by Drexler, Jan
“He seems pretty sad right now.” Ruthy pushed a stray hair under Nellie’s kapp.
“But he doesn’t stay sad anymore. He said he’ll read a happy story from the Bible next, as soon as the popcorn is done.”
Ruthy smiled at Nellie, even as her eyes filled again. “Then we’d better make the popcorn, ja?”
Nellie nodded and ran back to the living room, where Ruthy could hear an animated conversation starting. Perhaps she did belong here after all.
Chapter Seven
The storm in the early part of the week had blown itself out by Wednesday, but Friday brought a frigid wind from the northwest and the promise of more snow. Ruthy shivered as she dressed for the day. Even though she stood as close to her little woodstove as she dared, the air in the Dawdi Haus was icy.
She opened the stove door and pushed the coals together, covering them with a blanket of ashes. They might last until evening, otherwise she would have to lay a whole new fire.
One last glance around the room showed that all was in order, and she picked up the lamp for the short walk to the main house kitchen. The room was warm, thanks to the fire already burning in the kitchen stove. It was thoughtful of Levi Zook to start the fire for her each morning.
After pumping water into the coffeepot and measuring enough coffee grounds, Ruthy started working with the sourdough. She’d make pancakes this morning instead of biscuits. That would be a treat on such a cold day.
By the time the family was sitting at table, Ruthy and Waneta had breakfast ready. After the prayer, she cleared her throat to get Levi Zook’s attention.
“What is it?” He looked at her from the other end of the long table, before turning his attention to filling his plate again before she could speak.
“Today is marketing day, Levi Zook. Could Waneta and I take the buggy to the store?”
He shook his head as he poured tomato ketchup onto his eggs. “It’s too cold today. I don’t want the horses going anywhere, nor you and Waneta. The thermometer says three below this morning and the barometer is falling.”
David whooped and James said, “You mean no school today?”
“That’s right.” Levi Zook nodded and took a bite of eggs. “I doubt the school bus will be running, so you boys can help Elias work in the barn today.”
Ruthy swiftly went through the items on her marketing list. She could make do without them until tomorrow.
“Could Waneta and I use the buggy tomorrow, then?”
“There is a storm coming. I doubt we’ll be going anywhere for the next few days. It’s a good thing this is an off Sunday for church.” Levi Zook took a swallow of coffee, then looked at Ruthy over the rim of his cup. “Is there something special you need?”
Something special? “Not really. I was going to get some more wool to make stockings, and I wanted to get a few groceries.”
“Ja, well then, you’ll have to make do with what we already have.”
Ruthy nodded, trying to hide her disappointment. She had been hoping to see what the store was like, and maybe meet some of their neighbors. She had forgotten this was an off Sunday for church, and she had been looking forward to the fellowship.
Breakfast cleared up quickly with the scholars at home to help. Ruthy put the girls to work on the upstairs bedrooms, Martha with Nancy and Waneta with Nellie. Working in pairs, the little girls would be good helpers to their sisters.
Ruthy started a pot of chili soup for dinner, knowing the family would need hot food on such a cold day. As she opened the jars of stewed tomatoes and kidney beans, she went through her mental list of pending chores. This would be a good day to go through the children’s clothes and see what needed to be passed down and who needed new things made.
The rest of the morning was spent going through the girls’ dresses. Martha’s skirts were all too short, so they were handed down to Nellie and Nancy. Ruthy showed Waneta and Martha how to take in the side and shoulder seams so the dresses would fit the smaller girls.
“Nellie has the brown dress, and I have the green one for school,” said Nancy, “but what about a for-good dress?”
“We’ll have to make new ones for you, but I don’t know where we’ll find the material.” Ruthy tried not to sound concerned as she pinned the hem of Nancy’s new dress. The little girl stood on a stool, modeling the dress as Ruthy turned up the hem to fit her.
Martha smoothed the front of Waneta’s blue dress that fit her perfectly. “I think Mam had some fabric up in the attic. She bought it before...”
Ruthy’s eyes filled with tears as the girl choked on the words she couldn’t say. “Thank you, Martha. We can look for it together, ja?”
“Where is Waneta’s new dress?” Nellie crawled up on Martha’s bed next to her biggest sister. “She’s giving hers to Martha, but who will give one to her?”
“Perhaps we can make one from the material your mam saved, if we can find it.”
“Or there are Mam’s dresses.” Nancy twisted to look at Ruthy, pulling the hem of the dress out of her hands. “I know where they are.”
Nancy jumped off the stool before Ruthy could stop her and ran out of the room. She followed Nancy down the staircase and around the corner to Levi Zook’s bedroom. Ruthy stopped at the doorway.
“Nancy, what are you doing?” Waneta’s voice came from behind her, and Ruthy stepped aside to let her pass.
“I saw them, in here.” The little girl knelt next to a chest at the foot of Levi’s bed and lifted the lid.
Before Ruthy realized what was happening, all four girls were staring at the dresses lying on the top of the contents of the chest.
“It...it smells like Memmi.” Nellie’s voice was soft. She knelt down next to Nancy and reached out a hand to touch the charcoal-gray dress, folded neatly with the apron and kapp on top of it.
Ruthy hesitated in the doorway. She had never been in Levi Zook’s bedroom. Stepping in the room would be intruding on the man’s personal territory, but the girls had to be stopped before they went any further.
“Girls, close the lid and come out. We mustn’t disturb your daed’s things.”
“I remember this dress.” Martha’s voice was a whisper. “Mam wore it when we went to church.”
“I had almost forgotten what she looked like.” Waneta lifted her eyes to Ruthy. “But I remember her wearing this dress.”
“What dress?” Levi Zook’s voice came from behind Ruthy, from the front room. “What are you doing?”
Ruthy twirled around, filling the doorway to his room. Would the girls close the lid before Levi Zook saw what they had been looking at? It tore her heart in two to see Nellie caressing her mam’s kapp and the girls’ tear-filled eyes. What would it do to their father?
He didn’t look at her as he brushed past.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what Nancy was doing when she came down here....”
“Waneta, girls, close that chest and leave. Now.” His voice was quiet, but firm.
The girls obeyed, silently filing past Ruthy.
Levi Zook stood and leaned with one hand on the post of his bed, staring at the chest on the floor. Ruthy turned to leave him alone with his thoughts, but his strained voice stopped her.
“Wait.”
She looked back. He sat heavily on the bed, his head in his hands.
“What made them come in here? What were they looking for?”
Ruthy cast back. What was it that had brought Nancy in here?
“We were passing dresses down to the younger girls, and there wasn’t one for Waneta. Then Nancy said she knew where her mother’s dresses were....”
Rising, he crossed the room to the door, his face red and twisted. “Just go.” His eyes darted past her and then to the floor. “Just go. I need to be alone.”
Ru
thy stepped back as he shut the door in her face. Why hadn’t she stopped Nancy before the girls opened the chest?
A sudden bang on the wooden door made her flee to the kitchen.
* * *
Levi kicked the twisted rag rug to the side with a growl and slammed his hand against the door. Why had the girls come in here? Why had Ruth let them? Did she have no control over herself?
Ach, he knew better than that. She hadn’t even been in his room—only in the hall outside the door. The girls had been the ones to intrude, but he had never forbidden them to come in.
Sinking onto his knees next to the chest that held Salome’s things, he laid his hand on the lid, the lid that hadn’t been opened since the day she had died.
Until today. He rubbed one hand over his face, but the memory of his daughters’ tearful faces remained. Opening this chest had been like opening a Pandora’s box, releasing grief and sadness into the house all over again.
Was it wrong to save Salome’s dresses and the few things he had found in her dresser drawers? He couldn’t bear to just dispose of them as if she had never lived, had never been his wife, had never been the mother to his children.
He smoothed the top of the chest before lifting it. Salome’s Sunday dress, kapp and apron lay on top. Underneath were her everyday dresses, and beneath them were her diary, letters from the round robin she had belonged to from the time she was Nancy and Nellie’s age and a little faded dress—the first she had sewn for her doll when she was a child.
The sum of a woman’s life in a little box.
All his anger evaporated and he closed the chest. Salome was gone and he missed her, but it was time to go on. It was what she had wanted, and what he intended to do. His children needed him.
He rose and walked to the window. Gray clouds met the horizon in an indistinct line of blowing snow. Through the fencerow he could see Salome’s childhood home, sold now to Englischers since her parents were gone and her brothers had all moved west to Kansas. He had spent so many hours there as a child, playing with Salome’s brothers, and then later while he and Salome were courting. Until she passed away last year, there hadn’t been a day of his life that she hadn’t been a part of.
He missed her. He missed her companionship, her laugh and her love for their children, but he wouldn’t want to call her back from the blessed place where she was now. He hadn’t realized how sick she had been. Since before Sam was born she had been wasting away, but he had blamed it on a difficult pregnancy, and then she had trouble recovering, until he finally had to admit her illness was more than a passing weakness. She faded away gradually, slowly, without realizing he was losing her until it was too late. She had suffered greatly in those last months while rounds of doctor visits and medicines had been useless. He would never wish that time back again.
Levi took in the room around him. He had kept his clothes on one peg, in one half of the dresser. He slept on one side of the bed. The room was waiting for another wife, another mother for his children. Would he ever find someone who could step into Salome’s place?
* * *
The girls stood in the kitchen, their faces white and drawn.
“Is Dat all right?” Waneta asked as Ruthy came into the room.
Was he all right? She had never seen a man look as wretched as Levi Zook when he slammed the door in her face.
“He will be.” Ruthy tried to smile to reassure the girls, but they only exchanged glances with each other.
Ruthy looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “It’s nearly noon. The chili soup is done, so why don’t you girls set the table. Waneta, we can have bread with the soup, and Martha, if you would please bring up a jar of prune plums from down cellar, we can have a nice hot dinner.”
Her face burned as the girls started their tasks and Ruthy hurried through the kitchen to the Dawdi Haus. Her rooms were cold, but silent and empty. She threw herself onto her bed and let the tears flow.
Why had she let the girls go into his room? They had intruded into Levi Zook’s bedroom, pried into his belongings and disturbed his peace. He had every right to be angry with her, didn’t he? But she had never seen a man act as Levi Zook had. Was this what grief brought a man to?
Ruthy’s tears slowed as she considered his point of view. She was still a stranger, and yet she was watching his girls pry into his dead wife’s things. She should have stopped them, she should have taken them away as soon as she saw what was inside the chest.
And yet, shouldn’t the girls have reminders of their mother?
She rose from her bed, hurriedly splashing water to wash away the blotchy redness she knew the family would see when she went back to the kitchen. Drying her hands and face on the towel, she shivered. It certainly seemed colder than it had been this morning.
A knock sounded on the Dawdi Haus door as she adjusted the pinnings on her dress. The girls must need her help.
“Ja, I’m coming.” She opened the door while holding her skirt in place with one hand, pins in her mouth and kapp askew, but instead of one of the girls, Levi Zook stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets.
She hurriedly fastened the last of the pins into her waistband and straightened her kapp the best she could while he watched.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but I wanted to talk to you while the children were busy.”
“Ja, ja, ja, come in, please.”
The man looked huge and out of place in the little Dawdi Haus. He looked around the room as he stepped in.
“It’s cold in here.”
“The fire is banked.” Her words sounded foolish. Why was he here?
“I need to apologize to you.” His face was tired, but all traces of his earlier anguish were gone.
“Ach, ne, Levi Zook. I’m the one who should apologize. I let the girls go much too far when they went into your room. It was unforgivable.”
He had moved to look at her books on the side table, but turned at her comment.
“Unforgivable? Nothing is unforgivable.”
Ruthy looked down and smoothed her skirt with her hands. “Some things are. Betrayal is unforgivable.” Her voice shook. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
Raising her eyes to Levi Zook’s, she saw something there. Pity. Concern. Sadness.
“Nothing is unforgivable, Ruth. Our heavenly Father is ready and waiting to hear our repentance. We only need to turn to him.”
Ruthy’s heart felt cold and hard in her chest. He misunderstood, thinking she had been the one who sinned. But she had been the victim of Elam and Laurette’s betrayal. How could she forgive what they did to her?
She tried to apologize again. “I am sorry for letting the girls intrude into your bedroom. If...if you think I shouldn’t be working for you, I would understand.”
He reached out to grasp her hand in his. “I was angry, and I shouldn’t have been. I was afraid of what you’d think...what the girls would think... Is it wrong to save Salome’s dresses and things? They’re all I have to remember her.”
Ruthy looked into his face. His eyes were shadowed, the anguish had returned.
“Not all, Levi Zook. You have her children.”
Levi’s eyes flashed open and he squeezed her hand.
“You’re right. I could never forget her while I have the children, could I?”
Ruthy pulled her hand away and turned to the chair, where she had dropped her apron.
“Dinner is ready. You must be cold and hungry.”
He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “One thing, first. I want you to take Salome’s dresses from the chest and fit them for Waneta. I’ve laid them on the chair in the front room.”
“But...”
Levi Zook continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ll take her other things up to the attic. The girls will want to have them someda
y, when they’re older.”
Ruthy nodded. It was the right thing to do.
Sounds intruded from the kitchen. The boys had come in from the barn, bringing noise and laughter with them.
Levi dropped his hand from her arm. “I think it’s time for dinner.”
Ruthy looked into his eyes as she passed by him on the way to the kitchen. They were shadowed and red-rimmed, but held a peace she hadn’t seen since she had met him.
Chapter Eight
The storm Levi Zook had predicted blew in that afternoon, with a sharp northwest wind whistling around the eaves and driving tiny flakes of snow against the windows in a relentless hissing.
Ruthy built up the fire in the front room so she could help Waneta and Martha make the needed alterations to their new dresses. The rest of the children played games on the floor near the stove while Levi took Elias and Nathan out to string a rope from the house to the chicken coop and barn. No matter how thickly the snow blew, the animals would need caring for.
“How long do you think this storm will last?” Ruthy squinted her eyes to thread a needle in the dim light. She had never experienced such wind at home.
“Sometimes it snows for a week,” David said from the floor.
“It only did that once.” Waneta was bent over her sewing and spoke around the pins held tightly between her lips.
“I remember one winter we couldn’t go anywhere for two whole weeks.” James jumped David’s checker and claimed it.
Martha looked up from the hem she was sewing. “Was that when those Englischers ran their automobile into the ditch at the end of our lane, and they ended up staying in the Dawdi Haus until the roads were cleared?”
“I don’t remember that,” Sam said, looking up from the farm he was building out of blocks.
“You were a baby then,” David answered. “You didn’t remember anything.”
“Those Englischers were funny,” Waneta said. “They were from the city, on their way to visit relatives. Dat said they didn’t know any better than to stay home when bad weather threatens.”
