For Sure and Certain

by Anya Monroe

  Opening his dorm room door, he instantly let out a groan as Jordan and another girl were going at it. It wasn’t unusual … it was most afternoons. This pair didn’t even have the decency to have sex under the covers in the bed, the girl was against the cold cinderblock wall and all he could see was Jordan’s bare ass.

  Leaving them to it, Abel slammed the door. Texting Lily as he walked, he made plans to meet for coffee. Outside in the brisk fall air once again, he pulled a wool cap from his messenger bag. He rarely wore his Amish hat anymore, but for some reason with the change in weather, he wanted a heavy hat on his head.

  There had never been a fall in his life where he didn’t wear something over his hair. Over the last few months as a college a freshman, he’d slowly weeded out many of his Amish trappings and traded them for a look that wasn’t out of place with the other undergrads. Now, in his dark denim jeans, slim, buttoned-down shirt and suspenders he looked exactly as the hair stylist warned.

  Girls had been asking if he wanted to grab coffee, or study after class, or if they could borrow his notes. He usually blushed and turned his head embarrassed, before declining. Even if Marigold wasn’t here, he wasn’t ready to move on.

  Walking down the leaf-covered sidewalk, Abel stuffed his hands in his pockets, scanning the streets for Lily.

  “Abel,” she called out, crossing the street toward him. They met up on lots of afternoons after they were both done with classes for the day. In the two months since class started, Lily was the only person he knew that could get him out of viewing the Jordan-Sex-A-Thon. He hadn’t exactly made any friends.

  Snagging a table, lattes in hand, he asked the question he’d been prepping himself to brave. They didn’t exactly avoid the conversation of Marigold, but they made a point of talking about everything else. School, books, new movies. The touchy topic of family was avoided, but Abel couldn’t keep it in anymore. He needed to know.

  “Have you heard from her?”

  “Yeah, um, I did, actually, and about that,” she said. Lily’s hair was pulled in a severe pony tail, and it made her look sharper than usual. “My parents and I had a few questions for you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like what happens after you’re baptized? Because I think she only has a few weeks left until she does that, and we keep thinking she will outgrow this before then, but like, she wrote me this week and it was weird. Like, not her at all. I don’t even recognize the girl who wrote it.”

  “But you’ve never gotten along, right?”

  “Well, I guess, but that was more like in a competitive-sibling way. Not in a I-don’t-care-what-happens-to-you sort of way.”

  “My parents are good people, Lily. They won’t hurt her. They’re pretty moderate as far as Amish go.”

  “Well, I believe you. I mean, you were able to come here.”

  “But eventually I had to choose.”

  “And you won’t ever go back?”

  “I can’t imagine anything that would make me go back.”

  “But for her, once she’s baptized, isn’t it like, forever?”

  “Ja.” Abel knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but people rarely left the community after their Rumspringa. And if she felt at home with Bekah and Joshua, maybe that would be enough for her. It hadn’t been for him, but he saw now how he and Marigold were different. Maybe cut from the same cloth, but the fabric stretched in different ways.

  “Did she say anything else? About me?”

  “Not exactly.” Lily paused to take a sip of her coffee, and her eyes darted away from Abel, like she was in an awkward position.

  “Just say it, Lily.”

  “Well my family was wondering, if she wanted to come home, could she? Would they let her?”

  Abel snorted, annoyed. “What, you think my family will keep her captive or something?”

  “I don’t know. None of us have been there, and my mom and dad thought not going to visit would make her miss us more, but maybe it’s having the opposite effect. Maybe we should have visited.”

  “They aren’t holding her hostage.” He shook his head. It was so infuriating that they would think that about his family.

  “I think she’s sad,” Lily said simply.

  “Why?”

  “Because she wrote an entire letter asking how Mom and Dad were, what classes Cedar was taking, how cross country is going for me. She even asked if the housekeeper was still using her homemade laundry detergent.” Lily reached across the table, surprising Abel. “Can you take me to her? Can we go and bring her home?”

  Lily had always spoken so flippantly about her sister, but her love was clear.

  “I’m sorry, Lily, it’s not my job.” Abel pulled way, catching Lily off guard. “All Marigold has ever wanted was to be her own person, all I’ve ever wanted was the exact same thing. I can’t imagine the anger I would have felt if my family had come out here to Jamestown and forced me back. I won’t do that to her.”

  “You think it’s wrong of me to want to go?”

  “Not wrong to want to see her, to wish she chose differently. But I do think it’s wrong to take her choice away. That is the one thing that is hers alone, it’s not yours to take.”

  “I thought her going to Lancaster was a joke, another game of hers.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “We’re shitty people to not believe her intentions.”

  “Ja, for sure and certain.”

  They walked home in silence, because there’s little left to say when the person two people love is choosing something besides them. The only thing they’re able to do is let go.

  Marigold

  A silence covered the house as the women worked in the kitchen preparing dinner. Eli and Sarah were over, and Eli was out in the barn with Mr. Miller trying to help him sort invoices and do the billing for the month. The women knew it wasn’t going well. Every once in a while a loud burst of arguing would emit from the barn office and it would cause them to shoot one another an anxious look.

  “Perhaps we should call Bishop? To help them?” Bekah asked, setting down the potato peeler.

  “It’s not them in discord, it’s the stress of not hiring a replacement for Abel yet,” Mrs. Miller explained. “We should remain in prayer as they work out the issues with the business.”

  The girls nodded and went back to assembling the shepherd’s pie. Marigold watched as Bekah and Sarah lowered their eyes without another word. Marigold bit her lip and went back to dicing carrots. She had no voice here.

  It had been fine over the summer. Marigold had wrestled with the anger she harbored for her family and the frustration over her lack of direction, of not knowing what the future held. When she didn’t focus on that drama, she thought of Abel. Of his arms holding her, his lips pressed against hers, and the idea of a forever with him.

  Now she had answers to her questions of what next …and with whom. Not her family, not Abel. Her future was here in this kitchen, or a kitchen similar to this. Bekah and Joshua had begun hinting at her going out with a nice Amish man after she was baptized. The next steps were settling down with a husband and bearing children and sewing all their clothes and canning all their food and wearing this kapp every day and never speaking her mind.

  This was the point at which she usually hyperventilated.

  “You alright, Marigold?” Sarah asked, placing her hand on her arm.

  “I need some air. Excuse me.” She dropped her paring knife and went to the back porch, lowering herself to the steps, pushing her head between her legs. Breathe. Release. Breathe.

  She didn’t want to be a failure, not strong enough to hack it. Maybe it was pride, but it was also fear. And not fear of the God everyone around here prayed to. It was fear of being exactly what everyone thought.

  A few days later, Marigold was in the yarn shed when a car rolled across the driveway. Curious, Marigold poked her head out and her eyes grew wide when she saw the last person she expected.

  “Dad?�
��

  He coughed, adjusted his tie and stepping out of his Mercedes, taking everything in. Marigold remembered arriving the first time with Abel, how pristine the property looked, how different than she imagined an Amish homestead would be.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Marigold walking toward him.

  “I came to have a talk. With you”

  She eyed him suspiciously, she couldn’t think of a single time the two of them had a heart-to-heart and she couldn’t really imagine it going anywhere good. Him, here, felt out of place.

  “Let me introduce you to Mr. Miller.” She adjusted her kapp, as his eyes rested hotly on her head. For the first time she felt as if she was in costume, her Amish clothes suddenly foreign against her skin. “He’s probably in the barn.”

  They didn’t need to walk far, however, because Mr. and Mrs. Miller and their children gathered outside the back porch, having heard the car pull up. Marigold waved her father over for introductions.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Miller, this is my father, Max Archer.”

  “Good to meet you folks.” Her dad stuck out his hand and shook theirs politely. “What a beautiful pocket of the world you live in, I’ve never been out this way myself.”

  “And what brings you here now?” Mr. Miller asked.

  Marigold met Bekah’s eyes, and she gave her friend a confused shrug. Marigold had no idea her dad was coming.

  “I’m here to speak with my daughter.”

  “That’s right good. We’ve wondered if you might ever find your way here for a visit.”

  “I’ve never been invited.” Her father’s jaw tightened with the words, and Marigold flushed with embarrassment. She’d intentionally never invited her family here, not looking for more judgment or ridicule. The Millers had assumed the lack of a visit was due to her parents’ disinterest, not because an invite had never been extended.

  Mrs. Miller sensed the awkward pause and jumped in. “Mr. Archer would you like something to eat, maybe come inside?”

  “No, I’m not hungry. I need to speak with my daughter … alone.”

  “Dear,” Mr. Miller spoke to his wife. “Why don’t you get these two something to drink, and we can let them talk on the front porch, ja?”

  “Thank you,” Marigold said. Bekah gave her hand a squeeze before she walked away. This conversation was going to be unbearable without the backup of the Millers, but maybe this conversation was one she needed to have all on her own.

  Sitting down in wicker chairs with lemonade in their hands, Marigold felt her father’s eyes heavy on her once more.

  “What?” she asked, hesitant, not knowing if she really wanted to know.

  “You look so different.”

  “It’s just clothes.”

  “I know.” He put his hands up in front of him as if not wanting to disagree. “But still very different clothes.”

  “I’ve been wearing old fashioned clothing all year if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I noticed, you’ve been wearing my grandmother’s clothing.”

  Marigold didn’t answer. She’d never heard her father mention his grandmother. They weren’t really the sort of family that bonded over childhood memories.

  “My grandmother was a lot like you.” He took a sip of the lemonade. “This is good,” he said, his lips hinting at a smile.

  “Yeah, most things here are good, Dad. That’s why I’m staying. Why you can’t bully me into leaving.”

  “Can I bribe you?” Now his lips formed a full-fledged smile, the wrinkles of his face creased, reminding Marigold of the age dividing them. They weren’t the same.

  “That’s not funny.” All this fighting exhausted Marigold. It was the only way she had ever communicated with her parents and she was tired of it.

  “I know, but your Mom’s upset about you being gone. I know she and I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye.” Marigold gave a short laugh and rolled her eyes. “But on this we agree. You can’t leave us this way, it’s too final.”

  “Final huh? That’s what you’re worried about? You made it pretty final by saying I had to go to Jamestown.”

  “We said you could get a job instead.”

  “You knew I could never get hired, especially a full-time job with no experience. I ruined my reputation there. It was a setup, a way to bully me into what you wanted.”

  “We never said you had to go to Jamestown, Goldie.”

  “Yes, you did. In a million ways you did.”

  “No, we didn’t. When you refused to make plans for yourself, your mom tried to intervene. You resisted everything.”

  “And where were you?”

  Her dad rubbed his neck, turning away for a moment. The pause was so long Marigold wondered if her dad had anything to say at all.

  “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I know. I was never around when you were growing up, I was never involved,” he spoke thoughtfully, looking out over the rolling hills. “Then this summer I said some really unacceptable things about you and never apologized like I should have. I’m sorry.”

  There was another pause, long enough for Marigold to remember the last time they spoke. Her angry words, their attempt to understand. Her pushing away. Fighting back. It had always been her running. Her mom always trying to hold on, until Marigold pried herself way once and for all.

  “I’m sorry for the way I left. I felt cornered by you pressing me with school.” But her voice broke the same way her heart cracked. She was holding onto things that weighed her down, but she didn’t want to carry it all alone anymore. It was a relief to tell him she’d felt cornered.

  “So is that what this is about? Not wanting to go to college?” her dad asked. “Because at this point your mom and I could care less what you do, we just want you back.”

  “Just because I apologized doesn’t mean I want to come back, I’m getting baptized, I’m making vows–”

  “I know you keep saying that,” her dad interrupted. “But what I am saying is anytime you want to come home, you can. Always. Giving in is not the same as giving up.”

  “You shouldn’t have come here just to judge me. The Millers are good people, and I love them.”

  “I believe it. They’ve raised a really good son.”

  “You know Abel?”

  “Pretty well, Lily and Abel spend a lot of time together.”

  Her chest tightened at that, their isolated moments together seemed as large as the world. She wanted him still. She wanted him always.

  “And you know this because?” Marigold couldn’t remember a time her father knew anything about who she hung out with.

  “It took you leaving for me to see that I’ve been wrong about my priorities.”

  Marigold didn’t know what to say to that … didn’t know what she wanted to say to that. She said nothing.

  “You know, when I was a teenager, I lived with my grandmother. She was a small, wiry woman. Like you, she enjoyed lots of domestic things. Kept a warm, well-fed household even though money was tight. Somehow she could create something out of nothing.”

  Marigold had never heard this story before, so she kept quiet, looking at this man she hardly knew.

  “When I lived with her, she helped me get through college even though I was stubborn and strong-willed, ungrateful, and pigheaded. Still, she was my only family and she helped me make my fortune by supporting me. It wasn’t until after you left this last time that I put it together.”

  “What together?” Marigold asked, clinging to his voice, wondering if this was the thread she had been searching for, the string that would piece her in place.

  “You wear her clothes, you have her face, but you haven’t learned one very important thing that she unknowingly taught me. Something I forgot until recently.”

  “And that is?”

  “My grandmother and I lived together despite our differences. I never said you had to be like me. You put that on yourself. And you never asked if trying things differently was okay. You just did whatever you felt lik
e doing.”

  “You want me to ask for permission?” Marigold’s voice got hard again, defensive.

  “No, I want you to know we don’t have to be the same to be a family.” Out of his pocket he drew a long chain, holding a golden locket. “This locket was my grandmother’s. She died long before you or Cedar were ever born, so you never could have seen it, but she wore this every day. She said life was too hard to get through on her own and that she needed the people she loved pressed against her heart. She never showed me what was inside, but when she died, I looked. All those years it held a photograph of the grandfather I never met and me. I want you to wear it now.”

  When she didn’t resist, her dad clasped the chain around her neck. The locket was heavy and gleamed. She wanted to look inside, but she knew this was dangerous ground.

  “Amish don’t wear jewelry,” she whispered, pressing her fingers against the metal plate.

  “Oh.” Her father’s face drained, revealing his age once more. “It’s an awful lot to give up, isn’t it Marigold?”

  “Ja, ‘tis.” Unable to resist, she clicked open the locket. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at the miniature family portrait. It was a picture she’d seen many times when Lily was first brought home from the hospital, all of them gathered around the tiny girl. Was that the last time they were all truly happy she wondered? Would that memory be the only one her parents had of all of them together in one place?

  The other photo was one of a woman Marigold had never met or seen.

  “Your grandma?” she asked her father.

  “Grandma Marigold.”

  Her breath caught, she’d always assumed she and her siblings were named after one of her Mom’s flower-child fantasies. But apparently there was more to it, more to everything. Without thinking she flung her arms around his neck. It didn’t feel familiar, but it did feel like family. Somehow being here had drawn out the vulnerability in her father, something she’d been looking for her entire life. Something she always knew she wanted but never knew how to find.