Amish Beginnings

by Vannetta Chapman

  “But Job is...what did you read?”

  “He’s afraid of Gotte,” Eli piped up.

  “Maybe Job did something wrong,” Tim said.

  “Ya, like when we get in trouble, and we know what we did was wrong and we’re afraid of you finding out.” Thomas pulled at the collar of his dress shirt. “Like last week when I put that big worm in the teacher’s desk. It was awfully funny, but I knew even when I did it that I’d pay for it later.”

  “Sometimes we’re afraid because we know we’ve sinned,” Micah agreed. “But think back to the beginning of our reading this morning.”

  Micah thumbed through the pages of the old Bible—one of the few things they’d been able to recover from the fire. The cover was cracked and singed in places. The pages retained a slightly smoky odor, but it still held the wisdom they needed. Perhaps that Bible was like Jacob. It had been through a lot, but Gotte was still able to use it. Gotte was still able to use him.

  “‘There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job,’” Micah read. “‘And that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared Gotte.’”

  Samuel shook his head. “Still doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe your onkel Jacob can explain it better than I can.”

  Jacob met his brother’s gaze, then turned his attention to the boys lined up on the couch. The five of them were so young to be learning the hard truths of life, and yet it was his and Micah’s and Emily’s jobs as adults, as elders in the faith and as the boys’ family, to prepare them for such things.

  Jacob understood what his brother was asking.

  He thought of that morning, of the reflection in the mirror of two different men—only there weren’t two different men. His scarred self didn’t exist in isolation from the whole. He was one person, and if he believed the truth in the Good Book his brother was holding, then he needed to accept the person Gotte had created him to be.

  Clearing his throat he sat forward, elbows propped on his knees, fingers interlaced. “Job loved Gotte, as we do, ya?”

  All five boys nodded in unison.

  “But his experiences had taught him that Gotte’s plan for his life might be painful, might be hard to understand at times. Those plans had him scarred and hurting, and so he was afraid.”

  No one spoke, and Jacob knew that they were waiting, that his family had been waiting for him to reach this point a long time—for six years, to be exact.

  “It’s a hard thing to know that bad things can happen to us, like the fire that took Daddi and Mammi.”

  “They’re in heaven now.” Joseph swung his foot back and forth, bumping the bottom of the couch.

  “Ya, they are.”

  “But you’re still scarred.” Eli touched the left side of Jacob’s face.

  “I am scarred,” he admitted. “And I have to accept that somehow Gotte still has a plan for me, that what happened—that it wasn’t a mistake. After all, Gotte could have sent a rainstorm and put out that fire...right?”

  “Ya.” Thomas, the practical one, crossed his arms. “I don’t get it.”

  Jacob’s laughter surprised everyone, including himself. “I’m not sure that we have to get it, but we do need to keep the faith, whether we understand or not.”

  They joined hands then, heads bowed in silent prayer, until Micah spoke aloud and asked the Lord to bless their day. The moment he said amen, the twins were headed out the door, Eli pulled a book out of his pocket and began to read it, and Micah asked for Samuel’s help with setting things up for the luncheon. Joseph muttered something about a pet frog and hurried toward the mudroom.

  It was Emily who held back. Standing on tiptoe, she planted a kiss on the left side of Jacob’s face. Her stomach was rounded with her sixth child, and she had to lean forward to kiss his cheek. For a moment, Jacob thought he felt the life inside of her press up against him.

  “What’s that for?” Though he was embarrassed, he couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across his face.

  “Just glad to see you is all.” But the tears shining in her eyes told him it was more.

  He patted her on the shoulder. Even he knew that pregnant women were emotional. He didn’t want to be the cause of starting the waterworks before everyone arrived.

  He needn’t have worried, though. She was humming a tune as she waddled into the kitchen. It was only as he was left standing in the sitting room alone that he realized the song she was humming was “Amazing Grace.”

  * * *

  By the time Hannah and Claire were done with the breakfast dishes, Hannah’s father and Matthew were in the sitting room, waiting. Their devotional was from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.

  Her father patiently answered Matthew’s questions and then they all prayed for a few minutes. The devotional time reminded Hannah of her childhood, of sitting with her sisters, squirming on the couch much as Matthew was now squirming in his chair.

  It took another hour to pack up the dishes they were taking for the luncheon, along with any special items Matthew might need. The weather was warm for the first weekend of September, and there was no chance of rain, which made it a perfect day for a Sunday social. They had to drive past Jacob’s place to reach Emily’s.

  Matthew pointed out the workshop to his grandparents. “That’s where Mamm works. I saw it, and Jacob took me around to look at his projects.”

  He rode in the back seat with Hannah and had his nose pressed to the buggy window. “Why can’t we go there?”

  “Because lunch is at Emily’s,” Hannah explained for the third time.

  “And Emily is Jacob’s schweschder.”

  “Ya. She married Jacob’s brother, Micah. That makes them bruder and schweschder.”

  Matthew had more questions, but they were pulling into Emily and Micah’s drive, and their buggy was suddenly surrounded by boys as well as an old gray dog.

  Before Hannah had a chance to protest, her father had loaded Matthew into his wheelchair and Emily’s boys had taken off with him across the yard.

  “Maybe I should go...”

  “He’ll be fine,” Emily assured her. “Come and have a glass of lemonade. It’s warm out today, ya?”

  She introduced Hannah to her parents and two more couples who were neighbors. They spent the next twenty minutes drinking lemonade and talking about crops and school and the general state of things in Goshen. Hannah was pretending to pay attention, but trying to catch sight of Matthew. Emily’s boys had whisked him away, and she hadn’t even had a chance to explain how to set the brake on the chair or what to do if he stopped breathing.

  That last thought was ridiculous.

  Why would he stop breathing?

  But he might, and she hadn’t explained what to do.

  She excused herself from the group of adults and made her way over to the trampoline where Emily’s twins were practicing flips. No sign of Matthew there. Hurrying toward the barn she spied the two oldest boys throwing horseshoes. Matthew wasn’t watching that either. Which left the youngest boy—Joseph. Her son’s life was in the hands of a six-year-old.

  Her heart thumped and her palms began to sweat as she hurried toward the barn. Two thin lines in the dirt assured her that Matthew’s chair had been pushed in this direction. She practically ran into the barn and slammed straight into Jacob.

  “Whoa, there. Something wrong?”

  “It’s Matthew...” She glanced up at him, remembered his fingers brushing her arm the day before and glanced away. “I’ve been looking for him. I was worried that—”

  “Just breathe, Hannah. Matthew is fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Ya. Come with me. I’ll show you.”

  * * *

  Jacob led her through the main room of the barn and toward the area where Micah kept his horses.

  He reached the last stall and
stopped, motioning for her to tiptoe toward him. They both peered around the corner.

  Joseph was picking up a newborn kitten and setting it in Matthew’s lap.

  “I can hold him?”

  “Sure.”

  “But what if I—”

  “You won’t.”

  “Are you sure I won’t hurt him?”

  “Look, he likes you.”

  The cat’s cries subsided as Matthew bent over the small furry bundle in his lap.

  “He’s purring,” Matthew said.

  “Ya. He’s happy.”

  “And the momma cat doesn’t mind?”

  “Probably not, for a minute or so at least.”

  They proceeded to discuss the merits of the different kittens—stripes over solids, large over small, loud over quiet. Jacob tugged on Hannah’s arm and pulled her away from the stall. They walked out the side door of the barn into a day that was more summer than fall. Perhaps because he’d been in the barn the colors seemed brighter, the breeze sweeter. Or maybe that was due to the woman standing beside him.

  He stepped to her left so that the right side of his face would be facing her. Then he realized what he’d done and felt like an idiot, as if he could impress her with half of his face. He hadn’t been particularly good-looking before the fire.

  They walked away from the barn, and he steered Hannah toward Emily’s garden. The vegetables had all been harvested, but the flowers were a sight to behold.

  “When Emily first married Micah, she couldn’t keep a tomato plant alive. She’d spend time with Mamm in the garden every afternoon, and I guess some of Mamm’s gardening skills rubbed off on her.”

  “This is beautiful.”

  They walked up and down the rows and finally stopped at a bench.

  “Danki,” Hannah said.

  “For?”

  “For taking me to him.”

  “You were worried.”

  “For inviting us here.”

  “That was really Emily’s doing.”

  “For being our friend.”

  “Of course I’m your friend, Hannah.”

  Instead of answering, she became preoccupied with her kapp strings, running them through her fingers again and again.

  Finally he said, “Tell me about David.”

  Her eyebrows arched up in surprise. “My husband?”

  “Ya.”

  “You mean how he died.”

  “I heard about that, and I’m sorry.”

  She glanced away, but she seemed more surprised than offended so he pushed on.

  “I meant more what was he like? I know he was from the Shipshe district, but I only met him once or twice, both times at the auction.”

  “He was a gut man.”

  “I’m sure he was.”

  “I miss him.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Hannah smiled and chuckled softly. “He wasn’t perfect, though. He thought Wisconsin was the promised land. We moved there only a few months after we married.”

  “And was it? The promised land?”

  “In truth it was remote, and the Plain community there was different. I won’t say it was worse, but it took some getting used to. One half allowed for gas appliances, even solar energy. The other? They were more Old Order, at least in practice.”

  “I’ve heard about the ice fishing there.”

  “Ach. The winters were incredibly difficult. We had more than forty inches of snow each of the winters I was there.”

  “That much?”

  “Ya. It was very different from here.”

  “Were you happy—living in this promised land?”

  “We were.”

  “That’s gut.”

  “I haven’t spoken of him, for a while. You know how it is in a Plain community.”

  “We believe his life was complete.”

  “Yes.” Her voice grew softer so that he had to lean toward her more to make out her words. “I want Matthew to know about his father. He might not be old enough to have his own memories, but I want to share mine.”

  “You’re a gut mamm.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Some days I wonder about that.”

  There was a racket across from them and then Matthew and Joseph tumbled out of the barn, Joseph pushing as fast as he could and then jumping on the back of the wheelchair as if it were a bicycle. Matthew’s laughter carried across to them.

  “I should go and see if he needs anything.”

  “Does it look like he needs anything?”

  She laughed then. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I want to show you something.”

  He led her down the path to the other end of the garden.

  “Why have you never married?” Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened. “That was rude of me. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s nothing my family doesn’t ask me every chance they get.”

  “They worry about you.”

  “I suppose. Emily and Micah, they think because they’re happy that everyone should be married with a houseful of kinder.”

  “And you don’t want that?”

  “I don’t know. It would take a special person to be able to put up with me.”

  “Because of your scars?”

  “Partly.”

  “But they’re only...scars.”

  Jacob glanced at her and then away. “I don’t really see them anymore. Sometimes I forget and look in the mirror and I’m surprised. Or a child sees me, say an Englischer in town or a new family in our community, and they point or ask questions...”

  “Curious, I suppose.”

  “Yes, but it reminds me that my face is frightening to some people.”

  “Surely it’s not as bad as all that.”

  Jacob didn’t argue the point. She couldn’t know what it was like to live his life, to see the looks of revulsion on people’s faces.

  “This is what I wanted to show you.” He led her under an arbor with a thick vine covering it. A path wound through clumps of butterfly weeds with bright orange flowers sitting atop three-foot stems. Back among the taller blooms on a piece of board taken from an old barn, someone had painted the names of his parents and placed it into the ground like a street sign.

  “It’s how we remember them.”

  “You have a garden at your house too.”

  “Ya. Not as well tended as Emily’s, but we both make an effort to spend time in them. It’s our way of being sure my parents’ memory stays with the children.”

  “It’s nice here. I like it.”

  “Mamm loved her garden. She sometimes needed time away from two rambunctious boys. Dat would tell us to clean up the dishes, and he’d head out to the garden with a cup of hot tea for her. I’d find them there sometimes, holding hands, their heads together like two youngies.”

  “That’s a special memory, Jacob.”

  “It is.”

  “Thank you for sharing it with me—for showing me this.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m glad you and Matthew were able to come today.”

  And then he did something he wouldn’t have believed that he had the courage to do. He stepped forward, touched Hannah’s face until she looked up at him and softly kissed her lips.

  She froze, like a deer caught in a buggy’s headlights.

  Blushing a bright red, she stepped away, stared at the ground, looked back at him and finally said, “I really should see if he needs me.”

  Jacob nodded as if he understood, but as she was hurrying back over to the picnic tables, it seemed to him that she wasn’t actually running toward Matthew. It was more as if she was running away from him, and could he really blame her? What had possessed him to think that she would enjoy a stroll through the garde
n with him?

  What had prompted him to kiss her? Perhaps that had been a mistake. It wasn’t something he could take back, though, so he straightened his suspenders and headed over to where the boys were playing horseshoes.

  * * *

  Hannah didn’t breathe freely until she was sitting among the women, listening to them discuss the best fall recipes. She wasn’t thinking about pumpkin-spice bread or butternut squash casserole, though. She was thinking about her son holding a kitten, about the fact that he had a new friend, about the garden and about Jacob.

  She was thinking about that kiss.

  When he’d spoken about his scars, she’d had an urge to reach out and touch them, to assure him that they all had scars.

  She’d wanted to tell him that she had scars too.

  Her heart probably looked worse than his face...it was only that people couldn’t see those scars. She kept them hidden. She smiled and pretended everything was fine.

  She pretended through the meal as she made sure that Matthew ate.

  She pretended as she watched Matthew go off again, this time with Emily’s entire clan of boys.

  She pretended while the women circled up and spoke of the upcoming school auction.

  “I’m growing old and forgetful,” her mother said. “I meant to clean out my casserole dish before the leftover potatoes become as hard as concrete.”

  “I’ll get it, Mamm.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean for you to do that.”

  “It’s not a problem.” She was actually relieved to be away from the group of women, though she’d run toward them before the meal. Still, an hour spent in their presence and her cheeks hurt from trying to smile. She was happy for an excuse to spend a few minutes alone.

  She retrieved the dish from the table, took it into Emily’s kitchen and rinsed it out.

  As she scrubbed away at the residual cheese, her thoughts returned to Jacob—to doubts and questions and scars and hurts.

  She was thinking of that, of how some hurts showed physically while others remained concealed when she stepped outside and practically collided with Elizabeth Byler.

  “Hannah. Could you help me with this?”

  Hannah made a practice of avoiding Elizabeth, who she remembered from her youth. Elizabeth was a negative person with a nasty habit of gossiping, but the woman was holding a large tray filled with used coffee mugs.