voice rang confidently, repeating the age-old vows after Bishop Monroe. Truman’s handsome face was alight with love as he, too, spoke the words that would bind them in holy matrimony.

  Moments later, the bishop beamed out over the congregation. “Truman and Rosetta, I pronounce you husband and wife,” he proclaimed. “Every one of us in this room wishes you all the best of the love and grace God can grant you, for all the days of your life together.”

  Frances rose to her feet with the women around her, beaming at the newlyweds. Beside her, Beulah Kuhn and her sister, Ruby, let out contented sighs.

  “They’re married, at last!” Beulah said. “I was a little worried when that misunderstanding about Maria came between them.”

  “Jah, but Truman’s a gut man and he worked it out,” Ruby put in with a nod. “The way I hear it, Maria’s new bakery in Cloverdale is going like gangbusters—and we’d best get into the kitchen like gangbusters and put out the food for this huge crowd!”

  “I’m right behind you,” Frances said as she sidled out of the pew row with them. As Mennonites, the Kuhn sisters were wearing colorful floral-print dresses—and as maidels, they rented lodge apartments from Rosetta. Frances suspected that the outspoken sisters had pointed out to blond, blue-eyed Maria that her flirtatious ways with Truman were inappropriate—and that Rosetta had called off the wedding earlier in the spring because of her. Ruby and Beulah were good-he
arted ladies and wonderful cooks, beloved by all at Promise Lodge.

  As Frances passed through the lodge’s large dining room, she noted the pretty white tablecloths on the long tables. Mason jars with stalks of celery sat in the center of each table, a traditional Amish wedding centerpiece—except the Kuhns had added sprigs of fresh lilac blossoms as a way to celebrate this wedding that broke with Old Order tradition. The dessert table was spread with cut pies and cookie trays. Two tall chocolate wedding cakes with mocha frosting sat on stands behind the raised eck table in the corner, where the wedding party would eat. Ruby had made them double layered and triple tiered so they would provide enough cake for everyone. To the Kuhns, the ultimate sin was running short of food.

  Frances inhaled deeply as she entered the kitchen along with Christine’s daughters, Laura and Phoebe Hershberger. “Oh my, but the turkey smells gut,” she said to the younger women. “It’s nice that your mamm and your aunt Mattie get the day off from kitchen duty to be in the wedding party.”

  “Jah, but look at all of us next-generation helpers,” Laura said, gesturing at the others who were streaming into the kitchen. “What with your Gloria and Mary Kate, and Lily Peterscheim and her sister Deborah, and Minerva and Fannie Kurtz, and the Helmuth twins, we’ll get this job done!”

  “Ruby and Beulah have this meal so well organized, all we have to do is set the pans in the steam table and keep them replenished,” Phoebe pointed out. “Our wedding meals run a lot more smoothly because we can serve them in the lodge building, too.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Beulah said. She opened an oven and began taking out large stainless-steel pans of food. “Working in a kitchen that was designed to feed a couple hundred campers—and serving the food buffet-style in a big dining room—is a lot easier than fixing a wedding meal in a family home.”

  “You sisters could start up a business, catering Plain weddings,” Minerva teased as she removed lids from the big pans. “You’ve got it down to a fine art.”

  Ruby waved her off. “The last thing we need is another business to run. My bees are in full buzz now that the flowers and apple trees are blooming, which eventually means more honey to bottle and sell—”

  “And we can barely keep up with orders at our cheese factory,” Beulah put in. “The Helmuths’ new nursery has made a lot more customers aware that we have fresh cheese made from Christine’s cows’ milk and Rosetta’s goats’ milk.”

  Frances nodded, along with the other ladies who were bustling around the kitchen. She was pleased to see that Gloria and Mary Kate were filling water pitchers, and that the meal seemed to be coming together with a minimum of fuss despite the fact that they were feeding twice as many people as they usually did at a wedding.

  “I’m glad Rosetta and Truman wanted turkey rather than the chicken and stuffing ‘roast’ most couples have,” Frances remarked. She placed serving forks in the metal pans of meat, and stuck large spoons in the pans of mashed potatoes, green beans, and creamed celery. “Baking and boning the turkeys ahead of time made this meal a lot simpler.”

  “I’ll say it did,” Beulah agreed as she and the Hershberger girls placed the big metal pans on rolling carts. “My favorite recipe for mashed potatoes can be made ahead, too, because you add cream cheese and sour cream to keep them firm and moist before you reheat them. When you’ve cooked for a crowd as long as Ruby and I have, you learn all sorts of tricks to simplify the process!”

  Frances pushed a loaded cart into the dining room, and Minerva followed with a second cart. Phoebe and Laura came along to lift the full metal pans between them, deftly slipping the hot, heavy containers into the openings of the steam tables. As wedding guests came into the dining room to be seated, Frances noticed Preachers Amos and Marlin at the dessert table with Truman’s mother, Irene—discussing the many options they had for sweets after the main meal.

  “What would you recommend, Irene? We don’t have a thing to choose from,” Amos teased as he gestured at the slices of pie and the cookie trays.

  Irene’s laughter rang above the guests’ conversations. “It’s not my place to say, because I made several of those pies,” she replied. “I don’t see how you can go wrong with choosing your favorite kind.”

  “But what if they’re all my favorite kind?” Marlin joked. He approached Laura and Phoebe as they placed the last pan of hot food in the steam table. “Maybe you ladies can help me decide on pie. You appear to know a lot about putting on these meals.”

  Laura chuckled modestly. “Practice makes perfect.”

  “Maybe you should close your eyes and point,” Phoebe suggested. “The pie you choose is bound to be yummy. It’s the only kind we know how to make.”

  Frances laughed at their banter. “You might have to take whatever’s left, if you wait much longer,” she teased. “Folks are already taking their desserts to their places while they wait for the wedding party to go through the buffet line.”

  Frances smiled at Preacher Marlin and pushed the cart toward the kitchen—but when applause broke out, she turned to watch the newlyweds enter the dining room. It warmed her heart to see Truman grasping Rosetta’s hand and the way both of their faces radiated such happiness.

  “Takes you back a few years, ain’t so?”

  Frances’s eyes widened when she realized Preacher Marlin was standing close behind her. His wistful voice had thrummed beneath the congratulatory chatter that filled the room. “Jah, it does,” she replied, determined not to let the moment make her teary-eyed. “Who knew that forever wouldn’t last nearly as long as we figured on when we took our marriage vows as young adults?”

  Marlin’s brown eyes softened. “You said that exactly right, Frances,” he murmured. He glanced around the noisy crowd and leaned closer. “Would you like to go for a walk after dinner? It’s a beautiful day—and if I sit around too long after eating this big meal, I’ll nod off,” he added with a boyish smile. “And if you’d like to talk about what Lester was saying when I passed you this morning, I’m a gut listener.”

  Frances’s mind began spinning like a whirligig. Was Marlin inviting her for a walk because he wanted to spend time with her? Or did he intend to point out the wisdom of pairing up with Lester? “I—well, if you—”

  “I’d like to congratulate the newlyweds—and to make an announcement,” Irene Wickey called out above the crowd’s noise.

  Grateful that Truman’s mamm had everyone’s attention, Frances focused on the slender blonde who was standing between her son and Rosetta with her arms around their waists. The more she thought about Marlin’s invitation, the more she wondered why he’d sought her out. Had Lester put him up to it? Had Marlin joked about nodding off to make his mission on Lester’s behalf appear more like a—

  A date?

  Frances sucked in her breath. Floyd had died only six weeks ago, so it was too soon to think about socializing with a man.

  Preacher Marlin’s sensitive enough to realize that, said the voice in her head.

  “After much thought and prayer,” Irene continued confidently, “I’ve decided to move into an apartment here in the lodge as my gift to Truman and Rosetta. That way, they can enjoy their marriage without a buttinsky mother and mother-in-law hanging around all the time.”

  A moment of surprised silence rang in the large room. The expressions on Rosetta’s and Truman’s faces were priceless as they considered what Irene had said.

  “But Mamm,” Truman protested, “it was never our intention to squeeze you out—”

  “The house on the hill has been your home for years!” Rosetta exclaimed. “Please don’t feel you have to leave on our account.”

  Irene smiled as though she’d expected her son and new daughter-in-law to say such things. “Truth be told, I’m looking forward to keeping up a smaller place,” she admitted. “I’ve seen the way these Promise Lodge gals get along so well together, and I want to join them! Gutness knows I can move all the furniture I’ll need out of the house and you’ll never
miss it!”

  “We’ll be happy to have you, Irene!” Beulah called out from the kitchen door. “What with Mattie and Christine marrying and moving into their new homes—and Maria going back to Cloverdale—we’ve got a lot of apartments for you to choose from.”

  “Oh, but it’ll be gut to have somebody besides Beulah to talk to!” Ruby teased.

  Everyone laughed, and some of the folks applauded Irene’s decision. Rosetta and Truman appeared overjoyed as they hugged his mamm between them. Mattie and Christine were quick to reassure her about apartment living at Promise Lodge.

  “There’s something to be said for a bunch of friendly hens living in the same house without any roosters bossing them around,” Mattie put in—even as she grabbed Amos’s hand.

  “Jah, it’s like a nonstop hen party,” Christine agreed, beaming at Monroe with obvious adoration. “You can cluck about what’s on your mind and nobody gets her feathers ruffled!”

  Frances nodded. She’d sometimes envied the independence that maidel Rosetta and her widowed sisters had enjoyed while they’d lived in their apartments and were establishing the Promise Lodge settlement. What with the money Rosetta collected as rent, and Mattie made from her produce stand, and Christine earned from selling her dairy herd’s milk, the three of them had done very well—especially considering that they had no men in their family to look after them.

  Maybe you and Gloria should move into the lodge, the voice in Frances’s head suggested. Lester’s not allowed to live here—and you wouldn’t have to worry about the upkeep of the house. You could sell the property when new folks came to Promise Lodge, and live on that money for quite a long time.

  Where had that idea come from? After a lifetime of living in a house with her parents and then with Floyd and the girls, Frances had never considered moving into a smaller, rented space—