The work of your hands was just work and no more if it wasn’t also the work of your heart.
All of a sudden, Miriam knew exactly what she wanted to do. She left the kitchen and headed upstairs to her bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time just like she had as a child. She drew the drapes for privacy, then opened her closet and pulled out her oldest dress, the faded blue one she wore for her most hardworking chores. She changed clothes quickly then headed back downstairs.
Hurry, hurry, she thought.
She left the house, stopping in the barn to grab two buckets. Then, finally, Miriam was walking swiftly away from the house. Away from the fields where the men were working. The buckets swinging at her sides, Miriam felt her spirits lift with every step she took.
Blackberry picking. She really should have thought of this before.
* * *
An hour later Miriam stopped to stretch, raising her arms above her head and lifting her face to the afternoon sun. The day was warm. Sweat trickled down Miriam’s back as she worked among the arching canes. It dampened her face and her hairline as it disappeared beneath her kapp, but she didn’t mind. Miriam loved picking berries. She had loved it ever since she was small. When she was a girl, she’d been particularly adept at wriggling her way into the very center of the blackberry patch to find the berries the birds had left behind. She always came out scratched within an inch of her life by the canes’ sharp thorns.
I am too big to do that now, she thought, though she was still grateful for her long sleeves. Even without trying to get to the center of the mass of canes, Miriam’s arms would have been scratched to pieces without something to protect them. She still loved to pick, though, and this wild patch of blackberries, tucked against the flank of one of the small hills on the farm’s far edge, had always been her favorite spot. She and Sarah used to come here every summer for days on end, picking until their fingers were stained purple with berry juice.
And our mouths, too, Miriam remembered with a smile. She sighed. She picked up the first bucket, nearly full now, and walked to another part of the blackberry patch, angling her body so that she could reach up high. As often as she had thought of Daniel in these last few weeks, Miriam had thought of Sarah just as often. She had so many memories of Sarah, and the truth was that most of them were happy ones. Why did those seem to want to slip away so quickly, Miriam wondered, while the memories that brought her pain held on? She pulled a handful of berries toward her, her sleeve snagging on a particularly large thorn.
“Miriam! I’m caught!”
Sarah’s childish voice suddenly sounded in Miriam’s mind. She froze as the memory swept over her. How old had they been that day? She could not have been more than ten, she realized, which would have made Sarah about eight. It was one of their first berry-picking expeditions on their own. Determined to reach a particularly fine specimen and so impress Daed with her skill, Sarah had ducked her head beneath a high, arching cane. But when she tried to pull her head back, she moved too quickly and the thorns caught on her kapp and held it fast. She could not turn around. The normally adventuresome Sarah was frightened and called out for Miriam, who quickly came running. She saw in a flash what must be done.
“Untie your kapp,” Miriam told her sister.
“I can’t! I can’t move!” Sarah cried, her voice panicked.
“Don’t be silly, of course you can.”
“I’m not silly!” Sarah protested. “I’m smart for my age. The teacher said so.”
“Then untie your kapp,” Miriam said. “You can do it.”
Sarah’s fingers trembled as she fumbled with the kapp strings. But at last she got them undone. She wriggled out of her head covering, crouching down so that the kapp dangled from the cane above her head.
“Now back out slowly,” Miriam instructed. “Don’t hurry, Sarah, you’ll just make things worse. I’m right here. I’m right behind you.”
Slowly, Sarah inched her way backward out of the canes. When she was finally free of them, she spun around and threw her arms around Miriam.
“I was so scared,” she said. “I didn’t know where you were.”
“I’m right here. I’ll always be right here,” Miriam had promised.
It was as if she could still feel the press of her sister’s small body against hers. Feel the strength of her own arms as she and Sarah clung to each other, as if they would never let go.
Not just sisters but best friends. That was what she and Sarah had been. Of course they had both spent time with other girls, taken part in communal activities, like quilt frolics, but neither of them had ever formed a close friendship with any of the other girls around them.
We didn’t have to, Miriam thought. We had each other.
For years and years, it had been Miriam and Sarah, and that had been all they needed. They played together, did chores together, walked together in the chilly mornings to the one-room schoolhouse, and sat side by side for services every Sunday. They told each other their deepest secrets. Right up until the moment that Sarah had announced that she had decided not to live the Plain life. That moment had changed the course of both their lives, and Miriam had never even had a hint that it was coming.
We had each other. That seemed to be one of the great truths of her life. But who do we have now?
The question popped, full-blown, into Miriam’s mind. And hard on its heels, so did the answer.
God.
God was always present. He never abandoned anyone. God never changed His mind. His love was what earthly love strived to be: true, steadfast, and strong. But, also like earthly love, Miriam thought, God’s love offered both shelter and a challenge. A challenge to accept that even hard times were a part of His plan. A challenge to submit to them with an open, willing heart. A heart dedicated to patient acceptance, which strived to believe that everything happened for a reason. That everything that happened under the sun, even the things that brought pain and suffering, was the work and the will of God.
Which meant that there was a reason for everything that was going on in her own life, Miriam thought. Her own current turmoil, even her unhappiness, was a part of God’s plan. But why? What did God want from her? What did He want her to see that still remained hidden?
Help me, Miriam prayed. Give me strength. Guide me, Lord.
She reached for a cluster of berries with fingers that trembled ever so slightly.
“Miriam!” a voice behind her suddenly said. “There you are!”
Miriam jerked back, surprised. But her sleeve snagged, caught fast by the sharp blackberry thorns.
“Hold still,” the voice commanded. “This will just take a second.”
Sarah’s long arms reached over Miriam’s shoulder. With quick but careful fingers, Sarah freed the sleeve of Miriam’s dress.
“Danki,” Miriam said. She turned to face her sister. Sarah, too, wore old clothes, Miriam noted. Well-worn jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. On her feet, sensible tennis shoes with no socks.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” Sarah said, her voice slightly breathless, as if she had hurried all the way to the blackberry patch. All of a sudden, she smiled. “But at least it wasn’t your kapp! Do you remember—”
“I do.” Miriam nodded before Sarah could finish. “It’s funny you should mention that day. I was just thinking about it.”
“I can’t believe you came out here without me,” Sarah went on. “Why didn’t you come down to the stand to get me? Why didn’t you tell me you were going?”
“I didn’t know I was going until I actually did it,” Miriam confessed. “I was just standing in the kitchen and suddenly none of my usual chores seemed right. Then I remembered it was blackberry season, and the next thing I knew, here I was.”
“And you’ve been busy, too,” Sarah said. She leaned over to peer into Miriam’s bucket, nearly full now. “Never mi
nd. I’ll just have to work twice as hard to catch up.” She straightened up, her face alight with mischief. “Wanna bet I can do it?”
“Sarah,” Miriam protested, surprised to hear the thread of laughter in her own voice. “You know I never bet.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t do it,” Sarah answered with a smile. She hoisted her bucket and moved a short distance away, near enough so that she and Miriam could still speak to each other, but not so close that they would be working side by side.
“And I’ll tell you something else, Miriam Brennemann,” she called, her own voice filled with laughter now. “Sometimes I think you seriously need to lighten up.”
* * *
“Sarah, slow down!” Miriam protested some time later. The sun was climbing high now, and sweat trickled down her back. She continued to pick at a leisurely, steady pace, but Sarah had done her best to work twice as fast. “It’s not a race.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it is,” Sarah replied. “Sometimes I think I’ve been trying to catch up to you my whole life.”
Partway through the act of hefting her bucket to move to a different spot, Miriam stopped abruptly.
“What?” she asked. She straightened and turned toward the sound of Sarah’s voice. When her sister didn’t answer, she walked around the blackberry patch until Sarah came into view. “What did you just say?”
“I only meant that you were older, that’s all,” Sarah said. But she did not stop picking, and she did not meet Miriam’s eyes. “Younger siblings always try to catch up. It’s just the way things are.”
“No,” Miriam said. “I don’t think that’s what you meant at all. Why would you even say a thing like that?”
“I said it because it’s true! Why else?” Sarah snapped. She stopped picking berries and ran a hand across her forehead, as if it ached. Her fingers left a faint blue streak. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t come out here to quarrel.”
“Why did you come?” Miriam asked.
“Because I wanted to see you!” Sarah exclaimed. “Is that so odd? I wanted to talk to you. You’re always so busy these days, but, except for down at the farm stand, you never let me help.” She sighed and ran a hand through her blond hair, pushing it back from her face. “I thought it would be like old times, coming back to stay for a while. But it’s not like that. It hasn’t been like that at all. Some of it is because Daed died, of course, but for the rest . . . sometimes I think you wish I’d never come at all.”
“I never said that,” Miriam insisted, but even she barely believed her own words. True, she had never said it, but how many times had she thought it?
Sarah gave a derisive snort. “No, you haven’t. I’ll give you that much. But I’m not stupid, you know. Just because I live among the Englischers now doesn’t mean I can’t tell when something’s wrong. You’ve been angry with me for weeks, Miriam, but I’ll be darned if I know why. I was hoping we could be sisters, just like we’ve always been. Apparently, I was wrong.”
“And just because I’m Plain doesn’t make me stupid, either,” Miriam replied, stung. “I am your sister. I’ll always be your sister. But you can’t just waltz back in here like nothing’s changed. It has. And I don’t just mean Daed dying. You changed things yourself, the day that you left.”
“And you’ve never forgiven me for that, have you?” Sarah demanded, swinging to face Miriam fully now. “You blame me for leaving home.” She stopped for a moment, studying her sister’s face, then said in a calmer tone, “Daed understood and accepted it. Why can’t you accept me the way I am now?”
“I do accept you as you are,” Miriam said, trying to make her voice equally calm. “You didn’t give us much choice in that, did you? There you are, thousands of miles away, living among the Englischers, wearing jeans and talking on a cell phone, as if you were not brought up Plain, as if our way means nothing to you.”
Sarah shook her head, suddenly looking old beyond her years. “That’s it, then,” she said. “You think I did something unforgivable when I left. And that the way I live my life is wrong. You think I’m a bad person now.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” Miriam cried. “Stop putting words in my mouth!”
“Then what’s the matter with you?” Sarah all but shouted. “What’s the matter with us, Miriam? Why can’t we talk? We used to be so close.”
“I’m not the one who changed that,” Miriam came right back.
“There! See? You do blame me!” Sarah pounced.
“No!” Miriam countered, growing heated in turn. “How many times do I have to say it? I don’t. But I’ve never understood how you could do such a thing. How could you leave us, Daed and me? How could you walk out and leave your whole life behind?”
And how could you make that decision without telling me? You never shared your thoughts. Not once.
Sarah’s expression softened, and Miriam saw both sympathy and sadness in her eyes. “You make it sound like I was willful and rebellious.” She gave a small, unhappy laugh. “Or like I gave up my life here for cell phones and jeans. But that’s not how it was. It was far simpler than that. I had no choice, Miriam. I followed the path laid out for me by God.”
Miriam flushed. It was as if a fire raced through all her veins. “How can you say such a thing?” she gasped. “How can abandoning the way you were raised be God’s will?”
“That’s simple, too,” Sarah answered, but suddenly she sounded exhausted. “I didn’t abandon anything, Miriam. In fact, I tried to take as much with me as I could. I’m still trying. That’s the whole point.”
“What point?” Miriam asked, pushing down a surge of frustration. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t understand anything about this. I don’t understand you anymore.”
“That makes us even, then,” Sarah said. “Because these last few weeks, I don’t understand you, either.”
Unexpectedly, Sarah sat down. Miriam hesitated, and then moved to sit facing her sister, cross-legged, her knees bumping against Sarah’s. They had often sat just this way when they were small. For several moments, neither of them spoke. Miriam felt the sun, warm on her back. The blackberry canes rustled ever so slightly as the wind moved through them. She heard a bird call, high overhead. But she did not speak. Sarah had started this. It was up to her to speak first.
“Do you remember that game we used to play when we were little,” Sarah finally asked, “the one we called Close Your Eyes?”
“Of course I remember it,” Miriam answered, though she had not thought of this game in a very long time.
It was Sarah who had originally created it as a way to help conquer her fear of thunderstorms. Though Miriam had never been much interested in games of imagination, she had been frightened enough by thunderstorms herself to be more than happy to play along.
Whenever a storm got too close, whipping the trees in the yard by the house into a frenzy, the thunder booming loud enough to shake the walls of their bedroom, the lightning so bright it made the whole yard look like day, the sisters would huddle together under the bedcovers and close their eyes. The game was to imagine you were someplace else, anyplace else, as long as there was no thunderstorm. It could be a place you knew or one that your mind conjured up out of nothing.
Miriam had never traveled very far in her imagination. In fact, she hadn’t really traveled at all. Most of the time the place she conjured up was her very own room, her very own bed. She just subtracted the thunderstorm. But Sarah had imagined all sorts of places when she closed her eyes. Places that, even as a child, Miriam had known that she could never go.
“When I was trying to understand what I should do,” Sarah went on softly, “whether I should stay and live a Plain life or go and live among the Englischers, I played a sort of grown-up version of Close Your Eyes.”
“You played a game?” Miriam said, aghast. “To make the most
important decision of your life?”
“I didn’t think of it as a game,” Sarah said, and Miriam could hear the effort her sister was making not to sound defensive. “I thought of it as—I don’t know—a way to focus. To shut out all the distractions of the here and now and try to imagine the future.
“I thought—if I could just see some part of it, even if it was only one image, then I would know what I should do. I would know where I belonged.”
“And did you see something?” Miriam asked, her own voice quiet now.
“Yes,” Sarah said softly. “Yes, I did.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Miriam tried to imagine that. If she had been the one to see that nothing, she would have been paralyzed with fear, caught in terrifying dread. She had always known where she belonged. Here, in the community in which she was raised, in the house where she had grown up. What must it have been like to see only a great emptiness where the future was supposed to be?
“That must have been terrible,” she said.
Sarah gave a short, unamused laugh. “It was. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life, if you must know. It was as if God were telling me I didn’t have a future. I suppose if I’d been less . . .” Sarah paused, as if struggling to find the right word.
“Stubborn?” Miriam suggested and was rewarded with Sarah’s quick smile.
“Okay, stubborn,” Sarah acknowledged. “I’d have stopped trying so hard. Accepted the fact that the reason I couldn’t see anything meant that there was nothing to see. That what was important was what was right in front of me when I opened my eyes. But I was too stubborn. You’re absolutely right about that. So I kept on trying, over and over, night after night. And then, one night, when I closed my eyes and no image came to me, I realized that I wasn’t afraid anymore. That was the night I thought I understood.
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