“Then,” she continued, “one day I was working at the desk and I saw a man bent over his books. He had a rumpled look about him that I liked. At closing time he was still there, and somehow we ended up going out for coffee, and that was the beginning.”
“You fell in love with an Englisher?” I asked.
“I did indeed.”
A silence slipped into the room. I had been waiting to hear those very words, but still they sounded strange. Love between an Amish girl and an English boy was the stuff of hushed stories after services and behind barns. But they were always distant tales of unseen people.
“Soon John took to learning my schedule, and waiting for me when my shift was over. He was in graduate school, working on his PhD in history. He wanted to know everything about the Plain life. And I wanted to know everything about him and this place that was forbidden to me.”
“Did you tell your parents about him?” I asked.
“Eventually. You’ve never heard such yelling. But that wasn’t as bad as the silence. The silence told me there were no words that could make this right. I would have to choose.”
“Was it hard?”
“The hardest thing I ever did. First I told John I couldn’t see him anymore. But no Amish boy came near to making me feel the way he did. Eventually, I knew that I wanted the life I would have with John, even though it meant giving up my other life.”
“How did you do it?” I asked.
“I went to the person who I thought would understand. Your mother.”
“What did she say?”
“She said that I wouldn’t be her sister anymore.”
A tear slid down my cheek and splashed on my pink shirt.
“Then she said that she couldn’t name her baby after someone who wasn’t Amish.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Josh’s arm slipped around me, and
I leaned my head on his shoulder. Then I remembered one of the first things Beth had said to me when we met. She named you for me after all.
“I understand now,” I said suddenly, sitting up. “My mother once told me that they wanted my grandfather to approve of my name, and that they had to come up with a few before he finally agreed. Maybe they were trying to get as close to Elizabeth as they could.”
Beth was smiling. “Half a name is better than none.”
Outside, the daylight was seeping away, leaving a blue-black sky. Beth turned on a lamp, casting the living room in an artificial white glow. At home, my mother would be lighting the kerosene lamp now, blowing on it, coaxing the yellow flame.
I looked at Beth. “What was it like? Being shunned.” For a moment, Beth stared at something that wasn’t in the room. But when she spoke, her voice came out smooth as pudding.
“It wasn’t all at once,” she began. “First, my parents spoke to the bishop, and I was excommunicated until the elders could meet about my case. Life was the same for me, but I couldn’t go to services. Then the bishop came to the house and told my parents I was ‘under the bann.’ That’s when things started to change.”
“How did they change?” asked Josh. But I knew. I’d heard stories about people under the bann.
“I couldn’t sit at the table with members of the church, so at mealtime my parents would pull up a small table and I would sit there. Then one day my mother was serving soup, and I held my bowl up to her. She told me I had to put the bowl down on the table, and she would fill it there. Now that I was shunned, she wasn’t allowed to take a dish from my hand or serve food into a dish I was holding.”
Josh shook his head. “That’s so harsh.” I listened in silence.
“Yes,” Beth agreed. “But I was already baptized, so I’d gone back on my promise to follow the church’s rules. If I had asked for forgiveness, the bann would have been lifted and I would have been welcomed back. You see, in a way, it was my choice.”
“How long did you stay at home after the bann?” I asked.
“Just a few weeks,” said Beth. “Miriam and Ike wouldn’t see me. No great loss, but at the time it hurt. Then one day I went to visit my best friend, Emily. Her mother answered the door and told me she was sorry, but I couldn’t come in. I stepped off the porch and looked up to Emily’s window and saw her looking down at me. I could tell she was crying.”
Beth busied herself moving things around the coffee table—a jar of white stones, a book on women authors, a candle. I waited for her to continue.
“That’s when I realized that by staying among them after I had been shunned, I was putting my family and friends at risk. They could be excommunicated if they didn’t follow all the rules of shunning. Then I knew that I couldn’t be a part of both worlds.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I packed my things and John picked me up to take me to his parents’ house. He came in to meet my mother and father, but they refused to talk to him. On his way out the door, he turned around and said, ‘I’m sorry that you didn’t get to know me. I think you would have liked me.’” Beth smiled. “Do you see why I love him?”
Josh was grinning. “He sounds pretty cool.”
Beth nodded. “Then he said, ‘And don’t ever worry about Elizabeth. I’ll always love her.’” Beth was still smiling, but her eyes looked sad.
“What did Grandma and Grandpa say to you?”
“My father didn’t say anything. My mother just said four words: ‘Elizabeth, are you certain?’ When I said yes, she looked down at the floor, and I slipped out. Before John and I left town we drove to your parents’ house so I could say good-bye to your mother. John waited in the car.” Beth’s voice sounded fragile, like someone who was getting over the flu. “I told Becky I was leaving, and she said, ‘It’s probably for the best.’ Then I said that I’d write to her, and I asked if she’d write me back. And she said no.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. Beth went on. “I started to leave, and when I looked back at Becky, her head was bent and her shoulders were shaking. Then she said, ‘I won’t write you back, but send me letters anyway.’”
I closed my eyes. It was what we were all warned about, and it had happened to my family. I didn’t want to hear another word, and I wanted to know everything. “What happened next?” I asked.
“I wanted to run to her, but I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to leave if I did. When I was just out the door, I called out, ‘I love you,’ and she said, ‘And I you.’ Those were the last words my sister said to me.”
“Did you cry?” I asked.
“Only for about a year,” Beth said with a laugh. “I lived in Chicago with John’s parents while he finished his dissertation, and I did a high school equivalency program. After John and I got married, he got a position at Northwestern and we moved to Evanston.”
“Do you work now?” I asked.
Beth nodded. “I work for a pediatrician, managing the office.” She paused before adding, “We have a nice life. We have lots of friends, and I have a niece and nephew I’m very close with.” Then she looked at me. “And now I have you.”
“Right,” I answered. “Now you have me.”
At that moment I heard the metallic clink of a key in the door, and I glanced at Beth. “Well, it looks like you’re about to meet your uncle John,” she said, jumping up and reaching the front door just as it opened. “John,” she burst out, before he was even inside the house, “you’ll never believe who’s here.”
John stepped in and looked over at Josh and me with a question on his face. We stood up from our places on the couch as he walked into the room. He wore khaki pants and a plaid button-down shirt. His brown hair was flecked with gray, and his eyes had downward creases at the corners, which made him look both tired and kind.
Beth took John’s hand and pulled him toward me. “This is Eliza,” she said. “She’s Becky’s girl. She came and found me.”
John’s face burst into a smile, turning up the lines around his eyes. “Oh, my,” he said. “I don’t know what to say. This i
s wonderful!” He reached out his hand to shake mine, and then seemed to think better of it. “Well, I’m not going to shake hands with my niece,” he said, holding his arms out and pulling me into a sturdy hug. I didn’t have time to be shy about this instant familiarity. Somehow it felt right to be hugging this man who had promised my grandparents that he would always love their daughter.
“And this is Joshua,” Beth said, as Josh and Uncle John shook hands. “He’s Eliza’s…well, what do you call each other?”
I turned to Josh. He was looking down, fiddling with his cell phone. “We’re good friends,” I said quickly. When I looked at Josh, he seemed relieved. I swallowed back a disappointed feeling before turning to Beth. “When can I see you again?”
“Every day?” she said with a giggle. She wrote a row of numbers on a piece of paper, along with the words Aunt Beth and Uncle John and tore the sheet from the pad. Handing it to me, she said, “I assume you’ve uncovered the mysteries of the telephone.”
I smiled and reached for the pad and wrote down Rachel’s phone number. There was something magical about those two pieces of paper that would connect me with my newfound aunt. I folded the sheet with Beth’s number on it and slid it into the pocket of my jeans. Feeling the crinkle of paper was reassuring.
I walked slowly to the front door, reluctant for the night to end. Uncle John, his face lit up with a smile that was already familiar to me, gave me another hug, and then shook Josh’s hand. “You’re family now,” he told me. I swallowed and nodded.
Beth kissed Josh’s cheek, and then turned to me. “Thank you for finding me,” she said in a choked whisper. I stepped inside of Aunt Beth’s hug, flooded with warmth. When we stepped back from each other, she suddenly reached for my hands, holding them in her own. “One more thing.” She pronounced each word slowly. “My parents. Are they…?” Her words trailed off.
Understanding, I squeezed Beth’s hands. “They’re well,” I said, and saw relief flood her face. “They live with Aunt Miriam and Uncle Ike. Grandpa still works the farm, and Grandma helps Aunt Miriam with the children.”
Beth closed her eyes for a moment. “Thank you, God,” she whispered. She released my hands and leaned against John, who had quietly appeared at her side.
Josh and I stepped together onto Aunt Beth’s porch in the quiet summer darkness. In the car, Josh turned to me. “So, we’re good friends?” he asked, a teasing grin on his face.
I nodded, something stirring inside me. Josh leaned toward me, and our lips found each other. In that moment, I didn’t need a word for what we were. I didn’t need words for anything.
That night I couldn’t sleep. There were still so many questions, and the more I relived the evening, the more it was a puzzle. How could it be that no one in the family had ever slipped and told a childhood story that included a third sister? I searched my memory, but I couldn’t remember a clue about a girl who took back a promise and as punishment was told that she didn’t exist anymore.
Then I remembered something I had heard the night I pressed my ear against the wall and listened to my parents argue back and forth. At one point my mother had said in a fierce voice, “Don’t forget what happened to my sister.” I had assumed that she was referring to Aunt Miriam. Now I realized that she must have been talking about Aunt Beth, and I tried to remember what my father had said in response to those words.
Then it came to me. In a voice that was stiff as a plank of wood, my father had said, “I am thinking about your sister, and I’m hoping that history doesn’t repeat itself.”
Everything changed after I met Aunt Beth. Now when the phone rang at Rachel’s house, I snatched it up if the Caller ID revealed Beth’s number. Josh showed me how to get to her house by train, where to get off, and how to walk the four blocks from the station to the gray house with the green shutters.
Later that week, Beth and I worked together on a letter home that would secretly send information to my mother.
Dear Family,
I miss you all, and think of you often. I am enjoying my work here, and have made some nice friends. I have a new friend named Betty, who is so much fun to be with. She has a bubbly laugh, and she loves to tell stories about her family. I can listen to her all day long. As a matter of fact, she is sitting beside me as I write these words. We’re getting to be as close as sisters.
My mother hadn’t wanted me to write about Aunt Beth, but I thought this message would be clear to her and no one else.
When I was with Beth I was like a starving person. I couldn’t get enough of her lilting voice. I loved the stories of her funny mishaps as she adjusted to living among the English—like all the things she’d blown up in the microwave, and the times she would search for matches when the sun went down, forgetting that she could turn on a light.
Aunt Beth, too, seemed to drink me in. She wanted to know everything about home. Sipping a cup of tea on her porch swing, I said, “The last time you were with my mother, you said that you would write to her. Did you?”
“I did for a while,” she said. “Then I got a letter from your father, asking me to stop because the letters upset her. The last letter I had sent was around the time that John and I moved to this house. A couple of years ago, John mentioned the idea of moving, and I told him that we could never leave because Becky wouldn’t know where to find me.”
“Do you miss them?” I asked.
“Every blessed day. Especially your mother. When I was little, whenever Miriam was mean to me, or I got in trouble for being fidgety at services, I’d crawl into Becky’s bed and she’d put her arm around me and smooth out my hair. And she’d always tell me the same thing. ‘It’s okay, Elizabeth. Your sister is here.’ And I’d always feel better.”
We were quiet for a few minutes. The porch swing swayed gently, and the tea was beginning to cool. I bent down and placed the mug on the floor. “Aunt Beth,” I began, enjoying the smile that spread across her face at the words, “what do you call yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I wondered what you are if you’re not Amish.”
Beth paused for a moment before speaking. “I used to be Amish.”
That seemed to say everything.
Things were changing with Josh and me. He continued to find ways to sneak over when Rachel was out and the children were at camp. But our time together was more urgent now than it used to be. We talked on the phone at odd intervals throughout the day, sometimes just to say “Hey,” or “What’s going on?” I always called his cell phone just before I went to bed, to hear his voice as the last sound of the day.
There was an odd restlessness when we were together. We reached to touch each other for no reason except that we wanted it, our lips pressing together softly, then insistently. I positively itched to be near him. It was almost frantic. I knew I could only go so long without feeling his skin against mine, without smelling the muskiness around his neck when he pulled me close.
I found that I didn’t wake up easily at the crack of dawn anymore, but I shook off the sleepiness every morning and continued to be the first one up, with hot breakfast ready for the family when they came downstairs. I wanted to show Rachel that my relationship with Josh wouldn’t interfere with my work, so my dinners became more elaborate, and the house shone under my cleaning rag.
After camp, I was the children’s playmate, taking them to the park or the library, swallowing back yawns during Candy Land, doing art projects on the kitchen table. One day we went out hunting for butterflies, but they always flew away as soon as the children approached. Janie loved listening to stories, leaning against me as she sucked her thumb. Ben stopped talking about Missy. He was curious about my life at home, and peppered me with questions about what it was like living in “olden times.”
Josh, too, wanted to know about my other life, and he seemed to glorify the Plain world. He liked to comment on the failings of his society in comparison to the simple way we lived.
On the Friday that
Josh and I would be going to the under twenty-one club, Rachel stood beside me as I finished wiping down the counter. “Can we talk?” she asked. I looked at my watch. Josh would be picking me up in an hour. Rachel pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. I sat across from her, trying not to look impatient.
Her voice was soft and even. “Eliza, in these past couple of weeks, you and Joshua seem to be spending a lot of time together.”
I tried to appear casual. “I guess we have,” I said, as though just realizing it myself.
“I’m not sure if you know this, but your parents gave me strict instructions about you.”
“What kind of instructions?” I asked, feeling uneasy.
“For one thing, they said you weren’t ever to be alone with a boy. I’ve been lenient about you and Joshua because I know him so well. And you were usually with other friends when the two of you went out. But lately things seem a little more serious.”
“We’re just friends,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“That’s what I thought,” said Rachel. “But I just wanted to be sure.”
“And if it makes you feel better, we can be sure to always have other kids with us when we go out. Tonight we’re going to a club, so we definitely won’t be alone there. Okay?” I asked, getting up from the table. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” said Rachel quietly. “Please don’t put me in a difficult position. Please don’t make me have to send you home.”
I took in a breath. “I promise not to let that happen.”
Rachel nodded, but her face had a pinched look, like she wasn’t convinced.
I hurried to my room, shut the door, and reached for the phone.
“Hey,” Josh answered, in the drawly voice that usually made me feel tingly.
A World Away Page 15
