by Linda Byler
She kept the bread cubes oversized, too, mixing them with lots of butter and gently seasoning them with only salt and pepper. She stirred everything together lightly with a careful hand, adding the beaten eggs last. Yes, there was a secret to outstanding roasht. Absolutely.
The gravy was thick and golden, rich with good chicken fat and a dash of ginger ale added as a stabilizer, although it was a bit salty.
The potatoes were mashed with butter and cream cheese. The peas were from the garden’s abundance, early peas, picked when they tasted like ambrosia. Gute arpsa, they all said.
The noodles were homemade, thick and flecked with browned butter. The Kaltgraut was fresh, the cabbage having been grated that morning, then seasoned with vinegar, sugar, and salt.
Hard-boiled eggs were drowning in pungent, pickled, red-beet juice. They were eaten cut in half and salted by each individual.
Mam had picked the little green pickles each morning they were in season to make sure she got the smallest and the youngest cucumbers. She carefully washed them, cut their ends off, and brined them for seven days.
These were her seven-day sweet pickles. She made them every year, feeling mildly superior to those lazy housewives who let their cucumbers grow to the size of a zucchini squash, claiming that banana pickles were their family’s favorite, those limp, yellow, peeled oddities that were drowned in sugar and turmeric. They were disgusting, in Mam’s culinary opinions, which were numerous and well flaunted.
After that came the desserts. A train of cakes, pies, and puddings, followed by fruit and Jell-O, the caboose aimed at those who had a conscience about healthy eating. The walnut layer cake had caramel icing. Mam’s chocolate cake was always the men’s favorite. Along with pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and lemon meringue.
There was always Christmas salad, with its ribbons of red, green, and white Jell-O. Next to it was date pudding and butterscotch tapioca. And of course, the necessary bowl of fruit salad, made with canned peaches and pears, fresh grapes, oranges, and bananas. Some younger women added kiwis and strawberries, but Mam said those grainy, slippery kiwis ruined good, traditional, Amish fruit salad.
Everyone ate and ate, bantering across the tables, spirits high as stomachs were filled with the Christmas feast.
They hand-washed all those dishes, and everyone eventually found a seat, circling around the sprawling kitchen and spilling into adjoining rooms. The children grew impatient and fidgety, knowing that the singing would go on and on and on, before the gifts were allowed to be distributed.
Becky sang along with the cousins, trying hard to sing quietly so as not to draw attention to herself, too aware of the compliments she had received this season. It wouldn’t do to stand out too much or to seem to be showing off.
Presents were distributed afterward, much to the delight of the little ones. Only then did the visiting begin in earnest, the women pairing off into groups of two or more, Mam eager to hear all the latest news from her home.
Salome sat apart, her arms crossed, her face pale and drawn, a child on her lap as she peeled a tangerine. Becky felt a stab of pity and so broke apart from her gaggle of hysterical cousins and sat down beside her aunt. She talked easily about the old people at Round Oaks, and how she’d love to have a job working with the elderly and feeble.
Suddenly Salome leaned close and put a hand on her wide knee. “Oh, Becky,” she breathed. “Why don’t you come home with us and care for Daudy and Mommy? You would be an answer to our prayers. An angel of mercy.”
She glanced around the kitchen furtively, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “I can hardly take it anymore.”
Pools of tears gathered in Salome’s gentle eyes. She blinked furiously to rid herself of the unwelcome display of what she viewed to be self-pity and weakness.
“Just come, Becky. I’m serious. If you feel you have a fondness for these old people, then definitely, you should do it.”
Becky stammered. “But I meant a job. Making money, you know? You couldn’t afford to pay me. And besides, I’ve heard quite enough of all the chvistats’ opinions and helpful advice. How could I ever please everyone?”
Salome lowered her hand, dabbing at her eyes. “You couldn’t. I can’t.”
“Should families be this way, Salome? I mean, Mam gets so upset and marches to the phone. Since I was at Round Oaks, all of this has given me much to think about.”
“You mean …?”
“Well, frankly, Salome, we would never put away our old people the way English people do. But our way isn’t exactly an oasis of love either.”
Salome looked at her sharply. “We are only human. We do the best we can.” Her tone was clipped, hard as a handful of pebbles flung in her face.
“Oh, I know. I know.” Quickly, Becky tried to rectify her mistake.
She drifted away from Salome after that, having quickly changed the subject to a lighter note.
All afternoon she listened to the foolish prattling of her Lancaster cousins and became quite the life of the conversation herself with her quick wit and dry sense of humor. But her mind was elsewhere.
Could she leave Wisconsin? Did she want to set herself smack in the middle of that hornet’s nest of ill feelings where the care of Daudy was concerned? Could she care lovingly for the grandfather she barely knew, for a distant grandmother who seemed as alien as Harold Epstein?
She approached her mother, catching her in the pantry, and told her quickly what Salome had said.
Mam’s eyes sought Becky’s face. “Oh, Becky, you don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?”
“I thought you were going to try for a job here.”
“I can’t without my GED.”
Mam gave Becky a push. “We must get back to our company. Just forget about your idea.”
So Becky did. She took her mother’s advice and went back to the frivolity of her cousins, enjoying the remainder of the day by tucking away the weighty matter of Salome’s invitation.
When the bus returned, the family scrambled for their wraps. They stowed their presents neatly in boxes, filled jugs with ice water, and wrapped leftovers to be eaten on the way home.
Tears flowed and hugs were everywhere, after discovering that a handshake just wasn’t adequate conveyance of love between individuals. Babies were pulled from sound naps, bundled into fleece blankets, and carried through the still falling snow.
“Good-bye!” Good-bye!”
“Machts gut. Machts gut!”
As the bus lumbered off through the gray, whirling evening, the family turned to go inside, relieved to know their guests were scheduled to stay at a Day’s Inn about a hundred miles away. That was a huge comfort to Mam, with the snow coming down like it was and the interstates slick with slush.
“Oh, the salt and calcium trucks will be out like a swarm of bees,” Dat said, then chuckled. “Wonder how many TVs will be turned on tonight?”
“Ach, Dat. Now.”
Dat laughed again. “Maybe not Henry and Salome’s, but I bet the rest won’t sleep much.”
Becky caught Mam’s “tsk” of self-righteousness, but it was edged with love and mercy.
CHAPTER 7
AND SO THAT WINTER BECKY FACED SOME tough choices.
January was bitterly cold and filled with endless swirling, biting snow that drifted around the barn in tight piles. It required hours of hard shoveling just to keep the path to and from the house open.
Salome’s needs tugged at her heart.
Soon after the family Christmas, Becky visited Harold Epstein in Room 116 at the Round Oaks facility. It was the first of many more visits. His voice shook as he took them both back to a gentler time when the world was a simpler place. Becky loved to sit at his side, listening to the gravelly voice unfold the years of his life. It seemed as if that alone was all he needed. A listening ear, a caring heart.
She would sing to him or read from his books of poetry or the Bible, passages he loved from Isaiah or the Psalms. Always he would beg her to stay only a
bit longer, and always she would.
He asked the administrator if she could apply for a job, but was told firmly, that no, not without her GED. Company policy.
Harold was not happy about this at all and said he was going to speak to his daughters about moving.
Then they found the message on voicemail.
Salome had had a breakdown. A nervous breakdown. Her nerves were completely shattered.
Mam spent hours on the phone. She sat with Dat late at night, discussing the situation.
Evidently, Mommy had been showing signs of dementia before Christmas, which was behind Mam’s confusion about her letter, followed by her refusal to come on the bus. Daudy’s bedsores had worsened to the point that he was taken to the hospital for extensive care. Then Mommy boiled a jar of pickles, thinking she was heating green beans to eat with her supper of stewed crackers.
She blamed Salome for hiding Daudy from her on purpose, telling her she finally got her way after years of trying to get Daudy away from her.
This all happened when Henry went to New Jersey for a few days with a group of men to help rebuild from storm damage, leaving Salome with far too much on her shoulders. The neighbor lady who was to help proved to be unreliable, even hostile. So Salome sat on the couch and began to cry and couldn’t stop.
Mary still went to market but helped more than she used to. Rachel took most of her parents’ care on herself, but clearly, there was a huge need.
Becky told Mam she would go. She said the words with her mouth, but her heart was not in it. She didn’t know her grandparents, and the Lancaster cousins seemed as annoying as children, the inconsistency of their silly lives as senseless as too thin vanilla pudding.
Becky had tried hard to fit in with them, but she just couldn’t quite make it. What if she got all the way to Lancaster and remained an outsider, having to live with a mentally unstable Salome? What would she do with aunts hovering over her with their outsized magnifying glasses, scrutinizing every move she made, then discussing it endlessly among themselves like snappy little dogs chewing on rawhide bones?
She was, after all, doing her duty by visiting her aging old friend, Harold. She still liked the atmosphere at Round Oaks, loved being there and listening to the professional swishing of rubber-clad soles on carpeting, the smell of fresh coffee in the morning, the trundling of the laundry cart. She longed to work among them, still, but she’d admitted finally that it was impossible, that the administrator would not bend the rules.
Daniel wasn’t really in her life, staying so aloof, until she wasn’t sure at all that the Christmas evening conversation had happened. Had it just been a distant dream? Did she even want it to be real? She didn’t know.
And she wasn’t sure she could deal with an old grandparent who was slowly losing her mind.
When the cold loosened its grip so that the snow slid off metal roofs and began to form runnels of water through low snowbanks, Dat left the farm in the care of the boys, packed his bags, and went to see his parents on Amtrak.
Upon his arrival, he called home and left a message, telling his wife to come and bring Becky if she was still of a mind to come. Mam was terrified of the train, but Abner made all the arrangements, told Becky she was easily smart enough to travel with Mam, and sent them off.
Becky sat beside her mother and watched the white landscape rush past. She became really hungry and thirsty but felt too timid to say anything, her size always a displeasure on Mam’s mind. Finally she asked Mam if she’d brought anything to eat. Mam reached into her purse and brought out a package of Lance peanut butter crackers, without a drink. So Becky ate the crackers and got more and more thirsty. But she sat in that train in complete misery rather than ask Mam for a drink.
Just when she thought she’d suffocate from a dry throat, Mam asked if she wanted to eat in the dining car where some of the other passengers were going. She nodded and followed her mother, trying to make herself as small as possible, yet feeling very much like an elephant trying to squeeze through a narrow hallway.
The reward was dinner. A good roast beef sandwich with gravy and French fries, a bowl of applesauce, and a slice of cherry pie that was so sour it puckered her mouth.
Mam laughed at her. She laughed at her when they tried to settle down for the night, too. Becky flipped and turned and sighed, trying to get decently comfortable, which she finally decided was an impossibility. She gave up and sat upright, sleeping with her head falling sideways, and waking up with such a stiff neck she was sure it would be for always.
When Becky told Mam she would walk on a forty-five degree angle from here on out, Mam laughed long and sort of loud, which came as a big surprise to Becky. She didn’t think she was that funny.
Puzzled, she looked at her mother reclining in the seat beside her. She had laughed more on this train than she had for months at home. Maybe mothers just were that way—uptight and careworn by the daily grind of washing and cleaning, cooking and sewing, spinning around them like the fibers of a cocoon, ensnaring and enslaving them without them being fully aware of it. Or not knowing what to do about it if they did understand the dilemma. Perhaps that was what pushed up their eyebrows and drew lines of tension around their mouths.
Life was different on the train, away from the daily grind of caring for those four boys who ate like horses and always needed new pants and shirts and lunches packed and thermoses filled. She might just be like a butterfly freed from its cocoon. Now she could sail along on the train, and for one day and night not worry about dishes and laundry and boys.
She asked Mam if she felt freed.
Mam laughed and said, “Ach, Becky, I like my life at home, the work, the daily duties. What else would I do? It’s the way of the Amish woman, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s a fulfilling life.”
“Why don’t you laugh at home, then?”
“I do.”
“Hardly ever.”
Mam looked at Becky, really looked at her, a twinkle in her eyes containing leftover humor. “Becky, I laugh at you a lot more than you know. I laugh at you especially when you get so mad. I know I shouldn’t. That’s why I look out the kitchen window and shake all over while tears run down my face. I’m laughing so hard. You are really funny sometimes.
“I don’t know why I don’t let myself laugh openly at you. Maybe it’s just my upbringing. You know how we’re taught that we shouldn’t laugh too much at our children because it can make them grosfeelich.”
“You think I’m grosfeelich?”
“Oh, my, no. Sometimes you are just very, very funny.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Mam smiled at Becky, a smile that revealed admiration and a sense of pride that rose and fluttered around Becky’s heart, filling a need she didn’t know she had.
Mam sighed. “You know, Becky. I’m beginning to wonder if I don’t hold Nancy a bit higher than I should. I do admire her, and, yes, I admit, it’s fun having a girl in her rumschpringa years. But you are so easy, so uncomplicated. I should tell you this more often. I appreciate you just for being you.”
Becky’s throat tightened, the tip of her nose burned, and for one horrifying moment she was afraid she would cry.
“I’m too fat, Mam.”
Mam placed a hand over Becky’s. “Oh, Becky, don’t say that. It sounds so harsh.”
“You don’t like it.”
“I struggled to accept it as you approached young womanhood, yes. But you weren’t aware of my feelings, I hope.”
“Mam, now come on. It was written all over your face when you sewed for me.”
Mam smiled. “Well.” Then she said, “I’m sorry, Becky.”
“Apology accepted.”
Mam sighed. The train rumbled on, and Becky said, “You were never mean.”
“No, I never was.”
When the train pulled into the station in downtown L
ancaster, Becky walked off the train carrying a treasure she never had before, the security of her mother’s love. Their talk had come very close to being heart-to-heart, sufficient for her well-being by far.
They arrived ons’ Daudy Esha on an afternoon in March, finding the landscape emerging from the snows of winter—brown fields, mud, patches of dirty snow fringed with gray, melting particles, traffic hissing and spattering on Route 340, shining black buggy wheels encrusted in mud the color of caramel corn.
“Too wet to plow,” Dat said.
He paid the driver, got out, and helped Mam with her suitcase. Smiling at Becky, he told her to be prepared. “S’ Dat’s sinn net goot.”
Which proved to be an understatement. A dire one.
Becky had been with her grandparents only a handful of times in her life, but they were now almost beyond recognition.
Daudy sat in a hospital bed, cranked up as high as it would go, propped upright by pillows that appeared yellowed and rumpled. He smiled with only one part of his face. His speech was slurred, slow, and incomprehensible.
Dat and Mam walked to his side and gripped his hand, bending to hear what he had to say.
Becky hung back. The smell, for one thing, was overpowering. A strong, acidic odor of herbal tinctures, diapers, and what else? Her eyes took in the spots on the linoleum, the cup of warm water with a broken straw, the rain-splattered, fingerprinted windows that had not been washed in months.
When her grandmother appeared, it was like a dagger to her heart. Much too thin, the woman wore a dress that was filthy from too many days without a washing, her covering yellowed and crooked, her hair uncombed.
She said hello politely as if to strangers, then recovered and said, “Enos! Sadie!” Clearly delighted, she welcomed them warmly, then turned to Becky, puzzled. She asked her son who the fett maedle was, then turned and shook hands with her formally when Dat told her it was “our Becky.”
Becky smiled and greeted her grandmother, hiding the despair that clung to her with a viselike grip. She couldn’t stay here by herself. Mam and Dat would leave, and she would be here in this depressing daudyhaus without the slightest clue about how to proceed. For a moment, she panicked, losing all sense of direction.
