Thursday's Bride

by Patricia Johns

  “Rosmanda—” Miriam put a hand on her arm. “The trouble with being a mamm is that the older they get, the more they reach out to others. It’s okay. You’re doing a good job. You’re a good mamm.”

  Rosmanda couldn’t talk about her deeper feelings with her mother-in-law, like how she resented Levi for dragging her husband out that night, or how she wished Levi could just go away and some other nephew or cousin’s son could come and help. She wasn’t even comfortable telling Miriam that she didn’t want Levi’s help with the babies. There was some change around here that she was powerless to fight. But last night as she lay in her bed, she’d longed for her home in Morinville more ardently than she ever had before.

  Rosmanda and Miriam cooked up some breakfast. They made a sausage and egg casserole, a big bowl of hash brown potatoes, and a pot of oatmeal with sliced apples cooked in. It was a hearty breakfast for hungry men, and Miriam’s cheerful humming showed how happy she was to have her younger son to cook for.

  “Rosmanda, I’m going to need you to bring some breakfast to Levi this morning,” Miriam said. “Stephen will be back to eat, but Levi is determined to break that quarter horse.”

  “The one Wayne gave up on?”

  “Yah, that one.”

  “He wants to try—” Rosmanda felt anger simmering up inside of her. “I thought Stephen told him not to.”

  “You know Levi. Sometimes it’s better to just let him try.”

  “If Wayne couldn’t do it—”

  Miriam shrugged. “I never said he’d succeed, Rosmanda, but he’s determined to try, and Stephen doesn’t want to turn this into some big issue. We’ve only just gotten Levi home again.”

  “Of course,” Rosmanda said woodenly.

  “He’s promised Stephen that he’ll do it on his own time, and apparently, he’s eager to get started.” Miriam smiled hopefully. “Maybe he’ll succeed and we can keep that horse after all. He’s one big horse—he could pull a plow to Indiana if needed.”

  Rosmanda covered the bowl of hash browns with a plate to keep the heat in. To Indiana, indeed. Her heart seemed to be flowing in that direction, too. She missed home so much that it hurt.

  “Rosmanda, you’ll have to make room for Levi to make some contributions around here, too,” Miriam said quietly.

  “I know,” she said. “He helped put Susanna to sleep.”

  Against her wishes. When she’d much rather have had her mother-in-law helping her.

  “I’m not asking you to let him be a daet to your girls. I know that would have been . . . an adjustment to let him help with the babies. But he seemed to really have the touch with them, and—”

  And Miriam had been tired. She was a grandmother, not a young mamm anymore. Maybe Rosmanda had been leaning too heavily on her in-laws of late.

  “Yah, it went quickly,” Rosmanda said. “They were both asleep before long.”

  Miriam smiled hopefully. “He’ll be doing the things that Wayne used to—the men’s work, I mean. And that’s good. We need it.”

  How much had her mother-in-law overheard from her conversation with Levi last night? She did a quick mental tally, trying to remember what she’d said.

  “It isn’t my farm,” Rosmanda said quickly. “It isn’t my place—”

  “I know, and you’ve always been a wonderful daughter-in-law to us. I’m just saying that we need Levi here, too. Stephen’s foot keeps getting worse, and he can’t run this place alone with a little extra help from a woman. He needs the muscle of a grown man at his side, and I sense that Levi is . . . I don’t know . . . cautious around you.”

  Cautious? Rosmanda didn’t think so. If anything, he took too many liberties, and if his mamm saw caution, it was because he’d already overstepped where she couldn’t see. And because of that, Rosmanda was seen as the problem. That was clear enough. Miriam and Stephen had probably discussed this late last night while they lay in their bed—how to fix the problem of Rosmanda. Her stomach sank.

  “You won’t have trouble from me,” she promised quickly.

  “Don’t begrudge Levi success where Wayne failed,” Miriam said quietly. “It isn’t a competition. And Stephen doesn’t think that Levi will be able to break that horse, either, but it might be a good place for Levi to focus some of that frustration he seems to carry around.”

  And that was easier said than done, because if it weren’t for Levi, Wayne would still be here, and Rosmanda would be a happy, worry-free mother to healthy twins, instead of a widowed daughter-in-law who only seemed to get in the way of the Lapp family dynamics. If it weren’t for Levi’s willful flaunting of all the rules, refusing to forgive Wayne for marrying Rosmanda, causing tension even when he was working on another farm . . . If it weren’t for Levi, Rosmanda would still be a wife!

  * * *

  Levi stood in the barn, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the horse in front of him. The stallion was massive with a glossy mahogany coat and an angry glint in his eye that Levi was inclined to respect.

  “How are you, fellow?” Levi said, moving closer to the gate. He shook a pan of oats temptingly, but the horse shuffled backward and laid his ears back. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Levi raised a gloved hand toward the horse, and he stepped back again, colliding with the barn wall.

  Levi pulled his gloves off. Maybe they were part of the problem. “I’ve got oats.”

  He shook the pan again. Behind him the barn door opened, and he glanced back. Rosmanda came inside. She carried a basket in front of her, and her expression was grim. Her complexion looked pale in the dim light of the barn, and she tugged her shawl a little closer around her shoulders—it was a chilly morning, and the sun had only begun to rise.

  “Good morning,” he said, turning back to the horse.

  “I’ve brought your breakfast,” she said. “Where do you want it?”

  There was something in her tone, and he turned away from the horse again, eyeing her. “What?”

  “Your breakfast,” she repeated.

  “No, what’s the matter?” he said. “Or do you just wake up disliking me afresh every morning?”

  She put the basket down on a bench by the door. “I brought your breakfast, Levi. And I have chores waiting for me in the house.”

  “Ah.” He turned back to the horse again and held out the pan of oats. He wanted the oats—Levi could feel the desire building inside this beast. But he also wanted to take a chomp out of Levi’s arm, given the chance.

  “Your mamm told me that you’re trying to train this horse instead of sell it,” Rosmanda said, coming farther into the barn. Her voice was quiet, but it carried.

  “And that’s a problem?” Levi shot her an annoyed look. Was he to be managed by his sister-in-law now? “Is this your horse?”

  “No,” she admitted. “And your parents are happy to have you try.”

  “But you aren’t,” he clarified.

  Her mother-in-law had been clear enough inside the house—she wasn’t to discourage him.

  “How will you do it?” she asked instead.

  “First of all, I have to make friends with him.” Levi put the pan of oats down. “Wayne used to talk about this horse a lot. He couldn’t get the horse’s trust. That was the problem. And sometimes, like people, it just comes down to personalities that click together.”

  She blinked. “When did he tell you about the horse?”

  “I saw him from time to time. He’d come by the farm where I was working when he went into town.”

  “He—” She shook her head. “He didn’t tell me that.”

  “No, I doubt he did,” Levi admitted. “He knew how I felt about you, and he was just as happy to keep you and me apart.”

  “I gave him no reason to think—” Rosmanda started, but Levi waved her off.

  “Of course not. It’s like with the horse—some things come down to an organic connection. You either have it, or you don’t. Wayne may have worried that we had something. . . organic, spontaneous.”
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br />   The color drained from her face. “My husband wasn’t intimidated by you.”

  “Then why did he insist on seeing me without you?” Levi retorted.

  “I don’t know . . .” She dropped her gaze, then sighed. “If he was uncomfortable with us being together, it was simple jealousy. Nothing else.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. And he was right—he was the better man for you.”

  “Yes, he was.” Rosmanda drew herself up, and he could see what her marriage with Wayne had given her. As Wayne’s wife, she was something a little stronger, a little more self-confident than she’d been as the single girl. She’d achieved a different status that he hadn’t yet. She’d been married.

  “Then we’re agreed on that,” Levi said. “The thing we disagree on, is the fact that this horse is trainable, Rosmanda. And I’m going to prove that to you.”

  “You don’t need to prove anything to me,” she said.

  A smile tugged at his lips. “Maybe I want to.”

  Her cheeks colored, and she looked away. While he was willing to bend in some ways for Rosmanda out of sympathy for all she’d been through, he wasn’t willing to bend now. He was finally home again—where he belonged while the family grieved—and he wasn’t going to be pushed into the shadows because of his brother’s memory, either. He had to make a place for himself again.

  “I have chores in the house,” Rosmanda said.

  “Yah.” He nodded. “I won’t keep you.”

  Rosmanda headed back toward the door, and he turned to the horse. His calm was gone now—and training a horse without some internal peace was next to impossible. That woman had always had a way of rattling him up like gravel in a wagon bed.

  Rosmanda didn’t see a man when she looked at him. She saw a boy—a ne’er-do-well, a family problem. And having stayed single until his thirtieth birthday, Levi was definitely a family problem. People acted like taking a wife was the safest practice in the world, but it wasn’t. A man had to open himself up to a woman, let her see his inner workings, let her see his good days and bad . . . She’d see his failures, whether he wanted her to or not, and then he’d have to come home to her. A woman who looked at a man’s bare soul and didn’t think he measured up could crush a man over the years. He’d rather be alone than suffer that.

  Levi knew what Amish women wanted, and he was no prime example of Amish husband material. He had problems of his own, doubts, a stubborn streak. He had a problematic personal history. And marrying outside of the community wasn’t even an option for him. He might not be an ideal Amish man, but he was Amish born and raised. That didn’t go away.

  The barn door opened again, and Levi glanced back, expecting to see Rosmanda once more. Or maybe hoping . . . But it wasn’t. It was his boyhood friend Aaron. They’d drifted apart over the last few years, but Levi didn’t exactly blame him. Most people had eased away from him.

  “Aaron,” Levi said. He hung the bucket of oats on a nail inside the horse’s stall and headed in his friend’s direction. “How are things? You’re the last person I expected to see.”

  The horse moved forward, dropping his nose into the bucket and crunching on a mouthful of oats. There was time for more training later.

  The men shook hands, and Aaron nodded a few times, then said, “Yah, yah. I’m doing well. I heard you’d come back home again.”

  “For the time being.”

  Aaron nodded again. “I’m sorry to come by so early, but I wanted to see you before I started work at the shop.”

  Aaron was a carpenter at a local business, so his days didn’t begin quite as early as a farmer’s.

  Aaron was silent for a beat. “I came to talk to you about something. As a friend.”

  A friend? Levi hadn’t spent any social time with Aaron since Wayne and Rosmanda’s wedding. When Levi had started drinking, Aaron had walked away. He may have asked him to stop the drinking and find himself a wife a couple of times, but eventually he’d done what the rest of the community did, and wrote him off.

  “So I’m your friend again?” Levi asked curtly.

  “You always were,” the other man said. “But we went in different directions, didn’t we? I was married, you weren’t. I was baptized. You weren’t.” Aaron met his gaze honestly enough. There was a lot meant in those few words. Levi hadn’t been willing to be baptized because he wasn’t willing to straighten up. And it had cost Levi more than the community’s good opinion. It had cost him Aaron’s.

  “We were on different paths,” Aaron added.

  “And we aren’t anymore?” Levi asked bitterly. “I’m so improved now?”

  “I’m on a less-traveled path now, too.” Aaron scuffed his boot into the cement floor, then sighed. “It’s a delicate matter, I’m afraid.”

  Levi’s curiosity was piqued, and he nodded to the bench where the basket of his breakfast food sat waiting. He opened the basket and looked inside, then tilted it toward Aaron in an offer.

  “No, I’m fine, but thank you,” Aaron said quickly. “Go ahead.”

  Levi pulled out a bowl of egg and sausage casserole, and a fork that lay wrapped in a cloth napkin. The food smelled good, and he bowed his head for a silent prayer, then took a bite.

  “So tell me what’s on your mind,” Levi said past a mouthful of sausage.

  “There’s a woman I’ve been courting,” Aaron said slowly. “A woman I care for a whole lot.”

  “Ah.” Levi nodded. “That’s a good thing.” Aaron’s wife, Lorianne, had passed away in childbirth two years ago, leaving him a young, childless widower. He hadn’t shown any interest in remarriage—until now, apparently.

  “It’s Ketura.”

  “Ketura who?” Levi asked, racking his brain for a Ketura either of them knew under the age of thirty.

  Aaron cast him a wary look. “Your Ketura.”

  “Our—” Levi shook his head, then burst out laughing. “You had me going there, Aaron! Seriously. Who’s the girl?”

  Aaron didn’t say anything else, just sat in silence. Levi slowly chewed another bite of casserole, then shot his friend a look of shock.

  “What?” Levi choked on some food as he swallowed and coughed. “You’re serious?”

  “I knew it would be . . . difficult,” Aaron said. “She told me it would be next to impossible, but I love her.”

  “My aunt,” Levi said. “She’s fifty!”

  “She’s forty-eight,” Aaron countered.

  “She’s eighteen years older than you, Aaron—”

  “She’s a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart, and I’d be honored if she’d marry me,” Aaron said quietly. “Don’t insult her. Not in my presence.”

  “Pointing out some basic math isn’t an insult, Aaron. Don’t you want kinner? I know it was a terrible blow when Lorianne passed away, and the baby, too . . . but with another wife is another chance at a family.”

  “It isn’t about that. Yah, it was a blow to lose my wife and child all at once. But I’m willing to go without kinner, if it means marrying Ketura.”

  “You’re only thirty. What if you change your mind about that?” Levi pressed.

  “I don’t want to debate this with you!” Aaron pushed himself to his feet. “Do you know what it’s like to love a woman so much that you ache without her? I’ve found that twice in a lifetime, and that’s rare.”

  Levi glanced toward the door again, and his heart stuttered in his chest. He did know that feeling, and he had ached for years as his brother married and started a family with the woman he’d loved. But emotional anguish wasn’t test enough for a marriage, either.

  “Aaron, the age difference between you makes this . . . unusual,” Levi said delicately. “You know that.”

  “I do. That’s why I need your support.”

  “My support? That means very little in this community,” he retorted.

  “It’s a start. And of all of your family, you I count a personal friend,” Aaron said.

  “Yah? Still?” Levi
eyed Aaron irritably.

  “We were once,” Aaron said, then he shrugged helplessly. “Levi, I have no one else who might understand me. No one. I thought you might.”

  “What does my aunt say about this?” Levi asked.

  “She says she loves me, too,” Aaron said, a smile coming to his face. “And if I could convince just one member of her family that this would be an acceptable match, then she’d have reason to hope.”

  “Are you engaged?” Levi asked.

  “Not yet. She’s a practical woman, and she won’t be engaged without a date set for the wedding. We can’t do that without some support.”

  Aunt Ketura with a man young enough to be her son . . . It was almost impossible to believe. She’d been married twice now, and her most recent husband was an older man who had passed away of natural causes last year. She’d been eking her way with some crafts and quilts—the family couldn’t afford to simply support her outright, and her elderly husband had left her very little.

  Was this a marriage of convenience for her? Was this her way to find some financial support? Or was it something deeper?

  Levi sighed. “I can’t promise my support, Aaron. But I’ll go talk to my aunt. I have other business to discuss with her anyway.”

  “That’s enough for now,” Aaron said, and he rose to his feet. “I’d be good to her, Levi. I’d respect her and provide for her.”

  Did Aaron even know what he was suggesting? Levi wasn’t so sure. A woman of forty-eight might look quite attractive still, but she was still old enough to be his mother, and given another five years, no matter how well she’d aged so far, she’d be looking like his mother, too.

  “And if you would, mention it to your father,” Aaron added.

  “That’s not a great idea,” Levi said with a shake of his head.

  “I’m not playing games,” Aaron replied. “And I don’t want to wait another year before I marry her. I want a wedding this fall, and a life with my bride.”

  “This fall,” Levi said feebly.

  “I’m a man in love,” Aaron said, with a helpless shrug. “And thank you for going to see her, at least. She’ll tell you. You’ll see.”