Candlelight Sweethearts

Copyright

ZONDERVAN

Candlelight Sweethearts

Copyright © 2020 by Kelly Irvin

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Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ISBN: 978-0-310-35794-0 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CIP data is available upon request.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version and the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIVand New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

Cover

Copyright

Title Page

Contents

Glossary

Featured Families

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Discussion Questions

About the Author

To my family, love always!

But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12: 9–10 niv

Glossary

ab im kopp: off in the head; crazy

ach: oh

aenti: aunt

appeditlich: delicious

bedauerlich: sad

boppli: baby/babies

brot: bread

bruder: brother

bruders: brothers

bruderskinner: nieces/nephews

bu: boy

buwe: boys

daadi/daddi: grandfather

daddi’s haus: grandparents’ house

daed: father

danki: thank you

dat: dad

dochder: daughter

dochdern: daughters

dummkopf: stupid

dummle: hurry

Englisch/Englischer: English or non-Amish

fra/fraa: wife

freind: friend

freinden: friends

froh: happy

gegisch: silly

geh: go

gern gschehne: you’re welcome

Gmay: church district

Gott/Gotte: God

Gotte’s wille: God’s will

grandkinner: grandchildren

groossdaadi/grossvatter: grandpa

grossmutter: grandmother

guder daag: good-bye

gude mariye: good morning

gut: good

gut nacht: good night

haus: house

Ich liebe dich: I love you

in lieb: in love

jah: yes

kaffee/kaffi: coffee

kapp: prayer covering or cap

kichli: cookie

kichlin: cookies

kinner: children

krank: ill

kuche: cake

kuchen: cakes

kumm: come

liewe: love, a term of endearment

maed: young women, girls

maedel: young woman

mamm: mom

mammi: grandmother

mann: husband

mei: my

mudder: mother

naerfich: nervous

narrisch: crazy

nee/nein: no

nix: nothing

onkel: uncle

Ordnung: unwritten rules for Amish living

rumspringa: running-around period when a teenager turns sixteen years old

schee: pretty

schmaert: smart

schtupp: family room

schweschder/schwester: sister

schweschdere/schwesters: sisters

seltsam: weird

sohn/suh: son

was iss letz: what’s wrong

Wie geht’s: How do you do? or Good day!

wunderbaar/wunderbarr: wonderful

ya: yes

yer: your

yerselves: yourselves

yung: young

youngie: teen to young adult

*The German dialect spoken by the Amish is not a written language and varies depending on the location and origin of the settlement. These spellings are approximations. Most Amish children learn English after they start school. They also learn high German, which is used in their Sunday services.

Featured Families

Fergie and Lucy Cotter

Children: Darcie (husband: Bart Detweiler), Jasper, Salome, Kimberly, James, John

Isaiah and Nadine Shrock

Children: Esther Marie, Jonas, Nathan, Timothy, Lulu

David and Diane Hershberger (bishop)

Matthew Miller (deacon)

Chapter 1

Decisions, decisions.

Oblivious to the three people waiting in line behind her, the customer squinted at the enormous blackboard-style price list that hung on the wall behind Esther Marie Shrock. Most customers tended to do this. Esther Marie didn’t mind. Considering the sixty-five kinds of cheese and forty varieties of meat available at St. Ignatius’s Valley Grocery Store, customers usually hemmed and hawed. It didn’t matter how much time they had to make their choices before they arrived at the front of the line.

The woman rocked the fussy baby in her arms and sighed. I know. I know. She shifted the sweet bundle to her other arm. The smell of spit-up and a damp diaper wafted over to the deli, lifted into the air by the overhead ceiling fan with its pleasant whirring like background music. You’re tired and hungry. Just give me a minute to make up my mind.

Here it comes. Here it comes. Please Gott, don’t let it be ham.

Let me see. Okay, for starters, I’ll take a pound of ham, sliced thin.

There it was. Esther Marie squelched a sigh. She took a long breath and inhaled the briny scent of garlic dill pickles. I can do this. In Gott, all things are possible. Whi-ch-ch-ch one?

The woman’s forehead wrinkled. She fanned her damp face with a piece of notebook paper covered with a grocery list in cramped cursive handwriting. What do you mean?

This lady had been in the store before. She’d ordered from the deli before. Still, Esther Marie reached deep into her well of patience. The woman was tired. New moms always were. Not that Esther Marie would know. As much as she dreamed of being a wife and mother, she’d never been asked to take a ride in a Plain man’s buggy after a singing, let alone heard those precious words, Will you marry me? So here she stood making sandwiches and selling bologna. And liking it.

We have thir-t-t-een kinds. Breathe. Slowly. No block. No block. See the words. Say the words. Black forest, brown sugar, Cajun, honey, maple. The block hit her. She searched for the words lost in a hinterland of anxiety. Her hands fluttered as if they had a life of their own. Hmm, you know, c-c-c-c-ooked s-s-s-super trim 10 percent, coo-k-k-ked off the b-b-bone, c-c-c-c-ooked off the bone honey c-c-c-c-ured, reduced so-so-sodium, hmm, you know, s-s-smoked s-s-s-liced, smoked, s-s-s-s-outhern s-s-s-smoked, V-V-V-Vir-g-g-g-inia.

The little boy with no front teeth and a smudge of dirt on his face standing in line with his grandma snickered. Grandma smacked the back of his head. We don’t make fun of disabled people, child. Her voice carried to the far ends of the earth. It’s rude. They can’t help it. It don’t mean they’re stupid.

She had that right, even if the way she treated her grandson left him with tears in his eyes and Esther Marie feeling responsible for his pain. Years of enduring snickers, taunts, and a million suggestions for correcting