by Linda Byler
Lizzie tried to laugh softly, to float lightly over the top of his unaccustomed deep emotion. But her tears were still too close to the surface, and her laugh, when it did emerge, was more like a sob, followed by more dreaded tears.
“It’s all right,” was all she could manage before she walked across the kitchen to the box of tissues.
Stephen sank into a kitchen chair, then looked at her across the lamplight. “No, it isn’t all right. I was being mean to you.”
Lizzie wiped her eyes, and this time her low laugh was genuine. “No, Stephen, I was the one being mean. I should have tried to picture the house the way you did. It really is not so significant, either, whether we live in a house made of white or brown bricks.”
“Why did we have that senseless disagreement?” Stephen asked.
“Because we’re us. You and I are so much alike.” Lizzie shook her head, feeling very wise at that moment.
Stephen leaned forward.
“Lizzie, you pick the color for the bricks,” he said. “I don’t mind either way. Honestly, I don’t. I don’t know why I acted so sure of myself in the first place.”
Lizzie watched his face, his eyes soft with emotion, and thought that if he ever did seem like a king, it was at this moment. She loved him with her whole heart and knew without a trace of doubt that white bricks were going to look absolutely fantastic. Oh, she wanted to be a sweet, submissive wife when he was so unbelievably kind and good.
“So,” he finished, “it’s up to you.”
Clasping her hands in her lap, taking a deep breath of pure happiness, she said, “I think white bricks would look very nice.”
Stephen laughed. “You don’t.”
“Yes, I do. Stephen, when you are so kind, it’s easy to want what you want. Don’t you think that’s very important after we get married? We just have to remember to consider each other’s feelings instead of saying outright anything we want.”
After a while, Lizzie asked him how he even got up the stairs without waking Mam and Dat.
“You have the creakiest stairs in Cameron County,” he grinned. “It took me a long time to get to the top step, believe me.”
She laughed. “I’m sure Mam and Dat never heard you.”
How different she felt as she hung up her housecoat and climbed into bed. Her prayers were now of thanksgiving and praise. It felt as if God beamed down on the old farmhouse, straight through the ceiling to her heart and soul. How light her heart felt!
Finally, she understood this submission thing, this giving and taking, and it seemed very possible that she would be able to be happy and submissive at the same time. Oh, they would have their flare-ups, their disagreements and sad times, same as all couples who were married, but wasn’t it just something? Wasn’t it just unbelievable?
She bounced onto her back, patting the covers into place. Imagine! He said he couldn’t unhitch his horse until he drove all the way back, he felt so bad because he was mean. He wasn’t really being mean, just … well … And here she was, thoroughly miserable, unable to sleep because they had parted coldly, without wishing each other well. She felt as if she had been rescued out of a pit of quicksand full of despair, her feet planted now on firm ground while birds and butterflies twittered and darted around her.
A house made of white bricks, filled with love and understanding, with peace and submission, was so much better than one with brown bricks, filled only with her own determination and her lack of love. Maybe she would be as old as the hills before she understood everything or learned to be submissive in all things, but this much she understood. It was easy as pie to submit to a kind, loving husband.
The following morning she hid her smile when Mam said she declared there were some strange creaks in the night. Dat told her when the nights became cool, the aluminum siding on the new part of the house expanded and contracted, causing creaking sounds.
“No,” Mam said wisely. “It was the stairs.”
When Dat left to go to work, Mam’s eyes bored into Lizzie’s, and she said, “All right. Out with it. What was going on?”
Lizzie burst into happy laughter, telling Mam everything. Mam’s eyes became soft and watery, and her nose turned red as it always did when she became emotional. “Ach my, Lizzie, I would say you’re off on the right foot.” It was like a large pat on the back, hearing Mam say that.
Chapter 8
LIZZIE UNHOOKED THE BUGGY window from the ceiling and lowered it into place with a decided click. Rubbing her hands across her sweater sleeves, she shivered and said, “Brrr.”
Stephen smiled at her.
“I wondered how long you’d keep that window open. This is real hunting-season weather.”
Lizzie slapped his arm playfully. “That’s all you ever think about.”
“Oh, no. Not this fall. I’m thinking about you, then the house, then hunting. See? Hunting is way down on the bottom of the list.”
“Don’t you ever think about getting married? About the wedding?” Lizzie asked, smiling happily.
Stephen’s face became quite sober, and he watched the horse’s ears intently. “Yeah, I do.”
“You don’t sound very thrilled about it.”
“Oh, I am, Lizzie. You know I am. It’s just that I’ll be glad when the actual wedding day is over. I don’t like crowds of people all packed together in one house, even if it’s our wedding. I mean, I don’t want to make it sound as if I don’t want to marry you. I just wish there wouldn’t have to be quite so many people there.”
Lizzie patted his arm reassuringly. “I know, Stephen. I know very well how you dislike crowds of people. I’m just the opposite, aren’t I?”
Stephen nodded quietly.
“I’ll just love all the attention, the relatives, the gifts, the food! Actually, I can hardly wait for our wedding day.”
The horse picked up speed without being urged when it spotted another buggy on the road ahead of them. Horses did that, Lizzie thought. They could be clopping along, a bit bored, and suddenly, their ears would prick up when they spied another team ahead of them. Instantly, their ears turned forward, and they surged ahead, no longer content to amble along by themselves. Stephen pulled back slightly as his horse lunged into his collar, racing toward the other team.
They were on their way to Ben King’s house to a supper for the youth. It was one of the farthest places they had to travel in their district. Stephen had let his horse walk up a few of the steepest hills to save his strength for the miles ahead. At the rate the horse was traveling now, it certainly looked as if he had conserved more than enough energy.
The gap between the two teams narrowed until Lizzie could see someone waving and a face in the mirror peering back at her. “Rebecca,” Lizzie laughed. “The only person who waves like that!”
Stephen grinned.
Rebecca was Stephen’s sister, as well as Lizzie’s closest friend now that Mandy and Emma were both married. She had a great sense of humor with an endearing manner that made her easy to talk to and so much fun to be with, Lizzie thought.
Rebecca had been dating Reuben after they had gone on a camping trip together with Lizzie, Stephen, and other friends. Now they were making their own plans for their wedding. Lizzie’s Uncle Marvin and Sara Ruth, as well as her friends, Amos and Sally, were also planning their weddings in November or December. This would be one of the last youth gatherings that Stephen and Lizzie would attend since most of the group was getting married.
They reached a steep hill that wound through a wooded ridge, so both horses slowed to a walk. Lizzie gasped as Rebecca hopped lightly out of Reuben’s buggy while it was still moving and stood in the middle of the road, grinning at Lizzie.
Lizzie slid back the door of Stephen’s buggy.
“What are you doing, jumping out of the buggy like that?” she asked.
“I’m tired of sitting. Jump down. Let’s walk the rest of the way.”
Glancing questioningly at Stephen, who was busy keeping his horse from balking on the hil
l, she hopped out of the buggy, almost stumbling before she stood beside Rebecca.
“Hi!”
“Hi!”
They both burst out laughing for no reason at all.
“Rebecca, you know what? We shouldn’t be quite so silly anymore. We’re both getting married soon. Can you imagine? We’ll be old married ladies, sitting at our quilts, sighing about our arthritis way too soon!” Lizzie laughed.
“Just because we’re getting married doesn’t mean we can’t laugh,” Rebecca cried.
Lizzie caught her breath, grabbing her side. “Don’t walk so fast. I have side stitches.”
“What are they?”
“Not so fast!”
Quite suddenly, Rebecca headed straight for the leafy bank and sat down so fast that little puffs of dust rolled from under her skirt and leaves whirled away with the dust. “Okay then, we’ll sit.”
Lizzie plopped down beside Rebecca, gasping. “I don’t know how you can walk up a hill that fast and keep talking at the same time,” Lizzie said wryly.
“That’s because I’m skinny,” Rebecca announced.
“Do you think I’m fat, Rebecca? Seriously, tell me honestly, am I too fat to be getting married? Would you go on a diet if you were me? Huh? Tell me.”
“Well … let me see. Hmmm.” Rebecca leaned back, eyeing Lizzie carefully. “Yes, you’re fat.”
Lizzie pinched her hard on her upper arm. “Stop it.”
“Well, you are.”
“What?”
“Fat.”
“I’m not! Do you think so, for real?”
“Yes, you’re fat.”
They both doubled over with laughter before Rebecca wiped her eyes and said, “You’re not skinny. You’re a bit heavy, but Stephen likes you like that, so I would never, not even once, worry about it.”
“Did he ever tell you he likes me a … a … bit heavy?”
“No, but I know he does. He likes you.”
“I would hope so. We’re getting married, Rebecca.”
“We are, too.”
“Do you want to?”
“What?”
“Get married?”
“Why do you ask such a silly question? Of course.”
Lizzie smiled, but the smile kind of slid downward into a soft sigh, like an ice cream cone that was melting in the hot sun.
“Don’t you ever wonder if you’re doing the right thing? I mean, what if … after a couple gets married they suddenly decide they really don’t like each other all that well, and they’re Amish and can’t get a divorce and are miserably unhappy all the rest of their lives.”
“O … o-oh, Lizzie. You think of the dumbest things.”
“Do you know of one couple, just one Amish couple that that happened to?” Lizzie asked, peering anxiously into Rebecca’s face.
Their conversation was brought to an abrupt end by the appearance of two teams coming up over the hill. The first one was Marvin and Sara Ruth, followed by Amos and Sally.
“Jump out!” Rebecca shouted, gesturing to the approaching women to join them. Both women leaped nimbly out of their buggies as Marvin and Amos waved and said hello before moving on up the hill to follow Stephen and Reuben.
Sara Ruth and Sally were both small and blond. They were each only a bit over five feet tall, weighing slightly more than a hundred pounds. Lizzie always envied their slim figures, looking so little and girlish, so light-haired and dainty. But she guessed not everyone could be so perfect.
After saying hello, Sara Ruth felt the sleeve of Rebecca’s dress. “Is it new?” she asked.
“Yes, I made a few new dresses for the weddings this fall. We’ll all be going in with the ‘young married ones,’ so we have to look nice and neat and a bit plainer, you know. Comb our hair flat.”
They all laughed at Rebecca, but each one knew what she meant. The “young marrieds” were the couples who were engaged. They got special treatment at each wedding. They were seated first among the youth, which was always an honor. Even if you weren’t married yet, only engaged, you were still seated first. These girls combed their hair more demurely, like the married women, and looked very mature and ladylike, Lizzie always thought.
She tried to savor every moment here on the leaf-strewn, wooded hillside, chattering as only young women can. This was almost their last time together at the youth’s supper, and it all took on a surreal quality as Lizzie listened to Sally and Rebecca, smiling to herself as she tore a brittle leaf into many pieces.
It was a bit sad to think that there would be no more weekends of running around with her friends. Not really sad, just nostalgic maybe, kind of wishing you could go back and be 16 all over again. Would there ever be another time in her life quite as exciting as going to Allen County with Emma that very first weekend just after Lizzie turned 16? Probably from here on until she died, nothing would even come close to it. She would just grow old and fat—fatter, according to Rebecca—and have a whole houseful of children with runny noses and bottles dripping milk all over the floor. In a brown house with white bricks, instead of a brown house with brown bricks.
Suddenly she wanted to never, ever get married. Like a dark cloud hiding the sunlight, all of her happy anticipation disappeared. She pulled up her knees, stretching the blue fabric of her dress tightly around them, resting her chin on her folded legs.
Rebecca stopped talking and looked at Lizzie. “You’re being very quiet.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Grouch!”
Lizzie smiled.
The other girls chattered on, Sara Ruth giving them a vivid account of sewing her own wedding dress. They talked about how nervous they were about their actual weddings when they would stand facing the minister in front of hundreds of pairs of eyes.
“Mary Ann is lucky!” Lizzie said finally.
“Why?” Sally asked.
“Because she’s been married for almost a year, living in her cozy new home in Lamton, and all this nerve-racking stuff is behind her.”
“You think getting married is nerve-racking?”
“Well, kind of. In a way.”
The truth was that while Lizzie looked forward to all of the food and attention on her wedding day, she also got very nervous whenever she thought about it. Would Stephen know how to do everything right? She remembered Joshua and Emma, and also John and Mandy, practicing the day before their wedding, each turning the proper way so that the groom never turned his back to his bride. Things like that. She knew Stephen was completely ill at ease in a crowd, so the whole wedding day was something that gave her a severe case of butterflies in her stomach.
“Oh, it won’t be so bad when the time comes,” Rebecca comforted her.
“Come on, let’s go. It’s almost time to eat,” Sara Ruth said.
So they walked the remainder of the way up the wooded hillside, the four of them in their bright dresses making a colorful scene against the backdrop of green leaves. As they neared Ben and Lydia King’s home, they all remarked over Lydia’s perfect flower beds and garden.
“She even has cabbage and lettuce that looks absolutely healthy!” Rebecca said excitedly.
“What’s so thrilling about that?” Lizzie wanted to know.
“Oh, a lot. We’re moving onto a produce farm, you know, so I’ll be busy helping Reuben with all kinds of vegetables and things. Imagine! We’ll have about a hundred times the amount of this garden.”
Lizzie looked at Rebecca closely. Sure enough, the enthusiasm shining from her pretty blue eyes was genuine. Unbelievably, she did look forward to all that work.
Lizzie shook her head incredulously. “Rebecca, I can’t believe you. How can you look forward to toiling in a huge garden every day?”
Rebecca stopped and stared at Lizzie. Then she spread her hands wide and laughed. “See, Lizzie, you just don’t get it. Not everyone is alike. Look at Mandy, way down the 842 on her dairy farm. Is she happy? Huh? Is she?”
Lizzie burst out laughing. “Stop it,
smarty.”
“Well, just because you don’t like cows and get depressed thinking about growing produce doesn’t mean Mandy and I do, too. We’re just not all alike.”
All the girls burst out laughing. It was just Rebecca’s way, turning an ordinary sentence into a statement.
Lizzie slipped her arm through Rebecca’s and squeezed her hand. “All right, I understand. Stop acting like Mandy.”
Rebecca grinned at her, and Lizzie’s heart swelled with love for her true friend, because that’s what she was. Stephen’s sister or not, she would always be a special friend, one whom she hoped to remain friends with all the days of their lives.
That evening on the way home from the hymn-singing, Lizzie felt so much love and gratitude for having Stephen in her life. He was not a dairyman or a produce farmer, and he was building a new house for her, albeit with the white bricks he had chosen. She sighed happily, thinking how perfect he was for her.
“Tired?” Stephen asked.
“No, just happy. Stephen, I’m so glad you’re not a dairy farmer or a produce farmer, I mean, a person who grows vegetables on one huge acre after another. I don’t think I would marry you if you were. Can you imagine Reuben and Rebecca?” she asked.
“Sure, I can imagine Rebecca. She loves to garden.”
Lizzie slipped her arm into his and said softly, “But, oh, Stephen, I’m so glad you’re a carpenter.”
They rode together in silence for a short time before he asked her if that was the only reason she had agreed to marry him.
“Of course not, Stephen. There are many other reasons. But you know as well as I do that I could never look forward to slaving in a produce field or milking cows. I would give up to it if I had to, but I probably wouldn’t be very happy, at least sometimes.”
Stephen laughed wryly. “Likely not. Giving in is not one of your strong points.”
“Ouch!” Lizzie said, smiling.
“That’s all right. I will probably like a wife with a little spunk.”
Lizzie smiled to herself. Stephen was so right for her. She wondered what had taken her so long to see it. Life was amazing, or rather, God was amazing, the way he worked things out. Even if you resisted his will at first, he just did what was best for you until you were ready.