by Sarah Price
Now it was Sunday, and she was still exhausted. She needed to stretch her legs and breathe in the fresh air outside. It was too hot inside the barn, and it didn’t smell all that pleasant. Removing herself from the hard pine bench she’d been sitting on for three hours had been a smart suggestion from her friend Elizabeth.
“You all right out here, Rosanna?” She turned at the sound of her name and was surprised to see Reuben walking toward her. His brow was twisted in concern. As he approached, he reached for her arm, holding it gently in his hand. “You’ve been doing a lot, my fraa. I have no problem with you going right on home after service if you can’t stay for fellowship.”
Grateful that he cared enough to not only notice her absence from the worship room but to come check on her, Rosanna merely shook her head. “Nee, Reuben,” she started. “I’m weary, but no more so than anyone in there.” She smiled. “My week may have drained me, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be here to honor our Lord and enjoy fellowship with our g’may.”
Truth was that she always enjoyed this day, the one day when she could relax a bit and count on others to help out—some more than others. To miss it by returning home early was far worse in her eyes than experiencing a few lowered eyelids and jerky neck motions. Besides, she knew that if she had glanced around the room she would have picked out at least a half-dozen others, mostly men, dozing off during the hymns and sermons.
And then, of course, there was another reason she wanted to stay. During the ritual assembling of the worship members, the married women entered the barn first followed by the married men, both in chronological order by age. For this reason Rosanna always knew who she would sit next to at service. But when it came to the unmarried women and men, there were sometimes changes in their ranks that provided cause for chitchat on the Amish grapevine. This week the gossip was focused on Nan.
Unlike her brother, Samuel, Nan insisted on attending the worship services. She wore the stiff cuplike cap from her former New York Amish community. It made her stand out among the other Amish women with their soft, heart-shaped prayer kapps. Nan didn’t seem to mind being different. If nothing else, it gave her the opportunity to talk to people who were curious about the type of Amish community in which she had grown up. Most people wanted to know about the differences, as if testing the other districts for their loyalty to the Ordnung as well as to the Ausbund.
To Nan’s credit, she said very little that could be taken as criticism of her previous community, stating only that it was diminishing in population by the year. Young people moved away while the elderly moved home when God called them. That was part of the reason she and Samuel had relocated: it was a dying Amish community. They’d had no choice but to move.
This was not the same story Rosanna had been told.
Despite being exhausted, Rosanna wanted to stay both for the fellowship and out of curiosity.
After Reuben returned to the service, she allowed herself a few more minutes to take in the fresh air and to stretch her legs and clear her head. Her mind felt foggy, and her muscles ached with a weariness that did not come from hard work. The last thing she needed was to come down with a sickness like the one Cate had experienced the previous week. Chalking up her physical stress to her busy week, she took a last look around the Millers’ farm before she headed back inside the barn.
After the service, the women carried platters of prepared food from the kitchen to the tables set up under the shade of two large oak trees near the driveway. The men had created the two long tables by putting the legs of the pine benches into trusses. Meanwhile, the younger boys collected the Ausbunds and carefully stacked them in a wooden crate for the next service.
In the kitchen, the older women directed the younger ones to work. With so many people, not all of them had a task. Thankfully, Rosanna was among them. She stood outside on the porch with Elizabeth, a few feet away from a group of older women.
“You look beat,” Elizabeth said to Rosanna. She pursed her lips and shook her head. With her ruddy cheeks and bright eyes, she was a happy-looking person who always seemed to have something good to say. Rosanna needed to hear something positive right about now.
“Rosanna Troyer!” Elizabeth continued. “Why on earth would you agree to go to market?” She clicked her tongue: tsk-tsk. “That’s for those young girls to do, or women helping their own family . . . not a woman who’s helping to run a farm!”
“I know, I know,” Rosanna admitted. “Annie needed help and—”
Elizabeth held up her hand. “Don’t say it.” She paused. “You just couldn’t say no, ja?”
Rosanna forced a sheepish smile.
“Nee!” Elizabeth whispered as she leaned closer to Rosanna, patting her arm. “It’s an easy word to say, Rosanna! Start practicing it a bit more.”
“Nee,” Rosanna responded, and they both laughed.
The elderly and the families with younger children took the first seating of the fellowship meal. Rosanna normally helped in the kitchen, waiting until everyone was finished and the tables reset for the remaining members of the church district before eating her dinner. Today, however, Elizabeth insisted that Rosanna join the others when the first group of people ate at eleven thirty.
The women sat at one table while the men sat at the other. The segregation of the sexes had never seemed odd to Rosanna—she knew no other way. Yet she found herself searching the sea of men, all dressed in the same white shirts and black vests, in the hope of spotting Reuben. He was near the end, sitting beside one of the preachers, Elmer Weaver. They were engaged in conversation until the bishop, with a subtle motion, indicated it was time for the before-prayer.
Every head bent down, Rosanna’s included, to thank God for the bountiful food set before them. Rosanna added her own prayer, silently expressing her gratitude for His grace in her life.
Once the prayer was over, the noise level rose as the women seated at the table began to pass plates of pickles, coleslaw, applesauce, bread, and cold cuts. Rosanna dished only a little of everything onto her small white plate, worrying that there might not be enough for everyone. After all, there were over two hundred people in attendance today, more than usual during the summer months.
“I met that young woman who’s working at the shop,” a young mother with a toddler on her lap said to Rosanna. “Nan is her name, ja?”
Rosanna felt that familiar tightness in her chest as she tried not to look in Nan’s direction. Nan was standing near the doorway, talking with some of the other unmarried women. Rather than helping with filling water cups or cutting bread for the second seating, she was socializing and distracting the other women from their tasks.
“When did you meet her, Linda?” Rosanna asked.
“Oh, I’d say a few days back. At the food store.” Linda jiggled the small child on her lap, which made the short little strings of the girl’s prayer kapp bounce on her shoulders. “She helped me with the kinner, and I gave her a ride back to the shop.”
The food store? A ride home? Rosanna took a deep breath as she realized that Nan must have left the harness shop during the day to walk to the food store. Even if she did that on her lunch hour, she never would have had enough time to walk there and back. Rosanna wondered if Reuben was aware of Nan leaving the shop unattended for so long. “That was kind of you,” she managed to reply.
“Seemed pleasant enough,” Linda said, spreading soft, homemade butter on a piece of bread for her daughter. “Although I was a little surprised to learn that Reuben plans to turn the shop over to her.”
It took a minute for Linda’s words to register with Rosanna.
Linda looked up and smiled. “I mean, given that she’s so new to the area, that’s all.”
Thankfully Elizabeth changed the subject, asking the woman next to Linda about her mother, who lived in another district. Rosanna took advantage of the opportunity to escape the conversation but still look as if she were listening. In reality, she tried to make sense of what she had j
ust heard.
Was it possible that Reuben had hired Nan with the idea of turning the business over to her? The thought seemed unlikely, although not totally impossible. Without any children of his own, what was he to do with his business? Aaron had expressed no interest in it, and Cate was only twelve. Besides, she’d most likely marry and move in with her husband’s family when she was older.
Being a maedel—an older unmarried woman—with experience in the harness business, Nan could potentially run the shop for Reuben. He’d justified hiring Nan so that he could work less and spend more time at home, helping Aaron on the farm and enjoying Rosanna’s company.
Still, he hardly knew Nan. She had only been employed at the shop for a few weeks, and they still knew very little about her. In fact, after talking with Linda, Rosanna had more questions than answers. She worried that her husband was placing too much faith on fitting a square peg in a round hole. And if it really was his intention to let Nan run the store, he had never once mentioned it to Rosanna. Was that because he was just busy or because he didn’t want to involve her in the business? She needed to consider the answer to that question before approaching her husband.
CHAPTER NINE
I don’t interfere with your kinner, Rosanna,” Reuben began, irritation in his voice and a scowl upon his face. “But I have one important rule. Outten the lanterns when leaving the room.”
All week Reuben’s mood had hung like a dark cloud over the house. Short-tempered and neglectful, he seemed absorbed in his own world. His work hours were not improving. The few minutes that Rosanna saw him during the early morning or late evening hours were tense, and their conversations were short and terse. When he did pause to talk with her, it seemed that all he could do was complain about Cate or his work. When Rosanna could get a word in, he merely interrupted her, arguing with her before she could even finish her thought.
Rosanna bit her lower lip, feeling the sharp sting of her upper teeth against it. She was surprised there wasn’t a bruise there from the many times she bit it to keep herself from arguing in Cate’s defense.
“I told her repeatedly, and she keeps doing it,” Reuben complained. “I’m starting to think she’s doing it out of disrespect.”
Rosanna remained quiet.
He had returned from work at six o’clock. Rosanna was helping Aaron with the milking while Daniel assisted Cate with watering the garden and weeding the front section. Having Daniel there removed the burden of dealing with Gloria Smith from Rosanna’s shoulders, and it gave Cate some layer of protection.
Lately, Reuben’s arrival meant everyone scattered. Tonight, once chores were done, Daniel had as usual retreated to his bedroom when he heard Reuben’s buggy pull down the driveway. He tended to sleep a lot, and after working all day at the shop, he knew better than to stay downstairs when Reuben was home. Otherwise he’d be sucked into a conversation about the business. Aaron had wandered across the side field to go visit one of his friends. Some nights he’d ride his horse bareback, but this night he’d walked. As for Cate, Rosanna wasn’t sure where she had gone. Most likely she had retreated outside to play with the dogs, a consistent source of comfort for the girl.
“Propane and lamp oil are expensive! She has no value of the dollar. Why, she hasn’t worked at the shop this past week! Now she’s leaving on lights and wasting fuel?”
Unable to listen to the barrage of complaints, Rosanna must have made a noise, for Reuben stopped talking and turned to stare at her. “What? What is it now?” he snapped. His blue eyes were tired, and she could see how irritated he was.
“You do it all the time,” she blurted out with no emotion in her voice. After listening to the complaints over and over again, her mouth spoke before her mind could catch up. “How can I tell Aaron and Cate not to do something when you don’t set the example?”
The dark cloud hanging over his head turned black. His mouth flattened, and his nostrils flared. The wrinkles in his forehead deepened as he scowled at her. “I never leave the lantern on!”
Rosanna tilted her chin defiantly. “You did it just the other night.”
“Well,” he said, his voice defensive and angry, “I don’t do it intentionally or consciously!” She knew that he was furious that she had dared to criticize him. It was written on his face.
Even though his words were inconsiderate and infantile, she said nothing else. His response had startled her. Until recently he had always been respectful and kind, compassionate and patient. That Reuben hadn’t walked through the kitchen door lately. Instead, when he entered the house, he created a spiral of negativity. When Rosanna tried to soften his mood or point out what he was doing, he lashed out, and the situation became even more volatile.
Rosanna was beginning to think Reuben could not admit when he was wrong. She wondered how many other character defects her new husband had.
She stood there staring at him, a blank expression on her face. It was one that she had perfected from many years of being married to Timothy. Inside, she felt the muscles of her chest squeeze together, and she found herself short of breath. Her line of vision began to blur, as if the walls were closing in upon her. He didn’t notice when she reached out to steady herself by placing her hand on the back of a kitchen chair.
With a grimace, he stormed into the bedroom, making certain to drop his shoes on the floor in such a way that she knew he was going to bed. Another night wasted, and all over a lantern that Aaron or Cate had left burning in the bathroom. The longer and harder Reuben worked, the shorter his temper grew.
Shaking her head, Rosanna pressed her free hand against her chest. She could feel her heart pounding. She wondered briefly if she might be having a heart attack.
It was moments like these that she missed her family the most. Her parents were aging and lived too far away, outside of Pequea with her oldest brother on the family farm. One sister had moved to New York and another to Ohio. She rarely saw any of them. As the youngest of the eight children in the family, she didn’t have much of a relationship with her siblings. She wasn’t even close to her two sisters, Anna and Susan, who lived in nearby communities in the southern part of Lancaster County. Despite being just three years older than Rosanna, Anna focused all of her attention on her own family, and Susan hadn’t written a letter since a month after Timothy died.
The fact that her siblings were so indifferent bothered Rosanna. It was a poor example to set for her own children. Oh, she knew that Aaron and Cate got along well enough, but at times she worried that they were not closer in age or spirit. In some ways it felt as if she were raising two only children, a thought that bothered her when she realized that one day she would leave this place and live in God’s kingdom. Just as she felt alone and without much family, so would her children.
Right now, with Reuben going through this troubled period, she felt very much alone.
“Maem!”
Aaron’s panic-stricken voice broke her train of thought, and forgetting about her chest pains, she hurried outside.
He stood in the driveway, staring toward the garden. Pausing on the top step of the porch, Rosanna followed his gaze. Cate stood on the small patch of grass between the garden and the cornfield, one hand resting on Jack’s collar. On the other side of the wire fence that edged their property, Gloria and Camille were pounding metal stakes into the grass. Each time their hammers struck the tops of the stakes, a metallic sound reverberated across the garden.
“What on earth?” Rosanna said.
“I was just coming back from Abe’s. I heard the ruckus before I saw them out there.” He shook his head. “Looks like they are hanging up that green tarp on the property line.”
“She’s still going on about that?” Rosanna could hardly believe Aaron’s words. “Didn’t you drop off those tomatoes the other day?”
She only had to look at his expression to know the answer: yes. “It didn’t make a difference, Maem,” Aaron said. “They are just miserable people. Completely soulless. Let them
hang their ugly tarp.”
No truer words had ever been spoken. Rosanna sighed. “I should still find out what this is about.” She took a few steps toward the driveway.
“Don’t,” Aaron said softly, blocking her with his arm. His eyes travelled to the back fence where the two women were making a big display of pounding the stakes. “There’s nothing you can do, Maem. If anything, you should get Reuben.”
That’s not happening, Rosanna thought. “He worked hard today,” she replied, not wanting to drag her son into her marital problems. Aaron’s silence, however, told her that he already knew about them. She looked at her son, suddenly aware that he had turned into a man—seemingly overnight. She gave him a small smile, knowing that her eyes told the truth. If there were two traits that defined her, they were her inability to hide her emotions and her inability to say no.
“Maem!”
Rosanna turned toward Cate and saw that the color was drained from her face. On the other side of the fence, Camille was waving her arms in the air. One hand was clenched in a fist as she yelled in their direction. When Camille saw that she had Rosanna’s attention, more words flew from her lips. Rosanna suspected that whatever she was saying was nothing anyone on the farm wanted to hear.
“Let me go, Aaron,” Rosanna said, gently pulling her arm free from his grip. “I don’t want bad blood between neighbors.”
Her voice sounded stronger than she felt. Perhaps it was the sight of Cate, who was usually so strong and even sassy, but who now looked frightened. The maternal instinct in Rosanna began to rise, and she knew that she had only one choice: face Gloria and stop walking away. There was only so much turning the other cheek that a person could take, she reasoned.
Rosanna took a deep breath before she fixed her eyes on the two women on the other side of her garden. “I’ll handle this.”
Walking across the yard toward them, Rosanna silently counted to ten. She willed her pulse to stop beating so rapidly. Whatever the Smiths were trying to achieve by pounding stakes in the ground, she knew that it did not bode well for peace among them. But Rosanna also knew that she had always tried to do right by Gloria. She had neglected the back of the garden, choosing to let the rows of corn planted there die rather than raise Gloria’s ire. She had issued a stern warning to Cate, who now played in the fields on the other side of the farm. Finally, Rosanna had asked Aaron to deliver fresh tomatoes in the hope that the gesture would calm the Smiths and cause them to retreat from their offensive attacks.