and threw it with all her might. It hit Joseph squarely between the shoulder blades, splattering in a bright red blob where his suspenders crossed his white shirt.
Horrified, she pressed her hands to her mouth. She had actually hit the man.
Joseph flexed his shoulders. Bits of broken tomato dropped to the ground. Chester jumped on the treats and gobbled them up. Joseph turned to glare at Anne.
She didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. She fled to the house as fast as her shaky legs could carry her. She dashed past Roxann and stopped in the center of her kitchen with her hands pressed to her cheeks.
“What a great throw.” Roxann came in, still chuckling. “Did you see the look on his face?”
“In all the years I played baseball as a kinner, no one wanted me on their team. I couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn when I threw a ball. But today I struck my neighbor.”
“You didn’t hurt him with a tomato.”
“You don’t understand.” How could she? Roxann was Englisch. She didn’t have to live by the strict rules of Anne’s Amish faith.
Roxann stopped giggling. “Will you get into trouble for it? I know the Amish practice nonviolence, but you weren’t trying to hurt him.”
“I struck him in anger. That is not permitted. Ever. If Joseph goes to the bishop or to the church elders, it will be cause for a scandal. I’m so ashamed.”
Roxann slipped her arm over Anne’s shoulder. “I’m sure Mr. Lapp will forgive you. You are only human. Put it out of your mind and let’s finish these reports. You and the other Amish midwives are doing a wonderful job. Your statistics will help me show the administration at my hospital that our outreach education program is paying off. Our funding is running out soon. If we’re going to continue educating midwives and the public, we have to prove the benefits outweigh the cost.”
Roxann, a nurse-midwife and educator, was determined to improve relations between the medical community and the Amish midwives, who were considered by some doctors to be unskilled and untrained. It was far from the truth.
Anne allowed her mentor and friend to lead her back to the table and resume the review of Anne’s cases for the year. Glancing out the kitchen window, Anne looked for Joseph, but he wasn’t in sight. She nibbled on her bottom lip. Was he going to make trouble for her?
* * *
A full harvest moon, a bright orange ball the color of Anne’s pumpkins, was creeping over the hills to the east. The sight made Joseph smile as he closed the barn door after finishing his evening milking. It had been two days since the tomato incident, but he still found himself chuckling at the look on Anne’s face when she’d realized what she’d done. From shock to horror to mortification, her expressive features had displayed it all. She might be an annoying little woman, but she did provide him with some entertainment. Especially where his goats were concerned. Her plump cheeks would flush bright red and her green-gray eyes would flash with green fire when she chased his animals. She was no match against their nimbleness, but that didn’t keep her from trying.
Goats enjoyed getting out of their pens. Some of them were masters of the skill. Was it his fault that the best forage around was in her garden plot?
It wasn’t his intention to make life harder for the woman. He planned to mend his fence, but there simply weren’t enough hours in the day. Now that the harvest was done, his corn cribs were full and his hay was safe in the barn, he would find time to make the needed repairs. Tomorrow for sure.
He was halfway to the house when the lights of a car swung off the road and into his lane. He stopped in midstride. Who could that be? He wasn’t expecting anyone. Certainly not one of the Englisch.
Most likely, it was someone who had taken a wrong turn on the winding rural Pennsylvania road looking for his neighbor’s place. It happened often enough to be irritating. His farm was remote and few cars traveled this way until Anne Stoltzfus had opened her produce stand. Now, with her large hand-painted sign out by the main highway and an arrow pointing this direction, he sometimes saw a line of cars on the road heading to buy her fresh-picked corn, squash and now pumpkins. Since the beginning of October, it seemed every Englisch in the countssy wanted to buy pumpkins from her. He would be glad when she closed for the winter.
He didn’t resent that Anne earned a living working the soil in addition to being a midwife. He respected her for that. He just didn’t like people. Some folks called him a recluse. It didn’t matter what they called him as long as they left him alone. He cherished the peace and quiet of his small farm with only his animals for company, but that peace was broken now by the crunching of car tires rolling over his gravel drive. From the barn behind him, he heard several of his goats bleating in curiosity.
Whoever these people were, they should know better than to come shopping at an Amish farm after dark. Anne’s stand would be closed until morning. The car rolled to a stop a few feet from him. He raised his hand to block the glare of the headlights. He heard the car door open, but he couldn’t see anything.
“Hello, brooder.”
His heart soared with joy at the sound of that familiar and beloved voice. “Fannie?”
“Ja.”
His little sister had come home at last. He had prayed for this day for three long years. Prayed every night before he laid his tired body down. She was never far from his thoughts. Still blinded by the lights, he took a step forward. He wanted to hug her, to make sure she was real and not some dream. “I can’t believe it’s you. Gott be praised.”
“It’s me, right enough, Joe. Johnny, turn off the lights.”
Something in the tone of her voice made Joseph stop. Johnny, whoever he was, did as she asked. Joseph blinked in the sudden darkness. He wanted so badly to hear her say she was home for good. “I knew you would come back. I knew when your rumspringa ended, you would give up the Englisch life and return. Your heart is Amish. You don’t belong in the outside world. You belong here.”
“I haven’t come back to stay, Joe.” The regret in her voice cut his joy to shreds. He heard a baby start to cry.
After few seconds, his eyes adjusted and he could make out Fannie standing beside the open door of the vehicle. The light from inside the car didn’t reveal his Amish sister. Instead, he saw an Englisch girl with short spiky hair, wearing a tight T-shirt and a short denim skirt. He might have passed her on the street without recognizing her, so different did she look. No Amish woman would be seen in such immodest clothes. It was then he realized she held a baby in her arms.
What was going on?
He had raised Fannie alone after their parents and his fiancée were killed in a buggy and pickup crash. He’d taken care of her from the time she was six years old until she disappeared a week after she turned sixteen, leaving only a note to say she wanted an Englisch life. For months afterward, he’d waited for her to return and wondered what he had done wrong. How had he failed her so badly? It had to be his fault.
It was hard to speak for the tightness that formed in his throat. “If you aren’t staying, then why are you here?”
The driver, a young man with black hair and a shiny ring in the side of his nose, leaned toward the open passenger-side door. “Come
