“Yah, a few.”
“Did you meet Liam?”
Violet stopped in the middle of putting a plate into the sudsy water and glanced over her shoulder at Delia. She looked wary.
“Why?” Violet asked.
“I heard you were getting to know him,” Delia replied. “He’s my friend Lydia’s nephew. Is he nice?”
“Yah, he’s very nice,” she replied, and her cheeks reddened.
“When I was your age, there was a boy I liked a lot named Nehemiah,” Delia said. “He was two years older than me, and he was so handsome. He was a flirt, though. And I thought that I was the only one he was flirting with. Then I saw him at the dry goods store, leaning on the counter and making eyes at the cashier, and...well, I learned a thing or two.”
“You think Liam is a flirt?” Violet asked.
“I think he’s a troubled boy, and he probably knows how to make a girl feel special,” Delia replied.
“Maybe I’m troubled, too.” Violet’s chin came up.
“I know you’ve been through a lot losing your mamm,” Delia said.
“Did my daet tell you that?” Violet turned back to washing dishes, her slim shoulders hunched over the job.
“I lost my husband, sweetie,” Delia said quietly, picking up a dish from the drying rack. “And my boys lost their father. In one day everything turned upside down and was never the same again. I know what it’s like. And I don’t say that to tell you that it’s nothing. It’s horrible. It changes you forever. I get it!”
“I’m planning on going English, anyway,” Violet said, casting her a sidelong look.
“Are you really?”
“Yah. So I should make a few Englisher friends, right?”
Violet wanted a reaction from her, and Delia put the dried dish on the counter thoughtfully. Her next reaction needed to be the right one, and she sent up a silent prayer.
“Your daet’s heart would truly break,” she said finally.
“He wants me to be like him. He wants me to be Amish, and marry some boring farmer and have babies.”
“It’s a beautiful life,” Delia murmured. “I married a farmer and had babies.”
“Oh—right.” The girl’s cheeks blazed red. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re being honest, and I appreciate that,” Delia replied. “What kind of life do you want?”
“I want... I want to live in a city and drive a car and meet a man who loves me, and...”
“And get married and have babies?” Delia finished for her.
“Maybe. Or maybe just get married and not have babies. Sometimes Englishers don’t, just because. And we’d watch TV in the evenings and ride a subway and go to coffee shops and text each other on our cell phones.”
“How will you pay the bills?” Delia asked. “Someone has to work and pay for the cell phones and the TV and the life in the city. It costs quite a lot.”
“I’d get a job with a rich lady, and I’d help her with her shopping,” Violet replied. “Or maybe I’d open a store that sells pottery that I make myself, and I’d open a shop on a busy corner. Or I could sell umbrellas—all different kinds. I’d find something I could do. And my husband and I will have a big, beautiful apartment, and each of us will have a car to drive. And we’ll eat at restaurants twice a week.”
Where had Violet gotten all of these ideas? It sounded like a pretty pricey lifestyle to fund with pottery and umbrellas.
“What is it about that life that sounds the most exciting to you?” Delia asked.
“I’d meet a man who wouldn’t want me because I could cook his meals or sew his clothes. He’d want me because...because—” she got a wistful look on her face “—because his heart longed for mine.”
“I have news for you,” Delia said softly. “Amish men don’t get married for a cook and a seamstress. They get married because they want love and commitment, too.”
Violet shook her head. “It’s not the same, though. You should hear how my grandparents talk about you.”
Delia froze. They talked about her? “What do they say?”
“They say you’re a middling to fair cook and a very good mother,” Violet said.
Delia rolled the comments over in her mind. Well...that could have been worse. She would have preferred something a little more glowing about her cooking, but she could accept their assessment.
“I think that’s a fair estimation of me,” Delia admitted.
“Do you really want a man tallying up how well you cook when he decides if he wants to marry you?” Violet demanded. “Or how well you sew, or how well you knit? Do you want him to be considering how clean your kitchen is?”
That stung, because Delia’s kitchen wasn’t terribly clean these days. Teenagers had a way of finding an adult’s sensitive spot, didn’t they?
“Sweetie, regardless of what life you lead, Amish or English, people are going to judge you. If you go English, they’ll have things they look at. Maybe how you dress, or how you do your hair. Here, we all dress the same, and we all do our hair the same. But out there, there will be judgment, too.”
But by the set to the girl’s jaw, Delia didn’t think that Violet was really hearing her. She had a fantasy in her mind about an Englisher life, and she didn’t want it popped. But Violet washed all the dishes, rinsed them well and left them in the dish rack for Delia to dry. She did the job well, wiped off the surrounding counter and hung up the rag.
