At Home in Pleasant Valley

by Marta Perry

  “Maybe you’re right.” Rosemary shrugged her shoulders, staring a bit glumly into her coffee mug. “Here’s my husband rushing off on another business trip just a day after he got home. Apparently the company can’t get along without him for more than twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m sorry.” Anna responded to the note of disappointment in Rosemary’s voice. The woman was lonely, that was all, with her husband away again and apparently no prospects of the child she longed for.

  “Oh, well, that’s life, right? At least when he’s not here I can eat a frozen dinner and snuggle up in front of the television with an old movie.”

  “It Happened One Night?” Anna suggested.

  “Casablanca,” Rosemary said. “If you want a good cry, you have to watch Humphrey Bogart giving up the woman he loves for the greater good. Hey, I thought Amish didn’t watch movies.”

  “They don’t.” We don’t, she corrected herself. “I had a friend in Chicago who loved all the old Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart movies. We’d get together on a Sunday afternoon and watch them.”

  For a moment Anna longed to be in Liz’s small apartment. The sensation was so strong that it was almost a pain. She was swept with that sense of being two different people—of English Annie looking contemptuously at Amish Anna.

  “So what exactly are you making?” Rosemary left the subject of old movies abruptly.

  “Relish. My mother used to call it end-of-the-garden relish because you put in whatever’s left in the garden. It’s delicious.” She gestured with her paring knife at the array of vegetables on the counter.

  “Hmm. I guess, if you say so.” Rosemary sounded doubtful. “It seems like an awful lot of work just to use up leftover veggies. I’ll bet I don’t go through more than a jar of relish in a year.”

  “We do eat a lot of relishes. Haven’t you heard of the Pennsylvania Dutch seven sweets and seven sours?”

  “I guess I’ve seen it on restaurant signs, but I didn’t know you had to make it from scratch. Don’t Amish believe in buying food at the grocery store?”

  Anna had to smile. Rosemary was obviously intrigued by her Amish neighbors.

  “The Amish shop in stores. That’s where Myra is now, at the grocery store.”

  “Well, then.” Rosemary tapped a manicured fingertip on her mug. “Why bother to go to all this work just for a jar of relish? Or is it religious? Do you believe that God wants you to work this hard?”

  Anna tried to sort out her thoughts, knowing she wasn’t the person best suited to be explaining Amish beliefs to anyone.

  “I don’t know that any Amish person would put it that way, exactly. Most Amish want to work the land if they can. They take pleasure in raising the food their families will eat, and it does taste better than something that’s been processed to death.”

  “Maybe so.” Rosemary sounded doubtful. “I guess I don’t get this whole living close to the land thing. Richard—that’s my husband—he seemed to think he’d be happy puttering around the garden, but now that he has one, he doesn’t have the time anyway.”

  “Everyone isn’t suited to country life.” That was the most noncommittal response she could think of. She certainly didn’t want to discuss Rosemary’s husband with her.

  “That’s me,” Rosemary declared. “In fact, I’d think that was you, too.”

  Anna’s knife slipped, barely missing her finger. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, just that you were away for what—three years? Is it really possible for somebody to come back and be Amish again after that?”

  Anna’s jaw clenched. It was a question she’d asked herself, but she decided she didn’t care to hear it from someone else.

  Rosemary’s expression said she knew she’d gone too far. “Listen, I shouldn’t have said that. My trouble is that I’m alone so much, when I do have somebody to talk to, stuff just falls out of my mouth.”

  “It’s all right.” It wasn’t, but the woman had apologized.

  Rosemary set her mug in the sink. “I really did have a reason for coming today, besides being nosy. I wanted to ask if you’d like to work for me a few hours a week. That big house gets to be too much for me to keep clean. You could set your hours whenever you want.”

  A refusal hovered on her lips. She had so many responsibilities here, with Joseph still not working. But a job would put some money in her pocket, money she wouldn’t have to account to anyone for.

  “Say twelve dollars an hour?” Rosemary asked, rushing the words. “That sound about right?”

  If she had even a little coming in, she wouldn’t have to feel so dependent on the family. And if she needed to leave . . .

  She shut that thought off quickly. Hadn’t she been telling herself that maybe this was the right life for her and Gracie? If she were really sure of that, she wouldn’t be thinking that way.

  So maybe she wasn’t convinced. Maybe she didn’t know her own mind at all. And Rosemary was still waiting for an answer.

  “Thank you, Rosemary. I’d like to do some work for you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  As soon as they walked through the gates at the county fairgrounds, Anna knew she’d made a mistake in coming with Samuel. What had she been thinking?

  The crowds flowed good-naturedly along the rows of stalls, aromas of a dozen different foods filled the air, and from the distance came the shriek of the rides. It was familiar, and at the same time it scared her.

  It was one thing to be Amish again at home, among people who loved her. But when she’d ventured out, even in the church, her acceptance hadn’t been complete. The memory left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  And here she was back in the English world again, as an Amish woman.

  “What is troubling you, Anna?” Samuel seemed to have an uncanny knack for reading her moods.

  “Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t come.” She glanced down at Gracie, asleep in the stroller Samuel was pushing. “If we hadn’t come. It feels odd, being here like this.”

  “Because people are staring at us?”

  “I hadn’t even noticed that, but now you’ve given me something else to worry about.”

  He smiled at her tart tone. It was oddly freeing, knowing she could talk openly to Samuel in a crowd and no one would understand them.

  “It hasn’t been that long since I was one of them.” She nodded toward the nearest clump of English who passed.

  “Anna, you were never like them.”

  “Not those people in particular,” she said. Maybe she shouldn’t have picked a group of Goth teenagers, all in black, as an example. She shot a sideways glance at the piercings and dyed hair. “And they think we look odd.”

  “So we do, to them.” Samuel was unaffected, no matter how people gawked. “You are Amish again now, Anna. That’s how it is for us.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Is this a test?”

  “Only if you see it that way. Only for your own sake, not anyone else’s.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He gave a quick glance at the kids. “Those teenagers dress as they do because they want to be looked at. We dress as we do in obedience to God and the church, to remind us that we are to be separate.”

  A group of preteen kids in jeans and T-shirts, out of school for the first day of the fair, raced around them, jostling the stroller just enough to stir Gracie. She gave a startled cry.

  “Ach, little girl.” Samuel bent over the stroller before Anna could move. Unfastening the harness, he picked her up. “There, now. It’s all right. There’s nothing to be scared about. I have you.”

  He spoke in Pennsylvania Dutch, and Gracie quieted almost at once, as if she understood every word. Or maybe it was the slow, calm way he spoke that made the difference. Gracie, like the skittish horse, responded to his tone.

  If they stayed, Graci
e would grow up knowing the dialect, not even learning English until she went to school. If. Anna wanted to give her unruly mind a shake. It wasn’t like her not to know what she wanted.

  “Let’s get a funnel cake and sit down for a few minutes until she feels like going back into the stroller,” Samuel suggested. He nodded at a stand with long wooden picnic tables and benches under a blue-and-white canopy.

  “Ser gut.” Anna pulled the diaper bag from the stroller. “I’ll give her something to drink while you get the funnel cakes.”

  By the time Anna had settled on a bench with Gracie chugging from a sippy cup, Samuel returned. He was balancing two paper plates filled with the powdered-sugar-coated treats.

  “We could have shared one,” she said as he sat down next to her.

  “Speak for yourself.” He grinned, holding a small piece out to Gracie. “Gracie and I will eat one ourselves, we will. Funnel cakes are wonderful gut, Gracie.”

  Gracie took the fried treat from his hand and lifted it tentatively toward her mouth. She stuck out the tip of her pink tongue and touched the sugar. Suddenly her dimples showed, and she crammed the whole thing into her mouth, then reached eagerly toward the plate.

  Anna laughed at Gracie’s delight, giving her a squeeze. “Just a little more. Too much funnel cake can upset a tiny tummy.”

  “It tastes like the fair, that’s what it is,” Samuel said. “They never taste quite the same when we make them at home.”

  “Better not let Myra hear that.” Myra had decided to make funnel cakes yesterday as a treat for Joseph, since he wouldn’t be going to the fair this year.

  “I didn’t say they were better,” Samuel protested. “You know, that’s my first memory of the fair. Sitting on my daad’s knee eating funnel cake.” For an instant, sorrow shadowed his eyes.

  “For me it was caramel apples,” she confessed, memory taking her back to that childhood taste. “Mahlon and Joseph always had to have their cotton candy, but I wanted a caramel apple. When we were little, we couldn’t wait for September so we could go to the fair. It was even more exciting than school starting.”

  Samuel nodded, understanding, and gave Gracie another small piece of funnel cake.

  “It wore off when I was a teenager,” Anna said. “Then I just wanted to be like my English friends.”

  “Plenty of us are that way during our rumspringa. You weren’t the only one who hid jeans and T-shirts in the hay mow and learned to drive in some English friend’s borrowed car.”

  “I didn’t want them to see me as Amish. I thought I could keep that part of my life separate.”

  “Ja, kids are still trying that. Look at the haircuts on some of the teenage boys in service on Sunday morning. They didn’t get those cuts in the kitchen with their mother’s scissors.”

  If he was trying to make her laugh, he succeeded. “I know. I noticed. If they want to hide it, they need to be a bit more subtle.”

  “Annie!”

  The exclamation had her turning toward the sound. The next thing she knew, she was being enveloped in a hug.

  “You’re back. I never thought I’d see you again. Where’d you disappear to? Don’t you remember me? It’s me, Shelley.”

  Anna disengaged herself. “Of course I remember you, Shelley.” The hair that had once been brown and curling was now blond, done in a sleek, smooth style that just brushed Shelley’s shoulders. Instead of the usual teen uniform of jeans and T-shirt she’d worn in the days before the accident, Shelley wore a pair of slacks and a bright, silky top.

  “Never mind me,” she exclaimed. Apparently she still talked in exclamation points. “I want to hear all about you. Look at you, with a husband and baby!”

  “I don’t . . .” Anna could feel herself blushing, but before she could think up an explanation, Shelley grabbed her arm.

  “Let’s sit down and have a cup of coffee together, okay? I want to catch up on everything.”

  “I don’t know . . .” She glanced at Samuel. He waited, his face impassive.

  “Oh, come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “I would like to find out what happened to all of them.” She said the words quickly in Pennsylvania Dutch to Samuel. “Do you mind?”

  He stood, giving Gracie a little pat. “I will go and check out the farm machinery. I’ll meet you back here in about half an hour. All right?”

  She nodded. Of course it was. She had every right to catch up with her old friends. But as Samuel turned away, she caught the disappointment in his eyes. If this outing had been a test, it seemed that she’d failed.

  • • •

  “Not bad,” Shelley said, sliding onto the bench opposite Anna and watching Samuel walk away. “If you like them solid and disapproving.”

  “Samuel didn’t disapprove of you. He just didn’t want me . . .” She let that trail off, since the thought didn’t help.

  “He doesn’t want you hanging around with your old teenage friends,” Shelley said. “I get that. How long have you two been together?”

  “We’re not. I mean, we’re just friends.”

  This was more complicated than she’d expected. She wanted to make contact with Shelley again—to feel that their friendship had been real. She’d left so soon after the accident that she hadn’t had a chance to talk with her.

  “So, friends. Tell me more.” Shelley’s bright eyes flicked to the baby. “What about the baby’s father? I thought you Amish didn’t believe in divorce.”

  “We weren’t married.” She hesitated. If she didn’t want to tell Shelley everything, it would be better not to say anything.

  We’re friends, aren’t we? Her younger self seemed to be protesting. We tell each other everything.

  “Wow,” Shelley said. “And you went through with having the baby? But I guess you people wouldn’t go for any other option.”

  Other option. Anna’s arms tightened protectively around Gracie. “No,” she said, her voice strangled.

  “Well, looks like it all ended up okay,” Shelley said cheerfully. “I sure wouldn’t want to be settled down with a family right now, though. Just getting through school is hard enough.”

  It was probably safer to talk about Shelley’s life than hers. “You’re still in college?”

  “Still.” She sighed. “I’m just home now because my mom got all nostalgic about having everyone here for my dad’s retirement party. I’m headed back to campus tomorrow.”

  “This must be your last year. Do you have any career plans?”

  “No, I have another year. I changed majors too many times. It’s accounting now, and I have to stick with it whether I like it or not. My dad says he’s not going to pay good money for me to party and change my mind every five minutes.”

  That sounded exactly like the Shelley Anna used to know, and she smiled. “I’m sure there are plenty of good jobs for accountants.”

  “At least I’ll be able to find a job in the city where something’s happening.” Shelley gave the fair a dismissive glance. “Did you hear about Casey? She got into UCLA, the lucky thing. Never comes home anymore.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Since she’d barely known Casey, it was tough to generate any interest.

  “It’s true. And Megan did get into Juilliard, but she dropped out her first semester. Couldn’t stand the pressure.”

  “What about Jarrod?” Anna had been dating Jarrod that summer. She’d thought she was in love with him.

  Their romance hadn’t survived for more than a month or two after she’d left home. Still, she cared what happened to him.

  “He’s at Penn State. Runs track, got into a top fraternity.”

  Their lives seemed so different from hers that it was hard to find something in common. This was what Samuel had meant when he talked about drifting away from his English friends. Shelley seemed years younger than she was, even though A
nna knew they were the same age.

  “So you and Jarrod . . .” Shelley tipped her head to the side. “That didn’t last long, did it?”

  “No. After the accident we sort of went in different directions. But I’ll always be grateful for the way his family helped me then.”

  “Well, they owed it to you,” Shelley said. “Jarrod never should have let you drive their car. Naturally his folks wanted it settled quickly and quietly, before somebody got the bright idea of suing them for damages.”

  Anna took a moment to absorb that. It had never occurred to her that there was any reason other than kindness for their help.

  “Nobody would have sued them,” she said finally. “The other family was Amish. They wouldn’t go to court any more than mine would.”

  “Other family?” Shelley looked blank.

  “The family in the buggy we hit. Don’t you remember?”

  Shelley had been sitting next to her in the car that night. How could she have forgotten those terrifying moments—the lights striking the orange triangle on the back of the buggy, the realization that they were going too fast . . .

  Gracie fidgeted in her lap, as if sensing her discomfort, and made a little sound of distress. Anna bent over her, soothing her, trying to get control of herself.

  Anna didn’t remember. She hadn’t, in all these years, remembered anything about the accident. Those fragments that had flashed into her mind—she didn’t want them there.

  “Sure, I remember now.” Shelley shook her head. “Sorry. It’s been a long time since I thought about that. Anyway, at least nobody got hurt.”

  Anna could only stare at her. “I did.”

  “Oh, yes, well, I guess I forgot that you were in the hospital afterwards. But you’re okay, right?”

  Shelley had forgotten. She hadn’t come to see Anna in the hospital, hadn’t gotten in touch.

  Anna looked back at her teenage self with a sense of surprise. Had she really thought that Shelley was her friend?