Marrying Jonah

by Amy Lillard

  The bishop had told her that he would recommend that they serve a two-week shunning. They would use those two weeks to reflect on their sins and get everything right with God before they got married. The wedding’s October date was coming up so quickly it made Sarah’s head spin. But everything seemed to do that these days.

  She pressed a hand to her belly. She didn’t know if it was stress or just the changes she was going through, but everything made her nauseous. Everything made her head hurt, everything made her dizzy. It was hard to eat and it was hard to sleep. And yet she trudged on, hoping that one day she would wake up and find this all behind her.

  Chapter Six

  Sarah sat across from Jonah at the kitchen table at the Ebersols’. It seemed she had been here so many times over the last few days. How ironic the church was held at their house this Sunday.

  They were waiting on their time to go in, kneel, and confess before the congregation. Once they completed this task, they would hopefully have a two-week Bann that would end at the next church service. They would get married the Tuesday after that.

  Married. That was the one thing she had dreamed of her whole life. All Amish girls did. She’d been raised to be a wife, whether it was to a farmer or Amish man who worked an English job, whoever she had the good fortune to fall in love with and marry. It was the one thing she wanted most.

  And now . . . not as much. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the irony of it all. Two months ago she would have given anything to sit with Jonah at a youth group meeting or even just to have him talk to her. She knew that was just giving her more excuses to hang on and wait for him, so she had given up, vowed to move on. Now in just a couple of weeks she would be marrying him. And it was the last thing she wanted. At least, she didn’t want it like this.

  “Are you ready?”

  She jerked her gaze up to Jonah’s. He was staring at her, really looking at her like he had never looked at her before.

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Does it matter?”

  He shook his head. “I guess not.”

  “Do you think we’ll get two weeks?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Hard to say. That’s what the bishop said he would ask for, since we were doing everything in our power to right our wrongs.”

  Meaning they would confess, get married, and then raise their child in the church. It was all that could be asked of them.

  “And then after that?”

  Again he shrugged.

  “We have a lot of decisions to make,” she reminded him. There hadn’t been a great bit of time over the last few days to start making those decisions, but they were coming up quicker than she would’ve liked.

  “If you’re talking about the wedding,” he started.

  She shook her head. “My mother’s making my dress, your mother’s making your shirt. All we have to do after that is show up.” The guests were all in place and they weren’t handing out favors.

  “So what do you want to talk about, Sarah?”

  She shook her head. It wasn’t the time or the place. Not yet. But they had a lot to decide. A lot to discuss. It would have been easier to talk about had they been in love. He would share with her his plans for a home for them, where they would live and what they would do. She knew he would stay on the farm and help his father, at least for a time, and after that, who knew? He might get his own farm and plant corn and soybeans.

  She pressed her hand to her belly.

  “They’re ready for you now,” the deacon said.

  Jonah shot to his feet, rubbed his hands down the front of his pants, then pushed his chair back to the table.

  Sarah stood slowly, unwilling to hurry to what was essentially her doom. It was the last thing she wanted to do. The very last thing. But a necessary step in starting over. And that was something she desperately needed.

  * * *

  Two weeks passed in the blink of an eye and slow as molasses. There were times when she felt like she was on some type of whirlwind ride at the fair and other times when she thought this day would never come.

  “Just four more days,” Libby told her.

  Sarah frowned at her cousin. “This isn’t strange for you?”

  Libby gave her a sad look. “Listen, not everyone manages to find love the same way.”

  Sarah shook her head. “And you think Jonah loves me?” Somehow she bit back her bark of incredulous laughter. As far as she could tell, Jonah pretty much despised her. He might have had one brief moment of weakness and thought about her a little differently. Or maybe it was because in that moment she wasn’t so readily available to him. Whatever it was, she had followed him in that bad decision, resulting in a baby and a wedding, in that order. But now the moment was gone and they were doing their best to survive the consequences.

  “He could. If he would let himself,” Libby said. “Marriage is forever, Sarah. Just know that. If the two of you are ever going to survive this and hope to have a happy life, pray. It’s going to take a little work. It’s going to take some effort on both your parts. But it can be done. We just have to have faith.”

  “Faith in what?” She was running on a short supply of faith these days.

  “That God’s will can see you through.”

  * * *

  Sarah couldn’t think of one thing she would rather be doing less than sitting at her kitchen table facing off against Jonah and his parents. This was the meeting they’d been putting off from the very beginning.

  “But tradition dictates that they should move in with us until they have their own house,” her father said.

  “I need Jonah at the farm,” Eli Miller countered. He was the one saying the words, but Sarah knew they came from Jonah. She knew because he refused to raise his gaze to anyone sitting at the table. Instead he used his fork to cut tiny little pieces of piecrust into dust.

  She wanted to reach across the table, grab his arm, yell at him to stop and pay attention, to care just a little bit. But she couldn’t make him care. She couldn’t force him to love her. She couldn’t force him to want this, and that made her hate this all the more.

  “I understand that,” her father said. “It seems to me that we might have more room than is available in your house.”

  “Room is not the issue here,” his mother said. “We need him to help take care of Buddy. They share a room, and if Jonah leaves, Buddy’s schedule will be thrown off. We’re fixing to bring in the corn. If you take him now, that’s time away from being on the farm.” His mother continued to list all the reasons why Sarah needed to move in with Jonah instead of the other way around. And moving in with his parents? It was the last thing Sarah wanted to do. They might be getting married in just a couple of days, but she couldn’t lose herself like that. If she had to move in with the Millers, she would be gobbled up and would never be Sarah again.

  Jonah stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the linoleum floor and teetering a bit before landing back on all four legs. “Sarah, may I talk to you?”

  She looked to her parents, then to his, unsure what to say to that. Especially with him standing over her, his hand outstretched.

  The implications were too great to ignore. This would be their marriage. Their life. They would have to make decisions. She hesitated a heartbeat more and slipped her hand into his. He helped her to her feet, then marched her out the door.

  She stopped on the porch but he kept going, loping down the steps without a single glance back. He made it halfway to the barn before he realized she wasn’t behind him.

  “Are you coming?”

  Once again she was left with a decision. She started down the steps. “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere we can talk. Alone.” He ducked into the barn, leaving her to follow.

  The dim interior of the barn was even cooler than the October breeze outside. The smell was familiar and comforting, hay and horse accented with a tiny bit of manure. It shouldn’t have smelled good to her, but somehow it did. The sme
ll was earthy and real and seemed to wrap its arms around her, comfort her. And that was the one thing she needed right then.

  He settled down onto a five-gallon bucket while she leaned up against the stack of hay off to one side.

  “I can’t live here.”

  “You’ve already said that, but there are a lot of decisions, Sarah. I’m needed at the farm now.”

  “I don’t understand. We’re supposed to move in with my family, and we have so much more room.”

  Jonah shook his head. “I’m not worried about room. We have plenty. I’m worried about Buddy and Prudy and everybody else. Not sure how they would handle it if I just up and left.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “What about my family? Don’t they count for anything? My sisters will have questions if I just leave one day.”

  “Be practical, Sarah.”

  “You know, I’m tired of everybody telling me to be practical. This is not a practical situation. I have to be practical about the wedding. I have to be practical about the living arrangements. What else do I have to be practical about?”

  He crossed his arms and glared at her. “I will not live with your family.”

  “That’s not fair to me at all.”

  “Fine. We’ll live with my family for the first six months, and if in that time I don’t buy you a house and get you a place of your own, then we’ll move in with yours. Sound good?”

  She couldn’t say it was the arrangement she wanted. But it was better than nothing. Wasn’t that what they said marriage was all about, compromise? “Jah. Fine. Okay.”

  “This is never going to work if we’re constantly mad at each other,” he finally said.

  “You’re the one walking around angry, Jonah. I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “I never said that.”

  She laughed. “You didn’t have to. Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t want to marry you. I even asked my family if there was something else I could do. Some place I could go and have this baby and no one need ever be the wiser.”

  He jerked back as if he’d been slapped. “You did what?”

  She crossed her arms as his went slack. “You heard me. I asked if there was a way that I could get out of marrying you. You don’t want to marry me. Why should we enter into a loveless relationship?”

  This seemed to take a little of the zip out of his horse. “What did they say?”

  “That there would still be love in my future. That many marriages started off loveless, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t find love one day. But I don’t believe that will happen either.”

  He continued to stare at her as if he couldn’t believe the words she was saying to him. But for so long she’d felt like she’d been doing everyone else’s will. She had done what was expected of her, she had been patient. She had waited her turn, helped her fellow man, and it had given her absolutely nothing. Zip, zero. And just once she wanted a little more than that.

  “Surprised?” she asked. “I’m marrying you because I have no choice. Don’t expect me to love every minute of it. And don’t expect me to allow you to take advantage of me. I won’t be a dutiful wife while you do anything and everything that you want to do. That’s not happening.”

  She pushed off from the hay bale and marched to the barn door, only then realizing that she might have said those words, but she had compromised on the one thing she didn’t want to compromise on—where they were going to live.

  * * *

  Jonah watched her go, his jaw slack. He shut his mouth, lest any flies decide to come in, then pushed himself to his feet.

  She didn’t want to marry him? Wasn’t that all she had wanted last year? She had managed to put herself in his path every available opportunity for months. At every event, he couldn’t turn around without her being there. And now she wanted to deny that she cared about him?

  He remembered their talk that fateful night down by the pond. She had told him that she had loved him and talked about it like it was over, like everything was in the past. Maybe she had loved him, but not anymore. She cared about him, but not like she used to.

  He had walked around that volleyball game, the first Amish event he had gone to in a couple of months, but it hadn’t felt the same. He hadn’t wanted to be with the Amish, but the English world was starting to lose its charm. He couldn’t find out what he wanted to know about Lorie and what drew her there. It was just a lot of drinking and girls in scandalous clothing, people who wanted to make out whether they knew your name or not. At first it had been a great deal of fun, then it just got boring. But when he’d come back to the Brenneman volleyball game, he couldn’t find solace there either.

  Now he was getting married to a girl who seemed to hate him. Where did he belong and what did God want from him? He wished he knew.

  * * *

  Jonah’s words stayed with Sarah all through the remaining days before the wedding. Just last week she had witnessed the joining of Jonah’s brother Aaron and Mary Ebersol. It had been such a happy time. Now she was getting married. Sarah felt sadder than ever.

  But she had made her bed and now she had to lie in it.

  “Are you ready?”

  Sarah shook that thought away as her mother turned toward her. “Jah.” But that was a lie. She wasn’t ready for this. Not at all.

  She had dreamed of her wedding day for as long as she could remember. Now she had no attendants and a small cake, and they would be home by five. Not the day she had envisioned by far.

  But the saddest part of all was it didn’t really matter. She was marrying Jonah Miller, like it or not.

  Chapter Seven

  Sarah wiped one arm across the back of her forehead and reached for the next bag in the back of the trailer. The last one. And then tomorrow they would go get the rest of her things from her parents’ house. But for today, this was it.

  “Here.” Jonah nudged her out of the way. “Let me get it.”

  She wanted to tell him no, but she was so tired she didn’t complain. It had to be the stress of the day mixed with the pregnancy exhaustion that she had heard everyone talk about that had her in such a state. As it was, she was about to fall asleep standing up.

  Jonah lifted the bag with ease and carried it into the house. Sarah trudged behind him.

  It was the last place she wanted to be. Jonah’s mother and father had stayed behind to help clean up. Sarah was sure that Jonathan would be bringing Prudy and Buddy home shortly, but until then she was alone in the house with Jonah.

  She pushed into the house behind him just as he headed up the stairs. Then it hit her all at once. They were married. Married. And as a married couple, would be expected to act like a married couple. Good or bad, right or wrong, love or not, they would be expected to carry on. And that meant sharing a room. Sharing a bed.

  Her head began to pound. “Where are you going with my stuff?”

  Jonah stopped on the fourth step up, but didn’t turn around. “Upstairs.”

  “I can see that. But where are you going with it?”

  “Sarah . . .” He continued up the stairs without even a quick glance in her direction.

  “Jonah!” Her exhaustion vanished in an instant. She started up the staircase after him. “Where are you taking my things?” She had to hear him say it. This was something they had never talked about. They had only discussed that they would live here for the first six months and either move into their own home or stay with her family after that. Where they would sleep had never been brought up. But she couldn’t imagine that the efficient Gertie Miller hadn’t made arrangements of her own.

  All during the ceremony Jonah’s mother had dabbed at her eyes as if she was witnessing a funeral instead of a wedding. At first Sarah had tried to pretend that Gertie was overcome with joy at seeing her two sons get married. Then she started to wonder if maybe the joy was just for Aaron. But no, they were tears of sadness for Jonah. She was sure of it.

  Jonah made his way down the short h
allway at the top of the stairs. She followed him, but he acted as if she wasn’t there. He stepped through the last door on the left and she trailed after him, not sure of what she was going to find.

  Twin beds stood on opposite sides, their headboards pushed up against the outside walls with a curtainless window in between. Jonah tossed her bag onto the bed closest to the door, then turned to face her, his hands on his hips. His eyes blazed. “What?”

  Sarah looked from the bed to her husband. Husband.

  “This is your room.” She wasn’t positive, but it wasn’t a question. She knew. She just needed him to confirm.

  “Jah.”

  “I can’t stay here with you.” She wouldn’t stay in here. Theirs wasn’t a traditional marriage, and despite what his family wanted or thought, she couldn’t stay here in this room with him. She wouldn’t. Staying in his house was bad enough. She had already given up so much.

  He exhaled out his nose, the sound heavy between them. “Sarah. Can you not?”

  That was it! “Can I not what? Stand up for myself? Have an opinion? Or just a brain?”

  For a moment she thought he was going to give her anger right back to her, but instead, his shoulders slumped. “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

  Part of her wanted to give in to the pleading whisper of his voice. But she couldn’t let him get the best of her every day for the rest of their lives. They had to have some sort of compromise or she would completely lose herself and who she was.

  “I can’t sleep in here with you, Jonah.”

  He shrugged. “Why not? There are two beds. And . . .” He stopped as if gauging his words. “Buddy had to move out of here so you could move in. It was really hard on him.”

  “So let him move back in.”