But would Miriam really have him? He would not be part of some scheme to see her married. If she was not truly willing, or if she loved this Englischer the way he loved her, he would not be party to it.
Norman started to rise. “I know you and your mother probably want some time alone to—”
But Clayton cut in before Norman could finish his sentence. “I’d like to talk to Miriam, please.”
Norman nodded once, relief evident on his face, and retook his seat. “She was hoping you would. She’s waiting for you in your barn. She said you and she have had lots of conversations there while you and your father did chores. I told her the two of you could have the house to discuss this in private, but that’s where she said she wants to talk to you if you’re willing.”
Clayton rose from his chair. He headed slowly for the mudroom and his straw hat hanging on the hook by the door. As he slipped it on his head, he glanced into the living room. Three sets of eyes were watching him. Mamm tipped her chin to him, a silent gesture that communicated she would stand behind whatever decision he made, but he could see that her eyes, even from across the room, were filled with concern.
He opened the mudroom door and stepped gingerly into the gathering dusk. Inside his being he felt both numb and invigorated, as though his mind and heart were dueling for supremacy. His brain was saying “go slow, go slow,” but his heart was shouting “all you ever wanted, all you ever wanted!”
As he limped across the yard, he prayed the third verse of Psalm 43 silently, over and over, as he was unable to find his own words for pleas for divine guidance.
O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me… O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me… O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me.
He expected to find Miriam at Rosie and Butternut’s stall, but there was no sign of her anywhere in the barn. She wasn’t with the horses, either, nor was she near the hogs. Had she changed her mind about him and gone back home? Had he both gained and lost her in mere minutes?
“Miriam?” he said gently, hoping against hope he was not too late and somehow she could hear him.
“Up here, Clayton.”
Startled, he looked above him. She was peering down at him from the hayloft.
“What are you doing up there?” he asked in astonishment.
“I like it here. It’s quiet. It’s above everything.”
Her voice sounded sad and resolute at the same time.
“Do you… I… I came here to talk to you.”
She closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, they were shimmering in the elongated rays of twilight. “Do you hate me now?”
Clayton found he could not speak. He shook his head.
She nodded as if he had actually said much instead of nothing at all. “Will you come up here? I know you can climb this ladder. I’ve seen you do it.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Miriam answered by moving from the ladder, clearing the way for him. He could climb the ladder. It just took him twice as long as a normal person. In the summer, the loft was empty for the most part except as a place for storing odds and ends that didn’t need to be kept inside the house or weren’t used very often. In the winter months it housed hay and straw for the animals. Clayton or his father only needed to toss down bales once a week or so.
He grabbed the rungs, taking his time to steady his disfigured leg before taking the next step. He was glad she wasn’t hovering at the top when he reached it. She was sitting back a ways on an old trunk filled with horse blankets.
Clayton eased himself over the top of the ladder and stood. Several mismatched kitchen chairs were hanging on hooks on the rafter above him. He pulled down one and set it near her. Then he settled himself on it, grateful for the few seconds of silence to collect his thoughts. When he was seated, he looked up at her. She was staring at the only window in the loft—a pane of glass on the west side that was covered with dust, grime, and old webs. Nothing could be seen on the other side except diffused light.
“So you know?” she said, not looking at him.
“Ya.”
“And you know what my parents want you to do?”
“I do.”
She sighed gently and turned her head to look down at her empty hands in her lap. “Is that why you’re here?”
“I’m here because I want to know what you want.”
She laughed lightly, mirthlessly. “I don’t think this is about what I want anymore.”
“It is where I’m concerned.”
She said nothing, unwilling, it seemed, to consider that she still had a choice in the matter.
“Do you love this man, Miriam?”
She hesitated a moment before answering. “I thought I did. I mean, I thought he loved me. I was wrong.”
He closed his eyes against the sting of her candor. “Do you love him?” he said again.
“I won’t lie to you, Clayton. I’ve never lied to you. I did love him. But I am trying hard to love him a little less every day.” She reached a hand up to her right eye and flicked away a tear.
Clayton let those words settle over him. They still hurt, though not as much. But he was not finished. “Do you want to be with him?”
At this she raised her head and looked into his eyes. He forced himself not to look away from their penetrating beauty.
“No,” she whispered.
There was such pain and longing in that one, barely audible word. He could feel it even from several feet away. “Are you saying that just because your parents are insisting you marry me?” He could feel emotion thick now in his throat, and tears were springing to his eyes, just like the ones shining in hers.
Miriam shook her head slowly, never taking her eyes off him. “I don’t want to be with him,” she said softly.
“Why not?”
She shrugged and fingered away another tear. “Because he doesn’t want to be with me.”
Several moments of silence hovered between them. Outside, dusk was giving way to night. The light in the barn was growing dim.
“So you don’t hate me?” she asked for the second time, her head turned toward the diminishing light outside the window.
“I could never hate you, Miriam.”
She sighed again. “Because you’re Amish.”
“Because… because I love you,” Clayton said, as a strange burst of courage coursed through him. “I’ve always loved you. And not just as a friend. I am in love with you.”
She slowly swung her head around to face him again. In her eyes Clayton could see that his confession hadn’t completely surprised her. “Maybe you were before, but I don’t see how you could be now. You deserve someone better.”
“As do you. I’m a wrecked man with a bad temper.”
She shook her head. “You’re not wrecked.”
Again there was silence.
“I know you don’t care for me the way I care for you,” he said a moment later. “But I promise I will do my best every day to give you a good home and many reasons for affection to grow. I hope it will. I promise I will be a loving father to this child and to love you as Christ loves His church. I promise not to bring up to you or to others the reason we married ever again. I promise to be to you all that a good husband should be, and I will give you all the time you need to think of me as your husband.”
Again she turned her head and her gaze sought the opaque world outside the dirty pane of glass. A look of profound loss covered her face. Clayton was sure she was going to tell him she appreciated very much his offer to cover her shame and provide for her and her unborn child, but she could not accept.
Then she turned her head to face him again.
“You really do want to marry me?” she said, her tone hopeful for the first time since he’d climbed up the ladder.
“With all my heart.”
NINETEEN
The next afternoon, Clayton closed the shop an hour early and took Miriam to the home of Uria
h Weaver, their bishop, who was waiting for them along with two of the church’s ministers. As they all sat in a circle of chairs in the Uriah’s living room, Miriam made a full confession and repented of her sin. Clayton knew how difficult the encounter was for her, and he was deeply grateful for the men’s kind demeanor throughout. Both Clayton and Miriam breathed a sigh of relief when Uriah told them he’d decided that she would not be required to confess to the entire church—nor would any disciplinary measures be taken—because her sin had been committed prior to membership.
Of course, everyone in the church would know the reason for the marriage anyway, simply because the ceremony was going to fall outside the time frame of the Lancaster County wedding season. Amish couples were wed only in the fall, usually in October or November, and weddings that took place in any other month were generally considered to be “fast-tracked” because of a child on the way.
Clayton didn’t care about the knowing stares and whispers they were going to face. This situation had happened in their community before, with others, and it would happen again. What mattered was that Miriam had confessed and repented, so now the issue was to be forgiven and forgotten. All he cared about was that people not be hurtful to her, for he knew she didn’t need others rubbing salt in her wound.
Because of the time frame, Uriah offered to accelerate Miriam’s membership classes as well, condensing down the sessions so that she could be baptized into the church in just three weeks. The subsequent days flew by in a flurry of activity, Clayton juggling his duties at the shop and his usual chores while making time whenever he could to be the one to drive her over to Uriah’s for her nightly membership instruction.
Miriam had given up her job, of course, but between her pursuit of church membership and her preparations for the wedding and their new life together afterward, she stayed quite busy as well. Before they knew it, the three weeks had passed, after which she was indeed baptized.
Two days after that, on a beautiful, sunny Tuesday morning in August, Miriam Beiler and Clayton Raber were married by the minister inside the Beilers’ home in front of a small gathering of family and friends.
As Miriam stood next to Clayton, she seemed so petite and fragile to him and yet so beautiful. She spoke in a soft voice that was sapped of its usual vitality, yet she looked into his eyes without hesitation as she promised to support her husband, have love and compassion for him, and not part from him until death.
After that, as Clayton listened to the minister read the marriage prayer from the Christenpflicht, he wished for the hundredth time that Daed had been there to go to for counsel as he’d made this decision. From the moment Clayton told his mother he had agreed to marry Miriam, Mamm had been supportive but apprehensive, as if she, too, wished Simon were there to consult.
“You know you don’t have to do this,” she had said when Clayton returned to the house after speaking with Miriam in the barn. “Just because she’s in trouble doesn’t mean you have to be the one to get her out of it. She made the decision herself to do what she did.”
They had been sitting at the table sipping the coffee she had made when she thought the Beilers were coming over for a social call. The cake still sat untouched.
“I know I don’t, but how can I not? You know how I feel about her.”
“And how does she feel about you?” Mamm had asked gently. “Did you ask her that?”
Clayton had only hesitated a moment before answering. “I know she doesn’t love me like I love her, but I also know love can grow. And I will give her the time she needs for that to happen. It might. And even if it doesn’t, it will be enough for me just to have her in my life and not married to someone else.”
Mamm had cupped her hands around her mug, drawing its warmth into her palms. “But will it be enough for her?” she murmured.
Clayton couldn’t answer that.
He turned now to his bride as the minister concluded the wedding portion of the service with the exhortation to “go forth in the name of the Lord. You are now man and wife.”
After that they returned to their seats on opposite sides of the room for the rest of the service, which would take another few hours and would be similar to regular church on Sundays except for the smaller number of people in attendance. The entire time, throughout every sermon and song and prayer, three words kept reverberating in Clayton’s head, over and over: Man and wife, man and wife, man and wife.
Afterward, there were subdued yet sincere words of congratulations from the Beiler brothers and their wives, and slightly more robust congratulations from Clayton’s six sisters and their husbands and older children. Maisie looked on him with far too much concern, and Joan as well, for that matter. He could see in their eyes that they thought he was making a mistake. Katrina, the one sibling who foisted on him the least amount of unwanted pity for his condition, seemed genuinely happy for him. His three other sisters wore expressions too difficult to read. All of them knew Miriam was carrying a baby that wasn’t his. And all of them knew Norman and Abigail Beiler had asked Clayton if he would marry their daughter and that he had agreed.
The wedding meal was by design smaller and less elaborate than those held after fall weddings, but Clayton found himself enjoying it more this way. After a while, even Miriam seemed to relax and act like herself, though he noticed she barely touched her roasted chicken and didn’t even sample the sweets and cake and other desserts that came later. He told himself that her appetite had waned because of the baby or maybe just the excitement of the day. What he wouldn’t allow himself to think, no matter how many times his mind tried to go there, was that she wasn’t eating because the very thought of being Mrs. Clayton Raber was making her physically ill.
Eventually, he excused himself and slipped away, needing to get some air and a little peace and quiet to process his thoughts. The meal was being served out on the lawn, so he went around to the front door of the Beilers’ home and managed to slip in without being seen by anyone in the kitchen. Stepping into a small side room, he lowered himself onto a nearby chair, leaned his head back against its padded upholstery, and closed his eyes.
Thankfully, the room was silent and still, and for a long moment he just allowed himself to grasp the fact that he was married—married—and not only that, but to the woman of his dreams.
Lord, is this why You didn’t answer my prayer to take away my feelings for Miriam? Because You knew that eventually I would find myself in this position? After a long moment, a wide grin spread across Clayton’s face as he added, Thank You, God, for always knowing and doing what is best. Amen.
He opened his eyes but remained where he was, listening to the sounds of distant laughter and chatter and clinking of silverware and dishes coming through the open windows from outside. Several rooms away, he could also hear a few women in the kitchen, clanking and banging and chatting, but even their noises were distant and muffled. It wasn’t until he was about to get back up and rejoin the crowd that he realized someone was coming his way, two voices engaged in conversation, the sound growing louder the closer they came. With his bad leg, he couldn’t exactly slip out gracefully, sight unseen, and his mind raced as he tried to think of how he could explain his presence in here when everyone else—including his beautiful new bride—was out there.
Fortunately, just as the two interlopers reached the room where he was sitting, they stopped short, slid open a closet just inside the doorway, and began pulling out boxes and checking their contents. It was two teenage boys, and from the sound of things, Clayton decided they had been sent here on a hunt for more drinking glasses, though so far all they were coming up with were extra tablecloths and silverware.
The boys were perhaps ten feet away from where Clayton sat, but they were so absorbed in their task—and their conversation—that they didn’t even notice him. He decided to remain still until they were gone, hoping they would never even realize he was there.
Clayton couldn’t remember the boys’ names, but they were Miri
am’s nephews and cousins to each other. Maybe fourteen or fifteen, they were both on that narrow precipice between child and adult, where they could be admiring a girl one minute and catching crawdads the next.
At first, Clayton didn’t pay much attention to their conversation itself. He was more focused on the cracking of their adolescent voices as they talked. But then he heard one of them—the gangly one, all joints and long limbs—say something that made him start: the words “pity marriage.” Pity marriage? Had the kid really said that?
He must have, because the other boy immediately shot out a forceful “Shhh!”
“Well, that’s what they’re calling it,” the first one objected, his voice defensive but not quite as loud. “Everyone knows it’s true.”
Clayton sat there, completely still, expecting the blood to begin boiling in his veins. But instead he found an odd calmness falling over him, as if he’d finally discovered the cure for his own insecurities. Yes, he may be a monster and a freak to the rest of the world—a man to be married only out of pity, never love—but at least Miriam Beiler had thought enough of him to unite her life with his. Necessary or not, that still said something, that perhaps he wasn’t completely worthless after all. If these families gathered here today considered it a pity marriage, then that was their problem. One of the things he’d always loved most about Miriam was that she’d never ever once pitied him. And hers was the only opinion that mattered now.
Clayton was pondering these things when he noticed that the room had grown silent, and when he looked over at the boys, he realized they had spotted him. They were both frozen in their tracks, eyes wide, boxes in their arms and fear on their faces.
“Hey, Clayton. Been there long?” one of them squeaked.
He hesitated, wondering if he should let them off the hook or not. Perhaps not, he decided, given their ages. Perhaps it was time they learned to act a little more like men.
“Why do you ask?” he replied, sitting up in his chair and fixing his gaze on them.
The boys shared a glance but didn’t reply.
“Are you afraid I might have overheard what you said? Because I did. And you should not have said it.”
The Amish Clockmaker Page 16