Through the window, Elias could just see the front of the biggest greenhouse. The door opened and his daughter came out clad in a dark apron and gum boots. One of the boys gestured out toward a garden plot and she turned after them and disappeared from sight.
“It might do Violet good to see that her Amish life can go on,” Elias said quietly. “I think that might be part of her problem. Her mamm is dead, and she can’t imagine life just...going on without her, you know? She’d rather leave everything behind than face life without her mamm in it. And I understand. I just can’t seem to make it better for her. But if she could see that life can go on with her mother’s memory intact, I think it would help her.”
“You do understand her,” Delia said quietly.
“She doesn’t think I do.”
Delia nodded. “Yah. It’s hard for all of us—harder for the kinner, for sure.”
The more he thought on it, the more this idea seemed to be a good one. Add to that, his parents had already been hinting strongly that he should be looking in Delia’s direction for a new wife, even though he’d told them that he wasn’t ready for anything like that.
“My boys aren’t ready for me to date, but this might actually help,” Delia went on. “I can’t let them keep guarding me like they’re doing. This might be just the thing to change the tone around here. If they could face the thought of me spending time with a man, we can sort out all those confusing feelings—without my sons being an actual threat to a new relationship.”
“And if I don’t get Violet talking about her feelings, I might lose her for good when she’s old enough to make a choice for the faith,” he agreed. “This might get her talking. I think it’s worth a shot.”
He looked down at Delia, and he could see the emotions flickering across her face, until they finally settled into a smile.
“So...for the kinner?” she asked.
“Yah.”
“How would we do this? I don’t want to lie to them,” she said.
That was a problem. He didn’t want to lie, either, but sometimes parents kept some information back from kinner, for their own good.
“We could simply tell them that we’re old friends, and we like each other...” Elias paused. “I know it’s been a while, but I always did like you. So that wouldn’t be a lie.”
She dropped her gaze. “I thought you were nice, too.”
“And we could tell them that we want to spend more time together and see where things go,” he suggested.
“Technically all true,” she agreed with a nod. “Except we’re seeing where things go with our kinner instead of each other.”
“Yah, exactly.” It was a deft side step.
“And when it’s time for you to go back to Indiana?” she asked.
“We tell them that we enjoyed getting to know each other and that we’ll stay good friends, but that we decided to keep things on a friendship level.”
Delia nodded slowly, and her lips pursed in thought for a moment. Then she nodded again.
“It wouldn’t be bad for them to see how that works,” she agreed. “How many young people cause untold grief because they don’t know how to simply let go and move on when a romance doesn’t work out? But if they can see two mature people spending time together in a virtuous way and moving on without hard feelings, it might be a valuable lesson for the future for all of them. That’s a skill, you know.”
“Yah, I know it.” This might be even better than he thought. He might not have a wife to help him in the raising of his daughter anymore, but a good friend might make up the difference. “So...are you willing?”
“I am.” Another, even brighter smile broke over her face.
And he felt a flood of relief. This might be a reckless idea in some ways, but sometimes Gott provided just the solution when a man needed it. And Delia seemed like the perfect solution to him.
Chapter Two
Delia wrote down the three hours of work that Violet had put in that day in a little notebook. Violet’s help with the weeding had meant Delia had time to clean the kitchen from top to bottom, and she’d swept and mopped the rest of the house. Everything smelled so much cleaner inside, and she’d whipped up a dinner of beef and barley soup, sandwiches, and some leftover chicken from the night before.
“It’s so clean in here,” Moses said as he came tramping inside. At eleven, he was no longer “the baby” of the family, and he worked just as hard as his older brothers did all summer long until school would start again at the end of September.
“And I want it to stay this way,” Delia replied. “I want you to sweep out the mudroom after dinner, Moses. And make sure all the boots are neatly on mats.”
Moses knew better than to complain, but he did sigh as he came into the kitchen. The other boys weren’t far behind him. Aaron came backing up out of the mudroom to make room for his brothers, the soles of his rubber boots full of dirt.
“Uh-uh. Aaron—if one foot comes out of the mudroom...” Delia said, raising her voice.
Delia didn’t really have an end to that threat. What would she do? Probably just throw her hands up and give up entirely. But boys didn’t care about that. Aaron, though, at fourteen, was a handsome young man who knew the power of his charms, and he shot his mother a grin and shouldered back into the small mudroom with Thomas and Ezekiel Jr. Ezekiel was the eldest at seventeen. He was as tall as his daet had been at a little less than six feet, and while he was very close to being a man, he wasn’t quite there yet. She could still see the boy in him.
As the boys elbowed around and got their hands washed in the mudroom, Delia got the meal onto the table—the sandwich fixings piled high onto plates so that the boys could make their own. They knew what they liked, and they’d eat their sandwiches with the meat nearly an inch thick when they were really hungry. There was one rule at her table—if you take it, you eat it. Period. After that, it was a free-for-all.
Ezekiel and Aaron came out of the mudroom and to the table. Chairs scraped as they got into their usual seats.
“So how did Violet do today?” Delia asked as Thomas joined the rest of his brothers at the table. Thomas was only fifteen, but he was a couple of inches taller than Ezekiel already, although he hadn’t filled out yet.
“She worked hard,” Thomas said. “Ezekiel sent her back to redo some weeding she’d missed, and she did it.”
That was good that she could accept correction. If she couldn’t, they wouldn’t be able to use her on the farm. These next couple of weeks with the big flower shipments were too important.
“I mean, Violet rolled her eyes first, but she did go back and redo it,” Ezekiel said.
“Are all girls like that?” Aaron asked.
“Like what?” Delia asked.
