The Amish Bride

by Mindy Starns Clark

  From mourning Enoch, Sarah went to lamenting not being a better wife to David. In code she wrote, I was afraid to be hurt again. All these years, I kept my heart from him. Now as he grieves for Enoch, I see I’ve robbed him of a deeper love that might be of help to him now. Instead, he is the one who is strong for me. The truth is I do love him. I’ve been with him twenty-four years. He IS the true love I always wanted, the day-to-day, year-after-year love. If only I can return that love to him now. I realize he has been the eagle all these years, waiting upon the Lord. I pray I’ll be able to help renew his strength as he has mine.

  D. said a funny thing last night, that 1+1+1=1. I laughed, but then I realized he was referring to the three-strand cord mentioned in Ecclesiastes.

  I thought of the card in the game. It finally made sense. I imagined her explaining it to Mom and her sisters. I think Aunt Klara in her relationship with Uncle Alexander must have been the only one to really experience it—and not fully until just a few years ago.

  Sarah included the verse from Isaiah 40:31, about waiting upon the Lord and mounting up with wings as eagles. On December 10, 1944, she wrote, D. is ill. The doctor thinks it is cancer. I’m doing all I can. The doctor said there is no cure. All I can do is love him.

  May 10, 1945—D. died today. I am a widow again.

  The war in Europe has ended, or so they say. Too late for Enoch. And David. Only God, now.

  “Isn’t it sad?” I whispered. Luke agreed.

  I thumbed through the book. There were still several pages of code.

  “I should get dinner ready,” I said, even though I was desperate to find out if Sarah wrote more about what she thought Alvin had died from, and if she thought it was what Paul died from too.

  “We could finish it tomorrow. I’m sure Rosalee would be fine if we took an hour after lunch,” Luke said.

  I nodded. I wouldn’t go through the rest of it tonight. I’d wait for Luke.

  It was harder than I thought it would be not to keep reading. Both at bedtime and when I awoke, I was tempted. Then all morning as I made pies and waited on customers I thought about Sarah’s story. After lunch, I got the book and mirror, and Luke followed me down to the bakery. As soon as we settled down at a table we started decoding again.

  Sarah wrote about Frannie bringing Malachi Lantz home. He seems to be a nice young man. I was afraid she might decide on someone outside our faith. I’m relieved she’s choosing wisely.

  The next entry was written normally. Frannie had married Malachi. The next one was back in code. I wasn’t sure, at this point, why she still felt it necessary. There was only a year, 1953, but no date. It’s been five years now and still no baby for Frannie. They are living at his parents’ place, farming. Frannie spends time with me when she can. Sometimes we paint and draw. Gerry and his wife, Sharon, have the Home Place now and I’m in the daadi haus.

  Ah, that was probably the reason for the code—she was afraid Gerry or Sharon might stumble across her book. They’ve blessed me with a granddaughter, Rosalee. Such a sweet thing. Quiet and compliant. I have to say she takes after her mother’s side of the family.

  Luke and I both smiled. We continued reading. Gerry doesn’t approve of my artwork. He says D. put up with it when he shouldn’t have. One son lost to Lancaster County. One son lost to war. The last lost to legalism. At least I have Frannie.

  Sometime in 1956 she wrote, I’m trusting God with a family for Frannie. I was so sure Malachi was a good match for her, but with time he has grown harsh. Maybe God is waiting to bless them with children until Malachi learns to be the husband—and father—God wants him to be.

  The next entries were in her tiny script, but normal, announcing the arrival of Aunt Klara in 1958, Aunt Giselle in 1961, and Mom in 1966. The next was in code, explaining that Malachi had purchased the dairy on the other side of the woods and how nice it was to have Frannie and her girls close. The next one, also in code, read, 1970—Frannie is with child again after several miscarriages. She’s been staying with me the last couple of months, as are the girls. Gerry tells me I’m meddling. I do not care. I’m delighted to have all of them here. We play the matching game. I added a card of a baby—the only human I’ve ever drawn. I know God doesn’t mind.

  She wrote she had been building Frannie’s strength with her remedies. I’ve told her I think their well is bad from all the chemicals Malachi uses, but she doesn’t believe me.

  Luke’s head and my head popped up at the same time.

  “Oh, my goodness,” I said. “Do you think…” His mom had had multiple miscarriages too.

  Luke shook his head. “We have our well tested every year. It’s fine.”

  “Whew,” I said. We went back to reading. Sarah also wrote that she’d been painting with Giselle and hadn’t been so happy in years.

  I moved the mirror down through the next entries. February 21, 1971—Frannie delivered a boy and named him Paul. He is perfect in every way. I’m disappointed that the birth of a boy is what it took for Malachi to be the husband and father he was meant to be, but it seems that is the case. He even drilled a new well.

  I met Luke’s eyes. I could tell he was just as relieved as I was.

  Next was the Home Place “Recipe” page with symbols already used in the book drawn among the words “hope,” “trust,” “love,” “cherish,” “believe,” and “forgive.”

  Then on June 10, 1971, she wrote, Paul has died. Crib death is what the doctor suspects, but I didn’t tell Frannie that. She feels as if she’s done something wrong. If she knew about the possibility of crib death, I think she’d assume it was her fault and heap even more guilt on herself. However, I’m not convinced Paul died from that. I keep thinking about the neighbor taking care of Alvin when he was a baby. And how I suspected all along the well water might be causing Frannie’s miscarriages. It feels as if all the grief in the world has fallen on our little family.

  June 13, 1971—I’m afraid I’ve had a stroke, though not a bad one. I must stay strong for Frannie and the girls. Malachi is beside himself, and Gerry is of little help. He seems to think people “get what they deserve.”

  June 19, 1971—Malachi was dragged to death by his team two days ago. He failed to hitch them properly. Poor Frannie is our own Job, I’m afraid. I don’t know what more she can bear.

  August 1, 1971—I’ve not been feeling right, and the doctor says it’s probably only a matter of time. The dairy has sold, and I think I’ve convinced Frannie to go to Caleb’s in Lancaster. He needs a housekeeper because his wife passed on last year. He would be good to Frannie and the girls, I know. He is the most like his father.

  I talked with the new owners of the dairy yesterday and told them about my concerns about the old well water. They said the new well had been drilled but never hooked up. I’m flabbergasted Malachi didn’t do it. I told the new people to do it right away.

  I came home and cried. Frannie asked me what was wrong, and I simply told her I was tired.

  And I am. But I was crying because I’m sure I know what injured Alvin’s brain and killed Paul. I went into town to the library this morning and looked up nitrate poisoning. Blue baby syndrome. The blood is unable to carry enough oxygen throughout the body. Alvin’s brain and his kidneys were damaged. Paul’s oxygen was completely shut off. Frannie thought she was doing the right thing by boiling the water for the bottles but now I see that only made the nitrate more concentrated!

  The older couple who took care of Alvin wouldn’t have been impacted. Neither would Frannie, Malachi, and the girls. Nitrate poisoning only affects babies six months and younger.

  The old well was surely shallow and full of nitrates. I hadn’t seen Paul for a couple of weeks before he died because I was trying to stay out of Malachi’s way. But afterward, Frannie said his complexion hadn’t been good. That she’d planned to bring him over that afternoon to have me look at him.

  I will never tell Frannie what I suspect. It would break her heart—for good. Her husband’s
actions—or lack of action, as the case may be—killed her son.

  I looked up at Luke again but he’d continued reading. I couldn’t help but wonder about the two wells at the dairy. But if theirs was tested every year, surely there wasn’t a correlation. I focused on the book again.

  August 29, 1971—I’ll tell my precious swallow and her baby birds goodbye tomorrow. It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I am trusting God completely with them. I have known the love of three good men, but God’s love has outlasted all of them. In the end, I am His bride alone.

  I just wish I could have shown His love fully to others—to Alvin, to David, especially to Malachi. I know he’s at peace in heaven, all that was broken in him finally mended. Soon it will be the same for me…

  I am thankful I can send the deed to Amielbach with Frannie. When the time comes, she will be able to sell it. That’s what my Grandfather Abraham would have wanted. If none of us ever return to Switzerland, so be it.

  I turned the page to the maze, eyeing the route again. The edelweiss, the alpine horn, the crow, the hen, the hawk, the city, the owl, the nurse’s cap, the eagle, the swallow, and finally, the Home Place. Underneath she’d written Haymet. And then Himmel.

  “Heaven,” Luke whispered.

  The very last entry was also written in code, in block letters. I SING IN THE SHADOW OF YOUR WINGS. PSALM 63:7

  I wiped a tear from my eye and leaned back against the chair.

  “Did you find what you wanted?” Luke’s voice was quiet, as always, but the most tender I’d ever heard it.

  “Ya.” I wiped away another tear. “I did.” I just didn’t know how I was going to tell Mammi.

  “Your great-grandmother was some kind of lady.” He smiled at me, his dimples flashing.

  “Ya. She was, wasn’t she?” I wasn’t sure why my face grew warm as I spoke. It was a beautiful Indian summer day, but I knew my response was more than that.

  “I like the geese the best,” Luke said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  He looked at me and smiled again. “They fly together.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  That night I called Mom from the bakery and told her what I’d learned, with Luke’s help. Unlike Sarah, she felt Mammi had a right to know the truth. Mom assured me she would talk with her, that it wasn’t my responsibility.

  “But I’m afraid it will make her so sad.”

  “Ya,” Mom answered. “I’m sure it will. But she wants the truth, Ella. And, in a way, I actually think this is a blessing. She spent her whole life feeling guilty, wondering if Paul died because of something she did. As heartbreaking as the truth is, I think knowing it was the well and not her actions will bring her tremendous relief.”

  I agreed.

  After I hung up I went to my room and wrote a long letter to Aunt Giselle, copying many of the entries of the Recipes for Life book and explaining all I had learned. I mailed it the next day, asking God to use my words to bless the aunt I’d never met. I hoped someday she would come to visit because chances of me ever making it to Switzerland were pretty slim.

  I thought about Sarah and her granddaughters—Rosalee, the baker; Klara, the cook; Giselle, the artist; and Marta, the midwife. Each one of them had followed in her footsteps in an area in which she excelled. She really was a remarkable woman.

  The next day, as I was fixing lunch, I thought of Sarah and her husbands, and then of Alvin and Malachi, and now my father, too, all in heaven. And then I had the strangest sense of them all together, having lunch, telling stories. All healed. All whole. The brokenness a distant memory. All with baby Paul.

  What I didn’t expect was that Sarah’s book would also bring healing to Luke’s family. His suspicions matching mine, he began snooping around the two wells at the dairy. The new one was above the dairy barns. It was the one that was tested every year, by law. The old one was hooked up to the windmill behind the house, downhill from the barn. He asked his father about the history of the wells because Luke thought, when the new well broke, that his daed had hooked up the old one for a short time. Darryl explained that what he did was have the old one redrilled, for the house, while using the new one solely for the dairy—the one that was tested every year by law.

  Luke didn’t challenge his father. He rode into town and bought a ten-dollar kit to check the well. It was no surprise that it was high in nitrates.

  The next day Darryl shut off the old well for good and he, Luke, and Tom worked together to get the line from the new well to the house repaired.

  And unlike Malachi, who was driven primarily by selfishness, and Gerry, who was driven primarily by legalism, Darryl—who had tendencies toward both—was apparently driven primarily by the one desire we all strived for, to be Christlike. When everything came to light, somehow that difficult man, the one Ezra had called a tyrant, found it within himself to sit down with his family and ask their forgiveness for his oversight with the well and the heartache it had caused.

  When Luke told me about that moment later, he said it was the first time he’d ever seen his father cry. And when his mother took her husband’s hand and told him all was forgiven and forgotten, that it wasn’t his fault, Luke said it was as though God laid a healing balm over all of them.

  As the psalmist said, He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

  The family chose to focus on the positive, on God’s goodness, mainly that Eddie had survived both Cora’s pregnancy and his infancy. Perhaps the nitrate level in the well wasn’t as high during that time. Or maybe it was as simple as God stepping in and allowing Eddie to live.

  I wondered if he would have mental problems similar to Alvin’s, but I suspected, based on how bright the little boy was, that he wouldn’t. Sure, he’d had a few difficulties learning, but all in all he was catching on. As far as his physical health, at least his parents knew what he may have been exposed to and could keep that in mind when dealing with any future medical issues.

  Mom called me a couple of evenings after we’d talked to let me know she’d spent the day at Mammi’s. She said her mother was sad, yes, but very grateful for the information and the work I’d done for her.

  “She said to thank your friend—this Luke,” Mom said.

  I smiled, grateful she couldn’t see me.

  “And that she’d like to meet him some day.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “And I’m thinking I would too. When you’re ready.”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “I’m really not boy crazy anymore. Tell Mammi that, okay?”

  Mom laughed a little and said she would.

  The next Sunday I spoke with Preacher Jacob about taking the classes to join the church. When he asked me why, I said I wanted to be the bride of Christ. He smiled, and said he’d heard about what happened in Lancaster. I told him I could assure him, without a shadow of a doubt, that my desire to join the church had nothing to do with getting married—it had everything to do with following Christ. Eddie joined us then and as I reached down for his hand, he told the preacher he was teaching me to speak Pennsylvania Dutch.

  “And she’s helping me with my English, from school,” he said. “The writing and reading parts.” I tousled his hair and agreed we had a deal.

  Preacher Jacob taught the classes to the join the church, and as I worked through them, any remaining doubts I had faded away. I needed community to live the life God had called me to. I needed the structure and security of like-minded believers to live out my faith. I needed to make a firm commitment and to be held accountable. I needed the Amish church. I knew it wasn’t what everyone needed—but it was right for me.

  After a month back in Indiana, I called Mom to talk with her about my wanting to stay indefinitely. She sounded sad at first, but by the time I told her how contented I felt, she agreed it was a good idea. Before we hung up she said she had a bit of news she felt compelled to share and hoped I wouldn’t take it as gossip. She said Ezra had left for Florida
the week before.

  I gasped.

  “Do you know anything about this?” Mom asked.

  “Maybe,” I answered. “He mentioned Florida, but I didn’t think he was serious.” Foolishly, I’d thought he would go only if I went with him.

  “He never did sell his motorcycle. He has a job down there working on a dock. It sounds as if he doesn’t plan to ever join the church.”

  My heart sank. Oh, Ezra.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” Mom’s voice was full of kindness.

  “I just hope he’s okay,” I said.

  “We all do…” Her voice trailed off. “Keep him in your prayers.”

  “And to think all of you put out such an enormous effort to keep me from corrupting him.” I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see it.

  “Is that what you thought?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “Actually,” she said. “Mammi and I were more interested in keeping Ezra away from you.”

  “What?”

  “Once the truth came out, I learned Mammi also had an ulterior motive with Sarah’s book, but at the time that’s why she said she wanted to pay for baking school, to help keep Ezra from being such an influence on you. We wanted you to stay in Indiana to give you some distance.”

  “But what about the Gundys? Isn’t that’s why they sent Ezra away in the first place? To keep us apart?”

  “Well,” Mom said, “I can’t speak for the Gundys, but I know Mammi and I weren’t nearly as concerned with you being around Ezra as we were with Ezra being around you. And for good reason.”

  “What’s that?”

  She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Both your grandmother and I married men who didn’t love the Lord with all their hearts. I’m not saying Ezra would have turned mean or cheated on you, but I think his relationship with the Lord was more about family and culture than devotion to God. Frankly, I think the main reason Ezra was joining the church was because that’s what was expected of him.”

  “Well, duh. It is what was expected of him.”