Rachel's Garden Read Online Free

she’d asked her mother that question. With no other children but her and Johnny, the loss of him weighed heavily on her parents.
    Daadi hadn’t seemed able to reconcile himself to the truth—Johnny was never going to come back to the church. So he clung to the bann, refusing to see Johnny, even though it hurt him and Mammi more than it did Johnny, busy and happy with his work at the medical research clinic.
    Her parents were growing older, more frail it seemed, with each passing month. Daad wanted so badly to help her with the farm since Ezra’s passing, but his health just wasn’t good enough. She knew it was a constant worry to him.
    Mamm, having sold three jars of her raspberry jam, came back to her, studying Rachel closely. “You’ve been fratched about something. I can see it in your face. Is it too much for you, trying to keep the farm going?”
    She shook her head, suspecting she knew the direction of her mother’s thoughts. “I’m doing all right. William helps a lot.”
    “Still—” Mamm put her hand on Rachel’s arm. “Won’t you think about your daadi’s idea? Sell the farm and move home with us. We’d love to have you and the kinder living with us. You know that.”
    “I know, Mamm,” she said gently. “I just can’t bring myself to do that. The farm was Ezra’s dream. It’s what he had to leave to his children. How can I let him down?”
    Mamm’s eyes clouded with concern. “You can’t run a dairy farm alone. Who knows how long Ezra’s brothers can continue to do so much? If you sold, you’d maybe get enough to start a small business of some kind. Wouldn’t that be better?”
    It was tempting, so tempting. To be back under her parents’ roof, having them share the responsibility for the kinder. Being able to lean on them when things got difficult. But—
    “I can’t, Mamm. I just can’t make up my mind to that. Not yet, anyway”
    But she had to, didn’t she? She had to stop drifting along and make some definite decisions about their future, hers and the children’s.
    Isaac and William, Ezra’s brothers, came up to the stand just then, relieving her of the need to keep talking about it, even if she couldn’t dismiss it from her thoughts.
    “How are your sales today, Rachel? Gut, I hope.” Isaac, bluff and hearty, his beard almost completely gray now, stopped in front of her counter.
    “They’re all gone.” She swept her hand along the empty countertop.
    “Gut, gut,” he said, and William nodded in agreement, giving her a shy smile.
    The nearly twenty years between the oldest of Ezra’s siblings and the youngest accented the many other differences between them. Isaac was stout and graying, with an assured manner that seemed to have grown since the death of their father had left him the head, as he thought, of the family.
    William, just turned eighteen, hung back, shy as always. He had huge brown eyes that reminded Rachel of a frightened deer and blond hair so light it was nearly white. He seemed always on the verge of growing right out of his clothes.
    “Are you having a pleasant day at the sale?” The guilt she felt over her uncharitable thoughts toward Isaac made her voice warm with interest.
    “Ja. For sure. Made a couple of deals and have a line on someone who has a fine colt for sale.” He gave William a hearty slap on the shoulder. “Maybe I’ll let William train this one.”
    Not sure what William felt about that, she could only smile. But for the most part, William did what Isaac said without questioning, as far as she could tell.
    “By the way, Rachel, I found a buyer for those greenhouse supplies you’ve got in the barn,” he went on. “You won’t want it now. I’ll come by and pick those materials up on Tuesday.”
    For a moment Rachel could only gape at him. Slowly, the temper she rarely felt began to rise. Not only did Isaac assume he knew what she should do—he thought he had the right to make decisions for her.
    Forcing down the anger, she