Chapter 26
Tabitha winced as the front buggy wheel slammed down into a pothole, jolting her sideways, and then the other direction when Fritz carried the buggy back up out of the hole again. That was a bad one!
She looked outside to see if she could see the hole behind them, but it blended in with the rest of the road.
“Wow,” she muttered to herself, and then heard a strange thunking noise coming from under her buggy. Did that pothole do some damage?
She was on her way back home from dropping off Aent Dina after the church service. Dark clouds were coming in from the east. A storm was brewing, that was clear enough, which meant she’d gotten Aent Dina home just in time. She was close to ninety now, and the humidity wasn’t good for her joints.
After that little talk they’d had between the sermons, Jonas had kept his distance. She’d waited for him to come say hello after the second half of the service, but he didn’t. And that was all right and good—she wouldn’t argue otherwise—but she missed him all the same.
What would Mamm have said about her and Jonas?
Tabitha had been fourteen when her mother passed, so she’d missed out on all those bits of womanly advice.
Mamm wouldn’t have encouraged their friendship, of that much Tabitha was certain.
But maybe she would have had some insight into Tabitha’s feelings that would help her to move on and stop thinking about the one man she couldn’t have.
Tabitha only had memories of her mother now.
And the few bits and pieces around the house that were connected to her, like that embroidery of the Twenty-third Psalm that hung on the wall across from the dining room table, and the old copper teapot she used to put out when other ladies came to visit.
Except Tabitha hadn’t seen that teapot in years. She’d brought it with her when she married, but somehow over the last decade—maybe in a move?—it had been misplaced. Pieces of Mamm slipping away . . .
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
What was happening under there? She was almost home—about fifteen minutes away at a brisk trot—but the knocking sound was getting worse. Then she felt the buggy wobble, and her heart skipped a beat.
“Whoa, Fritz,” she called as she reined him in.
Whatever was happening under the buggy could not wait.
Tabitha was careful when she took Fritz out for drives because of his finicky stomach.
She’d brought his special feed for him to eat during the service, but if there was buggy trouble, it would give Fritz a chance to graze.
He needed specialized feed, and eating the wrong weed could set off a whole round of digestive issues.
“Gott, help me get him home,” she prayed aloud.
Tabitha checked the road behind her for vehicles before she hopped down from the buggy and bent down to take a look. The axle was bent, and the steel-rimmed wheel attached to it was sitting at a crooked angle. Tabitha looked at it dubiously and sighed.
She’d have to get Fritz home. Then Daet could help her fetch the buggy later on and bring it to Silas Hochstetler, who was the buggy mechanic in their area. This looked like a pricey fix, though.
Overhead, the storm clouds had blocked out the sun, and the wind gusted harder. A roll of thunder seemed to follow the tumbling clouds in a distant rumble. Fritz shuffled his hooves uncomfortably, and Tabitha moved to put a hand on his trembling side.
“Hey, Fritz,” she said gently. “I’m here. Don’t worry.”
But unhitching him and getting him home in a rainstorm wasn’t going to be exactly easy. Fritz hated lightning and thunder, and he was a big draft horse—all muscle and hooves.
Her kapp strings whipped around her face, and she heard the sound of hooves and buggy wheels. Fritz nickered and shook his head against the reins.
“Fritz, I’m going to get you unhitched, but you’d better not run off on me,” she said, looking over her shoulder at an approaching buggy.
Whoever that was would stop and help. It took her a moment to recognize the man with the reins in his hands.
Her stomach fluttered in response. Jonas.
Of all the people to come by, he was the one she wanted to see the most.
But it was complicated right now.
He reined in as she unbuckled the leather straps over the braces.
“Everything okay?” Jonas called over a rumble of thunder.
“Broken axle,” she replied. “I’ve got to get Fritz home before the storm hits, though. He hates lightning.”
“Don’t they all,” Jonas replied and joined her on the other side of the horse, working to free Fritz from the harness.
“Are you sure you should be doing this?” Tabitha asked.
“What?” he asked. “Helping a stranded friend on the side of the road?”
“You know what I mean. You’re not exactly single anymore, Jonas. You could run and get my daet.”
Her farm wasn’t far from here, and neither was her father and probably a couple of uncles too.
“If I have to drive past you like the religious elite in the parable of the good Samaritan in order to keep Christina happy, then maybe I shouldn’t get married,” he countered.
“You’re being silly now,” she retorted.
“So are you.”
Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn’t. Tabitha had a feeling that Jonas didn’t know the lengths of a woman’s jealousy when it came to the man she loved. All the same, she did need help getting Fritz home.
Fritz pranced forward and shook his head once he was free of the harness. The scent of coming rain lingered in the air, and a flash of lightning flickered inside one of the clouds.
“Let’s leave his blinders on and hitch him up to the back of my buggy,” Jonas said. “Then he can only see the back of the buggy and hopefully won’t get as spooked.”
It was a good idea, and when Jonas passed in front of Fritz, the big horse lowered his nose toward Jonas’s shirt, snuffling at him with trusting affection.
“Hey, buddy,” Jonas murmured.
“He remembers you,” she said. For a while, Jonas’s father had owned Fritz, before her father bought him back and he came home again.
“He and I had some good times,” Jonas said. “Besides, I bought his love with treats.”
Tabitha winced. “With his gut, that would have been painful for him.”
“I didn’t know it, and neither did he,” Jonas said with a low laugh. “All he remembers is that I had the good stuff.”
Jonas headed over to his buggy and hopped inside to pull it around.
Then he jumped back out and uncovered a ring hitch at the back, and Tabitha led Fritz over.
Jonas’s horse shuffled his hooves as a crack of thunder echoed across the fields.
A few big raindrops started to fall, and Tabitha let Jonas tie the knot.
“Hang in there, Fritz,” Tabitha said. “We’re going home, okay?”
When they got back into the buggy, Jonas shot her a reassuring smile.
“How many people are left at Menno and Amanda’s place?” she asked.
“I was one of the last. I was helping load the church wagon,” he replied. He flicked the reins, and the buggy started forward with a little jerk.
Tabitha turned around to see Fritz through the open square in the fabric buggy cover, plodding along behind them, nose forward. A flash of lightning made him nicker, but he kept walking. Jonas had been right about the blinders and the back of the buggy. It kept Fritz boxed in away from the storm.
And if Jonas was one of the last to leave, then there wouldn’t have been anyone else to come by and find her in the road—not for a while, at least. She would have had to walk Fritz to the next Amish farm and ask to let him stay until the storm passed, but their neighbors would have helped.
“The older ladies wanted to keep me away from you today,” Jonas said.
“They did,” she agreed. “They think that you’ll be trouble for me.”
“Me? I’ve been your best friend.”
“And things are changing,” she replied. “They see that.”
“They’re guarding you.” Jonas cast her a veiled look.
“I won’t pretend they aren’t,” she agreed, “but it comes from a good place. They don’t want me to do something I’ll regret.”
Like tumbling head over heels for a man who was marrying another woman, for one.
Or embarrassing herself by acting too familiar with him, or giving herself a bad name if people thought she was trying to break up Jonas and Christina.
Those old women had her best at heart, and so far, they hadn’t steered her wrong either.
“Tabby, you’ve been nothing but proper,” Jonas said. “Between the two of us, you’re the better person. Hands down. They don’t have to worry.”
“But Christians need to be beyond reproach,” Tabitha said. “And we shouldn’t even let it look like we’re behaving improperly. The younger generation is watching us too, you know. You’re moving on, and that’s a good thing. But I should start thinking about my own future.”
“You have one.”
“I have a career, Jonas, not a family of my own. Much as I enjoy what I do, there’s more to life than that.”
He flicked a sympathetic look in her direction.
“Maybe I want to grow old with someone too,” she said. “And I’m not sure if I can find an Amish husband if I’m the veterinarian.”
He didn’t answer, and she didn’t really expect him to. What she chose to do with the rest of her life wasn’t going to affect him very much, was it? She looked out the small square window at the rain coming down in a steady drum against the green wheatfield outside.
“Would you give it up?” he asked after a moment.
She tore her gaze from the downpour outside.
Would she walk away from the career she’d worked so hard to build and the satisfaction of her work?
Would she have to in order to find a man to marry?
That was the question. Was it possible for Tabitha to remain a working veterinarian and marry an Amish man at the same time?
It had never been done before. When Amish women married, they quit their jobs to focus on the home and the children they had.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. The very thought made her chest tight. “I love this job, Jonas. I mean, I love it so much I dream about it. It’s a part of me. And yet . . . if I had to choose between a family of my own—a husband and a baby in my arms—and my job . . .”
“What would you choose?” he pressed.
“The family.” She would choose the family, of course, but she’d probably feel cooped up.
She’d get frustrated watching some other vet come in and take over the duties she’d loved so much.
And knowing she couldn’t go back, couldn’t work with the animals in Shepherd’s Hill, that would sting.
She would deeply miss what she’d given up.
“Maybe you won’t have to choose,” he said.
“Come on, Jonas.” She shot him a skeptical look. “You know Amish men as well as I do.”
He shrugged. “Some Amish men are more open-minded.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
Jonas. Sweet, kind, insightful Jonas, who knew her heart inside and out, who understood her better than anyone and still genuinely liked her. But there weren’t wagonloads of men like Jonas Peachy. He was unique. And unavailable.
“Which is wonderful for Christina,” she said with a short laugh. “I’ll tell you what. If you find a nice, eligible Amish man who would be flexible about me working in my field, you let me know. Maybe he’s in Ohio.”
And the image of Jonas with a blur of a wife she’d never met introducing her to some blur of an Amish farmer suddenly felt less like a joke and more like heartbreak.
“Yah?” Jonas looked over at her. “Are you serious?”
She felt her chest constrict and a lump rise in her throat. She was being emotional, but she couldn’t help it.
“Sure,” she said, turning away so he wouldn’t see the tears mist her eyes. “I’ve got to find him somewhere, don’t I? And I don’t want to sit by myself for the rest of my life. I want to try again with a good Amish man.”
Jonas was silent for a moment. “That’s good. Okay, I’ll keep my eyes open, then.”
And one small, rebellious part of her heart wished he’d argued with her about it—gotten jealous at the thought of her with another man, because she was feeling some jealousy about him and Christina. But two wrongs didn’t make a right.
When they got back to her farm, Daet came out of the house and into the falling rain. He held his hat on his head with one hand and squinted at Tabitha as she hopped down from the buggy and headed around to the back to untie Fritz.
“The axle broke on my buggy,” she called through the wind. “We left it on the side of the road, and Jonas helped me to get Fritz home.”
“Danke for that, Jonas,” Daet said. “That was right neighborly.”
“Any time, Abram,” Jonas replied. “Can I help get him into the stable?”
“We’ve got that handled,” Daet replied. “Thank you again.”
Tabitha looked up at Jonas just as the lightning lit up the sky once more, His somber gaze clashed with hers, and her heart nearly stopped in her chest. Jonas . . . the man she adored. This was where they were at—best friends who were going different directions.
Best friends but so much more. The closest of friends, and that didn’t even encompass what she felt for him. And staring up into his stricken gaze, she finally saw the torrent of conflicting emotion tumbling around behind those brown eyes.
And this was why appearances mattered, because sometimes friends that close did fall in love with each other.
Tabitha wouldn’t be the first one who’d done it. Sometimes friends fell in love with friends, and nothing came of it. They just got over it, somehow, and carried on.
“Danke, Jonas,” she called. “See you later?”
Fritz reared up at another flash of lightning, and Tabitha turned her attention toward the panicked horse. She pulled him back down with all her strength and led him toward the stable. Once he was inside, snorting and breathing hard, she led him to his stall.
It took a few minutes to settle him with her father’s help, and as Daet filled his water bucket, Tabitha went back to the door and looked out. Jonas was gone, and all that was left was the patter of falling rain and the low rumble of thunder as the storm moved on toward the east.
Storms passed, and so did some friendships. She would simply have to accept it.