by Gayle Roper
God, You are so good to me! I typed. Thank You, thank You!
I opened to Psalm 78 and read verses 5 through 7 as I hummed “From Generation to Generation” under my breath.
He decreed statutes for Jacob
and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our forefathers
to teach their children,
so the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.
Then they would put their trust in God
and would not forget his deeds
but would keep his commands.
I turned to my journal again.
I want to know the missing generations in our family. I want to meet them, to find out things I don’t know, to learn family stories that are missing from our heritage. And, Lord, I want to make certain the generations still living know about You.
When I finally came down for breakfast at eight o’clock, Mary insisted on cooking for me even though I knew the family had eaten hours ago. She left a huge pile of cut strawberries sitting on the counter, and in no time two eggs and toast made with her own whole-wheat bread sat before me.
“Are you making strawberry jam?” I asked when she returned from a trip to the basement with her arms full of small Mason jars.
“I am,” she said. “I love this job. When I’m done, I have this wonderful feeling that I’ve done something worthwhile. And next winter when John and Elam enjoy the jam on their potato rusk or oatmeal bread, I’ll feel pleased all over again.”
I thought about my ignorance of tasks such as making jam and decided that though I thought Mary was clever, conscientious, and to be admired, I had no desire to learn this particular art. I’d rather just eat Mary’s…or even Smucker’s.
Mary put her hand to her mouth, looking distressed. “I hope I didn’t sound proud just then. I only meant that I like making jam, though I forget that sometimes in the middle of the job when I’m hot and tired.”
“You didn’t sound proud,” I said, thinking she should meet some writers I knew if she wanted to hear talking proud. “You sounded like a woman who is fortunate enough to do something that gives her satisfaction.”
“You don’t do things you like?” she asked, looking at me carefully.
“Oh, but I do,” I assured her. “I love what I do. But many women don’t.”
“Many women don’t?” Mary was surprised by this statement. “Everyone I know is content with what they do.” And she went back down to the basement at a rapid pace.
I thought about Mary’s comment. I couldn’t say the same thing about many of my friends, even the successful ones. And my friends were women with a wide range of life choices, especially compared to Mary’s friends and their limited options. Interesting.
I rose, washed and dried my breakfast dishes, and thought about how much I was going to miss a dishwasher during my stay with the Zooks. Some modern conveniences were required for quality of life, weren’t they?
I was looking out the window above the sink when Mary reappeared with another armful of jelly jars.
“There goes Jake,” I said. “First day at college. You must be proud of him.”
I looked at Mary and found her watching Jake back the van from the drive. Her face reflected great misgivings and no little sorrow. She felt my glance, gave a small smile, and turned back to sorting her jars.
Mary started to speak at the same time I realized how inappropriate my comment had been, given the family’s culture. Eighth grade education, I remembered. College must seem strange and frightening.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but she waved me off.
“I guess I’m happy for him in one way.” She filled a large pot with water and put it on the stove to boil. “I’m glad he’s making a life for himself in spite of his injury, but—” She paused. “Watching him go off to college is hard. It’s just another proof that he’ll never choose to come back.”
I knew she meant back to the Amish community, and while my heart ached for her pain, I knew she was right.
“It’s funny,” she said. “John and I tried so hard to teach them right. I’ve never been able to figure out what we did wrong.”
“Maybe you did nothing wrong,” I said as I opened cupboards, looking for a place for my cleaned dishes. “Children make their own choices.”
“I keep telling myself that,” Mary said. “But it hurts. And I know some of the people in our district sit in judgment on us. Lots of families have maybe one child who turns from the faith, but we have three of our six who have left.” She turned and faced me. “Did you know that most Amish children are baptized and remain in the community? The world doesn’t realize that, I don’t think. They can’t understand why a young person would choose to remain, but I can’t understand why anyone would want to leave. Yet half of my children did.”
I slipped my silverware into a drawer. “Jake says it’s because he’s too independent and so are his brothers.”
“But how did they get that way?” Mary asked as she scalded the jelly jars with the now boiling water. “We taught them the virtues of obedience and submission. We told them over and over that it wasn’t being an individual but being part of the community that’s important.”
“Have they ever told you why they left?” I leaned against the counter, taking care to be far from the strawberry juice leaking in a glorious shade of red from the pile of cut berries.
“Andy did. He was the first to leave. He became good friends with Clarke Griffin when he lived with his aunt and uncle down the street during high school. Clarke told him all about what Andy calls grace. Andy listened. He wouldn’t join the church because he said we were too works-oriented. He used to say things to John that Martin Luther said.”
I was surprised she knew of Martin Luther. “You mean like sola fide or sola scriptura?”
“Maybe. I think. What do they mean?”
“Only faith and only the Scriptures.”
“Not the Ordnung,” Mary said sadly.
“Not the Ordnung,” I agreed.
Mary was silent for a while, the only sounds the rapid chopping of more strawberries as she cut them in pieces so small they were almost pulp.
“But at least he believes something!” she burst out in what I came to realize was a rare display of emotion. “Zeke and Jake don’t believe anything. They just got rebellious. It’s like they never got over their rumspringa, ain’t?”
“I guess it is,” I said.
“And Jake’s so bitter most of the time. You won’t believe it, but he was a happy little boy. He loved to giggle and play jokes on the rest of us. Always a smile.” She mixed pectin and sugar and put them to cook, and slowly added the strawberry pieces. “Now I’d give anything for some of that joy.”
I was thoughtful as I left later that morning for a brief return home to Silver Spring, my heart aching for Mary but also understanding Jake and his brothers’ need for more room to stretch. But the lovely day and the feeling of adventure about my move to Bird-in-Hand soon dispelled any pensiveness. I listened to CDs and sang along at the top of my voice, something I did only in the privacy of my car or shower.
When I got home, it didn’t take me long to collect the clothes and items I wanted to take back with me. I carefully packed the car, buckling my printer/fax/copier in the backseat and stacking files and correspondence I thought I might need over the summer in cardboard boxes. I put my dictionary and thesaurus in a box with my printer paper and spare ink cartridges.
I requisitioned the small TV Pop had put in his room so he could face the nights alone after Mom died. I packed three sets of colorful towels, one a soft azure, one a yellow with blue stripes, and one a pretty rose. I also grabbed two sets of floral patterned sheets, one in cream with soft pink flowers growing on deep-green boughs, the other a garden of crimson, gold, and green on bisque. I noticed as I put my shirts, shorts, and slacks in a suitcase that I
had an inordinate amount of beige, ecru, and ivory. And the dresses that I draped on top of everything were beige too. Why could I buy colorful towels and sheets but not clothes?
I was definitely in a rut. You need color, woman! After all, if you vibrate, which of course you don’t, you need to wear color. How sad that I thought even a yellow would be wild on me.
Just before I left, I called Marnie to tell her about my new temporary life.
“Cara! I don’t believe you!” She was clearly shocked and delighted.
“Come and visit me,” I said. “See where I live. Meet the Zooks. Meet Todd.”
“Try to keep us away,” she said. “We’ll be there in time for dinner Friday.”
“Hadn’t you better check with Ward? He might be busy.”
“If he is, he’ll cancel. He’ll be so concerned about his little sister and this lawyer who’s obviously out for your money that he’ll have a hard time waiting until Friday.”
“Todd doesn’t even know I have money. Tell Ward he worries about me too much.”
“Like that would stop him.” Her tone of voice was both wry and affectionate.
I laughed. “Poor Marnie. I’ll make dinner reservations for four and ask Todd to come along.” If I have the nerve to give such an invitation, I thought. Just the idea made me sweat and hyperventilate with all the possibilities.
I arrived back at the Zook farm just before dinner. I was still unpacking the car when Todd arrived. He’d obviously come straight from the office. His suit jacket lay on the backseat, a light loden slash against the gray of the upholstery. His tie, a darker loden with the tiniest gold medallions I’d ever seen, hung loose against his white shirt. His cordovan loafers shone beneath his cuffed slacks.
“Just checking to see how Jake’s first day went,” he explained, but I noticed he smiled at me as he said it. He also helped me lug everything up to my rooms.
As he set my printer on the big desk next to my laptop, he said, “You take your writing seriously, don’t you?” There was a mix of surprise and uneasiness in his voice.
“It’s how I make my living,” I said. “I have to take it seriously.”
“Romances?” He looked dubious.
“Romances. Want to read one or two?”
He looked nonplussed. To give him time to deal with the idea of reading a romance, I fished in one of my boxes and pulled out copies of As the Deer and So My Soul.
“You don’t have to tell anyone,” I said as I held them out. “It’ll be our little secret.”
He took them somewhat reluctantly, which did little for my ego. Then he redeemed himself by suddenly asking, “You’ll sign them, won’t you?”
I took the books and penned a nice, generic sentiment and signature. He took the books back with a fair amount of aplomb, and I thought there was a chance he might actually read them. I knew that I’d never ask if he did. I didn’t want to risk the pain of hearing a negative answer.
We went downstairs, and Mary asked Todd to stay for dinner.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t ask,” he said and took a seat next to me.
Most of dinner was a discussion of the crops and weather and people I’d never heard of. Near the end the conversation turned to Jake’s first day in college.
“I loved it,” he said, eyes sparkling. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to follow the lecture, but I could. Or that I wouldn’t know what they were talking about, but I did. And you won’t believe the amount of reading I have to do for tomorrow! I’ve got to get started right after dinner.”
I smiled inwardly at his enthusiasm and his naiveté. Big college grad that I was, I knew his workload would only get worse. But I was delighted he was delighted. Next thing we knew, he’d start smiling about life in general.
John looked at his son uncertainly. “They aren’t working you too hard, are they, boy? Himmel, you don’t want to get rundown or nothing.”
Jake smiled, at least with his lips. “Don’t worry, Father. I’m fine.”
Mary served us apple dumplings with real cream for dessert.
“Mom,” Jake said, “my favorite. Thanks.”
I glanced at Mary. It was obvious that while she and John didn’t understand their son, they loved him. Apple dumplings were a fine, nonprideful way to show it.
Todd helped Mary and me deal with the dirty dishes, something both John and Jake thought amusing. I thought it was wonderful.
“Want to take a walk?” Todd asked after the last dish was dried.
“Sure,” I said, aware of a lightness that came over me at the invitation. I could have walked from here to Silver Spring and back.
We turned left at the end of the drive and walked along the edge of the road, the westering sun warming our backs. We didn’t speak, just enjoyed the somnolent tranquility. We watched adult purple martens flying in and out of their house, still feeding their fast maturing birdlings. A pair of fat rabbits raced across the road ahead of us, disappearing into a patch of orange day lilies. A crimson streak of cardinal flashed overhead. On a fence post, a mockingbird sang his patchwork melodies, one moment mewing harshly like a herring gull, the next warbling sweetly like a song sparrow or a wood thrush.
We came to the clump of woods I could see from my bedroom window and with unspoken accord turned into it. We walked through the light underbrush until we came to the stream. It burbled breathlessly over mossy rocks, eventually forming a small, serene pool. We sat on a pair of large rocks beside the brook and watched a long-legged water bug walk on water, surface tension holding him successfully aloft.
“I think I’ll drive up to Harrisburg tomorrow to visit the Bureau of Vital Statistics,” I said apropos of nothing. “I’ll ask for a copy of Pop’s birth certificate.”
“Don’t bother,” Todd said emphatically. “You won’t get it, not even in his Bentley name. They’d never give you a certificate in his birth name. Privileged information. I had to deal with the state once about a birth certificate for an adopted person who needed one for a passport. He was an older man who was adopted long before the state automatically issued new certificates in the adoptive name. We wrote letters, went to Harrisburg, practically got down on our hands and knees and begged before they would grant him the proper certificate, cera impressa. And that was for a certificate in the person’s adoptive name. And he had a sister who could swear he was who he said he was.”
“I can swear to who Pop was.”
“But you’re hardly a contemporary who can swear to his arrival. We had the man’s birth name, the date of birth, even the name of the delivering doctor, though the doctor was dead by the time the man sought the papers. It still took us forever.”
I frowned. I hated roadblocks in my plans, a Bentley trait if ever there was one.
“Besides,” and I could tell this was Todd’s culminating argument by the way he leaned into his comment. I imagined him leaning into a jury just this way. “Besides, why would they give you a birth certificate for a dead man?”
I grimaced. He was making a very good point. “I won’t tell them he’s dead.”
Todd shook his head. “And when they ask why you’re there instead of him?”
“Maybe they won’t ask.”
He leaned back, resting his weight on his arms. “I wish I could say you had a good plan here, Cara, but you don’t. My advice as your attorney is don’t waste your time and gas.”
I stared at the pool, brooding, my arms around my drawn-up knees, my braid hanging forward over my shoulder.
“Don’t look so discouraged,” Todd said. “You’ve got your meeting Thursday with Alma Stoltzfus.”
I nodded. I was looking forward to that appointment, but I still hated being foiled in what had seemed a good plan.
“Now I’ve got a nonbusiness question for you.” He leaned forward until his head was even with mine.
I turned and looked at him expectantly.
“How’d you like to go to a formal garden party Saturday evening?”
I stared. “With you?”
“Of course with me. Do you think I’m into setting you up with other men?”
I grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m just not used to invitations to formal garden parties from my attorney. If you knew Mr. Havens, you’d understand.”
“I usually don’t enjoy going to these things because I’m not a great chitchat person, but if you’ll go with me, it might actually be fun.”
Be still my beating heart. “What’s the occasion?”
“Each year the president of the Lancaster County Bar Association has a bench/bar reception, and this year it’s at The Paddock with outdoor dining and lots of schmoozing.”
“And it’s formal? Truly formal?”
“Yep. I’ll be pulling my tux out of mothballs,” Todd said. “And The Paddock is a beautiful home. I think you’ll enjoy the evening.”
I had no doubt whatsoever. “I promise not to wear beige.” I made a little face. “I’ve recently realized how monochromatic I am.”
He laughed. “I don’t mind beige, honest. Like I said, it’s…restful.”
Boring, I thought. I took a deep, empowering breath. “Now I’ve got an invitation for you. My brother, Ward, and his wife, Marnie, are coming up Friday evening. Will you have dinner with us?”
He looked surprised but pleased. “Sure. Sounds nice.”
We wandered slowly out of the woods and back down the road. The sun was now hiding behind some clouds low on the horizon, and prisms of refracted light turned the sky fuchsia and orange and fierce purple. I loved the deep, rich silence and the fact that Todd seemed as easy with it as I was.
It was a rude jolt to hear a car speeding down the road behind us. The short burst of a siren as it neared jarred us. We stepped to the side of the road as an ambulance rushed past. As always, I wondered where it was going and who was the needy person at its destination. I breathed a quick prayer.