Star. The new marketplace would only succeed if the entire community stood behind it—and it would fail if Martin or Saul spoke against it. Several folks were nodding as the meeting adjourned. The women rose to set out the food for the common meal.
As they headed toward the kitchen, Jo nudged Regina with her elbow. “So who’s this friend, Miss Miller?” she teased.
“Jah, Regina,” Molly joined in from behind them. “What juicy secrets have you been keeping from us?”
Regina’s throat closed up. Already she was paying for her impulsive decision, and she suddenly needed to concoct a plausible story that wouldn’t get her into deep trouble. “It’s no one you know,” she insisted. “Just a—a guy I met a while back who was looking for a place to display his nature paintings. He might not even agree to rent a space—”
“Do you suppose we should allow English to participate?” Marietta asked as they entered the kitchen.
“Unless we have more Plain shopkeepers than we have space for—and unless the bishop thinks English items are a bad idea—I’d hate to limit renters this early,” Jo replied. “It would be gut to offer a variety of merchandise, especially if this man’s pieces sell well and bring in a lot of commission. Funding a new schoolhouse was Bishop Jeremiah’s idea, and I’m glad he thought of it!”
“Jah, the marketplace takes on a higher purpose if some of the proceeds are dedicated to such a worthwhile project,” Lydianne agreed. “Did you see how everyone was nodding, agreeing that we need a bigger schoolhouse in a safer location?”
Relieved that her curious friends’ conversation was no longer focused on her, Regina busied herself with filling water pitchers at the kitchen sink. It was only moments later, however, that her aunt Cora was at her elbow to take the filled pitchers.
“So this friend,” she began with an expectant smile, “is he a nice Amish fellow who makes a gut living from what he sells?”
Regina kicked herself. Why had she blurted out that the potential stall renter was a male? Why had she even opened this can of worms, which was leading her into deeper spiritual quicksand than she already struggled with?
As Cora’s three daughters smiled at her, carrying trays of sandwiches, Regina reminded herself that she was setting an example for her cousins Emma, Lucy, and Linda—and that her well-meaning aunt deserved a straightforward answer. Aunt Cora and Uncle Clarence had helped Regina recover after her parents died in a nasty bus accident ten years ago, and she was grateful for all they’d done. Where would she be if they hadn’t helped her through her grief?
But you can’t tell them the truth.
Regina put a patient smile on her face. “No, Aunt Cora, he’s an English fellow. Merely an acquaintance whose paintings I’ve admired.”
Her aunt’s smile fell. “Oh. I was hoping—”
“Sorry,” Regina put in softly. “No need to plan a wedding.”
As her aunt carried the pitchers toward the front room, Regina regretted disappointing her aunt yet again. Even though she was content living her maidel life—and had remained in the house on her parents’ acreage and supported herself with her earnings from the furniture factory—traditional women like Cora Miller didn’t understand how a woman of thirty-two could possibly feel fulfilled without a husband and kids.
If you had any idea why I insisted on staying in my parents’ home rather than coming to live with you, Aunt Cora, you’d be appalled—and you’d find my secret much more unsettling than my decision to remain single.
During the course of the common meal, if anyone asked about her “friend,” Regina stuck to the sketchy details she’d given about the mysterious artist so she wouldn’t incriminate herself further. The meeting with Bishop Jeremiah only took a few minutes, because when he suggested they hold their first organizational talk at his place on the following Wednesday afternoon, everyone agreed. After she bid her maidel friends goodbye, Regina pedaled her bike to her single-story home on Maple Lane, situated at the edge of town. She’d firmly decided to call her masquerade to a halt—to announce on Wednesday that her artist friend had no interest in renting a stall.
What was I thinking, exposing myself this way?
She entered her bedroom, stepped onto her large metal trunk, and then opened the short, narrow door in the wall so she could climb the wooden stairs to the attic.
What if nobody wants my paintings, or, worse yet, people ridicule them? And what if folks figure out that I’m the artist—and that I’ve been living a lie for years? Best to nip this in the bud before I have to tell any more whoppers and get caught in them.
And yet, as Regina stood in the center of her secret studio, something deep inside her longed to display the work that so satisfied her soul. Nearly every evening, after a day of staining furniture, she spent a few hours in her hideaway, painting nature scenes. Her more recent paintings hung from strings suspended across the studio, except where her easel sat by the small windows on the front of the house. Her older work was carefully stacked upright in bins—and the bins covered half the attic’s plank floor.
Regina needed to paint the way most folks needed to eat and breathe. Her schoolteacher had complimented her artwork when she’d been young—and because composing scenes and working with color had come so naturally to her, her parents had allowed her to take a short watercolor class at Koenig’s Krafts when she’d entered rumspringa. Dat’s brother Clarence was a preacher, however, so he’d been adamant about Regina’s joining the church at an early age. She’d secured her salvation at seventeen by being baptized, but she’d forfeited her innermost soul: in the Morning Star district, members were forbidden to create art for art’s sake. Unless her painting decorated something useful like milk cans or housewares, it was considered worldly, something that called attention to the artist.
Regina had obediently tucked her paints and brushes into her wooden trunk, but she’d felt the loss of her art acutely. After her parents had died when a train collided with the bus they were all riding in on the way home from a wedding, Regina had kept herself sane by taking up her paints again, setting up her easel in the attic—where it would be out of sight when anyone came to visit. At twenty-two, she’d been rather young to live alone on her family’s small acreage, but she’d instinctively known that moving in with strict, stern Preacher Clarence, Aunt Cora, and their young daughters would kill her spirit forever.
Bishop Jeremiah had taken her side and had dropped in on her often until she’d gotten a little older. Martin Flaud had hired her because her father had been one of his finest craftsmen—and because Regina had proven herself to be more meticulous at staining and finishing than any of his male employees. She’d survived the rough, lonely times by working hard at the factory, and by surrounding herself with the quilts and curtains Mamm had made and the furniture Dat had built for their cozy home.
And so the last ten years had passed . . .
Regina had willingly given up any chance for marriage—because she couldn’t reveal her sinful pastime to a husband. Her solitary state bewildered Aunt Cora and Uncle Clarence. Her three nieces, however, were intrigued by her relative freedom and independence, which made family dynamics difficult when she spent time at her aunt and uncle’s house on visiting Sundays.
Gazing at the nature paintings that surrounded her on that Sunday afternoon, Regina felt torn. Why had God given her a keen eye and the talent to render woodland scenes, flowers, and wild creatures on paper if He wouldn’t allow her to paint pictures of
