CHAPTER 10
C HAPTER 10
W EDDING SEASON WAS APPROACHING . N OVEMBER WAS ALWAYS full with buying wedding gifts, sewing new clothes, washing buggies and harnesses and horses, and attending the wedding festivities. Invitations in different colors and designs were pegged on corkboards in kitchens.
Mary went to the local dry goods store with her daughters on a Saturday morning, driving Trixie, her beloved brown mare who was safe and good natured. They weaved in and out of traffic. Mary checked the rearview mirror, flipped the switch for the left turn signal, and crossed over as soon as the road was clear.
“Look at this, guys,” Margaret muttered, eyeing the full hitching rack, cars lined up in front of the building. “Lancaster is so crowded. I’m going to move to Florida.”
“Do you have any idea what Florida is like?”
“Course not. You’d never go.”
Mary let that one go as she drew back on the reins, slid the buggy door open, and climbed out, followed by the girls. They helped tie Trixie to a fence post, then turned to walk across the parking lot and into the store. Mary lifted her purse to look for the list.
“Why, Mary,” she heard.
An aging lady, bent at the waist, her black shawl and bonnet hiding most of her form, peered up at her, the bright blue eyes behind round eyeglasses appraising her with gladness.
“Sarah. Vee bischt (How are you)?” Mary answered.
“ Goot. Ich bin goot. (Good. I’m good.)”
She looked the girls up and down. “These are your girls?”
“Yes.”
With a curt nod, Sarah moved on, her cane tapping the floor, and Mary swallowed hard. She knew what Sarah was thinking. Knew she had been a disappointment to the old matriarch. Mary cringed, wishing she’d never allowed Margaret to wear the fur-lined hooded coat. It was disrespectful, flashy, exactly the kind of thing the older generation would shake their head at. Mary’s pride was injured, but she recovered as much as possible, consulted her list, and moved to the black fabric aisle, Margaret in tow, preparing for battle.
“Not that, Mom. Don’t even think of it,” she hissed, when Mary drew a bolt of fabric from the shelf.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s Spring Melange. Mommy stuff.”
Mary sighed. “What do you want?”
“I want something stretchy.”
“Do you know how hard it is to make a belt apron with stretchy fabric?”
“I don’t care. I’ll make it.”
“No, you can’t,” Mary whispered, hoping to avoid being heard.
“Why not? Plenty of girls do.”
And that was only the beginning.
Margaret chose a fabric in brilliant orange. “Melon,” she said. Margaret told her no, absolutely not. When she shrugged her shoulders, Mary realized she might simply be doing that to test her authority, but then she moved onto a shocking shade of pink.
“Margaret, please.”
“What? It’s beautiful.”
Mary shook her head. Margaret rolled her eyes and swung her shoulders as she traversed another aisle.
“This.”
She held out a golden yellow, shiny, flimsy fabric that was suitable only for a nightgown.
“Stop it, now. Of course not.”
“Then I’m not getting one. I won’t go to any weddings.”
“Well, that’s up to you.”
Rebecca came over holding a 500-piece puzzle, her blue eyes alight. “Mom, Chris and Logan would love this. See? It’s a dogsled.”
Mary shifted her attention to it, held it up to the light, then smiled and nodded. “Good choice, Rebecca. Yes, let’s get it for them.”
Margaret was furious.
“Of course, here’s Rebecca, the dear soul. Immediately we hear a yes, yes oh yes.”
“It’s a puzzle, Margaret.”
But she had already moved away, her breath whooshing in disgust, which Mary chose to ignore, knowing anything she would ever suggest now would be dashed to the ground. It was so maddening.
And how was one expected to love them both the same, when Rebecca was such an angel? So slight, so blond haired and blue eyed, with Steve’s dimples, the cleft in his chin, always thinking of others, never herself?
Wisdom, dear Lord, just give me wisdom.
In the end, Margaret did not purchase fabric for a new dress, saying she had no interest in going to any weddings.
They stopped for groceries at Creekside, and afterward Rebecca perched on Margaret’s lap, since the back was filled with bags and boxes of food. Trixie trotted happily as they shared a bag of Cheetos, drinking iced tea and chatting, the power struggle in the dry goods store forgotten.
Rebecca chewed a mouthful of Cheetos, swallowed, then said, “I’m sort of jealous, Marge. Invited to all those weddings. And you get to go to the table with all those young men. It seems so exciting.”
“Not really. I doubt Ivan will be there.”
Mary slid a glance in her direction, shocked to see the set of her jaw, the real hurt in her face. She asked what had happened Saturday evening, but Margaret did not want to talk about it. She locked away the humiliation of hovering over her phone, alone, texting and calling, with no reply. She’d sulked for a few days after that, and then remembered how he’d told her he wanted to wait till she was older, and she felt a little better. She alternated between the sting of feeling rejected and the hope that he still wanted her.
He was so terribly handsome. By far the best-looking guy she’d ever seen. She couldn’t stand the thought of being married to someone inferior. For a moment, she imagined herself fat, tired, surrounded by too many children, and tied down to a husband who wasn’t even cute. She shuddered. She would wait on Ivan, bide her time until she was older. In a way, it was gentlemanly that he wanted to wait so the age gap between them would seem less important. She tried to convince herself that’s all it was—that he was just being respectful.
T HE FIRST WEDDING of the season was a cousin on her father’s side, Ruthie King. The whole family, even Chris and Logan, were invited, which meant there were new clothes all around—white shirts and black suits for the men, a dusty blue for Mom, and a dark mauve for the girls, a color Margaret pronounced “deplorable,” though she reluctantly agreed to wear it. The truth was, she did want to go to the wedding. There was always a chance Ivan would be there.
They all looked so fine, Mom said, and if they were English, they’d take a group picture before they left. But really, Mary was ashamed of Margaret’s hair. She had asked her softly to abstain from rolling it up in the new style, which she found ridiculous. It was humiliating, having that Margaret of hers so completely out of the ordnung with that tiny covering.
For the hundredth time she felt her father’s pain, his humiliation, his shame. Steve assured her it was mostly her pride, cringing over what others thought, afraid of being dubbed a weak mother, an insufficient parent. Having a headstrong daughter never seemed to bother him much, or if it did, he rarely showed any sign of anger or impatience.
And could she truthfully say she was proud when the line of colorful girls filed into the wedding area and sat on benches, her Margaret the prettiest of them all? Of course she was. Any mother would be. But it was hard not to long for the ideal of a daughter, versus the real one she had to raise.
After the girls were seated, her sister-in-law turned to her. “Well, Mary, do you want to go first?”
Puzzled, Mary knit her brow, stared back at the blue eyes regarding her. “What do you mean?”
“Crawl under a bench for a while. Did you see my Ida’s hair?”
Mary didn’t mean to snort, the laugh escaping her before she could hold it, so she slapped Katie’s arm, and felt a solid bond of motherhood between them.
They understood one another’s feelings, which was priceless, and in the afternoon when the single young men chose a girl to “take to the table” from the assembled group stationed at a certain spot for that purpose, Mary was with the mothers straining their necks, on tiptoe to watch for their own daughter, then settling down, relieved to find their own daughter had been chosen so soon. And my, the young man was really rather good looking.
So they returned to the cooking area, smiling only a bit remembering their times of “being taken to the table” to sit with a young man they might or might not be acquainted with, to eat the delectable dishes, snacks, candy, platters of cheese and crackers, fruit punch, all while singing the German wedding songs, which rose in a great swelling crescendo as more and more of the freundshaft (extended family) from the working area chimed in.
And behind the scenes, the harried sisters and sisters-in-law managed, fussed, squabbled a bit, setting out lasagnas, asking assigned friends and relatives to do their tasks, cutting up heads of romaine lettuce for salad, grating cheese, mixing lima beans and corn. Inevitably, some item was misplaced, or they ran out of butter.
In this case, they couldn’t find trays for serving the lasagna, which was just like Sadie, forgetting an item as important as that.
“Well, what’s wrong with serving lasagna in glass dishes?” asked Sadie. “If you let them set a while, the handles won’t be hot and you’re supposed to let it set for at least ten minutes. Sets it up, you know.”
Sister-in-law Lydia said she never heard of it. “Wouldn’t that cool it off?” Then she threw her hands in the air and walked off, her backside as substantial as a wheelbarrow, and Mary told Katie she must be going through “the change,” that one.
Somehow they had far too many dinner rolls. What were they going to do with them? Put them in Zip-loc bags and freeze them. Katie said they could always use them for roascht , and Lydia asked who wanted to eat more roascht during November. Not her. Stout Aunt Barbie said she could live on roascht , with a side of pecan pie and ice cream, which reminded Mary, where were the pecan pies? She couldn’t remember seeing them at all, resulting in a flurry of skirts and aprons looking for the necessary pies. Not a pie in sight, so an aunt was dispatched to wade through the crowd, bend over the bride’s mother, Sadie, and ask for the pies.
“In the cooler,” Sadie whispered back, her threadbare nerves and exhaustion threatening to unravel her completely, thinking to herself about how sisters had no common sense at a time like this.
But the following day, when everything was over, sleepy-eyed relatives back on the job for the third day, they laughed and joked, forgot the tension of the previous day, and wished one another well.
And on to the next wedding.
“W HO ’ D YOU HAVE at the table?” Mary asked Margaret the following morning.
“Some Ben.” Her voice was low, plangent, her eyes downcast.
“Nice guy?”
Margaret shrugged. “Sort of simple.”
“Oh, come on.”
“He was. Said he flunked his driver’s test for the third time in a row, so he has to wait six months. I wouldn’t go around telling folks that if I was him.”
“ Ach my.”
“And he spit when he talked.”
Mary smiled, in spite of herself.
“It’s not funny, Mom. I despise weddings. All those people. When I get married, I will not invite more than two hundred, if that.”
“That’s a long time yet, sweetheart.” Mary smiled.
“You bet it is. You have no idea. I’m never getting married.”
There wasn’t much to say to this, so Mary reckoned she’d be better off staying quiet.
“Did you see Ivan? He sat so close to Ida, he may as well have swallowed her. He is so good-looking and I will never date anyone else. But he never even glanced at me. It’s like I had leprosy or something.”
“Looks aren’t the most important thing.”
“He’s too cute for words, but it’s like he doesn’t even know I exist. I don’t get it. Before, we talked and talked. I know that he liked me.”
“Isn’t he much older than you? Am I right, thinking he’s the one who picked you up on one of your first weekends?”
“Yes, that was him.”
“I’m sorry, Margaret. There’s still time. Perhaps he’s serious about waiting till you’re older. Just go out and enjoy your rumschpring years, and leave it up to God. He will lead you in the right direction if you let Him.”
“I hardly know God. I never pray.”
A burning jolt shot through Mary. Her piercing gaze went to her daughter.
“Margaret, seriously. That is exactly how I used to be.” She took a breath and then decided she had to ask. “Do you ever experience anxiety, like your heart seems to go out of control, like a hammer in your chest? Maybe you feel like throwing up?”
“So now you’re saying I’m mental, like you?”
“No. Just asking.”
“No. Well, once. Once when I was at the register at market.”
“Tell me.”
Margaret did tell her, in her usual brusque manner. Mary told her if it ever happened again, it was important to let her know.
“I still hate that job.”
“Well, sometimes we have to do what we don’t want to. It’s an important part of learning to be a responsible adult. Life is hard sometimes, and how can you be prepared if you never have to?”
“That’s morose.”
“Morose or not, it’s the truth.”
“I’m going to be English then.”
“You want me to pack your bags?”
Margaret’s eyes flew open, alarm registering on her face, till Mary smiled and they both burst out laughing.
“You’re so strange, Mom.”
T HERE WAS ANOTHER wedding the following day. Steve was up at three, in his office for a few hours of paperwork before he had to eat breakfast and be on his way. It was the church wedding, where Mary would be assigned a job of making gravy, or creamed celery, or coffee.
She yawned as she drank her coffee, picked at a thread on her sleeve, and said it was only the second wedding of the season, with four more to go.
Steve sat down to a dippy egg on a piece of toast, salted and peppered it, nodded in agreement.
“Maybe we can come home early today.”
“What about Margaret?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, guess we should stay for her sake.”
“She probably wouldn’t mind, actually.”
Steve smiled at her. “You two seem to be getting along.”
“A bit better.”
“Mom!” The loud wail thundered down the stairs.
Mary rose to her feet, hurried to the stairway.
“What is it, Margaret?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“I’m not going there. Come on, we’re almost ready to leave.”
“You have to help me with my cape.”
Resigned, Mary climbed the stairs to find her daughter in a huge disarray of clothes, shoes, pillows, books, drinking glasses.
She said nothing, but quickly pinned the navy blue cape to the dress, then pinned the black apron. She asked her to use hairspray please, and then left the room, shaking her head as she reentered the kitchen.
Steve raised his eyebrows but she shook her head, then smiled at Rebecca, saying the boys’ lunchboxes were in the laundry room, and to have fun babysitting with her cousin Amanda.
A flurry of steps, and Margaret hit the kitchen in a half-dozen strides.
“Mom, my covering string tore off. I never heard of anything as senseless as covering strings. This navy blue makes me look like Grandma Moses. I don’t even care. It’s only a church wedding.”
Mary concentrated on gluing the covering string, then handed it to her, noticing how pretty she looked in the navy blue dress, though she said nothing.
“I’m not staying all day,” she announced defiantly.
“We might not either.”
Another wedding with a different group of people. Some were acquaintances, some Mary had never seen before. She was busy making chicken gravy with Aaron sie Sarah, mixing the flour with chicken fat, and missed the entrance of the long line of young men and women, her daughter among them.
While serving gravy, Margaret rushed up to the stove. Her job as a church girl was waiting on tables.
“Mom. He’s here,” she hissed in her ear.
Mary drew back. “Who?”
“You know, Ivan.”
Mary raised her eyebrows and went back to serving gravy, filling trays of gravy bowls as servers waited. So much for going home early, she supposed, but was curious to see the object of Margaret’s desire, or despair, depending how you looked at it. Oh my, it was an adventure, having a sixteen-year-old daughter.
After dinner, Mary’s job was done, so she settled down with a group of church women to talk and laugh, eat potato chips and blueberry donut holes from bowls on the table, and sip a cup of coffee with cream.
“Here they come,” Lydia whispered.
They rose as one and strained to see across the crowded shop, watching, waiting for their own son or daughter.
Oh my, but the young man beside Margaret was arresting. You almost had to look twice. Oh, poor Margaret. Her face was deathly pale, her nostrils dilated, and she looked as if she might faint.
Mary sat down, regained her composure, and ate a potato chip that turned dry in her mouth.
She took a swallow of water, said, “ Hesslich .”
Lydia leaned over and said, “I’d choke too, if that was my daughter. Who is he?”
“I think his name is Ivan.”
“My goodness, he’s handsome.”
“Looks are not what’s important.”
“Mmhmm, sure.”
A T THE AFTERNOON table, Margaret’s head spun and her hands shook, but she took deep breaths to steady herself.
She was seriously afraid of heart failure when he looked at her and said, soft and low, “Hi.”
She tried to speak, but nothing formed.
“How do you know John and Rose?” he asked
“Church.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Mm-hm.”
The truth was, she was terrified. How had she lost all the confidence of her former month, those first few weeks of rumschpringa ? She was certain he had chosen her as a joke, perhaps on a bet from his friends. He’d disappeared that first evening, never answered her texts.
She should leave him, now, let him sit there looking foolish. How would he like that?
“You probably wonder what’s up with me, huh?”
Margaret shrugged.
“I’m a first-class coward.”
She blinked, swallowed, toyed with her fork. When brimming glasses of meadow tea were served, she did not dare lift the glass to her lips for fear of spilling the whole thing into her quaking lap.