Chapter 37
Bonnie had stayed in the washtub far too long.
Her fingers were as wrinkled as prunes.
She didn’t want to get out.
The August heat pressed on her despite the cool bathwater.
The dog days of summer. She held her breath, slid under the water, and hunkered there until she couldn’t take it anymore. Sputtering, she burst from the water, splattering it over the sides and onto the pine floor.
“Are you ready to get out?”
Mom hustled into the laundry-slash-mudroom.
She had a towel under her arm, her pedicure bag in one hand, and a pair of scissors in the other.
“What have you been doing? It looks like a flood hit in here.”
“It’s nice and cool.”
Mom dropped the toiletries on the chair and held up the towel.
“Let’s get you out of there.”
She’d been perfectly willing to acquiesce to Bonnie’s hankering to have a lovely bath instead of a quick shower.
Sometimes a woman simply needed to sit a spell in the bathtub, let the aches, pains, and worries float away.
But Mom also couldn’t hide her concern that Bonnie might fall getting in or out of the huge metal tub.
“Danki, Mamm.
I know this is more work for you.”
“I like a nice bath too.
A shower just isn’t the same.”
Mom grasped one arm while Bonnie used her other hand to push herself up from the tub’s side.
“Besides, it’s not like we’re in a hurry.
The big day isn’t until tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe Sophia is getting married.
I’ve known her since we used to make mud pies down at the pond and catch tadpoles to see if we could grow them into frogs.”
“You graduated school together and got baptized the same Sunday.”
“We opened a shop together.”
“You did indeed.
Just between you and me and the tub, I’m proud of you.
Don’t tell Bart I said that.”
Mom helped Bonnie step over the tub’s side.
She waited until she was steady on both feet, then wrapped the big towel around her.
“I thought I would trim the dead ends on your hair and give your toes a look-see.
It’s been a while.”
Bonnie studied her toenails.
They were in need of a trim.
“Some things don’t change, I suppose.
No matter how you long for it.”
“I don’t mind, Dochder.”
“I do.”
At a bare minimum, a person ought to be able to trim her own toenails.
Bonnie quickly dried off.
“Isn’t part of growing up becoming independent from your parents?”
Mom helped her don her nightgown.
If she saw any irony in Bonnie’s words, she didn’t admit it.
“Didn’t I mention you’re a store owner? That’s pretty independent.”
Her pleasure at her quick rebuttal evident in a tiny smile, Mom spread her tools on a clean hand towel on an old end table situated next to two chairs from their previous kitchen table set.
“Have a seat.
It’ll give us a chance to catch up.”
Aha.
Mom was fishing for information.
She’d likely heard about Elijah coming back from the auction circuit early, about them conversing in the Bent-and-Dent for all the world to see.
She might even have heard about his regular visits to the store since then.
To pick up his check and to replenish his wares. She couldn’t know that those visits had been short and the conversation stilted. On her part. Elijah acted like nothing had happened, as if she’d said yes, like they were still courting.
He smiled.
He complimented the shop’s display.
He ate muffins and drank coffee.
He even petted Puff, much to Slowpoke’s chagrin.
Slowpoke took his cue from Elijah, nuzzling Bonnie’s hand every chance he got, giving her kisses, guarding the door against intruders.
All in all, in every way, making her feel like a mean, ugly person for not caving.
It took all her strength not to cave.
She’d done the right thing.
So why did she feel like the sun had died?
“Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good.”
Her dad’s voice, deep and warm, sharing that tidbit of wisdom with her on a cold winter night in front of the fire after a particularly trying day at school, rang in her ears.
Bonnie lowered her head and stared at her wrinkled fingers.
The familiar feel of Mom’s stroking Bonnie’s wet hair with a big-toothed comb soothed as it always did.
She closed her eyes.
“What are we catching up on?”
“Oh, just this and that.”
“This and that.
What a broad topic.”
“Well, we could start with why you’ve been wandering around like a maedel who’s lost her best friend.
Did you and Opal or the girls at the store have a tiff?”
“Nee.
I’m fine.
We’re fine.
We’re all fine.”
Bonnie opened her eyes.
She tempered the retort with a respectful tone.
Mom wasn’t responsible for her frustration or her melancholy.
“You’ve been up and out of the house after dark.
Does that mean what I think it means? If it does, you should be happier about it.
I would be.”
Her roundabout way of asking if Bonnie was courting.
“You know I have trouble sleeping.
Sometimes I need a breath of fresh air.
I need to tire myself out, I guess.
I take a stroll down to the corral to check on the horses.”
“In the dark.
I hope you’re not crazy enough to do that.”
With a rollator.
Her mother’s unspoken words vibrated in the air.
“I don’t go far.
I’m careful.”
“You hit a rut in the road and you’ll be flat on your face.
You’ll be there until morning, Dochder.
Sei so gut, don’t do it again.”
“Fine, I won’t.
What do you really want to talk about?”
Mom laid aside the comb.
She sat and proceeded to prop Bonnie’s foot on her knee.
The tight muscles in her hamstring and calf twinged.
They didn’t hurt, just complained a little.
“As a matter of fact, there is something besides the courting we’re both pretending isn’t happening.”
“Gut.
Otherwise this will be a quick chat.”
“Theo went back to Berlin.”
Try as Mom might, she couldn’t pull off the careless delivery of this news. “When?”
“Last month.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“So he’s not coming back?”
“I don’t know.
He went to talk to his suh, Noah.
He wants him to move here.
But he hasn’t come back, so . . .”
“If Noah said nee?”
Mamm picked up nail clippers.
She raised her chin.
“Then I don’t think he’s coming back.”
“Es dutt mer.”
“It’s okay.”
Mamm studied Bonnie’s toes as if she’d never seen them before.
“He’s doing the right thing.
He’s putting his suh first.”
“You say that, but your face is so sad.”
“I don’t want to make you feel bad or uncomfortable.”
“Nee, nee.
Tell me, sei so gut.”
Mamm clipped the nails with quick efficiency.
She set aside the clippers and gently lowered Bonnie’s leg.
“I thought it was the beginning of something.
It felt special.”
“Like it felt with Dat?”
“Nee.
Different.”
“But nice.”
“Very nice.”
“His suh is a grown man.
He’s capable of living his own life.”
Bonnie kneaded the towel she’d lain over her lap, then tossed it in the dirty clothes pile.
“Maybe he’ll tell Theo it’s time for him to go, live his own life.”
“I don’t know.
Imagine if I told you I was marrying Theo and moving to Berlin, leaving you to live with Onkel Uri and Aenti Frannie.
How would you feel?”
The lovely contentment born of a cool bath and familiar rituals dissipated.
This was their home.
The place where Bonnie had grown up.
Where she’d sat on Dad’s lap, first in front of a fire roasting marshmallows while he told tall tales, and later on the hay wagon, helping cut alfalfa.
Where he’d taught her to ride a horse and then drive a pony cart. Where he’d held her when she cried—realizing she could no longer do either. Where he’d whispered calming, encouraging words while she endured rehab and PT after six hours of painful back surgery.
The last place she’d seen him.
That evening they played checkers and talked trash.
She beat him three out of four games, but Bonnie could never be sure that he didn’t let her win—even though she was no longer a child.
How could she live without him and without her mother, who’d taught Bonnie to cook, sew, and be a faithful, kind woman? “I’d say nee.
I’d say don’t go, sei so gut.”
She smoothed her soft cotton nightgown.
“But that would be selfish of me, wouldn’t it? I want you to be happy, to be loved.”
“And I want the same for you, Dochder.”
Mom dried Bonnie’s other foot with the hand towel.
She picked up the clippers again.
“It would be selfish of me to put my needs ahead of yours.
You’re my only dochder.
This is your home. I won’t take that from you.”
“There has to be another way.”
“Theo even considered asking me to marry him and that we all three move to Berlin.”
“Me? Leave the store? Leave Carol and Opal and Sophia?”
Bonnie waved her hands to encompass the laundry room, the house, the farm, Lee’s Gulch, everything that had been home her entire life.
“For Ohio.
I can’t imagine.”
“I don’t want you to imagine it.”
Mom’s face, with its deepening lines around her mouth—smile lines—and crow’s feet adorning her chestnut eyes behind glasses, was pensive.
“Gott’s will be done.
If Noah agrees to come here, so be it.
If he doesn’t, then I’m happy to have known Theo.”
Bonnie’s foot jerked.
Not because of this unexpected conversation, but because it tended to do that when someone touched it.
The doctor called it hyper reflexes.
“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, how the first thought is always It’s not fair? Like we’re still kinner who didn’t get the biggest piece of cake? You should have this time.
You deserve this time.”
“I had twenty-six wunderbarr years with your dat.
More than I ever deserved.”
Mom bent her head over Bonnie’s foot and went to work.
“I’m an old woman.
I’ll learn to be content with what Gott gives me.”
“You’re not old.
I know you’ve been lonely, and I hate it for you.
I can feel it in the way you look sometimes when you set the table with two plates.
Or you fry too much bacon in the morning.
The way you read your book on the porch in the evenings, but you never turn the page.”
“It’s only a season.”
Mom straightened.
She leaned back in the chair.
The clippers rested in her lap.
“Gott blessed me with a mann I loved once.
It would be greedy to ask for more. I didn’t ask for it, so why should I hold it against Gott if it doesn’t happen? I have to believe this is Gott’s will.”
“But if Theo comes back, then that’s a sign, isn’t it? We could pray for that.”
“I think we’re supposed to pray that Gott’s will be done, not tell Him what that should be.”
Her smile wry, she removed her glasses and wiped the lenses on her apron.
Mom always looked so much younger without them.
Her dark-brown eyes squinted.
“It’s your turn, Dochder.
It’s your season for love.”
Was it love she felt every time she saw Elijah? The possibilities that spun on tiptoes in her heart—despite knowing she couldn’t offer him everything he deserved? The pain she felt at disappointing him? “How do you know that it’s love you feel for Theo? Does it feel the same as when you were with Dat?”
Six months ago it wouldn’t have been possible to even contemplate such a thought, let alone voice it.
The words and the images didn’t hurt.
They held hope for something better.
No more living in gray days and long nights.
“Like I said, it’s different from the way I loved your dat.
Not any less, mind you, or more, for that matter.
Just different.
Because I’m different.
Older, wiser, more worn. Less naive. Less self-centered.”
“How long did you and Dat court before he asked you to marry him?”
“Over two years.”
“You’ve only known Theo for four and a half months.”
“Believe me, I’ve noodled that fact for hours and days.”
Puzzlement mingled with a tempered joy flitted across her face.
“I’ve never believed in love at first sight.
We’re taught to tread carefully.
Wedding vows are unbreakable.
Marriage is for life. It’s sheer foolishness to jump into something so quickly.”
“I hear a but in your voice.”
“That’s all well and gut when you’re sixteen or seventeen, but at my age, a person recognizes that life is fleeting.
I only have to think of how quickly we lost your dat to know how suddenly a life can end.
I don’t want to stand by and watch life pass me by if the chance presents itself.
If it doesn’t, then Gott’s will be done.”
Dad would’ve wanted a new life for Mom.
He loved her so much that he would’ve wanted her to be happy.
Not lonely.
Not misty-eyed over a pile of bacon.
“I wish I could be as faithful and obedient as you are.”
“You’re funny, Dochder.
It’s not easy for me.
In my head, I’m kicking and screaming like a two-year-old who wants a candy bar for supper.
I’ve had my time.
I need to accept that. It’s your turn.”
“It’s different for me.”
“Because of your disease? Sometimes there are disabilities more limiting than the physical.
They’re disabilities we create ourselves by doubting that we can have the full lives others around us have.”
“That’s a noble thought.
But until you’ve watched a friend, now a mudder, hold her bopli, feed him, carry him to his cradle, and lay him down, and mourned that you can’t physically do the same thing, I don’t think you can really understand my situation.
Even you, who has lived with me my whole life and done things like help a grown woman get out of a bathtub, dress herself, cut her toenails, and help her put her socks and shoes on.”
“English women pay people to cut their toenails.”
“It’s different and you know it.”
“I do.
I just don’t want you to cheat yourself out of a full life because you’re afraid of being a burden.
The man who loves you will care for you out of that love, not out of a sense of obligation or pity.
Elijah strikes me as a man who would do that.”
He would.
He’d said as much.
Somehow it made the choice that much harder.
He was such a good man.
Bonnie’s heart ached to give him everything a good wife would. But especially children. Lots of children. “He’s a very gut man. He deserves a full life with a fraa and kinner.”
“So do you.”
Mom stared at Bonnie.
Bonnie stared back.
Here they were, mother and daughter, but now also two women trying to figure out how to live, love, and work, and to support each other doing it.
“Elijah thinks he knows what it would be like, but he doesn’t.
He can’t.
Not really.”
Bonnie could share a lot with her mother, but not the way Elijah’s kisses, his touch, drove all other thoughts from her mind, made her think something was possible when it wasn’t.
Not truly.
“I know I’ve sent him mixed messages.
When he’s around me, I can’t think straight.
I say and do things I wouldn’t normally say or do. I don’t want us to be apart. When he leaves, I’m mortified because I think I’ve led him on. I know we can’t be together. I finally told him we can’t be more than friends and business associates. Period.”
“You can say it all you want, but you can’t stop how you feel.
I can hear it in your voice and see it on your face.
I reckon he can too.
I reckon he’s not giving up.”
“He’s not.
He comes to the store and brings his toys and acts like everything is wunderbarr.
It’s almost annoying.
I keep telling myself not to fall in love with him.
It’s not right. It’s not fair. I tell myself to stick to the plan. Run the store. Be content. Enjoy my nieces and nephews.”
“And yet you can’t help yourself.
You think you’ve got a plan for your life and it doesn’t include Elijah Miller.
It reminds me of your grandma Yoder.
She passed away when you were too young to remember her.
She was a firecracker. Your dat came by it naturally.”
Mom settled Bonnie’s bare foot on the floor.
“She used to tell him—and me—to go ahead and plan.
Because you know what Gott does when He hears us planning?”
“What does He do?”
“He laughs.”
“So you think He has something up His royal robe’s sleeve?”
“Always.
Theo thinks He does.”
“I hope Theo’s right.”
“Me too.
We’d better get to bed.
Tomorrow is a big day.”
For Sophia, who was brave enough to embrace the challenges the future would most certainly bring.
Gott, make me brave, sei so gut.
Or send me a sign.
Or share the plan.
Give me something.
God was probably thinking about how bossy Bonnie was.
I said sei so gut.
If You don’t mind.
I need to know, Gott.