Abby Finds Her Calling (32 page)

“What?”
Jonny’s outburst made the folks around them turn to gawk. He flushed, and then looked away, gripping the arms of his chair. “But… it was just that once.”

Zanna scowled. “Jah, well, I’ve said that a hundred times, but that didn’t make it go away,” she said. “You think it was easy, telling everybody? You think I
liked
it, going through two confessions—before and after being shunned? And meanwhile keeping your name out of it until I couldn’t hold it in anymore?”

Jonny went very still. “So everybody knows? Even Mamm?”

Zanna let out a wry laugh. “She’s the one who stood up in church and said I should reveal the father so she’d know who her two girls should stay away from. The preachers—everybody—had been saying all along that this child’s dat should be confessing right along with me,” she added in a hoarse whisper. “I was so peeved at your mother’s tone—her attitude—that I spat out your name to rub her nose in it, mostly.”

He swallowed hard. “And she’s… okay with it?”

“She refused to believe it at first. And your dat called me a liar—threw a big fit after the preaching service, the Sunday before the fire.” Zanna made herself take a breath. The last scrap was out of the box now, and she had the advantage of knowing how this crazy quilt would fit together. “But Adah’s made her peace with it. The baby’s her grandchild, Jonny.
Your
child.”

He stood up suddenly, thrusting a hand through his collar-length blond hair. “I can’t believe they didn’t send you off—like they did my cousin Ann—to keep you out of sight. And then make you give it up for adoption.”

“Nobody on God’s green earth could make me give up this baby, Jonny. I told them I’d leave if they did.” Zanna stood up beside him, sensing she had only a few moments to make him understand exactly how she felt. “I knelt in front of the whole church and asked forgiveness for my sin, but I told them I
would
raise this child—by myself, if need be—because God brought it to me for a reason. I don’t know for sure what that reason is just yet, but I
love
this baby, Jonny. No matter what
you
think.”

His face reddened as reality sank in. “You could have told me…”

“Your feelings about joining the church and getting hitched have always been obvious,” she pointed out. “Meanwhile, James offered to marry me anyway, and to raise this child as his own. But I said no.”

“I would have taken you to a clinic to—would have paid for it, so you could have married Graber and no one would have been the wiser.”

Zanna’s heart slammed in her chest. She wrapped her arms around her belly, willing herself not to cry. “You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said, Jonny. It’s just like I figured, ain’t so?”

He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “I’m out of here. Have to walk this off while I think about things.” Jonny stalked down the hall, his body as stiff as a stick figure. His boots clattered on the tile floor, telling the world he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

Zanna eased into her chair again, forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. So now he knew. And see there? It hadn’t changed a thing, no matter how much she’d helped him with his dat that morning. So she’d better forget that lovey-dovey happily-ever-after stuff and get on with her life.

She picked up a magazine. She couldn’t read the words for the tears in her eyes, but it gave her something to hold on to.

“How are you, Zanna? Looks like Jonny didn’t take to your news so well.” Mamm eased into the chair where Jonny had been sitting and clasped Zanna’s hand. “James told me it was a gut time to come
back. He stayed just around the corner from you, in case things got out of control.”

James had watched out for her? Zanna smiled, even though it would be a while before she felt happy again.

“We’ve got some better news, though,” her mother went on in a hopeful tone. “The doctor’s been talking to Adah about some of the tests. He says Rudy had a heart attack in the barn—and that if Jonny hadn’t called for help when he did, his dat would have been gone. Just goes to show you how a cell phone—and God’s gut timing, getting Jonny out to the farm—worked together in the best possible way today.”

“Jah. Jah, it did,” Zanna agreed quietly. She felt all done in.

“Shall we start for home?” Her mother stood and coaxed Zanna from her chair. “James went to call the driver who brought him in, so we can go with him. Adah and the girls need to spend more time with the doctors and seeing after Rudy, and then they’ll catch a cab.”

And Jonny? Where did he fit into this scenario?

Jonny always found a way to get where he wanted to go, so she’d best not lose any more sleep over him. It wasn’t like he was worrying about her.

A
bby took up her pencil, grateful for this quiet time on Tuesday morning to write her article for the
Budget.
Events in Cedar Creek had been more sensational than anyone wanted, what with the stir caused by Zanna’s pregnancy and confession, but this fire… the Ropps’ losing all they had. It wasn’t the kind of news she enjoyed reporting at Christmastime, yet maybe some good could come of it.

She said a prayer, asking that her report would be a blessing to those who read it. Then she began to write, relying on God to supply the words. Her articles were often more like essays than what most scribes sent in, but folks told her she was an inspiration. And wasn’t it her calling, to be a blessing to Plain folks across the nation?

Cedar Creek has seen more than its share of tragedy this week
.
Rudy Ropp’s family barely escaped when their house caught fire and burned to the ground, all the contents lost, last Thursday in the wee hours. The fire’s cause was too much creosote that had built up in the chimney. (If you don’t recall the last time you swept your chimney, and if you don’t have smoke detectors, let this be a word to the wise. An ounce of prevention means you won’t be fretting over how to replace all the furniture, clothing, and preserved
food the Ropps have lost—not to mention the mementos that make a house a home.)

Abby paused, gazing out her window at Sam’s two-story snowcapped home. How fortunate they were that special quilts and chairs enriched their lives, gifts passed on to them from Mamm and Dat’s parents and grandparents. She didn’t want to report as though she wore rose-colored glasses, but what would she accomplish if her readers felt depressed by what she told them? How did she write about the fire’s devastation, followed by Rudy’s collapse in the barn, in a way that would not only inform her Amish audience but inspire folks, as well?

Yet we’ve seen God’s hand at work even after such a terrible event. When Jonny Ropp learned of his family’s loss, he returned to the dairy farm and saved his father’s life. Rudy had fallen to the barn floor after a heart attack, but Jonny summoned the ambulance in time. Rudy’s heart disease was diagnosed, along with a chronic case of sleep deprivation. We expect Rudy home in another week, with a high-tech pacemaker in his chest. Adah and the girls have stayed in a hospital guest room to help with his therapy and daily care.

We neighbors met in James Graber’s carriage shop and response to this critical situation has been heartwarming. Thanks to donations of carpentry expertise, lumber, and supplies, the Ropps will have a newly furnished home as well as a new shed, complete with replacement buggies and wagons. Through sewing frolics and food drives we will gather the everyday things it takes to run a household. And all of this, according to our master carpenter, Amos Coblentz, will be completed by New Year’s Day!

We invite your prayers for Adah and Rudy Ropp and their children: Gideon, Jonny, Becky, and Maggie. And we wish you a blessed Christmas from Cedar Creek, Missouri!

At the chiming of her kitchen clock, Abby quickly wrote out her good copy of the article. Today was the first of several sewing frolics, and she’d received a rush shipment of especially cheerful prints for quilts along with solid broadcloth colors for curtains. Amos had
given her all the window dimensions, so she and the other women would complete most of Adah’s new curtains today. Now
that
was something to celebrate!

Tuesday morning, James began to make the wheels for the Ropps’ new carriage. He had set the fiberglass body and the undercarriage, pieces he had acquired from other Amish shops, beside the workbench in a back corner of his main building so he could work on this special project while Perry Bontrager and Leon Mast kept up with the ongoing repairs and orders. Wheel making was a basic skill he would soon be teaching to Noah Coblentz, but today the repetitive work of securing the sixteen wooden spokes in each of the four wheels would keep his troublesome thoughts from circling like buzzards. Ever since Jonny Ropp had rushed away from the hospital after Zanna told him he had fathered her child, James had replayed the scene and its dialogue in his mind far too many times.

No woman deserved to be abandoned by the man who had placed her in such a precarious position.

But what could he do about it? Not much, because Zanna had chosen to keep her child, and she’d also rejected his second marriage proposal. James had stopped being angry with Zanna, but he still cared what happened to her.

He had completed the first wheel and was positioning the spokes in the second one when a tapping on the window glass made him turn. The last person he’d expected to see peering in at him on this blustery day was Jonny Ropp. Even though the wintry wind whistled outside, the kid’s blond hair framed his face in a sleek English style. When James motioned for Jonny to come in through the shop’s back door, the younger man’s sparkly earring winked as he chewed insistently on a wad of gum.

“Hey, Graber.”

“Jonny,” James replied with a nod. Never mind that Ropp’s timing was uncanny: James wasn’t in the mood for friendly chitchat after
what he’d witnessed in the hospital waiting room on Sunday afternoon. He began arranging the wooden spokes around the center steel hub of the wheel he was making. “What can I do for you?”

Jonny’s expression shifted between boldness and uncertainty, and other emotions James couldn’t read. “I came to see what you can tell me about Zanna’s… situation. She’s told me about confessing and being shunned, yet still she’s raising this baby in Cedar Creek—and her brother’s going along with it.” He focused icy blue eyes on James. “Something’s wrong with this picture. Why hasn’t Sam Lambright shipped her off to a distant relative’s house? And why is the bishop allowing Zanna to keep the kid and raise it by herself? And why didn’t somebody tell me she was pregnant?” he said in an exasperated tone. “Do you know how it feels to be the last one to find out you’re about to become a—a
father
?”

James let out a sigh, reminding himself that he was the older, more mature man here. Jonny’s attitude irritated him, but getting sucked in by this fence jumper’s insensitivity wouldn’t make the situation any better for either of them—or for Zanna.

James cleared his throat. “Why are you asking
me
these questions?” he demanded. “If you’d cared enough about Zanna after having relations with her—or if you’d visited with your mamm and sisters—you’d have known those answers a while back.”

Jonny pivoted on his heel, his eyes flashing. “It’s not something a fella expects to find out about in a waiting room after he’s found his dat almost dead!” he replied sharply. “You’d think she could’ve said something earlier—like when she first found out about the baby, or when we drove out to the farm the other day.”

James bolted a spoke at the wheel’s center hub, making Jonny wait… giving them both a chance to cool down. Finally he pondered aloud. “Do we ever have control over when we receive life-changing information? And since Zanna didn’t figure to have a future with a fella who’d left the Amish life behind, it took more courage for her to tell you about the baby than either of us can imagine.”

Jonny’s brow furrowed. “How can you stand up for her, after the way she left you on the morning of your wedding?”

James managed a smile despite the way this worldly blond was wearing out his welcome. He deftly measured and marked the ends of the wooden spokes that would be fitted into the wheel’s rim. “We defy logic—forget common sense—when we forgive someone we love, ain’t so? Or would you know anything about that?”

“Hey, I came here asking you legitimate questions. I don’t need your holier-than-thou attitude!”

James raised an eyebrow. Such a rude remark didn’t deserve a response, so he flipped the switch of the pneumatic saw that would shape the spokes’ outer ends into cones, like pencils in a pencil sharpener. Wood shavings flew as he guided the end of one spoke… two spokes, into the whirring machine.

Jonny shifted, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his sleek jeans. “Okay, sorry. My bad,” he said above the noise of the air-driven saw.

My bad?
What on earth did that mean? At least Jonny hadn’t called him
dude
, but James still felt no need to answer him. If he’d come here to say something, he needed to get on with it. James continued rotating the wheel and whittling the ends of the spokes until he’d completed all sixteen of them.