When Strawberries Bloom

by Linda Byler

  “You what?” Stephen was incredulous, disbelieving.

  “I don’t think we should continue seeing each other. Really, I’m not happy during the week. I’m depressed and grouchy at school, and I think it’s because I’m not happy with you.”

  There was a long silence before Stephen sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Well, there’s not much for me to say then, is there?” he said quietly.

  “No.”

  “It won’t help for me to beg, huh?”

  “No.”

  “You feel sure this is what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  They sat together in silence, their shoulders touching, the lights of the buggy shining on the forebay wall. The horse nodded his head, wanting Stephen to unhook the rein that held his head up.

  The chains in the workhorses’ stalls rattled as they lifted their heads, and a calf bawled in the distance.

  “Well, Lizzie, it’s hard for me to let you go, but I know it’ll only make it worse if I don’t give up. So …” he swallowed hard, “there’s nothing I can do. You know my feelings will never change, but if yours ever do, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

  Calmly, Lizzie threw back the buggy blanket, slid back the door, and climbed out. She could barely stand and look at him, and he averted his gaze completely.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered.

  There was no answer, so she turned away and walked slowly across the gravel drive. She had done it. She had ended this troubling thing, and no one, not even Mam, had advised her or told her what to do. She felt independent, a bit proud of herself for having conquered her worst enemy, her doubts about Stephen.

  She still felt peaceful and unperturbed as she climbed into bed, thanked God for having led her to this victory, and fell asleep a few minutes after her head touched the pillow.

  Her alarm clock jangled without mercy that morning, jarring her senses into wakefulness. She jabbed viciously at the shut-off button and groaned, rolled over, and then stuck her head under the comforter. Her room was freezing cold, as usual, and she just couldn’t quite face the chilly air.

  Then it hit her. Like the force of a sledgehammer, the thought slammed into her. Stephen was no longer her special friend. She had ended it. Dry, sour-tasting panic rose in her throat, causing her to sit up abruptly, her eyes wide open. What have I done, her mind screamed. How does he feel this morning? Will he even go to work? Does his family know? What will Rebecca say?

  She had the distinct feeling that Stephen was whirling around in outer space, and she was one little black dot a million miles below on a round blue earth, and there was absolutely no way possible to ever see him again. Her whole being recoiled at the thought of Stephen disappearing forever. I won’t be his girlfriend. Or his wife. Not ever.

  A deep, horrible, rasping sound tore from her throat as she flung herself back on her pillow. No. No. This was all wrong. Horribly, terribly, 100 percent all wrong. If she thought she had felt despair before, she had never experienced remorse so real that it cut like the sharpest knife.

  She had to do something, go tell someone. Somehow, she had to let Stephen know right this minute, no, this day. Surely she could pull herself together long enough to go to school. Grabbing her bathrobe and a handful of Kleenex, she hurried down the stairs, honking her nose noisily before entering the kitchen.

  “Mam!” she burst out, wild-eyed.

  Mam whirled from her usual morning place at the stove, her eyes wide with alarm.

  “L … Lizzie!”

  “Mam, you have to listen to me,” Lizzie sobbed. “I told Stephen our friendship is over, and now …”

  Mam’s shoulders slumped with relief when she heard the words.

  “Oh, I thought something really awful had happened. This had been awhile coming, Lizzie.”

  “And now …” Lizzie continued. “I can’t stand it. I feel as if I’ll never see him again, and it’s just … just horrible!”

  Mam turned off the gas burner, laid down the spoon she was holding, and came to sit in front of Lizzie. Putting a hand on her shoulder, she rubbed it gently to comfort her, letting her sob into her Kleenex.

  “There, Lizzie, now that’s enough. This almost had to happen, knowing how undecided you were for so long. It’s amazing how God answers prayers,” she said, shaking her head.

  “But Mam, I felt so calm, so peaceful when I ended it.”

  “Yes, I believe it. God was leading you to do that. He knew you had to know how it felt to no longer have him in order to understand the depth of your real feelings.”

  Lizzie looked up, her eyes swollen and her nose red as she swabbed at yet another river of tears.

  “Now get yourself pulled together, Lizzie. You can make it through today.”

  “But … Stephen! Mam, he’ll go English, or do something awful, and it will be all my fault. I have to let him know this morning that I do … Oh, Mam, I do love him.”

  She launched into another fit of weeping, while Mam sat quietly, rubbing her back.

  “Why do you always choose the rockiest path, Lizzie? You hurt yourself so much more than Emma and Mandy. I guess each child’s nature is different.”

  “Well, Mam, how can I let him know how I feel? I have to right now, right away, this minute.”

  “No, no, Lizzie. God will provide a way if you’ll only calm down now. If nothing else, you can always write him a letter. Hopefully, he did say you could do that. I mean, he’s willing to try again.”

  Lizzie’s face lit up with fervent hope. “Oh, yes, Mam!”

  “All right, then, get ready now, and off to school. You’ll survive.”

  And Lizzie did survive three whole days before she and Mandy received an invitation for a surprise birthday party for Mary Ann, their friend from church. Lizzie dressed carefully, choosing Stephen’s favorite color, but she was no longer in a state of panic about his well-being. She actually felt calm and quiet. Way down in the deepest center of her heart, she sensed a sure and steady bud of love unfolding, and the feeling was the most restful, abiding thing she had ever experienced. The doubts had been driven away, she guessed by God, because no other thing or person could heal and calm in such a wonderful fashion.

  But her heart still thumped in agitation when she saw him standing in Mary Ann’s kitchen. His usual dark tan seemed a bit lighter, and his eyes were sad as he spent the evening standing at the edge of the room, saying very little. He never said a whole lot, but tonight he barely smiled at all.

  After the evening’s festivities were over, she knew it was now or never, so she walked over to the group of young men.

  “Stephen,” she said. He turned.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  He didn’t answer, just followed her quietly until she stopped a good distance away from the group.

  “It’s cold,” she said, turning toward him.

  “Yeah, well,” was Stephen’s answer.

  “Stephen, I … I do want to … I mean, I’m sorry I ended our friendship. When I woke up the following morning, I knew without any trace of doubt that what I did was so horribly wrong.”

  She heard Stephen inhale sharply. “Are you sure, Lizzie?”

  “Yes!”

  Her heart seemed to stop when she felt Stephen grasp both her hands, keeping her from twisting her apron hem. He held her hands gently, and she slowly quieted under his strength.

  “Lizzie, I’m not good with words. You know I don’t talk about feelings easily. But … I … just hope …

  Slowly Lizzie raised her eyes to his, and the steady, glowing light in his eyes showed the true love he felt in his heart.

  Then, there was nothing to say. No words were sufficient. Lizzie felt a soft pressure on her hands, and then in one flowing movement she was enveloped in his strong arms. Her cheek rested on his chest, and an indescribable feeling of warmth, of being wanted and needed, of being understood, all washed over her, much like a gentle spring rain. It was sort of like she imagined Heaven to be. But Mam
’s words admonishing her to keep their courtship pure kept her feet firmly on the ground.

  Stephen really did love her. He really, really did, and that knowledge kept her there in his arms, safe, secure, and slowly realizing that her own love for him was developing, like a rose, slowly opening to the sun’s warmth. It seemed so right at this moment, close to his heart, but would she always feel this way?

  Stephen said very quietly, “I can only hope you can someday return my love.”

  As they clung together, Lizzie began to cry as Stephen struggled to blink back his own tears. Releasing her, he stepped back, but only for a moment as they both began talking at once. He told her of the struggles of the past few days, the terrible rebellion that raged in his heart to abandon the Amish way if he had no chance with her. Lizzie could only nod her head in understanding, feeling closer to him than she had ever felt before in her life. She wanted to stay in the circle of his arms forever.

  Maybe this was why the Amish people tried to teach their youth about the respectability of a clean and honorable courtship, she mused. If this is what real love feels like, oh, my! she thought happily.

  Looking up at Stephen, she loved the way his straight, brown hair fell over his eyebrows and how he brushed it away every 10 minutes. His eyes shone with a new light of joy and hope redeemed, and Lizzie giggled to herself, thinking they probably were only a reflection of her own.

  Suddenly her future was spread out before her as clearly as a picture. Stephen and Lizzie. No, Stephen and Elizabeth. She was all grown up now. They would probably join the church and be married in the fall and live happily ever after, just like Cinderella and her prince.

  Oh, glorious thought. No more doubts. No more what-ifs. What Lizzie did not quite comprehend was the fact that they were still both human beings who lived in a real world of trials and sorrows, which would balance the joy.

  Chapter 20

  IT SEEMED AS IF suddenly every one of Lizzie’s friends started dating at once. Uncle Marvin asked Mary Ann to a singing, and they began dating soon afterwards. Just when Lizzie thought it couldn’t become more exciting, Stephen’s sister Rebecca began dating Reuben.

  The couples often drove to the mountain on a Sunday afternoon, or had skating parties by the pond, or just spent time together as winter turned into spring. Lizzie looked forward to the weekends when she and Stephen joined the other couples in different activities throughout the community.

  Lizzie soon discovered that living happily ever after, or rather, dating happily ever after, was only a fairy tale, a myth, just like lots of things in life that are far too good to be true.

  She didn’t feel like ending their relationship again, but this thing of dating was not always 100 percent perfect. Actually, last weekend had barely made the 75 percent mark.

  That Monday morning Lizzie was in a vile mood. She didn’t want to go to school, but neither did she feel like staying at home under Mam’s scrutiny. Mam had a way about her that never failed to irk Lizzie if she was having problems. Mam would start by looking at her a few extra moments, then purse her lips before asking what she had done that weekend. By then, Mam already had a very good idea that she didn’t have a great time, not even a very good time, so why did she ask? So Lizzie would mumble something vaguely unintelligible and wish Mam would go away and let her alone.

  Lizzie held her shoulders as high and stiff as she could manage and posed her eyebrows in a perfectly worried arc as she dashed between the table and countertop, slamming her lunch box a bit harder than was absolutely necessary. No wonder, she thought angrily. It just made no sense whatsoever. Who had ever heard of walking the Appalachian Trail when you were dating? That was one of the stupidest things she had ever heard of. Imagine, leaving your girlfriend for a month while you went striding along a string of mountains just to see how far you could go. For all the world, it reminded Lizzie of that song about the bear going to the other side of the mountain to see what he could see, and only that. To see what he could see—that was the only reason.

  Oh, it wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to persuade Stephen to give up the whole silly idea. At first she had listened patiently as he tried to explain where they would go—they, meaning Reuben, Marvin, and him. He told her in detail how many miles they would hike each day, and that it would probably be close to a month till they reached their destination.

  She gasped audibly when he said that, then launched into a full-blown tirade of protests. What made him think he could do this? Why, if a young man had a girlfriend, it was his moral responsibility, no, his duty, to stay at home and spend his weekends with her. She saw Stephen’s jaw set as he turned away from her to watch the scenery out the buggy window. He also let his horse run faster than was absolutely necessary, which only increased her foul mood.

  When she realized she wasn’t getting anywhere with him by threatening and protesting, she tried to get him to change his mind by being sweet, batting her eyelashes demurely as she told him how terribly she would miss him. Was he really sure he wanted to do this? After all, he had to think about the dangers out on those unfamiliar trails, the mountain lions, black bears, bobcats, and other dangerous creatures.

  What really upset her was how he laughed at her for saying that. He laughed long and loud, with kind of a snort at the end that made her feel as if she was in first grade and didn’t know anything at all. So she set her mouth in a firm line and refused to talk. If he was going to be determined to do this senseless thing, then he was going to have to suffer for it.

  The rest of the way home she sat back against the corner of the seat, her arms folded in front of her, and pouted. Stephen kept asking her questions and she would answer with a small, “Okay,” or “Fine,” until he gave up talking to her.

  Needless to say, their Sunday evening had ended on a sour note, with Stephen taking Lizzie’s peevishness in stride, but never coming close to considering how she felt. He just went right ahead talking about his plans to walk the Appalachian Trail. That was the trouble with boys. They did what they wanted to do, and it was up to their girlfriends to be agreeable, and supportive even, no matter what their personal feelings were.

  Look at Mam and Dat, she thought bitterly, as she slapped a piece of cheese on top of a slice of bologna. He just went and moved if he felt like it, and it was up to Mam to pack up and go along, even if she didn’t want to one bit. Lizzie stifled a yawn and clicked her lunch box shut. Oh, Monday morning and the school year almost at a close, with most of the pupils being very tired of their lessons and, no doubt, their teacher as well.

  She sat down hard on a kitchen chair and stared morosely out the window. Mandy had gone to work an hour earlier, so that left only Mam to finish the breakfast dishes and do all the morning chores, sweeping the house, shaking a few rugs, straightening the toy shelf, and other little duties necessary to keeping everything organized.

  “Lizzie, why don’t you help with the dishes until your driver comes?” Mam said kindly.

  “He’ll be here any minute,” was her curt reply.

  Nothing, not one thing, or hardly anything, went right that day. To start with, the fire in the coal stove was out completely. There wasn’t even a spark, not a hope of finding a few red coals to rekindle the blaze. The schoolroom was uncomfortably chilly, so chilly in fact that you could see your breath.

  Where was Elam King? Why hadn’t he come to the schoolhouse as usual and stirred the coals and turned up the draught so that she was greeted with a warm rush of air when she opened the door?

  Muttering to herself, she started scraping down the cold ashes, coughing as the dry coal dust irritated her throat. She bet anything there was no kindling in the coal shed, and she was not about to hike to Elam King’s farm to find some.

  The door opened behind her, and Elam King’s breathless children hurried up to Lizzie.

  “Dad forgot to fix the fire, Teacher! We have a sick cow,” they announced, all in one sentence.

  Lizzie told them it was all right, she’
d get the fire going, when really, it was not all right. But what else could she say? It wasn’t the children’s fault, or Elam King’s. So she would blame the cow, which was quite easy, knowing how cows tended to become sick or have a calf at the unhandiest moments.

  Midmorning little Jonas cried because he wasn’t finished with Friday’s arithmetic lesson. Lizzie gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to grab a handful of his tangled curls and give them a good, hard yank. He was never finished. He was just a natural-born little procrastinator who always pushed away his lessons until the very last moment of the day, and then panicked when the rest of the children put their books away to go home.

  Lizzie had tried making him stay in at recess, but he was so amicable about it that it was no punishment at all. He would sit in his desk while the other pupils hurried out the door, his sunny expression never wavering as he launched into a vivid account of his weekend.

  She had tried standing behind his desk, urging him almost continuously to work, but that was not the answer either. It left her feeling frustrated, and Jonas so nervous that he kept chewing on the corner of his shirt collar and repeatedly blinking his eyes, until Lizzie was afraid he’d ruin his eyesight.

  Besides the problems with Jonas and the lack of a good warm fire, she felt the constant irritation of thinking about Stephen nonchalantly telling her that he planned to traipse all over creation for a whole month. She was writing on the blackboard when she heard a snicker, followed promptly by a rubber band hitting the blackboard beside her. Slowly she returned the chalk to the tray, turned calmly, and addressed the crowd of tittering boys.

  “All right, who was it? Who snapped the rubber band?”

  No one answered and no one lifted a hand. A complete silence fell over the classroom.

  “You may as well tell me because I’ll find out,” Lizzie said, her cheeks flaming with anger. Blatant disrespect, that’s what it was.

  “It was me,” one of the seventh-grade boys said, raising his hand, staring at her as if to challenge her to do something about it.