by Mary Ellis
She drove up the Stolls’ lane trying her best to dodge the puddles. Nobody Plain wasted good money on driveway gravel until they got stuck once or twice. When she parked near the house, her daughters scrambled out, but Donna paused a moment to compose her thoughts. How should she express gratitude to these two women, strangers from a culture that purposefully separated themselves from the modern world? They had gone out of their way to help with a job they didn’t fully understand or agree with.
While she still sat behind the wheel, Rachel exited a chicken barn carrying a basket of brown eggs. Kristen and Amber ran to join her, their long hair flying behind them in the breeze. Donna enjoyed the postcard scene of youthful beauty gathered to giggle and chat on a sunny winter morning. Then something odd niggled at the back of her mind. Rachel looked different. Donna leaned forward, gaping at the young woman like a tourist viewing Amish people for the first time. Her overall appearance of modest, solid-colored clothing was familiar, but Rachel wore no Amish dress with cape or black apron. She had on a long denim skirt and an oversized chocolate brown turtleneck with her work boots. And her hair! A thick blond braid hung down her back to her waist. Although her face was devoid of makeup, she wasn’t wearing either her full black bonnet or even her white prayer kapp.
Donna jumped from the car and hurried to join the group with almost as much pep as her girls. “Hi, Rachel. Happy Saturday morning to you.”
“Hi, Donna. Same to you.”
“I couldn’t help notice that you look practically English. What happened, if I might ask?”
Kristen’s mouth dropped open while Amber moaned, “Mom, not very subtle. We were trying to find a polite way to ask Rachel and you just blurt out the question.”
Rachel threw her head back, laughing. “It’s okay. Not beating about the bush is the Amish way. We’re rubbing off on each other.” Surprisingly, she embraced Donna with a hug. “You go first. Tell me your news on the project and then I’ll share mine.”
“The State Department of Health’s program has been deemed a success,” Donna said. “We tested almost everyone in the Plain community and vaccinated nearly eighty percent of the children. Eighty percent! That’s better than Pennsylvania’s compliance rate and far better than what we hoped for.”
“This means Mom gets a gold star by her name,” said Kristen.
“This means she won’t get fired,” corrected Amber.
Rachel looked from one to the other and then at Donna. “Both results sound useful to me. Congratulations.”
“I came here today to thank you and Sarah, and, of course, Grandma King and Bishops Mast and Esh. I couldn’t have come close to compliance if not for your help.”
“Sarah’s in the house. She’ll be glad to see you. But grossmammi and the bishop have gone back to Lancaster.” The corners of her mouth pulled down. “My grandmother isn’t too happy with me.”
“Does this have anything to do with your new clothes?” asked Donna. Amber and Kristen blinked, waiting in anticipation.
“It has everything to do with them. Jessie Brady took me shopping at the mall in Somerset for new outfits. What do you think?” She shyly pivoted in place.
“Great, but you would look pretty in a feed sack,” said Amber. “Are you turning English?”
Rachel flushed to a shade of warm peach. “I don’t like saying the words, but I probably am…one small step at a time. I’m dating Jake Brady, and he’s already proposed—twice.”
Kristen clapped her hands as though at the circus, while Donna and her older daughter murmured more reserved expressions of congratulations.
“I love him, but we’re not getting married just yet. He wants me to have an adjustment period.”
“It’s a big decision to change how you’ve been raised.”
“True. That’s why we’ll wait to get hitched.”
“But you’re pretty sure Jake is the one.” Amber placed her hand over her heart.
“Oh, yeah, that much I know. My grandmother talked my ear off, but I can’t go back to Lancaster with her. As much as I love her and Beth, this feels like home now. Because I haven’t been baptized yet, at least I won’t be shunned, but things won’t remain the same either.”
“You haven’t been baptized yet?” Kristen’s shock was apparent.
“No, we wait until late teens or early twenties, once a person knows they want to stay Amish.”
“Will you be baptized in Jake’s church?” asked Amber.
Rachel smiled. “I haven’t thought that far ahead, but I suppose I will.”
“Where will you live until your wedding?” Donna asked her second nosy question on the heels of each of her daughters’.
“I didn’t know what would happen with my cousin. Sarah wanted me to go back to Lancaster so she could wash her hands of me.” Rachel winked, impishly. “But when she realized that wasn’t going to happen, she appointed herself my big sister and started calling the shots. ‘This will be a proper courtship, whether you’re jumping the fence or not,’” mimicked Rachel in Sarah’s tone of voice. “I’m only allowed to work at Twelve Elms two days a week, and I have an eleven o’clock curfew while living here. And she goes shopping with Jessie and me for English clothes to make sure they are modest.”
“Wow, she sounds just like a mom,” said Kristen, grinning at Donna.
“Just like. Then Sarah insisted that Jake and I get counseling from both Bishop Mast and Reverend Bullock.”
Donna squeezed Rachel’s arm. “That’s because she loves you.”
Rachel linked her arm through Donna’s. “And I love her. Let’s go inside to warm up. Sarah will be relieved to hear the polio crisis has been averted.” Amber slipped her arm around Rachel’s waist, while Kristen took Donna’s hand. The four women crossed the wet grass and climbed the steps. Once they reached the porch, Donna spotted the kitchen curtain fall back into place. Mother Hen has been watching her favorite chick’s outdoor goings-on.
Then the door suddenly swept open. “Donna Cline! I thought you would never come up to the house,” said Sarah. “Let’s have coffee and cut this pie I baked. It’s growing staler by the minute.”
As Donna and her girls were ushered into the warm, comfortable kitchen of the Stolls, under her ribs her heart began to swell. Orphaned Rachel King was once again in capable hands.
TWENTY
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see
March
Rachel waited until the first of March before penning her overdue letters to Amy in Maine and Nora in Missouri. She spent the first page describing her job and how much she enjoyed working with horses. She filled the second page with chatty news about Sarah and Isaac and their ever-expanding chicken farm. Smoothly she transitioned into her relationship with Jake Brady, and although they saw each other little at work, they went out every Thursday and Saturday night, besides attending Baptist church services together—a schedule devised and approved by Sarah.
Her pulse quickened when she detailed how they had fallen in love while teaching blind children to ride, raising money for juvenile diabetes research, and ferrying stray cats back and forth to a low-priced vet for spaying and neutering. Because both of her sisters had hearts of gold, they would be pleased by all three activities. Once Rachel reached the third sheet of her missive, she knew her update would not be as well received. How could she tell her elder sister, Amy, a member of an ultraconservative district in Harmony, Maine, that she was jumping the fence?
And how would free-spirited, independent thinker Nora react to her leaving the Amish faith after what she experienced with Elam Detweiler? Nora’s first love had left the Plain lifestyle when she chose a quiet, unassuming shopkeeper over him. Nora and Lewis were happily settled in the aptly named town of Paradise, Missouri. Nora had chosen the simple life over Elam’s offer of reckless excitement, and now that she was married and with her first baby on the way, she knew she had made the right choice.
Would either woman
understand her desire to marry an Englischer, or would they dissolve into tears as Beth had done? Poor Beth. She had written no less than six letters trying to change Rachel’s mind. A few had contained subtle manipulations by guilt over their dead parents or for their grandparents’ broken spirits. A couple letters used logic and reason to convince her that Amish was a more practical way to live. And Beth’s final plea had been a dire, doom-and-gloom forecast of Rachel’s descent into a godless existence, ending with the eventual loss of her eternal soul. Rachel imagined either her grandmother or Aunt Irene standing over Beth’s shoulder during the writing of that letter. She sent up a silent prayer and forged ahead. To the best of her abilities she explained to Amy and Nora that she might have fallen in love, but she would stay Christian until she drew her last breath. In closing, she invited both sisters to their late fall wedding—a good time to get away for people in agriculture, whether Amish or English. She could only hope her schwestern would still accept her after hearing her decision.
July
The hot sun beat down on Rachel’s back and shoulders, raising beads of moisture just below her hatband. Her T-shirt stuck to her back, while her blue jeans felt like sauna body wraps with the humidity. Sarah wouldn’t permit her to wear long, baggy shorts like Keeley—her partner on the tour wagon, but it didn’t matter. She was doing a job she adored with the two most docile draft horses on the planet. “Get up there, Bess,” she called, shaking the reins. “A mani-pedi awaits you in the barn.” The bells attached to the leather straps sent up a musical progression of notes. After explaining to tourists a dozen times that only reindeer on sleighs wore bells to work, she and Keeley finally gave in. They purchased strings of one-inch bells at the craft shop and painstakingly sewed them to Bess and Buster’s harnesses on their day off.
“What about your boy horse?” asked an adorable five-year-old. Sitting in her mother’s lap, the little girl had asked plenty of questions for someone so young.
Rachel grinned at the tiny tourist. “A big strapping horse like our Buster with painted toenails? Goodness, no. We reward him for a job well done with Granny Smith apples. Those are his favorites.”
“Mine too!” she said. Her large brown eyes shone with delight.
“At the end of the tour you can feed Buster an apple if it’s okay with your mommy,” said Rachel. The child’s expression rivaled that of a lottery winner. After everyone petted and fed the plump draft horses or bought souvenirs and ice-cream cones, Rachel passed out the brochures detailing the services at Twelve Elms.
Unexpectedly, the apple-lover broke free from her mother’s grip and ran toward Rachel. “I wish I could live here with you and Miss Bess,” she wailed, wrapping her arms around Rachel’s leg. “I want a horse so much!”
She patted the child’s head. “Maybe someday you will have one.”
“I won’t. We live in an apartment in Lexington.” As she cried, her mother slashed a finger across her throat and shook her head vigorously. “We can’t have a dog or cat or even a goldfish.” The child’s sobs increased.
Rachel picked up on the woman’s body language. “It’s just as well. All horses do is eat and then eat some more. You should see the mess we must clean up from all that eating. This way you can visit Bess and Buster without any stinky chores to do.”
The child wasn’t buying it. She clung tighter to Rachel’s leg. Gently Rachel pried off her hands and kneeled down to speak eye to eye. “Don’t cry, little one. Someday you might move to where you can have a horse. No one knows what the future holds. In the meantime, you can read books about them and color pictures, and a tall horse will keep watch as you sleep. We have some special presents for you since yours were the best questions ever asked at Twelve Elms.” She rose to her full height. “Can you spare a few more minutes?” Rachel addressed the woman. “I would like you and your daughter to come to the gift shop with me.”
That afternoon, little Nancy took home several coloring books, two collections of horse stories, an oversized T-shirt displaying various equine breeds, and a four-foot-tall stuffed Appaloosa with bold white and tan spots. Rachel paid for everything. The young mother relaxed now that the tears had ceased, and the child went home fortified with dreams for the future.
Rachel knew all about dreams and how they sometimes did come true.
“There you are!” Jessie walked toward her with the zeal of a schoolteacher on playground duty. “I have been looking for you since the last tour ended.” She reached Rachel’s side, breathless.
“Your search is over. Here I am.” She flourished a hand from her head down to her toes.
Grabbing her by the sleeve, Jessie dragged Rachel to the house. “We need to get your wedding plans underway, missy. It’s already July. Your wedding is this November, not next. That’s only four short months away.”
Rachel allowed Jessie to pull her up the steps and through the back door into the kitchen. Glossy magazines, menus, colorful brochures, and catalogs covered the surface of the oak table. “Which months are the long months?” she teased.
“You sit there.” Jessie pointed at a chair. “And your wedding planner will sit here.” She plopped down at the head of the table by a yellow legal pad and a row of sharpened pencils.
“Wedding planner? Who’s that? And why would I need one?” Rachel reached for a cookie off the plate in the center.
“It’s me, you goose. Every bride-to-be of the twenty-first century uses a wedding planner. I shall be yours.”
Rachel bit the inside of her cheek. “Jessie, the marriage will be at the First Baptist Church of Charm, the reception here in the indoor arena, and the meal will be cooked by some of your mom’s celebrity chefs. They have already volunteered. I believe everything’s planned.” She smiled, unable to contain her mirth, and reached for a second oatmeal raisin crisp.
“What about your wedding dress? Or do you plan to wear your Levis and riding boots?” Jessie tapped her tablet with a pencil point.
“No. I thought I would sew my dress.” Rachel dabbed crumbs from her lips.
Her future sister-in-law’s face fell. “Don’t you need my help?” Jessie couldn’t have sounded more pitiful.
“Dear me, of course I do.” Rachel picked up a brochure. “What have you got here? Let’s take a look at these wedding cakes.”
The cake featured on the cover was a veritable garden of flowers, arbors, and hedgerows made of spun sugar. A tiny bride and groom stood hand in hand under a lacy plastic archway. The creation couldn’t be fancier unless a real babbling brook flowed across the surface from a hidden water pump. As much as Amish folks loved their sweets, they would be aghast at such an extravaganza. “So…are these wedding cakes for sale?”
“Relax. I know you probably want to bake your own, but the guest list will probably top two hundred and may approach three if your kin come from Lancaster County. So I suggest a compromise. Mom’s best friend loves to bake. She wants to make your cake as a gift to you and Jake. All you need to do is pick out a general idea from these photos and tell her your favorite flavor. What do you say?”
“What a generous gift. I like spice cake and Jake loves chocolate. Could we do a layer of each?” Rachel’s excitement began to build as she thumbed through the cake brochure.
“Certainly you can. You’re the bride. Here among the English, that’s a very big deal. You can have anything you want for your wedding and even boss people around to do your bidding.” Jessie grinned, perhaps anticipating this attention for herself one day.
The idea of barking orders didn’t appeal much to Rachel. Weddings within the Plain culture were certainly special occasions, complete with a buffet meal, practical gifts, flowers, a cake, and one attendant each for bride and groom. But marriages rated no higher than any other life passage—birth, graduation, baptism, joining the church, birth of each child, and finally, death. But not wishing to hurt Jessie’s feelings, she looked at the pictures and chose the simplest of wedding cakes. No babbling brooks or fountains spoutin
g pink lemonade.
That afternoon Rachel and her maid of honor, serving in a dual capacity as wedding planner, selected the floral arrangements for church and reception and the menu for the meal—roast rosemary chicken, prime rib, new potatoes au gratin, green beans with mushrooms, fruit ambrosia, Caesar salad, and corn bread rather than dinner rolls. Rachel insisted Jake join them for the menu planning. The corn bread had been his suggestion. Jessie rolled her eyes twice at his insistence of something so down-home at a formal affair, but he said he loved it. When Rachel objected to the term “formal,” Jessie readily approved Jake’s choice of bread.
“Okay, we’re making progress.” Jessie placed a large check mark next to the third item on her list. “Now let’s talk dresses, both for you and your attendants. How many bridesmaids will there be?”
Jake raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, here’s where I make my he-man exit.” He kissed Rachel’s cheek and scrambled from his chair. “All I need is the final number so I know how many buddies to ask besides Virgil.”
“You’re abandoning me to your sister?” asked Rachel, only half joking.
“Where’s your cell phone? Keep it close by. Remember your first wagon tour when you had the walkie-talkie next to you?” He ruffled his fingers through her hair, which fell freely down her back today. “Just press my speed dial number, and I’ll come running from wherever I am, night or day.”
Jessie arched a well-plucked eyebrow. “There will be no panic situations for our bride with me as wedding planner. Be off with you. You’re only the mildly consequential groom. We still have a lot to cover—invitations, the photographer, music both during the service and the reception, and of course the bridal shower, to be thrown by me and Keeley.”