Christmas Gift for Rose (9780310336822)
Page 9
Jonathan
Rose folded the letter and set it on the side table. He’d returned but nothing had gotten better. Maybe if they’d only had to deal with his status in their community they could have overcome this together. Now? It seemed impossible.
Lord, is there any glimmer of hope I can cling to? Any at all?
THE MEMORIES SCROLLED THROUGH JONATHAN’S MIND, as they did every night. They never played out in order—flashes of images, of emotions, of fears. Tall trees with heavy limbs covered in snow in the woods near Bastogne. The bombed-out German villages with frightened faces peering out the windows. The white crosses near the shores of Normandy. The camps in Austria. It was hard tending injured soldiers. Harder still was tending sores on thin bodies draped in black-and-white-striped uniforms and questioning if it was any good. Many concentration camp victims had been so thin he could lift grown men like children. Yet the former prisoners had at least died seeing faces of compassion gazing upon them. That had eased his own pain from not being able to do enough. Never enough.
Jonathan turned to his side on his feather bed and pulled his mem’s thick quilt over his shoulders. He hadn’t shared much of what he’d seen and experienced. He’d told his dat a few things, but noting how uncomfortable it made his father, he’d stopped. Why would people want to hear stories like that? Wasn’t it enough that he’d come back? Wasn’t it enough that they’d won the war?
His stomach ached, but he wasn’t coming down with something. The pain came from Rose’s news. His heart ached for her truth. His stomach ached, knowing what he’d have to do to help her face it.
He couldn’t care less that she wasn’t born Amish. Rose was as gut an Amish woman as any he’d met. He had no doubt that they would get married and follow the way of their ancestors—if not in this community then another. What bothered him were the questions that filled her eyes. They were the same questions he’d seen in the internment camps.
Where are they?
What happened?
Do they still think of me?
Am I not forgotten?
More than food, the prisoners had wanted answers. What had happened on the outside? Did anyone know the whereabouts of their family? When could they leave and try to find their loved ones? Lack of food shriveled up a body, but lack of answers, of truth, ate at one’s mind. There were men who every day spoke of finding a wife or child. Jonathan only hoped they had.
If he was ever going to be able to ask for Rose’s hand in marriage—her whole heart—he’d have to find answers for her first. Even sad news was better than not knowing.
The only way to gain Rose in the end was to walk away from her now … and seek the answers she was too afraid to search for.
Lord, give me strength.
Thirteen
ROSE FELT STRANGE WEARING HER EVERYDAY CLOTHES while everyone else donned their Sunday best. She had only missed church service a few times that she could remember—once when she was ill and two other times when she stayed home to be with Mem after the birth of a sibling.
Little Martha’s shoulders drooped as she approached. “Are you sure you don’t want to come, Rose?”
“I’m sure I’ll be feeling better next time around.” Rose offered what she hoped was an eager smile. “I do hate to miss it.”
Dat walked past her and offered a sideways glance as he slid on his coat. He moved toward the door and then paused, approaching Rose. He placed a hand on her shoulder and a thin layer of tears filled his eyes.
“If you need to talk, I’m here, ja?”
She nodded and placed her hand over his. “Danki. Thank you, Dat. Thank you for everything.”
He stepped away, removed his hat from the peg on the wall, and set it firmly on his head, then walked with quickened steps out to the barn to finish hitching up the buggy. He was obviously concerned, but she could tell he didn’t think any less of her than he had days ago. He didn’t seem too bothered that she’d chosen to stay home. Mem said Dat’s mind was always at work. Even when his body sat, his mind was never still. Maybe he—more than anyone—understood that she needed time to think before facing their community.
Mem approached next and placed a soft hand on Rose’s cheek. “We’ll be back before long, ja? We’ll see you then. I do hope you start feeling better soon.”
Louisa wrapped her arms around Rose’s legs and clung tight. Rose gently patted her sister’s kapp. “I’ll be here when you return. I’m not going anywhere.”
Louisa lifted her chin and rested it on Rose’s stomach. Her youngest sisters’s lip puckered and her wide-eyed gaze didn’t look convinced. Louisa was a sensitive one. She no doubt realized from Dat’s and Mem’s actions that more was going on than just Rose not feeling well.
“Then tonight I’ll read you another chapter of Heidi, ja?” Rose offered. “Maybe we’ll read the chapter of Heidi and Grandmother again … but I’ll save the new chapter for everyone at school.”
A few minutes later, her family piled into the buggy, placing blankets around each other. She imagined their bodies pressed together and how the heated stones Mem had tucked into coat pockets would warm them up by the time they got to the end of the lane.
Five minutes later the buggy’s wheels creaked over the gravel and her siblings’ voices bounced across the frozen ground. And then another minute after that, the world seemed void of all sound. Only the crackling of the fire told her that she hadn’t slipped into nothingness.
The silence of the house penetrated her heart. Rose blinked hard, trying to clear her vision, but the image of the buggy blurred as it crested the hill and disappeared.
She turned away from the window and wiped her eyes with her palms, running her hands down her face as she sat. She allowed tears to wash her cheeks. It was hard staying home, but she couldn’t imagine walking into the church service, looking around and questioning who knew. Surely those who’d lived in Berlin most of their lives knew the truth. Those who’d been Mem and Dat’s friends … and who’d possibly known her Englisch parents. Had members of her own community spoken about her in hushed tones whenever she wasn’t in earshot? Had they shared the story with their children? Had everyone in the community known but her?
A trembling hand covered her stomach, and her breakfast felt like a lump. Had she been a laughingstock among them? “Look at Rose, trying to be the perfect Amish woman. If she only knew the truth …”
Truth.
What was the truth? That her birth parents had abandoned her? Not her other siblings, but her. What had she done so wrong to not be worthy of their love?
I love you … The voice floated through her mind, as soft as a butterfly landing on her fingertip. In the past she’d trusted it was God’s voice, but what did she know?
Then again, what did she have without Him? Where could she turn except to God? She needed Him, more now than ever.
She sat in Mem’s rocker and attempted to work on her tatting, but her mind couldn’t concentrate enough to count the stitches. Instead she rose and set the table for supper. Tin cups, chipped ceramic plates. For as long as she could remember their family had never had new things. Their clothes and shoes came from cousins. There was always just enough to eat … and the jars of canned food sometimes ran out before winter did. Yet Mem and Dat always had enough to go around. It made her sad to consider how poor her birth family had been then, to not even have what she’d grown up with here. What if they were still in need now? Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. How could she ever enjoy life without knowing if they still went to bed hungry at night?
The hours passed slowly, and Rose watched out the window for her family to return. Finally their buggy crested the hill. An even greater joy—her brother-in-law and sister’s buggy followed.
Excited voices entered the house, and little Louisa seemed especially excited to see Rose, but it was Vera’s pinched face that drew Rose’s attention. And when Vera took the cradle to Rose’s room to lay baby Ira down for a nap, Rose followed.
“I think Jonathan might be considering leaving …” Vera fiddled with the strings of her kapp.
“Leaving?” Even though Rose thought it could happen—that Jonathan would go elsewhere—she was surprised. “Where is he going?”
“You don’t understand. Leaving the Amish.”
The air punched out of Rose as if a bridle tightened around her lungs. She sat. “Why would you think that?”
Vera lowered her head. Red burned her sister’s cheeks.
“Did he tell you something?”
“Ne, I saw something. He was in a vehicle, in town. With a woman.”
A trembling hand touched Rose’s lips. She had done this. She’d given Jonathan enough reason to walk away. When he’d asked to come back and talk to her, she’d told him not to. Even though she’d done this to herself, pain ripped at her heart.
“Who was she? Was it someone from Berlin?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I do not think I recognized her. We’d gone to church at the Bontragers’ house and we were driving back through town. I tried to get a good look while we passed, but the woman’s face was turned away from the buggy. She was focused on Jonathan.”
“Did they look … close?”
It wasn’t until Vera answered that Rose realized she’d asked the question out loud.
“I’m not sure … They were focused on each other, as if they were deep in conversation. I’m sorry, Rose. I know you have so many questions. There has been so much on your mind lately. I’m sorry to add another question. I just thought you would want to know.”
“Did I?” Rose turned away. She crossed her arms over her chest. She’d been so sad about it all. She’d been overwhelmed with questions about the past. About the future. But now an unwelcome emotion returned: anger.
Rose stood, shaking. “Did I want to know that? No. Did I want to know that I was abandoned by my real parents? No. This is not how my life was supposed to be. Why couldn’t have things been as I’d always thought? I never wanted anything different than what I already had.” Her voice lowered. “I had everything … or so I thought.”
“Did you, Rose? Was life perfect? Do you really think so?”
“Ja. Did you think it wasn’t?”
“I am your sister. I saw the fear in your eyes. I saw the questions. You say you didn’t know … but deep down, somewhere, you wondered about your life. It was as if you walked through each day in your normal routine, but you were trying to figure it out.”
“Figure out what?”
“You tell me that.”
Rose held her elbows tight at her sides. She had no control of anything anymore, especially now with the pounding of her heart and the tightness of her lungs. During the war everything had been uncertain. Every day they’d waited for the news. Is that what had brought the uncertainty? Had she been used to waiting for bad news—looking for trouble? Is that what had caused the tension deep inside? Or was it something more?
Oh, Lord, I don’t know what to think anymore. My life feels as if I’m on a runaway stallion, and I don’t know how to make it stop … how to just make everything stop.
Fourteen
ROSE FOUND HERSELF HEADING TO TOWN THE NEXT Friday after reading another chapter of Heidi to the children at school. Chapter twelve had always been one of her favorites. Even the children who knew the story—who had heard it last year—had grown tense and still as Rose read about the ghost in Clara’s house. They sat at the edges of their seats as if they were waiting to discover there was no ghost at all, but rather Heidi sleepwalking. The words Rose had read were still on her mind as she entered Hummel’s Grocery after catching a ride to town with Dat.
“Yes, I dream every night, and always about the same things,” Heidi had told the doctor who’d come to see her. “I think I am back with Grandfather and I hear the sound in the fir trees outside, and I see the stars shining so brightly, and then I open the door quickly and run out, and it is all so beautiful! But when I wake I am still in Frankfurt.”
“And have you no pain anywhere? No pain in your head or back?” the doctor had asked Heidi.
Her answer was one Rose understood. “No, only a feeling as if there were a great stone weighing on me here.”
“As if you had eaten something that would not go down.”
“No, not like that; something heavy as if I wanted to cry very much.”
Rose wiped away a tear, entered the grocery store, and noticed Curtis at the front register. He was just finishing up with a customer. Curtis bagged up the last of the woman’s items and wished her well. As the woman moved toward the door, Rose approached the cashier.
He lifted an eyebrow, and concern filled his face. “Can I help you with something? You don’t look too well, Rose.”
“I was just looking for Jonathan. I haven’t heard from him in a few days. Is he still working in the back storeroom, building those shelves?”
“Your Jonathan?” The man waved a hand. “Nah. I thought you of all people knew he’d left town. Said he had very important business, although he didn’t tell me what.” He scratched his head. “It didn’t have something to do with you, miss, did it? I should have asked. I should have told Jonathan that I’d be willing to help you both. That Curtis Williams is always willing to help a friend.”
“That’s kind of you.” She forced a smile. “I’m afraid he didn’t talk to me about it.” She turned her back to Curtis and stared out the window as if somehow by chance she’d see Jonathan walking down the street. “It seems he has a habit of that—of leaving first and telling me what’s really going on later.”
Rose felt a hand on her arm and jumped. How inappropriate! She pulled away from Curtis’s touch and was about to give the man a piece of her mind when she noticed the compassion on his face. Just seeing it made her realize he simply wanted to be a friend—to be there for her.
“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you none. I know since I’m new around here, folks don’t know what to think of me, but I’d like to be known around here as a trustworthy fellow. If there is ever anything I could do to help—”
“There is.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. “I have a friend—a neighbor. He’s also a returning soldier.” She glanced down at Curtis’s cane. “Harold was injured, but in other ways. He’s not handling everything so well. It’s his mind that plays tricks on him. It seems that there are days he feels he’s more there than here.”
Curtis nodded, seeming to understand.
“If you could …”
“You’d like me to go visit him?”
“Ja, if it wouldn’t be too much.”
Curtis ran a hand down his cheek. “I’ve talked to a few other soldiers around here, but none of them want to talk much. I don’t know—”
“Harold might not want to talk, but I’m sure he’d appreciate the visit. Even more, I think his parents would. Jonathan stopped by once and it helped a lot.”
Curtis nodded. “If you don’t think they’ll mind.”
“Not at all.”
“Then I can do it tomorrow.”
She glanced on the counter for a piece of paper. “Danki. I can write down the address.”
“No need. I know the Ault place.” He noted her surprise. “It’s a small community.”
“Ja, I suppose, although I’m not sure I’ve even been down every road.”
Curtis chuckled. “I have, uh, a car … my first. I enjoy driving the roads. I know where many folks live. I guess you can just say I’m trying to get to know my community better.”
“I understand.” Still, Rose couldn’t help but feel this man was acting very kindly
toward her, a mere stranger. Something wasn’t right about Curtis Williams. He didn’t quite seem to fit into this town—and yet he was working hard to make himself fit …
The hair on the back of her neck pricked as Rose offered another thank-you and turned to find a shopping basket. She hoped Dat wouldn’t take too long with his errands.
Beginning to fill her basket, Rose turned to something that worried her more—the information Curtis had given her. Jonathan was gone. Was he gone for good? Surely his parents would hear from him. Maybe she should try to contact him through them.
Rose decided when she got home she’d write a letter and take it by his parents’ house. He couldn’t leave them all … not for good. And when Jonathan returned she wanted him to know her heart: if she had any chance of a relationship with Jonathan, it was time to let the future matter more than the past. She just hoped that God would help make that so.
Dear Jonathan,
You left. You really left. Not that I blame you. I understand why you did, because ever since I saw your letter with the postmark from France, I feared my love wouldn’t be enough to hold you to Berlin, hold you to being Amish. How could one see the world, see all the possibilities, and then return and live life within two square miles?
And yet the thing about fear is that in the back of your mind you’re trying to convince yourself it’s not really there. Like when I’d wake up from my dreams—my nightmares—as a child. With my heart pounding in the dark, my safe bedroom no longer felt safe. Even with Vera sleeping beside me with a warm body and soft breaths, the room itself turned against me. The shadow in the corner was a stray dog, waiting to pounce. The rattle of my window a thief ready to break in. But I’d tell myself that it was just a shadow, just the wind, until I could relax enough to fall asleep.