Amish Celebrations

by Beth Wiseman

  Rebecca twisted to face him, her hands folded in her lap, careful not to so much as brush his knees with hers as she repositioned herself. “Let me help you.” Glowering, she raised her chin. “I think what you’re trying to say is that you found an Englisch woman more attractive than me, and you were completely taken in by her, enough so that it caused you to question whether or not you wanted to be baptized and marry me.”

  She’d practically quoted what he’d told Paul, but it was inaccurate. He just wasn’t sure how to explain to Rebecca in a way that she’d understand and still want to be with him. “Ya, I was attracted to her, but not just the way you think.” He cast his eyes down. “I was able to tell her things I can’t tell you.”

  “Like what?” Rebecca’s tone was clipped, and Noah knew he had a long way to go to win back her affections.

  “I’ve always wanted you to love everything about me. I didn’t think you needed to know my every thought, my every fear, or all the things I question about our life.” She raised an eyebrow but also tipped her head to the side a little, seemingly prepared for him to go on. “To be able to talk to someone so openly about my fears and the things that worried me felt freeing.”

  “Freeing?” Rebecca gritted her teeth. “It felt freeing to be able to talk to a stranger about your innermost feelings?”

  “Ya, it did.” He held up a palm when she opened her mouth to say something. “Just let me finish. When—”

  “Did you drink alcohol at that party?” Rebecca clenched her lips together, which Noah had always thought was cute. Right now it was plain scary. Lying wasn’t going to win him any points. Rebecca would see right through him, and God would frown on it.

  “Ya, I did, but not much. And if it makes you feel any better, I was sick as a hound dog the next morning.”

  She smiled a little, which was the only encouragement he’d received since he arrived, even if it was a little coldhearted.

  “My point is we ended up stuck in a room together because neither one of us wanted to drink anything else, and Gavin and this girl named Penny wanted to be alone, so we just talked. She didn’t know me, and I didn’t know her. But we fell into an easy conversation, and before I knew it, I was telling her things I’d always been afraid to tell you.”

  “Like what?”

  Noah tipped the rim of his straw hat back and scratched his head, not because he needed a recollection of the conversation. He remembered it clearly, and he remembered the way McKenna had listened and not judged him. “You’ve told me over and over that you can’t sleep unless everything is completely black, total darkness.” He paused, feeling his face warming. “I can’t sleep without some kind of light on. I usually leave a flashlight on shining across the room, and I have a drawer full of batteries so I can do that every night.”

  Rebecca’s eyes widened just as she broke out in laughter.

  Noah folded his arms across his chest and refused to look at her. “See, that’s why I never told you.” He twisted to face her just as she put a hand over her mouth. “There’s more, so I might as well get it out in the open.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want six to eight kinner the way you do. I’d be happy with one or two. I feel like I’m going to faint when I see blood. Not very manly.” He shook his head. “There’s just a bunch of stuff I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted to be everything you ever wanted me to be.”

  Rebecca stared at him for a long while. “What made you tell a perfect stranger these things? What exactly is so intimidating about me that you felt you couldn’t talk to your future wife?”

  Noah felt a little relief that she’d referred to herself as his future wife. “Because I didn’t know her. I didn’t really care what she thought. It just felt good to tell someone things no one knew.” He shrugged. “Well, mei mamm knows about the flashlight, but I don’t think she’d ever say anything.” Sighing, he went on. “But the surprising thing is that when that woman said she totally understood, didn’t judge me, and was so nice, I guess I didn’t realize how much I’d been craving that kind of emotional intimacy. For months, all you and I have talked about is wedding plans. I’ve got things I’m worried about. What if I don’t have enough money saved to take care of you the way you deserve? I’ve had all these worries bottled up inside, and I guess I wanted someone to listen and care.

  “And not only did I open up to her, but she opened up to me. She’s got a really bad situation at home with her mother, who is hooked on drugs. Her mamm’s been in and out of rehabilitation facilities, and she’s involved with some bad people. She opened up to me the same way I did to her, since she said she hadn’t been able to do that with anyone. And she has a boyfriend. I didn’t know that at the time, but she did tell me she was telling me things she’d never told anyone.”

  Rebecca had inched slightly closer to Noah, but she wasn’t giving him as much understanding as he’d hoped for, mostly just staring at him and listening.

  “Rebecca, she’s a pretty woman, but she’s not as pretty as you. I was drawn to the person inside because I felt like I could be honest, and it felt good.” He hung his head. “I guess I was a little infatuated at first.” Looking up at her, he said a quick prayer that he wouldn’t cry. “But you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, the only woman I’ll ever love. I just want to be able to tell you anything.”

  Unexpectedly, a tear dribbled down Rebecca’s cheek. “Have I always been so unapproachable that you felt you couldn’t talk to me? And don’t you think I have fears, things that embarrass me, and worries about making a lifelong commitment? But I just figured we would work through things after we were married, that we would grow in our faith and in our marriage.”

  “That’s what I want too.” He looked away as shame wrapped around him.

  Rebecca couldn’t shake the image of Noah in the arms of another woman, although it sounded innocent enough. But worse than the vision was that Noah had talked so intimately with another person, and the thought fueled the jealousy bubbling up inside her like oil and water that were never going to mix. But she loved Noah, and she didn’t want to spend her life without him.

  “Noah, I love you.” Rebecca swallowed the sob in her throat when Noah covered his eyes with one hand, his shoulders shaking.

  He leaned over and pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry. I love you, too, and want to marry you more than anything. I don’t know what happened. I-I don’t know.”

  His hat slid off, and Rebecca kissed the top of his head, then lay hers against his damp hair. After a few seconds, Noah eased away, his eyes moist, lip trembling. “I almost lost you.”

  Rebecca brushed back his bangs. “Ya, you did. But I forgive you. So forgive yourself.” Noah tended to hold on to things, and despite her hurt and anger, Rebecca was sure he would lug this guilt around like a bag of cement. But equally as cumbersome was the load Rebecca couldn’t seem to shed. “But I reserve the right not to like that woman, at least for a while longer.”

  She took a deep breath, hoping she never met the woman who had threatened her future, even if unintentionally. She couldn’t recall feeling jealousy before. Rebecca had always felt solid in her relationship with Noah, confident that they would be baptized, married, fight and argue like all couples, but always be together. That stability had shifted. Rebecca thought about the provocative way some of the Englisch women dressed. Was it Noah’s fault he’d been lured under her spell? It would be easier for her to stomach if Noah had been a victim, had been slipped some kind of love potion or something. But everyone faced temptation, and Noah hadn’t walked away from it.

  She decided to give herself time to unload the bitterness she felt toward a woman she’d never met, whom she never wanted to meet.

  McKenna packed the last of her belongings in a small red suitcase she kept under her bed. She gazed at a picture of her and her mother at the beach a few years ago, during one of her mother’s many remissions following a rehab program. She placed the frame on top of a soft white sweater, then folded the s
weater around it, hoping the glass wouldn’t break. A tear trickled down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away when she heard footsteps.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this to your mother.” Evan’s voice sent goose bumps all over McKenna’s skin, and the hair on the back of her neck prickled as she started to tremble. He’d hit her before, and it might happen again before she was safely out of the house, but she’d made up her mind that if he laid a hand on her, this time she was going to fight back.

  He poked her in the back. “Hey. Did you hear me?”

  McKenna turned around on shaky knees. “I called the police. I told them there are enough drugs in this house to build a bonfire. You’ve got about ten minutes to get out of here and never come back.”

  It was the biggest lie McKenna had ever told, but when a siren sang in the distance, Evan’s eyes went wild. McKenna silently asked God to forgive the lie and also thanked Him for His perfect timing.

  Evan shot from the room, and not a minute later she heard the front door slam, followed by his squealing tires as he spun out of the driveway. He would assume that McKenna’s mother would go to jail. McKenna knew Evan well enough to know he’d leave her mother to rot in a cell before he’d help her. He’d always been happy to leave her drugs in exchange for whatever her mother gave him on the weekends, but McKenna was pretty sure Evan was gone for good now.

  She clicked the locks on the suitcase, glanced around the room, and thought about what her future held as she made her way down the hall. She’d have to quit college, save money, and get a place of her own. For now Penny said she could stay with her. It wouldn’t have been McKenna’s first choice. She hated to hear Penny’s parents fighting all the time, and she didn’t know how Penny lived with it. But Penny was obviously used to it. Maybe they had always fought and it was just a way of life for her.

  She’d briefly confessed about her mother when she asked to stay with her. Penny had been unusually quiet on the phone. McKenna wondered if Penny, or her parents, didn’t want McKenna staying there. But then Penny said, “It’ll be fun. We can party every night.”

  McKenna worried she was jumping from one hotbed to another, but as she slowed her stride and stopped at her mother’s bedroom door, she let the built-up tears fall. “Bye, Mom,” she whispered.

  Her mother was lying on her side facing the window. McKenna didn’t know if she was awake, too high to hear her, or just didn’t care that she was leaving. But she watched her shoulder rise and fall. She was breathing.

  McKenna went to the living room and sat on the couch. Sniffling, she swiped at her eyes as a car pulled in the driveway.

  When she opened the door, Loraine, her mother’s old friend and sponsor, was standing there with open arms, and McKenna fell into them. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “You did the right thing. Once a sponsor always a sponsor. One of these days I hope after your mom falls she’ll stand up and stay that way. But you need to go on with your life.”

  McKenna wasn’t sure how she was going to do that, but she trusted Loraine to do what was best for her mother.

  She glanced at the time on her phone, then checked her text messages and missed calls. Nothing. This was the time she and Paul met at the library. She considered going, to see if maybe Paul was there. But she’d already done that the Saturday before and he’d never shown. And he hadn’t called. She’d obviously misread any feelings she thought he might have had for her. And based on what his sister had said, it was probably for the best.

  But her heart was heavy as she drove to Penny’s house. She slowed as she passed by the library. There were two buggies tethered to the side of the building. All Amish buggies looked mostly the same, gray and uniform in design. But Paul’s had a tiny yellow sticker on the back, the remnants of a price tag, he’d told her.

  She slowed down more.

  CHAPTER 10

  Paul went to the self-help aisle and pretended to peruse the books. In his heart, he knew McKenna wouldn’t be there, and that was probably for the best. But he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. At the least he needed to explain to her why he hadn’t shown up the past Saturday or called. He would have called if he hadn’t left her number in the pocket of his slacks, which had gone through the wringer that morning. Maybe that was God’s way of telling him to force her out of his heart, that she wasn’t the one. But it sure had felt like she was.

  He walked around the library, stopping here and there to look at books he wasn’t interested in, and he wasn’t really paying much attention when he found himself on the romance aisle. After a few strange looks from the women nearby, he decided to leave. But he continued to search his mind for anything else about McKenna, chastising himself again for never asking for her last name. He wanted to clear her from his thoughts, but instead of aiding him in that effort, God seemed to be working against him, almost prodding him not to give up on her.

  By the time he pulled in the driveway at home, his despair had crept up on him, merged with bitterness, and he was ready to lash out at the first person he saw, which just happened to be Becky. He went out to the backyard where she was hanging clothes on the line and recognized his pants right away. He’d found them in a pile of wet clothes in the laundry room that morning and had pulled out McKenna’s phone number, smudged and illegible.

  “Wie bischt,” she said, smiling.

  Paul had already heard the news that the wedding was back on, and he was happy for his sister, but his own heart felt permanently damaged.

  “Why are you doing clothes on a Saturday?” Monday had been washday for as long as Paul could remember.

  Becky finished clipping a blue dress to the line, then turned to face him, pulling her black sweater snug. “It rained Monday and on and off the rest of the week. Once it rained after I’d already hung everything out to dry. Mamm and I were busy finishing a quilt for Mary Mae anyway.” She smiled. “And it’s a gut thing we did because the baby arrived yesterday.” His sister lifted a pair of their father’s slacks, gave them a good shake, and proceeded to pin each leg to the line. “I had to run everything back through the wringer this morning since they weren’t drying very well hanging in the house. They smelled funny too.” She looked up at the partly cloudy sky. “It’d better not rain again.”

  “Are you the one who took the pants in my room?” He nodded at his black pants, the ones with a worn spot on the knee, the ones that had previously held McKenna’s phone number.

  “Ya, it was me.” She didn’t look at him, just lifted another dress from the basket.

  “Don’t you check the pockets?” Paul’s nostrils flared as he clenched his fists at his sides.

  Becky draped the dress over her arm and turned to him. “I try to remember to check the pockets, but you and Daed need to do that before you toss your clothes in the hamper.”

  “My pants weren’t in the hamper. If I want my clothes washed, I’ll put them in the laundry room. Don’t take clothes out of my room.”

  She raised her eyebrows and clamped her lips tight before she said, “Here’s a better idea: why don’t you just wash and dry your own clothes!”

  Paul didn’t know the first thing about doing laundry, so he decided to soften his voice. Besides, yelling at Becky wasn’t really justified. He’d lost McKenna on his own by not calling her or showing up at the library the previous Saturday. “Sorry. I lost something important that was in my pocket.” He turned to go to the house.

  “Wait.”

  Paul turned around as Becky walked toward him. He folded his arms across his chest and scowled. “What?”

  “What was in your pocket?” Becky narrowed her eyes. “Although whatever it was, I don’t think you should be mad at me.”

  “A phone number.” He looked down and kicked at the grass. When he looked up, Becky was grinning. “A girl’s phone number, no doubt.”

  “Ya, a girl’s phone number, and it’s not funny, so quit smiling.”

  Becky shrugged, then headed ba
ck to the clothes. “I’m sure there is another girl waiting in the wings,” she said over her shoulder. “There always is.”

  Paul’s blood boiled as he marched back over to his sister. “You think you know me so well, that I dump every woman who gets close to me, just so I can move on to the next one. But maybe you don’t know me very well at all.”

  Becky faced off with him. Even with her chin lifted, she was a foot shorter. “Then why do you keep dating? You break those girls’ hearts, and it doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  “I told you before, it always hurts me too. But none of them want the same things I do, and that ultimately ends the relationship.”

  “You end it every time. It’s a pattern. And I feel very sorry for all those women whose hearts you’ve broken. And I really liked the last one, even though she was Englisch. She cried when she left here, after I told her this is how you are. I’m not even supposed to tell you she came by. You get close and then break up. And—”

  Paul grabbed her arm, then quickly let go when she flinched. “There was an Englisch girl here, looking for me?” His heart pounded against his chest. “What was her name?”

  Becky squeezed her eyes closed like she was trying to remember. “McKenna. That was her name.”

  Paul drew in a deep calming breath, even though he was shaking with anger. “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth,” Becky said defensively as she lifted her chin again. “She said you were supposed to have met her at the library, and she was worried because you hadn’t shown up. It was earlier in the week. She was so sweet. I liked her very much.”

  “Me too!” Paul closed his eyes for a few seconds and tried to relax. “What else was said?”

  “Paul, do you know how many of your ex-girlfriends I’ve had to console? I just wasn’t up for it again, and besides, she was Englisch, so the relationship had nowhere to go anyway. So I told her that was how you are—‘love ’em and leave ’em,’ like they say.”