She waited until they were relaxed and drinking lemonade from plastic glasses before asking the question that had been bothering her.
“Sam, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Since when have you ever needed to ask such a thing?” He leaned back on his elbows and frowned at her. “You know you can ask me anything.”
She bit her lip. “Why are you working two jobs? Do you need money so badly?”
He sat up and poured himself another glass of lemonade. “I have more bills than when I lived at home.”
“I’m schur.” She couldn’t help gazing at the pickup truck parked not far from them.
“Peter and I wanted to start our own business. That way we can work for ourselves.”
“I see. So you like doing construction better than farming like you did when you lived with your family?”
He shrugged. “I like both. But I can’t farm without having one.”
She brushed crumbs from her dress. “Nee, I guess not.”
“I’m glad David got the farm,” he told her. “He deserved it for all he did for Daed and Mamm when Daed was sick.”
“I know you feel that way. You’ve never acted like you resented him. If you did, you wouldn’t have helped him so much with the work.” She flicked at a little parade of ants that walked across the quilt. “Maybe someday you’ll have a farm of your own if you want one.”
He started to say something and then stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He stared at a couple of children who played on the swings in the distance.
“It isn’t nothing. You started to say something.”
“It’s not important.”
Frustrated, she started to press him. But he was loading the plastic containers back into the basket and avoiding her eyes.
“If you need some money I can help—”
“Nee!” he said sharply. When he saw her recoil, he took a deep breath. “No, thank you,” he said in a quiet voice. “Look, a little extra work never hurt anyone. And it’s helping me pay bills and build up some savings in the bank. Everyone should have some savings.”
“True.”
“Look, I’m sorry if my working so much has meant I haven’t had a lot of time to see you.”
“I’m not likely to complain about that. I’ve been busy, too.”
“So I guess you haven’t seen—” again he stopped.
“Go on.”
“So you haven’t seen much of Ben?”
He acted casual, but there was a tenseness about him, a wariness as he watched her.
“I’m not seeing him anymore.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Because you’re the only man I want to see,” she blurted out. She found herself holding her breath.
An expression of pure joy swept over his face. He reached for her hand and then pulled his back. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“I know.”
“You’re all right with that for now?”
She nodded.
He reached for her hand and clasped it. They sat there, gazing at each other, not needing words. The wind picked up, sending a cooling breeze.
Fall was coming. And with it came the end of harvest and the beginning of weddings. She wouldn’t think about that now. Sam hadn’t joined the church, so even if he suddenly wanted to get married, he’d have to attend a lengthy number of classes first.
And today was the first time he’d even attended a church service in well more than a year.
Well, it was a start, wasn’t it? As much as she’d always wanted to marry him, she wanted him to join the church and be a part of the Amish community again. Be with her and his family. Be the man who loved God as he’d done in the past.
For now, she enjoyed the afternoon with him and hoped she’d see that day sometime soon.
16
They were driving through town when it suddenly occurred to Mary Elizabeth that she didn’t know where Sam lived.
“Where’s your apartment?”
“My apartment?” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
He slowed, signaled, and pulled over. “I could take you there, but you know the bishop would have a fit if he knew.”
Mary Elizabeth glanced around. “I don’t see him.”
“When did you become a smart aleck?”
She laughed. “Always have been.”
Sam hesitated. There were strict rules about a single man and woman being together unchaperoned—particularly inside the home of one of them. But maybe John was there. And as Mary Elizabeth said, the bishop wasn’t there.
So he checked for traffic and pulled out onto the road again. “It isn’t much. Best I could find for what I could afford.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
The apartment was in a drab building without a lot of personality.
“David found a room to rent in a house an elderly woman owned,” he explained. “But that wasn’t big enough for John and me.”
Sam pulled into the parking place for his unit and they got out and walked up to it. “It’s not much,” Sam said again.
“What are you worried about?”
“John’s a slob.”
“I’m not going to judge you.”
“Schur,” he muttered as he unlocked the door and opened it.
Her first thought was that everything was beige—the walls, the sofa, the carpet. It had no pictures on the wall, nothing of the personality of the two men who lived there. It was clean but not neat. The door to one room was open, revealing an unmade bed and clothes strewn everywhere.
“John’s room,” Sam said as he closed the door.
The door to another room stood open. The bed was made and nothing was out of place. “Yours?” she asked with a grin.
He nodded.
She glanced curiously at a small room off the living room. He gestured at it, inviting her to take a look. It was the tiniest kitchen she’d ever seen with a small refrigerator, stove, and barely enough room for a rickety wooden table and two chairs. A stack of cellophane packages of ramen noodles took up much of the space on the kitchen counter. Two plates, two forks, two knives, and two glasses sat in a dish drainer.
“So this is how single men live?”
He grinned. “Well, it’s how these two men live.” He looked around. “It’s not so bad.”
“It’s not bad at all,” she rushed to say. “You’ve made a home for the two of you. And there’s no strife.”
“Well, sometimes John and I get into it.”
“Of course. You’re bruders.”
“Do schweschders argue?”
“Not so much anymore. Not since Rose Anna grew up a little.”
He rummaged in the refrigerator and handed her a soft drink. “It was her who caused disagreements between you then?”
“Of course. It wasn’t ever me.”
“No,” he said trying to keep a straight face. “Of course, it wasn’t ever you.”
She lifted her chin and regarded him as haughtily as she could. “I’m very mature and easy to get along with.”
“You are.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“No.” But his laughter spilled out and even after she smacked his arm, he couldn’t stop.
Mary Elizabeth glared at him. And then she started laugh-ing, too.
He stopped laughing and a serious expression swept over his face. “I missed this. Laughing with you.”
She sobered. “Me, too.”
Something intangible passed between them. Sam stepped forward one step, then two. Only inches separated them.
Then the door to the apartment opened and John walked in.
They sprang apart.
“Hey, Mary Elizabeth! What a surprise!”
He stepped into the kitchen and then stepped back. The room was too small for two, let alone three.
“Hi, John.” Mary Elizabeth felt warmth ru
sh into her cheeks. She looked down at the soft drink in her hands, popped the top, and tried to look casual as she took a sip.
“Are you staying for supper?” John asked her.
Mary Elizabeth shook her head. “Nee, I can’t, but danki.”
“I told her about your specialty,” Sam teased him.
“Hey, ramen noodles are good. They’re not just cheap.”
Sam gestured for Mary Elizabeth to precede him from the kitchen and rolled his eyes as his back was to John. “They are,” Sam agreed.
“I notice you always clean your plate,” John retorted.
“I need to get going,” she told Sam.
He nodded. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Are you eating here?” John called after him. “I need to know how much to cook.”
“You’re welcome to have supper with us,” she told Sam when they got into his truck.
“Thanks, but I have some paperwork to do. And I’ve taken up a lot of your day.”
“I enjoyed it,” she told him.
He turned to look at her before putting the truck into gear. “I did, too.”
When he sat there staring at her, she wondered what was on his mind. It was clear that something was . . .
Then he put the truck in gear, checked for traffic, and exited the parking lot. The drive home was silent as they thought their own thoughts.
* * *
“You should have let me know you were going to bring Mary Elizabeth here.”
Sam looked up from his plate of spaghetti sauce over ramen noodles. “She wanted to see the apartment while we were in town. That’s all that was happening.”
“Okay, you don’t need to jump down my throat.”
“I didn’t. But I would never do anything inappropriate with her. You should know that.”
John twirled noodles on his fork. “Just bringing her here could cause talk if anyone Amish saw her. You know how the bishop is about that sort of thing.”
“I know that.” He pushed his plate aside and picked up his glass of water. He hadn’t missed the strict rules of his old community, but the new bishop today had seemed less stern than those in the past. And even a strict bishop wouldn’t keep him from returning to be with Mary Elizabeth, to buy the farm and marry her and make a home with her.
“You gonna finish that?” John asked him as he eyed his plate.
Sam pushed the plate toward him. “Mary Elizabeth made too much food for a picnic today.”
John paused, his fork halfway to his mouth and a dreamy expression came over his face. “That’s one thing I miss about going out with Amish maedels. The Englisch women I date don’t seem to cook.”
“Food’s not everything.”
His bruder grinned. “Nope. Matter of fact this woman I met at a party—”
“Spare me.” He stood and put his plate in the sink.
“Hey, where are you going? It’s your turn to wash up. I cooked.”
“I’ll do them later. I have some paperwork to do.”
But when he got to his room he couldn’t seem to force his attention to it. Instead, he found himself thinking about his time with Mary Elizabeth today.
He tossed down his pencil and lay back on his bed. The long, hard week caught up with him. That, and the huge picnic Mary Elizabeth had prepared. He fell asleep.
“You’re late again!” his dat thundered as he walked into the barn.
Sam jerked, spilling the pail of horse food onto the barn floor. He hadn’t heard him come in.
“Now you’re throwing around money!” Amos scowled at the pellets on the floor.
“I’ll pay you for it.” Sam drew himself up and looked his dat straight in the eye. The old man got worse when you cowered from his harsh voice and his swift hands.
“Where you getting money, huh?”
“I’ll help Saul at the store on Saturday. He always needs someone to do stuff around the store for him.”
“Just clean it up and don’t dawdle. If you’re not at the table on time you can go without supper.”
Sam watched him stomp off toward the house. It was tempting to go without supper just so he wouldn’t have to sit at the table with him. But his stomach was already growling. He quickly finished feeding and watering the stock and hurried to the house.
His dat wasn’t sitting in his usual place at the head of the table. He looked over at his mudder standing at the stove stirring something in a pot, “Where is he?”
“Your dat?”
“Ya.”
“He’s out on the front porch talking with Abe Zook.”
Sam quickly washed his hands at the kitchen sink. “What can I help you with?”
She smiled at him. “Everything’s done.” The oven timer dinged.
“Let me get that for you,” he said, rushing over to the stove. But she already had pot holders in her hands and was pulling a big roasting pan from the oven. She set the pan on top of the stove and winced.
“You shouldn’t be lifting something that heavy. The cast hasn’t been off your arm all that long.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Hand me that platter.”
He did as she asked and watched her transfer a perfect pot roast and vegetables from the pan to the platter. “How was the job today?”
“Gut.”
“You’re schur you want to do your apprenticeship in carpentry rather than learn farming right here at home?”
He gave a short bark of laughter. “Have a day getting praised for doing a gut job instead of being yelled at by my dat because he doesn’t think I can do anything right?”
She sighed. “The two of you butt heads because you’re so alike.”
Sam took the platter from her and set it in the center of the table. “I’m nothing like that mean old man.”
Waneta flicked a dish towel at his arm. “Don’t talk that way about your dat.”
He walked over to pick up the basket of bread and set it on the table. “I’ll call David and John.”
“David’s having supper at Lavina’s house.”
“Lucky him,” Sam muttered. He went to the stairs that led up to the bedrooms and called John, then got the butter from the refrigerator and placed it on the table. It was then, as he stood by the table, that he saw how exhausted she looked. Harvest time was the hardest time of the year for an Amish fraa. All that gathering fruit and vegetables from the kitchen garden, preserving and canning in the late summer heat. Cooking after days in a hot kitchen for a mann who insisted on meals like this . . .
“Sit down, Mamm, have some iced tea,” he said, drawing out a chair for her.
She sank into it. “You’re such a gut sohn.”
“Don’t go filling the boy with prideful compliments,” Amos snapped at her.
John came clattering down the stairs. “Mmm, something smells good, Mamm.” He skirted around his dat and took a seat at the table.
Amos took his seat and the family bent heads for the blessing.
Sam lifted his head as he finished and stared at John, then his mudder and his dat. They’d grown older while their heads were bent. He stared at his hands. They weren’t the hands of a gangly teenage boy but the wide, hard-callused ones of a man. He scraped back his chair, stumbled to his feet.
“Excuse me,” he said as he rushed from the room to the downstairs bathroom. There, he stared at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. A man in his late twenties stared back at him. He touched his face as if he’d find it didn’t match the reflection, but felt his skin and knew it was the face he saw in the mirror.
He made his way back to the kitchen, not sure what was happening. The family sat at the table calmly eating supper.
“Still here?” his dat demanded, glaring at him. “Always was a failure. Guess you’ll be living here, eating us out of house and home, forever.”
Sam opened his mouth and screamed.
“Hey, Sam, wake up!”
He shot up in bed. John was leaning over him looking concerned.
> “Bad dream?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face and nodded. “Must have been the spaghetti,” he muttered, embarrassed at having a nightmare like a little kind.
“Hey, no more comments about my cooking,” John snapped.
Sam grabbed his arm. “Sorry.”
John nodded. “Must have been a doozy.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. “I was still living at home, and Daed was his old self.”
His bruder shuddered. “Man, that’s a horror movie.”
“Ya.”
“How about a beer and something on ESPN?”
Sam thought about how he hadn’t embraced much of the Englisch world during his time away from their Amish community . . . and how soon that things might change when he returned to it.
“Let’s take a ride,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“Maybe I can drive?”
Sam gave him a healthy slap on the back. “Not a chance, bruder. Not a chance.”
* * *
The leaves were changing on the trees, bright splashes of gold and scarlet. Pumpkins and gourds and Indian corn were featured in roadside stands in the community. Shawls and jackets came out as the weather had a real nip to it. Warm quilts for sale were draped over porch railings and clotheslines. Fall had officially swept into Pennsylvania.
And many of the stands featured jars of jewel-toned preserves and jellies with little signs beside them suggesting they’d make great Christmas gifts.
Mary Elizabeth pulled into the driveway of her home and watched her dat come out of the barn wiping his hands on a rag. He greeted her and Rose Anna and shooed Mary Elizabeth inside with her market bags while listening to her younger schweschder chatter as she helped him unhitch the buggy.
The air outside was cool but when she opened the door into the kitchen, Mary Elizabeth felt the welcome warmth of the oven spill out carrying the scent of bread baking.
When she and Rose Anna had left the house earlier, Mamm was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast. Now she was preparing to serve lunch. There was such a comfortable rhythm to the days here, Mary Elizabeth mused as she set the market bag down on the counter. Days revolved around work and meals, measured by the seasons and work and obligations. Living on a farm, of course, meant that with each season there could be surprises—unexpected storms and crop failures and such. You had to trust in God’s will so much. But there was a comforting rhythm to life on a farm in an Amish community. Maybe farms anywhere, really.
Seasons in Paradise Page 19
