The Winnowing Season by Cindy Woodsmall

Author:Cindy Woodsmall [Woodsmall, Cindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-73005-3
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

Rhoda stood in the dark greenhouse.

Why did Jacob have to be so closed with her? He certainly wasn’t with Samuel. The two passed looks, spoke in coded messages, and seemed to communicate without saying a word. But she was on the outside, stumbling like a chump. At the least Jacob could have warned her that any outside interest might be a problem.

What trouble had he let her cause? And why?

Questions circled nonstop, and the ground itself seemed to want to pull her into it.

She had no desire to demand that Jacob unearth what he’d buried in private. If anyone understood making mistakes while trying to do what was right, she did. But whatever he’d done and why, he shouldn’t let her stumble around and make trouble for him.

Music again filtered through the air. She still couldn’t make out the instrument, but it was the same unfamiliar song she had been hearing since the day they’d arrived. The song no one else seemed to hear.

At least the voice hadn’t returned.

What was wrong with her? She could hear things that weren’t there, see people who weren’t there, but she couldn’t pick up on what was ripping at a good man?

Shadows at the far end of the greenhouse took the shape of a young Amish woman.

Emma.

Rhoda had spent two years believing she was fully responsible for Emma’s death. Jacob, in his tender-hearted but practical way of looking at things, had helped her to see otherwise. She wanted to lift some of his burden, but how could she when he wouldn’t tell her anything?

Once her eyes adjusted to the dark, Rhoda went to the large container of mulch and dug a trowel into it.

She’d grown used to Samuel’s immediate responses being gruff, but even so, he was infuriating. You should’ve stayed home like I said. Who did he think he was? If she hadn’t been determined to avoid arguing with him, she’d have straightened him out.

“Rhoda?” Jacob’s voice made warmth and peace wash over her.

She went to the door and opened it. “In here.”

He hurried toward her. “When I didn’t see the lantern glow, I thought maybe you’d gone for a walk.”

She retreated into the darkness of the greenhouse.

He had seemed so carefree when she met him. Was this what courting did—take an apparent champion and slowly reveal the beauty and pain of their humanness?

She waited, but he said nothing. “Why is it so hard to warn me of areas where your past may undermine me? Or to let me know you might disappear for a few days before doing so? Or to tell me to avoid situations like today?”

He wiped dirt off a bench and sat on it. “I don’t know.”

Was he serious? That was his answer?

“Why didn’t you say something to Samuel when he snapped at me about going today?”

“I … I don’t know.”

Frustration circled. As fantastic as he was in helping her work through arguments and anger with his brother, he seemed to have no answers when it came to sorting out their own problems.

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