The Amish Teacher's Dilemma and Healing Their Amish Hearts by Patricia Davids (all ebook reader .txt) 📕

He glanced up at her as she leaned over his shoulder to refill his glass with chilled milk from the well house. Funny how she always seemed to anticipate his needs and offer to help even before he asked. Though Jesse hadn’t asked, he was grateful for all that Becca and her familye had done. For the first time in months, he felt like he had real friends. People he could count on for help.

“Danke, that would be great,” he said, conscious of Naomi watching him with glowing eyes.

Oh, no! He knew that look. The look of an Amish mother who wanted to make a match for her daughter. Except that Becca was Naomi’s niece.

Same difference.

He looked away, feeling like a silly schoolboy who was smitten by his first girl. And he wasn’t. Smitten, that is. Not with Becca. No, sirree. Nor was he a silly schoolboy. He was a fully-grown married man and the father of three. Or at least he used to be. Now, he wasn’t grounded anymore. He couldn’t get a feel for who he was and what he should be doing. It was as if the pieces no longer fit together. Somehow, he’d lost his way. He’d been clinging to his faith, hoping he found his path through the darkness.

They finished their meal and everyone returned to their tasks. Jesse was grateful to be back at his labors. Work was something he understood. A distraction that made him forget the pain. For a few short hours, he could pretend that everything was just fine. That Alice and the kids were back at the house and he’d see them all later that evening when he came in for supper. That he’d laugh, tickle and play with them like he used to do.

It was several hours later when Jesse returned to the house for some plastic cups and a jug of water. The men were thirsty and, as their host, he had hurried to accommodate them. He planned to slip in and out of the kitchen without being noticed. But Becca was there, sitting in a hardbacked chair as she fed baby Chrissie.

“Hallo.” She greeted him with a soft smile.

He nodded, going directly to the cupboard where he knew the cups were kept. As he pulled the door open, he couldn’t help noticing the tidiness of the room, not a dirty dish in sight. The air smelled of fresh paint and he caught a yummy whiff of something good cooking in the oven. When he glanced in that direction, Becca offered an explanation.

“It’s your supper. We thought you might appreciate something to eat this evening after all of us have left,” she said.

“You didn’t need to do that. I’ve got lots of canned goods in the house and have gotten quite good at heating up soup for Sam’s dinner.”

“It was no trouble.” She lifted a spoon to the baby’s mouth. Like a little bird, Chrissie opened wide.

It seemed his guests had thought of everything, taking care of him and Sam like they would their own familye. He shouldn’t be surprised. It was the Amish way. Alice had done the same on numerous occasions, taking meals in to another familye, tending their sick children, washing their dirty laundry, doing whatever she could to ease their load. And it made him love her and his faith even more. He cherished the way they looked after one another. If only Alice and the girls were still here, he could feel whole again. That was why he’d left Pennsylvania. To hide from the memories. But they’d followed him here. And he knew he had to figure out how to go on without them.

As he filled the jug with water from the kitchen tap, he glanced over at Becca. She’d propped little Chrissie on the table and had wrapped a dish towel around her neck so she wouldn’t soil her dress as she ate. Keeping one hand on the child’s leg so she wouldn’t fall off the table, Becca spooned in something that looked like mashed potatoes.

“You seem so natural with kinder,” he said.

Becca gave a sad little laugh. “I hope so, since I teach an entire school full of them. But you wouldn’t have thought so during my first week here.”

He chuckled, remembering how flustered she was that day he’d walked in on her class when it erupted into absolute chaos. “Everyone is bound to have a bad day now and then. Have you had any more snake incidents?”

She laughed. “Ne, thankfully.”

He shut off the faucet and reached for the lid to the jug. As he screwed it on with several quick twists of his wrist, he asked a question that had been on his mind for quite some time.

“Instead of teaching, I would have thought you would be married by now and have kinder of your own.”

She didn’t respond right off and he looked at her. Her eyebrows were creased with consternation and a flash of pain filled her eyes.

“Ach, I always wanted to marry and have kinder of my own but it didn’t work out. I... I was engaged once,” she said.

Oh. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked. He instantly regretted his question. It was too private. Too personal.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” he said, feeling like a heel.

She shook her head and fed the baby another bite of food. “Ne, it’s all right. I’m better off, actually. I would never want to marry a man who didn’t love me. And it would be even worse if he loved someone else.”

Okay, his curiosity was piqued. Even though it wasn’t his business, he couldn’t leave without knowing more.

“What happened?” he asked.

He set the cups and water jug aside as he leaned his hip against the counter.

She shrugged and wiped a dribble of potato from the baby’s chin. “Nothing, really. I’d known Vernon all my life. We went to school together and always planned to marry one day. Everyone expected it.”

Jesse sensed the admission caused her