tongue and said, “I can’t get over how much you sound like Patience. Can you sing as beautifully as she did, too?”
Trina was surprised by Martha’s praise. The Amish rarely complimented someone’s singing voice lest she become proud about her abilities, which were a gift from the Lord. Yet she was pleased the older woman remembered this trait about her mother. Patience had taught Trina several songs from the Amish hymnal, the Ausbund. They were sung in German, a language her mother also made sure Trina knew as part of her homeschooling.
“Neh, no one has a voice like hers,” Trina answered more wistfully than boastfully.
Martha’s sunny countenance clouded when she murmured, “I was so sorry to hear of your mamm’s passing.”
Moved by the sincerity in Martha’s voice, Trina blinked back tears. “Denki.”
Then Martha said, “We heard you were a schoolteacher.”
“A preschool teacher, yes,” Trina replied, figuring the Englisch attorney managing her grandfather’s estate must have told Martha she was a teacher. Rather, she used to teach preschool until her mother became ill. Then Trina took a semester off to be with her mother as she went through chemotherapy. After Patience died, Trina was so devastated she could hardly take care of herself, much less manage a classroom of rambunctious preschoolers, and she lost her job.
Trina had depleted her savings account helping cover her mother’s medical expenses, and she’d racked up a substantial amount of debt, too. For the past four months, she had been living off her credit card. If she hadn’t been so impoverished, she never would have come to Willow Creek to claim the inheritance her grandfather bequeathed her. She figured the money she’d receive from selling his house would repay the debt Trina incurred from her mother’s hospital bills. It wasn’t for her own sake she wanted the restitution, but for her mother’s. Patience’s father owed her at least that much.
For some reason the attorney couldn’t explain, Abe Kauffman had attached an odd condition to Trina’s inheritance: she had to live in the house for two full months before it would be hers to sell. Otherwise, ownership would go to the Amish leit in Willow Creek. Trina suspected the stipulation was her grandfather’s way of making a point, but she could only guess what that point might be. Was he trying to punish her somehow because her mother left the Amish? Did he think Trina would be so intimidated by the prospect of living there she’d automatically forfeit the house? If so, he underestimated her determination as well as how desperate her situation had become.
She had no idea how she was going to pay for groceries and other necessities, but at least for now she had a place to live. Her mother had told her Main Street was within walking distance. Maybe there was an Englisch business owner in need of temporary help. Trina was certain she’d find a way to earn an income. As challenging as her financial and life circumstances had often been, she relied on the Lord to sustain her. Even during her mother’s illness and subsequent death, God had faithfully carried—was still faithfully carrying—Trina through her grief. Surely if He could help her survive that kind of loss, He would provide a way for her to earn enough money to cover her living expenses.
“It must have been difficult for you to leave your friends and job to kumme here,” Martha said. To Trina’s delight, the older woman pulled tea and honey from the basket.
“Mmm.” Trina’s boyfriend had broken up with her around the time her mother got sick, and Trina had spent so much time at the hospital with her mother she’d lost touch with the other teachers from school and acquaintances from church.
“Well, we’re glad to have you as our neighbor now,” Martha said. “As for that mouse, I’ll ask my groosskin, Seth, to see what he can do. Seth and his kinner, Timothy and Tanner, moved to Willow Creek from Ohio when Seth’s wife died. Now they live next door with me.”
“Oh, no need to bother him,” Trina said. While she was grateful for the offer, she didn’t want anyone else visiting her. She and her mother had managed without a man in the house for Trina’s entire life. She didn’t need one helping her now, especially not an Amish man.
* * *
When Seth and his sons returned from hiking along the creek that ran behind their yard and found their house empty, Seth’s first impulse was to panic. What’s happened to Groossmammi? Then he remembered she said she was taking a few items to Abe Kauffman’s old house for his granddaughter. Martha had already put fresh sheets on the beds and linens in the washroom, but she wanted to make sure everything else was clean and in place.
Personally, Seth thought Martha was getting too involved, acting as if she were preparing a homecoming for one of her own relatives, of which there were few still surviving. Yes, Martha had gotten to know Abe well in the past few years since he quit drinking. And, yes, she’d told Seth she had loved the young Patience Kauffman like a daughter. But it bothered him she was going to all this trouble for an Englischer she’d never met.
It’s as if she’s completely forgotten what happened with Freeman. Freeman was Seth’s older brother who’d left the Amish ten years earlier to marry an Englisch nurse, Kristine, who’d tended to him when he was in the hospital after injuring his back during a barn raising. What made the situation doubly painful was that Kristine initially insisted she wanted to join the Amish and had even quit her job in order to work and live in Willow Creek and learn Deitsch. But in the end, she’d decided she couldn’t leave her career and lifestyle behind, so Freeman had “gone Englisch.”
By that time, Seth and Freeman’s father—Martha’s son—had already died, but their mother was devastated by Freeman’s decision. She passed away less than two years later from what the doctor called congestive heart failure, which Seth translated to mean a broken heart. On some level, he blamed his brother’s leaving for his mother’s death. So, in light of the devastating influence an Englisch woman had had on their family, Seth was perplexed that Martha was eager to become involved with another one. But when he voiced his concern, she reminded him what the Bible said about loving one’s neighbors. Since he couldn’t argue with that, Seth kept his mouth shut, but it troubled him that Martha had wandered off to the little house next door. Her vision was too poor for her to navigate the bumpy yard, even if she did use a cane.
“Kumme, Timothy and Tanner. Let’s go next door to see if Groossmammi is there. On your feet, not on your bellies.”
The four-year-old twins were as imaginative as they were energetic, and they reveled in pretending to be various animals. Today they were acting like snakes, and they’d spent the afternoon trying to slither on their stomachs on the banks by the creek.
“Your boots are too dirty to go indoors, so you may play in the front yard. Stay where I can see you,” Seth instructed after they crossed their yard to the only house located within half a mile of them. He bounded up the porch stairs, pulled the door open and, before his eyes adjusted to the light, questioned the figure in the kitchen, “Groossmammi?”
But it was a young woman who turned from the stove with a teakettle in her hand. Her long dark hair was drawn up in a ponytail, accentuating the sharp angles of her face. Seth knew the Englisch considered thinness attractive, but this young woman was so spindly she appeared fragile. Dark eyebrows framed her big, upturned green eyes and her lips were parted as if she were about to speak, but she didn’t say a word.
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said, feeling self-conscious for entering her home uninvited. “My name is Seth Helmuth and I wondered if my groossmammi—my grandmother—is here?”
Before the woman had a chance to answer, Martha stepped into the kitchen. “Ah, Seth, there you are. This is Patience Kauffman’s dochder, Trina Smith.”
When Trina held out her hand, Seth reluctantly took it; shaking hands was an Englisch practice, not an Amish one. Her fingers were slender and icy but her grip was firm.
“Hello,” she said. Closer up, she appeared more