Somewhere in my turmoil of thoughts, I drifted into the place between waking and dreaming, where thoughts and dreams mix together.
When I awoke, the train was traveling into a red morning sun above the brown November fields. I thought about Datt's saying, “Red sky in the morning is a sailor's warning.”
I wondered if Datt was in his bent hickory rocking chair in the living room on the woven rug, with the sun coming through the east windows. Was he yawning loudly, or did he do that only when I was there because he knew it bothered me? Was Mem up, starting the fire in the cookstove in the kitchen, getting ready to make breakfast?
I looked out into the morning for a long time. What would it be like in Burlington, Vermont? Would the people be friendly? What would I do for work? Where would I live if I could only stay one week at the YWCA?
I was feeling hungry and thirsty. I wished I had a cold glass of orange juice. I wondered what time it was, and I decided to go visit John. I hoped he was awake. I walked through the door at the end of my car, across the little metal bridge between cars, trying not to look at the tracks rushing by underneath through the gap in the floors, then into John's car. He was sitting with his head back and his eyes closed. I thought about going back to my seat, but that was too lonely. I decided to go and get my luggage from the rack above him.
John opened his eyes when I reached up into the rack. He seemed surprised and sleepy. I apologized for disturbing him and offered to get the suitcases later, but he said, “No, that's fine. Would you like to sit down for a bit?”
“Sure,” I said and sat down much too quickly. John looked a bit startled and blinked a few times to wake up. “I can come back later,” I said as I started to get up.
“No it's fine, really. I'm awake.”
He got an orange out of his pack and offered me some slices. I took them. They were juicy and sweet. But it wasn't as easy to talk to him as it had been earlier, so when we got close to Albany where I would switch trains, I said good-bye to him. He offered me his address and said he would like to hear how things were going for me. I accepted it and assured him I would write. I took my luggage and went back to my seat.
I had a five-hour wait in Albany. I thought about going to a store to shop for clothes, but I was afraid I would get lost. I stayed in the station and tried to sleep on a hard, white plastic chair. But I was afraid that I would miss my train, and every time I dozed off, I would jump awake again. After several hours passed, I walked restlessly around the station, bought a hamburger, and finally boarded a train in mid-afternoon, bound for Port Kent.
The conductor shook his head in puzzlement at my ticket. As I sat down, I heard him mumble something about “Port Kent?” and he gave me a strange look. I wondered if he knew I was a runaway.
The train began moving. I breathed more easily. Surely if he was going to report me, he wouldn't have done anything to show that he was suspicious.
I had a full seat to myself this time, and I relaxed into the swaying and vibrating. Even though I was tired, I felt my confidence building. I had gotten through the train switch all by myself, as though I'd done it many times. I could do this.
Then, just as I was starting to feel relaxed and sleepy at last, the conductor came by and asked to check my ticket again. I gave it to him. He stuck it up in the rack above my head and walked down the aisle, shaking his head and muttering under his breath, “Port Kent . . . Port Kent . . .”
Two women from across the aisle looked at me. “Why is he so worried about your ticket?” one of them asked me.
Maybe because I'm a runaway, I felt like saying. But I just shrugged and said I didn't know. They fussed and said they thought he should leave me alone—that I was very well-dressed for a young woman, and that there were few young women who dressed this way anymore. To take the focus off of me, I asked them where they were traveling to, and they said they were just coming home from being on the Phil Donahue Show the day before. I had often watched that show while I was cleaning.
The train began traveling through mountains that were covered with a carpet of freshly fallen leaves beneath bare trees. As dusk was gathering, the occasional whistle from the train made me think of Hank Williams's haunting voice singing, I'm so lonesome I could cry . . . It had been one of my favorite songs when I listened to country music on the radio at the houses I cleaned. I'd wait to run the vacuum cleaner if a song by Hank Williams came on the radio.
The dark mountains loomed above and around the train as it curved through the valleys. Partly because I wanted to talk to someone, but mostly because I wanted to know, I stopped the conductor when he walked by and asked him what mountains we were going through.
“The Adirondacks,” he answered. He looked at me for a minute. Then he blurted out, “I don't mean to be rude, but what are you going to do in Port Kent? That is a nothing place with no phones, no restaurants, and no places to stay. It is only a stop on the tracks in the middle of the woods!”
I didn't know whether to be relieved or scared. “The ticket agent in Ohio told me I could take a ferry across the lake to Burlington, Vermont, from Port Kent. She said I could walk to the ferry ramp from the train stop.”
He shook his head soberly. “That ferry was discontinued twelve days ago.”
It was dark out now. I couldn't see the mountains anymore. I imagined myself getting off the train, stranded in the dark woods with my two suitcases. It felt as though someone had dropped something heavy in the bottom of my stomach.
“So how can I get to Burlington?” I asked.
“If you want to get there by train, you would have to go up to Montreal in Canada, then back down to Essex Junction in Vermont,” he said.
“How much would that cost?” I asked.
“I don't know. I could find out for you. But wait a minute; there is a couple at the end of the car who have tickets for Port Kent. Let me ask them if they're going to Vermont.”
“I would be glad to pay for a ride,” I said.
“Just a minute; I'll ask,” the conductor said. He approached an elderly couple, and I heard him ask if they were going to Burlington.
The woman nodded.
“How are you getting there from Port Kent?” he asked.
“Our daughter,” the woman said in a foreign accent.
“There is a young woman on the train who needs a ride to Burlington. Would you give her one? She is willing to pay for gas.”
“No! No! Can't do that, she's a stranger!” said the woman, shaking her head.
“She is a very nice young lady, and she doesn't have a way to get to Burlington . . .”
“No, no, can't do that, she's a stranger,” she repeated.
The conductor came back to me and said, “Have your luggage ready and we'll just see.” As he spoke, he used the same tone of voice and choice of words that Olin Clara had often used.
I was standing in the aisle with my suitcases in hand when the train stopped and the door opened. A woman called, “Hi Mom! Hi Dad!” and began helping the older couple down the train steps. The conductor leaned out the door and said, “There's a young woman on the train who needs a ride to Burlington. Will you give her one?”
“Sure, come along!” said the daughter with a welcoming wave of her arm.
“Go! Go!” the conductor said, nearly pushing me from the train and handing me my two suitcases. Then the door closed and the train moved on down the tracks.
I looked at the tall trees and dark woods around me. I had no choice but to follow the family down the driveway to the little white car parked there. The mother was saying, “You can't do that; she's a stranger!”
“Oh Mom, I'm a Vermonter!” said the daughter as she opened the trunk of her car and put in her parents' luggage. She gestured for me to do the same.
“You can sit in the back,” she said, and I climbed in next to her mother and her eight-year-old son, who looked at me in wide-eyed silence.
“So, what are you going to do in Vermont?” the daughter asked me
as she started driving.
“I—I don't know,” I said, feeling the same panic setting in that I'd felt at first with John. Here I was, surrounded by strangers in a strange car on a strange road. I wished that lying came naturally to me. “I'm leaving home. I'm going to stay at the YWCA and find work.”
“See, I told you!” the mother snapped. “Now you've got a runaway in your car!”
“Oh mother,” the woman said, laughing nervously. To my relief, she didn't ask me any more questions. I saw her holding hands with her father in silence.
I kept quiet. We drove through the woods until we came to a ferry crossing between Essex, New York, and Charlotte, Vermont.
I couldn't enjoy the ride on the water. It had sounded romantic, entering Vermont for the first time by ferry on Lake Champlain at night, but it was more scary than romantic. While the daughter wasn't driving, I insisted on giving her ten dollars. She didn't want to take any money. Then she asked, “How about five dollars?” I insisted on ten.
At last, we drove down Main Street in Burlington, where big houses lined the road. I watched for number 278. I saw Lake Champlain, looking dark in the distance beyond the buildings.
The daughter asked, “Mom, would you like to go to McDonald's?”
“No, get rid of her first!” the mother said.
The daughter shook her head with a resigned sigh and pulled into the short driveway of the old brick building at 278. She got out and helped me with my luggage. “I am so sorry about my mother,” she said.”
“I'm sorry for you. Looks like I've made your visit with your parents difficult.”
“Don't you worry. It would've happened anyway. When my brother put them on the train in California, he warned them not to talk to strangers. I think my mother has taken that too far. Please call me when you can. I'd like to know how you're doing. My name is Sprite and I'm in the phone book.”
I said I would. Then I walked up the old wooden steps and rang the front doorbell of the YWCA. I was so hungry and weary I could hardly think anymore.
A woman came to the door and let me in. With a pleasant smile, she introduced herself as Annabelle, told me she had one of the rooms upstairs, and showed me to a room behind the back staircase, next to the kitchen. It was small, with a faded gray carpet on the floor. But it was all mine, and for that reason it might as well have been a room in a mansion. I finally had a room of my own! I stretched out on the single bed with my clothes on and felt as though I didn't want to move again. All I could think about was that the clock I'd noticed in the kitchen said it was 9:10, and how exactly twenty-four hours earlier, I'd been taking a shower in Megan and Peter's house.
Annabelle had said the housemother would be there soon. Before long, I heard several women coming into the kitchen. I got up off the bed and combed my hair, pinned it back again with barrettes, then entered the kitchen. Maureen, the housemother, was about my age, with long red hair and mischievous eyes. She introduced me to Bernice, a tall, thin woman. Bernice and Annabelle were having toast, and they offered me some. I asked about food arrangements, and they told me that everyone was in charge of her own. We had designated shelves in the cupboard and refrigerator.
The girls wanted to know where I was from and how I had gotten there. I told them my story. All three of them were spellbound. As soon as I had finished, the questions began.
“How did you get here?”
“Why did you pick Vermont?”
“How did you know about this Y?”
“You only went through eighth grade? I would never have guessed, you speak so well.” After nearly an hour had passed, Maureen asked, “So what are you going to do now?”
“First I'd like to find out if I can stay here longer than one week,” I said.
“Of course,” she answered. “The director isn't going to put you out on the street. You can apply for permanent residency and you can stay as long as you want to.”
“That's a relief,” I said. “As to what I will do for work: I'd love to be a waitress, but I have only cleaned houses. I might have to start with that.”
“Do you have a social security number?”
“No, I don't.”
“You will need one before you can get a full-time job. The social security office is right on Pearl Street, downtown. I can give you directions.”
“What about clothes?” I asked. “Is there a second-hand shop? I don't have too much money, but I do need clothes. These are the only ones I bought in Ohio. I'm going to need a winter coat.”
Annabelle said, “There's a shop called “Second Hand Rose” right next to the social security office. I'm going down to Pearl Street tomorrow, so I can take you there.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said. “I'm not used to finding my way around a city.”
“This is not like a huge city. You can find your way around easily. You'll get used to it very quickly,” Maureen said.
“I also want to go back to school,” I said.
“Well, there is a great work-study program at a place called the Church Street Center. You could probably do work in exchange for courses,” Bernice said.
“Oh, that sounds perfect for me,” I said.
“You are going to have so much fun,” Maureen said, as she gave me a mischievous sideways grin. I wondered if she would be a bad influence on me. I felt that I would need to balance the wonderful feeling of my newfound freedom with common sense to remain clear about who I was as a person.
I smiled back and said, “I know it!”
Everyone became quiet for a minute. Then Annabelle said, “I will show you where the bed linens and towels are.”
I made my bed, then ran a deep bath in a tub with claw feet in the bathroom above the back stairs. As I lay in the bath, deep enough to cover my whole body, I wondered what was going on back home.
Joe would probably be there, telling Mem and Datt, “Don't worry, she will come back,” in his self-assured way. I liked the feeling of Joe not knowing where I was, any more than any of the rest of them. For the first time in my life, he had no control over me.
I felt sorry that Sarah and Susan had to see Mem's sorrow and Datt's anger. Would Datt believe them if they said they didn't know where I was, or would he think if he hit them hard enough they would have to tell? I shuddered, remembering what it felt like to have Datt storm after me. I remembered sitting in the woods, wanting to run away, and feeling as if Datt's trees were holding me in. I thought they were stronger than me, with their roots growing so deep, just as I thought the Amish traditions were strong enough to hold me in the community.
But here I am, I thought. I could hear Maureen, Bernice, and Annabelle preparing for bed. I knew I had made new friends already. It was refreshing to know people who liked to ask questions as much as I did. No one would tell me what I wasn't allowed to do tomorrow. I would decide that on my own. Maureen said I would be able to see Mount Mansfield from the top of Main Street. I would walk there and see the mountain before I went to the social security office, the clothing shop, and the grocery store.
After drying off and getting into my nightdress, I went down the stairs and into my room. I switched off the lamp and lay in my new bed. I felt both exhausted and exhilarated. I closed my eyes and thanked God for the angels along my way. I realized that I could pray and believe in God in whatever way I wanted. There was no one telling me that what I believed was wrong. Maybe people really weren't angels, but I thought about the women I had just met, of Megan and Peter, John, the conductor, and Mrs. Sprite in her little white car, and they were all angels to me. If the Amish were right, I shouldn't be here right now. But, how could something that felt so right be wrong? I remembered the image I had had during the three communion services I attended in the community, in which the bishop had told us the communion story about the wheat that is ground into flour and made into bread. When he asked the people in the community to give up their individuality for the sake of the community, I'd imagined that I was a grain that had fallen by the wayside
and escaped the grindstone. I knew that if I had dared to tell anyone Amish about my image, they would have shamed me for my wayward thoughts. Now I hoped I was one of the wayward grains who would take root and grow.
I AWAKE SLOWLY, taking in my surroundings. Oftentimes when I awake, my first thoughts are similar to those I fell asleep with, and this morning is no exception. I love that place between sleeping and waking, when it feels as though my soul can wander freely between the two realms—that of the dream world and the waking world. I recall waking up that first morning at the Y in Burlington, Vermont, almost twenty-seven years ago, in my very own, warm room. It felt like my freedom was boundless—for the first time in my life, I did not need to live up to anyone else's expectations. It felt like I had woken up inside one of my fantasies while staring at a picture in a Vermont Life magazine.
When I watched David and Tim drive away from Green Street late last night, I was again amazed and grateful for the life David and I have made together. When I was with the Amish, I could never have anticipated meeting David at the Y and building a lasting relationship with him. That is yet another chapter of my journey.
I look out into the morning sun, and suddenly the parallel is obvious: waking up here by the Smith College campus, being able to chart my own path in my long-yearned-for education is just as euphoric as waking up at the Y was years ago. Though the focus is very different, I lived in a community of women then, as I do now. Here the focus is on my education, which is further along my path than when I lived at the Y. And who would have thought, I whisper to myself. I recall the morning in the fall when my siblings were returning to school, and I could no longer go because I had graduated from eighth grade.
When Yoxall's station wagon arrived to pick up my siblings that fall morning, I watched them eagerly heading out the lane. I longed to go back to school so badly that I could smell the books that had been stored on the shelves in the entrance of the schoolhouse all summer. I could see the clean sheets of paper before I had written anything on them, leaving all possibilities open. I could feel myself running over the schoolyard, playing Hide and Seek, Softball, or Prisoner's Base, and I could hear the bell at the end of recess. When I could no longer stand the longing, I turned away from the window. Mem was waving good-bye to the others as I slipped upstairs, hoping she would think I was making my bed. Instead, I sat on it and stared at the oval crocheted rug at my feet.
Why I Left the Amish Page 21