by Sarah Price
Anna’s fingers froze over the material, the needle only partially pushed through the fabric. She dared not raise her eyes. To do so, she feared, would allow Lydia, of all people, to read her thoughts. The casual nature in which Lydia said the name startled Anna almost as much as hearing it. Was it possible that Lydia had forgotten her advice to Anna to forget marrying Freman since her father would not accept a Whittmore into the family? Even after she broke off the engagement, very little was said of Freman’s abrupt disappearance. Indeed, no one in their house had spoken of the Whittmore family for years. That, however, had not hindered Anna from thinking of the Whittmores, one in particular, each and every day for the last eight years—a fact that she now knew was unknown to everyone, even Lydia!
“They are the most delightful people, and you know what they say about a woman without kinner,” she said, her voice light and breezy. “They take the best care of the haus and gardens!” One last wave and Lydia disappeared out the door. Behind her, she left four people in deep thought: three who wondered about this George Coblentz and how the g’may would react to the news of the Eicher departure and a fourth who stared at her lap, her eyes glazed over and her fingers unable to extract the needle.
Whittmore. The name was far too familiar to Anna. While the voices of her family faded into the background, some long-repressed memories awakened. She lifted her eyes and looked around the room, her eyes seeing the very objects that so alarmed her father just moments before. Rather than fearing the hands that might touch them in just a few short weeks, her heart pounded at the very thought of the Whittmores staying in their house.
She sighed, lifting her eyes to the ceiling as she fought the intense pounding of her heart. Oh, she wondered, a deep and hollow feeling forming inside of her chest, was it possible that, once again, he might actually walk these floors? The very thought led her to distraction and made her so uncomfortable that she had no choice but to claim a headache and soon after Lydia’s departure, retire to the safety and isolation of her room. The only problem was that she was not alone, for the memory of Sara’s brother, Freman Whittmore, accompanied her.
Chapter Two
BEFORE A WEEK had passed, the arrangements had been made. George Coblentz was eager to return and assist his sister’s family during her illness. Therefore, changes came quickly for the Eicher family. Rooms were packed away, memories boxed up, and clothes transferred from pegs and hangers to suitcases. It amazed Anna how, despite so many years living in the house, there was little to show for their existence beyond a few boxes left in the attic.
Of course, she thought as she dressed for the day, they had yet to tidy up the main room in the house: the kitchen. Already she could hear Lydia moving about downstairs, bustling to clean up breakfast dishes, a meal that Anna had voluntarily slept through so that she could avoid the daily complaints and rants from her father regarding the injustice of having to leave the house for so many months.
Even though the leaves on the trees were still green and the noon sun still warm, William had scheduled his trip down south. To Anna’s concern, Elizabeth convinced her friend, Martha Canton, recently widowed at the young age of thirty-two, to journey with them. When she joined Lydia and her sisters downstairs, she was gratified to find that Lydia shared her concern and was discussing it with Elizabeth.
“Mayhaps people might talk,” Lydia suggested to Elizabeth as she wrapped their mother’s fine china with newspaper and packaged it into a cardboard box. While the Coblentzes would live in the house and William had agreed for it to be furnished, there were some valuables that he insisted be packed away. The three women were packaging up and cleaning the kitchen, William too concerned that leaving the house anything less than pristine might be cause for gossip. “It’s not sensible for such a newly widowed woman to travel such a distance.”
From the look on her face, Elizabeth did not agree. “Why ever not?”
“I think Lydia means,” Anna said softly, “that it’s not sensible for Martha to travel with Daed, ja?”
Lydia lifted an eyebrow as she placed a piece of wrapped china into the box. She remained silent and said nothing in response to Anna’s comment.
Elizabeth, however, clicked her tongue disapprovingly. Always the one that focused on maintaining appearances, despite the Amish culture’s emphasis on being plain, Elizabeth took great satisfaction that her reputation remained untarnished and above reproach. The idea that anyone might question her judgment (for certainly it would reflect on her in the long run) horrified Elizabeth. After taking a few seconds to compose herself, she frowned as she sharply chastised her sister. “Don’t be verrickt, Anna!”
Lowering her eyes, Anna flushed under the disparaging scoff from Elizabeth. While she knew that she should be used to such reprimands and usually remained unaffected by them, this one stung more than usual.
“Anna’s not crazy,” Lydia replied, her voice calm and level as she jumped to Anna’s defense. “Martha has been widowed for nine months now, Elizabeth. You know how that Amish grapevine works. Tongues are bound to wag.”
Anna admired the older woman’s ability to always sound calm and collected. Dealing with her sisters and her father could rattle even the most stoic of people, she thought.
“She is traveling with me,” Elizabeth said forcefully. “Accompanying me. Not Daed. Why would anyone give that matter a second thought?”
Lydia was quick to respond. “Your daed is hardly immune to the thought of remarriage.”
At this comment, Elizabeth scoffed. “If he hasn’t married yet,” she said, “why would he now? Besides, Martha is a right gut friend to me, but certainly can be of no interest to Daed! While she has a righteous heart and good intentions, she knows no scripture and is far too used to working outdoors. Her skin is dark like leather and she lost her bottom front teeth when the mule knocked her into the fence post!”
Anna stopped wiping down the cabinet next to the sink and laughed, a soft sound that hinted, just slightly, at repayment for the previous reproach by Elizabeth. “I should think the former two characteristics could far outweigh the latter! Who knows but she might learn how to please Daed.”
“Oh, Anna!” Unlike Lydia, the unspoken matriarch of the family ever since their mother had died, Elizabeth was not one who easily hid her displeasure or her inability to accept criticism. “You know what I mean! Besides, their age difference alone is far too great! He could practically be her father!” Shaking her head, Elizabeth scoffed once again at such a proposal. “Ridiculous, Anna. I simply will not entertain another word of this conversation!”
Anna returned her attention to the counter, too aware that Elizabeth would not easily relinquish her place as one of the two women of influence in her father’s life. She had acquired the role by regrettable chance, yet she was determined to maintain it by resolute choice. As far as Elizabeth was concerned, no one in the community would dare question her reputation, and therefore, Martha’s presence was purely just companionship and shame on anyone who might think otherwise. In Elizabeth’s eyes, her own spotless reputation would eliminate anyone’s need to gossip or speculate about the situation.
And Anna had learned long ago that what Elizabeth wanted from her father, she usually received.
By mid-September, with George and Sara Coblentz expected to arrive any day, William and Eliz
abeth departed with Martha accompanying them. Their personal belongings packaged in boxes and stored in the attic, William and his oldest daughter clambered into the hired van for the long journey down to Florida. There hadn’t been much fanfare in the community about their departure. Despite her father’s worries, Anna knew that it wasn’t uncommon for older Amish couples to spend colder seasons in the Amish and Mennonite community of Pinecraft, Florida. As for the renting of the house, William’s explanation was accepted by all, even if he did tend to speak far too often (and too long) about his reasons for leaving.
Anna, however, stayed behind. She stood in the darkness of the early morning hours, a black shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders as she watched the van pull out of their driveway, the red taillights casting a soft glow in the darkness. She noticed that neither her father nor her sister looked back to grace her with a final wave before disappearing down the road. Instead, Anna was left standing in the empty driveway, shivering in the cold and knowing that she wouldn’t see them for almost a year. For her, their absence would be felt; for them, her absence would be nothing but an afterthought.
Minutes after the van disappeared, Anna continued standing there, alone and cold, thinking only of her own mixed feelings. While she agreed that the move was the best solution for her father’s dilemma, she found herself fighting the urge to resent the state of affairs that he had created for the family. If only he had been more thrifty, they could have stayed in their own home. Instead of packing away their mother’s china, Elizabeth and Anna would have spent the past week canning food for use over the winter months. Now the pantry shelves remained empty, waiting for Sara Coblentz to fill them.
Shivering in the cold, Anna headed back into the house. Since the decision had been made to rent the house, she had given thought about God and His plans for the Eicher family. Certainly there were reasons for everything, and she knew better than to ask the simple question “why?” Asking wouldn’t change the fact that her father, eldest sister, and her sister’s widowed friend were to stay, temporarily, in Pinecraft, Florida, while the remaining two daughters would stay in Sugarcreek, Ohio. Besides the Florida house being too small for more people, Anna much preferred to stay behind, even if it meant moving to Mary’s.
After all, her sister needed Anna’s help.
“I simply cannot do without Anna,” Mary had insisted, all but stomping her bare feet in the dust of the worn path by the porch when the plans for William’s departure had been discussed and solidified. “You both know I have those headaches, especially when the trees begin to change. Tree mold. And I’m so tired of late!”
As usual, she had won her argument. A squeaky wheel always gets oiled, Anna thought when Mary became, once again, victorious in her request . . . nee, demand! . . . for Anna to remain behind in order to help her with the kinner. In truth, she didn’t mind. She loved her nephews, little Cris Junior and Walter. While loud and rambunctious, they showered her with attention and affection that warmed her heart. She didn’t even mind bathing them each evening before tucking them into their shared bed.
Two days after William and Elizabeth departed, Anna made the sixteen-mile journey from Charm to Sugarcreek. Now she stood at the counter of Mary’s kitchen kneading bread while her sister sat at the kitchen table, half-heartedly darning one of her husband’s socks. From her sister’s repeated sighing and fidgeting, Anna knew that something was on her mind. Time alone would provide insight into the cause.
Outside the window that faced the road, just a mere twenty yards from the house, a horse and buggy passed. Anna glanced out the open window, squinting to see if she recognized the driver. An older man lifted his hand and waved to her and she responded in kind, even though she wasn’t certain who it was.
As soon as the rhythmical sound of the horse’s hooves faded into the distance, Mary began her routine of sighing until, unable to remain silent anymore, she began.
“I’m rather embarrassed for Salome Musser,” Mary said, yanking at the string as she pulled it through the loops of the sock. She had pushed a worn tennis ball to the heel in order to close the hole, but her stitches were too tight and the thread broke. “Oh, bother!” Tossing both the sock and the needle onto the table, she sighed and rubbed at her temples.
“Another headache, Mary?”
With a dismissive wave, Mary didn’t answer the question. “Why, they should’ve invited you over for a meal, or if that is too much trouble, a visit after supper, then!”
“It’s fine, Mary. Truly it is.” And she meant it. She knew how busy people were during this season. After all, it was time to cut down the garden, prepare the final canned goods for winter, and make preparations for the upcoming autumn baptism and communion services. Anna loved this time of year, knowing that, shortly after those two important gatherings, wedding banns would begin to be announced after Sunday worship. And, from the way that the Amish grapevine talked, it promised to be a very busy wedding season.
Mary, however, seemed intent on lamenting the affront. “Are they expecting us to walk over there? That just seems quite prideful, I must say!”
“I see them at worship, Mary,” Anna said, maintaining her typical cheerful nature. Plopping the kneaded dough into a lightly floured bowl, she covered it with a cloth. It would take some time to rise. In the meantime, she could join her sister at the table. “It’s not as though we are strangers.” As she sat, she reached out to gently claim the abandoned sock, knowing full well that it would never get darned if she didn’t do so.
That wasn’t good enough for Mary.
“They know I haven’t been feeling well,” she said. “You would think that Leah or Hannah would come check on me, even if their maem won’t!”
Not prone to speaking ill of anyone, Anna concentrated on mending the sock and kept her silence on that statement.
For a few moments, the only sound in the room was the gentle ticking of the clock on the wall, a gift from Cris when he became engaged to Mary. Their courtship had been brief and tarnished only by the knowledge that the clock was intended for another, a fact that Anna never once discussed with Mary. While the entire family knew of Cris’s initial interest in Anna, Mary hadn’t seemed to care. She was the first of the sisters to secure a husband, and that joy far outweighed her awareness of being the groom’s second choice. After all, Mary once whispered to Elizabeth when she thought Anna was in the other room, Cris Musser had the best reputation (and largest farm) in Sugarcreek, Ohio. “I reckon it doesn’t matter which Eicher dochder secures such a marriage!”
Anna had pretended not to overhear, masking her disappointment in her sister’s statement by retreating outside to weed the flower garden in front of the porch. Long ago, she had learned to quietly retreat from the private affronts to others that were so often verbalized within the four walls of the Eicher home. Tending the garden had become one of the simple ways for Anna to quietly remove herself from unpleasant confrontations. If only her sisters knew that Mary’s indifference to being a second choice contrasted greatly with Anna’s decision to not marry her second choice. Only her sense of respect for Cris and propriety for herself kept her from disclosing the truth.
Truth be told, the marriage of her younger sister to her former suitor, no matter how briefly he had called upon her or offered her rides home from youth singings, brought joy to Anna’s hear
t. She never once looked upon their union with anything less than satisfaction for both her sister and for Cris Musser. While Anna knew her future happiness disappeared when she broke off her engagement to Freman, she never would want to wish her sad fate on another. Cris was, after all, a good (if a little unexciting) man with a godly reputation. She took pleasure in his ability to harbor no ill-will toward her for rebuffing his attempts at courtship. And, as she quickly learned, he certainly demonstrated an endless amount of patience when dealing with his young and sometimes overbearing wife.
“Where are those kinner anyway?” Mary said sharply, standing up to walk to the back window and peer outside. The main house, the older farmstead, sat a bit farther back from the road. One day, Mary and Cris would move into it to raise their family. However, Cris’s mother did not seem in a great hurry to vacate it for the smaller house, the one occupied by her only surviving son and his family, a dwelling that sat closer to the road.
Finishing her mending, Anna lifted the needle and thread to her mouth and snipped it free with her teeth. Satisfied, she folded the sock and set it on the table. “They’re visiting with their grossmammi, probably having a wunderbarr time!”
“And being fed endless numbers of sugar cookies, no doubt!” Instead of returning to the table, Mary sank down onto the sofa, stretching out with her hand upon her forehead. “I can hear the noise now. Running and romping through the kitchen, all worked up before supper.”
Anna laughed, mostly because she knew that Mary spoke the truth.
“She does it on purpose, you know!” Lifting her head, Mary stared at her sister with a serious look. “Gives them lemonade and cookies before sending them back to me, making them sugar high, knowing how afflicted I am with headaches!”