The Amish Widower

by Virginia Smith

  “Hey, Aim-ish,” a young man shouted. “Pretty cold outside. You got heaters in them things?”

  The car passed the second and third buggies, both of which edged as far to the right of the buggy lane as possible.

  “What are they doing?” Hannah’s voice held a note of concern.

  “Englisch teenagers.” I tugged on the leather strap to direct Lars closer to the edge of the pavement. For the most part, Englisch and Amish lived a peaceful coexistence in Lancaster County, but every so often we were subjected to jeers and taunts about our simple ways.

  Lars snorted, his ears jerking to stiff attention as his neck shot upward like a giraffe’s. The car gained speed as it neared. Laughter from the young Englisch man leaning halfway out the lowered window was drowned out by the loud rattle of the inoperative muffler, which roared through the cold afternoon air. Lars tossed his head, clearly jittery, and I wrapped the leather reins firmly around my hand as the car approached us.

  “Easy now,” I said in a tone as soothing as I could make it, but the nervous horse probably couldn’t hear because the driver chose the moment he zoomed past us to lay on his horn.

  Lars bolted. The buggy shot forward, and Hannah gave a startled shout as she grasped the edge of the bench for balance.

  “Whoa!” I called, pulling back on the reins with one hand and the brake lever with the other.

  In response, Lars issued a high-pitched neigh that sounded eerily like a human screech. He tried to dash forward, but the buggy’s brakes and my firm grip on the reins impeded his progress. Instead of forward, he bolted sideways. The front wheel of the buggy slid off the pavement, and the resulting lurch jolted Hannah and me across the bench. The horse’s hooves tromped on the frozen ground beside the road. Fighting desperately to regain control, I couldn’t be sure what happened next. Perhaps Lars’s hooves slid on a patch of ice, or maybe it was the wheel. I found myself pitched sideways, my body crashing into Hannah’s, as the buggy tilted at an impossible angle.

  We’re going to flip.

  The certainty struck me a second before the horse fell, taking the buggy with him. Hannah screamed as the buggy teetered and then careened sideways. Her hands flailed the air, reaching for something to anchor her as she was pitched forward. Releasing the reins, I grabbed for her while holding on to the brake lever for stability. Our hands grappled for each other, but my fingers closed around nothing. Hannah became airborne. For a split second I saw her, terror plain on the face she turned my way, and then she tumbled headfirst toward the icy ground for a heartbeat before the buggy crashed. Her scream, high and piercing, cut off abruptly.

  I managed to kick off the floorboard and flew through the air. With a jolt that knocked the breath from my lungs, I hit the ice a few feet clear of the overturned buggy. Something in my shoulder snapped, and I was dimly aware that pain shot through my body. I climbed to my feet, trying to gulp air into my paralyzed lungs, and staggered toward the place where my wife lay unmoving, pinned beneath the front wheel.

  “Hannah!”

  My cry came out as a choked sob as I reached for her, intent on freeing her from the buggy’s crushing weight. My right arm refused to cooperate, but I grabbed for her with my left.

  “Seth, no.” Strong hands halted me. Josiah’s. “It’s not safe to move her.”

  The sense of his words cut through my stunned brain. If the fall had damaged her spine, moving her could prove disastrous. Instead, I fell to my knees beside her, dimly aware that we were surrounded by black-garbed people. A woman’s quiet sobs rose toward the frigid sky as Josiah directed someone to run quick for the nearest phone and call an ambulance.

  I crept forward, my eyes fixed on my wife’s face. Her kapp had been torn off, and I reached to smooth a lock of honey-blond hair away from her eyes. As my finger touched her skin, a terrible realization struck me with the weight of a millstone, dragging me down into a dark despair that was both devastating and horribly familiar.

  No ambulance could help her. My Hannah was dead.

  TWO

  One Year Later

  Milk streamed into the pail in a rhythmic pattern my hands performed automatically. My right shoulder ached, and I paused for a moment to stretch my arm. Though I’d regained full range of motion after the surgery that repaired the tendons and bones injured during the accident, a nagging pain in the damaged muscles persisted. The Englisch surgeon said it probably always would. It was an ache I must learn to live with, to ignore and move on.

  I had many such pains, my shoulder the least of them.

  The cow stood patiently as I drained her udder, her tail giving a periodic swish as if to shoo a fly from her flank. The gesture was habit only because flies were rare during the winter months. At least Caroline took care to avoid my head resting against her warm side. Our other milk cow, Delilah, lived up to her name. She maintained a far less accepting attitude toward milking. More than once I’d felt the painful flick of her tail across my cheek.

  My bruder Aaron laughed at me when I once told him that Delilah took a perverse pleasure in slapping at me, but he didn’t know our cows as well as I did. Though they looked nearly identical, they had distinct personalities. Delilah, outwardly as docile as a proper milk cow should be, harbored a pent-up streak of rebellion that occasionally broke free in small but frustrating ways. I’d learned to place the bucket carefully and keep a sharp eye on her hind legs, ready to grab the handle and rescue the milk from her well-aimed kicks.

  I never had to worry about mild-natured Caroline, who always seemed grateful to be relieved of the pressure in her heavy udder. As if to prove my point, Caroline turned her head and fixed a deep brown eye on me. Her placid expression was almost kind, as if to say, I would never hurt you, Seth.

  With a smile at my own fanciful thoughts, I gave her girth an affectionate slap. My mind often wandered down wayward paths during this quiet time of milking. I always began the twice-daily chore intending to spend the time in prayer, and felt guilty when I ended up pondering something frivolous, such as bovine personalities.

  But better shallow thoughts than the dire memories that returned so often to plague me, bringing with them the pain that carved fresh gouges in my heart every day.

  Gott, show me the way to peace. I beseech You for mercy.

  I shut my eyes against the two visions that haunted me so often they had become intertwined. Two beautiful women. Two wives. Two tragic deaths.

  And both my fault.

  Forgive me. The often-repeated prayer cried out from an agony rooted deeply in my soul. But relief did not come. It never did.

  The creaking of the barn door alerted me to someone’s approach. I lifted my head and leaned sideways on my stool, craning to see around Caroline. Night had fully fallen during my time in the barn, and the light from the oil lamp cast a warm glow on my sister-in-law, Saloma, as she slipped inside.

  “Hello.” She cradled a steaming mug between her hands. “I thought you’d like some coffee to warm you.”

  “Danke.” I didn’t tell her that my hands were already warm from their labor, but I took the mug with a grateful nod and sipped from it before returning to my chore.

  Saloma leaned against the shelf where the lamp flickered and rubbed her upper arms briskly. The roundness of her belly showed starkly in the golden light, the cause of yet another stab of pain that I experienced a dozen or more times a day.

  “Where is your cape?” I asked, my tone slightly chiding. “You shouldn’t be out in the cold without it.”

  She gave me a soft smile. “I’ll be fine for the short walk to the barn and back. I wanted to ask you something. A favor.”

  The flow of Caroline’s milk slowed. I made sure each teat had been fully emptied, and then moved the nearly full pail to rest beside the others, ready to strain and run through the separator.

  “What do you need?” I asked as I resettled my hat on my head.

  “Can you take Mamm and Becky and me to Strasburg tomorrow? I want to shop for a
gift for my schweschder, and Mamm would like to stop by the fabric store.”

  Saloma’s schweschder and brother-in-law, who married last October, had spent the winter months visiting their relatives, as was our tradition for newly married couples. Because Johann’s family cabinet shop had received several large jobs and could not spare him every weekend, the couple had been forced to limit their visits and were only now finishing the rounds. The host family customarily bestowed wedding gifts during these visits, so naturally Saloma would want to find something nice to give her schweschder.

  A string of memories flitted through my mind. Gifts I’d received from Rachel’s family, and later, from Hannah’s. I’d left them all with my former in-laws. I didn’t need them, and certainly didn’t want the visual reminder of my failure as a husband. The memories were painful enough.

  In an instant, the impact of Saloma’s request slammed against me, nearly knocking me from the milking stool. My body turned to stone. An unbearable weight pressed against my chest, making breathing impossible. I was being asked to drive a pregnant woman. The warm glow of the oil lamp disappeared as a heavy darkness descended over me, and the barn became as black as the cavern in my soul.

  Why would they ask this of me? Do they not know? Can’t they understand? What if…

  I could not finish the thought. Drive the women to Strasburg? No. I could not do it. I would not.

  With the hard-won control that I had nearly perfected over the past year, I kept my features rigid while I battled the panic that gripped my chest. Amish men must exercise strict discipline, regardless of the strength of the emotions that raged inside.

  Forcing my chest to expand, I drew in a deep breath. When I could move, I turned my back on Saloma under the excuse of retrieving the post-milking disinfectant from the shelf on the back wall.

  “I’m sorry, but tomorrow we are doing repairs to the chicken coop. Aaron needs my help.”

  “I asked Aaron, and he said between him and Noah and Daed, he could spare you if you don’t mind the trip.”

  Aaron, my oldest bruder and Saloma’s husband, ran the farm. Two years ago, Daed had suffered a stroke, mild enough that he could still function, but he moved slower, and with a shuffling step that wasn’t as steady as before. Aaron had slowly taken over more and more of the management of the farm since that time. Ownership of the family farm would have come to him eventually anyway, so Daed’s condition merely accelerated the transition in leadership.

  Of course Aaron could spare me. Between him, Daed, and my brother-in-law, Noah, they could handle everything that needed to be done. I was nothing more than an extra pair of hands, largely superfluous except during the growing season, when tending the land required more effort. The widower bruder who took up space in the overcrowded house.

  Using slow, measured movements at odds with the turbulence in my soul, I applied the disinfectant to Caroline’s teats. Only when I was certain I could speak in an even tone did I answer.

  “I am happy to hitch the buggy for you, but the trip is only nine miles. Between you and Becky, I’m sure you can manage the driving.”

  I returned the disinfectant to its place on the shelf and turned to find that Saloma had crossed the distance between us. She stood a mere foot away, peering up into my face with eyes so full of compassion that something twisted in my chest.

  “It is time, Seth.”

  Her low tone was infused with an unspoken message. She knew full well what she was asking. How stupid of me to think that my family, those with whom I spent my daily life, had not noticed that I had not driven a buggy since the accident. I’d ridden with others, but not once had I taken up the reins myself.

  A wild rage rose up from the dark emptiness in me. Angry blood heated my face, and my pulse pounded in my ears. It was not their place to decide when the time had come for me to do anything. What business was I of theirs?

  Immediately, I stuffed the anger down. Of course I was their business. I was family.

  And maybe they were right. It had been a year. The fact that they trusted me—that Aaron trusted me with his wife and unborn child—snuffed out the last flicker of fury. Maybe it was time.

  Drawing a deep breath into lungs that still resisted, I managed a nod. “Ya. I will drive you.” Did Saloma have any idea the effort those words cost me?

  If so, she gave no sign. A soft smile curved her lips. “Gut.” Then she clapped her hands and grinned. “We can treat ourselves to lunch at Katie’s Kitchen.”

  For her benefit, I forced a smile. “That will be fun.”

  When she’d left the barn, I untied Caroline and carried the milk pails to the attached shed, where we kept the separator. Working hard to clear my mind of turmoil, I focused instead on the task at hand. First I poured the fresh milk through the strainer and then into the separator. While I rotated the handle, I kept an eye on the cream spout, which had been known to leak if the cream screw loosened. Cream trickled in a steady stream into the pail I set in place, while the skimmed milk ran into a bucket below.

  When Naomi and Johann visited, I’d need to stay in the daadi haus with my grossmammi so they could sleep in my room. To be honest, I’d thought a lot about moving there permanently. When Saloma’s baby arrived, that would bring the total number living in the main house to ten. The three little ones—two belonging to Saloma and Aaron, and one to my schweschder Becky and her husband, Noah—occupied the nursery already. Noah had plans to buy a farm of his own, but that was a few years away. My grossmammi, Mammi, would welcome me in the daadi haus, which was connected to the big house by a breezeway, but there was only one bedroom. I didn’t mind sleeping on a pallet on the floor for a few nights, but permanently? And one day she would be gone, and Mamm and Daed would live there.

  The separator can emptied. I moved the skim milk to one side, ready to feed to our hog, and then proceeded to strain the other pail of whole milk for the family’s use. The cream would be picked up by the milk truck in the morning, ready for sale.

  What I needed to do was find another place to live. Aaron didn’t need me here. Oh, he would never say that. I would always be welcome, and especially once Noah and Becky left. I could even build a small house on the property next to the daadi haus where I could live alone, out of everyone’s way. Though Aaron was perfectly capable of running the farm on his own, he’d be glad of the extra pair of hands.

  But that’s what I would always be—an extra.

  I awoke the next morning to a tightness in my chest that was familiar, but more intense than usual. Today I would take the women of my family to Strasburg. I would hitch up the horse, take up the reins, and guide our family buggy down nine miles of paved road. My hands trembled as I slipped my suspenders over my shoulders. Darkness hovered at the edge of my thoughts like a storm cloud, black with rain and rumbling with thunder.

  Light of the world, shine on us this day.

  With an effort, I stilled my trembling hands and descended the stairs.

  An air of excitement hovered around the breakfast table. The women anticipated the treat of the day’s outing. Mamm smiled brighter than usual as she wished me “Guder mariye.” She set a platter of thick-sliced fried ham in the center of the table, the source of the savory aroma that filled the house.

  Daed had already taken his place at the head of the table, where he perused the latest issue of the Budget. At the stove, Becky ladled gravy from a skillet with one hand and bounced little Sadie on her hip with the other.

  The thunder of small footsteps pounded down the stairs, heralding the arrival of my three-year-old nephews. Saloma turned from her place at the work counter, a pan of gooey cinnamon rolls in her hands, and leveled a stern look on her twins.

  “No running in the house,” she commanded. “Did you wash your hands?”

  Mark nodded, while Luke extended his arms and splayed his fingers as proof.

  “Okay, then. Go to the table and practice sitting still.”

  “Wike at church?” Luke asked.
>
  “Lllllllike,” she repeated, emphasizing the proper way to pronounce the L. “Exactly like at church.”

  Both boys groaned as they climbed onto their chairs. Putting my discomfort out of my mind, I hid a grin as I slid onto my own. Three hours was a long time for little ones to sit quietly. Especially boys with as much energy as these two. I sympathized completely. Many were the times Aaron and I drew stern, disapproving glares from Mamm when we were young and failed to contain our boyish restlessness during the service.

  “At least now you only have to sit still for a few minutes,” I offered by way of consolation.

  Identical grins flashed onto their faces as Becky set a huge bowl of creamy gravy beside the ham. Next followed Mammi with a dish of fried potatoes and onions.

  Noah and Aaron descended the stairs together just as Saloma added a bowl of fluffy scrambled eggs.

  “Did you wash your hands?” she asked her husband with a playful smile as he took his seat.

  With the same gesture as his son, Aaron held up his hands for inspection. “Yes, ma’am. Even used soap.”

  The table laden with food and the full complement of family seated, a comfortable silence fell. Daed lowered his head, eyes closed, and we all did the same. I mentally formed a prayer of thanksgiving, for the bounty of food and for each person around the table. I’d just moved on to the topic most heavy on my heart, our safety during the day’s journey, when the silence was broken by eighteen-month-old Sadie babbling a string of unintelligible words. I cracked open an eye to see Becky put a finger over her daughter’s lips and make a show of closing her eyes and bowing her head. The toddler did fall silent, but her bright eyes circled the table. She giggled when she caught me looking at her, and with a quick grin I shut my eyes and continued my prayer.