Mary's Home

by Jerry S. Eicher

“Can we not talk about that right now?” Mary pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes.

  “Would you like some coffee?” He stood. His own cup had long grown cold.

  “How about hot tea?” She attempted to smile.

  “I don’t know how to make hot tea. Grandma takes care of that.”

  She laughed. “You run a mission in Kenya and don’t know how to make hot tea?”

  He joined in with his own chuckles. “I guess I could learn.”

  “How about I make some?” She stood as well. “I watched your grandmother run the microwave the other day. It can’t be that difficult.”

  “You don’t know how to use a microwave?”

  Mary made a face. “I come from another world, you know.”

  He sobered. “What is it like growing up without modern conveniences?”

  “Pleasant.” She filled two teacups with water. “You don’t know that you are deprived, and there is plenty of work to occupy yourself.”

  “Sounds okay. Maybe I should join?”

  “Please don’t joke about that, Willard.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. “Of course, Betsy has another tale. Her scarf caught fire one winter morning after she dumped a dustpan of debris from the kitchen floor into the open flame of the woodstove. It created a mini explosion. Her screams brought Mamm running, but there was permanent scarring on her chin despite the doctor’s best efforts.”

  “Childhood accidents,” Willard muttered. “They can leave lasting marks, like losing your parents when you are young. Not quite like your sister’s scars, but…”

  “I’d say worse.” Mary sent him a sympathetic glance before she pressed some buttons on the microwave. “That is pain of the heart. I’ve never heard your story beyond the bits your grandmother dropped here and there.”

  Willard resumed his seat at the kitchen table. “There’s not much to say. I was a small child and my parents didn’t come home one day. People tried to explain the accident to me, telling me my mom and dad were in heaven with Jesus, but then I saw them at the funeral home with no life in them. Children struggle with that.”

  The microwave dinged then. Mary retrieved the cups of hot water from the appliance and set them on the table, along with a box of tea bags she picked up from the counter. “I’m so sorry about that, Willard. You came to live with your grandparents afterward?”

  He nodded. “Grandma and Grandpa took me in. They gave me their best.” He forced a laugh. “If I have failings, they are my own fault.” He chose a tea bag and placed it in the cup in front of him.

  “Willard!” A gasp escaped Mary’s lips. “You don’t have any faults.”

  He laughed. “Says who? After all…” The words died away.

  “Carlene?” she guessed. “I thought I had it rough when my wunderbah life shattered. You’ve had things much worse.”

  “I lived, and in the end I have no complaints,” he assured her.

  “That’s because you are such a goot man. Of course you don’t complain, and you lost your parents well before she broke your heart.”

  He didn’t answer, the memories of a long-ago childhood flickering in his mind. The vision appeared distant, as if he saw another person he didn’t know, the form small and broken, huddled by a gravestone, tracing names with his finger.

  “Willard,” Mary called softly to him. “You’ve had a rough road to walk. Why do you want to complicate your life with me?”

  “Complicate?” Surprise filled his face. “You would simplify my life, Mary. Don’t you see what you offer? Peace, security, and stability I never had. Grandma tried, but this is different.”

  “You can minister to hurting children in Kenya without me.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You do so now out of a broken heart. Oh, Willard, you are such a wunderbah man.”

  Tears threatened, and Willard turned his face away. Carlene had never said such things. No woman had ever said them to him, except for his grandmother.

  “You haven’t touched your tea,” Mary whispered.

  He reached for the cup and took a sip. “I want to see you again, Mary.”

  “You are asking to court me? That is impossible, you know.”

  “And yet you are here.”

  Tears appeared in her eyes again. “I might be able to hide my trip down today, and a few hours with you at the co-op. But beyond that…I don’t know.”

  “Is that what we have to do? Hide the fact that we’re spending time together?”

  “I’m not ready for the explosion that will follow, Willard. I’ve just opened my heart yesterday after running away from this. Can you give me a little time?”

  “I’ll go back to Kenya, and you can have all the time you want.”

  “That won’t help.” She shook her head. “How long can you stay here until you have to leave?”

  He smiled and reached for her hand. “For as long as you wish.”

  “I’m not going to take that kind of time, Willard. Can you give me next week? We can see each other somehow. I’ll think of something. We’re in the middle of winter, and I can close the co-op for the first part of the week. Betsy will come down with me to visit again, and she can stay with your grandmother while we go somewhere. Can you do that?”

  “I will do what works for you,” Willard assured her. “With all of my very willing heart.”

  “You are so kind,” she told him. “What if I let you down? What if my courage fails me?”

  “I’ll take that chance,” he said. When Mary stood to leave, Willard called up the stairs to his grandmother. “Mary’s leaving!”

  She bustled down to retrieve Mary’s coat and scarf from the bedroom. He held her hand for a moment before Mary slipped into her winter clothes and went out the door.

  “How did things go?” his grandmother asked.

  “We’re meeting again next week,” he told her. “Do you really think this is possible?”

  “With all my heart, Willard.” Her face glowed with happiness.

  THIRTY

  Betsy studied Mary for a moment, seated across from her on the couch. This was a winter day in February, and Mamm and Daett were in their bedroom for a Sunday afternoon nap. Mary had been staring out the window ever since they had arrived home from the church services.

  “Were you missing Willard today?” Betsy finally asked.

  Mary attempted a smile. “I’d rather not answer that.”

  “Did Mrs. Gabert tell you he has flown back to Kenya?”

  Mary appeared startled. “Did you know Willard was going to leave?”

  “No, just guessing, but now I know that you knew. Did you talk with him before he left?”

  “Shh…don’t even say that,” Mary whispered.

  “Let’s go upstairs.” Betsy motioned with her head. “We can talk there. Something is bothering you.”

  Mary hesitated. “Gerald is in his room across the hall.”

  A smile crept across Betsy’s face. “So you have something to say that Gerald can’t hear.”

  Mary stood but didn’t answer.

  Betsy followed her sister into the kitchen. “What did you do? I can’t imagine you have done anything too radical.”

  “So you have been saying those things about Willard and me without actually thinking them through?”

  “I can’t believe this, Mary. What have you done?”

  Mary looked away. “I saw Willard yesterday at Mrs. Gabert’s. I didn’t tell the whole truth of why I went down to check on her.”

  Betsy bounced onto a kitchen chair and stared at her sister. “But this is wunderbah. What a great gift, and Christmas is already long past. I can’t believe you followed my advice.”

  “I didn’t. I followed my heart,” Mary mumbled. “I am seeing Willard a few times in secret next week, but I’m sure you’ll cover for me. After that, I’ll have to tell Mamm and Daett if by then Willard hasn’t decided this is enough foolishness. You know what will happen.” Mary thre
w her hands outward. “Explosion!”

  Betsy hugged herself. “Oh Mary, you have begun the journey I always dreamed of but was never able to make. You cannot know how delighted I am! This is so, so right and perfect. Words fail me. You and Willard are made for each other.”

  Mary’s face was pained. “Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and come to my senses, but I doubt it. I seemed to have crossed a bridge that has no way back. The man is so…he’s honorable and noble, and he has a heart for hurting people, and…and he loves me, Betsy. I can’t believe it. I can’t help it that he’s Englisha.”

  “You don’t have to persuade me,” Betsy reminded her. “I’m on your side. But why aren’t you down there with him this afternoon?”

  “I’m not ready for the…” Mary’s hands flew outward again.

  “No one needs to know,” Betsy leaned forward to whisper. “I’ll cover for you. I’ll think of something. If you hurry, you can be back in time for the evening chores.”

  “I was just there yesterday.”

  Betsy waved her arms about. “Just go. We’ll think of something next week.”

  Mary took a deep breath and dashed into the mudroom for her coat and boots. Betsy waited by the kitchen door until Mary left with a whispered “Thank you.”

  Betsy went back to the living room and walked over to the window. Mary was already out by the main road. She disappeared moments later down the hill toward town. Betsy fanned herself with her apron. Who would have thought this moment would arrive? Mary, the solid and obedient sister, was sneaking downtown to meet with an Englisha man. That would have been one thing several years ago when Mary was on her rumspringa, but now Mary was baptized, and that changed everything.

  Mary must love Willard deeply to run this kind of risk. Nothing else would cause her mature and steady sister to run off the rails. That’s how the community would interpret Mary’s actions. Her budding relationship with an Englisha man could not be kept a secret for long.

  Betsy turned to go upstairs and into her room across from Gerald’s. Her brother was probably reading some forbidden novel on a Sunday afternoon, something along the lines of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. Gerald sneaked in books under his shirt when Mamm wasn’t looking. Everyone was sneaking around except Betsy, the girl who was expected to jump the fence. The whole community had given up on her long ago because of her constant talk and determination expressed over the years.

  Betsy sighed and settled on her bed. She slipped her hand under the pillow and pulled out Ronald’s letters—two of them so far. The man wrote as well as he danced, with grace and skill. There was nothing forbidden on these written pages, but she liked the thrill of pretending. Who would have thought that she was the one who would choose the Plain path. Not that she had exactly chosen. Ronald had appeared when she had given up on him. He seemed to have taken over her heart, much as Willard had taken over Mary’s. How strange things were turning out.

  There was still time to turn back. She wasn’t married to Ronald or even promised to him. That would come soon enough, and it would lead to everything she had vowed to escape. Things such as dishes that must be washed by hand, cake mixes whisked until one’s arms ached, and stoves that exploded into one’s face.

  Betsy flinched at the memory of the flames. The years had removed none of the pain. How was she supposed to know stoves did such things? No one had blamed her for what had happened. The scars had been there to make their case and block the path to love. She wasn’t ugly, but what else had kept the Englisha boys from showing an interest in a relationship? She had been available to date. Her desires had not been hidden, but only an Amish man had chosen to love her.

  Maybe she had never wanted to escape the community in the first place. Her heart had been ready enough to love Ronald. Hadn’t she dropped hints often and in many ways? Her faith had not expected love from the kind of man she had seen in her dreams. That was why she had longed for the Englisha world.

  Mary, on the other hand, had never wanted to leave the community. Or maybe they hadn’t looked deeply enough into what she wanted out of life. Had signs been there all along?

  Betsy stared at the envelopes in her hand. She was confused and happy at the same time. Maybe that was how being in love felt. The joy in her heart knew no bounds, and Ronald was an Amish man unlike any she had met before. Why complain about mysteries and lives that didn’t turn out as planned?

  She had been determined not to submit, not to accept blindly what she could not understand—the injustice, the smiting of the innocent, the unprovoked bruising of body and soul. She had always wondered why the flames had injured her face and not someone else’s.

  Betsy sat up on her bed. Ronald had somehow broken past those feelings. He hadn’t answered the questions that plagued her. He had loomed above them and distracted her, but they were still there. Mary’s use of the word explosion, once the community learned of her love for Willard, was no exaggeration. Once more the innocent would suffer. Mary carried nothing but a heart of gold and the purest of intentions. She had planned to marry a solid Amish man, and she had given Josiah her heart, only to have him reject her in a cruel manner. What man had the indecency to marry on the exact day chosen by his former girlfriend? But Mary hadn’t grown bitter. She wrote poetry and submitted herself—and look at what had happened. Willard Gabert! Who could explain that?

  The situation would grow worse after Mary was excommunicated. That was bound to happen. Betsy was not yet a church member, so she would not have to give her consent to her sister being under the bann, but Mamm and Daett would have to agree to Bishop Miller’s council. How could they cast their daughter out into the darkness for loving an Englisha man? Mary had always dreamed of a home in the community, but she would serve side by side with Willard in Kenya among children who were truly hurting. Was that a cause for condemnation? How was Betsy to overlook that insult? How could she live in harmony with a community who did such things? Those were flames that seared deeper than skin.

  She picked up an envelope and shook out the page.

  My dear Betsy,

  How sweet are my memories of you and of the time we spent together. You are light on your feet when you dance. Did you know that? That must be how you approach life—a skim across the waters, a stone that never sinks. I wish you had been with me this evening. We are just back from a party north of Paradise. They played several of the songs we heard that evening I was with you. As the music surrounded us, I could imagine you with me, in my arms, your breath light on my cheek. Everything about you is light, Betsy. You lift my spirits. I thought I could wait a few months before I made the trip back to the valley, but I think I’m coming sooner. I’ll think of some reason while the snow flies. There’s not much going on in Lancaster. Anything I’m doing could be made better by being with you. Or maybe you can make the trip down to see me? I have a cousin who could put you up, or I’m sure you have relatives here who would be glad to see your lovely face.

  Betsy smiled and continued to read. Ronald could shine into her darkest place. The letter continued on with bits and pieces of Lancaster news. Many of the people she didn’t know, but she would get to know them if she dated Ronald long enough.

  “Take care, sweetheart,” the letter concluded. “Don’t forget about me.”

  Betsy folded the paper. She should write back and tell Ronald about the trouble with Mary, but things had a way of spreading once they were said. Even letters to Lancaster might spill the news back into the valley. No, Mary must be given the time she needed to either resolve this issue or light the fuse herself. Betsy would stand by Mary’s side through the pain, and because Ronald was special, he would do the same. Somehow Betsy knew that. Ronald was not an ordinary Amish man. He would prove equal to the task. He already loved a woman with scars on her face.

  Betsy stood to push back the drapes on the bedroom window. Low clouds rolled in from the Adirondacks, but the afternoon sun seemed ready to break through. Would their life follow that pattern? A
brief storm before sunshine?

  Betsy saw Mary hurrying up the driveway toward the house. What had the two said to each other—Willard, the Englisha man, and her sister, the jilted Amish woman? Had two broken hearts found healing, perhaps even hope for the rough waters ahead?

  Betsy went to the bedroom door as she heard Mary’s footsteps on the stairs. She peeked out to see Mary’s flushed face in the hallway.

  “How did things go?” she whispered.

  “I didn’t stay long,” Mary replied before she bolted into her bedroom.

  That didn’t answer the question, but Mary didn’t appear heartbroken. She must be planning to meet Willard again next week.

  “What’s going on?” Gerald asked from behind her.

  Betsy jumped. “Just talking to Mary.”

  He grunted. “How about some popcorn before the chores? We haven’t had any in a while.”

  Betsy smiled brightly. “Sure, Gerald. It’s snowy outside. I’ll go right down and make some.”

  Gerald stared strangely after her as Betsy dashed down the stairs.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Mary drove Danny Boy down the streets of Fort Plain at a steady trot. Betsy had offered to come along this morning and stay for the day to help at the co-op while she spent some time with Willard, but Mary had said no to that idea. That would have required explaining to Mamm and facing questions she didn’t wish to answer. Mamm had to know that something was afoot, but did she suspect the truth? Mary hoped not. At least not yet.

  She didn’t quite believe matters herself, that she was sneaking around meeting an Englisha man. This activity had to end, and she only had two choices. She could tell Willard goodbye this morning, or she could tell Mamm she planned to leave the community. By nightfall Deacon Stoltzfus would appear for a visit, and the horrors of an excommunication would begin. The third option was no option, which was to drag out the decision. She was forced to make up her mind quickly when she needed time for reflection and prayer.

  Mary groaned as she approached the co-op. Stephen’s buggy was parked in plain sight with his horse tied to a light pole. She had tried not to think further about Stephen’s encouragement that she jump the fence, but if the man had changed his mind, his words would cut deep on the day she didn’t need to hear them. But maybe this was the Lord’s way.