That night Rachel slipped Aaron’s black shoes under the covers, on Jacob’s side. Then, when she got into bed, she reached over and held the shoes near her heart, thinking of the little barefoot boy with the bright, happy eyes . . . and his fun-loving father. She knew she would not speak of this deed to anyone. Not to Esther or to Mam.
It was her secret. Hers and God’s.
Five
In the days that followed, Rachel was beholden to Esther for her care and supervision. Overwhelmed with despair, she slept around the clock some days, only to become too dizzy to stand when awake. So Esther cooked and cleaned and sewed, doing the things Rachel would normally have done if she’d felt strong enough.
By the end of the week, Rachel got out of bed due to sheer willpower, helping with a few chores indoors. She was grateful, especially, for Esther’s loving attention to Annie and for her cousin’s fervent prayers for Rachel as well.
“Can Esther stay with us, Mamma?” Annie asked as Rachel tucked her in for the night.
“ ’Twould be nice.” She sat on the edge of the bed, touching her little one’s brow. “But Esther and Levi must return to Ohio soon to care for their own family.”
Annie was silent for a moment, her blue eyes the color of the summer sky. “Is God taking care of Dat and Aaron?”
“Jah, my liew—dear one, the Lord is taking gut care of them.” She kissed Annie’s cheek and held her in her arms long past the child’s bedtime.
“I miss Dat and Aaron,” Annie said, sniffling.
Sighing, Rachel fought the urge to weep. “I miss them, too, but we’ll see them again in heaven.”
After tucking Annie into bed, Rachel stood in the doorway, lingering there. Often, since the funeral, she’d questioned the wisdom of leaving her child to fall sleep alone. As hard as it was for her to sleep peacefully, she hoped Annie wasn’t struggling that way, too.
“Don’t think twice about bringing Annie into your room to sleep once in a while,” Esther said when Rachel mentioned it to her privately. “The dear girlie’s feeling awful alone in the world—and she’s still just a baby, really. She needs to know that her mamma doesn’t mind sharing that great big bed.”
“She’s blessed with many relatives who love her,” Rachel added quickly, knowing full well that Annie would never want for fellowship. She would grow up completely loved and looked after by the whole of their church community, Beachy Amish and Old Order alike.
“Annie is not to be pitied,” Esther commented. “And neither are you. Pity parties can only last so long, then one must put a hand to the plow, so to speak. Life goes on.”
For you it does, Rachel thought, suppressing the idea as having been spiteful, then immediately asking the Lord to forgive her. She knew her cousin meant well. There was no doubt in her mind about Esther’s motives.
Once Esther and Levi had departed for Ohio, Rachel allowed herself to confront the extent of her loss, agonizing over the guilt that hung weighty in her mind. She sat up in bed each and every morning, greeting the dawn just as the sun was about to break over the horizon, though not without tears. Her outward mourning was her soul’s response to the pain in her heart—especially at night—though she purposely put on a smile for Annie during the daylight hours.
Mam seemed wise to what was happening, though, and one morning while helping Rachel with her gardening, Susanna broached the subject. “Your eyes are forever swollen and red. Are you crying for Jacob and Aaron or for yourself?”
Rachel felt her heart constrict, wondering how to explain the pain inside. The guilt was present with her always, along with such feelings of worthlessness. “I should’ve been the one to die,” Rachel replied, tears choking her voice.
Mam’s expression was filled with tender concern. “It is not for us to question God’s ways.”
“Jah” was the only answer she could give, though she thought of telling her mother the truth, that she wished she might die even now.
“We must trust the Lord to work His will among us,” continued her mother. “Each of us must come to accept it in due time.”
In due time . . .
Rachel’s eyes filled with tears. “It is not so hard to submit to the will of God.” She paused, having to breathe deeply before she could go on. “It’s knowing that things might’ve been—should’ve been—different, oh, so much different.” She could not attempt to describe the ongoing gnawing in her heart, that she felt responsible for the accident. Accepting the deaths of her beloved ones would have been far easier had it not been for that singular fact.
“Time to move on, Daughter, past your agony,” Mam said, though such a pat answer was nothing new. “For Annie’s sake, you must.”
In essence, her mother was saying the same things Esther had spoken to her before leaving—time’s up on the pity party! Say what they may, she wondered how either of them might be coping with the unexpected and violent deaths of their own husbands. Cautious not to brood, Rachel pushed the thought out of her mind and prayed for grace to bear the loss, as well as the correction of her elders.
She trudged up the back steps and into the kitchen, carrying a large plastic bowl filled with mounds of leaf lettuce and a fistful of new carrots from the garden. Her vision shifted and the room seemed to float about. Things cleared up again just as quickly, and she wouldn’t have thought much about it, except the English doctor had said all this would go away. Less than a week, he’d said. Well, now here it was two full weeks since the accident, and her eyes were still playing tricks on her.
She and Mam began to chop green peppers and cucumbers for a salad. But when the fuzziness returned, Rachel was hesitant to say anything, holding her knife silently. The blurring lasted much longer than usual, and she pushed the knife down hard into the butcher block, waiting. The longer the fog prevailed, the harder her heart pounded. Still, she attempted to stare down at a grayish-looking green pepper.
“What’s wrong, Rachel?” Mam said. “You all right?”
She blinked repeatedly, trying to shake off whatever was causing the frustrating distortion. Steadily, she directed her gaze downward at the knife she knew was in her hand and the pepper on the cutting block, willing herself to see clearly, to focus on the shapes. Hard as she tried, she was engulfed in a misty world of grays and whites.
“Rachel?” She felt Mam’s hand on her arm. “You’re pale. Come sit for a spell.”
She released the paring knife and followed Mam to the rocking chair—Jacob’s favorite. She thought if she did as Susanna suggested and sat there, relaxing and fanning herself for a bit, everything would be all right soon enough.
Sitting in the hickory rocker, she realized how very dismal things had been these past weeks, pining for Jacob’s jovial nature. Oh, how she missed his hearty laugh! She missed other things about him, too. But it was the thought of his good-natured chortle that brought more tears.
“Ach, Rachel, must ya go on so?” Mam was saying. Yet she stood behind the rocking chair, stroking Rachel’s back.
“I hafta tell you something, Mam,” she said softly, wishing she knew where Annie was just now. She felt the swish of her mother’s long dress against the chair.
Susanna seemed to understand, taking her hand and squeezing it. “If you’re thinking of your miscarriage . . . well, believe me, I do know how you’re feeling, Rachel.” And she began to explain the empty sadness associated with the loss of a baby born years ago.
Rachel listened, though she continued to weep. “What I want to tell you isn’t about the baby I lost,” she whispered. Then, pausing, she asked, “Is Annie anywhere about?”
“Why, no, she’s outside playing in the side yard—out diggin’ in the dirt. You know, the way she and Aaron always . . .” Susanna stopped. “What do you mean asking if Annie is near? Are ya still having trouble with your eyes?”
“Well, right now, I can’t see much of anything.”
“I think we oughta have Blue Johnny come and take a look at you. He’s been known to hea
l a wheal in the eye within twenty-four hours,” Mam was quick to reply.
Rachel flinched at the mention of the pipe-smoking hex doctor. “I don’t believe there’s anything growin’ in my eye, Mam. It’s just that my spirit’s awful troubled. . . . I can’t shake it off.”
“If I told your pop this, he’d say you’re crying your eyes out. Plain and simple. That’s just what he’d say.”
Rachel blinked again and again, holding her hands out in front of her now, turning them over, trying to see them clearly. Still, she could not make out even the contour of her own thin fingers. “What’s really causing this?” she pondered aloud. “Do you believe what the hospital doctor said?”
“You witnessed a greislich—terrible thing, Rachel. And if you ask me, I don’t think it’s something we oughta be foolin’ with. Why don’tcha let me contact Blue Johnny?”
“I’m sorry, Mam, but no.” She felt herself straighten a bit, determined not to let Susanna get the best of her, in spite of her distorted sight.
True, the powwow doctors were much cheaper—most of them worked for nothing—that was common knowledge, and most of the time they were quite effective. Still, she hadn’t made a practice of calling on them and wasn’t much keen on starting now.
Mam’s voice rose in response. “I wouldn’t be so quick to turn up my nose at the powwow doctors. ’Specially if you keep havin’ trouble.”
Rachel leaned her head against the rocking chair. “I think I’d rather go back to an English doctor, if I go to anyone. Besides, Jacob . . .” She paused. “Well, if my husband were here, he’d prob’ly tell me to stay far away from Blue Johnny.”
“But Jacob’s not here to see what you’re goin’ through, Daughter. He’d want what’s best for you, jah?”
What’s best for me . . .
She figured it was just as well she hadn’t told Mam about the sharp, penetrating pain that came sometimes at night, just after she lay down to sleep. It came most often with the sound of horses and carriages clip-clopping up and down the road. And it came with the recurring noise of an automobile motor. She feared that one day the pain might come and stay put, with no relief ever again.
Sighing, she got up from the rocking chair, her vision having cleared up somewhat, enough to find her way to the back door and call Annie inside for lunch.
Truly, she might not have gone to bed so early that evening—might’ve put off giving in to fitful sleep—had she known the needlelike affliction would grow nearly unbearable.
She sat up the next morning to watch the sun rise, the very dawn she had always greeted with joy. In an instant, the tormenting images returned, and she cried out in agony, renouncing them. “No! I will not see these things. I will not see!” She repeated it again and again, closing her eyes, shutting out the persistent mental pictures as she rocked back and forth.
How long she remained crumpled in her bed, she did not know. But when at last she opened her eyes and ceased her weeping, the earliest rays of morning had turned to a dark and dreary shade of charcoal.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, groping her way across the room to the window. She and Jacob had stood and looked out together on this very spot, their last hours together. Yet no longer could she make out the rows of neatly tilled farmland beyond. So cloudy were the trees, the four-sided birdhouse, and even the neighbor’s silo that they might not have existed at all.
The darkness persisted as she attempted to dress, then brush and part her long hair. No longer could she see the golden brown hues of her tresses. Neither outline nor color was visible in the mirror. Only murky, shadowy images shifted and waved, taunting her.
She had to call on past memory to place her prayer veiling in the correct location. Fear and panic seized her as she let her fingers guide the Kapp. Jacob and Aaron were never coming back, no matter the amount of hoping. Her life as Jacob Yoder’s wife was a thing of the past. This was her life now. She’d had everything—everything right and gut and lovely—and all of it had been swept away in a blink of time. Why, she did not know, nor did she feel she could question the Almighty. Yet in the quiet moments—just before falling asleep—she had allowed herself to think grievous thoughts of anger and fear, sinful as they were.
Feeling her way along the wall, she stumbled back to the bed. This, the bed she and Jacob had shared as husband and wife. She dared not permit herself to recall the love exchanged here, nor the dreams spoken and unspoken. Denial was the only way she could endure the heartache of her life.
She made an attempt to smooth out the sheet and coverlet, to fluff the lone pillow. But the fiery pain in her head stabbed repeatedly, and in the depths of her troubled heart, she perceived that the light had truly gone from her eyes. Even as tears spilled down her cheeks, she resigned herself to the blindness, that self-imposed haven where no painful image could ever intrude.
“What’s done is done,” she whispered.
Part Two
Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly
lost and gone. . . .
Dante
The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and
forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave
the guilty unpunished; he punishes
the children for the sin of the fathers
to the third and fourth generation.
Numbers 14:18 NIV
Six
Two years later
Philip Bradley checked into the first Amish B&B he could find off the main drag. Somewhat secluded and picturesque, Olde Mill Road was the kind of setting he’d wished for—made to order, actually.
The Lancaster tourist trade was like a neon sign, attracting modern-day folk who longed for a step back in time to the nostalgic, simple days—by way of shops offering handmade quilts and samplers, crafts and candles, as well as buggy rides and tours of Amish homesteads.
But it was the back roads he wanted, earthy places where honest-to-goodness Amish folk lived. Not the establishments that lured you with misnomers and myths of painted blue garden gates and appetizers consisting of “seven sweets and seven sours.” Above all, what Philip wanted was to get this assignment researched, written, and turned in. Bone-tired from the pace of recent travels, he thought ahead to his writing schedule and deadlines for the next month.
At twenty-seven, Philip was already weary of life, though he wouldn’t have admitted it. Even as a youngster he had tried not to call attention to himself—the private side of Philip Titus Bradley, that is. His public image was a different story, and though he had risen to the top tier of feature writers for Family Life Magazine, he clung hard to his privacy, guarding it judiciously.
Sitting on the four-poster canopy bed, Philip stared out the window at a cluster of evergreens. The open space to the left of the pines captured his attention. In the distance, he spied a white two-story barn, complete with silo. A gray stone farmhouse, surrounded by tall trees, stood nearby. He wondered if the place might be owned by Amish. His contact, Stephen Flory of the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, had informed him that nearly all the farms in the Bird-in-Hand area were Amish-owned. The minute it was rumored that an English farm might be for sale, a young Amishman was sure to knock on the door, inquiring about the land and offering the highest bid.
Philip raked his hands through his thick dark hair, gazing at the streams of sunlight pouring through the opening in the tailored blue drapes, its gleaming patterns flickering against a floral wallpaper of blues and greens. The large desk had caught his eye upon entering the room, and now as he studied it, he fancied that if he were ever fortunate enough to own such a piece, it, too, would be made the focal point of its surroundings. Though such a colossal desk would be out of sync with the contemporary decor of his upper Manhattan apartment.
It was odd how the desk, centrally situated on the adjacent wall, seemed remarkably fashioned for the room.
Lauren would not have agreed, however, and he chuckled at the notion. Thank goodness they’d parted ways long before this present assignment. Were they still dating, she would be totally disinterested in his Lancaster research. On second thought, she might have made some crass remark about the back-woodsy folk he planned to interview.
Lauren Hale had been the biggest mistake of his adult life. She had completely fooled him, displaying her true colors at long last. To put it bluntly, she was an elitist, her intolerant eyes fixed on fame and fortune.
Nor had Philip measured up to Lauren’s expectations. She had had a rude awakening; discovered, much to her amazement, that beneath his polished journalistic veneer, there was a heart—beating and warm. And no amount of wishful thinking or manipulation could alter that aspect of his character. So thankfully, he had won. He had let her have her way that final night, let her break up with him, though he’d planned to do it himself had he not been so completely exhausted from the recent European trip.
Philip observed the antique bow-top bed. King size. Handmade canopy, he thought, noting the delicate off-white pattern. Thanks to his vivacious niece, he knew about stitchery and such.
Young Kari had pleaded with him to let her accompany him on this trip. She’d giggled with delight when he called to say he was flying to Lancaster County. “That’s Dutch country, isn’t it?” she exclaimed. “And aren’t there horses and buggies and people dressed up old-fashioned?”
“They’re Amish,” he told her.
“Please, take Mom and me with you, Uncle Phil. We’ll stay out of your hair, I promise.”
Regrettably, he had to refuse, though it pained him to do so. He made an attempt to explain his deadline. “You wouldn’t have any fun, kiddo. I’ll be busy the whole time.”
“Won’t you at least think about it and call us back?” She was eager for some fun and adventure, though she needed to stay close to home, follow through with her homeschooling—the sixth-grade correspondence course her parents had recently purchased. Public school just wasn’t what it used to be when he was growing up in New York City. He had tried to get his sister and brother-in-law to see the light and allow him to assist them financially to get Kari into one of the posh private schools, but to no avail. They had joined a rather evangelical church and gotten religion, or the equivalent thereof, thus their desire to protect and groom Kari in the ways of God. Which wasn’t so bad, he’d decided at the outset. After all, it hadn’t been very long ago that he himself had knelt at the altar of repentance and given his boyish heart to the Lord, though too many dismal miles and even more skirmishes with life had since altered his spiritual course.
The Postcard Page 5