“I will tell you again one more time. I love you, Hester. I love you. I always have loved you, and my love only grows with the passing of time. Will you accompany me to Berks County, our home, to make peace with our father and his wife?”
Suddenly Hester was tired. She was drained emotionally from building her fortress of pride and mistrust. It was too much effort. The wall would not stay. Repeatedly she built it higher and stronger, only to have it crash around her, leaving her standing exposed in a heap of rubble, smoking debris, and dust that shut off her vision.
It was dangerous business to bare her soul, to tell Noah what she felt. How horribly awry things could go afterward. She wanted to warn him that they could both be stranded high and dry with nothing to sustain themselves except bitterness and self-loathing, that they could each feel stupid and unable to acquire the Lord’s blessing. She had experienced being dry and barren, never able to meet requirements, never being enough.
When she started talking, her words were whispers caught on short, soft sobs, like hiccups. Noah had to bend his head to hear, and then he was able to understand only a portion.
She wanted to go with him. She wanted to see her old home. But what if she did? The future was not safe. It was like crossing a frozen lake, never knowing when the ice would cave in. How could she know if her desire was God’s as well?
Did he fold her in his arms, or did she wrap herself around him? In the starry night, with the insufficient light of the half-moon, they found the comfort of each other, the melding of two bodies that drew together, instinctively seeking comfort and assurance, needing trust. They stood, one taking comfort from the solid form of the other, and it was enough. More than enough.
Noah bent his head and whispered, “Does this mean you want to go? You said you have a desire to go, so may I assume you mean just that?”
In answer, Hester released him and stepped back.
“Noah, there is nothing on earth I want more. I want to be with you. I want to go home.”
“Then why are you stalling? Why go to Amos’s?”
“I don’t know if it’s God’s will or just my own.”
“You are afraid.”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
“The future. You say you love me, but will you always? What is love?”
That last plea was Noah’s undoing. That cry from the depth of her wounded heart had come from years of living with a man who was capable of cruelty. She had shared the marriage bed and could still ask that pitiable question. He wanted to have Hester believe that his love for her was like a pure jewel which he wanted to give to her tenderly.
His strong arms drew her close, closer. With a sigh, a groan, a sound coming only from the gentle kindness of an overflowing love, his hand touched her chin and brought the beautiful beloved face to his. He bent his head, his cool, perfect lips sought hers, found them, and stayed there until her arms went around his neck. She pressed him closer to her loneliness, her sadness of a past gone wrong.
In this brief space of time, she understood the meaning of God’s will. God’s will was one with the purity of a person’s own will, after that person bowed to God supreme as Lord and King. It wasn’t something other, it did not require a martyrdom or an act of deprivation to obtain it. It was not harsh and brutal.
It was this: God’s love of people, of man and woman for each other. It was all true love. A blessing beyond all understanding. A love that was not earned.
When they finally moved apart, they were both crying. Tears like healing rain wet both of their faces. Noah gathered her back into the haven of his arms, kissing the tears on her cheeks as they mingled with his own.
“I love you so much,” he whispered.
He waited, holding his breath.
When her words came, rich and full of meaning, he was filled with indescribable joy. Floodgates long closed, opened, allowing his love to flow.
“I love you, Noah.”
He could not speak.
When she said, “But I didn’t always. You and Isaac were mean to me sometimes,” he let out a great whoop of laughter and held her so close she struggled to breathe.
“My precious, adorable Hester. I have a hard time believing this night is real. That you are here, and that this is not all a dream and I must wake up to my usual life without you.”
Hester smiled, softly parting her lips. She knew this was different. This was not a dream.
Far into the night, they talked, sitting on the back stoop in the sleeping, quiet town of Lancaster. Even the hens did not make a peep. The summer’s night was soft and warm as a newborn lamb, the air mellow, caressing them with the newfound expression of their love.
Hester went back to Amos Stoltzfus’s in the morning, transported in the same rickety cart pulled by the same pot-bellied mule.
Amos was in high spirits, the gray smoke trailing behind him in regulated puffs, as if the mule and cart were partially run by the power of the tobacco. He said the boys were cutting hay, Fannie was in the garden, and Rachel was helping with the baby. Everything was going great, he said. Salina was gaining her strength.
Hester scowled. Fannie in the garden? What was Fannie doing in that hopeless patch? She compressed her lips and shoved her anger into silence.
When she entered the house, an acrid stench almost made her gasp. As it was, her hand went to her mouth and she struggled to breathe. As her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit kitchen, she saw a half-dressed, uncombed Salina sprawled in the rocking chair by the blackened remains of the fire on the hearth, gray ashes mixed with charred wood scattered all the way to the creaking rocker. Her feet were bare, her dress front soiled, stiff with grease and remnants of dried milk from the baby held across one shoulder. She had on the large white sleeping cap she had worn to bed, which was faded to a cloudy gray and torn across the ears, one pink lobe protruding out the side.
Salina was smiling, glad to see the capable Hester again.
“Goota mya, Hester!” she sang out, in a strong voice.
“Good morning,” Hester replied, then swallowed quickly as the nausea rose in her chest.
“Did you have a good Sunday at home?”
“Oh, yes.”
How insignificant that answer. She could not begin to tell Salina of the wonders of Noah’s love, which he had offered and she had taken, two hearts melted together, searching and insecurity things of the past.
“Well, that’s good. Now you’re back. I’ll let you begin with the washing. I think the cloth on the cradle needs attention; perhaps our bedding as well. And, oh, you might want to empty the pot in the bedroom and the slops on the table. Rachel saw a maggot this morning. The flies seem to be extra plentiful this year. Seems as soon as a bit of food stays on the table, the flies are laying eggs on it.”
“Where are Rachel and Sallie?”
Salina gazed absently at Hester. “Around here somewhere.”
Hester eyed the piles of dirty dishes, the food congealed in puddles of grease, the black houseflies droning above it, the greenish bodies of the blowflies settled quietly to deposit the eggs that would produce the loathsome maggots.
“Why did no one attend to yesterday’s dishes?” Hester ground out, her thinly veiled disgust unnoticed completely by the slovenly Salina.
“I have an awful time with Rachel. She doesn’t like to do dishes, and sometimes I just don’t have the strength to keep telling her. It seems Sallie takes after Rachel. I don’t know how to handle them, I suppose.”
“What about Fannie?”
“Oh, she’s in the garden. She is supposed to be picking beans. Amos said the beans are overripe, so we need to get them.”
“Why is Fannie picking beans alone with her back injury?”
Salina waved the question away with a flopping wave of her large white hand. “She’s better. She always was so childish, so bupplich, with aches and other trivial pains.”
“The way she hurt her back is not a trivial pain.”
“She’ll be all right.”
With that, Salina lumbered to her feet and came over to the table, where she lifted a piece of cold fried mush amid a flurry of disturbed flies and stuffed it into her mouth.
Hester turned away, sickened by the gulps as well as her dismissal of Fannie’s injury. She pumped water with energy generated by her anger, dumped it into the copper kettle, and built a roaring fire underneath. Then she marched off to look for Rachel and Sallie. She didn’t care if it was dinner-time till she got the washing started.
The lone figure of Fannie, sitting in the long rows of green beans, her thin body twisted sideways to find and pick the endless clusters of beans, fueled her anger even more.
When she finally located the two older girls by the corncrib, absentmindedly shelling corn and throwing it across the loose rails of the fence to the horses, Hester had no hesitancy or fear within her. She walked up to them with solid steps, grabbed one arm of each girl in a grip that did not convey gentleness or goodwill. “Get up,” she hissed.
Startled, Sallie stumbled clumsily to her feet, her eyes wide with alarm. Rachel swung her head in Hester’s direction, her eyes hooded with insolence, and she tried yanking her well-muscled arm out of Hester’s grip.
The years of hoeing, mulching, and hauling manure for the huge vegetable patch, along with the strong muscles of her Indian lineage, had honed Hester’s arms and hands into solid strength, her grip like a man’s. When Rachel saw she would not be able to free herself, she got to her feet, pulled back one leg, and placed a solid kick on Hester’s shin. Pain shot through her, but she chose to ignore it, increasing her hold on both girls until their mouths opened with howls of frustration.
“Let me go!’ Rachel bellowed.
“I will not. You come with me, both of you. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Why have you left the dishes unwashed till there are maggots crawling on the table?”
“Mam doesn’t mind a few maggots.”
“Well, I do. And as long as I am the maud here, you will wash dishes, or I will tell your father.”
“Dat? Puh! What does he care?”
“If he doesn’t, then I’ll have the ministers pay you a visit, and I can guarantee that some of you children will be given to other families to raise.”
“Dat and Mam wouldn’t let that happen,” Rachel said petulantly. “Let go my arm. You’re hurting me.”
Sallie began crying, opening her mouth wide, her yellow teeth protruding as wet sobs and wails rose from her throat.
“Now look what you did. You made Sallie cry.”
Rachel’s own face had taken on a quality of surprise, a mixture of disbelief and fear upheld by a fading brashness.
“I don’t want to be given to someone else,” Sallie wailed, gulping and hiccupping, a thin stream of mucus trickling down her nose.
“Be quiet. You’ll scare Fannie with that howling. Stop it now.”
“What do we care about Fannie? Mam doesn’t like her. She’s bupplich,” Rachel sneered.
When Hester entered the house with the two girls in her grip, Salina glanced up, then as quickly looked at the girls’ faces, the traces of Sallie’s tears and Rachel’s white-faced rebellion.
“Hester! My goodness. You made Sallie cry!”
“I did, yes. These girls need to be disciplined if you are expected to live in a decent manner.”
“Oh, but they would have washed the dishes without hauling them in that way.”
Rachel’s sneer of triumph told Hester what the actual situation was here in this hovel, this decrepit caricature of an Amish household. Others were brought up to believe that cleanliness was next to godliness. The children were expected to obey, to learn a solid work ethic as they grew up in a family that was organized, to hold good morals and develop a strong Christian foundation.
How could Hester hope to achieve her goal of getting this family on a solid footing, teaching the children to pick up and pull their share, if their mother frowned about any discomfort experienced by her older daughters, the ones who could carry the bulk of the workload? She dared not think of Fannie, faithfully picking the green beans, very likely humming the children’s tunes in German to herself.
As she scrubbed the soiled bedding and diapers, the dresses and shirts and trousers, repeatedly changing the dirty, gray water with fresh clean hot water, stirring and scrubbing, rinsing and wringing every article of clothing out by firm twists of her capable, brown hands, her anger was replaced by a daring plan: she would ask for Fannie, to have this small, unloved child.
Hester’s heart beat swiftly and strongly. Her veins sang with the beauty of it. To give one small, injured soul a new kind of life—wasn’t that what Hans and Kate had done for her? Without their love, for, yes, there had been that from both of them, in spite of Hans’s feelings gone awry—where would she be? She would have died there at the spring. There were times when she wished she could have perished as an infant, but not now. Oh, no. Her whole life had not been in vain.
She had not lived or suffered without a reason. She had never been alone or forgotten or unloved, in spite of it seeming so at times. A thread of purpose had been woven into every event—with the birth of Noah, Kate’s death, her own leaving, finding William and Bappie, everyone—all of it.
Her whole life led to the perfection of Noah’s love, an undeserved but richly abundant gift straight from the throne of God. To relinquish her hold on the castle of resistance she had built and to release her fear, the deep, dark moat around it, were gifts as well. She knew that Noah’s and her love was only a beginning, that a drawbridge back into the castle of fear was easily available if she chose.
But now with the beauty of having Noah in her life, wouldn’t it be richer, indeed, to include Fannie? The knowledge of her barrenness, that dry place that knew only suffering, was something she needed to recognize. Thank God she had told Noah in her outburst of soul agony.
He had accepted her in spite of it. He said it didn’t make a difference in his love for her. Hester’s heart overflowed in salty tears that ran down her cheeks and pooled in the corners of her lips, her hands busy scrubbing and wringing the clothes in the steaming water.
She would spend the week cooking, cleaning, and tackling the endless cycle of hard work, till Amos took her home. She would try her best with Rachel and Sallie. Then she would propose her plan to Noah.
Somehow he should meet Fannie before actually giving his consent. The thought of little Fannie, so thin and undernourished, seated between them on the way to Berks County, her brown eyes taking in the wonders of another world outside the squalor of her own, was so inspiring it brought a song to Hester’s lips.
“Mein Gott ich bitt
Ich bitt durich Chrischte blut,
Mach’s nur mit meinem
Ende Gute.”
Over and over she sang the chorus of the German hymn till she had the washing all strung on the line, pegged firmly with wooden clothespins. It flapped and danced in the summer breeze, the noon sun already high overhead.
When Amos and the boys came in at lunchtime, they were disappointed to see the fire was out, the kitchen soaked with strong lye soap, every dish washed and put away, but without a smidgen of food to be seen anywhere.
“Voss gebt?” Levi asked, his good humor intact.
Salina shrugged and lightly slapped the gurgling baby, letting the milk he had spit up settle into the fabric of the dress she wore, already stiff with previous milk, hiccups, and burps.
“I guess Hester thinks cleaning is more important than eating.”
Hester turned, her eyebrows lowered, her face dark with effort and the heat of the day. “We can’t eat if we don’t have dishes to eat from,” she said, her words clipped and sharp.
“Ach, ya, ya.” Amos nodded, smiled his benevolent smile, reached for the sour-smelling baby, and settled him contentedly in the crook of his elbow. He lowered his face, clucked and crooned, coaxing a small smile out of the alert little newborn, so well cared fo
r and cuddled.
The older boys crowded around, eager to catch sight of that fleeting little smile. Reuben reached for the tiny fist, waiting till the perfectly formed, pale, little fingers wrapped themselves instinctively around his forefinger.
And out in the garden, in the blazing heat of midday, little eleven-year-old Fannie continued her bean-picking, waiting until someone called her for dinner and a glass of cold water.
CHAPTER 19
FOR DINNER THERE WAS A GREAT POT OF BOILED CORNMEAL mush with sugar and milk, cold slabs of cooked ham, and pickled red beets, things Hester could serve quickly, seeing it was an hour past lunchtime. Only Hester remembered Fannie, sending Reuben to bring her in. In the flurry of serving everyone, her small form slipping in the door went unnoticed, till Hester saw her slide between two of the youngest children. A mere sliver of space was all she needed.
Fannie reached for her water glass first, drained it completely, then looked around for the tin pitcher of water. When she was unable to find it, she didn’t ask, merely waited till her bowl was filled with mush and milk.
The children bent their heads, then lifted spoons of dripping mush to their mouths without speaking, intent on filling their cavernous stomachs, which hadn’t been fed well for breakfast or the night before.
Two of the smallest boys, their mouths ringed with dirt, squabbled for the last two red beets. The smallest one set up a howling after being roundly smacked by his peer. Amos looked over, said, “Here, here,” then resumed shoveling mush and milk into his mouth. Salina never noticed, tearing at the tough, stringy ham with her teeth, chewing contentedly, glad to find her family so well fed with a minimum of effort on her part.
Hester ate a bowl of mush but chose to forego the ham, unable to forget the flies and eggs she had seen laid in leftover food. Again and again her eyes went to Fannie, watching her eat, taking in the sweet way she conversed softly with Ammon, the six-year-old boy, not asking or seeming to want anything. She took only what she was given and asked for nothing more.
Hester Takes Charge Page 21