“She brought me nothing but happiness.”
“When she was alive she did, but now every memory makes you sad. You are weighed down with despair every time you think of her. Her whole life was about love and happiness, and I don’t think she would be glad to know she caused you such paralyzing grief in her death.”
Aaron’s chest was so tight he couldn’t breathe properly. Dawdi didn’t know what he was talking about. “I honor Mary with my grief. Everyone knows how loyal I am.”
“What good do your tears do? What good do they do Mary? I’m not Mary, but I’ll be dead soon enough, and I know that this is not how Mary would have liked to be remembered. When people remember me, I want them to laugh at a joke I told or smile at my collection of license plates. I don’t want Anna to mope around all day because I’m gone. I want her to be happy she knew me, even if she misses me. Is this the way you would have wanted Mary to behave at your passing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?” Dawdi raised an eyebrow. “What would she say to you if she were here?”
Aaron lifted his chin. “She’d thank me for not forgetting her.”
“And then chastise you for using her as an excuse to be miserable. What good is your life if you spend it longing for the dead? You’ve betrayed her memory by closing your heart.”
Tears burned the corners of his eyes. “But, Dawdi, I’m can’t help being sad she’s gone.”
Dawdi took the boxes from Aaron’s arms, set them on the ground, then gathered Aaron into a stiff embrace. “You wear your grief like a badge. Like a dead rosebush sitting in your front yard. Life is a choice, Aaron. Happiness is a choice.”
Aaron sobbed into Dawdi’s shoulder. “I don’t know how to be different. I can’t be different. Ask Mary’s mater. She understands.”
“But does Lydia bring you comfort or try to make you feel worse?”
“The worse we feel, the better we loved Mary.” He winced. He sounded stubborn and petulant, like someone who knew he was wrong but couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Lydia believed it, but he couldn’t say for sure and certain if he believed it himself.
Dawdi nudged himself away from Aaron. “Maybe Freeman loved Mary more than anybody.”
“Freeman?”
Dawdi gave a short whistle, and Freeman Schrock emerged from Dawdi’s buggy. His tortured expression spoke of pain but not anger, as if it hurt too much to be mad at life anymore. He slid a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, tapped one from the pack, and lit it. Smoke seeped from his mouth like fog from a cave. He trudged toward Aaron and Dawdi as if it were painful to walk. When he was a few feet from Aaron, he stopped and took another puff.
“Hello, Freeman.”
“Aaron.” Freeman’s long bangs covered half his face, and he slouched as if two giant hands pressed down on his shoulders. He looked so sad yet so painfully innocent that Aaron had the almost overpowering urge to pull the kid in for a hug.
“Did Dawdi bring you to visit Mary’s grave?”
Freeman took another puff on his cigarette. “He asked me to come talk to you, but I don’t know what I’m doing here. It won’t do any good.”
Dawdi wrapped his arm around Freeman’s neck, which brought him close to the smelly cigarette. Dawdi didn’t seem to mind. “You two have more in common than you think. I wanted you to talk to him instead of glaring at Aaron from a distance.”
Freeman tossed his cigarette butt to the ground and stepped on it with his boot. “I’ve only got a few minutes. My friends are waiting.”
Aaron hated to see what Mary’s little bruder had become. He was only eighteen and still in rumschpringe, but he’d thrown his hat in with the wrong crowd. Word was that Freeman had not only taken up smoking, but he been seen drunk on more than one occasion.
Aaron couldn’t resist asking. “What friends?”
Freeman nudged his discarded cigarette butt with his toe. “Nobody in particular.”
Aaron had a soft spot for boys like Freeman. Their lives could so easily turn on the pivot of one or two bad choices. And Freeman was Mary’s bruder. Aaron had a deep obligation to help him, for Mary’s sake. Why hadn’t he realized it until now? He’d been too wrapped up in his own problems to notice that Freeman needed help.
Had he truly been that selfish for three years? He couldn’t stand by and let Freeman destroy himself and his future. Freeman shouldn’t live like this. He was an orphan as sure as any child who’d lost his parents.
Aaron pointed to a bench under one of the few trees in the cemetery. “Will you sit?”
Freeman pressed his lips together resentfully, but he nodded and let Aaron lead the way to the bench. Dawdi sat on one side, Aaron on the other, with Freeman in the middle.
Aaron leaned back and folded his arms. “Freeman, you’re man enough to hear the hard truth, and I’m going to give it to you. You are throwing away your life for a pack of cigarettes and a beer bottle. You get drunk, you smoke, and you scowl at everyone. Is this the kind of person you want to be?”
“What do you care?” Freeman said. “You’ve worked so hard to make sure everyone sees how much you are suffering. When have you ever cared about anything but your own grief?”
Aaron’s stomach twisted into a knot. “Despite how I’ve acted, I do care yet.”
“You care even less than Mamm does. The day Mary died, it was like all her other children died too, or might as well have. She’s hardly gotten out of bed for three years. She loved Mary so much that there’s no room left for the rest of us. She can’t spare any kindness for her other children.”
“She’s grieving for Mary.”
“Well, she should grieve the rest of her children too, because we’re dead to her.”
Aaron propped his elbows on his knees and stared at the ground. Had this been his doing or Lydia’s? Freeman not only lost a sister that day, he’d lost a mater and a brother-in-law who were too wrapped up in proving how sad they were to see that they were hurting others.
Aaron clamped his mouth shut and stifled a sob. Dawdi was right too. Mary would be horrified to think that the memory her life had brought him so much pain. He’d been irritated with Suvie because she hadn’t seemed sad enough that Mary was gone, but she was the one who had it right. Why should I let Mary’s memory afflict me? Suvie had said. I’m happy I knew her.
All Aaron had to show for his grief was a dead rosebush and a pile of rocks, when he might have been able to help Lydia heal and give Freeman the direction he so desperately needed.
And then there was Suvie.
He had pushed Suvie away when she had been nothing but patient and long-suffering and eager.
And wunderbarr.
Suvie, with her loud, unapologetic laugh and her muddy dresses and her waterlogged petunias, was wunderbarr beyond words.
And. He. Loved. Her.
His heart leaped inside his chest and pulled him to his feet.
He loved Suvie Newswenger!
Feeling as if a three-year pile of rocks had suddenly fallen off his chest, he staggered to one of the trees and leaned against the trunk to catch his breath. His heart was pounding as if he’d just run a race or seen a stunning sunrise or escaped an angry badger. He loved Suvie, and when he thought of her, he wondered if he might just be able to remember Mary with love rather than with pain and honor her memory instead of dragging it around like an anvil on a chain.
The thought liberated and terrified him at the same time. What did he have to hold on to if not the pain?
Maybe he just needed to hold on to Suvie.
Freeman pursed his lips and pulled another cigarette from his pocket, as if trying to care as little as he thought Aaron did. Aaron swiped the cigarette from Freeman’s mouth with a wave of his hand, and it fell to the ground. “Not here, Freeman. You stink to high heaven.”
“I do not.”
“Jah,” Dawdi said. “You smell very bad, especially your breath.”
Freeman plucked his cigarette from the grou
nd and resentfully slipped it back into his pocket. “Nobody’s ever told me that before,” he mumbled, his voice laced with resentment and maybe just a little embarrassment. He probably realized it had gotten very bad if Felty Helmuth had something to say about his body odor.
“Your Amish friends are too polite to say anything, and your Englisch friends don’t notice because they smell worse than you do,” Dawdi said.
“Politeness didn’t stop you,” Freeman said.
Dawdi put his arm around Freeman. “There comes a point where being honest is more important that sparing someone’s feelings, especially when I can see there’s going to be trouble down the road, like with you and the smoking.” Dawdi nodded at Aaron. “Like with Aaron here. You’ve told him what he needs to hear, even if he doesn’t like hearing it.”
Aaron sat down, pressed his fingers to his forehead, and huffed out a breath. “Freeman, I hate to say this because you’re Mary’s little bruder, but I think . . . I think you’re right.”
Freeman narrowed his eyes. “About what?”
“I haven’t cared about much of anything but my own grief these past three years.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. Mary was your wife.”
Aaron shook his head. “You are right, and so is Dawdi. I’ve been betraying Mary’s memory by choosing to nurse my grief. But I want to change that. Can you help me?”
“Nae,” Freeman said. “I’m only eighteen. What do I know? I’m addicted to cigarettes, and my mamm doesn’t love me anymore. I’ve got my own bucket of problems.”
“Can we just be friends then?”
“I don’t know,” Freeman said. “You’re kind of old.”
Aaron gave him a genuine smile. He might be old, but he hadn’t felt this young in years. “You’ve helped me more than you know already.”
Freeman shrugged. “Probably. I think I deserve that box of Froot Loops for my trouble.”
Aaron cocked an eyebrow. “You can’t have my Froot Loops.”
“I’m afraid Annie Banannie would never approve,” Dawdi said. “The best I can offer you is the cheese curds. They’re guaranteed to plug you up.”
* * *
Aaron came home to a dark and empty house. All he could hear was his own breathing as he fumbled for the matches and lit the mantle on the small propane lantern. The lantern hissed to life as he blew out the match and sat down in his favorite chair, the one that looked out the window to the backyard. He could make out the outline of Mary’s rock pile by the sliver of moon in the eastern sky.
An hour ago he thought he might have the strength to do it. Now he wasn’t so sure. The grief crushed him. The guilt nearly suffocated him. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed like a child.
Nothing needed to change. He could go on just like he’d been living for three years, eating his bran flakes every morning and putting another rock on his pile every day. He wouldn’t have to face the pain of telling Mary goodbye, and he wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of falling in love with someone else.
Someone else.
He imagined the sound of Suvie’s laughter. She had so much life ahead of her and so much love inside her. He pictured her bright, genuine smile, ignored the ache in his bones, and clawed his way out of the deep pit he’d fallen into.
He would choose to honor Mary’s memory with the way he lived and the way he loved. He would take hold of the parts of him that were left and broken and build again. Like the pile of rocks, he would make something new out of his grief and choose to live and cherish the life Gotte had given him.
He cried until the moon set in the western sky.
Chapter 7
A bowl of bran flakes was no way to start the day, especially when it was so gloomy outside already. But Aaron seemed to eat a lot of them, so Suvie had bought a box at the store yesterday, just to see what all the fuss was about. She had mistakenly thought that Aaron ate them because they were delicious.
Nae.
Aaron ate them because he wanted to make himself more miserable than he already was.
That was the only thing she could conclude.
Suvie took a deep, shuddering breath. She hadn’t shed one tear after Friday, but her heart felt as if she’d been crying for a whole year. She didn’t understand why Aaron didn’t want to be happy. Happiness was all Suvie had ever wanted. She had thought she could find it with Aaron, but she shouldn’t have bothered. Now she felt worse than if she hadn’t tried at all.
She made one last attempt at the bran flakes. It was no use. A whole cup of sugar couldn’t make those things taste better.
She set her spoon down and chastised herself for being out of sorts. No matter how bad she felt now, she wouldn’t have been satisfied if she hadn’t tried to win Aaron’s heart. She loved him, for goodness sake, and Aaron was worth the heartache, no matter how acute or how long-lasting. For a few glorious days, she had been happier than she had been in her whole life. She had gone to the lake and made s’mores and weeded Aaron’s flower bed. She had been thrown out of a buggy, done three times as much laundry as usual, and discovered that Toby Byler ate worms.
Her heart swelled until she almost couldn’t breathe. She’d made Aaron laugh and gotten her first kiss. What did she have to cry about? She was no worse off than when she had started three weeks ago, and now she had a pallet full of gute memories to hold.
Suvie took a swig of kaffee before stepping outside the kitchen door and pouring the rest of her soggy bran flakes into the flowers. Hopefully they wouldn’t die.
The wind blew the screen door shut as she stepped back into the house. It looked like another storm. At least the crops would be well-watered, but she would never again hear the rain without thinking of Aaron and his clogged rain gutters.
The look on his face when that gutter came down . . .
That memory would always make her happy. And a little sad.
Someone rapped urgently on Suvie’s door, and she hurried to the front room. No one should be forced to wait out in this wind.
Anna and Felty stood on Suvie’s front stoop, grinning like two hens with a nest full of eggs. Anna held a colorful box of cereal in her hands, which she immediately handed to Suvie. “Suvie, dear! We have finally discovered the secret, and it’s not dishrags after all. It’s peanut butter Cap’n Crunch.”
At least it wasn’t bran flakes.
Suvie felt her lips curl upward. Anna could coax a smile out of a hog on butchering day. “The secret to what?”
“It’s an emergency,” Felty said, his eyes twinkling like the sun bouncing off a choppy lake.
“We need you and the cereal to come with us immediately,” Anna said. “And a rosebush. Do you have a rosebush?”
“A rosebush?”
Anna nodded and clapped her hands together. “Jah. In your greenhouse. Do you have a spare rosebush? We’ll pay double the price.”
Suvie was getting more confused by the second. “You want a rosebush?”
“And we want you to come with us,” Felty added, just to be sure she’d heard that part.
“I have three rosebushes—a Horace McFarland, a Mister Lincoln, and a pretty pink variety.”
Anna paused with her mouth open, at a sudden loss for words. It didn’t take her long to recover. “Well. Bring the pink one. We don’t need those other two boys getting in the way.”
Anna and Felty seemed to be in such a big rush that Suvie thought it might be rude to delay them with questions. They obviously had some sort of rose emergency, and as a gardener, Suvie was the best one to help them with it. She put on her bonnet and hurried to the greenhouse, where she retrieved the plastic pot that held her last pink rose. How nice that someone would be planting it before autumn time. They’d have beautiful roses next spring.
Anna and Felty were already settled in the buggy when Suvie came back. She squeezed in beside Anna with her arm firmly around the rose pot in her lap. Felty was usually a very cautious, very slow driver, but today he snapped his horse into
a trot and took off down the road like a crazy teenager.
Once Suvie caught her breath and gathered her wits, she asked the obvious question. “Where are we going?”
“We’re just doing the job you hired us for,” Anna said. “Although we want no money in return. Isn’t that right, Felty?”
“That’s right.”
The job she hired them for? Suvie couldn’t think of what that might be except for matching her with Aaron, and that had turned out badly. Surely they weren’t going to try to match her with another one of their grandchildren. Mortified at the possibility, she gave Anna a weak smile. “It looks like rain. Maybe it would be better to try planting my rose on a sunny day.”
Anna reached down and lifted another box from the floor of the buggy. Cocoa Pebbles. “Stuff and nonsense. The best day to plant is always today, even in the rain.”
It didn’t take Suvie long to figure out where they were going, and she nearly opened the buggy door and jumped out, even with Felty racing down the road like a runaway train. It had been a week, and she was not going to try again with Aaron, no matter how insistent Anna and Felty were. Aaron had his pile of rocks and his weed-choked flower beds. He didn’t have room in his heart for anything or anyone else. She’d rather not make a fool of herself a second time.
Felty pulled into Aaron’s driveway.
Anna gripped her cereal box like a long-lost friend. “I hope these Cocoa Pebbles are gute enough. They were out of Cap’n Crunch this morning.”
The three of them got out of the buggy, and Suvie nudged the rose in Felty’s direction. “Please take the rose to Aaron and give him my best. I’ll wait in the buggy.”
“Now, Suvie dear,” Anna said. “Aaron asked us to bring you. It wouldn’t do anybody any gute to sit in the buggy.”
A protest formed on Suvie’s lips, but it died as soon as she noticed the dead rosebush—or didn’t notice it. The gnarled plant was gone, a good-sized hole in its place. Suvie’s mouth fell open. Aaron had dug up Mary’s rosebush? Or had one of his family members come in the night and decided to take matters into their own hands?
Amish Brides Page 9