Maisy knew of one such couple. What would Ruth and Amos say about such a decision? Her own parents? The Gmay? Her stomach clenched. “I better . . .”

  She jumped up from her chair and ran to the bathroom.

  A knock on the door several minutes later forced Maisy to pull herself up off the cool tile floor. “I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”

  “May I open the door?”

  “Yes.”

  Betsy opened it a sliver, peered at Maisy, then opened it wide. She held out a new toothbrush and a travel-sized tube of toothpaste. “Get washed up and I’ll get you a ginger ale, if you like.”

  “Thank you.”

  When Maisy returned to the exam room, Kate had joined Betsy, who held out the glass of ginger ale. “There’s a saucer of crackers on the desk.” She patted Maisy’s back. “No decision has to be made today or tomorrow, for that matter. Ultimately it’s your decision. Give yourself time to think about it and pray about it.”

  “Okay.” Maisy forced the two syllables through dry, cracked lips. She cleared her throat. “But the sooner I make a decision, the sooner I can learn to live with it. And the sooner the couple can have some relief from their heartache.”

  “Are you thinking of someone specifically?”

  “Vicky and Isaac.”

  “Ah. You saw them here.”

  “They were so lost and sad.”

  “They are.” Betsy guided Maisy to the exam table. “Let’s check on the baby’s heartbeat.”

  After a sip of ginger ale, Maisy hauled herself onto the table and lay back. If only she could curl up in a ball and stay there until this baby made an appearance.

  “It’s really important that you make sure this is what you want to do before there’s any discussion with Vicky and Isaac. They’ve been through so much. We don’t want to be responsible for more pain.”

  “Me neither,” Maisy whispered. “Me neither.”

  The whoosh-whoosh of the baby’s heartbeat filled the small room. Maisy closed her eyes. The baby was the size of an avocado. He would fit in the palm of her hand. Babies were sweet and squishy and smelly. They needed more than dry diapers, milk, and clean clothes. They needed a father and a mother who would keep them safe, teach them about God, and guide them to adulthood.

  Maisy could barely keep herself on the straight and narrow.

  “The heartbeat sounds good. Strong and steady.” Betsy laid the doppler aside. She held out her hand to help Maisy up. “I’d like to schedule an appointment in one month. Kate will check your weight and blood pressure every week in the meantime. Any problems and we’ll get you right in. That will also give you time to think about the other thing as well.”

  Maisy thanked her again, made a payment at the front desk, and followed Kate out to the buggy.

  “Did I understand that you’re considering adoption?” Kate insisted on giving Maisy a hand up, even though she didn’t really need it. “That’s a big decision with lifelong repercussions.”

  The happy-go-lucky Kate had disappeared. Maisy drank the ginger ale Betsy had sent with her. Her stomach didn’t care much for it. “Do you think it’s wrong of me to consider it?”

  “Nee. I think it’s brave.” Kate held the reins, but she didn’t give her horse the signal to move. “People will talk. It’s human nature, no matter how much we try to change it. You must do what is best for your bopli, not what others think is best.”

  “Would it be selfish of me to give my bopli to someone else to raise?” Maisy dug her fingernails into her palms. She concentrated on the pain to keep from crying. “Would I be taking the easy way out?”

  “Ach, maedel. There’s nothing easy about handing over a bopli you made and grew in your own body to another person.” Scowling, Kate pushed her glasses up her nose. She tut-tutted. “That’s how I know you’re not ready for this. Think hard on it. Pray. Then decide.”

  “I will.” Maisy’s head throbbed. Her back hurt. Her heart hurt. Now that she’d opened the door to the possibility of giving the baby up, she couldn’t close it. She rubbed her belly. What do you think, Bopli? Would you be better in the arms of another woman?

  The truth hurt worse than any pain she’d ever experienced.

  “I don’t think you’re up to applying for jobs today.” Kate clucked and snapped the reins. “I’ll run into the store and get the application. Amos will have to be happy with that.”

  “Bless you.” Maisy dug through her bag for her billfold. “Would you mind getting me a composition notebook?”

  “No problem whatsoever.”

  Kate didn’t ask any questions and returned in less than ten minutes. For a woman who loved to chat with everyone who came within twenty feet, that was a lightning-fast trip. She handed a bag to Maisy before settling a big bag of sugar on the floor behind the buggy’s seat. Maisy dug through the bag. Pectin, a notebook, and a Janette Oke novel.

  “How did you know?”

  Kate held out Maisy’s change. “I saw a book on the dresser the other day. I hope you haven’t read that one.”

  “I haven’t.” Maisy smoothed her hand over the cover. A romance, of course. She was only eighteen. She couldn’t swear off romance. But now she knew the stories were just that—stories. “Did you forget the application?”

  “Nee. They’d already filled the position. The new cashier starts tomorrow.”

  Maisy leaned back on the buggy’s bench. To her chagrin relief flooded her. The thought of making conversation with customers was scary. She’d only been in the grocery store a few times. She didn’t know which aisle had the cereal or which one had the canned vegetables.

  “You’ll get the hang of this.”

  She hadn’t so far. “I know.”

  “Just know you can always count on me and Betsy and Leeann. And Ruth. You can always count on her.”

  Until Amos laid down the law. “I don’t want to create discord in her home.”

  Any more than she already had.

  “Give Amos time. He’ll come around. He’s a gut man who’s hurting. Don’t forget that. And remember. You’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

  Maisy raised her face to the sun. She closed her eyes. Who wanted flies, anyway? What she wanted was peace.

  “Amos wants peace too.”

  “Stop doing that!” Maisy sat bolt upright. “It’s scary.”

  “What?”

  “Reading my mind.”

  Kate laughed. “Rest. I’ll get you home.”

  What a nice thought. Rest. Home.

  Not her home, but the next best thing. For now.

  Chapter 14

  A baby factory. That’s what the Plank farm seemed to be these days. Joshua smiled to himself. The women acted like it was a big secret. But even a bachelor like himself—one with five younger brothers and sisters plus cousins, nieces, and nephews—recognized the symptoms. Both women gave up coffee and sipped ginger tea. They both sucked on lollipops like grade school kids. Their faces were green around the gills while serving fried eggs, bacon, and sausage for breakfast. Once Joshua suggested pancakes might be a nice change of pace, knowing his sister-in-law served mountains of pancakes and waffles last year before his first niece came along, but Amos deep-sixed that idea. A man needed protein to farm.

  After another long day bringing in the last load of hay for the year, Joshua was in no mood to argue. He stalked into the house to wash his hands and face before supper. All the windows were open to let in a breeze. The summer heat had faded into fall breezes—especially in the evenings. Soon the harvest season would be over. It would be time for Joshua to switch to his other job—working for Caleb Mast at the furniture store.

  Joshua splashed water on his face again. If only he could wash away the feeling that time was getting away from him. Caleb was a good furniture maker. He taught well. But he had his own sons to work with him. Everything was slightly off-center. A man Joshua’s age should be married and starting a family of his own, not living at home and eating supper with his parents—nice at it was. He should be plying a trade of his choosing, not one he fell into when nothing else materialized.

  Wide-open spaces. Horses. Working outdoors. The dream that died with Jacob—that Joshua allowed to die. What would Jacob say about that if he were here?

  You’re not here. That’s the whole point.

  Joshua dried his hands, refolded the towel, and laid it over the rack. This wasn’t a new or unexpected dilemma. So why did he avoid thinking about it? Dealing with customers was uncomfortable, but he did it because it was a job—like working for Amos was a job. Hard work kept his mind occupied.

  Still pondering the future, he trudged to the table. Maisy looked up from setting down a platter piled with corn on the cob. She smiled. She did that more now. Her sickness must be abating. “Just in time. I hope you like tater-tot casserole.”

  “I do.”

  “Gut.”

  Amos strode into the kitchen and headed for the sink. Maisy’s smile disappeared. She hustled to the counter where Ruth dumped pickled beets from a Ball jar into a serving dish. “Shall I take the casserole to the table?” Maisy grabbed two pot holders in preparation for the task. “The men are chomping at the bit to eat.”

  “Surely. Danki. Whoops!” Ruth hopped back from the counter. Purple juice splattered her apron and hands. “Ach. I splashed the beets.”

  “That’ll stain. I can presoak it tonight. We’ll wash it tomorrow.”

  “Gut to see you’re making yourself useful, Maisy.” Amos’s voice held a note of approval. “I saw a help-wanted sign in the window at the hardware store today. Did you go into town this afternoon to apply for jobs?”

  “Nee, I didn’t.” Maisy set the casserole on the table. “Bonnie had tummy troubles all day. I stayed here to take care of her while Ruth sewed. Both boplin are growing so fast. Plus Ruth needs bigger—”

  “I know what Ruth and the kinner need.” With a grunt, Amos plopped into his chair at the head of the table. “I also know what we talked about almost six weeks ago.”

  “I can’t imagine the owner hiring a woman to work in his hardware store.” Maisy picked up the water pitcher and trotted around the table filling glasses. She reached past Joshua. She smelled like diaper rash ointment and gingerbread. “I don’t know anything about nuts and bolts, hammers, farm implements, or stains, or sandpaper.”

  “Joshua could help. He could walk you through the store. He could show you what’s what before you apply.” Ruth buckled Nicholas into his high chair. “He’s an expert.”

  True, but the expectation that Maisy could get a job at a hardware store with no prior experience seemed far-fetched. Plus it meant spending time alone with Maisy and making conversation with her. By this time of day Joshua was out of words. “It seems unlikely that Harvey would hire someone with no experience.”

  “Maisy’s been around construction workers her whole life.” Ruth’s tone was airy. Optimism bloomed wherever the woman went. “She’ll pick it up quickly. Harvey’s a friend of yours. Your recommendation would go a long way.”

  “I couldn’t put Joshua out.” Maisy’s cheeks had turned as red as the fresh, sliced tomatoes on the plate next to the corn on the cob. “He has more important things to do than teach me about tools.”

  “Maybe he should speak for himself.” Ruth swiveled in her chair to glare at Joshua. “Would you be willing to help out Maisy, knowing her situation?”

  Amos and Maisy joined her in staring at him.

  When she put it that way—which was her intention—Ruth knew there was no way Joshua could say no. “I reckon I could start with a run-through of the tools in your barn, Amos. After that we’ll make a trip into town.”

  “You better do it tomorrow.” Ruth grabbed a napkin and wiped up Bonnie’s spilled milk without missing a beat. “Someone else might apply. Harvey’s surely in a hurry to fill the position, now that his son has gone off to college in Manhattan. The hardware store is always busy, and he likes his long lunch hour so he can take a nap after he eats his salami-and-Swiss cheese-on-rye-bread sandwich and barbecue chips.”

  Apparently everyone knew about Harvey’s love of salami and Swiss cheese. “If Amos doesn’t object, we’ll do that.”

  “Amos, you don’t object, do you?” Ruth cast her encouraging gaze widely to include her husband. “After all, you’re the one pushing for Maisy to get a job. Her bills will start to add up at the birthing clinic pretty quickly.”

  Why didn’t she simply have the baby at Amos’s house? Nope, better not to dig into those details. Joshua kept his mouth shut.

  “I reckon that’s fine.” Amos tugged at his beard, his expression thoughtful. “It’s worth a try. You might as well start after supper. After the kitchen is clean.”

  Joshua took a bite of his tater-tot casserole. It wasn’t as tasty as it had been a few minutes earlier. Bonnie’s merry tune involving an itsy-bitsy spider and Nicholas’s gibberish were the only sounds besides forks clinking on plates for the rest of the meal. Maisy finished first. She rose and picked up a plate that still held food.

  “You’re wasting food.” Amos pointed his fork at her. “Don’t put it on your plate if you don’t intend to eat it.”

  The flush on her face deepened. She nodded but said nothing.

  “Why don’t you bring out the brownies left over from yesterday?” Ruth’s tone was soft, the voice of a long-suffering mediator. “Amos needs some sweetening.”

  Joshua kept his amusement to himself. Ruth did know how to say what she had to say without actually saying it. “The food was gut.” He pushed back the bench and stood. “I’ll meet you in the barn, Maisy, when you’re finished in the kitchen.”

  Again, a simple nod. The few pounds she gained in recent weeks filled out her face, taking away the gaunt look of a sickly person. Her cheeks were plump, her blue eyes bright, and her skin clear. She was a pretty woman.

  Forget it. Just forget it.

  He whirled from the table, stomped through the living room, and out the front door. How could he be having these thoughts about a woman expecting another man’s baby?

  Half an hour later, that pretty woman slipped into the barn, her steps slow, hesitant. The calico cat trailed after her. He wound himself around her feet. She picked him up and settled him in the crook of her arm. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I didn’t think it would take so long to clean the kitchen.”

  She was always apologizing. She shouldn’t do that, especially when it was because she’d been working hard to clean the kitchen. Joshua cocked his head toward the tools Amos had hung on the far wall with shelves underneath for others. “We can start here.”

  “We don’t have to do this right now if you’re busy or tired.” She stroked Sunny. His purr revving like an engine, the cat meowed his pleasure. “You’ve had a long day.”

  “So have you.” Joshua moved to the shelves that contained the bulk of Amos’s tools. “The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be done.”

  “I’m sorry you got stuck in the middle of this.” Maisy didn’t move. “I know you don’t want to be here doing this with me.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Jah, you do.”

  Joshua forced a smile. “Not for the reasons you think.”

  She couldn’t know how hard it was for him to carry on a conversation, how little desire he had to talk to anyone.

  Joshua picked up a piece of sandpaper from a row he’d arranged on the counter above the shelves. “Do you know what grit is?”

  Maisy deposited Sunny on a hay bale and trudged over to the shelves. “You mean dirt?”

  A woman would think of that. She mopped a lot of floors. “The roughness of sandpaper is graded in a measure called grit. The lower the grit the more abrasive it is. Customers will come in and ask for coarse, medium, fine, and super-fine sandpaper. The grade corresponds to how big the grit is.”

  Joshua handed her the sandpaper. She ran her fingers over it. “Why is that important?”

  “Because the customer wants to use the right grade for his project. The coarse-grit paper gets the material off faster, but it leaves scratches. You follow up with a fine sandpaper for a smooth finish. Using the wrong grade could mess up a piece of furniture.”

  Maisy walked along the shelves, touching hammers, saws, buckets of nails, a gas-powered drill, screwdrivers, wrenches, and a variety of implements she likely would be hard-pressed to name. “It’s too much to learn by tomorrow.”

  “Then we best get started.”

  “You obviously know everything there is to know about tools. Ruth says you are about done working for Amos until next spring. How come you don’t apply for this job?”

  “I already have a winter job. I work for Caleb Mast at the furniture store until Christmas. He’s teaching me to build furniture.”

  “Instead of training horses.”

  “Instead of training horses.” He shouldn’t have told her about Jacob. “Harvey Lipton is a nice man. A fair man.”

  “And I have to work for someone Englisch.”

  “Amos might have mentioned that.” His boss hadn’t actually told Joshua. Amos had been talking to his brother about Maisy’s unwanted presence in his home when Joshua walked in on the conversation over coffee one day last week. Far be it for him to criticize Bryan, but Plain businesses had many English customers. English businesses had both. What point was made by limiting Maisy’s options? “You’ll have to wait on both kinds of customers at the hardware store.”

  “But mostly men.” She shook her head. She probably didn’t even realize she was doing it. “Many Englisch men.”

  Which was how she’d gotten into trouble in the first place.

  Likely it was a moot point, anyway. Harvey would have to be feverish to be foolish enough to hire her.

  Maisy stopped in front of the saws hanging from the wall. “Why does Amos need so many saws?”

  This was a topic Joshua could wrap his head around. “It depends on what he wants to cut. When Amos bought this property, it was a fixer-upper. He did a lot of the work himself.” He pointed to a hacksaw. “He had to move and repair some of the plumbing so he needed a hacksaw. It cuts through pipes, both plastic and metal. Trees needed to be trimmed. He used a crosscut saw and a bow saw for that. He has two gas-powered saws—the jigsaw and the chainsaw—for bigger projects. The smaller saws were for his woodworking projects. He made several pieces of the furniture you’ve been using in the house.”

 

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