Chapter 31
“This little girl has gained eight ounces,” Tabitha said, holding the handheld scale attached to a sling high enough that she could read the dial. “Yah, seven and a half . . . We’ll call it eight ounces heavier. She’s growing.”
The piglet hanging in the sling beneath wriggled, and the dial jumped. She lowered the piglet into her sister’s hands. Amanda had acquired two more bottle-baby piglets in her kitchen, where Tabitha and Amanda now stood as Tabitha did a wellness check on the tiniest runt of a recent litter.
This little piglet was half the size of the others, and her little oink was tiny too.
But she had a lot more energy now, and as soon as Tabitha lowered her into the crate again, her little hooves could be heard scrambling across the bottom.
She squatted next to the crate and gave the piglet an affectionate pet.
“At least she’s growing,” Amanda said. “So I’m doing something right.”
Tabitha peeked up at her sister’s waistline.
She could see the pin holes where she used to pin her skirt, and her waist had certainly grown!
Amanda’s pregnancy was showing. Tabitha pressed back a little bit of envy.
Amanda was starting to grow her family and pour her heart into the kinner she’d have with Menno.
“How is Rose doing this week?” Tabitha asked.
“She was by yesterday,” Amanda replied. “And you’d think she’s an expert on pregnancy now that she’s had one baby.”
“Oh, let her be the expert,” Tabitha said. “You know how long she’s wanted a child. She’s just reveling in the wonder of it all.”
Tabitha was thirty-one now, and while she knew plenty of women who continued to have babies well into their forties, she couldn’t help but wonder if it would be so easy for her .
. . once she did marry. If she did marry again.
Not many Amish men would be lining up for a wife who had jumped the fence, gotten divorced, and was working full-time in an industry dominated by Englisch.
The other two piglets where oinking happily in a large crate on the floor, empty formula bottles sitting on the tabletop next to them. Amanda squatted down and gave their pink little heads an affectionate scratch.
“You look good, Amanda,” Tabitha said.
“Me?” Amanda rose to her feet again. “I feel puffy, and nothing fits right.”
“That’s pregnancy.”
“It doesn’t look like it yet.” She looked down at her midsection and ran a tender hand over it.
Tabitha shot her sister a smile. “This is called happiness, Amanda. Get used to it.”
Amanda’s cheeks colored, and she smiled bashfully. “I suppose it is, isn’t it? I’m so tired lately too. I’ll probably lie down for a short nap when you leave. Rose said that’s normal.”
“From what I understand, it is,” Tabitha agreed. “And Rose would know.”
Tabitha checked the pocket watch she kept pinned inside her apron. She didn’t have much time to get home for the taxi, and Menno and Amanda’s hog farm was on the far edge of the church district, so it was a long buggy ride home.
“Well, I’d best head out, then. I’ll be late if I don’t get moving.”
“Who are you seeing next?” Amanda asked.
“I have an appointment.” Tabitha met her sister’s gaze and felt a prick of guilt at the mild deception. “I’m going to see Michael’s grave. I ordered a taxi.”
“Oh!” Amanda blinked. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“I am sure. I think it will help me put him to rest, so to speak.”
“Do you want some company?” But she looked down at the crate of piglets and deflated.
“It’s okay, Jonas is coming with me,” she said. “It’ll be fine. Besides, you have your hands full here, and you owe yourself a little nap, remember?”
“Jonas is going with you?” Amanda winced. “Tabitha, that man is in love with you.”
Those words pricked a little deeper than Tabitha would admit to her sister. Jonas did feel a lot for her, and she knew it. She felt a lot for him too. But love?
“Jonas is marrying another woman,” Tabitha reminded her. “He’s proposing soon, remember?”
“He’s proposing to a woman he doesn’t love,” Amanda shot back.
“I understand that marriages can be practical—I’m not judging.
But you need to be careful when there are hearts involved.
You and Jonas have been close for a long time, and you’ve developed some real feelings between you.
” She held up a hand. “And don’t bother denying it either.
It’s obvious to anyone who sees you together. ”
The elderly women Tabitha spent time with had told Tabitha the same thing, so she didn’t argue, but she did feel somewhat self-conscious about how easy she and Jonas had been to read, and by her younger sister, at that.
“It doesn’t matter, Amanda,” Tabitha said. “He’s pursuing a future with Christina, and I’m dealing with my own things. The timing is not right . . . and Gott is in the timing.”
Amanda shrugged. “Okay.”
Tabitha met her sister’s gaze, waiting for more pushback, but got none. So she gathered up her supplies and put them back into her bag.
“But I should point out . . .” Amanda said after a few beats of silence, and Tabitha looked up with a wry smile. “I should point out that you should still be careful. Traps only work because they are hidden from view. If we saw them coming clear as day, we wouldn’t fall into them.”
“I’ll be careful, Amanda,” Tabitha said seriously. “And I appreciate the advice.”
It was rather close to the advice she’d get from her widow friends, she was sure.
If she retold this story around a quilting circle with them, they’d all nod and hum in agreement.
That was the beauty of being a part of a community—they kept a woman from deceiving herself.
They pointed out when she needed to pause and reflect.
Once back in her father’s buggy—borrowed while hers was in the shop having the bent axle fixed—with Fritz clopping cheerfully along, she was grateful for the solitude.
Amanda was a good woman, straightforward and moral.
But once in a while, she wished her sister could be a little gentler with her observations.
Tabitha didn’t need to think about Jonas’s deeper feelings for her if he was with another woman.
The depth of Jonas’s feelings was no longer her business. And it never had been. She had never been available for more than friendship in the past, and now he wasn’t available for more either. Nothing had changed.
When Tabitha reached home, Jonas’s buggy was already parked, and his horse was in the corral with some haylage in the feeder.
She checked the time again on her watch.
She had about fifteen minutes until the taxi was due.
She hopped down and had started to unhitch her buggy when the door opened and her father and Jonas came outside.
“Let me help,” Jonas said. He jogged down the steps and joined her on the other side of the big draft horse. Daet came down the steps and stood on the gravel, arms crossed over his chest. But once they had the horse unhitched, he stepped forward and caught him by the bridle.
“Let’s go get you your proper feed,” Daet said to Fritz. Daet knew what Fritz needed now, and she wasn’t going to worry about him in her father’s capable hands.
The Amish driver, who casually called himself the Yoder Toter, pulled up, and she glanced over her shoulder just as Daet was pulling open the stable door.
Her father turned back at her, and he met her gaze with a worried glimmer in his eyes.
She tried to give him a reassuring smile, but he didn’t look reassured.
Woodward Hill Cemetery was located inside the city of Lancaster.
It was a beautiful old cemetery with curving paths that led visitors past lines of graves nestled in the greenest of grass, some dating back hundreds of years.
Other sections, like the section where Michael was buried, had much more recent residents.
At least that was what the website had said.
Tabitha had looked it up the last time she was at the clinic when she was printing off a fuzzy map of the cemetery.
The driver said he’d go get himself a bite to eat and come back in two hours, which seemed like a reasonable amount of time.
Tabitha and Jonas got out of the minivan and headed down a meandering path.
The cemetery felt like a pocket of peace in the middle of the city.
The sound of traffic was a distant whisper, as if even the noise of the city respected the slumber of the dead.
Another funeral appeared to be in process not far away, with a rather large group of black-clad people standing in a circle around a grave.
The minister’s voice was melodic, but Tabitha couldn’t make out words.
Overhead, birds twittered in the trees, and the sunlight sparkled over the lush grass as if Gott himself were pausing to listen to their hope and grief.
There was something about a funeral service that seemed to slow everything down.
“It’s a peaceful cemetery,” Tabitha said as they walked along, side by side. His sleeve brushed hers.
“It feels . . . fancy,” he said.
She looked at the graves—some with more writing on them than others and some quite large with carved angels looking over. One had an ornate stone cross standing on the top of it.
“Englischers put more heart into their gravestones,” she agreed.
“It feels strange to me,” Jonas said. “Like they are trying to hold their loved ones here on earth instead of releasing them to Gott.”
“Maybe they are trying to hold on to them,” she said.
And maybe she didn’t blame them so much.
It could be hard to let go, even when the dead had caused her all kinds of grief.
But she could tell that Jonas wouldn’t understand that, so she added, “I like our ways better too, Jonas. There is a real sense of peace after we lay someone to rest in a graveyard next to their neighbors and family members . . . no one better than anyone else, no one more important. It’s simple, and our eyes are drawn upward. I like that about our funerals.”