Ella Finds Love Again (Little Valley 3) Read online

  “I see. Until he remarries, you said.”

  The red rushed to her cheeks again, but he was Englisha, so what harm could come from telling him?

  “He has asked me to marry him.”

  “Well, congratulations,” he said, half-standing before sitting back down. “I’m sure he’s getting a wonderful wife. Sorry for all the questions. My name is Robert Hayes. I guess I didn’t introduce myself, though it seems like I’ve known you for a long time.”

  “Ella Yoder,” she said, suddenly feeling very weak in the knees. But why? she wondered.

  Ten

  Ah, perhaps you’d best sit down,” he said, standing and offering her a chair from the kitchen table.

  Ella almost laughed. What a ridiculous situation this was. An unknown Englisha man in her kitchen, offering her a chair from her own table? Thankfully Joe and Ronda lived on the first floor or this could become a mighty uncomfortable situation to explain.

  “Your mom’s name is Marie? She lives in Maryland,” Ella said, taking the chair.

  “So you do remember,” he said, pausing as Mary approached them. “I’m hungry,” Mary said, pulling on Ella’s sleeve.

  Ella froze. What was she supposed to do with this man and his questions? Lunch time had arrived, and she couldn’t ask him to leave.

  He cleared his throat. “As I said, I have a lot of questions about the Amish. I know I’m imposing on you, but I really don’t know where else to start. If you want to make lunch for the children, I can ask my questions while you work or I can come back some other time.”

  “No,” she said, glancing at his face. “You can ask questions while I work, if you don’t mind.”

  He looked quite determined, and she didn’t want him to come back. This visit was bad enough.

  “I’m hungry,” Mary said again. Sarah had joined her and nodded in agreement.

  “I really am sorry about this,” he said. “May I help?”

  “I’ll fix sandwiches,” she said, getting up. “The children are hungry, and you can eat with us. I don’t know how much I can answer because some things aren’t for Englisha ears, but ask away.”

  He laughed softly. “Englisha, yes. But we aren’t from England.”

  “It is our way, and I don’t know that it can be helped. I suppose that’s the first answer to all things Amish. We do things our way, and that’s just the way it is.”

  “I understand,” he said. “Don’t let me hold you back from fixing the girls’ sandwiches.”

  “Oh, yah.” What was wrong with her? She was standing in the middle of the kitchen staring at him.

  “You haven’t eaten, have you?” she asked, turning and pulling homemade bread out of the cupboard.

  “Not since breakfast,” he said. “But I don’t want to be a bother.”

  He already was a bother, but he didn’t seem to know it.

  “It’ll be sandwiches then,” she said, slicing the bread. “Think you can handle that?”

  “With bread like that,” he said, watching the thick slabs falling on the cutting board. “And homemade butter, I assume—and jam.”

  “Are you guessing?” she asked. “Or do they starve you where you come from?”

  He laughed. “Of course not. They only starve you from the good things in life.”

  “Like homemade bread and butter?”

  “That and much more.” He stood to pull a chair out from under the kitchen table. Mary climbed on, and he scooted the chair back in.

  “Danki,” Mary said, all smiles.

  “Me too,” Sarah said, lifting up her hands.

  “Now, now,” Ella said. “You shouldn’t be bothering Mr. Hayes.”

  “Robert,” he said. “And it’s not a bother. I think I’m the one bothering you.”

  Ella took a few quick steps to pick Barbara up and lower her into the high chair. The baby slapped her arms up and down as she smiled at Robert.

  “Hi, there,” he said, leaning toward her. “You are a cute one.”

  Barbara jerked back, puckering up her face to cry. He backed away, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “She doesn’t like you,” Mary said.

  “I see that.” He dropped his arms. “Why do you think she doesn’t like me?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary replied.

  “She’s a sweet baby,” he said. “Perhaps I’m just new to her. Don’t you think that’s all it is?”

  Mary shrugged.

  “Time to eat,” Ella said, placing the meat sandwiches on the table. She transferred the butter and jam over from the counter. “The girls like orange juice, and I make it fresh. Do you want some?”

  “Fresh? Really? Of course.” He smiled. “You don’t have to do this for me, you know.”

  Ella ignored him and walked over to the root cellar, coming back with a handful of oranges.

  Robert cooed softly at baby Barbara while Ella cut the oranges in half, pressing the juice out with a hand juicer.

  Even with her back turned, Ella could feel his eyes on her. She poured the juice into a pitcher, grabbed four glasses and set them on the table, and then sat down.

  “We have prayer before meals,” she said, waiting and watching him. Would he object?

  He smiled, bowing his head with her and the girls as they prayed in silence.

  What kind of man is he anyway? He seems to have no objections to praying at mealtimes, she noted.

  “So your questions?” Ella asked, moments after the prayer. “We can talk while we eat.”

  “Yes, my questions,” he echoed.

  “Help yourself.” She motioned toward the sandwiches and bread slices.

  He carefully took a slice, spread butter and jam on the top, bit a piece off, and chewed slowly.

  “You like it?” she asked and then realized it was really a dumb question to ask a visitor.

  “Yes, it’s very good,” he said. “I haven’t tasted anything so delicious in a long time.”

  “You’re just saying so,” Ella said, expecting warmth to creep up her neck again. Soon the redness would spread over her face until she’d feel like crawling under the table. Even now her fingers were tingling.

  “It really is good,” he said, sighing. “You don’t know how good it is.”

  “Well, we live with it,” she said.

  He definitely had gotten under her skin. But how? And how had she ever gotten herself into this situation? She ought to make a dash for the stairs, calling for help from Ronda. But that would be silly, and he’d think Amish women were insane for sure.

  “I’m glad you like it.” She broke a small piece off her sandwich and gave it to baby Barbara to chew on. Carefully she brought her glass of orange juice up to Barbara’s lips for a long drink. Barbara gasped for air when she was done, a big smile breaking across her face.

  “She likes it,” Mary said. “And I do too.”

  “I’m glad,” Ella said.

  She could feel Robert’s eyes on her face again. If he didn’t ask his questions soon, she would ask him to leave.

  “My questions,” he said again, speaking softly. “What would a fellow do if he wanted to join the Amish?”

  Ella almost choked on a bite of sandwich. “Join the Amish? You want to join the Amish?”

  He looked puzzled at her response. “Why not? Does that make one a weirdo?”

  “You may want to join, but you can’t just do that.” Of course, Ella realized, sometimes people did indeed join the Amish, but not very often and not in their community. It just wasn’t done.

  “Really?” He leaned over the table. “Tell me why not.”

  Ella drew a quick breath. He had the quickest way of turning things back on her. “Well, for one thing, it’s very, very hard.”

  He tilted his head sideways, staring at her.

  “First, there’s the language. Then all the things you’d have to give up. Your car for example, and your nice things. And music maybe. Then there are the rules we li
ve by—lots of them. We grow up with those things, so they’re relatively easy for us. We’re accustomed to them. But you’d have to learn them—all of them—by heart. Then, of course, you’d have to get baptized. That’s after six months of instruction class, and the ministers watching your life. Do you think you could live with that? I don’t think so. My own brother is leaving the Amish. So how do you think you can make it?”

  “Your brother?” he asked.

  “Eli, yah. He’s in love with an Englisha girl. She said she’d join the Amish…at first. But that’s all changed. Now he’s left us.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, biting into a sandwich.

  “It just can’t be done,” she said again, meeting his eyes. Surely he would notice the pounding of her heart as she spoke, but even so, she kept his gaze. She would not look away. “Even when you love your family…it can’t be done. Eli just proved that. And you would have no family here, so how would you make it?”

  “You have a point,” he said, his eyes looking away as they sat in momentary silence.

  “I want another piece of sandwich,” Mary said, and Ella took her knife and, cutting carefully, afraid she’d slice her finger with this strange man across the table from her, sliced off a section for her. Perhaps he would go now that his questions had been answered.

  “Well, I’d like to try it,” he said, his voice low. “As I said, for these past few months I’ve been learning what I could. And the more I’ve read, the more I seem to want it. I think I’ve known from the time Mother brought home your quilt. My heart has been turned in this direction since then. Perhaps God has turned it. Or perhaps by a longing for a simpler life from what I have. Perhaps from a desire to be with people who don’t love the world. Would you deny me such a thing? Would you tell me that something like that…something perhaps from God…isn’t possible? Don’t your ministers believe there are those not born to Amish ways who are nonetheless destined to be with them?”

  Ella shrugged. “If they do—at least around here—I’ve never heard about it.”

  “Where would I start?” he asked, his voice determined.

  Baby Barbara slapped both her hands hard on the high chair and yelled.

  Robert Hayes smiled.

  He doesn’t seem irritated by the interruption, which says something for him, doesn’t it? Ella wondered. Perhaps he is sincere. Perhaps his questions are coming from a good heart. Who could help this well-meaning but obviously confused young man?

  At once she realized what she should have said minutes earlier. “You need to speak with the young Bishop Miller. He lives a few miles down the road.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Why the ‘young’? Is it that by being young he might be more open-minded?”

  “Yah,” she said, “I suppose so. And he can handle himself well.” Her heart was still pounding furiously. Why doesn’t it stay still?

  “Well, then, I will speak with your young bishop who can handle himself well.”

  “He’s our best bishop…if we have a best bishop. He knows all about the Martyr’s Mirror, and the history of our people. He helps out when one of us gets into spiritual trouble. Of course he couldn’t help Eli, but he tried. Eli was too stubborn.”

  “Anything else about this bishop of yours?”

  “He lives by himself. He farms. People love him. Respect him. He should be able to talk you out of this plan of yours,” Ella said, forcing a weak smile.

  Robert seemed to take no offense. “How do I find him?”

  “Take a left at my driveway. Next right, then next left. Five miles or so, another left. There’s an old red barn there. His is the third farm on the right.”

  The man seemed to process the information and then got to his feet. “So you really own this place?”

  “Place?”

  “This house where you live,” he said.

  “Oh, yah. I own it. I rent out the first floor. Why?”

  He shrugged. “Mom thought you did, but I wondered. Isn’t it kind of strange for a young, single Amish woman to have her own place?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, not looking at him.

  “A story behind that, I assume.”

  “Yah.”

  “Well, we all have our stories. So one more question, and then I’m gone. Do you women vote for baptismal candidates?”

  “What?”

  “When your people are baptized. Do you vote for them, like an approval thing beforehand?”

  “Yah, we do.”

  “Will you vote for me when my time comes?”

  Ella laughed out loud. What a bold, in-your-face rascal this man was! It sure beat everything.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, laughing heartily. “Thanks for lunch.”

  Ella got to her feet, but he was already at the door and had opened it. He gave her a little wave and he was gone. She listened to the snow crunching under his feet as he went past the window. Moments later his car started and the sound slowly faded as he drove down the driveway.

  Eleven

  Ella sat stunned for long moments until Mary pulled at her arm.

  “I’m done eating. Can we go play now?”

  “Your naps,” Ella said. “You have to take your naps.”

  Why couldn’t she think clearly? Had the Englisha man been a dream, an angel’s visit of some kind? Perhaps a message from heaven? But he hadn’t left any message. And why was her heart still pounding? Was she…in some strange way attracted to the man? She could barely stand the thought. And yet there it was. Had Eli placed some awful curse on the family? Was there a fatal attraction to Englisha love somewhere in their history? Ella shuddered.

  “I don’t want a nap,” Mary said.

  “Mary, was there a man here? Did he just leave?” Ella asked, knowing full well the answer.

  “He ate sandwiches with us,” Mary said, her voice matter-of-fact.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ella saw Mary moving slowly off the chair, her gaze on her doll.

  “No, that’s doesn’t work,” Ella said, taking her arm. “No escaping nap time. All three of you. I know how you become once we start quilting. Grouchy, grouchy, grouchy.”

  “But I don’t want a nap,” Mary protested, following meekly behind Ella, who had lifted little Barbara out of the high chair and was carrying her toward their curtained-off bedroom. Jumping on the bed, Mary and Sarah found their usual spots, and lay down, obviously more tired than they wanted to be. As they settled in, Ella prepared the baby’s bottle.

  With the girls down, Ella hurried to clean up the kitchen before Ronda came down. She hoped removing the evidence of the man’s visit would also erase his presence. And yet could she also erase the hot flush that still remained on her cheeks? What on earth was wrong with her? And how was she to explain this to Ronda?

  The man had spoken with Ronda before he came down. Had she noticed how long he stayed? Ella laughed out loud. Yes, Ronda would definitely notice something like that. It was one of the reasons Ella liked her, why she was glad Ronda lived on the first floor—because she kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Ivan couldn’t even arrive late to pick up the girls without Ronda’s comment the next day.

  By the time she had the table clean, she heard Ronda’s footsteps on the basement stairs.

  Ronda had no sooner entered when she blurted out, “Who was that man?”

  “A customer…kind of.”

  “He sure stayed a long time.”

  Ella smiled. What had this man done to her that her heart was still thumping this way? Thankfully he was an Englisha man, and she would never see him again. There was no more to it than that.

  “You seem mighty pleased with yourself,” Ronda continued, taking a chair by the table. “Did you make a sale? Is that why it took so long? You know we’re already two quilts behind.”

  “His mom bought our first quilt,” Ella said. Thankfully her mind still worked, and she knew exactly what to tell Ronda. Enough—but not too much. There was no need
to spread rumors around about an Englisha man who wanted to join the faith. Such talk would do no one any good. Bishop Miller would know enough to send the man on his way, and that would be the end of the matter.

  “Ach…vell then,” Ronda said, settling into the chair.

  “Marie was his mother’s name. She’s from Maryland, and he said she liked the quilt a lot. That he could even pick the house out from the drawing. Can you believe that? And his mother said the workmanship was excellent.”

  “So he stopped in to say…what? Hello?”

  “Not exactly. He didn’t say what he wanted for a while. We talked about his mother and then the quilt. Then he said he had questions about the Amish.”

  “The Englisha always do. They’re full of questions.”

  “Anyway, the girls were hungry so I invited him to eat lunch with us. We just had sandwiches.”

  “You didn’t!” Ronda said, her eyes big. “Did he ask his questions?”

  Ella laughed. “Yah. Big ones. I answered what I could.”

  “Well, I’m glad it wasn’t me,” Ronda said, taking a deep breath. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  “He was nice enough. I guess this is part of doing business with the public. Though I didn’t expect selling quilts to turn into visits from the Englisha customers’ children.”

  “And a man at that,” Ronda said, eying Ella intently. “You seem awful happy about something.”

  “It’s good when our customers are so happy with our work,” Ella said. “That’s all.” Now, if Ronda will just drop the subject. More talk and I might say something I shouldn’t. Ella felt a deep chill go through her body.

  Ronda seemed satisfied and got up to sit beside the quilt they’d been working on. “You need light back here,” she said. “I was surprised to see your lantern on, but I see why.”

  “Yah,” Ella said as she put some dishes away.

  “I too have some news,” Ronda said, turning toward her.

  “Yah?” Ella said, keeping her back to Ronda.

  “A bobli!” Ronda said. “I am going to have a baby.”

  “Oh, Ronda!” Ella turned to Ronda and, wiping her hands on a dish towel, said, “That is so wonderful!”