The Amish Bride

by Mindy Starns Clark

  I shook my head. Who would ever learn anything new if that was all we did?

  “Well, it applies to you. If this is the sort of thing in your family’s repertoire, why are you in my baking school?” He shrugged, as if blowing me off.

  I shrugged back. He was such a demigod. My own little Napoleon.

  The next morning Luke cut the alfalfa before we even had breakfast. He said mid-June was a little late for the first cutting, but not bad.

  After breakfast the bakery was extra slow, so I helped him clean out the chicken coop again. I thought of my first day at the Home Place and how quiet he was. He wasn’t much more talkative than he’d been then, but it felt more comfortable to be with him now, unlike it had that time.

  When we were almost finished, I asked him how his mother was doing.

  “Better.”

  “What is wrong with her?” It couldn’t hurt to ask.

  “Female problems,” he said. I expected him to blush but he didn’t.

  “What does the doctor say?”

  He shook his head. “Different things different times. She lost a couple of babies, like Eddie said. Then she was anemic. Things like that. She kept hoping for another baby for years, but now I think she just hopes as she gets older the problems will stop.”

  Luke was twenty-one and Tom wasn’t more than a year older, which meant Cora had to be at least forty, if not more.

  “It must be hard on your family to have her sick so much.”

  “Ya,” he answered. “It’s especially hard on my daed. He thinks he should be able to fix it, but he can’t. I just figure every family has its problems. If it wasn’t this it would be something else.” Luke opened the door to the toolshed and put his shovel inside. Then he took mine and put it in too, as I thought about what he’d said.

  I kept waiting for my family’s problems to disappear—mainly for Freddy to go away—so we could get on with things. And then I expected things to be smooth as French silk pie after that. I gave Luke a sideways glance. He sounded like a pessimist, but then he said, “We’ve been trusting God for a long time. We’ll keep doing that. It’s all we can.”

  I gave him a wave as I started back to the house to scrub up, a little surprised at him talking about trusting God. It wasn’t that I doubted it, but I was just surprised at his openness. I wondered how many babies Cora had lost, considering the wide gap between Millie and Eddie. Thirteen years was a long, long stretch. And now Eddie was six, and it sounded as though she’d lost a couple after him too.

  The morning of the first class in l’art de la gateau, I pulled the pages of the bridal magazines I’d brought along out of my bottom drawer. Cake-making was the whole reason I was at baking school…well, that and hoping to learn how to run a business. Obviously I couldn’t have a Plain bakery someday and make exquisite cakes, but in the meantime I wanted to make as many as possible to get it out of my system, so to speak. I decided to arrive with a fresh attitude and pretend it was the very first day—ever—with Pierre.

  We all took our places and waited for him. And waited some more. Finally Elizabeth came in and said he was running late.

  “Any of you want to take this chance to jump ship and take the third course of my cooking class?”

  No one did, but Penny reminded her she would be taking her class next session.

  Elizabeth turned toward me. “How about you, Ella? I’ve heard you’re a great cook.”

  I blushed, wondering who would have told her that. It must have been Penny, although I hadn’t cooked for her. “I’m going back to Lancaster County as soon as this class is done.” That was my agreement with my mother. As soon as the end of July rolled around, I would be catching a bus home.

  When Pierre finally showed up, he yawned and said he’d snuck home to take a nap. “Getting up at two every morning is getting old.”

  He looked around the room, taking us all in as if he’d never seen us before.

  “So now you want to learn to make cakes. It is probably why you signed up for the class, oui? You like the rolled fondant. The ganache. The marzipan. Ha! You think you will be on TV next season on some cake competition. Well, let me tell you. Making cakes is not what it’s—what are the words—cracked up to be? It’s a one-shot deal. A flash in the pan. Baking bread and croissants and pastries…they are for every day. They are what is important. Cake making is solely to impress people, not to feed them.”

  I felt my body slump down on the stool. The next four weeks were going to be worse than the first eight. I wanted to go home now. Maybe I could take a cake class at the community college.

  Pierre continued with his diatribe, belittling all of us for our interest in cakes, until finally he sighed and said we might as well get started. “We will begin with flavors,” he said. “If you are going to make a cake, you had better make sure it tastes good, because in my class no one is going to bury it in American frosting.” He made a face as if he’d just been forced to eat a Twinkie.

  As the class progressed, he grew more and more cynical and cranky. Finally, I stopped taking notes and started drawing cakes. Funny, each one had birds on it. Hawks. Owls. Swallows. Chickens. Eagles. I wasn’t aware Pierre was standing over me until he cleared his throat.

  “Mademoiselle.”

  Startled, I raised my head and instinctively covered my notebook.

  “My I see your notes?” He’d never asked such a thing before of anyone.

  I moved my hand.

  He turned his head and stared, finally saying, “I see.” He met my gaze and then stepped away. Then he yawned again. “That’s it for today. No homework. See you next Tuesday.”

  Disappointed, I closed my notebook. I was hoping for homework. I was hoping he’d show us tricks to rolling fondant. I wanted to work with marzipan. I knew there was only so much I could learn in four weeks, but it was the reason I’d stuck around so long. Now I was sure it hadn’t been worth it. Not at all.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  On Saturday afternoon, after we’d closed the bakery, Eddie and I sat at a table and played the matching game. I thought of the baby card I had safely tucked away in Sarah’s book now.

  Eddie matched the willow tree, the rosemary bush, and then the little bird all in a row before he missed. As we played he taught me the Pennsylvania Dutch words for what he knew. Bohm. Tree. Rauda-shtokk. Herb plant. Fokkel. Bird.

  I turned over the hawk and the owl. Eddie barely waited until I was done before he had the other owl.

  “Let me see that,” I said, taking the one Sarah had drawn. It was smudged a little and the eyes were a little blurry, but they were penetrated with pain. The drawing was so beautiful it made me shiver. I knew my Aunt Giselle was an artist, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like for her to play with her grandmother’s drawings when she was a child.

  Eddie won by matching the two daisies. As we carefully put the squares of paper back in the tin, Eddie told me how much he liked the game.

  “I see the pictures and then I see the stuff outside. The birds. The flowers. The herbs. It makes me look at everything more closely.”

  He carried the tin as we left the bakery, following me up to the house. I needed to change into my work dress to do the chores. He stopped at the herb garden.

  “See. There’s the rosemary. And the sage.”

  I nodded as a starling swooping out of the barn caught my attention. Luke was walking toward us, holding the mail in his hand.

  “You had two letters in Rosalee’s box,” he called out.

  Eddie put the tin down on the lawn that Luke had managed to keep green through the summer and collapsed beside it, under the tulip tree. It was mid afternoon and he was tired.

  Luke reached us, handed me the letters, and then he sat down beside Eddie. The little boy snuggled against his brother, even though it was hot. His eyes were heavy and his body relaxed.

  Neither letter was from Ezra. One was from Mom and one from Zed. I plopped down on the grass and opened Mom’s first. She
jumped right into what she was writing about, skipping all pleasantries.

  I remembered more about the game. As we played, our grandmother talked about what it meant to be a friend, a wife, and a mother. I didn’t want to talk about it over the phone, but the two cards I remember most had babies on them, and when one of us would match those cards, she’d talk about how every single baby was a gift from God and it was our job to love them and bring them up to know the Lord. I don’t think the pictures were of a particular baby—I think they just represented babies in general. Do you have those two cards? I would really like to see them again.

  She signed it, Love, Mom. That was it.

  Zed wrote that summer school was going well. He was taking third-year German and it was nice to have an entire morning of it every day. He was taking a film course in the afternoons, for fun. Then he wrote about seeing Ada and Will and the girls the day before. Christy’s friend Izzy was there too. She’s still helping Ada. I wondered why Ada needed more help than Christy could offer now that she was out of school. Izzy seemed like a nice girl, and she was a couple of years older than Christy, so maybe she was more help. Zed said he really liked having a cell, and it was a bummer mine was fried.

  One more thing, Zed wrote. Dad isn’t doing well. We found out what’s been wrong with him. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He’s doing chemo.

  I cringed.

  Ella, there’s a chance he won’t make it and he really would like to see you. The treatments are hard on him—and they’ll only get worse. I think you need to get back here soon. He went through rehab for alcohol a few years ago, and he says he’s been sober since then and now goes to AA and stuff like that.

  I crumbled the letter into a ball without realizing what I was doing.

  “Bad news?”

  I became conscious of Luke sitting beside me. It was the longest I’d seen him sit still, except at the dinner table. Eddie was asleep beside him.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  I glanced sideways at him. “You want me to talk?”

  “Sure. I’ll listen.”

  “But you might have to talk back.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “I was only teasing,” I said, glancing at Eddie. He was sound asleep. Still I couldn’t imagine Luke wouldn’t tell me the same thing everyone else had. Get over it. Let it be. Of course you should see Freddy. He’s making an effort to change for the better.

  Even so, I started the story, saying my father had left when I was three, after my mother had adopted Zed, and how for the next fifteen years I hadn’t heard from him once. Luke had a sympathetic expression on his face.

  “Before I came out here, he showed back up in Lancaster.”

  “Is that why you wanted to come here?” Luke had pushed back his straw hat and his eyes were shining.

  “Yes. That, and Ezra.”

  “Is that the reason you didn’t go back home with him?”

  I tilted my head. “No. I was determined to go back and avoid Freddy, but Mom didn’t want me to come home right away. Everyone wants Ezra and me to be apart. They all seem to think I’m not good for him, even though I’m willing to join the Amish church.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway,” I said. “Now he’s—”

  “Your father?”

  I nodded and cringed at the same time. “He’s been diagnosed with cancer. And I know that’s bad. Apparently, he really wants to see me.”

  “Is he dying?”

  “It seems that way…” Stomach cancer sounded pretty serious, though whether the time he had left was being measured in days or weeks or months, I wasn’t sure.

  Luke met my eyes and took a deep breath. Finally he said, “I’m sorry, Ella. That sounds really hard.”

  “It is,” I whispered. And then I started to cry. Just as Luke reached his hand out toward me, Eddie stirred. I wiped my eyes quickly, and as I did I saw Rosalee on the porch, bracing herself against the rail, staring at the three of us.

  It was just Rosalee and me at supper that evening, and after I’d finished the dishes I went out to weed the herb garden. I crushed a bloom of lavender between my fingers and then brought it to my nose. I smelled soap and lotion and pound cake, all in one sniff. According to Sarah’s book, it could also be used for migraines, fainting, and dizziness, and as an antiseptic.

  First I cultivated around the rosemary. The warm scent overpowered everything nearby. It added wonderful flavor to roasted potatoes, root vegetables, and chicken, but as a tincture, if too much was used, it could be deadly. Like so many things in life, it could be part of a recipe for success or for disaster.

  I kept working until the sun started to disappear behind the woods. I stood stretching my back, shielding my eyes from the glare. I startled a little at the silhouette at the edge of the trees. It was Luke, watching me.

  “Hello,” I called out.

  He waved. “I need to borrow Rosalee’s fence post digger. Ours just broke.” He started toward the house to ask her, I was sure, even though he knew what her answer would be. I made my way to the toolshed to put away my hoe and cultivator. I found the tool Luke was after, pulled it out of the shed, and headed toward the house with it.

  We met halfway, by the herb garden.

  “This is such a pretty spot,” Luke said.

  I nodded.

  “And it always smells so fresh.”

  I didn’t answer, hoping he would say more.

  “God is good to make us such a beautiful world, ya?”

  “Ya.” I responded.

  “Your great-grandmother’s drawings do a fine job of capturing the beauty—but still, nothing can beat what God has done.”

  “But don’t you think the drawings make us appreciate the beauty even more?”

  He nodded. “Preacher Jacob talked about beauty a few months back. He said appreciating it is part of praising God. I was thinking about your father—and then my father. I think my daed has stopped seeing beauty. All he sees is how sick Mamm is and how the place is falling apart and how bad our finances are. He’s turned everything into rules. It seems he thinks if we just figure out how to do things the ‘right’ way our troubles will stop.” He paused, and then without looking at me he said, “That got me thinking about your father. Even if you don’t want to see him, have you been able to forgive him?”

  I bristled. I’d gone round and round on the forgiveness thing. I’d think I’d forgiven and then the same old feelings would come back.

  “I know, I know,” I said, “I’m supposed to forgive so God will forgive me. I keep trying.”

  “I think forgiving also frees us,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard me. “And the other person.”

  “Even if they never ask for our forgiveness?”

  “In a way I don’t understand, ya,” he said. “Although I know forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things.” He gave me a sympathetic look and said, “I heard once that to truly forgive means you no longer resent the person.”

  I took another step away. That was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. How could I not resent Freddy Bayer for what he’d done to me? Wasn’t it enough that I’d tried to forgive him? I should have known Luke wouldn’t understand.

  TWENTY-SIX

  For the next several classes, Pierre taught lessons on fondant, ganache, frosting, icing, and marzipan. Then he let us start experimenting. I couldn’t help but smile. Even without having his heart in it, he was showing us what we needed to know.

  As I was working away, rolling fondant to put over the top of the brown-butter banana cake I had made, he stopped at my table.

  “Why the fondant?” he asked. “How about a butter cream to go with that flavor?”

  “I like fondant,” I answered.

  “Because it is pretty?”

  I nodded.

  “How about making something beautiful instead of pretty? Beauty. That is what you should strive for.”

 
I kept rolling my fondant. Later, when I was sculpting eyes in the bird I’d made out of marzipan, he stopped again. “You should stick with something Plain,” he said.

  “This is,” I answered. “I got the idea from my Amish great-grandmother.”

  “Well, then…” He took a closer look. “I will withhold judgment until you are finished.”

  I ended up squishing it. The eyes were all wrong. I left, discouraged.

  That evening when I entered the kitchen at the Home Place, Rosalee was sitting at the table working on her books. She rubbed her eyes as she asked me how I was.

  “Do you really want to know?” I sank down onto the chair across from her.

  “Of course,” she answered.

  I told her about Pierre.

  She raised her eyebrows. “You’ll be done soon. Learn everything you can from him. He has a very successful business. No matter what, he has a lot to teach you.”

  I knew he did, but I didn’t point out I’d learned just as much from her. I didn’t want it to sound as if I didn’t appreciate Mammi’s investment.

  “He’s just so sarcastic.”

  “Maybe that’s his way.” She picked up her pencil again.

  I asked how things looked. “If that’s any of my business,” I quickly added. That was a part of running a bakery that I had no experience with, but I wasn’t anticipating it would be too hard.

  Rosalee peered at me. “Everyone says supporting a family costs way more than they anticipate, even for the Amish. That’s how running this bakery is. I’ll come up with a budget and then the price of sugar goes up. And the price of electricity. And the price of a new roof on the building.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “But Luke thinks he can do the roofing for me. That will save some.” She picked up her pencil. “There are times when I wonder how much longer I can keep going.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’m just thinking out loud.” She yawned. “I’m tired. And I’m getting old.”