Mending Hearts by Janice Kay Johnson

Author:Janice Kay Johnson [Johnson, Janice Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

What had happened, at the end?

Not allowing herself to watch David drive away, Miriam let herself into the quiet house. She wondered if Mamm and Daad would have lingered after the fellowship meal talking to friends, to give her and David privacy. She hoped they did. She wasn’t ready to explain anything about that ride home or her talk with him.

Now that David had confessed and been brought fully back into the membership, Mamm would likely turn to scheming to bring him and her daughter together. They’d played right into her hands, leaving together. Did he have any idea that’s what her mother would assume, if not his as well?

Hadn’t she hoped, when he asked to drive her home?

Why did they keep circling back to the past?

Restless, she removed her bonnet and hung it on a peg, peeked into the kitchen but didn’t see a single thing demanding her attention, and finally walked out the back door. Several years ago, Daad had built a bench that circled an old apple tree, hoping Mamm would slow down sometimes and sit here in the shade. Watch the pattern of sunlight as it fell through the branches, listen to the birdcalls, maybe take her shoes off and wriggle her toes in the grass.

Miriam had never seen her mother sit on the bench since she’d admired it after Daad first brought her out to see it. The only time she sat at all was to string and snap green beans or shell peas, or in the evening to mend or knit while Daad read Bible passages. The rare times she’d taken a nap, the whole family worried.

Not that Daad was much better. Eli liked his work. She’d seen him fidget after dinner, and the next time she’d look, he would have slipped out to his workshop in the barn. Kerosene light wasn’t adequate for him to do much, but he could sand whatever piece he was working on; touch was more important for that than sight, he would tell anyone.

Well, Miriam thought defiantly, right now, I’m going to sit. Why not? She had plenty to think about, especially that last expression on David’s face. If she weren’t imagining things, she’d believe she had hurt him. She couldn’t be certain; he’d hidden what he felt so fast, she’d have missed it if she’d blinked at the wrong moment.

And maybe imagination was the right word, as in she was letting hers run wild. What could she possibly have said? And what made her think it was in her power to hurt him?

Ach, it was the whole conversation, it had to be. And that was her fault, encouraging him to talk about old mistakes. Talking about her own mistakes. Why had she told him she hadn’t even noticed him back then? Was that where the whole conversation went wrong? Him thinking he still wasn’t anyone important to her?

When that was the last thing in the world she wanted him to think?

Had she been stumbling half-asleep through

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