Chapter 6
C HAPTER 6
C HESTER NOLT SAT AT HIS FAVORITE TABLE AND CAST A SWEEPING glance across the room, looking for Mary, a twice weekly ritual taking up most of his thoughts, and a good portion of his heart.
He couldn’t believe she’d gone home to New York. He’d felt God’s leading, knew he needed plenty of patience and a smart strategy to win her for Christ, and eventually as his wife. He’d never felt so drawn to anyone before and felt he’d played his hand well that first evening. He knew better than to rush things, but he felt confident in their future together.
When he finally spied her emerging from the kitchen, her dress an olive green setting off a new freckled tan and her luxurious hair, the ample figure encased in a black apron, the gladness welled up and over into his dark eyes. Ah, his future wife. She came straight to see him, God be praised.
He stood up.
“Mary! Welcome home.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s so good to see you. You’re looking great.”
“Thank you. What will you be having?”
He sat down hard, squinted his eyes, and gazed at the menu, seeing nothing. She waited, her gaze going around the room, her pen tapping impatience.
“Oh, just give me the usual.”
She nodded. He watched her go. Cool as a cucumber , he thought. Well, Mary. Two can play this game.
One of the other girls brought his plate, which really hurt, but he was an expert at masquerade, so no one noticed. No one brought his coffee refill or noticed when he left, but he was not disheartened. He enjoyed a good challenge, and this would prove to be enjoyable, guaranteed.
But he chewed his lower lip as he drove away.
M ARY FELL BACK into the usual routine as summer arrived, the heat forcing them to turn the air conditioning up, producing a whopping electric bill, but it was all part of being a business owner.
She told the girls of her plans to sell out, which was met with a mixture of wails and hard questions. She told them she had never been more certain of anything in her life, although she couldn’t provide a detailed explanation. She just knew she wanted to move away from Lancaster to a place free of traffic and constant demands. Perhaps she’d go to Maine, or Rhode Island, or Utah, who knew?
The “For Sale” sign appeared in the window and Chester Nolt stopped, blinked, backed away, and blinked again. What was she thinking? This was a very bad business move, and she definitely needed sound financial advice. He asserted himself immediately, asked her to sit with him a while, and put forth every charm and persuasion he could think of.
She watched him with patient green eyes, saying very little as his monologue ran on and on.
“Are you in real estate?” she asked coolly, decidedly impatient now. She also decided she didn’t like how the end of his nose twitched when he talked. Like a rabbit.
“Yes. Well, no. Sometimes,” he answered.
“Are you or aren’t you?”
“I advise people.”
She picked at a crumb on her arm, clearly unimpressed. He felt her draw away from him, felt the need to pour it on.
“Look, Mary. You need a break to make up your mind. I’m afraid your decision has been too hasty. Why don’t you accompany me to Maine when I go on business in July? Would you like that? Only for a few days of rest and relaxation. Have you ever been there?”
Ah. Interest sparked.
“No, I have not, though I would love to see it.”
She bit her lower lip the way he loved, and he allowed himself to look a few seconds longer than was necessary. He had barely opened his arsenal of love weapons, and already she was falling for him . . . or at least falling in line with his plans, which would surely lead to her devotion in time.
“C HESTER THINKS I should not be selling the bakery,” she told Karen, who nodded her head in agreement.
“You shouldn’t.”
“But I want to. I’m burned out. Food service is hard. It takes a lot out of you. And when I was in New York, there was so much nature, so much to love.”
“But you left New York because you didn’t like it there.”
Mary said nothing. Karen was right, sort of. She had no idea why she swung back and forth like a swing, first being thrilled by the money, the bakery, her full life in Lancaster, then disliking all of that and longing for the quiet life back in New York. And there was Chester, her vow to free herself of his charms, his church, and now here she was, probably going to Maine with him. She was bogged down in a thick mire of indecision, still having no idea who she was and what she wanted from life.
Distracted, her thoughts constantly taken up about decisions having to be made, she made a pot of coffee without the coffee grounds in the filter, bungled orders, and tripped over the rug at the entry. She snapped at LeAnna for allowing the grill to overheat, was frustrated at the cinnamon rolls put on display without having risen properly.
That weekend she went to church with Aunt Lizzie and to the supper and singing with Anna and her brother. She remembered Steve Riehl, but told herself she had just been getting desperate. He was only being nice to her, the sympathy a normal young man feels for an older unmarried girl of considerable girth.
It was a cloudy afternoon, with the low clouds and humid air before a rain, the kind of day when you know it’s only a matter of time before the day turns darker and light raindrops begin to fall. The youth had set up a volleyball net as usual, with no thoughts for the weather, which made Mary grin. Those sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds thought of nothing but having a good time, fueled by youth and tons of adrenaline. Her grin turned to a wistful smile.
The rain began in earnest soon after, with girls squealing and dashing for the shop, which was already packed full of married couples with children, older women serving up huge portions of food, bending to lift massive roasters of casseroles and lasagna.
Mary stood against the wall with Anna, watching the churning sea of friends, acquaintances, and people she did not know. They were all dressed in Amish clothes, most of them born here in Lancaster County, having attended a one-room schoolhouse till eighth grade. The older ones had then gone on to begin a job somewhere, either helping at home, in shops, or at markets or restaurants.
The farms had dwindled to some extent, the economy playing havoc with conservative groups trying to make a living with horse-drawn farm equipment and the price of milk seesawing, plunging to record lows in past years, though those challenges had also bred innovation, with new ways of turning a profit, making cheese and yogurt, farming organically, bottling and distributing raw milk.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” The young farmer’s motto.
“Our turn,” Anna said, stepping forward.
Mary followed her, reached for a paper plate, plastic utensils. A hundred or more youth were quickly fed by lining tables on both sides with food so the youth could file along on either side, facing each other in two long rows as they filled their plates.
“Hello, Mary.”
She looked up to find him looking straight into her eyes.
Yes, it was him. Steve Riehl. She went cold all over, mumbling a quick reply before moving on, telling herself to chill, stay calm. He meant nothing and who did she think she was, really? But her heart was pounding in her chest, her breath came in little gasps, and she could barely hide the shaking in her hands. Her thoughts ran out of control.
No, no, no. She couldn’t allow herself to feel this way. She would avoid him at all costs. She was in no emotional state of mind to think about a relationship that would only turn sour in the end.
She pushed the hot food with her fork, a steaming mixture of vegetables and ground beef, a crisp lettuce salad, a nice serving of potato salad. But it all turned into tasteless mush by the time Anna was seated beside her. Lifting her eyebrows, Anna pointed at the uneaten food.
“Not hungry,” Mary remarked, wishing away the dry mouth caused by the appearance of Steve Riehl.
“You are never not hungry,” Anna said, laughing as she unwrapped the plastic utensils from the napkin encasing them.
They slid over on the bench to make room for two more girls, and Anna joined in the lively conversation the others were having. Mary bit her lip, poked the fork into the steaming casserole, and pretended to take a bite, which wasn’t really that bad. She took another.
She was actually frightened when she heard masculine voices above her. She looked up to find none other than Steve Riehl with a friend, smiling down at them, asking if the space across from them was taken. Mary turned her eyes to her plate, but she’d already glimpsed the tanned face, white teeth, and long blond hair. He wasn’t handsome. Not in the traditional sense. Quite rugged looking, with that hooked nose so prominent, his mouth a bit wide, a dark stubble on his cheeks and chin. Still single, but maybe in his thirties.
The young men jostled for space, then unwrapped their plastic forks and proceeded the inhaling of food. Except Steven, who buttered a roll slowly, his gaze never leaving Mary’s face, her eyes still glued to her plate. No one seemed to notice, the conversation never missing a beat.
“So, Mary Glick, where have you been?” he asked quietly, thinking he’d never seen a head of hair quite in that color or abundance.
She was like a painting in his art history books. She was so different, so much more than anyone he’d ever seen. He had never really fallen deeply in love; he had come to think of himself as a lone wolf, perhaps, never to marry or be a father to children. He liked girls, always had, but never found one worth asking for a date.
All his friends were married. They all had homes of their own, children, responsibilities, mortgages, all the normal duties one took on when one chose to take a wife.
But Mary was different in a way he could not describe. His attraction to her was so out of the ordinary for him that he found doubting it easier. Perhaps he’d been lonely, more than usual, or harbored a secret longing of the heart without being aware of it. At any rate, he’d gone to the supper and singing for weeks and could find no trace of Mary. Now, here she was.
He had told his mother about Mary. His home was a sprawling white farmhouse across the macadam driveway of a white bank barn with a hip-roofed cow stable built out front, creating a T-shaped barn housing cows, heifers, work horses, mules, two ponies, two pygmy goats, and a loose flock of well-fed barn cats that came and went at their leisure. There were three dogs, a German shorthaired pointer, a black Labrador retriever, and a yapping little Yorkie who spared the larger dogs any annoyance. A henhouse was filled with Rhode Island Red chickens, and a flock of about a dozen sheep dotted the lower pasture.
The buildings weren’t in the best condition, the paint graying on the south side of the barn, weeds growing along the woven wire fence. Posts zigged where they should have zagged, but it gave the bluebirds a nice tilt to come and go from the bluebird houses.
The ponies were oatmeal-colored Shetlands, fat and lazy, so spoiled the little girls had to lure them out of the barn with sugar cubes. Their mother was a sturdy build, wide across the hips, her dress straining at the snap buttons down her chest. She had a most pleasing face, round and comely, her eyes dancing with good humor, her laugh coming freely and often.
Steven was the oldest, with four siblings married and gone with families already started. Five sisters remained, school-aged or already with the youth, all blond, all active and well-adjusted children who had grown up in a noisy, happy home.
Steve’s father was also a Steven. His mother had been so enamored of her firstborn with the few blond hairs on his otherwise bald head, she named him after her husband to keep the line of Steven Riehls moving right along. She loved her husband, loved the children, was a true example of glorious motherhood to those around her, and had absolutely no idea this was so. She waved away all praise, went right on with her life in her own humble way.
Yes, she hoped Steve would marry someday, but he didn’t seem to be able to find a suitable girl. There was always the chance of finding someone outside the faith, which would be troubling, of course, but were the Amish really any better than their counterparts? No, indeed they were not, and she viewed parents of children who chose not to stay Amish with a great deal of mercy, as she viewed everyone around her. Compassion rode on Becky Riehl’s shoulders like the cape of angels, and she found no excuse in the harsh judgment of others.
Her garden was a riot of overgrown tomato stalks, weedy rows of lima beans with a debilitating fungus turning the leaves brown, but somehow, she never got around to dusting them. The lawn was neatly mowed, but the edging was done sporadically as it seemed to be hard on her shoulders. She had to get down to the Gap Hardware next spring and purchase one of those newfangled weed eaters everyone was talking about.
The aging grandparents lived ins onna end , the Dutch way of describing the adjacent apartment built on to the original farmhouse. He was also called Stephen, but spelled in the old way. White hair circled the sides of his bald head, with a long white beard hiding most of his shirt front, still in good health in his late eighties.
His wife Lydia, like a beach ball with arms and legs, sat inside the enclosed porch with her embroidery, her little bird’s eyes missing nothing, a small plastic dish of Cheez-its and a bottle of ginger ale at her elbow. She loved her salty snacks.
When Steve told his mother about Mary, she smiled inside for most of that week. Perhaps this was the one. But when he came home for weeks after, saying she simply hadn’t shown up, she tut-tutted. She turned her disappointment over to God and was comforted. If it was meant to be, it would be.
M ARY LOOKED UP to find his eyes on her face. She faltered, found her voice, and said she had been to New York. She desperately hoped he’d ask no more questions about New York. He must never know the reality of her home—Her father’s long white feet with the yellowed, thickening toe nails, the calluses on his heels as thick as a horse’s hooves, the scaly skin falling away from them. His greasy hair, his ruminations of fire and brimstone. Jemima and her simpering ways, the drowning of kittens. She had perhaps never felt so deeply ashamed of it all as she did in that moment.
“So that’s your home?”
She hung her head, the “yes” barely above a whisper.
“I’m sure New York is beautiful. Is it in the Adirondacks?”
She looked up. “Yes. It is, actually. And I do love the landscape very much.”
“So why are you here?”
She shrugged.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m going for dessert, Mary,” Anna hissed. She pointed to Mary’s plate. “Eat your food.”
Mary elbowed her, but smiled slightly.
Steve was distracted then, one of his friends asking him a question, so further conversation was limited to group talk. Dessert was plentiful, the table piled with cakes and pies, puddings. And there was always the fruit salad, with its colorful display of sour strawberries and seedy kiwis, fresh pineapple unripe and sour. Fruit was not a food Mary found to be necessary, except very ripe apples or bananas. Most grapes made her cringe, but she supposed overweight people wouldn’t be this size if they loved fruit salad. She wasn’t going back to sit directly across from Steve with her plate loaded up with chocolate cake and pecan pie, either, so she cut a small square of Jell-O pudding, pink and unappetizing.
He appeared again, his plate piled with cake, covered in vanilla pudding, a slice of pie and fruit salad. He sat down, smiled at her before digging in.
“Sorry we got cut off before. What brought you to this area? Anna mentioned a bakery, I think. Is that why you landed here?”
“Yes . . . I mean, no. Sort of.”
Steve noticed her discomfort. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”
“No, it’s okay. Sorry. I like Lancaster. Really.”
He laughed lightly. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
“Maybe I am. Sometimes I miss the quiet beauty of New York. I just . . . well, I don’t always feel like I fit in there.”
“Your parents there?”
“My father and stepmother.”
“Your mother passed?”
“Yes. She had cancer.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Mary nodded.
How could she tell him it was a mercy her mother no longer lived ruled by her father’s iron fist? How could she ever allow him to see the dreadful tightfisted existence of those who lived in Pinedale?
Or was her mother happy, willing to allow the stringent rules of their community to direct her life?
Steve watched the shadows cross Mary’s face, watched the dark turbulence in her eyes, until she drew the curtain of her long lashes.
She was a mystery, but he was more sure than ever that she was a woman worth getting to know.
O N MONDAY MORNING, Chester Nolt was one of the first to arrive at the bakery, wearing pressed jeans and a sky blue polo shirt, his hair freshly combed, his round boyish face tanned and healthy. He greeted Mary happily, and she responded with warmth. His heart leaped in his chest.
He asked her to sit opposite, and she waved a hand before returning with a cup of coffee and a caramel frosted cinnamon roll.
He raised his eyebrows, his warm brown eyes as smooth and restful as new honey.
She thought of the trip to Maine in the middle of summer, and the idea of it created a sparkling light, a fizz of excitement in her stomach. Oh, the lure of fresh new horizons, new experiences.
“Have you spent your weekend in happiness?” he asked.
Mary bristled.
“What kind of question is that?”
“Oh, nothing strange meant by it. Just curious,” he countered.
“My weekend was good, if not happy every moment.”
He knew she needed to become a born again Christian, needed a closer walk with God, according to Scripture, and if he could point out her lack of inner peace, it would be a good start. It was only through being born again that she’d find true peace.
“Are you ready for your trip to Maine?” Mary asked.
“Of course. Are you coming?”
She batted her lashes, allowed her eagerness to sparkle from her eyes, not realizing that she was, in effect, flirting. “I’m thinking about it.”
He reached across the table, placed a large hand on hers.
“Mary, please do. I have been praying you would say yes.”
She looked around, removed her hand.
“Remember, we’re only friends,” Mary said firmly. “Nothing more. I’d love to see Maine, but I don’t want to give you the wrong idea about . . . about us.”
“I promise to honor this, Mary.”
“Okay, then I’ll go.”
He could barely keep from hopping, skipping, clicking his heels, and throwing his hat. He went to his job fairly bursting with success, confident the Lord was on his side.
M ARY TOLD AUNT Lizzie of her plans, which were met with a frown, a worried pucker between her eyebrows, and an urge to discuss every detail.
“I don’t believe it for a second. A man that age? He’s looking for something.”
“No, he’s not.”
“Yes, Mary, he is.”
“You don’t know him at all.”
“I know his parents.”
“So?”
“They don’t live far from here. The salt of the earth. One of those saintly Mennonite couples I admire so much. You know they’ve lived a long, happy life together. It shows in their faces.”
“Faces are like an open book, aren’t they?”
“Many of them are, yes.”
She thought of her mother, but could barely picture her face anymore. She had a pleasing quality about her, but quite often, a heaviness, a gray impenetrable cloud concealed the inner happiness that may or may not have been there. Her mother had often been a mystery, a complex whole made up of many layers. Rarely had there been a way to comprehend her true feelings.
“Mary,” Aunt Lizzie said, quite unexpectedly. “I really think it would be best if you didn’t go to Maine. It’s questionable, spending all that time together. Alone, just the two of you.”
But Mary wanted to go. She hesitated, then decided to tell her aunt about Steve Riehl, about how he’d sat with her, asked her questions. When she had finished, Aunt Lizzie sighed, a deep cleansing sigh of contentment.
“That’s so sweet, Mary. He wants to know you better.”
Mary’s voice took on a note of panic.
“I can’t. I can’t risk it. You know after he finds out about my origins, he’ll be repulsed, or somehow Dat will ruin things. I thought Jemima would change him, but she hasn’t. The scales are tipping in my father’s favor again, just the way they always do. I don’t have the energy to start over again.” She was rambling now, her panic mounting. “Do you know Dat sort of apologized to me for what happened with John King? But then, after I told him I’d forgive him, somehow he still made it out like everything was my fault. I just can’t. I mean, part of me thinks it would be easier to leave the Amish completely, to accept excommunication and put everything behind me. Including Steve Riehl.”