Mother For His Children, A

by Drexler, Jan

  “Ruthy’s parents told me about the wedding.” Elam looked at her as he said this. “I was surprised you married so soon.”

  “You shouldn’t be.” Ruthy struggled to keep her tone even, her face calm. “Levi is a wonderful-gut and honorable man.” Everything you aren’t, Elam Nafziger. “How is Laurette doing?”

  Elam stared at the coffee Ruthy set in front of him. “She’s fine, I guess, except she feels poorly most of the time with the baby coming anytime now.”

  Ruthy’s stomach flipped. She didn’t need the reminder of how soon after their wedding Laurette’s baby would be born.

  “She’ll feel better once it’s here, then, ja?”

  Levi took a sip of his coffee, watching her closely. “That’s been my experience.”

  Ruthy took her own cup to her seat while Waneta put a tin of cookies on the table for dessert. She struggled to keep her face calm. It was for sure a good thing she was married to Levi now. Her future was secure, at least.

  Dinner over, Waneta cleared the table. “Ruthy, you and Elam will want to visit. I’ll do the dishes, and Sam can help.”

  “Denki, Waneta.”

  Ruthy saw Levi hesitate before going back out to the barn with Elias. He should stay and visit with their guest, but it seemed he was content to leave her alone with another man.

  She led Elam to the front room, but rather than taking her usual place at the end of the sofa, she sat in the chair across from Levi’s—the chair where she usually declined to sit out of respect for the children’s mother. But she would need some of that woman’s strength to face Elam the way she was feeling right now.

  Elam lounged in Levi’s chair, crossed his ankle over one knee and regarded her with eyes crinkling in the corners as he smiled. “Well, Ruthy-girl, look where we’ve ended up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at you.” Elam waved his hand around to take in the spacious front room, the house sprawling around them. “Levi seems to be doing pretty well, and you’ve moved into a ready-made family. Life seems to be turning out well for you, after all.” He placed both feet on the floor and leaned forward. “You’ve forgiven me, haven’t you?”

  Ruthy wiggled her toes inside her shoes. Forgiven him? She could never forgive him, in spite of what Mam said, and what she had been taught as a child—forgive your brother, no matter what his sin against you may be. It’s what the Lord desires....

  “Elam, you know I can’t. You ruined everything, you and Laurette.” Tears stung as she looked at her hands in her lap, at the stove between the two chairs, anywhere but at Elam Nafziger. “You betrayed me, Elam. You betrayed my love, and everything we had planned.” All the hurt of the last months boiled, trying to force its way out, but she held the lid firmly on that kettle. It wasn’t the Amish way.

  Elam played with the hem of his trouser. “You can’t blame me for everything that happened.” He rubbed at the leather sole of his shoe.

  “Are...are you and Laurette happy?”

  “How can we be? Married life is harder than I ever thought it would be. Laurette has been so sick and complains about everything.”

  “Does she...does she ever talk about me?”

  “I don’t know. She talks about everything and everyone. I know she wishes you’d write to her.”

  Elam picked at a spot on his trouser leg. Sam’s delighted laughter drifted into the front room as he and Waneta played a game while they worked. Ruthy’s mind took this in, but she couldn’t move past the icy wall that kept her from feeling anything for either Elam or Laurette. Did she even care they were unhappy?

  “I wish you’d say something, Ruthy. I want us to be friends....”

  “What can I say?”

  He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “Say you still love me.” He whispered the words, as intimately as he had all those evenings in his courting buggy. “Say you don’t love him, you only love me.”

  “How would that help anything, Elam?”

  “I’d know there’s something that wasn’t ruined. I’d know you still care for me.”

  She had never seen how selfish he was before, thinking only of himself. Had he been that way when he was courting her?

  “I’m married now, Elam. Even if I did feel that way, it wouldn’t make any difference.”

  Elam’s eyebrows shot up. “You don’t love him, do you?”

  Ruthy shifted in her chair, her face growing hot. “Of course I do.”

  “Then he doesn’t love you.”

  She couldn’t answer him. How could she, when he had guessed the truth?

  “I think you had better leave. Tell Laurette I...” Ruthy swallowed. She missed Laurette so much, but could things ever be mended between them? “Tell Laurette I think of her often.”

  “Ja, all right.”

  “When do you go back to Bird-in-Hand?”

  “Next week. I have some business in Fort Wayne.”

  Ruthy shot a glance at him. “I thought you told Levi you were here to look at a bull.”

  Elam shrugged. “Mr. Millhouse thinks so, too. But I’ll tell him the animal wasn’t worth the money. Meanwhile, I’m meeting friends this weekend.”

  “What kind of friends? What are you involved in, Elam?”

  He grinned at her. “Let’s just say the bishop wouldn’t like it.” He leaned closer to her. “I’m making a name for myself playing my guitar. You’d be proud of me.”

  Ruthy looked away. “I’d be proud of you if you followed the church and lived up to your commitment to Laurette.”

  Elam snorted. “You’ll think different when I’ve made it big. Then everything will be going my way for once.” He stood up, adjusting his trousers. “I’ll come by next week before I head back to Pennsylvania.”

  “You won’t need to come back here.” Ruthy stood, smoothing her apron.

  “You’re sure? Not even to say goodbye?”

  Ruthy pressed her lips together. “Ne, not even to say goodbye.”

  Elam made his way through the kitchen, waving to Waneta and Sam, and then left. Ruthy went to the window facing the lane and barnyard to get one last glimpse of him. She rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the ache away. Elam may be gone, but the door he had opened was swinging wide. The truth of her hard heart toward both Elam and Laurette lay behind that door, and try as she might, she couldn’t close it again.

  Must she live the rest of her life with this icy rock of hatred lodged in her heart?

  * * *

  Levi hated leaving the house with Elam there, but the man had obviously come to talk to Ruthy, not him. He went to the tool bench to get a hammer, and then started on the mindless job of checking the nails in the cow-pen fence. It was a chore he had planned to give to Jesse after school, but if he took care of it now, he’d be outside, where he could keep an eye on the house.

  How close were Elam and Ruthy, anyway? She had said he was her friend’s husband, but the look on both their faces hadn’t gotten past him. There was more to their relationship than that. Was he the man she had told him about? The one she had planned to marry?

  He whacked on each nail in the fence post, whether it looked loose or not, each whack getting harder as he thought of his wife talking with another man. A young man. A man her own age, from her own town. A man she had once loved. Perhaps a man she still loved.

  Ach, they were both married. Ruthy wouldn’t go back on her marriage vows, would she?

  He hit the next nail head with the hammer so hard he dented the wood.

  Had their vows been binding anyway, if they never went further in their marriage than to stand before the church? Should he have insisted they live together as man and wife? Would that have bound her to him more closely?

  Levi leaned his arms on the top of the fence and looked over his shoulder at the
house. He had Ruthy’s promise to live here and to be the mother his children needed so badly, but he had ignored his own need. He needed a wife—a wife he could trust.

  When the door opened and Elam stepped down to the drive, Levi busied himself with the hammer again. Elam waved and got into his borrowed buggy. He was gone. Levi looked toward the house, hoping he wouldn’t see her, but there she was. Her face pressed to the window was twisted in grief, and his heart wrenched.

  Ruthy drew back from the window, leaving him alone in the afternoon wind. It had turned to the north. He hunched his shoulders inside his coat and went into the barn, where harnesses were waiting for his attention.

  By suppertime, when Levi went into the house for the evening, Ruthy seemed like she had forgotten her visitor. She talked with the girls as they filled the table with dishes of macaroni and cheese, pickles, beets and bread, her voice just as gay as ever, but when she caught his eye as he walked through to the front room he saw the shadowed pain in her eyes. Dark violet and haunted, her look was a silent plea.

  Levi went into his bedroom, now emptied of everything that would have reminded him of Salome, but still with nothing of Ruthy’s. It was a man’s room, barren and plain. He found the pair of slippers Ruthy had knitted for him and slipped them on. She had been right, he thought as he gazed at the brown felted wool covering his feet. He hadn’t worn out a single pair of stockings since she had made these. Each child had their own pair, brown or dark blue, and Ruthy saw they were worn whenever shoes or boots weren’t.

  It was only one of dozens of little changes that had happened since she had come to them. He fingered the blue-and-white quilt on his bed. She had made his bed every morning since the wedding, where before he had just thrown the covers up over the pillow and left it until evening. But now when he came in after a day of work, his room was always neat and tidy. Orderly.

  What did she think of when she was in his room? Did she hurry through the task, anxious to be done with it, or did she linger, thinking about him?

  What would he do if he lost her now? He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. That Elam Nafziger had a place in her heart, for sure, but did he? Was there anything he could do or say to keep her with him if she had her heart set on leaving him?

  Gott im Himmel, what a burden already filled his heart at the thought of it! When Salome had left...when she died, it was like the passing of an old friend, the mother of his children. She was everything home was meant to be.... Salome had been dear to him, and her love was like a banked fire in the stove, always there, always welcome, always ready for whatever he needed.

  But Ruthy... She was like the flash of a morning sunrise, fresh and new every time he saw her. How could two women be so different?

  Levi stood up and walked to the window where the last light of the day turned the lowering clouds orange on the gray. The farm fields stretched out to the south, their flat surface broken by the fence row a quarter mile away. All he asked for was order, to live as God called him to live, with his wife and family looking to him and to their Lord. But what could he do if Ruthy wanted to rebel against him, against their marriage vows?

  Woo her.

  The words echoed in his mind.

  Court her.

  He had never courted her before their wedding, there hadn’t been time. But now—did he dare, if her heart belonged to another? How could he risk her rejection when his need for her was so overwhelming? If she rejected him, he would be devastated. But if he didn’t make some effort and she still rejected him, would it be any worse?

  He had to try.

  * * *

  Ruthy loved sitting with her little boys during evening prayers. Sam and Jesse had missed a mother’s touch for so long, and they snuggled next to her on the sofa each evening. How long would it be before they decided they were too old for this? Then who would cuddle with her?

  Ach, no one. Sam was the youngest, and would always be the youngest. Levi had his children. Surely he didn’t want more now that his wife was gone. Ruthy would just need to gather up as much love as she could from these boys before they grew up.

  Levi finished reading tonight’s prayer from the Christenpflicht as they all kneeled together in the front room. The words of the prayer echoed in Ruthy’s mind as she rose and took her seat again. It had reflected on God’s blessings of the day that was closing. A day of blessing? All she could remember was Elam’s words. He was tempting her, trying to get her to deny her vows.

  She glanced at Levi in his chair next to the stove. She had made her vows to an honorable man, and he was the man she belonged to. He had loved his first wife, but he had put the past behind him. Removed her things from his room and welcomed her into the family in Salome’s place.

  She would never give into Elam’s temptation. She would never betray Levi the way she had been betrayed.

  Sam shifted and looked up at her. “Mam, will you tuck us in tonight?”

  “Doesn’t Waneta do that?”

  “Ja,” Jesse said, his voice sleepy, “but she’s always in a hurry. You wouldn’t leave until we said our prayers, would you?”

  Ruthy leaned down to kiss the tops of their heads, first Jesse and then Sam. “All right. You go put your sleeping clothes on and I’ll be up in a couple minutes.”

  Both boys jumped off the sofa and ran for the stairway door. Levi chuckled as he watched them.

  “I think their sleepiness has fled already.”

  Nellie scooted into the spot next to Ruthy where Jesse had been. “After you tuck the boys in, would you tuck me in, too?”

  “And me?” Nancy spoke from her spot on the floor at Ruthy’s feet, looking up at her.

  “Ja, for sure. I’ll come to your room as soon as I finish with the little boys.”

  Nellie reached up to give her a kiss on the cheek and then followed the rest of the children up the stairs, leaving Ruthy alone with Levi. She usually went into the kitchen to set the bread sponge at this time, while Levi went to make his final check on the barn, but she had promised the children.

  “They love you, Ruthy.” Levi laid the Christenpflicht on the small table next to him with his Bible.

  “And I love them, too.”

  “You’re a wonderful-gut mother to them.”

  Ruthy caught her bottom lip in her teeth. “I’m sure I’m not as good for them as Salome. They lost so much when she died.”

  Levi rose from his chair and sat next to her on the sofa. He took his hand in hers and held it closed in both of his. “You’re not the same as Salome, that’s true. But they love you for who you are.”

  Ruthy shook her head. Would Levi ever love her for who she was? “I’m only second best, I know.”

  Levi was silent. He turned her hand over in his and stroked her palm with his thumb. Then he spoke so softly she had to lean toward him to catch his words. “You aren’t second best to me.”

  She looked up into his eyes. Warm, soft, trustworthy, honorable. Was he only trying to make her feel better?

  “Salome was a wonderful-gut wife and mother.” Levi lowered his eyes to her hand as he continued to stroke it. The gentle motion softened that hard place in her heart that Elam’s visit had exposed. “We had known each other since we were babies, Salome and I. Our mams were best friends and neighbors, so we were together almost every day while we were growing up. She was a good friend, always kind and understanding.”

  Ruthy gazed around the room, still filled with memories of this woman she would never meet. She had looked like Waneta, she knew, and she had heard snippets of memories from the children, but she had never seen Salome through Levi’s eyes, the man they had both married.

  “We married very young, as soon as we were old enough to join church.” He shrugged and squeezed her hand. “I had never thought of marrying anyone else. She was always there.”

&nbs
p; Catching a drift of what he was trying to say, Ruthy had to ask the question. “Did you love her?”

  “Ja, for sure I loved her, but...” He reached his hand up to her cheek, turning her toward him. “But she was steady, warm. I loved her, but you aren’t Salome. What I felt for her was nothing like what I feel when I look at you.”

  His words crashed against the hard rock in her heart. Ruthy felt her heart beating so fast she was afraid it would run out of her chest. She stood up, her mind blank. What was he telling her?

  “The children are waiting. I must go and say good-night.”

  He released her hand and his face shuttered closed. His eyes were no longer as warm as sunshine on rich garden soil, they were black and closed in the lamplight. “Ja, and I must go check the barn.”

  His voice was gruff, but he didn’t look at her as he went through the kitchen to the back door.

  What had she done? Why couldn’t she respond to him when he was so gentle? All she needed to do was to welcome his words. Let him learn to love her.

  She sank back on the sofa, her fingers and toes cold even though the room was warm. The wretched feeling Elam had brought with him expanded until it threatened to fill her whole being. She fought it down, struggling to regain control. The children were waiting for her to tuck them in, hear their prayers, kiss them good-night, just like her mother had all those years at home.

  She longed for the comfort of Mam’s presence tonight.

  Ruthy headed for the stairs and the waiting children. Their own mam. That’s who she was now—their mam and Levi’s wife. She loved her life. The children and her work brought her joy, and she was content with the home God had given her.

  As Ruthy’s foot hit the bottom step, the muffled slam of the back door sounded through the house. Levi was gone, on his way to the barn. She paused, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth to control its quivering. She couldn’t bear his disappointment. Why didn’t she respond when he reached out? What if he offered his love? She leaned against the stairway wall, clinging to the bannister. She would do anything to hear him say he loved her,