The Amish Suitor

“I brought plans for the school,” he said when he reached her. “Do you want to see them?”

“Ja.” She didn’t nod to confirm what she’d said. “Seeing them is a gut idea because you want my help, ain’t so?”

His dark brows dropped in concentration. He must have heard some of what she’d said and was trying to piece it together. Wondering why he didn’t ask her to repeat what she’d said more slowly, she sighed. Even her grossmammi had resisted help for years because of hochmut, but pride did nothing to help her escape the ever-narrowing walls of her world as her hearing continued to fail. Nor would it help Eli.

She spoke to Kyle. “There’s chocolate pudding in the fridge. Go ahead and help yourself to some. Have some with a glass of milk, too, if you want.”

“Can I, Onkel Eli?” he asked.

More confusion fled through Eli’s eyes, but he nodded when the little boy made motions that must have conveyed the question without words.

Miriam bit her lip to keep from saying sign language had limits because it could be understood by a limited number of people.

When the little boy skipped to the door and disappeared inside, she saw Eli’s distress before he could mask it. Didn’t he realize that, with Kyle beginning school, he needed to learn a different way to communicate? He wouldn’t be able to depend so much on the little boy.

“Let me show you the plan I sketched for the school,” Eli said, motioning toward the barn.

Was he hoping to head inside where his nephew could give him hints about what was being said?

“It’s such a nice day, ain’t so?” She sat on the cement ramp’s edge. It would be used to bring equipment into the barn, once it was no longer their home. “Let’s go over what you’ve got out here.”

She thought he’d object, but he opened a large sheet of paper and spread it across the ramp beside her. He stood so close, each breath she took was flavored with the scents of his laundry soap and bleach. Unlike her brother’s, his white shirt pulled over his head and had a stand-up collar. The tab front closed with four small buttons. Beneath the cotton, the shadows of the muscles along his brawny arms drew her eyes.

She looked away. Eli Troyer was too handsome for her own gut. She wasn’t Leanna Wagler, believing in the possibility of a storybook hero coming to sweep her off her feet and carry her off to a wunderbaar life.

“What do you think?” he prompted, looking at his drawing. “It’s a rough sketch, but it should show you what I’m planning. Feel free to tell me changes you think will make the school better.”

She looked at the page. It was far more than a rough sketch, she realized. He’d marked out on the floor plan how the desks for the scholars and another larger one for the teacher would be set. He’d drawn the interior walls as if she stood in the room and looked at each one. It allowed her to see where he intended to place the blackboard and the bulletin boards. A generously sized storage closet was in a back corner.

He pointed to the narrow rectangles in the walls. “Those are windows. The bigger ones with the dotted lines showing the space for each to swing open and closed are the doors. What do you think?” He tilted his head toward her.

All air vanished as she found her nose so close to his that the piece of paper would have barely fit between them. She couldn’t move or blink when she raised her gaze to meet the blue-hot heat in the center of his eyes. Every emotion within him was powerful and uncompromising.

Somehow she gathered enough air to ask, “Do you have a pencil I can use? I want to make a small change.”

“Ja.” He groped in his pocket and pulled out a short ruler.

“Pencil,” she repeated as she pantomimed writing. Once he’d looked away, she drew in a deep breath.

What was wrong with her? She couldn’t remember feeling like that when she was with Yost, and she’d been in love with him.

When a pencil was placed in her hand, she realized she’d drifted away on her thoughts. She kept her eyes lowered and squared her shoulders before bending over the page. The sooner she was done with reviewing the plans, the sooner she could put space between her and Eli.

“I think there needs to be another window on either side of the door.” She drew what she wanted on the drawing.

“What are those?”

“Windows.” She gestured toward the barn. “Windows.”

“I know what you meant.” He shook his head. “Windows suck heat out of a building. If there are more windows in the school, you’ll be using a lot more propane to keep the building warm.”

“Two small windows won’t make much difference.”

“I’ve been a carpenter since I was fourteen, and I’ve learned a lot in those seventeen years. One thing I learned is that extra windows means needing more fuel to keep the space warm. No more windows.”

“But—”

“You can’t change facts, Miriam, no matter how much you want to.”

“The fact I know is kinder work better in a sunny place than one filled with shadows.” She folded her arms in front of her. “My brother trusts me to know what to do. That’s why he’s having me work with you to design the school.”

He frowned, and she wondered if he’d understood what she said. She realized he’d gotten a bit of it when he said, “Ja, sunshine and shadows. Like in a quilt.”

“I’m going to talk to Caleb about this,” she said.

At her brother’s name, comprehension dawned in his eyes. “Discuss it with him if you want.” He shrugged. “He’ll tell you the same thing I have.”

She looked away. “He’ll agree with me.” She added the silliest thing she could think of. “He does about blue flamingos.”

When she got no reaction from Eli to her challenging words, she stood and walked behind him as if looking at the sketch from another angle.

“I will be celebrating when he agrees with me,” she said.

Again no reaction.

She clapped her hands.

He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “Why did you do that?”

His question proved he could hear sounds, which was more than her grossmammi had been able to in the three years before she died.

“I told you.” She smiled.

Her expression unsettled him. His gaze turned inward, and she guessed he was trying to figure out what she might have said. The silence stretched between them, a sure sign he couldn’t guess what she claimed she’d told him.

“Oh.” He gathered himself and said with calm dignity, “If you’ve got no other comments about the school...”

As he bent to get the piece of paper, she cupped her hands to her mouth and called out, “I’ve got lots and lots of comments. I want to paint the floor yellow and the walls purple. I want—”

He spun and stared at her before she could lower her hands. Wide-eyed, he demanded, “What are you doing?”

She met his accusing stare. “Testing you.”

“Pestering me? Ja, that’s true.”

“No!” She frowned at him. “Testing. With a t.” She sketched the letter in the air between them.

“I’m not one of your scholars. You don’t need to test me to find out what my reading ability is.”