"He's opening a new grocery store?" I shouted. "How long has this been going on?"
"I don't know, but I know that he and your Dat had a big fight last winter after Sunday services," Gabe said. "No one knew what they were arguing about, but it was heated enough that Bishop Miller had threatened to prohibit your parents from attending Sunday services."
"Why didn't anyone tell me about this?" I cried as I yanked open the screen door and yelled, "Verity! Honor! Get up and get down here now!"
"Grace, don't you think this can wait until tomorrow morning?" Adam said quietly.
"I'm leaving for Chicago in the morning, so no, this can't wait!" I shouted at him, then turned and yelled, "Verity! Honor! Get up and get down here now! Don't make me come up there and get you!"
I was enraged that I'd been excluded from everything that had been happening in my family, and even more furious that my uncle was now threatening to ruin the family business simply because I'd defied his order to kick Adam out of the house.
"Grace?" Verity said as she descended the stairs rubbing her eyes. Honor wasn't far behind with Danny following in her wake. "What's going on?"
"I don't know, why don't you tell me!" I shouted as I held open the screen door and motioned them to join Gabe on the porch. "Gabe tells me that Dat and Uncle Amos had a fight after services last winter. Anyone care to tell me what that was about?"
"It was the usual argument they've been having for the last twenty years, Grace," Verity sighed. "Uncle Amos wanted to buy the store and Dat said no."
"Why is he doing this now?" I asked. "What will he gain from running us out of business? I don't understand."
"Your father was threatening to leave the ward," Gabe said quietly. "He and a few other men were tired of the punitive rules and the way your uncle enforced them. They wanted to form a corporation that would allow them to install solar panels, build wind turbines, and certify their farms as organic so they could sell the produce at a higher price, and Bishop Miller forbade them from doing any of it."
"Dat wanted to go organic?" I said confused by this revelation. I turned to Verity, "Did you know this?"
"Mamm had said something about how he was tired of using generators in the house and pesticides on the crops, but I didn't think anything of it, Grace," she said. "I thought it was just Dat blowing off steam."
"Well, we're not selling the store," I said suddenly realizing that if Dat had lived, he most likely would have agreed to Adam's turbine deal. "Gabe, go home and get some sleep."
"But I want to help," he protested weakly.
"You'll be useless without sleep," I said wanting him to leave so that I could talk with my siblings in private. "Go home."
Gabe held out the envelope containing the money he'd offered me. I shook my head and pointed toward his buggy repeating, “Go home." He stepped off the porch and walked away from the house. A few minutes later, he turned the buggy onto the main road and headed back toward town without looking back.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Adam
Grace, Verity, and I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how we could save the store and the farm from ruin, but as dawn broke, we realized we were running out of time and still had no solid plan. The bishop's threat to ruin Miller's Grocery was going to be the most immediate problem.
Grace brought out the books she'd been working on for the store and showed us the debts owed to all the suppliers.
"There's no way we're going to pay this off if Uncle Amos takes all of our business away," Grace said running her hand through her hair. She hadn't bothered to pull it up and put her cap on, and as I looked across the table at her, I marveled at her natural beauty. Wrapped in my sweatshirt, she looked young enough to be just another Chicago college student, and as she struggled to find a way to make sure her family was taken care of before she headed back to meet the needs of her boss, I felt something inside of me shift.
"Adam?" Verity said nudging me with her elbow.
"Huh?"
"Where'd you go, English?" Grace teased.
"Oh, sorry, I was thinking about something," I said shaking my head and looking down at the paperwork spread across the table.
"Well, shift your thinking to what we can do to sell the community on turbines," she said as she pushed a stack of papers toward me. "I have no idea how we're going to attract a crowd to hear you talk about what you can offer our community, but I have a feeling that once we figure that out, you'll have no trouble getting people to sign up."
"Grace, your uncle isn't going to let anyone near me," I said shaking my head. "No matter how you put it, the Amish aren't going to defy him to come hear me speak about newfangled technology."
"That's true, Grace," Verity sighed. "He's right. No one who wants to stay in the community is going to oppose Uncle Amos."
"Stop it, you two!" Grace shouted. "There's a way to make this happen! I know it! We just haven't figured out how yet."