Rebecca's Choice by Jerry S. Eicher Page A

long?” Mary asked, sticking her fork into the potatoes.
    “I’m leaving tomorrow morning too.”
    “You’re a little closer than we are, if I remember correctly.”
    “Suppose so, but not by much.” Rebecca had a feeling about what would come next.
    “Atlee told me you two talked.”
    Rebecca nodded. “He stopped me in the buggy along the road.”
    “Don’t think a Mennonite and Amish belong together?”
    “It wasn’t just that.”
    “Surely it wouldn’t be too bad. You two did love each other.”
    Rebecca pretended to glare. “Shhh… He’s engaged he said.”
    “I know,” Mary said, like she wished it wasn’t true. “You threw away his ring too. That’s what he told me.”
    “I didn’t want it. I went to the bridge, but he wasn’t there.”
    “He told me that. After he saw you again, I think he wishes he had gone to the bridge to meet you.”
    “That’s an awful thing to say. What about the other girl?”
    Mary shrugged. “I suppose they’ll work things out.”
    “Atlee said they were getting married.”
    “You are too, aren’t you?”
    “In the spring,” Rebecca said, smiling at the thought, “to John.”
    “Like him?” Mary teased.
    “A lot.”
    “Still wish you and Atlee could have gotten together? What a love story that would have been.”
    “It wasn’t meant to be.”
    “That’s what Atlee says.”
    “You shouldn’t meddle in such things.” Rebecca pretended to glare again.
    “That’s what Atlee says too,” Mary said chuckling. “So tell me about this school teacher. She was yours too?”
    “Yes she was,” Rebecca said, then told Mary stories of Emma and life as a student under her tutelage.

     
    Seated across from Rebecca and the young van driver, Rachel wondered what she had just heard. Had her fears from the night before been wrong? Was there really some agreement between Rebecca and Emma? Under the table, her fingernails dug into her palms in frustration.

C HAPTER E IGHT
     

     
    O n the day after his parents returned from Emma’s funeral, John arrived home from work to find the pile of mail still on the kitchen table. Usually his mother sorted everything and placed any letters or items for him off to the side. Today everything was still in one big pile.
    Tired from his work as a salesman and all-around handyman at Miller’s Furniture Store, John was ready for an evening at home and something interesting to read. He found the stack of mail held the latest copy of The Budget but tossed it aside. It was for older people, he figured, and he wasn’t even married yet.
    A farm magazine caught his attention, and he set it over to his left. He would set anything else he found of interest with the magazine. There was a bill from a hunting company addressed to him. He presumed the bill was from a purchase he had made last fall and used during hunting season. He must have neglected to pay it when the accident laid him up.
    That was strange he thought. Surely his mother would have brought any bills to his attention after he was well again. He set the bill to his left, to be taken care of soon, before the matter got any worse.
    There was a copy of The Blackboard Bulletin, one of three papers published by the Amish publishing house in Ontario. Why his parents still got a school paper when they had no children in school he had never been able to understand, but his mother liked to keep up on things. She was just that sort of person.
    If the magazine had been a copy of Family Life, one of the other three published in Ontario and due soon, the paper would have gone to his left. Because it wasn’t, he kept going.
    During his illness numerous get-well cards had arrived, sometimes daily. He had gotten used to it and enjoyed the remarks and Bible verses people sent him. Some of the people he had never met—the news of his accident had spread far and wide. That was one good use of The Budget, he thought and grinned.
    The last piece of mail in the pile was a letter. He turned