The Englisch Daughter

by Cindy Woodsmall

  The round-robin conversation went on uninterrupted as she returned to the house and washed and wrung out another load of bedding. She hauled another heavy basket to the clothesline and plunked it onto the ground.

  The familiar sound of a rig coming down the road and onto the driveway told her that Roy had probably arrived. Soon he was at the clothesline. “Hallo.” He grabbed a few clothespins out of the sack on the line and held one out. “I have a way to get what I think is a good food truck, but I need you to go with me to see it.”

  She took the clothespin. “Does Jemima know about this—whatever it is you’re talking about?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then I’m out.”

  His brows furrowed. “Abigail, I appreciate that you’ve remained steadfastly quiet this long, not making me fight to win back your trust while I’m focused on Jemima. I know my months of silence while dealing with Tiffany hurt you too, especially as I relied so heavily on you without being up front about why I needed your help.”

  “Ya, explain that one, Roy.” She flapped a twin sheet in the air and slung it over a line. It was a good thing this clothesline was long, with six rows of line.

  He put two clothespins on the sheet. “I don’t need to.” He shook out a towel and hung it.

  “Excuse me?” She pushed the basket down the line with her foot.

  “You know why I didn’t say anything, Abigail.”

  He was right. She did know. If he’d said anything to her, she would’ve had to choose between keeping his secret and telling Jemima. “Did you have feelings for Tiffany?” She picked up another twin sheet.

  He hesitated. “You won’t like the answer. I stay in turmoil over it.”

  “Roy, no.” She studied him, waiting.

  “I had a lot of feelings for her, and I resisted every single one or I’d be held accountable to God and be in jail for hitting her. Is that honest enough for you?”

  He was wrong. She liked that answer, although she probably shouldn’t. She dropped the sheet into the basket and hugged him. “I’m sorry.” She was sorry he’d had to carry everything alone, without the aid of his beloved wife or best-friend sister or supportive Daed or stalwart bishop-uncle.

  He embraced her. “Me too, Abigail. So very sorry I hurt you.” He backed away and held her shoulders firmly. “When the truth came out about Heidi, you deserved for me to make time to talk to you and apologize before now.”

  “Ya, maybe, but I get it.”

  “Gut, and now I need your help again.”

  She freed her shoulders of his grip. “I can’t hide anything from Jemima. It will undo her if anyone else she trusts withholds something. It’s a sensitive topic—for like the next decade.”

  His eyes closed, and he nodded, as if realizing on a deeper level the battle in front of him. “But what I’m asking is totally different from that kind of secret. Just hear me out.”

  Roy pulled a folded newspaper out of his pants pocket. “I’ve found a food truck that may be very close to what you and Jemima have been hoping for.” He tapped the red circle on the newspaper.

  She took the paper from him and read the description. “Ya, it looks good.”

  “I thought so too. I want to pay you for all the work you’ve done over the years, and the payment is Lucky and Thunder.”

  “Your prized stallions?”

  “They’re yours now. Sell them and buy a food truck.”

  She knew whom to sell the horses to. Their vet would buy them in a heartbeat. He’d said so on a few occasions.

  Abigail read the description of the food truck again. It looked promising. “Why are you giving the stallions to me to sell rather than selling them yourself?” She tightened the sweater around her. “I don’t understand this plan.”

  “Because I don’t want the truck to be from me, as if I’m giving it to Jemima. You and she earned the money, so let’s get your money back and you be the one to present it to her. But the truck is for sale today, so let’s go see if it’s right for you and Jemima, and if it is we’ll go from there.”

  “I can have them sold before the day is out. But selling your prized stallions?”

  “I should’ve had it in me to do this much sooner. The idea came to me almost four weeks ago, around the time Chris left the farm.”

  “But without Lucky and Thunder, your profits will take a hard hit over the long run.”

  “I know, but I don’t care. I want to do this.”

  His sacrifice, as well as his plan to keep himself out of the middle for Jemima’s sake, was one Abigail understood and respected. “It’s about time you paid me an unbelievably hefty price for all my work on that farm.”

  He grinned. “Thanks, LS.”

  She pulled her phone out of the hidden pocket in her apron. “I’ll call the seller to make arrangements to see the truck.” She smacked her brother in the stomach with the newspaper. “You’re not so bad, you know that?”

  Twenty-Seven

  A mixture of aromas wafted through the house. Dinner was in various stages of being done, with the entrée still in the oven. Jemima buttoned the nursing flap in the bodice of her dress, rose from the rocker, and set Simeon on the floor near Nevin inside the wide circle of gated play space. The fact that she’d had a gliding rocker in her kitchen for the last eight years pretty much said it all. It allowed her to pause from meal prep or cleaning up to nurse a babe. She pushed away sentiments of feeling like a milk cow and chose gratefulness instead.

  When her babes were hungry, she could cuddle with them and meet numerous needs—emotional, spiritual, and physical—in one sitting. Still, providing that for two little ones each day was taxing as well as heartwarming.

  She chose to be thankful. Deciding what to pick up and hold on to in one’s mind and emotions was a powerful thing and one she wasn’t super skilled at, which felt like proof that she was a little spoiled and lazy. Life had been good to her, and she was fairly used to allowing whatever emotions came her way. She had made some choices throughout life. Who hadn’t? But when it came to the really important things, she’d been passive, letting circumstances dictate what she would think and feel.

  “Mamm, guck.” Laura was at the kitchen table, her crutches resting beside her. She held up a picture she’d drawn and colored. Heidi was in her bouncer on the floor next to Carolyn as the five-year-old played with her dolls. Heidi kicked her little feet, making the bouncer do its thing. Heidi opened and shut her hands with excitement as Carolyn talked to her and pranced a doll lightly across her belly. It was hard to believe that Heidi would soon be three months old. Harder still to realize she’d been in this home for almost six weeks.

  The back door slowly opened, and Roy came inside. “Wow, it smells great in here,” he whispered.

  She knew why he was entering quietly. He wanted a few minutes to chat with her before the children realized he’d entered the house. She glanced at the back door, looking for Aaron.

  “I gave him a chore so we’d have a minute of just us.”

  She suppressed a smile. “Gut.”

  Each day that had passed since the church Sunday almost three weeks ago when she asked him to pray for her, she was a bit less angry.

  He was in a half cast now, no sling, no stiffness to his movements. Despite their nights often being interrupted with one or both babies, he looked better than he had since the accident he and Laura were in more than a year ago. Even though Jemima was nursing Heidi now, he was still sleeping in the spare room next to Heidi. He’d bring her to Jemima, and Jemima passed her back to him for everything else: burping, changing, and rocking. Some nights and early mornings when Simeon woke, Roy tiptoed into their bedroom and patted him back to sleep or took him in the other room, as if he understood that a little extra sleep for her went a long way during the day.

  Five children, two of them babies l
ess than seven months apart, was a handful, partly because of the hows and whys of Heidi’s existence. Even so, Jemima had grown to love her. She didn’t fool herself into thinking she could be at this place emotionally if Heidi had been the result of an affair. But she wasn’t, and Jemima was healing from all the lies.

  Roy closed the gap between them, and their eyes locked. Her heart jittered. He smiled in his gentle way that was only for her, and his eyes caressed her the way they had since before they married.

  She turned from his stare. “Ya, dinner is almost ready.” She opened the oven door to check the color of the pastry on the beef Wellington.

  His presence was welcome, although every ounce of the familiar comfort and encouragement that was her husband was sprinkled with resistance from deep inside her. They talked during the night sometimes while up tending to babies. It seemed easier to share insights in a quiet home lit by a candle or kerosene lamp. Apparently when great emotional wounds were prayed over, great insight entered, bringing a little healing with each one. But sometimes being vulnerable with him was impossible, and she had to excuse herself and leave the room or ask him to.

  He came closer, peering into the oven. “My favorite.”

  Part of her wanted to grin and nod, rather giddy to make him happy through the kindness of preparing his favorite meal. But instead she shrugged. “It’s been a while since we’ve had it.”

  That wasn’t at all the reason she’d made this. He was winning her heart back, which was as terrifying as it was encouraging. She’d made this meal especially for him, so why couldn’t she admit it? She had French green beans ready to sauté, oven-baked home fries cooked to perfection, and fresh rolls.

  “Geh.” She shooed him. “It’ll be ready in ten.”

  “I’d rather stay right here.” He folded his arms, standing mere inches from her. “You look like you’ve had a good day…emotionally.”

  “I hate when you read me.” She sighed, forcing herself to say the rest of her thought. “I love when you read me.”

  He brushed his fingers down her arm. “I know that feeling quite well, Jem.”

  She longed to lean in for a real hug, but she just wasn’t ready. He’d been with her during labor with Simeon, knowing that another woman was carrying his child. He’d looked her in the eyes as they fawned over their newborn, all the while knowing he would leave her side six months later to share a similar experience with Tiffany. What had the birth of Heidi been like? That question was like many others: she wanted to know, and she never wanted to know.

  But greater understanding had come to her daily since she’d asked him to pray for her three weeks ago. She now understood that if she wanted to refuse to walk in anger in order to walk in love, she had to learn how to be angry, work through it, make peace with God and herself over it, and then let it go.

  Much easier said than done. Anger was like cockleburs attaching themselves to people as they walked life’s path. She’d discovered unyielding anger with him over things that earlier in their marriage had been only minor aggravations or slights.

  Today she’d learned that Roy wasn’t the only one who needed her forgiveness. She needed it. That had been a deep revelation, and she’d spent hours thinking and praying about it.

  She brushed flour from her apron. “Tell me something you know today that you didn’t know yesterday.”

  A spark of joy lit up his eyes. “Now I know that whatever our greatest strength is”—he pulled her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers—“loyalty or kindness or protectiveness or whatever else, if we don’t keep it in check, it will do harm instead of good.” He kissed the back of her hand. “A giver can give too much. A protector will be overprotective, like I was, taking too much control.”

  “That’s gut, husband.” She slipped from his embrace, but his kisses sent fire through her veins. She turned on the burner under a cast-iron skillet, added a pat of butter, and waited for it to melt and simmer.

  One of her insights this week was that this planet was a magnet for chaos. Abigail called it entropy, meaning left on its own, everything on this planet was in gradual decline, leading to disorder. If every part of this home was repaired and cleaned and then they left it, with no one entering it again, it would soon be covered in a layer of dirt. Spiders would build webs. Rodents would find their way in to get out of the cold, and they would bring food with them and gnaw through cabinets or walls to make nests. Eventually the windows would crack and break due to cold and storms, and birds and flies would use that space to fly in and out. The bedlam would continue to expand unless someone put effort into reversing the natural progression.

  With the butter simmering, she tossed the already prepped French green beans and onions into the pan and stirred.

  Was every relationship like a home, and every home needed effort and work?

  Wasn’t it mankind’s place on this earth to keep pandemonium at bay? It took constant work to keep the house in order: meals, laundry, the finances, the business, and, most important of all, relationships.

  Evidently it also took work to understand one’s self and to prevent unwanted critters from entering through some craggy hole and roosting in the soul. It took work to keep the mind, the heart, and emotions clean and orderly.

  On one level, she’d known that for a while, but after all this turmoil with Roy, she understood it on a much deeper level now. Hopefully it wouldn’t always take the amount of work it had of late, but before she’d learned about Heidi, she’d been confused and lazy concerning the entropy inside herself and between her and Roy.

  “Did you realize something new today, Jem?”

  The muscles across her shoulders tightened as she forced herself to tell him. He’d bruised her, and being open didn’t come as easy as it used to. She missed telling him everything and feeling one hundred percent safe in who they were.

  She turned the burner off under the skillet. “I figured out that a portion of my anger hasn’t been with you or Tiffany or God.” She opened the oven and pulled out the beef Wellington. “It was with me, and I realized that if I didn’t forgive myself, I’d always be angry with you. The revelation struck me so hard I think I forgot to breathe for a full minute.”

  “Could you tell me why you would need forgiveness?”

  She had to forgive herself for being too naive and too trusting. She’d seen the red flags with Roy for months, and rather than pressing him for answers, she’d made it easy for him to avoid her. Not only had she needed to forgive herself, but she also needed to take responsibility. Months before Heidi was born, she’d felt powerless to keep her and Roy from drifting apart. Rather than fight with him about it or work her way free of the lie that she was powerless, she simply let the hurt and sense of helplessness take up residence within her.

  But that was too much to share, at least for now. “You had shut me out, and I let you. In light of all I know now, your actions make sense. Mine do not.”

  “Jem.” His singular word was as much a gasp as it was a whisper of relief. “I’m grateful for the understanding and appalled that you blame yourself.”

  “I’m not blaming me. I’m taking responsibility for my actions and inactions. Without realizing it, I was angry with myself for all I knew but didn’t act on. Angry for all I didn’t know but should have.” She shrugged. “Just angry for not being smarter, wiser, a better judge of what was going on inside my family and inside you.”

  She turned from the stove to grab a bowl, but her husband was right there, toe to toe with her.

  “I overprotected.” His matter-of-fact tone hardly hinted at what she knew to be true: he was taking full responsibility.

  She held his gaze and nodded. “I forgive you.”

  “Ya?”

  She nodded. “Boundaries are in place, and I don’t really know their exact location, but ya.”

  “That’s gut.” He
put his hand against the small of her back and leaned in, his lips almost touching hers, when the back door popped open.

  “Jemima”—Abigail held up a newspaper—“are you ready for good news?”

  Twenty-Eight

  Chris startled awake. Abigail. She felt as close as his next breath.

  The smell of coffee rode on the air. He sat upright, and the open Bible on his bed shifted. A soft glow of early morning took the edge off the darkness. The sun would peep over the horizon soon, and he had to help his Daed in his furniture shop. He slid into his clothes.

  Chris’s Daed didn’t need his help, but working together had been good for both of them. Staying with his parents had been good for all of them. Healing after all he’d put them through. It helped that Dan had come clean with their parents and his wife. The bishop knew the truth, and he’d set up parameters and discipline for Chris and Dan.

  If the bishop agreed to it, maybe in a month or two Chris could find his own place and start building toward his new dream. But the thing about making amends and building bridges with his ministers, community, and Amish family was that he couldn’t do anything without the bishop’s approval, not even visit Mike at the gym or a coffee shop.

  The bishop said Chris was proving his intentions. But for all intents and purposes, Chris had agreed to be grounded since he’d come home two weeks ago right after the fight. In many ways it was ridiculous to be twenty-eight and yielding to someone else like this. He could walk off. But this temporary curbing of all freedom was a small price to pay to be accepted by his people. It was a small price to pay for having spread his wings and soared for years—behind most of his people’s backs—determined to use his forbidden skill of fighting. Dan was going through a four-week shunning for withholding the truth from the church.

  But for all his years of living his way, Chris now knew who he was and who he wasn’t, and he’d do it all again to come to this deep place of understanding life and faith. It seemed a favorite old saying might be true: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”