by Sarah Price
Lydia shook her head. “I’ve gone over your numbers, William. You have simply spent far more than you have earned . . . or saved. The maintenance on this property plus the taxes on the land are only part of the problem. You also spent almost ten thousand dollars on that new buggy last spring.”
“And the horse,” Anna whispered.
Lydia nodded at the reminder and clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “And the horse. A Dutch Harness horse? That was a very expensive horse, William.”
At this comment, regarding the horse, Mary chimed in. “And you already have that Standardbred!” She laughed—a short little burst of air—and looked at Lydia as if expecting her to join her. “And then you purchased that fancy harness from Benny Zook. Custom made, if I do recall what you told people after worship service.”
“Fancy harness?” He bristled at the words spoken by Mary. “I see nothing wrong with purchasing a good quality harness for a horse that is sound and capable.”
“Sound and capable, yes. But that horse was as green as they come, William,” Lydia reminded him, with just enough gentleness in her voice so that he did not become more irritated. “Need I remind you that you had to pay John and Martin Wagler to break it?”
“I’d be happy to talk to Cris about buying your new buggy,” Mary cheerfully offered, as a way of moving the conversation along, ignoring the glare that Elizabeth sent in her direction. She smiled as if this alone would solve her father’s money problem. “Our own buggy is so old anyway. I’m sure Cris would agree, although your buggy is used now, so it wouldn’t fetch the same price, I reckon.”
This suggestion did not sit well with William. “I just purchased that buggy! It has the new battery that recharges! I shall not part with it!”
Mary pursed her lips and looked away.
“Perhaps I should just sell a few acres.”
“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that,” Lydia said, a gentleness to her voice that did little to lighten the news. “Even selling those unused acres that you never farm wouldn’t help, William. And, frankly, it would make the property less valuable in the long run.”
It wasn’t a big property, just ten acres. Many years ago, it had been much larger, but as customary among Amish families, parcels were divided and given to sons throughout the generations. Anna loved to walk through the tall grasses in the back acres, sometimes finding a broken piece of metal from an older plow or harvester in her path, especially after a sweet spring rain. She knew that her grandfather, Grossdawdi Eicher, had lived on the property, helping his own daed farm those acres a couple of generations ago. When he married and acquired the small farmette, he chose not to farm the land but worked in minerals, instead. He bought them in bulk from suppliers around the country and sold them mostly to communities of Amish in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. After all, dairy cows and horses needed minerals to stay healthy.
With only two children who survived into adulthood, Grossdawdi Eicher didn’t have to worry about decisions regarding inheritance. His son, David, eight years older than William, had married and moved to the southern part of Holmes County. With his wife, he raised their five daughters and one son. Now that David was older and bound to a wheelchair, he lived on the same farm with that son and two grandsons, the oldest of whom ran the large farm.
As for William, he followed in his father’s footsteps. When Grossdawdi Eicher passed away, William had inherited the farmette, the perfect size for raising his own small family.
Minerals had been a valuable career path for William, given that there was limited competition. The rewards for his efforts were great from a financial perspective. The only problem was that he had sold the business three years ago, retiring when he hit sixty-one and his vision worsened. Too many years refusing to wear glasses when the sun went down had quickened his visual impairment. Without a steady income, his unwillingness to decrease spending had begun to seriously deplete his nest egg. And though not spoken aloud, everyone knew that William could not accept assistance from the g’may without revealing that pattern of profligate spending that was so contrary to the Amish doctrine.
Now, he sat in his chair, trying to digest Lydia’s words while rubbing his hands as if attempting to ward off a deep pain. A flare-up. Again. Without being asked, Anna set down her quilting and quietly stole across the room to retrieve a small plastic container from the propane-powered refrigerator. She unscrewed the lid of the jar as she approached her father. Kneeling by his side, she dipped her finger in the jar and began to rub the wax-like ointment onto his hands, the scent of lavender slowly filling the room.
Only Lydia appeared to notice.
The older woman smiled as she observed Anna’s attentiveness to her aging father’s arthritis. It always seemed to flare whenever he became upset. Over the years, however, he stopped seeing doctors, claiming their Englische medicine was too suspicious and full of ingredients he couldn’t pronounce.
Abruptly, William withdrew his hand from Anna’s, motioning for her to leave his side. It was not an overtly rude motion, or at least Anna didn’t take it that way. No, she merely picked up the lid to the jar and got to her feet, quietly returning the ointment to the refrigerator while he talked.
“I just don’t understand how this happened.” It sounded as if he had finally embraced the inevitable: the house and its land must be sold. As the realization sunk in that this was the only course of action that would provide any financial assistance, he frowned, the deep wrinkles by his eyes mirrored by the ones engraved in his forehead. Lines of age meant years of wisdom, Anna thought as she sat back on the sofa and watched him. Or, in his case, years of foolish spending. “So many years! So much work! Where has all of the money gone?” This last question, directed at Lydia, was spoken in a tone that bespoke genuine worry and fear.
“Daed,” Anna chimed in, her soft voice barely audible. “No one will think any less of you for selling the haus. There are worse things, I suppose.”
“What could possibly be worse?” His voice cracked as he addressed Anna. Her sensible nature often conflicted with his vanity, a character trait so contrary to the Amish life that Anna often wondered how he had not once been reprimanded by the bishop. Now, and not for the first time, he stared at her, an expression of incredulity on his face, as if the words she had spoken were that of a child and not an intelligent woman. “It isn’t your reputation at stake, need I remind you?”
“William!” Lydia gestured toward the reclining chair. “Please sit. You’re working yourself into a tizzy.”
Silently Anna watched as her father did as Lydia instructed. Bless her heart, she thought. Dear Lydia with her calming influence over stressful situations in the Eicher house. Without Lydia, Anna knew that there were times that even Elizabeth would not be able to handle her father’s anxieties. Clearly this was one of those.
William took a short breath and lifted his chin. “Ja vell, I won’t be letting that Willis get his hands on it, that’s for sure and certain!”
“Daed!” The anger in her father’s expression caught Anna off-guard. As soon as the word slipped from her lips, she covered her mouth. She hadn’t meant to reprimand him; however, his display of anger, especially so pointedly at one particular individual—and family at that!—upset her. She was thankful that no one else paid attention t
o her outburst.
William turned toward Anna. Lifting his hand in the air, he pointed toward the heavens. “God is my witness, I don’t care whether or not he’s my nephew’s son! The injustice he did to this family!” His anger dissipated just enough so that, when he looked at Elizabeth, there was less fire in his eyes. “Ach, the humiliation! It’s unthinkable that his banns were read after he came calling on you!” He reached out to pat her hand, a gesture of comfort to his oldest daughter. “Why, the entire church district whispered for months, and not even John David would invite me to play checkers that winter!”
Anna looked away, the color flooding to her cheeks, but not before she saw Elizabeth’s jaw muscles tighten.
Despite her own discomfort with her father’s rebuke, Anna felt even more shame as she remembered her sister’s stoic response when it was announced after worship service that Willis Eicher and Barbie King were to marry. At that time, seven years ago, there were plenty of unmarried young women in the g’may, five of whom sat between Anna and Elizabeth on the hard pine bench, since the single women always entered the room in chronological order. Even though she hadn’t been able to comfort her sister, Anna felt the sting of the announcement. Elizabeth, on the other hand, never once mentioned his name nor the four times that he had come calling at their house.
The intention had been clear and, frankly, presumed by all.
Instead Willis Eicher chose to marry a woman from a faraway church district. That decision always brought out the fire in William’s eyes, for the woman was the only daughter of that g’may’s bishop. Besides the whispers about Willis snubbing Elizabeth, there had also been scuttlebutt over the motives behind his surprisingly sudden decision: the King family owned a rather large farm in another church district in a neighboring county.
Anna had never truly decided which one of them had felt more disgraced: Daed or Elizabeth. Even today, she couldn’t decide. The one thing she did know was that the wounds remained fresh for them both and reminded her far too much of the pain that she too had once caused.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Lydia reached out and, with a calm hand, touched William’s sleeve. “William, that’s pride speaking.”
He ruffled at her words and shifted his weight in his chair.
“Besides, maybe you won’t have to sell the haus. Not yet, anyway.” Her eyes brightened from behind her glasses. “I have another possible, perfectly reasonable solution!”
“The only perfectly reasonable solution,” he grumbled, “is staying in my own haus.”
Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and rested her head against the cushion. “I just hate the thought of all those people talking about us.”
“Speculating . . . ,” he added.
“I knew we shouldn’t have donated so much money last year!” Elizabeth clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “You know that the amount we donated was shared to others by Bishop Troyer’s fraa! Everyone knows and now speculates about our situation!”
“Scandalous!” William cried.
Anna felt as if the two of them were playing volleyball.
The kitchen clock chimed six times. Lydia glanced at it, for she needed to leave in less than thirty minutes. Certainly she had her own work to do, Anna thought. Already, Lydia had spent almost an hour with William and his daughters reviewing the situation, a situation about which he merely grumbled and complained with no inclination to act upon a viable solution.
“If you should like to hear my solution?” Lydia interrupted. She spoke louder than usual, but still with a degree of patience. Once William and Elizabeth settled down, she took a deep breath and began speaking. “It’s simple, really. You have that small haus in Florida. Move there for a while. Winter and spring are lovely down there. It’s less expensive to live there. Mayhaps you’ll find Florida to your liking. If you don’t, you can always return to a smaller place. Either way, you can sell this farm without anyone raising an eyebrow.”
Anna looked up again from her quilt. “Why, that’s the perfect solution!”
Lydia nodded and added, “Especially after last winter being so difficult and causing the flare-up with your arthritis. Certainly no one will question why you have left.” Pausing, she let that suggestion register with William.
“If we move that far away, I’d still have to sell my horse and buggy,” William grumbled.
Anna glanced up at him sharply. This was the first indication that her father might—just might—be willing to listen to reason.
Lydia nodded gravely to acknowledge William’s loss before pressing her point home. “In the meantime, you should rent out this property. The income from the rental will help pay your way until you sell it.”
A silence fell over the room. Anna waited, her breath caught in her chest. Elizabeth almost broke into a rare smile while Mary developed a typical scowl, the two very different reactions almost amusing to Anna except she knew the serious reasons behind them.
Finally, Elizabeth nodded her head in approval, her agitation from moments prior quickly vanishing. “That’s an agreeable solution!” She met her father’s worried gaze. He often sought her validation on important decisions, and even those that did not qualify as very significant. She was, after all, the maternal head of the house, at least since their mother departed from her earthly life to begin her heavenly one. “Especially with the cold season soon upon us. I’m rather partial to that idea.”
But the idea of William and his two unmarried daughters leaving Charm was not received as well by everyone.
“Florida?” Mary scoffed at the idea as if someone had just given her a glass of spoiled milk. “Oh bother! Who will help me with the kinner?” With a helpless expression on her face, she looked first to her father and then to Lydia. “You know I haven’t been feeling quite well! The headaches and fatigue! And those two kinner are so active. Cris’s family provides no help at all. Why! They return the boys to me in worse shape than when they left, what with all the cookies and sweets they give them!” Disgusted, she returned her attention to her father. “If you move to Florida, you simply must leave Anna behind. It’s not as if anyone would miss her . . . ”
The comment, while seemingly harsh, didn’t faze anyone in the room. With the exception of Lydia, Anna knew that it was an accurate statement and not necessarily spoken with malice. Her quiet nature often caused people, especially her family, to overlook her at larger gatherings. And to be needed by someone, anyone, was better than to be needed by none.
“And when we return? Then what?”
Mary sighed. “If Salome Musser would let us move into the big haus, we might have room.” She picked at a white thread on the blue sleeve of her dress. “Mayhaps this might be the catalyst for her to finally do the right thing, nee? Who ever heard of such selfishness? And with only Leah and Hannah living there.” She looked up, suddenly aware that everyone watched her, stunned by her sharp words. “Ja vell, it’s true! Her son did buy the farm, after all.”
Another glance at the clock and Lydia suddenly stood up. “Think about it, William.”
For a moment, Anna’s heart broke. Her father looked around the room, his eyes taking in the freshly painted walls (for he always hired three young men to repaint them in the springtime), wood-stained trim work (s
omething that Anna worked tirelessly to clean each week), and perfectly waxed linoleum floor (another task that fell upon Anna). Cleanliness was, after all, next to godliness.
“To have another person sit in my kitchen?” Emotion welled up in his throat. “Tend my Lizzie’s gardens? Who could I possibly entrust with such a valuable piece of my life?”
Gathering her black sweater, Lydia ignored his reservations. She spared a genuine smile in Anna’s direction before picking up her basket. “I heard that George Coblentz is returning to the area. His older sister is ailing and they may need a place to stay.”
“They?” William’s mouth fell open. “You mean he has young kinner?” He shook his hand in front of his chest as if warding off something bad. “Nee! I won’t have undisciplined young ones tearing through this haus! They’ll trample the rose bushes, for sure and certain!”
Laughing, Lydia placed her hand on his shoulder, the closest gesture of intimacy she ever shared with him. It was a simple touch that spoke of a deep friendship and even deeper tolerance on her part. “Oh, William! You fret over the most mundane things! Besides, it’s just George and his fraa, Sara. Their children are all grown up now.”
Anna picked up her quilting, readying herself to continue working on the blanket since Lydia was leaving.
“Coblentz?” William tugged at his beard, a sign that Anna knew too well: he was searching his memory. He remembered everyone that he met, a social practice he had perfected over the years. “I don’t know anyone named Coblentz.”
Lydia slipped her arms into her sweater and quickly extracted the strings to her prayer kapp. Her hand on the doorknob, she turned to wave one last time to the three young women before responding to his statement. “Of course you do,” she said, opening the door. “George’s fraa grew up here, just north of Berlin. Don’t you remember Sara? Sara Whittmore?”