“Is that why Aunt Katrina hasn’t come to visit her?”
“Ja.” Mammi looks troubled.
“But what about you and Dawdi? Why aren’t you shunning her?”
“Your mamm needs our help. And we always hope that those who have fallen will confess their sins. We want your mamm to repent and return to her faith. Then she will not be shunned.”
“What about me?” I ask. “Am I shunned too?”
“No, no. You are English. You cannot be shunned.”
I look down at my jeans and T-shirt. “I’m guessing Aunt Katrina will not approve of my clothes.”
Mammi shakes her head with a slightly amused expression. “No, Shannon, Aunt Katrina will not approve. Not at all. If you stay with her, she will expect you to dress properly. She and Rachel will have what you need. I’m sure of it.”
Despite promising Dawdi that I would dress Amish, I feel myself growing resistant to this idea now. It’s one thing to compromise myself for my grandfather. But for this aunt, who doesn’t sound so nice? I’m not sure I want to become a pushover. But as we get closer to the house, I remember Ezra, and I realize that changes everything. I wouldn’t want to admit this to anyone, but I would gladly wear silly old-fashioned clothes for him.
“Mammi!” A tall, slender girl in a periwinkle blue dress comes running toward us. As she hugs Mammi, I study her. Even in Amish clothes, I can see she’s very pretty. Her dark shiny hair, smoothed away from her face, is neatly tucked under her white kapp. Her strikingly blue eyes are big and bright, and her smile is clear and sweet. She is altogether lovely. Picture perfect, even.
“Rachel,” Mammi says happily. “I want you to meet your cousin Shannon. She is almost your age. Sixteen.”
Rachel looks directly at me, reaching out to grasp my hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Shannon. I have looked forward to this.”
“Yes,” I say nervously. “I’m happy to meet you too. I can’t believe I have a real cousin.”
“Ja. You have plenty of real cousins. But you are my first English cousin.” Rachel grins. “Mamm is very curious to meet you too.”
“I told Shannon that your house might have more room than the dawdi house,” Mammi tells Rachel as we turn toward the big house. “She’s been sharing our spare room with Anna, but Anna is very sick, and poor Shannon is sleeping on the floor.”
Rachel holds my hand in hers as we walk. “Shannon is welcome to share my room, Mammi. Now that Grace is married and gone, I have a spare bed.”
“I had hoped you would offer it.” Mammi gives me a reassuring smile.
“Today is quilting day,” Rachel says as we go inside the enclosed back porch that leads into a big, tidy kitchen. “But the women won’t be here until 11:00.”
“It is Saturday,” Mammi says. “I almost forgot that.”
“Mamm!” Rachel calls out as we go through a rather stark dining room area that opens into a living room with a staircase coming into it.
“What is it, Rachel?” a woman’s voice says sharply from upstairs.
“We have guests,” Rachel calls out sweetly.
“Oh. I am coming.” The voice becomes more pleasant. Then a smiling woman wearing a dark blue dress comes down the stairs, but seeing Mammi at the foot of the stairs, her smile fades. “Guests?” She frowns at Rachel. “It is only Mammi.”
“Mammi and my cousin Shannon.” Rachel points to where I am standing slightly behind the staircase. “Come and meet her, Mamm.”
“This is your aunt Katrina,” Mammi quietly tells me.
“Welcome to our home, Shannon.” Katrina looks me up and down with a perplexed expression.
“Thank you, Aunt Katrina. I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Ja.” She peers curiously into my face. “You look some like Anna. Except your hair.” She turns to Mammi with an uneasy look. “You know I have women coming to sew quilts today. We haven’t even set up the tables and frames yet. I have much to do.”
“Ja, ja. I am sorry,” Mammi tells her. “I forgot it is Saturday.”
“But they can stay,” Rachel tells her mother. “Can’t you stay?” she says eagerly to Mammi. “Mamm made chicken casserole for dinner. I made your potato salad recipe. We also baked strawberry rhubarb pies last night. Six of them!”
“That does sound good.” Mammi tips her head toward me. “Maybe Shannon can stay to help sew. I must go back to tend to Anna.” She looks at Katrina. “She is very ill.”
“I’m sorry.” Katrina’s pale blue eyes remind me of an icy pond as she presses her lips together, still studying me with what seems a disgusted expression. Then she says something in Pennsylvania Dutch to Mammi. I suspect, by the way she quickly tosses some glances my way, she is talking about me.
“Rachel has offered to share her room with Shannon,” Mammi tells Katrina. She seems to be answering her in English for my benefit. “It is very kind and generous of Rachel. Poor Shannon has been sleeping on the floor. With her mamm so sick, they cannot share a bed. It would be good for her to be here with you, to get to know her relatives.”
Katrina looks fit to be tied right now.
“Ja, Mamm.” Rachel eagerly grasps my hand again. “A cousin who is almost my same age. We can get to know her.”
“An English cousin,” Katrina says coolly.
“Does not the Bible say to love our neighbor as ourselves?” Rachel asks her mother. “Are the English not our neighbors too?”
Katrina adjusts the strings of her kapp, smoothing them down next to her cheeks. She seems clearly annoyed, and I feel like crawling under a rock.
“Shannon has brought only her English clothes, but she is willing to wear a dress,” Mammi tells Katrina. “Perhaps Rachel has something she can use.”
Katrina’s face lights up a little. “Ja. That is a good idea.” She turns to Rachel, saying something in the other language, then back to me. “If you stay here, Rachel will help you to dress with modesty.”
“Ja,” Rachel says before I can respond. “I will do that, Mamm.”
Mammi thanks Katrina, excusing herself. “I must go home to check on Anna.”
“I’ll go with you. To get my things,” I say to Mammi. Mostly I want an excuse to get out of this place where I’m clearly not wanted. Well, at least not wanted by my aunt. My cousin seems welcoming enough.
“Hurry back,” Rachel cheerfully tells me.
“Ja,” Katrina says with less enthusiasm. “Do hurry. You will need time to ready yourself before our guests come.”
As Mammi and I walk back to the dawdi house, neither of us speaks, and I can tell she feels uncomfortable. “Shannon,” she says when we get inside her little house. “If you do not like staying with Aunt Katrina and Uncle Benjamin, you are welcome back here. Jacob and I will fix you a real bed to stay in your mamm’s room with her. If you would like that better.”
I look into Mammi’s eyes and once again am reminded that she truly is a kind woman. “Thank you,” I tell her. “That’s good to know.”
“Your aunt Katrina works hard,” Mammi says. “She wants everyone in her household to work hard too. It is her way.”
“I will try to be a good houseguest,” I promise Mammi.
“Ja.” She nods. “I know you will.”
As I pack my things, which will probably be useless to me in my aunt and uncle’s house, it dawns on me that I’m starting to talk like them. Not that they speak so differently, but the way they talk is very simple. Very much to the point. Considering they haven’t gone to school past the eighth grade, I guess it makes sense. I realize that I sometimes use words they don’t know. As I zip up my bag and kiss my snoozing mom good-bye, I remind myself that I should try to be more like them. When in Rome . . .
Before I go, I hand off Mom’s bottle of pills to Mammi. “These are prescription pills,” I explain. “From the doctor. From what I can tell there’s only enough left for about a week or so. After that, I suppose we could have them refilled in town.”
“What do
they do?” she asks as she peers at the label.
“Mostly they make her sleepy.”
“Oh?” Mammi frowns. “Is that good?”
I shrug. “Sometimes I wonder, but I know she can be pretty miserable when she’s awake and dizzy.” I explain a little more about Mom’s mysterious illness, and Mammi seems to be even more confused. “I don’t know if the doctor really figured it all out,” I confess. “But these pills do seem to help.” I bite my lip now, wondering how much to say.
“Is there something else?”
I look into her eyes, thinking, This is my grandma and I can trust her. “Yes,” I say quickly. “These pills are highly addictive.” I study her. “Do you know what that means?”
She frowns. “I’m not sure.”
I sigh, thinking what a wonderful world she must live in to be unaware of things like addiction. “It means that she may think she needs them more than she actually needs them. It’s like they make her feel better, but maybe they don’t really make her better. Does that make sense?”
“Ja, ja.” She nods, setting the amber bottle up on a high shelf.
I feel guilty, like I’ve betrayed my own mom. “You will take good care of her, won’t you?” I ask.
“Ja, Shannon, you know I will. I love your mamm. I want her to be well. I will give her good food, and I will try to get her out of bed too.”
I consider this. “Well, that might be good.”
“Now you must go.” She gives me a gentle push. “Aunt Katrina wants you to look like an Amish girl before the guests arrive.”
“Ja, ja,” I say in a joking tone.
Mammi laughs. “On with you then.”
As I walk back to my uncle’s house, my mind is on Ezra. I’m replaying our time from last night. In the harsh light of day, it feels as if it were a dream. Did that really happen? I remember him asking me to go to a party with him tonight. I said I would go. At the time I didn’t think about the fact that I might be relocated by then.
As I walk through my aunt and uncle’s yard, I get worried. What if they refuse to let me go with Ezra tonight? What if they think they’re supposed to be the boss of me? What if they lock me in Rachel’s room? Not only that, but I’m worried Ezra won’t know where to find me. I glance over my shoulder in the direction of his house, wondering if I should drop my bags and dash over there to attempt to find him. But I imagine his parents’ shocked faces to see an English girl, dressed like I am, wanting to see their son. I know it would be a mistake. Rumspringa or not, I doubt they would approve.
“There you are!” Rachel comes out of the house to meet me. “Mamm was getting worried that you’d show up after the women arrive.” She laughs. “We couldn’t have them seeing our English cousin ‘dressed in men’s clothes.’ They might faint from shock.”
I smile at her. I like that she has a sense of humor. And that she is kind.
“Come on up to my room,” she tells me. “I already got some things out for you. Mamm stored some dresses that I outgrew a few years ago. She was saving them for my nieces. But the little girls won’t be big enough for these garments for several years yet.”
Rachel leads me up the stairs, down a hallway, and into a room that’s not much bigger than the one I was sharing with Mom, but it has two twin-sized beds on opposite walls. On one bed three dresses have been laid out, resembling the cool side of a rainbow. One is a purplish blue, one is a medium blue, and one is a greenish blue.
“This one would be good on you,” Rachel says as she picks up the teal dress, holding it up to me. “It used to be my favorite, back when I was still in school, before I got taller.”
“It’s a nice color.”
“It matches your eyes,” she tells me. She proceeds to help me dress. I never knew I needed help getting dressed—well, not since I was too young to remember. I soon realize that Amish clothes are rather uniquely challenging, though. First of all, there are all these layers of undergarments, which go in a particular order. Although they are cotton and lightweight, they feel like overkill in this warm summer weather.
“Don’t you get hot with all these clothes?” I ask as I pull on the long, black stockings.
“Ja. But when we are at home, with no one visiting, we can go barelegged and barefoot if we want.” She looks at my feet. “What size are your feet? You are short, so they are probably smaller than mine.”
“Well, my feet are kinda big for my height,” I admit. “Eight and a half.”
She nods as she points out a black, flat-heeled shoe. “Well, mine are nines, but I have a pair that is on the small side. You can try them or just wear your own shoes if you like. Mamm prefers black shoes for us, but lots of girls wear what they want.”
She helps me pull the teal dress down over my head. To my surprise, it has no zipper or buttons. When I ask her why, she tells me it’s against the Ordnung.
“Are you serious? Zippers and buttons are against the rules?”
“Modern devices like zippers are English. We are Amish. We don’t want to be like the outside world.”
“What about buttons?” I ask as she reaches for a little box on her dresser.
“Buttons used to symbolize the military. Certain brass or silver buttons specified ranks. The Amish never wanted to be confused as the military,” she explains as she slips some straight pins between her lips.
I try not to laugh at this. Amish and the military? Seems like a real stretch to me. “Are you going to sew something?” I ask.
“No, I’m going to fasten your dress.” She steps behind me and proceeds to close up my dress—using straight pins!
“What if the pins slip out and poke me?” I ask after she’s done.
“If you do it right—and I did—they will stay put.”
“I still don’t get it,” I say. “So much concern about clothing. Why does it matter so much?”
“Our clothes help to set us apart. Just as God has set us apart. Amish history explains why this is important.” She reaches for what appears to be an apron, similar to what she is wearing. “Our people were massacred back in the sixteenth century—because of our beliefs. That is why we moved to this country. Religious freedom. The way we express our religious freedom is to live according to the Bible and the Ordnung. In a way that pleases God.” She pins the apron onto me, then nods with satisfaction. “All we need now is your covering.”
“Covering?” I imagine myself draped from head to toe in a burka.
Rachel taps her head. “A prayer kapp to cover your head. We don’t usually wear them at home, but because we have guests coming, Mamm expects us to dress properly. But first we have to do something with this hair.” She chuckles as she reaches for a comb. “I don’t think it’ll be easy.”
I look at her glossy brown hair, pulled back so sleekly. “If it’s supposed to look like yours, good luck.”
“First we comb it all back.” She works to get the comb through my curls. “As smooth and flat as we can get it. Then we secure it with a band.” She contains my wild hair into a ponytail. “Then we make it into a bun and pin it into place.”
I wait as she secures my bun, curious as to how this is going to look.
“Then we put a hairnet over it.”
“A hairnet?” I imagine a cafeteria lady.
“Ja.” She pins a hairnet over the bun. “And over the net goes your covering.”
“Why do you wear coverings or kapps or whatever you call them?” I ask as she reaches for a kapp that looks identical to her own.
“We do it out of obedience to Scripture. In First Corinthians 11:5 the apostle Paul instructs women to cover their heads.” She reaches for more straight pins.
“You’re not going to use those to pin it to my head, are you? That’ll hurt.”
She laughs. “They just go through the kapp and through your hair and back into the kapp again. I promise it will not hurt at all.”
I stand very still as she does this final pinning. No way do I want a pin pricking my scalp.
“There,” she proclaims. “Finished.” She nods with approval. “You look like a real Amish girl.”
“So I won’t embarrass your family now?”
She shrugs as she puts the comb away. “I don’t mind being seen with an English girl.”
As I follow my pretty cousin downstairs, where I can hear the voices of other women, I try to imagine what it would be like to be a real Amish girl. What if my mom had never left this place? What if I’d been born here like Rachel? What if this simple life was all I knew? Would it be enough?
11
My aunt responds to me completely differently now that I’m dressed in appropriate clothes. Even though I find this somewhat aggravating, I am also pleased. It’s kind of like how I feel when I take a math test—I despise taking it but am happy to pass it.
There must be close to thirty women here, inside and outside of the house, all of them working on big quilting frames and happily chattering amongst themselves. The quilts they are stitching are really beautiful—geometric creations in shades of purples, blues, greens, grays. I would love to paint a picture of this scene. Even more than that, I would love to learn how to make a quilt, but Rachel and I are kept busy getting their midday meal ready.
“What are the quilts for?” I ask Rachel as we set things out on the dining room table, which has been moved outside.
“It’s Mamm’s business,” she explains. “Mamm does all the work of cutting the quilt pieces and sewing them together to make a top, but when it comes time to quilt them, she invites her friends to help. At first it was only a few women. Two or three.” Rachel lowers her voice. “Mamm always makes them a good dinner and they have a good time—in time more and more women wanted to come.”
“What do you mean it’s your mamm’s business?” I ask as we go back into the kitchen. “Does she sell the quilts?”
“Ja.” Rachel nods as she checks the teakettle to see that it’s hot. “Mamm sells them to a shop in Hochstetler. For good money too. The quilts sell as fast as she can make them.”
“Interesting.”
As Rachel and I help with the food and drinks, I get to meet various women. All the women are pleasant to me, and although I’m introduced as Rachel’s cousin, only a couple of the women who are somehow related to me seem to piece together that I am the daughter of Anna Hershberger (the shunned). I can tell that when they switch over to Pennsylvania Dutch, they are talking about us, probably saying things they don’t want me to hear. It almost makes me wish I understood their weird language.
My Amish Boyfriend Page 9
