Rebecca's Promise

by Jerry S. Eicher

  Leona woke with a start when Rebecca approached the recliner, much to Rebecca’s gratitude. She would have felt awkward having to awaken her aunt, but Leona needed to be told that she was leaving.

  “Are you finished?” Leona looked around. “I dozed off, I guess.”

  “Yes, I’m done,” Rebecca said. “I was wondering if it would be okay if I went for a walk down by the bridge for a little while. If it’s not too taxing for you to watch James and Leroy, I’ll be back in time to fix supper. I’m taking a sandwich along, and I left three for you and the boys in the refrigerator.” Then she added quietly, half hoping Leona wouldn’t hear it, “Today’s my birthday.”

  Leona rubbed her stomach and said, “I guess I did forget your birthday with all that’s going on. I’m sorry. But sure, go. The baby’s not coming just yet, I don’t think. It shouldn’t be too bad. Maybe we can bake a cake tonight for you. The children would like that.”

  “I’d better be going then.”

  “Is that where you and Atlee used to go?” Leona’s face lit up with a smile.

  “Yes,” she admitted, hanging her head.

  “Don’t dream too long then.” Leona’s smile contradicted her words. “Life moves on. We have to go with it.”

  How could Leona know what was in my heart? Or was she just guessing? “I know,” Rebecca agreed.

  She left the house and turned south on the road. A brisk five-minute walk brought her within sight of two homes at the junction where she would turn right toward the bridge. Two cars sat in the driveway of the first place, their red and white contrasting colors offsetting each other.

  From what Leona had mentioned in passing, this was where she was supposed to go to call when the baby came. An older lady, Mrs. Spencer, lived here with her two grandchildren. This arrangement, from what Leona had told her, benefited both parties and allowed Mrs. Spencer time to do some taxi driving for her Amish neighbors. The tan-colored house had a Christmas tree in the window, lit even at this hour of the day, sparkling with a star on top. A massive green wreath with bright red ribbons was hung on the front door, creating a warm welcome. Rebecca decided she already liked Mrs. Spencer, even without having seen her.

  Without any Christmas decorations, the place next to Mrs. Spencer’s looked almost Amish, but the overhead power line running to the house gave it away. Rebecca decided it must be English too, and maybe they were just late in putting up their lights.

  Turning right at the junction, she began looking for things that reminded her of the past. There was nothing she wanted to miss, not because of some morbid fascination but because she wanted to come to the root of her memory of Atlee. What had it really been like and what had we really done? she wondered. Was this hold he had on my heart something I could get rid of—and get rid of today—or was there something else behind it all?

  The West Skating Rink Road was rather featureless along this area. A lone tree or two stood, casting shadows across the road. Other than that, plowed and shorn bean fields lay on either side.

  A single building sat near the road. She couldn’t remember what purpose it served. She guessed it was a toolshed. Whatever it was, it sat alone, as if forgotten by the world.

  Atlee had not brought Rebecca down here often. He kept several underwater traps along a stretch of the Flackrock River. Because the trapped animal would quickly drown, he didn’t have to come down here every day to relieve its misery—the cold water preserved the game for a day or so.

  On that Saturday so long ago, she remembered that it had started out similar to this day—first cool, then warming up to a comfortable temperature. She had followed Atlee to the bridge, after her mother had given permission. It was here they had walked together. As usual she tried her best to keep up, yet that day he hadn’t seemed as impatient with the slower speed Rebecca required.

  As they made their way off the road and into the woods, she thought perhaps their shadows caused her to be able to see him better. He had been just ahead of her, swinging his two empty traps in rhythm with his step.

  He had turned to say, “I hope I have a big muskrat today.” A big grin spread across his face. “They’ve been bringing a real good price. The fur man told me yesterday that a big one would be almost double the normal fee.” He made a face, his freckles moving. “I’ve just caught little ones so far this winter.”

  She felt the wind move in the trees as she heard her own answer, “You’re making good money, are you?”

  His blue eyes twinkling, he glanced at her. “I don’t know. I can always do better.”

  But she knew, she just knew that he was making good money. He was so much bigger and smarter than she was. He knew how to read a stream and determine where the best place to set his traps was. He knew when to head home because a storm was coming, timing it just right so they didn’t get wet. He even knew how to make Emma laugh when she didn’t want to.

  Rebecca had never told Atlee what he was good at. Atlee no doubt knew, but did he know how he made her heart skip a beat? Did he know what his blue eyes were beginning to do to her? Did he know about the strange quiver she felt in her stomach when his hand brushed hers as they walked side by side on the road? No, she supposed he couldn’t know. It was just the way it was, and she had never found the time or words to tell him.

  The road took a sharp turn, and she could see the bridge ahead through the trees. Her steps quickened. The bridge still looked as massive as she remembered it, stretching wide across the Flatrock River.

  Coming up to the entrance, she stopped and read, “E.L. Kennedy 1886,” written in a half circle across the top. The county must have hung the small green Christmas wreaths on either side—they were too high off the ground to be the work of a friendly neighbor perched on his pickup truck.

  Other things looked much the same. On the right side of the bridge was a little path going down to the river. Glancing around to make sure no one was looking, she jumped the guardrail and carefully made her way down the path.

  In a rush of memories, she walked to the water’s edge. The Flat-rock River was swift-flowing here, its waters seemed to be in a hurry to get where they were going. This was where Atlee had kept one of his traps. Right in the deep water over there. She could remember it so clearly. And that day.

  This was also the place where she had planned on eating her lunch, but the rush of the moment was overtaking her. She now knew where this was going. She willed it to stop, and yet at the same time allowed it to continue. Was this not what she had come here for? To know, to face, to understand, and to meet Atlee if he came?

  She saw it all as if it were yesterday. Atlee had walked down to the river ahead of her, his black hair shining in the sun. He had checked his trap and found nothing. Silently he had returned to where Rebecca stood. She remembered wondering why there was no look of disappointment on his face. Was he not looking for his big one? She had then thought they would continue walking farther down the river, but instead he had paused in front of her. Then he put his hand in his pocket. He looked like he wasn’t thinking about muskrats anymore.

  She had looked at him, puzzled. She heard his voice clearly, even now, coming to her from across the years.

  “Ah, Rebecca, there’s something I need to ask you.”

  “Yes?” She raised her eyes to him, questioningly.

  “You know we’re moving after Christmas. You know that, don’t you? I’m going to another school.”

  She had nodded, knowing but not understanding.

  He fumbled in his pocket. “I found this the other day.” Slowly he pulled out the ring. It sparkled in the sunlight, just as it still did. “Rebecca, I would like to ask you something.”

  His eyes first went to the bridge beside them, then back to her eyes. They burned with an intensity she had never seen in them before. Yet she had not looked away, letting his fire come into her, burning in her chest.

  “Promise me something, Rebecca.” His voice quivered, but it did not break. “I know that we’re still
young. I have no control over our leaving Milroy. But will you promise me you’ll keep this ring till you’re twenty-one?”

  She responded slowly, not understanding, whispering, “Why?”

  “Keep it for me, Rebecca. I will come back for you then. From wherever I am. When we are of age, it will be different. Promise me you will keep it—that you will wait for me before you ever decide in favor of someone else.”

  She gasped, her breath barely coming. Then slowly, she had reached out, her fingers brushing his as she took the ring. “Yes, I promise,” she said in the rush of her emotions, so quietly she hoped he would hear… hoped that she had actually spoken the words.

  She now knew she had loved this boy with everything in her heart. That there was no corner of it she would not have given to him. She had seen the years, the miles of life stretching out, and knew she had wanted to walk them with him. She had known it with every fiber of her beating sixth-grade heart.

  She also knew her breath was barely coming any more as the running water in front of her came into focus again. Forcing herself to breathe, she lifted her face skyward as the tears came.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  It seemed to Rebecca that time was standing still on the banks of the Flatrock River. The trees above her, stripped of their leaves, were her silent witnesses. Rebecca now knew why she was afraid. It was because she had loved, and loved with all of her heart.

  She hadn’t asked for it, hadn’t searched for its embrace, nor longed for its agonies. It had come unbidden and taken its place without her ever having been aware of it. Yet, when it came to her, she hadn’t asked it to leave or barred it from staying. Instead, she had promised.

  This was her sin, her transgression. Was there forgiveness for it? She contemplated the thought. Her mother and Leona would understand if she told them. They would think it a thing of the imagination, a fancy of the youthful heart.

  John, whom she had barely thought of, would easily overlook this too. His soft brown eyes would hardly be troubled with a schoolgirl crush, as he would call it. She could almost hear his laughter, as if she were telling him a silly story, hardly worth mentioning.

  No, what she was afraid of was her own heart. Could it forget? Could it believe that better things were ahead? Having once given all, could it give as much again? Could it ever really make place for another? She had thought so. That was why she had forgotten Atlee and turned her love to John. But now she was no longer sure.

  How could something so sacred, so pure, so all-giving have gone away, driven like the leaves before the wind? Why had she lost this? Did God know something she didn’t? Was Atlee really coming?

  Her mind searched vainly for an answer, perplexed in its search. Was there anyone she could talk to? Anyone who would really understand?

  The wind blew softly in the trees above her, the warm sun reaching down between the bare branches. Yet it hardly reached her where she needed it the most. And what of God? Did He really know her heart? He must for He had made it. He made everything…and if so, then He too had made this love.

  Feeling weak she thought of her sandwich, the hunger in her body distasteful at the moment. Searching the riverbank, she found the grass still thick enough to sit on. She finally sat down and ate her sandwich, its bread dry in her mouth. She let the surroundings hold her—the stream with its water in a hurry to move on, the rattle of a car crossing the Moscow bridge.

  “You said you’d come,” Rebecca said softly, “when I turned twenty-one—you said we’d meet here. You promised.” She whispered, “Today I’m twenty-one. I’ve returned and kept my promise.”

  Then it occurred to her that it was Atlee arriving in the car on the bridge. Surely he had remembered. He was coming, and this was no longer something in her heart or her head but in front of her, right here in plain sight.

  Rebecca stood up, waiting, listening to the sound of the automobile clattering across the covered bridge. Atlee was coming…but then what if it wasn’t Atlee? What if it was just some local farmer who would wonder what an Amish girl was doing out here all by herself?

  She hardly could tell the farmer the real reason—if he stopped to ask. She hardly could tell herself that she had come here because long ago she loved a boy and was now waiting for him to return. It had been eight years since she had heard from or seen him, but they promised to meet each other on her twenty-first birthday.

  Her anticipation and excitement were fast fading away. What had seemed like a good idea—one she couldn’t go on without knowing the answer to—no longer seemed so grand. With this birthday she was of age, now considered an adult and capable of making her own decisions. The sudden reality of it was staring her in the face.

  She gathered her courage. Atlee had said twenty-one because he hadn’t wanted to force his hand and make her choose while her parents were still her guardians. His consideration of her and the foresight that had taken still moved her deeply, but now differently.

  This was a love she could not treat lightly. The emotions from only moments before were now turning into the present-day Atlee and the Mennonite world he represented. Their weight was heavy on her.

  To love the Atlee who was coming, to take that wild leap, now shook her deeply. This moment was not quite as she had imagined it, the whole experience disconcerting and unsettling.

  The approaching car was driving a thought toward her with an intensity directly associated with its nearness. She could hear the car slow down as it exited the bridge. Atlee. Would she even recognize him? His face, once so soft in its first hint of maturity, would now be hardened into early manhood. There might be a beard or a shadow of one on his face, if he had followed his parents into the world of the Mennonites. He would be different certainly. Where he had been a boy, now there would be the look of that other world in his eyes—the world of men—where they often walked alone, walked in their strength, and walked with the desire to pull what they loved into their orbit.

  She shivered. If it was him—Atlee—then that would mean he had been waiting all these years for her, had planned and was now implementing his singular love for her; perhaps having turned down other girls while thinking of her and waiting to meet her this morning.

  That she had taken a different path in life was apparent, but that was not what loomed so large in her eyes. It was his waiting, his preparation for this visit. These thoughts rose like a mighty mountain. This would not be a small matter anymore.

  Flattering as Atlee’s return would be, it was now frightening in its implications. If this was Atlee, then this was it. There would be no turning back. She was as good as Mennonite and married to him. Saying “No” was an option completely removed. Atlee might not demand it from her, even with the immense love he would obviously have, but she would demand it of herself.

  Rebecca saw she had come to a place she had not thought to go. Her motives had been wrapped in innocence, but this wouldn’t spare her now. The love of such a man would be a steel band pulling her in and demanding, not by words but by its very existence, her complete loyalty.

  She gasped as she saw the driver. He looked toward her and slowed the car. His hair was black. His face appeared young, but she couldn’t quite see his eyes.

  As the car came to a stop, the driver rolled down his window and called out, “Can I help you?” His voice reached her, the face of the young man now appearing clearly. “Do you need a lift?”

  “Atlee,” she said because that was all she could think to say, caught up in the intensity of her feelings.

  “Atlee,” he repeated, his face puzzled. “No…Derrick. I live back in town.”

  Dimly comprehending her mistake, she felt the red rush to her face. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else,” she said. “I’m visiting my aunt up the road. Leona Troyer.”

  “Oh,” he responded, letting a smile spread across his face, “she lives next to Mrs. Spencer, my aunt.”

  She nodded, not believing how stupid she had let herself sound to this st
range boy from town. English too.

  He grinned now. “I’m not this…what did you say? Atlee? But maybe I could be for a Friday night, unless he’s your Amish boyfriend?”

  “No,” she said, shocked at his boldness.

  “To the date, or to Atlee the boyfriend?” he asked, leaning out his window.

  “Both,” she said. “I’m engaged.”

  “But it’s not Atlee?” he asked, chuckling.

  Now her confusion was turning to irritation.

  He grinned, reading her face. “Well, even the Amish have their troubles, I see. You want a ride up to Leona’s?”

  “No,” she told him, “I’ll walk.”

  “As you wish.” He rolled the window halfway up and then stopped. “If you change your mind, let my aunt know. I’m good for a night at the movies.”

  She found herself glaring at him as he grinned, finished rolling up his window, and slowly accelerated the car until he disappeared behind the trees around the bend.

  With him gone, the fear and the irritation left too, all in one big rush it seemed, leaving her weak and trembling. The urge to run from this place came upon her, but she didn’t have the strength. Glancing around, afraid more cars might be coming, she was desperate to appear more normal. Walking up the road would appear normal, but it was out of the question at the moment.

  Gone were any thoughts that Atlee might still be appearing. Pressing in on her was the certainty that all boys and men were surely defective. The thought must have been forming for some time, but now it bloomed with full strength and conviction. The brash young nephew of Mrs. Spencer had only confirmed the fact.

  Atlee had promised and wasn’t coming. How utterly stupid of her to even have thought it possible. She had made an absolute fool out of herself, waiting by this bridge like a schoolgirl dreamer. No doubt Atlee was already married to a beautiful woman and had children—having completely forgotten about her.

  Rebecca would have left right then and there and marched up the road, but her legs still felt like they wouldn’t carry her. She would have to wait a while to go back to Leona’s. She just couldn’t go back now. Her face would surely give away her foolishness. Instead, she found the rock where she used to sit while waiting for Atlee to finish checking his traps.