had left chicken potpie for supper. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the days that she closed the store at five, she and her parents usually had their main meal together when she got home. It was after six now, though. She hoped they hadn’t waited for her.
Ellen had been delayed because of a mix-up with the customer orders that Dinah had packed and mailed a week earlier. The reproduction spinning wheel that had been intended for Mrs. McIver in Maine had gone instead to Mrs. Chou in New Jersey. And the baby quilt in the log cabin pattern and an Amish baby doll Mrs. Chou had been expecting had gone to Mrs. McIver. Mrs. Chou had taken the mistake with good humor when Ellen had called her from the store’s phone. Mrs. McIver hadn’t been so understanding, but Ellen had been able to calm her by promising to have the spinning wheel shipped overnight as soon as she received it back from Mrs. Chou.
Dinah felt terrible about the mix-up; unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time she’d made a mistake shipping an order. Dinah was a lovely woman, but other than her charming way with tourists who came into the shop, her shopkeeper’s skills were not the best. After two years behind the counter, she still struggled running credit cards, the cash register continually gave her a fit and Ellen had given up trying to get her to make the bank deposits. But Dinah needed the income, and since the fire, it had been comforting to have someone living in the apartment upstairs. So, in spite of the disadvantages of having Dinah as an employee, Ellen and her father agreed to keep her as long as she was willing to work for them.
As Ellen climbed the back steps to her parents’ house, voices drifted through the screen door, alerting her that they had visitors. And since they were speaking in Deitsch, they had to be Amish. But who would be stopping by at suppertime?
Ellen walked into the kitchen to find Simeon Shetler, his two sons and his two grandsons seated around the big table. The evening meal was about to be served.
Ellen covered her surprise with a smile. “Simeon. Micah. Neziah. How nice to see you.” The table was set for eight, so clearly the Shetlers had been expected. Had her mother invited them for supper and forgotten to mention it? It was entirely possible; there were many things that slipped Mary Beachey’s mind these days.
Of course, there was the distinct possibility that plans to have dinner together had been made after her conversation with Simeon this morning. Ellen’s cheeks grew warm. Surely Micah and Neziah weren’t here to—
The brothers got to their feet as Ellen entered the kitchen, and she saw that they were both wearing white shirts and black vests and trousers, their go-to-worship attire—which meant that the visit was a formal one. For them, not their father. Simeon wore his customary blue work shirt and blue denim trousers.
It appeared that the two younger Shetler men had come courting.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing clever came to her, so she looked at her father. Surely there had been a misunderstanding or miscommunication with the Shetlers. Surely her father would have wanted to talk in private with Ellen about Simeon’s proposition before inviting them all to sit down together to talk about it.
John Beachey met his daughter’s gaze and nodded. He knew her all too well. He knew just what she was thinking. “Jah, Ellen. We’ve talked, Simeon and I.”
“You have?” she managed.
“We have, and we’re in agreement. It’s time you were married, and who better than one of the fine sons of our good neighbor. A neighbor, who,” he reminded pointedly, “helped us out so much when we had the fire.”
The fire, Ellen thought. That weighty debt: rarely mentioned but always remembered.
How many years ago had it been now? Seven or eight? The suspicious fire, probably caused by teenaged mischief makers, had started at the back of the store and quickly spread through the old kitchen and up through the ceiling into the second floor. Quick-thinking neighbors had smelled smoke and seen flames, and the valiant efforts of a local fire company had prevented the whole building from being a loss. But smoke and water had destroyed all of the contents of the shop, leaving them with no means of support and no money to rebuild. Simeon had showed up early the next day with a volunteer work force from the community to help. He’d provided cash from his own pocket for expenses, lumber from his mill and his sons’ services to provide the skilled carpentry to restore the shop. Over the years, her father had been able to repay Simeon’s interest-free loan, but they owed the Shetlers more than words could ever express.
“Sit, please.” She waved a hand to the men and boys.
Having Simeon’s sons standing there grinning at her was unnerving. Or at least, handsome, blond-haired Micah was grinning at her. Neziah, always the most serious of the three Shetler men, had the expression of one with a painful tooth, about to see the dentist. He nodded and settled solidly in his chair.
The room positively crackled with awkwardness, and Ellen wished she were anywhere but there. She wished she could run outside, jump on her push scooter and escape down the drive. Everyone was looking at her, seeming to be waiting for her to say something.
Neziah’s son Joel, age five, came to her rescue. “Can we eat now, Dat? I’m hungry.”
“Jah, I’m hungry, too,” the four-year-old, Asa, echoed.
The boys did not look hungry, although boys always were, Ellen supposed. Joel, especially, appeared as if he’d just rolled away from a harvest table. His chubby face was as round as a donut under a mop of unruly butter-yellow hair, hair the same color as his uncle Micah’s. Asa, with dark hair and a complexion like his father’s, was tall for his age and sturdy. Someone had made an effort to subdue their ragged bowl cuts and scrub their hands and faces, but they retained the look of plump little banty roosters who’d just lost a barnyard squabble and were missing a few feathers. Still, the boys had changed the focus from her and the looming courtship question back to ground she was far steadier on—the evening meal.
“We waited supper for you,” Ellen’s mother explained. “Come, Dochter, sit here across from Micah and Neziah.”
Ellen surveyed the table. There would be enough of a main dish for their company because she’d made the two potpies. She also saw that her mother had fried up a platter of crispy brown scrapple and brought out the remnants of a roasted turkey. “Let me open a jar of applesauce and some of those delicious beets you made this summer, Mam,” she suggested. As she turned toward the cupboard, she took off her good apron, which she wore at the shop, and grabbed a black work apron from a peg on the wall. “I’ll only be a moment,” she said. “I’m sure the boys like applesauce.” Tying the apron on, she retrieved the jar and carried it to the table.
“Do you have pie?” Joel called after her. “Grossdaddi promised we would have pie. He said you always got pie.”
“And cake,” Asa chimed in.
“Boys,” Neziah chided. “Mind your manners.”
“But Grossdaddi said,” Joel insisted.
Ellen went to the stove and scooped biscuits from a baking sheet and dropped them into a wooden bowl that had been passed down from a great-grandmother. They were still warm, so they must have just come from the oven.
Her mother rose to seek out a pint of chow-chow, and a quart of sweet pickles that they’d put up just a week ago. In no time, they were all seated, and Ellen’s father bowed his head for the silent prayer.
When
