A Ready-Made Amish Family

Chapter Three

When Isaiah came in after finishing the barn chores, the kitchen looked as neat as it had before supper. The room was empty, so he glanced toward the front room.

The twins were stretched out on the floor, coloring, while Clara sat on the sofa facing the wood stove and the rocking chair Melvin had bought for his wife when they first learned they were going to have a boppli. At that time, nobody had guessed Esta was carrying two bopplin.

He didn’t move as Andrew got up and went to show Clara the picture he’d been working on. While she listened to the boy’s excitement with the colors he’d chosen, she curved her hand across his narrow back, making a connection to the kind. Andrew was grinning when he dropped beside his sisters and brother. Clara returned to stitching a button on a shirt that must be from the pile of mending Esta kept in the front room.

It was the perfect domestic scene, one he’d believed he and Rose would one day share. The troubles they’d had in the first couple of months of their marriage had been behind them, and he’d been looking forward to building a family with her in the days before she died.

Alone.

Thinking of that single word was like swallowing a lit torch. There must have been a sign he’d missed, a wheezing sound when she breathed or a cough that went on and on or blueness around her lips. Something he should have seen and known not to go to work as if it were any other day. Something to tell him to stay home and comfort her and call 911.

He’d failed in his responsibility to her, and he couldn’t make the same mistake with these youngsters. He owed that to his friends who had trusted him with their precious kinder.

Crossing the kitchen, Isaiah was surprised when the kinder were so focused on their coloring that they didn’t raise their heads until Clara greeted him. She continued sewing, and he was astounded to see it was the shirt he’d lost a button on the other day.

“You don’t have to do my mending.” His voice sounded strained.

“I don’t mind. I like staying busy.” She looked at the kinder. “They’ve been coloring pictures for you.”

“For me?”

She nodded, and he saw Andrew was coloring a bright red cow while his twin was using the same shade for a tractor. Nancy had been working on a blue bird with most of the strokes inside the lines, but Nettie Mae’s page was covered with green with no regard for the picture of a dog in the middle of it. The little girl had her nose an inch from the coloring book.

When Nettie Mae paused to try to stifle a yawn, he had to wonder if she was half-asleep already. It had been a long day for the twins and an upsetting one, as well.

Clara stood and set his shirt on a table beside the sofa. “Time for baths.”

The youngsters groaned, but gathered their crayons and put them in the metal box. She snapped the lid closed and picked up their coloring books while the twins asked what he thought of their pictures.

His answers must have satisfied them, though he couldn’t recall a moment later what he’d said. His gaze remained on Clara as she set the books and crayon box on the lower shelf of a bookcase. The thin organdy of her kapp was warmed by her red hair. Every motion of her slender fingers seemed to be accompanied by unheard music.

When she turned, he didn’t shift his eyes quickly enough. She caught him watching her, and the faint pink in her cheeks vanished. Was that dismay in her eyes? Dismay and another stronger emotion, but he couldn’t discern what. As she had before, she lowered her eyes.

She remained on the other side of the room while she said, “Isaiah, I must get the kinder ready for bed.”

“I’ll give the boys their bath,” he said, trying to lighten the situation. “I’ll check behind all four ears.”

His hope the twins would forget themselves and giggle was dashed, because they had become silent again. Did they sense the tension in the room? They couldn’t know why. He didn’t. He couldn’t have said anything wrong, because he’d said less than a dozen words since he returned to the house.

But how was he going to convince the kinder it was okay to laugh? Though he and Clara had assured the twins a gut giggle would be all right, the twins continued to limit themselves to smiles.

I know I should be grateful they can smile, God, but a kind without a laugh seems wrong. You know what’s in their hearts. Help me find a way into them, too, so their laughter can be freed.

He understood why the youngsters might not trust Clara to release them from their promise not to laugh. They hardly knew her, though they seemed to like her.

And why wouldn’t they like her? She was gentle and showed an interest in what mattered to them, acting as if each toy they showed her was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen. They wolfed down the food she put in front of them as if they hadn’t eaten since birth.

But that didn’t explain why the twins didn’t heed him. He’d loved them before they were born. They called him onkel, and they were as close to his heart as his true nieces and nephews. Why didn’t they trust him when he told them it was okay to laugh?

“I’ll give the girls a bath,” Clara said, “and checking behind ears sounds like a gut idea.” She took a single step toward him, then paused. “Are there two bathrooms in the house?”

“We’ll use the bathroom in the dawdi haus.” He took the boys’ hands. “Don’t worry. My sisters-in-law cleaned it yesterday, and I moved my stuff over there.”

“You’re staying in the dawdi haus?”

“Is that a problem?”

For a moment, he thought she was going to say ja, but she replied, “I assumed you would stay at your house.”

He let go of the boys’ hands and crossed the room so he could lower his voice to keep the kinder from overhearing. “Clara, you’ve got to understand. Melvin and Esta expected me to take care of their family, and I won’t let them down. When Daniel told me you’d agreed to come and help, I decided I’d use the dawdi haus. With the door between us and four very nosy chaperones—” He made a silly face at the twins who’d tiptoed over to listen.

Again they didn’t giggle, though they smiled. It seemed bizarre to have young kinder acting restrained.

“You think,” Clara finished for him, “that will keep tongues from wagging.”

“These are extraordinary circumstances as well as temporary ones. Everyone knows that. However, if you’re uncomfortable, I won’t ask you to stay.”

“Stay, Clara!” shouted Andrew, bouncing from one foot to the other. “You said we can make cookies tomorrow.”

“I can ask Mamm to come while we look for someone else,” Isaiah continued as if the little boy hadn’t spoken. “She planned to help, but she had a bout with pneumonia last month. She’s not completely recovered. That’s why my brothers and I thought it was better to hire someone.”

“You need my help, and I’m here.” She held out her hands to the girls. “Let’s get you fresh and clean.”

As she started to walk past him, Isaiah said, “Danki, Clara.” He pointed toward a door between the refrigerator and the stove. “Just so you know, the dawdi haus is through there. You’re welcome to use the downstairs bedroom by the bathroom.”

“I’m sorry to take it from you.”

“I didn’t use it.”

Her earth-brown eyes grew round. “Because it was where...” She glanced at the girls who were listening to every word. “It was where your friends slept?” She gave him a sad smile. “Aren’t there more bedrooms upstairs?”

“Ja, two, but they’re used for storage.”

“Is there a bed in one?”

“Ja, in both.”

“Then I’ll use the one close to the kinder’s bedroom door. I think it’d be better for me to be on the same floor with them.”

He glanced at the boys, who had gotten bored and were pulling blocks out of the toy box. “That’s a gut idea. I slept on the sofa, and I was up there most nights several times.”

“Nightmares?”

“Either that, or they couldn’t sleep.” He grimaced. “I hate that you’ll be taking care of them while I’m sleeping in the dawdi haus.”

“It’s what you’re paying me for.” She spoke the words without any emotion and walked with the girls toward the bathroom.

He wasn’t sure what he would have said if she hadn’t left him standing in the middle of the front room.

* * *

After he’d finished cleaning the puddles in the dawdi haus bathroom left by two little boys, Isaiah returned to the main house. He went upstairs and waited by the twins’ bedroom door. He said nothing as Clara finished reading a story. The kinder listened, rapt, to the tale of a naughty bunny who learned a lesson through misadventures. He held his breath each time a little one raised a hand to an eye. Each time, the kind was trying to rub away any sleep catching up with him or her before the charming story was over.

He forced his shoulders to relax. He needed to stop overreacting to everything the twins did, assuming their tears had to do with grief instead of a bumped knee and being sleepy. He needed to be more like Clara, who kept them entertained but allowed for quiet moments, as well. He could see he’d been winding them up tight in an effort to prevent them from thinking about their parents. He shouldn’t have been surprised they’d acted badly at his blacksmith’s shop.

Being too busy to think hadn’t worked for him either. No matter how many tasks he tried to concentrate on, he couldn’t forget the gigantic hole in his life. How many times in the past couple of weeks had he thought of something he wanted to tell Melvin? Each time, renewed anguish threatened to suffocate him.

“Do you want to komm in and say a prayer with us?” Clara called as she knelt with the kinder by one of the small beds.

Joining them, Isaiah listened to their young voices saying the prayer they spoke every night. Clara asked if they wanted to ask for God’s blessing on anyone special.

Andrew, always the leader, said, “Onkel Isaiah.”

“Clara,” added Nettie Mae, smiling at her.

But the smiles vanished when her twin said, “Mamm and Daed in heaven with You.”

The pressure of tears filled his eyes, but he blinked them away as he lifted Ammon and set him on his bed before doing the same with Andrew. He tucked them in after they kissed him gut nacht. He turned to check on the girls. They were already beneath their covers, but he leaned over to collect kisses from them. All four insisted on giving Clara a kiss, too.

“Sleep well and have pretty dreams,” she said as she turned down the propane lamp so a faint glow came from it.

He walked out with her, and she left the door open a finger’s breadth. “That was a cute story,” he said. “The twins were enthralled, though they’ve probably heard it a dozen times.”

“No, they haven’t. I brought the book with me.” She glanced at the door, then followed him down the stairs. “I brought several along. Reading them a story that their mamm or daed read could be too painful for them.”

He relaxed his shoulders, letting some of his worry slide away. Maybe this would work out. Clara was tender with the kinder, thinking of their needs and trying to keep them from more pain.

He urged her to contact him if she needed anything, then said, “Gut nacht, Clara.”

“Gut nacht,” she replied before she went into the bathroom. She didn’t close the door, and he guessed she was gathering the wet towels left from the girls’ bath.

Going into the dawdi haus, he shut the door to the kitchen behind him. He faltered, then threw the sliding lock closed. Anyone seeing it would realize he and Clara intended on maintaining propriety.

Isaiah lit a lamp in the small living room that had two other doors opening off it. One was to the bathroom, the other to the cozy bedroom. Picking up his extra boots, he set them by the door he’d be using except when he went to the main house for meals or to spend time with the twins.

A light flickered outside the living-room window, startling him until he recognized the easy stride of Marlin Wagler, the district’s deacon. If Marlin went to the main house, he could disturb the kinder whom Isaiah hoped were asleep. He grabbed a flashlight and hurried outside. He waved the light, catching the deacon’s eye.

He wondered why the deacon was calling tonight. The deacon’s duties revolved around making sure the Leit followed the district’s Ordnung as well as handling money issues, helping any member of the community pay medical bills or appointing people to arrange fund-raisers to provide for those who needed extra assistance. He hoped the problem was a simple one, because he didn’t know how long he’d be able to focus on anything complicated tonight.

“Komm in,” he said with a smile.

“I didn’t expect to see you in the dawdi haus,” Marlin said as he switched off his flashlight and walked in.

The deacon was a squat man, almost as wide as he was tall. Since he’d handed over the day-to-day running of his farm to his youngest son, Marlin had gained more weight. He was about the same age as Isaiah’s late daed would have been. What hair remained on his head clung in a horseshoe shape from one ear to the other. It had turned gray years ago.

“Let’s sit,” Isaiah answered, “and you can tell me why you’re here.”

Marlin sat with a satisfied sigh in the overstuffed chair closer to the door. Once Isaiah had taken the other seat, Marlin began speaking of news from throughout the district and beyond. After he finished farming, he’d taken a job giving tourists buggy rides to his family’s farm. He had amusing tales to share about the outrageous questions visitors asked.

“I’ve got to explain over and over,” the deacon said with a chuckle that shook his broad belly, “we’re not part of a living museum. We’re just living our lives. However, I’ve recently driven people who seem to understand that. It’s a blessing to be able to answer sensible questions.”

“But those tourists don’t make for gut stories.”

“No, but they make for a pleasant day.”

“I’m sure.” Isaiah intended to add more, but a knock on the connecting door brought him to his feet. Sliding the lock aside, he opened it. Belatedly he realized he should have explained the situation to Marlin already.

Dear Lord, give me a gut night’s sleep tonight. I’m no longer thinking straight.

“Excuse me.” Clara clasped her hands in front of her. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was wondering what time you wanted breakfast, Isaiah.”

“Komm in.” He motioned toward his other guest. “This is Marlin Wagler, our district’s deacon. Marlin, this is Clara Ebersol.”

“Oh,” Marlin said, “I thought you might be the kinder’s aenti Debra. I’ve been looking forward to meeting her.”

“It’ll be several weeks, maybe as much as a month, before Debra will be able to get here from Chile.” He’d never met Debra Wittmer whose home was in California when she wasn’t away on mission work.

“Meanwhile,” Clara said with a smile, “I’m here as a nanny for the kinder.”

Marlin smiled. “Gut. They need a stable home. What a blessing your family and your young man don’t mind you being away.”

“I don’t have a young man,” Clara said, blushing so brightly her face was almost the color of her hair.

“No?” Marlin glanced at Isaiah and arched a brow.

“Will five be too early for breakfast?” Isaiah asked before the deacon could add anything else. He hadn’t expected Marlin to start quizzing Clara about her personal life. It was, Isaiah was sure, an attempt at matchmaking.

“Five will be fine. I’ll have breakfast ready then. Gut nacht.” She shut the door, not hiding her yearning to escape before she embarrassed herself again.

He heard her fading footsteps. Taking a deep breath, because Marlin was sure to have questions, Isaiah said, “Before you say anything, I’m living in the dawdi haus, as you can see.” He hooked a thumb toward the stacks of clothing he’d brought from the main house. “With four very young kinder, I’m staying nearby in case Clara needs help with something. Though she’s already shown she can take care of the household better than I could.”

“I assume Reuben approves of this plan.”

“Ja,” he replied. As soon as his brother had told him about Clara, Isaiah had gone to the bishop and shared the plan with him. Of course, at that time, he hadn’t known Clara Ebersol was a beautiful young woman.

It doesn’t matter, he told himself. He wasn’t looking for someone to court, and Clara was at the house for one reason: to take care of the kinder.

“Gut,” Marlin said, his smile widening.

Isaiah wanted to groan aloud. He recognized the twinkle in the deacon’s eye. Marlin and Atlee Bender, the other minister in their district, had been getting less and less subtle in their pressuring for Isaiah to choose another wife. They believed an ordained man should be married. It was a requirement for one’s name to be put into the lot when a new minister was chosen, but nobody could have guessed Rose would die so soon after Isaiah was selected. Both men had told him that he’d had enough time to mourn, and finding a wife should be a high priority for him. They seemed to think it was as easy as going to his brother’s grocery store and selecting one off the shelf.

Even if it was that simple, he wasn’t interested in risking his heart and the devastating pain of loss again.

* * *

Clara slipped into the front bedroom across from the twins’ bedroom door. It was crowded with boxes and cast-off furniture as Isaiah had warned. Trying to be quiet, she moved quilts and unused material from the bed. The mattress was clean, and she found sheets and a pillow in a cupboard in the hallway.

She made the bed, covering it with the topmost quilt from the pile. After braiding her hair, she went to the bed. Pulling back the bright red, blue and purple nine-patch quilt and the sheet beneath it, she sat on the edge of the bed and plumped the pillow.

Lying down, she watched the moonlight filtered by the leaves of the tree outside the window. It danced, making new patterns with every shift in the breeze.

The day had not gone badly, other than the shocking revelation by the kinder that they’d been told not to laugh. The twins seemed to accept her as part of their lives...so far. And she hadn’t insulted Isaiah—or she thought she hadn’t—so far. She must keep everything impersonal between them, as she would with anyone who hired her. Though he’d been puzzled when she spoke to him from the other side of the front room, he hadn’t said anything.

Thank You, Lord, for keeping Isaiah from asking questions. She started to add to her prayer, but paused when she heard something. The noise was so soft she wasn’t sure if she’d heard it. Then it came again.

A sob.

One of the kinder was crying.

Kicking aside her covers, Clara leaped out of bed. She grabbed the flashlight she’d left on the windowsill. She bumped into a stack of boxes, but kept them from tumbling to the floor. The big toe on her right foot hit the frame around the door, and she bit her lower lip to keep from making a sound. Limping across the hall, she aimed the flashlight against her palm and switched it on. Its glow gave her enough light to see without being so bright it woke any kinder who were asleep.

Her aching toe was forgotten when she heard another sob. It led her to where Ammon was lying on his left side with his knees drawn up to his chest as if in grave pain. She leaned over and spoke gently. He didn’t respond, just kept sobbing.

Wanting to soothe him, she lifted Ammon off the bed and carried him out of the room before he woke his brother and sisters. She kept the flashlight pointed at the floor as she eased down the unfamiliar stairs and into the living room. Lighting the propane lamp while she held him took twice as long as it normally would, but she didn’t want to release the kind. Not when he was sobbing as if he believed nothing in his life would ever get better.

She went to the rocking chair in front of the unlit wood stove. Sitting, she began to rock as she settled Ammon’s left cheek over her heart. She spoke to him, but when her words seemed to offer him no comfort, she began humming the song she’d sung with the kinder in the buggy. She meant it as a prayer, wanting Jesus to fill Ammon’s heart with His love and reassurance. Slowly the little boy’s body relaxed, molding to her. She kept rocking as he closed his eyes, a longer time coming between each sob.

Hearing a soft click from the kitchen, Clara looked over her shoulder. Isaiah walked toward her, his face lengthening when he saw the kind in her arms.

“I saw the light,” he whispered. “Is everything all right?”

“It will be.” She glanced at the kind cuddling close to her. Ammon had fallen asleep. “I thought he’d had a bad dream. I heard him crying and went to check. He wasn’t asleep. I think he’s missing....” As she had before, she chose her words with care, knowing if she said “mamm” and “daed,” she might rouse the little boy. “He wants those who aren’t here.”

“What about the others?”

“Asleep when we came down.”

“That’s a blessing.” He turned a chair around and sat, facing her. “They went to bed tonight for you better than they have for me.”

“They’re exhausted.” She didn’t pause as she added, “You are, too. You should get some sleep while you can.”

“A few more minutes won’t matter, and that guy is pretty heavy for you to tote upstairs. I don’t want you stumbling and getting hurt.”

“I appreciate that.”

Standing, he held out his arms. “Let me take him.”

As Isaiah leaned toward her, Clara realized her mistake. When he lifted Ammon out of her arms, Isaiah’s face was a finger’s breadth from hers. She held her breath and kept her eyes lowered while they made the transfer. Isaiah’s work-roughened fingers brushed against her skin, sending heat along it.

As soon as he took Ammon upstairs, she pushed out of the rocker. She gripped the top of it, her knuckles turning white, as she fought for equilibrium. She couldn’t react like this every time a casual touch brought her into contact with Isaiah. She gripped the chair and was trying to slow her heart’s frenzied rhythm when he came back down the stairs.

Her hope that Isaiah wouldn’t notice her bleached fingers was dashed when he said, “I’m sorry, Clara, for Marlin asking you if you’re walking out with someone. He can’t seem to help himself sticking his nose into matters he believes are his responsibility.”

“That’s a deacon’s job,” she said, not wanting to speak of how she scurried away like a frightened rabbit in a hedgerow.

“This deacon’s job seems to be focused on finding me another wife.” With the cockeyed grin Isaiah seemed to wear whenever he was trying to be self-deprecating, he sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t figure on being the subject of matchmaking when you took this job.”

“I don’t like matchmaking.”

“I agree. One hundred percent.”

She appreciated his blunt answer and that he hadn’t asked her to explain her comment. She didn’t want to tell him that she was too well acquainted with matchmaking and the heartbreak it could cause.

“Clara, don’t worry. We’ll ignore everyone’s matchmaking.” He walked toward the door to the dawdi haus before facing her again. “In a way, we should be grateful to Marlin for bringing the subject out in the open, so neither of us has to act like we need to hide something.”

“Ja,” she said, as he urged her to try to have a gut night’s sleep.

He closed the door, and she heard the lock slide into place. She reached for her flashlight. Her fingers trembled as she picked it up and turned off the lamp. She hadn’t been honest with Isaiah. She already was hiding something from him. The way her heart took a lilting leap whenever he touched her.

“You can jump about all you want,” she whispered to her traitorous heart while she climbed the stairs. “There’s nothing you or anyone else can do to change my mind. I won’t be made a fool of by another man. Not ever again.”