always matchmaking other folks together, but no one seems to catch your interest?”
Olivia Mae wasn’t too surprised at the question. It was something Mammi tossed at her at least once a week.
“I have my hands full with you and Daddi. I have a family of my own. I don’t need another.”
“Pshaw.” Mammi plucked a hot biscuit from the basket and broke it open with trembling fingers. The steam rose, and she inhaled deeply before adding a pat of butter. “You know what the Good Book says about taking a log out of your own eye before you worry about your bruder’s.”
“My bruders are doing just fine, but danki for your concern.”
She thought her grandmother would continue to bat the topic back and forth, but instead, when she looked up, confusion clouded her features. “Elizabeth, I’ve told you before. It’s past time you marry, and I don’t think you should put it off. There are plenty of gut boys available.”
Olivia Mae closed her eyes briefly, said a quick prayer for wisdom and forced a smile. “Yes, Mammi. I’ll give that some thought.”
“And prayer. Don’t forget prayer, young lady.”
Olivia Mae hopped up to clean the dishes so they could leave for church on time. But as she washed and rinsed, she wasn’t thinking about the service, she was thinking about Mammi calling her by her mother’s name. Olivia Mae didn’t even look like her mother—she took after her father. Both of her parents had perished in an accident ten years ago and she missed them as sorely as if it had happened the week before.
Daddi’s dementia was a terrible thing to watch, but it was Mammi’s slips into the past that frightened her more. She couldn’t possibly care for her grandfather and grandmother by herself, not to mention that the house was starting to show signs of neglect. She would ask for help if she needed it. Of course she would, but she knew what her bruders’ answer would be—they had wanted to move Mammi and Daddi to Maine years ago.
She couldn’t imagine taking them away from what was familiar. As far as the house, she could ask the bishop for help and a work crew would be there the following week, but she hesitated to do that, too. Her church family had already done so much to help when Daddi was in the hospital last month. She knew they didn’t mind, but she didn’t want to be the type of person who only asked for help but never gave.
So she bought old sweaters at garage sales, unraveled and washed the yarn and used it for her knitting. She was able to scatter the shawls and sweaters and blankets throughout their community. That and matchmaking were the only ways she knew to give back.
And she prayed, but not for a beau. That would only complicate things. Who would want to take on a twenty-seven-year-old wife, a small farm, a dwindling herd of sheep that she thought of as pets, and tottering grandparents? It seemed too much to ask, in her opinion. Best that she keep her problems to herself and bury her own dreams. Sometimes life called on you to sacrifice.
Mammi and Daddi were definitely worth sacrificing for.
* * *
Olivia Mae didn’t involve herself in someone else’s life unless they asked. But during their church service Sunday morning, she couldn’t help watching Noah Graber and Jane Bontrager. They sat as far from each other as possible. Noah was on the men’s side of the aisle, closer to the front. Jane was near the back, helping with her nieces. Noah didn’t seem aware of Jane at all, which wasn’t unusual in Olivia Mae’s experience. It was one of the reasons that older men remained bachelors. They weren’t even looking for love.
What was it that Noah had said?
I’m single—happily single.
He wouldn’t be the first man to think so.
Their opening hymn had ended and the ministers had filed into the barn. The doors were open wide, allowing in the fresh spring air, but rain threatened so they’d opted to have the church service under cover. Now they all stood for the Oblied, and for a moment Olivia Mae forgot about Noah and Jane and even her grandparents. She allowed the words of the praise song to flow over her, to rise from her heart. She felt, in those few moments, transported to a place without difficult days and hard decisions. She felt like the young girl who had written the letters to herself, the letters that were in the box Noah had brought to her.
She’d tried to read them. The evening he’d given her the box, she’d waited until she’d settled down for the night and then she’d once again unfolded the top sheet. She’d instantly been transported back to the summer of her seventeenth year, when her dreams were still fresh and hopeful. Each sheet contained a letter to herself that she’d penned quite seriously over the course of the summer. Where had she come up with that idea?
But the words she’d written seemed to come from a different person. The naiveté of her thoughts and hopes and dreams was too painful.
So she’d folded the letter back up, and had gently placed the box on top of her dresser, then flung her kapp over it so she wouldn’t have to stare at it.
She tried to focus on the sermons. The first was something about Joshua and Moses and the lost Israelites. Standing between her grandmother and her neighbor, Olivia Mae prayed, sang, kneeled and stood. She felt as if she was going through the motions, but the ritual soothed her nonetheless. After all, Gotte was in control last week, and he was still in control.
Even though Daddi’s condition seemed to be worse...
Even though Mammi grew more unpredictable each day...
Bishop Lucas stood and startled Olivia Mae out of her daydreams. He’d been their bishop for over six months now, but still she was surprised that it wasn’t Atlee who offered their blessing over the meal, who sent them out to be the people of Gotte, as he was so fond of saying. She was sure that Lucas would make a fine bishop, though he seemed awfully young at fifty-two. The truth was that in her heart she missed Atlee. He’d been like a wise old onkel to her. He’d been someone that she could be completely honest with.
Another hymn, and then they were dismissed and she was hurrying to check on Daddi, who insisted he was fine. Several of the men told her not to worry, they would take care of her grandfather.
Mammi was already standing behind the serving line when she joined it. She reached out and touched Olivia Mae’s arm, and a flash of understanding passed between them. Being away from the farm was good, but being in public was always nerve-racking. There was just no telling what Daddi would do.
Her mammi’s look reminded her that they were among friends, among family. She could stop worrying, at least for a few hours.
So Olivia Mae made her way down the line to the table with the main dishes—cold crispy chicken, thick slices of ham, spicy links of sausage. First the elders came through, then the women with the little ones, followed closely by the men. Finally the youngies, who filled their plates high, never worrying about calories or fat content. The last group was what Olivia Mae thought of as her people—Amish men and women in their twenties, some recently married and without children, some courting and some who seemed caught in that in-between place.
Jane stepped up with Francine. The two girls were barely twenty and stuck together like peanut butter and honey, which sometimes complicated her matchmaking
