Wonderful Lonesome

by Newport, Olivia

  Esther caught her eye and said, “Abbie says you received a telegram today. Not bad news from home, I hope.”

  “It was from my parents,” Ruthanna said. “They feel terrible that they could not get here for Eber’s funeral, but my mother is coming now.”

  Across the table, Abbie smiled. “I’ll be so glad to see her! And it will be wonderful for you to have help for a while.”

  “She will arrive on Thursday on a midmorning train.”

  “We’ll be delighted to have her stay here with us at first,” Esther said. “I don’t want you to feel rushed to go back to your home before you are ready.”

  Ruthanna took a deep breath, hating that the words she prepared to speak would crush her best friend.

  “I don’t think I will go back to the house at all.”

  Forks stopped in midair. Around the table, eyes lifted toward Ruthanna.

  “My mother wants me to come home with her. And I want to go.”

  Abbie set her fork down gently. “Of course a visit with your family would do you good. The farm will be here when you get back.”

  Tears burned in Ruthanna’s eyes. “I hope someday I will come back to visit you and find a thriving Amish settlement. But I think it’s best if I list the farm with a broker and move back to my parents’ home. We’ll leave on Friday.”

  Abbie washed the platter, the last of the supper dishes. She dried it slowly, listening to Ruthanna’s murmuring to her baby in the next room. Abbie slid the platter into its place on the shelf and hung the damp towel over the back of a chair. On her way into the main room, she paused for a moment to lean against the doorframe and twiddle her prayer kapp strings while she watched Ruthanna. Despite her tragic start to motherhood, she was learning to know her infant well and responded to the child’s fussing with calm and cooing. Finally, Abbie chose a seat where she could see her friend’s face clearly.

  “I know you are not happy with my decision,” Ruthanna said softly. “It breaks what is left of my heart to think of leaving you, but it is right that I go.”

  Abbie tucked her hands under her thighs to keep from appearing as agitated as she felt. “Your whole life has changed in ten days. Maybe this is not the time to make such a major decision. You still have the farm and people who care for you.”

  “You didn’t hear for yourself what the banker said.” Ruthanna adjusted the baby on her lap so she could look into her eyes and hold both tiny hands. “After so much drought and soil erosion from the wind, the land is barely worth what we paid for it. Eber borrowed against our equity money several times. The last time he tried, the bank turned him down.”

  “I’m so sorry. But the rest of the settlers will not let you suffer. You can stay here all winter, if you like. Your animals can stay in our barn. In the spring, Willem and Rudy and my brothers will put your crop in. It won’t always be like this.”

  Silence descended. Abbie held her breath.

  “My husband died,” Ruthanna finally said, her voice a whisper. “I have a newborn. I have overwhelming debt I knew nothing about. I cannot struggle against reality right now, Abbie. Even if I can sell the farm to get out from under the debt, I will have no money. Please try to understand. My daughter deserves a better start, and I can give her that if I go home.”

  “This is home.”

  “I certainly hoped it would be. When she is older, I will bring my daughter back and show her Eber’s grave. Promise me you will make sure the marker is laid as soon as it is ready.”

  “Of course I will. But you could stay at least long enough to see to that.”

  “It would be too hard. The mound would still be fresh and would cut my heart open all over again.”

  Abbie’s shoulders sank in defeat. “I’m sorry. I have no idea what it must be like to lose a husband.”

  Ruthanna gave a wan smile. “You will have a wonderful life here, Abbie. You want a church here more than anyone else. We all know that and admire it in you.”

  Abbie swallowed hard. “It won’t be the same without you.”

  “Willem loves you. I hope you know that.”

  Abbie nodded. She did know. But did he love her enough?

  Ruthanna was up with the baby for a long stretch in the middle of the night. Abbie heard her get out of bed several times and saw her pacing the room with the baby on her shoulder, illumined by the moon. It was no surprise when Ruthanna did not get up for breakfast. Abbie crept out of the room as quietly as she could, pulling her dress and kapp off the hook on her way out. She dressed quickly in Levi’s already empty room and went down the narrow stairs to the kitchen. Esther was heating the stove. A bowl of eggs shed of their shells sat on the table. Ananias’s glasses were balanced at the end of his nose as he studied some papers.

  Abbie took a large fork from a drawer and began to beat the eggs. “I wish Ruthanna would change her mind,” she blurted.

  “I know how much you will miss her,” Esther said.

  “She should not make a decision when she is under so much stress.”

  “She has to do what she believes is right. It is not for us to judge.” Esther dropped a generous pat of butter into a frying pan, which sizzled immediately.

  Ananias cleared his throat. “She made the right decision, Abigail.”

  “How can you say that, Daed? She hasn’t given the church a chance to help her.”

  “We are not much of a church, Abbie. We are barely a settlement.”

  “But we can be if it is what we all want.”

  Ananias stood and tapped his fingers on the papers on the table. “I have made a decision as well. We will return to Ohio. We will go before the end of the month, before the winter turns harsh.”

  “Daed!”

  Esther dumped the bowl of eggs into the sputtering pan.

  Abbie’s brain tied itself in a knot, incapacitating her tongue. Her mother, silent, stirred the eggs.

  “I am responsible for the family’s welfare, Abigail.” Ananias picked up his papers and tapped them against the table to straighten the bottom edge of the pile. “I do not come to this decision easily, but it is in the best interest of all of us if we return to Ohio.”

  Abbie bit her bottom lip, choosing her words carefully. “All the reasons we left Ohio are still there. Land is expensive. The county is getting crowded.”

  “That is true. But the reasons we came to Colorado are no longer here. The opportunities have not proven fruitful. I cannot afford to give my sons land here, either. If I cannot succeed at farming, neither will they.”

  “The winter could bring blizzards of snow to end the drought,” Abbie said. “We could have two good harvests next year.”

  Esther took plates off the shelf and put them on the table.

  “We also hoped more families would come,” Ananias said. “Daniel is of marriageable age, but we have no young unmarried women.”

  “He seems partial to Lizzie Mullet.”

  “She is not suitable.”

  Ananias’s clipped tone bore growing impatience, but Abbie pushed on. “Why not? She’s seventeen and comports herself well.”

  “Her father and I are not of like mind.”

  The sentence punched the air out of her. “You mean about whether there is true salvation outside our church?”

  “Abigail!” Ananias thumped the table.

  Esther stirred the eggs but turned her head over one shoulder. “What is she talking about, Ananias?”

  “We will not speak further on that question.”

  “Daniel is still young,” Abbie said quietly. She did not need Lizzie Mullet to make her point. “Many of our men wait a few more years to marry.”

  “They wait so they can become established financially. There is no hope for that here.”

  “There is always hope, surely. Gottes wille.” Dread gushed through Abbie’s veins on the way back to her heart and lungs. “We may not get any new families now. It is too close to winter. But in the spring—”

  “Abigail.”


  She pressed her lips together to make herself stop talking.

  “Reuben is not far beyond Daniel,” Ananias said. “And what about you?”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I mean no insult. You are my precious daughter. But I regret that I did not insist that you marry before we left Ohio. You have limited prospects here as well.”

  “I do not worry about my future, Daed.”

  Esther stepped to the bottom of the stairs and called the names of her three sons to summon them to breakfast. To Abbie her voice sounded mist-like, insubstantial.

  “Your Willem seems to be in no hurry,” Ananias said.

  “Neither am I.”

  Ananias cleared his throat. “I may not be able to give my blessing to your union.”

  “I thought you liked Willem.” Abbie swallowed back her own reservations about Willem’s forthcoming decisions.

  “I do.”

  “Then?”

  “I have heard that he may not be a true believer. I would want you to be wed to a man who believes in the true church. But you and I agreed we would not speak of this matter at the risk of spreading more division. Leave the family out of it, please.”

  The boys thundered down the stairs seeking morning nourishment.

  “Shh!” Esther said. “Have you forgotten a baby sleeps upstairs?”

  “Isn’t Ruthanna getting up for breakfast?” Levi slid into his usual chair.

  “She can sleep as long as the child sleeps.”

  Esther gestured that her daughter should sit down, and Abbie complied although the thought of eating at that moment caused her stomach to revolt. She spent the moments of silent prayer trying to quell quivering nerves. The family ate, and Ananias quoted in German from memory a passage in Deuteronomy about teaching children to follow the ways of the Lord. Abbie could barely meet his eyes when the meal was over.

  As soon as her father left the table, with her brothers right behind, Abbie stood to scrape dishes. There was not much to scrape. The family had long ago learned to eat every morsel of nourishment at a meal. Even Levi had stopped claiming that he was not hungry.

  Esther began to fill the sink with water.

  “Mamm?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know about this?”

  “Your father is the head of the family, Abigail.”

  “I understand that he makes these decisions, but did you know?”

  Esther dipped a plate in water and rubbed three fingers around the rim. “No.”

  “Do you want to go back to Ohio?”

  Esther wrapped her hands in a towel and said, “Why do you ask these questions, Abbie?”

  “I’m just trying to make sense of it all.”

  “I have always trusted your father’s decisions. I will not stop now.”

  “But do you want to go back to Ohio?”

  Esther sighed. “I have rather come to love living in Colorado. The color of the sky is like nothing I have seen anywhere. The way the mountain breaks the sunset, the peculiar vegetation, even the sound of coyotes. It all has a beauty of its own.”

  “I know what you mean.” Abbie put her arms around her mother and whispered, “What if I don’t want to go?”

  “You know our way of submission. Demut.” Esther gently released herself from Abbie’s embrace and turned back to the dishes. “If you were to marry, it would be different.”

  Abbie moistened her lips in thought. As an unmarried woman, did she have any choice but to obey her father? On the other hand, he was right in pointing out that she was past the age when most of her friends had married. She would not be making a girlish decision. Colorado had stolen her heart, and she still believed someday there would be a flourishing church.

  “What if I said I want to stay here?” Abbie finally said.

  “Stay where?” Levi shuffled in from the back porch.

  “I think I’ll go for a walk,” Abbie said.

  “I thought you wanted to stay.” Levi wrinkled his face.

  “I was talking about something else. I do want to go for a walk—if it’s all right with you, Mamm.”

  Esther nodded.

  “I want to go, too.” Levi widened his eyes in hope.

  “I just want to do some thinking, Levi. It won’t be very fun.”

  “Please?”

  “He’s been squirming the last few days,” Esther said. “It would do him good for you to wear him out.”

  Abbie knew Levi would pepper her with a thousand questions, but she nodded.

  “Where are we going to walk?” Levi followed her out the back door.

  “We’ll just walk and see where we end up.”

  “I want to walk in the fields.”

  “I guess we can do that.” Abbie adjusted her direction to cut across the yard away from the barn and toward the path that would take them past the pasture to the forgotten wheat fields. “There won’t be much to look at. You know we have no crop.”

  “There’s still a lot to look at. I can catch some bugs for my collection.”

  Insects would abound, feasting unimpeded on the parched, stunted stalks of the crop that might have persuaded her father to make a different decision.

  “What did you really mean when you said you want to stay?” Levi concentrated on making his stride match hers.

  Abbie put a hand on the back of his head. It would be Daed’s decision what to tell his sons and when. “Never mind. It’s nothing you have to worry about.”

  “I’m not worried. I used to be worried that we would run out of food, but I’m not worried anymore.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. What changed your mind?”

  “Daed takes care of the family, and God takes care of Daed. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then God takes care of the family. That’s what I decided. It’s better than worrying.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Can you give me my lessons from now on?”

  “Don’t you like studying with Mamm?”

  “I like to study with you. When you give me my lessons, I always think you are a good teacher.”

  “Thank you.” She scratched the middle of his back. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I want to race. Do you want to race?”

  She shook her head. “No. But I’d love to watch you run.”

  Fourteen hours later Abbie spread her tree of life quilt out on the kitchen table. She had little progress to show for the last two weeks. Eber’s death had stymied her aspirations. The baby’s early birth and the funeral plans had banished ordinary routines. Ruthanna’s presence in the house with the baby meant there always seemed to be something Abbie felt she ought to be doing to make Ruthanna’s life easier.

  But nothing would bring Eber back, and now Ruthanna had decided to make her own life easier by returning to her family.

  Abbie’s vision glazed over as she stared at the tiny triangles that made up the finished portions of the quilt. Instead of the quilt, she saw the lush greens of the Ohio countryside, where there were lakes and dependable rainfall and proper houses and worship services every other Sunday. Her father had not yet said where in Ohio he planned to take the family. Perhaps the Weavers would end up in eastern Ohio not far from Ruthanna’s family, and Abbie could see her friend across the Pennsylvania border frequently. She imagined now what Eber and Ruthanna’s little girl would look like when she was two or seven or ten years old. Maybe she would have Eber’s dark hair. She already had his long nose.

  Abbie left the quilt on the table and stepped out the back door to listen to the rapid chatter of the magpies, the chirping crickets, the whispering sibilants of the wind. She disagreed with her mother on the beauty of the coyotes howling, still unable to banish the mental image of what might have happened to Little Abe Miller. But the rest of it buoyed her spirit regardless of the crumbling financial realities.

  With a sigh she wondered if she were the only one with blinders on, or the only one still clinging to the vision that h
ad drawn them all out here. She glanced back inside at the quilt spread in the lamp’s light and pondered how many of the families she prayed for would still be here when she finished the quilt.

  I suppose you heard about my dead’s decision.” Abbie laid the sack of bread on Willem’s table and stood with her hands on the three mounds.

  Willem nodded from his chair across the table. “He surprised us all. He went around yesterday because he wanted all the settlers to hear it from him.”

  Abbie absently picked up last week’s bread sack and folded in half, then quarters, then eighths.

  “He is doing what he thinks is best,” Willem said.

  “I know.” Abbie did not know where to settle her blurry eyes. “He has never been one to do anything on a lark.”

  “Your daed is a good man, Abbie.”

  “I believe he would say the same about you.” She set the flat flour sack on the corner of the table.

  “We understand each other.”

  A gasp escaped Abbie’s lips. “Not entirely.”

  Willem tilted his chair back and scratched under his chin. “What’s on your mind?”

  Abbie reached into her bucket for a clean rag and turned to Willem’s water barrel to drench it. Without speaking she began to wipe off the table.

  His chair hit the floor, and his hand reached across the planks to stop her motion. “You don’t have to do that now.”

  “It is what I am here for, is it not?”

  “Is it?”

  She met his green eyes now. If Willem went to the Mennonites, his action would cause more division than any words her father did not want her to speak. “Before Eber…before the baby…I found out something.”

  “Yes?”

  “My daed does not believe there is salvation outside the Amish church.”

  “I see.”

  Did he? What if her daed was right? “It seems the men in the settlement do not agree on this doctrine.”

  Willem shifted in his chair, turning to one side. “Obviously I am in no position to dispute that statement.”

  “What am I to think, Willem? If you go to the Mennonites, and if I do as you suggest and go with you—”

  “Then you fear we would be condemning ourselves.”