“What has you frownin’, Zane Carson?”
“Just thinking.”
“And that makes you frown like the devil has ahold of your tail?”
He laughed, her silly question chasing away the dark thoughts. “My what?”
“Your tail. That never fails to make Samuel smile.”
“Where is Samuel?”
At the mention of her nephew’s name, Katie Rose straightened in her seat. “We should probably get back. I left him with Mary Elizabeth. But they are siblings, and I know he is missin’ me.”
“He loves you very much,” Zane said, thinking of the small redhead that occasionally peeked out from the folds of Katie Rose’s skirt. It was a wonder she came without him at all.
“I’m the only mother he’s ever known.”
“What’ll happen when you get married and start a family of your own?”
A hint of melancholy crept into her eyes. “I am way past the marryin’ age, Zane Carson.”
He tried to hide his surprise, but knew she saw it regardless of his efforts. “You’re what? Twenty-five. Twenty-six?”
She nodded. “Jah, I am long past the years to take a husband. I accept this. God didn’t have a plan for me there, because He needs me to take care of the children.”
“Samuel?”
“And the school children. That is my ministry for God.”
He shifted in his seat. “Care to explain that?”
“The school is always in need of teachers. We teach our own, you know. But then once a teacher gets married, she leaves, and there has to be someone to take her place. I know this is where I am supposed to be, so I will remain with the students. It is God’s plan for me.”
Must be nice, Zane thought. To know with such certainty the purpose of life.
“Turn left right here,” Katie Rose said.
“Turn left or turn right?”
She laughed at his joke. “Turn left. The road circles around, and we’ll be back at my elders’ haus in no time.”
He did as she asked, wondering all the while if a person had to believe in God to know what He had planned for them.
Monday, it seemed, was wash day. Everyone got up very early—even earlier than normal. Zane knew this because he could hear them downstairs as they raced around, gathering clothes and taking them outside to the gas-powered wringer washer.
He looked at the sky outside his curtain-less windows. He had discovered that the Amish considered curtains to be vain and prideful, but after seeing the washer the women had to use, he’d bet they didn’t have curtains so they wouldn’t have to clean them.
The bed next to his was empty, which meant John Paul was already up or had yet to return at all. What he did at all hours of the night was beyond Zane. His uncle hadn’t imposed a strict curfew on Zane when he was a teen, but he could vouch that not much went on after midnight. If he could say that about Chicago, then he was certain there was nothing going on in small-town Clover Ridge. And yet the young man left most every evening and returned sometime in the night. Sometimes sooner, often later.