Marrying Jonah

by Amy Lillard

“Are you ready to turn the light out?”

  She nodded.

  He reached out and flipped off the lamp between them. The room fell to darkness.

  “Mamm will wake us up, when it’s time.”

  Just great. That meant they would all know. He hadn’t said another word about scooting their beds together and she wasn’t about to bring it up now. She’d had enough embarrassment for one day.

  She eased beneath the covers and turned onto her side, trying to get comfortable. It was always strange sleeping in a bed that was unfamiliar. But she knew that wasn’t the cause for her discomfort. No, she was wound up and nervous due to the man lying across the room from her.

  What do you think he’s going to do? Jump up and come demand marital rights? Even though the thoughts were in her head, they still brought a blush to her cheeks. Once again she was thankful for the darkness to hide her reaction to him. No, Jonah wasn’t like that. Their marriage wasn’t like that. Even though—

  She lay in the dark and listened to him breathe. She could hear a few other noises stirring around the house, and occasionally she thought she could hear one of the kittens cry from the barn. She did her best to make her breathing shallow and quiet, but even to her own ears it sounded weary and heavy in the darkness. It was just a matter of time, she told herself. That was what they needed: time.

  “Good night, Sarah.”

  At his words her shoulders relaxed a little, and for the first time she felt like she might actually have an opportunity to sleep. “Good night, Jonah.”

  Chapter Eight

  Sarah was not happy.

  She eyed the wringer washer, hoping her trepidation didn’t show on her face. How long had it been since she had used one of these? Five years? Six? Could be even longer than that.

  A while back, her father had given her mother the gift of a propane-generated top-loader washing machine, just like the ones the Englishers used. It was a dream. As easy as chocolate pie to use, and so much less effort than the older wringer models required.

  “Is anything wrong?” Gertie asked.

  Sarah jerked her attention from the antique to her mother-in-law’s face. “No. Nothing.” Nothing except that she had no idea how to work the machine. But there was something in Gertie’s hard stare that said she should. And there was no way Sarah was telling Jonah’s mother anything different.

  She would just have to figure out how to work the machine. She had used one once upon a time. Surely she could remember. All she needed to do was get started.

  She hadn’t forgotten everything, and soon she had the machine chugging along. Once the first load had washed, she started it through the wringer. This wasn’t so hard, a little more time-consuming than an automatic washer, but she could handle it.

  She picked up one of Jonah’s shirts and started running it through the wringer. The machine gave a quick cough and a belch, then the shirt somehow tangled in the wringers. Something ground together, then the machine quit, the shirt still wrapped around the wringers.

  “No, no, no, no,” she said, gently tugging on the shirt, but it was stuck fast in the machine’s rollers. She pulled a little harder, but to no avail.

  If she remembered correctly, there was a way to release the rollers. Maybe if she pressed on the lever on the top of the wringers . . .

  She pressed down, but nothing. Harder and still nothing. Maybe it was stuck. Or maybe the shirt was caught in the mechanism. Whatever it was, she was going to have to rely on manual moves in order to rescue Jonah’s shirt.

  She tugged again, and this time the sound of ripping fabric met her ears. “Oh, no,” she breathed. Whatever she did must have also unstuck whatever was keeping the wringer from working. It started again while she was still holding the ends of Jonah’s shirt. Before she knew what happened, there were two pieces, one in her hands and the other plopped on the floor on the other side of the machine.

  “Sarah, are you okay in here?” Gertie picked that exact moment to pop in and check on her.

  Sarah whirled around, shoving the torn half of shirt behind her back. “Everything is . . . fine.”

  Gertie looked at her as if she had grown another head.

  “Well, maybe not,” she admitted.

  Gertie spied the remains of the once beautiful shirt, now a wet, ripped heap on the floor. “Is that—”

  “Jonah’s shirt,” Sarah said.

  Her mother-in-law tsked. “That was his favorite one too.”

  Great. Married one day and she had already ruined her husband’s favorite shirt. “I’ll make him another.” She was a much better seamstress than she was a washerwoman. She could whip him out a shirt in no time.

  Worse than that was the look on Gertie Miller’s face. Somewhere between disgust and resignation.

  “I suppose,” she said, then shook her head as she walked away.

  Somehow, Sarah made it through the pile of laundry without destroying any more clothes. She lugged the basket outside, the Indian summer sun warm on her face as she started to hang the clothes to dry. October in Oklahoma was unpredictable, but today was a beautiful day and she knew the clothes would be dry in no time. Until then, she was sure Gertie would find something else for her to do, but what she really wanted was to take the tractor into town and look for fabric to replace Jonah’s shirt.

  No, that wasn’t exactly true. It wasn’t that she wanted to go into town but that she wanted to get out of the house. Today felt like a disaster.

  So she might be overreacting a tad when she felt as if she was on shaky ground where the Millers were concerned. Who was she trying to kid? She was on shaky ground. Life would have been very different if she and Jonah were in love, but they weren’t. And because of that his mother wore a permanent frown and everyone except for Buddy looked at her as if they couldn’t believe she was sitting at their table.

  Sarah reached for the next garment on the top of the basket. Surely things would get easier. With any luck Jonah’s family would come to accept her. If not, she only had six months of this before she could move out and the two of them could have their own place.

  Six months.

  The thought almost made her knees buckle. Six months was a long, long time. But then compared to the forever of her marriage with Jonah, surely she could make it through that much.

  * * *

  Just after noon, Jonah pulled his mud-caked boots from his feet and let himself in the back door of the house. The field was really too wet to harvest the rest of the corn, but they had to get it out of the field before it started to mildew. That was the worst thing about fall rain. It made everything a rush. But his father had insisted he come in for dinner. Jonah knew it was because he had a new wife waiting for him, and because their marriage wasn’t average, he promised his father he would stay only a few minutes and bring back sandwiches for them all to eat. His father had waved away his offer, but to Jonah that was exactly what was going to happen. He had spent all last night staring at her across the table at supper, then all night long in the darkness listening to her breathe. The last thing he wanted to do was see her right now. She was the reason his eyes felt like they had sand in them and his feet felt as heavy, as if he had anvils tied to each one. Surely it would get easier. Surely he would grow accustomed to having a wife, sharing his room with someone other than Buddy. But he wasn’t exactly counting on it.

  “Jonah? Is that you?” Mamm’s voice floated in from the kitchen.

  “It is. I came to get sandwiches.”

  He rounded the corner into the kitchen only to draw up short as he saw Sarah sitting at the table, an assembly line of food in front of her. A stack of sandwiches sat to her right, and his mother sat at the end of the table wrapping them in plastic wrap.

  “Are you feeding the entire district?”

  “Just my boys.”

  He always thought it was funny when his mom referred to his dat as one of the boys, and he smiled a little to himself.

  His parents had a good relationship. They
got along fine and had raised six kids together. He could only hope that one day he and Sarah might have something similar. Right now he would settle for a shadow of that companionship and cooperation.

  “Get a sack out of the pantry and start loading this up. I know with the rain last night, your father wants to finish up today.”

  He nodded. It was just proof again, the understanding his parents shared.

  His gaze drifted toward Sarah. Her father worked in town and her mother did sewing on the side. She didn’t know what it was like to farm the land. Would she survive as a farmer’s wife? Would she eventually know all the ins and outs that he took for granted? That his mother and the rest of his family understood?

  Sarah stood and moved to the pantry, taking out a sack and loading the sandwiches inside.

  “There’s lemonade in the refrigerator.”

  Sarah sighed and moved to the fridge. Her mouth was turned down only slightly at the corners, as if she wanted to frown but yet didn’t want to.

  “Sarah?”

  She shook her head and pulled the recycled milk jug from the icebox. “Here, Jonah.”

  “Don’t forget the chips,” his mother reminded her.

  Sarah sighed again and moved back to the pantry.

  “Third shelf on the left.”

  Jonah watched as she took out the bag of chips and put them in the sack with the sandwiches. Where had her spark gone? Where was the girl with the flashing blue eyes who stood up to him over the smallest detail of their forced marriage?

  He didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to find out. He had a field to clear. He would have to worry about that later.

  He could feel her eyes on him as he grabbed the sack and the container of lemonade and headed for the door.

  * * *

  “Can you pass the salt?”

  Jonah looked to Sarah. The shaker sat directly in front of her, but he really didn’t need it. He just wanted her attention. He wanted her to look up, be a part of the conversation. Laugh, talk, yell, something. It was as if someone had sucked the life out of her and left the shell of her body to walk around without her in it.

  She handed it to him without looking at him, without a smile, a glance, an accidental touch.

  He shouldn’t care, but he did. He hadn’t wanted to marry Sarah, but he didn’t wish her unhappy either.

  He waited until the kitchen was cleaned, the dishes washed and put away, before approaching her. “Will you walk with me, Sarah?”

  She whirled around, still drying her hands on a dish towel. She met his gaze for the first time since he had come in to the house to get lunch that afternoon. “You want to walk with me?”

  She needn’t have sounded so surprised. Okay, maybe she should, since he hadn’t acted much like he wanted her around. “Jah, of course. You are my wife.”

  Buddy giggled, and Jonathan slapped him on the back good-naturedly. As long as they were living in his parents’ house, he would never be able to live it down.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You don’t know that we are married?” he teased.

  “I don’t know about going for a walk. Aren’t you tired from your work today?”

  “Not so tired that I don’t want to walk with you.”

  He could almost see her surprise, but she hid it so quickly that he wasn’t sure if it had been there or it was just his hopeful imagination.

  “Let me get my sweater.” She moved past him and up the stairs, returning quickly with a dark-colored sweater over her apron and dress.

  Buddy and Jonathan were still joking about newlyweds and the lack of need for a sweater, but Jonah ignored them and walked Sarah out the front door and down the porch steps. The days were getting shorter and nighttime had already fallen.

  “You don’t really want to walk, do you?” She stopped just at the bottom of the steps.

  “Of course I do. Why would you say that?”

  If he wasn’t mistaken, she rolled her eyes at his question. Good. That was more like the Sarah he knew. “I don’t know. You never wanted to marry me to begin with.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t try to get along.”

  She pulled her sweater a little tighter around her and squarely met his gaze. “Your mother hates me.”

  He sucked in a breath at her blunt words. “She doesn’t hate you.”

  “I’m going back inside.” She started past him, but he stopped her with one hand on her arm.

  “My mother can be a little difficult.”

  “I ruined your dark blue shirt today.”

  “You ruined it?”

  “It got caught in the wringers. Something with the buttons. I don’t know. I haven’t used a washer like that in years. I almost burned every bit of supper that I touched and I wanted to make you another shirt, but I’m not sure I can use your mother’s sewing machine without making every stitch crooked as a river.”

  “And you think this makes her hate you?”

  “She hates me because she knows you don’t love me either.”

  Her words stabbed at him. It shouldn’t have bothered him. It was the truth. He didn’t love her. But that didn’t mean that his mother was against her.

  “I want to go home, Jonah.”

  To his dismay, tears rose in her eyes. During all this time he had never once seen her cry. She had endured so much, shame in front of her family and the church, a Bann, and a forced marriage. Now she wanted to cry?

  Still, her tears moved him to action. He took two steps toward her and pulled her easily into his arms.

  She felt slight, as if she weighed no more than a bird. Sobs racked her thin shoulders. She tucked her face into his neck, her tears wetting his skin. He ran his hands over her back, soothing her as she cried it out. He wondered if it was the stress of the baby getting to her or if perhaps she was merely overwhelmed by all the life changes she had been through.

  “I want to go home,” she said again, her words muffled, but he could understand them all the same.

  “You are home,” he said.

  She shook her head, smearing her tears against the collar of his shirt. “This is your home. I want to go to my home.”

  Something in her tone sent his heart plummeting to the soles of his shoes.

  “I’ll get you a home, Sarah. As soon as I possibly can. I promise you.” And he meant every word.

  * * *

  “Can I talk to you for a moment?” Sarah twisted her fingers together as she waited for Jonah’s answer.

  “Jah?” He was on his way out to the field, the last of the harvest before they burned the fodder on the fields to help fertilize next year’s crops.

  Suddenly the words deserted her. “I . . . uh, about last night . . . I mean, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go all crazy on you. It’s just—”

  He held up a hand to stop her words. “It’s okay. The last few weeks have been a bit trying.”

  That was an understatement, but she wasn’t about to correct him. He wasn’t laughing at her weakness or scoffing at her sobbing. Maybe, just maybe, he really understood how hard this had been on her as well.

  “I didn’t mean to be a burden.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not a burden. The situation is.”

  “But we’re going to get through it, right?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  She smiled at him then, realizing that it might have been the first time she had really smiled since she had moved into the Miller house. “I guess I’ll see you at lunch?”

  He nodded and she turned to go back into the house. “And, Sarah . . .”

  “Jah?”

  “Why don’t we go into town tonight? Maybe get supper at Kauffman’s.”

  “Like a date?” She was almost afraid to say the word.

  He seemed to think about it a minute. “Exactly like a date.”

  “I’d like that.”

  For a moment she thought he was going to say more, then he turned on one heel and started for
his tractor.

  And Sarah decided right then, nothing could ruin this day. Tonight she had a date with her husband.

  Chapter Nine

  “Can I go into town with you?” Buddy stood in the living room next to Jonah as he waited on Sarah to finish getting ready.

  “Not tonight, Buddy.” Jonah glanced at the staircase. Why was his heart pounding? It was just dinner. With Sarah. But somehow it felt special, this first date with her.

  “Aww.” Buddy put on his full pout.

  “Just not tonight, okay?” He felt sorry for Buddy. The changes had been hard on his brother as well. “Next week maybe we can go to Tulsa to the zoo. Would you like that?”

  It was a dumb question. Buddy loved going to look at animals, and the Tulsa Zoo was one of his favorite places in the world. “Jah. Jah. Promise?”

  “Promise.” Movement at the top of the stairs caught his attention. He looked up just in time to see Sarah headed his way.

  Her royal-blue dress made her eyes shine. A faint tint of pink stained her cheeks, and for once her dark brown hair lay smooth and tamed, neatly rolled under the sides of her kapp.

  “Wow, Sarah. You look pretty.” Leave it to Buddy to say what Jonah couldn’t.

  She smiled prettily and the pink in her cheeks deepened. “Danki.”

  “Are you ready?” Jonah cleared his throat.

  “Jah.”

  “Sarah, you need a sweater,” Buddy advised. “It’s getting chilly outside. Dat said the weatherman said we might have frost on the pumpkins tonight.”

  “My sweater is down here.”

  Jonah spied it lying across the back of his mother’s rocking chair. He held it out so Sarah could slip her arms in the sleeves.

  “Danki,” she murmured. She grabbed her purse, and together they headed out the door.

  Buddy followed them out onto the porch, waving the entire time. “Bye. Bring me back something. Pie. Bring me back some pie.”

  Jonah laughed at his brother’s antics. It was better by far than examining why it felt so right to be walking next to Sarah. “Mamm has pie in the kitchen.”

  “Not like Kauffman’s coconut cream.”

  “Is that your favorite?” Sarah asked.