by Tamar Myers
‘Sure thing,’ Alison said. She was beaming with pride.
‘Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai,’ they sang. ‘El-o-hay-nu mel-ech ha-o-lahm, bo-rei p’ree ha-gah-fen.’
‘Harrumph,’ Gordon Gaiters said. ‘That sounded like so much gibberish to me. How do we know it wasn’t Ancient Greek? Or even Mandarin?’
‘Now may I drink?’ Sarah Conway said. ‘Please?’
‘Yes,’ I said, glaring at her boss. ‘It’s at times like these, that I wish that I drank as well.’
‘Perhaps you should drink, Miss Yoder,’ Gordon Gaiters said. ‘Then you wouldn’t be such a nervous flibbertigibbet. Somewhere in the Book of Psalms we are told that wine makes glad the heart.’
‘It’s Psalm 104, verse 15, the first line, dear.’ I took a deep breath and exhaled my sarcasm. ‘Permit me to quote the entire first verse of the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 20. “Wine is a mocker, intoxicating drink arouses brawling, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”’
‘Easy, hon,’ Gabe said.
‘You go, Mom!’ Alison said.
‘Ugh,’ Sarah Conway said spitting into her now empty wine glass. ‘That stuff will rot your teeth. What was it? Cough syrup?’
‘It’s a traditional, sweet, kosher wine that I reserve for Friday nights. It’s to remind us just how sweet the Sabbath is.’
‘The Sabbath is Sunday, not Saturday,’ Gordon Gaiters said.
This time I looked at our guest imploringly. ‘Please don’t get Dr Rosen started,’ I said. ‘My Jewish husband knows the history of the early Christian Church better than you do. I guarantee that.’
Gordon Gaiters wagged an accusing finger at me. ‘How do you know he’s not lying to you? After all, you’re unequally yoked.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘If you know your Bible so well, you know what I mean. Scripture warns believers not to be paired with unbelievers – “yoked” it says – or they’ll be led asunder. Even in this man’s Old Testament, there’s a law against yoking an ox together with an ass.’
Gabe, who normally shies away from confrontation pounded the table with his fist. ‘Are you calling my wife an ass?’
I don’t express my emotions physically, just hysterically. ‘He didn’t say that I was the ass, did he? Maybe I’m the ox, and you’re the ass!’
‘Hee-haw, hee-haw,’ Alison brayed. In retrospect I don’t blame the kid. The tension in the room was so thick, that one could slice it with a paper knife.
‘That display of incivility is disgusting,’ Sarah Conway said.
‘You’re the pot calling the kettle black, dear. Now I, for one, wish to eat this delicious dinner which is cooling before our very eyes. Gabe, be a dear, and help yourself to some Swiss steak on yon platter, and pass it to Miss Conway, who will pass it to her right to Mr Gaiters. Mr Gaiters, will you be a dear, and help yourself to the sweet corn and cream casserole in front of you, and then please pass it to your left to Miss Conway, who will then pass it to me. And Miss Conway, will you—’
‘I get the picture,’ Sarah Conway said. ‘I’m not some dumb, country hick. And don’t even think about calling me “dear”. We’re nothing to each other.’
‘That’s not exactly true,’ said Gabe. ‘I read this book—’
I shot my Dearly Beloved a look that could have shrivelled a cactus on a damp, cool day in Arizona. ‘We’re eating now,’ I said. ‘That’s all that we’re doing for the next ten minutes. Capiche?’
Alison’s right arm shot up.
I sighed so deeply that I accomplished the next week’s dusting in two adjoining rooms. ‘Yes?’
‘What happens if we all finish in eight minutes?’
‘Eat!’
So that’s what we did. We ate, although with varying amounts of gusto. I nibbled. Gabe ate moderately, as per his usual custom. I was pleased to see that both my guests not only had hardy appetites, but they practically inhaled their desserts. As for Alison, she obviously needed extra calories to fuel her teenage rebellion. In fact, she ate more than any Amish farmer I’d ever met, even more than Morris Gindlesperger, who had a chest like a half whisky barrel, and used to strap himself inside a mule harness, and pull the plough himself after Sadie, his beloved mule, died of old age.
After my guests had virtually licked their dessert plates clean, and drained their cups of decaffeinated coffee, they tossed their napkins on the table, and pushed back their chairs. I winced, because one is supposed to support the chair seat with one’s hands, whilst lifting the chair up and back. One does not simply push oneself straight back, digging such deep gouges into the floor that a train of flatcars bearing military tanks can roll through this newly created landscape completely undetected.
‘We’ll have breakfast at five,’ Sarah Conway said.
‘Suit yourself,’ I said with a smile that did nothing to help global warming. ‘The cereal’s in the cabinet to the right of the fridge. The bowls are just below the cereal.’
‘Not so fast, young lady,’ Gordon Gaiters said. ‘Your brochure claims that you serve a hot breakfast.’
‘We do: between the hours of seven and ten.’
‘But we have to drive up to Bangor, Maine tomorrow,’ Sarah Conway said.
‘No, you don’t, dear,’ I said. ‘According to the itinerary that you sent me, and the number of nights that you paid for, you don’t check out for another six days.’
‘Harrumph,’ Gordon Gaiters said. ‘You realize then, that I won’t be giving you a favourable write-up in our glorious autumn issue of A Woman’s Place?’
‘I thought that “harrumph” was just a word that one read in English novels,’ Gabe said. ‘I didn’t realize people actually said it – especially Americans. But now you’ve said it twice. Perchance you’re a British spy? Or could you be one of those secret Canadians, since you speak with a rising inflection.’
‘And yet your wife thinks you’re so brilliant,’ Gordon Gaiters said.
Ever one to stir the pot, Alison clapped her hands. ‘Hey, everyone! I just had me a brilliant idea. Seeing as how we ain’t got us no elevator, and them stairs is more crooked than a dog’s hind leg, and it’s steeper than Miss Conway’s nose when she sticks it in the air, why don’t my dad carry the old man up the stairs?’ Alison looked into her father’s startled eyes. ‘So whatcha think? Ya can carry Mr Alligator up them stairs, can’t ya, Dad? I mean, ya did the same for me when I had the flu bug, remember?’
‘That does it,’ Sarah Conway huffed. ‘We’re leaving now. Right now!’
‘Alison,’ I said, ‘you apologize now. Right now!’
‘Yeah,’ she mumbled. ‘Hey Dad, I’m sorry. He might be an old man, but he has himself a big old man’s belly. I wouldn’t want ya to hurt your back or nuthin’.’
‘You see?’ Sarah Conway screeched. ‘That child is incorrigible. She should be stripped of all her privileges and confined to her room indefinitely. No, that’s not enough. Since you’re so fond of quoting scripture, then here’s one meant just for you: Proverbs 13:24. “He who spare his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”’
‘Well done,’ I said. ‘Brava! Do you have any children, Miss Conwhack?’
‘That’s Conway, as you well know.’
‘Sorry about that mispronouncing your name, dear. You are undoubtedly aware that we Mennonites are pacifists, and in my rush to be passive, I might have gotten a wee bit aggressive, heh, heh. But do you have any children?’
‘None that I’m aware of, heh, heh,’ she said.
‘How very droll of you, Miss Conway,’ I said. ‘My point is that if you have no children, then you haven’t a clue as to what sort of punishments are effective in this day and age, and most especially in regard to our daughter. In other words, butt out!’
‘That’s telling her, Mom!’ Alison said, and then she gave Sarah Conway an anaemic, countryside version of the infamous Bronx cheer. But instead of blowing through her closed lips, she merely stuck out her lips in an e
xaggerated fashion, and then spoke a single syllable that sounded like ‘blurp’. However, I have no doubt that, if she’d been surrounded by supportive friends, my fourteen-year-old would have made me proud and gone all the way.
‘OK, that does it,’ Gabe said. ‘Clear the dining room. Everyone out! Get out now!’
Please don’t get me wrong. My oh-so-handsome husband is not a coward; he is just not someone who can handle confrontation. This pretty much means that he can’t say ‘no’ to anyone. This makes him an easy mark for any salesperson, even the Girl Scouts of America during their cookie campaigns, or the elementary schools when they hawk magazines for their fundraisers. We would both have become morbidly obese while reading ourselves blind a long time ago, if I hadn’t stepped in and cancelled the subscriptions, and sent all the cookies to our troops serving overseas in our nation’s longest war, Afghanistan. I am opposed to the taking of any human life, mind you, but I am also in favour of bringing these young women and men a bit of comfort, a taste of home.
It must be noted that Gabe, I am proud to say, was a member of Harvard’s famed Hasty Pudding Club, the nation’s oldest theatrical group. So even though he is not confrontational, he can play the part of someone wielding great authority. However, he has to be properly motivated in order to do so. In this case, Sarah Conway’s parenting advice was the bridge too far. Although, if you ask me, he should have ponied up a bit earlier, like right after I referred to her as Miss Conwhack. Instead he put it on me and Alison to shoulder the burden of rebuttal. By the way, it was only my guardian angel that kept me from calling her Miss Conwhacky.
I suppose that I shouldn’t complain. The room cleared out, and the guests climbed up the stairs in the time that it takes a rumour about a cheating pastor to circulate during a packed church service. What was truly astonishing was to see that Miss Conway, who was trailing, literally lifted the old coot up by the armpits, and placed him on the landing, which is midway up. The step up (or down) to the landing is the steepest, and something really needed to be done about it. But that would have entailed reconfiguring that entire half of the stairs, which not only would have put the inn out of commission for a long time, it would also have meant that Alison would have had to share our downstairs master suite (wherein the nursery is located) a lot longer than three nights. Gabriel is a lusty man, and I don’t think that would have set well with him. I’ll leave it at that.
SEVENTEEN
I am convinced that mothers have an innate ability to wake more easily than fathers. No baby book, no matter how prestigious its author, can change my mind. On second thought, maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s just because many fathers abrogate their duty to be nocturnally vigilant in favour of catching a few winks. Whatever the case may be, my better half, who was on call for twenty-four-hour shifts during his medical residency, now sleeps like a stone. That is to say, he hears nothing for at least eight hours a night.
During the night of our dining room drama, I was awakened by noises emanating from upstairs. When I pushed the knob on my bedside clock which illuminated the time, 3:02 a.m., it occurred to me that our guests might have decided on an early departure after all. No matter. They would get no hot breakfast, and no refund for checking out early. As for a favourable write-up in A Woman’s Place, hadn’t the bombastic Gordon Gaiters already brought the axe down on my scrawny Yoder neck? That is why mere seconds after being awakened, I rolled over and went back to sleep.
At some point after I’d fallen back to sleep, I was awakened by a tapping on my shoulder. I remember sitting up in the darkened room and calling out. But it’s Alison who swears by our dialogue.
‘Not now, Lord,’ I supposedly said, sounding quite panicked. ‘Go away, Angel of Death. Don’t take me to Heaven now. Little Jacob is still a baby and needs his mama! And Gabe needs me too. And I need them.’
‘What about me, Mom?’ Alison said. ‘Don’t ya need me too?’
All I am sure of is that when she said ‘Mom,’ Gabe turned on his bedside lamp, and I was indeed in a sitting position. Oh, and also, my dear sweet daughter was on the verge of tears. I pulled her down on the bed and held her in my bony arms.
‘Of course I need you, dear. I need and love you more than you can ever possibly know.’
She wiped her eyes with the base of her thumb, and then she wiped her nose on her nightgown. ‘Yeah?’ she said. ‘Cool.’
I nodded, my eyes filling with tears as well.
‘So ya ain’t gonna die on account of no death star angel?’
‘Something like that – at least not tonight, it seems. But one never knows, so that’s why it’s important to be right with the Lord.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Hey Mom, ya hear that noise upstairs a while back?’
‘I did.’
‘I think they was doing the rumpy-pumpy.’
‘What?’ I said, perhaps a wee bit irritated. I consulted the clock again. It was only 3:12 a.m.
‘That’s English slang,’ a large lump from the other side of my bed said. ‘It means the same thing as doing the two-sheet tango.’
I turned on my bedside lamp. ‘Do you really think so? He’s eighty years old. Won’t it kill him? I mean, is it even possible?’
Gabe cleared his throat. ‘Ahem. The walls have ears, if you get my drift.’
‘Hey!’ Alison said. ‘I ain’t no wall. And I ain’t stupid neither. Mom, I knew ya was lying when ya said that Dad found Little Jacob growing in our cabbage patch. Them cabbages was eaten all through with caterpillar holes, and Little Jacob didn’t have a single hole on him, except for them necessary ones. Besides, most of my friends live on farms, just like me, and we ain’t blind; we watch them animals. But poor Emily Mischler lives in town, and her mama told her that same story that ya told me, when I asked ya where babies come from.’
‘What story is that?’ Gabe said.
‘Oh nothing,’ I said.
Alison hopped across the bed to snuggle with her dad. ‘All our moms would say is that married dads gave their wives seeds when it came time for the couples to have babies. After the seeds got planted in the moms’ tummies, they grew into babies. But then Emily swallowed a grapefruit seed and was so scared that a baby would start growing that she tried to kill herself.’
‘No, she didn’t!’ I said.
‘Yes, she did,’ Alison said. ‘You don’t know her.’
‘Sweetheart,’ I said gently, ‘that was just an expression of horror, not disbelief. Does her dad own a shoe store over in Bedford?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I do know Emily. She’s in the Sunday school class that I teach. When did this happen, dear?’
‘When we was in the sixth grade. She took some of her mom’s sleeping pills, but they wasn’t the kind the pharmacist hasta give ya. They just made her really sleepy and her mouth real dry.’
‘Alison, honey,’ Gabe said tenderly, ‘I’m sorry to hear that about your classmate.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Mags, why didn’t you give our daughter facts, instead of some stupid tale that even a nitwit wouldn’t believe?’
‘Me? She’s your daughter too!’
‘Hey,’ Alison said. ‘Don’t argue. I hate it when the two of you argue. It’s my job as a teenager to irritate both of you, because I’m beginning the process of breaking away and establishing my own identity. If the two of you continue to bicker so much, then I might end up as a maladjusted adult. Who knows? I might even mature into a psychopath, and murder someone in this very inn. Then Mother can investigate the case, and be responsible for her own, dear daughter’s incarceration. Is that what the two of you want? Huh?’
‘She called me “Mother”,’ I squealed, ‘and not Mom!’
‘Mags,’ Gabe said, ‘are you nuts? Is that what you noticed? How about the fact that not only did she speak correct English again, but she offered an important insight into the psychology of the teenage mind? This shows that she actually read some of the psych books that she checked out of the library. I’m curious to know why she e
xhibits such a wide dichotomy of behaviour.’
‘OK, Gabe,’ I said, ‘please take it down a notch for the simple-minded peasant woman on this side of the bed.’
‘You’re not simple-minded,’ Gabe said, with a wink. ‘You’re single-minded. That’s why you accomplish so much. Anyway, what I meant was, I’d like to know why our darling daughter speaks like a third-grade dropout most of the time, when she’s clearly very intelligent, and capable of so much more.’
‘Yeah?’ Alison said. ‘Ya really wanna know the answer? I already told ya – because I know that it bugs the crap outta ya, that’s why.’
‘Fair enough,’ Gabe said calmly. ‘But just now, when you switched into Standard English, it seemed so effortless. Was it really that easy?’
Alison shrugged. ‘I dunno, because it’s not like I was thinking about it, or nothing. It just sort of happens when I’m stressed.’
‘And we were causing the stress with our “bickering”, as you so eloquently put it?’ I said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Then we’ll just have to bicker more,’ Gabe said.
‘No, please don’t!’ Alison said.
‘Then how about a group hug,’ I said, half expecting my suggestion to be soundly rejected.
‘Sounds awesome,’ Alison said.
The hug was brief. Gabe comes from a family of huggers, and I from a family that acts like human backs are hot potatoes. We might have compromised, except for the fact that even the Babester could tell that Alison had skipped her shower that day, and maybe the day before. During the school year peer pressure is enough to keep her toeing the line when it comes to personal hygiene. Out here on the farm she is likely to have, at the most, two face-to-face interactions with kids her age a week. The rest of the time she communicates via texting.
At any rate, almost the second our daughter hopped off the bed, we heard another thump overhead. It wasn’t as loud as the previous ones, but curious, nonetheless.
Alison, who had frozen in place, turned around. ‘Well, I think that’s more bedroom bossa nova.’