Chapter 12
C HAPTER 12
S HE WENT TO MRS. GRAHAM’S HALL CLOSET AND GOT OUT THE vacuum cleaner, the floor mop, bucket, and two clean rags, one to polish furniture and one for the bathroom. She sniffed, enjoying the aroma of a toasting blueberry bagel. It was not her breakfast, but belonged to the tall, thin woman named Gina, who lived in this house in a wooded development for the middle- to upper-class English people who lived lives of ease, or so it seemed to Mary. Heat pumps created a constant, level temperature of seventy-two degrees, light flooded rooms at the flip of a switch, warm garages housed late model vehicles. No woodstove to coax into life, no ashes to take out, no horse to feed or propane tank to change.
“So, how’s it going for you out there by yourself, Mary?” Gina called from the kitchen. Mary stopped halfway up the stairs and shrugged, before realizing Gina couldn’t see her. Feeling foolish, she called down, “Good.”
“I don’t see how you can stand it.”
A coffeemaker whirred, grinding coffee beans. Mary went her way, lugging the cleaning tools step by step, not sure how to answer that blunt observance.
She entered the bathroom, groaned inwardly. She picked up clothing, dropped them in the hamper, raked filthy towels off racks, wrung out sodden washcloths and threw them in after the towels. She sprayed the tub with cleaner, then the two washbasins, before starting on the enormous mirror with window cleaner.
Gina appeared in the mirror.
“You know, you need to get out more. You’ll lose your mind out there in the sticks. I cannot imagine. Would you clean Erin’s electric toothbrush? It looks as if it needs it.”
Mary nodded to let her know she’d heard.
“I like it out there.”
“But you don’t have a telephone.”
“I know.”
What would she say about the coyotes, the wind of the previous night, the garden rake? She decided to keep it to herself.
“I just don’t know how you do it.”
“If you’re not born and raised this way, you don’t understand it, I guess.”
“I guess. Would you move my nightstand and get the floor underneath real good? I dropped an earring back behind somewhere, and I don’t want it sucked up. Oh, and when you get to the downstairs bathroom, would you do the tub? We had guests.”
Mary nodded, caught her eye and smiled.
“Thanks. I’m leaving.”
Gina never offered information about her comings and goings, never mentioned what time she’d return. She simply left, and Mary was on her own, which suited her just fine. Her mind wandered as she worked, going from room to room, admiring the fine furniture, changing sheets, making beds, polishing, dusting, sweeping, filling the house with the scent of Pledge furniture polish and Murphy’s oil soap on the hardwood floors. Mary often thought of the downward turn of her status at the bakery, having been the owner, the boss, the manager, giving orders, not taking them. She had certainly become a faithful servant, bending and bowing, scraping the floor with humble “Yes, ma’am,” “No, ma’am,” “Anything you say, ma’am.”
But it had been her choice, and her cleaner conscience was proof enough that it had been the right one. Although Aunt Lizzie’s long, interesting letter, with news of the community, left Mary missing parts of her previous life. But she was no longer young, and all that was behind her now. When she caught her reflection in the mirror, she could barely comprehend this was really her. She appeared middle-aged, like a mother of at least six. Well-rounded, her gray belt apron pinned into place, a navy blue dress with plain sleeves, it appeared her life was basically over, as far as nice clothes and hope of a husband went. But she hummed and whistled as she worked, taking pride in rugs looking like new, polished floors and countertops, gleaming bathrooms and spotless appliances. She grabbed a few minutes to eat a granola bar from the stash below the coffee maker, drank a bottle of water, and continued.
Six hours later, she clutched two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, lifted her tired feet into Gina’s Infinity, and was whisked home to her little brown house.
“That lilac will have to go,” she commented.
“I’ll trim it next year,” Mary said. “Thank you, Gina.”
“Thank you. Three weeks?”
“Yes, that will be the fourteenth then.”
“Bye.”
Mary lifted a hand and watched as she turned around and moved down the snowy drive, carefully. She sighed, turned to let herself in the front door, and immediately put wood on the fire. The house was cold, the few red embers in a bed of ashes all that remained from the logs she’d put on that morning.
She sighed again. One job down, three to go later that week. Her days might not be full of excitement, but at least she hadn’t had any full-blown panic attacks lately. She had proved her own resilience, was still proving it, but had to admit, a certain lethargy marked her existence. But, she reasoned, happiness was not as important as obedience.
On Sunday afternoon, she hitched up Honey, her level of anxiety keeping her moving swiftly, eyeing the garden rake at regular intervals.
She’d heard them a week ago, or had it only been a few days? A long drawn-out howl, followed by a chorus of jolting yips and barks. Jesse told her they weren’t wolves, just a pack of starving coyotes, but it was best to stay on guard.
She traveled the distance of five or six miles to her father and Mima’s house, Honey trotting along as if proud to be pulling the carriage, Mary keeping her eye out for coyotes. A warm lap robe kept her comfortable, gloves on her hands, and her black shawl and bonnet worn just the way her father approved, the bonnet large enough to cover all of her hair and part of her face.
She was greeted with genuine welcome, her father clapping his hat on his head as he thumped out the snowy walks to help her with the horse. He gripped her hand, his eyes filling with tears, as he told her how much he appreciated her coming to see them.
Yes, she knew he did, but what he really appreciated was her shawl and bonnet, the sturdy leather shoes and heavy black stockings.
She let her hand be crushed enthusiastically by an effusive Mima, smiled, and said yes, she’d take coffee with cream. Then she folded her shawl and put her bonnet on top, arranged her large covering, and allowed herself to enjoy the feeling of acceptance and belonging.
Yes, this time she was doing it the right way. She was an honor to her parents. She had repented, changed her ways, and therefore the blessings were flowing.
“Oh, Mary, you are a sight for sore eyes. So humble, so sweet of you to come for a surprise visit,” Mima gushed.
Her father’s voice was thick with emotion, his smile wide and genuine, his eyes wet with unshed tears.
“Ah Mary, I feel as if I have seen the promised land, and now I can rest in peace when I leave this world. Truly, God has answered our prayers, and we are not worthy of this blessing.”
Mary bowed her head, receiving the benediction.
Mima cooked a pot of salted potatoes, fried ground beef, and made milk gravy, opened a jar of string beans and one of stewed tomatoes. She had prepared food for Sunday visitors, a bowl of vanilla pudding with a chocolate center, orange Jell-O with shredded carrots and crushed pineapple, an apple cake with walnut and caramel icing, plus a golden pumpkin pie with a brown top, baked to perfection. Good old-fashioned food, the dishes she remembered as a child when they visited Grusmommy Kinnich. Mary’s father seemed to have morphed into a much better version of himself. He laughed, spoke, smiled, and made jokes.
God’s goodness sat at his table in the form of his wayward daughter having returned into the fold, gloriously bedecked in the traditional shawl and bonnet.
Before she left, a shadow crossed his features, however, and he said although he was pleased beyond belief, he still felt he needed to be honest with her and extend a gentle reminder.
Mary arched her eyebrows. Her back stiffened, expecting a blow.
“They say you have white blinds in your house, Mary.”
She nodded. “I do.”
“And why, may I ask?”
Mary shrugged, felt cornered, betrayed.
“Our ordnung is green blinds at our windows. In the bedroom and bathroom, we have fabric, ruffled blinds, but only halfway up the frame of the window, for privacy. They say you have fancy ones in your bedroom, which does not sit well with me at all. It shows you still have much room for improvement, although, as you so well know, I see the good changes you have made, and I am so grateful.”
Bile rose in her throat. Her face turned crimson with irritation. She opened her mouth, but knew the release of bilious words would only prove regrettable.
Her ears burned with fury.
“Mary.”
Mima’s hand was placed on hers.
“Mary. Dat is only looking out for your soul.”
All caution was thrown away. Without a thought in her head, a volley of words burst forth.
“So if I have green blinds, I’ll be good enough to get to Heaven, but if they’re white, I won’t? Dat, I come here looking like my grandmother, and still, still I’m not good enough. I will never be good enough for you. Never.”
Shouting now, spittle flew from her mouth. Every red hair on her head seemed to bristle, and her green eyes blazed.
“Now Mary. There is no reason for you to become angry. Yes, you have made a great change, and one for the better. But as we are only weak mortals and prone to the lust of the eyes, I feel I must do my duty and never rest on my laurels. I wish you would take into account the rewards of true obedience that bring a great and lasting blessing.”
Mary shook her head, over and over.
“Dat, I don’t know if it’s possible. If I change my blinds, it will only be something else. Someone will find a shiny rock in my driveway and you’ll tell me I’m too fancy.”
“Don’t speak to me like that. I’m only showing you the way to full-kommheit . The way of the blessing.”
It was only by the force of her own determination that she told him demurely she would do what she could, never promising to change anything. They parted in peace, her father well pleased with the humble display of subordination. But in the buggy on the way home, tears of frustration overflowed from her eyes and ran down her shawl.
She should not have come back to New York at all. She should have listened to Steve. Nothing, ever, would reach the unreasonable pinnacle of his expectation. If she changed her blinds—she honestly had not known the ordnung said anything about blinds—he would merely request something different.
“Resting on his laurels.” His. As if this were all about him winning some kind of righteousness contest.
The beautiful snow-covered ridges seemed to disappear, replaced by graying hills devoid of vegetation, a barren wilderness cursed like the Dead Sea. There was nothing for her here in New York. Nothing.
Her future stretched out with no radiance, no light to guide her, a string of hard labor cleaning up after the more fortunate, pocketing her cash to pay her bills, going to church in crowded houses with her dull siblings and their urine-soaked litters. She loathed them all, these soft-spoken, righteous adults awash in their own holiness.
She was still crying when she came up the winding drive between the fir trees. Through a haze of tears, the brown house with the almost black roof with the wide porch reached out and drew her in, patted her back and brought comfort. She stopped crying as she stabled Honey, pushing the buggy into the shed and swinging the door shut. She stepped up on the porch and turned to look at the sun sinking behind snow-covered hills, creating a golden orange glow in the lavender sky.
She crumpled newspaper, added kindling, and lit the fire, holding her hands to the warmth before crossing her arms and turning to look at the blinds. They weren’t white. More like beige. What was wrong with beige blinds? She remembered the Allgyers’ kitchen, the clean sunshine, the light in that house. Light walls, floors, tablecloth, the light of love and understanding. A willingness to see.
She made a cup of tea and sat on a chair, contemplating this fresh dilemma. It almost seemed as if her father’s opinion was like an idol, more important to her than God Himself. A shrine in which she lost herself again and again. Or was it? Was she so far away from God that she couldn’t see clearly without her father’s guidance, but bungled through waves of fog and blinding clouds?
She took a deep breath, then another, and waited for the pounding of her heart, the shallow breaths and dry tongue.
But nothing happened.
She awoke at eleven fifteen, the house dark and cold, the fire having burned itself out. She lit the propane lamp, stuffed more newspaper and kindling into the firebox, and lit a match, groggy with sleep.
The visit with her parents came back to haunt her, followed by a sickening assurance that nothing would ever change. If only she had someone to talk to, anyone who would understand.
She brushed her teeth and took a long hot shower, luxuriating in the fact she could use all the hot water she wanted. This small pleasure, at least, had not been condemned. And at the end of the day, she could also choose the color of her blinds, and whether to get a dog, even if those things were met with disapproval.
And she knew without a doubt she missed Steve. Quite unexpectedly, she was filled with longing, a certainty of what she wanted. What she was entitled to. And it was the loving arms of another human being, a safe haven, and this house made into a home. With startling clarity, she knew the loving arms were not just anyone’s arms.
They were Steve’s.
An impossibility? Probably. But God told Abraham to go forth into a strange land and his seed would be like the sand of the seashore.
His wife and he well past the time of childbearing. And he believed God, and it was counted for righteousness.
Was that belief called faith? Was that the missing ingredient? She’d prostrated herself at the altar of her father’s unreasonable expectations far too long, had counted obedience to him as righteousness.
He had exploited her conscience. He had taken away her understanding and replaced it with his own.
It was only a weak light in the stifling darkness of misconception, but it beamed steadily. It was small, but it would never waver, and never leave her.
M ONDAY MORNING brOUGHT Jessie flying up her driveway in the battered Jeep, stopping by the doorstep and laying on the horn. Mary hurried to the door.
“What?” she called out.
“Your lady called. Sheila. She says the weather’s bad, or gonna be. She’s not coming to get you today.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Look, you gotta get a phone. I don’t want to keep running over here. Go tell the bishop you’re gonna get a phone. I gotta go. Art’s all flustered about the firewood. Storm’s coming till late this afternoon. We’ll check up on you.”
Mary lifted a hand, watched her go back down the drive. Far away, she heard the plaintive whistle of a train, probably the one going into Carson’s Ferry. The air was still and heavy, her breath clearly visible.
She turned to go inside, when an unexpected jingle of happiness washed over her. She fairly bounced across the living room floor to the coffeepot on the gas stove. Pouring a cup, she added sweet cream and toasted a bagel.
Oh, the day was rife with possibilities. There was wood to stock under the back porch roof, the horse to feed, a new recipe to try, and perhaps a letter to write. If she could summon the courage to write it.
God was in His Heaven, and yes, He was. She believed He was there. She felt this was real. Her father and Mima lived in their house with their green blinds, and she lived in hers with her lovely beige ones. And it was okay.
Probably. Hopefully.
She couldn’t go too fast. She had to take little steps at first or she’d return to. . . . She honestly didn’t know what. Something gray and dead and depressing. Something so useless it made her anxious, powerless, useless.
She chomped happily on her bagel, then put another one in the broiler, and waited till it was nicely browned.
She began to hum the song stuck in her head, then whistled it very soft and low. She began to weep, but not on account of sadness, more of an unbearable beauty somewhere she couldn’t reach.
She stood in the middle of the kitchen and told herself she was unstable and mentally unsound, which really was funny, so she laughed.
No one would care if she laughed. It didn’t matter. So she fed Honey, stacked wood all morning, went back into the house, and made date, nut, and raisin cookies that were so good she ate five or six, she couldn’t be sure.
And she did write that letter, after three false starts. On lined tablet paper, in her best handwriting, she wrote about her life, keeping it short and simple. She described the house and the plain clothes she wore, so he wouldn’t be shocked if he came for a visit.
She told him about the coyotes, her need for a dog and a phone shanty at the end of the drive. She signed her name, sealed it, addressed it, and applied a stamp, then propped it against the jar of spaghetti for three days as the biggest storm of the season dumped another few feet of snow. But she was prepared, safe and warm with good neighbors around her and the newfound something—a feeling she couldn’t quite name—that things would turn out to be alright.
H IS SISTERS brOUGHT the mail into the house and hid that letter, hinting around until he didn’t believe there had been one at all. They laughed until they bent over and slapped their knees. He caught bib apron strings and told them he would have to resort to serious arm twisting.
But they got a promise to help with the new pony out of him, before brandishing the letter with wild leaps around the kitchen. He clutched the letter from New York and withdrew to his room, where he stayed no matter how they pounded and begged to know what she wrote.
His mother gave him a long steady look when he finally came into the kitchen, after the girls were sound asleep.
He checked the perimeter of the kitchen to make sure no girls were lurking in corners. Going to the coffeepot, he felt the outside with the palm of his hand, before turning the burner knob. He stood back, crossed his arms, and asked, “Mom?”
“Yes, Steve?”
“What would you say if I went to New York?”
For a long moment, she said nothing, then turned to meet his eyes.
“ Ach , Steve. Do you think it’s good?”
He shook his head, gave her a small smile. “I don’t know.”
“You do know she has quite a history. The thing most worrying is back when she was so out-of-control. Lizzie hardly knew where to turn. Then back and forth to New York, and last was this Mennonite stint. She hardly seems to be a stable young woman.”
“She isn’t.”
“Then why bother, Steve?”
“I don’t know why I bother. Well, maybe I do.”
She lifted her eyebrows and waited.
“Do you believe sometimes God calls us into service and we don’t understand it very well?”
“I do. But we have to be very careful that what we think He wants isn’t all tangled up with what we want and can’t let go.”
He nodded.
“Well, she doesn’t live at home. She actually did buy her own property, so if I go, I won’t be chased off. But think about her courage, Mom. In the face of all her turmoil, she actually did make money on that bakery and bought a property. She’s amazing. Not very many girls would manage that.”
“It’s true. I’m just not sure, Steve.”
He sighed.
“Why don’t you wait a while? Keep praying?”
“I have been praying.”
“God’s time is not always ours.”
He turned his back to pour a cup of coffee, then turned to sit at the table.
“You know, we always look for that perfect partner. One with all the right qualifications. Every parent wants their children to have the perfect relationship, the perfect marriage. But I feel God’s leading.”
“It is His leading, Steve?”
“I believe it is.”
Their eyes met and held.
A ND SO, HE booked a bus ticket, told his mother to pray for him, packed clothes in a well-worn duffel, and bade them all goodbye on a Saturday when his sisters were all at home, lined up like observant crows with bright eyes and knowing smiles. Annoyed, he still grinned, waved, and was gone.
In the bus, he relaxed as the wheels turned on the cold macadam, the engine thrumming deep inside, a soothing sound. He tried to stay positive, told himself over and over this was the right thing to do, but could not rid himself of niggling doubts. He thought himself too bold, then dismissed that with the fact that she had written to him first. It wasn’t quite an invitation to visit—more of a newsy update on her life. But still, she’d written. And besides, she was unlike most other girls, and perhaps open to a more unconventional approach.
He tried to picture her face, to remember the essence of her, but it had been too long. She said she was dressed in plainer clothes, which would do nothing to change her beauty, he felt sure. She was Mary, the one he had found, the one girl still holding his interest.
Whether it was truly the will of God would remain to be seen, but if he would be blessed by God’s leading and their relationship ended in marriage, he would count himself the most fortunate among men.
As the trees waved their bare branches in the strong gusts of wind by the side of the road, he felt as if they were bystanders ushering him on.