“You’re making pickles,” he reiterated, only quieter this time.
Annie nodded. “That’s right.”
“A lot of pickles.”
“They’re for Ruth.”
Zane glanced about the room. Ruth Fisher was nowhere in the fray of busy-bee workers. “I take it Ruth likes pickles.”
“They’re to help pay for Ruth’s treatment.”
He knew firsthand that was going to take a lot of pickles. He’d watched his uncle battle cancer and lose, his half-a-million-dollar life insurance policy barely enough to cover burial expenses after the doctor bills had been paid.
Mary Elizabeth nudged her aunt once again. “Go explain it to him.”
“It was Annie’s idea,” Katie Rose protested.
“She’s busy,” Mary Elizabeth explained. “And you know more about the operation than anyone else. Maybe if he puts it in his magazine . . .”
Mary Elizabeth didn’t need to say anything else. They all hoped that exposure in his story would spur pickle sales, so Katie Rose’s love for her mother convinced her to give him her attention.
He tried not to appear too pleased. After all, it was only for a story.
Katie Rose came around the counter again, Samuel watching her from his perch on the corner stool. He had a piece of string in his hands, making familiar designs that Zane remembered from his own childhood. Some things didn’t change.
She pulled out her own chair, placed it as far from him as she could get and still be heard over the din, and took a moment to rest. He knew that Amish women worked hard, but a pickle-making production as big as this one had to require a ton of energy.
Finally, Katie Rose spoke. “Well, I guess you could say that it all started when Annie came back to us.”
“Came back?”
She nodded, but didn’t elaborate, her gaze fixed on her lap. “She put her car up for sale and gave the money to the community fund. That went a long way to helpin’ pay for mamm’s treatment. But it wasn’t enough.” She looked up and met his eyes, and he tried not to notice how the green of her dress reflected in her gaze. He didn’t need to notice such things.
He cleared his throat. “And the pickles?”
Katie Rose shrugged. “It was Annie’s idea. See, grossmammi makes the best pickles this side of anywhere. Annie decided that we could sell the pickles and raise money. So she started us a website. We take orders online, fill them from this kitchen, and ship them out all over the country.”
“Wait. Online? As in the Internet?”
She nodded, and Zane sat mesmerized by the gentle sway of the strings on her little white cap.
“But I thought . . .” John Paul said there was no electricity, that meant no computers and, in turn, no Internet.
“We don’t have a computer here at the house. Gideon takes Annie into town a couple of days a week. She uses the computer at the library. Bishop Beachy turns a blind eye because she hasn’t joined the church yet. And he knows we need the money.”
“So you ladies make pickles each week, send them out the following week, and start all over again after that?”