CHAPTER 5
C HAPTER 5
O N S ATURDAY MORNING, THEY LINGERED OVER THEIR COFFEE . Mary planned to unpack the last of the wedding gifts that were still in boxes, and Steve planned to spend the day in the basement, building shelves to organize his equipment. The gray skies outside didn’t bother them, as the overhead lighting brightened the kitchen.
“You look tired, Mary. Did you sleep okay?” Steve asked, placing the tip of his finger on her eyelid.
“I slept well. Could it be we just had moving day?” she quipped. Steve laughed, that wonderful carefree sound she loved, like a schoolboy.
“I love you, Mary,” he said, still smiling.
“I love you, too, Steve. Forever.”
The look that passed between them was one no one could capture in a photograph, one meant only for each other and the third part of a marriage, God.
He went whistling and singing snatches of song into the basement where he surveyed the mess, and wondered why he hung on to so much of it. But he grinned wryly to himself and set to work.
Mary washed the few dishes, then sat cross-legged on the floor, unwrapping the three cheese graters and staring at them. What did one do with three cheese graters? In New York she would take them to weddings, marked with her initials, and women would use them to make graut , or pepper slaw. But here in Lancaster they had evolved to some battery-operated device that worked like a food processor, whacking the veggies into tiny bits with a minimal amount of effort. It wasn’t as good as the more loosely grated cabbage, and Mary thought lovingly of the camaraderie of the young women making graut , each one with her own hovvla , arms moving the quartered head of cabbage across the grater. Steve would say change was good, of course, and maybe he was right, but there were things about the old ways that she missed.
Next, she unpacked a set of wooden spoons and thirteen spatulas. She spread them out and smiled to herself. White, yellow, aqua, purple, blue. Take your pick. She chose the white Pampered Chef ones and put the rest in a plastic container for storage.
She held up a wall plaque with the word “Gather” in cursive black writing on white, with a black frame. She held it up, frowned, put it back in the box. Dollar General, for sure. She felt guilty, then, but she did not want it on her wall. There was a set of Rubbermaid bowls, with lids, a welcome respite from Tupperware. She liked the handy, inexpensive little bowls to take a fruit salad or soft cheese to church. If they got lost in the shuffle, it was no big deal, compared to pricey Tupperware containers.
There was a blue Pioneer Woman teakettle. She held it up, turned it over, but could not bring herself to like it. It was just so bright blue, not her style at all. She grimaced, replaced it, then thought of her mother’s kitchen with the dusty wood range, the stained, greasy teakettle on the back with its peculiar hum, summer or winter. The feed store calendars, with each page torn off put to good use. Her mother wrote letters on the back and sent them to her sisters, usually running out of space and writing between the red and black numbers on the opposite side. The old rusted cheese grater and cracked spatulas.
She shook off the guilt, telling herself she was a new generation. She lifted a glass candle, popped the lid, and sniffed, tilted it to read the manufacturers label, nodded, and put it back in the box. Another cheap candle with an overwhelming scent.
When she looked up, she could see swirling bits of snow outside, and it made her heart glad. She had always loved snow, had always felt a happy anticipation when the clouds gathered in winter and the landscape became cold and still, just before the tiny, icy bits of snow started flying through the air. Snow for Valentine’s Day. It was perfect. They planned to go out for supper, to a small restaurant specializing in Italian food, a place Steve said she would love. She was looking forward to it and hoped the snow wouldn’t keep them from going. She felt a sense of security, with Steve still whistling in the basement, knowing the decision would be on his shoulders, allowing her the role of follower for the first time in her adult years. What a blessing this institute called marriage really was, she thought happily.
She picked up the cutest little wood-framed plaque, with the words in cross stitch: “The best things in life are not things.” It looked perfect propped on her hutch. She stepped back, wondered what should accompany it. A crock? An urn? She had an old egg gathering basket somewhere.
The snow came down thick and fast now, the pine trees across the road already coated lightly, the cars creeping by. For a moment, it seemed like her past was a story she had read rather than her actual life. This beautiful home was so unlike the frugal way she grew up. It had been such a spare existence. She thought of the cabbage on buttered homemade bread that she’d bring to school as a child. Sometimes onion. Never meat or cheese. She’d eat alone, trying to avoid the sneers of the other students, but inevitably one of them would mention the stinky cabbage and onions, which often led to more teasing from the boys. Either she ate the cabbage and onion or went hungry, so she ate the crumbly bread with butter and pretended she didn’t hear.
The first time she told her mother, she was firmly reprimanded, saying she should be glad to be mocked, that Jesus Christus was, too. That was terribly confusing. For one thing, she couldn’t imagine Jesus eating cabbage and onions. As she got older, she realized her mother meant that Jesus was mocked before dying on the cross, but it still wasn’t clear why that should make her happy that kids said her lunch stank. Still, for a long time, cabbage and onion reminded her of Jesus on the cross.
Standing in her own kitchen, Mary felt a shot of remorse, then a stab of rebellion, a need to avenge herself, a tangle of emotions she could never unravel. Who did she think she was, really, living it up in Lancaster, so far from her roots. She turned away from the window, caught her reflection in the mirror, and thought Ugh. Fat, homely, crazy red hair . A wave of self-loathing was like the scent of rotting carcass.
She tried to recover the pleasure she had previously felt in their new home, but the lowering clouds had settled, and Steve found her curled up on the recliner, a soft woolen throw covering her entire body, even her head, the half-unpacked boxes strewn across the floor.
“You okay, Mary?” he asked, touching her shoulder.
“A bit of a headache.”
“The weather. Pressure system.”
A mumbled reply.
Steve lowered himself into the opposite chair and turned his head to watch the snow. He opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it and closed his eyes. Was this to be his life, then? It was so hard to watch her draw into herself, to a place he could not follow, might never know.
There would be no lunch unless he got it himself, so he wandered to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, scanned the shelves, and closed it again. He found Ritz crackers and ate half a sleeve before finding peanut butter, then polished off the rest. He watched the snow and decided he’d better call off the Valentine’s Day thing. Too risky after dark.
He went back down the stairs, glancing at the covered form on the recliner, but told himself if it really was a headache, he should leave her alone to rest. But when he finished up at three and there was still no sounds from upstairs, he felt uneasy and went to check on her. He pulled back the blanket and found her unmoving, her eyes open and red rimmed.
“Mary.”
Quickly, she threw the blanket off, turned her body, and sat up, lowering the footrest. She seemed disoriented, mumbling, rubbing her eyes.
“I don’t know. Guess I fell asleep. Couldn’t find the onions.”
Suddenly her eyes opened wide, alarm spreading over her face. Genuinely frightened, she reached out and clutched his arm. “I don’t know what happened. I was not sleeping. I was awake, but I was a little girl.”
Steve felt her fear, but told her she must have been sleeping, really. Dreams were very real sometimes.
But she shook her head, then tried to laugh it off, producing a maniacal giggle that chilled him. She told him brightly that they likely wouldn’t go out for supper, so she’d make soft pretzels with cheese sauce, how was that?
And he put aside his misgivings and told her it would be the best. While she mixed the yeast dough, he sat on a barstool and watched, the two of them talking easily about mundane subjects. He convinced himself it hadn’t been anything but a harmless dream.
She shaped the long ropes in the shape of a heart and wrote “I love you” with ranch dressing. All felt right again in his world.
T HEY GOT UP early on Sunday morning, two weeks later, dressed carefully in their Sunday best, climbed into their spotless buggy with the polished harness on the gleaming horse, and made their way to John and Linda’s for church. Mary wore her black suit, since she was still in mourning for Aunt Lizzie, having been less than a year since her death. Steve was proud of how striking she looked in the dark dress, proud to be her husband as they drove behind a row of teams heading to the cluster of buildings along Route 274.
“They built a shop since I was here,” Mary commented.
“Good thing. I hope they won’t have services in that basement.”
“How do you know what their basement is like?” she asked.
“This is my home church district.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yep.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? So, you know everybody?”
“Pretty much.”
But Mary was so warmly received that she didn’t feel like an outsider for long. It was good to see Steve’s mother and sisters, and Mary found it easy to smile and speak when she was spoken to. She sat with Suze, Ruthann, and Linda, as a relative who would help prepare lunch at the appropriate time. Relatives of the host had a special job. All the homemade bread brought to church by friends had to be sliced, replaced in the plastic bags, and placed on a side table with the cheese, pies, peanut butter spread, and other lunch items. And that was just the start of their busy afternoon. These women were the chvishtot , the relatives who would sit on chairs placed on the outskirts of the congregation, ready to get to work as soon as the service was over. Mary felt proud to be part of the chvishtot , that special group of women in charge of preparing lunch.
The main sermon was preached by a fiery minister intent on stirring up a true wave of repentance among the sinners who sat in rows on the benches, lighting fires of guilt and remorse underneath them. His strident, fast-spoken words contained not a trace of humility and barely a smidgen of grace. Faces lowered, shoulders slumped with discouragement. Rebels snorted inwardly.
But Mary froze in real fear. She was paralyzed. Her twisted handkerchief was frozen in clawed fingers, as if she clung to a life-saving rope attached to a floating device, the cold seas around her heaving in great sucking swells.
Every sentence from the minister’s mouth was a death knell, an order to be thrown in the lake of fire where she would burn in all eternity. She trembled visibly. Her mind raced, dashed down one avenue then another, desperately seeking a sense of peace amid this hailstorm of words. Finally, she gave up, left her chair, and walked back to the house, where she found the bathroom and locked the door. She shook like a leaf. She breathed like a winded horse, her ribcage heaving. Oh God, where are you? I’m going to lose my mind. Where is help when I need it?
Every harsh word roiled her mind, upset her stomach, and accelerated her breathing. A knock on the door brought her back to her senses, and she ran water quickly, as if to wash her hands, then opened the door and pushed past a gaggle of school-aged girls.
A nursing mother looked up from her seat on the couch. She smiled, looked away. Mary went to the sink, opened the spigot, and filled a glass with lukewarm water, forcing herself to drink it. Suddenly weary, she turned to sit on a kitchen chair, knowing she could not return to that sermon.
A quiet voice reached her. “Are you alright?”
Mary turned to find the nursing mother looking at her, her brown eyes alight, keen with curiosity.
“Uh, no. Yes. I mean, I’m fine.”
“Of course. I just thought you looked a bit rattled.”
“Well, maybe.”
Mary paused, looked around to make sure everything was safe, before asking, “Who is the minister preaching?”
“Is it Chonny? Chonny Lapp, I believe.”
“I’m new in the area.”
“Yes. You’re Shtephy Riel ihr Steve’s wife. Mary, is it?”
“Yes.”
“I see. I heard you moved. I’m Sadie Fisher. Jonas Fisher sie Sadie. I am a midwife, sort of a doctor in the area.”
“Midwife? Really? That’s interesting.”
“Well. That is as it may be, but you looked unwell when you came out of the bathroom.”
“I can’t . . . I guess I . . . It’s hard to hear such preaching.”
Sadie nodded, her eyes looking suddenly sad.
“Yes, I wish it were otherwise, but we’ll always have that kind among us, Lord knows. It takes a firm foundation to accept that kind of preaching with grace. He is sincere, though, and also a man chosen by God to carry out His work.”
“You think he is?”
“Well, yes.”
But their eyes met, and they both knew the thoughts of the other, without a word being spoken.
“I have a weakness,” Mary began, and suddenly felt comfortable telling Sadie a bit about her life.
Sadie watched her face, sensing the anxiety.
“ Heit iss Soondag (Today is Sunday),” she said quietly, after Mary stopped. “But come visit me.”
The phrase “Today is Sunday” was a catch-all to stop all business talk or transaction. “Today is the Lord’s day, and we must keep it holy” was the unspoken message.
She told Mary where she lived, just before Ruthann swung through the door, a crying toddler perched on her hip, a pacifier with a torn nipple angling from a fastener.
“Hush. Jason Michael. Now you hush right this minute and I mean it. Uh, what will I do? One pacifier and he bit a hole in it. I’ll be fit to be tied till it’s time to go home. Hush, Jason.”
Sadie lifted her baby over one shoulder, carefully arranging a burp cloth, then began a soft rhythmic patting.
Jason bit on the pacifier and set up a cacophony of fresh wails. Ruthann lifted her face to the ceiling and pretended to pull out her hair. Mary got to her feet, surprised to feel the room spin and tilt. She caught the back of a chair, then made her way uncomfortably to the hutch and opened drawers, looking for an extra pacifier.
“He’s not going to take another one, I guarantee it. You may as well save your energy.”
Jason’s howls rose as Ruthann applied a handful of Kleenex to his nose, swiping.
“Here,” Mary offered. “Try this.”
“He’s not going to take it. Here, Jason, Gook mol da tootie .”
Jason turned his face away, then peered at the proffered pacifier, reached out, and put it in his mouth. He blinked, then smiled, before resuming a desperate working on the new pacifier.
“Oh, praise the Lord. Can’t believe it. Well, Mary, you saved the day. Somebody should go out and give Chonny Lapp a pacifier. I have never.”
Sadie and Mary tried to look stern and displeased with that unabashed disrespect, but neither could hide their smiles.
“I tell you, if it’s that hard to get to Heaven, I may as well give up right now. Jason, komm, let’s get your diaper changed.”
Oh, to have such a foundation, thought Mary, to come right out and say what you thought.
The remainder of the day was a whirl of preparing tables, washing dishes, and preparing the tables the second time, until everyone in the congregation was fed. Then the women sat gratefully, but not for any length of time, not if you were related to the one who hosted services. Soon, it was back into the house to prepare the evening meal of chicken potpie, baked beans, and a salad for relatives and friends.
Linda tasted the casserole she had prepared ahead, wrinkled her nose, and said, “This needs something.”
“Here,” Ruthann shouldered her way forward. “Give me a spoon.” She tasted, nodded, and said she needed chicken base, that Better than Bouillon stuff.
“I’m not buying that stuff. It’s sinfully expensive. Like five dollars for a weeny jar.”
“Well then, your potpie will be gross.”
“ Ach come on, Ruthann. Suze, Mary, taste it.”
They all agreed, it needed chicken base, though Mary assured her it was quite good.
There were children underfoot, always. Running, laughing, yelling, making an unbelievable mess through the house. Mary watched them go, thought of her new white kitchen cupboards, the pine floors, all the potted plants, and cringed.
Would a flock of unsupervised children scratch her floors, bang her cupboards, upset her plants? Steve was planning a shed in which church services would be held, so they could take their turns the following year.
Every newlywed couple was given a year’s grace before hosting services, which gave them time to build the additional space to do so, if needed. Sometimes they didn’t have the financial means to do this, so a kind neighbor would host services twice. To be Amish meant you upheld and respected tradition, were steeped in it like a fine tea. “This is the way the forefathers did things, it is a precious heritage, and thus we will follow willingly.”
Besides, hosting services was a special event, creating a certain excitement. The house was thoroughly cleaned, no window left unwashed. In summer, flower beds and gardens were mulched, every last weed plucked, the whole place spruced up and prepared for a congregation used to seeing everything at its best. If the woman of the house had a new baby or a house full of small children, sisters and a mother would arrive the day before with the sole purpose of cleaning the place from top to bottom. It was simply a part of life, to give of themselves in time of need. It was just how things were done.
O N THE WAY home, tucked beneath a warm fleece buggy robe, Mary listened to the wet plunking of the horse’s hooves, watched the piles of snow go by, noticed the flock of starlings quarreling along the eaves of a heifer barn. Steve was quiet, seemingly lost in thought, his profile stern.
She put a hand on his knee. “A penny for your thoughts.”
He grinned at her. “A penny doesn’t get very far these days.”
“Come on.”
“I noticed you left the service early.”
She recoiled, shrank into herself. She wanted to be perfect for him, wanted to be everything he thought she was, so she said lightly, “Ladies need the restroom at times.”
“That long? I was getting worried.”
“I was talking to a new friend, Jonas Fisher’s wife, Sadie.”
He nodded, “Okay.”
The horse plodded uphill, the naked trees on either side standing like sentinels, ushering them toward home. A crow rose ahead of them, startled away from his roadkill, flapping and cawing his indignation.
Then Steve asked, “The sermon had nothing to do with it?”
“Uh, no. No. He was quite interesting, if a bit harsh.”
“And that didn’t bother you?”
How could she tell him how it affected her? He would think her unstable, emotionally crippled, a backslider in the faith, which was what she was. He had not bargained for a wife he needed to worry about all the time.
“No, not really.”
And so he let it go, but was left with a certain uneasiness, a foreboding of his world being off kilter by a few degrees. The darkness of her afternoon on the recliner, the strange dream and weird laugh accosted his thoughts, bringing a sense of despair. Was his own faith strong enough to keep the both of them on solid ground? He prayed for wisdom in how to best help her.
He loved her deeply and knew he’d always be there for her. Whatever he couldn’t do, he’d have to leave in God’s hands.