An Amish Family Reunion

by Mary Ellis

  Julia hobbled into the house as quickly as her stiff legs would carry her. She found Simon at the table, studying a list of farm commodity prices. “Oh, good, you’re here.” She tossed the other mail on the counter and turned on the burner beneath the coffeepot.

  “Where else would I be? It’s lunchtime and I’m starving. Is there any of that bean soup left?”

  “Jah, jah, give me a minute to reheat it. Try not to faint in the meantime.” Julia took the soup pot from the refrigerator, set it on the stove and turned the dial to warm it up, and then sat down opposite him. “We got a letter today from Matthew and Martha.”

  Simon glanced up with mild interest, waiting for the news. “And?”

  “Something is not right there. Our son took a different job. He no longer trains horses at that racetrack. He was offered a trainer position at some big fancy saddlebred stable. According to Martha, those are expensive show horses for rich people.” Her description dripped with ill-concealed disdain.

  “Jah, that’s gut.” Simon surreptitiously glanced back at the current prices for corn and soybeans.

  “No, not gut at all. They were living with their fellow Amish in a town close to the track. He either rode his horse to work or was picked up by an English employee. They would have been able to raise their kinner in an Old Order community similar to this one.” She waved her hand in the direction of the backyard. “Matthew’s new job is a great distance away. He stays in a bunkhouse for hired help and only comes home on the weekends. Martha is alone night after night, and I know she’s not happy about it.”

  Simon peered at her over his half-moon reading glasses. “Did she say that?”

  “No, no, she wouldn’t, not to her husband’s mamm, but I could tell.”

  He reflected for a moment. “Sometimes a man must make hard decisions about what’s best for his family. I’m sure if a job opens up closer to home, he’ll jump on it. You know what a homebody he is.”

  She opened her mouth, but Simon stopped her with a raised palm. “In the meantime, Julia, don’t start hearing voices that aren’t there. Every young couple goes through an adjustment period.” He lifted his newspaper in front of his face. “Those two will be fine as long as meddling relatives keep their nebby noses out of their personal business.”

  She crossed her arms and clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth but didn’t argue. She knew she had a nebby nose, but she also possessed a mother’s well-honed intuition.

  She hoped she was wrong about this particular hunch.

  THREE

  On the last Monday of May, Phoebe stood waiting in front of Java Joe’s coffee shop in downtown Berlin with Rebekah Glick. She’d never felt like this before—she was light-headed, her stomach was queasy, and she couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs. A doctor might diagnose car sickness, but the much-anticipated bus trip hadn’t begun yet. The buggy ride before dawn with her dad had been nerve-racking. Seth had not said much—unless you counted “Stay with the group.” “Don’t wander off with Englischers.” “Don’t get too close to the rail during the boat ride or too close to the Niagara River,” at least a dozen times each. Other than that, he had merely grunted and chewed on a wad of gum. If she’d needed further confirmation that her father was addled by her vacation, that would have been enough. Seth Miller never chewed gum.

  Phoebe had developed her own nervous tics. She had reached down to touch her recently purchased suitcase not less than a dozen times. It was navy blue with a long handle and rolled on wheels. She loved it. Her mother had found it at the Goodwill Store in Wooster for ten dollars and it looked brand new. Maybe someone’s trip had been canceled and they decided not to reschedule. Hannah had sewn two dresses last week for her to take along. She smoothed the creases in her long black apron over the new cornflower blue one. Dad had grunted and muttered about these too—“The vain extravagance of new clothes”—but at least the girls waiting for the bus were wearing Amish attire. As soon as their fathers were out of earshot, Rebekah told Phoebe about a rumschpringe trip in which the girls wore jeans, T-shirts, and flip-flops.

  Dad had kissed her forehead, issued several last-minute warnings, and said goodbye, but Phoebe knew very well he hadn’t left. He parked their buggy behind the German Village shopping center to watch unseen from afar. He wouldn’t take his eyes off his little girl until the bus rolled out of Berlin, headed toward the Empire State. Her daed—how she loved him—was driving her crazy. Phoebe Miller was a grown woman, eager to see the world. His overprotectiveness was unnecessary and annoying.

  “It’s coming!” Rebekah’s shout drew stares from passing tourists on both sides of the street.

  Phoebe’s stomach took another tumble. She hastily grabbed a packet of peanut butter crackers Mom had insisted upon and ate two as the bus came to a stop. If she threw up on the bus in front of kids she didn’t know, she would simply die—no slip over the falls would be needed for her premature demise. Shoving the remaining crackers into her purse, she wheeled her suitcase to the curb. The driver stowed their luggage in a large compartment underneath the bus. Phoebe panicked. What if she needed something from her bag? It would be inaccessible to her.

  Quickly she ticked off in her mind the things she might want: water bottle, chewing gum, hard candy, tissues, money for lunch—all were inside her purse. Just when the bus driver was about to lift her bag, Phoebe stepped forward. “One moment, please.” With nimble fingers she unzipped the outer compartment and extracted a drawing tablet and pack of pencils. It wasn’t her usual oversized pad she wandered around the meadow with. It was a smaller version suitable for travel. As soon as she had rezipped the case, the driver slung it into the cargo compartment along with the others. Phoebe blew out her breath with relief apparently evident on her face.

  “Close call?” asked someone over her shoulder. The boys had moved up to stow their bags now that the girls were climbing into the bus.

  Phoebe turned to see a tall boy with sandy-blond hair and expressive dark-brown eyes—expressive because he gazed up from under thick eyelashes and bangs much too long. Where was this boy’s mamm? He needed to toss the hair to one side to see anything at all.

  “Jah,” she answered. One word, with no further explanation.

  The blond young man stepped forward and put his suitcase—a battered duffel bag patched in several places with electrical tape—by the curb. Then he returned to her side. “Did you remember to put your name and address on the outside of your bag for easy identification? We’ll stop to pick up Geauga County kids along the way, so the bus will be full by the time we arrive in New York.” He peered at her from under his screen of hair.

  “Jah.” Again one word. A parrot could be trained to say more.

  “And because most suitcases look alike and because these other folks will also be Amish, there’s a good chance of duplicate names: Joshua Raber or Andrew Miller, for instance.” He smiled rather patiently. When she offered no response, one word or otherwise, he asked softly, “And what would your name be?” He leaned closer, as though anticipating the revelation of a secret.

  At that precise moment the bus window slid open and Rebekah Glick’s face appeared. “Phoebe Miller! Why are you still standing there like a goose? Get on the bus so we can start the fun.”

  “Ah, Phoebe Miller. A name at last,” he said.

  Phoebe felt her five-foot-nothing height lose an inch or two, but the knowledge that Rebekah and her sister were watching from the window galvanized her into action. She hurried toward the steps, where the last travelers from Holmes County were boarding.

  The verbose young man followed behind, right at her heels. “And a lovely name at that,” he said, close to her ear.

  She had no idea how to react to such a flagrant, unexpected compliment, so she tripped on the first step. This wasn’t an everyday occurrence—meeting a boy around her age who was a stranger to her. Most Amish youths reached courting age with at least a passing acquaintance of each other.


  No one grabbed her arm to prevent her fall. Rather gracelessly she fell forward, scraping her palms on the dirty stair treads and dropping her purse.

  At last the tardy young man intervened. “Wow, that’s a lot of junk to carry around! Let me help you.” While Phoebe brushed her hands on her apron, he picked up her purse and began retrieving items, announcing the name of each: “Sunglasses, tissues, pen, Rolaids, Jolly Ranchers, aspirin. Goodness, are you moving to Niagara Falls, Miss Miller?”

  Phoebe’s voice miraculously returned. “Give me that purse and stop making a scene!” She yanked it from his grasp. “And stop following me!” She stomped up the steps, pausing by the driver’s seat.

  The Amish man stood on the curb with his hands in his pockets, resembling an overlooked puppy at the dog pound. “But then how do I get on the bus?” He feigned a sincere tone of voice.

  Her face grew very warm. “I meant later, during the trip.” She turned and hurried down the aisle.

  “Sit here,” called Rebekah, tapping the back of the seat in front of her. “We can’t fit three back here, so now you’ll have room to spread out and draw.”

  Phoebe flounced down, putting her back to the window so she could talk to her friends. They were both eyeing her a little oddly.

  “You hardly speak to anyone in all the years I’ve known you,” said Rebekah. “And then you strike up a conversation with him?”

  Phoebe had no chance to inquire what that implied because the subject of their discussion slipped onto the seat across the aisle. With forty or fifty different bench seats on the bus, he chose the one next to hers? She exhaled through her nostrils nosily.

  “Don’t ruffle your feathers, Miss Miller. There aren’t any other seats left except in the back, and I don’t like being there due to car sickness.” He patted his black vest where his belly might be.

  Phoebe craned her neck to scan the rows. True enough, the only empty seats were singles toward the back. “Would you like some Nabs?” she asked in a voice she didn’t recognize.

  “What are those?” He shook that ridiculously silky blond hair from his eyes.

  “That’s what my mamm calls these peanut butter sandwich crackers.” She produced a packet from her purse. “I don’t know why. It doesn’t say ‘Nabs’ anywhere on the wrapper, but she says motion sickness is worse with an empty belly. So maybe you should eat a few.” She shyly extended them across the aisle.

  “Danki, I will.” He accepted the gift, ripped them open, and proceeded to devour all six while the bus pulled out of the charming but touristy town of Berlin.

  Rebekah leaned over the seat back but addressed the unfamiliar man, not Phoebe. “That was more words than she has spoken since Christmas. Who are you?”

  Phoebe’s heart nearly stopped beating. It felt as though it were seizing up in her chest like a massive attack as she sank against the window.

  “My name’s Eli Riehl. And I often affect people that way. Either they run away fast when they see me coming or, if they stick around, I seem to get them talking.” He offered a lopsided grin to the Glicks. “And now poor Miss Miller has nowhere to run. She’s trapped like a rat on the Titanic.” He pivoted slightly on the seat to face her. “Eli Riehl,” he repeated. “I was hoping you would ask me my name, but when you didn’t, I figured I’d frightened you off. I’m glad your friends aren’t as shy as you and broke the ice.” He winked playfully at the sisters.

  “Rebekah and Ava,” said the older of the two, tapping her collarbone and then her sister’s arm.

  “I am not frightened by you and I am not shy…well, only a little bit. And what the heck is the Titanic?” Phoebe’s words issued forth louder than expected.

  People sitting nearby turned around to stare and snicker. Amish women seldom used the word “heck.”

  But Eli Riehl didn’t seem fazed by her sudden outburst. “The Titanic was the largest passenger ship in the world a century ago. Very fancy, and her builders proclaimed her to be unsinkable. But on her initial voyage to the U.S. she hit an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Most of her passengers perished because there weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone on the unsinkable vessel.” His expression turned somber out of respect.

  Phoebe squinted at this person badly in need of a haircut. Amish women might never say “heck,” but few Amish men would ever say “proclaimed” or “perished.” She glanced back at her friends. For the moment, several horses kicking up their hooves in a spring meadow had distracted them. “Why do you talk like that, using all those fancy words?” Her question was barely a whisper, but it triggered a dazzling smile on his face.

  He stood and smoothly slid onto her bench. “May I join you, Miss Miller? I don’t want anyone else to overhear what I’m about to confide.”

  She was mortified—a boy on the girls’ side? But surprisingly enough, no chaperone swooped in to separate them with a battery-powered cattle prod. Perhaps the idea of a rumschpringe trip did bend a few rules. “All right, but just for a spell,” she murmured.

  “Danki. I don’t want too many folks to know this about me, especially no other males.” He nodded his head toward those sitting on the left side of the bus. “I like words. I find them to be great fun,” he whispered close to her kapp. “Most people keep using the same five or ten thousand tired words their whole life, completely ignoring the million or so more interesting ones. But I realize I’m fairly alone with this way of thinking. Most men seem to go out of their way to reuse the same stupid words.”

  She studied him to gauge his sincerity. “I suppose you have a point, but few people would ever worry about it. If they want extra pickles on their burger, they just say so. No sense calling them sliced-cucumbers-in-a-dill-and-vinegar-brine where you’re hungry and want to eat.”

  His eyes bugged out with disbelief. “I have found, finally, the one person on the planet who understands me! And even better—she’s Amish.” Grins didn’t get any bigger than his.

  “But I don’t understand. I said there’s no need to use fancy terminology for a bunch of pickles.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “True enough, if we were simply having lunch at a fast-food restaurant, but I love to make up stories. So it’s rather like a great pot of vegetable soup—the bigger the variety of good things you put in, the better it will taste.”

  She blinked. “Where are you from, Eli? Did you just move here?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve lived in Holmes County my whole life. The Riehls have owned our farm for seven generations.”

  The surname did ring a bell, but Phoebe was certain she’d never seen him before. “How come we haven’t met?” She thought that was a kinder way of asking, “Did you drop out of the sky from a passing flying saucer?”

  He resumed his whispered mode of conversation. “I don’t go to social gatherings much. The one time I was talked into playing volleyball, I was pretty terrible. When I tried to return a serve, the ball bounced off my forehead instead.” He touched a spot above his eyebrow.

  Phoebe bit her cheek to keep from laughing. “Volleyball isn’t as easy as it looks. I myself have never developed much expertise at the game.”

  He nodded, those silky bangs obscuring his piercing dark eyes. “I’m afraid it wasn’t just volleyball. When I went to a Saturday softball game behind the Winesburg Library, my cousin talked me into playing centerfield. His team was short a man or he never would have asked. Anyway, a fly ball came sailing right at me. When I put up my mitt to catch it, the sun blinded me, and the ball fell right through my glove and landed at my feet. Then it took me three attempts to pick up the ball because I was so flustered. Needless to say, the other team scored an infield home run, and nobody’s asked me to fill in ever since.” He added an easy laugh. “Truth is, Miss Miller, I’m not much good at sports and that doesn’t bother me. Although I don’t admit that to my own kind.” He again gestured with his head toward the left.

  A dozen ideas swam through her head, but with Eli Riehl sitting so close, she could har
dly place them into a sensible order. Winesburg? His ill-fated baseball debut had been in her hometown, yet she’d managed never to run into him.

  “Phoebe,” she said after a half-minute pause. “Please call me Phoebe.”

  That pulled his mouth into a smile. “So, that’s why we’ve never officially met. I stay away from parties—I only go to barn raisings—and the singing at church services is enough singing for me. But, actually, I think I have seen you once before. It was at an auction fund-raiser. You wandered off from everybody else with a giant pad of paper. I followed you to see where you were going and what you were up to.”

  Just then the speakers blared with loud, raucous rock music. The driver quickly adjusted the volume down slightly, but the music rendered further conversation—or any thought process—impossible. Mrs. Stoltzfus, one of their chaperones, bustled up the aisle with a speed that belied her substantial body girth. After a short discussion with the driver, the music ceased altogether.

  A little while later, after the bus had picked up the Geauga County travelers, Mrs. Stoltzfus returned to the front and clapped her hands. “Welcome, everyone,” she said. “Now that we are all together, I would like you to listen to an interesting story Eli told me while waiting for the bus to arrive this morning. It supposedly is true, although parts do sound far-fetched. But, either way, I think you will enjoy hearing it.”