Sadie’s Montana Trilogy

by Linda Byler

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m too blottchich.”

  It was then that Sadie realized that the brick wall Anna had built around herself was impossible to breach in one heartfelt talk. How deep was her problem?

  Oh, dear God, Sadie prayed silently. Bless Anna, look upon her with grace. She’s so young and so mixed up about what’s important in life.

  She yawned and stretched.

  “Well, if you think you’re so blottchich, then we’ll drop it.”

  She stood up, gathered her robe around her, shivering.

  “Winter’s coming,” she said sleepily.

  Anna watched her wearily.

  “I … I can’t ride a horse. I’m scared of them. I’m not like you. You just look at a horse and it likes you. They don’t like me. They bite me.”

  Sadie laughed. “You know that’s not true.”

  “It is.”

  “Goodnight, Anna. Sleep well. No cutsing, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The wind was moaning among the eaves, a sad sort of harmony with the night, as if they had put their heads together and written this symphony for the approaching winter.

  Sadie heard very little of it, falling asleep the minute her head touched the soft pillow.

  In the morning, Dat sat at the table poring over the newspaper as Mam expertly flipped the sizzling golden rectangles of cornmeal mush in the cast-iron frying pan. Each year when the leaves turned color and the air carried a frosty nip, Dat wanted fried mush for breakfast. It was an item of food that had been passed down for many generations. He liked it cut in thick slices, then fried in oil for at least half an hour. He ate it with two eggs sunny-side up and a glass of orange juice. Then he had oatmeal as a sort of breakfast dessert, often accompanied by shoofly pie.

  Sadie wondered whether to tell them about Anna’s problems.

  Mam put the mush on a platter, then cracked the eggs into the same pan. Sadie poured the juice, looking up as Leah walked into the kitchen.

  “Morning.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Cleaning today?”

  Leah nodded.

  “Can someone make toast?” Mam asked.

  Sadie sliced thick slices of homemade white bread, raising her eyebrows at the lack of whole wheat flour.

  “Out of it,” Mam said, observant as always.

  “That’s unusual.”

  “Well, I called Johnny Sollenberger yesterday to take me to town. He’s my least favorite driver, but no one else could go, and guess who he had going to town with him?”

  Sadie pushed the broiler closed with a squeaky bang and looked at Mam.

  “Fred Ketty.”

  “Ach, my.”

  “So I just didn’t go. Figured we could eat white bread.”

  Dat chuckled. “Ach, Fred Ketty. She means well.”

  “I’d go into hiding if I was called Fred Ketty,” Leah observed sourly, pulling up her chair.

  Reuben slumped in his chair, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

  “Where’s Anna?”

  “Let her sleep. She was up late.”

  They bowed their heads, asking a silent blessing on the morning meal. When they raised their heads, Sadie decided to bring up the subject of Anna’s purging.

  Mam listened wide-eyed while Dat shook his head in disbelief. Reuben promptly stated that nobody noticed Anna, same as him, and she was just doing it for attention. A generous portion of egg and fried mush churned in his mouth as he spoke, until Dat told him to swallow his food first, then finish speaking. This sent Reuben into a dark silence, and he shoveled food into his mouth at twice the speed.

  Mam said it was more than just ordinary teenage angst, which Sadie agreed was true. Leah nodded her head in acknowledgment as well.

  “She needs a horse,” Sadie said.

  “You think that would help her snap out of it?” Dat asked.

  “Anything to build some confidence.”

  Reuben snorted. “Well, what about me? I still don’t have a horse. If it would help, I can start throwing up.”

  Dat explained patiently to Reuben that he had shown absolutely no interest in another horse, so they figured he’d have to be ready for one first.

  “I hate horses,” Reuben said quite abruptly.

  He left the table, hurried into the living room, and threw himself on the couch, burying his face in his arms. Mam opened her mouth to call him back, but Dat waved his hand to quiet her.

  “He’ll be okay. This thing with Cody will take time.”

  It was Saturday, so there was no hurry, except for Leah going to her housecleaning job. Sadie lingered with her parents, discussing the issues of the day, then told them that Mark would be coming to the house that evening.

  Dat drank his coffee to hide his smile, but Mam lifted her eyebrows in concern.

  “He’s sure given you the runaround already,” she observed dryly.

  Sadie nodded in agreement, deciding not to try and prove a point. She’d have one date and see what occurred. She giggled to herself, wondering what her very proper mother would say if she knew that Sadie had asked for the date, instead of the other way around. But Sadie knew it was all right. At this point, they were closer than many couples who had been dating for some time.

  She cleaned the refrigerator and defrosted the freezer while Mam baked shoofly pies, discussing Anna and Reuben all the while.

  Mam poured water on the mixture for the pie crust, felt it with her fingertips, then poured on a bit more. She pushed the mound to the middle of the stainless steel bowl and molded it into a perfect pile of moist pie dough.

  She went to the flour canister and scooped some into a bowl. She scattered a generous amount of the snowy white flour onto the countertop. Pinching off the right amount of dough, she sprinkled more flour on top. Then she grabbed the rolling pin and began an expert circular motion until she had a perfect orb of evenly rolled dough. Folding it in half, she pressed it into the tin pie plate, then took a table knife and cut off the extra, overhanging dough.

  She made six pie crusts, ladling the brown sugar, egg, water, molasses, and soda mixture into it, measuring the amounts carefully. Mam said if there was too much liquid, the pies ran over in the oven; too little and you had a dry shoofly pie.

  Next she took up a handful of crumbs made from flour, brown sugar, and shortening, sprinkling large handfuls of them on top. It never failed to amaze Sadie how the liquid and crumbs merged to create the three perfect parts that made a shoofly pie: the “goo,” the cake, and the crumbs on top.

  Mam was an expert, her shooflies always turning out with the deepest amount of goo, the softest cake, and just a sprinkling of crumbs. She said it was from doing it over and over for years.

  “Well, if you have a date, perhaps I had better make a ho-ho cake,” Mam said, her smile wide and warm as she watched Sadie clean the shelves of the refrigerator.

  “A what?” “A ho-ho cake. A chocolate cake with creamy white filling topped with fudge sauce. You eat it with ice cream. Or without.”

  “Oh, yes. They’re a lot of trouble, aren’t they?”

  “Well … yes.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Of course, I will. You have a date!”

  Sadie grinned, then her nose stung as she tried to hold back the tears. She would never forget the anxiety of passing through the dark valley of her mother’s mental illness. She hoped she’d also never forgot to thank God for her mother’s ordinary, everyday awareness and love for life.

  There were still times when she would catch her mother gazing out the window with tears gathering in her eyes. On those days Sadie’s heart would plummet to her stomach as she wondered if the depression would return. But it never did as long as she faithfully followed her doctor’s orders, with Dat’s full support.

  Sadie sincerely hoped Anna was not following in her mother’s footsteps. Sadie knew depression could be hereditary sometimes, and she wondered if Anna was showing sign
s of it.

  As Sadie cleaned the rest of the house with Rebekah’s help, she noticed it was close to dinnertime. What time might Mark show up? Had he made plans with anyone else?

  “Isn’t Kevin coming over this evening?”

  “No. He has church tomorrow.”

  Reuben brought the mail, thumping it down on the kitchen table as loudly as he possibly could. Letters rained down on the freshly scrubbed linoleum, squeezed out from between the magazines and catalogs.

  “Letter for you! Looks like a guy’s handwriting!” Reuben said, chortling.

  “No, it’s not,” Sadie said automatically, before examining the handwriting.

  She held very still as she gripped the blue envelope with both hands. She felt a slight tremor as the handwriting leaped at her.

  Reuben was right!

  Oh, had Mark done the same thing again?

  Her breath came in quick gasps that she struggled to hide from Mam and Reuben. Rebekah peered over her shoulders.

  Oh, please God, no. Not now.

  With shaking hands, she tore open the envelope, unfolded the single white sheet of writing paper, flipped it over, and read the signature.

  Daniel King.

  She sagged in the recliner in pure relief, her limbs folding as if the joints were liquid.

  Dear Sadie,

  I am miserable. I cannot forget you. I’m almost 2,000 miles away, and all I want to do is go back to Montana. I think I love you. Why don’t you write to me?

  Sadie’s fist went to her forehead, and she thumped it without thinking.

  I didn’t write because Mark became a very important part of my life, that’s why, she thought wryly.

  His letter was full of his praise for Sadie and reproach for the terrible distance between them and his aching heart. Sadie folded the letter slowly, then shoved it back into the envelope, her eyes unseeing.

  He was one of the nicest people she had ever met. She knew he would be an easy person to love, to marry. He was so normal, with such a good heart, a grounded attitude, a wonderful appetite for life and love.

  Suddenly, she was unsure about seeing Mark that night. She felt waves of doubt lift and bear her away, floating up and out, dipping low as a wave dropped her, and then rising up when the next one came. She drifted in an ocean of restlessness that never ceased movement.

  Daniel. His hair streaked blond. His laughing eyes. Always smiling. So easy to understand and … well, get along with. Her life would be so easy.

  Reuben peered at her. His intense gaze brought her back to earth.

  “Well, who was it? Mark skipping out on you again?”

  As if in a trance, Sadie shook her head.

  “No, not this time.”

  Perhaps he should. Perhaps he should go back to Pennsylvania and find his English mother and all his siblings and leave her entirely out of his complicated life. He’d never be normal.

  “Mam, I think I’ll go to my room. I need to sort through some of my clothes and organize them.”

  Mam looked up from her dishwashing.

  “You sure it’s your closet you need to organize?”

  “Now you sound like Dorothy.”

  Mam laughed.

  “May I read his letter? It’s from that Lancaster boy, right?”

  Sadie smiled at her mother. “Someday,” she whispered.

  Mam shook her head as she sprinkled detergent on a kettle and resumed her scrubbing.

  Chapter 15

  SADIE PULLED THE HEAVY, PURPLE HAIRBRUSH through the wet, thick strands of her hair. She winced as she thought how nice it would be if her hair were not quite as thick and heavy.

  Mam said in the older days, it was strictly forbidden to cut women’s hair, no matter how long it became. She remembered seeing her aunt with hair hanging to the back of her knees. She would wind it around the palm of her hand over and over, securing it with nearly two dozen hair pins.

  Now, Sadie and her sisters kept their hair trimmed to below the shoulders, making it easier to wash and dry. Even the coverings fit better, although she knew it was still a controversial subject. Some of the more conservative mothers absolutely forbid their girls to cut their hair.

  With a fine-tooth comb Sadie drew her hair up and back, securing it with barrettes.

  That didn’t look right. The whole top of her head looked horribly lopsided. She unclipped the barrettes and started over, leaning as close to the mirror as she could, drawing the comb slowly and carefully through her thick tresses.

  Still not right, she thought grimly.

  She ground her teeth in frustration at the sound of loud, thumping footsteps. It could only be Reuben. Now what did he want, the nosy little beggar?

  “What?” she said to the mirror, as his beanie-encased head appeared in the doorway.

  “Mark’s here!”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “I know he’s not!”

  Yelps of glee accompanied his retreat as Sadie shook her head and snorted. Now her nerves were on edge for sure.

  She sat on the bed, one side of her hair combed and held with clips, the other side hanging heavily down the side of her face. As she looked in the mirror, it struck her that her appearance matched the state of her heart. Unfinished. Two-sided. One side so different from the other.

  She wished Daniel King lived in Montana. Perhaps if she saw him again, she would know if he was the one God meant for her.

  How could you tell?

  She had no time to feel alone after Daniel left. Mark had reappeared immediately. He was at the ranch, in church on Sunday, involved with the incident with the blue diesel truck and Paris. They had talked of his past again, which was very meaningful to their relationship.

  But surely if she loved Daniel, she wouldn’t be so content to stay here in Montana and love Mark. Hadn’t she felt so clearly once more that he was the one?

  Getting up, she fixed her hair again and decided it looked all right this time. She had already planned what to wear, so there was no hesitation at the closet. She slipped the paprika-colored dress over her head. It was a dark burnt, but muted orange color.

  Orange and yellow were considered much too flamboyant for plain girls. Pink was frowned upon but tolerated for some occasions. This color, Sadie was sure, would cause a stir if worn in church. But this was a Saturday evening date, so she could push the envelope a bit.

  She loved the fabric, the way the pleats hung in luxurious folds from her waist. The sleeves were just below the elbow and fit perfectly. Yes, she liked this dress.

  She put on her covering with confidence, pinned it, then sprayed cologne from her collection in the drawer.

  Mmm. That certainly was the most wonderful smell.

  She straightened the comforter on her bed, adjusted the shams, picked up a pair of hose that had a run in them. Mam said she would go to the poorhouse buying stockings for her girls if they didn’t try to be more careful, so Sadie felt a bit guilty as she stuffed them in her brown wicker wastebasket.

  There. She was ready for her first genuine date with Mark Peight.

  He arrived on time, his horse and buggy spotless. He looked so good, Sadie felt weak just walking toward him. His hair was black, so thick and dark, combed just right. Was it carelessly or carefully? Whatever it was, he took her breath away, as usual.

  His eyes never left hers as she walked toward him, one elbow leaning on the shoulder of his horse. He was wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt, which only made his complexion appear darker, his perfect mouth widening into a smile of welcome.

  “You look like a leaf still hanging on a birch tree in that color!”

  Sadie laughed. “It’s not yellow!”

  “It’s pretty, whatever color it is.”

  His elbow dropped, and he glanced toward the house.

  “No hugging, right?”

  “Better not.”

  He nodded. “You want to drive to town for ice cream?”

  “I’ll get my coat.”

  The ic
e cream was wonderful. They ate it while seated at a small table on the porch of the little shop, the wind just nippy enough to add color to their cheeks. They talked easily about everyday, uncomplicated subjects, careful to keep the serious things hidden. Sadie learned he liked coffee ice cream, also her favorite. She took that as a good omen rather than a coincidence.

  Daniel King wasn’t in her thoughts at all. She studied Mark as she ate her ice cream, admiring his hands once more. She felt as if she would never doubt her love for him ever again.

  That is, until she saw a man leaning against his white pickup truck. He looked so much like Daniel, for a second Sadie thought it was him. That smile! Her hand went to her chest as her breath left her body, making a soft whooshing sound.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Mark asked watching the color leave her face.

  Sadie waved a hand reassuringly. “Oh, it’s nothing. I just thought…”

  She stopped, knowing she had gone too far, like trying to park a car and hitting the curb. She should just stop, not telling him what she thought.

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing Mark. Just someone I thought I knew.”

  “That guy leaning against his truck?”

  Sadie said nothing.

  “Okay. Be that way. Don’t talk. You thought it was that guy from Lancaster. That Daniel King. Your knight in shining armor who rescued you from the evildoers who shot at Paris.”

  His words dripped with sarcasm. Like acid they ate away at her sense of well-being, destroying her confidence by the second.

  “No, no, it wasn’t him.”

  “’Course not, but you thought it was. Your face turned white as a ghost.”

  “No, no, it didn’t. I mean, he’s… It’s nothing.”

  Their ice cream finished, they walked toward the horse and buggy. It was tied to a sturdy hitching rail provided by the store owners for the Amish to use, but it was behind the store, and they had to walk through an alley between two brick buildings.

  Suddenly, Mark stopped and lowered his dark head. Sadie instinctively backed away. She felt the porous texture of the brick with her hands as she shrank farther from him. He had suddenly turned ominous, his features slated with gray, his shoulders hulking.