The Amish Bride

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “Not for a while. Will looks at the phone bills pretty closely. I’ll be in trouble for this as it is.”

  “Tell him it was my birthday. Maybe he’ll understand.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Write to me, then.”

  “Sure thing,” he answered as someone called out his name in the background.

  “Gotta go. Bye!”

  He was gone before I could respond. I held my silent phone in my hand, wondering if I could survive three months without him. At least if we’d had texting, we could stay in touch all day long every day. But with nothing but an occasional phone call and the US mail, I felt further away from him than I ever had from anyone before.

  I slipped the cell into my pocket and turned on the flashlight, blinking away the tears again. He didn’t want me to come home.

  I would take the baking class and learn everything I could to run my own business someday. And I would watch and see how Rosalee ran hers. I knew Ezra was right. It would be crazy for me to leave now.

  Maybe I’d even be able to figure out the code in Sarah’s book.

  I turned toward the woods, bouncing the beam among the trees. As I did, I thought of Mammi traipsing through these very trees with Aunt Klara, Aunt Giselle, and Mom tagging along beside her, coming over to spend an hour, or a morning, or an entire day at the Home Place with Sarah in the daadi haus. How nice for her that her parents had lived so close. Maybe the little girls even came over by themselves.

  I wished Mom had talked about her life growing up here in Indiana. But then I had never asked. As I turned toward the Home Place, a wave of loneliness swept over me. I didn’t know anything about the past except what I’d read in Sarah’s journal. I had no idea what I should do about the present.

  And the future I wanted was as far away from me as I was from home.

  EIGHTEEN

  For the next few weeks I worked alongside Rosalee, learning the ins and outs of her bakery business. That, combined with doing farm chores, cooking, and cleaning, made the time pass quickly.

  I had another ride tentatively lined up but was relieved when Penny called three days before the class started to say she’d signed up for it too. Just after lunch the next Tuesday, before she was scheduled to pick me up, I sat down with my notebook and read over my “Recipes for Life.”

  Find a job. Go to school. Open a bakery. Marry E. And then, Visit the Home Place.

  How things had changed since I’d written that in January. I was living at the Home Place, but I would rather be back in Lancaster County. I was going to start baking school the next day, even though I was ambivalent about it. And Ezra was six hundred miles away.

  I should have put marrying Ezra as the first thing on my list.

  As I headed down to the bakery to meet Penny, Luke approached.

  “Rosalee asked me to give this to you,” he said, handing me an envelope. It was from Ezra. I tried not to act too thrilled as I slipped it into my pocket.

  He eyed me suspiciously. I was beginning to think his shyness was simply a front for how judgmental he was.

  “Ezra’s a big boy,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt him, I promise.”

  Blushing, Luke opened his mouth to say something and then stopped.

  “Besides,” I added, “I’m out here, and he’s in Pennsylvania.”

  Luke ducked his head and turned toward the barn, not responding to me at all.

  I was sure he probably thought the same way the Gundys did—that Ezra needed to be away from me. That the less contact we had, the better. That I was set on corrupting him and snatching him away from the Amish faith.

  I wanted to read the letter but knew Penny was about to arrive, so I left it in my pocket and continued on to the bakery. When I got there, she was already waiting for me.

  “I’ll pick up a pie before we go,” she said to Rosalee.

  “You may have one. Consider it a gift for giving Ella a ride.”

  I thanked her, boxed it up quickly, grabbed my bag with a notebook and pen in it, and followed Penny out to the car. She chatted the entire way to South Bend. She couldn’t believe she was going back to school, at her age, which she said was fifty-three. I couldn’t believe she was either, except it seemed providential that she was able to give me a ride. The woman could talk more than I could, something I never would have believed a month ago.

  “I’ve been thinking about opening that little café I’ve always dreamed of in a year or so,” she said.

  I nodded as I listened. Ahead, an Amish buggy turned onto the highway. Penny barely slowed as she zipped past it.

  “After my husband left, I was pretty lost. But watching you go after your dream has encouraged me to go after my own.”

  I gave Penny a smile. Older people could be so cute sometimes. She didn’t have a clue as to how I really felt about all of this.

  Finally she stopped to take a breath, and I pulled out Ezra’s letter. Obviously, writing wasn’t his favorite thing, which made it all the more endearing. It was good to talk with you. I have a buyer for the bike. Sad but necessary. I visited the dairy Daed and Will plan to buy. It’s fine. I’m not crazy about cows and all that other stuff, but…oh, well. I’ll start working there next week. There’s a little outbuilding on the dairy that will work as a bakery. Maybe we can offer a special—milk and cookies. Ezra

  I wish he would have added an “I love you” or something reassuring like that, but the mention of a building that would work as a bakery was enough. He must have written it the day after we talked. Someday we would have our own Home Place. Someday soon. This was exactly the encouragement I needed on my first day of baking school.

  When we reached Pierre’s, Penny parked on a side street. As we moved along the sidewalk, she said, “I’m nervous. Are you?”

  “Nah.” In this situation I had nothing to lose either way. Maybe I’d do well and end up liking it, and the next three months would be worth it. But if not, or if I failed, I’d just be able to go home all the sooner. Either outcome was fine with me.

  I held the door for Penny and then followed her in. Elizabeth was at the counter again.

  “Do you teach today too?” I asked her as she opened the door to the kitchen.

  “No, Mondays and Wednesdays,” she said. “But I only have two students. Want to switch programs?” She smiled. “I’m always looking to steal students from Pierre.”

  “Oh, it’s tempting,” Penny said, grinning herself.

  I took a seat on one of the stools at a metal table close to the front, and Penny sat on the stool next to me. There were eight other students: two young men, a woman about my age, four women who looked to be in their thirties, and an older man, although he was probably a decade younger than Penny.

  It seemed like forever before Pierre appeared. When he did, he bustled into the room drying his hands on his apron. Elizabeth handed him a clipboard.

  “Bonjour!” he called out. “Bienvenue!” He stopped and beamed at all of us. “We will all be together, every Tuesday and Thursday evenings, for the next many months.” He clapped his hands together.

  “Now,” he said. “Let us introduce ourselves. Tell us your name.” He was looking at me. “Where you are from. And why are you here.”

  I froze. He pointed at me as if he’d never met me before. “You.”

  I coughed a little. “Ella Bayer. I’m from Pennsylvania. And I would like to own a bakery someday in Lancaster County.”

  Pierre rolled his eyes. “You don’t need my school to learn how to make shoofly pie.”

  I opened my mouth to explain myself, but nothing came out.

  “Or cook for a bunch of kids and farmhands.”

  I glared at him.

  “Next,” he said, pointing to Penny.

  I hardly heard a word any of the other students said. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn my prayer covering. Maybe I should have worn jeans. Maybe my first meeting with Pierre wasn’t the exception but the norm, which meant I was going to regret taking
his classes. My face grew warm.

  “First things first, which in culinary school is mise en place. This means ‘putting in place’ or ‘everything in place.’ First we assemble our ingredients and equipment and keep it all organized, all the time. Comprendre? No running around in the kitchen looking for this or that. No working ourselves into fits. No drama. Everything needs to be orderly and with purpose. Oui?”

  A couple of the students mumbled “oui” in return.

  Pierre held his hand to his ear. “Pardon?”

  “Oui,” we all called out in unison.

  “Très bien. I said mise en place was the first item of business, but really we must learn how to wash our hands first.” He laughed. “Here the government thinks they can protect you from everything. So we wash our hands twice.”

  Penny was the first off her stool and in line. I was the last. Pierre made a comment about my needing to wash extra good to get the “barnyard” out from under my fingernails. I ignored him, but Penny told him I actually worked in a bakery.

  “A really good one outside Nappanee.”

  “I thought you were from Pennsylvania?” Pierre had his hands on his hips.

  “Was,” I answered. “Obviously I’m not commuting, am I?”

  “Ah, sassy.” He laughed. “That I like.”

  I pretended to focus on washing my hands. Sassy. I could definitely do that. And stubborn.

  When Rosalee asked me how my class went that night when I returned, I told her it was fine. She pried for details. I told her I’d learned how to wash my hands and how to sift flour.

  She frowned.

  I blushed. “Thursday we learn how to make bread.”

  “Which you already know how to do too.”

  She was right. The first four weeks of the course would be spent on l’art du pain. I couldn’t imagine eight classes on bread, but no doubt Pierre could stretch it out that far. Next would be a month of classes on pastries, l’art de la pâtisserie, and then a month of classes on l’art du gateau, or in English, cakes. That was twelve weeks of classes. I’d be done by the end of July. Twelve weeks to learn to bake. Twelve weeks to figure out how to break the code in Sarah’s book.

  “I’m tired,” I said to Rosalee, standing. “I’ll see you in the morning. I thought I’d make Dutch babies for breakfast.”

  Rosalee raised her eyebrows. “I haven’t had those in years.”

  “I thought Eddie would like them.” He had been coming with Luke nearly every morning for breakfast, while Millie stayed behind and cooked breakfast for her father, Tom, and her mother, who still wasn’t feeling well.

  “I’m sure Luke will too.” Rosalee smiled. “Like the rest of us, he will like anything you make.”

  After I’d slipped into my nightgown, I pulled out my notebook. Under “School” I wrote:

  One arrogant pastry chef.

  I closed the book and started a letter to Ezra. I began it with, I don’t know if this is a good idea, and then I went on to describe my first day. But after I wrote it, I knew I wouldn’t send it. He wanted me to stay. He wanted me to go to baking school. Someday he would help me with my business. I turned off my lamp and settled under the covers.

  Just as I was about to doze off my phone beeped with a text. Of course, in my half-asleep state, I hoped it was from Ezra. I fumbled it off the bedside table, knocking it to the floor. I felt around for a moment and finally found it under the bed.

  It was from Zed. I’m loving my film class.

  Cool, I texted back, which I meant. And goodnight. Some people have to get up REALLY EARLY in the morning.

  No surprise. He didn’t text me back.

  Eddie loved the Dutch babies, and I was pretty sure Luke did too, although he didn’t say much. Rosalee had fixed herself a bowl of oatmeal and gone to the bakery early to get the bread started.

  Millie was going to work the counter while I finished cleaning up after breakfast. I’d take my turn in the bakery later.

  I dried the last plate and put it away and then washed out the sinks, wiped down the counters, and rinsed the dishcloth. I was pretty sure the kitchen was looking cleaner than it had when I first arrived. Although the bakery was always spotless, the house had a shabbiness about it. Slowly, I was trying to clean and polish, a little at a time.

  Everyone at home must have been thinking about me because that afternoon letters came from both Mom and Mammi. I didn’t read them until that night when I was alone in my room by the light of my lamp. Mom’s was scribbled on an unlined three by five card. She said she and Zed missed me and hoped I was doing well. She’d been busy with work, and Zed had another few weeks of school. He planned to take summer classes to graduate early, just like I did, although he was hoping to finish an entire year ahead of schedule. On the other side of the card she wrote that they had seen “Dad” the week before. He continued to work in the soup kitchen, and his health seemed to be the same. She finished with, We enjoy the time we spend with him.

  I put the card down in disgust, skimming over Love, Mom.

  Mammi’s letter was written on lined notebook paper in her shaky handwriting. She asked how I was, wrote that she prayed for me every day, and said she enjoyed thinking of me in at the Home Place, one of her very favorite locations.

  “So why did you leave?” I muttered.

  I’ve been thinking more about my mother’s artwork, hoping you can find it and that it will help you decipher the code. All I took with me was the recipe book. I know when I was growing up she kept her work in the front upstairs bedroom, but I don’t have any idea where she kept it after I moved out. I imagine, once Gerry’s family had the house and she moved into the daadi haus, her artwork went with her. Keep looking until you find it. And let me know once you break that code!

  The front bedroom was the one that was entirely empty, and I’d searched the bakery and hadn’t found a thing. Maybe Gerry had tossed it after all, as Rosalee suspected.

  Please let me know how your classes go.

  She signed it, Love and Prayers, Mammi.

  I wrote her a quick letter, telling her about my first day of class with a positive spin and updating her about the Home Place and Plain Treats. I told her that Rosalee was kind and I was enjoying the Home Place, but I still longed to return to Lancaster County. I didn’t mention Sarah’s book or the code. There was nothing more for me to tell her about that.

  My mother I didn’t write to at all.

  NINETEEN

  Luke worked for Rosalee nearly every day, and Millie worked for her most days. Their mother was growing stronger and was able to take over more of their household duties. Eddie tagged along with his older siblings, and his comic relief definitely made the days go faster. Plus, he was good company for Luke in the fields.

  One Wednesday afternoon, as Rosalee made apple streusel and I washed baking pans, she asked me if I’d heard from Ezra recently. I was a little taken aback. I’d assumed he and Rosalee hadn’t met.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “He seemed so befuddled, that’s all.”

  I must have had a funny look on my face as I rubbed the tip of my nose with my wrist because she added, “He stopped by with Luke one day. Had a sticky bun.” She tilted her head as if thinking. “Actually two.”

  That figured. I turned back toward the sink full of dishes. I’d never known anyone to refer to Ezra as “befuddled.”

  “He called—” I caught myself before I said “on my birthday.” “A while back. And I’ve had a letter.”

  I didn’t add how short it had been.

  “How is he?”

  “Trying to fly under the radar.”

  “Or ride?” Her voice was playful.

  I smiled. “Something like that.”

  “My Henry had a motorcycle when I first met him.”

  “Really?” The thought of Rosalee on the back of a bike made me grin.

  “He was from Michigan and had cousins here. He used to ride down to court me. But then we both joined the c
hurch before we got married.”

  “And moved to Michigan? Where you were happy?”

  She didn’t answer, so I stole a glance at her. She was staring at me. “Yes and no,” she finally said.

  “No?”

  She turned her attention back to streusel in front of her. “I thought we’d be happy. Why wouldn’t I? We were both Amish. We believed exactly the same thing.” She laughed. “Still, we butted heads. It’s not that we fought. There was just an underlying conflict almost all the time. I don’t know. Maybe we repeat the patterns we see as a child.”

  I was standing with my back to the sink now, drying a metal bowl to make more room in the rack and wondering why she was telling me this. I couldn’t imagine Rosalee butting heads with anyone.

  Thankfully, Ezra and I had never had any conflict. Well, just a little after we’d arrived in Indiana, but we’d worked through all of that. I was even showing, probably as much to my surprise as to everyone else’s back home, that I could be submissive by staying at the Home Place as he requested until everything settled down.

  “What I learned,” Rosalee said, sealing the dough around the filling, “was that there were all sorts of things I should have learned before I became Henry’s bride.”

  “Oh?” I put the bowl away and picked up another. “Like what?”

  “How to trust God more.”

  I thought about that for a moment, wondering if she thought I wasn’t trusting God. I hated how adults communicated. They seemed to strive to be sly.

  And the thing was, I was trusting God with Ezra. Why else would I be willing to join the Amish church? I didn’t tell Rosalee that, though.

  I thought she was finished, but then she added, “It’s better to stay single than to marry someone who doesn’t share your faith, Ella. Being unequally yoked is even more difficult than it sounds.”

  I had no idea why she would bring that up. Of course Ezra and I shared the same faith, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I smiled and thanked her for telling me her story.

  That afternoon I rode my bike into town and delivered the last of Rosalee’s business cards, at least the last of the ones she had given me. So far no one had come into the bakery for their free sticky bun and no one had ordered anything from us. I had borrowed saddlebags from Luke and had filled them with small boxes of buns and streusel, hoping I could convince someone to order once they had a taste of Plain Treats. It turned out to be a bad idea. Everything was on the flat side by the time I arrived. Thankfully, I checked before offering the samples.