Love in Unlikely Places

by Linda Byler

  “Matt, Matt . . . I . . .”

  She put a hand to his chest, that wide solid space.

  He said nothing, merely sat and waited until she spoke.

  “If you still feel I’m worth it, I’ll wait.”

  She was unprepared for the response, which was a long trembling intake of breath, before tears trembled on the edge of his thick lashes.

  She reached out to wipe them away, and with a low sound he held her tightly against him, whispering words she could not comprehend.

  “Emma.”

  Only her name, but a crown was placed on her head.

  “You know I’m not worthy of you. You don’t know me at all.”

  “I might not, but I know enough to have the confidence to give it a whirl.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So, it’s settled, then, right? We’ll keep in touch, see how it goes. And I’ll be right here in little old Crawford County while you go back to Lancaster County and . . .”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know, Emma. It will be too weird. Giving up all of this,” He waved his hand across the car’s interior.

  “It will be weird. But we’ll give it time.”

  “Years? Months?”

  “It’s up to you.”

  And so began the winter. The days were long and dreary, the only thing to look forward to the phone calls from Matt. She missed her time with Anna, but instead spent her days at home with normal household chores, sewing, quilting, learning the art of appliqué. But she was restless, her sharp mind bored.

  Anna came home after Christmas, the rehab having gone poorly, which lengthened her stay considerably. She sat in her old green recliner with the lace doilies draped across the arms and proceeded to outline every detail of each therapist’s failures, the doctor’s inadequate education, and the rest of the residents’ stupidity.

  “It’s torture, that’s all it is. It doesn’t matter how much you yell or carry on, they ignore you and you have to do what they say. And the tea?” She spat. “Puh. Like dishwater, it was.”

  Emma smiled, told her she’d heard plenty about rehab, but it was indeed very necessary for someone who needed to strengthen limbs.

  “I don’t need strong hips. My legs carry me to the table and the bathroom and back again. All that stretching and pedaling was absolutely unnecessary. It’s a money racket.”

  She shook her little fist into the air.

  Her indignant displays decreased as the winter progressed, and her sense of humor nearly disappeared. Emma sensed a weakening, an overall lethargy that had not been evident before, so she called her doctor, who advised weekly visits from the hospice center. As the cold strengthened in mid-January, Anna mostly slept the day away, waving a tired hand at her dinner tray, refusing the many strong cups of black tea.

  At home, Emma rested over the weekend, while the visiting nurse took over, allowing her time to restore her spirits before entering Anna’s house the following Monday. She seldom saw Elvin or Eva, but found out through her mother that Eva would be having another little one in April.

  “Why don’t you visit them more often?” her mother asked, sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of hardboiled eggs, breaking the shells with her thumb.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I guess since I’m still single and she’s a mother with a life of her own, we just don’t have that much in common.”

  “That doesn’t sound right. I think it’s something else,” her mother said, throwing another slippery white egg in a bowl.

  “What are they for?” Emma asked.

  “Church.”

  Most members brought a dish to church to share, along with bread, peanut butter spread, or spreadable cheese.

  Occasionally, as a treat, someone would bring seasoned pretzels or red beet eggs that would be eaten with the usual lunch of coffee and snitz pies, which were pies made of dried apples, apple butter and applesauce, brown sugar, and cinnamon.

  “You’re always taking church food,” Emma commented.

  “Oh, it’s what I do. I’d feel empty-handed going to church without something.”

  Sally and Amanda giggled together in the playroom, piecing a puzzle on the child’s table. They sat in the glow of the winter sun, their blond heads like golden halos, their red dresses matching the stiff blooming poinsettias on the sewing machine top.

  “Hey, girlies. You want an egg?” their mother called.

  Sally gasped and came running, but Amanda wrinkled her nose.

  “Eggs are not good,” she said in a very sure voice.

  “Sally likes them.”

  “Good for her.”

  Emma caught her mother’s eye and they shared a smile. Sometimes, at moments like this, Emma felt as if she could burst with her secret, and yet was too unprepared, too vulnerable to be on the receiving end of their disapproval, their worries and senseless anxieties. Parents were supportive until something a tiny bit out of the ordinary was placed in their lives, and it was blown all out of proportion, as Matt would surely be. He just would not be safe enough or Amish enough to suit their specifications, and certainly not her sisters’. Matt was the reason she didn’t spend more time with Eva, too. Although Eva would be thrilled to learn she and Matt were still speaking, she would blow it all out of proportion the other way, planning their wedding and naming their children, and Emma wasn’t ready for that, either. For now, she needed to keep quiet about Matt.

  She attended church services on a neighboring farm, the people hurrying into the house in the freezing wind, divesting themselves of black shawls and bonnets before rubbing their hands gratefully in the heat of a coal stove in the laundry room. The sermon was inspired, but she kept drifting into a half-awake state that contained the voice of the minister, but not much comprehension. She would awaken with guilt and keep her eyes focused and alert, before drifting off again.

  It was the small amount of deep restful sleep she received during the week, with Anna becoming increasingly demanding and restless. Some nights Emma declared she would no longer allow this, but Anna would not accept anyone other than Emma since her fall. Emma had committed to Anna’s full-time care, except on the weekends, but it was taking a toll on her strength.

  Her friend Esther asked her to go along to the youth’s gathering, followed by the hymn singing. The cold, the long ride in a less-than-accommodating carriage, plus the boring wintertime supper get-together was certainly not something she looked forward to, but she relented, being frightened of her own “old maid” style. She was getting old, dried up, almost thirty, she reminded herself.

  And so she went, dressed in a pretty shade of lavender, and played so many games of Rook she felt like a cawing black bird herself. She ate two plates piled with food for supper, then became so sleepy she seriously considered going upstairs and finding an empty guest room. Instead, she endured the silly flirtations of young men much her junior, felt like their mother, and wished them out of the room. She sang the German hymns, yawned in between, and was grateful when Esther came to tell her it was time to go.

  She realized then, that rumschpringa was indeed a thing of the past. She would never again feel that thrill of being around different young men, enjoying the attention of being the pretty girl in the room, the banal words and empty giggles and batting of eyelashes. This revelation filled her with a new longing for Matt. Matt was all the things these young men were not—he was mature, having lived some really hard things and come through them kinder and wiser. He was hardworking, thoughtful, and interested in her ideas and opinions.

  She stopped herself there. He lacked one thing that these other young men did have, and that was his faith. Unless he was willing to commit to the church, she would not—could not—let herself pine for him. She’d be a fool to let her heart go there, only to be broken yet again. This time she was determined to take one day at a time, trusting that God’s timing was better than her own.

  She kept his letters, of which there had only been two. Her mother ha
d not noticed either, which was unbelievable, really. And only once had she been caught on the phone with him, when the little girls came crashing into the office looking for a sled, but they didn’t seem to care who she was talking to. Mostly Emma and Matt spoke while she was at Anna’s house, late in the evening after Anna was fast asleep. She told him not to leave messages at her home, a request he seemed to understand. They talked about their work, their families, ideas and opinions. But rarely did they speak of his faith. Emma knew better than to push him. He had to come to his own conclusions in his own time, and for now at least, she would wait as contently as possible.

  CHAPTER 20

  MONDAY MORNING BROUGHT A FRESH OUTLOOK, AN INCREASE IN HER energy. Emma was determined to throw herself into the care of the elderly woman who was experiencing many hours of discomfort now. Anna’s legs were restless, her incision was increasingly itchy, and her breathing became steadily more labored as time went on.

  Emma swept the snow off her boots with the corn broom that hung on its peg beside the front door, then let herself into the living room as quietly as possible. The overnight nurse was awakened and on her feet, smiling as she put a forefinger to her lips.

  “She’s asleep,” she whispered.

  “No, I am not,” came from the recliner. “Everybody says I’m sleeping when I’m resting my eyes.”

  “Good morning,” Emma said softly, bending to kiss the soft leathery cheek. Up came the two arms, weak and frail, to pat Emma’s back, with a resounding “Glad to have you back, sweetie.”

  “It’s good to be here.”

  Emma patted the heaving shoulder, straightened the collar on her housecoat.

  “You go ahead and rest your eyes, okay?”

  Anna nodded, and was instantly asleep.

  “So how is she?” Emma mouthed, spreading her hands and lifting her shoulders.

  “I’m just fine,” came the strident voice from the recliner.

  “Here. Someone get over here and take the doilies off these arms. They’re nothing but a nuisance. Don’t throw them in the trash. Put them in the washer with the whites, but not in the dryer. They have to be air dried. There’s a bottle of blueing under the sink, you need to put that in the rinse water. Liquid starch to soak them in before ironing.”

  Her voice was being punctuated by small gasps as her lungs struggled to supply the necessary oxygen.

  The caregiver from hospice looked at Emma and they shared a grin before she let herself out. Emma carried out the directions Anna had given her and returned to the living room to find Anna sound asleep this time.

  So she went about her Monday duties, which weren’t much—a few dishes to wash, a bit of ironing, checking the refrigerator for milk or eggs.

  She found herself distracted, easily bored, pacing restlessly from room to room.

  What if Anna passed away? What would she do next? She thought of Matt, imagined him returning to the community, moving in with his parents again. After all this time, would it be possible?

  She was determined to stay patient, to keep herself from asking too many questions, give him all the time he would need to reconcile himself to the Amish church.

  Did it have to be the Amish church? She could leave to join him, attend any of the churches that dotted the land from one end of Pennsylvania to the other. There were Christians of all kinds, none necessarily better than another. What was keeping her from leaving?

  Before the thought was completed, she knew the price would be far too high, leaving everything she had ever known. She could never place that kind of deep and lasting sorrow on her parents’ shoulders, then live with the guilt of having done just that.

  Baptism into the Amish church was no trifling thing, with the solemn promises made to God and to man. It was marriage, of sorts, and leaving was as unthinkable as divorce, a true horror in the minds of the plain sect, their conservative shoulders shuddering at the mere thought of it.

  It was totally forbidden. To leave the Amish way of life, to enter the mainstream, was viewed as a spiritual adultery by the steadfast members of the plain people. It was better to stay, to honor her conservative parents, to bring them joy, so that the days would be long in the land in which she lived.

  But what if, in the end, Matt simply could not trade his truck, his job, his life for one he had completely denounced, to return to what he had condemned? Would it be easier for her to leave the church than it would be for him to return to it?

  But how could she disobey parents who loved her so deeply, who cared for her from the time she was born? To disobey them would be a disobedience to God, which was a blatant, in your face, transgression.

  Yet people did it. Young families were leaving almost weekly. Young men chose to keep their vehicles and joined a liberal church where such things were allowed. The parents cried, pleaded, and sometimes turned against their own offspring with a bitterness that tore their hearts into unhealthy shreds, left them dry and aching with sorrow.

  Emma sat toying with a buttered muffin, her coffee gone cold, a sickening grip taking her appetite. If her mother knew how very close she had come to telling Matt she would make it easier for him and break away from tradition herself . . .

  And then Matt stopped calling and stopped returning her calls. A week passed, then two, then three. She checked messages obsessively, sat by the phone imagining it would ring. She was tempted to purchase a cell phone, send him her number. Where was he, and why did he try to stay away? Just like Ben. The thought made her feel ill, her stomach clenched.

  Anna Gilbert had roused her stubborn will and was walking around the house again, railing against the food Emma cooked, the smell of the bathroom cleaner, the unnecessary noise Emma made when she washed dishes, and of late, she was using too much detergent when she did a load of whites. Emma took it all with an absentminded good humor, her thoughts far away as she peeled carrots for the vegetable soup she was making, listening to the dripping of the water from the eaves as the snow melted on the south side of the house.

  “I’m itchy. My underpants make me itchy,” Anna said with all the force she could muster from her worn-out lungs.

  “Alright,” Emma said cheerfully. “I’ll use only half a cap instead of a full one.”

  “Don’t put too many carrots in the soup. They look like pennies when they float around in tomato sauce.”

  “I can grate them if you want me to.”

  “What? Of course not. I don’t want sawdust in my soup. I hate carrots, doesn’t matter how they’re cut.”

  “Well then, we won’t put any in the soup.”

  She wrapped the carrot in plastic wrap, placed it in the drawer of the refrigerator and began to peel potatoes. She hummed as she worked, the sun spreading a new warmth as the water dripped on the back patio.

  She imagined this cute house being her own. The arborvitae in the backyard would be a perfect backdrop for a garden shed, with stone walkways and all sorts of raised beds filled with vegetables and herbs. Flowers and bushes everywhere.

  Only a few miles from home, she could visit her mother easily, either with a horse and buggy or a scooter. She tried to picture Matt living there with her, but the thought sent an ache to her heart that was too much to handle.

  “That is enough potatoes. Too many potatoes in vegetable soup makes it starchy. I can’t have all that starch.”

  Anna had settled herself in the living room, gasping for breath as she did so, and Emma had no idea she knew how many potatoes were going into the soup.

  “You have eyes in the back of your head,” she called out.

  “I do, don’t I?” Anna cackled, pleased to prove herself one step ahead of Emma, no matter her age or her state of health.

  The vegetable soup filled the house with a pleasant aroma, and when it was ladled into ceramic soup bowls, with a small dish of saltines, one of applesauce, and another of the sour pickles Anna loved so much, she ate with a good appetite, but was stingy with her praise.

  “Too much beef
broth,” she growled. “It’s greasy across the top.” But she ate three helpings.

  Valentine’s Day came and went, leaving Emma harboring a certain sad wistfulness. She had never felt more alone.

  Anna continued her streak of good health, feisty now, with the ability to push the wheeled walker around the house. By the week’s end, she told the hospice caregiver not to come anymore. She could stay by herself for the weekends, and no one was going to change her mind, either.

  “You can’t do that,” Emma gasped.

  “I can and I will.”

  Hospice could get in trouble for leaving her alone, they told her, but nothing made any difference. From Saturday night to Monday morning she was on her own, absolutely capable and without a problem.

  Emma told her she would camp out in her backyard, but was met with hoots of mirth.

  “I’ll be fine. You just go on home, dearie.”

  There were tears in Anna’s eyes as Emma bent to hug her goodbye, so Emma patted her shoulder, told her she loved her, and let herself out the door, pulling it softly behind her.

  The gray days of February were accented by lowering clouds that roiled in the sky without expelling any rain. Damp and cold, with half-melted snowbanks pocked with salt and gravel like bad acne, mud and flat brown grass that lay by the side of the road like dejection in vegetable form.

  She had hoped for a message, a letter, a card for Valentine’s Day, even a small note of remembrance, but there was nothing. Her little sisters had a head cold and a high fever. Her mother had cut her thumb on a piece of broken glass so badly that she had four stitches put in at the local trauma center. And her father was in an ill temper, having lost his best driving horse to colic, the result of a gate left open in the barn.

  Emma noticed the stickiness of the kitchen floor, the unwashed dishes, the laundry that had not been folded, asked where Dena was in clipped tones that gave away her disapproval.