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Katie's Way

By Marta Perry

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KATIE’S WAY
By Marta Perry

Chapter One

Fast-paced chatter in Pennsylvania Dutch, followed by a ripple of women’s laughter, floated through the archway to Caleb Brand’s handmade furniture shop from what used to be a hardware store next door. Caleb forced himself to focus on the rocking chair he was waxing, trying to ignore the sounds of change.
He didn’t like change. This building, with its two connected shops, had been a male enclave for years. Now everything was different, because Bishop Mose had decided to rent the other side to Katie Miller for a quilt shop.
Caleb gritted his teeth and rubbed a little harder, trying to concentrate on the grain of the hickory. Rocking chairs were among his best sellers, and this one had turned out to his satisfaction. He’d never let anything go out of his shop that he wouldn’t be happy to have in his own home.
Another peal of female laughter. How many women were over there, anyway, helping to set up for the opening tomorrow? It sounded like half the sisters from the church district.
No reason why Katie Miller, newly komm to Pleasant Valley from Columbia County, shouldn’t open a quilt shop. He wished her well. Just not next door to him.
The bell on his own front door jingled, and he looked up. Bishop Mose, his white beard fluttering in the mild May breeze that swept down the main street of the village, ducked into the shop.
“Bishop Mose.” He half-rose, showing the bishop that he was behind the counter at the rear of the show room.
“Ach, Caleb, I thought you’d be tucked away upstairs in your workshop at this hour.” The bishop, his years seeming to sit lightly on him, wound his way through the handmade wooden furniture that filled the room.
“Nobody’s here to help out today, so I have to mind the shop.” Caleb put the lid on the furniture wax, tapping it down tight. “Can I do something for you today?”
“Ach, no.” The bishop’s blue eyes, wise with a lifetime of service to the Amish of Pleasant Valley, crinkled a little. “Chust thought I should see for myself how you’re dealing with your new neighbor.”
Caleb glanced down at the rocker to avoid meeting the bishop’s gaze. “Fine. Everything’s fine, I think.”
So he didn’t understand why Bishop Mose had seen fit to install a quilt shop next to him, but he wouldn’t complain. He’d never forget that when it seemed every person in the valley had turned against him, Bishop Mose had accepted his word.
It was eight years since then, and Caleb supposed folks still talked about him and Mattie, though not in his presence. But thanks to Bishop Mose, he still had his place here.
In the brief silence between them, the sound of women’s voices came through clearly, talking about how best to display some quilts, it seemed.
“That’s gut,” Bishop Mose said. “I thought maybe it would be a bother to you, having a quilt shop next door instead of a hardware store.”
Absently, Caleb caressed a curved spindle of the rocker, the wood warm and smooth under his hand. Could he drop a hint in the bishop’s ear?
“Well, I did think a hardware store was a better fit with my shop.” He said the words as cautiously as if he walked on eggs. “We shared more of the same customers, ain’t so?”
“You don’t think the folks who buy Katie’s quilts will be interested in your fine rocking chairs and chests?” Bishop Mose lifted white eyebrows.
Another burst of laughter scraped at his nerves. “No. I don’t think a bunch of quilting women are likely to want what—“
He stopped--a little too late, it seemed. Katie Miller stood in the archway, and he didn’t doubt she’d heard his words.
He cleared his throat, trying to think what to say, but she beat him to it.
“Ach, Bishop Mose, I thought I heard your voice.” The warm smile she directed toward the bishop probably didn’t include Caleb. “Would you like to see what we’ve done with the shop?”
“We would like nothing better.” He reached across the counter to clap Caleb’s shoulder. “Komm, Caleb. We’ll have a look at your new neighbor’s shop, ain’t so?”
Caleb hesitated, glancing at Katie. Her blue eyes were guarded, it seemed to him, and her strong jaw set. Katie Miller looked like a determined woman, one bent on doing things her way.
Which was maybe how she’d reached her mid-twenties without marrying, unusual for an Amish woman. And at the moment her way most likely didn’t include showing him her shop.
But in the next instant her expression had melted into a smile. She smoothed back a strand of light brown hair under the white kapp on the back of her head and nodded. “Komm. I’d like fine to show you what we’ve done.”
With the bishop’s hand on his shoulder Caleb couldn’t very well pull away. He walked through the archway, feeling as if he was moving into a foreign land.
It looked that way, too. Harvey Schmidt’s barrels of nails and coils of wire were long gone, of course. The shop had been stripped down to the bare shelves during Harvey’s closing sale. But now—
The walls and shelves had been painted white, as had the counters. Against the white, every color possible glowed in bolts of fabric and spools of thread. It looked like a huge flower garden in full bloom.
And that was saying nothing of the quilts, draped on a four-poster maple bed that had been placed in the center of the space. Another quilt, in shades of blue and yellow and white, sagged between Molly, Katie’s cousin and the reason Katie had come to the valley in the first place, and Sarah Mast, Pleasant Valley’s midwife. Both were up on chairs, obviously trying to hang the quilt from a rod that Harvey had used to support coils of rope.
“That looks like a dangerous thing to be doing.” Bishop Mose was quick to steady the chair on which Molly teetered. “Especially for a new mammi.”
Dimples appeared in Molly’s cheeks. “Ach, you sound just like my Jacob. Anyone would think I was made of glass to hear him. After all, our little boy is over four months old now.”
“Ja, well, komm down, anyway.” Katie went quickly to grasp the quilt from them. “This I’ll put on the bed, and I have some quilted table runners that can hang from the rod instead.”
Molly and Sarah climbed down, looking a little relieved, Caleb thought.
Sarah took the quilt back from Katie, her normally serious face lighting with a smile. Sarah had been a newcomer to the valley herself not that long ago, when she’d arrived in the valley to take over the midwife practice from her elderly aunt. Maybe that explained the connection she seemed to have with Katie.
“We’ll put the quilt in place,” Sarah said. “You have guests to show around.”
Katie nodded. She spread her arms wide in a gesture that took in the whole of the small shop.
“Here it is, as you can see. My new quilt shop.” A smile blossomed on her face, touching her eyes and bringing a glow to her cheeks.
Happiness. Hope. They radiated from Katie like heat from a stove. Caleb couldn’t help but be touched.
But that didn’t change anything, he reminded himself. Having the woman’s business right next door was going to be a nuisance.
And if she’d heard what folks in Pleasant Valley said about him, it wondered him that she’d want to be near him at all.
#
“Are you certain-sure I can’t stay and help you a bit longer?” Cousin Molly hovered at the door of the shop. “Jacob doesn’t mind watching the boppli.”
“Get along home.” Katie gave her a quick hug. “That little one will be wanting to eat soon, and that’s one thing Jacob can’t do.”
Molly giggled, her face alight with mischief as if she were a child again herself. “He does get desperate when little Jacob cries. I think it makes him appreciate me more.”
“Jacob appreciates you fine, especially after all the months you were apart when he was working out west.” Katie gave her cousin a gentle shove. “It is ser kind of you to spend so much time helping me, but now you should get on home to them.”
Molly paused, glancing around the shop. “The place does look wonderful-gut, Katie. Who would have thought the old hardware store could change so much?”
“I just hope people like the change.” She suspected she already knew of one who didn’t.
Molly gave her a quick, impulsive hug. “I’m so glad you’re here. And glad, too, that your parents were willing to part with you.” She kissed Katie’s cheek and went out, the shop door bell jingling.
Katie had been grateful for all the help today. Still, it was gut to be alone in the place that was everything she had hoped it would be. She touched the end bolt of a row of fabric, feeling the soft cotton slip through her fingers.
Denke, Father. The prayer formed in her thoughts. Thank you for giving me useful work to do here.
Molly’s parting words echoed in her mind. It wasn’t quite true that her parents had been willing to part with her...not entirely, anyway.
She’d explained to Mamm and Daad why, after her visit to help when Molly had her baby, she wanted to start a shop here in Pleasant Valley. Her mamm hadn’t been convinced. Mamm wanted the same thing for all five of her girls...that they get married, have babies, and settle down close to her.
Unfortunately her eldest daughter was disappointing her on all counts.
Katie crossed her arms, rubbing them, and moved to the display of quilts in the center of the shop. Lucky that she’d had a number of her own works to put out, since the quilts she expected to sell on consignment from other Amish women had been slow to show up.
It will get better, she assured herself. Once people see that the shop is open, they’ll be more willing.
As for Mammi...well, in the end she’d given way, due in large part to Daadi’s persuading. Katie’s heart warmed. She owed this venture to him.
She traced the tiny squares of a postage stamp quilt with her finger. The sign of a patient quilter, that was, to take the time to fit together all those small pieces.
She had made that quilt during the long winter after Eli married her best friend. Nearly four years ago now, but she hadn’t forgotten. In one brief summer, she had lost both the man she’d expected to spend her life with and her closest friend.
A scrape sounded from the shop next door, reminding her that she was not really alone. Caleb Brand was there, and Caleb was not very pleased with his new neighbor, it seemed. Bishop Mose hadn’t said much about the man when he’d brought her to see the shop he had for rent. Only that Caleb’s woodworking business was in the other half of the storefront, and the bishop was sure they’d be good neighbors.
Funny that Molly hadn’t said much of anything about Caleb Brand, either. Not that Molly was a blabbermaul, but she’d spent most of her life in Pleasant Valley. She must know him. She knew everybody. If...
The thought trailed off as the front door opened. She turned, ready to say that the shop wouldn’t be open until tomorrow, but the words died on her lips.
“Mammi! What are you doing here?” And not just her mother. Two of her sisters, twenty-one-year-old Louise and sixteen-year-old Rhoda, crowded in behind her.
“We’ve komm for your opening, ain’t so?” Mamm untied her bonnet and took it off, revealing brown hair tinged slightly with gray. “Ach, that’s better. That bus bumped us around so much I thought we’d never get here in one piece.” Her gaze sharpened on Katie. “Well? Aren’t you happy to see us?”
“For certain-sure I am.” Katie hurried to her for a hug and then turned to Louise, her next-younger sister. “I’m just surprised, is all. How could Louise tear herself away from Jonas?”
Something that might have been a snort came from Rhoda, but Louise affected not to hear it.
“Jonas agreed that it was my duty to help Mammi on the trip. He’d never object to that, even if he doesn’t understand why you had to go so far away.”
Katie bit back the tart words on her tongue about Louise’s intended’s opinion. Jonas, the youngest son of a bishop, had a bit too much self-importance for Katie’s taste, but that was Louise’s concern, not hers.
“I’m sure Katie doesn’t care what Jonas—“
Katie interrupted whatever unwise thing Rhoda was about to say with a quick, strong hug and a murmured hush in her ear. “It is ser gut to see all of you.”
She drew back, waving her hand to encompass the whole of her shop. “What do you think of it?”
Mamm took a few steps around, studying the layout as if comparing it to her own quilt shop back in Columbia County. “It’s not as big as I thought it would be.”
“There’s another room at the back that I can expand into,” Katie said. “This is enough for starting off, I think.”
“You could be right. The less you have, the easier it will be to.....” Her mother stopped and then started again. “...to take care of.”
That wasn’t what she’d intended to say, Katie felt sure. The less it will be to get rid of when you come home again. That was the thought in her mother’s mind, wasn’t it?
She found she was clutching her arms around herself again and deliberately relaxed.
One year. That was how long she had to prove herself. Daadi had paid Bishop Mose for one year’s rent on the shop. At the end of that year, she should be able to sign her own lease.
Or go home in defeat and spend her life next door to Eli and Jessica, watching their growing family.
She cleared her throat. “How long are you...will you be able to stay?”
“Ach, chust ‘til Friday. Louise is supposed to go to dinner with Jonas’s family on Saturday, so we must get back.” Mamm nodded toward the stairway that led up to the second floor. “Will you have room for us in your apartment?”
“We’ll make room.” She thought rapidly. Mamm would have her room, of course, and Louise and Rhoda could share the second bedroom. She’d sleep on the couch. “If you’re not comfortable, I’m sure Molly would be glad to have you stay with her.”
“No, no, this will be fine.” Mamm made shooing motions toward the other two. “Take your bags up now. Get settled. I want to speak to Katie.”
Mamm’s words sounded serious. If something was wrong at home—
Her sisters vanished up the stairs. Katie studied her mother’s face, trying to read the expression. Mammi, for some reason, was avoiding her eyes.
“Is something wrong?” she asked finally, when it seemed her mother wouldn’t speak.
“No, no, why would you think that?” Mammi made little sweeping gestures with her hands. “I chust think...that is, your daad and I have decided that Rhoda will stay here with you for a time.”
“Rhoda?” There was a faint squeak in her voice, and she tried to control it. “But why would you want Rhoda to do that? She has her job at the restaurant, and you’ll need her help with Louise getting married in the fall.”
And just as importantly, why would she think Katie should take on the responsibility for a lively sixteen-year-old when she was trying to get a new business started on her own?
Her mother studied a row of spools with concentrated care. “She can be more help to you. As for that restaurant...” Mammi’s voice seemed to tighten. “We think it better that she not work there anymore.”
“I see.”
But she didn’t, not really. It was so unlike Mammi to let one of her chicks leave home without a fight, and Rhoda was only sixteen, just beginning her rumspringa.
Light began to dawn.
“Does this have something to do with Rhoda’s rumspringa?” Rhoda, with her quick mind and daring disposition, was probably destined to have a more tumultuous running-around time than either Katie or Louise had had.
Her mother turned toward her, fingers to her lips. “I’m not saying there’s anything really wrong. But Rhoda has got herself in some trouble.”
“Trouble?” Mamm surely didn’t mean—
“No, no, not anything serious.” Color stained Mamm’s cheekbones. “Staying out later than she should, going off with some of the older boys to an Englisch party.”
“That’s not so bad,” Katie said, going a little weak at the knees at the thought of taking on the supervision of Rhoda.
Mamm pressed her lips together for an instant. “Never did I think a daughter of mine would be so rebellious. You and Louise were nothing like that when you were sixteen. Of course, Louise has always been serious, a perfect fit for Jonas. And you weren’t running around a lot because you and...”
Mamm let that trail off, but Katie knew the end of that sentence, too. You and Eli Hershberger were going to marry. Only it hadn’t turned out that way, and she’d had to watch while Eli married Jessica Stoltzfus.
She pushed those thoughts aside hurriedly. Best to concentrate on the current problem. “If Rhoda is misbehaving, wouldn’t it be best to have her at home, under your eye?”
Mamm shook her head decisively. “There’s Louise to think of. How will it look if Rhoda gets into trouble with her sister marrying the bishop’s son? Anyway, your daad and I agree that Rhoda is better off here, and you can use her help. I never thought you should live above the shop on your own, anyway. This way you’ll have company.”
She certainly would.
“Maybe we should talk about this some more,” she began. “If—“
“There’s nothing more to be said.” Mamm turned away, examining a bolt of fabric. “Anyway, least said, soonest mended. I had to tell you, but no one else needs to know why Rhoda is here.”
Katie leaned against a box of quilt filling, trying to settle her mind, and her ears caught a sound through the archway...the creak of a rocking chair.
Mammi was wrong. Somebody else already knew, because Caleb Miller was still in the shop next door.
#
“Are you sure you don’t want us to help you finish clearing up?” Katie’s mother paused at the door after the long opening day of the shop. “We can stay.”
But fatigue drew at Mamm’s face, and Katie patted her arm. “Ach, no, you and the girls go on to Molly’s. She’ll like fine to have a longer visit with you, and likely she has supper almost ready. I’ll be along soon, for sure.”
Mamm nodded, gesturing Louise and Rhoda out to where Jacob, Molly’s young husband, waited at the curb with their horse and buggy. Mamm started to follow and then turned back toward Katie.
“This was a gut beginning.” She closed the door before Katie could respond.
Katie stood at the window, watching as they moved off down the street, and then locked the door, pulling down the shade. Her opening day was over.
She leaned against the door for a moment, still holding the napkin and paper plate she’d intended to toss in the trash, and felt the tension seep out of her. She hadn’t realized how nervous she’d been about this day until now, when she was as boneless as one of the faceless rag dolls she’d displayed along a top shelf.
The opening had been gut, and she imagined Mamm had mixed feelings about saying so. Not that Mamm consciously wanted Katie to fail. She just wanted their lives to go along the way she’d envisioned them.
Maybe that was what Katie had wanted once, too, but that would never be. Only her tiredness let the tears form in her eyes at that thought, and she blinked them away. Eli was as gone from her future as if he’d died. And if she couldn’t stop loving him, at least here she wouldn’t have to see him and Jessica, happily married and living next door.
A lock snapped in the adjoining shop, and she looked through the archway to see Caleb closing up. He hadn’t acknowledged her presence except for a polite nod of greeting this morning, but she hadn’t forgotten what he might have, must have, heard Mamm say about Rhoda the day before.
He didn’t strike her as a man who’d gossip, but she couldn’t just leave it, ignoring the possibility. Not giving herself time to think, she walked quickly through the archway.
“I hope all the people coming and going today didn’t bother you. I’m sure it won’t normally be so busy.”
For a moment Caleb didn’t speak, the strong planes of his face resembling nothing so much as the wood he worked with. Even his eyes were like the wood—a deep, rich brown, as was his hair. The fact that he was beardless showed the unexpected cleft in his strong chin.
He shrugged, palms open. “It was not a problem. Did you have a gut opening?”
The most words she’d heard from him in a row...that might be a hopeful sign. “Not bad. Lots of people came looking. No big sales, but most folks went away with something, if only a quilted potholder.”
He gave a short nod, turning. Apparently that was all he had to say to her. But not all she needed to say to him. If he told other people what Mamm had said about Rhoda, life here could be difficult for her sister before it even started.
“Paula Schatz brought me a whole tray of sweets from her bakery to celebrate the opening.” The Mennonite woman’s bakery, she’d learned, was just a few doors down Pleasant Valley’s main street. “Can I persuade you to take some home to your family?”
“No. Denke,” he added, as if thinking he’d been rude. “My sister-in-law bakes enough for half the county as it is.” He glanced at the paper plate in her hand. “I shouldn’t think you’d want people eating around your quilts.”
“I had the food and drink in the back room. Most people were sensible enough to keep it there.” She shrugged. “It was worthwhile, I think. Serving something brings folks in and makes them feel wilkom. If they stay longer, they buy more, ain’t so?”
His brows, a darker brown than his eyes, drew down. “I’ve no need for such gimmicks. If people want something, they buy it, that’s all.”
She had to bite her tongue to keep from telling him how wrong he was. “If you have well-made products, buyers will find you. That’s true. But there are things you can do to draw people’s attention.”
His shop was a prime example, and her hands itched to re-arrange things in a way that would highlight their beauty. That rocker, for instance, with the intricately turned spindles—it should be up front where the customer’s eye fell on it immediately. The whole space looked cluttered and unwelcoming to her eyes.
He shook his head in a way that dismissed both her and her sales ideas. “Your family...have they gone home already, then?”
“Just to my cousin Molly’s for supper.” Here was an opening to find out what he’d heard about Rhoda, if she could see how best to use it. Did she dare ask such a forbidding personality to keep silent? “They’ll be going home tomorrow, except for my sister Rhoda. She’s staying to help me for awhile.”
“I see.” Two words only. But his arms crossed over his broad chest, and he glanced down, not meeting her eyes.
She’d dealt with enough customers in her mother’s shop to be able to read in his body language what he didn’t say. He’d heard, that was certain sure.
She took a breath, murmuring a silent prayer for guidance. “Caleb, I think that you must have heard what my mother said about why Rhoda is staying here.”
His face tightened. “I don’t listen to what doesn’t concern me.”
“Sometimes you can’t help but hear something that wasn’t meant for your ears.” She’d gone this far. She may as well say all that she thought. “I just hope you will not repeat it.”
She’d thought his face couldn’t get any tighter, but apparently it could. There was no mistaking his expression now. Anger. He glared at her for a long moment.
“I’m not a blabbermaul.” He spun and walked away from her, shoulders stiff.
She let out her breath in a sigh. She’d have done better, it seemed, to keep her mouth closed.

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