Loving Mariah

by Beverly Bird

  “With all due respect,” Sugar Joe said again, “this church has become so preoccupied with sticking to the rules that you’ve forgotten everything else. You’ve forgotten the underlying reasons for the rules, and made them so lofty none of us can possibly adhere to them perfectly. Certainly not this time and not on this issue. Rules are not the point. Obedience is not the purpose. Our families are.”

  This time applause went up. Joe’s voice finally softened.

  “Whether you like it or not, whether you approve and want to recognize it or not, someone is stealing our children. Our own men are using brutal force against their wives and sons and daughters. Ignoring it won’t make it go away. No matter how much you worship your Ordnung, it’s going to keep happening until you can find the flexibility in your hearts to save our children, to protect our women. And our children and women are the reason most of us follow this path.” He finally turned away.

  “Wait,” one of the deacons said. Sugar Joe looked back. It was his father-in-law. “We’ll discuss this among ourselves and give you our decision when the Ordnung is read at the next services,” Paul Gehler went on.

  “I’m sorry,” Joe said quietly, “but your opinion is irrelevant. We will do this. If you wait until next services, no one will be there. By then we’ll have a Gemeide and services of our own.”

  Adam and Bo reached the front door of the Grossdawdy house just as Sugar Joe began speaking. It wasn’t until the man was well underway that Adam’s heart stopped racing and his palms stopped sweating.

  He found her in the crowd.

  For the first time in two weeks, he breathed. The fishing wire seemed to melt. An invisible weight lifted off his chest. She was alive.

  He didn’t know what he’d honestly expected, but when he’d driven down Ronks Road, past her street, and saw buggy after buggy turning in here, he’d panicked. No, he thought, panic was too weak a word. Every emotion he’d ever possessed had crashed in on him. He’d thought something had happened to her. Or, inanely, that she’d finally repented, maybe had agreed to marry that Asher character after all, despite all these years.

  He had to stop it. She was his.

  He’d left his rental car on the main road; the buggies had left no room for anything but pedestrian traffic. He’d abandoned it, jogging down the street, dragging a confused and curious Bo by the hand. And then, finally, he’d understood that it wasn’t Mariah’s house that all the people were going to. It was that grandfather’s house next door, the one with the denuded flower box.

  No one paid him much attention when he’d pushed his way inside. And then, listening to Joe talk, he’d understood why.

  “Damn, I like that man,” he muttered under his breath. “Ouch,” he snapped as a small elbow dug into his thigh.

  “That’s a bad word,” Bo said.

  “sorry.”

  “That’s all right. You’re doing better.”

  Oh, yeah, he thought. He was. He’d kept his promise. He’d brought Bo back here. And that was when things had started going right.

  He’d struggled with himself for hours the previous night, after Jake had left. But in the end there was really no choice to make. Jake couldn’t bring Bo to the settlement, not today, not at the time Adam had promised, so he had to do it. And this decision, this visit, was only one single stumbling block in their future, after all. He wasn’t going to let Bo go. He was his son, his child, his everything. So one way or another they would work through this culture shock, and they would go on together for a long, long time.

  Adam could not allow that long time to begin with a broken promise.

  On the flight east, he had determined a million ways to handle the situation once he got here. They could go straight to the Lappses and confine their visit to Matt and the family. Or they could stay at the motel, spend most of their time together, with only occasional trips to the farm to ease the bandage off gently. He could see Mariah, or he could stay away from her.

  A million scenarios, and all the choices were his own. Until he saw the buggies streaming into her street. Until he heard Sugar Joe talk.

  The man finally finished and started to head back for the door. Both his brows shot up when he saw Adam and Bo. Under different circumstances, Adam knew he would have smiled. As it was, he confined himself to a nod.

  “Wait,” Adam heard himself say.

  Joe stopped cold. One of the deacons had started to sit, then he shot to his feet again.

  “Who are you?” the man demanded.

  “He’s my old pa,” Bo told him, hugging Bear for all he was worth. “Sugar Joe was just my latest one.”

  “I beg your pardon?” He was a tall guy with very long hair. Something about that hair gave Adam pause.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he answered, recovering. “I’ve got something to say, too.”

  “This I’ve got to hear,” Joe muttered in an undertone, coming to stand beside him.

  Mariah was close to fainting. She felt Katya brace her weight from behind. It was a godsend. Her blood was rushing, swooshing, and a laugh bubbled up in her throat even as tears tried to crowd there. “Adam?” she managed. “Adam.” And Bo.

  They had returned.

  She watched him step a little deeper into the throng.

  “I guess technically I don’t have a place here,” he went on, “and I sure don’t have a voice in all this. For all I know, you don’t even see me, either. Maybe there’s some rule to that effect because I’m arener Satt Leit.”

  “There’s not,” Bo informed him.

  “Well, good. Because given the fact that you guys have tied my life up in knots for weeks now, I think we need to straighten a few things out here.”

  Belatedly, he was aware of the silence in the room. It had weight. He became aware of the stares, some wide-eyed, some openmouthed. But more than anything he was aware of Bo’s delighted grin and the transparent love in Mariah Fisher’s eyes. He looked at her and his heart stumbled and hurt. But this time it hurt with wanting.

  “Anyway,” he began again, then he had to pause to clear his throat. “What happened here is that I fell in love with that lady over there. And what she loves is all of you. And your children. I know you don’t see her, but I also know that she’s kept to all the rules of your Ordnung anyway. Because she believes in them. And she knows she believes in them because she left here, and whatever she found out there wasn’t enough to sustain her, so she came back. And even though she doesn’t really have to, she cooks on a wood stove and runs her refrigerator with a...with a...”

  “Hydraulic motor,” she whispered, but in the silence it was heard.

  “Yeah.” His eyes met hers again, held for a moment, and what she saw there nearly made her sway.

  He loved her. He did! They hadn’t been just words.

  “I didn’t think I could have her,” Adam went on. “I thought I had to leave her, thought I had to drag my son away from this world he’s known, a world he wants and he’s thrived on, because in all honesty, a couple of your rules uh...need some work.” His eyes moved to Joe. “It’s not like what you told me. I can’t just disagree down here—” he thumped his chest “—and live with it because I love her. The things I disagree with are just too big. And they hurt her.

  “I have a real hard time trusting happiness,” he explained, to the crowd and the deacons this time. “Maybe it’s my upbringing. It wasn’t quite as good as what all you folks have enjoyed. But I can tell you this—I’ve found happiness here. I found it, and it’s been held just out of my reach by you deacons. I couldn’t trust it because what you’re doing to that woman is just proof that goodness can be twisted. How can I believe in a faith that destroys a woman’s life for a single mistake? How can I trust that?”

  “She could repent,” the long-haired deacon said stonily. “It’s her own choice, not ours.”

  Adam ignored him. He found her eyes again and this time he spoke only to her. “I tried to tell myself I couldn’t trust you. But that’s not i
t. It’s God I can’t quite trust. Maybe I can learn. Maybe you can teach me. Maybe enough years with you and Bo and...and just goodness can prove me wrong. I’m willing to give it a shot. But my vote goes with Sugar Joe. I’ll never trust a God who would advocate children being abandoned to some unknown fate. And I won’t trust one who looks the other way while a man beats up on a woman he’s professed to love. And I sure as hell—ouch!” He glanced down at Bo. “Sorry. I sure as heck can’t trust one who thinks its a good and righteous thing to destroy a woman’s life because she...goofed.”

  He pinned the deacons—especially the one with the long gray hair—with a steel-blue gaze. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the way I understand it is that if she had gone to college and come home to be baptized, then everything would have been hunkydory with you guys. But because she rebelled a month or so too late, you’d prefer to love your rules more than you love her. Nope, I can’t live with that. And I’ll tell you something else. If my kid rebels, I’ll even pray to your God that he does it by getting an education, because Sugar Joe is right. It’s a big, bad, nasty place out there, and there are a whole lot of things he could do that are worse, that could break my heart.”

  The people stared. Mariah pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. Katya was the first to laugh a little breathlessly, then someone else joined in. And Adam wondered if he had ever said so many words at one time in his life.

  “Uh...I’m done,” he finished, embarrassed.

  “Good.” Sugar Joe clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m hungry. Let’s go home.”

  Adam nodded, but waited. He looked at the far wall again, but she was gone now. His heart stopped. He wondered if she hated him for what he’d said, if he’d broken some horrible taboo, if he’d lost her after all.

  Then the crowd parted. Mariah pushed her way through. For a moment he thought of angels again, of women who could float, because her feet barely seemed to touch the floor. She hurled herself at him and he caught her, and she was real and warm, all the good things he’d thought he’d never find.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly, against her hair. “Let’s go home. Wherever that is.”

  They went back to Sugar Joe’s farm, because his house was the largest. In Adam’s absence, the adopted family seemed to have grown.

  He recognized the woman Joe had been talking about in the meeting—Katya Essler. She was the same one who had directed him to Mariah’s schoolhouse at the start, the one with hair that looked the color of buckwheat caught in the sun. The one who’s husband had bellowed at her the whole while to come back inside.

  Adam urged her and her ankle cast into his car. “Medical emergency,” he explained, but it was hard to look at her, hard to keep his eyes off Mariah. “You’d probably have a hell—don’t do it!” He broke off and looked down at his son. “You’d probably have the dickens of a time trying to get into Joe’s buggy.”

  He realized then that it wouldn’t matter if he could have taken his eyes off Mariah. A quick glance told him that Katya Essler wouldn’t have met his gaze anyway. Her eyes were haunted and skittish with panic, and Adam thought with a pang that this woman had a long way to go to freedom.

  Bo yelped when they reached the farm. He tumbled out of the car with another shriek when he saw Matt. He started to run to meet him, then he skidded to a stop and hurried back to the car.

  “What?” Adam asked, concerned, getting out as well. “Is something wrong?”

  “Don’t curse.”

  “I didn’t,” he answered, indignant. “I’ve got enough bruises.”

  “Promise?” Bo searched his face. “Promise you won’t?”

  “Okay.” Adam’s heart rolled over, because he felt something important happening here.

  “I just need to make sure, because Bear don’t like it, either.”

  “Doesn’t,” Mariah corrected, getting out of the car to join them. “Bear doesn’t like it.”

  Bo’s gaze flashed to her. “Shh!”

  “Oh,” Mariah murmured, confused. “Sorry.”

  Bo’s eyes came back to Adam. He thrust the bear at him and shot a quick look back over his shoulder to gauge Matt’s approach. “So anyway, if you don’t say bad words, maybe he could sort of hang out with you for a while,” he whispered. “Don’t let Matt see him. He teases me.”

  Adam took the bear and wondered if he was ever going to feel calm inside ever again. Then Matt tackled Bo from behind.

  It seemed a lifetime, or maybe only a heartbeat, until the boys raced away. Katya limped off toward the house, a harrowing journey with all the new snow that had fallen. Mariah and Adam were finally alone. There were a million things he had to say, but he didn’t know where to begin.

  “It’s a start,” she said quietly, touching a finger to the bear’s nose. “He’s beginning to trust you with the precious things in his life.”

  “Yeah,” Adam said hoarsely.

  “But it’s going to take a while, I think.” She finally looked up into his eyes. God, he thought, hers were lovely.

  “Yeah,” he managed again. “He lived with the Lapps longer than he lived with me. And they got all his years with a memory.” But it was said without rancor, without bitterness now. “We’ll work it out.”

  “How? Where?” she blurted. Oh, there was so much she needed to know. “Did he like Dallas?”

  “Which part?” Adam grimaced. “I think he’s decided that moving sidewalks aren’t going to be a part of his own personal Ordnung taboos. Other than that, going downtown threw him for a loop.”

  She smiled a little. “I’m sure.”

  “Listen.” He changed course abruptly. “I’m sorry about everything I said.”

  Her eyes got warm. She blinked. “It was...wonderful.”

  “No, I mean...before. The night before I left.”

  Her eyes slid away. “It was justified.”

  “No. It wasn’t.” He thought of what Jake had said, and somehow he got the words out. He said them himself. “I was just latching on to an excuse to leave, rather than risk too much by staying. Now I’ve changed my mind.”

  Her heart stumbled. “For Bo? You’re going to stay here? For Bo?”

  “And for me. Marry me.”

  Mariah wondered if she was dreaming, but finally, this time, everything felt clear, focused, real again.

  He caught her chin with his hand. “I wasn’t just grandstanding back there for the cause. I meant it. I love you.”

  “Oh.” For a moment it was all she could manage. She caught the front of his shirt and held on. “Yes! Yes, I love you, too.” Her heart seemed to explode.

  He hadn’t known relief could be this sweet. It wasn’t even the same as the night they had found Bo in the woods. That had been staggering. This was almost...debilitating. “But this business about waiting until November—”

  Her own smile faded. “Oh, Adam, they’d never marry us.”

  “The deacons again?”

  She nodded helplessly. “You’re divorced and not even baptized, and I’m—”

  “That’s okay,” he interrupted. “I won’t wait for their blessing, anyway. Bo needs a home. I need a home. And we both need a family.”

  Her fingers tightened in his shirt. He was offering her the world. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “So we’ll make one together.”

  “A big one,” she breathed.

  He grinned again. “I guess so, given that you folks don’t believe in birth control.”

  “No, I meant...instantly. Katya and her children are staying with me. Frank was... abusing her. He’s a drunkard. I promised she could stay with me until she can resolve this somehow, but I don’t know how long it will be until they can get on their feet.”

  “Katya and her children,” he said slowly. He remembered that most families had up to ten kids. “Uh, how many children? Exactly?”

  “Four.”

  He breathed again. He could live with that. And he certainly had the kitchen table for the job.

  �
��We’ll get married now,” he went on, “by a justice of the peace, and again later, with the church’s blessing. If we can ever get the church’s blessing. There seem to be a lot of changes afoot.”

  She was reduced to nodding. Then he kissed her. She sank into him, although she felt truly strong and whole and good for maybe the first time in her life.

  “Hey, you’re supposed to wait until after dark for that stuff,” Sugar Joe called out from the house.

  “Can I tell him to go to hell?” Adam murmured against her mouth.

  “The bear would mutiny.”

  He groaned and stepped away from her.

  They started to go inside.

  Halfway to the door, she giggled suddenly. Adam looked down at her. “What?” he said curiously.

  “I was thinking about that quilt.”

  He laughed. too, remembering her warning, one that had sounded so dire only a short time ago. So much had changed. “Powerful stuff there.”

  “Who do you suppose we should pass it on to?”

  “Do we have to? Pass it on, I mean?”

  She smiled. “Its job is done with us.”

  He grinned. “We could send it to Dallas, to my brother. Does it work outside the settlement?”

  She thought about it seriously. “I don’t know. It’s never been tried.”

  Adam sobered, too. “Maybe it’s done enough for one year. Maybe we should just tuck it away and keep it safe for awhile.”

  “Katya,” she decided. “Or her babies. She’s already married—” her beautiful face turned pained at that “—and her children are far, far too young to wed. That’s perfect, Adam. It can provide them warmth and comfort while they stay with us. But—”

  “But it can’t do its thing,” he interrupted.

  “Exactly.”

  He stopped her before they stepped inside and kissed her again. “I do believe that was our first decision as man and wife.”

  Mariah laughed. “Close enough, I think.”

  Sarah was bustling around the kitchen. Katya was trying to help, but her cast slowed her down. Mariah pushed her friend into a chair and offered her a bowl of bread dough to knead. Joe caught Adam at the door.