Free Caroline's Secret by Amy Lillard Page B

gone.
    Caroline let herself into the apartment and sat Emma in the playpen. It was too early to put her straight to bed. She needed a bath and some supper, but first Caroline needed to talk to Esther and find out what had happened this afternoon.
    She went into the kitchen, where the older woman was slamming cabinets and banging pans.
    “You want to talk about it?”
    Esther shook her head, then retrieved the flour from the cabinet above her head. “I guess it’s not right to ask for God’s help.”
    Caroline hid her smile at the outburst and pulled out one of the dining chairs. She sat and waited for Esther to continue.
    “I mean, there are so many more important issues that we should take to the Lord in prayer. Matters of the heart seem”—she shrugged—“trivial.”
    “Maybe,” Caroline agreed. “But if it is important enough to you that you talk to God about it, then it’s important enough to Him that He’ll listen.”
    “I don’t know.” Esther started measuring out flour, counting to herself as she spooned it into a large mixing bowl.
    When Esther got upset, she baked. Looked like there would be a new bakery item on sale tomorrow. Last year, she’d had a problem with the bank and baked straight through the spring. Four new items were added to the menu, and Caroline had gained six pounds.
    “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
    “Nothing happened,” Esther said, but she didn’t meet Caroline’s steady gaze.
    “Then why do I get the feeling that you’re not telling me the truth?”
    Esther stopped counting scoops of sugar and sighed. “Abe Fitch has had over thirty years to fall in love with me. It’s a fool’s dream to think that he will at this time in our lives.”
    Caroline slammed her hands onto her hips. “So you’re just giving up.”
    “Jah,” Esther answered, though Caroline’s words were more of a statement than a question.
    “That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
    Esther shrugged one shoulder and started creaming together the brown sugar and butter.
    “Take it back or I’ll go down to the furniture store tomorrow to tell him that you love him.”
    Esther gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
    Caroline raised one brow.
    “You would.” Esther shook her head. “Fine,” she conceded. “I won’t give up. But I’m certainly not going to invite him to nachtess every night.”
    “You just leave that to me.”
    “How did you get to be so stubborn?” Esther asked.
    Caroline smiled. “I learned from the best.”
    Dear Mamm,
    I hope this letter finds you well. I am sitting in the park waiting on my freinden to join me for middawk. Emma is playing in the dirt, digging with a plastic shovel. I hope the town does not get upset that she tore up the grass in that spot. I don’t think it will ever be the same. Seeing that big patch of missing grass reminded me of the time that the pigs got out of the pen and into the front yard. They tore out a big spot in the grass and you came out of the house waving a broom and a dishrag. I laughed so hard I barely made it to the outhouse. The grass never did grow back.
    I guess that is just another reason why pride is a sin. We should not become dependent on the physical things around us for our happiness, but should rely on God. The same thing can be said for grass as well as automobiles.
    It is so strange that the bishop here allows the church members to have tractors. And with rubber wheels, no less. It is nothing to see an Englisch car, a horse and buggy, then a tractor chugging along behind it. But they tell me the soil here is too filled with sandstone rocks for them to farm it any other way. Other than that, Oklahoma is not so different than Tennessee. Yet that doesn’t make me miss you any less.
    I do not know if I will ever be able to return home. It is something that I pray about every day as well. I am confident that God will reveal His plan to us in His own time. I just wish that He would do it soon.
    Give my love