After listening to a couple more of Mamma’s labored breaths, Rose left the bedroom doorway to brew a pot of strong tea and slather a couple slices of bread with butter and jelly. She returned to Mamma’s bedside with her breakfast tray, and turned the armchair slightly so Mamma’s eyes wouldn’t be fixed upon her while she ate.
Rose poured a cup of tea, muttering wearily when some of it sloshed onto her tray because her hands were shaking. As she took a bite of the buttered bread, a sob escaped her. She drank some tea and sank back into the chair, wondering how long it would be before her mother passed. Already the waiting weighed heavily upon her.
After she’d finished the slices of bread, Rose set aside her tray and turned to check on Mamma. Her mother’s face was still frozen in a slack, emotionless expression as her eyes continued to gaze at nothing.
Or do you see God? Rose pondered. Do you see Dat and Nathan, awaiting you in Heaven? Do you realize how much I already miss you, even though you’re not yet gone?
Rose turned again, unnerved by Mamma’s unblinking eyes and the sound of her lungs filling with fluid. She desperately needed something to keep her busy. She was tempted to look for the box her mother had mentioned, but she didn’t feel strong enough to deal with whatever—or whomever—Mamma had mumbled about last night before she slipped into this coma.
Rose fetched her yarn bag and began crocheting colorful granny squares for an afghan she’d started when Mamma had become bedfast. The repetitive motion, paired with familiar crochet stitches that required no real thought, lulled Rose into a meditative state. It was mindless activity, exactly what she craved after dealing with so many difficult situations these past few days.
When Rose realized she hadn’t been paying attention to Mamma’s breathing, she turned in her chair. She waited a long time until her mother took another gurgling breath. The clock on the dresser—which Dat had given Mamma as an engagement gift—chimed noon. The morning had somehow slipped by. Rose felt so tired she might have cleaned out all the closets instead of merely crocheting a stack of multicolored squares. She wondered what Gracie was doing. And she was painfully aware that her mother hadn’t inhaled for several seconds.
Mamma did breathe again, shallowly. Rose waited, watching for the slight rise and fall of her mother’s shoulders—listening for the sound that had tugged at her heartstrings all morning.
Mamma’s next breath didn’t come.
“Ohhh,” Rose murmured as she stuffed her yarn and crochet hook back into her bag. “Oh, Mamma. It’s over and done with now, isn’t it?”
Rose gently closed her mother’s eyes, and sat down in the chair again. She knew there were dozens of things she must do, yet she could only stare into space with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Rose didn’t know how much time had passed before she was able to go to the kitchen to start a list of things she needed to do. She called the bishop again, asking him to contact the undertaker before he and Jerusalem brought Gracie home.
Then Rose waited and prayed.
Chapter 3
Rose realized it might be a while before Vernon and Jerusalem would bring Gracie home, so she went to Mamma’s dresser and opened the bottom drawer. There, beneath darned black stockings, old shoestrings knotted together, and other odds and ends her mother couldn’t bear to throw away, Rose found a box—the kind that inexpensive stationery came in. She carried it out to the front room, away from Mamma’s presence. When she lifted the box’s lid, she saw some letters tied together with a piece of faded blue ribbon.
With shaking fingers, Rose untied the ribbon. The top envelope simply said To Rose in the loopy penmanship of a schoolgirl who hadn’t quite mastered cursive writing. Rose gingerly removed the letter. The lined paper was from a tablet like Mamma kept in the kitchen for her store lists. The ink was splotchy here and there, probably from a cheap ballpoint pen.
Rose realized she was focusing on these minute details to brace herself for whatever she might learn when she read the words. As she skimmed the first few lines, her chest got so tight she couldn’t breathe.
My Dearest Rose,
If you’re reading this, it means your mother Lydia has passed on and I am so sorry for your loss. When I gave you to her, you were but two days old, and half of my heart and half of my name—Roseanne—will remain with you when I leave. Please understand that I’m only sixteen, in love but unmarried, and your new parents will give you the stable home I can’t provide. Myron and Lydia Fry are dear people who have allowed me to live with them so I can nurse you until you’re weaned.
A strangled sound escaped Rose as she rose from the sofa. She forced herself to suck in some air as her thoughts spun in accelerating spirals. She’d had no idea that she wasn’t her parents’ biological child. How many times while she was growing up had folks remarked that she was built like her mother and that she had Dat’s tan complexion?
Rose paced, overwhelmed by so many unexpected emotions. Anger. Denial. Shock. Betrayal. If Lydia and Myron Fry weren’t her birth parents, that meant everyone in their extended families knew about this; yet they’d never once hinted about the real circumstances of her birth. Had her entire life been a lie?
It was my parents’ place to tell me about this. That’s why no one else spoke up.
Rose took a deep, shuddery breath as other uncomfortable thoughts occurred to her. Her birth mother hadn’t been married. As the Old Order saw it, Rose had been conceived and born in sin—
“Do not look for her, daughter. I—I promised her you wouldn’t.”
“Who, Mamma? Who are you talking about?”
Rose felt so bewildered—so hurt—she wanted to storm into the back bedroom and shout loudly enough to waken Mamma from death. She wanted to demand the whole story from the woman who had kept a vital truth from her all her life.
But then, so had Dat if he’d wanted to let sleeping dogs lie. And what a lie it was—they could have explained this sometime while they were alive, but no! They’ve left me to struggle with this discovery alone.
Rose stared out the window, stunned, grasping for clarity as she gazed at the bright pink-purple blooms of the redbud trees. What about the girl who’d written that letter—Roseanne? How could she give away the baby she’d nurtured inside herself for nine months? Rose couldn’t imagine handing newborn Gracie over to anyone—
If Roseanne had really loved me, wouldn’t she have found a way to keep me? And if Mamma—Lydia—had really loved me, couldn’t she have told me about this sooner? How am I supposed to handle this news of my birth and Mamma’s death all at once?
Feeling desperately alone and overwhelmed, Rose dropped back onto the couch. She’d opened the box—this can of worms—so there was no closing it now. There was nothing to do but read on, hoping the rest of Roseanne’s letters would answer some of the questions that were whirling frantically in her head. Rose reread the first paragraph and then kept doggedly on, determined to make sense of what this letter was telling her.
I am so in love with your father, Rose! Joel Lapp is a handsome young man with beautiful green eyes, auburn hair, golden skin, and the passion of an artist. He loves me, too, and he begged me to jump the fence with him—he intends to take art classes so he can improve his natural talent and become a professional painter. But of course even though we’re both in our rumspringa that sort of vocation is forbidden in the Old Order settlement of Clearwater, where we both grew up.
Rose swallowed hard. Had she gotten her green eyes, red hair, and skin that tanned easily from Joel Lapp? If so, why had people said she took after Lydia and Myron—and why had her parents let her believe them? She’d been a trusting little girl, delighted when others had said she resembled her mother, because she and Mamma had always been so close....
Weren’t daughters supposed to believe what their parents told them? Of all the people in God’s wide world, parents were the people children trusted most.
Rose sniffled loudly and decided to keep reading. Lamenting the truth
her parents hadn’t told her wasn’t helpful.
Being an obedient daughter, I reluctantly stayed home when Joel left our neighborhood and our faith. I was naïve, however, trusting in Joel’s love—and unaware of the facts of life. When I discovered I was carrying his child—you, Rose—I was at once terrified yet grateful that I had a precious part of Joel growing inside me. My parents didn’t see it that way, of course. They sent me away to Aunt Nettie’s in New Haven, telling the neighbors I was helping an aging maidel aunt.
Rose stopped reading. If Roseanne and Joel had grown up in Clearwater—just up the road from Cedar Creek—and she’d gone into seclusion at her aunt’s in New Haven, Roseanne hadn’t traveled far from her disapproving parents or the neighbors’ curious questions. But maybe Roseanne’s parents had made up a different aunt in a different town so no one would discover what had really happened to Roseanne. Maybe parents were more inclined to alter the truth than Rose had ever imagined.
Poor Lydia Fry has been bravely fighting her breast cancer after undergoing a double mastectomy. She’d been to a checkup at the New Haven hospital when Aunt Nettie saw her sitting on a curbside bench in front of the grocery store, crying. The two of them struck up a conversation and Aunt Nettie brought Lydia home—arranged for your adoption not an hour after Lydia first laid eyes on you, Rose. Lydia immediately took on a brighter disposition and couldn’t thank us enough for answering her fondest prayer, when she’d believed she would never hold a child.
Rose sighed. She’d never thought of herself as the answer to Mamma’s prayer. Her heart softened a little.
As a child, Rose hadn’t questioned her mother’s flat chest, which was somewhat disguised by her loose cape dresses and aprons. Mamma had always seemed absolutely perfect to her back then. When Rose had gotten old enough to develop breasts, Mamma explained about the cancer that had robbed her of so many feminine features most women took for granted. The subject was never belabored—not until last fall, when the doctor had confirmed that Mamma’s cancer had returned to attack other parts of her body.
When this diagnosis had forced them to think about the cancer again, Rose was surprised that Mamma had considered such a radical procedure as mastectomy years ago, because Old Order Amish believed that a person’s health—or illness—was a result of God’s will. Rose had been even more surprised to hear that Dat had agreed to the surgery because it offered the only real chance that Mamma would live—and that Mamma’s parents, the Borntregers, had paid for the expensive procedures, medications, and postsurgical treatments. They had been relatively well-off, and none of their other children had lived to see their first birthdays, so they’d spared no expense to keep Mamma alive. They had passed on within days of each other a few years ago, so at least their Lydia had survived them.
Rose pulled herself out of her musings to continue reading.
I can’t tell you what a blessing it has been to stay with Lydia and Myron so I could nurse you—so Lydia and I could share the first incredible eight months of your life, dear daughter. You have no idea what a gift from God you are to both of us. It will sadden me greatly to leave you behind—I’ll have a huge hole where my heart has been—but I know you’ll have a secure, happy life with two generous, compassionate parents who already love you as though you are their own. From now on, my name will be Anne, for I will have left my Rose behind.
Rose let out a sob. Her birth mother’s loopy handwriting resembled a young girl’s, but there was no doubt about it: Roseanne’s message packed an eloquent, emotional punch. It would require a lot of fortitude to read Anne’s other letters, if they were anything like this one.
I have to go now, but I will write again, dear Rose. Never doubt that I will think of you every single day of my life, hoping you are well and happy—hoping you know how much I will always love you.
Your mother,
Anne
Feeling wrung out, yet too intrigued to stop reading, Rose slipped the first letter back into its envelope and opened the next one. Surely her dat had been unaware of the letters his guest of eight months had left behind, or he would’ve disposed of them—and it surprised her that Mamma had secretly kept them, too.
When Rose unfolded the single page, she forgot everything else. This page was a full-sized piece of white paper, and the head-and-shoulders watercolor of a young brown-haired Amish girl made her gape. The facial features were so much like her own—and when Rose looked on the back of the page, she found a brief message:
This is a portrait of me that Joel did before he went off to art school. I thought you’d like to have it.
With shaking fingers, Rose held the picture closer to the lamp to study it. Such a happy light shone in her birth mother’s green eyes, and freckles danced across her pale, slender nose. Joel Lapp’s talent was evident in every line and brushstroke. He had rendered Roseanne with tendrils of brown hair escaping her white kapp, looking so lifelike that she appeared ready to speak. Roseanne gazed at it for several moments, discovering herself in this likeness of her birth mother—in the cheekbones, nose, a facial shape that resembled her own.
Rose realized she would have to hide these letters carefully so her daughter wouldn’t discover them. She’d been hard-pressed to explain the changes in Mammi’s body and the loss of her hair to five-year-old Gracie, so delving into this bewildering issue of birth mothers and adoption was something Rose hoped to avoid for a while. She and Gracie had enough other trials and tribulations to muddle through.
Aware that her little daughter might arrive at any time with the Gingeriches, Rose reached for the last envelope in the box. It had been postmarked twenty years ago in Clearwater, addressed to Mamma, and the letter was written on another lined sheet of tablet paper. The handwriting appeared tighter and more mature.
Dearest Rose,
I have met a fine man and am delighted that he’s courting me! Saul Hartzler is a pillar of his church, a deacon. He’s giving me a chance at a new life and a new family, so I hope you’ll understand why this will be my last letter to you, dear daughter. By the time you’re reading this, you’ll be old enough to understand why I must ask you—must insist—that you not seek me out or try to find me. Saul’s a wonderful fellow, but he has no idea that I have borne another man’s child. “Jah, he’d be shocked,” Rose muttered. “I know the feeling.”
While I stayed at your parents’ home, Lydia and I became close friends who would do anything for each other—so I know she has honored my request not to tell you about me until she passed away. The way I see it, your mother gave both you and me a chance at a normal life without the shame our faith would’ve heaped upon us because I had you out of wedlock. Please don’t think too harshly of me for giving you up—or of your dear mother for not telling you about this while she was alive. We were both doing the best we could at the time.
Live in love and peace, as I hope to do. You’ll be in my prayers every day, Rose, and I will love you forever.
Your mother,
Anne
Rose stuffed the letters and the painted portrait back into the stationery box and hurried upstairs to her room. As she stashed the box on the closet shelf above her dresses, where Gracie wouldn’t find it, her thoughts spiraled tightly, angrily. Her birth mother had had no idea about the impact this news would have on Rose, no matter how honorable her intentions had been when she wrote those letters—and when she swore Mamma to secrecy about the adoption.
“Don’t think too harshly of you, indeed,” Rose muttered. She felt like a teakettle on a high flame, ready to boil over and whistle shrilly with its buildup of steam—
“. . . or of your dear mother for not telling you about this while she was alive. We were both doing the best we could at the time.”
Rose blinked. Her breath caught and then she began to cry again. How could she be so angry with Roseanne—her real mother—and yet succumb to her plea for compassion? How had Roseanne known exactly what to say in her letters, to make Rose react so vehemently one moment
and then burst into tears the next? Mamma had fallen so ill these last couple of weeks—had battled her cancer with everything she’d had—so how could Rose even think of staying mad at her?
“I’m such a mess,” Rose murmured as she gazed around the room she’d had when she was growing up. Everything looked the same as when she’d lived here at home—the same quilt covered the twin bed, the same furniture sat in the same places, the same sun-streaked curtains hung at the window. In the haven of this modest room, Rose had matured over the years and had discovered the young woman she was meant to become—yet, in truth, she’d had no idea who she really was.
Would she now reexamine every relationship, every family event, looking for hints that others had wanted to take her aside and tell her the truth? Had anyone ever considered how vulnerable and shocked poor Rose would feel if she found out she wasn’t Lydia and Myron Fry’s daughter—especially after they could no longer answer to her?
When news of Lydia Fry’s death got around, would anyone try to tell Rose about the circumstances of her birth? Most of the families she knew had lived in Cedar Creek for generations, so they surely had to know she was adopted.
Pull yourself together, Rose thought when she saw Bishop Vernon’s buggy pulling into the lane. You can only deal with one hard truth at a time—and you’ll need all your strength to explain to Gracie why that hearse coming in behind the buggy will be taking her mammi’s body—
A Mother's Love Page 2