CHAPTER 12
C HAPTER 12
“H OW ARE YOU, M ARGARET? T HIS YOUR SISTER?” HE ASKED.
“Good. Yes. Rebecca, Ivan.”
Rebecca smiled, nodded, and blushed when he said hello, then went back to her fries as if they alone would save her.
“This is my brother.”
Margaret smiled at the younger boy, said hello, nodded when he said his name was Jake.
After that, things became awkward in a hurry, with Rebecca intent on her fries, Margaret afraid she would faint dead away, not having eaten or slept and not wanting to see Ivan Stoltzfus at all.
“Buying horses?”
The words rained down like hail, unwanted.
Go away , Margaret thought.
At this, Rebecca perked up as if some kind of spell had transformed her into a much more outgoing version of her own sweet self. “Actually, we are. We got Dad to buy the first one. He’s a pathetic-looking thing, but we’ll change that.”
She smiled her angelic smile, her blond hair almost white in the winter sun, her blue eyes alight with excitement. Ivan looked down at her, then over at Margaret, who kept her eyes on her congealed fries, soaked in ketchup, uneaten.
“Plus, he’s buying another one, so we can learn together,” she went on. “We don’t even own a saddle. Well, the boys do, but they only ride the minis.”
“Wow, that’s great. I hope you enjoy learning to ride.”
“Oh, we’re going to. But first we need to get that poor thing in shape. I bet in a year or so, you wouldn’t know him.”
“We’ll have to come around, see how you’re doing.”
“Yeah! That would be great,” Rebecca said, bouncing a bit.
Ivan looked at the long line, shook his head. Rebecca offered the rest of her fries to Jake, then slid across the booth and told him to sit. There was nothing for Margaret to do but slide over so Ivan could sit with her. It was stiff, awkward, and now her shy sweet sister was talking to Jake as if she’d known him her entire life, which was beyond embarrassing. She did not want Ivan to know she planned on having anything to do with a horse. She was way too cool for that. She didn’t like horses, only cars.
Jake looked like a younger version of Ivan, but Rebecca didn’t seem to notice at all.
Ivan turned to Margaret. “Any weddings this week?”
“No, thank goodness.”
“I have two.”
“Really?”
He nodded, asked if that was it for her. She shook her head, held up a forefinger. “One. One more.”
“Lucky. Whose?”
“Cousin wedding.”
Before he could ask, Jake jumped to his feet. “Come on, Ivan.”
And after a quick “see you later,” they were off, hurrying into the crowd and through the swinging doors.
Margaret exhaled long and loud, bent to drink some of her Coke, and refused to meet Rebecca’s searching eyes. There was nothing more to say.
“Margaret, why aren’t you friendly to him?”
She merely shrugged, feeling more miserable than ever.
Rebecca’s soft hand crept across the table, then closed around hers.
“It’s okay, Marge. I understand. It’ll get better.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What I said. Come on, let’s go see if Dad’s bought another horse.”
T HEY CAME AWAY from that horse sale with three new horses, each one in worse shape than the previous one, all for a grand total of seventeen hundred and thirty-three dollars, plus the additional cost of saddles, bridles, halters, minerals, and shampoo.
It would turn out to be a family effort, the restoration project of three horses slated for the kill pen.
At first, Rebecca spent most of her days alone in the barn, a wide well-lit area away from the sound of traffic, neighborhood sounds, or any other distraction. Steve had built the original barn out back by a cluster of pine trees, then built an addition as the boys grew. It was a unique barn, with odd angles of the roof, dark brown board-and-batten siding, a large pasture surrounded by woven wire fence, and more trees along the north side, separating their property from the neighbor’s.
Rebecca fed, shampooed, and brushed the horses. She dodged flying hooves and those mean teeth like tobacco-stained rows of corn. She learned the warning of flattened ears and shifty rumps, watched the horse dentist file down those awful teeth, observed her father’s patient ways. Her brothers joined her sometimes, but Margaret avoided any contact.
“She’s too cool,” Logan said drily.
“Too highfalutin,” Chris echoed.
“It’s okay,” Rebecca said. “We got this.”
W EDDING SEASON CAME to a close. Margaret ran with the usual crowd, the thought of seeing Ivan around dogging her weekends, stirring up an unease, a certain discontent she could never discard entirely.
In February, the rain was icy cold and there had been no snow worth mentioning. The dark winter days dragged. Lowering clouds churned restlessly, creating portent, as if they would unleash a winter storm, but instead it was just one steel-gray day after another. Housewives yawned and took long afternoon naps, went to quiltings, and gossiped more than usual just to relieve the winter doldrums.
Sourdough bread rose on scrubbed countertops, and everyone seemed to have advice on making the best loaf. Einkorn was the favored grain suddenly, with everyone touting its amazing health benefits. Margaret told her mother she should try making sourdough, and Mary stood in the middle of the kitchen with hands on her hips and said if she heard that word one more time she was going to yell as loud as she could. No, she did not want to mess with the stuff.
Margaret said that Caitlyn’s mom made artisanal sourdough, and it was so good she wouldn’t believe it.
Thoroughly fed up with the virtuous women stretching and folding their sourdough every half hour, she snapped at Margaret. “What’s wrong with my bread? I used to run my own bakery, you know. If Caitlyn’s mom wants to spend her life feeding sourdough starter and stretching dough, well, good for her. I won’t be wasting my time. I’ll never understand why we have to go catching yeast from the air when you can buy it in a packet and move on with your life. And then the endless feedings . . . I don’t need to worry about keeping one more thing alive in this house.”
“Geez, Mom,” Margaret said, surprised by her mother’s vehemence.
“Let me tell you something, darling. There is high fashion and style in the world, but we lowly Amish have our share too. All these women comparing their sourdough loaves, bragging about having the best ‘crumb’ or ‘lift,’ or fancy design on top. Not to mention the money they spend on some ‘heirloom grain’ or another. The way I see it, it’s all just a shameful display of pride masquerading as being a good housewife.”
“Okay then,” said Margaret. “It was just a suggestion.” She rolled her eyes and left to find a bit of normalcy with her sister Rebecca, who basically lived in the barn.
She climbed the fence separating the box stalls from the forebay and sat quietly, observing as Rebecca braided pink ribbon into the paint’s thickening mane.
“Tell me their names again,” she said.
Rebecca looked up. “This one’s Charlie, the brown Quarterhorse is Darling, the black Morgan is Dragon.”
“Why those names? They’re all ugly.”
“Thank you.”
Rebecca went back to her intricate work, ignoring her sister who had no hand in the rehabilitation of these animals, then made fun of their names.
“Why Dragon, though?” she persisted.
“He was wild like a dragon. Bit, kicked, hocked his front feet at you. He was vicious.”
“Is he still?”
“Sometimes.”
“You know why I came out here?”
“No clue.”
“Mom’s going haywire, yelling about sourdough bread. She’s a mess.”
“She doesn’t have to make sourdough if she doesn’t want to. Her bread is delicious.”
“She’s mental.”
“So are you.”
Margaret’s eyes flew wide open. In a scared voice, she asked, “What do you know about it?”
Rebecca looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
But she did mean something. More frequently now, she woke during the night, sure she was having heart problems, kidney failure, a brain tumor slowly spreading across her brain. She often experienced dizziness, nausea, towering rages, then a deep trough of depression in which she would hide herself away, saying she had a migraine.
Margaret slid off the fence, stood beside Charlie, and slid a hand beneath the braids, stroking the silky hide. Suddenly, something in her gave way. She told Rebecca she thought she might have what her mother had, and she began to weep softly, making mewling kitten sounds that frightened Rebecca.
Quickly, she left the braiding half-finished, took up the ribbon, and left the stall, holding the door open for Margaret, who stumbled a bit through her blurry vision. She leaned against the watering trough, took up the corner of her apron, and inhaled deeply.
“I’m just so afraid sometimes, Rebecca.”
“Why don’t you tell Mom?”
“I’m . . . I don’t want to be like her, and I’m afraid I am.”
“You have to talk to her.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
They both looked up as the door opened, letting in the cold, wet air, stirring wisps of hay and scattered sawdust.
“Hey, Dat.”
“What’s up, girls? Mom says supper’s ready. What’s wrong, Margaret? You look upset.”
“Got some dust in my eye.”
“Okay, come in for supper.”
Mary smiled as she served a large square pan of homemade pizza, complete with home-canned sauce, fried sausage and green peppers, and a mixture of good cheese. She served heavy slabs on each plate, then passed the salad and bottle of homemade dressing.
“Sourdough crust?” Steve asked with a twinkle in his eye. He laughed when Mary cast him a look.
“The days are finally getting longer. Surely the sun will shine now. It’s been over a week of rain and drizzle.” Steve tried to cheer the stodgy family, quell the irritation of bleak days.
No one answered. Rebecca ate small bites of her pizza, contemplating her sister’s confession.
Steve tried gamely, “Dragon doing any better?”
“Some days.”
Conversation lagged. Mary yawned, wiped her eyes, said, “Boy.”
“Boy what?” Logan asked, checking responses to see if it merited a laugh. Apparently it didn’t.
“It’s just so dark and dreary. I went for groceries today and I know I have never seen so many glum people. Pushing grocery carts with bent heads, looking straight ahead and avoiding eye contact. It’s amazing how grumpy people are in this kind of weather. Oh, that’s right, Margaret. I found a new over-the-counter pill for migraines. Do you want to try it?”
“I doubt it.”
She kept her head lowered, and Rebecca tore off a crust of bread, balling it up between thumb and forefinger.
M ARGARET TOOK TO going with Rebecca to the barn in the evenings, and before she was aware of it, she was brushing, feeding, mucking stalls. As they worked, they talked, and by the first spring breeze, Rebecca knew all of Margaret’s history of panic attacks, uncontrollable thoughts, anger, depression, all of it.
They worked a lot with Dragon, whose unpredictable temper still kept them safe distances away. Even on a lead rope, there was never a time to relax, never knowing when he would lash out, his stained teeth hovering, or a twitching hindquarter.
And still no one told Mary about her daughter’s condition, as Margaret fought on by herself, disliking the thought of medicine, of depending on a manufactured drug to keep her normal.
Her beauty multiplied as she grew older, her features settling into themselves, a certain maturity serving her well. In two weekends she was asked out by three different young men, each one afraid to approach her and not surprised when the answer was no, each one believing she’d spoken the truth when she said she wasn’t ready to date. There was always tomorrow, and the chance of acceptance.
To say she was popular among the youth wasn’t exactly truthful. Some days she was outgoing and friendly, others she was withdrawn, suspicious, with hooded eyes and no smile.
There was talk of her being like her mother, but that was all it was, guesswork, surmising. Margaret knew. Though she had told herself she wanted nothing to do with Ivan, she also found every other young man repulsive in comparison. She always watched for him, knew the sound of his car, could decipher his voice from surprising distances.
She decided it was better to be alone for the rest of her life than to marry someone she did not love. She honestly had no idea what her mom meant when she talked about giving yourself up to God’s will.
Sometimes Ivan talked to her, stood beside her to play volleyball, included her in conversations, but each time she seized up, froze like an ice cube, and could only utter monosyllables. She never imagined her anxiety, the condition she so tried to hide, had anything to do with her inability to interact in a normal way.
A BOUT TWELVE MILES away, across level farm country dotted with clustered buildings, Ivan Stoltzfus walked out of a large brick house beside a macadam road winding along till it dropped down a sharp incline and up over a bridge spanning little Pequea Creek.
The old stone gristmill resided over the flowing water, the huge wooden paddle wheel silent forever, only an object to be photographed by tourists, appreciated by the elderly remembering a sweeter, simpler time.
A pair of mallards followed their instinctual habits, moving against the current, searching for a suitable eddy with a grassy bank, a quiet place to raise their brood. To the left of the bridge, a sleek heron stood as if made from cement, its rounded eyes missing nothing, as it waited on unsuspecting fish. Buds were pushing on willow trees and new dandelion shoots emerged thickly by the water’s edge.
Ivan breathed deeply and took in the scent of new growth, the earthy smell of moving water and wet earth. His mind was not on simple things, however, after experiencing another battle of wills at the supper table, another episode of his food turning tasteless, his mother leaving the table in a temper as his father bent his head to his plate in frustration. Raised to keep up appearances, these arguments were never fully acknowledged, but they were frequent enough that Ivan preferred not to be home more than necessary.
He walked down the well-maintained drive, past the old oak trees along the row of hosta, hydrangea, heuchera, and ferns to the edge of his neighbor’s property where he parked his vehicle. Young men with cars were required to park them elsewhere, not on their parents’ properties, making it clear that the parents did not approve of the vehicles.
He unlocked it as he approached, reveling in the fine lines of the black Mustang. He felt the usual thrill as he started the engine. He enjoyed owning a car. Enjoyed driving it, felt proud to rev the engine and watch pedestrians turn their heads in appreciation. Like most young men of the Amish, he knew vehicle ownership was not a permanent way of life, but could be enjoyed for the short years of rumschpringa before he joined the church and gave up the things of the flesh to serve God.
The low throbbing of the engine sent the mallards into a cover of tall shrubs, but the heron remained, his constant vigil unperturbed. Ivan glanced at the creek, adjusted the rearview mirror before backing out on the road, his foot pressing down on the gas pedal as he moved slowly away. He had no real destination on a Wednesday evening in early April, only the need to put distance between him and that table surrounded by parents and siblings.
He tried to keep his mind on more pleasant things like baseball season, his friends—lighthearted subjects that were far from his troubled family. There were only three kids left at home now that four were married, beginning lives of their own, even if there was no great distance between them. The four older siblings—two brothers and two sisters—were swept up in having children, working, creating a home according to the things they had been taught. Taking on the traditions from one generation to another. Work hard, go to church, support the community, raise a family, fit in without rippling the waters of peace and harmony.
As he drove, he wondered idly how many other families’ tables were turned into a veritable hornet’s nest by the end of the meal. Sometimes he felt the blame lay on his mother, other times he felt the burden of his father’s coldhearted reserve. He never did understand why he was voted on the board of the Plain Homestead, but perhaps he turned into another person when he was away from home.
What was home?
A showplace, for them. A restored showplace of brick and replaced windows, oak floors refinished to perfection, costly furniture in a beautiful flagstone patio surrounded by luxurious landscaping.
And it was never enough. He knew his mother was insatiable, always wanting what she didn’t, or couldn’t, have, choosing to open the subject at the evening meal, throwing the young adults into the melee.
His father was rarely at home, and if he was present, he was working, or in his office. He kept busy as a board member for several establishments among the Amish. A man of honesty and valor, a man of wisdom, he presided over many things, having made a name for himself as a hard worker, a good manager, standing a head above others.
As he drove, Ivan’s thoughts went to Margaret, the girl with the spun gold hair and the bewildering personality. She occupied his thoughts too much of the time, left him guessing, feeling like an outsider. It was better to disentangle himself before he got caught in a snare, like a helpless rabbit dangling from a rope, like his father had. He was afraid of a serious relationship going sour, afraid of thinking he’d found the perfect girl only to discover she was, well, like his mother.
All his life, he’d known the bitterness of discord, of verbal warfare, doors slamming behind hurled accusations. Then there’d be days of polite silence until things were smoothed over, every wrinkle of their existence as a bickering family erased, smiling faces showing the peace and harmony in which they lived. Fine. Everything was fine. It had to be fine. Real emotion was tucked away and only acceptable things presented.
So Ivan felt fine as he drove along, felt fine as he turned in at Sheetz to fill up his tank, felt fine as he greeted an Amish man in a carpenter’s pickup truck. It was fine if the man gave him a stare of disapproval. He didn’t mean it if he didn’t allow it to penetrate his armor of fineness.
He paid for his gas, bought a Gatorade, and left, then decided to drive to his sister Sarah’s house, just off the New Holland pike. She was closest to his age, married only a few years, living in a rented bungalow on the outskirts of New Holland.
As he passed horses and buggies, he remembered his own brand-new carriage, sitting in the shop, the shafts propped up to allow more room for his parents’ carriage. He hadn’t used it for years, couldn’t imagine using it now, but it was there if he ever needed it.
He found Sarah in her small kitchen, mixing brownies, her husband Dave at the table holding six-month-old Arlan. They seemed glad to see him, so he agreed to a cup of coffee. They made small talk about the weather, Dave’s job as a roofer with Stoltzfus Roofing, and caught up on local interests, the way siblings will do.
Ivan noticed the simplicity of the house, the freshly painted white walls, the aging cabinets, the worn linoleum. He raised his eyebrows, asking how long she’d be okay with this tiny house.
Sarah raised her fine, dark eyebrows. “I’m not Mom.”
“Obviously,” Ivan commented.
“Hey, we’re trying to save for our own property, but the way things are, we may have to move out of Lancaster County,” Dave said seriously.
“Didn’t Dat offer to help?” Ivan asked.
Sarah shook her head, avoided her brother’s questioning eyes.
“No. He doesn’t help.”
“Never? None of you?”
“Nope.”
Incredulous, he stared at his sister.
“He has his organizations he supports, and you know Mom requires a lot. She’s pretty high maintenance.”
Ivan nodded.
“So, we respect that. ‘Honor thy father and mother.’”
“I guess.”
“And everything will be fine,” Sarah added, with a laugh.