The Parting

by Beverly Lewis

  As a child, Suzy would often return home with a fistful of tiny blossoms, bluebells and columbine mostly. Placing them on the decorative plate on their dresser, instead of in a vase of water like their English neighbors might, she wished for them to dry as they were. In their perty little dresses, as she would say. Unfortunately the flowers had never dried the way Suzy had anticipated, but had rather wilted and withered. Yet she’d continued to pick them and take them home, always hoping that one day they might dry just so.

  The pale blue plate with its floral rim now lay empty on the oak dresser, and Nellie wished for some bluebells to pick in memory of her sister, but the chill of autumn had snatched them away.

  She turned her attention back to her search, more concerned than ever about her inability to locate the diary’s hiding place.

  Why didn’t I mark the spot?

  Frustrated with herself, she stopped her search and returned to the house. I won’t despair, she told herself. Somehow . . . I will remember!

  Back at the house, there was nary a sound. But as she climbed the steps, she overheard her father’s voice as he read aloud from the Good Book. Odd as that was, Nellie didn’t dare linger at the landing to listen. Instead she hurried to her room, removed her Kapp, and shook out her hair, surprised at the tiny twigs and even the small leaf that fell from her long tresses. Brushing her hair vigorously, she wound it back into the formal bun and pinned her head covering back on. Then she slipped into a better dress for their visiting day.

  Heading downstairs again, she briefly visited the washroom to clean the morning’s grime from her face. Reassured that no one would now guess at her morning’s activities from merely looking at her, she began to lay out the cold cereal, fruit, and juices—there was no cooking or baking to be done on the Lord’s Day. It was for that reason Nellie found herself having to do so much catching up early Monday mornings.

  She began to slice bananas to top off their cereal and heard laughter, followed by what sounded like weeping. Mamma? Instantly she felt heartsick, wishing something could be done to help her mother get through this awful sorrowful time.

  Nellie was glad Dat was with her. Her father was more tender with Mamma these days, especially when that sad and faraway look was evident in her mother’s eyes. A haunting, troubled look, to be sure.

  “Maybe it will help her to be out and about,” she said, anticipating today’s visits.

  After Dat offered the final silent prayer following breakfast, Mamma announced they would not be leaving the house till after the noon meal. No word of explanation was given for this clear departure from their off-Sunday routine.

  Nellie Mae did not allow her disappointment to show. Still, it was hard to push aside thoughts of the excitement they typically enjoyed on a day like this. So once the kitchen had been cleared, she went upstairs to ask Rhoda and Nan, now settled in their room, if they wanted to go walking. Without a second thought, Rhoda shook her head, her glasses perched almost at the end of her nose as she studied her crocheting book. Nan yawned and said, “Some other time, Nellie Mae,” before climbing forlornly onto their bed.

  Nellie dragged her feet back to her room, downcast. She closed her door and sat on the bed, wondering if she might have opportunity to look for the diary another day when there was more time. Some sun would be helpful, too, she murmured to herself. Truly, she didn’t know when she could get away again, what with her duties at the bakery shop. She knew she should feel guilty for having tramped through the woods, shovel in hand, exerting herself on the Lord’s Day, when even sewing and needlework were forbidden. Just now, this rule seemed petty, and she was amazed at her own feelings. How long had she harbored apathy?

  She yawned, feeling the effects of precious little sleep. Even so, the hours spent with Caleb were worth any amount of lost rest. She hoped he was like her own father, always so loving and attentive to Mamma.

  I want a husband like that.

  She propped herself up with several bed pillows, taking from her oak bedside table the weekly newspaper, The Budget, which focused on Plain communities. She selected the pages featuring the goings-on in Kalona, Iowa, curious if the journal-style columns might shed some light on what Uncle Bishop and Aunt Anna could be doing there.

  Lorena Miller, an Amish scribe from that area, began her column by mentioning the rain, wind, and falling temperatures . . . with frost predicted. She also listed the visitors attending a recent worship service—a Jonas and Fannie Hershberger and the Earl Beechys, all from out of town. Nellie didn’t recognize any of those last names.

  Lorena also wrote of nightly revival meetings.

  Were Uncle Bishop and Aunt Anna aware of such gatherings? Word had it there were similar lively meetings held on Friday and Saturday nights here locally at the Tel Hai tabernacle, an open-air building not far from the road. The place could really draw a crowd, or so she’d heard.

  Scanning the paper further, she noticed the first line of a column from Mt. Hope, Ohio. Best not to tiptoe around what you’re yearning for, eyeing it, longing for it . . . or you’ll miss your life ahead, it read.

  She wondered if she might not be doing the same thing, marking time while she waited for Caleb. She’d let him see her prickly side—a mistake, probably. Of course, if he had eyes in his head and ears, too, he surely knew she’d always respectfully spoken her mind at school and other places where he’d encountered her.

  Sighing, she was too tired to rehash what he might think of her refusal to discuss Suzy’s death. Despite their shaky beginnings, he seemed to like her well enough to want more of her company.

  A week away . . . an eternity.

  Closing the paper, she folded it neatly, still considering the Iowa revival meetings. Who attended such gatherings? And from what did people need to be revived?

  She rose and poked her head into the hallway, listening. No voices came from her parents’ bedroom, so maybe they’d finished their discussion.

  Already weary of being stuck at home, Nellie closed the door and leaned back against it. Why weren’t they heading off to visit her brothers and families as they always did before the noon meal? Wouldn’t Maryann be putting out cold cuts in expectation?

  Too tired to ponder further, she returned to the made bed and lay down to rest on this most disappointing Lord’s Day.

  “You’re quite taken with the Good Book, ain’t so, Reuben?” whispered Betsy as they sat on their bedroom loveseat.

  Her husband held the Bible reverently on his lap, and she noticed how he caressed it, his big hands moving slowly over the leather. “More than ever before, jah.”

  She sat, enjoying his presence as always. She couldn’t remember their ever lingering this way on any day of the week, let alone a no-Preaching Sunday.

  “This book has come alive to me, Betsy.” His eyes welled up with tears. “I can’t explain it . . . but its words have given me something right here”—he placed his hand on his chest—“something I’ve needed my whole life.”

  Moved by his response, she nodded, squeezing his hand. Yet she did not understand what was happening to her strong husband.

  He reached for his kerchief. “I wasn’t even searchin’ for this . . . at least I didn’t know it.” He wept again openly.

  “Ach, Reuben, are you all right?”

  He nodded. “Never better, dear one. It’s like the Lord God himself came lookin’ for me.”

  And found you, thought Betsy.

  CHAPTER 15

  James’s roomy clapboard house was the third stop on their regular route every other Sunday, and Nellie was overjoyed to see cute little Emma again, late in the afternoon though it was. It seemed Mamma was even happier than usual to see her granddaughter as the girl came running straight to her, wrapping her chubby arms tightly around Mamma’s knees.

  “Oh, my dear child, I missed you so!” Mamma stooped down to kiss the top of Emma’s blond head.

  Emma’s brothers—one older and two younger—Benny, Jimmy, and Matty—ran to greet th
eir Dawdi Reuben, who hugged them quickly and patted toddler Matty on the head. “Ach, look at yous. You’ve grown in just one week,” he said as all of them jabbered at once in Dutch.

  As promised, Emma readily showed her dolly to Nellie and her sisters, though Rhoda and Nan sat a bit aloof over in the corner of the front room. Emma told them the handkerchief doll had been one of Suzy’s many creations, her eyes bright as she described her dolly’s pretend adventures.

  Rhoda perked up some during Emma’s telling. But Nan, however, continued in a dismal mood.

  Problems with her beau? Nellie wondered. Or was Nan peeved about having to stay put so long at home this morning?

  But Emma’s antics would not permit Nellie to wonder long.

  The girl crawled up on her Mammi’s lap. “I have me a secret,” Emma whispered, leaning close.

  Mamma listened and then pulled back and played at clapping her hand over her mouth. “My goodness, that’s just wonderful-gut!”

  Rhoda got up to move to a chair closer to Mamma. Removing her shoes, she tucked one pudgy leg under her, perching there like a pumpkin about to roll off. Nan stayed where she and Rhoda had initially sat, appearing almost unaware of the goings-on around her.

  As for Nellie, she was mighty curious about Emma’s socalled secret, especially when the child slid off Mamma’s lap and hurried upstairs. In short order, she was back, carrying a small block of a potholder, three-fourths finished.

  “See, Mammi? It’s crocheted . . . Mamma taught me how, this very week.”

  Martha smiled, bobbing her head to confirm it. She sat on her father’s old hickory rocker with twenty-month-old Matty sprawled on her lap. “I daresay all I did was show her a few loops and she kept on goin’,” Martha said, blue eyes sparkling. “Not to boast a’tall, but she’s got a knack.”

  “Is that right?” Mamma inspected the potholder with its green, blue, and purple strands of variegated yarn, oohing and aahing as she made over Emma’s creation. “It’s awful perty. Really, ’tis. Maybe you can make a whole bunch of them to give as Christmas presents.”

  Emma smiled her crooked smile and touched Mamma’s arm. “I’ll make one for you, Mammi Elizabeth.”

  “I’d like that very much,” said Mamma, acting startled upon hearing her formal name.

  “ ’Cept it won’t be a secret now,” Emma lisped.

  To this, Mamma reached over and cupped Emma’s chin with her hand. “You’re quite the chatterbox today, ain’t so?”

  Rhoda laughed softly.

  Martha attempted to redirect Mamma’s attention away from Emma to towheaded Matty, who was pulling on the hair of one of Emma’s ragdolls on Martha’s lap. In spite of Matty’s adorable grin, Nellie saw it was all Mamma could do to keep her eyes off Emma.

  After a while they all sat down together and enjoyed some of Martha’s delicious baby pearl tapioca and chocolate chip cookies. Mamma, Martha, and Nellie were clearing the table when Emma tugged on Mamma’s skirt and looked up at her. “Aunt Suzy really ain’t comin’ back ever?”

  A frown quickly appeared on Mamma’s face. She glanced nervously at Martha.

  But there was no time to talk things over, not with Emma within earshot. Mamma smiled ever so kindly. “Our dear Suzy’s gone forever, jah. . . .” Her lip trembled and she turned slightly so Emma wouldn’t see.

  Rhoda quickly diverted Emma’s attention, taking her into the smaller sitting room near the front room. Nellie and Nan stayed close to Mamma, comforting her by getting her some hot tea and having her sit at the table awhile.

  Later on their drive to the last visit of the day—Benjamin and Ida’s place—Nellie couldn’t help but notice again how considerate Dat was of Mamma, asking her if she was all right. Nellie wondered if Emma’s question had grieved Dat, too . . . knowing full well that even if it had, he would never speak of it.

  After she’d completed her baking and helped her sisters and Mamma hang out the wash early Monday morning, Nellie took herself off to the bakery shop. She waited on more English customers than usual, or so it seemed. She didn’t mind, as long as they didn’t stare, which did happen occasionally—Rosanna observed the same thing, tending her roadside vegetable stand. Nellie preferred the regular Englischers, who were more accustomed to the Plain way she and Nan dressed.

  Rhoda had already headed on foot to work at the Kraybills’. So bubbly was she that Nellie wondered if something had happened between yesterday afternoon’s visits and this morning.

  Nan, on the other hand, remained as schlimm—sad—as Nellie had ever seen her. With Rhoda gone for the whole day, Nellie wondered if maybe she might get a chance to hear what was up.

  But Nan was slow to assist at the bakery shop, not arriving until midafternoon. By then the place was too swamped with customers for any sisterly talk.

  About that time, Rebekah Yoder showed up. “Dat’s been draggin’ his feet about puttin’ down our old buggy mare,” she said, seemingly in the mood to chat. “Every time anyone’s mentioned it, he’s said, ‘Ach, there’s one more mile in her. A good-natured horse like that’s determined to die in the harness.’ Anyway, this mornin’ he hitched her up and took off to town, going by way of the one-lane bridge on Beaver Dam Road.” Rebekah paused for a breath, appearing eager to tell the whole story.

  “What happened?” Nellie asked.

  The other customers leaned in to listen.

  “Well, if the horse didn’t collapse right in the middle of the road!”

  “That’s just awful.”

  “It was sad, of course, but kind of funny, too, accordin’ to Dat.” Rebekah shook her head. “There was a long, long line behind Dat’s buggy—a whole bunch of buggies, and a good many cars, too. Amish farmers and English drivers both were jumpin’ out and askin’ what a dead horse was doin’ on the road.”

  “Well, was she dead?” asked Nellie.

  “Apparently not. A large truck somehow’d got off course and onto the narrow road. When it gave a few loud blasts from its air horn, ach, if the horse didn’t leap up on all fours, and they were off again.” Rebekah giggled before composing herself, and Nellie laughed, assuming that was the end of the story.

  “Turns out Ol’ Dolly let out a final shudder on the way home and fell down dead in the middle of the turn lane on Route 322. Poor thing. Probably a heart attack, Dat says.”

  “Oh, Rebekah . . . what a fright for your father.”

  “Jah, it was.” She sighed. “But he told me he had nobody to blame but himself.”

  “Good thing no one got hurt.”

  “Or killed,” Rebekah added. “ ’Cept the horse, of course.”

  The cluster of customers began chattering at that, but Rebekah’s story had gotten only a halfhearted crinkle of a smile from Nan.

  As they closed the shop for the day, Nan took issue with Nellie. “I daresay you overreacted to Rebekah’s storytellin’.”

  “You think so?”

  Nan nodded. “Nothin’ funny ’bout what she was saying.”

  “Well, it struck me that way.”

  Nan folded her arms. “You seemed terribly pleased to see Rebekah today. What with the hearsay . . .” She flashed a teasing grin. “I think you must like her brother an awful lot, that’s what.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Well, Benjamin’s brother-in-law told Becky Glick that he saw what looked to be you and Caleb over in some bushes after Singing, of all things!”

  Nellie was stunned. She stopped to stare at her sister. Caleb had hugged her in the thicket, but only momentarily. Old Joe Glick’s granddaughter—Susannah Lapp’s best friend—had made too much of an innocent gesture. Oh, how she despised the grapevine!

  “Benjamin’s brother-in-law knows nothin’ at all, and neither do you,” Nellie spouted.

  “Well, you did meet up with a boy after Singing. Don’t say ya didn’t.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “Jah, and so is your fate.”

  “You have no idea what you’re
babblin’ about, Nan!” she hollered back.

  Face red, Nan ran off to the house, slamming the back door.

  As much as Nellie wanted to ignore her sister’s cutting words, she could not stop thinking about the possibility Susannah had one of Nellie’s own brother’s kin spying on her. Susannah must be afraid she’s going to lose her chance with Caleb. That’s what!

  Nellie followed her sister’s lead and went inside, where the smell of one of Mamma’s best hot dishes almost cheered her, turkey casserole being a favorite. She hurried to help both Nan and Mamma get the table set and all the serving dishes on the table, trying not to pay Nan any further mind.

  Nellie was surprised at the feast, which included baked beans, buttered carrots, and cut corn in addition to a gelatin salad and homemade muffins. Nellie looked at her mother and was heartened to see a healthy blush on her cheeks. Is she finally feeling better?

  When Dat came in from getting the mules into the barn, he washed up quickly. Rubbing his hands together, he went to get the Good Book down from the tall cupboard at the far end of the kitchen. “We’ll be havin’ some Scripture reading right after the meal.” He took his seat at the head.

  Nan and Rhoda exchanged glances as Nan filled the last of the water glasses. She sat down next to Nellie, across from Mamma, who sat in her place to their father’s right.

  “Let’s bow our heads,” Dat said. “Our heavenly Father, we ask for your blessings on this food, which we are ever so grateful for . . . just as we are for your dear Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.” Instead of praying silently, he had blessed the food aloud.

  Nellie had never heard such praying, let alone at the table. She looked first at Mamma, who was beaming at Dat nearly like a schoolgirl. Then she looked at her father, who was getting on with the business of eating, reaching now for the large spoon stuck in the casserole dish.