Amanda Weds a Good Man

by Naomi King

  Everyone within earshot turned to gaze at the two of them. Applause burst out all over the large lawn.

  “About time, Graber!” Jerome cried out as he sprinted across the wet grass. He clapped James on the back and hugged Abby exuberantly.

  Emma and Barbara ran over, along with Rosemary, Vera, and the other young women. “Oh, this is the best news!” Emma was laughing and crying as she grabbed her brother and Abby in a hug. “A wedding will be just the thing to heal us all after this storm—”

  “Yet another reason to celebrate all the gifts the Lord has bestowed upon us,” Vernon agreed as he walked over. His blue eyes twinkled and his cherubic face lit up within the wreath of his snowy beard. “I’ve waited a long time for this particular joy, James and Abby,” he said as he placed his hands on their shoulders.

  James felt bubbly and excited yet indescribably at peace. “Jah, so have I,” he murmured. “It’s going to be a gut life for Abby and me. We’ll give it all we’ve got.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  All the way home, Wyman, Amanda, and Jemima shook their heads over how some farms had escaped the storm’s fury while other places had lost buildings, fences, and large old trees. “What does it mean, when one fellow’s barn gets blown in while other folks don’t have a blade of grass out of place?” Wyman pondered aloud.

  “Jerome mentioned a newfangled weather term he heard on someone’s television,” Amanda said. She shifted Alice Ann on her lap. “Something like microbust or microburst, to explain a big hit of power in one spot that can crack trees and knock out electrical power. Not that any new name for storm damage helps us clean it up.”

  Jemima let out a short laugh in the buggy’s backseat, where she sat with the twins. “Might take a microburst to get Emma and our Jerome together,” she remarked. “Seems like one’s trying to outdo the other, far as pretending not to be interested. Maybe James and Abby’s engagement will get them off the fence.”

  “With Jerome, there’s no telling what he’s up to,” Amanda pointed out. “But Merle and Eunice sure are crazy about him.”

  “Nice of him to stay and help James put plywood in the windows that blew out,” Wyman remarked. He sat taller in the seat when the home place came into view, clucking for the horse to go faster. “Let’s hope Wags is safe in his doghouse, or we’ll have no end to Simon’s . . . oh, my. This doesn’t look gut.”

  As they hurried round the last curve, the destruction on the front of the house made Wyman suck in his breath. He halted the horse . . . heard the buggy behind theirs, which Eddie was driving for Simon and the older kids, stop behind him.

  “Wags! Wags!” the little boy hollered as he hit the ground running.

  While Wyman understood the anguish in that shrill voice, he also knew how dangerous it was for Simon to approach the damaged house. He jumped down from the buggy and ran until he hooked an arm around his frantic son, praying that the dog would bark when he heard Simon’s voice.

  “But, Dat, we’ve got to see if—”

  “And we will,” Wyman insisted as he lifted his struggling son to his shoulder. He whistled loudly, yet another prayer for Simon to be spared the agony of losing his pet.

  Meanwhile he could only gape at the front of the house: two massive old maple trees had toppled, one into the kitchen and the other into the front room. They had crashed through the roof and upper story on their way down, leaving three bedrooms open to the elements.

  Behind him, he heard Amanda’s anguished “Ohhhh—”

  “What happened, Mamma? Lemme see!” one of the twins piped up.

  “There’s Wags!” the other one crowed. “Let’s get out and—”

  “You girls are staying right here,” Jemima said as she grabbed them. “We can’t see what other damage might be waiting for us—and what we can see is plenty nasty enough.”

  Wyman stood motionless, unable to process the horrendous sight before him. He set Simon on the ground while Wags bounded toward them. As he watched the boy tussle with his dog in the wet grass, Wyman wished himself back at that innocent age when play was so much more pressing than the responsibilities of parenting . . . when he could depend on the adults to provide his food and shelter without a moment’s doubt that they would. With few exceptions, he’d spent every day and night of his life in this old white farmhouse, and that comfort—that eternal sense of security—had just been snatched away from him. The only positive side to the devastation was that somehow Wags had gotten out of his pen and into a safe place.

  “Let’s think about what we need to do,” Wyman said above the children’s worried chatter. He gestured for everyone to get out of the rigs and gather around him. “First off, we thank God that we weren’t here during the storm, and that none of us are hurt—including Wags.”

  During their moments of silence, Wyman corralled his racing thoughts, hoping that in his state of shock and disbelief he would take proper care of his family. Never in his life had he thought his beloved home would become uninhabitable, and nothing had prepared him for such an emergency.

  “We can’t sleep here tonight,” he said when the others had raised their heads. “And no matter how badly you want to go inside, we can’t enter the house until someone from the propane company checks for leaks. Is everyone clear on that?”

  “Why, Dat?” Simon whined. “It’s still our house, ain’t so?”

  “Jah,” Eddie replied, “but if gas has been leaking from the stove or the furnace, the whole place could explode when we light a lamp.”

  The twins huddled closer to their mother, and Alice Ann’s thumb went into her mouth. Four sets of little eyes widened as they gazed at their home.

  “Do you understand why we can’t go inside now?” Wyman looked at each of the kids until they nodded at him, wishing he could wipe the fear from their earnest faces. “Vera, you and Lizzie go down to the Bylers’ roadside motel and see if you can get us three or four rooms. Eddie and Pete, you can check the livestock in the barn while I call for someone to check the gas.”

  He looked at Amanda then, pleased that she and Jemima had remained calm. “You ladies stay put until I get back from the elevator office,” he said. “Have I left anything out?”

  “What about me, Dat? I wanna help, too!” Simon hopped from one foot to the other beside his dog. His hair was rumpled and his clothes were streaked with wet grass stains but his spirits had rallied with the chance to be of assistance.

  Wyman was thankful for this son who made him smile. “You and Wags come to the elevator with me. We need to decide what kind of pizza and subs to order.”

  “Jah, I can do that!”

  Amanda was scanning the branch-strewn lawn and then glanced down the road toward the Fisher place. “You might call Ray and see how his family has fared . . . see if he and his boys can help you haul those trees out of the house sometime soon.”

  “Gut idea.” Wyman stared again at the caved-in section of his lifelong home. It struck him then: the folks in Cedar Creek had been checking one another’s places as soon as the storm had passed, sawing the tree in Sam’s lane and helping with repairs. While it was true they had no close Amish neighbors because the Fisher place adjoined Brubaker property alongside the elevator and the railroad tracks—and other folks in their district were probably tending to their own damaged property—Wyman felt strangely . . . isolated.

  Was it his troubled imagination, or had church members kept their distance since he’d married Amanda? Friends aplenty had extended their condolences and brought food after Viola’s death, yet those ladies—and their husbands—had been absent these past few weeks. He’d been too concerned with the harvest and blending two families to notice it until now.

  Maybe he was just feeling desperate and sorry for himself, and he had no time for such useless emotions. His family was depending upon his decisions. His direction.

  “We’ll handle this cris
is one step at a time, as best we can. We’ve got one another, and that means everything,” Wyman murmured before he went to make his calls. “God’s gotten us this far safely, and He’ll see us through to wherever He’s leading us.”

  Within half an hour, Wyman felt that the situation was indeed in the Lord’s capable hands: a truck from the propane company had been in the area when he called, and was on its way. When he returned from the office, Amanda and the girls were picking up small limbs and litter from the yard. The older boys came back from the barn chores to report that the animals were skittish but safe. The Bylers had rooms for them in the old mom-and-pop motel down the road, and supper would be delivered in about an hour. Best of all, Ray and the two older Fisher boys were coming by first thing in the morning with their chain saws to clear away those fallen trees.

  Step by step, one foot in front of the other, Wyman reminded himself—because it kept him from dwelling on the catastrophic damage done to his home. By the time the propane man had turned off the tank and declared the house free of leaks, the sun was sinking in the red-streaked western sky. Wyman saw the curiosity on his children’s faces, but he couldn’t turn them loose.

  “We can’t risk having the floor collapse or pieces of the roof falling on you,” he told them. “So I want you kids and Jemima to drive on down to the motel, while your mamm and I pack up some clothes for everybody. After we see what damage has been done, we’ll have a better idea of what to do next. Meanwhile, save us a sub and some pizza, all right?”

  “But, Dat, I wanna check my room—”

  “We’ve got to get our dolls—”

  “Nope.” Wyman held up his hands to silence them. “Better enjoy this time off tonight, because plenty of work awaits us until we get our home put back together. Scoot, now. We’ll see you in a while.”

  When the two buggies were rolling down the road, Wyman let out a huge sigh. Worry weighed him down like a wet overcoat as he took Amanda’s hand. “I can’t stop wondering what this means,” he murmured as they started down the lane. “And I can already hear Uriah declaring that God sent the storm here to get me back on the path to salvation. To set me straight about my attitude.”

  “Your attitude?” Amanda murmured. “It’s me who’s led you astray with my pottery and my flashy, short dresses.”

  Wyman smiled ruefully. “I went to see Uriah after he smashed your pottery. Didn’t let on about it, because I didn’t want to upset you anymore,” he admitted in a low voice. “The bishop informed me that I was too blinded by my love for you to be focused on God’s will. At least he was right about that one thing.”

  They stopped several feet in front of the porch, which was filled with the top of a huge, uprooted tree. Shattered window glass, broken furniture, and gaping walls were warning enough not to come any closer, and the moan of the sagging upstairs floor sounded like the desolate cry of Wyman’s frightened heart. “We’ll have to go in through the back. But don’t pack anything until I’ve entered the rooms first,” he insisted. “Looks like Vera, Lizzie, and the older boys might have to wear some of our clothes for a while.”

  “We’ll figure it out, Wyman. And you know what?”

  The strength in his wife’s voice made him pause before they opened the back door. Amanda looked wary about entering the house but she had remained as solid as a rock throughout their ordeal this afternoon. “What, my love?”

  When she smiled, his heart lifted. “I’m not telling you what to do,” she said, “but I have a house that’ll hold us all, you know. We can live there until this place is put back together. And now that Jerome’s returned that eight-mule team to its owner, we can move the animals into my barns, too.”

  Wyman’s breath caught. Wasn’t this the most obvious sign of all that God was watching out for him, despite the negative things Uriah Schmucker had said? He cupped Amanda’s sweet face between his hands, kissed her, and then pressed his forehead to hers. “You can’t imagine what a relief this is—”

  “Jah, I can,” she whispered.

  “—and how many problems you’ve just solved by mentioning a house I’d forgotten about,” he went on. “Denki, Amanda.”

  “You’re welcome. You’ve had a lot on your mind these past few hours.”

  Wyman hugged her close, and then opened the door to peer inside. The kitchen cabinets and appliances nearest the front had been crushed by the tree, and the room was filled with shingles, wet lumber, and a demolished bed and dresser from Vera and Lizzie’s room. He shut the door quickly, before he could dwell on the extent of the damage—and because they were losing daylight. “We’ll go in the other way,” he said, pointing toward the addition where the dawdi haus was.

  And wasn’t it true, the adage about God shutting a door but then opening a window? Wyman sensed that Amanda had thrown open more than a simple window for their family. He clung to that hope as he clutched her hand, and together they went inside.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  By the next afternoon, Wyman, Ray, and the Fisher boys had hacked the fallen trees into manageable pieces with their chain saws while Eddie and Pete hauled the chunks off into the yard with the forklifts from the elevator. One of Ray’s cousins, who worked for the electric cooperative, was to come with a “cherry picker” truck so they could fasten tarps over the exposed section of the house when they had finished working for the day. The situation was grave and everyone was upset about losing some of their belongings, yet Amanda thrummed with hope. She hadn’t pointed this out to Wyman, but because her furniture from Bloomingdale had been stashed in the shed, all her pieces had been spared. Wasn’t this God’s providence at work?

  When Uriah Schmucker pulled in the lane, however, Amanda steered the kids to the side yard to pick up debris, figuring the bishop would rather speak with Wyman than her. When the chain saws stopped, Uriah’s reedy voice rang out as he surveyed the damage.

  “Time to set your house in order, Wyman,” he declared. “If this storm damage isn’t God’s punishment, what else would you call it?”

  Amanda scowled at Uriah’s self-righteous tone. She watched Wyman set down the section of crushed kitchen cabinet he’d been carrying to wipe his forehead on his sleeve. “Jah, I see this as the Lord’s way of saying it’s time to remodel—both our home and our family,” he replied confidently. “I’m sure you’ll understand why we’ll not be at the service on Sunday. We won’t be able to live here for a long while, so we’ll be staying in Bloomingdale. On Amanda’s farm.”

  Amanda’s heart danced. She’d secretly hoped Wyman would consider that angle about church—just as she knew the bishop would get steamed about it.

  “That’s ducking your responsibility to God,” Uriah replied with a glare. “And if Amanda fails to confess, as I’ve directed, you’re both setting a bad example for your children. Not to mention risking your wife’s salvation.”

  “Ah, but God was the first one I talked to about this,” Wyman replied quietly. “What a blessing it was to find our Brubaker family Bible unharmed, and to read our evening devotions in the safety of our motel room. Jesus was saying that ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.’”

  Amanda held her breath. That passage had brought them great comfort last night, but Clearwater’s bishop discouraged his flock from reading the Scriptures. He believed lay folks were too inclined toward their own interpretations.

  “Beware of using God’s word to justify your actions,” Uriah warned in a strident voice. “You’re crossing the line into heresy—”

  “But how can that be?” Wyman asked in all sincerity. “While Jesus was referring to making a place for believers in Heaven, in our hour of need we were able to stay at the motel. And because Amanda has a furnished home, our family can recover from this disaster together as we rebuild our lives here. Seems God has provided us many mansions even in this earthly life
, wouldn’t you say? And for that we are truly thankful.”

  Uriah’s scowl could have made the hens stop laying. “You’d best halt right there with your loose interpretation of—”

  Wyman crossed his arms. His expression remained calm, but he was clearly not in the mood for Uriah’s lecture. “Is it wrong for Lizzie and Pete to keep up with their schooling in Bloomingdale, while Eddie and I work with carpenters to rebuild this house?” he asked. “Is it wrong for Amanda to keep our family together, running the household—as you’ve told her to? While it’s painful to see my family in such upheaval, I believe God is working His purpose out during this setback. He’s showing us ways to fix what’s broken. Ways to amend our lives.”

  Amanda’s heart beat faster and she wanted to cheer for her husband. She and Wyman had talked late into the night, and his faith—the transformation of yesterday’s devastation into today’s hope and purpose—was an inspiration for the whole family.

  “I can see my words are falling on deaf ears.” Uriah glanced disparagingly at the three Fishers, who had quietly continued carrying debris from the kitchen. “You folks have been associating too closely with these Mennonites . . . another topic we’ll pray over at the Members’ Meeting on Sunday.”

  “We’ll appreciate any prayers you offer in our behalf. And now, bishop, I have work to do,” Wyman replied coolly. “Denki for stopping by.”

  Oh, but Uriah looked ready to pop. Amanda sensed the bishop would soon return with the district’s other two preachers to discuss Wyman’s attitude. And what could they say about her husband’s partnering with the Fisher family for all these years? Wyman and Ray had built the elevator before they’d married or joined the church—before Uriah had become the bishop—with help from both families. Amanda couldn’t help but notice that Uriah hadn’t lifted a finger . . . and that it was Ray’s wife, Sally, who brought over a noon meal for them.

  As they were finishing their dinner of fried chicken, stewed tomatoes, and cabbage with noodles, Amanda’s ears perked up. While it was everyday business for the men to discuss local crops and the farmers who raised them, Trevor Fisher’s voice had an interesting edge to it.