Chapter 1.
Florence loved every season in the apple orchard. Each one brought its own special delights, but she couldn’t deny that the spring blossoms with their varying shades of pink were the most beautiful sight of all. The air carried the sweet fragrance of the blooms as well as the scents of new life, rebirth, and the hope of all kinds of possibilities.
The bees buzzed by, busy doing their most necessary of jobs, and the birds were happily tweeting and flying about. The robins were another welcome sight that marked the beginning of Spring. They were delightful except when they were making a feast of the young apples. This morning, a robin had sat on their kitchen windowsill chirping as she and Carter drank their morning coffee. It was a pleasant start to their day.
As she took Spot on his walk, Florence glanced at the Bakers' orchard. Their mature apple trees were beautiful, and it would take years for hers to compare. Right now, her orchard-to-be was level ground with no sign of vegetation. The extensive drainage had been finished, so they’d come a long way in the last couple of months. It would take her a long time, though, to replace what had been stolen from her. That was how it had felt, but she’d decided to let go of those feelings of resentment a long time ago.
It had been her decision to leave her home and her Amish family to marry Carter. She left knowing she would be cut off from her family and her father’s orchard. It didn’t matter that she’d known that. It still hurt. Her heart ached every time she thought about her father’s orchard being in another man’s hands. Not just any man, one who had always disliked her for no good reason. Levi Bruner had married her stepmother and had stepped into her shoes as keeper of the orchard even though he knew less than nothing about looking after trees.
It hurt even more when she learned he intended using non-organic chemicals, in and around the trees, when her orchard had always been organic. If he proceeded along those lines, and she prayed every night that he wouldn’t, then her own orchard would have little chance of being organic accredited since the chemicals would leach into the ground and drift on the winds.
The only hope of her getting back her family’s orchard was for Levi to run it into the ground and then she’d buy it from them. The thought of that, though, brought her little joy. By then, the orchard would be destroyed, and her stepmother Wilma would be devastated. Florence didn’t want that to happen.
Florence leaned against the fencepost and stared at her beloved trees. Her father would’ve had no idea what would happen. Since her two older brothers had never been interested in the orchard, he’d taught Florence everything as though she’d be the one to take it over. For that reason alone, she felt guilty for leaving. If she’d stayed, would Wilma have ever married Levi? Levi had chased Wilma and showed his interest, but Mamm had never shown much interest in return until Florence left. Then they surprised everyone by announcing their wedding.
Mamm had never been strong, either mentally or physically and needed someone to rely upon. That person was now Levi. And now Levi was responsible for the three unmarried girls still living at home. He also brought with him his own daughter, Bliss, who was around the same age as Hope.
Spot pulled on his lead. He was ready to keep walking. She walked on.
The baby growing inside her was her chance at a new life and a new beginning. She’d take everything her father taught her about apples and use it to full advantage with the orchard she and Carter were growing from scratch.
Now the weather was warm enough to fertilize the trees in the Baker orchard, and prune where needed.
But the question was, was Levi aware of that?
Trees were like people and each needed to be treated as an individual, but what would Levi know about that?
Nothing, and neither would he care, she feared.
All she could do was pray that he’d have a change of heart. For a stubborn man like Levi, that would require a true miracle, like the parting of the Red Sea, or the manna falling from heaven.
Two starlings swooped overhead, and then darted about her and the dog. Spot took a leap at them, jerking on the lead. “No, Spot.”
Spot pulled on the lead again when they landed on the fence close by, seeming to taunt him. He clearly wanted to give chase.
“Stop it!”
That was why she always had to keep him on a lead outside. He’d most likely catch one of them and then Florence didn’t know what she’d do. When he pulled on the lead for a third time, this time jolting her whole body, it was time to end the walk.
“Back to the house, Spot.” He knew what those words meant. As they ambled home, Florence scolded him. “If you can’t behave, I’ll leave you home when I go for a walk. How would you like that?” He looked up at her with his soft brown eyes. She was sure he knew every word she was saying. “Just behave, okay? Then we won’t have a problem.”
* * *
Cherish Baker was working on the northern side of the Bakers' Apple Orchard along with her stepfather Levi and her new stepsister, Bliss. She was tolerating them the best she could. Levi was making an effort to fit in with the family and she liked Levi a little more because of it. He now saw sense in keeping the apple orchard running how it had always been, an organic orchard offering organic apples. That was what their customers expected and if they didn’t produce those, they’d be competing with cheaper imported goods. It made sense to keep things as they were. It was when Levi came across a book in a library that he’d had the change of heart. Now he had bought a copy and was following most of what it said.
He was even using her father’s old recipe to oil the trees. It was something her father had done early every Spring. It helped to keep away pests and he'd had his own secret recipe to make it. Cherish was showing them how to apply it. She’d done it so many times as a young girl tagging behind Florence and asking questions. Back then she wasn’t really that interested, and neither was she now. Everything in her life held little excitement. She was just filling in time before she went back to the farm that Aunt Dagmar had left her. That was where she felt truly alive. Her plan was, as soon as she was old enough, she’d leave home for good.
As Bliss painted some oil on a tree, she turned to Cherish and said, “Did you know it’s my birthday soon?”
“Jah, you told everyone at the breakfast table this morning, and at dinner last night.”
“Oh, did I?” Bliss giggled. “I don’t want a fuss made.”
“Good.” Cherish went back to thinking about the farm. Nothing would give her more pleasure than to give her farm’s caretaker his marching orders. Malachi had a mind of his own and wasn’t one to take instructions well. She’d told him she wanted nothing changed and every time she visited, he’d made changes.
“I would like a dog, though,” Bliss said.
Cherish stood up with brush still in hand. “A dog?” She was talking about her birthday—again. “Mamm would never allow another dog. Caramel and Goldie drive her to insanity as it is.”
“A cat, then.”
“Nee, never. The barn cats would fight with it. They’re cranky old things.”
“I’ll keep him in the haus with me.”
“Nee. The dogs mostly live in the haus and they’d eat him. Well, Caramel lives in the haus now that Goldie stays in the caravan with Joy and Isaac.”
Bliss blew out a deep breath and Cherish almost felt sorry for her.
“Don’t we have enough animals about the place for you to play with?”
“Jah we do. You’ve got a dog and a bird.”
“What if I give you Timmy?”
Bliss shook her head. “He only goes to you. He won’t even jump onto my hand.”
“That’s true. You came into this family late and all the pet spaces were taken up.”
“Jah, Bliss. You don’t need an animal. It’s another mouth to feed and we have enough of those.”
Cherish stared over at her stepfather. It was a typical comment that he would make. He was so focused on money above all else. Penny pinching is what he did. It was because of him that the apples had rotted on the trees last season. Someone other than the family members must’ve told him he’d likely make more money keeping the orchard organic. That was something he wouldn’t have figured out by himself.
Once Cherish noticed Bliss’s mouth turn down at the corners and her cheeks puff out, she decided then and there to get her stepsister some kind of pet for her birthday. One that would fit in with the animals they already had. She’d give it a lot of thought. There must be some variety of creature that Mamm wouldn’t object to that would get along with the barn cats and the dogs. On second thought, nothing got along with the barn cats. The new pet would have to be kept away from those.
“I just won’t have a birthday at all then,” Bliss announced as she went back to painting the branches.
“Gut. I’ll tell Mamm not to bake your favorite German Cherry Cake,” Levi had a spark of amusement in his voice, a sound Cherish hadn't heard from him before.
“Nee, please, don’t tell Mamm that. That’s her favorite and mine too.” That set Bliss off into peals of high-pitched giggles.
Cherish crinkled her nose. The only thing that annoyed Cherish more than Bliss’s giggles was when Bliss called her mother Mamm. She wasn’t her mudder, she was her stepmother. Calling her that might’ve been okay if she had been raised by Mamm from a two-year-old as was Florence, but Bliss was nearly a grown woman with a full memory of her own mother. Not only was it disrespectful to Bliss’s late mother, it was weird. It would be better to call her Wilma and be done with it. Or even Aunt Wilma, to show she was more than a friend.
Cherish set about working to pass the time. Only a couple more years and then she could leave this place and all the annoying people who inhabited it. Then she’d live a good life—one where she could make all her own decisions.
