Clayton’s heart ached at the thought and at how he’d taken for granted such wonderful moments in the past. His sadness only increased when he realized he would never share times like that with a son of his own either. He would never have a son at all.
Forcing such thoughts from his mind, he parked the chair under the tree and then sat on the bench as directed, resting his elbows on the rough wood of the table. Once he was settled, his father began to speak.
“As you know, my parents didn’t leave this homestead to me in their will. Instead, they signed the deed for it over to me while they were still alive, to avoid inheritance tax issues. And though technically it all became mine the day we signed on the dotted line, that deed protected them as well by establishing their right to live here until their deaths, even though they no longer owned the place.”
Clayton nodded, familiar with what his father was saying. Deeding land rather than willing it wasn’t an uncommon practice in the Amish community. The only part people found odd was the bit about reserving the right to live there till death—as if there were any question. But Englisch lawyers always insisted on that clause, and so the Amish usually went along with it.
“Anyway,” Daed continued, “as you also know, the homestead becomes your mother’s once I’m gone, but eventually she’ll be doing the same thing for you and your sisters that my parents did for me. She’ll pass along the homestead to you to possess and occupy during your lifetime. You understand what I’m saying? This place will be yours to use for the rest of your life, but once your mother signs it over to all of you, even though your right to live and work here for the rest of your life will be legally protected in the deed, this homestead will not belong to you alone. Your sisters will own it jointly with you.”
“I understand, Daed.”
“I know you do, and as long as things go on as usual, it doesn’t really matter anyway.”
“So why are you telling me all of this?”
Daed looked at him, his expression unreadable. “I’m telling you this in case things don’t go on as usual.” He coughed, the rattling sound like sandpaper on a clock’s casing. Then cleared his throat and kept going. “In the future, if you ever wanted to make changes to the place, your co-owners would have the right to step in and have a say on how things are handled. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
Clayton shook his head. Everything his father had been saying made sense, but he just didn’t see why it mattered.
“Because you will share ownership with your sisters,” Daed explained, exhaling slowly, “I worry about them meddling once your mother and I are gone. Specifically, I’m concerned about the shop. Say it does well and eventually you want to expand. With your sisters as co-owners, they would have to give their permission for you to do any new construction to the property. And knowing how protective they are—and how much they tend to underestimate your abilities, not to mention your determination—chances are they would be very conservative in allowing that.”
Clayton nodded again, still trying to figure out what his father was getting at.
“The thing is, I don’t want you to ever have to go through another conversation with them like the one we had back in March.” Daed looked down at the ground, his features filled with guilt and regret. “We were all wrong and you were right. I should never have involved your sisters and their husbands that way. And I certainly shouldn’t have allowed their opinions to overshadow yours.”
“Daed… ” Clayton began, but he couldn’t finish.
“I believe in you, Clayton. Since that day you’ve proven yourself fully capable of everything you said. That’s why I’ve decided to do something else before I pass on. Something legal and binding.”
Daed’s face suddenly took on a smile. Eyes twinkling, he held out his hand and added, “Got a dollar?”
Clayton hesitated, frowning, but he could see that his father was serious, so he dug into his pocket, produced a single bill, and handed it over. In return, Daed gave him the rolled up paper he’d been holding in his other hand.
His brow furrowed, Clayton unrolled the paper. It was some sort of document, a legal agreement between Simon Raber and Clayton Raber, a transfer of land from one to the other for the price of $1. The land was listed as Lot 23, Ridge Road, Ridgeview, Pennsylvania.
“This still needs to be notarized, so I’ve arranged for a notary to come by tomorrow afternoon, when your mother will be over at Joan’s. After that, you’ll have to file it with the county. But then it’ll be official.”
Stunned, Clayton finally found his voice. “What’s ‘lot twenty-three’?”
His father waved a hand, encompassing the area around them. “That’s this part here, from this side of the parking lot to just short of the barn, and from this side of the store to the Beilers’ pasture. Right around an acre total, which isn’t much. But by deeding it over to you now, I’m ensuring that however this little rectangle of land gets used in the future will be your prerogative—and yours alone. It’s my way of saying I believe in you, son. It’s my way of saying I’m sorry I doubted you before.”
Clayton looked down at his father’s gnarled hands, at the deed, at the tract of land that was to become his, and he was unable to come up with words. He was dumbfounded.
Without question, he knew this wasn’t necessary. It was going to be all he could do to keep the store running and the chores done, much less grow and expand the business. But this gesture, and the way his father was looking at him now, meant more to him than almost anything anyone had ever done for him.
“And Mamm? She’s in agreement?”
Daed shrugged. “I’m sure she would be if she knew about it, but I haven’t told her because I don’t want your sisters to know. Why create division in the family now when temperatures are already running a little hot?”
Clayton understood and agreed.
“This can be between just you and me,” Daed continued. “It’ll probably come out eventually, but for now I just want you to hang on to the deed yourself for when—or if—the day ever comes that you need it. Does that make sense?”
Clayton nodded, tears suddenly filling his eyes. Then he leaned over and wrapped his father into a fierce hug, something he hadn’t done since he was a boy.
“Thank you,” Clayton said, barely above a whisper. He held their embrace for a long moment before letting go and rising from their treasured lunch spot.
They were quiet as they went back up to the house, both lost in thought. Clayton hadn’t realized how much he’d needed his father to have confidence in his abilities—not just so the man could have peace in his final days, but to be able to go on after death parted them. As they headed back up the hill, Clayton felt a new sense of purpose and a deep satisfaction in knowing that Daed had come to believe in him at last.
FIFTEEN
During the final weeks of his father’s life, Clayton had hoped that being busy from sunup to sundown would give him little time to think about Miriam. Apart from a wave now and then across the little pasture, he had barely spoken to her in two months. They’d had just three actual conversations, in fact, all of them brief and none of them satisfying. Each time, Miriam had gone on and on about what was apparently her latest obsession, the theater. Once her boss had taken her to her first matinee, Miriam said, she had loved it so much that she’d actually gone back a few more times by herself. The whole situation made Clayton very uncomfortable—her enthusiasm for the stories and the actors and the costumes and the music and the fancy sets—not to mention it wasn’t exactly a topic he knew or cared anything about. During their first conversation on it, he’d just stood there, trying to cautiously listen but mostly thinking about how pretty her lips were when she spoke and how brightly her eyes sparkled when she was animated.
The last time they had talked, she launched into the same topic, and he considered interrupting her to point out the issues inherent in her obsession and indeed with the Englisch world overall. But he held his tongue,
fearing he might start to sound like a rooster, crowing the same song day after day. In the end, the only chiding he did was about the way she spoke of her boss, Brenda Peterson, as if the woman were a best friend rather than an employer. In response, Miriam had simply laughed.
“A person can be both, you know,” she’d quipped, but a momentary flash of irritation in her eyes told him the subject wasn’t up for discussion.
Sadly, nothing seemed to make any difference in the way Clayton felt about Miriam, not his heavy grief over his father, her silly enthusiasms, or the lack of time they had spent together lately. He still found his thoughts frequently wandering in her direction, especially when he would see her taking in laundry or coming home from a buggy ride with her suitor, whom Clayton had learned was named Vernon Esh.
Clayton thought of Miriam when he saw a kerosene lamp glowing in her bedroom window across the small field that separated them. Or when he lay in bed at night unable to sleep. He had begun to pray every day that God would make the feelings he had for her go away. He implored God to take them away, but nothing seemed to change inside of him. If anything, his feelings for her had intensified, and this made no sense to him whatsoever.
When Rosie started to calve at a few minutes after sunset on a warm summer’s eve, Clayton had hesitated a moment before going over to the Beilers’ house—only to be told that Miriam was working late in Lancaster that night. Hours later, around midnight, he heard a car door slam outside, which likely meant Miriam’s boss had finally brought her home. But by then Rosie was already nursing her newborn and Clayton was in bed and nearly asleep.
He had hoped to catch her before she went to work the next morning to tell her about the new calf, but he never saw her. Perhaps that was God answering his prayer to be delivered of his attraction, he thought. Perhaps it was to happen slowly, like this. It was almost like an escapement in a clock, he decided, where each swing of the pendulum would cause the gear train to advance in a small, fixed amount. Over time, those incremental advances added up, just as perhaps over time, these missed moments with Miriam would add up, ultimately lessening his feelings for her.
To Clayton, it seemed that he was facing two difficult goodbyes at the same time. One was the imminent passing of his beloved father. The second was the much-needed demise of his affection and fascination for Miriam. He truly wanted no part of either farewell, but he had no choice. Daed’s days were numbered, and Clayton was just as sure that he should not continue to feel this way about Miriam, especially now that she was being courted by another man.
And she was definitely being courted. He knew that because he’d seen the fellow’s buggy show up at her house almost every Friday and Saturday evening for weeks. Clayton didn’t know where they went on their dates, but more than once he’d watched from his bedroom window as Miriam came out of the house and headed off with Vernon into the night. Sometimes they would stay out till ten or eleven, and sometimes he’d have her home by nine.
The first time Clayton had seen them was on a warm Friday night, not long after supper, when he was alone in the kitchen just finishing up the dishes. His mother was in the next room tending to his father, and Clayton was standing at the sink, absently drying a glass, when he noticed a beam of light angling across the dark yard outside, an indication of a vehicle of some kind pulling in at the Beilers’ place.
Curious, he put the glass on the shelf, closed the cabinet, and walked to a different window to get a better look. Trees partially blocked the view, but from where he stood he could see the front corner of what seemed to be a courting buggy sitting in the driveway, the horse still hitched up but the headlights now off. The driver was striding toward the side door of the Beilers’ house, but before the man got there, the door swung open and a woman emerged. Even in the dark, Clayton could tell by her faint silhouette against the white clapboard that it was Miriam. Squinting, he watched as she approached the driver, and then the two of them walked together back toward the buggy. They became obscured by foliage as they went, but Clayton knew that the man was likely helping Miriam up into her seat before going around to the other side and climbing in next to her.
They were too far off for Clayton to hear any conversation between them, but through the open window he could make out the faint crunch of tires on gravel as the horse began to move again. The buggy’s lights popped back on, and the beam swept in a wide arc across the grass as they made a U-turn in her driveway. Even after the buggy was down the hill and out of sight, Clayton stayed there at the window for a long time, listening until the distant clip-clop of hooves on blacktop faded away, leaving behind only silence and darkness.
An hour later, he was up in his room for the night, dressed for bed but perched on the window seat with a book in hand, telling himself he was there to read, that it was purely coincidental that this particular window offered a clear line of sight to the Beilers’ house and driveway and yard. A light outside caught his eye.
Clayton quickly extinguished the small kerosene lantern that hung from the wall next to him. Then he returned his attention to the world beyond the window, to the sight of the same buggy he’d seen earlier, finally returning Miriam to her house.
In the past hour the moon had emerged bright above the horizon. From his unobstructed, second-story viewpoint, he saw the horse come to a stop. The lights flicked off. The man and the woman climbed down from the buggy and walked to the door.
As the guy leaned in to kiss Miriam on the cheek, Clayton knew he should look away, that he should close the shades on his pain and frustration and just forget all of this. But he couldn’t tear himself from the open window and the scene unfolding before him.
Even after the buggy drove off, he remained where he was, stiff and tired but unable to move. He stayed there at the glass, staring into the dark, trying to pray but mostly just thinking. About Miriam. About the hollowness in his stomach. About the literal ache of loss. He spotted a flickering glow behind the shade of the second window from the left, top floor. Her bedroom. Five minutes later, the light went out.
Wearily, Clayton rose from his perch and made his way across the room to his own bed. It was still quite warm, and as he folded the bedspread down and slid onto the mattress under a single sheet, he chastised himself for having spied on his lovely neighbor. What right did he have to watch her comings and goings? None at all, and that was that.
Yet the very next night, he found himself back at the window again, waiting and watching until she came home. By the end of the following weekend, which once again included outings with her Amish suitor two nights in a row, Clayton recognized a sad sort of rhythm. The beam of headlights catching his attention. The buggy turning in and pulling to a stop. The man and woman walking to the door. The woman going inside. The woman’s bedroom light coming on. The woman’s bedroom light turning off. The lonely man limping over to his own bed.
Clayton tried to stop watching for her. He really did. He tried to tell himself it was a waste of time to long for a woman who would never be his, but he just couldn’t help it. He was drawn to her, like a magnet, unable to leave his place at the window, unable to find sleep until he knew she was there across the narrow field, second room from the left on the top floor, also asleep.
By the time the following weekend rolled around, Clayton didn’t even bother with the self-recriminations anymore—or with the pretense of reading. He simply got ready for bed, twisted off the light, and resumed his post at the open window, waiting and watching for Miriam to come home. It was a chilly night, but he didn’t even gather a blanket around himself for warmth. He just sat there and waited.
Eventually the buggy appeared, as usual, and Clayton slid into the rhythm of it all yet again as he watched the walk to the door, the closing of the door, the buggy driving away, the light coming on upstairs. As the light turned off again, he let out a deep sigh and tried to find the energy to go to bed himself.
But he wasn’t tired. He was restless. He knew if he were to crawl into bed, s
leep would not come to him. He padded across the darkened bedroom, opened his door, and within a few minutes was at the mudroom door, opening it to the starry night. He stepped outside in his bare feet and for a few minutes just stared at the expanse of the vast heavens above him. The sky at night looked calm and serene. He wanted to drink in that peaceful strength. He wandered over to a pear tree and leaned against its trunk, the branches a leafy bower above him. A few minutes passed, and he was just about to go back inside when he detected movement at the Beilers’ house to his right.
Someone was at the side door and then running down the driveway in the darkness. It wasn’t until the person was almost to the road that Clayton spotted a car pulling up to the curb with its lights off and its engine idling.
He stepped out from the branches. Miriam? Was it Miriam running toward the car? The running person swung open the car door to get inside, and the light that came on confirmed Clayton’s fear. It was her.
Worse, she was dressed in Englisch clothing.
Flummoxed, he watched as the car began to creep forward. Not until it was well down the street did its lights come on. Whoever it was hadn’t wanted to be observed—at least not by the people inside Miriam’s house.
But who did she know that owned a car? Was it her boss, Brenda Peterson, the woman who seemed to be her friend? It had to be. What other Englischers did she know? Clayton spent the next hour hovering by the pear tree, waiting for Miriam to return, but she never came. Finally, furiously, he limped back to his house and his bedroom.
Why had he insisted on watching her? What did it matter to him what she did or who she was with? It was none of his business. He was just the next-door neighbor, the guy with the hideous face and the crooked leg who pined over the beauty with the auburn hair and the lilting voice.
The Amish Clockmaker Page 13
