The Witnesses

by Linda Byler

  After the service, a giant circle of buggies stood waiting. Numbers had been written in white chalk on the gray canvas of each buggy. Solemnly, the plain wooden casket was loaded into the carriage designed for that purpose, and the driver was seated on a plain wooden chair. Anna and her children rode in the buggy marked with a large number one and followed immediately after the carriage containing Ben’s coffin. Lee drove the horse. Relatives of Ben’s—his parents, brothers, and sisters followed—then Anna’s family and then their uncles, aunts, nieces, and nephews.

  Slowly, the first carriage started, followed by the buggy Lee was driving, then numbers two and three. One by one, they fell into an orderly line, wending their way down the drive, turning onto the road as the director from the funeral home signaled for the traffic to stop.

  After the buggies had all gone, a flurry of activity resumed as the church members prepared the traditional funeral meal and set up the long tables made with benches.

  Sarah did not go to the begrabnis (burial). She opted to stay and help, filling the tables with great platters of cold, thinly sliced roast beef, slices of Swiss, Longhorn, Farmers, and Provolone cheese layered beside it.

  Bowls were heaped high with mashed potatoes, and silver gravy boats filled to the brim with thick, savory beef gravy.

  Pepper slaw, chilled and pungent, applesauce, and dinner rolls completed the meal.

  Dessert was cake and fruit. The women of the district each baked a cake and brought jars of canned peaches or pears, applesauce, or whatever they had on hand.

  There was plenty of chatter as the members of the church and Amish community worked together. Everything ran smoothly, the way they had been taught. Their parents and their parents before them had done things in the same manner.

  There were always the older ones, with bent backs and graying hair turned mostly white, who would have their say.

  “We didn’t used to have cake.”

  “Prunes. We always served prunes at a funeral.”

  “Should still be that way.”

  “Ah well, changes come. May as well enjoy the cake.”

  “Sure tastes better than gvetcha (prunes).”

  Younger women would stop to listen and ask, why prunes? Shoulders were shrugged, eyebrows raised, hands lifted. A mischievous smile played around a stout little grandmother’s features, her round shoulders shook.

  “Maybe to offset all the cheese?”

  Yes, if they took time to unna such (search), these traditions had reasons, usually based on common sense. Yes, indeed, prunes were a wise choice, they thought, eyeing the mounds of sliced cheese.

  They assigned each person to their tasks. Three couples cooked and mashed potatoes with mounds of butter, gallons of milk, and plenty of salt and cream cheese at their elbows. The men, dressed in traditional Sunday garb with white aprons tied about their waists, straddled benches, kettles of steaming hot potatoes in front of them. Their sturdy arms were put to good use, as the women stood by with the hot milk, salt, and butter.

  As the potatoes were beaten to creamy masses by the potato mashers, piles of cabbage were grated across hand held graters. But no one thought of the hard work. The companionship they shared was a labor of love.

  Sarah leaned against the cupboard in the basement, her eyes filling with tears as she watched Anna return from the graveyard. Her face showed the strain of the trial laid heavily on her ample shoulders, but she was brave. She was holding up the way Sarah knew she would, her pleasant, can-do attitude serving her well at a time like this.

  Sarah caught her breath, watching Lee follow his sister. She groaned within herself, etching his profile in her heart, remorse taking away all ability to breathe, to go on living.

  Where had she been? What had possessed her? It was too late now. He really was leaving for Alaska tomorrow. Tomorrow. He had changed his tickets to stay for Ben’s funeral, but now he was really leaving.

  Lee bent, picked up Anna’s youngest, Elmer, and set him on the bench beside him. When Elmer couldn’t reach his plate, Lee picked him up and set him on his knee. Immediately, one of the girls that was serving rushed over with a booster seat, and Lee placed Elmer on it carefully. He looked up at Lee, a bright smile spreading across his handsome face.

  “Konn do sitza (Can sit here)?”

  Lee nodded, smiled back.

  When the table was full, heads were bowed in silent prayer, and the meal began in earnest. Anna filled her plate well and ate hungrily. Sarah filled their coffee cups, consumed with longing to touch Lee’s shoulder for just one second, his nearness sending her into despair.

  Numbly, she served, washed dishes, and served another table, feeling as if she had one more day to live. It was a hard sentence, flung rudely in her face.

  Her future stretched before her, a hot, gritty, windblown desert devoid of joy or purpose. Her spirits plummeted down and down, until she knew if she kept this up, there would, indeed, be consequences. Depression would rear its ugly head, crippling her life.

  Gepp dich oof (Give yourself up). Mam always said those words, regardless of the dilemma. They were her mantra, a cloak she wore like a royal garment, enabling her to face life unafraid.

  Sarah knew she must do this, deep down, in her spirit. But oh, why was it so hard?

  Because it’s my own fault. Now I’m all messed up, my face hideous. Who will ever look at me or want me for his wife?

  You’re beautiful, Lee had said. That was before he knew Matthew had been to visit her.

  She went upstairs, suddenly filled with purpose. She’d stay.

  Grabbing the hamper in the bathroom, she lugged it to the laundry room and began to sort clothes. She closed the drain on the wringer washer and turned on the hot water, then hurried upstairs for Lee’s hamper.

  She had never been in his room.

  The afternoon sun shone through the sparkling windows. A warm breeze toyed with the beige linen panel curtains at each window.

  His bed was high and wide, made up neatly with a brown plaid quilt and extra pillows. She touched it with her fingertips. On his dresser, there was an expensive-looking world globe, a chest, and some carved shore birds.

  She reached out a hand to straighten the red placemat beneath the small, wooden chest, irritated when a square, white paper fell to the floor.

  Bending, she swooped it up, the glossy feel of it a realization. A photograph.

  She had to hurry. She had the hot water running in the wringer washer. A gaggle of noisy girls was coming up the stairs, brooms and dust mops thumping. Quickly she flipped it over. She gasped. A younger version of herself smiled up from the glossy photograph, her skin tanned, her hair disheveled, as usual.

  When she heard the girls coming down the hall, she slammed the photo beneath the mat, turned, and grabbed the hamper as the girls reached the doorway. Just in time she turned to face them guilelessly. She smiled and said quietly, “I’m washing.”

  “Good!”

  “Good for you.”

  “This must be Lee’s room.”

  Giggling, they all voted to clean it. Sarah gritted her teeth and lunged towards the stairs heading for the laundry room at breakneck speed.

  Well, the despair would have to go. She’d stay until the last chore was completed. If God gave her one last chance before tomorrow, she’d take it. If not, she’d go home, prepare for a new school term, and settle in for the wait.

  Gepp dich oof. Alright, Mam. I will.

  Opening the lever on the air hose, she was rewarded with the loud er-er-er-er of the air motor turning beneath the machine, swirling the water as the agitator swished steadily back and forth.

  On the shelf, instead of Mam’s Tide with bleach, there was an odd-looking white Melaleuca box. So, Anna was one of those women who stuck like a determined leech to her choice of off-the-wall products like Amway or Shaklee or the new eCosway. Everyone who was someone had to be introduced to the cheaper and apparently far superior products, which, in Mam’s opinion, left the men’s so
cks gray, but she told only Sarah.

  Mam would listen with great interest and pour over the literature. Then she would smile, give back the catalogue, and never order a thing. Absolutely nothing could beat her Tide.

  Well, there was always the possibility of trying to beat Mam, Sarah thought. She carefully measured white soap powder into a rather small plastic cup and dumped it into the steaming water, followed by a load of white tablecloths.

  “Sarah.”

  Turning, her face flushed from the heat of the swirling water, she looked up into Lee’s blue eyes.

  “Oh. Oh. you sc . . . surprised me.”

  Flustered, she reached for the corner of her apron to dry her hands.

  “Do you need the diesel started?”

  Sarah checked the pressure gauge on the air line.

  “Eighty pounds. Yes, you’d better.”

  She met his gaze. The blue eyes were pools of kindness that washed over her, erasing every thought of despair or remorse. She did not want to look away, but the intensity in his eyes was almost more than she could manage without flinging herself into his arms and begging him to stay, to reconsider.

  She must have been leaning toward him, when Marlin came into the laundry room. Sarah was embarrassed to find she had to grasp the edge of the washer to catch her balance. She got her hand wet and had to dry it all over again.

  Lee left, and Marlin got a pair of boots from the closet.

  She’d stay. She didn’t care if the whole place was put back in order, every piece of laundry hung on the line, the driveway raked, the cows milked. She’d stay.

  She had one day. One evening.

  Humming under her breath now, she counted her options, bolstered by the photograph, and. . . . She smiled. She’d call it “the look.”

  How was it possible? Perhaps he was just happy to find her doing laundry, sparing his grieving sister the mundane chore.

  Going to the mirror above the small sink where Ben had always washed his hands, she turned her face slightly to the left and tentatively ran the tips of her fingers across her neck and cheeks. The red Saran Wrap had definitely turned to pink. A bit better.

  Turning, she began to feed the sweet-smelling tablecloths through the wringer. She watched as they sank into the rinse tubs and settled in the blue water containing the odd-smelling Melaleuca fabric softener.

  She added a load of towels to the washer and put the tablecloths from the rinse water through the wringer. Then she took the laundry basket through the door to the back porch to hang them on the wheel line.

  The afternoon sun was headed towards the western horizon, the heat shimmering from the macadam drive and the tops of the gray and black buggies. Men stood in huddles, their identical black felt hats reflecting a sameness that spoke of contentment, of unison and brotherly love.

  Women clad in black, their white coverings bobbing, moved across the lawn. They bundled boxes of leftover meat and cheese, pepper slaw, and plastic containers of gravy into the buggies of the Zooks’ relatives, gifts to take along home.

  They would be told that they could “make use of it” and given a kind pat of sympathy on shoulders drooping with grief.

  Sarah hung the last white tablecloth on the line, secured it with wooden pins, and pushed on the bottom cable, sending the tablecloths flapping high across the lawn. A pulley wheel attached to a steel post at the other end served to pull out the loaded lower line and return the empty upper clothesline. The wheel line was really an ingenious device, allowing busy mothers to stay on a protected porch and send laundry high across the lawn, without lugging heavy baskets of wet clothing into the blazing sun or through a foot of snow.

  Sarah watched Lee emerge from the door of the diesel shed and experienced a strange thrill, an intuition, or was it only her imagination? Would he feel it, seeing her there by the wheel line, hanging out his laundry?

  As if he read her thoughts, he looked her way. He lifted a hand and gave a thumbs up to signal he had started the diesel.

  She lifted her own thumb for only a second, then turned away. She picked up the basket, overcome by shyness, feeling the blush spread across her face. She hoped no one had seen them.

  Then, a wild thought. What did it matter? Who would care? They were two mature adults, no longer silly teenagers shamelessly flirting.

  She had only tonight.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE DIRTY WATER SWIRLED DOWN THE DRAIN AND gurgled in the pipes of the sink as the last pair of denim work trousers squeezed out from between the rollers of the wringer. Reaching across the washer, Sarah turned the lever, shutting off the air valve. Silence reigned as she lifted the heavy basket holding the last load.

  She tried to imagine how Anna would feel later today as the sun slid its way toward darkness. Night would arrive, and with it, the necessary act of going to bed. Now, Anna would sleep so completely alone. Tears stung in Sarah’s eyes as she imagined Anna’s mourning. Surely a mother or a sister, perhaps both, would stay.

  On her hands and knees, she wiped the laundry room floor clean, hung up the rag, and went in search of her friend Anna. She found her sitting on the living room sofa, her head on her mother’s shoulder, crying quietly, a group of sisters and sisters-in-law crying with her.

  When she saw Sarah, she sat up, dabbed her eyes, and honked furiously into a sodden Kleenex.

  “Komm, Sarah.”

  “Is there anything you need done yet?”

  Was it only her imagination or were there a few knowing looks being exchanged, a thread of cunning glances she thought she was seeing?

  “They’re going to be starting supper and the milking soon. I was wondering if you’d like to take leftovers to Old Mommy King. Maybe Lee could take you. I asked Benuel sei Rachel to take them along, but they already left. It’s about six or seven miles. Do you mind?”

  Warily, Sarah was slow to answer.

  “Could he do it on his own?”

  “No. He. . . . Well, no.”

  Their faces were poker straight, their noses red from weeping, their eyes blue and guileless, devoid of strategy.

  “Where do I find him?”

  “In the basement.”

  Anna immediately turned and began to show her mother the angry red rash on the back of Marianne’s knees, thereby abruptly excusing Sarah. There was nothing to do now, except head for the bathroom with its mirror and all the demons of insecurity and fear that lurked within its frame.

  A cool washcloth. Some soap. With shaking hands, she washed her face gently, swabbing it clean. Then she opened the vanity drawer to search for a bit of face cream.

  She unpinned her covering, took her hair down. There was only a bit of it to make up the tiny bob on the back of her head. She found Anna’s hair gel, her hairspray, and thanked God for allowing these wonderful supplies. It was necessary that her hair looked okay.

  She smiled to herself, her eyes bright with wondering, longing, and something else.

  There. That would have to do.

  Her knees threatened to buckle as she ran down the basement stairs, almost bumping into Lee as he carried a box away from a plastic folding table.

  “Oh, there you are.”

  “You going?”

  “I guess. Anna says I should.”

  “Yeah. Mommy King will be more at ease with you.”

  He smiled, and his smile stayed for a long time, which was a good sign that he was actually pleased that she had agreed to accompany him.

  The buggy was clean, the horse spirited. Sitting beside him, the late afternoon sun’s rays had no mercy through the opened window. Sarah withdrew into the corner, attempting to wrap a protective shell around the right side of her face. All the words she had wanted to say slipped out of her mind and disappeared, leaving her mouth dry, her tongue thick with anxiety. Now she wished she had not come.

  When Lee guided the horse out on the main road, he asked if she wanted to go the long way around, since it was such a gorgeous evening. They could stop at the park o
n Buena Vista Road and feed the ducks.

  “I will if the sun isn’t too bright.”

  She had nothing to lose, so she figured she may as well tell him exactly what she felt.

  Astonished, Lee looked at her.

  “Whatever is that supposed to mean?”

  She did not meet his eyes.

  “My face.”

  “Your face. What about your face?”

  “It’s—you know, Lee. Don’t make this hard for me.”

  When there was no reply, she stared miserably out the window, to the left, away from him. When the silence continued and stretched out before her with painful intensity, she caught her breath when he suddenly picked up her right hand and held it very lightly in his own. Still he did not speak.

  Barely daring to breathe, Sarah turned her head slightly to the right and was shocked to see a wet trickle of tears washing over Lee’s tanned, chiseled cheek.

  Well, yes, of course. It had been a tough day. He had buried Ben, his beloved brother-in-law, and soon he would be leaving his dear sister Anna. He needed a hand to hold. The human touch has great power, she had read. Her hand was just that, a comfort on this troubling day of mourning and anticipated farewells.

  He pulled his hand away then, and Sarah left hers in her lap. It lay there, feeling obsolete, helpless, cast away.

  Lee had to use both hands to guide the horse down a gravel road. A pond stretched before them, with geese and ducks of different colors swimming and milling about on the freshly mowed grass.

  There were trees and rustic pavilions with weathered picnic tables. Several cars were parked in a designated area, and children played on the swings as mothers watched from their perches on lawn chairs.

  To Sarah’s surprise, Lee drove to the far end of the park before he stopped the buggy. The horse immediately stretched out his nose, raising, then lowering his head, attempting to relieve himself of the neck rein that kept him from stretching his neck comfortably.

  Lee climbed out of the buggy and loosened the rein. Then he stood facing her, a hand draped across the shaft.

  Hesitant, Sarah was unsure what he wanted to do, so she remained seated.