Wife on His Doorstep by Patricia Johns

Author:Patricia Johns [Johns, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-03-05T19:07:18+00:00

Chapter Eight

Amos spent the first few hours of his day with Wollie, fixing that wagon axle. It took longer than they thought, and it still wasn’t completely finished by the time they called it quits for the morning. But Wollie could finish it on his own that evening. Amos dropped him off at his work and then had to head all the way back to Redemption Carpentry, which took more time still. But there was no helping it—these things happened sometimes. As he rode, his mind kept slipping back to that unfinished box he’d found in his bedroom closet—the one he’d been carving for his and Miriam’s first anniversary.

He’d never finished it. When she left, it hardly seemed like a priority. He couldn’t bring himself to throw it into the stove, either. So it had sat up there for the better part of a decade, simply collecting dust.

But if things were going to be different for him and Miriam now—if they were going to be friends of some sort—then he felt like the change in their relationship deserved to be acknowledged between them. Maybe it was time to finish carving that box and give it to her, after all.

Would that be too much? Would he make things weird between them? But somehow, leaving that small box unfinished felt wrong now, and he couldn’t quite explain why. But he needed to do something about it.

Amos arrived at the workshop a little after noon, and Noah and Thomas both looked up at his arrival. He nodded to the men as he hung up his lunch satchel on a peg by the door and dropped his hat on top.

“You made it,” Noah said. “Is everything okay at home?”

They were asking about Mammi. “Yah, yah...” Amos nodded. “Mammi is doing okay. Every day she seems a little more tired, but she’s okay.”

Noah straightened and brushed the wood dust from his forearms.

“Wollie came by this morning,” Amos went on. “He needed help with a damaged axle on his buggy, so I dropped by his place to help him fix it. It took a lot longer than I thought—one thing after another seemed to go wrong. It’s not quite finished, but Wollie can do the rest on his own. So I drove him to work, and he figures he can get a ride back with a coworker. That’s why I’m late.”

“How’s he doing?” Thomas asked.

“Pretty well,” Amos replied. “He’s finding it harder than he thought to readjust to Amish life, though.”

“He is?” Thomas said, surprised. “I understand it being difficult for his wife and kinner, but—”

“He got used to their ways,” Amos replied. “Like having a truck. He said they kept it for emergencies, and when the buggy broke, he came to find me in his truck.”

The men exchanged looks. None of them had extra Englisher vehicles for hard times. Amos knew how to be Amish, and it wasn’t by having backup plans that went against the Ordnung. Marriage was supposed to be the same—vows and a life together, no divorce, no separation, no backup plan.

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