Free Pennsylvania Patchwork by Kate Lloyd Page A

their mongrel, one of the biggest, meanest looking canines I’d ever seen.
    â€œAnd it’s a long way on foot,” Armin said. “I’ll take you over there another time.”
    â€œIn that case, we’ll stick closer to home.”
    Minutes later, I watched Armin depart in Nathaniel’s cart. Rascal barked and tried to follow him, but I gripped the rope with both hands and held my ground. When Armin was out of sight, I told the dog, “You be a good boy,” then ushered him out of the barnyard and onto the side of the road. “We’re going to have fun.”
    I might just scope out whoever was driving that red car.

CHAPTER TEN
    Esther glanced out the sitting room window and saw Rascal tugging on his rope, pulling Holly north toward Beth’s house. “I surely hope Holly’s not chasing after Zach,” she said to Mamm. “I can see his pickup and the red car are still at Beth’s.”
    â€œâ€™Tis difficult to watch your child traipse into a swamp of disappointment,” Mamm said, from the couch. “I know all too well, having you live an Englisch life as a spinster all those many years.”
    â€œMy life wasn’t so bad—”
    â€œAch, I don’t believe it for a minute. If that were true, what are ya doin’ here?”
    â€œTrying to make up for lost time.”
    â€œHave you considered Samuel bought that fabric for someone else?” Mamm got to her feet. “Why, for all you know, he could have been carrying on with a woman over there and calling her Mrs. Samuel Fisher.”
    â€œWhy would you suggest such a ridiculous thing? He never would have.”
    â€œI’ve heard stories. Men do all sorts of irrational things in times of war. He could have decided he was doing her a favor. Why, she could have been pregnant with his child.”
    Esther wanted to plug her ears. Again, she recalled the doctor asking about Mamm’s personality, and wondered if her mean-spiritedness was a symptom of a disease. Or was her mother losing her marbles?
    â€œMamm, I refuse to even listen to your preposterous ideas. Samuel didn’t marry another woman. He wasn’t that kind of man. He wrote me letters telling me how much he missed me.”
    â€œNow that Holly is gone, tell me the truth.” Mamm eyed the fabric as if it were made of woven poison ivy. “Would your Samuel have bought that shiny silk? The color’s almost blinding it’s so bright, only the devil’s mistress would wear it. And that schlecht —evil—doll?”
    Esther stepped back, recoiling from her mother’s verbal onslaught that rang all too true. Those last few months, his letters had become far and few between, and his sentences disjointed. She’d wondered if he was doing drugs, working with the wounded as he was, where pain medication would have been easy to access.
    â€œI suppose I can’t imagine he’d get this particular doll for me, either,” Esther said, envisioning the faceless dolls of her youth. What had Samuel been thinking? “Maybe that’s all there was for sale over in Vietnam.”
    Esther noticed talking about her former husband’s death didn’t quake her world as violently as in the past—his image at age eighteen used to visit her randomly throughout the day. She was glad she’d left his photo in Seattle.
    â€œDuring a war they had such expensive things for enlisted men to buy?” Mamm said.
    â€œHe could have saved up and wanted to bring me a present.” Although he’d never mentioned it in correspondence and she’d never requested a doll, only his safe return.
    â€œYou said in a letter once he was hoping for a son, didn’t you?”
    â€œHe’d hinted he wanted a little Samuel junior, but added he’d be just as pleased with a daughter who looked like me.”
    Mamm shook her head. “I ain’t tellin’ ya this to hurt you, Esther,