Free The Outcast by Jolina Petersheim Page B

everything except what Tobias has trained her to avoid, lowers her bottom lip and even smiles at the sound of her mother’s purposefully soothing voice.
    “That’s right, my meedel ,” Helen says, tipping the bottle’s contents into her mouth and then rubbing Leah’s throat, forcing her to swallow.
    Leah’s eyes open. She grimaces at the bitter taste ballooning inside her mouth, and her bleary gaze comes to rest on the woman who is putting the cap back on the vial.
    “Mammi?” she rasps. “That you?”
    “Yes, meedel .” Tears deepen the timbre of Helen’s voice. “I’m here.”
    “What did you give me? What’s in the bottle?”
    “Just a blend of healing herbs. . . . Norman Troyer made it for you.”
    “You know Tobias doesn’t like Norman.”
    “It doesn’t matter who Tobias likes or who he doesn’t. Whatmatters is getting you well.”
    Leah looks down and plucks at her IV. “Why do you and Rachel despise my husband?”
    Sighing, Helen sits on the edge of the bed and takes her daughter’s feet in her lap. “I guess the reason I get so angry with Tobias is because . . . well, because I feel responsible for your union. That letter—”
    Leah holds up the hand trailing the IV and shakes herhead. “Please don’t bring up that letter again. What’s done is done. I’ve said my vows, and I will live by them until I die.”
    Staring down at the bed to hide her fear, Helen rubs and rubs her daughter’s feet as if she can cure Leah’s ailments by her determination alone.

6
Rachel
    Today is my first day working at Ida Mae’s Amish Country Store. Her only stipulations are that Eli and I dress as Amish as possible and that I speak to him in Pennsylvania Dutch whenever Englischer customers enter the store. I told her that dressing Amish is difficult, since all my Mennonite cape dresses are printed with tiny flower patterns, whereas Amish dresses are cut from plain cloth. Ida Mae just waved her hand and said, “Honey, nobody round here’s gonna know the difference.”
    I just nodded and smiled, but I’m not as gullible as Ida Mae must think. I know she’s hired me more for decorativepurposes than for reflexology, though I am not about to complain. McDonald’s wouldn’t see my Plain heritage as a benefit, nor would they allow me to flip burgers with one hand and juggle my son with the other. Plus, $8.50 an hour just to sit around and mutter nonsense at Eli, whom Ida Mae placed in some Amish doll clothes and matching straw hat so he’d look “more authentic,” is not that bad. I have no need for pride, and if I raise Eli up the way I intend, neither will my son. As far as I have seen, pride’s never gotten the people of Copper Creek very far.
    Ida Mae calls out, “Somebody’s comin’!” and reaches to turn up the CD player lilting instrumental hymns. Smoothing the green gingham apron over her bust, she sits up higher on the stool and runs fingers through her mop. Although Ida Mae has left the “Amish” garb up to me, whenever she’s in the store, she trades her tight Wranglers for an ankle-length skirt whose stretchy material suctions to her backside. Her muddied boots she trades for clogs, and her gray army jacket for a jewel-toned sweater over a red turtleneck.
    “You ain’t the only one who can play dress-up,” she snapped when she caught me giving her outfit a double take over breakfast. “Tourists don’t wanna come in my store and see an ol’ biddy behind the counter. They wanna see their grossmammi , so that’s what I give ’em. I fawn over their young’uns. I hand ’em peppermint sticks and slivers of fudge in wax paper. I let ’em set in little tables and color in the Amish books I get fromLehman’s. I’m telling ya, it makes the parents come back. Not just for my baked goods and pickled beet eggs, neither, but ’cause coming to Ida Mae’s Amish Country Store is an ex-peri-ence .”
    Looking at my new employer now, smiling from ear to ear and calling out to the