the arrangement Sophie was proposing. Better to go the more “involved” route, as she put it, and sign on with a traveling nurse agency instead.
Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
“What about a license?” I asked, still playing devil’s advocate. “You know I’m not licensed to practice in any state but this one.”
“Apply for one right away. It should only take a few weeks. That would give you time to finish here and take care of things at work. By then we should know what’s going on with this midwife and what her needs are. She really does need help, Lexie.”
A part of me wanted to laugh. It was so Mennonite to plan a getaway around doing some kind of service. I knew of families who spent all of their vacations in places like Bolivia and South Africa and East L.A. Even vacations had to have a purpose.
“And you think I could leave, just like that?” I asked, glancing toward the doorway to the dining room.
Following my gaze, she said, “If you talk it through with James, I think he’ll understand.” Moving closer, she put a warm hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I know there’s something inside of you, something incomplete. When you were a teenager—”
“I wanted my story,” I blurted, tears filling my eyes again. “I still do.”
She nodded. “Maybe God is whispering to you now.”
“Oh yeah? What’s He saying?” I asked, wiping my tears on my sleeve and thinking I hadn’t heard from God—or He from me—in a very long time.
Sophie smiled, her eyes again twinkling.
“Maybe He’s saying, ‘It’s time.’”
THREE
I leaned against the counter, wiping away my new tears with the cool cloth, and then pressed it against my face again. A car door slammed and then another.
“Would you at least pray about it?” Sophie asked as she started toward the back door.
“Pray about what?” James stopped in the doorway, holding the cup he’d left earlier on the coffee table.
“Nothing, really,” I whispered as Sophie opened the door for the elderly crowd gathering in the driveway, carrying casserole dishes, pies, and baskets of rolls. As they flooded into the kitchen, Sophie took their food, James took their coats, and I took their hugs and the women’s holy kisses. They were as eager to help as they were somber. In no time the table was spread with food, and they stood with their hands folded in front of them, waiting for someone to pray.
James cleared his throat. “I’ll say grace.”
I let out a sigh of relief.
His voice was a notch deeper than usual. We all bowed our heads as James thanked God for my father’s life, asked God to comfort me, and then prayed He would fill the void left in all of us by Dad’s passing. Tears welled in my eyes again. James blessed the food and then said amen and motioned to Mrs. Glick, the oldest person in the room at ninety-three, to start the line. She pushed up the sleeves of her simple dress and snatched up a china plate. Her cap covered all but the front of her snow-white hair. Most of the women still wore head coverings, although at the other Mennonite church, the one on the other side of the interstate, no one did. By early high school, I wanted to belong to that church.
Mrs. Glick motioned to James to cut in behind her, but he shook his head, his eyes dancing. Widow that she was, she and nearly all of the other ladies had a crush on James. Through the years he would go to church with Dad now and then even while he was in college, driving down for the morning and staying for lunch. As it turned out, he made a much better Mennonite than I, although he hadn’t joined the church. I had—but then I’d left.
Sophie and I filled coffee cups and punch glasses. Our group of seventeen seemed to be a little messy, so I hunted for and found more napkins in the top drawer of my mother’s antique hutch. I paused for a moment, my hand flat against the cherrywood, wedged between two pies. Would I keep the hutch? It wouldn’t fit in my apartment. Would I sell it? I couldn’t imagine.
As James followed me around the table, heaping his plate with food, I tried to take a small spoonful of everything. I overheard Sophie tell Mr. Miller I’d found a document written in German. “Do you think you could translate it?” she