“Daed, did you ask him this?”
“Nee. He volunteered it,” Joseph said, helping Sarah put the food away.
***
The morning of Miriam’s and John’s wedding day dawned bright and cold. Miriam, unable to sleep, threw her covers back and got out of bed. Looking around her room, she realized she and John would share her room tonight.
Getting carefully dressed, she put on her wedding dress, the crisp apron and black prayer kapp. Going downstairs, she was greeted by her sisters, brothers, in-laws, nieces, nephews, grandmothers and parents.
“Let’s eat! We have to get ready for all our guests,” Sam, her brother-in-law said.
Miriam, battling nerves and butterflies, smiled as she sipped her coffee.
“Ya! It is! I have already moved my things into the grossmudderhaus,” she said, giving a happy, twinkling smile.
By 8:30, everyone was in their places. Guests were on the long prayer benches; John’s and Miriam’s newehockers were ready. After singing several hymns, the minister counseled John and Miriam on their marital responsibilities in a separate room. Returning to the main room, prayer, Scripture and a sermon took place.
After the sermon had finally ended, the minister asked John and Miriam about their pending marriage. After hearing their answers, he blessed them. Other deacons, Joseph and Samuel gave testimonies about marriage, then, the final prayer marked the end of the marriage ceremony.
All family members and guests, feeling excited and celebratory, moved to the kitchen, where the women got the food ready to serve. While they were taking the food out of the oven, the men were rearranging the tables and benches for the dinner. Miriam and John were escorted to the honorary Eck, where they sat down.
Miriam, seated at John’s left, saw her friends seated all around her. Both families were seated in the kitchen, where they ate of the wedding feast.
After dinner, the festivities continued, with matchmaking and games. Miriam had been looking forward to this part of the day. Taking her girlfriends’ hands, she walked them to the young, unmatched men and paired them with each other.
The festivities didn’t end here – at five, supper was served, with the older guests, Joseph, Sarah, Samuel and Emily sitting to eat first.
By 10:30, Miriam’s eyes were drooping. The festivities had just ended and she and John went upstairs to her bedroom.
The next morning, everyone arose early – they needed to help get the Beiler house back into order, and everyone was pressed into service, including John and Miriam.
Beginning that Friday evening, John and Miriam Fisher began their honeymoon, visiting their relatives to share the happiness of their marriage. Because of the sizes of their families, this process would take most, if not all winter.
When they arrived at a relative’s home, they stayed overnight, visiting, eating and celebrating. The next afternoon, they left that relative’s home and traveled to another relative’s home, staying overnight until the next day’s noon meal. Miriam counted – they visited six relatives every weekend, staying at their homes, celebrating and getting to know each other better.
One morning, Miriam woke up and helped her mother get breakfast for her, John, Sarah and Joseph. In the quilting room, she felt unusually sleepy and struggled to stay awake as she worked on her newest quilt. Her sleepiness, combined with a sour stomach, continued for several weeks. One morning, Sarah looked at her.
“When did you have your last cycle?”
Miriam stopped sewing, thinking.
“It’s been about two months, mamm. Do you think . . .” Miriam asked her eyes growing wide.
“I don’t think. I know. Certain foods, you avoid. You’re sleepy all the time. Miriam, you are going to have a boppli!”
Miriam dropped the quilt in excitement, standing up.
“Mamm! You’re going to be a grossmudder!”
“When will you tell John?”
“As soon as possible. He’s noticed my sleepiness, too and he’s worried about me. He needs to know it’s for the happiest reason of all – that he’s going to be a daed!”
“Have you felt nauseated?”
“Only when I smell greasy foods. Otherwise, my stomach is just . . . sour. Do you know what might help?”
“Ginger tea. Keep food on your stomach at all times, daughter. Try to eat breads, crackers, gingersnap cookies. If a food is highly spiced, you will feel sick. If it’s greasy, you’ll feel sick, so try to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. When you cook meats, drain the fat off. Drink milk. Your baby needs milk to develop,” Sarah said, ticking off the advice on her fingers.
“Denki. I have so much to learn!”
“Ya, and maternity dresses to make. I will show you some patterns and help you alter them. You’ll need to buy fabric in town so you can make a few.”
“What about my aprons?” Miriam asked, feeling the ties at the back of her still-trim waist.
“I will help you with that, too. You will need to cut and sew the ties longer to accommodate your belly as it grows.”
That night, when they were cuddling under the covers, Miriam yawned widely.
“That reminds me, wife. You have been so tired lately. Are you sick?” John asked, leaning on one elbow and looking at Miriam, lying on her pillow.
“N-n-not in the usual sense,” Miriam said, feeling her heart thumping hard.
“What do you mean?”
“John, we are going to have our first boppli!”
“What? When?” John asked in in excitement, placing his hand protectively over Miriam’s abdomen.
“In about seven months – so, July or August,” Miriam said nervously, peering at John in the dark.
John threw the covers back and landed on the floor with a thump.
“Woo-hoo, I’m going to be a daed! Is your stomach upset or anything?”
“No, not now, but when I smell a strong smell, it gets upset. Mamm and I were talking this afternoon and she was giving me some good advice,” Miriam said.
“I’m glad you told her,” John said seriously.
“Actually, she figured it out before I did. She asked me how it had been since my last course. That’s when I realized what my symptoms are.”
“From now on, Miriam, you do not lift anything heavy. I am serious. You allow one of us to pick anything up that is too heavy for you. If you need to take a nap, do so. I’ll ask mamm for advice, too,” John promised.
“Yes, John,” Miriam said, grateful for his help even as she was feeling a bit overwhelmed by his obvious nervousness. “I’ll call you or someone else to help me lift anything. My bolts of fabric are not too heavy. Besides, I just move them from the chest to the cutting table and back,” Miriam said.
“Nee. Not the new ones, at least. You let me lift those. Tell me that morning, when you need them and I’ll take them down for you. I don’t want anything happening to this precious little boppli,” John said, nuzzling his head on Miriam’s stomach. “You are too precious to me, Miriam. I love you. Seeing what you went through with Lance Newman . . . nearly being stabbed by Esther Zook . . . made me realize just how much you mean to me. We married because we love each other and I want us to be together until we are both gray-haired,” John said seriously. As he spoke, his hand replaced his head on Miriam’s stomach.
Once the news of Miriam’s pregnancy became known, her symptoms eased somewhat. Following her mother’s and mother-in-law’s instructions, she was able to keep her nausea down. She, Sarah and Emily sewed new dresses to fit over her growing belly. At one of the meetings, she ran into Esther Zook. John, standing protectively close to Miriam, watched their interaction closely.
“Congratulations, Miriam. You must be very happy . . . I . . . want to apologize for what I did last year. It was unforgivable. I could have killed you, but now I know it’s because I have an illness,” Esther said quietly.
“Denki,” Miriam said, watching Esther closely. “I . . . we . . . are very happy. And I know you’ll meet som
eone when the Lord wills it.”
“Ya. I already have. When mamm and daed took me to my relative’s district, I met someone up there. We began courting a few months ago. It seems he’s the right man for me, after all. And I won’t be bothering you and John. The Lord brought you together,” Esther said with a smile
“Esther, you don’t know how happy I am for you!” Miriam said, smiling broadly. “Get to know your beau well, because he will be your life-partner, if God wills it.”
At home that evening, John looked at Miriam.
“Miriam, you have such a big capacity for forgiveness. When I saw you and Esther Zook talking, I admit, I felt some fear. I didn’t know what to expect and, now that your pregnancy is obvious, she could have chosen to do some real harm to you and our boppli,” John said with a serious look in his eyes. “I do want you to do one thing. Whenever you see her, get me. If I’m talking to someone, just get me. I don’t know if it’s me being protective, but . . . I want to be near whenever she’s around you. Today, we had no warning, but, in the future . . .”
“Ya, husband. I will. I was a little nervous, but I didn’t feel anything, any ill intent coming from her,” Miriam said.
Miriam continued sewing her quilts, but as her due date came closer, she slowed down on their production.
“Mamm, I think I’m going to have to slow down to maybe four quilts a year, once I have my boppli. I won’t have the time to work all day long like I did before,” she said.
“Ya. Pick your projects carefully. Let your customers know that you’re a mamm and that you need time with your family, so what used to take four months might take six, if not longer,” Sarah advised. “When will you finish this one?”
“I am thinking about one month before I have my little one. Then, I’m going to have to slow down a bit until the baby is older,” Miriam said, closing up her sewing machine and putting her notions away. “But I’m going to keep going with it. I’ll be a better quilter for being a mamm, and a better mamm for being a quilter.”
Sarah nodded. “I’m so proud of you, Miriam.” Her voice caught. “So proud.”
In the Beiler living room that evening, Miriam and John sat quietly, reading their Bibles and enjoying their evening together.
“Mrs. Fisher,” he said, putting an arm around his wife. “I am so grateful to God for bringing us together.”
“Me too, Mr. Fisher. You have made me incredibly happy, and I love you.”
Their lips came together in a gentle kiss, and after, when Miriam relaxed into her husband’s embrace, a feeling of light and happiness flowed through her. Like threads of light, she felt the connection between herself, her husband, and the new life growing inside her.
THE END.
THANK YOU FOR READING!
And thank you for supporting me as an independent author. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I loved writing it! If so, I hope you also enjoy the sample in the next chapter of my other work.
Lastly, if you enjoyed this book and want to continue to support my writing, please leave me a review to let everyone know what you thought of my work. It’s the best thing you can do to keep indie authors like me writing. (And if you find something in the book that – YIKES – makes you think it deserves less than 5-stars, drop me a line at [email protected], and I’ll fix it if I can.)
All the best,
Rachel
FALSE WORSHIP – BOOK 1
When Beth Zook's daed starts courting a widow with a mysterious past, will Beth uncover this new family's secrets before she loses everything?
Sixteen-year-old Beth Zook has already lost so much—first her sister in a tragic accident and then her mamm a year later to cancer. As Beth and her daed Marcus struggle to rebuild their lives in the Amish community of Indianasburg, Marcus finds love awakening in his heart when a new family—a widow and her two sons—move into their quiet community. But things are not as they seem, and the more Beth learns about this new family, the more reason she has to fear. Will Beth uncover this new family's secrets before she loses everything? Find out in Rachel Stoltzfus’ False Worship series.
CHAPTER ONE
I’m running, my heart pounding in my chest, veins swollen with rushing blood. The faster I run, the faster it courses through me, threatening to rupture my arteries and leave me to a slow bleed-out, before I have the chance to escape.
I look back, but I can’t see who (or what) is chasing me.
I turn just in time to avoid running face-first into the sturdy trunk of a northern red oak, and I twist my ankle on one of its upraised roots as I run past. I trip, hands reaching out to protect me as I fall into the thorny ground, a thick carpet of mulch and broken twigs, little rocks and littler bugs.
Feet and hands scrambling, I’m back up and running, after missing only a beat.
But I’m afraid it’s enough to make all the difference; just a quick moment, a second or two, is all the margin my pursuer needs to gain the ground that separates us. I can imagine myself in the predator’s sight: his feeble prey, bent forward and awkwardly pushing through this maze of fallen logs and low-lying branches, prickly shrubs and flittering birds, crying out in panic as I continue my futile flight.
I can feel the heartbeat of my pursuer as the distance between us closes. I can hear the feet pounding the earth behind me, almost as loud as my own strained breath, in the deepest crevices of my ears.
And I know, with the silent inner voice of doom, that I won’t make it.
I almost want to stop running, to finally succumb to the cruelty of nature and the casualness of nurture. Nothing could have prepared me for this: only God, and He seems to have deserted me.
I start praying, my mind desperately launching pleas and promises.
Please, God, spare me from the hellfire I can’t outrun, from the pain which I know is craving the taste of my soul in its putrid belly. Please, God, don’t let me die.
No answer comes, no lightning bolt from On High, no great hand to reach down from the clouds and lift me to safety, high above the bramble and brush.
My nose fills with the stench of wood rot and mold, and my own sweat, dripping down the sides of my face, collecting in the nape of my neck, retreating down the crevice of my spine.
I keep running, even as the predator’s panting gets louder behind me. I can almost feel the hot snarl of that churning hatred, frothing over with a desire to end my life, in a way most swift and terrible.
At least, I hope it will be swift.
Something grabs me from behind, but I slip free; fingers or talons or claws, I can’t be sure. But it doesn’t matter, because with the second strike, I am captured and knocked to the ground, that murderous weight about to fall upon me from behind, and finish me off.
I bolt up with a start, looking around my quiet, dark bedroom. All is well. I am alone and unhurt, sheltered in the place of my childhood. Just a dream, I tell myself, heart pounding in my chest, skin clammy with sweat. Thank God, it was just a dream.
***
The quilt slowly takes shape beneath my sure and steady fingers. I’ve often wondered how many little stitches it takes to create one of these cozy and colorful quilts. A hundred thousand? I silently wonder once more. A million?
Does it matter?
It doesn’t matter to the Englischers who buy them, souvenirs from their weekends among us, ornaments for their homes, gifts for their friends. They don’t care how much work these quilts require, but they can certainly appreciate it.
We usually sew in quilting bees, and mine includes Greta and a few older ladies. But I don’t always wait for them to collect in our quiet, somber home. There’s work to be done, and it helps take my mind off of how quiet the house has become in these last few, terrible years.
When I’m focusing on the intricate diamonds and fine lines of the quilt, I don’t have to think about Mamm: those awful months she spent in bed, getting weaker and smaller, until, finally, there was nothing left of her at all. When I’m
dipping that sharp needle into the cotton, making sure the line is straight and the weaves are even, I’m distracted from thinking about Margaret, struck down by a carriage, just a year before Mamm took ill.
I knew then (and I always will be sure of this) that Mamm didn’t die from cancer, but from a broken heart, over the death of my kid sister. I’m not a doctor, and I have to admit that even those Englischer doctors may have been right about the tumors growing in her stomach, preventing her from eating. But the cancer was only God’s way of answering Mamm’s own prayers for death. She didn’t want to live after what happened to Margaret.
All prayers are heard, I remind myself, even the horrible ones.
I stop and pray that my daed won’t turn himself over to the same sorrowful resolution. He’s always been steady; a calm surface over a deep, still sea. But even the seas themselves can part, even the bowels of the Earth can rip apart and swallow us whole, especially if we ask God to make it so.
So I ask God to prevent it, to give his servant Marcus Zook (and his sole surviving daughter Beth) the strength to endure our losses, and enjoy our blessings. We still have each other, I remind myself, and our friends here in Indianasburg, and Aunt Sarah in Clarion, just a few counties away.
Maybe it’s time we brought Aunt Sarah here to live with us, it occurs to me. She can’t be very happy since her own husband died, and that was years before our family tragedy turned its attention to our own household.
What did this family ever do to invite such heartache? I ask God, not for the first time. Daed is a good man, even-tempered, and reasonable. Doesn’t he deserve to be happy? Won’t you turn your loving light upon him, Lord? I don’t care for myself; but for his happiness, I’d offer any sacrifice.
No answer, at least not in the form of a lightning bolt or a burning bush; just silence, thick and cold and heavy.
All prayers are heard, and they are answered.
But not all answers are what they appear to be...
THANK YOU FOR READING!
And thank you for supporting me as an independent author. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I loved writing it!
Winter of Faith Collection Page 22
