by Sarah Price
Jake shook his head. “That’s not it, Sylvia.”
“Then what is it?” she asked gently.
“Sometimes we cannot control things. I promised to take care of you, to protect you. But maybe there are things that I cannot do. Maybe I will make it worse, exposing you to the outside world so much. You’ve sacrificed so much for me. I know it can’t be easy.”
If she was an arguing type of person, she might have countered his claim. But, she wasn’t. Besides, there was truth to what he said. It hadn’t been easy. Getting used to the not-quite-Amish lifestyle was difficult, indeed. Whenever they went places, he liked to drive. She was uncomfortable with driving, unless it was a long distance. She often stayed home instead of joining him to avoid the overuse of the truck, a luxury that shouted of the way of the Englische. The house had electricity and the bright lights hurt her eyes at night. She was always lighting the kerosene lamp but Jake would flip the switch when he walked into a room. But the worst part had been the separation from the community.
There were times that she would be invited to local gatherings at her family’s house. But it wasn’t as frequently as before. While Amish sometimes shunned wayward members of the church, she had never joined. Yet, in many ways, she felt as though she were shunned, having fallen outside of the fold. She felt lonely. To make matters worse, Jake’s somber mood since his return left her feeling even worse…she felt alone. “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle,” she finally said.
While she appreciated Jake’s awareness of the sacrifices she had made, she was more concerned that he was not back to his jovial self. He seemed distracted and disturbed. The trip back to Connecticut had set him back. Sylvia wondered if there were simply too many memories from his first marriage, reminders of the accident, which had caused this distance between them. All she could do was pray that God would help lead Jake out of the darkness that seemed to envelop him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was February when she faced the empty bedroom. It was time to start preparing for the baby but she dreaded cleaning out the room. Jake was so busy with working in the barn that she didn’t want to ask him for help. She was too aware that he rarely spoke about the upcoming birth of their first child and he certainly didn’t have the foresight to plan for a room. But Sylvia didn’t mind. Her days had become so routine that she welcomed the change. In addition, Lillian had volunteered to help her.
Of course, now that she stood in the doorway, she wasn’t sure where to start. She had picked the smaller of the two rooms to be the baby’s. While the baby would sleep in their bedroom until it slept through the night, she still needed a changing table and place for its clothing. The only problem was that the smaller bedroom was filled with boxes that held some of Jake’s things. He must have brought them when he had moved but had never emptied them.
“There you are!” Lillian said as she walked up the stairs. “Baking bread, I smell. What a wonderful gut welcome to your home.”
“Nothing like fresh baked bread and jam on a cold winter day,” Sylvia said as she greeted her sister-in-law with a smile. “It’s right kind of you to help. I know you have your own chores.”
Lillian peered over Sylvia’s shoulder into the room. “Oh my,” she exclaimed. “We do have our work cut out for us, don’t we?”
They spent the next hour, seated on the floor as they rooted through the boxes. Some of the boxes contained clothing. Sylvia and Lillian sorted through them, making piles in the hallway of what they felt should be donated and what was wearable. One of the things that Sylvia loved about Lillian was her ability to laugh and talk, making any occasion cheerful and celebratory. From the first day that Jonas Junior had brought his new bride to live on the Lapp farm, Sylvia had always felt close to Lillian and enjoyed spending time with her. Today was certainly no different.
It was just after ten when they took a break to retreat downstairs for a warm cup of coffee and slice of Sylvia’s fresh bread. They sat at the table, looking out the window toward the barn. The door was open just enough so that Sylvia could see the lights were on but she didn’t see Jake moving around. She figured that he’d be working on the stalls right about now. The sky was grey and there was a hint of snow in the clouds.
“Can’t wait until spring finally comes,” Lillian said.
“At least we didn’t have much snow this year, ja?”
Lillian laughed. “Not like last year. But the children are quite sore about that. They were looking forward to sleigh riding!”
Sylvia laughed with her. “I can imagine.”
“I bet Jake’s anxious for spring, too, ja?”
Her question caught her off-guard. It wasn’t like Lillian to ask questions of a personal nature. Sylvia wondered why her sister-in-law had shifted the conversation. “I imagine so,” she answered cautiously.
“First time planting spring crops and you said two of the horses were going to foal in the spring, if I recall. Should be exciting,” Lillian continued.
“Ja, exciting,” Sylvia added, lifting her coffee cup to her lips and watching Lillian carefully.
Her sister-in-law took a deep breath and glanced at Sylvia. She smiled but it wasn’t her normal smile. It seemed forced. “Speaking of exciting, you sure haven’t looked very excited recently, Sylvia. I know it’s none of my concern or maybe I’m just ferhoodled. But I was wondering if everything is OK?” She set her cup down and reached out to touch Sylvia’s hand. “You just look so sad, sister.”
Try as she might, Sylvia couldn’t help feeling the tears well into her eyes. She glanced down at the floor, blinking rapidly in the hopes that they wouldn’t fall down her cheeks. But, it didn’t take long for the first one to trickle down. She raised her eyes, knowing that she couldn’t avoid Lillian’s concerned gaze. It was time to confide and confess.
“It’s been hard, Lillian,” she started. “I miss so many things. Mamm’s cooking, the church services, the fellowship.”
“I know, Sylvia. We all know it must be hard,” Lillian said, comforting her with her soft words.
The tears streamed down her cheeks now. “And then, there’s Jake…” She hesitated to share everything but she needed to speak to someone, to hear a different opinion, to get some advice. “Ever since he disappeared, he just hasn’t been the same.”
It took a moment for Sylvia’s words to sink in. Lillian frowned and tilted her head. “Disappeared? What do you mean that he disappeared?”
“It was just before Steve’s wedding. He received a letter and was gone the next day. Returned to where he came from. He said he’d be gone for a few days but it was almost three weeks. I didn’t hear from him and had to plant the winter wheat by myself. Did all of the chores alone…milking, cleaning, mucking.”
“Sylvia!” Lillian gasped. “You should have come to us! We would have helped. You should never have undertaken that alone!”
“I tried to ask for help. But, when I did, Mamm made a comment about how Jake makes me work too hard. I was embarrassed.” She paused, hearing her own words. “Yes, I was so embarrassed that, just two months after I left the fold, I had been abandoned. I’m so ashamed, Lillian, but my pride truly got in the way.” She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. “Of course Jake came back, showed up at Steve’s wedding. I was so happy to see him…relieved that he had returned.”
“Why did he leave?”
Sylvia shrugged. “I never thought to ask for details. He said he had unfinished business to tend to in New York City and Connecticut.” The tears were in control now but she still felt heavy-hearted. “He hasn’t been the same since, Lillian. I’m so afraid that he thinks he made a mistake.”
“Mistake?”
Sylvia nodded. “Moving here and marrying me. He rarely talks to me, spends all of his time in the barn. I’m so afraid of what would happen if he decides that he doesn’t like this life.”
“Oh Sylvia,” Lillian said. “I’m so sorry.” She looked genuinely upset. One of the key comf
orts in an Amish woman’s life was that her husband was her life mate. There was no such thing as a mistake in marriage. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how Sylvia felt. Those were foreign emotions to Lillian and she could only sense the tip of the grief that Sylvia was experiencing. “Perhaps you should talk to him?”
“I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried. I do whatever I can to make him happy. I’m adapting to the little things that make our lives non-Amish. But it’s so hard, Lillian. And when I broach the subject, he seems to shut down. He says that he’s worried for me. That’s the only thing that I can get out of him. But I don’t think he means about the baby.”
“Worried? I wonder about what.”
“If he’d only talk to me,” Sylvia added quietly.
Lillian took a deep breath and sighed. “You just have to have faith in the Lord, Sylvia. Jake loves you. Anyone with eyes and a heart can see that. Whatever is bothering him will come out sooner or later. But it seems that it will be on his time, not yours.”
Having talked about the situation with Lillian, Sylvia already felt a little better. She realized that she had been holding too much inside. She missed the Jake that she had fallen in love with but she knew that he was still there. Lillian’s words rang in her ears, that Jake, indeed, loved her dearly. She had no choice but to wait for him to share his burden with her. “Ja, time will mend the wound, I suppose.”
After finishing their coffee, they returned upstairs to continue working on the rest of the bedroom. Lillian carried several boxes of items that they felt should be donated downstairs and left them on the porch. In the meantime, Sylvia sat beside another box, one of the last remaining boxes in the room that needed to be unpacked and sorted through. They had cleared out six boxes but two remained.
When she lifted the lid, she was surprised to see that it did not contain clothing but papers and files. She glanced through the box, shifting through the stacks of envelopes. She started to put them back when her eyes noticed a bank statement sticking out of a file folder. Without thinking, she lifted it by the corner and glanced at it. It was dated a few months ago. She had never thought to ask about their financial situation. That was just something that men handled, at least in most Amish households. But when her eyes shifted across the paper, she felt her heart start to pound when she saw the amount of money in the bank account.
“Sylvia?”
His voice startled her. She turned her head to look at the doorway. But there were no words that came to her lips.
Jake stood there, his face pale as he saw her kneeling before the box. “I came to see if you needed anything else bought down. I saw Lillian lugging boxes,” he said slowly, his eyes lingering on the paper in her hand. “I didn’t know you were clearing out a room already for the baby. You should have told me.”
“Jake, what is this?” she asked, holding the paper for him to see.
“You weren’t meant to see that,” he replied. His voice was low and his words spoken in a crisp, even tone.
She felt angry and hurt. “You thought you should keep something like this from me, Jake?”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“Not intentional?” She struggled to get to her feet. He reached out to help her but she cringed from his touch. “Where did all of this money come from, Jake?” Clutching the paper, she waved it at him. “Is this new life of yours just a hobby? A game to you?”
“Sylvia…”
She shook her head, defiant for the first time in her life. “No. I have been patient with you for months. You left me alone, you ran off somewhere with no explanation. You returned to me a changed man, an empty shell. I’ve been struggling to understand, to help. But you have shut me out. You took me away from my own world and abandoned me in yours, Jake. Now this?”
“I fail to see why this is such a big deal,” he stated.
“Where did all of this money come from?” she repeated.
“A settlement.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “A what?”
He took a deep breath and leaned against the doorframe. “A settlement. A legal proceeding.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice returning to her normal tone. But she still felt the stress of the situation. “You were given this money?”
“Yes.”
“Given this type of money?” She couldn’t believe it. Who gives away millions of dollars? “Why?”
“It was from her accident,” he said softly.
“From a car accident?”
There was a moment of silence. Then, Jake walked over to the box on the floor and ruffled through it. He pulled out something that looked like a newspaper and turned back to face her. The expression on his face was so sorrowful that Sylvia felt her heart skip a beat. He seemed to apologize with his eyes as he said, “I never meant to expose you to this, Sylvia.”
“Expose me? To what?” His evasiveness was taxing her nerves and, for the first time, she felt anger at him.
He handed her the newspaper. It was the front page of the New York Times. “I never said it was a car accident. You just assumed that,” he stated.
He watched as her eyes scanned the newspaper. There were photos on that page. He knew exactly which ones she was looking at since he had stared at that newspaper many times before in complete disbelief. While it had happened years ago, it still seemed just as surreal. And the memories were just as raw. Now, as he watched Sylvia, he knew the moment that the realization sunk in.
When she looked up at him, he nodded. “Yes, Sylvia. It’s true. And I was there when it happened.”
“You were there?” She thrust the paper back at him as if it was burning her hands. Her own face was pale and her eyes wide with shock.
“I told you that I worked on Wall Street. She did, too. Only I worked in a different building. When I heard about what happened, I ran as fast as I could to where she worked. But there was too much smoke and debris. I couldn’t get close enough. But I was standing there when it collapsed. I saw the whole thing happen, Sylvia.” He shut his eyes as if trying to erase the memory. “I couldn’t save her. You have no idea how helpless I felt. How helpless I still feel when I think back to that horrible morning. What I saw that day haunts me. It took me a long time to forget, if you can ever forget something like that.” He opened his eyes and looked at her, registering the shock on her face by what he was telling her. “I told you the world is an ugly place and I told you that I never wanted to go back to that city. Now you know why.”
Yes, she knew the world was ugly. She didn’t know how ugly, but she knew that the church sheltered them from being overly exposed to it. The rules that the bishops, elders, and deacons made and enforced insured that by creating a safety net around the community.
“So you came here to escape that ugliness. Why did you go back, Jake?”
“There were some legal issues with the settlement. Being there brought everything back. I had to actually drive by the site. Life just seemed to sweep the debris away and go on, rebuild…forget. As much as people say they will never forget, they have. It’s cliché at this point. No one cares, not really. That’s why I came here, Sylvia. To find myself and try to make sense of this tragedy.” He raised his hand to his brow and rubbed his forehead. “Then I met you. You were the peace that I wanted to find. You helped me find it. How could I not fall in love with you? How could I not want this? But then I had to go back and it sent me into a tailspin.”
“I don’t understand,” Sylvia whispered.
Jake took a deep breath. “There are simply too many memories, too many emotions. It was like déjà vu, you see. Right before it happened, we had only just gotten married. We had a promising future that was stolen. And, now, all I can think about is how I could promise to protect you and a baby when I cannot control the dangers of the world.”
“And now you push me away?”
“I didn’t mean to push you away.”
She looked down at the bank statement again. The paper fel
t dirty and worldly. It was full of sin and evil. “This money is no gut, Jake,” she stated simply. She reached out and handed it to him. “You have to know that. Money doesn’t help with forgiveness. Maybe it just makes it worse. No wonder you are so ferhoodled.” She waited until he took the paper. “You can’t hide from what happened by coming to your grandfather’s farm and playing farmer while pretending to be Amish, Jake. You will never find that peace. We are not a pill that can be swallowed to make the pain go away. You either want it or you don’t.”
He flinched at her words. “What are you saying?”
“You can’t take the good but leave behind what you think is bad.” She started to walk past him. She was upset and needed to get some fresh air. But he reached out for her arm. “Jake, I really need to think about this. I need some time alone.”
“I’m not trying to take the good and leave the bad,” he said. “I’m not pretending to be Amish. I told you that I would not join the church.”