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Kaffi cold, Simon shifted his gaze into the far corner of the room. The worn couch needed to be replaced. A better chair would do as well. Then he caught sight of the old chest. It had been the first piece of furniture they owned. Simon remembered how thrilled Lizzy had been unpacking all the things she had collected over the years. Now it lay filled with the remnants of the past. Lizzy's wedding day apron. William's tiny straw hat. Simon had longed for the day he could take him to the bulk store for a second one. He swallowed back another run of emotions as he pictured the small dress and soft kapp Claire had worn. She hadn't taken her first steps yet and always smelled of applesauce with cinnamon, her favorite food.

You still have Michael, his inner voice reminded him. If his sister Verna hadn't insisted on keeping him that day to play with his cousins...Simon didn't want to think of that.

Michael was sixteen and attending gatherings, and would soon be courting. He was carving out his own future while Simon remained stuck in his past. No wonder he was feeling so melancholy these days. Far too many lonely days had collected like the cobwebs in the high barn rafters. Grief tiptoed into his mornings and tucked him in each night.

 

A knock at the door drew Simon back to the present. He set down his kaffi, closed his Bible, and got up from the table. Michael should be up getting ready, and most likely Ervin was at the door to pick him up to start on the new Shetler haus.

"Gut mariye, Bishop Graber," Judy Burkholder greeted. She held what looked to be a pie under a healthy wrapping of aluminum foil. The deacon's fraa wasn't one for stopping by unannounced, but seeing as she was not alone, Simon knew instantly that his quiet morning was about to be shaken up.

"Gut mariye, Bishop. We know you need to get on with your day, and hoped to catch ya before you got caught up in it," Mary Alice Yoder said, lifting a dish also covered in foil.

"Gut mariye to you both." Simon nodded curtly.

"We all like to be helpful, considering you have yet to remarry and Michael a child yet without a mamm." Mary Alice cocked her head. Michael was sixteen, not six. Simon pinched the place just above his nose to ward off a sneeze. It wasn't the flu, possibly allergies.

Currently Simon was starting to wonder if he wasn't possibly allergic to Mary Alice Yoder, but he quickly banished the terrible thought. A bishop had to keep a thankful heart even if it was a threat to his sinuses.

"Mamm sees that we don't go hungry for long," he reminded her. Blessed Mamm. Despite being the ripe age of eighty-four, she often insisted on making three meals a week for Michael and him.

"Jah, but to put such a burden on one Lena's age." Mary Alice clicked her tongue three times. "It's no kindness at all. You can always rely on my Pricilla to see you tended to." She lifted the dish just high enough to hide the grin on her face.

"She would have come herself, but she is helping at the school today. She's always one many can depend on."

"Mary Alice..." Simon tried to slow her fast-moving tongue as she pushed her way into his kitchen and set the meat loaf on his table. Simon knew it was meat loaf because it was always meat loaf, just as she knew he had no interest in her widowed daughter.

"It's terrible that Elaine and Dorie both came down with a kault. Thankfully, Pricilla stepped up. A teacher's heart, for certain sure."

"Mary Alice," Simon tried again, ignoring her continued praise for her daughter. Pricilla was a wonderful giver, but Simon had no interest in marrying her.

"All I'm saying, Bishop, is that my Pricilla is just a year younger than you, and with all this sickness going about, healthier than most, I reckon. A man needs a helpmate, and her kinner need a daed. I'd say that's a match, certain sure." She gave his sparse kitchen a long study and made a disappointed sound, her eyes resting on a sink filled with dishes he was in no hurry to see over.

Mary Alice came every Thursday like clockwork with meat loaf she somehow had conceived as his favorite dish in hopes to sway Simon's noninterest in Pricilla. Today, it seemed she brought reinforcements to help her plight.

"Mary Alice..." Simon didn't appreciate being prodded.

"Ach, you know kinner have need of both parents. I heard you tell Rob Glick just those words, and he married Betty the year you became bishop." Mary Alice lifted a sharp brow in confidence as she pushed his own words back onto him.

Simon looked to Judy for support but found none waiting there. He should have known the deacon's fraa agreed. For it was Gott's will for man to marry, was it not?