Home Is Where the Heart Is

by Linda Byler

  The girls who were more concerned about fashion than obedience wore shorter dresses, combed and arranged their hair in attractive waves, and set their coverings back on their heads just far enough to set them apart, appearing stylish to their peers.

  Vilt. See harriched net. How often had she heard her father say with frustration that she was wild, that she’d never listen? Her mother would nod solemnly, her mouth puckered into a self-righteous petunia. Her parents had always been strict, obeying the ordnung to the letter. Hannah had always had a distaste for her mother’s severe wetting, schtrāling, the way she combed her hair and put it back. Her long, black tresses were always rolled like two worms and then pinned into a bun at the back of her head, each hairpin a single agony of its own.

  Her covering had always been larger than most of her friends’, the strings wide and tied below her chin in a gehorsam bow. Some of the older rumschpring girls had narrow covering strings tied loosely and laying on their chests.

  The whole idea of fashion was frowned upon, but it was there nevertheless. Hannah figured as long as people were people doing the things they did, some of them more concerned about looking attractive than others, that was simply the way of it.

  Well, she had no intention of walking into church services with an appearance that suited a pathetic Western hick. She knew her dress was not one of the most conservative, which suited her just fine.

  To shake hands with a kitchen full of women she barely remembered, to have all those eyes following her, was the worst form of punishment she could think of. She held her head high and refused to give the ministers’ wives the holy kiss that was expected. She wasn’t about to touch anyone’s lips, she didn’t care if it was a requirement or not. That, of course, did not go unnoticed. Eyebrows were lifted or lowered, depending on the individual, but as a whole, Hannah had set herself apart, refusing to submit.

  Tongues wagged. “Vos iss lets mit sie? Hals schtark. Vie ihr Dat. What’s wrong with her? She’s headstrong, just like her father.”

  Undeterred, Hannah took her place among the women, staring ahead, her large dark eyes hard. Bold.

  “Hott sie ken schema? Has she no shame?”

  She sat among the women, her back straight, showing no emotion. When babies cried and apologetic mothers pushed past her, she held her knees slightly aside to let them pass without lifting her head to meet curious eyes or smile.

  After the three-hour service, she stood apart and refused to help prepare the long, low tables for lunch, telling herself it was unnecessary. That was the single girls’ job, not hers. If they wanted to stay true to tradition, well, they could.

  Jerry was obviously in his element. Hands tucked in his pockets, he greeted old friends, uncles, cousins, a genuine love shining from his eyes. To be among those acquaintances of his past was a blessing, an undeserved joy the Lord had provided, and his heart swelled with gratitude.

  His eyes searched the room for Hannah but found no trace of his wife, which left him uneasy. When he took his place at the table, spread a slice of homemade bread with the soft smear kase (cup cheese) he loved so much, his eyes were still searching the room for a glimpse of her.

  They were invited to Uncle Ezra Stoltzfus’s for supper. Jerry accepted gladly. He knew Ezra was one of the more successful dairymen even in times such as these, with depressed milk prices and cows that brought next to nothing at auction or at private sale. He wanted advice from a person of Ezra’s experience.

  He found Hannah standing alone against the rinse tubs in the washhouse, her arms crossed tightly, her expression keeping everyone at bay. He saw her dark, belligerent gaze, raised his eyebrows in question, and asked if she was ready to go.

  She nodded quickly.

  “Uncle Ezra invited us for supper,” he said, just before she went to gather her things.

  Without turning, her head moved from side to side. “No.”

  “Hannah. Please? I would love to visit with him.”

  “Then go visit with him. I won’t go. I don’t know them.”

  A smiling mother came into the washhouse surrounded by a group of small children and holding a crying baby. Jerry had no wish to press his argument with the woman present, so he turned, let himself out the door, and went to the barn to find his horse.

  Hannah dressed herself in the thick black coat and woolen shawl, pulled her black scarf and bonnet severely over her head, thrust her hands into knitted mittens, and stood at the end of the sidewalk by the wire gate, waiting for Jerry.

  She waited for a long time, her eyes scanning the parked buggies, the men hurrying to lead their horses to their own carriages, their thick ivva reck flapping in the cold, winter wind.

  A voice beside her asked, “Iss eya net an bei kumma? Is he not appearing?” Hannah turned her face to meet the kind, watery eyes of an aging grandmother, stooped and bent, one gloved hand clasping the smooth handle of a cane. Behind her, an elderly husband smiled as he kept watch, protecting his wife from hidden spots of snow and ice.

  Hannah smiled, a small quick spreading of her lips, to be courteous. “Doesn’t look that way,” she answered. She stepped aside to let them pass, her rubber boots sinking into the piled snow along the sidewalk. She watched as a middle-aged man brought a large, plodding horse hitched to a creaking, ancient carriage. The horse stood, its neck outstretched, waiting until the elderly man helped his wife into the buggy, tugging a bit, pushing at the right moment, years of practice making a smooth transition from the ground to the cast-iron step, and from there to the safety of the upholstered seat.

  From the depth of her wide-brimmed bonnet, the old woman’s eyes twinkled at Hannah. “You can’t imagine this now, my dear, but this is how it goes when you’re old.” She chuckled, lifted the heavy lap robe and spread it across her legs. Her husband heaved himself into the buggy beside her, grunting with the effort, then took a long time to tuck the lap robe around his wife, while the middle-aged man stood patiently at the horse’s head.

  He looked a lot like Yoni Beiler, but Hannah wasn’t sure, and had no intention of asking, either. She had no idea if the aging couple had lived in this church district so many years ago. That time seemed like another life, a dim, blurry memory viewed as if under water.

  Hannah watched as the middle-aged man handed the reins to the driver and stepped back saying, “Machets goot, Dat. Stay well, Dad.” The elderly man lifted the reins and clucked to his horse who leaned tiredly into his collar and moved off.

  Hannah was seriously perturbed by now. She stamped her feet to warm her toes, clutched her shawl tightly around her chilled body, and glared at the barn. Someone should paint that thing. It looked scaly, like the loose skin on a diseased dog with mange. Maybe Reuben Detweiler couldn’t afford to paint it. Hannah guessed that nobody painted their barn during the Depression. Well, times were getting better; she’d heard it on the train.

  She sniffed with impatience. If Jerry didn’t show up soon, she was going back into the washhouse. He could come looking for her.

  She became aware that there was a ruckus from somewhere inside the barn. A horse must be acting up. Suddenly, men ran from the implement shed to the barn. She heard loud voices.

  Never once did she imagine that Jerry would be in that barn, so she was not alarmed, only cold and impatient. But when her uncle Ben appeared, his face like a pale, waxen mask, his lips colorless, she knew something bad had happened.

  His stricken eyes found her questioning eyes. “Hannah!” His voice sent shock waves through her body like sizzling, painful lightening.

  “Han … Hannah. You have to be strong. Jer … Jer … Jerry was kicked in the … the chest by a horse.”

  Hannah reacted with disbelief, then a powerful urge rose in her to hit Ben, to pound him with her fists, hurt him and make him stop his childish stuttering. She felt the color draining from her face, her breathing becoming shallow, as if there was not enough oxygen in Lancaster County to keep her heart beating.

  “Is he dead?” Incr
edulous now. He couldn’t be dead. She had refused to visit his uncle. She’d told him no.

  Wild-eyed boys raced past her to spread the news to the women. Hannah suppressed the urge to grab them and stop them from spreading gossip, untrue things.

  “Take me to him,” she ground out, between teeth that began chattering of their own accord.

  She entered the barn, the poorly lit interior a harbinger of darkness and pain. Men stepped aside. Someone reached out to her. She slapped the hand away. She smelled hay, manure, leather, the rancid, sweetish odor of cows. Pigs snuffled. “Bisht die Hannah? Are you Hannah?” Kind words from constricted throats. Men kneeling over the prostrate form of her husband. His eyes were open, deep and dark. His face was ashen, so pale she thought he was already gone.

  His breath was a painful gasping for air. A gurgling. Another gasp. Hannah fell to her knees, tore at the buttons of his white shirt. Someone had opened his coat, loosened the hooks and eyes of his vest, peeled away the ivva reck.

  Hannah called his name in a strangled voice. “Jerry. Jerry.” Her eyes were dry, her throat rasping.

  He struggled to breathe. She opened his shirt with trembling fingers and lifted his undershirt. In the poor lighting, she could see the shape of a hoof in deep blood color, the skin around it already black, blue, purple. There wasn’t much blood. No more than from an insignificant nick with a scissors. She told herself he’d be all right. She replaced his tee shirt and straightened.

  “Did someone use the telephone?”

  “Yes.”

  Her mother was there, then. Her grandfather. Ben and Elam. Jerry’s brother David and his wife.

  Sarah reached for her daughter but Hannah pushed her away. “Move! Everyone get away from him so he can breathe,” she ordered.

  From the back of the crowd, a head taller than any of the others, Dave King watched Hannah, saw her refusal to weep or accept her mother’s comfort.

  He knew whose horse had lashed out. He’d warned Jerry that morning not to tie his horse with Samuel Esh’s stallion.

  The ambulance from the Gordonville Fire Company arrived. Hannah stood aside, her large, dark eyes burning with bitter, unshed tears, her hands clutching the fringes of her black shawl.

  Jerry’s strangled scream of pain when they lifted him onto the stretcher was almost more than Hannah could bear, but she knew there was nothing they could do to prevent it.

  She rode in the back of the wailing, careening vehicle. She took in every contour of Jerry’s face. She memorized the heavy black bangs, the longish sweep of hair sweeping over his pale forehead, his lashes perfect.

  She turned away when his struggle to breathe became too hard. She reached out a hand as if to help him, begged the attendant to do something, anything.

  Wasn’t there anything the medical professionals could do? White beds in rooms painted a sickly green color. Nurses hovering, doctors coming and going. Silence. Whispered conversations. So many questions. And, what was that giant, busy-haired Amish man doing in here? He was no relative.

  Hannah crossed her arms and glared at him. He glared back, his colorless eyes cold and calculating, sizing her up. He stepped forward.

  “I know you don’t want me here but I saw it happen, so I’ll need to answer some questions.”

  “Go to the police station then,” Hannah said, coldly.

  “I was there. The doctors need me.”

  Hannah turned away.

  Jerry lingered for less than three days. In that time, Hannah never left his bedside, only sleeping fitfully a few minutes at a time. She refused to eat or drink until a nurse told her that if she wanted to stay strong, she’d have to at least start consuming something.

  Sarah came and went, as did many other relatives, half of whom Hannah did not know. Stony-faced, pale, her large dark eyes as hard as polished coal, Hannah spoke curtly, repelled sympathy, and efficiently constructed a brick wall about herself, impenetrable, even to her own mother.

  Alone at night, she spoke to Jerry. She smoothed his hair, ran her hands along the contours of his face. She told him she loved him. His eyes opened and closed. He strained to breathe. Sometimes his breathing stopped, then resumed in powerful hiccups, hard and fast.

  Hannah knew he was in terrible pain, unbearable discomfort, hanging between life and death. Suspended on waves of pain, his heart struggled valiantly. The doctors said there was nothing they could do.

  Hannah glared at helpful, well-meaning nurses, listened to concerned doctors, waving both nurses and doctors away with flaps of her hand or curt nods and short words. She wanted them to just be quiet and go away. Shut up. What does all this talking help? He was kicked in his heart and he’s not going to make it. If you can’t help him, leave me alone.

  And they did.

  She was alone with Jerry when he inhaled one last shuddering breath, then exhaled in a slow, faint rhythm. The rising and falling of his chest ceased. Complete and total silence.

  Hannah sat like a stone, cold and immovable. Slowly she reached out to place one hand, then the other, on his chest. She bowed her head as a great obstruction rose in her throat, followed by a rasping, wrenching sob.

  She had told him over and over she was sorry. Now she would spend the rest of her life unsure, wondering if he had heard her words. So many times she had said no to him, refused to budge even on trivial matters. Why?

  No one understood Hannah’s refusal to shed tears, at least in front of anyone. They called her cold, calculating, abnormal. Older women shook their heads, said it wasn’t good. She’d have to be “put away” if she wasn’t careful.

  The homestead swarmed with well-meaning friends and neighbors descending on the house and barn with cakes and pies, buckets and mops, the men bringing teams of horses hitched to manure spreaders, shovels, and pitchforks. They cleaned and scoured, emptied the downstairs bedroom and cleaned it to a shine. The body arrived from the undertaker in town.

  This was the ultimate test for Hannah. To remain dry-eyed while they clothed Jerry in white funeral garb and laid him in the plain, handmade casket, took superhuman effort.

  She willed herself not to give way to the sobs in her throat. Over and over she steeled herself under the watchful eyes of her mother. After his hair had been combed and adjusted to Hannah’s satisfaction, she stepped back, turned, and walked out of the room, her hands at her sides, her shoulders squared, her eyes brimming but not spilling over.

  What had she done? She could have been loving and kind and submissive. Blindly, she walked through the washhouse door, the ache in her throat like a fiery boulder that threatened to steal her breath.

  She ran into a hulking figure clothed in wool, rock solid, slamming the toe of her shoe against the leather toe of his shoe. She would have lost her balance had it not been for two paws that stopped her fall. Hannah was tall, but he was taller. His arms were like cables.

  She tried to glare, but her eyes were glazed with tears. Defiance made her tears run over, leaving her gaze a mixture of pain and frustration, hurt and remorse, a look that would haunt Dave King for months. He uttered a useless apology.

  She swung through the door and out into the wintry yard wearing only her black widow’s dress and apron.

  CHAPTER 16

  AS THE LONG FUNERAL PROCESSION WOUND ITS WAY ALONG THE road to the cemetery in Gordonville, the sun slid behind an increasing bank of clouds, casting gray shadows along wooden fences and sides of buildings. Black branches of trees huddled together in the still, cold air, as if waiting for the snow that would soon cover them.

  The sound of steel-rimmed wheels on gravel roads melded with the dull clop clop of horses’ hooves, the jingle of buckles and snaps, the creaking of leather. White puffs of steam came and went from the horses’ nostrils as they tugged at restraining reins, held back to a slow trot to stay in an orderly procession.

  Hannah sat in the back seat of the first buggy following the horse-drawn hearse. Her grandfather drove the team. Her mother sat beside her with Abig
ail. Manny followed, with Eli and Mary.

  Hannah said nothing, her ironed, white handkerchief folded in her pocket. Her face was pale, lined with deep fatigue. Repeatedly, her mother tried to draw her out, to express herself, consolation flowing through her words. Sarah had been here in Hannah’s place. She had mourned the loss of her husband. She had grieved to the point of ruining her health. A tragedy, they called it. But that didn’t begin to describe the pain.

  Sarah wanted to make this easier for Hannah somehow, but she had no way of knowing her senseless prattle was much the same as a burr in one’s shoe.

  Finally, Hannah grated hoarsely, “That’s enough, Mam. Your grieving was different from mine.”

  Bewildered, Sarah set her mouth in a straight line and watched the horse’s flapping neck rein the rest of the way. How could grieving be different, she wondered? Grief was grief, wasn’t it? But Hannah knew the difference. Her mother grieved for the loss of one she loved more than her own life. She had loved deeply, dependent on her husband to flavor her days with his love.

  Hannah’s grief was saturated with remorse. That awful unspooling of unkind words, her unwillingness to obey, her defiance and anger, deeds of the flesh that she could never take back. There had been times that were okay, but too many times when things were not all right. Everything, just everything was complicated. She should never have gotten married.

  With these thoughts buzzing in her head like angry wasps, Hannah’s breathing became fast and shallow. Her head was bowed as she stepped from the buggy, and remained that way. Not once did Hannah lift her face or speak to anyone. Tears ran down Sarah’s cheeks as the minister spoke. The young men shoveled chunks of frozen soil on top of Jerry’s coffin as the voice of the second preacher droned on. After the German lied (song) was read in a quiet monotone, heads bowed in unison for a last silent prayer.

  The crowd turned and dispersed. The horses and carriages were loosened and brought to the gate.

  Back at the house, the funeral dinner was being prepared by appointed workers. Men straddled benches to mash vats of steaming cooked potatoes with handheld mashers, their wives hovering over them with salt and butter.