She laid the dress on the bed, then stacked the others on top of it, slipping the hangers free. When she had her own clothing hung up, she turned back to the stack of dresses and began folding them to put in the now-empty box. Before placing the last one in, she paused. Almost without thought, she slipped off her shirt and pulled the dress over her head.
A smile formed on her lips. She remembered Aunt Lisbeth as being very petite and slender, but she must have gained weight as she aged—the dress hung loosely on Marie’s frame. She smoothed her fingers along the cape, her eyes closed, recalling how Mom had often scolded her for running her fingers up and down the cape edge of her dresses and leaving difficult-to-clean smudges in the fabric.
Turning to the small mirror above Aunt Lisbeth’s dresser, she examined her reflection. A laugh blasted. She was glad there was no full-length mirror available to see the complete effect. The Mennonite dress’s simple neckline combined with her untamed curls looked ridiculous.
But if her hair were smoothed down and a cap in place. . .
She hurriedly removed the dress and put her shirt back on. But as she picked up the dress to fold it and put it away, she found she couldn’t do it. For some reason, sealing that dress in the box would be like sealing away her past. For good.
She shook her head. What was wrong with her? She dropped the dress on the bed and padded out to the living room, where she curled up in Aunt Lisbeth’s rocker, one foot tucked up on the seat. Rocking gently, she looked out the window at the deep evening shadows and let her mind drift across the community. Several blocks over, Joanna probably had the ironing board out, pressing crisp creases into the pants her husband and son would wear to the meetinghouse tomorrow. She smiled, remembering the hubbub of getting things ready for Sunday when she was a little girl.
Caught in the middle of seven siblings, she had to listen to oldest sister Abigail’s bossing and ignore her younger brothers’ teasing. Her job had always been to make sure everyone’s shoes were shined. She wondered if Mom still used a cold biscuit on Dad’s shoes on Saturday nights or if they’d finally resorted to shoe polish and a buff cloth.
The sense of unity and belonging that came from the family piling into the buggy together on Sunday morning and rolling over the country roads, meeting other buggies and other families, was something she hadn’t experienced since she was a teenager. Loneliness had been alien to her as a child. There was always someone—whether a brother or sister or friend—close at hand. The close-knit community had met every need for companionship. She would have never imagined feeling this alone.
Pain stabbed at her as she thought about all she’d lost when Jep died. She clutched her stomach as she remembered the horror of learning that his semi had gone off an embankment just weeks before Beth’s birth. With his death, her dreams of family also died. From that point forward, it had only been her and the baby—no husband, no brothers or sisters for Beth. And with her father’s refusal to allow her to return home, not even cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. Just a young mother and her little girl.
Marie shot out of the rocking chair. She didn’t want to revisit those pain-filled days. She paced through the dining room to the kitchen, seeking some task to fill her hands so her mind would stop reminiscing. Everything was put neatly away, so no work waited. There was no television with which to numb her senses. A glance at the clock told her it was too early to go to bed. Besides, she wanted to be awake when Beth came home.
Restlessness drove her to the bedroom, where Aunt Lisbeth’s dress waited, mocking her with the differences between her childhood and her adulthood. She yanked up the dress, folded it into a bulky square, and shoved it into the box with the others. After sealing the box, she pulled on a jacket and stormed to the back door. A long walk should clear her mind. She’d walk until the memories faded away.
Even if it means I walk all the way back to Cheyenne.
Henry held a napkin around his peanut butter sandwich and ambled to the front-room window. While he ate, he watched two squirrels play a game of tag, their bushy tails fluffed out behind them. If he still had his old dog, Skippy, those squirrels would have a third playmate. Skippy had always enjoyed chasing the furry pests up into a tree. His barks would drown out the squirrels’ scolding chirps.
He missed that old dog. He’d been a good companion. Between Skippy and Lisbeth, there’d always been someone to talk to in the evenings. Now? He sighed. Only squirrels.
He started to turn from the window, but a movement caught his eye.
Leaning forward, he focused on the street. A woman charged down the road, hands deep in the pockets of a jacket, hood shielding her profile from view. But the blue jeans identified her. Marie. No other woman in Sommerfeld would wear jeans.
He ducked away from the window, concerned she might turn her head and spot him watching.
Back in his kitchen, he leaned against the counter and finished his sandwich, the image of Marie’s low-chinned pose making his heart thud. He wondered if she were heading out to the cemetery again. She was moving in that direction. She’d looked forlorn. Lonely. Henry understood that feeling.
He wadded up the napkin and threw it away before returning to the front room. Leaning into the corner of the couch, he closed his eyes and replayed evenings in Lisbeth’s front room, seated beside her, peeking at an open letter in her lap. Lisbeth had shared every one of Marie’s letters with him.
Marie hadn’t been a prolific writer—sometimes entire months passed without word. But each time a letter arrived, Lisbeth would save it until Henry drove her home from the café, then she would read it out loud.
Snippets of letters came back to him—Beth’s learning to walk, the loss of her first baby tooth and her delight at the quarter the tooth fairy left behind, starting new jobs, mourning the loss of Jep’s mother to cancer, Beth’s graduations from junior high, high school, and college.
A lifetime of memories were contained within Marie’s letters, and Henry had lived each one of them vicariously through the words on the page.
He’d always held his breath when Lisbeth started reading, afraid she would announce that Marie had found another man to share her life. But no mention had ever been made of dating—her focus was always on providing for her daughter. The little girl who meant everything to her had grown into a young woman, who meant so much to her that Marie was willing to come back to a place she didn’t want to be.
From the slump of her shoulders as she’d paced by his house, he knew being here was a heavy burden. In the nearly three weeks she’d been here, he hadn’t witnessed many people reaching out to her, other than her sister Joanna. How hard it must be for her to go to the café every day and not be accepted.
He longed to relieve some of the sorrow she carried. As much as his heart twisted with the admission, he still loved her. It seemed odd, this long-held feeling for someone he hadn’t seen on a daily basis for more than two decades. Yet his love for her had stayed alive, thanks to Lisbeth’s willingness to share the letters. A part of him wanted to tell her that someone besides Joanna loved her. But he wouldn’t do it.
On the shelf in his closet, a small box bore mute testimony to his love for her. For a moment he considered going in and opening the box, peeking at the white Bible he’d purchased as a way of proposing to her without having to rely on speech to communicate. How he hated his penchant for growing tongue-tied! But he’d known the little white Bible, traditionally carried in place of a wedding bouquet, would let her know what his heart felt.
He had tried to speak of his love that day long ago when he realized she intended to leave with Jep Quinn. He’d touched her arm and whispered, “I’ll wait for you, Marie.” How he had hoped she would look into his eyes and realize how much he loved her—and that he would take her back the moment she chose to return. And even though he still felt the same, he was older now. Wiser. He remembered too well the searing pain of watching that semi roll away, carrying the woman he loved.
A h
eart could only bear that kind of pain once in a lifetime. So he’d keep his feelings to himself this time. Apparently his love hadn’t been enough to hold her in Sommerfeld twenty-two years ago. He wouldn’t risk it again. This time, when she drove away, he wouldn’t be watching.
FIFTEEN
Beth waved good-bye to Kyra and the others before sliding into the car and starting the engine. She released a huge breath of relief. The evening was over, and she’d survived. Actually, she mused, once she got over the initial embarrassment, it hadn’t been so bad. Awkward, yes—especially in McDonald’s, where people kept staring at the oddly dressed Mennonites—but not awful.
Beth angled the vehicle onto First Street, shaking her head. How did Kyra stand all that gawking every time she ventured out? It wasn’t as if Beth wasn’t accustomed to people looking at her. She realized she was attractive, and she dressed in a way that showcased her attributes, essentially inviting second glances. But tonight, the way people gaped and whispered behind their hands. . . Those stares weren’t out of admiration, but morbid curiosity. She hadn’t liked it at all.
She made the turn onto Cottonwood, and the headlights illuminated a dark-clothed pedestrian. Beth recognized the gray hoodie—Mom. She came to a stop and rolled down the window. “What are you doing wandering the streets this late?”
Mom popped the door open and slid into the seat, even though the house was only a few yards ahead. “I went for a walk and ended up at the cemetery.”
“At night?” Beth stared at her mother.
Mom leaned her head against the headrest. “Whew! I’m worn out. That was more of a hike than I expected at the end of a day.”
Beth shook her head and pulled forward, turning into the driveway of the house. “Honestly, Mom! Walking to a cemetery at night? You would never have done that at home.”
Her mother laughed softly. “Of course not. The cemetery is miles away. Everything here is within walking distance.” She angled her head to smile at Beth. “How was the skating?”
Beth popped the car into park, jerked off the ignition, and scowled. “The skating part was fine, believe it or not. I had fun once I figured out how to turn corners without waving my arms all over the place and looking like an idiot. But how did you stand all those people staring at you? I felt like part of a circus freak show!”
Mom sighed, shifting sideways in the seat to face Beth. “You get used to it. Or you learn to ignore it.”
“Well, I hated it. If I were a Mennonite, I’d change the dress code.”
Mom burst out laughing.
“It’s not funny!”
Mom’s chortles continued. “Oh, honey, I’m not laughing at you. But if you could have seen your face. . .”
Despite herself, a smile twitched at Beth’s cheek. It was good to hear Mom laugh, to see her happy. Being here had been tough on her—Beth had seen evidence of that in how she often stared off into space or stood alone in the corner of the café’s kitchen, her head low. But as soon as their three months’ stay here was done and she had the money in hand, she’d make it all worthwhile for her mom.
Reaching across the console, she gave her mother’s hand a loving squeeze. “Come on. Let’s go put another X on the calendar—celebrate another day closer to being able to go home.”
Marie rolled over, teased awake by the song of a cardinal from the spirea bushes outside the window. She lay, eyes closed, listening to the cheerful tune, and suddenly a hymn replaced the bird’s song. “Faith of our fathers, living still. . .”
Her eyes popped open as the hymn filled her heart, seeming to echo through her soul. A strange tug brought her out of bed, to the window, to peer across the landscape of stubbly fields to the barely visible gray line of highway. Last night Beth had been eager to follow that highway back to Cheyenne. But, oddly, the X on the calendar had filled Marie with an unexplainable sadness.
“Faith of our fathers, holy faith. . .”
Last night’s sadness returned, wrapping around her heart like a band. Her gaze fell to the box tucked in the corner—the one holding Aunt Lisbeth’s clothes, the outer trappings that told of her inward beliefs. Beliefs Marie had held so long ago.
“I want your faith, Aunt Lisbeth,” she whispered aloud, finally acknowledging the root of the tug on her heart. But how to regain it? With a pang, Marie realized she didn’t know the answer to that question. Sinking onto the edge of the bed, she covered her face with her hands as loneliness smacked again—a loneliness that had haunted her for too many years.
In the past, she’d managed to push past the loneliness with busyness. Being a single mother, she’d poured herself into her daughter. As the only breadwinner, she’d poured herself into her work. But here, with Beth pursuing her own dreams, and hours of freedom away from the café, she had no escape. It engulfed her, increasing her longing for something—someone—to fill the void.
“Aunt Lisbeth, I wish you were here to advise me.” She uttered the words on a note of anguish. And immediately an answer came: Look to the Son.
Of course. Aunt Lisbeth had always said the answer to any problem lay in God’s handbook, the Bible. Marie knew where her Bible was—on the bookshelf back in her apartment in Cheyenne, no doubt covered with a layer of dust from lack of use. But surely Aunt Lisbeth’s was here somewhere. Marie sat up, her gaze bouncing from the bureau to the chest in the corner to her aunt’s desk to the closet and finally to the stand beside the bed.
Her hands reached toward the drawer in the little bedside stand. Holding her breath, she eased the drawer open, and her heart leaped with relief. There it waited, its faded black cover with the gold letters—HOLY BIBLE—inviting Marie’s entrance.
She slipped it from the drawer, cradling it between both palms, and carried it to the front room. She tugged Aunt Lisbeth’s rocker until it faced the east window, then sat. For a moment she hesitated—where should she begin? “Faith of our fathers, holy faith. . .”
With a deep breath, she rested the book’s spine against her lap and let it fall open. Psalm Twenty-three, all underlined in blue ink, came into view. Marie leaned over the Bible and read.
Dimly aware of her surroundings—the shifting shadow across the hardwood floor, the creaking of Beth’s cot, the occasional sounds of vehicles outside the house—she moved from Psalms to Isaiah to John, thumbing in search of places where her aunt had underlined passages or written notes in the margins. Then she sought favorite verses from her childhood, reading entire chapters, absorbing, renewing, accepting.
When someone called her name, she jerked, half surprised that the voice was feminine and not a deep, masculine, heavenly timbre. Looking up, she spotted Beth in the wide doorway between the front room and the dining room. Her daughter’s brow furrowed as her gaze landed on the book.
“What are you doing?”
“Reading.” Marie’s fingers twitched, eager to seek more passages. “If you’re hungry, there’s cereal and milk.” She hoped Beth understood the message: Please take care of your own needs right now so I can take care of mine.
“Yeah, okay. Want a bowl?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
Beth scratched her scalp with both hands, tousling her hair. “You okay?”
Marie smiled. “I’m fine, honey. And getting better by the minute. Enjoy your morning.”
“I’m going to run a bath, then.” Beth sent an odd look over her shoulder as she headed for the bathroom.
Marie returned to her reading. She continued until the banging of pots and pans in the kitchen disturbed her focus enough that she had to set the Bible aside and investigate. Beth, a towel wrapped turban-style around her head, gave her mother a scowl. “Are you finally done?”
Marie ignored the sarcastic bite in Beth’s tone. “For now.” She glanced at pans on the stove. “What are you doing?”
Beth shrugged and pulled a fork from a drawer. “Fixing lunch. You obviously weren’t going to do it. I asked you twice.”
Marie stared at her daughter
. “You did?”
“Yes.”
Marie lifted lids and discovered canned corn, potatoes, and pork chops. She turned to Beth in surprise. “Why so much food?”
Beth’s jaw dropped. “You invited Joanna and her family for lunch today.” She flapped her hand toward the living room. “Then you sat out there and didn’t bother to fix anything. They’ll be here in less than half an hour. I haven’t even gotten dressed because I’ve been in here peeling potatoes.” Looking pointedly at Marie’s pajamas, she added, “What’s the matter with you this morning?”
Marie reached out to give Beth a hug. The girl remained stiff and unresponsive. “There’s nothing wrong with me, honey. In fact, I think I’m more right than I’ve been in quite a while. But we can talk about that later. I’ve got to take a bath.”
“A bath?” Beth put her hands on her hips. “What about all this?” She gestured toward the stove.
“You’re doing great.” Marie blew Beth a kiss as she scampered around the corner. “Just watch the pork chops—don’t want them to get too brown.”
The water spattering against the porcelain tub covered Beth’s grumbles.
Over the next two weeks, Marie started and ended each day with time in Aunt Lisbeth’s Bible. Prayer grew from the Bible reading, and by the end of the second week Marie found herself whispering little prayers over the course of the day, conversation with her heavenly Father springing naturally from an overflowing heart.
She wanted to share with Beth the changes taking place inside her, but her daughter resisted speaking of spiritual issues. Beth’s attitude seemed to grow more surly by the day, complaining about Mitch’s departure and the slow progress she’d made in securing items for her planned boutique. The highlight of her day was drawing a big, black X in the box on the calendar.
Joanna, however, had squealed with delight when Marie told her she was finding her way back to her childhood faith. “Oh, Marie! How? When?” Joanna wrapped her in a hug that stole her breath. “Oh, never mind—I don’t need the details. It’s enough just to see the sparkle in your eyes.” Pulling back, she had cupped Marie’s face and beamed with tears glittering in her eyes. “Oh, Marie. . .welcome home.”
Bygones Page 13
