Silvia's Rose

by Jerry S. Eicher

  As Esther waited, Dorrine hurried off and returned with several handwritten pages that she laid on the kitchen table.

  “This is so awful,” Arlene moaned, staring at the pages. “I was so close, and after such a miracle… The Lord had turned Joseph’s heart!”

  “Let Esther read them first,” Dorrine suggested. “You have to control yourself, Arlene. It’s not decent to make such a fuss about things.”

  Arlene sobbed. “This is not about things. This is about my wedding to Joseph after all this time. You know I’m well past marriageable age. No one wants me, Dorrine. No one! Only Joseph had ever given me an offer of marriage, and that after so much work. There will never be another man who would consider me.” Arlene lifted her face to the ceiling in silent supplication before she covered her face in her apron.

  “Just read the first letter,” Dorrine told Esther. “The one Arlene wrote her parents. That’s better than us trying to explain everything. Read them aloud.”

  “‘Dear Mamm and Daett,’” Esther began. “‘Greetings of Christian love in Jesus’s name. I hope this finds all of you well and in goot spirits. Spring is almost over here in the valley at the base of the Adirondacks. Summer will be here soon. The seasons are a little slower to change than they are in Lancaster County, but I have nothing to complain about. Indeed, the Lord has blessed me greatly of late and has granted me a dream I have long prayed and worked toward. Joseph Zook, the man who owns a greenhouse across the road from John and Dorrine’s place, has asked me to wed him this fall.

  “‘Oh Mamm, can you believe it? Here I am an old maid, but Joseph is a widower, so perhaps that’s part of the reason he considered me. Still, he’s a worthy catch. Please write and tell me you have no objections. I don’t know why you would have any, and I wouldn’t even have bothered you if Joseph hadn’t insisted. He seems set on obtaining your permission before we proceed any further. Joseph offered to write you himself. He said this in a way that makes me think he’s expecting you to object, but I don’t think there’s any such worry. Joseph can be a little strange. Let me assure you that he is an upstanding member of the district, and that his greenhouse, as well as the rest of his life, is all in the Ordnung. I have asked Dorrine and John whether this was true, just in case I missed anything, and they have assured me that they and the ministry think highly of Joseph.

  “‘Minister Isaiah has even developed a close personal friendship with Joseph, but I don’t want to go into that. Joseph loves me, and I want to wed him, so please ease my mind with your quick reply. Then we can begin our wedding plans. Your loving daughter, Arlene.’”

  Esther laid the page on the table. Arlene had lifted her head to listen, but now she wrapped her face in her apron again. A wail rose once more.

  “Please control yourself,” Dorrine ordered.

  “I can’t listen to anymore,” Arlene said, leaping to her feet to bolt from the kitchen. Her sobs were still audible in the living room, filled with painful gasps for breath.

  “The poor girl,” Dorrine muttered. “Read the other letter quickly.”

  Esther grasped the paper.

  “‘Dear Arlene, greetings of love in Jesus’s name. We received your letter last week, and we have taken our time to think about the matter and to ask around about Joseph Zook. What we have discovered is not goot. The man was once married to an Englisha woman who joined from the outside. True, this Silvia never made any trouble for the district while she lived, and she passed away a short time after her wedding to Joseph, leaving him a son. But we have heard that there are many who fear this woman may have corrupted Joseph more than what was known at the time. She was an educated woman and even had what the Englisha people call a PhD. If this had been known at the time, we were told, Silvia might not have been accepted into the community.

  “‘We fear for you greatly, Arlene. What is this Joseph like? You speak of his friendship with one of your ministers, but that can be a trick. What do you know about Silvia’s influence upon him? Was Joseph changed by his marriage to her? And you said something about Joseph being strange. How is he strange, Arlene? These are all questions that must be answered before we can give our word to your wedding. I know you have wanted to wed for a long time, which is why we allowed you to make the move to the valley in the hopes that you would find a suitable young man. But this is not what we had in mind. Your reputation and happiness are at stake here. What if Joseph should make trouble in the community? What if he should decide that you aren’t goot enough for him after the wedding? Silvia was a beautiful woman, we were told. How do you come up to that standard, Arlene? We are sorry, but under the circumstances, we can’t give permission for you to wed at this time. In fact, it might be best if you gave up your dreams of marrying the man altogether. We have often warned you about your dreams. This is what we meant. Our confidence in you is severely shaken. We had thought you would know enough to choose a decent man as your prospective husband. With much love and concern, Mamm.’”

  Esther laid the page down as Dorrine muttered, “If that doesn’t beat all. How do we get around that?”

  In answer, Arlene wailed loudly from the living room.

  “That’s certainly no way,” Dorrine said. “Maybe you can talk sense into her.”

  “I’m not going to give up Joseph!” Arlene shouted from the other room.

  “So what should she do?” Dorrine asked Esther.

  “First, she should break the news to Joseph,” Esther suggested. “Maybe things will get easier from there. Sometimes the first step is the worst.”

  “She could always choose not to obey her parents,” Dorrine suggested. “We could have the wedding here.”

  Esther grimaced. “That might not work out well. Feelings between this community and Lancaster County could fall apart fast.”

  Dorrine sighed. “Suggestions, then. That’s what we need, and nothing is coming to me.”

  Esther tried again. “Maybe Arlene should give up the idea of marrying Joseph.”

  Arlene appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, her face splotchy but dry. “I want your help, Esther, first in telling Joseph about this, and then in writing to my parents. You are about to wed Isaiah, and they will listen to you.” Arlene’s face brightened. “Better yet, Isaiah can write a letter to my parents. He’s goot friends with Joseph.”

  “We should go talk with Joseph first.” Esther stood. “That I do agree on, and from there Joseph can handle this. You should have told him right away.”

  Arlene hung her head. “I will go tell him right now.” She scooped up the letters and scurried out the front door.

  Esther followed Dorrine to the front window to watch Arlene run across Fords Bush Road. She looked at Dorrine. “It took a lot of courage to face this alone. Maybe Joseph wasn’t wrong in his evaluation of Arlene. I hope they make it.”

  Dorrine smiled at her before turning back to the window, watching as Arlene entered the greenhouse. “So do I.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Late on Thursday morning, Esther entered the greenhouse looking for Joseph. She had come to tend her garden, but she also wanted to find out how he had received the news from Arlene. Diana bounced ahead of her, calling out for him. Esther paused to listen, and soon Diana’s happy chatter guided her to Joseph. He was working on his asparagus plants, kneeling in the dirt, pulling weeds with both hands.

  “You’ll have to bring your bow and arrows down to the greenhouse and show me sometime,” he was saying.

  “But I would shoot holes in the walls,” Diana declared. “The arrows are really sharp. I think I’ll just play with your cartons and make a playhouse again.”

  “You go right ahead.” He gave Diana a kind smile, and she scampered off. Looking at Esther, he said with a twinkle in his eye, “Making a hunter out of the girl, are we?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Esther replied, “but she hasn’t tired of the game yet. Maybe once she gets better at it, the fun will fade away. I’m thinking Isaiah will have thought up
something else for her to do by then.”

  “Sounds like he’s turned into quite the charmer.” Joseph’s smile lit up his face.

  Esther nodded. “You could say that, but life is full of surprises.”

  “Ah, but surprises are goot for the soul and the heart,” he said with a grin. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Esther regarded him for a moment. “And what about you? You’re sure cheerful despite the news from Arlene’s parents the other day.”

  Joseph sobered. “She told me you gave her goot advice and a dose of courage. The poor woman. I was sorry to see her run into such rough waters.”

  “No regrets for yourself?”

  Joseph sighed. “I suppose I could go down without a fight, but the right thing is for me to go see Arlene’s parents in Lancaster County. In fact, I’m leaving tomorrow morning via Greyhound and should get there in time for the weekend. I was going to ask if you would mind keeping Ben for me.”

  “Of course not,” Esther said. “But when were you going to ask?”

  “I figured you’d be down soon, checking on me,” Joseph said, his grin returning. “I admit I was bit shocked that I’m being put through such a test, but it’s not unexpected. Silvia spoiled me the last time. A lame man normally would have gone through such trials on the first round.”

  “Surely it’s not that,” Esther said. “If it was your lameness, then there would be concerns about money, which are easily disproved by your business’s prosperity. Arlene told them about the success of your greenhouse.”

  “Unless they didn’t believe her.”

  “Then you go with your checkbook in hand and show them. But it’s still a shame you have to go through this.”

  “So you think it’s because of Silvia?”

  Esther nodded. “Sadly, yah.”

  “Then that hurts even worse.”

  “You know our people are sensitive about all things Englisha, and they assume Silvia doesn’t match Arlene from any angle. But the real question is, why are you stepping down the ladder? A man who had a love like yours doesn’t have to settle for second best. Maybe they are afraid you have an ulterior motive.”

  “That Arlene doesn’t measure up?”

  “Or perhaps they themselves.” She hesitated a moment. “You may have a difficult time convincing them.”

  “Do you think I should abandon Arlene? After she has gotten her hopes up so high?”

  “No, but neither should you do this because you feel sorry for her.”

  He laughed. “I don’t feel sorry for Arlene. She’s sweet in her own way. But after my first wife, love is different for me. There can never be another Silvia.”

  “But won’t you love the woman you want to marry?”

  He gave her a sharp glance. “Not in the same way. Would you expect to love Isaiah the same way you loved Lonnie?”

  She looked away. “I…I don’t really know.”

  “You hoped to duplicate Lonnie, but one doesn’t try for true love twice. At least I won’t.”

  “Having loved once, I think it would be hard to settle for less, though,” she protested.

  “Perhaps,” he allowed. “I didn’t say it was easy, but that kind of love is not going to happen between me and Arlene. I’m lame, yet I was allowed the love of an Englisha woman. You see how that’s causing problems for Arlene? How about a woman of your standing in the community?”

  “Joseph, are you saying you want me to fall in love with you?”

  He laughed. “We respect each other, Esther, and I value that highly. But love…you know that couldn’t happen, though I never even thought to try. I mean, not with you, but with someone on your level.”

  “I was teasing. But tell me about Isaiah and your roses. Arlene mentioned something in passing last week, and then she dropped the subject as if I wasn’t supposed to know. Surely he’s not going to embarrass himself in public with a bouquet of roses for me at a barn raising or something.”

  Joseph stood upright and straightened his back. “There’s nothing going on like that, Esther—at least that I know of.”

  “But you do know of something?”

  Joseph chuckled. “Isaiah has a right to his privacy. You’ll have to ask him, but I suggest you don’t. Just allow the man to surprise you with whatever he has planned.”

  “And you don’t know what that is?”

  Joseph laughed out loud. “I’m not saying, Esther. There’s no use digging.”

  She smiled and turned to leave, but then she stopped. Outside the greenhouse the blast of an Englisha automobile’s horn broke the morning stillness, followed by a screech of tires.

  “That doesn’t sound goot,” Joseph muttered. He swung his lame foot down the aisle and walked as rapidly as he could toward the greenhouse door.

  Esther stood frozen for a moment, the sharp throb of her heart in her throat. “Diana!” she called down the length of the greenhouse. There was no answer. Joseph hadn’t paused to wait but barreled out the door.

  She forced herself to follow and nearly tripped over the sill as she dodged the swinging door. An Englisha automobile sat sideways on Fords Bush Road. Two women were on their knees on the pavement beside a small form lying between them.

  “Diana!” Esther shrieked and tried to run, but nothing seemed to move. Her legs felt like lead, her body sapped of its strength. She fought for consciousness, for movement, for air.

  Joseph appeared in front of her and grabbed her with both hands. “Stay here, Esther,” he whispered. “Sit on the grass while we take care of things.”

  Esther threw him off and found the strength to lunge forward to where the unmistakable form of her daughter lay still.

  “We are so sorry about this,” one of the women said. “We already called 911.”

  Esther ignored them and slid to her knees, not noticing the pain of her skinned flesh on the pavement. She reached out with both hands and bent low to listen. The child breathed. She held back her sobs. From somewhere in the distant past she knew that an injured person should not be moved, but every nerve in her body screamed otherwise. She wanted to pick Diana up from the pavement, to cradle the little body in her arms, to give life back to the limp form, to heal what her carelessness had cost. This was her fault. She had been talking with Joseph in the greenhouse while Diana ran wild. What had possessed the girl to cross the road by herself?

  This was her fault. Everything was her fault.

  She lifted her face to the heavens to pray, but the words were stuck in her mouth. Joseph appeared beside her and also knelt. “She’s breathing, Esther,” he said, “she’s breathing.” He took her hand in his.

  She nodded. There was no more she could do.

  “Dear Father in heaven,” Joseph prayed. “Look down from the heavens and have mercy on this child. Forgive us where we have failed her, and shed Your grace upon this young life. If it be Your will, grant her healing from her injuries. In Jesus’s name, amen.”

  Esther clung to his hand and said nothing as forms appeared around them. Dorrine came first and took Joseph’s place beside her. John came next, followed by Arlene and the three boys.

  Joseph took Arlene in his arms and held her. Dorrine’s hands rested on Esther’s shoulders as she reached out to touch her daughter’s small form.

  They waited, the silence heavy.

  “I’m so sorry. This was all my fault,” Esther whispered.

  “I’m sure it was not,” Dorrine whispered back. “We saw Diana run out of the greenhouse from the kitchen window. The girl was across the greenhouse yard in a flash, and the car came out of nowhere.”

  “Then I’m even more to blame,” Esther said. “I was talking to Joseph and not paying attention. I—”

  She was cut off by the wail of a siren as a police car appeared. The officer leaped out of his car, and Joseph approached him to explain. The officer came closer and bent down for a quick check on Diana. “The ambulance will be here in a moment, ma’am,” he said.

  He returned to
his vehicle to produce flares, which he had set up along the road by the time the ambulance pulled in from Highway 5. Esther tried to stay close, but she had to move back as the attendants cared for Diana. She held her tears until the little girl was carefully placed on a gurney that was then loaded into the ambulance. An attendant helped Esther into the back of the vehicle to sit at Diana’s side.

  Joseph came up to the ambulance door. “I’ll let Isaiah know at once.”

  “Thank you, Joseph. And thanks for the prayer.”

  He tried to smile. “Someone should go with you,” he suggested. He turned to Arlene, who didn’t hesitate before climbing in.

  Esther glanced at the attendants, but no one objected.

  “We’ll be taking her to Little Falls,” the attendant said.

  Esther nodded. “Can you tell how bad her injuries are?”

  He smiled reassuringly. “Not life threatening. The women back there told us they were able to slow down considerably before the impact.”

  “They won’t be blamed for anything, will they?”

  “That’s up to the officer.”

  “I just want my little girl back safe and sound,” Esther told him. “Oh, please, Lord. Please.”

  “We are all praying with you,” the attendant assured her as the ambulance wailed along the ridge of the valley. “And we are giving your girl the best care we can.”

  “I’m sure you are.” Esther tried to smile, but the effort was useless. Isaiah had brought them this way for a buggy ride only recently, and now through Esther’s negligence Diana lay injured. She buried her head in her hands and wept.

  Arlene put her arm around Esther. “It will be okay.”

  “Thanks for coming along,” Esther said. The shame hung heavy—her neglect, her lack of discipline, her daydreaming about the surprise Isaiah might have for her—all while Diana had been in grave danger.

  Worse, she wanted Isaiah’s arms around her right now. She wanted him to hold her close even if she deserved none of that.