by Sarah Price
“It’s just not fair.”
Reverend White didn’t skip a beat when he responded with a simple“Life is not fair.”
“You know what I mean.”
He nodded his head.“Indeed, I do.”He leaned forward.“Elizabeth, show me one passage in the bible where God promises a life that is fair to His people. All that He promises is‘…whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.’William never once looked back on his decision to help you.”
She looked away, fighting the urge to cry.
“Your health meant more to him than retiring early or taking that vacation, Elizabeth. You think he gave up everything?”The reverend laughed, a look of peace on his face.“I say he knew that without you, he had nothing.”
At these words, in which the reverend’s beliefs were so apparent, she felt a wave of heat invading her face and tears rushing to her eyes. She reached up to wipe them away.“Maybe that’s how I feel,”she said, lifting her eyes.“Without him, I have nothing.”
“You have two children and two beautiful grandsons.”
This time, she laughed.“Oh please, Reverend,”she said, wiping at another stray tear.“Sophia resents me for becoming ill and needing all of William’s retirement money and Ryan is so busy with his own family that he barely has any time for me.”
“Ryan wasn’t busy enough to ask me to come talk to you.”He smiled.“He told me that you might be headed to Ohio for a vacation.”
Why had she ever agreed to that? Dismissively, she waved her hand, as if erasing the words that she had spoken to Ryan.“I did say I was considering it, yes, but, after thinking about it, I just don’t feel right leaving, Reverend.”
He tapped his fingers on the Formica tabletop, studying her face for a few seconds. She wondered what he saw. Mostly a woman who had aged considerably over the past few months, she pondered. Since the accident, her hair had turned grayish, her wrinkles grown deeper, and she had noticed dark circles under her eyes just the other day. And her eyes…the sparkle gone. Long gone.
“William would not want you to mourn over him like this, Elizabeth.”
The simple statement, spoken calmly and in a loving tone, did not offend her. Instead, it cut right through her and burned her heart. She knew that he was right. William would have hated to see her like this.
“Would you have wanted William to do the same?”he added.
And there it was; the question that Elizabeth had ignored for so long. What would she have wanted if she, not William, had gone to meet their Maker first? She could envision him continuing his work at the mine, taking Sunday dinners with Ryan and the grandchildren, visiting with Sophia without being invited, and, eventually, dating again…even if only for companionship.
Reverend White leaned forward and reached across the table to grab her hand in his.“I reckon it’s time that you begin to live again, Elizabeth. William would have wanted you to do just that. And, according to Ryan, Ohio always had a special appeal to you. I think a nice long visit in Berlin might do you a world of good.”
Elizabeth thought about what he said. A rather long moment went by. What difference did it make, she wondered, to visit Ohio? She’d only return afterwards to the same house with the same lack of purpose. A world of good? For whom?
“What are you thinking about, Elizabeth?”The Reverend sounded genuinely concerned when he asked the question.“You can talk to me. You know that.”
She chewed on her lower lip and tried to find the right words to respond to him. She didn’t want to sound ungrateful or lacking in faith. That wasn’t it at all. But there was something else that she just couldn’t put her finger on.“What will I do when I return, Reverend? What’s my role now?”
He raised an eyebrow.“Your role?”
She nodded, feeling a tightness form in her throat. Don’t cry, don’t cry, she willed herself.“First I was a daughter, then I was a wife. I became a mother and now, suddenly, I’m a widow. What’s my role? My children don’t need me anymore. One lives over two hours away, the other has his own family. Without William, why should I even bother to get up in the morning?”
He nodded his head, as if suddenly realizing what she meant. He leaned back in his chair, watching her as he spoke. His tone was firmer as if he was now admonishing her:“You’ll find a new purpose, Elizabeth. Indeed, it might take some time but you’ll have a life regained. I promise you.”He hesitated.“Just remember‘for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches upon all who call on Him.’If you ask your Maker to guide you…to carry you through this difficult time, you will discover that His shoulders bear your burden with a definite purpose in mind.”He lifted the coffee mug to his lips.“You just need to have faith that He will show you what that purpose is.”
Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth nodded her head.“All right, then,”she said, allowing her voice to sound stronger than she felt.“Then to Ohio I shall go!”She glanced around the house.“For a week? Two?”
Reverend White smacked his lips together as he set the mug back on the table.“That’s a good cup of coffee, Elizabeth.”He gave her a friendly grin.“And your coffee cake isn’t bad either!”He glanced at his watch.“I best get going. I have others to visit. Beth Myer has taken ill, you know.” Standing up, he reached for his jacket and pushed the chair back under the table.“Why don't you stay until the holidays? Take four or five weeks, Elizabeth? Come back refreshed and ready to celebrate anew the birth of our Savior.”
“Refreshed and ready…”The words sounded strange to her ears as she repeated them.
“You can do this, Elizabeth,”the reverend added, a soft and compassionate look on his face.“Others have walked in your shoes before. It might not mean much, since the pain is unique to you and you alone, but take comfort in knowing that God will not abandon you. He provides exactly what is needed and usually at the very moment it is needed most.”
She sat there for a while after he departed. Her fingers rubbed the edge of the table, her eyes gazing at the empty wall. The tiny floral print wallpaper was in desperate need of replacement and had been for years. What once had been white was now a faded ivory-yellow. She shifted her gaze to the one window over the sink. There were cobwebs from the ceiling to the curtain rod. She wondered how long they had been there. Why hadn’t she noticed them before?
Perhaps Ryan and the reverend were both right. She had spent too much time in the house, too much time tending to other people’s needs and completely neglecting her own. It wasn’t something new but a behavior that had evolved over the years. Her life had simply focused on other people. In fact, Elizabeth rarely thought about herself unless she was at the tail end of a long list of people.
As years went by, she had done everything she could to keep William comfortable. She made her own dresses and, when they wore out, made skirts for Sophia out of the material. She sewed the blown-out knees and let out the hem in Ryan’s pants rather than purchase new ones when they were most needed. She even made presents at Christmas so that money could be saved. She did all of these things, willingly and happily. That was her role in life…to make everyone else’s life easier, even at the expense of her own health and welfare.
With William gone and the children settled in their lives, Elizabeth was, for the very first time, completely on her own. Her future was in her own hands. Whether it was a happy future or one mired in sorrow, only she could determine the outcome. Her obligation had become to no one but herself.
She took a deep breath and nodded her head, a look of determination crossing her face, even though no one was around to see it. Now was her time to find herself, she resolved; not as a daughter or a wife or a mother but as an individual. Now was her time. Period.
CHAPTER 3
Four hours. That was how long Elizabeth had been on the road when she realized that her exit, the one for Dover, was just ahead. Despite having left West Virginia just after noon, she blinked twice at the sign. How had the time pass
ed so quickly? Hadn’t she just left her house? Just walked out the side door, shutting it behind herself, before getting into her car and heading north toward Ohio? Where had the time gone?
She knew the answer to that: in prayer. During the four-hour drive, she prayed for her children, their families, and her future. She prayed that she might find the peace that she sought. And she prayed that God would help her find her way again. Prayer was all that she had been doing lately, it seemed. Reading Scripture and praying to God. In the past, she had found comfort in doing just that. Often , when William had been at work and her chores completed, she had sat on the small wicker chair just outside of their front door, the one that faced Main Street, and read her Bible. It gave her great comfort as she waited for William’s return in the evening.
Recently, however, she hadn’t felt that way. She felt a void in her inner core, a void that Scripture wasn’t filling. The guilt often made her set down the holy book and retreat to her memories of days way back when, days filled with memories that made her smile but brought tears to her eyes. Days that were long gone.
Now she was driving and, while doing so, retreating into her mind, reciting her favorite Psalms and praying for the people she loved. She was driving without thinking, knowing the route by heart, especially easy as it was mostly a straight run on highway I-77. She even forgot about where she was headed as she focused her thoughts on God and His love.
Them Amish people. That was what Ryan had said to her and that was her intended destination. Of course, she didn’t know exactly where that destination was. She just knew that God kept whispering the word Ohio in her ear. It was the place where she loved to vacation. It was the place where she had sat on the porch, snuggled in a quilt with a mug of coffee, when William had walked out the front door of the cabin last January, the last time she had been in Ohio and just a few short months before the accident at the coal mine.
As if on autopilot, Elizabeth found herself on the center lane, her car moving past the exit. Her mind wandered back to that vacation as she continued north on I-77. She could see him walking through the door, the two steaming mugs of coffee in his hand, as he watched her sitting on the porch swing. Had she known that it would be their last winter at the cabin she might have insisted they stay longer. As it was, William wanted to return home. He couldn’t afford the time off work, he had told her. They had bills to pay and, if they returned by the weekend, he could get overtime.
Overtime. That had been exactly what he had been doing on that horrible Saturday when the mine collapsed, trapping him and two of his miners under mounds of rock and coal. William always focused on doing the right thing…paying the bills in time even if it meant working over his weekends. In hindsight, she wished she had insisted that he’d spend the weekend with her. He had worked overtime for the past three weekends and, even though their equity line was due, she felt more than neglected by his attention to bills over her. Still, she understood William better than anyone else. He struggled to sleep at night knowing that they owed money. And, after all, the line of equity had been used to pay for Sophia’s wedding and Elizabeth’s medical bills.
A car horn blasted from behind, the crisp noise waking her from her thoughts. She glanced around and realized the mistake she had made. Not only had she passed her exit, but traffic was too heavy for her to get over into the right lane. She kept glancing in her rearview mirror, her blinker clicking loudly as she slowed down, trying to get over so that she could take the next exit and turn around.
She turned left at the bottom of the exit ramp and drove a short distance, passing a cemetery on the right and rolling hills of snow-covered farmland on the left. It was beautiful country and an area that she had only partially explored with William. Lost in admiring the landscape, it took Elizabeth almost five minutes to realize that she had turned the wrong direction.
“Well, shoot,”she mumbled to herself.“You’ve done it now Elizabeth!”
A sign along the side of the road announced an upcoming town: Sugarcreek. Despite the distance, Elizabeth didn’t need to squint to read the words underneath it.
“The Little Switzerland of Ohio,”she said out loud.
Switzerland. She smiled to herself. It had always been William’s dream to take a trip to Europe. They had saved money for years, hoping to take a vacation to explore the castles along the Rhine River, the wineries in France, and the chalets of Switzerland. Of course, it had only been a dream and, like most dreams, life got in the way. First came the two children, then her cancer. It was only Stage II: curable but expensive, even with health insurance. Their savings dwindled to nothing and then came the line of equity on the house. It added up and the result? Poof went their dream of Europe and with it the castles, the wineries, and the Swiss chalets.
Now, however, she was headed directly toward the Little Switzerland of Ohio. William used to tease her that, finally, he had made good on his promise. In past year, they occasionally visited the small shops in Sugarcreek on their way to Berlin, Ohio. That was the place that Elizabeth loved the best: the quilting stores, the restaurants, the markets. When they occasionally made it to Berlin in the summer, there was much more to do than in the winter. But, winter was still a wonderful time to drive through the back roads and admire the landscape, dotted with farmhouses and windmills.
The past week had flown by. She had busied herself with preparations to leave the house. After canceling her newspaper subscription, she went to the post office to complete the required form to suspend her postal deliveries. Later, she had invited her neighbors for coffee and fresh home-made cake. Elizabeth wanted to ensure that someone would keep an eye on the house while she was gone, even though crime in Nottingham was basically limited to the occasional outburst from a disorderly youth with too much alcohol after a Friday night outing with friends.
Elizabeth also made it a point to have supper with both Sophia and Ryan. Sophia’s visit on Saturday only further confirmed to Elizabeth that this solo adventure was what she needed. No sooner had Sophia arrived and Elizabeth told her the news than her daughter’s cell phone began to ring and she slipped into her old bedroom to talk with someone at the bank. Sighing, Elizabeth glanced at the clock, knowing that the bank wouldn’t close until two in the afternoon and, as was typical, Sophia’s cell phone would continue to ring until then. Not another word was spoken about Elizabeth’s intended trip to Ohio.
As for Ryan, he supported her decision, pretending that it was her idea and not his. She let him live with that false sense of smugness, although she couldn’t help but wonder where she had gone wrong with her children. When had they stopped caring about anyone else but themselves?
Now, as she drove, an orange sign on a telephone pole with a horse and buggy caught her eye. Amish. During her vacations with William, she always felt a little thrill when they saw their first sign. They played a game in the car while they drove toward Berlin: whoever saw the first horse and buggy won a cup of coffee at the nearest diner. Elizabeth always seemed to win. In hindsight, she wondered if William planned it that way, knowing how delighted she would be when she saw the horse and buggy. He was selfless like that, always thinking of ways to please her, even if it meant checking his ego at the door.
True to nature, when she spotted her first Amish horse and buggy traveling down the road, she caught her breath. She had always loved the Amish culture, loving to buy small jams and canned goods to bring home and serve for Sunday supper, when Ryan or Sophia came over with their families. While Sophia was not a big fan of chow-chow or pickled beets, Ryan always returned for seconds. Sophia and Ryan were two siblings from the same parents but they were as different as night and day. But Elizabeth knew that she was blessed. They were both good children and had never given her and William much trouble. Now that they were both settled in marriages, that pleased her tremendously, Elizabeth took satisfaction in knowing that she had done a good job raising them.
One buggy turned into three. Despite the cold weather, the Amish
were out and about in Berlin, Ohio this afternoon. As the horses trotted down the road, pulling the black buggies behind them, their breath lingered in the air while their manes bristled in the breeze. They lifted their hooves as they ran, one a definite pacer that moved both legs at the same time on one side as opposite to the other two that were trotters, working on alternate diagonals instead. Elizabeth slowed down her car, happy to linger behind them. She loved watching the horses. William was the one who had taught her the difference between pacers and trotters. It had taken her a while to get it right, but once she learned it, she realized how easy it was to spot.
“What’s the main difference anyway?”Elizabeth had asked William one year.
“Well,”he said, pausing to think of the correct answer.“The pacers are less likely to break stride when racing and they are also better balanced. And they tend to move faster than trotters, too.”
Elizabeth had returned her attention to the window, watching the horse and buggy as they passed it in their old Ford truck.“I don’t know about faster,”she said.“But they sure are awfully pretty.”
Now, as she watched them, she caught herself wondering about the people inside the buggy. She couldn’t see them from this angle. Was it a husband and wife headed to market? Or perhaps it was an older man returning from work? She glanced at the clock. Four-thirty. They were most likely returning home from their day job which, unfortunately, was probably at a local store or working with the Englische. The limitations on land for farming forced many of the Amish to work in more contemporary jobs.
To her surprise, all three of the buggies signaled to make a right-hand turn into a parking lot beside a small series of stores. Elizabeth slowed down as they turned and noticed a parking lot full of both Amish buggies and automobiles. Just beyond the stores, she saw a diner with a wooden OPEN sign hanging from a pole by the door. As if on cue, her stomach rumbled and she realized that she hadn’t eaten anything since early that morning.