A Marriage of the Heart (24 page)

He swiped his large hand across his eyes. “One night I picked her up and she was wearing
Englisch
clothes. She told me that she’d found someone else who was going to help her, take care of her. She was going to meet him that night. I begged her—it was our baby. She told me to get over it.” He swallowed hard. “We were in my car and arguing. I was driving . . . and then a pick-up truck crossed the lane and hit us head-on. Jennifer—the baby—were both killed instantly. I walked away without a scratch.” He put his head down into his hands. “The pick-up driver was drunk; he wasn’t hurt either.”

Anna held her breath, tears slipping down her cheeks as he went on.

“The drunk driver went to prison; I went home. I told only my
mamm
and
daed
about the baby. They . . . forgave me somehow. In time I confessed before our church and her church for my anger in arguing with her while driving, my
responsibility for buying and driving a car in the first place, and the way all of that contributed to her death. But I could never speak of the baby, of that incredible loss. And I was”—his voice dripped with irony—“forgiven and baptized and permitted to join the church.”

He looked up. “But how could I really go on with a life that included a wife or children, babies, when I was responsible for that baby, that girl, no matter what her choices were? Inside, I’ve never truly forgiven myself or believed that
Derr
Herr
has forgiven me, I guess, until last night.”

Anna licked at a tear that crossed the corner of her mouth. “Last night?” she whispered.

He nodded, rising to come and stand before her. “Last night,
Derr Herr
allowed me to experience again, and again, and again, the renewal of life—through you. It was like he was telling me over and over that he forgives me, that I could think of—and dream of—a new life.”

Anna could feel the warmth of his body radiating toward her with his nearness, but she had to ask, had to know.

“Do you still love her?”

“No.”

“How . . . do you know?”

“Because I was a boy, selfish and blind, who was in love with the idea of her, what I wanted to make her in my mind. I couldn’t see past my own self and what I wanted to even know her as a real person, beyond what she looked like.”

Anna gave him a steady look. “Well, you’ll find no beauty here, no illusion of it either.”

He drew a hoarse breath and reached out to lay his hands
on her taut shoulders. “
Ach
, Anna, do you even see yourself? Do you know what you are?”

She lifted her chin. “I know who I am, what I’m capable of with
Derr Herr
’s help.”

He nodded, smiling through his tears. “
Jah
, you are strong, like tempered steel. But there are other parts of you—” He bent and pressed his warm mouth near her small ear. “A tender heart, a gentle spirit.” She shivered and caught hold of his dark coat as he began to press damp kisses along the line of her neck. “A beloved wife . . . a waiting mother . . . a lifetime of beautiful—”

“
Ach
, Asa.” She took a deep breath. He looked down at her, and she lifted her capable hands to his broad shoulders. “I don’t know how you can know so much about me. It is as if there are all those women waiting inside of me, but I’ve never thought, never dreamed—until last night—that it was the Lord’s plan for me to become any of them. Not until you.”

He bent his head and would have kissed her, but she pressed her hands to his flushed cheeks and wiped at the tears that clung to his thick eyelashes. He turned his head and kissed the inside of her palm.

“Asa, I want you to know—I’m so sorry about Jennifer, about the baby. I know what it’s like when
Derr Herr
chooses to take life, when a pregnancy doesn’t end like you believe that it should.”

He nodded against her hands as she went on.

“But you will be a
gut
father one day.”

He gave her a secret, warm glance and she blushed as she realized how she must sound to him.

“Tell me, Anna Stolis.” He smiled. “Is that a promise? Or a proposal?”

She pulled from him and covered her hot cheeks with her hands. “That didn’t come out like I meant.”

He laughed aloud and she thrilled at the rich, full sound. He caught her against him and stepped backward until he dropped into a comfortable chair, with her in his lap. She half-struggled to rise but he held her still.

“Now just a minute, Doc. I’ve brought you something.”

She ceased her playful struggle as he reached down and caught up the brown paper bag from the floor, putting it in her lap.

“Open it.”

She looked in the bag, then cried out in glad surprise when she pulled out the heavy Christmas Roses quilt that Mrs. Stolis had given her but she’d left behind in her flight from the house.

Asa reached around her and began to open the folds of the quilt, gently enfolding them both in its warmth and beauty. Bottle jumped up onto Anna’s lap and nestled to find a comfortable spot.

“I don’t know what Mrs. Stolis must have thought when I ran out of there,” Anna said as he found her hand.

“That good lady told me that, apparently, I talk a lot when I have a fever. She figured I’d mentioned Jennifer.”

Anna nodded.

“She also said to ask you about a particular nursing style you seem to have perfected to soothe your male fever victims. She said that it might catch you the flu one day.”

“
Ach
, that woman!”

He cradled her close. “To tell the truth, I don’t really feel all that well just yet. Care to show me?”

And she did.

Reading Group Guide

Guide contains spoilers, so don’t read before completing the novellas.

1. Asa and Anna’s relationship is formed by a spontaneous meeting that is, in retrospect, clearly arranged by God. What “chance meetings” have you had in your own life that have revealed God’s presence to you?

2. Asa’s past is redeemed in a unique way through the experiences of the night. How has God turned your past mistakes into healing or wholeness in the present?

3. Anna’s character is one of self-reliance and personal resourcefulness until she discovers a love that allows her to lean on another for support. What relationships in your life provide you with the greatest support?

4. How does the symbolism of “new birth” play out in the story on levels beyond the actual deliveries?

Acknowledgments

I’d like to acknowledge my editor, Natalie Hanemann, who continues to be a source of encouragement and strength for me both as a person and as a writer. I also would like to thank my agent, Tamela Hancock Murray, for providing a lot of cheer along the writing process of this work. My love goes out to my critique partner and coconspirator of plotting and love, Brenda Lott, and my deepest thanks goes to Daniel Miller, my Amish consultant for the piece. And lastly but foremost, I want to thank my husband, Scott, for always being there, through all the storms of life—you are my real hero!

A MARRIAGE
OF THE HEART

For my husband, Scott, the husband of my
youth and now, still, twenty-four years later,
my love of all time

CHAPTER ONE

“W
HAT DID HE DO
?”

Abigail Kauffman clutched her hands together and took a deep breath of the cool fall air that drifted in through the open kitchen window. Her father’s repeated question and ominous tone had her doubting her actions. But once she began a plan, she usually stuck with it.

“I said . . . he . . . well . . . just made me feel a little uncomfortable with the way he was kissing me . . . and touching . . . and I . . .”

Her father’s face turned beet red. “I–I will . . . have words with him.”

He clenched and unclenched his heavy hands, and Abigail felt a surge of alarm and deeper indecision.

“Father . . . it was nothing, in truth.”

“I will have words with the bishop and that—boy, and then he’ll marry you.”

Abigail’s eyes widened, the swiftness of her impulsive plan ringing in her ears. “Marry me? But I don’t love him!”

Her father regarded her with flashing eyes. “Love has nothing to do with marriage. We will go to the bishop and Dr. Knepp, and we will see this solved before morning.” He drew a shaky breath. “When I think of that boy, just baptized today, just accepted into the community, and then . . . daring to trespass upon your honor . . . Go upstairs and dress in blue. I will bring the buggy round. Hurry!”

Abigail turned and fled up the steps.
“Dress in blue.”
The
color for marrying. She gained her small bedroom and slammed the door closed behind her, leaning upon its heavy wooden support. She saw herself in her bureau mirror, her cheeks flushed, her
kapp
askew upon her white-gold hair. She wondered for a strange moment what a mother might say right now, what her mother, whom she’d lost at age five, would say in this situation. Her heart pounded in her chest. This situation . . .

In truth, Joseph Lambert, with his lean, dark good looks and earnest eyes behind glasses, had done little more than speak to her . . . and annoy her. She’d just wanted to pay him back a bit for his casual dismissal of her usually touted beauty . . . and now she was going to have to face his mocking scorn. For she had no doubt he’d laugh outright at the suggestion of any impropriety between the two of them. They’d only been a few dozen feet from where everyone was gathered for the after-service meal, and it would be a bold young man indeed who’d risk anything, let alone steal intimate kisses . . .

But her father had believed her . . . or he’d believed the worst of Joseph Lambert, at any rate. She snatched a blue dress from a nail on the wall and changed with haste. She might as well get it over with, she thought with grim practicality. And yet there was one small part of her that wished things might be different, that wished she might truly be on her way to a marriage that would allow her to escape Solomon Kauffman’s rule and cold distance.

She hurried back down the stairs and went outside to where the buggy waited. Her father started the horse before she barely had her seat, and as they gathered speed she tried to marshal her thoughts. She saw her life as it had been ever since she could remember . . . cold, lonely, devoid of love and even simple conversation. Somehow, the
Englisch
world outside seemed so much less austere and confining, so much less full of unspoken pain.

She let herself escape for a moment by imagining marriage to Joseph Lambert. Not only would it get her out from under
her father’s thumb, but she would be able to keep house, or not keep it, any way she pleased. They wouldn’t have to live with her father—at the picnic she’d heard Dr. Knepp, the popular
Englisch
physician, say something about making his barn over into an apartment for Joseph. It would be just as easy to fit two as it would one. She didn’t take up that much space. Her possessions were scant. She’d learned how to make two blouses last for a season and the secrets of turning out old dresses to look new again.

No, she’d be little bother to Joseph Lambert. She chewed a delicate fingertip in her nervousness. It might work out well, the more she thought about it . . .

J
OSEPH
L
AMBERT EASED A FINGER IN BETWEEN HIS SUSPENDER
and white shirt and drew a breath of satisfaction at the comfort of the simple Amish clothing. He was tired, exhausted from the day and its happenings, but deeply happy. He glanced around the small barn that Dr. and Mrs. Knepp had done over for him and shook his head at the kindly generosity of the couple. To have a bed with clean sheets and a handmade quilt was more than he could have dreamed of in the past years—but to have his own space, his own home, was a gift from the Lord. He lay down in the bed and stared up at the wooden slat ceiling.