Chapter 20
20
On Saturday, the store buzzed with customers. Lois was sure it was their busiest day ever, and she was very grateful for Evelyn’s help. And that Moses was away—to wherever he went on Saturdays.
In the early afternoon, the register ran low on change. Lois headed into the office to buy money out of the bank bag in the safe. As she counted out the money on the desk, she bumped the chair, which bumped the desk, which must have made the mouse move. The computer screen came to life. Lois turned toward it.
An article was on the screen. She stepped closer. Father Dies in Accident— Son Survives. The date was October 21, 2000.
She read it quickly. A twenty-four-year-old Mennonite man named Paul Schwartz had been driving a car with his infant son in the back seat near Gap. The car rolled three times. The unnamed baby, who was nineteen months old, was in a safety seat and survived with only a few scrapes and bruises. Paul Schwartz died at the hospital a day later. Speed seemed to be a factor, but no drugs or alcohol was involved. The baby’s mother had not been located. Her name was Faith Byler Schwartz, and if anyone had information on her whereabouts they were asked to contact the Lancaster County sheriff.
Lois’s stomach dropped. Who was the unnamed baby? What happened to the mother? If the mother wasn’t found, who took the baby?
And why did Moses have the article open on his computer?
“Lois?” The door pushed open. “I need the change.” Evelyn stood in the doorway.
“I’ll be right there.” Lois quickly turned away from the computer, hoping Evelyn hadn’t read the title of the article. She recorded the exchange and put the large bills into the bag, which she placed in the safe. Then she locked the safe and scooped up the equivalent in ones, fives, tens, and coins.
The rest of the afternoon sped by with customer after customer. Lois gave Evelyn a half-hour break, but she didn’t take one at all. Just before closing time Isabelle came in. “I heard you’d been rehired. Are you sure it’s what you want?”
Lois glanced around, hoping the three customers in the shop hadn’t heard Isabelle. “Jah. It’s what I want. What have you decided about the shop in Charleston?”
“I haven’t,” she said. “But I heard Moses doesn’t have the permits for the market yet. Should we put more pressure on him?” She winked at Lois.
“No. In fact, could you let people know I’m working here again? Business is good—but I don’t want people not to come in because they think Moses treated me badly. He’s corrected that.”
Isabelle gave her a disbelieving smile. “Don’t sell yourself short. Moses deserves for business to be slow.”
“Jah, he’s made some mistakes. But haven’t we all?” Lois certainly had. “I’d like to give him another chance.”
“All right.” Isabelle smiled faintly. “I’ll let people know you’re back.” She left without buying anything, something she seldom did.
At closing time, Lois sent Evelyn home and then she began to tidy up. She couldn’t stop thinking about the article on Moses’s computer screen. She was tempted to ask Moses about it. But then he would think she’d been snooping, which she had been.
The next day at church, the preacher taught on Matthew 22:36–40 and Isaiah 41:10. Love your neighbor as yourself and Do not fear . “Everything we do is motivated by either love or fear,” he said. “We must decide which will motivate us before a trying situation arises. Will we be motivated to love our neighbors or fear them?”
Lois thought about Moses. How much of her reaction to him had been out of fear? He’d hurt her in the past—she feared he’d hurt her again. Her motivation toward her brother was fear too. He wanted her to marry someone she didn’t love, who wouldn’t treat her well. How could she, even when she had reason to fear, flip her response to love?
She would, Gott willing, meet Menno in a week. Just the thought of it made her feel more loving. Yesterday, she’d reacted with compassion—with love—to the article on Moses’s computer. Was that because Menno helped her feel more loving? And she’d discouraged Isabelle from hurting Moses’s business more.
She prayed she could keep responding in love. But was there more she needed to do about Moses? Perhaps apologize for the things she’d said when they were children? She frowned. Nee. Surely Moses didn’t remember any of that.
What could she do about her brother? Write him a letter and tell him why she couldn’t return to Big Valley and why she’d never marry Nathan?
And how could she be loving toward John even though she was certain she didn’t want to marry him either? Tell him , the still, small voice whispered. Before you meet Menno .
Who was the voice? Her own conscience? Gott? Her imagination? It didn’t matter. She knew what she needed to do.
After the service and dinner, Lois stopped by Amy and Bennie’s. She rocked Maggie to sleep while Amy put the two middle children down for a nap. Ernie looked at books in the living room, and Bennie went out to check on the cows.
John hadn’t come by during the week to ask her to a singing or a volleyball game or whatever it was that was going on. It felt awkward to stop by the Miller farm to tell him she wasn’t interested in him when perhaps he was no longer interested in her. Perhaps he never had been. Perhaps he now saw her as the quirky old maid and bird lady she was.
When Amy came back downstairs, Lois stood and slipped Maggie into her friend’s arms. “I should get going,” she said. “But first I wanted to tell you something. Our sermon today was about being motivated by love instead of fear. I want you to know your friendship helps motivate me to act in love.”
“Denki.” Amy cradled the baby in one arm and wrapped her other arm around Lois. “I feel the same way.”
But Lois knew it wasn’t the same. Amy had all sorts of support. All Lois had was Amy.
As Lois scootered home, she thought about how Mamm and Dat would never have tried to force her to marry someone like Nathan. Never. Ever. Tears threatened. One slipped down her cheek. The hot wind stung its pathway. She swiped at her face with one hand as she gripped the scooter handle tightly with the other.
But as much as she needed support, she couldn’t manufacture a relationship with John Miller to receive it. Jah, she would have in-laws, thirty-plus and counting. But she wouldn’t have love.
As she neared the Miller farm, she started down their lane to see if John was home.
As she rounded the curve, she saw John at the volleyball net, gently lobbing the ball across. She expected a nephew to be on the other side—but it was a young woman.
Evelyn.
She bumped the ball back to John and then broke out in laughter. He slowly set it up and hit it back over the net. It was just the two of them playing.
Lois stopped her scooter.
Now Evelyn was serving. She missed. John came up to the net and then ducked under it and stepped behind her, placing his arms on hers, showing her how to serve correctly.
Something was going on between John and Evelyn. Lois smiled and turned her scooter around and headed back out to the highway. When she reached it, she glanced to the left and then to the right.
It wouldn’t hurt to go by the marsh and go birding for a few minutes.
She turned a block early. There was a trail that crossed the run and the train tracks that led to the back of the marshy area from the side street.
She usually left her scooter in the bike rack at the care center, which was across the street from the trail. She slowed as she approached it. Why was Moses’s car in the parking lot?
“Oh,” she said aloud. Lois hadn’t realized Anna—Moses’s mother—was in this care center, so close by. Why hadn’t Amy told her? “Oh,” she said again. Lois had instructed Amy not to talk about Moses or anything to do with him.
She parked her scooter, took off her safety vest and put it in her backpack, and then stared at the double doors of the center. She’d always liked Anna. She glanced at the trail.
It wouldn’t hurt to stop in and see Anna and Moses. Perhaps Moses would be all right with her visiting Anna from time to time.
A woman was sitting at the counter in the lobby. Lois said, “Hello. I’m here to visit Anna Lantz.”
The woman nodded to a piece of paper on the counter. “Sign in.”
After Lois did so, the woman handed her a badge that read Visitor. “Put this on your dress.”
Lois took it, squeezed the clip, and attached it to the strap of her white apron. “Thank you.” She’d never been in a care center before, but she guessed it was similar to a hospital.
“Anna is in room 134.” She pointed to the hallway on the left.
Lois strolled down the shiny linoleum floor, her shoes squeaking a little as they hit the floor. The smell of the disinfectant reminded her of the hospital. The ambulance had taken Dat there after the workhorses spooked and he’d been thrown while cutting hay. A farmhand ran to the neighbors and called 9-1-1. Mamm rode in the front of the ambulance, and Scotty and Barb came to the shop to get Lois. She didn’t know her father was dead until she saw her mother in the waiting room. Mamm hadn’t been the same after that day—it was as if Lois had lost them both at once.
She passed room 130. Then 132. The door was wide open to room 134. She didn’t want to knock and wake Anna if she was asleep.
Lois stepped a few inches into the room. Moses and Anna were sitting in two chairs in front of a large window. The acrylic bird feeder Moses bought at the shop hung on the outside of the window. Several sparrows bopped around in it, pecking at the seed. The Amish birdhouse Casey built sat on the dresser.
Anna had her head resting on Moses’s shoulder, and he had his head resting on his Mamm’s, on her perfectly starched and bleached Kapp. His golden hair curled a little at his collar. His shoulders appeared even broader than usual next to Anna’s narrow frame. It was clear, whatever Moses’s reasons for putting his Mamm in the care center, that he loved her and cared for her. And she deeply loved him too. Lois wouldn’t interrupt the two. She’d come back and visit Anna some other time.
The next week passed in a blur of busy days at the shop. Tourist season was as good as it had ever been, and Lois found herself in motion all day long. Finally, on Saturday, she managed to have a half hour to scooter to the post office. She had a short note from Menno saying how much he looked forward to meeting her.
After she awoke Monday morning, Lois sat in the middle of her bed with her legs crossed under her nightgown, staring at the birch tree that she’d completely filled with the birds she’d crocheted—doves, snowy owlets, northern cardinals, and painted and indigo buntings.
Anxiety filled her over meeting Menno. What if he wasn’t what she expected? She closed her eyes, bowed her head, and prayed that Gott would guide her. And give her wisdom. And help her to be accepting of whatever happened.
After she showered and dressed she started her chores, washing her laundry in the bathtub first and then wringing everything out. She hung her underwear in her bathroom and then hung her dresses and aprons on the clothesline she’d strung across her living room. Then she opened the windows to get a breeze blowing through the apartment. Next she scrubbed her kitchen and then swept the floors. After she finished, she wrote a paragraph for the circle letter about the owl she’d seen at the edge of the woods the night before and then how, soon after, lightning bugs had lit up the woods. She’d hurried out through the field and then ran with the lightning bugs. That was something she would have saved to write to Menno, if she were writing to Menno today. But she was going to see him.
She ate half a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich for lunch and then stopped in at the shop. Evelyn was standing at the counter looking through a flyer.
She glanced up. “Lois. What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d stop in and say hello.”
Evelyn’s face reddened.
“How are you?” Lois asked.
“ Gut .” Evelyn wrapped her arms around herself.
“How was your Sabbath?”
“Just fine.” Evelyn’s face grew redder. No doubt she and John had spent more time together.
Lois was tempted to ask how John was doing, but she held no ill will toward Evelyn—nor John.
“I’m going into town,” Lois said. “See you later.”
“Later,” Evelyn echoed.
It was another humid summer day, and Lois grew sticky as she scootered down the highway, hugging the side of the road when a car or truck or buggy passed. A pickup truck flew by, honking at her. A man waved his baseball cap out the window. She kept her expression blank and stared straight ahead.
When she reached Meadow Lane, she slowed some but took the turn as quickly as she could, breathing in a big gulp of hot air. She was arriving early, as she’d planned. She much preferred to be at the marsh before Menno.
The willow tree hung heavy with leaves. She leaned her scooter against its trunk. There were more pussy willows on this side of the marsh than where she’d been the day before, on the care center side. A dragonfly floated by. She stepped to the willow tree and made her way around to the far side. She sat down on a root and drew her knees to her chest.
The marshy soil smelled slightly like rotten eggs from the decaying wetland matter, but she didn’t find it bothersome. She couldn’t estimate how many times she’d played in the marsh as a child, chasing monarch butterflies and peeking around the willow at birds, afraid she might scare them off. She’d caught toads in jars and taken them home only to be sent back by Mamm to release them.
She heard a car door slam and stepped to the edge of the tree. She couldn’t see a vehicle. Perhaps someone had stopped at the farm to look at the property.
Instead of going to the far side of the willow, she leaned against it with a view of the road. Menno would arrive by car—he couldn’t drive a horse and buggy from Delaware.
Lois looked up into the tree. As a child, she’d spotted all manner of nests in the marsh—ground nests, platform nests, cup nests, pendulous nests, cavity nests. One of her favorite activities in late fall and winter was to search for nests once hidden in the spring and summer by foliage but now vacated and bare. It was like looking into a house with no walls.
A bird twittered. Lois turned toward it. Overhead on a branch, against the green of the willow leaves, was a cup nest with three fledgling song sparrows in it. She watched them for a few minutes, committing the scene to memory.
She glanced at her father’s pocket watch. 1:10. Menno was late.
Time dragged by. 1:24. Still no Menno. But perhaps traffic coming from Delaware had been slow. 1:29. Her stomach twisted in a knot. Maybe his driver had a flat tire. Or car problems. 2:10. She sat down on the root and drew her knees back to her chest. He wasn’t coming. Still, she stayed until 2:25 .
She slipped the watch back into her apron pocket. A lump formed in her throat. She tried to swallow it away, but it only grew larger. She knew this feeling. It was the same way she’d felt when Moses rejected her. It wasn’t anger—that hadn’t come until she’d seen him again in April.
It was complete sadness. This time caused by Menno.
Perhaps Amy was right. Maybe Menno didn’t exist. Lois had been duped. Fooled. Humiliated.
She pulled her scooter out from under the willow and climbed on. She started off at a slow pace, heavy with rejection, heading toward the covered bridge.
As she reached the driveway to the farm, she turned her head toward the house. A Plain man was standing next to a black SUV. Her heart lurched. Perhaps Menno’s driver had stopped to ask for directions.
Then her heart fell. It was Moses. She was tempted to pretend she hadn’t seen him, but then he called out her name.
She turned into the driveway. “Hallo.”
He waved.
She asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Scotty hasn’t had many bites on the farm. I’m trying to figure out if I should make an offer or not.”
Most likely a low one.
Lois gave him another wave and scootered away. Menno had played her. Now Moses was going to buy the property that used to be her home. A day she’d expected to be joyful had shattered her heart.
She couldn’t stop the tears as she scootered along the covered bridge, the thud of her foot against the planks reverberating. She continued on to the highway. A few minutes later when Moses passed her and waved, she didn’t wave back. Instead she stared straight ahead, tears still streaming down her face.