Wife on His Doorstep

by Patricia Johns

  “We’re out about five hundred dollars,” Amos said.

  “Out?” Noah frowned.

  “I’ve made a mistake somehow, and I don’t know where.” Amos straightened his shoulders and rolled his neck. “I might just have to write it off and we’ll carry on.”

  “You could ask Miriam,” Noah said.

  Amos eyed the younger man for a moment. “I did ask her to help me out a bit while she’s here...”

  “Well, then?” Noah said.

  Amos sighed. It was the tally of numbers that held him back... If she never knew the actual amount of money that moved through his business, then he could let her believe he was more successful than he was. If he opened his books to her, then there would be no more room for inflated assumptions.

  “It’s my own pride,” Amos said quietly. “Her father was a wealthy man, and this business would have been small potatoes for him...and for her.”

  “You aren’t ashamed of a successfully run carpentry shop!” Noah said.

  “No, I’m not.” Amos shook his head. “And she did offer to help, so I’ll ask Miriam to look at it.”

  Noah and Thomas wouldn’t have any idea how hard this was for him to open up to Miriam, but she’d laid her own insecurities bare the night before, and perhaps it was only fair for him to allow her to see a little bit of his true situation, too.

  Their marriage wasn’t going to include sharing a home or romantic hopes, but with her father gone, he could feel that things were changing between them. Leroy’s influence was fading away, and maybe they could move forward in their relationship with a little more trust and mutual respect.

  Fannie and Silas wouldn’t see their relationship as a success...and neither would anyone else in this community. Noah and Thomas both knew what happy marriages looked like now that they had their own. But it could be an improvement for Amos and Miriam.

  Maybe Gott could bless them with a single step forward.

  * * *

  When Amos got home, he brushed down the horses and sent them out to the pasture. Then he gathered up the ledgers and headed into the house. It smelled of fragrant beef pie and home-baked bread—the aroma making his stomach rumble in response to it.

  The women weren’t cooking, though. Mammi was seated in her easy chair, which was pulled up next to a window overlooking the backyard, and Miriam sat at the kitchen table with one of his work shirts on her lap, sewing a split seam with a needle and thread. They both looked up as the screen door bounced shut behind him.

  Amos paused in the doorway, and when Miriam saw him, some color went into her cheeks. She looked down at the shirt on her lap and continued sewing.

  His shirt in her hands felt strangely intimate. He hadn’t wanted her to be doing anything extra around here. Cooking and cleaning was fine, and obviously Mammi would need her help, but having her going over his clothing and mending the tears and worn spots—that felt like the work of more than a woman in the home. That felt like a wife’s tender care, and he didn’t want to be left with her neat, tight stitches in his clothing when she left again—a reminder of all the feminine, gentle contribution that he couldn’t expect anymore.

  “Mammi asked if I’d mend it,” she said, as if she needed to explain herself. Maybe she felt the intimacy involved with the chore, too.

  From where she sat by the back window, Mammi shot Amos an exaggeratedly innocent look. “It needed mending, dear.”

  “Thank you,” Amos said. “Did Mammi also tell you that I sew up my own seams when they split?”

  “No,” Miriam said, and her gaze flickered toward the old woman.

  “He sews like he’s hoeing hard ground,” Mammi said with a short laugh, miming the action. “He hacks at it. So yah, he closes a seam, but...” She shook her head.

  Miriam started to laugh, and Amos was forced to join in.

  “I’m not that bad,” Amos said, and Mammi just shook her head again.

  Amos put his ledgers down on the corner of the kitchen table, and then went back to the mudroom to wash his hands. When he returned, Miriam was just snipping the thread. She shook out the shirt and looked it over.

  “It’s in good shape now,” she said, and she passed it over to him. “Dinner’s ready. I just need to set the table.”

  Miriam paused at the ledgers, glancing down at him. He could see her piqued interest at the sight of them.

  “Do you have more work to do tonight?” she asked. She reached out and touched the corner of the top ledger, and then pulled her hand back.

  “I do,” he said. “There’s some discrepancy in my tallying, and I need to find it.”

  “Are you going to ask Miriam to help?” Mammi asked pointedly.

  Amos bent down and kissed his grandmother’s cheek.

  “I was going to, Mammi,” he said quietly. “I was just getting to it.”

  Mammi smiled at him gently. “There is no harm in needing her, dear. Helping each other is what our whole community is based on.”

  But it had never been what his marriage with Miriam had been based on... Their marriage had been more of a power struggle as he tried to prove to her that he was man enough to take care of her.

  “Do you think you could look at the books for me, Miriam?” Amos asked, raising his voice. “Mammi’s right—I do need the help. I can’t find this error.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Miriam replied, and she shot him a smile. “I miss getting my hands into some financial statements. It’s as satisfying as bread dough.”

  She always did have a way of expressing herself, and she’d never been quite like any other Amish woman.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

  All the same, his stomach knotted up. She’d find the mistake, he was sure, and it would undoubtedly be something he’d recorded improperly. So she’d be seeing his error. She’d also see exactly how successful he was—no more and no less. And when she saw how close they came to the line each month, he had a feeling that she’d look at him just a little bit differently.

  Maybe this was good for his own character—letting go of his pride and desire to appear more successful than he was to earn his wife’s respect. This would have to be part of their new dynamic. If she didn’t respect him as the man he was, no amount of money would change it.

  Maybe Gott was teaching him to stop trying to be something that he wasn’t.

  * * *

  When dinner was finished, Miriam did the dishes with Amos’s help. She told him he didn’t need to, but he’d ignored it, and gone about cleaning off the table and bringing dishes to the sink, anyway. When they’d finished cleaning, Mammi dozed in her easy chair again, a breeze from an open window cooling her face, and Miriam and Amos settled down at the kitchen table with the stack of ledgers.

  Miriam had been looking forward to this—she’d never had such an up-close look at her husband’s business before. She’d wondered about it in the past, and her daet had had a few opinions about Redemption Carpentry, but Amos had never given her anything more than a cursory tour of the shop in their first year of marriage. He’d kept quiet about anything else to do with his business.

  “So what’s the problem?” Miriam asked.

  “I’m out about five hundred dollars on paper and I can’t find where I made the mistake,” he said.

  “Can I take a look?” She put hand on the top ledger.

  “I’ll show you where—” He opened it, flipped back a few pages, and she noticed his hesitation before he put it in front of her.

  The lines of numbers were all neat and color-coded. She was able to easily follow the rhythm of the money coming in and out of this particular account. She worked for the better part of an hour mentally tallying up the numbers until she spotted the sudden loss of money. It was a calculation error—an expense that was written down for an order that had never been picked up, and someho
w, it hadn’t been included in the running tally.

  “There—” she said. “I found your problem. Five hundred dollars for wood and various parts that never made it into the tally.”

  “Where?” Amos bent down, and his strong arm brushed hers. He smelled warm and faintly of wood. He was so tall and strong, and something inside of her longed to just lean her cheek against the solid muscle. The sudden, unbidden thought surprised her, and she felt her face heat. She reached past him, underlining the item in pencil.

  “Right... I can’t believe I missed it. I must have gone over that section ten times!”

  Amos looked down at her, and she felt her breath catch as she tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. Those dark, intense eyes, his thick, dense beard—she dropped her gaze.

  “Do you keep track of your expenses every month?” she asked, clearing her throat. This was territory she was more comfortable with.

  “I have a general idea of what it costs to run the place,” he said.

  “So not a tailored monthly expense report?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She nodded. “Because if I look from the beginning of last month—” She flipped back and picked up a pencil and pad of paper, jotting down numbers as she pulled a finger down the tallies of numbers. When she got to the end of the month, she nodded. “Yah. That’s what I thought.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Here—” She did some quick arithmetic in her head and added it up. “This is what it cost you to run your shop last month. And this is what you made.” She circled the second number. “You didn’t make enough to cover your expenses.”

  “Yah, but the month before we were paid out for some big projects, and we had money left over,” he replied.

  “Let me take a look at the last six months—” She reached for another ledger and Amos put his hand over hers, stopping her.

  “I don’t need help with that,” he said firmly.

  “Amos, the fact that you have stayed in business all this time and have a steady flow of clients says that you are good at what you do,” she said. “But even the most talented craftsman can be run under for a lack of attention to detail. My daet—”

  “I didn’t ask for your father’s words of wisdom,” he said curtly.

  “Then what about mine?” she asked. “I can tell you what I see! Do you care about that?”

  Mammi woke up from her sleep. She sucked in a breath and pulled herself up a little straighter in the chair. Miriam and Amos both looked in her direction, and Miriam couldn’t help but feel like they were a couple of kinner getting caught for squabbling.

  “Are you two spatting again?” Mammi asked, her voice tired.

  “No, Mammi,” Amos said quickly. “Of course not. We’re just...”

  “...talking business,” Miriam concluded for him, and he cast her a rueful smile.

  “So you are,” Mammi said, and shook her head. “Do you think you could put a pin in that, and help me get ready for bed? I need my pills...”

  “Yah, of course.” Miriam stood up and put her pencil down next to the pad of paper, then went to Mammi’s side. She helped her to stand, and together they went into the sitting room where Mammi’s bed was. Miriam glanced back over her shoulder before they left the kitchen, and Amos stood there by the table, his hands limp at his sides. He looked deflated—was that her fault?

  “At a time like this, he needs all the help he can get,” Mammi said as Miriam helped her to sit down on the side of her bed.

  Miriam went to a chest of drawers and took out a clean nightgown.

  “He sees my opinions as a threat,” Miriam said. “I don’t think he’ll take my advice.”

  “He sees your old daet’s opinions as judgment,” Mammi replied.

  “My father was a brilliant businessman,” Miriam said.

  Mammi caught Miriam’s gaze and held it. “My dear girl, I am about to follow your father in the direction he went, so trust me when I tell you that I have infinite sympathy for your loss, and for your father’s. No one is ready to die. Your father might have been a brilliant businessman, but he had a habit of treating everyone like a business deal. And people, Miriam—” Mammi let out a slow breath “—people are not so easy to line up. And they don’t all cooperate like employees.”

  Miriam helped Mammi dress for bed, then pulled the covers back to allow her to lay down in crisp, clean sheets.

  “My father was very loving,” Miriam said softly. “I don’t know what you heard about him—”

  “To you,” Mammi said. “He was very loving to you... Was he equally understanding for Amos?”

  Miriam was silent. No, her daet was not. But he had a daughter to protect, and he’d wanted the very best for Miriam.

  “I can’t solve your issues with your husband,” Mammi went on, “although I would dearly love to. But think about what I’ve said. Maybe it will help.”

  Miriam sat on the edge of Mammi’s bed and looked at Mammi’s pale face.

  “When so many people respected him so deeply,” Miriam said, “I don’t understand why Amos didn’t.”

  “Because they wanted something different from your daet,” Mammi said. “They wanted his business advice to help them achieve a portion of what he had during his life, or possibly they wanted a donation to their charitable cause. It is very easy to show deference and respect when you stand to gain.”

  “And Amos didn’t stand to gain from him?” Miriam asked with a short laugh. “He could have learned so much from my daet!”

  “He didn’t want what they wanted,” Mammi said, and she reached out and nudged a Bible closer to Miriam. “He didn’t want his business advice. He said he wanted your father’s respect, but as his grandmother, I knew his heart a little better than that. What Amos wanted from your daet was love.”

  Miriam paused, staring at the old woman. “Love?”

  “My son, Aaron, had problems of his own. He was very gruff, and his wife suffered from depression. He withheld his wife’s medication because he didn’t believe in it. Didn’t Amos tell you about this?”

  “A little,” she admitted.

  “Amos had to grow up a little faster than other children, and he never did have a kind, solid father to show him the way,” she went on. “And when my husband died, he didn’t have a dawdie, either. A boy needs a father...” Mammi’s voice caught. “Your husband didn’t want advice or judgment from his father-in-law. He wanted love.” She was silent for a moment, and then she nudged the Bible again. “Please...just open it at random and read whatever your eye falls on.”

  Miriam’s father was a tough and crusty old man, and even his own kinner had to read beyond his brusque demeanor to see how he really felt about them. They had longed for some of the same affection Amos had missed out on, too. And given her father’s personality, Amos might have wanted something that was too much to ask.

  Miriam did as Mammi asked, and the Bible opened to the end of Proverbs.

  “‘Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life...’”

  The words were familiar ones—words her own daet had raised her on. Leroy Schwartz had shown his daughter how to run a business, how to make money grow, how to think ahead to possible pitfalls and how to throw her heart into her work. A good woman worked hard, and used her intelligence.

  You have both of those attributes, Miriam, her father used to tell her. I couldn’t be more proud.

  “‘Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.’”

  Miriam looked up from her reading as she came to
the end of the book of Proverbs, and she found Mammi’s eyes still open.

  “I think you were a wife like this,” Miriam said.

  “We all try,” Mammi replied. “We all fall short.”

  Except Miriam had fallen much shorter. She’d been hardworking, smart, dedicated to the task at hand, and yet she hadn’t been able to hold their relationship together. If making a man happy were simply about a woman’s willingness to work hard, she would have been fine. But there had been more to it.

  “I’ll let you sleep,” Miriam said softly.

  “Good night, dear,” Mammi replied.

  Miriam tiptoed out of the room and back to the kitchen. The ledgers were all picked up again, and Amos sat at the table, a cup of water in front of him.

  “Can I work out a budget for you?” Miriam asked, pausing at the table.

  Amos looked up at her, pressed his lips together. “It’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”

  “Amos.” She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Let me help you.” She could see the old stubbornness in his jaw. “Let’s leave my daet out of this, okay? Mammi explained that maybe I...push my father onto you more than I should.”

  “You do, a little,” Amos said.

  Miriam nodded. “I’m sorry. He could be difficult, and if it’s worth anything, even us kinner had to guess at how he felt for us sometimes. It’s just the way he was. But if you spent enough time with him, his love made it through, and you knew...”

  Amos nodded, silent.

  “The thing is, Amos, regardless of who taught me, I know how businesses thrive, and I know how they fail—”

  “My business is not failing,” Amos said quietly.

  “No, but you are running very close to the line!” she countered. “You need to either raise your prices, or get more business. Raising your prices can be risky. You can raise them a little to match inflation—people understand that. But a better way to get more business is to advertise.”

  “People know about us,” Amos said. “We’re the best Amish-run carpentry shop in this area.”