Fields of Corn

by Sarah Price

  "Well, I could do without that," Shana replied, reaching down to tug playfully on Linda's pigtail. "But the songs are so beautiful that it makes up for the benches."

  "That it does," Lillian agreed. "Katie and I will be working on a quilt early January. Perhaps you could come quilting, ja?" Lillian asked as Linda clung to her hand and twisted around, peering eagerly at Shana as she pressed her face against her mother's hip.

  "Quilting? I'm not too handy with a needle." Noticing the disappointed look in Lillian's expression, Shana quickly added, "Yet."

  Lillian smiled. "Then you must come and learn!" But there was no more time to discuss quilting. It was their turn to file into the kitchen and eat their meal. Shana followed Lillian and took her plate to the table. Katie smiled at her two daughter-in-laws, stepping aside to make room for them to join her.

  The sky hung dark and gray as Shana and Emanuel rode home after visiting after church with Jonas and Katie. The younger brothers had disappeared after the church meal, most of them to pick up their girls for some social event. Sylvia, too young to date, had sat in the kitchen, listening intently to Katie and Shana discuss spring gardening. But now, the cold beating at the buggy, Shana listened to the gentle sound of the horse's hooves hitting the macadam. It lulled her, soothing her tired eyes and weary spirit until the next thing she knew, Emanuel was gently touching her arm. Startled, Shana opened her eyes and blinked. They had reached the farm.

  "Oh," she started. "I must've fallen asleep."

  "That you did."

  "I don't know why I'm so tired," she said softly as she clambered out of the buggy.

  She waited patiently for Emanuel to unhitch Lady. She liked to watch him when he worked, his strong hands unhooking the harness and his breath forming misty clouds in the cold. He led the horse into her stall and shut the gate. Then, together, Shana and Emanuel walked up the stone path to their house.

  In the kitchen, Emanuel turned on the heater while Shana put on a fresh pot of coffee. The fresh aroma of percolating coffee soon filled the room. She had just set the two coffee cups on the table while Emanuel hurried upstairs to change his clothes. Shana sat at the table and looked around herself. The kitchen indeed felt like home to her. She spent most of her days in it, cooking and cleaning and sometimes sewing rips in Emanuel's work clothes. She shut her eyes, listening to him walking around in the room above her. A drawer shut and she thought she heard the bed creak. Seconds later, he emerged from the staircase.

  "What is that smile for?" Emanuel asked.

  "Was I smiling?" she asked as she stood up to get the coffee pot from the stove. "I was just thinking about you and our home and how happy I am."

  “Des gut,” he said as he sat down. He took the pot of coffee from her. “I am happy too,” he said, smiling back at her. But he remained quiet, focusing for a moment, pouring coffee into the two empty cups Shana had set down on the table. When he set the coffee pot on the table, he looked up at her, "My mamm invited us for Christmas worship."

  She could tell that pleased him. She hadn't given much thought to Christmas. Without the big tree and exchanging of gifts, it would feel like every other day. Yet, while the disappointment lingered in her mind as she remembered her own family Christmases when she was younger, she found she truly did not resent not seeing her family this year. "Did she?"

  "We have a family service and a big dinner in the early afternoon. I told her we would go."

  "When is Christmas, anyway?"

  “A week or so, I guess," Emanuel said as he leaned back in his chair and glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. "Six days, it appears. Perhaps you should call your own family."

  "Time flies, doesn't it?" She felt her own shame at Emanuel having to remind her about her family. While they had never been a close family, Shana had written to them about her marriage. "It feels like a lifetime ago that I was a part of their world. They don't even seem real to me, anymore," she said, mostly to herself.

  "All the more reason to call them, then. We'll take you to the payphone this week." He finished his coffee and pushed his cup aside. "Mamm also told me that Steve and his girl parted."

  "Liddy May? Did she mention why?"

  He shook his head. "I didn't think to ask."

  "That's a shame, isn't it? She's such a sweet girl." Shana felt a twang of sympathy for Liddy May. In Shana's mind, Liddy May made the perfect Amish wife. Strong, loyal, a member of the Amish church. And, as Steve had taken his baptism that fall, she was certain that he had found what he was searching for. "I almost forgot, Lillian invited me to join them quilting this January," Shana said, changing the subject. "Maybe one evening, we should have your family here."

  He laughed as he stood up. "Just as long as you don't make any of those famous pies of yours."

  "A little salt's good for you," she retorted as he slid on his thicker winter jacket and disappeared into the cold to take care of his evening chores.

  Three days before Christmas, Emanuel came into the house after the morning milking. To his surprise, Shana was not in the kitchen. Usually she had breakfast ready for him, especially if she didn't help him in the barn. But today, she hadn't even come downstairs yet.

  Quietly, he climbed the stairs, the top step creaking under his feet, and noticed their bedroom door open. He glanced in the empty room, the bedcovers still tossed back. A frown crossed his face as he knocked at the closed bathroom door. She didn't answer for several minutes. He could hear her moving around behind the door, the water trickling into the sink, and the flushing of the toilet. When she finally opened the door, her face was pale and her eyes watery. She leaned against the doorframe, clutching her robe around her stomach. Her unbrushed hair fell down to her waist in sweeping waves.

  “Shana?” Emanuel glanced inside the bathroom. "Are you all right?"

  "Merry Christmas," Shana sighed, her eyes dark and dull. "I think I'm pregnant."

  "What?"

  A tear fell from her eyes. "I just got sick."

  Wrapping his arms around her, Emanuel tried to soothe Shana. He smoothed back her hair, kissing her forehead. "That's wonderful news, Shana. Why are you crying?"

  She sobbed into his shoulder, ashamed of her jealousy. "It's too soon for a baby," she said between sobs.

  Laughing, Emanuel put his hands on her cheeks, staring into her watery eyes. "It's never too soon for a baby," he smiled before kissing her, the pride swelling from his eyes. "And that is a wonderful Christmas present," he said tenderly.

  The next day, he drove her into town to see a doctor where, to Emanuel's delight, Shana's suspicion was confirmed. "I'd say you can expect in late July," he said as he clapped Emanuel on the back.

  Shana sat quietly in her chair, hating herself for not being more careful. He would never have allowed her birth control but she should have counted her days better. Two months married and already pregnant. She fought the tears as she followed Emanuel out to the buggy.

  She had never seen Emanuel so content. He hummed to himself while he worked, teased her more during supper, and held her throughout the night. If he noticed her lack of enthusiasm or sensed her fear, he never questioned it. Instead, he lived in his own little world where life was as he had planned it. And, Shana slowly realized that, indeed, he had planned it.

  Since he was a child, he had been taught that there were three things important to life: worshiping God, farming, and family. She knew that he had live that life through his parents and watched as his older siblings followed that path. And, while he was not the Amish man with the Amish woman at his side, he had followed in the footsteps of his Amish ancestors. And, without even realizing it, Shana had fallen into the cycle.

  At Christmas, no one mentioned anything about Shana's pregnancy. Shana had noticed the little fanfare that surrounded Lillian's pregnancy and, respecting their ways, she kept quiet about her own. She quickly realized that having children was just the natural course of life to the Amish. Having children was God’s will and wasn’t necessaril
y a cause for prolonged celebration.

  But, with her family, she knew it would be different. On her next visit before New Year's to Zimmerman's Market, she stood in the phone booth, her hands shaking as she called her parents for the first time since her marriage. As expected, they wanted to come out but Shana had immediately thought better of that idea. Now, when she told them, a sigh in her voice, that she was pregnant, she knew there could be no stopping their imminent visit.

  "Just wait until it gets warmer out," she managed to stall them.

  While in many ways, she missed aspects of her old life, she was growing accustomed to her new lifestyle. She enjoyed the solitude and tranquility. The few noises that did surround her added to the relaxed atmosphere of the farm culture. She was even getting used to attending those three-hour church services every other week. But, above all, she felt a growing sense of belonging, even though, she knew, she'd never fully be accepted by the Amish.

  To bring her family into her new world frightened her. They had known her all of her life, seen her through college days, and reprimanded her for staying out too late. Now, they would be coming to visit, to see their youngest daughter in the new environment she had chosen to join. With their fast cars and upbeat energy, her parents certainly would never understand how she could extract pleasure and pride from the domesticated lifestyle she had fought against for so long.

  It was the slow season at the market, although a few local residents wandered down the aisles. Out of boredom, they watched as the Amish man with his young mustache-less beard and the obviously Englische woman who approached him. He glanced up as she touched his arm. To the strangers, they wondered how they knew each other since most Amish men did not consort with non-Amish women.

  "You got through, ja?" he asked.

  "I told them to come visit when it was warmer, closer to the time the baby's due," she replied. "Maybe fall."

  The eavesdroppers raised an eyebrow but busied themselves in the shelves of supplies, trying to act inconspicuous but curious to the relationship between this mix-matched couple. But as the Amish man and his Englische companion continued down the aisle, consulting about different foods to buy, it became obvious, even to the amazed locals, the couple was husband and wife.

  Chapter Fifteen

  If the lone black buggy clattering up their driveway surprised Emanuel, he did not let it show. They had been sitting by the heater, Emanuel reading the local farmer's paper and Shana sewing. The small, rusty thermometer hanging outside the window over the sink read about 45 degrees and a thin layer of cloud flirted with the sun. One of the trees on the edge of the driveway, its bare branches reaching toward the sky, loomed eerily over Emanuel's unhitched buggy. He had rode into town earlier that day and hadn't put the buggy back into the protection of the stable. They hadn't been expecting anyone so, when the wheels of the visitor's buggy rattled along their driveway, neither knew who it could be.

  Emanuel set the paper down on the table as he walked over to the kitchen window and gazed outside. "Lillian's come." He glanced over his shoulder at Shana. "Perhaps I should let you two visit and get to mending some of that fence while the sun's shining and the wind has stopped," he said quietly.

  Shana laid down the shirt she was sewing and stood up. Just less than four months pregnant, her waistline certainly showed the weight gain. Shana had been concerned about how quickly she was gaining weight but, to her relief, her doctor had eased her fear with a comforting explanation, "Each women has a different pregnancy, Shana. Some gain next to nothing, others gain a lot. Just watch the foods you're eating."

  Emanuel put on his heavy winter coat, covered his head with a black, felt hat, and disappeared into the cold. Shana stood by the window and watched as he greeted Lillian by the barn. He reached out for the horse's reins until his sister-in-law, herself increasingly large with child, scrambled out of the buggy. They exchanged a few words then Lillian walked quickly toward the house.

  "Hello there," Shana said as Lillian swept into the house, a gust of chilly winter air following her. "Such a long trip for you to make alone on such a cold day."

  Lillian shook off her cape and hung it on a peg in the washroom outside the kitchen. She bent down for a moment as though brushing some dirty snow off of her boot. "Ja vell, I was visiting my sister three farms up the lane," she said as she walked into the kitchen. The cold had marked Lillian's cheeks with a rosy glow. "She just gave birth. A son. I wanted to stop by before my own time," she said, referring to her own pregnancy. "Besides, the winter's been so cold, I had to take advantage of the good weather."

  "Well, I'm glad you thought to stop by."

  Lillian didn't reply but looked around the kitchen. Shana watched as Lillian's eyes took in the open living room, no partition to block the entrance. For a moment, she looked slightly confused then she smiled. "How strange it looks," she commented, not unkindly. "There are Englische touches around the house. Yet, everything looks quite plain."

  "Does that surprise you?" Shana asked, hurt by Lillian's obvious reservation regarding the decor of her house.

  "No." Again, the smile. "After all, you are Englische and Emanuel is Amish. Shouldn't it make sense that you'd blend the two into your home?"

  "Emanuel isn't Amish," Shana reminded.

  "Ja vell," Lillian replied as she moved toward the kitchen table and sat down. "You can't take the Amish out of Emanuel." Her smile slowly faded as she returned Shana's curious gaze with complete seriousness. "He was born Amish and he continues to live as though he is Amish." She looked around the room again. "Even the plainness of the decor is mostly Amish, Shana."

  "Because of me, he'll never truly be Amish, Lillian. He'd never be allowed to take his baptism."

  "No," Lillian agreed. "Not unless you were both to take the baptism. He loves you more than he loves the church, ja? Otherwise, he could have taken his baptism and married a nice Amish girl. Certainly it would have been easier for him in the long run anyway, ja? But there are reasons for everything. God provided it that way. 'Judge not that ye be judged not," she quoted before softly adding, "You were meant to stay on Mother's farm and marry Emanuel. Is it our right to question the acts of God?"

  It was the first anyone had spoken to Shana about the conflicts brought on by their marriage. During the past three months, Shana had spent several days at Katie's farm, once for the quilting and another time for visiting with her mother and sister-in-law while Emanuel joined his father at an auction in Lancaster. Neither one of those times had anyone mentioned anything about religion or Emanuel's non-Amish wife. Instead, they had talked about friends and family and the upcoming spring planting. Now, after Lillian had spoken the words, Shana felt relieved, as though she had been holding her breath for this moment. "I wouldn't suppose we should question Him."

  "It pleases everyone that you've taken such an interest in the church. Especially Emanuel," Lillian remarked casually.

  "Especially Emanuel," Shana agreed. She took the empty coffee pot off of the stove and quickly filled it with water. Shana was slowly suspecting the visit hadn't been entirely unplanned.

  "I think I knew that you would marry Emanuel," Lillian continued calmly. "Perhaps from the very first moment I saw you two walking down the lane together, a week or so after you arrived." She hesitated, her eyes dark and thoughtful, as though visualizing that moment in her mind. "His mamm knew it, you know. But she also knew she couldn't stop it from happening. Emanuel's always been a little quiet about the things he wanted in life. But, he acted so different after you arrived.” She paused, her eyes glazing over as though thinking back to those days. The memory must have pleased her for she smiled, “I thought the change was rather nice."

  "And the others?"

  "Some people resist change, the Amish in particular," Lillian began as she sat down at the kitchen table. "They resist change in society and religion. But that does not mean that a person cannot change, does it? Months before you arrived, Jonas Jr. and I wondered about Emanuel. He didn'
t conform to our ways, ja? He didn't court girls. He didn't attend too many singings. He never used his courting buggy. We often wondered whether he'd join the church and prayed that he'd find the answers to his own questions. He seemed so lost, Shana. We understood and accepted the change in Emanuel."

  "I don't think too many people were as understanding when they realized that Emanuel refused his baptism in order to marry outside the church,” Shana said softly.

  The grandfather clock began to chime from the other room. Lillian waited until it finished ringing before she ventured further. "A refusal of baptism is understood more than a member straying from the Ordnung after accepting baptism. It is easy to find religion; it is salvation most seek. After committing to a life of Christ, salvation is lost in those who stray and do not repent. Those who have not committed cannot stray." The smile had once again vanished as her light-sided conversation turned serious. Leaning forward, Lillian asked softly, "What religion will your child be baptized?"

  "I...Well, I don't really know," Shana started. Lillian's directness startled her, catching her off-guard. She hadn't even been aware that anyone, besides Emanuel, truly knew about her pregnancy. "I imagine the child will decide when the time is right. We'll teach all of our children Christian values and continue attending the church. But the decision? That has to be theirs."