The Amish Clockmaker

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “No more curtain,” she commented, looking up over her head to where it used to hang.

  “I took it down once Daed… once I started handling the store all on my own.” Once I could no longer run and hide from the curious stares of my customers.

  Miriam looked around, taking everything in. “The place seems smaller without your father in it,” she said, her eyes landing on the far side of the worktable. “I suppose that doesn’t make sense. It should seem bigger with one less person here.”

  “I know what you mean, though,” he replied, realizing in that moment he hadn’t moved his father’s chair. It still sat there at the far end of the table, as if Daed might return any second, take a seat, and get back to work. “I feel that way too every time I come in.”

  Clayton reached out a hand and took the pail from Miriam, noting the familiar anticipation in her eyes as she gazed toward the showroom area ahead. Though it wasn’t a huge space, they had managed to get the most out of it. Mounted practically floor to ceiling were all of the wall clocks, interspersed here and there with the grandfather clocks. At the center were glass-fronted cases that held the mantel clocks, carriage clocks, Chaucer clocks, table clocks, chronometers, and other small, non-mounting timekeeping devices.

  To Clayton’s delight, Miriam moved there now and began doing what she’d always done when she came to the store: stroll along the displays, walking slowly and admiring each clock individually. Both Plain and fancy clocks were available, but Miriam lingered only over the fancy ones, pausing at the prettiest and most ornate and studying them with awe.

  All around, gentle sounds of ticking and clicking filled the air like a symphony, though Clayton rarely ever noticed or heard it anymore. He knew some people didn’t like the sound, that they considered it more a distracting, untimed cacophony. But he could never understand that. He loved the way his shop sounded. He also loved the way it looked, the dozens of swinging pendulums like tiny little hands waving hello each time he glanced their direction. He even loved how the room smelled—fresh cut wood, varnish, linseed oil, all of it. The whole shop entranced him. From what he could tell of Miriam’s smile, she seemed to feel the same way.

  Thank goodness.

  There were still no customers by the time she’d made the rounds of the room, so Clayton suggested they lock up for half an hour and eat outside at the picnic table. As they headed off together, he explained to her how the schedule usually worked, saying he and Daed used to eat lunch at home every day but that for the past year or so there seemed to be a lot more tourists coming to Lancaster County, especially in the summer and fall, and because many of them seemed to be interested in Amish-made clocks, traffic at the store had been steadily increasing. Mamm would send something down with them in the mornings, and they would close for a quick half hour at midday, eating out here under the trees or in the shop, depending on the weather.

  They sat across from each other now, and Clayton watched as Miriam unloaded the food she’d brought, a delicious spread of red beet eggs, boova shenkel perogies still hot from the stove, sliced apples, and crackle top cookies. Thinking of their conversation earlier, he didn’t ask if she’d made any of it herself, but he had a feeling at least the cookies were hers.

  “This is great,” he said before biting into the fried potato-and-meat pie.

  “It really is,” she replied, and when he looked up at her, he realized she wasn’t talking about the food. She was gazing at their surroundings—the beautiful old oak tree, the grassy slope of the lawn, the cloudless blue sky. “I never noticed you sitting out here before—and I grew up right next door.”

  Clayton swallowed. “That’s why I like it. It’s kind of hidden, even though it’s in the middle of everything.”

  It pleased him deeply that she liked this little part of the homestead as much as he did. As she picked at the food in front of her, taking tiny bites here and there, he considered telling her about the last time he’d come here with his father, when the man had deeded him this rectangle of land as a vote of confidence. Daed had said it was “just between the two of us,” but Miriam was his wife now. Had Daed suspected that Clayton would ever end up married, he probably would have added, “and your future spouse too, of course.”

  But before he could begin his tale, Miriam began to speak, and the conversation headed in another direction.

  “Brenda had the most beautiful backyard. Did I ever tell you that?” she said, her eyes taking on a dreamy, faraway look. “She had this one thing… She called it a pavilion but it was really just a screened-in gazebo. I used to love to go out there and sit in it whenever I had a break. It was so lovely, looking out over the pretty flowers and trees and even a little man-made pond. Can you imagine that, Clayton? Having a pond dug in your own backyard just because it’s pretty?”

  He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he just gave her a nod and took a big bite of perogie. Truth was, he couldn’t imagine a more Englisch thing to do. What was so wrong with taking a walk to see a God-made pond?

  Miriam gave a heavy sigh and the wistful look on her face faded away. Both made Clayton uncomfortable, so before he lost her again, he launched in about work and she seemed happy for the distraction.

  As they finished their meal, he filled her in on the basics of manning the front counter—how to handle the customers, how to fill out the paperwork, what to do with the money, and so on. She seemed to take it all in stride, and from the questions she asked, he realized that her past work experiences were going to be helpful to her here—not just her year at the furniture store, but even the short-lived job with Brenda Peterson. More than most Amish women, Miriam had spent time with finer things. As he’d already told her, she knew what Englischers wanted.

  Once they finished up and went inside, Clayton used the last few minutes to show her around the back room. He started with the will-call area, made up of shelves where the repaired clocks waited until they were picked up by their owners. Next to that were the various supply bins and supplementary tools. On the other side of the room was the small desk where he handled all the paperwork and the odds and ends of running a shop.

  Looking at it now through her eyes, he realized he’d let the room get rather messy in the past few months. The showroom was always immaculate so the pieces would look their best, and the worktable area stayed clean and organized or he’d never get anything done. But back here had been primarily his father’s domain, and since the man’s passing Clayton had been so busy he’d let a lot of it slide.

  The messiest part was the desk area, where piles of papers had accumulated so much that they had begun spreading to other surfaces as well. There were papers filling the chair, covering the filing cabinet—even stacked on top of the kerosene heater. He pointed that out to Miriam, saying they would have to be sure to remove that particular pile once things turned colder lest they switch on the heater one day and end up burning the place down.

  “Kerosene?” she asked, leaning forward to look. “Why not coal?”

  Clayton said they used to use coal but that the dust created too many problems with the clocks. If the building had a basement where the coal dust could be contained, the furnace could have gone down there, and then it probably wouldn’t have been a problem. But because the back room was their only option for where to put it, they’d finally had to take it out altogether and replace it with a kerosene heater instead.

  “The old coal bin’s still here, but we don’t use it anymore.” He gestured toward a long metal handle attached to a knee-high, pull-down door imbedded in the far wall. “Kerosene’s not as efficient, but with this unit back here and a second one in front, we manage to get by.”

  He went on to point out the stack of supply catalogs and the bins of spare parts, concluding his tour with the last shelving unit, a tall one near the door that held all of the clocks awaiting repair.

  “This room’s kind of… interesting,” Miriam said when he was finished, taking in the equipment, clock parts, and shelves w
ith their bulging contents.

  “Interesting?”

  She ran her finger across the top of the desk, outlining its edge. “Do you sit here much?”

  He shrugged. “Well, sometimes I make lists of things we need from the catalogs. And I write up the invoices to be mailed when repairs are finished. Otherwise, not really.”

  Miriam moved the stack of papers from the desk chair and sat down. “I could do those things for you.”

  Clayton hesitated only a moment. Her interest surprised him. “Okay.”

  She touched the surface of the desk, flitting through the papers, random tools, and odds and ends. Her fingertips came away gray.

  “Sorry. It’s gotten a little dusty in here—even without the coal.”

  “I can take care of that.”

  He sensed a subtle longing in her voice and in her countenance. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “Would you mind if we thought of this as my desk?” Miriam asked tentatively. “I’d like to have a little place to come to that’s just mine.” She looked up quickly. “I mean, I know you need this desk for the shop, but I could do the things at it that you do. I could take care of the mail and correspondence, and the ordering and the invoices.” She turned her head toward the shelves. “I could tidy up and keep everything dusted.” Then she swung her head around to face him again. “If you’re worried about me going up into the hayloft, then… I still need a little place to be me.”

  “Of course you can think of this desk as yours,” Clayton said as elation filled him. It was too good to be true. Miriam wanted to be here in the shop with him. Sitting at his desk. Straightening his supply shelves. Sending out the bills and notices. Sharing in his day-to-day world.

  Anything I have is yours.

  “Danke.” She sighed audibly, thankful, it seemed, that she didn’t have to explain what she meant by “needing a place to be me.” He wasn’t entirely sure he knew, but he didn’t care. If Miriam wanted be at the shop, that was enough for him.

  “Consider this whole room yours if you want,” he said. “You can spend as much time back here as you want.”

  “I won’t leave you out there alone when customers come in. I promise.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” he replied, glad he had taken down the quilt that had served as a curtain at the doorway. The thought of seeing Miriam every time he walked past the opening was exhilarating.

  He felt his face flush with color at the thought, so he covered it by moving to the repair shelf and reaching for the next broken clock to be worked on. It was Englisch, painted a shiny white enamel and festooned with rosebuds and etched with gold filigree. He took it into his hands and turned awkwardly with it. Miriam stood from her chair and steadied his arm as he regained his footing.

  “Danke.”

  “That clock is so pretty.”

  Clayton looked down at the appliance in his hands. The profusion of flowers and glistening gold accents were a bit much for him, but he nodded and replied that yes, it was a very pretty clock.

  Miriam reached out to touch its smooth surface as if to memorize its loveliness. Then she let her hand fall away. “When will the first of the afternoon customers start coming?”

  His eyes widened. “Um, probably as soon as we remember to unlock the door and let them in,” he said with a sheepish smile.

  Sure enough, when the two of them reentered the front room, they could see a car already waiting in the parking lot outside.

  “I’ll get it,” Miriam told him, straightening her shoulders and putting on her best greet-the-customers smile. “You can get back to your work.”

  As Clayton hobbled over to the table and set the clock down, Miriam headed for the door, humming a song as she went.

  She ended up handling the customer just fine. She had to look up a clock’s invoice, collect the balance on the repair, and then retrieve the correct item from the will-call area. Miriam managed to do all three with charm and poise, and as Clayton pretended to work nearby, it was all he could do not to grin. Some days he just couldn’t believe how blessed he was to have her as his wife.

  Once they were alone again, she turned her attention to cleaning up and organizing the back. As she worked, Clayton heard her begin to sing softly. It was a tune he did not recognize, an Englisch song about someone named Mr. Sandman making dreams come true. She sounded happy, and tears stung his eyes as he realized it was the first time he had heard her sing since her life changed forever.

  It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Despite some days of relentless rain and strong winds that caused trouble all over Lancaster County, Clayton and Miriam settled into the second week of married life. At times she seemed content, almost like the old Miriam who used to sit in the barn and happily chat with him and Daed as they did their chores.

  At other times, it seemed she felt as though she were serving a life sentence without parole. An expression would come over her face, a mix of sadness and longing so severe that it left no doubt to Clayton what was on her mind: the betrayal of her former lover, the actor, the father of the child growing inside her. Clayton would spot her in the clock shop or in the kitchen, a customer receipt or a pie recipe sitting forgotten beside her, her hand on her stomach and her eyes far off and unfocused. At those times, such a vivid glimpse into her unhappiness would pierce his heart like a sword.

  Part of the problem was that even as she yearned for all she could no longer have, he had finally gotten everything he’d ever wanted. Now that she was his wife, Clayton was allowed to love her, a freedom of the heart that had opened some tiny bud within his chest and burst it forth into full bloom. No longer the pathetic, lonely neighbor pining for a woman he could never have, he was now that woman’s husband. She still wasn’t yet his lover, but he knew that surely that would change in time. For now, it was enough that she was his life mate, his true love, and his best friend.

  Sometimes, Clayton had to admit, there were glimmers of hope, brief hints that Miriam was slowly falling for him in return. He would see it in the sparkle of her eyes when he made her laugh or in the admiration in her gaze when she watched him work. He would hear it their whispered conversations some nights as they lay side by side under the covers, chatting softly before drifting off to sleep. He would feel it in the warmth of her body on those mornings he awoke to find her cuddled against him, her soft, even breaths fluttering like butterfly wings against his shoulder.

  In those moments, it took all the strength he had not to wake her and request she be his wife in every sense of the word. But each time he resisted, knowing she must be the one to come to him if that level of physical intimacy was to mean anything to her at all. He prayed often for patience and self-discipline.

  And then he prayed some more.

  Throughout the month of August, as Miriam seemed to vacillate between closeness and distance, love and indifference, somehow Clayton learned to take it all in stride. The way he thought of it, getting her to love him was like getting the teeth on a gearwheel sawed. It was a difficult and intricate process. If the sawing were rushed, the small blade could snap or a tooth could break loose from the wood. But when the clockmaker went slowly and steadily, giving the blade enough time to stabilize and adjust first before proceeding, the resulting gearwheel would come out strong, sturdy, and beautiful. Miriam just needed time to do that—to stabilize and adjust. Then their life together would become as strong, sturdy, and beautiful as a well-made gearwheel for the finest clock.

  The first of September—exactly three weeks after their wedding—was one of the good days. Clayton had just gotten back from morning chores and was getting cleaned up before heading down to the shop. Miriam was awake but not yet out of the bed when he came into their room after his shower, and he chatted easily with her as he stood at the mirror and combed through his wet, unruly hair.

  He was just dropping the comb back into its holder when he heard her gasp behind him. Turning around,
Clayton saw that she was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand on her stomach and her mouth open in shock.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” he demanded, wobbling over as fast as his bad leg would carry him and dropping awkwardly to his knees on the floor in front of her. Was she in pain? Was something the matter with the baby? What did she need him to do?

  She looked up, and as their eyes met her face broke into a radiant smile. Without a word, she reached out and took his hand and placed it over the solid bulge of her belly. He let her hold it there, but he wasn’t quite sure what she was doing.

  “Do you feel that?” she whispered, her voice full of awe.

  “Feel what?”

  “The baby. It’s moving.”

  Clayton’s heart leapt to his throat. Miriam was fine. Her baby was fine.

  The baby was moving.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered in return. “What is it supposed to feel like?”

  She placed both hands over his, slid it over just slightly, and then continued to hold it there. “It started last week, really, but I wasn’t sure that’s what it was. It just felt like a little flutter at first. But this… this was an actual kick.”

  As she said the word “kick,” Clayton thought he could feel the slightest something shift under his hand, like detecting the gentlest poke of an elbow through a thick pile of quilts.

  “There! Feel it?” she said, and because there was so much eagerness in her voice, he nodded and said yes, he absolutely did feel it.

  In that moment, as he knelt before her, Clayton could easily forget all of the obstacles between them. He could forget that her affections were divided, that her life with him was not the life she’d wanted, that the child she carried inside her had not been conceived with him.

  Instead, as she slowly lowered her forehead and rested it against his, all he could remember was that this woman was his wife and this child was to be his child, and there was not one single other thing in the entire world he wanted or needed beyond that.