Miriam’s Quilt (Forever after in apple lake™)

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  “Priscilla sewed it together on the machine and I helped her stitch it.”

  Miriam’s heart melted. The corners didn’t match up, the fabric puckered in several places, and the stitches were impossibly wide, but Priscilla and Seth must have worked very hard. It was a labor of love that couldn’t have been more beautiful if the best quilter from Holmes County, Ohio, had made it.

  “It is wonderful,” Miriam said.

  Seth kept his eyes turned to Hollow.

  “Denki,” Hollow said. “Susie will be thrilled. Send Priscilla our gratitude. Better yet, bring her to see the baby and she can help us wrap her in it.”

  With the baby comfortably sleeping in his arms, Seth settled deeper into the sofa, and Hollow asked him about his horses. Miriam didn’t really listen. She trained her eyes on Seth, sitting so close and yet so distant. His ebony hair fell carelessly over his ears and made a sharp contrast with his stormy gray eyes. The muscles of his neck and shoulders continued down his arms, attesting to his quiet strength. No harm would come to the baby while his powerful arms enfolded her like that.

  Miriam heard only the low hum of their voices as the emptiness in her heart grew to fill her entire soul. The emptiness gave way to a longing so powerful she almost couldn’t bear it.

  A longing for what?

  For home and family? For a new baby to call her own? Or a longing for the love that used to fill her life?

  The confusion twisted her around until she couldn’t see straight.

  Did she long for Ephraim? Or Seth? She couldn’t begin to understand her own heart, but when she pictured her own baby in her mind, she saw Seth holding him instead of Ephraim.

  She sprung to her feet. “I should see to Susie.”

  Hollow studied Miriam’s face. Unease darkened his features. “I will go. Give me the baby. I will lay her in the cradle by her mother. She is exhausted, too, from all this excitement.”

  Seth handed over the baby and Hollow went into Susie’s room and abandoned both of them.

  Seth picked up the other bag and looked doubtfully at Miriam. “I came to see you today as well. But do not worry. I hope it will be the last time I pester you.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I came to apologize for Laura.” He reached out a hand as if to touch her, thought better of it, and let it fall to his side. “I would never for the world want your feelings hurt. She brought the doll home and confessed the whole story. I am very, very sorry.”

  “I deserved it.”

  Seth’s intense gaze pierced through her skull. “Nae, you did not. You cannot change the feelings in your heart any more than I can. Her unkindness to you was in defense of me, and even though her anger was wrong, I love her for wanting to protect my feelings.”

  “Me too. She is a gute sister.”

  He reached his hand into the bag and pulled out Priscilla’s doll. “Will you take this back? Priscilla cried when she thought you did not want it anymore.”

  Miriam all but burst with gratitude. “I didn’t want Laura to take it, but she was so determined.”

  “She gave in when she saw how upset Priscilla became. Priscilla thought you rejected her when you rejected her gift, especially since she sacrificed so much to give it to you.”

  “But I didn’t give it back.”

  “I know. Priscilla understands.”

  Miriam took Priscilla’s doll and the blanket that went with it. She pressed it to her heart. “Thank you for bringing it back even though you did not want to come.”

  The sadness sank deeper into his eyes. “Nae, I did not.”

  Miriam lowered her head and studied the floorboards. His words stung to her very bones.

  Seth stepped far away from her. They could have been on separate sides of the ocean. “I must go now. My family will pray for the baby that she will be healthy and strong, Lord willing. And Susie too.”

  Miriam nodded and tried to clear the lump from her throat. She found her voice to ask the question that had been gnawing at her ever since Seth stepped into the house. “Do you—do you want the quilt back?”

  He gripped the doorknob, and Miriam could see the muscles in his arm tense as if he were fighting himself. “No.” He didn’t look at her as he stepped out into the cold, leaving the door open behind him as he walked away.

  She had to get away from the house before someone heard her. Without a coat, she raced to the swing by the barn, slumped into the snow-covered seat, and bawled like a wounded calf.

  You rejected Priscilla when you rejected her gift.

  He didn’t want the quilt back. The quilt she had made out of his mother’s fabric. The quilt that made him weep with unspoken memories. The quilt he said he would use every day to remind him of precious relationships and his blessed life.

  He didn’t want it back.

  It was the cruelest rejection of all.

  Chapter 32

  One week before Christmas. Miriam had the afternoon shift at work. She took the bus, and thankfully it dropped her right on the shop’s corner. It was a cold day. If she had to walk more than a few hundred feet, she thought her face might freeze off before she got there.

  Miriam did a double take as she passed the window of the quilt shop. Martha had rearranged the display. The quilt Miriam had made for Ephraim hung from the very top and spread the length of the front case. Either that or one that looked just like it. She pressed her face against the glass and winced when the icy surface touched her skin. Each square of the burgundy-and-yellow Nine-Patch had a small heart stitched in the center of it. She looked at the name card sitting next to the quilt.

  MADE BY APPLE LAKE’S OWN MIRIAM BONTRAGER. $400.

  Breathless and flustered, Miriam ran into the store and let the door slam behind her. “Martha, how did you get my quilt?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Miriam pointed her finger at the display. “A quilt I made is hanging in the front window. Where did it come from?”

  Martha raised an eyebrow. “Ephraim said you wanted to sell it. He came in last night at closing time. Doesn’t it look charming? I’ll have no trouble selling that one.”

  Miriam thought she might explode with indignation. Ephraim wanted to sell his birthday present?

  The bell tinkled as she nudged the shop door open again. “Martha, can you spare me for ten minutes?”

  “Jah, but don’t freeze out there.”

  Miriam bolted down the sidewalk in the direction of the Neuenschwanders’ warehouse. Her shoes filled with snow, but she didn’t even notice the cold. She stomped into the office without saying hello to Amanda, the secretary, and raced past the front counter into the stuffy warehouse that smelled of wet cardboard and freshly cut pine.

  “Ephraim!” she yelled, not even bothering to look for him. If he knew what was good for him, he would come to her. “Ephraim Neuenschwander, come here this minute.”

  Freeman stuck his head around the corner of one of the aisles and then disappeared.

  “Don’t try to hide from me. I see two pairs of feet.”

  Ephraim stepped into view with his hands in his pockets and a mischievous grin on his face. “I wasn’t trying to hide. Just wondering what wild woman was screaming at me.”

  Miriam was in no mood for his good mood. “Ephraim Neuenschwander, why is your birthday present for sale at Martha’s quilt shop?” Her frustration caught up with her, and she unwillingly burst into tears.

  “Now, hold on there. Nothing to cry about. She gave me three hundred dollars for it. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

  “If you reject my gift, you reject me,” she said, not knowing why those particular words sprang to mind.

  Ephraim growled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Freeman, get out of here and quit listening to our conversation.”

  Freeman, with that arrogant smirk, came out of hiding and headed to the front office.

  “Sit here on this box,” Ephraim said, pulling up a crate and dusting it with his hand. “You are a gute quil
t maker. The quilt is very pretty, even Mamm said so, but you knew I did not want a fancy quilt.”

  Miriam wiped her eyes. Jah, she knew.

  “Can’t you see that I am being practical? It will never be used in our home, the home of the bishop’s daughter and the minister’s son, and if we can get some money for it, then it is truly a wonderful gift.”

  “The value of the gift is not in the money you can get for it.”

  “Nae, the value in a gift is how it will benefit the recipient. And that quilt benefits both of us. Three hundred dollars buys a lot of wood for a house.”

  “I suppose it does,” Miriam said, sniffling away the last of her tears.

  “Did you really give me that quilt?” he said. “Because if it is mine, then I should do what I want with it.”

  “Yes, of course. I freely gave it to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was your birthday.”

  “Then, if you love me, you’ll understand why I did this. I want our hearts to be knit together as one, of one mind and one flesh. I did this for us.” He handed her a tissue from his pocket. “Now, dry your eyes and walk out of here with your head held high. I do not want Amanda to think we had a fight. That’s my good girl.”

  Miriam sloshed out of the warehouse in her soaking-wet shoes. The walk back to the shop was miserable. She shook violently by the time she walked through the door. Martha insisted she take off her stockings and sit in the back by the stove to warm her feet.

  Ephraim said the bishop’s daughter would never use such a quilt in her home. Was he right? He was so persuasive when she was with him, but when she had time alone to think, she began to doubt everything. How many other things would Ephraim think she must give up because she was the bishop’s daughter and he the minister’s son?

  She craned her neck to look at her quilt hanging in the front window. Martha had arranged it very nicely, and Miriam had no energy left to be angry with Ephraim. The quilt was his to do with what he wanted, and now they had an extra three hundred dollars because of it. He had done a very sensible thing.

  The growing emptiness in her chest threatened to cut off her air.

  Ephraim had done a very sensible thing.

  * * * * *

  “I love my new room,” Joshua said, as he jumped up and down on his mattress.

  Seth and the boys made up their beds by the light of the small kerosene lantern. Although bedtime was two hours ago, the boys bounced on their beds and danced around their new bedroom as if they had just woken up from ten good hours of sleep. Priscilla had conked out over an hour ago in her room, tucked into her own bed with the covers pulled tightly against her chin in the way that she liked them.

  “Help me get the sheets on,” Seth said, “so you can go to sleep. It has been a long day.”

  Although he had been a recipient of it all his life, Seth marveled at the kindness of his neighbors. Nathaniel King had helped him salvage some old barn wood, and twelve men gave Seth a hand with laying, staining, and sealing the floor. It would last many long winters in his new house.

  Then this morning, several men from the district appeared at his dat’s house with wagons and buggies and loaded up beds and boxes to transport them to Seth’s new house. Once the men unloaded everything, they had set up beds, brought in the new stove, and even chopped firewood. Seth found it impossible to express enough gratitude.

  Jacob sat on his bed, his legs dangling off the side. “Can we eat in the new kitchen tomorrow?”

  “Jah, but we don’t have a table yet, so we will have to eat on the floor.”

  “Can we help with the horses?”

  “After school.”

  “When will Laura be here?” Jacob asked.

  Seth shook out the sheet and let it float to the bed. “Joshua, tuck in your side. Laura must work on Christmas Eve. She will be home on Christmas Day, and then she can stay with us for almost two weeks.”

  They piled three blankets on each bed. Nights were mighty cold, and Seth hadn’t had time to put coverings on the windows yet. Once the beds were made, Seth and his two little brothers fell across the bed and lay by each other, propping their chins on their elbows.

  Jacob patted Seth’s hand. “Can we have pancakes tomorrow? Do you know how to make pancakes?”

  “He used to make them every day after Mamm died,” Joshua said.

  Jacob cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered, “Can I eat as many as I want?”

  “You can eat until you are so full, Joshua will have to roll you to school.”

  Jacob screamed in delight.

  “Shhh,” said Seth. “Don’t wake Scilla.”

  Joshua rolled over on his back. “Seth, are you glad we are living here now?”

  “More than you can imagine.”

  “You don’t seem glad. How come you don’t smile ever?”

  Joshua nodded wisely. “It’s because of Miriam. Laura says she is a snob. What is a snob?”

  Seth sighed. If he could manage to not hear Miriam’s name ever again, he might have a chance of getting over her. If he lived in another district or never saw another quilt, he could probably go for hours at a time not thinking about her.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Seth said.

  “Okay.”

  “I love Miriam more than I love horses.”

  “I knew that,” Joshua said. “It’s not hard to tell.”

  Seth put his arm around his brother. “When I hear her name, it makes me sad because I remember how much I love her.”

  To Jacob, the solution seemed obvious. “Why don’t you marry her?”

  “She wants to marry someone else.”

  Joshua, it seemed, knew everything. “Ephraim Neuenschwander, Laura says.”

  “So, you see, it makes me sad.”

  “But are you going to feel better?” Jacob patted Seth’s cheek.

  “It would help me more than anything if you didn’t ever say her name or talk about her.”

  “Even Priscilla? Priscilla talks about her all the time.”

  “Even Priscilla. If you did that, I might be able to forget her and stop loving her.”

  Joshua sat up and shook his head. “I don’t think you will ever stop loving her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she is pretty and nice and when you talk about her, you get a look in your eyes that says, ‘I love her, I love her, I love her.’ You should talk to Miriam and say, ‘I’m nicer than Ephraim and I have more horses. Choose me.’”

  “But she wouldn’t. Ephraim is handsome, and she has liked him for a long time. He would win.”

  “Laura says you are handsome.”

  Seth tried to smile so the anxiety would disappear from Joshua’s eyes. “Not as handsome as either of you. I bet the girls chase you on the playground at school.”

  Jacob giggled. “Mandy Herschberger tries to kiss him.”

  “She does not,” Joshua protested.

  For a moment, Seth wished he were back in school where some cute little girl might find him worthy to chase around the playground. In third grade a broken heart could be mended with a bowl of ice cream and a game of kick-the-can with friends. As a grown-up, things were not so easily put to rights. With all this talk of Miriam, Seth despaired of ever feeling whole again.

  * * * * *

  “Hello, Miriam.” Alvin Eicher stabbed his pitchfork into a bale of hay and waved to her from his perch above. Alvin, a sturdy young man of twenty-six, had a new wife and a baby on the way. “Didn’t expect to see you.”

  Miriam stamped the snow off her boots and let her eyes adjust to the light. She led Daisy to an empty stall, filled the small trough with water, and swung the door shut. Two of Matthew’s grandsons pitched hay above her. The hay dust danced in the air and caught the light streaming through a window in the loft, and Miriam found the rhythmic swish and plop of the hay oddly comforting.

  Matthew Eicher’s place was double the size of Seth’s farm. Matthew had recently expand
ed his stables, and they were painted a muted shade of country red. Miriam had been there three times to see her foal. With the baby and Ephraim and Christmas preparations, it had been a feat to manage even that many visits. But being with her horse seemed to be the only time Miriam didn’t feel that hard knot right behind her eyes, as if she were concentrating too hard on something that eluded her.

  But even then, being with the filly wasn’t the same as it used to be. She missed the colt’s boundless energy and the way the two foals played together in the pasture. Matthew was old, a great-grandfather seven times over. Two sons and four grandsons helped with his horses and small herd of cattle. Matthew welcomed Miriam anytime to see her filly but was absent or busy when she came to visit. Too much work to do to pay heed to a young woman who loved horses. Miriam never felt so alone as when she went to see her horse at Matthew Eicher’s stables. No matter how busy Seth was, he had always taken a minute to tell her a story about what the horses had done that day or teach her about the care of the animals. He loved the horses more than she did, and she found his enthusiasm infectious.

  It wasn’t the same. It would never be the same.

  The day turned out, as usual, frigid and humid. Wisconsin in the winter had one type of weather.

  “I know it is Christmas Eve,” she said to Alvin. “But I might not get back here until Old Christmas.”

  Alvin propped his hat farther up on his head and scratched his temple. “But it wonders me why you are here when your filly ain’t.”

  Miriam raised an eyebrow. “Where else would she be?”

  “Dawdi sold her to an Englischer yesterday.”

  Alvin must have been mistaken. “Sold her? Why would he sell my horse?”

  “I’m sure he mentioned you wanting her sold. Did you not?”

  “No, I never told him such a thing.”

  “Now, that don’t seem right, do it?” Alvin fingered the beard at his chin. “I do believe Ephraim Neuenschwander stopped by last week with your message for Dawdi. Was he mistaken?”

  Ephraim sold her horse?