Abby Finds Her Calling (6 page)

“When Zanna comes home, give her my best, will you, Abby?” he asked sadly. “I can’t imagine what’s going through her mind. I just hope it’s not me she’s mad at.”

Ever so quickly Abby squeezed his hand. “All right, James. I’ll do that.”

A
bby entered Cedar Creek Mercantile’s back door early the next morning, before daylight had chased the shadows from inside the vast building. Saturday was always a busy day, with more English and tourists shopping, so—family crisis or not—she and Sam would put on their best smiles and conduct business as usual. Mamm planned to be in her greenhouse by midmorning, and Sam’s girls would be along to help where they were needed in the afternoon.

Before the store opened, though, Abby had about an hour to devote to her sewing. It was her favorite time, because when her body got into the rhythm of her treadle machine, the fabric moved effortlessly in her hands and her mind became totally absorbed in her work. She hoped to finish the red calico curtains for Mother Yutzy’s Oven: Lois Yutzy had expanded her bakery with tables and chairs so folks could chat over their sticky buns, pie, and coffee.

The floorboards creaked as she walked along the side aisle, past shelves of baking staples and fragrant bagged seasonings. She raised the thermostat of the gas furnace, then climbed the wooden stairs to the loft, where her Stitch in Time business occupied one end of the space. She had arranged her nook with a fitting room at the back and
shelves for storing sewing notions and her projects in progress. Her sewing machine sat near the loft railing so she could look out over the main level and go downstairs when Sam got too busy helping customers. It was a good system: while she earned a nice income sewing clothes, curtains, and table linens, she could also ring up sales when Sam had to inventory shipments or when he went home for dinner with Barbara and his kids.

Abby stood on a stepstool to twist the handle of the ceiling-hung gas lantern. The area around her sewing machine brightened, and she smiled at the cheerful red calico panels draped over her chair. Then she stooped to pick up a clod of mud, frowning: she hadn’t come up here since yesterday, yet here was fresh wet dirt smearing her fingers. Her breath caught.

Under the curtain of the changing booth she saw a pair of muddy tan shoes. Those slender legs could belong to only one person.

“Zanna!” she cried, flinging aside the fabric between them. “Suzanna Lambright, what have you got to say for yourself?”

Her little sister’s stricken expression didn’t win Abby’s sympathy. Zanna looked rumpled from her kapp down to the sag of her grimy stockings, and Abby didn’t recognize the jacket, several sizes too large, that drooped from her shoulders. “I—I didn’t mean to… didn’t know what else to do,” Zanna blubbered. “Oh, Abby, you’ve got to help me! Everyone else will hate me so bad they’ll not speak to me ever again.”

“And why would that be, missy?” Abby still stood with the curtain in one hand. It gave her something to grip as she assessed the situation. Relief rushed through her. Her little sister had returned unharmed, although she looked like a cat left out in the rain. And Zanna had come
here
, believing she’d get the help she needed.

But it was no time to indulge this runaway with favors she didn’t deserve.

Zanna sniffled and swallowed, swiped at her red-rimmed eyes.

“I’m listening.” Abby relaxed but she didn’t let her sister off the
hook. “I guess you know Mamm’s worried herself sick over you. Not to mention Sam and Barbara and the kids—and all the folks who came clear from Pennsylvania and Ohio and Indiana for your wedding. And then there are the Grabers.” She left James out of it. Better to make Zanna ask the biggest questions, to see whether she realized she
should
be concerned about his feelings.

Her sister’s face crumpled. Zanna looked pale, and the lavender half-moons beneath her eyes confirmed that she hadn’t slept much. “I—I got myself into a bigger mess than I knew how to— Oh! I’m going to be sick!”

Abby grabbed her wastebasket and thrust it under Zanna’s mouth just in time. Her sister retched again and then went into a fit of dry heaves that made Abby hurt just watching that young body convulse.

And what does this remind you of? How many times have you held a dish tub or the nearest bucket for…

“Don’t tell me you’re having a baby!”

Zanna’s frightened blue eyes—and another round of retching—told the tale, didn’t it?

So how will you fix this, big sister? How did this happen, if Zanna…

When Abby considered what this revelation meant, her heart pounded. How could James Graber have acted so betrayed yesterday, when he’d poured out his soul, if he’d already been physically intimate with Zanna? Abby had tried not to think about the man she loved having a family with Zanna, right across the road, where the proof of their intimacy would swell with every new child. She gripped the rim of the wastebasket, blinking back hot tears.

But crying and lashing out wouldn’t solve this problem. Abby reminded herself that she was the more mature woman here and that Zanna had come to her for help. Her frustration with James was another matter entirely. As Abby took in the anguish on her sister’s face, the fear in those watery blue eyes, another possibility occurred to her.

“Zanna, James
loves
children,” she pointed out. “He can’t
wait
to be a— Why didn’t you just keep this little secret by loosening your wedding dress? It’s not talked about, but you wouldn’t be the first bride whose baby came before the calendar counted up right.”

Zanna flushed. She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of that awful jacket and looked away. “You got that right,” she rasped. “James couldn’t
wait
. And what was I to say? I thought he loved me! And how was I to know…”

Abby’s throat got so tight she couldn’t swallow. She wanted to hear the rest of Zanna’s story before she said anything, but her pulse was pounding so hard that it was difficult to follow her sister’s low, urgent voice.

“It took me a while to know for sure I was pregnant, and by then… Well, I couldn’t stand there in church pretending I was pure, could I?” Zanna continued between her sniffles. “And after the way James treated me, I couldn’t pretend I loved him or wanted any part of marrying him, either!”

Abby’s jaw dropped. This sounded nothing like the tale she’d heard from the man in question.

“I should have called off the wedding,” Zanna continued in a rising whine, “but I didn’t want to upset Mamm or get Sam all riled up, because he’d already spent so much money, only to figure out I was already carrying.”

Abby’s patience snapped. She pointed sternly to the chair at her sewing machine. “Sit down, young lady. And don’t you dare move.” She watched until her sister obeyed, and then carried the vile-smelling wastebasket downstairs to the bathroom.

As she rinsed it out, her mind raced. Zanna’s story smelled like spoiled Swiss cheese and had just as many holes. How could Zanna think James didn’t love her? Even if he had jumped the gun when the two of them were alone, Abby had never seen him show anything but affection and respect toward her sister. And hadn’t Emma and everyone else agreed that Zanna had acted happier than
they’d ever seen her, these months when she and James had been engaged?

Abby sighed. If Sam walked in, his temper would further complicate the situation. How could she get this runaway to her house to ask the questions that begged for answers before Zanna told any more bare-faced lies?

Or had Zanna revealed a side of James Graber that no one suspected? Abby’s brow puckered in thought as she wiped the wastebasket. He was older than most fellows were when they married… and Zanna might have tempted him beyond reason without even realizing it, young and pretty as she was. If James had been having relations with his fiancée, he’d be too much the gentleman to let on about it—especially to a maidel like herself. And what if her own romantic notions about James had fogged her vision of him?

It was all so confusing.
Dear Lord, please don’t let me create more problems than I solve
, she prayed as she left the little bathroom.
Please help me say and do whatever will take us along the higher road.

Abby glanced at the wall clock. First thing, Zanna needed something to settle her stomach. Then they had to slip away—yet the lane to her own little house led right past the homeplace, and they would probably be passing by there right when Sam and Mamm would be coming in to work…

Lost in her thoughts, Abby stumbled over a box of discarded clothing left beside the collection bin in the fabric section. The scribbled note on top of it read,
Abby—I need a rag rug for my kitchen, please. No need to hurry. Adah Ropp
.

By the looks of it, other folks had cleaned out some old clothes, as well, because the collection bin overflowed even though the store had been closed since the wedding. The mercantile sat on a county road, so they always locked up—although their close neighbors knew where the key hung in the phone shanty out by the road, if they needed something when the store wasn’t open.

As Abby assessed the pile of worn trousers, dresses for doing
chores in, and sun-streaked curtains, she grinned. Wasn’t this the solution she’d just now prayed for?

She grabbed a box of graham crackers from the shelf and hurried up the wooden stairs to the loft. As Abby entered her sewing nook, she searched for words that made sense—but then, nothing about Zanna’s story made much sense. Try as she might, she couldn’t tell if her sister was showing yet, the way she clutched that nasty old jacket around herself.

“Where did you get that coat?” she blurted before she thought better of it.

“I found it in the barn where I was hiding.”

Abby winced. If she was going to ask the direct, difficult questions, she had to be ready for Zanna’s answers. Abby opened the box of graham crackers and handed over a wrapped packet of them.

“If you think Mamm and Sam would have been upset about calling off the wedding,” she said in a quiet, purposeful voice, “I promise you, young lady, you haven’t seen
upset
yet. You’d better get your story straight before you say a word to either one of them, too, because I’m hearing holes big enough for a horse to poke its head through.”

Cracker poised before her mouth, Zanna widened her eyes. “Are you saying you don’t believe me? Are you calling me a liar?”

“We don’t have time to fight. Sam will be here any minute,” Abby reminded her. “Now that he and Mamm have recovered enough from your disappearing act to open up shop again, you won’t be getting their busy day off to a bad start. I’m taking you to my house so you can clean up and get your act together,” she said in a tight voice. “
Then
you’ll face the rest of your family.”

When Zanna glanced out the window, toward home, her blue eyes nearly filled her gaunt face. “And how do you think we’ll get out of here without—we
cannot
tell Mamm about the baby, Abby. She’ll kill me! And what if James sees us?”

Ah, wasn’t
that
the question of the hour? And how did Zanna
think she could keep her baby a secret? Abby gestured toward the stairs. “You’ll have to answer to all of them—sooner rather than later,” she added. “And you owe an apology to James most of all—for spoiling the biggest day of his life. Not to mention breaking his heart.”

Zanna stopped short at the top step. She blinked rapidly. “After what he did to me, you feel sorry for him?”

“Move along, missy. While I fetch my cart, you’re to gather up all the clothes from the rag bin and meet me outside.”

“What are you—”

“Don’t stand here fussing at me. Unless you want to meet up with the very folks you betrayed, looking like
this
.”

Once they reached the bottom of the noisy wooden stairs, Abby headed for the shed. Was she wrong to whisk Zanna away to her own little home instead of marching her to the main house to face their family? Would she be able to pull this off without Sam catching her? If he did, he would think she was just as disloyal as Zanna.

Maybe this wasn’t the best plan… but there was no time to doubt her inspiration.
As Abby stepped between the long handles of the two-wheeled wooden cart, used for hauling anything they wouldn’t hitch a horse to, she prayed her sister would play along. As she left the little shed, she saw Zanna at the side door and hurried over to meet her.

“Get in!” Abby grabbed some of the worn clothing her sister held. “I’ll cover you with these old clothes—like I’m taking them to the house to make rugs. Don’t you dare move or make a peep. Understand me?”

With a doubtful glance toward the house, Zanna obeyed. Abby tucked a couple of old dresses around her sister’s slender form and then tossed the rest of the clothes on top of her. She would ask God’s forgiveness for this little masquerade later, but right now it seemed the best way to avoid a major squabble. It also gave her a chance to set Zanna straight about why her story didn’t match up to the truth. Abby stepped between the cart’s wooden handles, tipped the cart until it was level, and then trundled off.