A World Away

by Nancy Grossman

  Daniel leaned back in his chair and told me about who was courting, and who had gotten into trouble, and who had asked about me. “Your friends all miss you.”

  “I miss them too. How are Annie and Kate?”

  “Well, Annie and Marc are finally courting.”

  I smiled. “She wrote me about that. I’m sure she’s keeping him on his toes.”

  “Jah,” Daniel agreed. “But he’s up for the challenge. And Kate enjoys her work in town, but she’s lonesome for you.”

  My chest warmed at his words. I looked into my teacup, watching the leaves swirling on top, breathing in the flowery scent. “It’s funny,” I said. “I’ve spent time with other kids our age here, but it’s not the same. I feel like I’m a novelty to them. It’s not like home, where we know each other so well.”

  Daniel leaned forward. “I thought it might be like that. It must be hard being in a place where you’re different.”

  I nodded. “Sometimes.” I thought to say more, but something about Daniel’s posture, his gentle prodding, seemed a little too eager.

  His fingers tapped on the table edge. Finally he spoke.

  “Come home, Eliza. Come home with me.”

  Catching my breath, I pushed back my chair. It made a stuttery sound on the wood floor. The clerk with the silver rings looked up for a moment, and then returned to the book she was reading. “Is that what this surprise visit is about?” I asked. “Were you hoping to find me homesick and miserable?” Then I thought of something else. “Did my mother send you here to bring me back home?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “It’s neither of those things.”

  “What then?”

  Daniel pushed his empty mug aside and leaned toward me. “This is my rumspringa, too. All around me, everyone my age is driving in cars, going to parties, watching those movies you tell me about.”

  “But you can do those things, too.”

  “I know.” Daniel looked down at the table. When he spoke, his voice was so low I had to lean forward to hear him. “But I want to do them with you.”

  The rush of honesty from Daniel’s words wrapped around me like a shawl.

  “Oh, Daniel,” I said.

  “Is that all you can say?”

  I tried again. “Please don’t make me responsible for your happiness.”

  He reached for his hat and ran a fingertip along the rim. “Aren’t we all, Eliza? Aren’t we responsible for the happiness of the people we care about?” I looked down, flooded with shame. “It’s the way I feel about you,” he added.

  My hand crept across the table. My fingers slipped inside of his. “I know you do,” I said. “But right now I’m just so anxious to be a part of all this. Can you give me some more time?”

  Daniel’s smile was a small one. It didn’t travel up his face. “I guess I have no choice.” He gave my hand a light squeeze before releasing it and setting his hat on his head. “Let’s go. Gary will be here soon.”

  On the way home he didn’t reach for my elbow as he had before. We walked in silence. Back at the house we sat beside each other on the bench near the front door, waiting for Gary’s car. The breeze carried the scent of honeysuckle, and lightning bugs flickered over the lawn. There was something calming about sitting side by side on a summer night, and I found that I wasn’t ready for Gary to drive up. I wanted more of this peaceful time beside Daniel. I asked him the question that had been waiting in my head.

  “Why haven’t you written to me?”

  “I’ve written you a dozen letters. I just haven’t mailed any of them.”

  “Why not?”

  “I read your letters, and each one tells me something I didn’t know before. Everything I write seems so silly. You know about the services and the barn raisings. What should I write you about?”

  I cleared my throat before I spoke. My words slid out gently. “Write about you. I want to know about you.”

  “Okay,” he said with a smile.

  “Do you know the last thing I look at every night?”

  He shook his head and waited.

  “The carving of the bird in her nest that you made me. I keep it on the nightstand, and every night before I close my eyes I look at it. It keeps home in my thoughts.”

  Daniel slipped his arm across my shoulder, and I leaned in to him.

  “Then keep looking at it, Eliza. Keep me with you while you’re here.”

  A soft horn interrupted us, and we got up slowly. I could feel his breath on my face as I looked up at him. “Do you think you’ll be coming back again?”

  Daniel shook his head. “There’s no place for me to hang my hat here.”

  I nodded my understanding.

  “I’ll be waiting for you, Eliza,” he said. He picked up my hands and held them in his. “But I don’t know how long.”

  Before I could answer, he stepped off the front stoop and headed for the car. He didn’t turn around to wave.

  Later that night, after the children were in bed, I sat at my desk thinking of what Daniel had said. I hadn’t asked him to wait for me, and his last words sounded a little like a threat. But they were delivered to me in Daniel’s soft, earnest way, and I realized that he was only being truthful, a quality I had been lacking lately. I knew then that I didn’t want Daniel to wait for me. I wanted him to move along so that I could do the same. But I didn’t know how to tell him that.

  Thoughts of home rushed back to me. I had been trying not to think about that faraway world, but now Daniel’s visit made me realize that I missed my friends. I sifted through all the letters that I had put aside, wanting to see the words, the handwriting. The voices of Annie and Kate and Mary and Sally sang in my ears. Then I saw my mother’s letter, the one I had shoved to the bottom of the pile. I opened it up and read it again.

  The name Beth Winters gave me no hint of recognition. The words on the page held a warning that this was to be a secret between my mother and me. But my mother was not a secret-keeper; she was up front and no-nonsense. I sat back, blank and wondering.

  I went to bed knowing that tomorrow I was going to find Beth Winters.

  The next morning, after the children left for camp, I called Josh on his cell phone, my fingers going right to that particular order of numbers that would bring his voice to my ear. I was always a little nervous calling him. At home, the boys called for the girls, and sometimes I thought that putting Josh’s number into the phone was like shining my lantern into a boy’s window. But Josh always sounded pleased to hear from me, and his cheerful “Well, hi” coming through the phone gave me a thrill.

  “Are you working tonight?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Do you want to go out?”

  “I need your help solving a mystery,” I said, and explained about my mother’s letter. “I can be there at four,” he said. I read him the address, and he said he’d get his mom’s car and figure out the directions.

  Before Rachel left for the library, I showed her the letter. “Josh is coming over at four,” I said. “Do you think you can spare me so I can find out what my mother needs?” Rachel agreed.

  I spent the day preparing the family’s dinner and getting all of my chores done. When Josh arrived in his mother’s car, I climbed in beside him. He had printed up directions from the computer, and I read them, watching for street signs. As my mother had guessed, it wasn’t far away, only a twenty-minute drive. When Josh turned onto Elm Street, my eyes scanned the tidy houses. We pulled in front of a modest home with the look of a country cottage. The front door and shutters were a matching shade of green against weathered gray siding. A colorful garden burst in unkempt patches across the small front yard. A white porch swing swayed beside the front door.

  “That’s it,” said Josh, pointing to the house that somehow already looked familiar, like a place I should know.

  The doorbell buzzed, and I waited, bursting with a curiosity I had never felt before. My finger itched to touch the doorbell again; my foot tapped to a rhythm tha
t was not part of a song. Then I heard the pounding of hurried footsteps and a woman’s voice, almost musical, calling “Com-ing.”

  The door opened in a burst, and framed in the doorway was a woman about Rachel’s age. She wore a long, full skirt made of blue jean material, and a crisp, white collared blouse. Around her waist was a colorful sash that flowed down the length of the skirt. Her brown hair fell past her shoulders in a way that, at first glance, made her look like a teenager. But up close I could see tiny lines at the corners of her eyes. Gray eyes. Almost silver.

  “May I help you?” she asked. Her voice sounded familiar. Like home.

  I opened my lips, but couldn’t find any words. Josh took over, firm and friendly. “I hope we’re not bothering you,” he said. “We’re looking for Beth Winters.”

  The woman nodded. “I’m Elizabeth Winters. Everyone calls me Beth.” When she turned her gaze to me, she looked startled for a moment. Her eyes clung to my face. Then she took a step back, pointing vaguely toward the inside of her house. “Would you like to come in?”

  Josh and I stepped into her foyer. The colors were muted and settled, like an October afternoon. I felt Josh’s nudge and found my voice.

  “My mother wanted me to find you,” I said. The woman looked to be as jittery as I felt.

  “And who is your mother?” she asked, a tiny lilt in her voice. The sound settled like a tickle in my throat. I took a long breath before answering.

  “My mother is Rebecca. Rebecca Miller.”

  Beth Winters gasped, a tiny sound. Then, for a second, her body started to sag. Josh jumped forward and reached out to steady her, but she shook her head. “I’m all right,” she said quickly, her words choked and breathy. She regained her posture, then turned to face me fully, her eyes wide. “You’re too young to be Margaret,” she said. “Which one of Becky’s children are you?”

  “I’m Eliza,” I said, waiting for it all to make sense. No one ever called my mother Becky. I was only distantly aware of Josh standing beside me.

  “So she named you for me after all,” Beth Winters said. The woman’s eyes welled with tears, and she reached out her hand to touch my cheek. Her fingers were cool and dry against my skin.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  The woman smiled. “I’m your Aunt Beth,” she burst out in a hoarse whisper as twin tears rolled down her cheeks. “Your mother was…is my sister.”

  The next minutes were a jumble. She stumbled toward me until we were gripped together in a trembling hug, our tears mingling, gulping sounds that were my own cries, Beth’s hand stroking the back of my hair. Josh had stepped back quietly, but he was part of it, too. Finally, Beth and I released each other, our hands grasping each other’s elbows.

  “I didn’t know.” It was all I could think to say. Beth motioned us to the couch. She perched on a chair.

  Josh looked at me. “Do you understand this?”

  I nodded. There was only one explanation, and it was something that I didn’t want to say.

  “Go ahead,” said Beth.

  The words didn’t want to come. Finally I said them. “She was shunned.” Beth nodded and made it true.

  “No way,” said Josh.

  I turned back to meet his eyes. I couldn’t think how to respond. “Way,” I said.

  Shunned. It was the worst thing that could happen. And here it was before me, in the face of a woman with my mother’s silver eyes. This woman had once worn a kapp and sat in a quilt circle and sung in a one-room schoolhouse. Then something happened that made her have to leave. Forever.

  “I suppose you want to hear about it,” Beth said. I nodded. “Okay,” she said. “But first tell me how you came to be here, dressed like an English girl?” She looked at Josh. “And who is this young man?” Josh looked at me expectantly, as though he, too, wanted the answers to these questions. “So,” said Beth, “can I make you dinner while we spill our secrets?”

  In the kitchen, Josh and I sat at a wooden table that looked like it belonged in a farmhouse. As Beth moved around, tossing salad ingredients into a wooden bowl and setting pasta to boil in an iron pot, she kept a steady gaze on me.

  “I figure that you’re sixteen now,” she said. “And this is your rumspringa.” I nodded. “And this is a boy you met here in the big fancy world.” I grinned at Josh. He smiled back and reached into his pocket, turning off his cell phone. The gesture filled me with gratitude. “Okay, where are you staying? And, more important, how did you get your parents to let you leave home?” While Beth chopped vegetables and added them in handfuls to a simmering pot of sauce, I told her about my dream of leaving the Plain world, and of meeting Rachel at Stranger Night. My voice quavered as the whole mix of emotions came rushing back to me—the letting go and stepping away and reaching for something new.

  I looked up and saw that Beth and Josh were watching me intently, waiting for the next part. “Josh can tell the rest,” I said.

  “Well,” he began, “I was mowing Rachel’s lawn and I came in for a drink, and here was this girl from another place. And I mean really from another place.” Beth giggled, the laughter of a young girl being tickled. “She’d never heard of the Beatles. She’d never seen a movie, never talked on a phone. It was like, I don’t know, like when a blind person gets her sight. She wanted to see everything.” He paused and looked at me. “And I got to see it all with her.”

  I fiddled with a thread that had come loose from the bottom of my shirt. It was strange listening to the way Josh described me. Maybe being called a blind person should have made me angry. But I liked how he sounded so pleased to be a part of my story.

  “Well, this all sounds familiar,” Beth was saying. She had a dreamy expression on her face.

  I was aching to hear about Beth. “Your turn,” I said. Beth wiped her hands on a dish towel and placed a lid on the pot of sauce before sitting down at the table, across from me.

  “Well,” she began, “I was the baby of the family. I watched Miriam grow up the way she was expected to. Then there was your mom. She was more rebellious. She hated cooking, couldn’t ever finish a quilt. Our mother would grumble about how we were ever going to marry her off.”

  This didn’t sound right. I had grown up watching my mother’s careful work in the kitchen and with her quilts. There was nothing but competence in her hands.

  Beth continued. “When Becky was a little older than you are now, we had financial troubles.” I knew what was coming—my mother, homesick and miserable, working at the tailor shop and sending money home to help her family.

  “Our parents planned to send Miriam,” said Beth, “but your mother begged to go. That was fine with Miriam. She was already courting Ike. So off your mother went, with hardly a backward glance. I was heartsick seeing her leave.”

  I shook my head. “No, you have it wrong. They forced my mom to go.”

  “Not at all,” said Beth. “Your mom couldn’t get out the door fast enough. I was thirteen and I missed her so much. One weekend I got to take the train and stay with her in the city. It was like being in a dream. She showed me television and took me to the movies.”

  “Did you see The Sound of Music?” I asked.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, we watched it on video.”

  Josh let out a laugh that sounded more like a groan. “You and that movie. I’ve got to rent it for you one day.”

  “Afterward,” Beth continued, “it was like coming back from the fair. Everything at home was so common.” I pushed back a worry that it would be the same for me one day.

  Beth shoved her chair away from the table and went back to her cooking. A few minutes later, over dinner, I found myself waiting to see if Aunt Beth would bow her head and pause over the mealtime prayer. But she was already stabbing her fork into the lettuce.

  She continued with her story. “It was hard to be back home. Miriam was planning for her marriage. I was in my last year at the one-room school. Then your mom came home earlier than we’d expected because my fathe
r had been able to clear up our debt. I was so excited to have her home, but she had no time for me. All she cared about was her baptism. I tried to talk to her about her time away, but she brushed me off.”

  That sounded more like the mother I knew—practical, organized, never one to linger over details. But I wondered how she’d returned so easily to the life she’d run away from.

  “Before I had time to enjoy having Becky back home, she was planning her wedding, and I was alone again. So I finished school and got a job in a quilt shop in town.”

  “Selling quilts?”

  “Worse,” said Beth. “I sat every day in the middle of the store on a little stool and stitched together squares while the tourists gawked at me. I was miserable. When I turned sixteen, all I wanted was to get out.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was not Good Amish,” said Beth, shaking her head. “I hung out with the wildest of the Amish groups. I got drunk on the weekends. I stayed out all night.”

  Josh let out a whistle. “You Amish. Who would have believed it?”

  Beth laughed. “Miriam and your mom were both married with children by then. I spent time with your mother, and helped her with Margaret and James.” She paused and reached across the table to touch my hand. “Oh, Eliza. I’ll need to hear about everyone. There are others, too, right?”

  “Jah,” I said. “One more. My sister Ruthie is eleven. James and my father work together in the furniture shop. Margaret got married last year. She and Jacob have a farm about a mile away.” Beth pressed a napkin to her eyes. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She nodded. “After all these years it’s still hard for me to believe that my sister has children I don’t know.”

  “How long has it been?” Josh asked.

  “Becky was pregnant with this one here when I left,” she said, nodding toward me. “She told me this was going to be the baby named for me. But then things got a little complicated.”

  She got up and started to clear the table, and the story stopped while we all set about tidying the kitchen. Later, sitting in the living room, the dishwasher buzzing, Beth told us about getting a job at the library, where she read about other worlds and thought about her possibilities. But in the end she agreed to be baptized, making the promise to the church.