Seasons in Paradise. Barbara Cameron
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She blinked away the tears, determined not to spend one more second, one more tear over him. Closing the journal, she turned to put it on the bedside table, but the moisture in her eyes caused her to misjudge the distance and the book fell on the floor. Leaning over, she picked up the book and the slip of paper that had fallen from it. She set the book on the table and leaned back to look at the paper. “My wish list for my mann,” she read.
She remembered when she’d written it. Katie, a friend of hers, had told her she’d made such a list once. Mary Elizabeth had thought it was silly at the time—the kind of thing that daydreaming maedels did. And it was actually a little arrogant. After all, she’d heard all her life that God set aside the right person for you so telling Him what you wanted was telling Him how to do His job, wasn’t it?
But she’d sat down and composed such a list. And a short time later she’d found herself looking at Sam Stoltzfus one day and realizing he was everything she’d put on her list.
So she put the list in the journal and forgot it. After all, she had the real thing.
But everything had changed. She sat up in bed, reached for a pen on the bedside table.
And took a deep breath and began a new list.
* * *
“So did you hear the news?”
Sam sat on the grass in the shade of a tree and pulled a bottle of iced tea from his lunch box. He drank half of it down and recapped it before he looked at Peter. “What news?”
“Leah is opening up a second shop.”
Sam grinned. “I had no idea you’d taken up quilting.”
Peter scowled at him. “Don’t be a jerk. She needs help doing some renovations on the shop—it’s next to Stitches in Time.”
“How do you know?”
“Heard it from my mudder—who heard it from Fannie Miller who heard it from—”
“Never mind. In other words, from the Amish grapevine.”
“Right. Anyway, Leah’s mann died last year, so he can’t help her like he used to. So I stopped by to see what I could do.” He took a big bite of his sub and chewed. “If you’re interested, this could be our first project together.”
Sam looked at him. Peter sat there looking so calm, eating his lunch and talking about making the renovations on Leah’s shop the first project.
Of the company, he’d asked Sam to think about joining him just two days ago.
“You’re serious.”
“Very.”
“You’d give all this up.” He waved his hand at the controlled chaos of the construction going on around them.
“Dead serious.”
“You move fast.”
“Got to jump on opportunities, you know?”
“You sure do. You talked about starting your own company just two days ago.”
“Told you, been thinking about it for some time. Then this came along. I’m thinking it’s a sign. God’s giving me the go-ahead.”
“It’s one job.”
“And then we’ll get another.”
“You can’t know that.”
Peter just looked at him. “You can’t know we won’t.”
Sam didn’t have any answer to that. He kept eating his sandwich even though he was getting pretty tired of eating bologna. It had been on sale, and pennies counted when your budget was as tight as his was.
“So why’d Leah decide to open another shop? Seems like she’s pretty busy already with Stitches.”
Peter finished his sub and started on an apple. “She says it’s a craft shop. Women from a local shelter are going to sell their stuff they sew there.”
“Shelter?”
“Yeah.”
Sam searched his memory. It seemed to him that the last time he’d seen Lavina and Mary Elizabeth, they had talked about teaching quilting at a women’s shelter.
“So, you in? Leah wants us to get started next week. We can do it a few afternoons a week after we get off here. Then we can see how it goes with other work, quit this job when we have enough business coming in.”
Sam stared at the sandwich in his hand, at his patched work pants. Things had been tough since he’d moved into an apartment with John. Rent was high, then there was gas and insurance and the payment he made to David on the truck. Some extra money would come in handy. It wasn’t the farming he loved, but it was work.
“That sounds reasonable.”
“We’ll make a great team,” Peter told him, clapping him on the back. “I come up with the ideas, you rein me in a little.”
“And your girlfriend reins you in the rest of the way?” Sam asked him with a grin.
“Ya,” Peter said, chuckling. “Say, she sent along some oatmeal cookies. Want one?”
“Are they any better than the last batch?”
“She’s getting better.” Peter held out the bag.
Sam took one and bit into it. Or tried to. It was hard as a rock. “You’re right,” he mumbled around a bite. He hoped he hadn’t chipped a tooth. “Look, Boss is waving us back to work.”
When Peter glanced over, Sam tossed the cookie aside and hoped a squirrel had better luck.
“So anyway, I told Leah I’d see if you could stop by with me after work today to take a look at things.”
Sam had known Peter for a long time, but he’d never seen him move so quickly on anything.
“Schur.”
“Maybe you can give me a ride there?”
“How would you have gotten there if I hadn’t said yes?”
Peter set his lunch box in the front seat of the truck. “Knew you would.” He loped off to the ladder set against the house, climbed up, and moved out of sight.
Chuckling, Sam put his own lunchbox into his truck and returned to work installing windows. Like many of his fellow Amish men, Sam had never been inside Stitches in Time, Leah’s quilt and crafts shop. Peter led the way and seemed a lot more at ease in the land of fabric and crafts and . . . the bustle and chatter of women.
Two of them, very familiar, stood at the front counter. To his utter shock, one of them was Mary Elizabeth.
“Peter! Sam!” Leah cried. “So glad you both could come by today! I want to get started quickly on the new shop. Mary Elizabeth, do you want to walk over with us? She’ll be helping us coordinate with the women sewing the crafts we’ll sell in the new shop,” she explained.
Sam stood silent, absorbing the information. He wondered how much they’d see each other while he and Peter did the renovation.
“Schur.” Mary Elizabeth looked at Sam. “I’d like that.”
Leah took them next door, a whirlwind chattering nonstop the whole way. Leah had granddaughters, but Sam had always thought she had enough energy and drive to run circles around much younger people.
“As you can see, the last tenant left quite a mess.”
Sam looked around at the broken shelving, the holes left in the walls by fixtures being pulled out.
“First thing I want to do is put an entranceway into Stitches so customers can move back and forth through both shops,” she began and then she was on a roll.
Peter