Amish Romance: Annie's Story: Three Book Box Set Read online

  MaeAnn and Randall had only been married but eight months. Eight months! It wasn’t fair. It simply wasn’t.

  “It will happen,” Amos said. “We’ll have a boppli in God’s good timing.”

  She reached behind her and found his arm to give it a squeeze. Dear Amos. Always so hopeful. During the first years, she’d been hopeful, too. But with every month’s reminder that it hadn’t happened, her hope grew dim. Worse than dim. It had been extinguished, and she knew she was going to be one of those women. The barren ones. The ones not blessed by God.

  She drew her hands into a fist beneath her chin and willed herself not to cry.

  “I think you should go,” Amos said. “They’ll wonder at your absence.”

  Again, Amos was right. They would wonder. And then Mamm would come back to the daadi haus and insist she show herself. Annie drew her knees to her chest. She had no choice.

  “I’ll go,” she said, her voice dull. And then, like so many times of late, something inside her pinched up and hardened and she worked to get her breath.

  Chapter Three

  Annie dragged herself from bed the next morning. What with stewing over Sarah and jumping up every hour to peer outside, and with being reminded again that of her childless state, she hadn’t slept but a few uninterrupted hours. By the time she poked her head from the bedroom, Amos was gone.

  She shuffled to the coffee pot and gratefully noticed that he had already made the coffee, and it was still warm. She poured herself a cup and sipped it slowly, enjoying the feel of heat running down her throat.

  The fire was burning quite nicely, and she moved closer to absorb its warmth. Gazing across the room and out the window, she saw it was going to be an overcast day. She could make out the outline of thick, clumpy clouds on the horizon. The light struggled to fight its way through, but mostly it was still dark outside. She saw a lantern shining from her parents’ bedroom. Was Sarah home? What time had she gotten in?

  She took another sip of coffee and then moved to the table to set her cup down. The day was waiting to be started and standing there like a fence post wasn’t going to get anything done. She hustled back to her bedroom to get dressed. She’d head over to the big house for breakfast, and then she could check on Sarah.

  She swallowed the lump of dismay in her throat. She had to tell her mother. Mamm needed to know about Eric. Then Mamm could tell Dat, a job Annie didn’t relish.

  Gott, please help us all, she breathed.

  “Oh, Annie,” Mamm said. “Did you come for breakfast? Grab the milk, would you, and get it poured?”

  Annie took the pitcher and headed out to the dining table. She filled the four glasses and then returned to get dishes for two more place settings.

  “Amos will be joining us, too?” Mamm said, her eyebrows raised.

  “Jah. He’ll come on over when he finds me gone. It’s all right, ain’t it?”

  Mamm snorted. “Ach, daughter, do you have to ask?”

  “Nee. But I don’t want to be taking things for granted, now, do I?” Annie smiled.

  Mamm snorted again, this time giving Annie a playful swat to her arm. “Them eggs is about done. Can you scrape ’em into the serving bowl?”

  Annie grabbed up the heavy cast iron skillet and emptied the eggs into a large glass bowl. She put a plate on top of the bowl to keep the heat in and the eggs warm, and then she took them out to the table.

  “Annie!” Miriam called to her from the top of the stairs. “I didn’t know you were coming for breakfast.”

  “Hello there, our Miriam. Give your big sister a hug.”

  Miriam skipped down the stairs and into Annie’s arms. “It might snow soon,” she said. “Can you help me make a snowman?”

  Annie straightened her sister’s kapp and gave her a tickle under the chin. “Jah. I think that can be arranged.”

  “Yum. Eggs. Is there bacon, too?”

  Annie laughed. “You know Mamm. When isn’t there bacon?”

  Miriam lifted the plate from the bowl of eggs and peeked inside. “Are we ready to eat? Is Dat back in from the barn?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll go help Mamm.”

  “Is Sarah up yet?”

  Miriam paused and shrugged. “I don’t know. She don’t talk to me much these days. Go on up if you want.”

  Annie glanced up the stairs. She strained her ears, trying to hear if there was any rustling up there. But all she heard was Miriam and Mamm chatting in the kitchen. With a deep breath, she grabbed the thick oak railing and climbed the stairs.

  The hallway was still. Her feet creaked on the wooden floor as she neared the room she used to share with Sarah before she married Amos. She paused outside the door and bent her head to listen. Nary a sound.

  She turned the knob and inched open the door. There was a lump in the bed, and clothes were strewn across the floor. She knew Mamm would have a fit if Sarah wasn’t down for breakfast, so she decided to save her sister the trouble.

  “Sarah,” she whispered gently.

  No response.

  “Sarah!” she said a bit more loudly, moving closer.

  The lump stirred but still no sound.

  Annie moved to the window and opened the curtains. The room brightened somewhat, but not greatly as the sun was still hidden behind clouds.

  “Sarah!” This time her voice was loud.

  “Huh?” came a mumbled reply.

  “Sarah, breakfast is on the table.”

  “Wh—?”

  “Get up, Sarah. Mamm will be up here soon if you’re not at the table.”

  Sarah pulled herself onto her elbow and stared at Annie. “What are you doing up here?”

  “Saving you from a scolding.”

  Sarah wriggled into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. Then she stretched her thin arms over her head and yawned. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Nee. It’s nigh on seven o’clock.” Annie pulled Sarah’s cape dress from its peg on the wall. “Get up and get dressed now.” She tossed Sarah’s dress on her bed.

  “Tell Mamm I’m sick.”

  “She’ll be up here.” Annie reached down to gather up Sarah’s clothes. “Ach!” she said, putting them close to her nose. “Your clothes smell something awful.” She stared at her sister. “Were you drinking?”

  Sarah raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug. “Nothing wrong with drinking. Eric told me—”

  “Shh!” Annie hissed, moving quickly to the closed door and pressing her ear to it. “Mamm’s coming up!”

  Sarah squealed and dove back under the covers. Annie poked her head out the open door. “We’ll be right down!” she called out.

  “Mamm sent me up here to fetch you,” Miriam said, just rounding the corner.

  “Give us a minute,” Annie said, relieved it wasn’t Mamm. She shut the door and turned back to Sarah. “Get up! And right quick!”

  Sarah wiggled from under the covers and stood shivering on the floor. Annie helped her into her dress, and the two of them twisted her mass of hair into a tight bun against her neck.

  “Where’s my kapp?” Sarah asked, her voice worried now.

  Annie saw it wedged at the foot of the bed and pulled it free. Sarah put it on and smoothed her hair, tucking in a stray russet curl.

  “Come on,” Annie urged, and the two of them rushed from the room.

  Mamm stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up at them. “Gut. There you two are. We’re ready to eat.”

  The two older sisters sat at the table. Amos gave Annie a questioning look but kept silent. Annie tucked her napkin onto her lap and wondered at her efforts to help Sarah avoid censure. She knew she was going to have to tell Mamm about Sarah’s escapades soon, so her efforts that morning wouldn’t mean much in the long run. Still, it was an instinct to protect Sarah and one that wasn’t lightly forgotten.

  “Give me the bacon, would you, Dat?” Miriam asked with her hand outstretched.

  “Miriam Clapper!” Mamm s
colded. “Such manners. Now you ask right.”

  “Can I have the bacon, Dat?” Miriam asked, and then added a quick, “Please.”

  Dat laughed and handed the heavy plate draped with bacon to his youngest. “Love to see a healthy appetite,” he remarked. He looked at Annie. “Don’t see you eating a whole lot.”

  Mamm’s gaze flew to Annie, and her eyes gleamed. Annie felt a sickening thud in her stomach. She knew that look.

  “I’m eating just fine, Dat,” she said, taking a bite of eggs. Her mother watched her like a calculating hawk, ever checking for signs that she might be with child. Not eating? Could be morning sickness. Eating too much? Could be eating for two. Feeling sick? Again, morning sickness.

  She couldn’t fault her mamm. The woman wanted grandchildren, and right then, her only hope was Annie and Amos.

  Annie chewed her eggs until they turned to rubber. Beneath the table, Amos pressed his foot against hers. He understood Mamm’s looks only too well himself.

  Mamm, now appearing both deflated and disappointed, took a piece of toast from the pile. “Don’t you be forgetting about the quilting come Saturday,” she announced. “That’s tomorrow in case anyone was wondering.”

  “We know what day it is, Mamm,” Sarah commented, blinking her eyes as if still trying to wake up.

  “I’ll expect you there,” Mamm said.

  “I don’t need to go to no quilting. It’s my running around time, and I’m pretty sure quilting has no part in that.” She gave Dat an imploring look. “Right?”

  Dat cleared his throat and set his toast on the edge of his plate. “I don’t think a bit of sewing will do you any harm, daughter.”

  Sarah dropped her fork. “What? Well, I’m not going!” With that, she stood and looked to nearly fall backwards over the bench. She righted herself and climbed over it in a decidedly immodest fashion and then marched up the stairs.

  Annie stared open-mouthed. Such insolence. And disobedience. Her chest tightened as she waited for the coming tornado, and she didn’t have to wait long. Mamm banged her own fork to the table and blew out her breath in a huff.

  “Levi! Are you going to let our daughter talk to us like that! I never! Levi!” Mamm’s face was flushed and growing redder by the second.

  Dat blew out his breath. “No, Patricia, I ain’t going to let her talk to us like that.” He pushed back in his chair.

  “Dat?” Annie spoke. “Let me go, all right? Let me talk to her.”

  Mamm’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Annie. “Why? The girl needs discipline right now, not a talk.”

  “Please, Mamm.”

  A moment of terse silence stretched around the table.

  “Please?” Annie asked again.

  Dat ran his hand over his long beard and pursed his lips. “All right, daughter. Go.”

  Annie scrambled up from the table and hurried upstairs. She slowed when she got to the hallway and even paused before the closed door of her brother James’s room. She touched the wood with the tips of her fingers. Even still, three years after the accident, she missed her brother. She missed his crooked smile and his teasing remarks. She missed the way he used to rub his chin as if deep in thought and then snatch up whatever was handy and give her a swat on her arm—a wadded up dishtowel being his favorite weapon.

  She imagined him lying in the cold ground in the district’s cemetery. She thought of how Mamm had set his spot at the table for months after his death. Tears pricked the back of her eyelids, and she blinked resolutely. Thoughts of James would have to wait. She needed to reach Sarah. Somehow.

  She knocked on Sarah’s door and heard a muffled, “Come in.”

  When Annie went through, Sarah’s eyes grew wide. “I thought for sure it’d be Dat. I’m in for it now, aren’t I?”

  Annie sank to the edge of the bed. “Probably. Maybe not. If you apologize, it would help.”

  Sarah nodded. “Jah.”

  “Why the outburst? Going to the quilting won’t be so awful.” Annie neglected to confess that going to the quilting was the very last thing she wanted to do.

  “I hate them. A bunch of old women sitting around with needles and gossiping about everyone. Course if I did go, they couldn’t gossip about me.” She grinned at her own joke.

  Annie laughed. “That’s something, jah?”

  Sarah drew her knees under her chin and hugged her legs. “I’m sick of it all, Annie. I don’t want to do anything Amish anymore.”

  Annie carefully kept the shock off her face. She touched her sister’s knee and smiled. “It’ll pass,” she said quietly.

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think so. Eric told me that this is the age when we question everything. And that’s good. And necessary. He told me he’s totally changed his beliefs over the last year. He said that I should—”

  Annie couldn’t abide any more. Who was Eric anyway? A prophet of God?

  “Sarah,” she interrupted. “You have to decide for yourself. I don’t think listening to an Englisch—”

  Sarah jumped off her bed. “See! Just because he’s Englisch, you think he’s wrong! Has it ever occurred to you, that maybe we’re the ones who are wrong?”

  Annie’s mouth dropped open.

  “And besides, he loves me.” Sarah took a step towards Annie, and her face gleamed with joy. “He told me so last night. I already knew it, though.” She grasped her own hands and pressed them to her chest. “Honestly, Annie, he’s the best person in the world. And I love him. I really love him.”

  This had gone much further than Annie had thought. Stark fear wormed its way through her stomach. If Sarah was speaking from her heart, and it was obvious that she was, her very soul was in real trouble. Annie’s chest tightened as she realized that Mamm and Dat had to know immediately the distance Sarah had already moved into the Englisch world.

  “It’s like your love for Amos,” Sarah breathed. “Don’t be mad. I can’t help it if Eric is Englisch. But he’s so wonderful. I can’t get enough of him.”

  A different kind of fear gripped Annie then. “What do you mean?” she whispered, afraid to hear the answer.

  “Just what I said. I’m going to meet him again tonight.” Sarah knelt on the floor and reached under the bed. She pulled out a well-worn suitcase and flipped the lid open.

  “What are you doing with Mamm’s suitcase?” Annie asked. Her heart froze in her chest. “Are you leaving?”

  “Nee! It’s where I keep my other clothes,” she said with a cunning smile. “Clever, huh? What should I wear to see Eric tonight?” She dug through a supply of jeans and shirts. “You can’t believe how comfortable these jeans are. Do you want to try them on?”

  Annie flinched. “Of course, I don’t!”

  Sarah laughed. “You should see your face. You’d think I’d offered you the forbidden apple.”

  Annie gazed once more at the array of clothes. “Where did you get all of these?”

  “Mostly Michaela. Some of the other girls took pity on me, too.” She shrugged. “I’m lucky to have such gut friends.”

  Annie chose to ignore her comment, instead saying, “Dat and Mamm will want to meet Eric. Why not bring him to the house tonight. You know, instead of going out?”

  Sarah looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Are you serious? They’d hate him, for sure and for certain. Ach, Annie. I’m not going to spoil everything by bringing him here.”

  “Joseph Yoder was asking after you,” Annie said, then wanted to bite her tongue. How obvious could she be?

  “He can ask away. I don’t care.” Sarah pulled a pair of tan jeans and a red shirt from the suitcase. “And don’t bother trying to talk me into Joseph. I’m not sweet on him. I love Eric.”

  Annie swallowed. She’d jumped into it now, so she might as well continue. “But Joseph is sweet on you.”

  Sarah gave her a disbelieving look. “And he said so?”

  “Well, not outright, of course.”

  “Jah, that’s what I thought. You kn
ow that the Englisch come right out and say it when they like someone.” She sat back on her haunches. “It’s refreshing.”

  Annie blew out her breath. She’d gone up there to try to talk sense into Sarah, and she was making no progress at all.

  Sarah laughed and pushed on Annie’s leg. “Don’t look so worried. I’m fine. I’m in love. I’m going to be fine.”

  “You’re not doing anything stupid, are you?” Annie finally mustered up the courage to ask.

  A quick shadow flicked over Sarah’s face, and then she giggled. “How can anything having to do with Eric be stupid?”

  Annie studied her sister’s face, and her heart fell. She was too late. She saw it clearly in every movement Sarah made. She was too late, and now Sarah had gone too far. Tears welled in Annie’s eyes, and her heart broke. How was she to tell Mamm and Dat such intimate things about their daughter? She shook her head and prayed fervently that she was wrong.

  But she knew she wasn’t.

  That afternoon, Annie stood in the kitchen watching Mamm bake cookies for the coming frolic. Her mother peered at Annie over the big glass bowl full of dough. “You could help me,” she finally said.

  Annie gave a start and realized she was standing there like a hitching post. “Ach. I’m sorry, Mamm. It’s just that I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Mamm rested both hands on the rim of the bowl and looked at her expectantly.

  Annie checked around for listening ears, then feeling safe, she barreled ahead. “It’s about Sarah.”

  Mamm stiffened. “I’m worried about her, Annie. More than ever.”

  “Me, too.” Annie took a deep breath. “You know she’s got a beau?”

  Mamm frowned. “What?”

  Annie nodded. “Jah. She’s got a beau. An Englisch boy named Eric”

  Mamm’s face went pale. “An Englisch boy?” Her voice trembled.

  “Jah. And, well, uh…” Annie swallowed around the lump in her throat. “She thinks she loves him.”

  “Loves him?” Mamm parroted.

  “So she tells me. And he loves her, I guess.”