Upon A Winter's Night Read online

  She thought Daad might say something about the need to understand her mother, but he didn’t comment. He sat and bowed his head in a brief, silent prayer while she poured him orange juice and coffee. When he opened his eyes, they looked tired and bloodshot.

  Lydia was barely back to her own oatmeal when Daad said, “Gid came calling for you last night after you lit out. Said he wanted to continue a conversation you two started yesterday. He wasn’t too pleased when Mamm told him you’d gone over to the Yoder barn. And he was really upset when he saw you and an Englische woman in a little red car, roaring out of Yoder’s and heading away from town. Just a warning he’ll probably bring it up when he sees you at work this morning.”

  Her spoon dinged against her bowl. “Now he’s taken to spying on me—and reporting back to you as if I were ten instead of twenty!”

  “Liddy, he happened to see an unusual thing. The woman he loves—”

  “I don’t think he lo—”

  “Don’t interrupt,” he scolded, thumping his index finger on the table in her direction. “I repeat, the woman he loves and wants to marry was riding with an Englische stranger in a car, heading who knows where. That might upset any good Amish come-calling friend.”

  “She’s a friend of Josh’s from his days in Columbus, visiting here, and I was showing her how to get into Wooster. She had business there. She’s writing about customs of Amish Christmas.”

  “And thought to ask you about that instead of Josh?”

  “As well as Josh.”

  “Liddy,” he said, reaching over to cover her hand with his, “do you love Josh Yoder?”

  She was shocked he’d asked. Ray-Lynn had, too, more or less. Was it so evident? Couldn’t people just accept she wanted to help him with the animals? And was that the real reason she kept going back?

  “I—I care for him,” she stammered. “Also for the animals, of course. I think it’s good what he’s doing for people who celebrate Christmas, and with the petting zoo for the local kids and worldly visitors.”

  “But when it comes to you, what is he doing? How does he feel about you? More than just gratitude that you are such a good friend and free help to him? You’re not a lanky kid anymore.”

  “Ya, like you said, we’re friends,” she faltered, desperately blinking back tears.

  “He won’t ever want to run a big furniture store, now will he?”

  “Should that be what matters most?”

  He sighed and pulled his hand back. “Liddy, I want the best for you, and I think that’s Gid Reich. And, ach, I know people can be wrong about the ones they love, make bad choices and suffer long for those.”

  Lydia almost asked if he meant his sad marriage with Mamm, but she held her tongue on that. “Does Mamm know?” she asked. “I mean about my going with Josh’s friend in her car?”

  “Ya, but I told her I’d talk to you about it and how you’re hurting Gid. And I told her you had to find your own way to a husband, though you know how we both stand on it. I repeat, we only want the best for you.”

  Lydia almost blurted out to him that would mean sharing all they knew about her real parents...and that it didn’t mean she loved or honored them less. She almost told him what she’d learned, thanks to Sandra Myerson.

  But instead she finished her nearly cold oatmeal, which sat like a lump in her stomach. She hurried to wash their dishes and darted out to the barn to harness Flower before Daad came back downstairs to harness his buggy horse. It was bad enough she was dreading a confrontation with Gid this morning and probably with Mamm later.

  As she buggied past the dark Stark house on its hill, she thought about Victoria’s sad, cold death and realized something in her had died, too: her childhood. Her dependence on her adoptive parents was finally gone, though she would always love them. She wanted to learn more about her real parents and she wanted to pursue the man she really loved and wanted. And, for sure, that was not Gid Reich.

  * * *

  To Lydia’s amazement, Gid was kind and proper that morning. He wished her well at the Stark funeral. “I’m going to be partners with Connor in a limited way,” he informed her as he cornered her in the store’s small employee coffee-and-snacks room. “I’m buying into his tree business to help him—and me—expand.”

  She was tempted to warn him that she’d caught Connor spraying sick trees he intended to sell anyway, but she didn’t want to chance upsetting Gid’s apparent good mood. Nor did she want to have him questioning or confronting Connor. It was possible she’d misunderstood why he was spraying those pines. Maybe the pesticide was in the paint and would work quickly to heal a sick tree.

  Taking a snickerdoodle from the plateful someone had brought in, she told him, “He mentioned your new partnership with him when he offered me a seasonal job. But I’m stretched pretty thin, so I told him thanks but no. He said you suggested it to him.”

  Gid began to walk with her when she left, wending her way back toward the front desk amid the aisles of dining room tables and hutches. Holding her cookie and cup of cocoa, she still expected a lecture about working at Josh’s barn.

  “Just thought you might like a short-term job at Stark’s for a while,” he said. “You told me once—I think it was when we went together to the county fair last July—that you used to love going over there but didn’t anymore, that it upset your mother. I thought that would be my way of weighing in to help you with her. If your mamm thought it was my idea, she wouldn’t complain.”

  In the aisle with the tall, ticking grandfather clocks, Lydia stopped walking, that is, stopped hurrying to escape this man. What he’d said—his insight and kindness—touched her. This wasn’t the Gid she’d known for months, since she’d tried to slow him down and hold him off. Today he had been thoughtful of her, calm with no scolding or mention of the red car or Josh.

  She glanced at one of the clocks. Ten-thirty. She was meeting Josh in two hours at the barn, and he would buggy them to the Starks’. Surely, Gid had known that, too, yet no dire warning, no mention of it. Had Daad warned Gid he needed to mend his ways to win her hand? And what would Gid think if she told him that Sol Brand, owner of this large store and workshop, was not her real father. No, her real father was not a shop owner but a laborer who had merely cut the trees that became the furniture for all this Brand bounty.

  She was surprised again when Gid glanced quickly around, then bent to peck a kiss on her cheek. With a raised hand in farewell, a wink and a smile, he backed away and left her standing there.

  Would wonders never cease? A new tactic to woo her? So far, this day was full of surprises, and she hoped there wouldn’t be any more of them, especially at the funeral.

  * * *

  Perhaps because they’d arrived together in the only Amish buggy parked among the cars, Lydia could tell that guests she didn’t know—most of the people here—assumed she and Josh were a couple. Strangely, she felt they were and loved the feeling. How Josh felt she couldn’t tell.

  “We certainly appreciate your coming,” Bess Stark told them as she greeted them inside the large living room in a sort of reception line with Connor and his wife, Heather, just beyond her. “Especially since it’s starting to snow again, and I’ll bet those steel buggy wheels can be slippery on the roads.” She shook Josh’s hand and gave Lydia’s shoulders a light hug. “If Victoria—we always called her Vicky—were here, if she were herself, which she hadn’t been for several years, she would thank you, too. Josh, are plans afoot to expand or redo that barn?”

  “As soon as the weather gets decent, ya, for sure.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “As you know, Senator Stark, in big cities, they like to name stadiums and hospital wings after their donors. But I promise you, I will not call the new animal wing the Elizabeth Stark barn.”

  Though Bess looked tired and it seemed to Lydia new creases lined her forehead and her upper lip, her face lit in a smile. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind a bit,” she said. “But let’s keep it our secret. Best that
not get out.”

  “Best what not get out?” Connor asked, leaning toward them. “Ah, the Amish contingent. We’re pleased you could come, of course. The sheriff and Ray-Lynn are over by the casket paying their final respects. Closed casket, the close of a sad life. I try to remember Aunt Vicky as she was, but these last years have been so difficult—for her, of course, as well as for us to see her slip away like that.”

  “Did she still read or write?” Lydia asked. “I mean, anything normal like that?”

  She felt Josh’s arm touching hers stiffen. He knew that she was digging for information about the note. The fact he took her elbow as if to steer her on made her realize he didn’t think it was a good idea—not here, not now. She could almost hear his thoughts.

  “She scribbled crazy things, pictures, like senseless doodles,” Bess said. “She used to want to be an artist, but gave it up for a career in journalism. She was a bright woman. Her Alzheimer’s doctors used to try to decipher her scribblings and pictures, but that, too, went nowhere.”

  Others had come in the door; they had to move on. Connor introduced them to his wife, Heather, a pretty, slender woman with long blond hair streaked with auburn. Heather Stark seemed nervous. Her eyes darted past them as they spoke briefly. She thanked them for what they had done the night Aunt Vicky died, then told them, “Please take a chair over by the casket. People have sent such lovely flowers. I’m going to have to duck out and see how our twins are behaving. Seven-year-old boys at something like this need a bit of watching, so they don’t show up in a Darth Vader mask or tell people what they want for Christmas. I’m pleased you’re staying for the buffet.”

  She darted off. “Twin boys just like Hannah has,” Lydia told Josh as they moved on. She could tell some of the Englische folks were watching them. She’d been so few places lately where they were in the minority that she’d forgotten the feeling.

  “Tragedies and blessings fall on the Plain People and the fancy ones,” Josh said as they headed for the Freemans, who had sat down in the back row of wooden chairs facing the flowers and the casket, where the funeral service would evidently be held.

  Lydia was awed by the huge array of summer flowers this time of year and by the rest of the living room she’d been stealing glimpses of. The family had apparently cleared furniture from this end of the room. Through a veil of falling flakes, the array of windows on the east and west sides displayed the white Home Valley below. It made her feel they were in a snow globe.

  On a third wall was a ceiling-high stone fireplace and mantel with an oil painting over it of Bess, Connor, Heather and the twins. How her artist friend Sarah would love to see that, she thought, with their unique facial expressions: Bess, prideful; Connor, possessive; Heather, loving; and the twins, one a bit smug, the other looking as if he’d rather be elsewhere.

  Although the floor underfoot was polished oak, foreign-looking area rugs with ornate designs were scattered throughout. As they approached the Freemans, Lydia glimpsed the dining room off to the side. Two long tables were not yet laden with food, but linen tablecloths, plates and utensils and more flowers were in place. Beyond that, in yet another living room or den, she could see small, round tables set with candle and pine cone centerpieces.

  And on the polished coffin, beside a draping of red roses, was a photo of a much younger Victoria—Vicky, they had called her—sitting at a writing desk with pen in her hand, looking off into the distance. Though her own people would have judged that as prideful, Lydia was glad to see the picture. After she had found that note, it was almost a sign from heaven that the deceased woman had pen in hand.

  “Glad to see you all,” Ray-Lynn interrupted her thoughts. Some others were taking seats in the eight narrow rows. After Josh and the sheriff shook hands, Lydia sat next to Ray-Lynn with Josh on her other side.

  “Quite a place, right?” Ray-Lynn asked Lydia out of the side of her mouth. “And what a view. Can you spot your house from here?”

  “Not from this room, but I’ll bet from the north windows. I just wonder if Victoria didn’t look out and see our place and try to walk to it that night with the note.”

  “We’ll probably never know,” Ray-Lynn said. Then, leaning over Lydia, she said to Josh, “There was a friend of yours came in the restaurant for breakfast and lunch today. Sandra something. She asked me and others a lot of questions about Amish customs, created a bit of a stir. No one wanted to tell her much at first—you know, small-town rules and Amish humility—until she said she was a friend of yours. And of Lydia’s, too. She doesn’t quite get the Amish privacy and don’t-push thing, because at first she tried to use a little voice recorder and had a camera.”

  Shaking his head and frowning, Josh told them who Sandra was, explaining she was writing a dissertation—maybe even a book later—about immigrant Christmas customs. He said he’d talk to Sandra about not coming on so strong like that.

  Lydia said nothing, but she was upset. She had expected Sandra to keep a bit private here, not interview anyone and everyone. She stared hard at the photo of Victoria Keller with the pen in her hand, but her face blurred to Sandra’s.

  * * *

  After the funeral, the casket was carried out to the hearse and the guests went through the buffet line before they joined the procession to the cemetery or left for their homes. As they took plates, Josh whispered to Lydia, “Sorry to hear Sandra came on like gangbusters. I thought she’d know better, but I’m sure she didn’t tell any of your story.”

  “My story?” she said, taking a spoonful of pasta salad. “I’m not even sure what my story is.”

  People were heading down both sides of the table, and the man across from them was saying to another in a quiet voice, “Seems she’s laying the groundwork to run for governor and, if she gets that, the sky’s the limit.”

  “Namely 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” the other muttered with a tight grin. “Yeah, I think we’re ready for a woman president.”

  Lydia almost spilled the spoonful she was taking of some kind of fancy potato salad. They had to mean Bess. Governor? President? Of the whole country?

  “Oh, by the way, Josh,” Connor said, walking by with one of his sons in tow, “that female writer friend of yours is going to interview me tomorrow morning before she heads back to Columbus. Says she wants to know how it feels to be selling one of the major symbols of Christmas in an area where the Amish want nothing to do with decorated trees. I figure it will be good publicity for us.”

  “Publicity, publicity—not today,” Bess Stark said, coming up and tapping Connor on the shoulder while holding her other grandson by the hand. “Today, just family, friends and down-home memories. And I really don’t think the boys need to go to the cemetery, Connor. Not only is it snowy and cold, but all this is enough.”

  It was enough all right, Lydia thought. This huge house was more than enough. Maybe trusting Sandra Myerson was too much. So she’d make the next moves on her own. This weekend she’d find a way to visit Victoria’s caregiver Anna Gingerich. But first, she was going into the nearby town of Amity to see if she could talk to someone at a tree cutting business there who might have known her father.

  * * *

  Lydia and Josh sat in his buggy atop Starks’ hill, watching the hearse lead the line of cars away. Soon the funeral caravan was lost in the swirl of snow. Lydia recalled Bess’s concern for their buggy wheels slipping in bad weather, but the steep lane down the hill was no problem with the snow melted off the pavement. She saw a few customers at the Christmas tree barn as they passed. Her people would have closed for the day, but life—and Stark Christmas business—went merrily on.

  They buggied past Lydia’s house. Daad would not be home yet. Mamm must be baking bread because the kitchen light was on. She made extra loaves of friendship bread at holiday time and froze them in the generator-run freezer in the basement.

  Despite Lydia’s sadness over losing the chance to talk to Victoria Keller, and being upset with Sandra overstepping in
town, it was wonderful to be with Josh, to feel all sealed in with him by the fiberglass buggy and the Plexiglas screen they added for a windshield in such weather. And they shared a warm lap blanket as if they were cuddled up in bed together.

  When they turned in the lane to his house—she’d left her horse and buggy not in the big barn but in his small stables—he was the first to mention Sandra again.

  “Sorry Sandra’s making waves when I know you thought she’d be more, well, quiet. Unfortunately, that’s not her way, but I didn’t think she’d do public interviews in a strange place. I guess I should have warned you about that, but, as I said, I’m sure she’ll keep your secret.”

  “Especially if you remind her. I can tell she cares about you, so you two know each other pretty well.”

  He didn’t follow up on that little fishing expedition but jumped down to open the stable door—so she thought. Instead, he hurried around and helped her down, almost as if they were a courting couple. “She said the same about you, Lydia—that is, that you care about me,” he told her as he slid open the stable door.

  “Of course I do. Even more than I care for Melly and Balty.”

  Now, she thought, why had she blurted that out? Because she didn’t want him to know how much she was attracted to him? “Actually, a bit more than that,” she added with a little laugh, hoping he hadn’t taken offense.

  He hadn’t. It was great to be with someone who had a sense of humor, since that was in pretty short supply at her house. As he unhitched Blaze and hitched Flower to Lydia’s buggy, he grinned at her more than once.

  “We have fun together,” he said, with a wink. “Since it’s so beautiful out, want to make a couple of snow angels before you head home—for old times’ sake, though I like the new times better. The menagerie can wait a few minutes. I trust the boys to take care of them. Of course, you’ll walk into your house with your backside all wet as if we’ve been rolling in the snow.”

  “Which we will have been. I’ll just take my cape off.”