CHAPTER 20
C HAPTER 20
T HEY WERE MARRIED ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH OF N OVEMBER, AND true to their word, had never kissed after the proposal but saved themselves for marriage, which proved to be a wholesome blessing in their lives.
Together, they worked on renovating the old house, restoring walls, removing two of them, taking up carpeting, restoring pine floors, often with Steve and Mary’s help.
Life was everything they had anticipated, and more, as time moved into early summer. A garden brought them a newfound sense of accomplishment, coupled with digging around the house and planting flowers and shrubs.
Margaret reveled in all of it, even the dust and dirt created by the remodel, cheerfully sweeping after Mike and his sawing and pounding.
She told him shyly, so uncharacteristic of her, that they were going to be parents, and their happiness knew no bounds. It was in the heat of July that she endured a painful miscarriage and had to be rushed to Lancaster General by ambulance late at night. Bills piled up. Margaret grieved.
Alarmed one night when she awoke and his side of the bed was empty, she sat up, patted the mattress beside her, and felt her heart beat thick and heavy.
“Mike? Mike?”
There was no answer. The fan in the window kept up its quiet hum, but there was no other sound. She swung her legs to the side of the bed and padded softly through the house, calling his name, but he was nowhere to be found.
Taking down the yellow DeWalt battery lamp, she pushed open the screen door and started across the porch, casting the light into corners, then down the steps and across the yard.
She called again and again.
Where could he be? He would never leave the house without telling her.
He was such a good guy, the best husband, the light of her life, even now, in the midst of her sadness. Her grieving had been deep and hard, even as it was now, but she’d clung to Mike and his sturdy strength.
The odor of hay and sweet molasses horse feed, manure, and the scent of horses wafted through the open door of the barn. She called his name once, listened, then turned to leave, when she heard her name being called out, thickly, as if under water.
“Mike?”
“Over here.”
In the corner, where bales of hay were delivered, she found him, his face swollen and blotchy, the smell of alcohol and sour vomit like a nightmare she could not escape by waking up.
“Mike!”
It was not a soft, gentle, loving sound, it was his name, called out in a terrible voice, brittle with anger.
“Get up!”
“I don’t . . .”
“Get up!”
She drew back a bare foot and kicked him, hard.
“Have mercy, Mar’.”
“I’m leaving. Get yourself cleaned up and get back to the house.”
Her fury propelled her, and she had no more sleep that night, lying awake listening to him stumble about the house, breathing heavily, flopping on the couch.
In the morning, her fury sustained her, and when he appeared freshly showered, his face still bloated, shamefaced and apologetic, she launched straight into the prepared lecture. “What were you thinking?”
His mumbled reply about the baby and the bills was brushed aside.
“You think I didn’t suffer? You think I’m not suffering now?” She had never felt so angry.
He acknowledged this, but said none of this was easy, and he didn’t know how they would ever swing all these bills and keep remodeling the house. “And the baby . . .” he said, his voice drifting.
“Well, guess what, Mike? Life happens. We’re married now, and with marriage comes responsibility, and disappointment, and stuff you have no control over. So grow up and get on with it.”
“Marge, I can’t believe this is you, talking to me like this.”
“Well, believe it, because it’s real. I have no time for someone using alcohol to escape their problems. It’s cowardly, it’s stupid, and there will be no tolerance from me.”
“Forgive me. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Well, figure it out.”
He could not believe this stony-faced, powerful woman to be his Margaret. Dear God, he thought, what have I done? A great black claw reached from some unknown depth and grasped his heart, followed by a terrible fear. Fear of becoming his father, fear of being unable to be the courageous man she had married.
“Margaret?”
A cool raising of her eyebrows, a cold stare from those green eyes.
“Hmm?”
“I never told you.”
“What?”
“I didn’t think it mattered, but maybe I was wrong. My father was a closet alcoholic till he died. I remember the times he drank, the smell, how he was strange and slow and scary at times. I thought the memories were gone, but I have to talk about it.”
“Go ahead. Talk. But it’s not your father’s fault you chose to suck on that bottle of whatever it was.”
“Please, Margaret. Hear me out.”
“Mike, you are not your dad, and you cannot blame him for your bad decisions.”
“But why not? It’s in my DNA, in my lineage.”
“What is?”
“The tendency toward addiction, using alcohol to get through tough times. Like bills and . . . the miscarriage, and our house being all torn apart.”
“Hard things happen to everyone, Mike. What did that bishop, Jonas Stoltzfus, say on our wedding day? Trials will come, but together, with God, the triangle complete, we will be strong.
“Well, let me assure you, we will not be strong with alcohol in the mix. You can talk about your father till the sun goes down tonight, but at the end of the day, you’re responsible for your own self. If you need help, then go talk to a counselor who knows more than I do. Now get out the door and go to work.”
He did.
When he got home that night, he planned on meeting the old, loving Margaret, the one he fell in love with, but was bitterly disappointed to find her resolve as solid as a rock. She simply was not putting up with this, and he found his spirits sinking.
“Supper ready?” he trilled hopefully.
“Not tonight. Get it yourself.”
He stood staring at her in disbelief. His sweet wife? How could she?
“But, darling, I . . .”
“Don’t ‘darling’ me.”
“But this is not the way a Christian woman should be. You know—” He was cut off rapidly.
“And a Christian man should be allowed to drink himself silly?”
“Well, no.”
“Well, I guess not. And if he does, he has it coming.”
He dodged the rapid fire of her words, could not believe how soon the bliss of their newlywed stage had come to this, this awful precipice into which he had fallen. Surely he hadn’t been able to help himself, as overwhelmed as he’d been.
“But, Margaret, listen. Please believe me when I say likely in my DNA there’s that weakness, the trauma I endured as a child.”
“If you want to carry that around like a pacifier, go right ahead, but don’t expect me to feel sorry for you. If you care one bit about me or our marriage, you will own up to your stupid actions and decide right now it’s never going to happen again. That’s it. If you sulk around thinking you’re destined to be an alcoholic like your dad, then that’s exactly what you’ll become.”
So he moved in careful circles, trying to avoid his wife’s frostiness, until he gave in and went to talk to a professional counselor once a week for six months. He came away from his final session with renewed hope, the strength to face tomorrow, and a deep gratitude to Margaret, who refused to show pity or enable him to be a self-absorbed coward.
Slowly, their world righted itself and old tenderness was restored. A visit from the young deacon, Jake Stoltzfus, brought the offer of alms to pay the hospital bill and the ride in the ambulance. Steve offered a substantial sum for the remodeling project, to be paid back without interest.
T HE AIR WAS alive with the sound of Christmas carols as they drove through town.
“Margaret,” Mike said suddenly, “do you think any young couple is fully prepared for marriage?”
“No way. They’d never get married.”
“You sound a bit cynical.”
“It’s the truth. Remember? That’s what you admired in me.”
“Ouch, though. It hurts sometimes.”
“It might have to.”
“Do you love me less these days?”
She didn’t answer for some time, the horse plodding steadily on the hard macadam through the cold winter night.
Finally she said, “Not less. No, definitely not that. Just different. Steady. More real. We’ve weathered a storm, now we know we need to stay strong, level, together, no matter what. It’s better, in a way.”
As they turned in their road, a few teams passed on the opposite side. They both lifted hands, waving.
Beneath the branches of the huge maple trees, the little house was as cute as ever, with fresh white siding and dark windows, a wide front door in polished oak, flanked on either side with boxwoods in concrete urns, a gift from Mrs. Roberts. So many useful, beautiful things had been given to them on their wedding day, which allowed her to be grateful a whole year later.
The black porch rockers were stored in the garage, the patio furniture and grill alongside, and now the winter winds had started to blow in earnest, and they truly loved the cozy house beneath the stately trees.
On the inside, walls had been removed to allow larger living space, and new kitchen cabinets in clean white installed, and how Margaret enjoyed the decorating, buying cheap bargain antiques and cleaning them up. Mike loved to accompany her on their excursions, sometimes taking her parents and the boys.
They built a new building, a sturdy shop to host church services, and Mike told her how they always took their turn hosting services at the neighbors, too poor to put up a shop, and how he hated those Sundays.
“That couldn’t have been fun,” Margaret said kindly. “And your mother must have been a saint.” She paused. “I’m not a saint.”
“But still, Marge, think about it. Which is best? Years ago, it was all about total submission. Absolute obedience to the husband’s will. He was lord over his household.”
“Yes.”
“I mean, come on. Someone should have stood up to him. Made him get help. But back in the day, these things weren’t known.”
W HEN A BABY boy was born two years later, they named him Matthew. Matthew Ames. He was a husky baby with a thick shock of red hair and his father’s blue eyes, and Margaret cried and cried with a severe case of the “baby blues,” as Mary called it. Extremely nervous and undone by this screaming little mite, it was Mike who was courageous and bundled her off to the doctor for antidepressants. He walked the floor at night with the howling little chap that never fazed him.
And Margaret found a whole new respect for her husband, admitted her own weakness, truthful as ever, and let him deal with the bouts of discomfort in his tiny son.
“That’s it. No more babies. I can’t take it,” she moaned one night from her pile of pillows on the recliner, trying yet again to nurse him to sleep.
“Soaked with milk, my back hurts, my head hurts, my neck is stiff as a board. I wasn’t made to have babies,” she groaned.
“Why don’t we try formula?” Mike suggested, suppressing a yawn from the couch, where he sprawled in a pile of blankets.
“You have to be kidding me. I can hear the collective gasp all over Lancaster County. You don’t give up breastfeeding.”
“We do if that’s what you need.”
That evening he came home with a can of Similac. He sterilized bottles, water, mixed the powdered formula and introduced it, patiently working all evening, with Margaret retreating to the bedroom intermittently to cry and beseech God to help her. The antidepressants weren’t working.
Mike got the baby boy to settle down about ten o’clock, and they both crept to bed and fell asleep. On a Saturday, there was no jangling alarm, so when a gray light shone through the Roman shades in the bedroom, Margaret was terribly confused, then instantly alarmed. Her baby! He had likely died an awful crib death.
She rushed to his crib to find him sleeping soundly, as he’d done all night.
They stood together, his arm around her shoulders, her head on his chest, smiling as they watched their child sleep.
“It’s so amazing,” she whispered.
“Sleeping or having a new baby?” he asked, bending to kiss the top of her head.
“I meant, it’s amazing how a good night’s sleep changes your perspective.”
“And formula.”
She nodded, slipped an arm about his waist, and squeezed.
“Thank you, Mike. You’re a wonderful father. I could not have come through these first months without you.”
“I know I’m good, Marge. I already know that,” he teased.
“The only way I’ll ever have another one is your promise to help the way you do now.”
“You have my solemn vow.”
A ND HE DID . When Matthew was being potty-trained, she felt the familiar nausea return. Running after an active toddler while nauseated all day, every day, was miserable. With Rebecca’s wedding coming up, it was enough to send her over the edge, she told Mike.
She always looked forward to his homecoming, when he would take Matt outside with the horses, leaving her to flop on the couch, close her eyes, and do nothing but let the waves of nausea roll over her.
Eventually, after a few months, the nausea lessened, and she was able to enjoy life more fully again.
They purchased a dog for Matt, a poodle mix of some sort, born with a hernia, so he was inexpensive. The puppy proved to be the best thing that ever happened to Matt, keeping him occupied for hours at a time.
And when Makayla was born, Margaret greeted her brown-haired, green-eyed daughter with courage and a newfound determination to do better, though the newborn phase was almost as overwhelming as it had been with Matt, except that the breastfeeding went more smoothly.
Mike was protective of her, truly caring, and for this she loved him, with a deeper love than ever before. On the weekends, he got up in the morning to care for the little ones while she slept in as long as she could.
They created a circle of friends within the church, a group of young parents with which to share joys and sorrows, times of conflict, marital struggles, troubles in the church, exchanging views and values with one another.
Mike became a song leader in church and went to practice singings a few nights a month, and so became incorporated into the community, keeping tradition alive. Twice a year at communion, they gave alms, remembering their first need being met so graciously, and the blessing it had proved to be.
When Mike became tired of barely making ends meet, he decided to start his own mason crew, learning the skills from Steve. They went to the bank, procured a loan, and took a few jobs Steve offered him, the whole thing turning Margaret into a nervous wreck.
Her mother, growing in faith as she grew in years, assured her Mike knew exactly what he was doing, and business would pick up in time.
“But in the meantime, there’s no money,” Margaret wailed.
“There will be, have faith. Faith in God to see you through. You can help by being frugal yourself. You can buy cheap stuff at the B.B. store in Quarryville. You don’t need new dresses, or sneakers for the children. Make do for a few years.”
“Did you ever have to live like that?”
“Of course. Most young couples do.”
“Well, you surely don’t now.”
Mary watched Mike and Margaret grow together, and learned to keep her peace when she felt her daughter’s voice too demanding, too strident, when Mike would be ordered to get his daughter, or take Matt to the bathroom, or bring her a lemonade.
But years roll on, she reasoned with patience, and time brings changes. There is no longer the same submission, the woman being much more a partner, her voice being heard. Even now, more so than when she was married, and her mother before her.
Ah, but there was a marked change from her own weary, beatendown mother, her days marked by hard physical labor, a voice subdued, and finally, rest only in death. No, she would never wish her mother’s life on any of her daughters or granddaughters.
She watched little Makayla in her swing, just as cute as a button, and prayed for her soul. Who knew what would become of her with the world and all it had to offer? Would she stay plain? Would she want the old values? Or would there be a time when she’d see her drive a car up to the porch, climb out as an English girl, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, glad her grandmother loved her anyway?
Life is what it is , she mused. Lord, give me strength to face the changes as they come.
Margaret came over to sit beside her, and they pushed gently on the porch swing.
“You have tears in your eyes,” Margaret said quietly.
“Do I? Ach .”
“What were you thinking?”
“Oh, stuff. Just stuff. About Makayla.”
“What about her?”
“Oh, it’s just that the years roll by so quickly and so many changes happen around us. How many generations will stay with the Amish? How many will abandon the faith?”
“Now you’re spinning your famous yarns. Overthinking. Driving yourself batty.”
“I know. But so many of our young people see no value in the way we dress, in driving a horse and buggy.”
“True, Mom, absolutely. But rest assured, Mike and I will do our best. But who knows? Time brings changes, and God is the judge of every soul.”
Mary took Margaret’s hand and gazed off across the lawn, as stars gathered in the corner of her eyes.
“I know you will. And did I ever tell you how proud I am of who you’ve become? I appreciate you, Margaret.”
A lone tear hung on Margaret’s eyelashes, quivered, and dropped, leaving a trail down her cheek, completing the circle of love between a mother and her daughter for many years to come. As if Makayla knew she was a part of this circle, she waved her arms and legs, her mouth widening in a happy smile, creating mirrored smiles in her mother and grandmother.
THE END