Threads of Grace (24 page)

He joined the line at the table in time to hear Alice trying to sell
Fraa
Esh some beauty cream.

“It’ll take ten years off your face,” Alice whispered loudly. Seth saw
Fraa
Esh glance around furtively, then take a book of Pink Lady products. Alice moved on to her next victim.

Seth filled his plate with fried chicken, potato salad, macaroni salad, broccoli salad, and green salad, then grabbed a cup of sweet tea and made his way back to Grace.

He had barely sat down when she rose with her plate. “I’m sorry, Seth,” she said, “but it’s my turn to help with the dishes. Can you check on Abel after you’ve eaten?”

He nodded with a smile, then watched her walk away to where
tubs of soapy water were lined up. The thought ran through his mind that there was no one more beautiful than she was, both inside and outside.

He walked over to the tree to see what Abel was doing. Abel was compressed between two branches, his legs dangling, his chest pressed tightly against the wood.

“That feel good,
sohn
?” he asked.

“
Jah
, it makes me feel calm in my belly.”

Seth thought for a minute. “You don’t like to be around the crowd especially, do you?”

“Nee,”
Abel said. “Too many people. Too many eyes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I feel like all their eyes look at me. They look at me and I can’t look them in the eyes.”

“You can if you choose, maybe,” Seth said. “You’re brave, remember?”

“Yeah, but this isn’t about being brave. This is about I don’t want to look them in the eye.”

G
race reached into a bucket of soapy water and began to wash the dishes and silverware. Suddenly big boots and a pair of blue jeans appeared in her line of vision. She shielded her eyes with a dripping hand. “Hello?”

A large, tanned hand was thrust at her. “Hi, I’m Nick. I work with the local volunteer fire company. We’re here to talk about getting the mud sale and dinner together in a couple of weeks. I, uh, wondered if you’d be there?”

She shook hands, hers still damp, then went back to washing dishes. “I’ll be there.”

“Great.” The dark-haired man grinned.

She arched a brow at him. “But so will my husband.”

“Oh, uh, you’re married. You, uh, look so young, I thought . . .”

“What did you think?”

Grace straightened at the dangerously soft sound of her husband’s voice behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Seth was staring intently at the other man, his blue eyes ice cold.

“Uh, nothing, man. I mean . . . I’m sorry. Husband, right?” Nick’s hand shot out again. “No hard feelings?”

Seth laughed then, apparently abandoning the jealous husband role. The two men began to talk and joke together. Soon Seth was leading the fireman to the food table.

Alice sidled up beside her, eating a piece of raisin pie. “Luring him away toward other prey.”

“What?” Grace asked.

Alice took a big bite. “Seth’s leading him to other food to feast his eyes upon.”

“Ach,”
Grace murmured. She would never understand the ways of men.

A few minutes later Seth lightly touched her waist. “So you’re chatting up the local firemen now?”

She reared up and looked him in the eye. “No.”

“I’m just kidding, Grace. I know you weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Silas would have—”

He put two fingers against her lips. “I can imagine what he
would’ve done, but remember—I’m not him. I’m never going to be him.”

“I know,” Grace said.

He took her hand, and they walked over to where Abel sat in the apple tree.

“Abel, we’re going to go over and visit
Onkel
Jacob and
Aenti
Lilly,” Grace told him.

“How come?” Abel asked.

Grace glanced cautiously at Seth. “Well,” she said, “Lilly was going to have a baby but she lost it.”

Abel peered at her curiously. “Where’d she lose it?”

“No,” Grace said, trying again. “You see, the Lord decided she wasn’t going to have it anymore.”

“Why would He do that?” the boy said. “That’s not very nice.”

“The Lord is always good, Abel,” Seth said. “Even when we can’t understand Him. It’s like—it’s like your mama’s quilting. At first you can’t tell the pattern she’s sewing, right?”

Abel rocked against the tree. “Yeah, it looks like a mess.”

“Well, that’s how it is with the Lord. He can take something that looks like a mess to us and turn it into something beautiful. You know?”

Abel shrugged. “I didn’t know
Gott
makes quilts. I’m going to make
Aenti
Lilly a card.”

“That would be great.” Grace was proud of her son for thinking of such an idea. Then she turned to Seth. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For cherishing our wedding promise so dearly.”

She watched him flush with color, and he nodded vaguely.

“Hey,” Abel cried. “Can I paint it? Can I paint the card?”

Grace looked at Seth and noticed his jaw tighten.

“Maybe not, my sweet. You can be so much more personal—more you—with a drawing.”

“That’s not always true,” Seth said evenly.

Grace could tell that he was not going to let the matter drop.

Alice came up and joined them. “Well, I got ten new Pink Lady customers. The collagen-boosting products are going to do well among the Amish.”

Grace forced a smile and tried to concentrate on her friend’s words—anything to avoid the storm she felt was coming with Seth.

When they arrived home, Abel scurried off in search of paper and pencils. Alice went up to her room to plot her new Pink Lady orders, and Violet, as usual, was off somewhere. Grace hadn’t seen her since the Meeting.

Grace sank down onto the couch. She was always tired after sitting on the backless benches of Meeting. And although the gatherings were fun, they too seemed tiring today.

Seth sat down in the chair opposite her. “Grace, you know he could’ve painted the card.”

“He could have,” she murmured.

“What’s the difference between painting and doing a coloring book?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Well, we need to talk about it,” Seth said. “You have to understand that this is part of who I am.”

Grace opened her eyes. “But it’s a secret part.”

“Oh, and you don’t have secrets?”

“Yes, I have secrets, but I don’t want to keep them.”

“That’s not true.” He shook his head. “You want to keep them like the bear that’s got hold of the beehive. He may get stung to death, but sometimes it’s a reflex not to let go.”

“That’s not fair, Seth. It’s not fair to compare what happened to me for nine years to your painting.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Because what you do makes you happy. It wasn’t the same for me.”

He moved suddenly, kneeling in front of her and framing her with his long arms. He looked up earnestly into her face. “I’d like to make you happy, Grace,” he said.

She gazed down at him in confusion; this was more difficult than the idea of him losing his temper. “Seth, I don’t know what—”

“I just want to love you and understand you better,” he went on. “This painting thing is important because it’s a source of tension between us.”

“Seth, I can’t agree with you because I don’t know what the bishop would—”

She broke off as Abel came running into the room with his hand-drawn card. He went to Seth. “I made a tree for
Aenti
Lilly, and I put a baby under the tree so a new baby will grow—maybe as big as the tree.”

“It’s fine,
sohn
. She’ll love it.”

Grace noticed, with some hurt, that Abel did not tilt the card toward her.

CHAPTER 40

S
eth went to the bedroom to change his shirt. He picked a green one to wear to Jacob’s, then happened to glance at the bureau drawers. One of them was half-open and askew instead of neatly closed as both he and Grace kept them.

He felt a chill go down his spine. Tobias Beiler had surely been in the house again. He closed his eyes, trying to think, trying to pray. Then he heard Grace knock softly on the door.

“Seth, I—are you angry? Please, may I come in?”

He hurried to close the drawers, then went to open the door. She looked up at him with anxious eyes.

“I’m coming, Grace. I’m almost ready. Please, go outside with Abel and get in the buggy. I’ll be along.”

S
eth drove without thinking, his mind occupied with other things. How could he make his home more secure without
alarming Grace and Abel? How could he reconcile this disagreement with Grace about the painting?

All husbands and wives had disagreements, but the painting seemed so fundamental, so intrinsically part of who he was. There was a time when Lilly had actually wanted him to come to the school and teach the children how to do it. But his own wife . . . it felt as if she wanted to take something from him. Something precious.

Yet his conscience prodded him. He wanted to take her past from her. And how much more problematic and wrenching a thing to take from someone . . .

He glanced sideways at her and reached out to grasp her hand. She turned to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

She nodded. “Me too.”

It made him feel a bit better, but it did nothing to resolve the deeper issue.

W
hen they arrived at Lilly and Jacob’s, Grace was surprised to be greeted with smiles from both of them. Lilly looked wan and pale but still happy somehow. Jacob, too, had a peacefulness about him as Grace presented the various casseroles that had been given that afternoon as tokens of love and goodwill.

“Sit down,
sei so gut
,” Jacob invited. “We have a lot to tell you.”

“How are you, Lilly?” Grace asked softly.

“I am well. We both prayed about this last night and feel that
this is not so much a loss but an opportunity for us to grow closer in love.”

Grace saw Seth pass a hand over his eyes. “A painful opportunity, though. We are so sorry,” he said.

Jacob laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Don’t, Seth. It’s all right, really. There will be plenty of other chances for you to be an
onkel
.”

Grace smiled at her brother-in-law. “You are both so brave.”

Lilly shook her head. “
Nee
. We know there will still be much grieving to come, but when the Lord takes away, He always gives back. We need to believe that.”

“Well, you’re stronger in your faith than I am.” Seth caught his
bruder
close for a hug and then came to Lilly to do the same. Grace embraced them both, then gave Seth a look to say they probably should leave.

Jacob led them to the door and caught Grace’s arm. “Visit, Grace, will you? She’ll need it later.”

“I give my word,” Grace said. She followed Seth to the buggy.

They didn’t talk much on the ride home. Seth seemed deep in thought—probably marveling, as she was, at the united front Jacob and Lilly brought to their difficult situation.

Seth pulled the buggy close to the house and came around to help Grace down. When he touched her arm, she felt the warmth of his hand linger, almost as if he were touching her to make sure she was real.

She wanted to comfort him somehow, say something, but then her feet touched the ground and the moment had passed.

S
eth unhitched the horse and saw to its needs without a thought to what he was doing. He felt tired and drained. The loss of Jacob and Lilly’s baby had affected him more than he realized, and he wondered, for the first time in his life, about the sovereign hand of
Gott
.

He’d heard other people pose such questions:
If God is good, then why does He let bad things happen?
Seth didn’t know the answers, not by a long shot. But he had seen how the foal sometimes did not get to its feet, could not nurse, was turned on by its mother . . .

This was all part of nature, and the mystery of things unseen.

But still it didn’t answer the unanswerable question. He thought about the quilt image he’d given Abel earlier—the pattern that only God could see.

Perhaps it was the best he could do.

G
race looked up as her father-in-law came in the door.

“Hiya,” Samuel Wyse said. “Mary’s having a nap. She spent a couple of hours with Lilly early this morning, and I thought I’d look for some coffee and a bit of company.”

“Sit down.” Grace waved him to the table. “Please.”

“How about some baked beans too?” Alice offered. “I made them this afternoon. Baked beans are a great comfort food, and you folks could sure use a bit of comforting.” She slid a plate in front of Samuel as Grace filled his cup.

Seth came in, greeted his
daed
, then went to the sink to wash up. Grace went to his side and touched his arm lightly.