An Amish Family Reunion (2 page)

Phoebe practically jumped out of her skin, dropping her sketch pad and spilling her box of colored pencils, charcoals, pastel chalk, and various erasers and sharpeners. “Dad! You nearly gave me a heart attack.” She fell to her knees to retrieve her supplies.

Seth Miller brushed off a spot on the wall and sat down. “You’re too young for a heart attack. And I wasn’t sneaking up on you. I came up the same path along the same fence that you took. You were too absorbed in your masterpiece to see me.”

With her supplies safely returned to the box, she plunked down next to him, clutching the tablet like a shield.

“Nothing is even started yet. I was waiting for the perfect inspiration.” She giggled, knowing how full-blown that sounded.

“Plenty of pretty scenery up here to pick from. It would be hard to narrow it down to just one thing.” Seth bumped his shoulder into hers.

Phoebe sighed. “
Jah
, but nothing I haven’t sketched a hundred times before.”

Seth shifted his position on the wall to offer his profile. “How about me? Or am I too old and wrinkled?”

She shook her head. “You’re not old,
daed
, even if you do have some serious crow’s feet.” She bumped his shoulder in return. “But once Uncle Simon caught me doing a portrait of cousin Emma and he scolded me. He said drawing a picture of an Amish person was no different than capturing their likeness with a camera.” Phoebe then lapsed into mimicking Uncle Simon’s stern voice, forgetting the person she was talking to for the moment: “‘As a deacon of this district, I won’t have my niece and my daughter committing such a sin.’”

Her father merely shrugged. “In that case, you could draw our old buggy horse. Now that he’s been turned out to pasture, we no longer have to worry about capturing his image.”

“I think I’ll stick to wildflowers today.” With her piece of charcoal, she pointed at clumps of purple violets, green mayapples, and elusive jack-in-the-pulpits. “Sam usually has too many flies buzzing around his head to contend with.”

Seth stretched out his long legs. “I saw you hiding from your
bruder
behind that tree. Has he been pestering you? Is that why you didn’t want him to follow you?” He shielded his face from the sun, deepening the wrinkles webbing his eyes.

“Oh, no. Ben’s been all right. It’s just that he’s ten years old. He doesn’t understand the concept of sitting still or remaining quiet. If I let him come with me down to the river or to the duck pond, he expects me to catch tadpoles or butterflies with him. Once he dropped a two-foot black snake at my feet and told me to draw him.” Phoebe met her father’s gaze. “I let him come along as seldom as possible without hurting his feelings.”

“Mind if I have a look-see?” Without waiting for her answer, Seth pulled the giant pad from her grasp.

For a moment Phoebe felt a familiar wave of panic. Her art was a private collection, showcasing her limited abilities. But the moment quickly passed. She was Phoebe Miller of Winesburg, Ohio, not Michelangelo of Italy. “Sure, why not?” she said, willing herself to relax.

Seth paged through her assortment of sketches, some barely begun and others filled with vibrant color and intricate shading. “These are quite good, daughter.” He paused to study a picture of a small child kneeling in prayer beside a trundle bed. With white walls and dark pine floorboards, and the girl’s black prayer
kapp
and white pinafore, the drawing was a contrast of light and shadows. One could feel the presence of God in the rays of moonlight streaming through the open window.

She smiled with pleasure, leaning over his arm. “That’s one of my favorites. Not bad for someone with no talent and no training, huh?”

He shook his head. “You have talent—make no mistake about that. And what kind of training does an artist need? Either a person has the gift or they don’t.”

“A few classes would have been nice in school. My teacher’s idea of art was coloring a seasonal mimeographed page. All the trees were green and every autumn leaf either red or gold. Everyone’s picture looked exactly the same.”

Seth dispensed his usual
daed
look. “Plain folk have no need for individuality as long as you’re known personally to God.” He shut the sketch pad and handed it back to her. “But providing you get your chores done, I see no harm in capturing the beauty of nature in your pictures.” He rose to his feet. “Which of the lilies of the field will my artist choose to draw today?” He waved his hand toward the multitude of flowers and weeds growing along the vine-shrouded wall. “It’s going to be time for the evening meal soon. Don’t be late, Phoebe. You know how your Uncle Simon hates not eating at the appointed hour.” Seth started down the path and did not glance back. He didn’t have to. He knew she wouldn’t be late for supper, or neglect her chores, or forget to say her nightly prayers…because she never did.

Phoebe was a good girl. She had never painted her face with makeup as Emma had during her
rumschpringe
, nor taken up with an English boy with a fast green truck. Everything was well and good now that Emma and James were married, raising two little boys, and sheep farming in nearby Charm. But when they first converted to New Order, both sets of parents lost more than one good night’s sleep.

And Phoebe had no desire to go into business like her cousin Leah. Running a diner with a business partner as naive as she had almost landed Leah in the county jail. Who knew not collecting sales tax to send to the State of Ohio was a crime? Phoebe shuddered remembering how long it had taken Leah to pay her share of the debt incurred by the diner. Meeting Jonah Byler had been the only good thing to come out of that fiasco. Apparently, he hadn’t been looking for a wife with any business savvy.

No, Phoebe was a good girl. She helped with cooking, cleaning, and laundry, and she did her fair share of gardening, canning, and berry picking despite having no particular fondness for domestic duties. Her
mamm
and Emma had their beloved sheep, along with the spinning, dyeing, carding, and weaving that came with the woolly creatures. Both women knitted such exquisite sweaters and sofa throws that tourists would pay more than a hundred dollars for one of their creations. Leah had her pie-making cottage industry. Bakeries throughout the county clamored for Leah Byler pies. But Phoebe’s heart had never thrilled over a particularly flaky piecrust or the perfect sweet-tart balance of her fruit filling. Only her art held any joy for her. Painting with acrylics from the Bargain Outlet or sketching people while they were unaware lifted Phoebe’s spirits like nothing else. Not exactly a practical pastime for someone Plain, but what else could she do?

With a sigh she selected a moss-covered log for today’s subject. The dark moist wood, where decay added a blackish-green hue, along with the sun-baked topside, striated and gnarly from wind and weather, would provide a stark background to delicate yellow buttercups in the foreground.

For almost an hour, feeling the warm sun on her face and a cool breeze on her neck, Phoebe surrendered to her creation. Adding a bold slash here or light shading there, the flowers on paper became almost as real as those growing near her feet. She lost herself in her work, unaware of hunger or thirst or the pesky hornet circling her head. Funny how mopping the floor, hanging laundry on the line, or slicing peaches for cobbler couldn’t hold her interest like this. When she was busy with those chores, all she could think about was snitching another cookie or refilling her glass with lemonade.

Finally, as the drawing neared completion, she leaned back with a satisfied sigh. There had to be something she could do with her “gift,” as her parents called it. She’d been out of school for three years, yet she seldom brought to the household income more than a few dollars from selling eggs. She’d once hung up an index card at the grocery store that announced “Artist for Hire” with her name and address at the bottom in block letters. She landed two commissions from the advertisement. One, a local farmer needed an autumn replacement for his produce market sign once peaches, organic lettuce, and berries were long gone. Phoebe created a four-foot by six-foot masterpiece showcasing colorful apples, pumpkins, butternut squash, eggplant, and Indian corn. She tried to turn down the second project. An elderly widow needed someone to actually paint the white picket fence around her vegetable patch. But, of course, her
daed
made her take the job. Painting was painting, he declared.

Packing up her supplies, she started down the well-worn path to the rambling farmhouse filled with her parents, brother, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Lately, it felt as though she’d wandered into the wrong house but the residents were too polite to tell her. How could she live surrounded by affectionate and endearing people, yet still feel utterly, completely alone?

Julia stepped down from the buggy gingerly, always a little nervous to see if her legs would hold her. It had been years since her double knee-replacement surgery, yet she remained skeptical about the stainless steel substitute parts.

Simon took her arm to steady her. “Easy does it,
fraa
. Did you take your pills today?”

“
Jah
, of course, like I do every day. I’m just stiff from sitting. Run off now and find your brother. With these perfectly fine store-bought knees, we should have walked here. What’s the advantage of living next door to Seth and Hannah if we must drag out the horse and buggy even in perfect weather?” Julia leaned heavily on her husband’s arm despite her assertion that she could have walked half a mile through scrub forest and bog.

“I’m not running anywhere until you’re planted in one of Hannah’s kitchen chairs,” Simon insisted. “And our old gelding needs the exercise more than we do.”

“If Hannah sees you practically carrying me inside, she’ll start feeding me more of her herbal cures.” They paused midway to the house. “Boswellia, bromelain, yucca, turmeric, sea cucumber—do you know what those things taste like?” Julie wrinkled her nose. “I burped the other day, and it tasted like stagnant green pond water.”

“How is it you know what stagnant water tastes like?” Simon clutched her tightly around the waist as they reached the porch.

“I’d rather not say what my sister was like as a teenager.”

“Whatever she gives you to eat or drink, you’ll take without complaint. One of these days Hannah will land on a miracle cure that will have you skipping like a schoolgirl again.”

Julie gulped a deep breath and climbed the steps, clucking her tongue in disapproval. “Miracles from teas and tonics? And you—the district deacon. What’s gotten into you?” She reached for the door frame to steady herself.

“All miracles come from the Lord, but He uses a wide variety of delivery methods.” Simon kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you at supper.”

Julia waited until she stopped panting like a dog before entering her sister’s large, airy kitchen. “Hannah,” she called, finding the room empty.

Hannah Miller bustled into the room looking as fresh and cheery as she had ten years ago. Amazing what the lack of chronic pain did for a person’s appearance and attitude. “You’re alone?” she said, pulling aside the curtain. “Where are your daughters? I prepared way too much glazed ham and potato salad if the rest of your family isn’t coming to eat.” She left the window and carried tall glasses of iced tea to the table.

Julia smiled, lowering herself onto a chair. “Just Simon and myself, but I promise to eat ravenously. Henry will stop over later. He took the open buggy for a ride after spending hours yesterday polishing every inch with leather oil. I think he’s courting some gal, but when I drop subtle hints, he turns beet red and clams up.”

Hannah sat on the opposite side of the long table—a table large enough to seat the entire Miller clan. “You, subtle?” She winked one luminous green eye. “Julia, you’re as subtle as a blind bull in a spring pasture. Poor Henry, being the only one left at home. What about Leah? She’s not coming either?” Hannah laced her fingers over her still flat belly. “I was itching for one of her peach pies.”

“No fresh peaches yet. You would know that if you left your loom and spinning wheel once in a while. And all her canned peaches are gone. Anyway, she and Jonah are staying home today, as are Emma, James, and their two boys.” Julia leaned back in her chair. “I saw Ben chasing that dog of his, but where’s Phoebe?” She craned her neck to scan the living room. “Let me guess. She’s upstairs immortalizing the intricacies of a spider in her web instead of whacking it down with a broom.”

Hannah took a long swallow of tea. “Too warm upstairs in her room. She headed to the high pasture with her tablet. Seth walked up to check on her, although she can’t get lost or into any trouble up there. Still, he would prefer she stay within eyeshot of the house at all times.”