Ezra pushed back his chair a little.
“If you want to join the church, by all means do. But I wouldn’t be allowing a marriage anytime soon.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Ezra blurted out.
The bishop folded his arms over his barrel chest.
Ezra kept talking. “And hypocritical. Most of the kids who join the church do so to get married.”
Bishop Schwartz slowly shook his head. “Not in my district.”
Ezra jumped to his feet.
I wanted to reach out for his hand and pull him back down, but I knew that wouldn’t look good in front of the bishop.
Instead I said to him, “We’ll take what you said into consideration.” I stood. Ezra mumbled a farewell.
“What a crock,” he said, too loudly once we were out the door.
“Shhh.”
When we reached his buggy, he drove his horse hard down the lane. “Do you remember when I suggested going to Florida last winter?”
I nodded. He’d been joking.
“Well, it’s sounding better and better.” Ezra pulled his hat down on his head. “I know people there who could help us find work. We can take the bike again. But we’ll stay this time.”
I leaned back against the seat. “Are you serious?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was close to a wail. “I’m just so tired of all these hoops.”
More than anything I wanted him to say, “Let’s pray about it.” But he didn’t. I realized he and I had never prayed about anything together, not once.
He fumed some more. “He’s the biggest stick-in-the-mud there is. All Amish bishops and preachers are.”
“Ezra…” I put my hand on his arm. “That’s not true.” Preacher Jacob back in Indiana certainly wasn’t. He was one of the kindest people I knew.
“No, it is true. I’m getting so tired of this. Will bosses me around. The bishop bosses us both around. Everyone kept you from moving back. It’s like we can’t have a life of our own. It’s worse than when I was living at the Klines’.” He took a quick breath. “I’m not sure I want to be shoveling you-know-what for the rest of my life.”
I turned my head to the field next to us. The corn was shoulder high. I could make out each tassel.
It was obvious Ezra didn’t like working on the dairy farm. I’d never seen him so miserable. He had changed in the last few months. We had both changed.
But in different ways.
That evening, as Lexie packed to return home, I sat on the bed in my old room and told her about what the bishop said.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve always been so sure I was going to marry Ezra...”
“Wow.” Lexie sat down and put her arm around me. “I know I’m meddling, but don’t feel locked into a future together just because you’re childhood sweethearts.”
I thought of her and James. They had known each other since high school and they’d married. That was what I had wanted.
She squeezed my shoulder. I thought of what Rosalee had said. That it was better to stay single than to marry someone who didn’t share your faith.
I shivered. That was the thing. For so long I thought I was the one who needed to convert to Ezra’s faith, that my becoming Amish was all we needed. Now, I realized, the problem here was with Ezra’s faith, not mine.
Our differing religions aside, if we weren’t on the same page with Christ, we didn’t belong together at all.
“Remember, Ella, you’re only eighteen.” Lexie let go of me and stood.
I grabbed the pillow and held it to my chest. “I know,” I said. “I just wish I knew what was best—not for right now, but for the future.” I hugged the pillow tighter.
“Do you want to stay here or return to Indiana?”
“Stay here…” I said. But I sounded about as sure as I felt.
“Well, if things don’t work out with Ezra, at least you don’t have to decide about joining the Amish church anymore.” She lifted her roller bag off the end of the bed.
I didn’t answer, but the truth was I wasn’t so sure about that, either.
Lexie left the next morning, driving off in her rental car and waving as she went, on her way home to James and her childhood farm. She’d come to our rescue once again.
Zed had a doctor’s appointment in town that afternoon and Mom took him, while I busied myself with housework. As I hung the wash on the line, a buggy turned into the driveway. Expecting one of Mom’s clients, I walked toward it, a wet pillowcase in my hands. But it wasn’t a pregnant mother. It was Bishop Schwartz.
Stepping down from the buggy, with a nod for a hello, he said, “I put some more thought into your problem.”
My eyebrows shot up. I didn’t realize the jury was still out.
“I talked with Ezra’s bishop, and we both think it’s best if you return to Indiana and join the church there, under that preacher. After that, once you return to Lancaster County and if you and Ezra are still intent on marrying, then so be it.”
“Back to Indiana?” My head began to spin.
He nodded. “I spoke with your minister out there, and he also agrees this would be the best way to proceed.” He turned as if to climb back into the buggy.
“Wait,” I said. “What if Ezra and I didn’t plan to marry? Then could I join?”
“Is this some sort of trick?” He held his hat against his chest.
“No.”
“Go back to Indiana. That will reduce the concerns I have about you joining the church.”
That evening Ezra came over and we walked down to the covered bridge. I told him what the preacher had said.
“Figures,” he grunted. “So how long will that take?”
“I don’t know. But there’s more.” We’d reached the middle of the bridge.
“More?”
The light was fading fast. “Why do you want to join the church?” I turned my face toward him, and his eyes met mine.
“Because it’s the next step.”
“But what about Christ? How does He play into your decision?”
“Nothing has changed there. He’s the center of all of it, right? Jesus, others, you. That’s what I’ve been taught my whole life.” He shrugged. “What’s the big deal?”
I wasn’t exactly sure what the big deal was. I couldn’t explain it to him. But something wasn’t right. I wasn’t judging him. Maybe he and I did share the same faith—but if he never talked about it, how could I know?
It took another week for me to sort things out. I called Pierre and explained what had happened here at home and why I left so suddenly. I asked if I could redo my final and, amazingly, he agreed. Then I called Rosalee and asked if I could return to the Home Place for however long it took me to join the church. Then I asked Mom to drive me out to the dairy where Ezra was working.
I have to admit, as we turned down the tree-lined lane, my heart nearly gave way. It was a beautiful farm with a charming two-story house and a huge dairy barn and a handful of outbuildings, including one in tip-top shape that would be perfect for a bakery, just as Ezra had said. I thought of the Home Place for a fleeting second and all of the upkeep it needed. The two farms were like night and day.
It was afternoon and Ezra came out of the shed when he heard the car. He waved, stepped back in, and then came back out with a blue rag in his hands. He must have been working on the tractor.
Mom waited in the car. I asked Ezra if there was somewhere we could talk in private.
He laughed and said we had seventy acres at our disposal. I glanced toward the dairy barn and then the house, thinking if he really saw a life for us together he would want to show me around. After all, this was where we would live someday if we married.
We stepped to the side of the shed, away from where Mom could see us. I told him I was going back to Indiana to finish school and join the church.
“And then you’ll be back?” He raised his head and flashed me a grin.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure. Right now, I’m not sure of anything.”
He stood up straight then.
I took his hand. “I don’t think you are either.”
He shook his head. “We really could go to Florida and leave this all behind.”
“I want to join the Amish church, Ez. I really do.”
“Ella, please. All of this isn’t for either of us. I was a fool. I thought I could make it work—but I can’t. My friend who left the church is headed to Florida. He has a brother down there. He said he could get us jobs. It’s the right thing for us.”
“I think we have to decide, on our own, what’s right for each of us.” I let go of his hand. “I don’t want to go to Florida. And I don’t want to be yoked unevenly.”
I turned away and didn’t look back, not even to say goodbye. And he didn’t follow me. After I climbed into the passenger seat of Mom’s car, I glanced at the shed. He stood in the open garage door, the blue rag back in his hand. He gave me a nod and a wave but that was all.
I was silent as Mom drove up the lane, the branches of the trees swaying gently as we passed in the early August heat, my window down because Mom’s air had stopped working. This dairy farm would never be my home, but I sincerely doubted if it would be Ezra’s either.
THIRTY-THREE
We drove straight on to Mammi’s. I had already shown Mom the game with the card of the baby. When she parked under the pine trees in front of Klara’s house, I showed her the painting of the baby too, pulling it from my bag.
She took it from me without speaking.
“Mammi says Sarah didn’t paint it.”
“I’ve never seen this before—the painting,” she said. “But it’s Paul. I’m sure it is. I was little when he died, but I remember exactly what he looked like. Come to think of it, he rather resembles little Abe, doesn’t he? Probably because of the hair.”
“Who do you think could have painted it?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, but from the look on her face, I could tell she had an idea.
We climbed from the car, me holding my bag, and headed straight to the daadi haus, moving alongside the climbing roses that clung to Aunt Klara’s house and past the garden overflowing with produce. No one was in sight, and I suspected that my aunt was over at Ada’s. Will had taken them back home a couple of days after the birth, and I knew Aunt Klara had been helping as much as she could. I was pretty sure that being a grandmother was the next best thing that had ever happened to her, aside from being a mom. And considering that Ada had married a widower who already had three children, Aunt Klara was especially blessed.
When we entered the daadi haus, the first thing I noticed was the bouquet of dahlias on the entryway table. As Mom called out a hello, I ran my fingers over the petals of a purple ball-shaped flower. Also mixed into the bouquet were red and yellow flowers.
Mammi was on her feet, standing in the kitchen. When she saw me, she said, “Aren’t those beautiful? Will brought them by, in honor of my being a great-grandmother. I told him I’d already been one since his and Ada’s wedding last November, but said I’d keep the flowers anyway.” Her faded blue eyes twinkled.
I pulled the painting from the bag and unwrapped it again.
“Oh, you’ve brought it back,” she said. “I’ve thought long and hard about what I want to tell you. Let me sit down.”
We followed her into her living room, and once she’d settled into her chair, I handed her the painting.
She took it and again held it tenderly. As she stared at it, she said, “I’ve decided to tell you all I remember and not hold anything back. Isn’t that what we all learned from our experience with Lexie and James?”
I glanced at Mom before looking back at Mammi and nodding, giving her an encouraging smile.
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Believe it or not, Malachi was very nice to me before we married. Afterward, though, he began to grow concerned about how we looked as a couple and then as a family. My mother and her ‘ways’ embarrassed him—how smart she was, how outspoken, how creative. He was always trying to make sure I wasn’t like her at all.
“She told me then that since I was little she used to recite a verse from a psalm over me, the one that goes, ‘Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars.’ She said it was her prayer for me, that I would make my spiritual home next to the altar of the Lord. That’s why I put the swallow on the painting. It was my signature.”
Mammi looked from Mom to me. Her eyes glistened as she spoke. “I painted this the night Paul died. I couldn’t sleep. Giselle had brushes and supplies in her room that she kept hidden. I knew my mother had given her some canvases too. I found those under her bed, and then I painted in the kitchen by the light of the lamp.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of someday forgetting what he looked like. I’d never have him with me as a boy or as a man.” She looked at Mom. “Not like I have you and Klara and Giselle.” She breathed in deeply and then exhaled. I wondered if she said all she was going to, but then she continued. “Anyway, I felt compelled to paint him. I worked fast and finished before Malachi got up to milk, but as I was hurrying up the stairs he heard me. I reached Giselle’s room by the time he was on the landing, but he saw the canvas and the paints.
“He jumped to conclusions, though, thinking I was coming out of the room instead of going in and that Giselle had done the painting. He told me he’d instructed Giselle to get rid of all her art supplies. I said she would. He demanded the painting, but I turned it away from him and told him I’d take care of it. Ever the obedient wife, I did plan to destroy it…but I just needed some time. In his anger he grabbed it from me, and the paints fell to the floor in a clatter. He stomped down the stairs and Giselle came out of her room. I was overcome with grief. The back door banged shut.”
She closed her eyes. “Oh, the things I can remember. Giselle in her white nightgown, tiptoeing down the stairs, her long blond hair hanging halfway to her waist. A minute later she returned with the painting, tears streaming down her face. She hugged me tightly and then slipped back into her room. I never asked her what she did with it. Malachi was furious. I simply told him it was gone, implying I’d destroyed it. That was after the milking. Thankfully the preacher arrived right then to talk about the burial.
“Then Malachi was killed so tragically a short time later, and regardless of all his faults, he was my husband. The next few weeks were a blur. I realized how big our debts were and that I had to sell the dairy. I had to take care of the girls. I wanted more than anything to escape all the grief around me. Then we moved to Lancaster. Mother encouraged us to go. She wasn’t well, and we both knew she couldn’t give me the help I needed.
“It wasn’t until we were here that I remembered the painting. I asked Giselle about it, hoping she’d brought it with her. The look on her face told me she hadn’t. I was harsh with her, which was so unfair of me. In all my grief I’d forgotten it too.
“I wrote to my mother, asking her to retrieve it for us, to make some excuse to the new owners, but she had passed by the time the letter arrived. I’m sure my brother Gerry intercepted it, but I never heard from him about it.”
She held the painting out so she could see it more clearly. “And now, here it is, after all these years. I can remember now, plain as day what Paul looked like, when I haven’t been able to recall him for years. Funny how seeing little Abe brought it all back, though. Isn’t that something? How we can see the past in the present?”
She handed the painting back to me. “I want you to keep it.”
“Mammi, no,” I said. “You should have it.”
“No. I’ll look at little Abe and remember Paul. It’s all I need,” she said. “It’s yours now.”
I turned toward Mom and she nodded.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “It was so amazing to see this after finding the game and going through Sarah�
��s book—” I clamped my hand over my mouth, realizing I’d mentioned the book in front of my mother.
“It’s all right,” Mammi said. “We need to talk more about that, now that you know about Paul.” She nodded toward my bag. “Go ahead and show the book to your mother.”
I retrieved it and handed it to Mom.
Mammi cleared her throat and then said, softly, “Ella, the reason I was hoping you could break the code has to do with Paul.”
I looked at her, eyes wide. “What about him?”
“I think my mother knew why he died.”
Mom’s head shot up.
Mammi continued. “A few years after we lost him a woman here, an English neighbor, lost a baby to crib death. I began wondering if that was what it was. But the more I thought about it, the more I think my mother suspected something else. She had a brother, Alvin, who wasn’t quite right. Of course, mother always told us what a blessing he was and how much she learned about life from loving him, but through the years I’ve wondered if Paul had something like what was wrong with Alvin.”
“Mamm, why do you think that?” Mom asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. He wasn’t like you girls were by the time he died. He wasn’t as alert. He wasn’t as strong.”
Mom shook her head. “There are some things we can never know. Even if it was crib death—it’s called sudden infant death syndrome now—there’s no known cause for it. It wouldn’t have been anything anyone did.”
I thought of Malachi blaming Giselle.
“I know,” Mammi said, her eyes watering. “I would just like to know what my mother thought. I think she would have told me in time, had she lived.” She turned toward me. “Anyway, that was what I was hoping for.”
Mom must have found the code because she was turning the book on its side.
“I bet Zed could help me figure it out,” I said.
“Don’t ask him now,” Mom said. “Wait a few months. Until he’s healed.”
I agreed.
Mammi sighed. “I hope I’m still around then.”
For a second none of us said anything, and then all at once all three of us started laughing. She’d been saying that sort of thing for the last several years, but the truth was she kept getting better—not worse.
The Amish Bride Page 31