Chapter Two
Weaving wildly from side to side was not usually the way Cassie Coblenz liked to drive, but it was the only way she managed to get up Mammi and Dawdi's hill in “The Beast.” The Beast was what she affectionately called her 1993 Honda Accord. Affectionately, because that car, which she had scraped together every last dime to buy, had seen her through five harsh Midwestern winters, had nearly 240,000 miles on it, and hadn't complained about anything, even when Cassie drove it all the way to New York City to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mammi and Dawdi's hill proved to be quite an adventure. The roads were plowed, but once Cassie ventured off the pavement and onto the lane that climbed up Huckleberry Hill, the way became icy and nearly impossible to navigate. A horse-drawn sleigh would have done much better than a car.
Cassie finally made it to the top of the hill and pulled The Beast in front of Mammi and Dawdi's house. There it was, just like she remembered it as a child: the wide covered porch with no chairs to sit on, the kerosene lamp that hung on a peg just outside the front door, the large kitchen window that faced the front of the house so that Mammi could see everybody who came up the hill.
Cassie couldn't remember a time when Mammi hadn't run out of the house to greet her when she came for a visit. Mammi wanted everyone to feel welcome and loved before they even set foot in her house.
Cassie turned off the car, closed her eyes, and leaned back against the headrest. She needed a place where she could catch her breath for a minute, a place where she didn't feel pushed or pulled or bullied or stretched.
Mamm would be disappointed that she had chosen Mammi's house instead of her own home to stay, but her mamm was one of the worst offenders in the pushy department. At Mamm's house, Cassie lived with a constant headache right between her eyes.
Mammi and Dawdi never lectured her about the church or baptism or hell. They just let her be.
She needed a place to be.
The tapping on the window startled her a bit. She jerked her head up and came face-to-face with Mammi grinning at her from the other side of the window. Of course Mammi would come out to greet her. She had the big kitchen window, after all.
Mammi stepped back so Cassie could open the car door. She jumped out and threw her arms around her little Amish mammi. Dawdi stood taller than the average Amish dawdi, and most of the Helmuth children and grandchildren had inherited their height from him, but Mammi was a puny little thing, no taller than five feet on a good day. Cassie wouldn't trade her mammi for all the paintings in the Louvre, but she was glad she'd gotten Dawdi's height. She clocked in at five-eight without heels.
Mammi gripped Cassie tightly around the waist. “Cassie, Cassie, Cassie. This is the best day in the whole world. We are overjoyed that you would spend your summer vacation with us.”
Cassie giggled. It was January sixth and the temperature couldn't have been more than twenty-five degrees. Somewhere along the way Mammi had gotten her wires crossed. Summer vacation was a long ways away. “Well, winter break anyway,” Cassie said.
Mammi's eyes twinkled like stars in the Big Dipper. “You know what I mean. This is your vacation, isn't it? You'll get to relax?”
“I'm supposed to be studying for the GRE, but I'll have plenty of leisure time. I don't really want to relax, though. I want to spend plenty of time with you and Dawdi, and I want to bake bread and fill the coal box and milk the cow. All the things I've missed since I've been away.”
Mammi's whole face wrinkled when she smiled. “You want to do chores?”
“I want to do Amish things. There's something so calming about working with my hands and disconnecting from all the electronics.”
Mammi winked. “Don't let your mamm hear you talk like that. Her hopes will soar to the moon.”
“I won't,” Cassie said in an exaggerated whisper. Mamm was not all that pleasant when she got her hopes up. She wasn't all that pleasant to begin with. “I'll be here to drive you to the hospital and help you recover from surgery and everything. Leave it all to me.”
“I will,” Mammi said. “I'll leave everything to you and the doctor.”
“Is he a good doctor? Do you feel comfortable with him?”
A furrow appeared between Mammi's eyebrows. “There was some confusion about that at first, but Felty thinks we should give him a chance. I've already given him the gifts, and I don't think it would be right to back out now.”
“I'm sure everything will turn out just fine.”
Mammi bloomed into a grin. “If you're sure, then I have complete confidence. You always did have a sense about these things.”
“I got it from you.”
Mammi balanced on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on Cassie's cheek. “
Cum reu
. Let's get you out of the cold. Felty paid special attention to the fire this morning so the house would be toasty warm when you got here.”
“Do you care if I walk around outside first? I kind of want to breathe in the whole place before I come in.”
“Would you like some company? I wore my galoshes.”
“Of course.”
Arm in arm, Cassie and her mammi trudged toward the barn. Their breath hung in the air as their boots crunched through the snow. Mammi pointed to the house. “We got a new roof in September. Your cousin Mandy's husband Noah did it for us. I think he and Mandy fell in love on that roof. Or maybe they fell in love in the barn. He'd go in there and lift heavy things, and she'd go in there and watch him.”
Cassie opened the barn door, and the familiar, homey scent of hay and livestock and damp air filled her nose. She loved the pungent smell of a barn. It made her feel as if she were home.
She was as close to home as she would ever get.
Mammi pointed out the pulley system that Mandy's husband Noah had rigged up to lift hay into the loft. “He got tired of hefting it up there by hand.” She talked about the horse and the chickens and cow. “If you milk the cow,” she said, “be careful. Iris likes to stick her tail in the milk pail. She's ruined more than one perfectly good bucket of milk that way.”
Cassie laughed. Cows could be ornery. She and Norman used to sing to them to coax them to cooperate during milking. Norman didn't have much success with the singingâhis voice was too loudâbut the heifers seemed to like it when Cassie sang lullabies.
A pit grew in Cassie's stomach when she thought of her brother Norman. No one in her family had been happy about her leaving the community, but Norman and Mamm had been the most vocal about it. Being two years older than she, he felt it his duty to keep her on the straight and narrow path. He took it personally when she decided to stray.
They left the barn and walked under the beautifully pruned peach trees, then the empty trellises that would be laden with grapevines in the summer.
Mammi laid her hand on a plastic barrel that sat against one wall of the barn. “Your cousin Aden built us this composter. You put kitchen scraps in and nice black soil comes out in a few weeks. He says we're helping to save the Earth, which seems like a good project. It feels like a bigger job than just Felty and I can do, but we're doing our best. We wouldn't want the Earth to die because we didn't do our part. And we wouldn't ever hurt Aden's feelings.”
“Aden is passionate about the environment.”
“But I don't think everybody is doing their part,” Anna said. “Aden's own father-in-law refuses to get a composter. And if you mention ârecycling' to him, he holds his breath and turns blue. He's not going to save the Earth with that attitude.”
As they walked back to the house, Cassie's gaze turned down the little path that led to the other side of the hill where the huckleberries grew. Some of her fondest memories were of huckleberry-picking frolics. “Did you get a lot of huckleberries this year?”
“
Jah
. Every year.”
“I'm sorry I missed it.”
“February is maple sugaring time. You can help with that if you like.”
“I'd love to. That's almost as fun as huckleberry season.”
Cassie walked to her car and pulled her purse and large blue suitcase from the backseat. “Thank you for letting me stay.”
“
Nae
, thank you. We are looking forward to a very entertaining winter.”
“I don't know how entertaining I'm going to be, but I'll do my best to be a good houseguest.”
Mammi stopped in her progress up the porch steps. “Nae. You're not a guest. Guests are acquaintances that you put out the good towels for. You are our granddaughter and closer to our hearts than any guest could ever be. But I'll still put out the good towels for you.” She patted Cassie on the cheek. “You are family. Never forget that.”
Cassie's eyes stung with tears. It had been so long since she felt at home anywhere. It was a sure sign she desperately needed a break from the real world when one kind word from Mammi nearly made her melt into a puddle of water right here on the porch.
Mammi hadn't been kidding about the warm house. They were hit by a wall of heat as soon as they walked into the kitchen. Dawdi had probably been feeding the stove in the cellar all morning.
The kitchen table to her right was crowded with platters of cookies. “What's all this?” she asked.
Mammi, always genuinely happy, seemed to turn on a sort of fake cheerfulness in her voice. “We can't celebrate your homecoming without eats.”
Cassie set her suitcase on the floor and took a deep breath. The great room was just as she remembered. Even Sparky, Mammi's curly white dog, didn't seem to have moved in the last four years. She lay asleep on the rag rug in front of the sofa. Dawdi's recliner sat in the place it had been for twenty years, except it wasn't the same recliner. He'd probably rocked the old one down to dust.
A new LP gas stove sat where the trusty cookstove used to be. More than once over the years, Cassie had heard Mammi swear by that cookstove. She had always put a stop to any talk of getting a new one because she felt more comfortable cooking on the old one. Not that anything was cooked
well
on the old cookstoveâMammi was famous for being the worst cook in Wisconsinâbut Mammi liked it better, so Dawdi hadn't been inclined to get her a new one. Cassie smiled to herself. Dared she hope that the new stove had improved Mammi's cooking? She might volunteer to do all the meals while she stayed here. She could only gag down so much bad food before she was sure to develop some sort of digestive condition.
Mammi saw where Cassie's gaze fell. “The new stove was Felty's idea. He used it to lure Noah Mischler into the house so he would fall in love with Mandy. I'm willing to make any sacrifice if it will help one of my grandchildren find love.”
Cassie smiled and wondered how someone could be lured into the house with a stove. Dear Mammi. She was legendary for her cooking, her knitting, and her matchmaking. Thankfully, there was no risk of Cassie becoming Mammi's next victim. Mammi only matched her Amish grandchildren with good Amish mates, and Cassie wasn't Amish anymore. She was safe.
Dawdi came bounding into the great room with the energy of a sixty-year-old. He never seemed to tire. “Well, bless my soul, it's my long-lost granddaughter.” He drew Cassie in for an embrace, and the unruly hairs of his beard tickled her chin.
“Hi, Dawdi.”
He nudged her to arm's length. “Let me have a look at you. You cut your hair. I like it.”
“Mamm won't,” Cassie said, taking a deep breath in anticipation of Mamm's reaction to the chin-length hairstyle she'd been sporting for over a year.
“Now, who says she won't like it? She'll love it.”
Cassie kissed Dawdi on the cheek. “It's wonderful gute to be here. Thank you for letting me come.”
“The Lord's timing is perfect,” Mammi said. “How often do I get melanoma on my feet?”
“I'm glad I could be here.” Cassie took off her coat. “Can I help make dinner?”
Mammi looked at Dawdi, and Dawdi eyed Mammi. “You didn't tell her?” Dawdi said.
Mammi shrugged. “I didn't want to spoil our lovely stroll.”
Dawdi smoothed his beard, a sure sign he mulled over something serious. “Cassie, I have some good news and some bad news. Your mamm caught wind that you would be arriving today, and she's invited herself to dinner.”
Cassie's smile suddenly felt as if it were plastered onto her face. “Is that the good news or the bad news?”
Dawdi thumbed his suspenders. “Jah.”
She sank into one of the chairs at the table. “I had hoped to have a little more preparation before I saw Mamm.”
Mammi plopped next to her and patted her hand reassuringly. “I tried to think of a good fib, but your mamm caught me off guard. She even insisted on bringing the food. I couldn't think of a good way to say no. Sometimes it's tricky being the mammi. I'm always getting myself into trouble.”
“It's all right, Mammi. I knew I'd have to face them sometime. I was just hoping for a good night's sleep first.”
“Your mamm loves you very much,” Dawdi said in an attempt to make her feel better.
Cassie slumped her shoulders. “I know. She can't help herself. When we get together, she feels a certain responsibility to lecture me on the evils of the outside world. I just wish she weren't so ornery about it.”
“She thinks you're going to hell,” Mammi said. “That makes her a little testy.”
Even though her lungs felt as if The Beast were parked on her chest, Cassie couldn't help but giggle at Mammi's nonchalant attitude about where Cassie would or would not end up in the afterlife. “Everybody in the community thinks I'm going to hell. It kind of puts a damper on things.”