Daett placed his hand back on hers. “I know I speak difficult words to hear, but the truth will set us free, bitter though they sound.”
Susanna was tired. What could she possibly say that would make any difference? What could she say that didn’t sound defensive or accusative? Finally, she said, “I had best go to bed.” Susanna stood, but Daett pulled her back down.
“We haven’t solved anything tonight, have we?”
“Did you expect us to?”
Daett paused for a moment. “I’m sorry that my faults continue to follow me. In this I must again admit my error. I have been too easy on you these past years. I know that now, and yet my heart still struggles. What am I supposed to do?”
“You’re asking me?” Susanna stared at him. “Am I supposed to agree to anything while I’m torn apart on the inside? I need some time. This is all too sudden for me.”
Daett shook his head. “On that you are wrong, Susanna. We should baptize you next week and have your wedding the week afterward, but that’s not possible. More time will not help you. Still, I understand your desire for what cannot be. I, too, once dreamed of things that lie out there, or rather of bringing those things into the community. What a fool I was. I thought I could take an Englisha woman as my frau. I asked Mindy if she would marry me, but she told me no, that she was not part of my world. How will things be different with this Joey of yours? He cannot bring our two worlds together in marriage.”
“But he does not mean to,” Susanna protested. “We have said nothing of marriage. We are only friends.”
A brief smile played on Daett’s face. “In this you are not wise, daughter. The man loves you. Trust me. That you do not love him gives me what little hope I have. The Lord has left your heart open for a proper man. We must take advantage of the situation before it’s too late.”
Susanna sighed. “Too late for what? I have no plans to jump the fence.”
Daett smiled. “Mindy was a goot woman, Susanna, just as this Joey is probably a goot man. The problem is that Mindy wasn’t meant for me, and Joey isn’t meant for you.”
“Just one more thing then. How did Mamm die?” Susanna asked.
“Toxemia,” Daett answered without hesitation. “Why she didn’t go to the hospital sooner, I don’t know. Or why her…” Daett stood and paced the living room floor in front of Susanna. “No,” Daett muttered. “I’ve been there a thousand times before and I will not go there again. I did what I thought was right. Mindy did what she believed was right, and so did everyone else. I will go mad if I continue to question the past.” Daett pressed his fingers into his forehead and sat down again on the couch.
Susanna reached over for his hand, but Daett pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should not have said what I did just now. These regrets are understandable, but they are not from the Lord.”
“I do not blame you for wishing you were married to Mindy,” Susanna whispered.
Horror filled Daett’s face. “Susanna, no! I did not mean that! I’m torn, that’s all. I was speaking out of my worry over your situation and my blame for it.”
But Daett did mean it, Susanna told herself. Tears filled her eyes at the thought. How different life would have turned out if Daett had married her real mamm, Mindy. Had her mamm been so heartbroken that she had ignored her own health needs? Had Mindy loved Daett more than she dared admit? Why else had all this happened? But if Mindy and Daett had stayed together, Susanna wouldn’t have brothers—Henry, James, Noah, or Tobias. Oh, it was all a horrible, confused mess.
“Come!” Daett’s voice broke into Susanna’s thoughts. “Enough has been said tonight. Too much, I’m thinking, but I am tired of these secrets. Perhaps it’s best if the heart finally speaks and the Lord sorts all these things out.”
“What will you tell Mamm?” Susanna motioned toward the bedroom with her hand.
“I will tell her we must all pray about this,” Daett said. “Only the Lord can help us. But in the meantime, we will work on getting your heart ready to love, Susanna. You must marry Ernest. There is no other way.” Daett’s face glistened with intensity.
Susanna looked away, numbness filling her whole body.
“We must get to bed,” Daett repeated. “The work doesn’t stop tomorrow just because our hearts are troubled.”
The tears stung again as Susanna clung to Daett’s arm on the short walk to the bottom of the stairs.
“Try to get some sleep,” Daett whispered in her ear.
“Yah, you too,” Susanna whispered back.
They parted at the bottom of the stairs with a quick hug. The bedroom door squeaked behind them, and Daett shooed her on with a quick wave of his hand. Susanna took the steps in the darkness, each board familiar and dear. How many times had she climbed these stairs since her childhood? This had always been home; she had never thought otherwise. To leave home for what was not home, even with Joey at her side…could she make that choice? The question tore at her heart, and Susanna pushed it away. She couldn’t think anymore tonight. Once she reached her bedroom, the door across the hallway opened a small crack. Susanna stopped short. No face was visible, but she could see starlight through the window on the other side. Had Henry stayed up to question her?
Susanna waited, but it was Noah who whispered, “Where were you, Susanna?”
“Don’t burden your mind about it,” Susanna whispered back. She approached the door, and it opened wider. She reached inside to find Noah’s tousled head, and she pulled him close.
“But I worry about you,” he said.
Susanna pressed back the tears. “Yah, I know. Just pray for me, Noah. And now, go back to bed.”
Noah obeyed, and Susanna closed the bedroom door behind him. She choked back a sob and hurried into her own room to bury her face in the pillow under the heavy bed quilt.
Chapter Fourteen
On Thursday morning, Susanna came downstairs in the early morning hours. The men had already left for the barn. She had waited until she heard the washroom door slam before venturing out of her bedroom. Susanna set the kerosene lamp on the table and watched the flicker of its flames play on the kitchen wall. Her mind wouldn’t focus from lack of sleep, but that was her own fault. She could have gone to bed early like the rest of the family, but bedtime was a dreaded event of late. Sleep wouldn’t come, and when it finally did come, it was filled with troubling dreams of what might lie ahead of her.
But that was also her fault. She had retrieved the cell phone Joey left from under the oak tree the very next morning after they had met. The knowledge that she could now call him anytime she wanted only increased the pressure. Already she had been tempted to call just for a chat, in hopes that hearing Joey’s voice would lift her spirits.
Mamm’s soft steps behind her jerked Susanna out of the daze.
“Goot morning,” Mamm greeted her. “You’re still not sleeping well, I see.”
“Goot morning,” Susanna muttered back. She busied herself with the breakfast preparations.
Feelings between her and Mamm hadn’t been goot since the night she had gone out to meet Joey. What Daett had told Mamm of their conversation she didn’t know. Whatever it was, Mamm had become more guarded around her. The tension was high. She found herself longing for her old job at the DeKalb Building Supply, where people talked to each other without issues between themselves. She even missed the ride to and from work. The silence had been peaceful then.
Maybe she even missed her daily exchange with the Englisha people. Maybe because she was herself half-Englisha? That thought had never occurred to her before Daett’s startling revelation. That stain seemed permanent now, even if she said the marriage vows this fall with Ernest. She would always be half-Englisha in an Amish world, and if she jumped the fence, she would be half-Amish in an Englisha world.
“You should try to accept your lot in life, Susanna,” Mamm said softly, as if reading her thoughts. “Rebellion against the Lord’s will only causes more troubl
e.”
“Sorry,” Susanna whispered. “I’m just trying to sort through some things right now. Believe me, I’m not after more trouble.”
“You only have two choices,” Mamm said. “To follow the Lord’s will, or to go your own way. The only right choice is to submit to the Lord’s will.”
“Yah, I know,” Susanna said. “I’m trying, but it’s hard when you aren’t really sure—”
“Well, to help you be sure,” Mamm said, “Ernest is dropping off his girls for the day so you can spend some time with them. Get to know them and let them get to know you too.”
Susanna turned to stare at Mamm.
“Don’t you think that’s a goot idea?” Mamm asked. “You have to come out of your confused world, Susanna, and begin to walk on the road the Lord has shown you. This will help.”
“Ernest is dropping off his girls? Without asking me?”
“Yah,” Mamm said. “This will do both of you a lot of goot, but especially you. I liked the idea right away when Ernest asked me after the Sunday service if he could bring his girls over for the day. Think about it for a moment, Susanna. Isn’t it time you see more of the man and his kinner? You will be his frau by this fall, and you need to act more like a woman about to be a wife and an instant mamm. Besides, the way you’ve been acting isn’t right. The Lord can’t be pleased with your actions. You have so much you could be thankful for even with the trouble you’re in, but instead you choose to pout and ignore everyone around you.”
Susanna looked away. “I’m not trying to be difficult, and I want to do what is right. It’s just that I don’t know. Marrying a man I don’t love seems like getting in even more trouble than I’m in now.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, you will love him,” Mamm declared.
Susanna sighed. It was no use. “Well, if I’m going to have the girls for the day, let me at least take them somewhere for a while. I need to get out of the house for a few hours. Anywhere.”
Mamm looked up. “Okay, I’ll give you this much. You can take the girls for a buggy ride before lunchtime. That should be safe.”
“Oh, Mamm,” Susanna groaned. “Why must you be so hard on me? It’s beginning to seem like a prison here in my own home.”
Mamm turned around to face Susanna. “You lost my trust when you went out the other night to meet that Englisha man. When you begin to show us that you plan to make the right choices and serve the Lord, then maybe we can let up a little.”
Susanna winced. “Do you have to be so sharp with me, Mamm? I’m hurting, you know.”
Mamm’s face softened a little. “I know I can be harsh, but your daett has treated you like a bobbli all your life, and it’s time it ended. If you had been made to face things earlier in life, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead, Daett let you run around all over the county like a loose hen, and of course you ended up consorting with Englisha people. What did Ralph expect, considering…” Mamm gave Susanna a meaningful look. “You did have an Englisha mamm, Susanna. The truth is the truth. I told the man this often, but Daett has a stubborn mind. Just like you. Now look where his leniency has gotten us. I say it’s time for someone with some sense to be in charge, which is why I’m thankful for Ernest. I told the man on Sunday that he needs to handle you with a firm hand. He wasn’t sure about that since he’s so taken with you, but I’m saying it. It’s time you changed your attitude toward Ernest. You need to start giving him some encouragement before he changes his mind. I know for a fact there are two widows in the district who would take the man’s marriage offer in a snap. And here you are, with the man’s heart in your hand, moping around like there’s a funeral ahead of you.”
Susanna started to speak but then stopped. A protest was useless, but she could speak up for her real mamm. “Why are you so hard on Mindy? Daett speaks nothing but goot about her.”
Mamm’s eyes blazed. “Your daett would be wiser if he forgot that girl instead of dawdling around in his mind about how things might have turned out. He knows this was all for the best. We cannot coddle the world in our hearts, Susanna. Daett thinks he understands that, but he doesn’t. I have come to regret the sympathy I gave Ralph for his past, and I say the same thing to you. Now is not the time to wallow in maybes, but to make the right choices for the future. You must go through with your baptismal classes and marry Ernest by this fall. That decision starts today with his little girls. Be a mamm to them. Hold them. Cherish them. Give them the motherly love Ernest can’t give them.”
Susanna looked away. “I could try, I guess.”
“Goot! You would do well to listen to me, Susanna. You may not be my daughter in the flesh, but I raised you as my own.”
Susanna couldn’t keep the catch out of her voice. “Do you wish you hadn’t married Daett?”
Mamm didn’t flinch. “No, I would do it all over again for the love I feel toward your daett. And I have come to love you too, Susanna. Don’t doubt me on that. It’s just that love isn’t enough. We must also live right. This is not the time for fuzzy feelings. It’s a time for careful walking in fear of the Lord, because the eyes of the community are on us.”
“I know, and I wish they weren’t,” Susanna muttered.
Mamm ignored her, and moved the oatmeal bowl to the kitchen table. Susanna found the sugar canister in the cupboard and filled the jar to the brim. The clatter of the men in the washroom filled the house moments later, and Mamm added another piece of firewood to help her finish frying the last of the bacon. Susanna pressed out a small crease in the tablecloth and took over at the stove while Mamm went to call Noah and Tobias.
Her brothers came in one by one and took their places at the table. Henry regarded Susanna with a long look, but he said nothing. It was Noah who offered the first smile of the morning. Susanna stepped away from the stove to give him a tight hug, and Noah grunted in protest.
When they were all seated, they bowed their heads in prayer and then ate in silence. The clock on the kitchen wall ticked loudly. This can’t continue, Susanna told herself. They had once been a happy family around the breakfast table. Now there was only a glum stillness. As if in protest, three-year-old Tobias threw his spoon toward the floor, where it landed with a bang against the side of the stove.
“Don’t do that,” Mamm chided. She returned the spoon, and pressed the boy’s hand on the handle for a few seconds. “Behave yourself now, Tobias.”
Finally Henry spoke up with a quick glance in Susanna’s direction. “When is Susanna getting baptized?”
“Hush,” Daett chided. “We will not speak of the matter at the breakfast table.”
“Ernest’s children are coming this morning,” Mamm announced with forced cheerfulness. “Susanna is taking care of them for the day.”
“They are cute girls,” James muttered. “At least there’s that to be thankful for. But when is the wedding? That’s what I want to know.”
“All children are cute,” Mamm said, ignoring the question.
Henry guffawed. “Cousin Elisabeth’s aren’t. I don’t care what anyone says.”
Daett gave his eldest son a warning look. “Be careful what you say, Henry. Those things have a way of coming around later and biting you.”
James chuckled. “Hear that, Henry? You and Charlotte Yoder—”
James ducked as Henry swatted at him. “Stop it. Charlotte couldn’t have anything but cute children.”
Noah perked up and waved his spoon about. “What I want to know is when will Charlotte marry Henry?”
Henry turned red as a beet and said nothing. James laughed and answered for him. “We don’t know yet, and neither does Henry. He hasn’t dared ask the girl home, but you’d better think about something else, Noah. You’re too little for such thoughts.”
“No I’m not,” Noah protested. “I’m going to marry Beth when I grow up. I gave her my pencil to use at school yesterday, and she kept it all day.”
There was a ripple of laughter around the table, and Susanna joined
in. Maybe the tide had begun to turn.
“She sounds like a goot frau to me,” James told Noah with a straight face. “You keep that little girl in your sights. Don’t let her get away from you.”
Noah nodded solemnly. “I won’t!”
Chuckles were followed by silence again when Daett bowed his head for a silent prayer of thanks. They all kept their heads down until Daett said “amen.” No one moved afterward until Mamm had brought the family Bible in from the living room and Daett opened the pages.
In a solemn voice, Daett read, “ ‘O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who hast set thy…’ ”
Susanna tried to listen, but her mind drifted away. In an hour or so Ernest would be here with his two girls. Would he want to speak to her? Yah, they would have to talk with each other. She would have to force words out of her mouth and place a smile on her face. She had to—if she wanted to stay in the community. And she did. She wanted to make the same goot choices Daett had. She wanted to leave behind the Englisha world she had tasted briefly and grown to love. But then there was Joey. And the piano. And her job at DeKalb Building Supply.
Susanna shut down her thoughts and listened to the last words Daett was reading. “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” Daett closed the Bible. “Let us pray,” he said. There was a shuffle of feet as they knelt, and Daett’s voice rose and fell with the morning’s prayer.
Please be with me and help me, Lord, Susanna prayed silently. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. I don’t know myself anymore. I’m lost in my sorrow. Can You help me?
There was no answer, but she didn’t expect one. Some comfort was all she could hope for, and a sense of peace did seem to drift over her heart.
“Amen,” Daett said seconds later, and they all stood to their feet. Her older brothers made a beeline for the washroom. Daett paused to smile at Mamm before he followed his sons.
Once the washroom door had closed again, Mamm said, “Noah, you get ready for school now.” Noah shuffled toward the stairway.
Until I Love Again Page 9
