Home to Paradise. Barbara Cameron
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She had a feeling that his mudder had chastised him gut when he came home later.
“Something funny?” her schweschder Lavina whispered.
Rose Anna wiped the expression off her face. “Nee.”
“I’m going to go check on Mark. Waneta’s watching him and several boppli while they nap in a bedroom.”
She slipped from her chair and left the room. Rose Anna found herself studying the faces of family and friends gathered in the Miller home for the service. She loved it that church service took place in a home in her community. Home was church, and church was home. Gathering to worship in the home of a member was something that was such a part of their lives she couldn’t imagine anything that touched her heart as much. What had started as a way for her ancestors to avoid religious persecution had strengthened families and enriched the lives of all who came after them.
One day, if she married, she and her mann would host services in their home, and their kinner would grow up with church services in their home as she had. And she hoped that they would make their faith as much a part of their daily life—not just on alternate Sundays—as she had growing up.
A slight movement in the men’s section of the room caught her attention. Peter smiled at her. She smiled back. He was such a nice man. They’d known each other all their lives and had gone to schul together. She might have dated him sooner if she hadn’t had eyes only for John Stoltzfus. Stung by his leaving their community to live in the Englisch community in town, and his refusal to have anything to do with her, she’d decided to move on.
And practically no time later she’d walked into Sewn in Love delivering craft items sewn by the women in the shelter where she volunteered. She had taken one look at Peter, seen him in a different light, and they’d started seeing each other.
Her schweschders accused her of flirting with him to make John jealous, and maybe she’d been a little guilty of that in the beginning. It felt gut to have a man pay attention to her. John had enjoyed his time away from the Amish community a little too much in her opinion. When she’d confronted him and wanted to know when he was coming back, needing so desperately to know if he had any feelings at all for her, she’d found that he didn’t.
Remembering how she’d felt being rejected still rankled. After all, she and John had dated for more than a year before he left home. Any maedel would have been hurt by his behavior. She took a deep breath to calm herself, then another. And reminded herself she should be paying attention to the church service and not thinking about her dating life.
She’d see Peter soon enough. They were having lunch after church today. He’d told her he was taking her to her favorite restaurant. She’d argued with him about it. The restaurant was pricey, and with him working two jobs, she didn’t think he should be spending the money. But he’d overruled her objections so charmingly that she’d said okay.
Thinking of an afternoon spent in his company in one of her favorite places put her in a gut mood. She joined in another hymn and must have done so a bit too enthusiastically because Mary Elizabeth nudged her with her elbow and frowned at her.
As soon as the service was over Rose Anna stood and went to help some of the women in the kitchen. Everyone had a job to do after the service—the men converted pews to seating areas, and the women served and cleaned up after a light snack. She was hungry, but she had volunteered to help serve so she could leave right afterward. It was hard to resist the church spread. The peanut butter-marshmallow spread on a slice of bread smelled so gut, but she was determined to save her appetite for the restaurant. She’d eaten there four times now—twice with her schweschders on special occasions and twice with Peter.
Today she thought she’d order the chicken cordon bleu. The name just rolled off her tongue. It was so rich. So fancy.
Seeing how much she’d liked it Lavina had looked up the recipe and made it for her birthday supper. She’d told Rose Anna the recipe wasn’t hard. Just a chicken breast rolled around a slice of Swiss cheese and ham and baked to a golden deliciousness. It was sweet of her oldest schweschder to prepare it, but Rose Anna liked having it at the restaurant as a special treat. Followed of course by a fancy French pastry. That was even more special than the chicken.
And she really enjoyed going out with Peter. It felt gut to have him smile at her the way he did every time he saw her. What maedel wouldn’t feel her self-esteem restored by having a handsome Amish man like Peter waiting in his buggy outside to take her to lunch when she finished in the kitchen?
She could tell Peter liked simpler food and surroundings more than her favorite place. He’d teased her about her favorite chicken saying, “Fancy name for chicken stuffed with ham and cheese.” But he indulged her.
Peter was tall and lanky, but he ate like he had a hollow leg. He ordered the baked chicken and ate hungrily. When he eyed her plate, she pushed it toward him so he could finish the last few bites of her meal.
“You can’t still be hungry,” she told him indulgently. “I saw you having a snack earlier.”
He chuckled. “Mamm says I’m a growing boy.”
They were both twenty-three, so he was hardly a boy, but it did seem as if he had grown taller over the previous summer. Was that possible? Before she could ask him his attention was drawn to the dessert cart their server wheeled beside their table.
He ordered the chocolate cake—here it was called gateau au chocolat—and she got her favorite, a napoleon.
They lingered over dessert, and then he took her for a long drive in the country. Of course, whenever they traveled through a covered bridge they had to stop midway and do what all Amish couples did and share a quick kiss.
It was a pleasant afternoon. Peter was charming, attentive, and a wonderful man to date.
But as she stood on the porch and watched Peter drive off, she found herself looking in the direction of the farm where John lived and wondering what he was doing.
Chapter 2
2
If there was anything Rose Anna loved more than quilting, it was teaching the twice-weekly quilting class at the women’s shelter in town.
She’d started volunteering there with her schweschders, and now whether or not they were able to come, she continued because she enjoyed it so much.
The shelter was a big, rambling house just outside the town proper. There was no sign in front. People passing by wouldn’t know it was anything but a family home. That was because the women and kinner inside wouldn’t be safe if the husbands and boyfriends the women fled from knew where they were.
She knocked and Pearl, the woman who ran the shelter, answered the door herself and greeted her with a big smile.
The shelter should have been a sad place. Actually it had been at times when she first came with Lavina. She’d never seen women with bruised faces or kinner with eyes full of fear who hid behind their mudder’s skirts. It wasn’t that abuse didn’t happen in the Amish community. But it wasn’t something that she had come into direct contact with like she saw here.
Gradually she’d seen the women’s shelter as a place of hope. Because the place itself had changed.
The quilting classes taught by Kate Kraft, the police officer and quilting enthusiast, had made a difference.
One by one, women climbed the stairs to the second floor of the shelter to a room Pearl had converted into a sewing room with long tables and donated sewing machines. Kate had volunteered to teach the quilting classes, and being Kate, she’d convinced others to join her.
Lavina hadn’t believed she could contribute anything, but Kate showed her that she could. And then Lavina had gotten Mary Elizabeth to come.
So, of course, Rose Anna had to see why her two older schweschders took time off from their work and daily chores to teach quilting at a woman’s shelter.
And she’d been hooked.
Kate