The Letters

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  She had to walk the scooter through the farmers’ market to reach the road, but she kept up a quick pace, ignoring Jimmy Fisher.

  “Hey! Hey, Bethany! Bethany Schrock!”

  Too late.

  Bethany didn’t slow down but turned her chin slightly, just to acknowledge his existence. Just to be polite. Not so that he would think she had any idea who he was.

  Jimmy jogged to catch up to her. “I don’t think we’ve formally been introduced. Aren’t you a friend of M.K. Lapp’s?”

  She slowed to a stop. Just to be polite. “Maybe,” she said coolly. So, she was face-to-face with the famous Mr. Irresistible. A Young Woman’s Guide to Virtue warned of forward and bold young men. They were to be avoided. She started walking on her way.

  Jimmy followed behind. “Couldn’t you slow down for a moment. Be sociable?”

  Bethany turned to face him. It occurred to her that he might just be friendly.

  Jimmy took off his hat, held it to his chest, and grinned. “I’m James Fisher, proprietor of Fisher Hatchery. Friends call me Jimmy.” He thumped his heart. Thump, thump, thump. “My heart leaps to make your acquaintance.”

  She tried not to roll her eyes. “Well, James, I am in a hurry.”

  “You’re always in a hurry. I see you zooming in and out of here each day. But I can’t quite figure out what the big hurry is.” Jimmy stroked his chin, deep in thought. “That scooter gets stashed behind the dumpster and you seem to disappear. Makes a fellow wonder where a girl spends her day.” His blue eyes sparkled with mischief.

  M.K. Lapp had warned her to stay clear of Jimmy Fisher—that he was crazier than a loon. Right now, he didn’t strike her as unhinged—more like a fellow who was too clever for his own good. His was a charming scalawag’s smile, and she trusted it for about as long as it took to blink.

  Jimmy took a step closer to her. “Maybe if you let me take you home in my buggy, we could get to know each other.” He took another step toward her. “I can keep secrets.”

  In such situations, A Young Woman’s Guide to Virtue recommended that a young woman hold up her head, ignore such ungentlemanly behavior, and quietly remove herself. Remain pious and ladylike at all times, the book said. Unflappable. Imperturbable.

  He wiggled his eyebrows in an outrageously flirtatious manner. “What do you say, good-looking?”

  Shootfire! The arrogance of this fellow really ground Bethany’s grits. She narrowed her eyes and planted her fists on her hips. “You, Mr. Irresistible, can just take your buggy and—”

  “Bethany! Mom’s looking for you!” Luke and Sammy ran up to her, red-faced and panting. “Mammi Vera’s having a sinking spell!”

  Rose had waited for just the right moment to speak to Vera about turning the basement into an inn. The right moment had yet to come, but she couldn’t wait any longer. She had stopped by the phone shanty to pick up her messages and discovered a paying guest wanted to arrive tomorrow. He said his cousin Tony had recommended the place to him after learning he had a business trip in Lancaster County. Rose’s first reaction was sheer panic. This was all happening too fast! She wasn’t in a position to have people stay at the farm yet—the basement would take time and work to get into shape. That meant a guest would have to stay in the house . . . and this particular guest happened to be a man. A stranger. This was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

  But on the heels of that thought came another one. Maybe this turn of events was from God. After all, the entire idea came about because she had opened the conversation with God. At Galen’s urging, she had gathered her courage one afternoon and driven over to Bishop Elmo’s. He met her out by her buggy and listened, without any hint of expression, as she explained about the inn. A thoughtful, kindly man, he stroked his scraggly white beard for a moment, then his face brightened and he clapped his hands together in delight—as if he had only wished he’d thought of it himself. She left with his blessing and a lightness in her heart.

  Maybe God was encouraging her to step out in faith and trust that it would all work out. This man wasn’t entirely a stranger—he was a cousin of Tony’s, who seemed like a good man. She remembered that one-hundred-dollar bill Tony had slipped into her palm. Think how nice it would be to have some steady income right now.

  Rose picked up the phone and called Tony’s cousin. She tried to sound as if she did this every day of her life—took reservations and gave directions to find the farm. As she hung up the phone, she blew out a puff of air. She had to face Dean’s mother about this . . . new venture. She couldn’t keep hiding guests in the house.

  She rubbed her face. How often must Vera rue the fact that she was the one who encouraged Dean to move his family to Stoney Ridge?

  While Rose had been grateful for her mother-in-law’s provision of a home, especially after Dean had passed, she knew Vera well enough to know she had an ulterior motive to such a generous offer. Not long after Dean’s funeral, Vera spelled out her expectations: return to the Old Order Amish church and all that went with it—school, clothing, no car, no electricity.

  “Those are my rules,” Vera told Rose firmly. To Vera’s way of thinking, this was the chance to bring her grandchildren back to their roots, back to where she felt they belonged.

  “Fine,” Rose said without any objection, which shocked Vera. Rose had never minded standing up to Vera, but she was prepared for this. She had been raised Old Order but left the church, long ago, before she had been baptized. She sensed that she needed to keep the family intact and united, so she went through the instruction classes, confessed her sins, renounced the world, and joined the church. That vow wasn’t made to a group of people, but to God. She felt joined, like a limb to a tree, to the church and to her family and to God.

  The children went along with it—switching schools, adjusting their clothing, selling the old minivan. Even Bethany was accommodating, though she said she wasn’t ready to attend instruction classes with Rose.

  Aside from missing the convenience of her minivan, Rose and the children adapted surprisingly well to the lifestyle change. They had always spoken the Penn Dutch language in their home, and they were familiar with Old Order ways from visits to Vera’s home. In so many areas, they were making adjustments and weathering the storm.

  But another storm started to brew. Vera had become forgetful. She misplaced objects, forgot dates right after she looked at the calendar, couldn’t remember little words like “hat” or “horse,” or she would say another word in its place. She had weakness in her right side. The doctor diagnosed it as a series of mini-strokes, brought on by stress. This doctor put her on a blood thinner and gave her daily exercises.

  Even if Rose wanted to leave (and to be entirely truthful, she often did), how could she ever justify it? Dean had been Vera’s only son.

  Rose pulled open the curtains to let the natural light into the room. “It’s a beautiful day today. Spring will be here soon.”

  Vera blinked her eyes. “Where’s Bethany? I only want Bethany.”

  Rose sighed. “Bethany works each day at the farmers’ market. She’ll be home after three. I have time now to help you with your exercises.”

  “I’ll do them later. With Bethany.”

  “We need to do these every morning and every afternoon. The doctor explained that to you.”

  “Women shouldn’t be doctors.”

  And thus began the morning routine with her mother-in-law. Rose slowly coaxed Vera’s right hand open, rubbed lotion into each little nook and cranny. “The doctor said that hands often curl up tight when someone suffers apoplexy.”

  “She was a quack.”

  “She wasn’t a quack. She said your strokes are causing this weakness, but in time you’ll regain some of these skills. She said these exercises will help keep your fingers limber.”

  “That’s enough for now.”

  “Each one needs to be bent and straightened half a dozen times, and your wrist needs to be rotated.” A routine of exercises needed to be done twice
a day, morning and night, and Rose or Bethany did them faithfully. While Rose patiently started working Vera’s fingers in her lifeless right arm, Vera kept a steady stream of rebukes, complaints, and criticism flowing. No amount of soothing calmed her.

  Rose knew embarrassment over having to be tended to in such a way was what fueled Vera’s sharp tongue. She always forgave her. She knew God was calling her to meet this situation with grace. “Do you see how much stronger you’re getting? Dean would have been proud of you.”

  “Don’t think I don’t know why Dean did what he did.” Vera pushed Rose’s arm away. “I know you pushed him to the brink. I heard that argument. Everyone did. The whole county could’ve stayed home and heard every word.”

  Patience. Patience. We are living in her house. “So you’ve told me.” Rose was accustomed to Vera’s vinegar and beans, but those sharp words still stung. The thing was—Vera spoke the truth. She had a hard time forgiving herself for that argument, for what happened the next day. Maybe she did push Dean to the brink.

  She took Vera’s hand in hers and started bending the elbow, straightening and bending, straightening and bending. Five more, four more, three more. “I have something to tell you. Some good news.” Rose tried to keep her voice as calm as a summer day.

  Vera looked away.

  “I’ve come up with an idea about how to support my family.”

  “It’s about time. I might be land rich but I’m money poor. And this land is going to Tobe, when he comes home. It’s rightfully his. You can’t expect me—”

  Rose lifted a hand to stop another onslaught. “I’ve been praying on this and I think I’ve found a solution. I’ll be able to be home for the children and to take care of you.” She tried to keep the statement flat, to mask the swells of uncertainty inside her.

  Vera peered at her with her one droopy side of the face, curious.

  “I’m going to start a bed-and-breakfast. An inn. Here at the farm. Convert the basement. You won’t even know guests are here.” In the awkward silence that followed, Rose’s already-shaky confidence plummeted. “I spoke to Bishop Elmo and he gave me his blessing. Of course, I’d like your blessing on it.” She chanced a glance at Vera, who was blinking in surprise, her mouth hung wide open. Rose carefully straightened Vera’s blanket. She was taking this news better than she thought she might. What a pleasant surprise.

  “Absolutely not!” Vera shouted.

  Naturally, Vera Schrock did not brood upon things of the past, the way some people dwelled on such things, but the old ways of her people still came to mind from time to time, often at unexpected moments. Such as this morning.

  Her daughter-in-law Rose did not follow the old ways. The old ways would never have approved of turning a home into a . . . stopping station for strangers. The old ways respected that the Plain people were set apart, that they were not to mingle with the English. The old ways . . . She could go on. And what was the point? No one listened to her. She was always the last to know anything, anyway.

  Vera tried to lift a coffee mug and couldn’t raise it an inch off the table. Her chest tightened with sudden despair. Something terrible was happening to her, something she couldn’t fight and simply could not stop. Her right side kept getting weaker and weaker—not stronger like the quack lady doctor promised, after tossing all kinds of pills at her and charging her an arm and a leg. Vera couldn’t get words out the way she used to, but she had them in her head. Lately, her thoughts felt like a tangled ball of yarn. They flitted through her mind like a robin hopping from tree to tree, never staying in one place long. The confused state she often found herself in was occurring more and more often, and she didn’t like the idea of Bethany and those other children—what were their names? the dark-haired girl and those two wild boys?—well, whatever their names were, she didn’t like them seeing her this way.

  She was frightened.

  Terrified.

  At least she was when she remembered.

  And then those horrid hiccups would return.

  Rose had tried a number of fail-safe cures to stop hiccups that she got from the healer, Sadie something-or-other. She used to be Sadie Lapp, Vera did remember that, but she couldn’t remember her married name. Anyway, last week, she had Vera pinching her nose shut with her two thumbs, and plugged up both ears with her fingers, while Rose or Bethany would pour a glass of water down her throat. Vera stomped her foot when she was close to drowning, and then the glass was taken away. It had worked.

  Just thinking of that horrid cure made her even more anxious, and sure enough, those awful hiccups started up.

  4

  If it was going to happen, Bethany just wished it would go ahead and happen. The basement had been cleared out, remodeled, freshly painted. She couldn’t wait to get the furniture moved in and a shingle hung so that Rose’s ridiculous bed-and-breakfast was officially under way. She was sick and tired of giving up her bedroom for strangers. Twice now, she’d had to sleep with Mim in a scrunched-up bed and listen to her whiffling snores all night long. Mim should know that any little thing would wake Bethany. She hardly slept. Too much responsibility weighed on her mind. She was the oldest now, since Tobe had vanished, and she had to take care of everybody.

  The man who stayed in Bethany’s room had the gall to come downstairs for breakfast and complain about the loud sound of mooing cows! “Well, we are close to a dairy farm,” Rose said. “And this is the countryside.”

  But the man was not happy. And his “donation” was a mere twenty-five dollars.

  To top it off, Mammi Vera heard the man’s complaints about the mooing cows and pitched a fit. No wonder her grandmother kept having these mini-strokes. She was constantly pitching fits.

  And here was another thing: Bethany was growing weary of getting yanked away from whatever she was doing to settle her grandmother down. It took a fair bit of work to calm Mammi Vera. Being her grandmother’s favorite wore her out. She knew the only reason was because she looked so much like a Schrock. The younger ones took after Rose, her father’s second wife.

  Bethany didn’t think of Rose as a stepmother but as a real mother. Part of the reason, she supposed, was because Rose didn’t believe in labels that fractured a family and divided them up. She insisted that Bethany and Tobe think of Mim and the boys as siblings, not steps or half. Rose referred to herself as Bethany and Tobe’s mother. She did all she could to keep the family together. Including Mammi Vera.

  But mostly, Bethany thought of Rose as her mother because she was always there for her. She was a rock. She was safe.

  Unlike her real mother.

  Bethany could hardly remember her real mother. It was sad that there were no pictures of her. If Bethany were a bishop, she would change that rule, first thing. She grinned. Imagine that—a woman becoming a bishop. It would never happen! But she would love to have a picture of her mother. She had deserted their family when Bethany was just a toddler.

  A few years later, her father married Rose, and Rose became her stepmother. That was the happiest day of Bethany’s childhood. Bethany admired her more than anybody she had ever met. Rose was always thinking of others and she took the brunt of everything, especially her grandmother’s sour tongue, yet she wasn’t beaten down by it. When Mim complained about the work required to get the basement into shape as an inn, Bethany replied, “But isn’t the point to give Rose a chance? Isn’t that the whole point?”

  As close as Bethany felt to Rose, she couldn’t call her “Mom.” In her heart, she had a real mother and, one day, she hoped to find her. To ask her why she left.

  Luke and Sammy came galloping through the back door. “Bethany, come see! Galen’s brought over some furniture for the basement.” They galloped back out again.

  Hallelujah! If Rose was determined to see this crazy notion through, at least get those strangers out of their house and into the basement.

  “You boys quiet down out there!” came a cry from the depths of Mammi Vera’s gloomy bedroom.

&n
bsp; “They’re already back outside, Mammi Vera,” Bethany called back. She looked out the window and saw Naomi alongside her brother, Galen, coming up the driveway, in an open wagon filled to the brim with furniture. She wiped her hands on a dishrag and hurried outside.

  Naomi waved eagerly when she saw her. It always surprised Bethany that Naomi was so fond of her. There couldn’t be two more opposite girls in all the world over. Naomi was frail and thin and often took to her bed. Bethany was strong, curvy, and had never been sick a day in her life. Naomi was pious and pure and reserved, while Bethany was blunt and outspoken, with a hot temper. Why, hadn’t she nearly spouted off a curse word or two at Jimmy Fisher just yesterday?

  And all the while, Jimmy Fisher just watched her with those mischievous eyes, enjoying her outburst. Not at all offended, he had made good on his offer to give her a ride home in his buggy so she could hurry back to Mammi Vera’s side. It was her job to settle Mammi Vera down after pitching one of her fits that ended in relentless hiccups.

  Nonetheless, the buggy ride home did not change Bethany’s opinion of Jimmy Fisher: he was arrogant and cocky just because he was so handsome and charming and likable.

  She wondered if he might drop by sometime. She didn’t want him to, but she wondered if he might.

  Naomi hopped off the wagon and hurried to Bethany. “My brother emptied out the attic! He brought over extra beds and rugs and tables for the new bed-and-breakfast.”

  “Not a minute too soon,” Bethany said. “I can’t handle having strangers in the house. Asking questions and poking around the house. One of them walked right into Mammi Vera’s room yesterday and she screamed bloody murder.”

  “She’s always lathered up about one thing or another,” Luke piped up.

  Bethany pointed a finger at him. “You respect your elders.” Then she shooed him away. “Get Sammy and make yourself useful. Go help Galen unload the wagon.” She turned back to Naomi. “Come and see how the basement’s starting to take shape. You won’t believe it.”