Hidden Life (9781455510863)

by Senft, Adina

  “It’s nice,” Tyler said. His shoes scraped on the stones in the walk. “Emma, when we were talking over supper I kinda left some things out, since your mom was there.”

  “Left some things out? There isn’t much about wedding preparations that Mamm doesn’t already know.”

  “It was nothing to do with wedding preparations. Not directly. See, I spent most of the day helping Grant clean out the barn.”

  “No wonder you’re so tired. I am, too.”

  “And we sort of…talked.”

  Something in his tone made a spritz of unease shoot through her stomach. “Again? And what assumptions are you going to make this time?” She slowed her steps in the lane under the darkness of the overhanging trees.

  “This wasn’t like the other day. But I was so tired and your name came up and I…”

  Oh, dear. “And you what?”

  “I kinda let it slip. It was an accident, Emma. It just popped out and then it was too late to take it back.”

  She stopped walking altogether, and he stopped beside her. The outline of his tall body in the dark looked like Alvin Esch’s might have if his father had discovered his correspondence-school packets. “Tyler West, what did you say?” she asked quietly.

  “Well, we were talking about how everyone pitches in, and how you and Carrie were Amelia’s best friends and were going to stand up with her tomorrow, and that led to whether a man could be friends with a woman the way two women are, and he asked me if you and I were friends.”

  Well, that didn’t sound so bad. “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him we were…and that we were also business associates. I told him about your book.”

  Emma let out a long breath. Compared to what he might have blabbed, this was nothing. “Did you?”

  “Emma, I’m sorry. It’s my business, you know? And I’m used to talking about my business, but I’m not used to talking about yours. Anyway, he feels the same as that Calvin guy. Articles you can get away with, but a book is no go.”

  “I know that, Tyler. I’ve said so from the beginning. Regardless of what an individual person’s opinion might be, the Ordnung is pretty firm on the matter.” She didn’t think there was a specific stricture against an Amish church member having a book published, but that wasn’t the point. There were plenty of strictures against women speaking outside the home, or appearing in public offices and such. They were lucky they got to sell their quilts in their front yards.

  “There’s more.”

  She had relaxed and resumed her leisurely walk toward the big house. She could just see the lights in the front windows through the trees. “What? Better be quick, we’re almost there.”

  “So then he asked me just how good a friend you were to me. He takes a while to get to the point, but when he gets there, he really lets you have it.”

  Just like some people she could mention. Emma’s heart began to pick up its pace even as her feet slowed. “So you told him the truth, of course.”

  “Of course. I said I valued your friendship very much, but that’s all it was. Friendship. And then I—” He gulped. “And then I did it again. I swear it was exhaustion talking, Emma. It was like my mouth said words while my brain was in a coma. I told him it wouldn’t matter even if I was crazy in love with you, because the only man that mattered to you was standing right beside me.”

  Emma’s heart gave a great thump and for the space of five seconds she felt as if her lungs couldn’t get breath, as if the world had ground to a halt on its axis.

  He hadn’t said that. Surely he hadn’t. Ach, mein Gott, please back everything up to before I heard this and maybe I can stop it before I find out it’s true.

  “I’m sorry, Emma. I didn’t mean to blab your secret, and especially not to him. It just happened. But maybe it’s not such a bad thing. I think it’s good that he knows. Like I said before, now you can—”

  “What did he say?” Her voice didn’t even sound like hers. It sounded as if someone had dragged it through the gravel in the lane.

  “Well…nothing. We just finished up the horses’ stalls and went on to sweeping where the buggies go.”

  This was even worse.

  Grant had nothing to say. Not a “That’s interesting” or a “You must be mistaken” or anything else. He’d probably been stricken silent with pity. No wonder he’d made such an effort to be neighborly out there in the pasture. A good friend. Not a man who was interested in courting. And she’d read it completely the wrong way. He might have even thought she’d waited to get her horse just as he was hitching up his. But he was far too kind a man to show it.

  So much for Tyler’s vain assumptions the other night. But somehow, having him proved wrong felt even worse. “How could you?” she whispered. “How could you do this to me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You of all people. The one I thought I could trust because you’re not of my world and have no reason to talk to people.”

  “But I thought—”

  “If this is how you keep someone’s confidence, I’m glad I didn’t give you my book. What other kinds of terrible moral behavior are you guilty of?”

  “Emma, it’s not like that.”

  “What is it like, then? Do you realize what you’ve done? Now I have to go through Amelia’s wedding knowing he’ll be there, feeling sorry for the poor spinster he thought was his friend, with her pathetic little dreams of something more.”

  “He’s not that kind of man and you know it.”

  So he was telling her what she knew, was he? With his three whole days of experience in her world? Her temper ignited. “Here’s what I know. I might have to be there, but you don’t. I don’t want to see you or hear from you ever again, Tyler West. You just march into that house, get your things, and take yourself back to New York. You’re not welcome here any longer.”

  “What, now? Tonight? Emma, please, you don’t mean—”

  “I’ll tell my sister you’ve had a change of plans.” She pushed past him, and ran up the front stairs, her fury melting into an enormous lump of tears in her throat. If she spoke one more word, she would start to weep and she would never, ever stop.

  For once in her life, Karen kept her mouth shut. She simply went to the boys’ room and put his things in his duffel bag until he moved her to one side and finished the job himself. Karen nodded stiffly at his mumble of thanks, and stood at Emma’s elbow as he tossed the bag into the backseat of his car. The engine fired up, the car wheeled in the yard, and he left the farm at least twice as fast as he had arrived.

  As the tires ground at the turn onto the paved road and he accelerated away, Karen asked, “Do I dare ask what just happened?”

  “No.” Emma started down the farmhouse steps. “It’s over and done and I don’t want to speak of it.”

  “I can’t say I’m not happy.”

  Nei? Well, I can.

  Emma hurried into the lane, where the trees shielded her from view of both houses. Her chest ached, her throat ached, and blast it all, there were the tears, running hot down her cheeks. She gasped for air, and it turned into a sob, and she slid to the grass, weeping her heart out alone in the darkness.

  During Pap’s decline into dementia, Emma had learned that sleep was one of God’s most underestimated gifts. She’d counted every hour like a miser, totaling them up with precision, rolling minutes together like coins. Some nights left her poorer than others.

  The night before Amelia’s wedding left her impoverished.

  It wasn’t that she was afraid her swollen eyes and pale cheeks would cause any comment—no one looked at her for pleasure, anyway. But as one of Amelia’s attendants, she had duties to perform, and a sleep-deprived brain would not help her do her best for her friend.

  At least before the service, and after the Abroth where the elders had counseled Amelia and Eli in private, she could sit upstairs with Amelia and Carrie among the wedding presents, which gave her just enough time to whisper to them what
had happened. Amelia had a bad case of jitters, so Emma made the sacrifice of her own pride gladly when she saw that indignation on her behalf took Amelia’s mind off the singing of “So will ichs aber heben an, Singen in Gottes Ehr” downstairs.

  Finally it was time. On the third verse of the Lob Lied they got up, and Amelia smoothed her new white apron over her blue skirts. In single file, they went down the stairs, and Emma took the hand of Eli’s youngest brother, who was barely twenty, and he led her up the aisle to the front. Carrie smiled at Melvin as if she were the one getting married, and they took their places. Eli took Amelia’s strong, slender hand as if it held everything important to him on this earth, and led her to her place and then took his seat opposite her.

  The Gmee picked up where they had left off in the hymn until the elders came in on the eighth verse. When silence fell, Moses Yoder stood and began the opening, the story of Adam and Eve. When he was finished, Emma and everyone else knelt in front of their chairs for a few minutes of silent prayer. After a minister from Eli’s congregation read the marriage verses in Matthew 19, Bishop Daniel stepped forward for the main sermon.

  Emma put out of her mind all the specters that had haunted the night hours, and concentrated on two people she cared about deeply leaving the loneliness of their separate paths to join their lives in marriage. Grant Weaver and Joshua and Calvin might all have been in the congregation, and Tyler West was no doubt back at home where he belonged, but in front of her she could see love and commitment and the blessing of God. She was their witness, and anything else vying for her attention had no place here.

  When Bishop Daniel had made his way through the stories of Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Ruth and Boaz, and Tobit and Sara, at last it came time for the vows.

  “We have here a man and a woman who have agreed to enter the state of matrimony, Eli Fischer and Amelia Lehman Beiler. If any here has an objection to the marriage, he now has opportunity to make it known.” Silence fell, hardly more than one tick of the clock. “So, then. No one has any objection, so if you are still minded the same, you may now come forth in the name of the Lord.”

  Amelia and Eli got up and moved to stand in front of the bishop, and Eli took her hand, gripping it as though he never meant to let her go. Emma reached for Carrie’s hand, too, blinking back tears.

  “Can you confess, Brother, that you accept this our sister as your wife, and that you will not leave her until death separates you?” the bishop asked Eli quietly. “And do you believe that this is from the Lord and that you have come so far by faith and prayer?”

  “Ja,” Eli said without a moment’s hesitation.

  When Bishop Daniel asked Amelia the same questions, it took her a moment to get her answer out—not because she didn’t want to, Emma saw, but because she was trying not to cry. “Ja,” she whispered.

  Each of them vowed to be loyal to the other, to care for the other in sickness and adversity, in weakness and in moments of lost courage. And then Bishop Daniel took their right hands between both of his, finally allowing the ghost of a smile in the depths of his gray beard. “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with you together and give His rich blessing upon you and be merciful to you,” he said. “I wish you the blessings of God for a good beginning and a steadfast middle and a faithful ending, in and through the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.” His voice strengthened as he, Eli, and Amelia dipped their knees at the mention of the holy name. “Go forth in the name of the Lord. You are now man and wife.”

  Ruth Lehman stayed just long enough to see her daughter safely committed to Eli, and then she and the kitchen crew slipped out to start work. The ceremony ended with a few words of blessing from Isaac Lehman and Eli’s father, and after the final hymn, the elders were the first to shake the bridal couple’s hands. Amelia and Eli and their attendants nearly disappeared in the crowd of well-wishers, so it was a while before the crowd thinned enough to allow Emma to make her way to the door.

  Where the first thing she saw was Tyler West standing on the lawn next to Grant, bold as a day lily in a vegetable garden.

  Her uplifted, grateful spirit at seeing her best friend committed to a man who loved her evaporated, letting her down with a bump.

  “I thought you said he was gone?” Carrie whispered at her elbow.

  The nerve of him! Well, the fact that he was Eli and Amelia Fischer’s guest didn’t mean she needed to speak to him. “I thought he was. I told him to leave last night and he did. He must have gone to Grant’s, who’s practically the only other person he knows here.” She hurried Carrie across the lawn to the upper floor of the barn. There the men had set up the Eck and the two of them had decorated it yesterday.

  Calm. You must be calm. Anger has no place on such a happy day, Emma Stolzfus, so you’ll just put them both out of your mind.

  The embroidered tablecloth where Eli and Amelia would sit looked so pretty with her china, and the blue damask tablecloths Carrie had found for half off at the big-box store in Lancaster were pale as spring rain, and set off the white icing of the wedding cake to perfection.

  “I was so afraid something would happen to this on the way over.” Carrie moved the second cake a fraction to the right. “I had visions of opening the box and seeing it all splatted to one side.”

  “It looks beautiful,” Emma said sincerely. “How on earth did you get those ribbons to lie so…ah, I see. You edged them with icing.” Each of the two layers had a satin ribbon tied around it and a bow, edged top and bottom with a thread of frosting. “How are they going to cut it?”

  Carrie dimpled. “The ribbons aren’t real. It’s candy.”

  “Oh, my.” Carrie was so talented. “When did you find the time to do this? And without Amelia seeing it, no less.”

  “I did it in the spare room and kept the door closed. I hope she likes it.”

  Carrie needn’t have worried. When the bride and groom and all the crowd climbed the steps to the huge loft, Amelia’s eyes shone and it was all they could do to keep her from moving the store-bought wedding cake, with all its curlicues and icing roses, to one side and putting Carrie’s cake in its place. The chocolate one with rolled icing that Emma had made paled in comparison, but she didn’t mind at all. Chocolate was Amelia’s favorite, and what it lacked on the outside would be more than made up in fudge filling on the inside.

  In an instance of God’s perfect timing, both Tyler and Grant waited for the second sitting, which meant Emma, as a member of the wedding party, could finish her lunch and flee before they came upstairs to eat. The kitchen helpers ate at second sitting, but there was no way she would be allowed in there to help with the dishes. It seemed natural to join in the singing in the afternoon, and in all the crowd, why, it was easy to miss speaking to someone. Besides, she hadn’t met Eli’s two brothers and their wives, who were so nice and so interested in the quilt the three of them were making that it was suppertime before they finished their visit.

  In fact, it was getting on for evening before the kitchen was cleaned up and set to rights and the first of the guests began rolling home. Cows waited for no man, and milking had to be done on most of the places in the district.

  Emma felt rather pleased with herself that her evasion tactics had worked so well. She had no idea where Tyler West was, and only a fair idea of where Grant might be, seeing as his girls and little Zachary had gone back to the farm with their Yoder aunties ten minutes ago. It was time to get home anyway. Mamm had come with Karen and the children, and had gone with them as well, but she would still be wanting to talk over the day in front of a piece of pie and some chamomile tea.

  Emma started past the barn, heading for the field behind it and the gate in Moses Yoder’s fence.

  “Emma.” She turned with a start to see Grant Weaver not ten feet behind her, turning his good black hat in his hands.

  And then she knew she hadn’t been so clever at evasion, and that she’d been avoiding him out of humiliation and nothing more. Now it
was time to face the music. “Grant.”

  “I haven’t been able to get close enough to speak to you all day.”

  “Ja, well…standing up for Amelia and all…”

  “Are you on your way home?”

  She gestured up the hill. “I was just going to walk. You remember…it’s only a few minutes through the field.”

  “Ah. Of course you want to get home, after all your busy day.” He took a step back.

  What was this? He sounded almost as if he wanted to talk to her. Not avoid her. Not laugh at her.

  Talk.

  She dragged a breath into lungs that seemed to have been pressed flat as a linen tablecloth. “I’m in no hurry.” Nothing like stepping out on a limb with nothing but air beneath you. But this was Grant. Surely he wouldn’t deliberately bring up a subject that would hurt her? Surely what Tyler had told him had been firmly put in the past—especially if Tyler had gone running to him and confessed his mistake?

  His face brightened. “I thought maybe— Would you— That is…could I offer you a ride home?”

  If the skies had scrolled back and a choir of angels begun singing, Emma would not have been any more surprised. In a single moment, ten years collapsed away and she was that teenage girl again, too tall and big-boned and awkward, a glad Yes ready to burst out like the trumpets of those angels.

  Could he still be the boy who would give a girl a ride home and never ask again, choosing instead the prettier face, the livelier eyes? Had he learned, like the adult he said he’d become, which would wear better in the wash? Or was she just fooling herself and making far too much of this?

  With a glance up the hill, she said, “It’s probably shorter to walk.”

  “It probably is. But you said you were in no hurry.”

  Was he trying to convince her? Goodness. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  A smile flickered at the corners of his lips. If she hadn’t been watching him so closely, she might have missed it. “I’m not offering out of the goodness of my heart, to spare your bum knee and your lumbago. I’m asking because I’m a selfish man and I haven’t been able to get near you all day for that crowd.”