Harrison furrowed his brows. “I do like you. We’re friends. I consider you a gut pal.”
“A pal?” Sadie spit out the word.
“Jah. In some ways, I like spending time with you more than with Abe or Baker,” Harrison had said with a grin, as if Sadie should have felt complimented she outranked his other buddies.
“But what about all the times you gave me a ride home from work?” Sadie sniffed, half enraged and half heartbroken, astonished he didn’t return her romantic affections.
“What about it? We live in the same part of town. I’d do that much for anyone.”
“Wh-what about the gifts?” The catch in Sadie’s voice meant she was dangerously close to tears.
“Gifts?” Sadie could practically see the light dawning across his features. “Oh, you mean the Grischtdaag gift last year?”
“As well as the birthday present in March,” Sadie reminded him, referencing the leather-covered diary Harrison had given her. The same diary in which she’d written all her dreams about him marrying her. “I thought those gifts meant something.”
“They did. They were a reflection of how much my familye and I appreciate your work at the shop. Listen, Sadie, you’re a valuable employee and—”
“Not anymore I’m not!” Sadie shot back. She already felt pitiful enough; she couldn’t stand to listen to a consolation speech about the merits of her productivity at his family’s furniture store when she’d hoped to hear declarations of love.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m quitting,” she declared. Her mouth made the decision before her mind thought it through, so she added, “You’ve said sales are waning and you’ve been struggling to pay two clerks. Sereta Miller is supporting her eldre and suh. She needs the job more than I do, so I volunteer to have my hours eliminated. Would you like to tell your eldre or do you want me to tell them?”
Harrison shook his head as if Sadie was speaking gibberish. “It’s only a temporary lull. We expect business to pick up again in December. There’s always a surge after Thanksgiving.”
“By then, you’ll be married and I’m sure your new wife will be glad to help out at the store,” Sadie said with a shrug. At that point, she couldn’t quite bring herself to acknowledge Mary by name.
That was nearly a month ago. Since then, Sadie had ruminated long and hard about how she had misinterpreted Harrison’s gestures. She had convinced herself he was interested in her romantically but was too shy to ask to be her suitor. What a joke that was! He apparently hadn’t been shy about asking Mary to become his wife.
Why isn’t any man ever so enamored of me that he can’t wait to ask for my hand in marriage? Sadie silently groused. This wasn’t the first time a man had indicated, in so many words or actions, he thought of Sadie as a friend and nothing more. Something similar had happened with Albrecht Smoker and with Roy King, both of whom had actually walked out with her before deciding they weren’t interested in continuing a courtship. Having grown up with seven brothers, Sadie wondered if there was something about her personality that caused men to feel comfortable around her but not drawn to her as a romantic prospect.
Either way, she regretted exposing her unrequited emotions to Harrison and she’d finished out the week at the furniture store feeling ridiculous in his presence. They’d stopped eating lunch together and she’d walked four miles home in the dark rather than accept a ride from him again. Not that he’d asked. He must have thought she was pathetic, because he’d gone as far out of his way to avoid her as she had to avoid him ever since. The way Sadie saw it, she’d be doing them both a favor by not attending his wedding.
“Harrison will have so many relatives there I doubt he’ll even notice my absence,” Sadie told her stepmother, retrieving a stack of plates from the cupboard. “Besides, ever since I qu—I agreed to give my hours at the shop to Sereta, you’ve been telling me I need to find another job.”
“Jah, but I meant a job in Little Springs.”
“Your cousin’s nephew needs help. And it’s only temporary.”
Cevilla chewed her lip and Sadie knew she’d made a good point. Her stepmother’s cousin’s nephew Levi was a widower with four-year-old twins. He owned a Christmas tree farm in Maine, where his mother had been minding the children for him, but she’d passed away in July. Apparently, the other nannies he’d employed hadn’t worked out and now he was coming into his busiest season. After Christmas he was moving back to Indiana so his in-laws could help raise the twins, but until then, he was in desperate need of someone to care for them.
“I suppose that’s true,” Cevilla reluctantly admitted. “Besides, you’re old enough to choose what you want to do.”
“I want to go,” Sadie firmly stated. “I really do.”
Cevilla nodded but added, “Your brieder will miss having you here.”
Sadie had three older brothers, who were married and lived locally in Pennsylvania, and four younger brothers at home, whom she doted on. “Tell them not to worry, I’ll be back with their gifts just in time for Grischtdaag,” she joked, but Cevilla was serious.
“I’m going to miss you. Maine is so far away,” she said. “You’ve never even left Lancaster County.”
That was because even when she’d had the opportunity, Sadie hadn’t wanted to leave. But now she felt like she couldn’t get far enough away. She set the last plate near her place at the table and crossed the kitchen to embrace Cevilla.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” she assured her stepmother. And by then, hochzich season will be over and I’ll be able to hold my head up in front of Harrison again.
Levi Swarey firmly grasped the hands of his four-year-old twins, Elizabeth and David, as they skipped along beside him on the way to his mother’s daadi haus across the lawn from his own home. Her death had hit him hard and he’d rarely been inside her house since she’d passed away in July. Afterward, the women from his church district had visited to collect her clothes for donation and give the place a good scrubbing down. They’d said they washed all the linens and stowed them away in the closet, so Levi figured that besides making up a bed there was little for him to do before Sadie moved in, but he wanted to double-check that she had everything she would need.
“I can smell Groossmammi,” Elizabeth announced tearfully moments after they entered the empty house. “I want her to kumme back.”
“Groossmammi can’t kumme back. She’s in heaven with the Lord and with Mamm,” David said solemnly, repeating the explanation Levi had given the children countless times since his mother died.
Levi said, “Jah, and all three of them would want you to wilkom Sadie, so we need to make sure the daadi haus is cozy and clean. It looks pretty nice in here to me, what do you two think?”
“There’s a big spiderweb in the corner.” David pointed to the wall above the
