Marrying Matthew
Page 16
He glanced back to see that his wife’s beautiful face was still stained with tears and he tightened his jaw, wishing he could do something to help her. Her fater, now that they were under “the bann,” would not speak to her, so there was no opportunity to discover anything more about her mamm and wood carving.
Matthew had helped Tabitha to pack a few belongings from their new home, including the carved ladle, and they had left Bunny and her foal in the small pasture, where Bishop Kore had promised to keep them safe until Asa Zook could be found. Matthew knew that shunning could look different from Amisch community to community. For example, many Amisch practiced shunning by allowing the shunned person to continue living in the community even while they were completely ignored. The shunned could not eat or sleep with their family until they had repented of their sin and the community deemed them worthy to return to normal life. But, apparently, in Blackberry Falls, shunned sinners were sent into the forest to live a makeshift life in an auld hunting cabin at the head of the falls.
“It’s what the Englisch would call a ‘time-out’ cabin!” he said, trying once more to lighten Tabitha’s mood, but her face remained somber when he glanced back at her.
Finally, they emerged on the top of the rather treacherous but beautiful cliff face.
“The cabin’s over there,” Tabitha said dully.
Matthew caught her hand in his. “Then let’s geh see our new abode.”
The cabin truly was ramshackle in appearance. It was rectangular and made of gray, sagging wood. A few small windows with crooked frames seemed to look out bleakly on the world, and the front steps appeared completely lethal.
“Whew! What a place.... When was the last time somebody was shunned?”
“Not for years,” Tabitha responded.
“I can tell. Still, there are certain advantages to being shunned . . . alone . . . together.” He let his voice lower suggestively, but he barely earned a smile from her.
Then he stopped walking and turned to put his hands on her slender shoulders. “I know you’re thinking about your mamm and what your fater said.... Do you—remember anything about her?”
“Nee—I was only a young boppli when she died.” She looked up at him, her sapphire-blue eyes wide. “I suppose that if she was doing woodwork and Fater discovered her, it must have been before I was born. From the way he was talking today, surely she must have been shunned?”
“I know you have more questions than answers, and I want to help you if I can. Abner revealed to me a piece of the mystery surrounding your mother. He said that the carved wooden ladle was given as a gift to you at the request of your mamm. He also said that your mother was one of the best wood carvers he’d ever seen.”
“Abner knows? What else did he say?”
Matthew shook his head. “He said something about you and I having to work out the mystery ourselves.”
“I’ve always loved that ladle, felt that it had some special importance, but I assumed that it had been a gift from my fater.”
“Maybe when this shunning is over, we can talk with your daed and get some answers.”
She gave him a grateful look that melted his heart. “I like how you say ‘we’ can talk with him. I thought he had lost his mind this morning.”
“He was angry.... Perhaps he could not control your mamm or her talent, and he feared the same thing would happen with you.”
“I am so grateful that you appreciate my carving. Someday soon I would love to show you my workshop,” she added shyly.
He bent and kissed her slowly. “I’d love a tour—I would love seeing anything that matters to your heart.”
* * *
Abner knew that Anke was beside herself with worry for Tabitha, and he planned to do something to ease her mind. He entered the Stolfus kitchen to find her listlessly wiping the table.
“How are ya?” he asked softly, unsure of where John might be.
Anke lifted sorrow-filled brown eyes to him and shook her head. “It’s happening all over again, isn’t it? John is full of fear and judgment and loss, I think. He will send Tabitha away if she does not confess and repent.”
Abner put his hands on her soft shoulders. “You don’t know that, and perhaps she will confess soon.”
“Nee, it’s in her blood—the wood. She won’t be able ta stay away from it.”
Abner sighed. “All right, but we can do nothing now. So, I want ya ta kumme with me on a walk.”
“Ach, but I must start supper soon.”
“John can eat leftovers. Now, kumme, sei se gut.”
“All right.”
He took her hand in a firm grip and led her through the screen door and down the porch steps. Then he walked with her away from the cabin and the other homes until they’d reached the communal apple orchards. There was no one about and he slowed his pace so that they both could breathe in the ripe scent of the apples that would soon be ready for harvest.
“It’s nice here,” Anke said softly. “Usually I only kumme to the orchard to work in the fall.”
“Anke, I—I know we just started courtin’, but there are things I wish for ya now.”
“Like what?”
“Well, that ya wouldn’t have ta work so hard, for starters.”
She seemed to be thinking about his words and he waited patiently for her response.
“I guess the deep down truth is that I’ve always worked hard, ever since . . . I suppose I worked ta keep from thinking about what happened ta me.”
He reached to gently stroke her cheek. “But ya don’t have ta try and outrun it anymore, Anke. Ya can learn ta be still with the truth, still with Gott, mebbe still with me. Ya don’t have ta fear the past no more; I’ll see it through with ya.”
She nodded, reaching into the collar of her dress for her white hankie as a tear spilled from her pretty eyes.
“Danki, Abner. Ya give me peace.”
He smiled, feeling his heart expand with gratitude, and he silently thanked Derr Herr for the privilege of loving Anke.
* * *
Tabitha swept the dusty floor with vigor and made herself sneeze in the process.
“You sneeze like a mouse,” Matthew offered from where he stood in the open doorway of the cabin.
She stopped her sweeping and smiled at him. “This is actually a bit fun. We can pretend we’re new settlers to Blackberry Falls.” She wondered if he’d find her fancy immature. But he came forward and took her in his arms. Broom and all.
“I like your idea of play. If we are new settlers, can you tell me, my gut wife, how many kinner we should pretend we have?”
“Ach—” She waved her hand airily. ”Why not six?”
“Mmm . . . and do you recall if we . . . had fun in their making?”
She felt her eyes drawn to his fine mouth and nodded. “Jah,” she whispered. She stretched on tiptoe to give him a sultry kiss and he responded in kind, leaving her breathless.
Suddenly, the atmosphere in the auld cabin became quite heated, and Tabitha felt herself let geh of the broom to link her arms about his neck. She kissed him in a way she never had before, creating a tumult in her own body. She wanted them to be man and wife in truth.
“Ach, Matthew . . .”
He bent and swept her up into his arms, walking over to the makeshift rope bed they’d restrung that afternoon. The mattress was thin and the bedstead creaked, but she knew that it was strong enough to support their combined weight. She watched him pull carelessly at the pins in his shirt and heard the small tinkling sound as they hit the floor. She was helping to ease his shirt off his shoulders when a gruff voice called out from the doorway.
“Hello! Anyone about?”
Tabitha suppressed a sigh and didn’t miss the groan that reverberated through Matthew’s chest.
He quickly shrugged his shirt back on and pulled her up from the bed. She turned and peered through the filtered light of the dusty room to see Asa Zook standing in the doorway.
* * *
“Zook, we’re shunned here, so we don’t need anyone about.”
“I know all about the shunning. The bishop told me, and he also told me that Bunny’s foal was breech and ya saved the two of them. I kumme ta give ya my thanks and ta bring ya some supplies.”
Matthew was conscious of Tabitha standing on the steps behind him, and he nodded briefly at Asa, then reached to accept the sack of goods the other man held out.
“I thought you left the mill and Blackberry Falls for gut,” Matthew said.
“I’m here and there,” Asa said gruffly. “I can make my way without the mill well enough.”
Matthew nodded, not wanting to prolong the conversation. “Danki for the supplies.” And for stopping me from making love to my wife . . .
He was glad when Asa left with a brief wave.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Autumn came in earnest to Blackberry Falls over the following days, and the trees were a riot of color and scent.
Anke was busy canning and barely saw John Stolfus, even for meals. Since the shunning, he’d been remote and irritable, often walking the woods for hours and neglecting the mill. But Anke had her own worries about Tabitha and her husband and found she had no heart to bring the matter up with John.
“How many jars of wild cherries is that?” Abner asked wryly as he came in the back door of the kitchen.
She shook her head at him. “Twenty-four or so. You know I have ta do this, Abner. It would be a waste not to. Besides, it ain’t like real work.”
“Oh, it’s real work, but I think I might know of a way ta make it more fun.”
She eyed him skeptically as he rounded the kitchen counter and grabbed a cherry from the colander in the sink.
“Do you know,” he asked softly, “that I absolutely love wild cherries? I lived on them growing up.”
“I know ya ran wild in the woods, Abner. I’m sorry ya were forced ta live off the land at such a young age.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, moving closer. “It made me strong.”
She felt warm and flustered by his nearness, but she couldn’t deny that it also felt gut. “I’d better get back ta my canning.”
“Fine, but first I’d like to ask for a kiss—and I wonder if you would like one too, sweet Anke?”
“I—”
“Please,” he whispered.
She couldn’t deny that a kiss from Abner was something she badly wanted at that moment. She looked up into his ice-blue eyes and leaned up to brush his lips with her own. He reached his great arms to pull her close and she felt safe and secure as she listened to the thrumming beat of his heart. Then he put her gently from him and she watched, fascinated, as he took the cherry he’d stolen from the bowl and popped it into his mouth. He gave her a faintly wicked smile, and she shivered in excitement as he pulled her close once more.
“Mmm, Anke, the cherry juice is sweet and sour; kiss me again and add ta its sweetness.”
Intrigued by his suggestion, she did as he asked. His lips tasted of wild cherry and she surprised herself by reaching to run the tip of her tongue over him, longing to taste more of the juice. And his moan told her instantly that he was more than happy to give her exactly what she wanted.
* * *
Matthew watched Tabitha carefully as she carved with a small pocketknife. Beneath her capable hands, the stick of beechwood turned from forest-floor debris into the form of a bent auld man, walking with a cane. She handed the carving to him shyly.
“It’s wunderbaar, Tabitha,” he praised.
She shrugged her slender shoulders. “It’s what I saw in the wood.”
He noticed the slight note of sadness in her voice. “You miss your fater?”
“I miss the man I thought he was. He just seemed so angry and violent when he saw me carving at the cabin.”
“You reminded him of your mamm, maybe—a woman woodcarver.”
He watched her stroke her carving with a delicate but capable finger. He closed his hand over hers. “We’ll find out the truth about your mother, Tabitha. Together.”
“Danki,” she whispered.
He watched the emotions play across her beautiful face and decided that he should ask the question that had been beating about his brain. “Not that I don’t love living in this hideaway with you alone, but I wondered what your thoughts are about going back.”
She stared at him. “You mean confessing and repenting? I can’t, but if you—”
“Nee, that’s not what I meant. I just thought that you might want to talk about it.”
He watched her draw a deep breath. “If I confessed, I wouldn’t feel right about doing my woodworking in secret anymore. I mean, I know I’ve gone against the Ordnung already, but to lie to our people and in church meeting . . . I can’t.”
“I understand,” he soothed. “I wonder, though, how it came about that women aren’t allowed to carve wood here. I know in my community back home it wasn’t an issue, and even here, Abigail works with clay.”
Her lovely brow wrinkled in thought. “I’m not sure, but there must be some reason why Abigail is permitted by Bishop Kore to work with clay.”
“We could always move back to my hometown, Renova,” he joked.
“You’re smiling,” she said. “But is there any part of you that would like to geh back? I guess I was pretty selfish in my ad—insisting that you give up your home for here.”
He bent and kissed the tip of her nose. “I want to be where you are, sweetheart, and I’m happy being your mail-order groom. Besides, Renova was not all that its name implies.”
“Really?”
“Yep. You see, my daed was bitter after my mamm’s death and was a difficult man to deal with, to say the least.”
“Like my daed is being now?”
He nodded his head slowly. “I guess we have to learn, sooner or later, that the daeds we’ve known were people just like us at our age, with similar cares. I suppose we only see the shadow of who they’ve been and more of who they are now.”
“That’s wise,” she said, smiling at him.
“We make a gut pair, then: wise and far wiser.”
“I love you, Matthew.”
He saw the shy blush on her fair cheeks and knew a warmth in his heart. “I love you too, mei frau. . . .”
* * *
Abner discovered that there were certain advantages to courting outright. Normally, an Amisch courtship would happen under cover of nacht, but not for him and Anke, and he was happy for this. For one thing, older women stopped looking at him as a prospective husband—he was tired of being pursued by Betsy Shiner and her chicken-feathered kapp. He also had the distinct privilege of being able to touch Anke’s hand, help her with the chores she insisted on doing, and swiping an occasional kiss from her sweet lips. It was all more than he had ever dreamed he might have in his life, especially when he considered his boyhood....
“Where are ya, Abner?”
He shook himself and came back to the moment in John’s kitchen where he sat peeling onions for the apple and onion dish that Anke was making for a late dinner.
“Ach, just thinkin’.”
“And are those real tears or ’cause of them onions?” Anke queried softly, and he saw her glance at him with a worried expression.
“It’s the onions.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If I’m cryin’ at all, it’s because I’m grateful—fer ya and fer us.”
Anke put down her paring knife and swiped at her own eyes. “Now you’ve got me doin’ it.” She sniffed once, then looked at him. “Ya haven’t had much love in yer life, have ya, Abner?”
He shook his head and swallowed hard. “Nee.”
“Well, we’ve got ta see what we can do ta make up fer that, don’t we?”
He blinked, his mind immediately racing to the physical. “Jah?”
“What was yer fa
vorite meal as a kind ?”
He laughed. “Ya mean what did I wish for when my stomach gnawed at me with hunger?”
She reached to touch his hand. “Jah, Abner. What did ya wish for then?”
“I thought I wanted food,” he said finally. “I’d look in cabin windows at suppertime—see some folks happy, some sad—but they all had food while I stood outside in the shadows. But I kumme ta know that it wasn’t the food on the table that mattered.... It was the privilege of being able to sit around the table that mattered. John gave me that when he gave me a place here.” He looked deep into her soft eyes. “And now you would give it ta me again?”
“Jah, Abner. There will always be a place fer ya beside me.”
He put down his head to kiss her fingers, his eyes welling with tears. When she pulled him close to her soft shoulder, he knew a complete feeling of home.
* * *
Tabitha looked up from peeling the sweet potatoes that had been among the items Asa Zook had brought. Christi’s bright red hair shone beneath her kapp in the afternoon sun, rivaling the red of the changing trees.
The maedel had a sack slung over one shoulder and appeared anxious. “Where’s Matthew?”
“Off fishing. What have you got there?”
“Well, Mamm would have a fit if she knew, but I figured I’d bring ya some tools from the workshop.”
“Ach!” Tabitha abandoned the sweet potatoes and took the sack with a smile. “You’re a schmart girl, Christi, and a gut friend! Won’t you kumme in to our grand, new haus?”
She led the girl up the newly framed steps and onto the rather treacherous porch. “Only step on every third board, Christi. I haven’t yet made all the repairs needed.”
She opened the screen door and glanced back to find Christi looking perplexed. “What is it?”
Christi gestured to all the obvious improvements that had been made to the little place. “I know what Matthew said the day you both wuz shunned—that he made you work the wood. But what does he really think? Don’t he mind that you, a woman, are better than he at woodworking?”
Tabitha considered the question before she responded. “Christi, it’s true that some men would not like that I am more skilled, but Matthew is different somehow. He is confident in himself, and so he can believe in me and my work.”