Her New Amish Family. Carrie Lighte

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       Chapter One

      Trina Smith expected to find a gas stove in the little Amish house, but the refrigerator surprised her. She hadn’t considered a fridge could be powered by gas, too. Not that she had much use for either appliance; Trina lost her appetite when her mother, Patience, died six months ago of leukemia. When Trina did eat, it was only to nibble a piece of toast or an apple, and even then she had to force herself to swallow. Just like she had to force herself to go to bed at night and then to rise in the morning. She was going through the motions because nothing seemed to come naturally anymore.

      She set her suitcase down on the floor of the tiny kitchen. Although no one else was in the house, she tiptoed into the parlor. From the dark braided rug to the gas lamp to the sparse furniture, the room was exactly as her mother had described, right down to the ticktock of the clock on the wall.

      “As loudly as that clock marked off the seconds, I felt like time was standing still,” her mother once said. “I think it was the clock that made me realize nothing would ever change unless I changed it for myself.”

      And so, when she’d turned eighteen, Patience had left the little house. She left the Amish community in Willow Creek, Pennsylvania. And, most significantly, she left her family, which by that time consisted only of her austere, indifferent, drunkard father, Abe Kauffman. Now Patience’s daughter was returning in her place.

      Trina walked down the hallway with its bare wooden floor and opened the door to a back room. This would have been where Abe slept. Trina quickly closed the door again. She peeked into the other bedroom, her mother’s girlhood room. It was furnished with a wooden chair, a plain dresser and a bed covered with a quilt that reminded Trina of those her mother had stitched for both of them to use in their own house. Trina remembered how, toward the end of her mother’s illness, no amount of blankets could keep Patience warm.

      Trina shivered and walked back to the kitchen, hoping to find a canister of coffee or tea. The first cupboard she opened contained neatly stacked rows of white dishes. The second held glasses and mugs. The third was empty except for a small gray mouse that scurried to the back corner where it squeezed through a crack.

      “Ack!” Trina yelped and slammed the cupboard door.

      “What’s wrong?” someone asked from behind.

      Trina shouted, “Ack!” a second time. Whirling around, she saw a short, plump, white-haired woman wearing glasses and traditional Amish attire.

      Squinting, the woman repeated, “What’s the matter?”

      “I-I saw a mouse,” Trina stuttered. “It startled me.”

      “I dare say you startled it, too,” the woman said with a chuckle and set the basket she was carrying on the table. “I’m Martha Helmuth. I live next door. You must be Trina?”

      Martha Helmuth—of course! Trina’s mother had often said she would have run away long before she turned eighteen if it weren’t for Martha Helmuth, whose door and arms were always open whenever Patience needed a place to escape to or someone to embrace her.

      “Yes, I’m Trina. Trina Smith,” she confirmed, wondering how Martha knew her name, СКАЧАТЬ