Amanda Weds a Good Man

by Naomi King

  “And—and he smashed all the pottery she’d packed up, and broke her potter’s wheel, too,” Vera gushed. “How can that be right, Dat? What did Amanda do to deserve such treatment? She put away her ceramics, just like he’d told her to.”

  Wyman’s heart slid into his boots. If Amanda had left without telling him . . . but surely she just needed to let off some steam. He sighed wearily, wondering whether he should first hunt down his wife or go speak to Uriah Schmucker. Jemima was dishing soup into bowls, so he decided that everyone—including Amanda—needed time to settle down. If the twins were here, it meant his wife couldn’t have gone far . . . and that she wouldn’t stay away long. Would she?

  Wyman went into the front room, where the younger kids sat in a row with their hands folded in their laps. “Come to dinner,” he said gently. “After we pray, we can talk about the bishop’s visit and figure out what to do.”

  Simon’s eyes widened. “I’m real sorry about Wags getting into the kitchen with muddy feet,” he whimpered. “Mrs. Schmucker got after me for that, and then she talked mean to Vera, and then—”

  “It was so scary when the bishop made us go downstairs,” one of the twins blurted.

  “Jah, I didn’t want to,” her sister continued. “And when he started throwin’ Mamma’s dishes on the floor—”

  “We were all grabbin’ hold of Wags so he wouldn’t attack the bishop—or step in that broken glass,” Simon exclaimed. “Why did he do that, Dat?”

  As these images raced in his mind, Wyman felt his temper rising. Why, indeed? “I don’t know, son,” he replied, “but I intend to find out. For now, though, we’ve got hot soup on the table and we can think about these things while we eat, all right?”

  “I don’t want to think about it,” one of the twins declared, and then she began to cry.

  “I don’t like that man. He’s mean,” her sister added, and then she, too, burst into tears.

  “I want Mamma! Where’d she go?” sobbed the first twin.

  “Why isn’t she upstairs yet?” wailed the other, while in the kitchen, Alice Ann howled in sympathy.

  Wyman felt totally out of his depth. He still couldn’t tell Dora and Cora apart, and they turned away from him when he opened his arms. Simon’s eyes were wide with the belief that he’d contributed to this catastrophe by letting his muddy dog in the house. Vera was in tears, Jemima was sputtering like a drenched cat, and meanwhile Alice Ann and the twins continued to cry inconsolably.

  And Amanda was gone. Not an hour ago he’d been embracing her, enjoying a rare moment alone with her. How had so much happened since then?

  It occurred to Wyman that this was the first time he’d been with all of the younger children when Amanda wasn’t present. Does she ever feel this overwhelmed? This helpless? he wondered as he headed back into the kitchen. Thank goodness the three kids on the couch followed him, for he had no idea how to stop their tears. But he was the man of this family, expected to be strong and invincible. Expected to fix this situation.

  When Eddie came in from the barn, his eyes widened at the sheer racket of the girls’ weeping. “What’s going on?” he asked as he hung up his coat. “Why did Amanda race out of here like a house afire? I called after her, but she didn’t answer.”

  She’s gone. Maybe for good . . . Wyman tried not to act as though he’d lost all sense of control, but that’s how he felt. “The bishop stirred things up,” he replied beneath the children’s din. “And then Amanda went for a ride to, um—settle herself.”

  Eddie’s cocked eyebrow said he didn’t particularly believe that. Or condone it. Wyman was grateful that Vera and Jemima were soothing the children, reminding them it was time to give thanks for their food.

  And, God, I hope You’ll watch over Amanda, wherever she is, Wyman prayed fervently. Please return her safely here, where we love her and miss her.

  Wyman blinked. While it wasn’t unusual for his prayers to flow without conscious thought, he did miss Amanda—and not just because she wasn’t here to restore order. Mere weeks had passed since the wedding, yet she’d become such a part of him that he hadn’t realized how . . . lost he felt without her beside him. He stirred the fragrant vegetable soup, smiling at the alphabet letters—surely Amanda’s idea. She was good about teaching the kids and making them think. The twins were starting to read, so Simon wanted to catch up to them—a positive step for a boy who couldn’t sit still.

  “When’s Mamma coming back?” one of the twins asked as the sandwiches started around.

  Wyman gazed at the two little girls dressed in pink, so like their mother with their dark braids and beautiful eyes. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “But she will return, girls, because she loves you. And she won’t want us to worry about her.”

  Please make that true, he mused as Cora and Dora thought about his answer.

  “She loves me, too,” Simon declared as he crushed crackers into his soup. “Even when me and Wags get into trouble, I can tell she still wants to be my new mamm.”

  Wyman’s heart thudded. If his five-year-old son felt so convinced of Amanda’s love, surely she would return to care for the boy—and all of them. Surely her devotion to her new family overrode her aversion to the bishop. . . .

  “She has to come back,” Eddie said as he grabbed sandwiches from the platter. “She’s married to you, Dat. She vowed to love and obey you, so she’s got no choice but to follow the rules.”

  As Wyman stirred his steaming soup, he came to a startling realization: while his eldest son had stated the truth as Old Amish folks knew it—and while Wyman firmly believed in the tenets of their faith—at this moment he wondered if the rules should be their highest priority. After all, hadn’t Uriah Schmucker crossed the line when he had broken Amanda’s pottery and her wheel? Bishops were indeed chosen by God, but weren’t they also accountable for their actions?

  “We have a lot of things to consider, son,” Wyman replied. He glanced at Vera, who was breaking a sandwich into bites for Alice Ann. “I didn’t realize you had pieces in Treva’s Greenhouse, Vera, and I’m sorry I didn’t remove them,” he murmured. “Maybe the Schmuckers’ visit would have gone differently if the bishop hadn’t thought we were ignoring his instructions.”

  Vera sighed. “Jah, well, you told me not to get too caught up in Amanda’s pottery. I should’ve listened.”

  “Uriah’s mind was made up before he got here.”

  Wyman’s eyes widened at Jemima’s quiet remark. Women of her generation tended to believe bishops could do no wrong—or they kept their differing opinions under their kapps. Amanda’s mother-in-law looked older today, more frazzled, and while her sharp tongue often rankled him, Wyman could see how worried she was—probably because she depended upon Amanda for help getting dressed each day.

  “Where do you suppose she went, Jemima?” he asked.

  Jemima kept stirring her soup instead of eating it. “I think I know. But it’s best to leave her be rather than go chasing after her. You have no idea . . .”

  As her reply trailed off, Wyman sensed the elderly woman had given the most insightful answer of all. He did have no idea what might be going through Amanda’s mind—about the bishop, about settling into his home and family . . . about being married to him. First they’d had three scared little girls climbing into bed with them, along with Lizzie’s troubles at school, and Simon’s mischief, and Pete’s and Eddie’s defiant attitudes, and Vera’s struggle to keep her mamm’s house the same. Had Amanda known even a moment’s peace since she’d married him?

  Peace? Viola never complained about keeping your family together—

  Guilt stabbed Wyman’s heart. His first wife had complied with everything that had been expected of her . . . but had she been at peace? Had she been happy?

  You have no idea. He winced inwardly. Viola had been a model Amish wife, never complaining . . . letting him make the
decisions and set the course their family followed. But Wyman recalled bleak periods of their marriage when she had withdrawn into depression, too—especially after the bishop had forbidden her to paint.

  So what are you going to DO about this? Amanda isn’t Viola. And she’s not getting a fair shake.

  Wyman sighed. He’d been staring into his soup as though hoping the macaroni letters would form a message—a sign from God about how to handle this situation. Meanwhile, the silence at the table meant everyone else was waiting for his solution to this problem.

  “Jemima’s right,” he murmured. “Amanda will come home when she’s ready. We can only pray that it’ll be sooner rather than later.”

  And when had he ever let one woman take off and disrupt his home while another woman told him what to do about it? It went against Wyman’s deepest beliefs for Amanda to work out her troubles in her own time, because he so desperately wanted to find her now. Would his children think he was weak—or unconcerned about Amanda’s welfare and theirs—if he didn’t go after her? He knew quite well what Uriah Schmucker would say.

  Wyman took his first bite of soup. The situation was out of his hands—not because he liked it that way, but because he was letting go of it. He would allow this problem to resolve itself in the way God intended, and pray Amanda behaved the way he wanted her to. He thoroughly disliked not having control over the outcome, but then . . . wasn’t that how the world worked for Amanda every day?

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Amanda sat beside Jerome at the table that had been used by generations of Lambrights. They were eating bacon, eggs, and potatoes she’d fried after they’d agreed his leftover stew was beyond saving. While it was a comfort to sit in this kitchen again, using dishes that had been here when she’d moved in as Atlee’s bride, she’d gotten herself into another pickle. Coming home to this farm satisfied a longing in her soul, but Jerome was adamant: she couldn’t stay.

  “Does Wyman mistreat you, Amanda?” her nephew demanded. “I’ll not stand for him abusing you. But if he’s taking care of you and the girls, you’ve got no cause to complain.”

  “Oh, we’re fed and we have a roof over our heads,” she replied in a strained voice. “But you might as well fetch the furniture I moved over there. Except for Jemima’s pie safe, it’s all out in the shed under dirty old tarps. There seems to be no room for my pieces in the Brubaker house.”

  Jerome’s thick eyebrows rose, but he kept eating his home fries as though they were the tastiest food anyone had ever cooked. Amanda got up to fry him a couple more eggs. How could she state her case without losing his support? There was a fine line between whining and stating a truth that was unacceptable . . . but talking with her nephew forced her to figure out exactly how she felt about her new life as Wyman’s wife.

  “I don’t think Wyman realizes how hard it is to take another woman’s place. He assumes I can fit right into Viola’s mold,” she mused aloud. “And Vera, naturally, wants the kitchen—the whole house—left the way her mamm had it. Eddie and Pete seem to feel the same, so I’m outnumbered.”

  “So Wyman’s not intentionally being cruel? He’s just clueless?”

  Amanda smiled at Jerome’s slangy way of saying things. “Jah, that’s how I see it—although the Clearwater bishop is a horse of another color entirely.”

  As she described her first preaching Sunday, and then the way Uriah had destroyed her pottery and Uncle Mahlon’s wheel while she was away, Jerome’s brow furrowed. “And he was making the twins and Simon watch while he destroyed your pots? That’s a . . . really extreme way to be sure they don’t follow your artistic example.”

  “And dangerous!” she blurted. “Uriah left the floor covered with broken glass. I’m amazed that Simon could keep the dog from attacking him—and then we would’ve had a wounded animal and blood all over the place, as well.”

  “Not to mention a bishop who’d been bitten. Denki, Aunt,” he said as Amanda lifted the crackling eggs from the skillet onto his plate. “Truth be told, I saw some of this trouble coming. Not sure I could live in Schmucker’s district.”

  “Jah, well, what am I to do about that?” Amanda blurted. “I thought I’d followed his instructions. Yet now he’s saying I’m to give a kneeling confession because my evil paints and clay were in the basement.”

  “Not a very heartwarming way to welcome a new member to his district.”

  “Ach, and those women!” Amanda said. “All they could do was point out that the girls’ dresses were too showy. Am I out of line here? You can’t tell me God would condemn Cora and Dora to hell for wearing pink dresses to church.”

  Jerome scowled. “Sounds like a pretty conservative bunch there in Clearwater.”

  “Mean and hateful, if you ask me. But then, no one asks me,” she continued in a lower voice. “I’m just supposed to take whatever they dish up, as though . . . as though I have no feelings. Or as though my feelings don’t matter, and I should strive to be a better person, even if that means becoming a person I wasn’t created to be.”

  Amanda hated that she was crying again. Yet she had finally made a statement that expressed her exasperation: Uriah expects me to obey him rather than follow the path God has put me on. “Sorry,” she murmured, clasping her hands in her lap. “I know it’s wrong to believe I know better than the bishop. You must think I’ve become horribly self-centered, whining like a child.”

  Jerome let out a long sigh. “No, Aunt Amanda, you sound very frustrated. And very sad,” he whispered. “This isn’t how I imagined you two weeks after you married Wyman Brubaker.”

  Amanda wiped her eyes. At least her nephew wasn’t discounting her emotional outpouring, or declaring that she had to head back to Clearwater and silently accept her new lot in life. “I didn’t come here to burden you. I—I just didn’t know what else to do. Where else to go.”

  Jerome laid a gentle hand on her arm. “This farm is still yours, Aunt. You can come whenever you want to. But you know what they say. You can run, but you can’t hide.”

  “Jah, Wyman’s no doubt figured out that I’d come here—and that I wouldn’t leave the girls.” Amanda let out a shuddery breath. “It’s wrong to say this, too, but I can’t go back if everything in his house and the Clearwater district will remain the same. I won’t go back unless changes are made.”

  Amanda’s hand fluttered to her mouth. Oh, but she’d crossed a forbidden line by uttering such words. Jerome’s startled expression confirmed that she had overstepped, yet his gaze was filled with love and compassion.

  “You’d best figure out how to say that to Wyman and Uriah Schmucker,” he said softly. “And before that, you’d better think out your options, in case they don’t see things your way.”

  Options. Amanda sighed. For a Plain wife, there was but one choice: “until God will separate you in death.” If she left Wyman, she would be excommunicated. As far as members of the Old Order faith were concerned, such separation would send her straight to hell when she died, and it would make life difficult for her and the girls in the meantime. While visions of returning here to the Lambright farm seemed a sweet, simple solution, Amanda knew the Bloomingdale district wouldn’t accept her as a member again if she left her husband. Becoming a Mennonite would be the only way to continue life as she knew it. . . .

  And if I divorce Wyman, he won’t be able to remarry until I die.

  That really wasn’t fair to him, was it? Wyman was a good man . . . He couldn’t have foreseen the bishop’s extreme reaction to her pottery, and he’d had no way of knowing how those women in church would berate her, either.

  Amanda came out of her thoughts to find Jerome studying her intently, awaiting her answer. “I don’t know what to say,” she murmured over her half-eaten eggs and potatoes. “It’s not my intent to dishonor Wyman or his family—”

  “Your family now,” her nephew reminded her.

  “
—but I can’t tolerate Uriah Schmucker or his wife,” she continued in a rising voice, “and I won’t resume my place in that household until some changes are made.” Her stomach was coiling in a knot. Making such statements would surely send her to her knees for another confession, if anyone other than Jerome heard them. But she had stated her case, and there was no unsaying what her heart had declared as the truth.

  Jerome sat quietly for a moment. “If that’s to be the way of it, Aunt Amanda, you’ll need to speak your mind to Wyman, straight out. And then you’ll have to accept the consequences.”

  “Jah, there’s that.” Amanda swallowed hard, envisioning how her husband would react. Would he listen to her concerns? Would he lash out like a wounded animal? Would Wyman, as the head of the Brubaker family, dismiss her feelings and expect her to put away her misgivings about the Clearwater district as she had put away her pottery . . . as he had stashed her furniture under those musty tarps?

  Amanda sighed. Would their marriage be doomed to one of mutual resignation and unrealized dreams if she accepted those terms? Or, if she put her own desires ahead of her allegiance to the church . . . to her husband, would Wyman throw her out? She would be the one breaking her promises, after all.

  “I’ll go with you,” Jerome said in a low voice.

  Amanda’s eyes widened. “I—I don’t expect you to fight my battles, or take my side when I’m asking for—”

  “You and Jemima and the girls are my family.” He looked her straight in the eye. “What sort of man would I be if I knew you were sinking in quicksand and I didn’t throw you a rope? Whatever happens with the Brubakers, Aunt Amanda, you always have a home here. And I will always take care of you.”

  “Oh, Jerome, I—” Amanda clutched his strong, broad hand, speechless.

  “But I have to know you’ve given Wyman every chance. This is serious business,” he reminded her. “‘What God has joined let no man put asunder,’ is part of the wedding vows and I’ll not have it on my conscience—or have anyone else believing—that I gave you an easy way out of the promises you made.”