by Leslie Gould
After dumping my plate in the garbage and putting my empty bottle in the recycling, I slipped out the side door of the fellowship hall. I dialed Stephen’s number and turned west toward the setting sun. He was home, just hanging out. I explained what I’d done all day.
“Are you headed back tonight?”
“No,” I answered. “Tomorrow. Probably in the evening.”
“There’s that big of a need?”
“Yes,” I answered. “The damage is really bad. Besides the loss of homes and outbuildings, we had people coming in with minor injuries and stress-related complaints all day.”
“But all pretty insignificant complaints?”
“Well, not to them,” I answered. Nor to me either.
“All right,” he said. “Text me tomorrow and let me know what time you think you’ll be back.”
I assured him I would.
When I returned to the fellowship hall, both Nick and Aenti Suz were gone. I found her in the kitchen washing pots and pans, and I stepped in to help.
“It’s so nice to see Nick,” she said. “What a coincidence that he’s here.”
I nodded.
“He seems to be doing well.”
I nodded again. He did, and I was happy about that. But my heart hurt. Even though I was pleased to be helping people, I would have never chosen to be around Nick, especially not in this sort of setting. It brought out the best in him, and it was hard to be reminded of the relationship we had.
After we finished the dishes, Aenti Suz and I stepped back into the fellowship hall. Nick was back, deep in conversation with a middle-aged Englisch man wearing overalls and a baseball hat. Nick was listening and nodding his head from time to time.
Another stab of pain sliced my heart.
“Want to go for a walk?” Aenti Suz asked, following my gaze. “Before we settle down for the night?”
“I would,” I answered. “If you feel up to it.”
“I do. I feel both weary and wired at the same time. I think a walk will do me good.”
I knew exactly how she felt. “You can tell me the rest of Dawdi Joe’s story.”
She shook her head. “There’s not much left to tell.”
“What do you mean? I don’t even know which Martha was my grandmother—the nurse or the young widow.”
“Oh goodness,” Aenti Suz said. “I did leave you in the lurch, didn’t I?”
“And there’s more after that. I want to hear about you and Dat as children and your growing-up years. And your relationship with Jake. I want to hear everything you’re willing to tell me.”
Aenti Suz sighed and opened the door, and we stepped out into the warm evening. I turned on the flashlight app on my phone and led the way down a side street.
After a long moment, Aenti Suz said, “I can tell you what I remember. I’m not sure if it’s what you want to hear or not.”
I couldn’t imagine there was anything I wouldn’t want to hear. “Please, just tell me the rest of the story, as it happened.” I shone the light on the sidewalk ahead of us and matched my stride to my aunt’s as I said, “Faith had just greeted Joe on the porch, exclaiming that God had answered their prayers to bring him home, and telling him that their Dat was close to the end.”
19
Joe
As Faith led Joe through the living room, his cane thumping against the wood floor, she asked what had happened to his leg.
“You didn’t get my letters?”
She shook her head. “We haven’t had a letter from you since November.”
Then they didn’t know about Martha.
Faith stopped at the doorway to the bedroom off the kitchen, where they’d cared for their Mamm when she was ill, and motioned for Joe to enter. The shades were drawn and the light was dim. Dat was in the single bed, curled up like a child.
Joe limped to the straight-back chair beside it. He leaned his cane against the wall, sat, and then touched his father’s shoulder. “Dat,” he said. “I’m home.”
His father stirred.
Faith stepped to the side of the bed. “Joe’s here. All the way from Europe.” His sister seemed to have changed. She was the kindest she’d ever been to him.
Dat turned his head, blinked his eyes open for a moment, and extended his hand. Joe took it. It was bony and the skin was paper-thin. Tears welled in Joe’s eyes. So much had changed in the last year.
Dat whispered, “Joe,” and squeezed his hand, but then he fell back to sleep.
Faith slipped out of the room while Joe continued to sit with their father. She returned a half hour later with Hope.
“Come out to the kitchen,” Faith said to Joe. “You need some food. And we all need to talk.”
After he’d washed up, Faith served him a bowl of pea soup with bits of ham in it and a biscuit. Nothing had ever tasted as good, not even his Mamm’s cooking.
His sisters sat down across from him at the oak table, cups of tea in their hands.
“Where’s Charity?” he asked as he ate.
Hope glanced at Faith.
Faith shook her head a little. “That girl. She ran off with Abe Yoder.”
Joe nearly choked but managed to swallow and said, “But Abe was courting you.”
“So I thought,” Faith said.
“That’s what Charity wrote to me.” Joe didn’t mention that Charity seemed to think Faith was unkind to Abe.
“Believe me,” she said. “I was as surprised as anyone.” She took a sip of tea.
Hope reached over and patted Faith’s shoulder. Faith gave her a kind smile and then met Joe’s gaze. “I don’t hold it against Charity. Or Abe. I’ve done some soul-searching, and the Lord has been teaching me things I needed to learn about myself.” She shrugged. “Hard things, but necessary.”
Joe held his empty spoon above his bowl, not sure how to respond. When his oldest sister didn’t say anything more, he asked, “When did they marry?”
“December,” Hope answered. So Joe hadn’t been the first child in the family to marry after all.
“They’re living south of Quarryville, on his uncle’s farm,” Faith added, “even though we need their help here.”
“We can’t keep up with everything,” Hope said.
Joe agreed. “I noticed the corn hasn’t been planted.”
“We’re going to try to do that this coming week,” Faith said, sighing.
“Jah.” The sooner the better. “I won’t be much help for a while, not for another month or so. I’ve been told not to put all of my weight on my leg until then or it may never heal.”
Hope asked what happened, and he gave them the short version of the story. Then he took a deep breath and said, “I wrote to all of you, but it sounds as if my letters never arrived.” He paused a moment and then added, “I wrote about something else too. Something even more important.”
Hope leaned toward him. “What?”
“I’m married.”
Faith nearly spit out her tea. “You can’t be.”
“I am. I married a woman by the name of Martha Shaw. She’s an army nurse.”
Hope leaned back. “Where is she?”
“On the front line.” He put down his spoon, suddenly exhausted.
“When did you marry?”
“January 29.” He wouldn’t add he’d only seen her once since their wedding and hadn’t had a letter since. But then again, there seemed to be lots of problems with the mail, going both ways.
“That’s not like you, Joe, to be so impulsive,” Faith said. “That’s more like Charity.”
He wanted to laugh. She certainly thought he was impulsive when he was younger. “I wasn’t impulsive, not this time,” he said. “I worked with her in Chicago and knew her well. Then I had the entire crossing of the Atlantic to pray and think about it. Then, when the opportunity came in France, I couldn’t take a chance and lose her. You’ll understand when you meet her.”
“But will she be willing to move here? To be a farmwife when she�
�s used to a city?”
“She grew up Mennonite, with her grandparents,” Joe explained. “And lived with her Amish aunt and uncle during the summer.”
“So you’ll live here on the farm, then?” Faith crossed her arms.
“We haven’t talked all of that through.” He couldn’t imagine Martha would want to be a farmer’s wife. It pained him, but he’d make the choice all over to marry her, a thousand times, even if it meant giving up the land. “We’ll talk as soon as she comes home.”
Faith leaned back in her chair. “And when will that be?”
Joe shook his head. “If I only knew.” Once the war ended in Europe, he knew medical units would be needed in the Pacific.
He stood, leaning on his cane, and reached for his bowl and plate, but Hope grabbed them first. “You go sleep,” she said. “Can you make it up the stairs?”
“Jah,” he said. “I can.”
First he checked in on his father again, whose breathing was still labored. Then he slipped his bag over his shoulder and started the climb to his childhood room.
The next week, Elmer Mast stopped by the farm. Joe was in the field with Hope, helping plant the corn. His leg hurt as he stumbled along the furrows, doing his best not to put his weight on it. Elmer yelled from the road, and Joe made his way over to him.
After they chatted for a moment, Elmer said, “It looks like you could use some help.”
“We could,” Joe answered. “There just isn’t much around.” With so many of the young Amish men off serving with the CPS and the older men struggling to get their own work done, Joe didn’t have anyone to turn to.
“I’ll be back tomorrow with a few extra hands,” Elmer said. “We’ll get it planted in no time.”
True to his word, he showed up the next day with four other men, all in their late fifties or early sixties. The three men worked hard. At dinnertime, Elmer’s wife and his daughter Martha arrived with food to feed everyone. Martha wore a cape dress and Kapp. It seemed she’d made her decision. Faith welcomed them into the house and added their food to what she’d prepared.
Joe sat with Dat while the others ate, and then he took his turn at the table. Martha asked if he’d heard from his wife.
Joe shook his head and didn’t say anything more. He’d read about the battles in Germany in the newspaper, and he feared for his Martha’s safety. Or that she was having second thoughts. He longed for a letter from her. And he longed for her to be on the farm with him, willing to join the church, dressed as this Martha was. But he wouldn’t expect it from her.
At the end of the day, the corn was planted. Joe thanked Elmer and the other men, grateful for what they’d done for him. He’d felt the same sense of camaraderie with them as he had working in the hospital in Chicago and driving ambulances in Europe. He’d felt it many times among the Amish—he’d just been surprised to find it among the Englisch too.
He’d also felt that camaraderie his entire life with his father and continued to as Joe sat beside his bed late into each night. Joe knew he wasn’t loved any more than his sisters, but his Dat had been happy to have a son who loved farming.
Joe told his Dat about his work in Chicago and about falling in love with Martha and learning to drive along Lake Shore Drive. He told him about his passage to England and then the trip across the Channel. He told him about his time in Belgium and Luxembourg and France. And then about marrying Martha. “You would really like her, Dat. She’s kind, gentle, and honest. She might not be who you and Mamm would have chosen for me, but I’m convinced she’s who God selected.”
Some days Dat would take a few spoonfuls of broth and sips of water. Other days he wouldn’t. Every once in a while, Dat would seem as if he were listening to Joe, but most of the time he seemed far away. Nevertheless, Joe kept talking. He shared memories of his childhood, of learning to drive the team of mules when he was eight and bucking bales of hay by the time he was ten. He remembered taking turns at the ice-cream maker crank with his sisters and catching lightning bugs every summer.
He thanked his Dat for caring for him and teaching him through the years. “You and Mamm were faithful,” he said. “You showed us how to live. I’m grateful for those lessons.”
Joe sat for a moment, thinking of the names his parents had given their children. He thought of the twists and turns in life. Dat, as a young man, figuring he’d never have children, that he’d never have a son to pass the farm down to. And then, late in life, he did have a boy.
Joe shivered at the thought of what twists and turns life might still have for him. He’d have to trust as his Dat had done. He’d need to be faithful, to live by hope, and to show charity. That was his prayer for himself.
Two weeks after Joe arrived home, Dat died. Faith, Hope, and Joe all stood around his bed as his heart beat its last. He’d left the farm to Joe, as everyone expected, with the stipulation that he provide a home for his unmarried sisters.
Charity and Abe came home for the service. At first Charity seemed wary of Joe’s reaction to her, but he patted her shoulder and told her all was well. “In fact,” he said, “we need your help. Abe’s too. Won’t you come back to the farm?”
“Faith would never have it,” Charity said.
Joe smiled. “No, it’s what she wants too.”
Charity’s eyebrows shot up.
“She’s forgiven you—and she said she learned some things about herself.”
“Like how critical she is of others? Including Abe?” Charity’s chin quivered.
Joe shrugged. “You should talk with her.”
He never knew if Charity and Faith talked or not, but a week later, on the first of May, Charity and Abe came home. Then, on May 9, a Wednesday, Elmer arrived at the farm again around midmorning as Joe and Abe repaired the pasture fence.
Elmer yelled from the driveway, “Have you heard?”
Joe shook his head. “What’s going on?”
“It’s over. The Germans surrendered.”
Joe’s knees grew weak, and he leaned heavily on his cane. Was it true? Could the war really be over?
Elmer assured him again and again that it was. Then, seeing that his words were not enough, he took a newspaper out of his buggy. The headline read War in Europe Ends! Finally, Joe believed him. Warmth radiated through his entire body.
That night he wrote another letter to Martha. I hope you’ll be coming home soon and not going to the Pacific. Every day I pray for you. And for a letter from you. I pray you are well and not regretting your decision to marry me. I love you more each day and long for you. I’ll never understand God sending me home before you, but I’m trying to trust His ways, which I know are not my own.
Every day, as soon as the mailman arrived, Joe checked the mailbox. In the middle of May, all of his letters from November to February to his father and sisters arrived. Then, a week later, a letter from Martha arrived.
Dear Joe,
It took Wallace a month to get your letter to me, but he did. I’d feared you no longer cared about me, but it all makes sense now. I’m praying your leg will heal completely and soon. I’m glad you’ll be going home. I thank God for that. I pray we’ll be together soon.
Your loving wife, Martha
Relieved, he held the letter to his chest. She still loved him. God willing, they’d be together soon.
By late May, Joe was getting around better and able to do more of the farming. Working with Abe wasn’t the same as farming with Dat, but he was grateful for his help. His sisters all seemed to be getting along, and it only seemed right to have Charity and Abe back on the farm. A couple of times, Elmer Mast, usually with his daughter Martha, stopped by to see how Joe was doing. He appreciated their concern, but he wasn’t sure Martha had made the right decision to come back to the Amish. Although she was always friendly and polite, she didn’t look happy. Then again, it was probably her grief for her husband that made her sad.
One day, Elmer stopped by alone. Joe asked about his wife and daughter. Elmer,
his eyes heavy, said that Martha had returned to Philadelphia. “She said that living Amish wasn’t the right thing for her. She has friends in the city who will help her. We’re praying she’ll be all right.”
Joe assured him she would be. Soon, he would be living Englisch too, or at least Mennonite. He hoped he and Martha would find the help they needed in their new community.
By early June, the corn was coming up in the field, the pasture was flourishing, and Joe had most of the fence repaired. He no longer used his cane in the house and was getting around better outside too. The weather had turned hot, and the pasture was lush with grass for the horses and the handful of cattle. If Joe were to stay, he’d look into starting a dairy herd, but of course there was no reason for him to plan for that now. It would be Abe’s decision, most likely.
Joe felt strong and capable again. Being home with his sisters had brought healing. Their strength had seen him through a difficult transition. Now all he needed was Martha and the chance to get on with their lives.
That evening, Faith asked if she could talk with him. As they sat out on the porch, she said, “I need to ask your forgiveness.”
He clasped his hand around the knee of his good leg but didn’t respond.
“I was too harsh with you when you were a boy—right up until the time you left. I was too harsh with Charity and Hope too, but not as bad as I was with you. I didn’t realize it until after Abe ran off with Charity.” She went on to say that the man couldn’t take her negativity—and she couldn’t blame him. She believed she was teaching everyone, challenging them to be better with her criticism. She paused for a moment and inhaled sharply. “But I was tearing all of you down. It was one of the last things Dat spoke with me about. He told me I needed to stop trying to control others and instead trust God with them.” She smiled a little at the memory. “You know how much I hate to be told I’m wrong, but I listened to him. And he was right. I’m doing my best to change my ways. Will you forgive me?”
Joe looked sideways at his sister. What if he didn’t have Faith in his life? What if he didn’t have Hope or Charity either? He wouldn’t have had anything to come home to except a dying father. “Of course I forgive you.” He reached over and patted her shoulder as she wiped away the tears rolling down her face.