Wife on His Doorstep

by Patricia Johns

  Amos looked toward the house.

  “Mammi is waiting for you,” Miriam said.

  “I’ll take care of the horses and then go get her,” he said.

  “Sure. I have a few things to finish out here,” Miriam said.

  She turned and headed back toward the picnic area she’d been putting together, and Amos watched her go. Then he tore his gaze away from his wife, and started to unhitch the horses. Whatever was happening inside of a man’s heart, whatever pain he was trying to tamp down, work didn’t stop.

  When Amos was finished, he headed up the steps and into the kitchen. Mammi sat in her comfortable chair and her whole face lit up when she spotted him.

  “How are you feeling, Mammi?” he asked.

  “Much better!” she said. “I can’t quite stand up, but I do feel better than I have in weeks.”

  “Yah?” He shot her a smile. “I’m glad.”

  “We’re having a picnic—” Mammi motioned weakly toward the window. “But I need help getting out there. I’ve been longing for some sunlight, and some fresh air.”

  “Shall I carry you out?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.” Her smile was sweet, and she leaned forward in her chair.

  Amos bent down and scooped his hands under her frail legs and lifted her up in his arms. She hardly weighed anything these days, and her dress was so loose.

  “Thank you, Amos,” Mammi said, patting his shoulder gently as he carried her out the side door and into the warm spring air. “There’s nothing quite like a spring day to make you feel closer to Heaven, is there?”

  Amos carefully made his way down the stairs, and Miriam hurried over to angle the chair for him so that he could place Mammi down in her spot in the shade under the cherry tree. He settled her in the wicker chair, and Miriam brought a pillow to put behind her back. Mammi looked around herself with a smile on her face.

  “Would you like some strawberries, Mammi?” Miriam asked. “The neighbors got them from the supermarket, and I whipped up fresh cream to go with them.”

  “No, but thank you, dear,” Mammi said. “I’m just not hungry. But, Amos—”

  Amos bent down toward her.

  “Sit down,” Mammi said. “Let’s enjoy some warm weather together.”

  Amos sank down to the quilt on the ground and he stretched his legs out, resting on his elbow. From where he lay, he could see the beginning of cherries on the tree above their heads, little green fruit. By the fence, he spotted a rabbit nibbling on the lush grass.

  “The strangest bits of Scripture come back to you when you’re at this stage of life,” Mammi said softly.

  “Oh?” Amos asked. “What verse are you thinking of?”

  “‘I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse,’” Mammi said, her voice quiet. “‘I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved...’” Mammi’s voice trailed away.

  “Song of Songs,” Amos murmured.

  Mammi smiled. “I miss your dawdie, Amos. We had a good life together. A good, good life...”

  For Mammi, it seemed like her days of marriage and motherhood, of love and living deeply, were only a breath away. When Amos was Mammi’s age, when he was looking back on his life, would he be feeling resplendent with satisfied memories like Mammi was? Or would he have regrets?

  * * *

  Miriam stood back a few paces, watching Amos and his grandmother talking quietly in the shade of the cherry tree. Mammi looked even smaller today, but she was brighter, somehow, happier. Maybe it was the sunshine, or having her grandson home with her during the day like it was a holiday just for her.

  Looking at Amos lying on the blanket, she could remember what he looked like eleven years ago when he’d proposed so earnestly. He was still tall and handsome, although now he had the thick, bushy beard of a married man. His chest was still broad, and his arms roped with muscle from the physical labor he did every day.

  She really had thought that a man as good as Amos couldn’t help but be a good husband...or maybe the fault had been hers. She’d refused to have kinner after her sister’s death. She’d always thought that after she married, she’d be able to settle into raising her kinner and keeping house. It was a huge amount of work to occupy a woman’s time, but without the kinner in her future, somehow her hopes for running a business, the competition of coming out on top, came creeping back in. Maybe they would have, anyway.

  Which was wrong. She wasn’t even arguing that. An Amish woman wasn’t supposed to compete. She was supposed to be content in the role of wife and mamm. But Miriam hadn’t been able to.

  “Where did Miriam go?” Mammi’s voice came to her on the breeze.

  “I’m here, Mammi,” Miriam said, and she came over to where they sat. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Sit, sit,” Mammi said, gesturing to the blanket. “I was about to tell a story.”

  Mammi’s mind seemed to be on her late husband these days. Miriam had never met Dawdie. But she’d heard stories here and there about him. He had saved his brother from being crushed by a load of hay bales when he was a teenager, single-handedly lifting fourteen bales off his brother, and pulling him to safety. She’d also heard a few funny stories about Dawdie getting confused in Englisher shops, or Dawdie coming back with a funny quip when his brothers used to needle him. Miriam settled down on the blanket next to Amos, who shifted his legs to make room for her.

  “I remember when Amos was just a little boy,” Mammi said. “He was about as tall as the tie on my apron, and he was a rascal...”

  Miriam looked over at Amos and chuckled.

  “Wait—this is a story about me?” Amos said. “I thought we were going to hear about Dawdie!”

  “So did I,” Miriam said. “But this might be just as good.”

  “Oh, hush,” Mammi said, a smile twinkling in her eyes. “Amos was an only child. His mother had some difficulties in his delivery, and she wasn’t able to have any more, and we had neighbors with children his age, so he’d come to visit and play. Anyway, one day, Amos was visiting us, getting a chance to play with other kids, when we had an Englisher traveling salesman stop by. They were much more common back then. This one was selling encyclopedia sets. And when he knocked on the door, he looked so bedraggled and tired that I invited him in for tea and pie. While he was eating, a storm opened up outside, so he had to stay a little longer.”

  Amos frowned. “I don’t remember this...”

  “No?” Mammi said. “Well, you weren’t very old. Anyway, I knew I wasn’t buying any encyclopedias from that man, but the man didn’t know it, and he kept trying to make his sales pitch. But I didn’t want to send him out into the storm, either. So I let him talk.”

  “I think I do remember this,” Amos said. “I remember the kitchen being dark and rain coming down in a torrent and a man in an overcoat sitting at the kitchen table...”

  “Yah, that would be the one,” Mammi said. “Little Amos didn’t like this Englisher stranger pushing me to buy something, and he seemed to think that I needed help. So he stood up just as tall as he could stand, and he said, ‘My dawdie is working in the field, and my daet isn’t here, so that makes me the man of this house. You leave my mammi alone, or I’ll have to ask you to leave!’”

  Miriam looked over at Amos, while Mammi was laughing softly to herself. Amos’s cheeks grew pink, and he pulled off his hat and rubbed a hand through his hair.

  “I thought I was bigger than I was,” Amos said. “I remember being older than that.”

  “Oh, no,” Mammi said. “You were all of five or six.”

  “So your nobility started young,” Miriam said.

  “Apparently.” Amos rolled his eyes. “If you could call insulting a grown man nobility.”

  “I’
m going to tell you something,” Mammi said, sobering. “And I know I’ve told you a little bit about my son, Aaron, but there’s more.”

  “Mammi—” Amos started.

  “She needs to hear this,” Mammi said. She looked a little paler now, and she sucked in an uneven breath.

  “No, I don’t think she does,” Amos replied. “Mammi, please trust me on this—”

  “Amos, you’ll have to trust me, this time,” Mammi replied. “She’ll only understand you better if she understands your daet. Now, I don’t have much strength, and perhaps you’ll insist upon me keeping quiet... You are the man of this home...”

  Amos rose to his feet now, and he looked from Mammi, then down at Miriam. She could see the battle on his features, and Mammi was right—Amos could insist upon this secret being keep, as the man of the home.

  “I wouldn’t give you any orders, Mammi,” Amos said, his voice tight. “You know me better than that.”

  Miriam caught her breath and looked back at the old woman. She was watching her grandson with a somber look on her face, and then she continued, her voice quiet.

  “My son, Aaron, wasn’t a good husband,” Mammi went on. “He didn’t provide well. He used to gamble and drink, and the money he made was often spent by the time he got home on the evening of payday. I sometimes blamed the fact that I couldn’t give him siblings for how he turned out. He never did have to share...” She shook her head. “But Amos was an only child, too, and he turned out to be such a wonderful young man that I suppose I’m forced to admit that it wasn’t me. It was drink. It was addiction...” She sighed. “So Amos felt the immense pressure very early. Amos didn’t have anyone to share with, either, but there was much less to live on. He and his mother had to find ways to hide money from Aaron to keep him from gambling it away.”

  “But you were so little,” Miriam said softly.

  Amos didn’t answer. He pressed his lips together and stood braced as if for a blow.

  “He didn’t think he was little,” Mammi said. “And he certainly didn’t stay little. He was big for his age at ten. Aaron’s drinking and gambling got worse as he got older, not better. We tried everything to get through to Aaron that he was ruining not only his life, but his wife’s and son’s, too. We even talked about having him shunned, but his wife did her best to keep on raising Amos on the little bit of money she could scrounge up from odd jobs and charity then hide from Aaron. And we kept bringing over groceries and doing our best to help out.”

  “One day, when I was about ten,” Amos said, his deep voice taking up the story, “my daet got home from gambling, and he owed a great deal of money. They’d roughed him up, and he was looking for the deed to our acreage so that he could sell it, I think. I’d already started confronting my father about things in our home, and I wrestled that deed out of his hands—it wasn’t hard. He was drunk, and I—” Amos swallowed. “I hit my father in the face with a water pitcher, knocking him out cold.”

  Miriam sucked in a breath and stared at him in shock. Amos—sweet, gentle Amos, hitting his own father?

  “And my mother took over the family finances that day,” Amos said. “I worked odd jobs, and my mamm and I pooled what we could make in a bank account together. She took over paying the bills, and I even put a little bit of savings aside for emergencies. My mother and I learned together, and we kept our home. My father was never allowed access to that bank account.”

  “This acreage?” Miriam asked, looking around at the familiar garden, the house, the trees.

  “Yah, this one,” Amos said. “My parents both passed away. My daet got a bad flu the very next year and my mamm had a stroke a few years after when I was about fourteen. She went into the hospital and didn’t recover.”

  “You took good care of your mamm,” Mammi said quietly. “You’re a better man than your father was, and I’m proud of you. So proud.”

  Amos met his grandmother’s tender gaze, and she saw tears mist his eyes.

  “Miriam,” Mammi said. “There are always reasons why people react the ways that they do. And your husband is no different in that. We tried to make our family look a little better for your benefit. We were embarrassed. We didn’t want people to know our problems...”

  “I understand,” Miriam said softly. “It’s okay.”

  “Maybe we should have told you all of this sooner,” Mammi said. “But all the same, when I die, I won’t be harboring secrets. I don’t think the Lord can bless that.”

  They were all silent for a few beats; the birds overhead were the only noise that interrupted the stillness between them.

  Amos sighed. “I think that’s enough stories for now. I’m going to go check on the horses.”

  And he bent down, giving his grandmother a kiss on her cheek before he strode away toward the stables. Miriam watched him go, her heart hovering in her chest. The horses were fine—he was running away.

  “That’s why he longed for my daet to love him,” Miriam said, tears rising in her eyes.

  “Yah,” Mammi said softly. “That’s why.”

  Because his own daet hadn’t loved him properly, and he’d been hoping that her daet might fill some of that emptiness. There were good reasons why Amos was the way he was, and none of those reasons were because he wasn’t man enough or strong enough, or smart enough.

  At last, she understood him, and that was a gift in itself. Mammi was right that secrets only made things harder, but it didn’t change who they both were, and what they both needed.

  Amos needed a dutiful wife at home who would trust him. Her trust was the key to his heart. And Miriam needed some freedom, some adventure, to have a voice in growing their business to its full potential.

  Their needs didn’t change, especially not Amos’s. He’d needed a very different kind of woman, and the fact that he’d married her, the very opposite of what would fulfill what his aching heart needed most, made their marriage all the more tragic.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Are you upset with me, Aaron?” Mammi asked.

  “It’s Amos, Mammi,” he said softly.

  “Oh...yes...”

  She was propped up in her bed, her eyes half-shut, but she struggled to open them all the way to look at Amos as he sat down on the edge of her bed. The room was warm, but Mammi had wanted an extra blanket over her legs. An open window let in some fresh air, the sound of birds twittering coming in with the early-evening sunlight. On the bed next to Mammi was a bowl of the strawberries from the supermarket with some whipped cream, but she refused them.

  “Are you upset with me for telling Miriam what I did?” Mammi asked.

  “No, Mammi,” Amos said softly. “Of course not.”

  “You can say if you are,” she whispered. “I can take it.”

  No, she couldn’t take it, but even so, he wasn’t angry with her. How could he be? His grandmother had been one of his biggest supporters growing up, and on the day he and his mother had opened that bank account, his grandmother had given him a hug and told him that he was a good boy. She’d been the difference between despondence and hope. She’d been a ray of sunlight. His throat tightened with emotion.

  Mammi had tired herself out today. He could see all the signs. She’d been weaker than ever before, and she was in bed long before sunset. Noah and his family had come to see Mammi, and they’d all prayed together for Thomas’s hopes of adoption. Mammi had prayed so eloquently for all of them, mentioning them each by name. She had been bright and cheerful, but all her energy seemed to be gone now. He reached out and took her hand. It was cool to the touch, despite the warm room.

  “I’m not angry, Mammi,” he said. “It’s probably better that Miriam know it all. The truth will set us free—isn’t that what the Bible says?”

  “Yah, it does.” She smiled faintly.

  “I don’t feel like a good man, Mammi,” he whispered.

/>   “It isn’t your feelings that matter,” Mammi said, opening her eyes with a struggle. “You are a good man. It’s a fact. You can trust me, dear one.”

  Amos looked up to see Miriam standing in the hallway, watching them with tears in her eyes. He gave Miriam a reassuring smile, and she turned away again.

  “Do you think she’ll stay?” Mammi asked.

  “Here? With me?” he asked. He didn’t have to ask who she meant. They both knew. Miriam was the one they were both thinking of tonight.

  “Yah. She’s your lawfully wedded wife, Amos.”

  “Mammi...” Amos swallowed. Must she push this? Must she force him to tell her the truth? “Miriam and I are very different people. Her understanding why I’m the way I am doesn’t change who I am. Or who she is.”

  “I know...” Mammi sighed. “But you’re such a good man, Amos. You have such a heart. I’d just hoped...”

  And how Amos wished he could tell his grandmother otherwise and flood her old heart with joy. But it wasn’t just for her joy that he wished he could say she was staying. Because having her here had been a relief in so many ways. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his wife—even arguing with her! But that wasn’t reason enough for her to stay. They had made mature and reasonable plans for their own futures. He looked up, but the hallway was empty.

  “I’ll be okay, Mammi,” he whispered. “I will. I have Noah and Thomas and their families. I’m like a grandfather to those kinner.”

  “God’s fingerprints are on everything,” Mammi murmured, not seeming to be put off. “He’s working still. Don’t you doubt that. He’s working...”