The River Read Online Free PDF Page A

first time, gave it serious thought. Ruth wants to go, she mused as she turned the little cap over in her hands, eyes filling with tears. If for no other reason, I should go and give this back to Mamm.
    She knelt there and wiped her eyes, trying her best to envision a setting where she and her mother could sit quietly together and actually have a conversation. At the end of her days there, they’d scarcely had more than a few words to say to each other, although her mother wrote occasionally, keeping Tilly updated when new babies were born and about family doings.
    “Tilly, are you up there?” her husband called from the foot of the stairs.
    “I’ll be right down, hon.” She put the head covering back into its safe spot and wondered if returning it was a good enough reason to put herself through the agony of facing her family, a family that had all but disowned her.
    No, but I should do it for Ruthie.

    “You’ll miss the harvest festival here,” Kris mentioned later, while Tilly cleared the cake plates from her birthday celebration.
    “I know,” she admitted, “but with my father’s health so poor, it seems like the right decision.”
    He reluctantly agreed. “I could take the girls downtown next Saturday to choose their favorite scarecrow, but I can’t afford to miss work on Monday.”
    She explained that Ruth was really the one pressing to go—at least for the anniversary. “She doesn’t want to wait around.”
    Nodding thoughtfully, her husband caught Tilly’s eye. “Maybe your sister has unfinished business there.”
    “Oh, Ruthie closed that door, believe me.”
    Kris slipped his arm around her waist. “It’s not like you, or Ruthie, to want to go back, hon.”
    “Right.” She nodded. “ This is my home now.” Tilly met his lips as he leaned down to kiss her.
    Kris murmured, not arguing for or against any longer.
    She moved from his embrace and turned on the hot water, then began to rinse and scrape the dishes. “Do you think your mother might agree to come and help with the girls?” Tilly asked.
    “Move in, you mean?” Kris smirked.
    “I’d only be gone from Friday morning till we get back the following Monday afternoon.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “If your mom can’t help out, I’ll drop the whole idea.”
    They tossed it around further, and Kris surprised her by saying, “I think it’s you who wants to go.” He reached for the phone on the built-in desk across the kitchen. “Let’s just find out if it suits Mom and be done with it,” he suggested.
    Tilly thanked him and loaded the dishwasher, happy every day of her modern life for such timesaving conveniences, recalling the hours she’d spent in Mamm’s kitchen washing oodles of dishes. Pots and pans, too. From the age of six on, the chore had seemed daunting.
    While she worked, Kris talked with his mother on the phone. Tilly knew how blessed she was with her helpful husband. He was thoughtful, too, and she believed unreservedly that their first meeting had been intended by God—the Wednesday evening she’d walked into their church and was warmly welcomed by handsome Kris Barrows. They’d dated eight months before becoming engaged, his parents acceptingher as their own. Despite my Plain background, she thought gratefully.
    Hearing Kris describe the possible scenario for his mother just now, Tilly prayed silently, Please, Lord, give us a stop sign if this is a mistake.

    For the first couple of years after Tilly left, Melvin Lantz did what siblings do when someone in the family does a strange and hurtful thing. He prayed, determined never to give up hope, thinking surely Tilly would grow up and realize her contrariness.
    “Hurry and come to your senses,” he had sometimes found himself saying aloud as he worked in the stable or drove the market wagon over back roads . . . whenever his thoughts wandered to the sister who’d never seemed to mesh well with the rest of the family. That was before he’d