The Amish Clockmaker

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Once in bed, he lay awake for a long while, trying to convince himself that this was it. He was done with her. But it was no use. Every sound of the night outside his half-open window snapped him to attention, and when he finally heard soft footsteps running across gravel, he leapt from the bed, hobbled to the window as fast as he could, and confirmed that Miriam was finally home.

  The car that brought her drove off quietly into the night, but no flicker of light ever came on in the second-floor bedroom. Clayton could picture her at that very moment, sneaking around her room in the dark, getting ready for bed as quietly as she could, hiding away her Englisch clothes. No doubt, she had a place where she stashed them, some secret place where no one else would ever think to look.

  With a heavy heart, he told himself he needed such a place as well, a secret place where no one would ever look, a place he could hide his pain.

  When the next Friday night rolled around and after his parents were asleep, Clayton was again at the pear tree when Miriam turned out the light in her bedroom. Sure enough, less than an hour after making his way in the dark to the tree, a car without its lights on pulled to a stop at the curb down at the main road. From where he stood, Clayton could almost make out the driver. He was about to take a step from the shadow of the branches when he heard the side door at the Beilers’ house open.

  Miriam was dressed in Englisch clothes again, and Clayton watched as she sprinted in the dark toward the car. Clayton squinted, trying to see the person at the wheel. The light inside came on, and he could make out the square shoulders and short, dark hair of a man.

  A man.

  So it wasn’t Brenda, Miriam’s boss. And he knew it wasn’t Brenda’s husband, because he’d seen that guy bring Miriam home from work before, and he drove a bigger, much fancier car.

  This was someone else, someone Miriam knew that he didn’t. If only he weren’t disabled, Clayton thought, then he could dash down there in the darkness and see for himself, up close. The car pulled back onto the road, only then turning on its lights. What was going on?

  Was Miriam safe?

  Clayton returned to the house but was too worried about her to sleep. He propped himself up with pillows on the window seat, watching for her return. For hours he stared off into the night, waiting for her to come home. He must have fallen asleep at some point, because he awoke with a start just before dawn, his neck sore and his bad leg throbbing. Certain he had slept right through Miriam’s return, he stood and stretched for a moment before heading to his bed. But as he leaned down and began to gather up the pillows, something outside—some movement—caught his attention. With a start, he shifted back down onto the wide wooden sill and peered out into the night. The car was back—only this time it had actually pulled up the drive and was sitting not too far from the Beilers’ house.

  It remained there in the driveway, rumbling faintly, headlights off, for several minutes. The dark night was shifting into gray and the outside world slowly began to take shape. Clayton wondered what she was doing in there, though he felt sure he knew. Then, finally, its passenger door swung open and Miriam stepped out. After shutting the door quietly, she dashed toward her house, smoothing down her loose, messy hair as she ran.

  Miriam’s hair.

  Clayton had never seen it unbraided before. As livid as he was at this man who didn’t even have respect enough to walk her to the door, he couldn’t help but be captivated by her hair. So beautiful. So alluring. So utterly indecent being worn down like that. Miriam well knew it should be braided and tucked away under her kapp, not loose and free, on display for all to see—for anyone to see other than her husband in the privacy of their home.

  Clayton didn’t know what to do with all he’d witnessed. It seemed to him Miriam was mixed up in something that could hurt her. He wanted to protect her, but he didn’t know how. She wasn’t yet a church member, so he was not obligated to speak to the bishop about it. Maybe he should say something to her himself, one Christian to another as the Bible directed. Then again, what would she think of him if he did? He’d be the creepy neighbor who spent his lonely nights spying on her every move.

  Clayton remained a while longer, watching his breath fog the glass. Why did he care so much? What Miriam did on her rumspringa was none of his business. Perhaps God had allowed him to see what he had seen to help him get over her. I just need to let it go. He rubbed the fog from the window with his sleeve and stood to stretch his leg. I need to focus on life ahead of me without my father, not on Miriam or my feelings for her. He decided to dedicate his thoughts to prayer and fasting for his father’s declining health. He would continue to ask God to take his feelings for Miriam away, once and for all.

  And he would never, ever watch for her at the window again.

  SIXTEEN

  In the days that followed, the long stretches of solitude at the shop in between customers presented Clayton with the best opportunities to lay his heart open before the Lord. He often whispered his prayers aloud as he worked, though that wasn’t his usual way.

  “Please have mercy on my father, O God,” he would pray. “If it be Your will, spare his life. Restore his health.” Despite himself, he couldn’t help but add, “And please, please, take from me these feelings I have for Miriam. Please take them. I do not wish to dishonor You or her. Please take them.”

  Even so, day after day Daed grew weaker while Clayton’s affection for Miriam grew stronger.

  Then, on the sixth of July after a supper of ham loaf, succotash, and chunky applesauce, Daed settled into his armchair while Clayton helped clear the table and Mamm prepared a dessert tray to be served in the living area. She had made a chocolate cake—Daed’s favorite—and had just cut a slice when she called over to ask him if he wanted a little vanilla ice cream to go with it. When there was no answer, she asked Clayton to see if he had fallen asleep.

  Clayton found his father looking as if he had indeed only nodded off, serene and peaceful, his hand on an open Bible in his lap. But there was no question.

  This time he would not be waking up.

  The next few days were a blur as the Amish community sprang into action, doing the many things they always did when one of their members passed away. Neither Clayton nor Mamm had any chores to handle. There was no work to get done, no meals to prepare or clocks to fix, or anything else that would pull them away from time spent with their loved ones, time spent comforting, mourning, and fellowshipping together. Any task that could be handled by someone outside the family was simply taken care of. A sign went in the shop window, saying it would be closed for a week. The cow was milked, the lawn was trimmed, the eggs were gathered, meals were served, and so much more, the logistics and efficiency of these quiet workers functioning in the background, unseen, like a sophisticated gear train in the finest Hentschel clock.

  When Daed’s embalmed body was returned home by the mortician, Clayton and his brother-in-law Solomon were the ones to dress him in burial clothes. Clayton had thought that would be the hardest part, but in a way it wasn’t difficult at all. If anything, it helped remind him that Daed was long gone, that this was only an earthly vessel that had held his soul for a time.

  It was on the second day after Daed’s death that Clayton realized he hadn’t seen Miriam yet at all. Her mother and other relatives had been in and out quite often, helping out in numerous ways, but Miriam herself had stayed away, and Clayton wasn’t sure if it was because she was busy with work or because she held their friendship in such little regard that she didn’t even consider pitching in with the others worth doing. Perhaps that was another click in his escapement, another advance in the gear train of his diminishing feelings for her.

  But then came the funeral itself, when he spotted her sitting across the room, among the other women. He saw her again at the graveside, and that time her cheeks were a vivid red, her eyes wet and swollen. Something beyond the death of a neighbor was bothering her, that much was obvious. In that moment, as heartbroken as Clayton was
for his own loss, all he really wanted to do was go to her and ask if she was all right.

  They didn’t have a chance to speak until later, back at the house, when friends and family were milling around, talking and crying and laughing and eating and sharing memories of Simon Raber. Clayton had just helped hitch up the wagon for a departing cousin when Miriam approached him to offer her condolences. As she did, he realized it was the first time in many weeks that he had been within inches of her. And even though his heart was still full of grief at the passing of his father, he sensed a happy trembling inside as she took his hand in hers and spoke words of comfort.

  “I’m so sorry, Clayton,” she said, her voice soft and melodic. “Your father was such a good man. I know you will miss him terribly.”

  Clayton could sense that she was sincere, but there was a strangeness about her voice, further convincing him that something else was troubling her, something that had nothing to do with the current situation at all.

  “Danke, Miriam.” Had she quit another job? Had Vernon proposed? If so, were her parents now pressuring her to accept?

  She looked up at him with a wordless gaze that answered none of his questions.

  “Would you like to see Rosie’s calf?” he asked, regretting his question the second he blurted it out. Offering to show his neighbor a new calf on the day of his father’s funeral seemed in poor taste, but he wanted to talk to Miriam away from the others, and it seemed a perfect excuse.

  “Oh!” she replied, and Clayton could tell she had completely forgotten about having wanted to be there for the birth. “It’s happened already?”

  “Yes,” he said, equally startled. Had she not seen the calf out in the field with its mother? “I came over to your house the evening she started calving like you asked, but you were working late that night. I’m sorry you missed it.”

  “Oh,” she said again. She looked away, as though mentally sifting through the succession of days since she and Clayton had last talked about Rosie and calling to mind the evening she had worked late and the calf was born. “Yes, I would. I would like to see it.”

  “Okay.”

  Clayton looked for his mother. He spotted her through the kitchen window, inside, surrounded by a group of other women her age. “Come on, then,” he said, limping toward the barn. Miriam followed.

  They walked slowly, and not only because of Clayton’s complicated gait. Miriam appeared to be in no hurry, even though she had been anxious to see the calf moments earlier.

  “Job okay?” Clayton asked, not looking at her.

  “What?”

  “I, uh, just asked if the job was going okay.”

  “It’s fine.”

  A few more seconds of silence hovered about them as they continued across the yard.

  “The little calf is doing well,” Clayton said. “Though he’s never more than inches from his mother’s side.”

  He wished he could just say what he wanted to with Miriam. He could be blunt with everyone else, but not with her. And Miriam was never quiet around him. She was either talking or singing, though she was doing neither at the moment, and Clayton could not bring himself to ask what was bothering her.

  They reached the barn and stopped at the open doors, peering inside the cavernous structure. Rosie and her calf, easily visible from the doorway, were lounging in their stall as the afternoon sun angled down and bathed the animals in filtered light. The cow and her youngster, a pale orange-brown bullock Mamm had named Butternut, regarded them with languid stares. Rosie flicked her tail, and the bullock nestled closer to his mother.

  “What’s its name?” Miriam said, smiling now for the first time since she had arrived at the house.

  “My mamm calls him Butternut.”

  Miriam chuckled. “For the squash?”

  Clayton nodded, returning her smile. “His color does sort of remind you of it.”

  Miriam folded her arms across the front of her dress. “I’m so glad you haven’t separated him from his mother yet. I hate that part. I know it has to happen, but it’s still hard to watch—or listen to. Can you imagine what it must be like to have your child taken from you?”

  “Uh, no. But—”

  “I heard it one time, at my uncle’s dairy farm, when some calves were taken from their mothers. It was the saddest sound in the world.”

  “I suppose.”

  She inhaled deeply, seeming to draw strength from the tableau of mother and offspring before her.

  “Anyway, I’m glad you didn’t do it right away, like some.”

  “Well, at the moment there’s plenty of milk for us and Butternut. But there will come a day when he will have to be weaned.”

  “Ya, but not yet.”

  “No. Not yet.”

  They stood there for a few more minutes, Miriam lost in thoughts Clayton could not read.

  The words he wanted to say rolled around in his mind like a windmill in a storm. Who were you running off with late at night? Where were you going and what do you do there? Why are you so quiet now?

  He knew he couldn’t ask these things. It seemed so pathetic, him watching her from the window night after night. If he voiced his concerns, Miriam would have a few choice questions for him in return, ones he wasn’t ready to answer.

  He glanced over at her. Without warning, an image came to him, the same image he had been trying to erase from his mind for weeks.

  Miriam in the early dawn light. Her hair down and flowing behind her as she ran.

  It had looked so inviting, so fascinating, and yet it was a violation of the Amish way. He was not meant to observe her loose, flowing hair like that. But he had. And he hadn’t been able to forget about it since.

  “Will you and your mother be okay?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts. “You’re not going to sell the shop or the house?”

  For a second he couldn’t answer. Her concern for him and his mother rendered him momentarily speechless. Then he managed, “We… we’ll be fine. We have a lot of family we can call on. And we’re not selling anything.”

  “Good. I’m glad. I can’t imagine your not living here or working down at the shop.”

  “I can’t either.” It’s all I have.

  She turned her head to look at him. “You know, I always thought someday that I would buy one of your clocks.”

  I would give every clock I have to you.

  She took a step away from the open barn doors. “But I’d want a pretty Englisch one and you probably wouldn’t sell me one of those.” She flashed him a half smile.

  Words of response hung in his throat, unuttered.

  She patted his arm and laughed as she swiveled away from the building, but the sound was without mirth. “I’m only kidding, Clayton.” She started to walk past him, her unspoken burden clearly back on her shoulders.

  He turned awkwardly and took a lumbering step to follow her, his balance precarious for a second. Miriam saw and reached back to steady him. Normally he hated to have someone help him regain his footing when he started to falter, but her hands on his arms felt like heaven, and he wished she would never let go.

  They stayed that way for several seconds, her arm looped easily around his. Then she released him, and the moment was over. They began walking back toward the house together. Ahead of them, another buggy was arriving, and several others were leaving.

  “I wish I were like you,” Miriam said dreamily.

  Clayton cocked his head to look at her. He couldn’t have heard her right.

  “No, I mean it. You don’t try to change what you can’t change. You just accept it. You live with it.”

  He laughed uneasily. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. I’m known for my temper.”

  She waved the air with her hand as if to sweep away that last comment. “No, I know that. I’ve seen you angry. It’s just that…even when you don’t like something, even when you’re angry about it, in the end you just let it come because you know you can’t stop it.”

  Clayton fe
lt his face grow warm. Her compliment was not only too good, it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Miriam shouldn’t be like him. There was no merit in allowing something unwanted to come just because that was easier than trying to stop it.

  He very much wanted to stop Miriam from doing… whatever it was she was doing.

  He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her not to marry Vernon Esh.

  He wanted to look her in the eye and beg her to never see the man in the car—whoever he was—again.

  Clayton was about to say she was wrong about him, but he’d waited too long to respond.

  “Do you remember last year when I came down to the clock shop one day to tell you I had gotten the job at the furniture store?”

  He nodded wordlessly.

  “You were working on a grandfather clock that seemed as big as a house. Your father said something about time that day, that we can use it or misuse it or waste it, but we can’t stop it. The sun will come up and the sun will go down on every good day and every bad one. That’s how you are, Clayton. You’re steady. Constant. As constant and enduring as the rising and setting of the sun.”

  He tried to speak, to say that’s not who he was, but her words had stolen away every thought in his head.

  She took his silence as agreement and gave him a final nod. Her parents and brothers and their families were coming out of the house now. The Beilers, a dozen of them, approached to offer words of comfort. When they had said their final goodbye, they started for Norman and Abigail’s next door. Abigail put her arm around her daughter’s waist as they walked away. Miriam looked back once as they neared the path between the properties. She smiled and mouthed the word “goodbye,” as though she were leaving him forever.

  SEVENTEEN