Summer Promise

by Marianne Ellis

  As she had throughout their childhood, Sarah thrust a leg backward to catch the screen door so that it wouldn’t slam behind her. “I keep telling you that I can help.” She moved to stand beside Miriam as she was laying the table for supper and placed a hand on her arm. “Are you feeling all right? I met Daniel walking across the fields. He said you came home early because you weren’t feeling well.”

  “I wasn’t,” Miriam said. “But I’m much better now.” She set the last knife down on the table, adjusting it so that it was perfectly straight. Then she turned to face her sister.

  “I know you and Daniel walked home together,” she said quietly. “I saw you from the window upstairs.”

  Sarah’s brow furrowed. “What?”

  “I saw you, Sarah,” Miriam said again. “Just like I saw you that summer, before you left, before Daniel and I were married. And I want you to know . . .” Her voice wavered, and Miriam broke off. She took a deep, steadying breath, and then went on, “I want you to know that I understand and it’s all right.”

  The furrow between Sarah’s brows became an out-and-out frown. “Understand what, Miriam? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that you and Daniel are in love.”

  Sarah’s face turned the color of ashes. Her hand slipped from Miriam’s arm. “What?” she whispered. “What did you just say?”

  “I know that Daniel loves you best, Sarah,” Miriam answered as steadily as she could. “And—” She felt her heart breaking, but she forced herself to finish. “And that he only married me because he couldn’t have you.”

  There was something about the expression in Sarah’s eyes that Miriam couldn’t read. Miriam had thought that Sarah would be relieved to know that Miriam knew the truth and that she didn’t blame Sarah or Daniel—that she didn’t mind. Instead, Sarah looked as if Miriam had stabbed her through the heart.

  “I—I’ve known it since the day you told Daed and me that you were going away,” Miriam faltered on. “I just . . . hid from it, I guess. But I don’t want to hide anymore.”

  “But everything you know is wrong!” Sarah said. “How can you think such a thing, Miriam? How can you have lived with Daniel all this time and not know?”

  “Not know what?”

  “That he loves you!” Sarah cried. “He’s loved you ever since the day he tumbled over and almost squashed you flat when you were, what—two years old!”

  “Three,” Miriam answered faintly. “It’s Daniel who was two.”

  Sarah groped blindly for the chair behind her, then slowly sank down. “Oh, my stars. That’s how long you’ve loved him, isn’t it? Since that same day. Since you were three years old.”

  And then, to Miriam’s complete and utter astonishment, Sarah began to laugh.

  Miriam reached to take her sister by the shoulders, shaking her furiously. “Stop laughing at me. Stop it right now!”

  “I’m not laughing at you,” Sarah said. “Really. It’s just all so . . . crazy.” She stood up, pushing Miriam’s hands away from her shoulders. “I mean it, Miriam. You stop now. Stop listening to whatever stories you’ve been telling yourself and listen to me.

  “Daniel loves you. He has always loved you.”

  “You can’t know that. How can you know that?” Miriam whispered.

  “Well, how do you think?” Sarah demanded. “Because he told me so. In fact, he has been telling me so, quite relentlessly, since he was thirteen.”

  “But I saw you!” Miriam cried. “I saw you and Daniel together, this afternoon . . . just like six years ago. I saw the way the two of you embraced, Sarah. Don’t try and tell me you don’t care for each other.”

  “I’m not trying to tell you that,” Sarah said, in a steady, even tone. “We do care, very much. But that’s not the same as saying we’re in love. We’re not. We never have been, Miriam. I don’t know why you would ever think we were.”

  “Because it’s what everyone else thought!” Miriam said. “Do you hear me? Everyone! It was all I heard, after every Sunday worship service, at every quilt frolic when I left the room and people thought I couldn’t hear what they said while I was gone. What a lovely couple Daniel and Sarah make. How alike they are.”

  “Which only goes to show that people are idiots,” Sarah answered with a snort. “Daniel and I are no more alike than—” She made a face as she searched for the proper combination. “Oh, I don’t know!” she finally exclaimed. “Pineapples and bunny rabbits.”

  “That’s a ridiculous comparison,” Miriam protested.

  “I know that!” Sarah said. “I’m thinking that would be the point.”

  “Stop trying to sound like an Englischer,” Miriam snapped.

  “I am an Englischer!” Sarah came right back. “Or as good as, anyhow. And just because you’re Plain doesn’t mean you’re not trying to change the subject. Daniel and I were arguing when you saw us. Actually, both times.”

  Miriam shook her head. “You were arguing with Daniel? What could you two possibly have to argue about?”

  “I just told you,” Sarah said with exaggerated patience. “You. You are the only subject we’ve ever talked about. All his life, Daniel has been so in love with you, and so afraid that you didn’t love him back. He has never known how to tell you.

  “Long before I told Daed that I wanted to go away to school, Daniel decided that he wanted to marry you. But he didn’t know how to tell you, how to make you fall in love with him. He was sure you didn’t care for him at all.”

  “But how could that be?” Miriam asked, astounded. “I’d loved Daniel all my life.”

  Sarah gave her sister a long, exasperated look. “I don’t think either one of you is very good at saying the things that matter most. Or at least, not the things that are closest to your heart.”

  “Perhaps that’s true,” Miriam admitted. And there was something else that was true: She had been pulling away from Daniel then, convinced that he loved Sarah.

  “Anyway,” Sarah said, “Daniel was in a panic about how to court you. What should he say, how should he say it, when and where should he ask you? I tried to help him as best I could, but I had other concerns. I was trying to understand what I was meant to do with my own life, and once it was clear, I had to act on it before I lost my courage.

  “So I meant to wait with my announcement until after Daniel announced his intentions, but that day with Daed, it just came out of me. It was such a huge decision for me, I couldn’t keep it bottled up inside.”

  “I can understand that,” Miriam said. “But I still don’t understand why you and Daniel argued.”

  “Because he was furious with me,” Sarah told her. “I think he was counting on me to guide his every step until you were actually married, and instead I left.” She sighed. “I admit, I became impatient with Daniel. The day that we argued, I told him that if he wanted to marry you, then he had to learn to stand on his own two feet and make his feelings known.” Sarah winced. “I told him he had to be man enough to figure this out on his own or he wouldn’t be worthy of you.”

  Miriam was silent as she took all that in. Was it really possible that Daniel had turned to Sarah—as a kind of adviser—because he was terrified he might not be able to win Miriam on his own? It was possible, she supposed. Daniel had never been one to discuss his feelings or emotions. Still, she had to ask . . .

  “But what about when you hugged each other?”

  Sarah smiled. “After I scolded him, Daniel came to his senses. He admitted that I was right. Then he apologized and he asked if we could still be friends. I told him we were more than friends, that I’d always thought of him as a brother, and once you two married, we’d be family. That’s when we hugged.”

  “And today?” Miriam asked faintly.

  “Men are so dense sometimes!” Sarah exclaimed. “I met him walking along the road, and h
e said you had come home early because you didn’t feel well. When I asked what the matter was he said he didn’t know! He’d just let you come home, alone, while he stayed behind to talk to the men about the horse auction. Of course, he told me that you’d insisted you could go on your own, just the way you insist on never letting anyone help with the housework. It obviously never occurred to him that you might really be unwell—or unhappy. I was very blunt. I told him: “How can Miriam know how much you love her if you never put her first?” He was angry at me, but then he was grateful. So he hugged me—like the brother he has always been to me.”

  Now it was Miriam who sat down. She put her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands. “I don’t understand anything anymore,” she said. “This is not what I expected to hear from you.”

  “Now, that I believe,” Sarah said. She sat down, too. The two sisters sat in silence for several moments.

  “You really married Daniel believing he loved me more than he loved you?” Sarah finally spoke. “Miriam, how could you do such a thing? How could you live like that?”

  “Because of how much I loved him,” Miriam said into her hands. She lifted her head. “I know you were only joking, but what you said was true. I really have loved Daniel since I was three years old and he was two.”

  “And have you mentioned this to him?” Sarah asked.

  “Probably not,” Miriam said.

  “That’s not good enough, Miriam,” Sarah said. “Have you told Daniel that you love him, ja or no?”

  “No,” Miriam whispered as her eyes filled with tears. “Not right out. Not like that. I thought . . . I suppose I thought that I would show him somehow. Isn’t that the Plain way? You know, the way Daed showed us he loved us all those years. He never made flowery speeches.”

  “No,” Sarah agreed. “He did not. But he told us that he loved us every single day, when he tucked us into bed each night. Surely you can’t have forgotten that.”

  “No,” Miriam said, “I have not.”

  “So why would you never tell Daniel that you loved him?”

  “Because I knew that he never loved me,” Miriam cried. “He loved you!”

  “No,” Sarah said. She reached across the table to take Miriam’s hands in hers. “You have to believe me, Miriam. Daniel has spent his entire life loving you—you and only you. I was like a sister to him, the person who knew you better than anyone else. That’s why he talked to me. So he could find a way to spend his life with you. If I’d known what you thought—”

  “What am I going to do?” Miriam whispered. “Oh, Sarah, I’ve been so wrong.”

  “You don’t need me to tell you the answer to that,” Sarah said. “You know perfectly well yourself.”

  Miriam pulled in a deep breath, then let it out again. “I’m going to have to be brave again, aren’t I?”

  “You are brave,” Sarah said. “You’re the bravest person I know. And I’ll tell you a secret.” All of a sudden, she grinned. “Right before I came in, I think Daniel said something about heading to the barn to check on the horse.”

  “Check on the horse!” Miriam exclaimed as she got to her feet. “What’s he going to do that for? As if I don’t know how to care for a horse and buggy after all these years. Any good Plain woman knows that.”

  “Any good Plain wife,” Sarah corrected her, her eyes dancing. “Clearly, there are all sorts of things you need to remind Daniel of.”

  Miriam laughed, then clapped a hand across her mouth at the unexpected sound. “I laughed,” she said, her tone full of wonder. “When I came home this afternoon, the last thing I expected was that I would find something to laugh about.” She looked at her sister. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Sarah said. “Thank yourself.”

  “The—barn?” Miriam asked.

  “The barn.” Sarah nodded. “I’ll just finish setting the table, if I may.”

  “You may,” Miriam said.

  She turned toward the door. The few short steps it took from the table to the steps were the longest Miriam had ever taken. But finally, she was down the steps and into the yard. She could see Daniel, standing beside the pump, his back to the house, gazing in the direction of the fields Miriam saw from her kitchen window each morning.

  Is this what we’ve been doing all these years? she suddenly thought. Looking at the same thing, for the same thing, but never knowing the other was looking as well?

  As she got closer, she saw that Daniel’s hair was dripping wet. The front of his shirt and half the back were soaked, as if he’d simply thrust his head and shoulders beneath the spigot and worked the pump handle for all he was worth, never caring for an instant where the water would go. It was the first time in all their life together that such a thing had happened.

  Miriam caught her breath. Just for a moment, her footsteps faltered. But she squared her shoulders and continued on to Daniel’s side. He continued to stand, perfectly still.

  “How much did you hear of my talk with Sarah?” Miriam asked quietly.

  “Enough,” Daniel answered after a moment. “Enough to know what a fool I’ve been.”

  “No more foolish than I,” Miriam replied.

  Daniel gave a short, harsh bark of laughter. “I don’t know how you feel, but I think perhaps it takes more than that to make a good marriage.”

  “I will tell you how I feel, Daniel Brennemann,” Miriam began.

  At the sound of his full name, Daniel abruptly swung toward her. He reached for Miriam, seizing her tightly by the shoulders, cutting off her flow of words.

  “No,” he said fiercely. “I will speak first. I must.”

  Miriam stood perfectly still within Daniel’s grasp, looking straight up into his eyes. At this moment, his eyes were no longer the same shade as the sky. For the sky above their heads was beginning to darken, making its way toward night. Against it, Daniel’s eyes blazed out like piercing stars.

  Miriam reached up and laid a hand against her husband’s cheek, saw the way his eyes lit with surprise. Saw something she realized she had not seen there in a very long time, perhaps not even since the first days of their marriage. Hope.

  “Daniel Brennemann,” she said once more, “are we by any chance arguing about which of us gets to be the first to say I love you?”

  Daniel let go of Miriam’s shoulders so that he could place one hand atop her own. He turned his face to her hand and pressed a kiss into the very center of her palm. Miriam’s whole body flushed with the heat of that kiss. It seemed to her that she could feel it making a circuit of all her limbs, finally coming to rest in the place she knew she would carry it forever: her heart, now almost whole. She made a wordless sound.

  “I love you, Miriam,” Daniel said. “I love you so much. There are days when it seems to me that I have loved you all my life. That I cannot tell where you end and I begin, I have loved you for so long. Perhaps that is why—”

  “Hush,” Miriam said as she reached with her other hand to cover Daniel’s mouth. “I will not hear you reproach yourself. I have been selfish, Daniel. And I have been blind, so blind. I kept thinking you did not say you loved me because you could not. That I knew you well enough to know that you would never tell a lie. Not once did I stop to realize that I had never spoken the words myself. So, please, listen to me now.

  “I love you. I have always loved you. I will love you ’til the day I die.”

  “Miriam,” Daniel whispered. “Miriam.”

  He pulled her close and pressed his lips to hers. Miriam felt her heart rise up inside her chest, then slowly, gently come to rest, now whole. There was no part of it that harbored any fear or doubt. No part that was not filled with love. Love given and love received.

  The kiss ended and Daniel held Miriam tightly.

  “Daniel,” Miriam murmured.

  “No,” Daniel said softly. He l
ifted her face up to his and kissed her once more, letting his lips roam across her face. “Not yet. I am not ready to return to the everyday world quite yet.”

  “I will tell you a secret, if you will let me,” Miriam said.

  She felt Daniel’s laughter move through his body a second before it sounded. “Oh, you will, will you?” he asked. “And what is that?”

  “This is the everyday world,” Miriam said.

  Daniel moved so quickly Miriam never even guessed his intention, pulling her even closer, holding her so tight and fast that it seemed to Miriam that they now truly embodied the words that he had spoken. She could not tell where she ended and he began.

  “I love you. I love you,” Daniel said. “It is you, and only you, that I’ve loved all my life. I will never forget to tell you again.”

  “And neither will I,” Miriam said. “You’re going to get tired of it, I’ll say it so much. Only, Daniel . . .”

  “What?” Daniel said.

  “You’re all wet.”

  Daniel gave a great shout of astonished laughter. So loud and joyous Miriam was sure it could be heard all over the county. And she was certain it had been heard by the great and merciful God who had finally showed the two of them the path that they should walk, and that it was one they would walk together.

  “So I am,” Daniel said. “And I’m making you wet, also. Come, let’s go in. We can go upstairs and change.” His eyes gazed down into Miriam’s. “I don’t know about you,” he said softly, “but all of a sudden, I am very hungry.”

  At the heat in her husband’s tone, Miriam flushed. But she kept her gaze just as steady as his.

  “So am I.”

  “I could get used to this,” Daniel said, a laugh in his voice. “Suddenly we agree about everything.”

  Miriam gave him a shove. Daniel reached for her, sneaking a quick kiss. Together they turned in the direction of the house.

  “What is that?” Daniel asked suddenly. He lifted his head, literally scenting the air. “Do you smell that?”

  Miriam breathed in deeply. “I do,” she said. “It smells like fire.”