A Plain Love Song by Kelly Irvin Read Free Book Online Page A

spoke the truth. Her to-do list included writing such a letter. “You remember her. She movedthere right before we moved to New Hope. Her daed married Helen Crouch—”
    “I remember her.” Molly squeezed into a chair on the other side of the table and plopped down a large paper sack in front of her. “I didn’t know you were friends.”
    “I talked to her some.” Adah shoved her notebook in her canvas bag. “I should probably get home. Mudder has a bunch of sewing she wants me to finish today while she cans another round of tomatoes. She’s stewing them and making sauce. We have a big crop already this year. Emma, Leah, and Katie are helping. How’s your garden doing?”
    Her mouth ran over and she knew it, but she couldn’t figure out how to stop. Molly would tell Matthew she’d seen Adah at the library. She’d never lied to Matthew about anything. He knew about her love for music. She hadn’t told him about the songs. A lie of omission. Still, nothing said she couldn’t write a poem. A person was allowed to let her imagination run wild in poems. It was make-believe. Fiction. It didn’t mean a thing. She’d penned a poem about love and it didn’t involve Matthew. Why couldn’t it be about Matthew? He worked hard. He loved his faith and family. He was kind and strong and pleasing to the eye. He never raised his voice and he never criticized her. So why didn’t she write about him?
    “What’s wrong?” Molly tilted her head to one side. She looked like a wise owl with her black-rimmed glasses, big brown eyes, and small, turned-up nose. “You look sad.”
    “Nee. Just tired.” Another lie. Her cheeks burned. When had it become impossible for her to talk to someone like Molly? The girl never had a bad thing to say about anyone. She loved her brother, though, and wouldn’t want to see him hurt.
    Adah didn’t want to see him hurt either. “I mean I’m…I’m just trying to figure some things out.”
    “I always bring an extra sandwich in my lunch.” Molly held up the bag. “I’ll share if you’ll keep me company. Sometimes it’s easier to think on a full stomach.”
    Given Molly’s round figure, she must do quite a bit of thinking. Adah stifled a smile at the thought. Matthew once told her she could do with a little more meat on her bones. No matter how much she ate, sheremained scrawny. Probably from the constant somersaults and back-flips her mind did on the trampoline in her head. “That would be nice.”
    “There’s a picnic table in the back under a big sycamore. With any luck there’ll be a little breeze so we don’t melt.” Molly popped out of the chair. “It’s just peanut butter and jam, but Mudder’s strawberry preserves from last summer are really good.”
    Adah followed after her, not trying to squeeze a word in. Molly led the way to the picnic table, which indeed enjoyed a lovely shaded spot in a patch of grass and a small garden of sunflowers, yellow belles, and other blooming flowers that someone obviously had been weeding. Molly doled out a sandwich heaped with so much jam it ran out and filled the crevices of the plastic wrap, followed by a bag of chips and a bag of oatmeal-raisin cookies. And an apple.
    “Do you always pack two lunches?”
    “I’m always hopeful I’ll find someone to share with.” She smiled as she unwrapped her sandwich, a twin of Adah’s. “It’s more fun that way.”
    “What if you don’t find someone?”
    “I have a nice afternoon snack or I give it to that old man who sits on the bench in front of the hardware store all the time.”
    Molly really was a sweet person. Why hadn’t she been snapped up by a man? Adah considered. Matthew’s sister was only a year older than her. She still had plenty of time. On the other hand, most of the men in the New Hope District from Molly’s circle of friends had already married. At the moment, she didn’t look too concerned about her future. She looked completely captivated by the sandwich. Adah