Wonderful Lonesome

by Newport, Olivia

  Abbie started wiping the table again. “Do you believe I should turn my back on what my father believes?”

  “Whatever you believe, you father would want your faith to be based on your own conviction.”

  “He does not think you are serious about me.”

  “Ah, well. I have not confided in him as I have in you.”

  She said nothing.

  “Come with me, Abbie. Come with me.”

  “So you have made up your mind?” She turned to the sink to twist the moisture out of the rag and kept her back to him.

  Willem knew what she wanted to hear, but hypocrisy would be unbearable.

  “Will you go with your parents?”

  He saw her shoulders lift then fall, but she did not turn to face him.

  “Will I have a choice?” she said at last.

  “You are a grown woman.”

  “A grown unmarried woman.”

  “Our women sometimes find another calling.”

  She slapped the rag against the sink and spun around. “A calling to keep house for a relative, for instance? I don’t have any relatives around here. I have no place to go if my parents leave and you won’t have me.”

  “I will always have you, Abbie.” Willem stood now and walked around the table to stand before her and cradle both her elbows in his hands.

  She wriggled against him at first, then her hands settled on his forearms. Her touch was light, hesitant, tentative. But she did not move.

  After a long moment, he leaned in to kiss her. If his words failed to stir her, perhaps his lips would. The softness of her mouth welcomed him, and she made no move to break away.

  When he raised his head again, he moved one hand to her cheek. “Come with me.”

  She stepped to the side. “You’re confusing me.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  He returned to his side of the table. “At least take some time to consider your circumstances. I was in Limon the other day and saw a posting at the mercantile.”

  “What sort of posting?” She was listening and had not resumed scrubbing.

  “A position. An English family I know is looking for a woman to be a companion to their young son. I believe he is recovering from some sort of respiratory illness and needs to be kept still, but they want to be sure his education continues.”

  “A teacher?”

  He shrugged. “Of sorts. You help with Levi’s lessons. This boy is about that age.”

  “But I have no formal qualifications.”

  “Perhaps that does not worry them right now. The man in the mercantile said they were more concerned to find someone temperamentally suited to being with him for a few hours a day. With the right conversation, the education would take care of itself.”

  “I don’t know, Willem. I have never worked for an English family.”

  “They are nice people, and it’s only for a few months while he recuperates.”

  She pressed her lips together, and he wondered if she still tasted him.

  “I understand why your father wants to leave,” he said, “but I also understand why you want to stay.”

  Rudy nodded to confirm to Abbie that he had heard the Weaver family news. They stood side by side along the fence around his pasture. He could see the sack of bread on the bench of her buggy, but she seemed in no hurry to deliver it to the house.

  “The calf is doing well,” she murmured as she folded her arms across the top of the wooden fence and set her chin in the crook of one elbow.

  “She is fully weaned, though I find I cannot leave her in the same field with her mother or she tries to suckle still.”

  “She’s a beautiful animal.”

  “You see beauty where everyone else sees potential for profit.”

  “Not everyone, surely.”

  “Just about. Even Amish cats have to earn their keep by keeping mice out of the barn.”

  “We used to have a dog in Ohio,” Abbie said, “but he had to be able to herd. When he got too old, Daed shot him.”

  Rudy gazed at her face. Her eyes watched the calf but seemed to see right through the animal and fix on a point on the horizon. He leaned on the fence next to her. The thought that Abbie would leave the settlement sliced through him. She was the one who stopped him from selling his cows and getting on a train months ago. Without her he would have no reason to stay after all.

  Wordless, he reached over and folded his fingers around her hand. The reluctance he expected did not come. Instead she turned her palm up and laced her fingers through his. In the end, he was the one to break the grasp without knowing what it meant.

  Ruthanna’s pulse quickened more than she had expected it would. She rode between Ananias and Abbie, who held the baby, on the way to Limon to meet her mother’s train. They would be absurdly early, but Ruthanna had not wanted to risk any delay. A neighbor’s wagon blocking the road, a cracked harness, a loose wheel—a dozen small incidents could cause them to be late. Even now Ruthanna prayed silently that an axle would not break or the horse would not step in a hole and go lame, as she mentally checked off the landmarks that meant they were approaching the outskirts of Limon.

  When they pulled up to the depot, Ananias nodded toward the clock that hung on the outside wall.

  “Thank you for indulging me,” Ruthanna said. “I just couldn’t bear to think of not being here the minute she gets off the train.”

  “Will you be all right here, then? Abbie can wait with you.”

  “Yes, fine.”

  “Do you have to rush off, Daed?” Abbie asked.

  “We are very early for the train. I figure to see the land agent as long as I am in town,” Ananias said. “I’d like to know what he thinks he can get for the property and how long he thinks it will take to find a buyer.”

  Ruthanna saw the droop in Abbie’s face at her father’s unvarnished account of his intent.

  “No point in wasting time,” Ananias said.

  Ananias lowered himself from the bench and then offered assistance to Ruthanna. She reached for her daughter, but Abbie held the child securely with one arm and with the other braced herself to step down. Ruthanna did not object. Soon enough they would stand on this platform and bid each other farewell. She would not deny Abbie the pleasure of holding the baby now. They walked over to a vacant bench while Ananias took his seat in the buggy and urged the horse forward again.

  Abbie adjusted the baby on her lap, and Ruthanna looped an arm through Abbie’s elbow. “Maybe we’ll see each other in Pennsylvania or Ohio someday,” she said.

  “Maybe.” Abbie raised her eyes to Pikes Peak in the distance. “I love you, Ruthanna, but it breaks my heart to think of your leaving this place. Being here without you seems unimaginable.”

  “What about the job that Willem told you about?”

  “Shall I consider it?”

  “If it meant you could stay, wouldn’t that be reason enough? No one is suggesting you become English.” Ruthanna used the hem of her shawl to wipe her daughter’s drool.

  Abbie breathed in deeply and out heavily. “I am not sure how to make my daed understand. He would not see how working a few months for an English family would solve anything.”

  “What would he think if you said you wanted to marry?”

  Abbie rolled her eyes. “I’ve told you about Willem. You know how he feels about Jake and the new church.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of Willem.”

  “Then who?”

  “Are you so blind that you do not see how Rudy feels about you? Now more than ever.”

  “Rudy is very sweet,” Abbie said. “A tender soul.”

  “And he would jump at the chance to be your faithful, loving husband.”

  “But how could I encourage him when he knows how I feel about Willem?”

  “Centuries of strong Amish marriages have been built on something other than those kinds of feelings.”

  Abbie twisted her neck and looked at Ruthanna with furr
owed brow. “I know you married Eber because you loved him.”

  “He was the desire of my heart. I was blessed that God gave him to me.”

  “Don’t I deserve that?” Abbie said hoarsely.

  Ruthanna stroked her friend’s arm. “I know you thought you would marry Willem, but if his choice takes him away, perhaps Rudy is God’s way to give you the desire of your heart in the settlement.”

  A whistle blew, and a train barreled toward them.

  Words formed in Abbie’s mind the next morning but tangled themselves up between her tongue and her lips. She held Ruthanna’s daughter and watched Willem load Ruthanna’s trunk and the small bag her mother had traveled with. Ruthanna had come to Colorado with few possessions and left with fewer. She had packed only the few baby clothes she had stitched, the quilt she had made before her wedding to Eber, his Bible, and a change of clothes in case the baby spit up on her on the train. In a separate crate, packed in straw, was the cradle Eber made.

  “Are they almost ready?” Willem asked as he checked the harness that strapped Ruthanna’s buggy to the horse.

  A nod was all Abbie could manage. She checked the knot of ribbon at the baby’s neck.

  “She’ll write,” Willem said.

  Abbie nodded again and failed to resist the shiver that traveled up her spine.

  “And you’ll write,” Willem said. “You’ll still be friends.”

  It took three attempts before Abbie could push air through her throat. “I don’t understand what the hurry is. Her mother could stay a while and see what Ruthanna’s life was like out here.”

  “It’s not that kind of a visit. Ruthanna may as well go and get settled.”

  “Get on with her life. That’s what you mean.”

  “Yes. I suppose that is what I mean. Eber is gone. She can’t save the farm. Raising a child alone must be frightening. Her parents want to help.”

  Abbie grazed one hand over the fuzz on the baby’s head. It looked like it would grow in to yellow blond hair like her mother’s, but it was impossible to be sure.

  “I can’t imagine not being able to ride over and see her. We didn’t meet each other until we came here, but she is the closest thing I’ve known to a sister.”

  Willem lifted his chin toward the opening door of the Weaver house. Ruthanna and her mother, arm in arm, walked toward the buggy.

  “Let me help you up with the baby.”

  Willem offered his hand, and Abbie took it.

  “It was nice of you to buy her rig.” She settled into the rear bench of Ruthanna’s buggy.

  “I’ll send her what it’s really worth when I can, but at least she has a bit of traveling money. Something to get situated with.”

  The buggy rocked as Ruthanna climbed in and sat next to Abbie. Her mother took the seat beside Willem.

  Abbie forced a smile. Speech had evaporated once again.

  At the train station, Willem and Ruthanna’s mother hung back. Ruthanna clung to Abbie, who clung to the baby. She pulled a slip of paper out of the sleeve of her dress and tucked it into Abbie’s.

  “My address,” Ruthanna said. “I want you to write to me as soon as you’ve made up your mind what to do.”

  Abbie’s head bobbed.

  Not once had Ruthanna doubted that she was making the right decision for her child. If she had been on her own, even without Eber, she might have borrowed Abbie’s persistence. She had thought she would, in those final weeks when she had to admit that life was ebbing out of her husband. But the babe in her arms, rather than her womb, changed everything.

  “You are the truest friend I have ever known,” Ruthanna whispered.

  She felt the soundless sob in her friend’s chest.

  “I pray you will not feel abandoned for long,” Ruthanna said.“Don’t be so stubborn that you end up alone.”

  Abbie dipped her head to kiss the baby one last time before transferring the tight bundle into Ruthanna’s arms. “Wherever I end up, I want you to write to me about everything she does. When she smiles for the first time, when she cuts her first tooth, when she starts to crawl. Everything.”

  “I promise.” Ruthanna put the baby upright over her shoulder and the child burped.

  Abbie giggled. “I guess she wanted to say good-bye, too.”

  Willem and Ruthanna’s mother approached.

  “I suppose we should get on the train,” Ruthanna said. “Thank you, Willem. For everything.”

  “I counted Eber a good friend,” he said.

  “Look after his grave for me. Don’t let it grow over.”

  “I won’t.”

  Ruthanna handed the baby to her mother and opened her arms once again to the friend who had never let her down, regretting that her decision could not but disappoint the settler with the greatest enthusiasm for the venture they had all undertaken. But her daughter needed to be enfolded into dozens of faithful waiting arms, not to grow up with a mother too burdened by farm chores to look after her properly.

  When she kissed Abbie’s cheek, she tasted the salt of tears.

  Willem did not rush Abbie. They watched the train chug out of sight, and still he held his pose and awaited her readiness to turn toward the buggy. If they had been alone, rather than standing on a public railroad platform, he would have wrapped his arms around her and welcomed a release of her grief. Only when an oncoming whistle announced the next impending shuffle of passengers did she pivot and march to the buggy.

  Willem helped her up to the bench, unhitched the horse, and took up the reins. She sat beside him silent and straight backed, staring straight ahead. Willem navigated away from the bustle of the train station and through the streets of Limon to the road that would gradually narrow into the route that led to the Amish farms. He drove for several miles, occasionally glancing at her unyielding posture.

  “I want you to meet someone,” he said at last. “It’s on the way home.”

  “I’ve just said good-bye to my best friend.” Abbie’s tone snapped, but she did not turn her head.

  “I know. But soon enough you’ll have to make your own decision, and this could help.”

  “You mean you think I should get on with my life, too.”

  “I mean,” he said carefully, “that you should know what choices you have.”

  “Is this about that English job?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m not ready.”

  “Your father listed his property with a land agent yesterday and has already struck a deal for his cows. If you have any hope of deciding for yourself, rather than letting circumstances dictate, you should let me introduce you to this family.”

  “Whatever happens will be God’s will. If I wait and the job is gone, it will still be God’s will.” Not only did Abbie refuse to look at him, but she turned her head with deliberation in the opposite direction.

  Willem slowed the horse so there would be more time to talk before the turnoff. “And if you meet the family today and you like them, that would also be God’s will. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  He saw the twitch in her shoulders and knew she was softening.

  “I’ll just introduce you,” he said. “If you don’t want to do more than say hello, look at me and blink twice. I will politely excuse us, and we will be on our way.”

  She whirled on him. “You have this all figured out, don’t you?”

  He cranked his head away and allowed himself a quick smile. When the lane came up on the left, he made the turn.

  When Abbie agreed to go inside the house with Mrs. Wood, Willem waited outside. Abbie was not sure whether to be furious or relieved. The kindness in Louise Wood’s face had undone her. Willem must have known it would. Apparently the moment had passed to blink twice and be whisked out of a circumstance she felt ill equipped to meet.

  The ranch house sprawled more than any of the Amish homes, but Abbie supposed the ranch itself also was better established. From the outside, even her untrained eye could discern the outline of the original hous
e and the slight change in the width of the siding where a wing was added to one side. Inside, one foot now detected a slight ridge in the flooring under a long runner carpet as Mrs. Wood led Abbie to a comfortable sitting room. The original parlor had been converted to a music room featuring a grand piano. Otherwise, though, the house was modestly furnished, and Mrs. Wood’s high-necked dress was made of a muted green calico that had seen regular washings for at least two years.

  “May I make you a cup of tea?” Louise gestured for Abbie to take a seat.

  “I don’t want to be any bother.”

  “It’s no bother. I was about to have some anyway. The kettle is already on.”

  Abbie smiled. “Then I would love some.”

  “I’ll see if I can rustle up some cookies as well. I won’t be but a minute.”

  When Louise left the room, Abbie leaned forward in her chair to see if she could see out the window across the room. Willem had his back to the house while he ran his hand down the horse’s long nose. For better or for worse, she was inside now and he was out of blinking range. She looked around the room, and her eyes settled on a photograph of a stiff trio. Between a man and a woman sat a little boy. Abbie peered at the picture for clues as to its age. But she was unfamiliar with photographs in general. The Amish avoided them. She did not actually know anyone who had ever sat for a photograph.

  Apparently now she did, because the woman in the picture clearly was Louise Wood.

  “Here we are.” Louise returned with a tray bearing a plate of sugar cookies and two tea cups. She set it on a table beside Abbie.“I’m so glad Willem introduced us. We’re sure to have a delightful chat.”

  The warmth in her tone melted Abbie.

  Louise handed her a cup. “Willem tells me you have a little brother about my son’s age.”

  “Yes. Levi is eight.” Abbie did her best not to jiggle the cup.

  “Now that’s a nice strong biblical name. Of course, Abigail was quite a woman of courage in the Bible. I’m sure you’re well named.”

  Abbie took a sip of tea. “What is your son’s name?”

  Louise laughed. “I’m afraid it’s Melton Finley Wood IV. Much too much name for a little boy, but you can see the strength of the family tradition. We call him Fin.”