Winter of Wishes Page 3

“Jah, I’m likin’ it,” the young blonde replied with a smile that resembled Naomi’s. “See ya tomorrow.”

  Miriam waved at Ben Hooley, who was loading equipment into his big horse-drawn farrier’s wagon. Then she closed the café’s back door against the cold wind. Powdery snow had blown up against the phone shanty, giving it a bit of sparkle around the edges in the afternoon’s last rays of sunlight . . . similar to the sparkle on Rhoda’s face while she’d been talking to Andy Leitner. Miriam decided to tread carefully, for—just like the surfaces of the ponds hereabouts—the ice was thinner, more fragile, than it looked.

  “So are ya gonna tell me more about wantin’ this job?” she asked quietly.

  Bless her heart, Rhoda was leaning against the counter with her hands clasped. She’d looked this way when she was a child who’d tried something mischievous and only admitted to it when she’d been caught. While Rachel had usually escaped discipline by reporting the pranks everyone else had pulled, Rhoda had been more adventurous . . . more willing to take the dares and then own up to them. Her cheeks were pink, but she met Miriam’s gaze. Her blue eyes twinkled like her dat’s had, so much so that Miriam sometimes wondered if this was Jesse’s way of keeping in touch from heaven.

  “I was pokin’ around at the Zooks’ store, waitin’ for Levi and Cyrus to load the carriage, and a little note on the bulletin board caught my eye.” Rhoda shrugged, her grin edged with eagerness. “It seems like somethin’ new to do, what with you hitchin’ up with Ben, and—”

  “I know we bother ya with our flirtin’,” Miriam said gently. “And ya miss your sister, and now that she’s hitched, ya miss bein’ in the big house ya were born in. All manner of things have changed these past few months.” She sighed, choosing her words carefully. “And it grieves my heart that the local fellas pass ya up for girls who don’t have half your smarts or your gut nature.”

  “Oh, Mamma, I didn’t mean for ya to think I’ve been unhappy or—”

  “A mother’s eyes don’t miss much, honey-bug. Truth be told, it might be gut for ya to try out this new type of work—as long as ya figure out the comin’s and goin’s, and ya realize that everything we do brings on consequences we can’t always predict.”

  “Jah, there’s that,” Rhoda agreed. “I’ll call Sheila Dougherty to take me to the Leitners’ this afternoon. I hope she and I can work out my rides, once I know what my hours’ll be. And—”

  “Sheila’s a gut woman. Always gets me where I need to go.”

  “—I thought I’d take some supper along to go with that pumpkin pie ya sent,” Rhoda continued in a rising voice. “We’ve got some turkey left, and stuffing and yams. And the green bean casserole’ll taste a whole lot better tonight than if we warm it over to serve tomorrow!”

  Miriam opened her arms. “How can I object if ya want to share with a family who missed out on Thanksgiving dinner?” she murmured. “I’m pleased ya thought of them. But then, you’ve done me proud all your life, Rhoda. Truly ya have.”

  “Oh, Mamma.”

  As they hugged, Miriam reveled in the solid warmth of her daughter’s body, thankful they could share such affection. She would miss chatting with Rhoda at meals and as she cleaned her new house and did laundry, or as she sat down to darn stockings or crochet for an evening—not that Ben hadn’t invited Rhoda to claim a room in their home across the road. But life marched on. Miriam was stepping lively these days, engaged to a fine man a few years younger than she, and for this new love in her life she was ever so grateful to God.

  Rhoda would find her way. Miriam had never doubted that. And maybe this caretaking job with an English family would open up a new world of possibilities none of them could have foreseen. The Lord often worked out His purpose in unusual ways.

  “Well, then,” she said as she released her daughter. “Let’s see about that day-after-Thanksgiving dinner. Better to take it in pans ya can slip into their oven, so’s ya don’t have to find cookin’ equipment in a strange kitchen, ain’t so?”

  Rhoda’s smile shone like a rainbow after a downpour. “That’s what I was thinkin’, too, Mamma. Thanks for understandin’ what I meant—what I needed—before I could find the way to say it.”

  Chapter Three

  “Denki, Sheila. I’ll call ya when I’m ready to go home.” Rhoda pulled a five-dollar bill from her coat pocket and tucked it into the console of the van. “Nice talkin’ to ya on the way over.”

  “Good luck as you look things over,” her driver replied. “I take several ladies to jobs like this, and you’ll be especially good at tending those kids, Rhoda. That dinner you brought smells so good, how can they help but love you?”

  How can they help but love you?

  Sheila’s words boosted Rhoda’s confidence as she followed the narrow sidewalk toward a house that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with other homes built in a bygone era. The neighbors seemed too close for comfort—why, you could pass a pie from your kitchen window to the one next door. But then, she’d grown up on a farm . . . and she wasn’t here to judge how the Leitners lived. She was here to help.

  Rhoda was raising her hand to ring the bell when the door opened. Andy stood there smiling at her. “Rhoda! You found us!”

  “Jah, your directions were perfectly—”

  “Dad, is it her? Is it Rhoda the Rodent?” a young boy called out.

  “Brett, stop it! That’s disgusting!” a girl replied indignantly. “If she doesn’t stay, it’ll be all your fault!”

  Andy’s expression waxed apologetic. “Welcome to my world, Rhoda. Anything and everything can be said or done, at any given moment.”

  “Isn’t that the way of it, when you’ve got little children?” she said as she stepped inside.

  “Who’s little? I’m seven and a half—and bright for my age, too!” A boy with a mop of dark curls gazed at her from behind glasses that would have made him look like a serious scholar if it weren’t for the plastic eyeballs dangling on springs.

  Rhoda laughed. “So, Brett the Baryonyx,” she challenged. “Your dat’s told me all about how ya terrorize your sister and play tricks on your poor grandma. Ya might be a killer dinosaur who’s thirty-two feet long with claws of nearly twelve inches, but ya don’t scare me one little bit.”

  Brett yanked off the funny glasses to gawk at her. “You know about dinosaurs?”

  “For sure and for certain.” Rhoda glanced at the girl, a little older, who assessed her from behind Brett. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Miss Taylor. Does it smell so gut in here because you’re bakin’ cookies?”

  She nodded cautiously, which made the ponytail at her crown bob in its pink ribbon. “You talk kinda funny.”

  “Depends on whose ears are doin’ the listenin’,” Rhoda said with a shrug. “Everybody I know talks this way on account of how we all learn German—we call it Pennsylvania Dutch—at home. Didn’t speak English until I started to school, ya see. Ya might want to check your cookies, ain’t so?”

  Taylor’s eyes widened and then she dashed toward the back of the house. Brett scurried behind her, hollering, “I’m not gonna eat the burnt ones, Tay! Those’ll be all for you.”

  Andy squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Most times they’re not quite so, um, charming. But you handled them like a pro, Rhoda.”

  Heat crept into her cheeks as he took her coat. “I grew up dealin’ with all manner of cousins and neighborhood kids, ya know. The fellas on the Willow Ridge school board asked if I’d be their teacher, but that was right after Dat had passed and Mamma was startin’ up the Sweet Seasons.”

  “Any second thoughts about leaving the café to help us out? No hard feelings if you want to keep working there,” he said, watching her reaction. “But I really, really hope you’ll stay and take care of us.”

  Rhoda’s heart skittered in her chest. “What a nice thing to say. I—”

  “A man in my position, working crazy shifts and finishing his degree, can’t just be nice when he’s hiring someone to care for his mom
and keep his kids out of reform school. I’m watching out for my own sanity.” Andy glanced at the big picnic hamper she’d carried in. “That smells so good, do I dare to hope it’s dinner? I could offer you frozen pizza, but—”

  “We had turkey and the fixin’s left from our lunch shift today. Mamma wanted ya to have a little Thanksgiving dinner because, well—” She smiled up at him, noting how he stood head and shoulders taller than she did. “Every day’s a chance to be thankful, for every little thing God’s given us, ain’t so? And I’m thankful for this chance to check out your kids and a whole new way to spend my days.”

  Andy gazed at her with eyes of the deepest, darkest brown she’d ever seen. “You’re awesome, you know it? The answer to a prayer—when I didn’t think I had a prayer,” he added with a sigh. “Come on back and meet Mom. She’s feeling a little puny today.”

  “How about if I tuck these pans into the oven first? I’ll just be a minute.”

  Was it too nervy, heading off in the same direction Taylor and Brett had disappeared? Through the front room she went with her basket, noting various shoes and schoolbooks scattered around furniture that was showing some wear . . . smelling cookies that had indeed spent too long in the oven.

  She stopped in the kitchen doorway. The countertop was strewn with a hand mixer, a dough-smeared bowl, and the ingredients Taylor had used. The poor girl was scraping blackened cookies off a baking sheet with a knife nearly as big as she was. Tears dribbled down her cheeks.

  Rhoda slipped an arm around Taylor’s shaking shoulders. “Ya know,” she murmured, “if I had a perfect cookie for every one of them I’ve burned—mostly because something interesting distracted me for too long—why, I could open a bakery with them! Just takes practice and patience, honey-bug.”

  Taylor, somewhere around nine years old, was a thin little pixie and, bless her, she’d styled her hair herself . . . because who could help her, if her mother was gone and her grandma could hardly hold a comb? “Dad says you do have a bakery. I—I just wanted to make something for when you came—”

  “And isn’t that thoughtful? I can’t recall the last time somebody made cookies because I was comin’.” Rhoda picked up the blackened half of a chocolate-chip cookie that had fallen to the counter, but when she raised it to her lips, Taylor snatched it.

  “Don’t eat that yucky one! I’ll make you a good one, Rhoda.”

  Rhoda grinned at her. “Now there’s a better idea! Would it be okay if I tucked some pans in your oven first, though? So we can share some turkey dinner and get to know one another?”

  “You brought turkey dinner? Like, for Thanksgiving?” Taylor’s eyes lit up behind her tears.

  “Jah, today at the café we cooked turkey and green bean casserole and yams and stuffing—”

  “Oh, I love all that stuff. But since Mom’s been gone . . .”

  Rhoda’s heart tightened painfully. How could any woman leave such a precious daughter? “Things change for everybody. And sometimes it’s all we can do to figure out what comes next,” she remarked. “I bet you’ve been tryin’ to cook and clean up, now that your grandma’s sick, and it’s a big job for a little girl, ain’t so?”

  Taylor nodded somberly.

  “Can ya clear the table and set out plates for us, while I meet your grandma?”

  “Uh-huh. I set the table all the time.”

  “See there? You’re takin’ care of the family, doin’ what needs to be done,” Rhoda assured her as she slipped her pans of warm food into the oven. “Your dat’s mighty proud of ya, too, for holdin’ up your end when times get tough.”

  The little girl’s eyes widened, another set of deep, dark eyes like Andy’s. “He told you that?”

  Rhoda closed the oven door. “He didn’t have to,” she replied as she leaned down to whisper in Taylor’s ear. “I can read his mind, ya see. I know what he’s thinkin’.”

  “You do?” Taylor considered this for a moment. “Mom used to always be yellin’ about how he was so impossible to figure out. Or to live with.”

  “Oh, honey-bug, I’m sorry.” Rhoda rested her forehead on Taylor’s, wondering if she’d opened a tricky can of worms, talking as though she really knew what Andy Leitner—or any man—was thinking. If that were true, would she still be single at twenty-one, feeling pinched about her possibilities for marriage? “I’ll see your grandma real quick, and then we’ll put dinner on. If I take this job, I’ll need your help f indin’ things around the kitchen. And I’ll want ya to tell me how the house should look, and—”

  “I’ll be the best helper you ever had, Rhoda. Promise!” Taylor nodded decisively. “Go see Gram, and when you come back, everything’ll be ready for dinner—mostly because Brett left when he saw all the cookies were burnt.”

  Rhoda squeezed her shoulders. “See there? Every cloud has a rainbow, ain’t so?”

  As she left the kitchen, she glanced at what her family would have used as a dining room. Computer desks stood against two of the walls . . . most likely one computer for the kids and one for Andy. Family portraits on the wall showed the four Leitners fairly recently, as well as when Taylor was a toddler and Brett couldn’t have been a year old.

  Rhoda stepped closer, to see what sort of woman Andy’s wife had been. She seemed sleek and blond and glamorous—at least by Plain standards—yet she was focused in a different direction from the others, her eyes not looking toward the camera like the rest of her family’s.

  “Those photographs stab at me,” Andy said softly. “But I don’t have the heart to take them down. It’s all the kids have left of their mom.”

  Was Andy feeling guilty about the breakup of his marriage? It wasn’t a topic Rhoda wanted to get into, even though she was curious about why the children lived with their dad instead of their mother.

  “I can’t fathom how that must feel,” she said with a rueful smile. “We Amish don’t believe in divorce, so I’ve not known anybody who’s gone through this—well, except for Preacher Tom. His wife ran off with a fella in a fancy car, without so much as a how-do-ya-do. But his kids are all grown and married, so that’s a horse of a different color.”

  Andy’s smile went lopsided. “Well, the good news is that Mom wanted to meet you badly enough that she got out of bed. She’s resting in the living room.”

  Rhoda hoped she didn’t appear anxious or fearful. Would she be able to assist a lady who’d suffered a stroke? The only disabled person she knew was Naomi’s husband, Ezra Brenneman, who’d fallen through the roof of a house he’d been building. Ezra was confined to a wheelchair, and because of phantom pain in his missing legs he was an unpleasant man most of the time. “I feel honored she’s made such an effort on my account.”

  Rhoda preceded Andy into the front room. The woman seated in an armchair wore a deep pink robe that had come untied, and her slippers were on the wrong feet. Yet her smile looked so hopeful . . . at least on the side of her face that hadn’t sagged. Oh, how hard it must be for the kids to see their gram this way. And how difficult it must be—how frustrating—for this poor soul to be trapped inside a body that had betrayed her.

  “Mom, this is Rhoda Lantz, the Amish girl I was telling you about,” Andy said loudly. “Remember that little bakery in Willow Ridge where we got those fabulous cinnamon rolls? She and her mom run that place!”

  “Oh, that’s so . . . nice,” the woman said with obvious difficulty. Her eyes brightened, though, and she reached out the hand that still functioned properly.

  Rhoda’s heart knotted in her throat. She knelt as she grasped that outstretched hand, so Andy’s mother could focus on her better.

  “This is my mom, Betty Leitner,” he said. “She came to help us out after Megan left, and well . . . stuff happened. But she’s a lot stronger than she was last month at this time.”

  “And I’m happy to hear that part,” Rhoda responded, grasping the withered hand between hers. Was Betty sixty or ninety? With her uncombed hair sticking out in tufts and the dry skin on legs
that weren’t quite covered by her robe, it was difficult to judge.

  But what did it matter how old she was? Rhoda smiled up at her. “What would any of us do without our mothers and grandmothers?” she mused aloud. “My mamm sends ya her best—along with some Thanksgiving dinner! Can ya smell it in the oven?”

  Betty inhaled deeply. “Ohhhh. Stuffing.”

  “I bet those mashed yams and green beans’ll be just the thing. And if we have to help ya cut your turkey, well, that’s easy enough to do. Ya like turkey and stuffing?”

  “Yup.”

  Rhoda released Betty’s hand and stood up. “Taylor said she’d have the table set for us when we got back to the kitchen. Shall we see how she did?”

  As they started toward the kitchen, Rhoda watched Andy offer his mother an arm . . . observed how he helped her up, yet let Betty stand and then walk by herself. The thunder of fast footsteps descending the stairs announced Brett’s arrival, but he carefully went around his grandmother before darting past Rhoda.

  “Rhoda the Raptor,” he teased under his breath.

  “Brett the Brontosaurus,” she replied in the same low voice, pleased the boy had responded to her dinosaur game. This back-and-forth would be to her advantage when she had to give him some discipline—and that day would come as surely as the sun would rise tomorrow.

  Rhoda stepped into the kitchen ahead of Andy and his mother. She flashed a big smile at Taylor. “What a perty table, with all the plates at their places and your handprint turkeys as our centerpiece,” she said. “Denki, Taylor—which is thank you in our language.”

  “No problem,” the girl replied with a grin.

  Rhoda paused before opening the oven door. “Ya know, I hear English folks say that in the café, and I’m not sure it fits,” she said in a pensive tone. “When ya tell me it was no problem to do somethin’, it makes me feel like it was a problem—or at least an inconvenience to ya—but ya managed to rise above it.”

  “Yup,” Betty joined in as she shuffled toward a place near the end of the table. She smiled at Rhoda with one side of her face. “Always make . . . the other person . . . feel welcome. Important.”