The Forgiven

by Marta Perry

  But all was quiet. She slipped down the back stairs to the kitchen, dark now. The only light on the first floor of the old farmhouse came from the living room. She could hear her daad’s deep voice reading an article from the Amish newspaper to Mammi, who was no doubt sitting in her rocking chair with the mending in her lap. Their big family meant plenty of rips and tears to fix.

  Anna skirted the long wooden table, knowing its position even without seeing it. She opened the back door and crept out into the night.

  This secrecy wasn’t really necessary, of course. Her parents liked Jacob, thoroughly approving of him for their eldest daughter. Some evenings Jacob came to the door and was welcomed in. The two of them would sit in the kitchen, always aware of Daadi in the next room, always ready for Mammi to bustle in at any moment with offers of cake, pie, or cookies, as if Jacob needed to be fattened up.

  That was the way things usually worked, when a girl had a come-calling friend. But sometimes, a courting couple just needed to have a little time alone together. So Jacob would wait under the willow tree, sounding the birdcall until she could hurry silently out and join him for some stolen moments of privacy.

  She sidled around the corner of the house, keeping in the shadows, and went toward the willow tree, and then Jacob’s hands were clasping hers. He led her to the bench screened by the trailing fronds of the weeping willow.

  “Your hands are cold,” she said softly, clasping them in both of hers to warm them. “Did I keep you waiting long?”

  “Not long.” Jacob chuckled, his voice deep and filled with warmth when he spoke to her. “I could see you writing at the table in your room, and you didn’t look up for so long that I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

  “Ach, it’s you who was late,” she teased. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “And I thought I’d never get away. Daad had me helping him mend the chair Abe broke, and he kept talking and talking and talking. You know how he is.”

  She nodded. Everyone in their small community knew how fond Jacob’s father was of telling a gut story. She looked up at Jacob’s face, unable to make out much in the dark, but knowing his dear features so well it didn’t matter. She could see in her mind his clear blue eyes, his ruddy complexion, his straight nose and firm mouth. And the way his eyes crinkled just for her when he smiled.

  “How did you finally get out?” she prompted, knowing he was fond of telling a story, just like his daad.

  “Mamm got after him. She told him I had better things to do than listen to him.” He shook his head slightly, and she sensed the movement. “She always seems to know when I’m coming to see you. I have no idea how.”

  “Mothers seem to know things,” she offered. “I wonder if I will, when I’m . . .” She let that trail off, not sure she should mention the kinder she hoped one day she and Jacob would have.

  “I’m sure you will.” He clasped her hands a little tighter, and his voice was deep with meaning. He hesitated, and she felt as if the night had gone quiet, listening for what he might say next.

  But he must have drawn back from whatever the emotion was, as if the time wasn’t right. “What were you writing about with such a serious look on your face?”

  She shivered a little. “Daad came home from the mill today, saying that all the talk was of war. Saying that we’ll be in it before long. Jacob, that can’t be true, can it? Surely the country will not go to war.”

  “If President Roosevelt has his way, we will.” Jacob’s tone was somber. “He’s saying this Hitler must be stopped, and America is the only one strong enough to do it.”

  “All this talk of killing . . .” She shivered again. “I think Daad is worried about what might happen to us. But how can a war affect the Amish? We believe in peace. We live separate from the world, just as the Bible teaches us to do.”

  “We might not be able to avoid being caught up in it.” Jacob let go of her hands, and she felt cold. “I’ve seen the effects of the war talk myself already. Some of my Englisch friends are avoiding me now because I’m Amish.”

  “Ach, you’re imagining it.” Anna tried to say the words convincingly, longing to persuade herself as well as Jacob.

  “I wish I was. The last time I went to town, a bunch of boys in the grocery store started yelling at me, saying I was talking German.” He shook his head again, the movement somehow sorrowful. “Anna, I just don’t know what the future holds for us anymore.”

  The future. She seized upon the words. The future was her and Jacob getting married next November. She and Mamm were already filling her dower chest, putting in the quilts and linens that every Amish bride would expect to have.

  She and Jacob would get married. Jacob’s father would help them buy a farm. They’d have a family and bring them up in the faith. That was the way things were meant to be for them.

  She wouldn’t give that up. She couldn’t. But fear seemed to slide along her skin, chilling her worse than the cold air of the November night. What if Jacob was right?

  • • •

  Rebecca let the diary drop into her lap, yawning. She’d love to continue reading, but morning came early. Her brothers insisted on milking the two cows she kept, just as they did Daadi’s, so she cooked breakfast for whichever of the boys came over. Usually the kinder were up by then, and it wouldn’t do for her to be heavy-eyed at the breakfast table. Still, she suspected she’d be turning over and over in her dreams the story of this long-ago Anna.

  By the time Rebecca went to her grossmammi’s house the next afternoon, she was determined not to give in to her emotions again in front of her cousins. She would not be so foolish a second time.

  Maybe Barbie and Judith feared they had set her off the previous day, because they were careful to avoid any mention of how life was constantly changing or of anything that might remind her of her loss. The three of them worked throughout the afternoon with a semblance of harmony.

  Except, of course, when Barbie suggested that old letters and diaries were better off burned. Judith rolled her eyes.

  “Barbie, we’ve been through this already.” Judith was unusually firm for someone who typically was the peacemaker between quarreling factions. “Even if we don’t take the time to go through them now, no written records must be destroyed without serious thought.”

  “I know, I know.” Instead of flaring up, Barbie’s eyes twinkled. “I just wanted to spark things up a little.”

  “If you keep doing that, one day you’ll set a fire you can’t easily put out,” Rebecca said. “Just remember that this is your family’s history, too. One day you may want to tell your children about it.”

  Barbie made a face that suggested she didn’t plan to do any such thing. Maybe she wanted a new history to go along with the new furniture she claimed she’d have if and when she set up housekeeping.

  Rebecca exchanged glances with Judith, suspecting they were both thinking the same thing. One day Barbie would fall in love, and then all her preconceptions of the life she wanted could well fly out the window.

  Determined that she’d not leave any too early today, Rebecca lingered after Judith and Barbie left. Barbie was still arguing mildly, as if for the sake of argument, when they walked to Judith’s buggy. Judith, as far as Rebecca could tell, was keeping her peace and probably only half listening. Rebecca smiled. Perhaps that was the best way of dealing with their young cousin.

  Rebecca went back to the living room where Grossmammi sat in her favorite rocker, her sewing basket by her side.

  “What are you working on?” Rebecca drew a stool next to her grandmother and sat down. “Another quilt?”

  Grossmammi nodded, smoothing the quilt patch out in her lap. “It’s a variation on an autumn leaf design that Ann Stoltzfus showed me. Look how the leaves seem to curl.”

  Rebecca touched the intricate design. “It’s going to be so pretty.”

>   Her own sewing was almost entirely taken up with clothes for herself and the kinder, to say nothing of the constant stack of mending produced by two active little ones. She admired her grandmother’s skill. Grossmammi had an artist’s eye. The leaves, worked in shades ranging from yellow to gold to orange to red, were remarkably lifelike.

  “I love the colors,” she said. “It reminds me of the ridge on a sunny fall day.”

  Grossmammi nodded, her faded blue eyes seeming to look off in the distance. “That’s what I see, too—the blaze of beauty before the cold of winter. I think that’s what it must be like to enter heaven.”

  The Amish seldom speculated about such things, content to live their lives in obedience to God’s laws without wondering overmuch on what came after. Rebecca studied her grandmother’s serene face, wondering what had led her thoughts in that direction.

  Before Rebecca could form a question, Grossmammi’s forehead puckered slightly.

  “How is the sorting coming? Did you find the little chest of drawers with the blue paint? I want that put away for your brother Simon when he marries.”

  “I haven’t forgotten, Grossmammi.” She patted the blue-veined hand, idle for the moment atop the quilt patch. “We’ll make sure everything goes where it should.” Even if she and Judith had to hogtie Barbie to do so.

  Grossmammi shook her head, the frown deepening. “I still think I ought to do more of it myself. I can at least tell you what to do, even if I can’t do any of the bending and lifting. Where is the key?”

  “Judith has it,” Rebecca said, grateful that they’d thought of that precaution. “And anyway, you know what the doctor said about climbing stairs.”

  “Ach, he’s overcareful, that’s what he is. I feel fine.”

  “We want to keep you that way,” Rebecca said. “So that means no climbing up the attic stairs.”

  Grossmammi’s eyes flashed with a bit of their old fire. “I was climbing those steps before you were born. Besides, I know just how to do it. I could go up a few steps and then stop to rest. Then a few more. There’s no harm in that, ain’t so?”

  Rebecca was slightly appalled that her grandmother was actually giving the project some serious thought. She certain-sure wasn’t going to be drawn into agreeing. “And what if you tripped on those narrow steps? Just think how we’d feel if we came and found you lying at the bottom.”

  “I wouldn’t be lying there at all. I’m stronger than anyone thinks. Just because I have a little trouble catching my breath sometimes, that doesn’t mean I’m ready for the scrap heap.”

  Grossmammi’s strong will was legendary, and she seemed intent on proving it now.

  “No one’s suggesting that you are. What use is it to pay the doctor for his advice and then not take it? Anyway, I don’t have the key, so there’s an end to it.” Thank goodness Judith had the key safe in her hand. For all her gentle manner, Judith could be firm when she had to be. Maybe that came of being the mother of a houseful of boys.

  “When Judith comes tomorrow—” Grossmammi began.

  “Ach, that reminds me of something I wanted to talk to you about.” A diversion was clearly in order. “I took home a little wooden dower chest so I could sort the contents. When I was looking through it last night, I found a diary that I wanted to ask you about.”

  “A diary?” Grossmammi took the bait, her face lit with curiosity. “Whose was it, do you know?”

  “The name in it is Anna.” Rebecca paused, trying to collect what little she knew about the writer. “She seemed to be writing about things that were happening just before the Second World War.”

  “Anna Esch, that would be. Ach, that is what I would have picked for you, and you found it on your own.”

  “Picked for me?” Rebecca repeated the words. “What do you mean?”

  Grossmammi’s gaze slid away from hers. “Nothing, nothing. I’d like to be sure each of you has something especially meaningful. I was entrusted with some of Anna’s papers and such when she passed on. She must have been . . .” Grossmammi paused, seeming to search the endless files of information stored in her mind. “Maybe about eighteen or so when the war started.”

  Rebecca nodded. “I thought so. Her writing sounds as if she was fairly young and hopeful. She was writing about her come-calling friend.” She hesitated. “She seemed a little naïve, maybe, dreaming that marriage meant being happy forever.”

  “That’s how girls are at eighteen.” Grossmammi’s tone held a touch of gentle laughter. At Rebecca? Maybe so. She had to admit she’d probably been equally foolish at that age.

  “Girls married a little younger then than they do now,” Grossmammi said. “The war years turned everything upside down, that was certain-sure. Not that I remember much about it myself, but even a child hears folks talking.”

  “Anna said that the war had turned the Englisch against the Leit.” Rebecca used the familiar word by which the Amish referred to themselves. “It’s hard to imagine our Englisch neighbors acting that way.”

  Her grandmother shook her head. “Maybe. Maybe not. There’s no telling how folks will react in times of trouble. We haven’t always been on such gut terms with our Englisch neighbors as we are now. And even today, some folks don’t understand why we live the way we do. They think we’re backward.”

  “Separate,” Rebecca said. That was at the heart of the matter, she supposed. The Amish took seriously the words that they were to live by God’s standards, not the world’s. Be not conformed to the standards of the world . . .

  Her grandmother nodded. “You’ll read more of Anna’s diaries, I hope. She lived through a time of tumult and change. Maybe she has something to teach you.”

  “I guess I will,” Rebecca said. Did Grossmammi have something specific in mind, or was she just intent on seeing that the stories were kept alive?

  “Change isn’t easy.” Grossmammi said the words, her old voice as soft as a sigh. Her gaze drifted across the contents of the familiar room—the faded sofa, the rocker where Grossdaadi used to sit every evening, the mending basket that had probably once been as overflowing as Rebecca’s was. “It always means giving up something.”

  Rebecca’s heart clenched at the sorrow in her grandmother’s voice. Maybe, in their concern for Grossmammi’s safety, they hadn’t given enough consideration to her feelings about losing the home where she’d spent most of her life.

  Rebecca searched for the right words. “I know change is difficult. Maybe all we can do is try to look at the good things about it. You know how much Mammi and Daadi want to have you living with them, and the boys are looking forward to it, as well. And maybe I’m selfish, but I’m glad Katie and Josh will be able to spend more time with you. We’ll love having you right next door.”

  “You’re a gut child, Rebecca.” Grossmammi’s soft, wrinkled hand patted hers. “We will make a bargain, the two of us. I will try to look ahead if you will, too.”

  The words startled Rebecca, bringing her gaze to her grandmother’s face. “Me?”

  “You,” Grossmammi said firmly. “You were trying to reassure me. But what you said goes for you, too, ain’t so?”

  Heat rushed to Rebecca’s cheeks. “I . . . I’m doing fine. Really.”

  “Then there’s no harm in agreeing to welcome change.” Grossmammi’s wise old eyes held a challenge.

  “No, no harm.” What else could she say? And how did her grandmother manage to look into her heart so easily? “I’ll try, if you will.”

  What that would mean for her, Rebecca couldn’t imagine, but if it put Grossmammi in a better frame of mind about the future, perhaps it was worth it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Matt glanced at his uncle’s face as they loaded tools into the back of the buggy. He’d been a bit surprised when Onkel Silas had suggested knocking off early. The job they were doing, installing new kitchen cabinets in a home o
n the edge of the village, might be taxing on an older man, but Onkel Silas was as whipcord wiry as he’d ever been. Maybe his lack of energy was more a matter of losing heart now that Isaiah wasn’t working next to him.

  Matt shoved away a familiar sense of guilt. It wasn’t his doing that Isaiah had kicked over the traces and bolted for the outside world. He hadn’t so much as seen his younger cousin in years.

  Onkel Silas climbed into the buggy seat, and Matt swung up next to him and took the lines. Raising a hand in good-bye to Emma King, their client, who was watching from the window, he clucked to the mare and they moved off.

  “Emma seems satisfied with how the cabinets are coming,” he ventured when his uncle didn’t speak.

  “She’ll want to get back into her kitchen with all those kinder to feed.” Onkel Silas sent a sideways glance at Matt. “She was your year in school, ain’t so?”

  Why aren’t you married with a family of your own? Was that the question his uncle really wanted to ask? Matt wasn’t sure.

  “Ja, she was. She’s changed a bit since then. I wouldn’t have thought she and Joe King would make a match of it.”

  Onkel Silas chuckled, seeming to relax against the seat. “She led him a fine chase, as I remember. Everyone from your class is married now, ain’t so?”

  That, Matt thought, was as close as his uncle would come to asking him directly why a thirty-year-old Amish man wasn’t married.

  “Everyone but me,” he said with a cheerfulness he didn’t feel. “I haven’t found anyone willing to take a chance on me yet.”

  Onkel Silas managed another chuckle at the comment, but he didn’t push. A good thing, since Matt had no intention of telling him or anyone else why he wasn’t married.