The Amish Seamstress (17 page)

“But why did He have to involve me? Why didn't He have her die two weeks ago? Before she and I had a chance to get so close?”

Mamm
gave me one of her looks as she pinned the shirt to the line. “Don't question God.”

I hugged Zed's books even tighter.

“Honestly, Izzy,”
Mamm
took another shirt from the basket. “Verna was my mother's sister. You've known her your whole life. What difference would two weeks have made?”

I couldn't explain to her how much closer Verna and I had grown during the time we'd shared together. I had never realized until then that she was interested in the same things I was—like handwork and history. I felt as though I'd lost so much more than just her. I'd lost all of her stories and everything that happened to her. She'd told me many tales as we went
through the papers together, and it felt as if I had lived through it all with her. Her childhood on the farm. The Great Depression. The home front during World War II.

She had also been a fellow sleuth in the search for my connection to the past. Now I didn't know if I could bear to continue on with that search without her.

“Izzy?”
Mamm
actually had a look of sympathy on her face. “Remember that this too will pass.”

I knew that. It didn't help to hear it.

The visitation and funeral were held two days later at the Westler farm, the home where Verna had lived until she moved in with Susie. I wasn't planning to go, but my parents insisted, using that tone of voice that left no thought of doing otherwise.

Somehow I managed to get through everything without completely falling apart, but only by forcing myself to go numb. The hardest moment for me was at the cemetery, when we first got there and I caught sight of the waiting hole in the ground. In that moment it struck me how
final
death was. Verna was now gone forever. Phyllis, forever. My grandmother Nettie had left me forever.

After the graveside service was complete, my family insisted we return to the farm for the post-funeral meal. I just wanted to go home and be alone, but
Mamm
wouldn't hear of it. She said that in this time of mourning it was important to be with family and community.

I swallowed back any further objections, deciding that though she might be able to make me go with them to the Westlers' place, she couldn't force me to interact much once we were there. When we arrived, I got out of the buggy and broke off from my family in search of Susie. I hated to be tacky, but I wanted to make sure she knew Verna intended for all the family papers to pass down to me.

Fortunately, I didn't even have to ask. She saw me coming and said the same thing herself—and that Rod knew as well. I promised that either my
daed
or I would take the boxes at her house off her hands within the next few weeks.

Once we finished talking, I glanced around to make sure no one was
watching me, and then I slipped back out and walked over to where our buggy had been parked. I climbed inside.

Not one person seemed to notice. There in the scruffy velvet- and leather-lined quiet of the buggy's interior, I settled in all alone, pulled out my bag, and tried to start in on some embroidery. But then my tears began to fall, so I set my handwork aside and let them come. I cried hard, not just for Verna but for all of my losses—not just the deaths but Zed too, though he was a loss of a different sort. I must have cried for half an hour before finally winding down. Then, feeling utterly spent, I dug out some tissues, dried my face, and tried to return my focus to the needle and fabric in my lap.

Time passed, and eventually I was lost in the sewing rhythm that soothed me. I looked around occasionally, and as it turned out, my little hideaway was a pretty good vantage point for all of the goings-on. The meal had been served inside, but the October day had grown very warm, and soon people began to filter back out one by one. Children ran off to play in the big front yard. Teens clustered in giggling groups nearby. I saw some of the men move toward the barns and other adults just standing around and talking.

Several members of Zed's family were there, including his cousin Ada and her brood, and his grandmother Frannie, a tough old bird who had survived a stroke several years before. Frannie was walking with the help of a cane, her daughter Marta close at her side, and as the two of them made their way toward the line of parked cars up ahead, I couldn't help thinking that the old woman looked even less healthy than Verna had on the morning of the day she died. That thought again plunged me into sadness. I adored Frannie Lantz and couldn't bear the thought of her passing too.

Frannie and I had first come to know each other four years before, when I worked as a mother's helper for her granddaughter Ada. Ada had married Will Gundy, a widower with three young children, and in the beginning, as Ada got used to caring for a new husband, a thirteen-year-old daughter, and a pair of four-year-old twins, Will had insisted on bringing in a helper for her.

I had enjoyed that job, hectic as it was, but my favorite days at the Gundy household were when Frannie was added into the mix. She lived
in the
daadi haus
at her daughter Klara's, but no one wanted her to be home alone, so whenever Klara had somewhere to go, she or her husband would bring Frannie over to stay with us at Ada's for the day.

Of course, I had been drawn to Frannie right away, as I always was to older folks. She wasn't much of a storyteller—it felt as though she held back, as if many of her memories were too painful to share—but she was always very kind to me and answered my questions as best she could. Most of all, it was just fun to watch her with her new step-great-grandchildren. She had a way with Christy and with the twins, Mel and Mat, that simply melted my heart.

Now I watched as she and Marta reached Marta's car, and my attention was so focused on them that I didn't see my own father approaching the buggy until he was at the window, a startled expression on his face.

“Izzy? What are you doing in there?”

I felt my face flush with heat, embarrassed that he'd caught me in hiding.

“I just needed some peace and quiet,” I muttered, and I was relieved when he didn't press the matter any further.

He hitched up the horse, pulled us out from the line of buggies, and headed up the drive, coming to a stop where my mother and siblings were waiting to board. As they climbed in, my mother glanced at me in surprise but didn't say a word. I had a feeling she was putting two and two together and figuring out I had skipped the meal, but she was too embarrassed to fuss at me about it because she didn't want to admit she hadn't even noticed until that moment that I hadn't been there.

Soon we were on our way home, the rhythmic clomping of the horse easing everyone into quiet contemplation and soothing my own frayed nerves. It took a while to get there, but once our driveway was in sight, I felt myself exhaling deeply.

I knew I'd need to venture out to Susie's soon to deliver some finished goods, but otherwise my hope was not to leave home again for a very long time. I had no desire to find another job, at least not as a caregiver. I'd struck out twice in two months, both times dramatically. Why push my luck for a third?

A week later, I was sitting in my room doing my handwork when
Mamm
appeared in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “Anyone who isolates herself the way you have would be depressed,” she said.

“I'm not depressed.”

“Then why are you crying all the time?”

“I'm just feeling things rather strongly right now. That's all.”

“Plan some outings or I'll plan some for you,”
Mamm
said. “By tomorrow. But enough of this moping around. We buried Verna a week ago.”

I didn't answer and she left. The rain had returned and beat against the small-paned windows. The cold had arrived too. I'd tried to ward it off with the quilt I'd wrapped up in, but my fingers were icy as I tried to manipulate my needle.

Plan some outings? I couldn't imagine anything I wanted to do less, even though I knew it was time to make a delivery to Susie's. I'd had some items ready to go for several days, in fact, but I had been putting that particular errand off in the hopes that my
daed
might take pity and run it for me. I knew Susie had to be getting impatient, as her Christmas rush would start before Thanksgiving, which was just a month away.

Putting a visit to her out of my mind for now, I continued to work, my thoughts looping, just like woven fabric, from Verna to Zed to Verna and back to Zed, until just before lunchtime when my father interrupted me. “Come see my shop. It's completely finished.”

“How about after lunch?” I kept my head down.

“No, come now. You need the fresh air, girl.”

He wasn't usually so direct, but I knew he was right. I put my things down and shed the quilt, following him to the mudroom, where I put on my cape and headed outside. Thomas had been playing on the front porch, and when he heard the back door slam, he hurried around, taking my hand.

When we neared the barn, Thomas let go of me and ran ahead of us to open up the side door to the shop as rain began to fall. When we stepped inside, I realized that not only was the shop finished, it was already in use. The scent of sawdust filled the air, and
Daed
had three tables halfway completed. In my contemplative state I'd missed that he'd finished getting the
new place up and running, much less that he'd acquired orders. I was so glad. I knew the family finances weighed on both my parents.

He opened the door to the other half and stepped aside so I could go first. Another table, nearly finished, sat in the middle. He'd been staining it.

“Impressive,” I said.

He said, humbly, “God's provided some work. That's good.”

I met his eyes, embarrassed at my recent self-absorption. “I'm sorry I didn't get out here before now,
Daed
. I should've asked to see it instead of waiting for you to make me come out to take a look.”

He started to say something in response, but then he held his tongue and simply smiled. “You're here now.”

Outside a car turned into the driveway.

“I'll go see who it is,” Thomas said, running out the door to the other room. A second later the outside door opened and slammed.

As we stepped into the workroom, Thomas returned. “It's Zed's
mamm
,” he said, hovering in the doorway.

I frowned, not wanting to see anyone right now, especially Marta, who would only remind me of Zed and how much I missed him. But it was our way to be hospitable, so I squared my shoulders and followed my father and little brother out into the rain. Holding my hood out over my face, the icy water pelting my hand, Thomas and I waved her over as
Daed
called out, “Come into the house!”

Thomas ran ahead again, holding his straw hat atop his head with one hand, splashing through the puddles in his black rubber boots, the mud splattering up his pants and onto the back of his jacket.

Marta stepped to my side and we hurried along in silence with
Daed
walking behind us. My stomach began to churn as I speculated what would bring her here. Had something happened to Zed?

Once we were inside, my
mamm
beamed at Marta, her warm and welcoming expression reminding me that the two women shared a bond of a very unique sort. Marta was a midwife, and she had delivered all of my mother's children except for Thomas and Sadie. Some other midwife I didn't know had delivered my oldest sister, and Marta's niece, a nurse-midwife named Lexie, had been the one to deliver Thomas. I had been at
school that day, much to my disappointment, but Sadie and Becky had both been home.

Though she always made an effort to be kind to me, Marta tended to come across rather abrupt and aloof, at least to me. I'd always been intimidated by her, but then again, I had a feeling there was a side to her I'd simply never seen. There had to be
some
reason that every one of her clients loved her so dearly. Zed did too. They had an easy relationship. I'd never heard him say anything negative about his mother at all.

Mamm
took Marta's cape and hung it on the company peg, inviting her to stay for lunch as she did.

“I'd like that very much,” Marta said. From her body language, I had the feeling she was here to talk to
Mamm
, not me.

Daed
must have sensed it too, because he disappeared into the living room, probably to get some work done at his desk.
Mamm
sent Thomas to change his clothes. Without saying anything, I went back to my room, rewrapping my quilt around my core and taking up my embroidery, trying to imagine what Marta was doing here. It didn't seem to be an emergency. Surely she would have said right away if there had been some tragedy.

Fifteen minutes later,
Mamm
stood in the doorway to my room and told me to come set the table. She seemed, as she usually did these days, annoyed with me. I untangled myself, put down my work, and shuffled into the kitchen. After washing my hands, I set myself to the task.