Ada nodded her agreement.
Kate could have heard a quilting needle hit the floor. Half the women stopped their work to look at Kate. The other half stared at Miriam. “I—I hope he is happy, that he is happy always,” Kate stammered softly. She glanced at Miriam, who returned her gaze with thinly veiled contempt.
All of a sudden, Miriam stood and tossed her thimble into the small box on top of the quilt. “Look how fast the time is moving. We’ve been working so hard that I have completely forgotten to get dinner,” she said, as if she hadn’t just silenced the room with her outburst.
“Nothing too hard,” Esther said, trying for a carefree lilt to her voice.
“Edna brought bread and cheese,” Miriam said. “I’ll cut some vegetables and we’ll be set.” She headed into the kitchen.
With more courage than she had ever before been able to muster, Kate stood. “I’ll help,” she said to no one in particular. Mary gaped at her, eyes full of alarm. Kate nodded reassuringly and marched into the kitchen.
Miriam, her back to Kate, peeled a cucumber with dizzying speed. When she heard Kate come in, she glanced over her shoulder. The peeling slowed considerably and then started up again, double time.
Kate came within an inch of turning around and slinking back into the living room, which was still eerily quiet. Instead, she squared her shoulders and steeled herself for what was to come. She had no idea what to say, but she knew Nathaniel would want her to try.
For his sake, she would try.
“If you have another peeler, I will do carrots,” Kate said.
“I don’t have another peeler. I’ve never needed another peeler.”
“Then shall I cut the cucumbers after you peel them?”
Miriam practically shoved the cucumber in Kate’s hand. “Jah, fine.”
Kate took the cucumber, retrieved a knife from the block, and started slicing. She stayed quiet long enough to formulate some kind of coherent sentence. What did Nathaniel’s mamm want to hear?
“I do not wish to hurt Nathaniel,” Kate said.
“It must be so nice to have a summertime boyfriend, glad as he can be to do anything and everything for you. My son might be taken in by your brilliant green eyes and pretty face, but I am not.”
Still hearing nothing from the adjoining room, Kate laid down the knife and put her hand lightly on Miriam’s shoulder. “Could we step outside for a moment?”
Miriam kept peeling. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Please, Miriam.”
After what seemed like an eternity, Miriam laid her cucumber and peeler on the cupboard and tromped out the door, not bothering to see if Kate followed her. She walked past the children running wild in the backyard and made her way to a cherry tree a few hundred feet from the house. With arms tightly folded, she turned, stood, and glared as Kate caught up to her.
Struggling to emulate Nathaniel’s humility, Kate tried to see his mamm with compassion. Miriam’s only child, the one whom her life orbited around, no longer looked on Miriam as the center of his life. She had been replaced by a girl who, by all appearances, treated Nathaniel’s affection lightly, like a worn article of clothing that could be easily tossed into the laundry bin.
Suddenly Kate’s heart ached for this woman who had lost her husband so young and knew she might lose her son as well.
“Your son is deeply good,” Kate said, not shying from Miriam’s icy reception. “He is more wonderful than I deserve, I know. But he loves me. What would you have me do?”
“I want you to stay away from him.”
Kate looked down at her feet and then lifted her head to study Miriam’s face. “If God means for us to be together, the fault will be on your head if you separate us. Are you willing to live with the consequences of such a decision?”
Miriam flashed an expression of stubborn refusal. “How could the Almighty want you to be with my son?”
“Are you able to judge such things?”
Scowling, Miriam turned her face away. “Even if you stay here, you will both be miserable.”
“Why do you say that?”
Instead of answering, Miriam pulled Kate to sit next to her on two overturned boxes that were waiting to be filled with cherries. Her demeanor softened somewhat as she studied Kate’s face.
“I have never shared this with anyone, so I will thank you to keep it quiet. But Nathaniel’s happiness is at stake, so I will risk it. To make you understand.” She laced her fingers together. “I know what you struggle with, the two choices that war against each other in your head.” She cleared her throat. “I see so much of myself in you. Too much.”
“How so?”
Miriam pursed her lips, and Kate could tell she chose her words carefully. “I suppose I was a strange child. Full of woe, my pappa would say. I used to stare out the window and think, just sit and think, and try to make sense of all the thoughts that jumbled in my head like a swarm of bees. I felt the strap more than once for daydreaming. At fourteen, I begged Pappa to let me go to the Englisch school. I got the strap over and over for my wickedness, for wanting to escape the place where the Almighty had placed me.”
Miriam turned her face from Kate. “I didn’t care how many times Pappa punished me. I asked him again and again to let me go to school. My whole body ached with the desire to be a doctor. But Pappa would not allow it. It is not our way.” Miriam exhaled forcefully. “Perhaps you think me deerich, a fanciful woman, but I know I could have done it. It is boastful to say, but I was the best student in the school. The smartest.”
Kate laid a hand on Miriam’s arm. Miriam pulled away.
“After I married, I fought hard against the resentment. It felt like my pappa had placed me in a box and nailed it shut. Hezekiah is a good man. He did not understand, but he could see I was suffocating. He gave me permission to learn from a local midwife. I didn’t go to school, so the bishop was lenient about it. Being a midwife was not my dream, but it was something.”
“Jah, that is something.”
“But it doesn’t matter. I was never happy with the lot the good Lord gave me. My resentment toward the church and my pappa, even Hezekiah, festered every day. I made my husband miserable.”
“And you think I will make Nathaniel miserable in the same way?”
Miriam nodded. “Can you really be content to abandon your education, your one chance to escape, and live the simple life? And if you do, will you resent Nathaniel for keeping you here? Doing his laundry, cooking his meals, tending his children? How long before your home becomes a prison?”
Kate stood and stared at the green pasture in the distance without really seeing it. “I didn’t know anyone else felt this way. I have been offered the biggest part in our opera this fall. I do not know if I can give that up.”
“Nathaniel stands in your way. If you stay here, you will despise him. And if you leave, you will break his heart beyond repair.” Kate turned to her, and Miriam lifted her chin in defiance. “I’m not going to let you do that.”
“But are our dreams wicked? Why did the Lord God give you a brain if He didn’t want you to use it? Why would He give me a voice only to bid me to keep silent?”
“You think I know the answer?” Miriam said.
“Why would He give me this love for Nathaniel if not to nurture it?”
Miriam had no reply.
“I am blessed with a father who understands, and I am not forced into anything. Nathaniel…” Kate’s voice caught in her throat. “Bless his goodness! He tries not to pressure me to make a decision. You must have felt like a captive.”
“Jah, and I despised my pappa for it.”
“But aren’t you doing the same thing when you try to force Nathaniel to want something he does not want?”
Miriam folded her arms and looked away.
Kate took a deep breath. “Every choice involves some kind of pain. Choosing one path means rejecting another along with everything down it. You cannot ever know for certain you woul
d have been happier as a doctor. I do not pretend to have as much experience as you, but I believe you must stop looking back.” She touched Miriam lightly on the shoulder. “That was Lot’s wife’s mistake.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I have paid dearly for my wickedness. God took my first four babies.” She paused briefly then pressed on. “After Nathaniel, the doctor said I would never have another child. Then the Lord struck down my husband as punishment for my stiffneckedness. I bear the guilt for all of our misfortunes.”
Stunned, Kate said, “Can you really believe the Lord God is so vindictive? That He waits for you to think a wicked thought or do a wicked deed so He can strike you down with His anger? I cannot trust in such a God. He wants us to be happy. I know He does.” She risked a hand on Miriam’s arm. “I am glad you never became a doctor. I wouldn’t have known your son,” she said. “And maybe you do not dislike me as much as you hoped you would?”
“How could I dislike you? I have been in your shoes. I do not envy your decision. I envy your freedom to choose.”
They stood regarding each other until Miriam looked toward the house and broke the silence. “Do you think everybody has given up on dinner and gone home?”
“No, they are waiting to see if we enter the house arm in arm or nose to nose.”
Miriam softened her expression. “Let’s keep them guessing. You enter through the front, and I will come in the back door. That will give them something to talk about at the next quilting party.”
“Jah, they always need something to talk about,” Kate said as, with a heavy heart, she made her way to the front door and Miriam went through the back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was after sunset when Kate removed the last of the quart bottles fromthe pressure cooker and carefully placed them on the wooden table covered with old newspapers. Kate, along with Anna, Mary, and Mamma, had washed, sliced, and blanched tomatoes all morning and boiled, packed, and processed tomatoes all afternoon. Canning commenced at sunrise and ended when the last bottle was pulled from the hot water in the evening.
This morning, Dat had set up the three-burner propane stove in the backyard on the cement patio. Once the tomatoes were prepared in jars, Kate brought them outside and put them in the pressure cookers. When cookers were filled, Mamma, Mary, and Anna prepared more tomatoes while Kate heated the cookers to the precise temperature and tended them with a hot pad and a timer. Once the tomatoes were properly processed, Kate placed the bottles on the tables set up under the trees. Then Mamma would bring out new bottles to fill the empty cookers, and the process would start all over again.
Putting her hands on her hips, Kate looked at the two tables filled with bottles of beautiful red fruit. She heard an occasional pop when a bottle cooled and the jar sealed properly. A very satisfying sound.
The work had gone on all day, but the fruits of their labor proved bountiful. One hundred and forty-four quarts to divide among their three households for the winter—an amazing feat for any day of canning.
Mamma stuck her head around the back door. “Bring in the last cooker, leibe, and we will wash it. Is it cool enough?”
“Jah, I think so.”
“I’ll send the boys out to load some of the cooler bottles in Anna’s buggy. She needs to get along home.”
With both hands, Kate gripped the handle of the heavy pressure cooker and carried it to the edge of the grass, where she carefully poured the hot water onto the dirt. As she turned to take it back to the house, someone called her name. Through the semidarkness she saw Aaron coming towards her with long, purposeful strides.
“I need to talk to you now,” he said.
“Very well,” Kate said. “Let me take this pan into—”
“No, we must talk right now.”
Aaron’s abrupt tone did not inspire Kate to cheerfully cooperate, but he seemed determined. She placed the pressure cooker on the burner and folded her arms. Aaron grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the side of the house, the one with no windows.
“Stop this, Aaron. What are you doing?” Kate said.
“Since Dat won’t do anything about you, I must. You are in need of sore repentance, Katie. Do you understand what you are doing to our family? Ada says you were rude to Nathaniel’s mother.”
“Rude?” Kate said, annoyed but not surprised at Ada’s version of yesterday’s events. “It was not like that.”
“Ada says you yelled at Miriam outside for twenty minutes while ten women sat in her living room. What did you say to Nathaniel’s mamm?”
Aaron didn’t deserve an explanation. “You can believe what you want. I don’t have to justify myself to you.”
“You must justify yourself to God. But you don’t care about that, do you?”
“What do you know of my desires?”
She flinched as he put his hand on her shoulder and backed her firmly against the side of the house. “I know that you are pulling down this whole family with your abominable pride.”
“I am in my rumschpringe.”
“People talk. People recognize when a girl is on a bad path. More than once the bishop has told me how alarmed he is by your actions. He asked me to do what I can to redeem you.”
Kate tried to shrug his hand off her shoulder. “Do you really care about my redemption? Or are you more concerned with how all this looks to the people in this community? Be honest, Aaron. Your own vanity is wounded by my supposed bad behavior. You care too much how other people see you.”
Aaron tightened his grip on her shoulder. “Of course I care how the good people of this community see me. Us.”
“Because you want to be bishop someday.”
“Do not accuse me of thoughts that are not mine. A man must not act proudly, or no one will believe he is truly humble. If a man’s neighbors see him choosing worldly ways, they will judge him to be worldly. It matters very much what people think.”
Kate couldn’t disguise her disdain. “Then you should be satisfied with yourself. No one could think you anything but pious and upright. Your father-in-law is the bishop. You are related to the most important man in the district, and that relationship gives you some power, doesn’t it? You train your keen eye on everyone and delight in calling transgressors to repentance.”
Aaron scowled. “I never tire in the fight against wickedness. It is everyone’s duty to keep the community pure.”
“You often inform the bishop about the sins of the Weaver family. That probably keeps you busy enough for five such men.”
She had never seen such rage in his eyes. Aaron grabbed Kate’s chin in his large hand. “Dat puts up with your impudence. I will not.”
Kate cried out involuntarily.
“I refuse to let you shame this family,” he said.
“Let go of me,” she said as pain shot through her jaw. Aaron had strong hands, farmer’s hands.
Elmer came tearing around the corner of the house. “Get away from her,” he said with such harshness that no one hearing would have guessed Aaron to be his elder brother.
To Kate’s great relief, Aaron released his grip and stepped back. Elmer came close and put his arm around Kate. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and massaged her jaw while Elmer turned on Aaron.
“You’ve got no call to come over here and upset Kate. Go home, Aaron.”
“No little brother tells me what to do. Kate has gone astray. This is for her own good.”
“When you stop being embarrassed and start loving Kate as your sister, then I’ll believe you.”
Aaron looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he were struggling against the sense of Elmer’s words. But whatever inner turmoil he experienced didn’t last long. “It vexes me to see what she’s doing to all of us.”
“You don’t care about Kate half as much as you care about being minister someday,” Elmer said, folding his arms and looking as smug as if he’d just revealed the world’s greatest secret. “Wouldn’t you be pleased as punch if you co
uld sermonize to your heart’s content.”
“Don’t you dare accuse me of pride. You know nothing, Elmer, nothing. You’re unbaptized and foolish.”
“I know enough to warn you,” Elmer said. “In this community, those who seek the ministry are usually the last to be chosen. If you really want the job, you shouldn’t be so obvious about it.”
Aaron had endured enough. He turned his back on both of them and stormed off to his house without another word.
Elmer watched him go and then pulled Kate into a bear hug. Her composure dissolved into tears and she wept onto Elmer’s shoulder, whose shirt smelled of cheese. Aaron hadn’t been particularly nice, but she had no excuse for responding so crossly. “Blessed are the meek.” She obviously needed more practice. But, ach, his words had stung.
“That brother of mine,” Elmer said, “tempts me to be angry sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?”
“Yes, the times I actually see him.”
They both chuckled.
“Jah,” Kate said. “Those are the times I am tempted too.”
Elmer lifted her chin with his finger. “Ach, your face is as red as a tomato. He squeezed hard, I think.” Elmer squared his shoulders and frowned in the direction of Aaron’s house. “Nathaniel is going to hear about this.”
“No,” Kate said. “He doesn’t need any more strife where I am concerned. Promise me you won’t say anything.”
Elmer scowled then let out an exasperated groan and softened his expression. “I will be silent,” he said. He pinched his lips between two fingers and marched away. “Unless compelled to speak,” he added hastily before disappearing around the corner.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nathaniel sat in the Yoders’ living room paying scant attention to the minister. He wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced over at the other side of the room, where several women fanned themselves with their hankies or scraps of paper. Yoders’ was the smallest home they met in for gmay, so the worshippers felt nicely cramped and toasty warm by the time services ended.
He should have been paying heed to the sermon about nonresistance, his greatest shortcoming, but all his thoughts and desires focused on the beautiful girl sitting across the room. She gazed serenely at the minister as he preached on and embellished his remarks with quotes from the Sermon on the Mount. Would Nathaniel ever tire of studying her face? Not likely.
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