by Linda Byler
“She was my life, my love. I fight bitter feelings against God for taking her. She was never very strong, which was why I did so much for her. She could never work in the sun on a hot day. Her head hurt immediately.
“Having babies took its toll as well. That’s why we have only three. Neil was almost nine pounds, and I feel as if carrying him was too much for her.”
When he paused, Edna searched his face but found it inscrutable.
Was this, then, his whole problem with Neil? He never bonded as a father and son should, perhaps still placing blame on an innocent child for his wife’s health. It wasn’t a new concept. She’d seen it before.
Orva had no idea of the root of unforgiveness in his heart toward Neil, and if she were to tell him, he’d be furious. Shocked. In denial.
Many fathers and sons, especially oldest sons, simply lacked the ingredient necessary to cement a relationship. Edna had seen this same scenario played out in many Amish homes, the problem often magnified by an overprotective mother, who tried to replace the lost father-love by her own ministrations of care for her son, which the father saw as a misdirected love that should rightly have been his. And so jealousy rode in on this ill wind, creating a crevice in the solid family structure.
“She babied that boy,” he broke out, his voice cracking.
“She served him hand and foot, now look at him. He’s so spoiled no one knows what to do with him. He thinks I’m nothing. Nothing, mind you. I can’t do much about it. If he’s like this at fifteen, who knows what will happen at sixteen? He’s not going to do what I want him to.”
He paused.
“I’ve always felt as if I was on the outside, with him and Sarah in a glass bubble. I could never reach him.”
Before she could stop herself, she asked quietly. “Have you tried?” She could feel those light eyes penetrating the darkness.
“What do you mean, have I tried? Of course I have. What father wouldn’t try?”
“But how did you try?”
Orva was obviously at a loss for a decent explanation, so the seconds ticked by before he cleared his throat.
“I mean, I noticed you have everything any woman or child could want, except the usual boy things, like ponies, dogs, skateboards, you know, rip sticks and other stuff boys would normally have around.”
“I hate dogs.”
“But maybe he doesn’t.”
“Dogs are nothing but trouble.”
“Maybe not for him.”
“You sound like Sarah.”
“Orva, listen. I’m well aware that this is none of my business, O.K.? I like to think that I am a bit of an expert on human relations, having worked in so many homes. Neil is hurting. His anger and swagger will serve as armor for now, but the sad part is that it won’t stay in place forever. And it will drive him to make bad choices later in life.”
The porch swing was flung back, the chains buckling as Orva got up, his temper driving his speech as he talked into the darkness.
“Shut up!” he yelled. “You have no idea! Go back to your home and date old Henry or Emmett or whatever you said his name was.”
His shouting became thinner and thinner as his steps hit the blacktopped drive. Edna heard the rasp of the barn door handle followed by a solid slam before silence grew around her. Too shocked to do anything, Edna stayed in her rocker, shrank even farther against the back, unable to think.
Finally, she wondered if Marie and Emmylou had finished their bath, so she rose from her chair and walked across the porch.
The usual bedtime preparations helped assuage her troubled state of mind. She set the four lunch boxes in a row on the counter, filled ziplock bags with potato chips, included small containers of ranch dressing, and put cupcakes in Tupperware sandwich keepers.
Pattering footsteps on the stairs produced two little girls in pink and blue plaid pajamas, their hair like tangled wet mops over their heads. Sheepishly, Marie produced a hairbrush.
“Our hair is really messy,” she said.
“I see. It looks as if you had a long bath.”
“Shower!” Emmylou corrected her.
She brushed out the wet tangles, put their hair in ponytails, fixed them each a glass of chocolate milk, and climbed the stairs with them.
“Edna, we heard Dat yelling,” Marie confided as she turned down her quilt and fluffed her pillow. Emmylou turned to watch Edna’s reaction, her thumb in her mouth.
“Oh, it’s alright. He was upset at something I said about Neil.”
“Mam and Dat used to fight about him,” Marie said quietly. “Well, not fight. But Mam cried sometimes.”
Edna nodded, thinking, out of the mouth of babes. Nothing was ever perfect. After death, folks remembered the good. They held the wheat to wind, watched the chaff blow away, sorted the good memories and felt guilty to so much as admit to themselves that, yes, there had been bad times, and yes, it was who we were.
Death was final. It was real, and reality was like a slap in the face for many people, and left them reeling in grief and disappointment, regret and denial.
But he had loved her. This Edna believed.
Neil had been like a festering boil between them. Only God knew whether they had spoken of this before her death.
She spoke the littler German prayer of her childhood with the two sweet-smelling little girls, kissed them, tucked them in, and couldn’t resist a tickle below Emmylou’s chin.
“Hey!”
Emmylou turned away from her, grabbing covers, giggling helplessly.
“Good night. Sleep tight.”
“Good night.”
“You should marry our Dat.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t want me.” Edna said quietly.
“Maybe he would. I’ll ask, O.K.?”
“Night.”
Edna made her way to Neil’s door, tapped softly and said, “Good night.” She didn’t expect an answer and, of course, there was none.
She was wiping countertops when Orva came in, his eyes swollen, his heavy shoulders drooping even more. He walked straight to her, and said in a voice gravelly with weariness, “I’m sorry.”
He stood too close. If he’d move back a little way, she would look up at him, measure the intensity of his sorrow, sift through the lights that changed with his emotion. All she wanted to do was just put her hands on those heavy forearms, clench slightly, then slide them up to his shoulders, those solid weary shoulders stooped with too much care, too much living with circumstances he couldn’t control.
He was only one man. He could do only so much. Men got all tangled up in a deepening love for a woman, often hating anything or anyone that got in the way of this slavish devotion, creating a toxic soup of jealousy and hurt. A tenderness, so true she hadn’t know she was capable of, began somewhere in the region of her chest, but mostly spread to her hands, leaving them terribly alone. She had never known hands could feel alone, but hers did.
She did. She placed them on his forearms. She clenched very softly. She looked into his tear-streaked face, found the lights in his swollen eyes, watched as they turned from amber to green, then to the deepest black of agonizing grief.
“It’s O.K.,” she whispered.
With a sound like a groan, or a sob, she couldn’t be sure, his arms came around her small plump body and held her close. He shook with the force of his weeping. She felt his tears on her hair.
She had never been held by a man and had often wondered how it would feel; if it would ever occur in her lifetime, who it would be, and whether she would love this man.
This was not love. Only tenderness, the need to comfort, to reach out and hold a child, a suffering person, old or young.
She did, however, feel initiated, baptized by this grieving widower’s sorrow. No, it wasn’t romantic love; it was far more than her highest expectations. This love was almost spiritual, a profound understanding and kindness, from her to him.
“It’s alright, Orva, really.”
He released her,
drew out a rumpled navy blue patterned handkerchief and blew his nose, mopping his face before facing her again.
“It’s just so hard, losing Sarah, and having already lost Neil.”
He was an honest man, this Edna knew. Not many men would admit to that or shoulder any of the blame. Strong women had crumpled under the pressure of misplaced blame.
“You haven’t lost him.”
“Yes, Edna. I have.”
The wind picked up outside, dashing an old brown leaf against the window screen. Edna jumped. They both laughed. She went to turn the small handle, closing the window. They watched as a streak of lightning shot down from the north, a jagged white line of fierce power.
“Windows closed upstairs?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s a bit chilly to have them open at night.”
He paused, watching her as she hung the dishcloth on the small peg by the sink. She turned to face him. There was nothing between them, she told herself, was there? She felt comfortable, at ease, unselfconscious.
“When you say I haven’t lost Neil, what do you mean?”
“Are you going to fly off the handle again?”
He smiled, then laughed outright. “No.”
“Get him a dog. Or better yet, offer to take him to pick out a puppy at a kennel. Or the animal shelter.”
“I don’t like them.”
“Neither do I. It’s not what you like. This isn’t about you. It’s about Neil. You parents all think you don’t have to give in sometimes. Hello? You do.”
Orva shook his head, but his eyes followed her as she left the kitchen and made her way to the stairway.
CHAPTER 12
IT WAS HARD TO LEAVE THE SCHLABACH RESIDENCE ON SATURDAY after lunch, with Marie and Emmylou close to tears, begging her to stay. The lawn was freshly mowed, the mulching completed, the house clean, and the laundry finished.
Edna was in high spirits as she entered her parents’ home, threw her bag on the table and said the Saturday night of her dreams was here.
Nothing took away her mood of high anticipation, not even Trixie, who sauntered into the kitchen, yapping dizzily before turning around to deposit a few squirts on the rug. Edna was so beyond caring about life’s little annoyances, she didn’t complain about dead flies and crumpled brown geranium leaves. Spring was turning into summer, so the windows were often open, allowing a clean breeze to carry out most of the scent of Vicks and camphor and Hall’s eucalyptus cough drops.
Her father was not at home, which alarmed Edna but took away only a portion of her goodwill.
“Where is he, Mam? Is he sitting down at that hole-in-the-wall Quik Mart?”
“Yes, he is, Edna.”
“You know he drinks way too much coffee and eats those doughnuts nonstop.”
“Not nonstop. Two or three.”
“He’s not supposed to have any.”
“It’s not going to kill him. And besides, he’s so miserably unhappy when he gets bored and wants to visit with his friends. I see no harm in it, Edna.”
Edna shrugged and threw up her hands. “Whatever.”
“You’re not the one who has to live with him. I am. So if he chooses to go down there, I’m not going to hold him back.”
“Alright, Mam.”
It seemed as if she had waited all her life for this moment. This Saturday afternoon of choosing the dress, the shoes, showering and combing, using her best cologne, taking down one dress, only to change her mind and replace it. Many girls would have had a colorful jumble of discarded articles of clothing and shoes, but Edna was far too meticulous, too organized. Everything went back on its hanger; shoes set back where she’d gotten them in the first place. She finally settled on a rich royal blue dress in a pebbly woven pattern, with black shoes that were not too stylish for a Saturday evening. She decided on no sweater, after which she changed her mind and grabbed a very light one with three-quarter-length sleeves.
She was just so plump. She looked like a turtledove. Walked like one, too. He’d never ask her out again, she just knew it, then berated herself on her lack of faith. She was, she told herself, thirty, not sixteen.
He hadn’t told her which way he’d be traveling, by car or buggy. No big deal, she guessed, as warm as the evenings had been.
She was ready when a neat one-seated buggy pulled up to the barn. The horse was not outstanding, simply a brown Standardbred without much style. The harness looked new, made of shiny biothane with lots of silver attachments.
“Wish me luck, Mam, Dat,” she called, as she hurried breathlessly out the door.
“Good luck, dear. Enjoy yourself.”
“Bring him in. I want to meet him,” her father called after her.
Emery stood by the buggy, tall, sinewy, with that easy, catlike grace she so admired. His shirt was some kind of beige, that was all she could remember later. His face appeared older, more mature, with laugh lines around his mouth, his nose sharp like a beak.
Had he always had that kind of nose? My, it was something.
Like a bald eagle’s beak. Really bent and hooked. Oh, but it was alright. Everything about him was pure Emery. The small brown eyes. The mouth that widened into the likable grin.
“Hey there, lady!” he yodeled.
Taken aback, Edna smiled, although her smile felt chopped by that less than traditional greeting.
“Hello yourself,” she answered.
“Good to see you, old buddy. Terribly long time no see.”
Edna stopped a few feet away from him, allowing space to size each other up, to digest changes in appearance, to connect real life with memories of bygone years.
“You look the same, Edna. Haven’t aged at all.”
“Neither have you,” she answered with full sincerity.
And he hadn’t. Every move he made, the way he turned, the way he talked and laughed and patted his horse, was the stuff of dreams.
Seated beside him in the buggy, the heady scent of evening mist and climbing roses added to her sense of being lifted to a realm that was not of this world. The chirping of robins in the woods across the road added the beauty of background music. She had never experienced this sense of total and absolute happiness.
She was jarred out of her sweet reverie by a hand clapping down on her knee and giving it a squeeze. She had barely been able to keep from screaming in fear, before a hand snaked across her back, clamped on to her shoulder and pulled, followed by a kiss on her cheek.
It was a wet kiss that left a trail of saliva. Without thinking, Edna reached up to wipe it off.
“Ah yes, my little buddy Edna. I think we’re going to have ourselves a nice evening together.”
Little buddy? Clamping a hand to her knee?
Edna brushed the thought away, waiting till the euphoria settled over her again.
“So, tell me about yourself, you still maud schoffing?”
“Yes, of course. What else would I do? Careers aren’t exactly waiting for uneducated Amish girls.”
“Of course there are. Look at the money some of these girls at the RV factories are pulling in. Thousands of dollars.”
“You call that a career?” she asked dryly.
“That kind of money? It’s a career.”
“You don’t measure a job by the money you make,” Edna countered.
Emery disagreed. It was all about the money. You could learn to like anything, as long as you made enough money. He was a supervisor at the factory.
He’d made so much money he’d bought a farm so that he could invest.
The next step was a wife.
The clammy hand of confusion took a firm grip on Edna’s shoulders. The smile on her face remained bright, but the evening had turned a few shades darker as she realized Emery was over thirty now. How could she expect him to stay unchanged? His personality was a bit . . . how could she say this? Over the top, ebullient? But she knew it was their first date; they were both nervous. She figured that eventually, he would calm down. She could not expect
perfection at her age.
When they pulled up to the hitching shed in the back of the Dutch Village restaurant, there were three more teams tied up at the hitching rack, leaving barely enough room to squeeze in beside them.
Immediately, Emery opened the window on his side and began slapping the horse loosely with one rein.
“Come on, you old hag. Get over here.”
Chirping and contorting his face into every grimace she could imagine, he kept calling out directions to his bewildered horse. Edna wished he’d step out of the carriage and lead the horse where he needed to go, but this didn’t happen.
“Hey! Git! Git up there!”
Edna literally bit her tongue to keep from correcting his inept driving.
“Stupid old nag. He’s about the dumbest horse I’ve ever seen. I’m getting rid of him.”
With that, he leaped out of the buggy.
Edna thought about the dumbest driver she’d ever seen. So many horses were blamed for their confusion when the driver was the one who needed to be sold.
She sat calmly, her hands clenched in her lap, as he led the horse to the cast-iron railing, tied him securely, then made his way back to her, holding out his hand to help her down, that infectious grin lighting up the evening, pushing away every doubt or turned-off thought she may have had.
The Dutch Village was a well-known tourist spot, so as usual, folks from every walk of life were filling the restaurant to capacity. People spilled out the doors, sat on benches holding cards that would be called when a table became available.
“No reservations?” she asked Emery, looking up into his face.
“What? Oh, no. Didn’t even think about it. You mind?”
“No. This is fine. It’s a nice evening to wait out here.”
A harried person walked among the crowd, handing out cards, saying the wait should be no longer than twenty minutes. Emery struck up a conversation with a couple who were from Connecticut. This was their first trip to Amish country, and they were completely thrilled, asking improper questions without reserve. Emery answered with questions of his own, erupting in a splatter of hawkish, knee-slapping hilarity at their confusion.