IN PLAIN View

by Olivia Newport

  “What is he talking about?” Annalise asked.

  Rufus covered her hand with his. “Shh. Keep listening.”

  “Let me show you what Phase 2 is going to be.” Karl reached behind him and picked up a roll of blueprints then unfurled it in one hand. “We’re going to build the best children’s playground in Custer County. I invite you all to come and look closely at the plans. Now, I realize you may still be wondering about the supplies we need. Some of you have wondered about a supply center I have not far from here.”

  “Is he looking at me?” Annalise whispered.

  “Might be.” Rufus twisted his lips. “Just listen.”

  “I have rented that land from the county. I needed a place to keep certain supplies separate from the houses I’ve been building. ‘Why?’ you might be asking.”

  “I certainly am,” Annalise muttered.

  Karl continued, “I confess my motives were not admirable in the beginning. I figured if I quoted a few dollars high and ended up with extra materials, maybe someday I could cut some serious corners on a project and increase my profit. After all, nobody makes a perfect estimate every time. Contractors always have extra supplies.”

  “What is this, true confessions?” Annalise asked.

  “Patience, Annalise,” Rufus said.

  “I have decided these extra supplies will have a more noble purpose,” Karl said. “We’ll build a playhouse like you wouldn’t believe out of the lumber and shingles. The PVC pipes will make a great jungle gym. And get ready for the biggest and best sandbox you’ve ever seen. Of course we’ll have swings and a slide.”

  Rufus grinned now and looked at Annalise. Her jaw hung slack.

  “Did you do this?” she asked.

  “I read him the story of Zacchaeus from the Bible,” Rufus said. “The rest was up to God.”

  “How long have you known?” Annalise asked.

  “Not long. You were asking questions. Luke was asking questions. But every contractor has leftover supplies at one point or another, and it’s a good guess customers don’t want that stuff lying around their brand-new houses, even if they did pay for it.”

  “But this idea for the playground?” Annalise asked.

  “That came from Karl.”

  Annalise looked down at her hands laced together. “And that might never have happened if I had written a blank check for the project.”

  “Many things require much patience.”

  “Thank you for being patient with me.”

  She lifted her face again, and it looked perfect under the kapp.

  Annie pressed her lips together. Around her, the crowd was shifting as some moved closer to see Karl’s plans for the playground and others returned to enjoying the features of the recreation area.

  “Rufus,” she said, “can we go for a walk?”

  “Do you want to try out the trail?” he asked.

  Annie shook her head. “No. I want to talk. Privately.”

  “All right,” Rufus said, “let’s walk down toward the road.”

  Annie turned to follow him, catching her foot on the hem of her dress. She would have to turn up the hem on this dress to wear it regularly. A year ago she never would have thought of doing that herself. She would have taken the garment to a dressmaker or, at the very least, her mother. Or, more likely, she simply would have stopped wearing it and bought something new. Much had changed in a year.

  Once they were free of the crowd, Rufus let Annalise step in front of him as they made their way down the hill toward the road. Her form, even under the drape of an Amish dress, enchanted him. The way she held her shoulders. Her slender neck rising from the collarless garment. Her certain steps that made her skirt swish more than she realized. From a step or two behind her, he could feast without making her self-conscious.

  How beautiful she is, he thought. How easily he could let himself imagine a future together. She would let down her hair and he could freely revel in the wonder of her loveliness. Someday their own children could romp on the playground that Karl proposed to erect, while he and Annalise sat on a bench he had crafted.

  He reached for her hand, squeezing it as he fell in step beside her.

  At the road, Annie inhaled heavily and let it out in controlled measures. This would not be an easy conversation. She hoped she could form her words more smoothly if they were walking and not looking at each other.

  “Rufus,” she said, “I made some assumptions about Karl Kramer that were not accurate.”

  “Many people did.” His answer was mild, and she knew he had no sense of what she proposed to talk about.

  “He did some bad things in the past. Last year, when he hurt you and you ended up in the hospital—”

  “We don’t know for sure that was Karl.”

  “Well, he scared the living daylights out of me one time.” Annie pressed on. “All this spring, ever since I discovered that stash of supplies, I’ve thought the worst of Karl Kramer. I confess even I had my doubts when you said you wanted to work with him.”

  “Annalise,” Rufus said, “I sense you are working up to something. What is it you feel you must say?”

  Annie kicked the dirt. “Karl Kramer is the last person I would think could ever make me examine myself. But all this business has made me realize I’ve been judging him based on his past, and now it looks like he wants to be something different in the future.”

  “We all have pasts,” Rufus said. “We carry them with us into the future.”

  Annie swallowed. “I don’t want to carry my past into the future… into our future. I don’t want to have secrets that might disappoint you later, when you find out.”

  Rufus paused in the road and turned her to look at him—just what she had hoped to avoid. “We are plain people, Annalise. You can speak plainly to me.”

  “I love you, Rufus,” she said.

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  She lowered her eyes to the ground. “If we marry, I want our marriage to be everything you’ve ever dreamed of, everything you’ve been waiting for.”

  “Annalise, what is on your heart?”

  “I’ve…not been pure.” She could not look at him as she said these things. “I wasn’t going to church much in those days. I suppose I put my faith in a box off to the side. Jesus didn’t have much to do with certain choices. I had a boyfriend in college, and we…we should not have, but we did.”

  “I see,” Rufus said quietly.

  Annie swallowed hard again and blew out her breath. “That’s not all. I went to a technology convention once and had what the English would call a one-night stand. I don’t think I ever even knew his last name. I have never been proud of that. I’ve hated myself for it.” She tensed her arms and balled her fists. “Even now, I hate remembering it.”

  “Annalise—”

  “Please, let me finish.” She moistened her lips. “Last summer, when we met, I was running from my intellectual property attorney because he betrayed me and was trying to steal my business.”

  “I remember.”

  “He was also my boyfriend, and he often stayed the night. At some level, I knew it was wrong, but everybody was doing it. The box my faith was in was up on a shelf by then.”

  Rufus was silent, and Annie lifted her eyes to his at last.

  “I don’t know what assumptions you’ve had about my past,” she added. “But I wanted you to know the truth. My faith is off the shelf now. I want to follow Jesus and be a new creation. But I can’t change the past.”

  Those violet-blue eyes bore into her.

  “If you’d rather find an Amish woman who has always had strong faith,” Annie said, “I understand. You probably want someone who hasn’t…I don’t want to be in your way.” Annie laughed nervously. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re what the English would call a great catch. You could have any Amish woman you wanted.”

  Say you want me. Say you want me. Say you want me.

  Rufus turned his head at the sound of his
name, and Annie startled. Karl Kramer appeared from around a clump of bushes at the side of the road. How long had he been there? Annie wondered.

  “Rufus, we can’t have this party without you,” Karl said. “People are asking for you.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “You’d better be.” Karl turned and began to climb the hill.

  Voices and children’s squeals wafted down. Annie realized she was holding her breath.

  “Annalise,” Rufus said, glancing up the hill.

  She could see in his eyes that he wanted to say more. Dread rose up. “You’d better go,” she said softly.

  On the way up the hill he did not hold her hand. A thickness came over her chest, squeezing her throat.

  Forty-Seven

  June 1780

  Jacob climbed the hill in the afternoon sun hoping he would not regret leaving his horse behind. At a brisk clip, the familiar walk from his home to the big house took barely twenty minutes.

  While Maria was staying at the big house, Jacob felt less pressure to check on his mother frequently. After the gunpowder explosion threw Maria against the tannery six months ago she had no choice but to remain in Berks County while she waited for the leg to heal. Jacob had heard the bone snap. A slight limp now reminded Maria of one careless gesture, but her determination was undeterred. But Maria was gone now, and Jacob was never sure what he would find when he arrived at the clearing his parents had carved out forty years ago. His mother had not been on a horse in years, but he kept one stabled near her house just in case someone else might need it.

  Maria agreed to stay with Sarah in Philadelphia, rather than chase the front lines of battle. At least there she could seek out the remnants of her own old network of subterfuge and perhaps uncover word of her missing husband.

  No encouraging information had come through yet, but Jacob understood why Maria held on to hope. He had not heard from any of his brothers in almost a year. The most he could do was follow news of the battles and suppose that Joseph, John, and David were enmeshed in the fighting or working the supply lines. Jacob still manufactured gunpowder when he could find the saltpeter to keep the mill going. If he could get a load to Philadelphia, Sarah seemed to be able to feed it into channels effectively and sometimes even produce a fair price for it. He found comfort in imagining his own brothers loading their muskets with powder from his mill.

  His mother was in the garden. He and Franklin helped her with the planting eight weeks ago. No doubt she was inspecting the shoots that carried the promise of bushels of vegetables. She looked unsteady to Jacob—more unsteady every day. she stumbled, and his heart lurched. He was still yards away.

  Elizabeth fell. Jacob broke into a sprint.

  “Mamm!” Jacob had his arms under her before she could sink into the soft soil.

  Hours later, while his mother rested in her own bed, Jacob and Katie murmured in the kitchen.

  “She should not be on her own. She should come stay with us.” Katie put her hand on top of Jacob’s as they sat at the table where he had eaten the meals of his boyhood.

  “She has lived in this clearing since she married. She will not have it any other way.”

  Katie nodded. “I’ll talk to Joseph’s wife, and John’s as well. We can all drop by more often. Some of the grandchildren are old enough to help, too.”

  Jacob exhaled. “I wish my brothers could make it home, even for a visit. She has not been the same since David and John decided to enlist.”

  “Age and heartbreak are not a productive combination.”

  Jacob disentangled his fingers from Katie’s. “I can at least send a message to Christian, and we should let Sarah and Maria know.”

  Katie straightened. “What are you saying?”

  “She’s weaker all the time. We cannot deceive ourselves about what is coming.”

  “What does it say, Daed?”

  Christian handed the letter to Magdalena, who scanned it quickly.

  Magdalena held the page with thumb and forefinger on each side. “Elizabeth is failing. Jacob says she hardly gets out of bed anymore.” Elizabeth was the one who gave Magdalena her first reading lesson using an old primer of Maria’s.

  Anxiety filled Christian’s chest, the pressure building until he lifted his shoulders in three quick breaths.

  “Daed?”

  “I’m all right,” he said. He could not manage more words at that moment.

  Elizabeth Kallen had come into their lives through the will of his widowed father. She was not Amish and had no thought to become Amish. For years, Christian held that against her. But Christian could not imagine his boyhood without her. she had opened her heart to five motherless children. Never had she suggested he try the ways of the English. Except for not being baptized and joining the church—and the colorful fabrics she dressed Sarah in—Elizabeth lived as plain as any of their Amish neighbors.

  Christian was only eight when his own mother died. The truth was he had far more memories of Elizabeth caring for him in maternal ways than he did of Verona Yoder Byler. He was not yet prepared to mourn Elizabeth Kallen Byler, but if Jacob’s note was an accurate assessment, he had little time to ready himself for the coming reality.

  “Are you going to go see her?” Magdalena asked.

  “I suspect I will be sorry if I do not.” Christian lowered himself into a chair. “She was always so kind.”

  “May I come with you?”

  Christian was at a loss to know what to do with this stubborn daughter. Magdalena should have been married six months or more by now. She ought to have been busy on Jonas Glick’s farm, making the place her home, perhaps waiting for a child to quicken within her.

  Instead she had called off her engagement. If she could not be wife to Nathanael Buerki, she said, she would be no wife at all. Christian could barely bring himself to look Jonas Glick in the face. What was he supposed to do with a daughter unwilling to become a wife?

  When Christian spoke to Babsi later that evening, she confessed she suspected she was with child again. A wagon ride over through the countryside with a passel of children had no appeal. The next day he rode out to the farms where his older sisters thrived. Although they burst into tears at the news of Elizabeth’s decline, both had family pressures that would make the trip with him impossible.

  “All right,” Christian said that night to Magdalena, “if you still want to go, we’ll leave in the morning.”

  They took a small wagon and a team, rather than just two mounts. Her father had seemed to want to fill the wagon with gifts but in the end settled for a dozen jugs of apple cider. He said he remembered that Elizabeth had always liked cider. Daed would not let Magdalena drive, however. So she opted to spend part of the journey drowsing in sun-drenched hay in the wagon’s bed with the jugs.

  When they crested the final hill before the Irish Creek settlement, Daed halted the team. Magdalena peered at the view, searching her mind for the memories of the little girl she had been on Irish Creek. She watched her father now as his face creased in longing and memory as well. He finally raised the reins again, and the team lumbered down the soft slope.

  At the back door, her father knocked softly, and a moment later, Katie opened the door. Behind her, Maria and Sarah stood up from the table.

  Jacob was out in the barn. Magdalena followed her daed into Elizabeth’s bedroom and stood quietly while he watched her labored breathing.

  “I need to go find Jacob,” he said softly. “Will you stay with her? If she wakes, she should not be alone.”

  Magdalena nodded and settled into a rocker where she could watch Elizabeth. A few minutes later, Maria slipped into the room.

  Magdalena stifled a sigh at the sight of the Patriot spy. Why had she even wanted to come on this trip? Her onkel made gunpowder, and her aunts spied on the British. She should have realized she was walking into a den of the enemy.

  She bit her lip. She was not supposed to have enemies. No one knew what she had done for Patr
ick. And she was not sorry.

  “I heard you were getting married,” Maria said, her voice low and even and soothing. “Then I heard that you did not.”

  “He was a good man, but not the right man.” Magdalena made no effort to explain that Nathanael was the right man but she could never have him.

  “Then you made the right decision,” Maria said.

  Magdalena lifted her eyebrows slightly. No one at home thought she made the right decision.

  “My family would not have understood the husband I chose,” Maria said, “but I have no regret. I’m only sorry that we have been separated for two years because of this war.”

  Magdalena said nothing, but her throat thickened.

  “Is there someone else who is the right man?” Maria asked.

  Magdalena nodded. “The war has taken him away from me as well.”

  Maria nodded. “Then you know my heart.”

  They settled into silence, Magdalena considering her aunt’s words. Oddly, Maria was the one who understood her best.

  Elizabeth’s breath grew jagged, and Maria and Magdalena leaned forward in tandem.

  “Does she do that often?” Magdalena asked.

  Maria shook her head. “This is different. I think you should go get your father and Jacob.”

  “Daed hoped to see her awake.”

  Maria pulled her lips back in a grimace. “Go get them, Magdalena. Look in the barn or the stables.”

  “Someone has to be with her all the time,” Jacob told Christian. “Ever since she fell in the garden, we’ve been watching her, but every day she grew weaker.”

  “You’ve cared for her well all these years, Jacob.”

  “I could never approach how well she cared for all of us.” Jacob rubbed his temples with both hands.

  “I hope to tell her how grateful I am for the early years. I should have done it long ago instead of harboring judgment. I was a grown man with a family of my own before I could see what Daed saw when he married her. She never spoke against the Amish and always let me be the man I was destined to be.”