by Linda Byler
Sadie nodded.
Later he would tell her that he had never loved her more than at that moment when she nodded, quietly understanding and accepting his insecurities, his bupplich attitude. Her love was the strongest chain he had ever had to hang onto, especially when the quicksand of his past threatened to submerge him yet again.
People of every kind came up to their table to talk to them. They smiled politely, endured the needless chatter, but were eager for everyone to let them alone.
It was Owen Weaver himself who told them that Fred Ketty had spread the rumor that they had broken up. She was in town and saw them eating ice cream together. On her way home again, Sadie was sitting by herself at the same table. She figured they had an argument and stopped the friendship. So Owen had to look twice to see if it was Jake’s Sadie sitting there with Mark.
Mark was at a loss for words, but Sadie rescued him smoothly, saying Mark had to move his horse from the hitching rack, which was the truth.
Owen shifted the toothpick in his mouth, scratched his rotund stomach, and laughed good-naturedly.
“Ah, that Fred Ketty. She’s a sharp one. You have to give her that. Between yard sales and the Laundromat in town, she sees a’plenty, now, don’t she?”
He clapped a thick hand on Mark’s shoulder, rattling the ice in his glass of Coke. Mark grabbed his glass, held on to it firmly, not daring to take another sip with the affable Owen ready to pound his shoulder at any moment.
“So why are you selling that horse of yours, Mark? He’s a beauty.”
Mark grimaced, then slid over in the booth, turning his upper body to see Owen better. Also, Sadie guessed, to get out from under the descending, good-natured hand clapping on his shoulder at regular intervals.
“I have too many. It’s turning into a habit. I come to the horse sale and think I have to buy one.”
Owen’s toothpick fell out when he grinned widely, nodding his head until his hat slid sideways. “I can see it. I can see it! Young man like you, a paycheck and no wife to spend it. Ah, enjoy your horses. Soon enough you won’t be able to afford it with a good wife and a buggy-load of youngsters to take care of that paycheck.”
He gave Sadie a meaningful wink. She would gladly have slid under the table and stayed there.
Mark and Sadie continued to talk into the evening. It was only when a seriously worried Anna came through the door, her face pale and her eyes burning with unshed tears, that Sadie remembered the rest of her family. She clapped a hand to her mouth and gasped.
“Anna! Over here!”
Anna was so relieved, she sagged into the booth beside Sadie and laid her head on her shoulder.
“Where in the world did you go? Dat is frantic!”
“She’s with me,” Mark said, smiling. “She’s with her boyfriend.”
Anna sat straight up, clearly flustered.
“You guys are just different. One day you’re happy, and the next day you’re … whatever.”
Mark laughed, and Sadie put her arm warmly around Anna’s shoulders, hugging her close.
Chapter 17
SADIE WROTE TO DANIEL KING ON A PLAIN WHITE sheet of notebook paper, telling him in the kindest way she could about her relationship with Mark. She felt quite sure Lancaster County was full of girls he could date. He was close to his family, so it was likely best for him to stay and move on with his life.
That winter proved to be the turning point in her relationship with Mark. They went to hymn singings and supper crowds where the youth would assemble and visit. They spent Saturday evenings with other couples, most often Kevin and Leah. And when they went on dates alone, they stayed up and talked for hours.
Sadie slowly adjusted to Mark’s personality. There were times when he withdrew into a dark place inside himself, and he didn’t speak unless she spoke first. Even then, his answers were curt, accusing, as if she had done something to make him feel so down. No amount of questioning or pleading made any difference. These times were when he felt lowest about himself, and if she tried to talk him out of it, he only pulled her down with him. So she learned to leave him alone at such moments.
He had never promised her the relationship would be easy, but was it always going to be this way?
Anna lost weight all winter long, a strange flush in her cheeks every evening. She was taller than Rebekah now and nearly as tall as Sadie. None of her dresses fit anymore, so the girls helped Mam to sew new ones for her.
Sadie spent hours discussing Anna’s problem with Mam and her sisters, but everyone had a different opinion, so nothing was ever resolved.
Mam maintained her stance that as long as Anna kept a reasonable weight, ate good, healthy food, what was the harm? Everyone ate the occasional doughnut and wished they hadn’t.
Leah tended to side with Mam. Rebekah thought she should be taken to the same doctor that had made such a wonderful difference in Mam’s life.
Too much money. No insurance.
What about the money they received for finding the stolen horses?
Mam’s hospital bill.
What about the rest of it?
It was Sadie’s.
And on and on, with no real conclusion.
Sadie still felt the same. Anna needed a horse. So did Reuben. If Dat didn’t do anything by springtime, then she would take matters into her own hands.
Sadie noticed the change in Anna just as spring arrived. The reason she remembered was because it was the same day that she first heard the Chinook.
Dat called it that. It was the first warm air of spring, blowing from the south so softly it was barely noticeable. The light sighing sound was nature’s way of breaking down the long icicles that hung from the eaves. It would still take weeks and weeks for the Chinook to wear down the snowdrifts.
Sadie did not sleep well the night she heard the Chinook. Mark had gone home early from their date, but that wasn’t what kept her awake. It was the steady dripping of the melting icicles that kept her up all night.
She would have loved to burrow into her pillows, pull the comforter up over her head, and sleep until dinnertime. She was tired, cold, and in no mood to sit on a hard bench for three hours or be stuffed in the surrey with all her sisters and Reuben.
She burned her fingers on the broiler pan when she retrieved the toast and snarled at Anna because of it. Mam scolded her in clipped tones, telling her to stop taking out her foul mood on Anna.
Her dippy egg was undercooked, and Sadie swallowed her nausea as she pushed the plate away. Mam never finished a dippy egg properly. More nausea pushed at her throat as she watched Mam dip a corner of her toast into a glob of swimming egg white. Maybe she should make her own eggs from now on.
Dat slurped his coffee in the most annoying way, and Reuben dumped almost the whole plastic container of strawberry jam on his toast. He laid the sticky knife on the tablecloth and promptly set his elbow on top of it. He devoured almost half the toast in one bite. That was the last straw.
“This family has the most indecent table manners,” Sadie said tartly, wincing at the sour taste of orange juice in her mouth.
Dat and Mam looked at her with surprise, Anna ducked her head in embarrassment, but Reuben shoved the remainder of his toast in his mouth and blurted, “Sour old maid!”
“I am not an old maid,” she fired back.
“Why doesn’t Mark marry you then?” Reuben asked, victory shining from his eyes.
Sadie swallowed her anger, gathered all her common sense and Christian virtue—it was Sunday morning, after all—and told Reuben that he’d better get ready for church.
Her mood lifted when she entered the kessle-haus and her friends greeted her with warm hugs and girl talk. This was a part of her world that she so often forgot to appreciate, she knew.
The girls walked to their seats, and a few minutes later, the boys came in and sat on the opposite side of the shop, facing the girls.
The singing began, the voices ebbing and flowing as they always did. Out of the co
rner of her eye, Sadie noticed Emery Hershberger’s Leon leaning a bit to the left, looking at something, then correcting his posture again.
At 15, he was turning into quite an attractive young man, with a tall, easy gait, wide shoulders, and auburn hair. He used to be a heavy-set red-haired boy with a spattering of freckles and a loud, obnoxious voice. Now, his hair had turned darker and his complexion settled into a smooth, healthy color. He certainly was not the boy he used to be. Why hadn’t she noticed that before?
Leon leaned over again, and this time Sadie leaned forward ever so slightly to see the object of his attention. Her eyes traveled Leon’s line of vision, and she nearly gasped aloud.
Anna!
Her head was bowed demurely, the way it should have been, but there was a decided blush coloring her wan cheeks. Her thick lashes swept them as she kept her eyes downcast, her brown hair swept up in a thick, shining mass below her white covering. Her dress was the color of the ferns that grew beneath the pines on the ridge, a woodland color that complemented Anna’s complexion.
Oh, my Anna! My dear little insecure sister. You are growing up, blossoming into a maiden of the forest, right beneath our eyes. A beautiful young girl, unnoticed for so long, with all the attention going to your older sisters.
Sadie could barely look at Leon. She was an intruder, an outsider who had no business looking for any sign between them, and yet, she couldn’t help but see what was so painfully evident.
Ah, Anna. You’re not yet 16. So innocent and unspoiled, so pitifully sure you’re overweight and ugly.
What was best?
Sadie felt old and a bit careworn at that moment. It seemed as if she and Mark were an outdated grocery item to be taken off the shelf and replaced with a fresh one.
She grinned, then bent her head. Boy, wouldn’t that get Mark all fired up when she told him?
That afternoon, when Mark stopped at the porch to pick up Sadie, his horse and buggy as immaculate as always, she greeted him lightheartedly. It was a wondrous thing to be so happy and confident in their relationship. She marveled at the natural way they could be together, even at the simple act of climbing into the buggy and sitting beside him. That intimacy was a privilege. They talked easily now, with no self-consciousness—words, expressions, smiles, a familiar part of their lives.
The first thing she told him was about Leon Hershberger and Anna. Mark raised his eyebrows, smiling. Sadie never tired of his smile. When they were 80 years old, that smile would still amaze her. However, it didn’t stay. The horse plodded on gaily, but a sort of coldness crept over the buggy’s interior.
Sadie talked on, then watched him a bit uncomfortably before blurting out, “Is there … something wrong?”
He said nothing.
Then after wiping the wooden dashboard of the buggy with his handkerchief, he cleared his throat.
“My mother wrote me a letter.”
His words had the impact of a sledgehammer. Sadie went cold all over. She became numb, then senseless, blinded by blackness for a second, before her heart began to beat again, but harder.
Oh, no. Now what?
They’d come so far. Would it all be stripped away now?
She knew there would be no easy way out of this. Dread in all its forms hovered over her. His whole past would be flung in his face yet again, this time in physical form.
Oh, dear God, look upon us with mercy. Barmherzikeit.
Her voice was very small when she said, “And? What did she write?”
Mark’s hand reached over and pulled at the handle of the small wooden door built into the dashboard. It was a place in the buggy to put lighters, small flashlights, clean handkerchiefs, or tissues. It was the catchall for necessities, like a vehicle’s glove compartment. Sadie thought it could rightfully be called a glove compartment, as there was almost always a pair of gloves in the back of it. You had to wear gloves to drive a horse in cold weather, especially if it was an unruly one, opening the window for better control.
He handed her a plain white envelope, saying nothing, his jaw set in that firm line.
She looked at him, questioning.
“Go ahead. Read it.”
With shaking hands, she removed the letter from the envelope and unfolded it. Just an ordinary sheet of writing paper. There was no date or return address. The handwriting was cursive, neat, the type many Amish teachers teach their pupils.
Mark,
I got wind of where you live through the Internet, an object of the devil for you, but a necessity for me. HA.
Sadie’s eyebrows turned down. She looked at Mark.
“Wow.”
Mark remained still, a statue of control.
I’m still out in the world and I plan on staying here. My kids are scattered all over. They know who I am, but they don’t care about me. I guess I deserve that, I don’t know. You’re the only one I can’t find. You are the oldest of the pack.
What a bunch of kids I had! Have had almost as many husbands. I’m on number four. Married this guy for his money. Can’t stand him. I can’t sleep at night, have to take all kinds of junk to put me to sleep.
I want to see you. Sure hope you’re not Amish. Are you married? If you are, bring your wife.
This is my home phone number. Please call soon.
I still do love you, you know. At least I wrote now, to let you know I care.
Your mother,
Amelia Van Syoc
Sadie folded the letter slowly and put it neatly into the envelope. She smoothed the dust blanket over her knees before daring to look at Mark. His expression remained unreadable.
Carefully, she laid a hand on his arm, then slid it underneath his arm and laid her head on his shoulder, tears forming beneath her eyelids.
She just could not imagine. How could his own mother, his flesh and blood, be so callous?
Slowly, Mark put down the reins, turned, and crushed her to him. He held her as if she was his only hope of rescue, the single life preserver in a swollen sea, where dark troughs of rolling water threatened to take him down into the awful abyss of his past.
Sadie slid her arms around his wide shoulders, willing him to know that she would remain by his side where she belonged. She would help him to keep his head above water during the rough times.
He groaned, a broken cry, then kissed her with a new intensity.
“I love you so much, Sadie,” he said hoarsely as tears fell on the shoulder of her black woolen coat.
“I love you, too, Mark. I love you more with each passing day.”
He gathered up the reins, then laughed quietly as he wiped his face.
“Good thing Eclipse keeps trotting right along, isn’t it?”
“He’s a good horse,” Sadie replied, slipping her hand into his. She loved holding Mark’s hand. He had perfect hands, she thought.
“So now, what will you do?” she asked quietly.
“Nothing for now. I want to pray about it, think about it. I have no clue where she is. If I go see her and she sees I’m Amish, she might shut the door in my face.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sadie said instantly.
“You will?”
“Yes.”
Yes, she would go. He needed her beside him every step of the way to support and encourage him. She would follow him to the ends of the earth.
He kissed her passionately again, and Sadie realized their love had reached a new level that brought another whole set of concerns. She must talk to Mark about their physical interactions, but she hardly knew how to open the subject without causing serious damage to his feelings—and his ego.
Dat and Mam had talked to her about their concerns, knowing Sadie and Mark did not hold to the strict code of distant courtship. Sadie was the oldest daughter, and they trusted her conscience, but dating is dating. They, too, had been through those years and knew the intimacy of late nights together. Like many couples, they struggled to remain pure until the day they married.
“Things are changing
, Sadie,” Mam began on the day she and Dat sat down with their oldest daughter. “Over a hundred years ago, we held with the practice of ‘bundling,’ or sharing a bed fully clothed, under a comforter or quilt, to stay warm on cold winter evenings. This practice stayed in one form or another in some communities, even in some families. Some groups of concerned parents worked hard to eliminate it altogether; others adhered strictly to the old ways.
“There’s a lot of pressure in our community to practice complete distant courtship, the way the higher churches do. Some of the New Orders have a much stricter dating code than we do. And it’s worrisome to me. Even though we drive horses and buggies, our moral standards are more like the English than some of the people who leave our community and choose to drive cars. Some who leave for the New Orders have higher morality than we do, yet we’re the so-called conservatives.”
Dat nodded in agreement as Sadie listened carefully to Mam’s words.
Sadie could only be perfectly honest about her feelings. “Do you both agree that absolutely no touching, not even holding hands, is what God intends?” she asked.
Her parents were clearly uncomfortable with that question.
Finally, Dat spoke up. “I can’t imagine it.”
Mam quickly broke in, “It’s what everyone says they want now. It’s the new, better way of dating.”
Sadie bent her head. She was embarrassed to speak the truth to her parents, but she told them that she and Mark kissed and held each other but did nothing further. Her face flamed with the confession.
Her parents were full of understanding. And in Dat’s eyes, was that a twinkle of knowing?
“Then let your conscience be your guide,” Mam said. “You know when it’s time to stop. Probably the perfect way would be to remain distant.”
