Читать книгу Return to Paradise - Barbara Cameron - Страница 10

Chapter 3

3

David had been driving up and down the road of his old house for half an hour.

He just couldn’t make himself stop, let alone get out of his truck and walk up and knock on the door. He was a coward. No question about it.

Then he saw two women in Amish clothing walking on the side of the road. As he passed them he saw that they carried something in their arms. One woman glanced over as he rode by. It was Lavina. He saw the flash of recognition in her eyes as their gazes met.

He stomped on the brakes, then put the truck in reverse and backed up. As he touched the button to roll down the passenger-side window, he realized that there could be no avoiding stopping at his parents’ house tonight.

“Hi.”

She nodded. “Hi, David.”

His gaze went to her schweschder. “Mary Elizabeth.”

“Hi, David. How are you?”

“Allrecht. Get in, I’ll give you a ride.”

“We’re almost there,” Lavina pointed out.

“And that casserole dish has to be getting heavy,” Mary Elizabeth said. She opened the door and climbed in to sit on the bench in the back seat.

Lavina slid into the front seat and set the insulated carrier between her and David before she shut the door.

“So you decided to come back. I’m glad.”

He put the truck in gear. “We’ll see if I am.” He knew he sounded grim, but that’s the way he felt. Neither of them could ignore what had happened to make him leave just because his dat was sick.

Whatever Lavina had in the insulated carrier smelled like heaven. He realized he hadn’t eaten for hours and was hungry.

The house came into view. David pulled into the drive, shut off the engine, and sat there for a long time staring straight ahead. Lavina and Mary Elizabeth got out.

“Are you coming?” Lavina asked him.

With a heavy sigh he pulled the keys from the ignition and left the vehicle. He followed them up the stairs and watched as the front door opened before Mary Elizabeth could knock. His mother smiled as she saw the two women and she invited them inside.

And then her gaze traveled past them and she saw David. The color fled from her face and she swayed for a moment. Mary Elizabeth reached out a hand to steady her and she shook her head. She stumbled forward, holding out her arms, clutching David and sobbing.

“You came! You came!”

She’d always been a robust woman, but she felt as if she’d lost weight. He finally set her from him. “We need to go inside, Mamm. It’s too cold out here for you.”

Nodding, she turned and stepped back into the house. Lavina and Mary Elizabeth had gone ahead into the kitchen and were setting the things they’d brought on the kitchen table.

“Stew and bread and some cookies,” Lavina said, looking at Waneta. “Enjoy.”

She and Mary Elizabeth started for the door.

“Wait!” Waneta cried. “Where are you going? You just got here.”

Lavina glanced at David. “The two of you will have a lot to talk about.”

“Ya, but no need to rush off,” Waneta said quickly. “Please, sit, have some coffee. If it hadn’t been for you, David wouldn’t have known to come.”

As if to add to his mother’s invitation, David pulled out a chair for her and Mary Elizabeth.

She cast a helpless look at Mary Elizabeth, but her schweschder was no help—she shrugged and sat, so Lavina sank into the chair. She watched David’s mamm bustling around the kitchen, and David sat silently looking ill at ease in the kitchen of the home he’d grown up in. Lavina wondered if Waneta wanted a sort of buffer since David had surprised her.

Only when everyone had shrugged off their jackets and had a mug of coffee in front of them did Waneta stop fluttering around the kitchen and sit at the table.

“Where’s Daed?” David asked her.

“Upstairs resting. He should be up soon for supper.” She traced a pattern on the top of the table. “He’s been having chemotherapy for colon cancer.”

“What does the doctor say?”

Waneta’s lips trembled. “He says your dat has a very aggressive form of cancer so he started him on chemo right away. I—you need to ask your bruders to come see him, David.”

He nodded. “I thought I would talk to you first before I went to them.”

“I’m glad you came.” She reached over and covered his hand with hers.

It was so quiet the clock ticking sounded like a loud heartbeat.

“I drove up and down the street and had trouble stopping,” he blurted out. “I’m not sure he’s going to want to see me.”

“David gave us a ride,” Mary Elizabeth spoke up.

“So you have a horse and buggy of your own now?”

“Not exactly. I have a truck.”

Waneta stared at him. “A truck? Does that mean you’ve become Englisch?”

“Nee, Mamm. I needed a way to get to work.”

Everyone glanced up as they heard feet land with a thump on the floor upstairs and then make their shuffling way toward the stair landing.

“We really need to go,” Lavina said, looking uneasy. “Mamm is expecting us for supper.”

“Danki for the food,” Waneta said. “You’re such kind, generous maedels.”

Lavina blushed at the praise and avoided David’s gaze. He wanted to talk to her, but this wasn’t the time or place.

“I’ll stop by to see you tomorrow,” David said quickly before his father could appear in the room.

She looked startled. “Um, allrecht.”

Amos Stoltzfus walked into the kitchen and stopped when he saw David.

“What are you doing here?” he bellowed, glaring at him.

David rose. “I came to see you,” he said, lifting his chin. “Mamm said you were sick.”

“So?”

He studied his dat. He’d lost weight since David had left, and his beard and hair were threaded with more gray. But his voice was as loud and abrasive as ever.

“We have nothing to say to each other,” Amos said bluntly.

He walked to the sink, filled a glass with water and drank it down. Although he turned his back, David saw that his father’s hand shook.

“Amos, kumm, sit,” Waneta said, her tone placating. “Lavina and Mary Elizabeth brought us supper. Beef stew. And the bread’s still warm from the oven.”

He hesitated, turning to glare balefully at David. “Great timing, got here for supper. Always did show up at mealtime, didn’t you? Well, if you’re looking for a welcome like the prodigal son, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

David felt the old anger rise to the surface. He eyed his jacket he’d hung on the peg by the kitchen door. Then he saw his mother follow the direction of his gaze, and she looked ready to cry.

So he took a deep breath and silently counted to ten. “Neither of us ever missed a meal, did we?” he told him easily and he smiled at his mother. “Do you need any help?”

“If you’ll get some bowls, I’ll slice the bread.”

She lifted the casserole dish from the insulated carrier and set it on the table in front of David, then set the carrier aside on the counter. Getting a knife from a drawer, she placed the bread on a wooden carving board and sliced it.

Amos sat in a chair and watched her. It was as if David wasn’t even in the room. When someone left the community the family often shunned them. He’d wondered if that was what his father would do if he came back . . . just sit at the table and ignore him.

He ladled a bowl of stew and handed it to his mother who turned and set it before her mann. Then he filled another bowl for her. Finally he served himself.

They bent their heads for prayer and then began eating.

It was a start, he thought as he dug his spoon into the bowl of stew. It could have been worse. His dat could have told him to leave and he hadn’t. He said a silent prayer of thanks to his heavenly Dat and began eating.

***

David’s head was pounding by the time he finished his bowl of stew.

He asked himself why he hadn’t waited until after he’d eaten his supper to stop at his house and see his mudder.

Then he reminded himself that he hadn’t intended to stop at all. He’d been driving up and down the road putting off stopping when he’d passed Lavina and Mary Elizabeth walking there and they’d seen him. Not wanting to appear the coward he really was, he’d felt he had to stop.

Now, here he was, trapped at the supper table between a disgruntled old man and his mudder trying desperately to act as if they were one happy family gathered again around her kitchen table.

David hadn’t expected for his dat to kill a fatted calf for him. He knew not to expect to be treated like the prodigal son of the Bible but . . . he was going to have a whopper of a headache and maybe a really gut case of indigestion.

“Another bowl of stew?” his mudder asked him. “There’s plenty for both of you to have seconds.”

“Not for me,” his dat said, pushing away his bowl half-eaten. “Don’t feel much like eating. I’m going back to lie down.”

Without saying another word he got up and shuffled back upstairs.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” David said.

His mother got to her feet and poured them both a mug of coffee. She returned to the table and set them down, then opened a plastic container of cookies.

“Lavina and Mary Elizabeth brought these,” she said, putting some of the cookies on a plate and setting it before David. “I haven’t had time to bake. I went with your dat to his chemotherapy session today.”

He picked up a cookie and bit into it. “It’s gut.” He figured Lavina had made them. She liked to bake. She hadn’t known he’d be here. It was just a coincidence that she’d made peanut butter cookies, his favorite kind. Ya, and a coincidence that they had been walking to his house this evening when he was driving there.

Coincidence.

Suddenly something Lavina used to say came to him: “There’s no such thing as coincidence.” Everything was from God, she always maintained.

He wondered if he would have stopped at the house tonight if he hadn’t seen Lavina and she’d seen him.

Oh, well, what did it matter? He was here now and what did it change.

Now he just had to decide what his next step was.

He felt his mother’s hand on his. “Danki for coming.”

“You thanked me already.”

She sighed. “Your dat isn’t an easy man but he’s a gut one.”

They heard a thump upstairs. Startled, she looked up and got to her feet. “I need to go check on him.”

She started for the stairs, then turned and looked at him. “You’re staying, right? I haven’t changed it since you left.”

“Daed hasn’t moved his favorite horse in there?”

She chuckled. “Nee. I’ll be right back.”

David helped himself to another cup of coffee and a couple more cookies and sat down. He hadn’t planned on staying the night. He hadn’t planned on anything. They needed to talk some more, he and his mudder.

She came into the kitchen a few minutes later looking tired and worn. “He’ll be down for the night now.”

When had they gotten so old? he wondered. They’d been old—well, older than the parents of his friends. God hadn’t sent them kinner until they were nearly forty and then, as if to make up for their faith in believing in Him, had sent David and his two bruders all within six years.

He got up to pour her a cup of coffee. “We didn’t get to talk earlier with Lavina and her schweschder here. And Daed was in no mood to talk to me.”

“I’m sorry, sohn. He’ll come around.”

David reached for her hand and studied how fragile it looked with blue veins showing beneath the thin white skin. “He’s not going to change. I came to see if I can help you. I’ll do my best to stay, but if he insists I get out, you know I’ll have to leave.”

She lifted her chin. “I have something to say about that. I won’t let him order you from the house.”

He lifted his eyebrows.

“But —”

“I mean it,” she said firmly. “I should have said more to him. It wasn’t right for him to treat his sohns the way he did.”

“Or his fraa.”

She shrugged. “I don’t care about that. I care about losing my three sohns. I care about whether they’ll walk away from their Amish faith, their community. I care about whether they have kinner of their own, whether I’ll see them.” She stopped, struggling for composure.

David didn’t like to upset her more, but he needed to know more about his dat.

“Tell me about Daed. How bad is it?”

“It’s bad. He has stage three colon cancer.”

“How bad is that?”

“There’s only one stage more. One worse, I mean. Then—” She couldn’t go on.

“You said he’s going for chemotherapy?”

She nodded. “He didn’t want to at first. The doctor talked to him. I talked to him. He finally agreed. He’s got a lot of treatments ahead of him.”

“You’re worn out.”

“It hasn’t been easy.” She rubbed at her temple tiredly. “They’re doing some tests next week to see how he’s doing.”

“Go on up to bed. I’ll do the dishes.” When she stared at him, he grinned. “I know how to do dishes, remember?”

“Ya, I remember you doing them two or three times.”

“I did them more often than that.”

She shook her head. “You broke too many.”

“I think your memory’s getting faulty.”

She smacked his arm, but she was smiling. She hadn’t smiled much that night.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised.

“Allrecht. I’m going to put the leftover stew in the refrigerator if you don’t want any more. You didn’t eat much at supper. That’s not like you.”

“Well, I might have a little more now that Daed’s in bed.”

She nodded. “Gut nacht. See you in the morning.”

“Gut nacht.” David helped himself to another bowl of stew and another slice of buttered bread. It felt better than he’d thought to be back in the kitchen of the home he’d grown up in. The room was a simple room, dominated by the big wooden table his father had carved after he’d built the house for himself and his new fraa when they were married. There was a dawdi haus on the back, like there was on so many Amish houses, for the two of them to retire to when a sohn took over the farm.

But Amos had argued that he wasn’t ready to retire yet, even though his health had begun failing before the diagnosis of cancer had been made. Sometimes the oldest sohn didn’t get the farm—sometimes a younger sohn did, and David honestly didn’t mind if one of his bruders got it —but Amos had flatly refused to retire and simply drove his sohns harder and talked to them even harsher than before.

David finished the stew and bread, made quick work of the dishes and chose an apple from a bowl on the counter. He pulled on his jacket and walked out to the barn. When he slid the barn door open a chestnut mare stuck her head over her stall and neighed a welcome.

“Nellie,” he crooned to her. “I’ve missed you, girl. Did you miss me?”

She nuzzled his neck and pushed her nose at his arm, pulling his hand out of his pocket. “Yeah, I think you miss me bringing you an apple more than you miss me.”

He gave her the apple and then found himself wrapping his arms around her. “Oh, Nellie I missed you so. I’m back, Nellie. I don’t know for how long, but I’m back.”

She made a snuffling noise as if trying to comfort him. They stood like that for a long time until he finally went back into the house and climbed into the bed in his old room.

Sleep came hours later.

***

“Well, that was tense,” Lavina said as they walked back home.

“David’s dat sure hasn’t changed. He’s always been such a grump.” She glanced over at Lavina. “I know, I shouldn’t talk like that. But he is.”

“He’s not well.”

“He’s always been that way.”

Mary Elizabeth was right, but still, they shouldn’t talk about him like that. So she changed the subject as they walked and was grateful when they reached their house.

Everyone was gathered around the table. Lavina and Mary Elizabeth quickly shed their jackets and bonnets and joined their family for their own supper.

As she listened to Rose Anna chatter, glanced around the table and saw her parents and her siblings enjoying being with each other, Lavina couldn’t help wondering what was happening at the Stoltzfus house. She didn’t envy David sitting at their table with his dat. What if his dat had thrown him out of the house? What if David had left—after all, he’d done so voluntarily last time.

“Gut stew,” her dat said. “Warms the belly on a cold day.” He tore a piece of bread in half and used it to dip into the gravy.

“Lavina took a pot over to Waneta and Amos this afternoon,” her mamm told him. “I’ll take them my chicken and dumplings tomorrow.”

“Take enough for three,” Lavina said as she buttered a slice of bread. “David may be back.”

“David?”

She nodded. “Waneta was hoping he’d come back since his dat is sick with the cancer. He was there for supper tonight.”

“It would be so nice if that family could get together again. Especially now that Amos is sick. God wants us to care for each other.”

She finished her stew and got up to get the apple crisp from the top of the stove where it had been cooling.

“He gave us a ride in his truck,” Mary Elizabeth said as she got ice cream from the freezer.

“Truck?”

“He told his mudder he hasn’t become Englisch. He bought it to get to work.”

“Are his bruders coming back, too?” Rose Anna asked, sounding hopeful.

“I don’t know. We didn’t get to talk.” Lavina hugged to herself the secret that David had said they’d talk tomorrow.

She accepted the bowl of apple crisp Mary Elizabeth passed her, breathing in the scent of the warm apples and cinnamon before she plunged her spoon into the dessert. Mary Elizabeth was telling them about how the two of them left when David’s dat had come downstairs. Lavina tuned out what her schweschder was saying.

It was her turn to wash up, but Rose Anna helped while Mary Elizabeth took a cup of tea upstairs to drink while she read a book.

“How did David look?” she asked as she took a dish from Lavina and dried it. “Was it hard seeing him again?”

Trust Rose Anna to ask such a question. She had such a tender heart.

“He looked gut,” she admitted. “Thinner,” she remembered.

“Maybe he hasn’t been eating as well as he did when his mudder cooked for him.” She put a dish in the cabinet. “I’m glad he came back. It was the right thing to do. Now if John and Samuel will come back . . .”

Lavina handed her a dish, but when Rose Anna tried to take it she held on to it. She knew that Rose Anna loved John and hurt when he left just as Lavina had.

“Rose Anna, even if David and his bruders come back, it doesn’t mean things will go back to the way they used to be.”

The corners of Rose Anna’s mouth turned down. “You don’t know that.”

“Nee, I don’t,” She sighed. “But I don’t think we should get our hopes up. We don’t know that David’s come back for good.”

She stared into the sudsy water as if she could see an answer there. “David’s dat didn’t seem all that happy to see him tonight. As a matter of fact, he was awful to David. I wouldn’t have wanted to sit down at the table with him.”

She handed her a dripping dish. “For all I know, he left shortly after we did.”

Rose Anna dried the dish and fell silent. They worked together and finished the dishes, wiped down the table and counter tops. She didn’t say another word.

They turned off the gas lamp and climbed the stairs to their room. There they changed into nightgowns, brushed their teeth, then climbed into their twin beds. Lavina pulled her quilt up to her chin and stared at the pattern the moonlight filtering through the bare branches of the tree outside made on the ceiling.

“Lavina?”

“Ya?”

“I hope things work out. With David, I mean. For you and for his family.”

“Danki, Rose Anna. Gut nacht. Sweet dreams.”

She was only twenty-three, but at that moment Lavina felt so old. Once she’d harbored simple dreams. A maedel’s dreams. She and David loved each other, and they were going to get married. But life was more complicated than that. Things changed. People changed. She’d grown up this past year, accepted that David hadn’t loved her or he’d have found a way to stay in the Amish community.

At the very least he’d have contacted her sometime this past year . . .

She’d thought David was the man God had set aside for her, but she’d been wrong. There must be someone else. He just hadn’t shown up yet.

Sometimes God’s timing wasn’t what people wanted. She punched her pillow to make it more comfortable and closed her eyes, thinking how most of the time it wasn’t. Look how one of her mamm’s friends had prayed for a boppli for fifteen years and then had zwillingbopplin when others her age were becoming grossmudders. A woman in her church had been widowed for twenty years and never thought she’d marry again. Then a man from Ohio moved here and they fell in love and married.

God hadn’t sent her another man when David left, and now David was back. She didn’t know what that meant for her . . . if anything.

She closed her eyes. She’d wished Rose Anna sweet dreams. Now she hoped for some of her own.

Snuggled deep in her quilt on a moon-washed, cold fall night, Lavina dreamed of the last day she had seen David. They’d taken a picnic lunch to eat in a nearby park.

“Have another piece of chicken?” she invited, holding out the plastic container.

David chose a leg. “Three’s my limit.”

Lavina set the container down on the quilt they’d spread on the grass and replaced the top. She knew he’d try to resist another piece and wouldn’t be able to so she’d packed plenty. He loved her fried chicken. And like many hard-working Amish men, he could eat a lot and not gain weight.

The day was warm but pleasantly so. The delicate white seed tops of dandelions seemed to dance on the gentle breeze that blew over the nearby pond. Lavina poured cups of lemonade and wished the day wouldn’t end.

They’d stolen a few hours for themselves after church. Summer was so busy with the harvest in and all the canning and preserving. But Sunday was a day of rest and there would be no work aside from the necessary daily chores of caring for and feeding the animals.

“More potato salad?”

“Nee,” he said with a satisfied sigh. “I’m full.” He leaned back on his elbows and stretched out his long legs. “We’ll have to head back soon,” he said. “It’s going to rain.”

She frowned. “Not fair. Why does it have to rain on the only day we have off?”

“Sometimes things don’t seem fair.” Now it was his turn to frown.

“Did you speak to your dat?”

He shook his head. “He was in a bad mood yesterday and went to bed early. I’m hoping to talk to him after supper tonight.”

His father was a difficult man, so demanding of David and his two bruders. They worked so hard and yet it never seemed to be enough for him. But it seemed to Lavina he was hardest on David, his eldest sohn.

She touched his arm. “I wish the two of you got along better.”

“I don’t think he gets along with anyone,” David muttered. He reached for his lemonade, gulped it down, and crushed the paper cup in his hand. “I don’t know how much more I can take.” He stared down at the cup in his hand as if he had forgotten it. Sitting up, he tossed it into the picnic basket.

“Surely he’ll retire soon and let you take over the farm. Your mamm told me that the doctor told him he needs to slow down, that he’s worried about his health.”

“He’s too stubborn to retire. If he did that, he couldn’t control my bruders and me.”

“Be patient,” she said softly. She hated seeing him unhappy.

They looked up as thunder rumbled. Reluctantly, she packed up the picnic things, and they gathered up the quilt and ran for the buggy as fat raindrops began pelting them.

“Guess it’s time to head home,” he said, sounding as if that was the last place he wanted to be.

She reached for his hand and held it as he took the long way home.

***

Lavina got into Officer Kate’s car. It surprised her to see the woman dressed in a sweater and jeans and driving a vehicle other than her police car.

“I’m so glad you could come today,” Kate told her.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

A few minutes later she was surprised again when Kate pulled up in front of a simple three-story house on the outskirts of town. From the outside it didn’t look occupied; the houses on each side of it didn’t look like anyone lived there, either.

Once Kate used a code on the front door, though, it was an entirely different story. There were a half-dozen women sitting in the spacious living room and more kinner than Lavina could count. One woman sat in a rocking chair feeding a baby a bottle.

Kate had explained that the shelter wouldn’t be marked with a sign because its location was kept secret for the safety of the women and children who stayed there.

A woman with a round face and a big smile hurried toward them wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Kate, good to see you! So who’s this?”

Kate introduced Lavina, and the woman pumped her hand. “Glad to meet you. So happy you could come help the women with the quilting class.”

“I’m happy to.”

“I just put some coffee on up in the room, Kate. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Thanks, Pearl.”

Lavina followed Kate up the stairs and down a hallway. She heard the whir of sewing machines and the chatter of women before they walked into a room that had been converted into a sewing room. It reminded Lavina of the room her dat had fixed up for her mudder and schweschders at home. There were several tables with sewing machines of various ages, another two tables with projects laid out on them and shelves and shelves of fabric and colorful yarns.

The women glanced up as they walked in. One of them looked startled, jumping up and dropping the fabric clutched in her hands.

“It’s okay, Carrie,” Kate said in a low-pitched, soothing voice. “It’s just me.”

The woman frowned. “I see that.” She sat and didn’t look at Kate again.

“Hello, good to see all of you again,” Kate greeted the women. “Lavina here accepted my invitation to join us this week. She’s a master quilter.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’d say that,” Lavina said, embarrassed, gazing around at the dozen or so women gathered in the room. She’d been taught to avoid hochmut—pride—practically since birth.

“If someone’s making her living from what she does, I’d say she’s a master at it,” Kate responded equably.

“Isn’t every Amish woman a quilter?” someone asked, sounding skeptical.

“It’s true most Amish women quilt, Carrie,” Kate said. “But not all of them have the skill Lavina has. She and her sisters supply two quilt shops in town with their work.”

Kate turned to a nearby shelf, plucked a box from it and set it on the table in front of her. “This is the week’s quilt block.”

She handed several to Lavina to pass out and began handing out others to women near her.

“Each woman makes a quilt to donate to the community,” she explained to Lavina. “Then she gets to make one for herself and her family.”

She liked that idea. Community—their own and the Englisch one outside it—was important to the Amish. Each year Lavina, her schweschders, and other Amish women made quilts to donate to the auction that raised money for Haiti. The Amish community had been doing it for more than twenty years, well before the last devastating earthquake that had caught the attention of the world.

Kate gave a brief lesson on how to construct the block, and then she and Lavina walked around the room offering help when it was requested.

Lavina paused beside the woman Kate had called Carrie. She was the one who’d been a little sarcastic about how she thought every Amish woman quilted. Carrie was struggling to thread the sewing machine. Looking disgusted, she slumped in her chair.

“Would you like some help?”

“You know how to thread an electric sewing machine? I thought you people didn’t use electricity.”

“We don’t. But it looks like it threads in much the same way as my treadle machine at home.”

“Whatever you say.”

Lavina didn’t take offense at the way she talked. Carrie seemed . . . unhappy to her. Sometimes unhappy people were unfriendly.

On the ride here today Kate had warned Lavina that the women at the shelter had been through rough times. They’d been forced to leave their homes because of violence—sometimes in the middle of the night with only the clothes on their back. Some of them had children, and all of them hid here at the shelter where their husbands and boyfriends couldn’t find them. None of them had much money, and even worse, they had no self-esteem after months and even years of abusive behavior from those men.

Although Carrie looked about her age, she acted older, harder. She wore jeans that were worn and tight and a faded t-shirt. There was a colorful bruise under one eye.

Carrie stood and gestured at the chair she’d been sitting in. “Be my guest.”

Lavina sat, studied the machine for a moment and then she guided the thread through the loops on the top and side of the machine and finally the needle. “There. See if it works now.” She stood so Carrie could resume her seat.

Unsure whether she should stay and offer help or move on, Lavina studied the quilt block. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind working on something someone’s ordered. But it’s nice to work on one I want when I can.”

She met Carrie’s gaze. “Have you thought about what kind of quilt you’d like to make for yourself yet?”

Carrie jerked her shoulder. “Not really. I’m more concerned with what I’m going to wear for a job interview when I get one. When I went back with Kate to get my clothes my boyfriend had torn up my clothes, the bas—” she stopped. “The jerk,” she corrected with a sidelong glance at Lavina.

“I wonder—” Lavina paused and bit her lip. She had to ask Kate if she could offer to help her sew something to wear to an interview.

“What?”

“Maybe Kate knows where you can get something—”

“I’m tired of taking charity.” Her lips pressed together, Carrie bent over the quilt block.

Lavina stared at her stiff posture, unsure what to do. She looked around and saw Kate on the other side of the room, bent over talking to a woman sewing on a machine. “Let me know if you want help on the block.”

She moved on and found another woman her mother’s age who glanced up and smiled at her. “Don’t pay Carrie no mind. She’s only been here two weeks. It’s hard making the split, no matter how bad your man treated you, coming here with nothing and starting over.” She held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Edna.”

Lavina shook her hand. “Hi, Edna.”

“Don’t suppose you have this kind of problem in your community.”

“I’m sorry to say we do.”

“Really?”

“People are people no matter where they live or what religion they practice, don’t you think?”

She thought of David’s mudder. She hoped that all Amos did these days was yell . . . not that yelling wasn’t bad enough.

“Women turn to the bishop for help in my community. He talks to the husband and tries to work things out.”

“I kept trying to hold on,” Edna said, pulling some straight pins from a pincushion shaped like a plump tomato. “Some people think holdin’ on is a sign of strength, but there comes a point to where it takes more strength to just let go!”

She pinned a block and then started sewing it up. “My man wouldn’t talk to our minister and said counseling was for dummies. It was bad enough that he hit me, but when he hit my little boy I knew we had to leave.” She glanced around the room. “We came here.”

She finished sewing a seam, lifted the foot on the sewing machine, and pulled out the quilt block. After she clipped the thread she held the block up and examined it critically. “What do you think?” She handed it to Lavina.

“Good job,” she said. “Nice straight seams.”

Edna took it back and pinned another piece. “This is fun. How long you been quilting?”

“My mother gave me a piece of fabric and a needle and thread when I was five,” Lavina remembered. “I’ve been sewing ever since.”

Lavina moved on when Edna went back to work. When she saw that Kate sat at a table doing some handwork on a quilt, she approached her and quietly told her about Carrie’s dilemma.

“Pearl can help her with that,” Kate said cheerfully. “She’s started a clothes closet for the women for job interviews and such things. She put out a call to her female friends and there are some nice suits and dresses. I’ll tell Carrie before we leave today.”

The time flew by. It felt like they’d only been there a half hour, but before she knew it Kate began putting supplies back on the shelves. The women tucked their work in project boxes and stored them on shelves, saying goodbye as they left the room. Lavina checked the clock on the wall and saw that two hours had passed.

“I don’t need you to fix my life!” she heard Carrie shout.

Lavina spun around and saw Kate frowning as Carrie stomped out of the room.

Kate sighed. “That went well.” She carried the box of quilt blocks to the shelves and stored it, then turned to Lavina. “Ready to go?”

They walked outside and got into Kate’s car. Lavina waited until they were out onto the road headed home.

“I’m sorry Carrie yelled at you,” she said. “Should I have not told you what she said?”

Kate glanced at her briefly then focused on the road. “I get yelled at all the time. I’m a cop, remember? We’re not real popular.” She made a turn. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a difficult time for Carrie and the other women.”

They chatted about the class and soon Kate pulled into the drive of Lavina’s house.

“So,” she said, turning and meeting Lavina’s gaze. “Are you going to join us again next week?”

“I don’t know how much help I was.”

“You helped a lot. Don’t let Carrie scare you off. We never know how much we can help just by showing up ready to try.”

“Okay,” Lavina said. “I’ll be happy to.”

“Great.” Kate grinned. “See you next week.”