Amish Circle Letters II: The Second Circle of Letters

by Price, Sarah

  Steve had laughed at her, teasing her about needing to learn how to be a farmer’s wife. But Mimi hadn’t found anything amusing about the situation. She wanted to be crocheting in the house, cozily snuggled on the sofa next to Steve while he would read the paper or simply sit next to her, admiring her work and sharing some small talk.

  Instead, the very people she seemed to spend time with were… everyone except Steve. On Saturday, Menno had arrived with Mary Ruth and the kinner. For a while, there had been a lot of activity as everyone sat in Anna’s kitchen with coffee and fresh pie, visiting and discussing the upcoming quilting bee for Mary Ruth. Menno had disappeared, leaving his wife alone with her parents so that they could visit and perhaps share something relevant to her own side of the family. Mimi had noticed a look in Mary Ruth’s eyes as she watched him walk out of the door. It was a sad look and Mimi wondered if her own feelings of disappointment were mirrored in her new sister-in-law’s expression.

  “You all right, Mimi?”

  She turned around and smiled at her mamm. Yet, she knew it was a forced smile, one that held no joy or happiness. “I reckon,” she said, only too aware that the tone of her voice said the opposite of her words.

  “Mimi?” Her mamm reached out and touched her daughter’s arm. “What is it?”

  The tears started to roll down Mimi’s cheeks, forcing her to look away. She didn’t want to confide in her mother, to admit her own apprehension over her marriage to Steve. But she knew that only by talking about it would she be able to wrap her arms around it and, perhaps, get some relief

  Wiping at her eyes, Mimi sniffled and turned back to look at her mamm. “I just…just thought it would be different,” she whispered.

  “What would?”

  Mimi sighed. “Marriage.”

  Her mamm laughed and gave her a warm hug, an unusual gesture coming from her mother. “Oh Mimi,” she said gently, with a nurturing tone of voice. “It will get better. There’s an adjustment period, Dochder, that’s for sure and certain.”

  “There is?”

  Her mamm nodded. “Of course there is, child. It’s hard to be separated from someone you love. But, before you know it, he’ll have that house fixed up and ready for you to begin your real life together.”

  Mimi hesitated, repeating her mamm’s words in her mind. She didn’t want to counter her mother or sound disrespectful by telling her that she wasn’t nearly as upset about being separated from Steve but rather by how he had behaved while they had been together. How could she tell her mamm that the grossdaadihaus was just awful, too small, too old and definitely in too much disrepair to ever be a proper home? Nothing like her own parents’ home; not even close.

  Yet, Mimi couldn’t explain that. Nor could she complain that Steve worked too hard, spending far too much time helping his own daed as well as tending his own farm? Wouldn’t she look awful selfish? She didn’t want to sound ungrateful or unappreciative. So, rather than say anything, she merely sighed and said nothing.

  Less said, soonest mended, she tried to convince herself, her heart heavy as she wondered what the next weekend would bring to their relationship.

  Mary Ruth steered the buggy down the lane to her parents’ farm. The horse responded eagerly, ears pricked forward, anticipating a well-earned period of rest. The previous Saturday, Little Emma had forgotten her sweater there over the weekend when they had gone visiting at the Fishers. Mary Ruth promised to ride back on Tuesday to retrieve it, knowing that the cold weather was only going to get worse. Emma would need her sweater in the house and for school, that was for sure. Menno was off to a farm sale with his brother from Strasburg and wouldn’t be home all day; not that it mattered. He still wasn’t talking much to Mary Ruth, despite the fact that she had left those Bible verses for him and despite his generous offer to take her to visit her parents’ farm over the previous weekend.

  Indeed, it had been a strange Saturday. Menno’s offer to take her with the kinner to visit her family had come as a complete surprise. She had wondered if it were some kind of a peace offering, an olive branch to smooth over whatever was bothering him. Indeed, she had wondered if, perhaps, his offer was a way of silently apologizing for how he had treated her since their marriage; especially after having read the Bible verses she had left for him on Friday.

  But she had quickly realized that she was wrong. During the buggy ride over to the farm, she had tried to engage him in conversation. But the more she talked, the more sullen he had become. Eventually, she had given up trying and merely stared out the window. Then, once they had arrived, Menno had barely visited with her family before slipping away, leaving the farm for Lord knows where. Mary Ruth had secretly hoped that he would stay and visit, that they might be able to draw him out of his shell. But it hadn’t happened that way.

  Two hours had passed before he had returned to pick up his family and bring them home. She had wanted to ask him where he had gone. She had wanted to speak to him. But, as always, she was afraid of rejection. His silence pained her in more ways than she could bear. After all, even after she had left that note for Menno in his coffee mug and then another one on his pillow, he had made no loving gestures towards her. Nor had he engaged in conversation.

  During the visit on Saturday, Mary Ruth hadn’t had a chance to talk to her sister-in-law about her marital woes. Mimi had been there and, from the looks of it, she was having her own hard time adapting to her first weekend as a married woman and staying at the Fisher farm. Plus, Mary Ruth knew that it wasn’t proper to discuss certain intimate details of one’s relationship with others. If she had the opportunity to talk to Anna, Mary Ruth knew that it would have to be done privately and with the most delicate of care.

  So she had been thankful to learn that Emma had left her sweater. It had given her an excuse to return to the farm by herself, a chance to perhaps speak to Anna for some advice. With Menno away, she had the use of the buggy for the entire day.

  “My word!” Anna said as she opened the door for Mary Ruth. “Could it get any colder out there? I believe it might just snow!”

  Mary Ruth forced a smile as she removed her black shawl and hung it on a metal hook by the door. “Sky sure is gray enough, ja?”

  Anna’s kitchen was dark for she hadn’t turned on a lantern yet. However, Mary Ruth could immediately see that she was busy with her cheese making. Anna loved to make Colby Cheese, using the fresh milk from the cows to make her rounds. Mary Ruth had never acquired the knack for cheese making but was perfectly content to keep her sister-in-law company while she began to press the curds.

  “Sure was nice to have all the kinner here on Saturday,” Anna said, glancing over her shoulder. “Sorry that Eleanor hadn’t been able to make it. I’m sure Melvin was as disappointed as Katie was.”

  Mary Ruth wasn’t so certain about that. What she was certain of was Melvin’s enthusiasm to visit the Fisher farm. “I reckon,” she responded, watching Anna. “I never could get the knack for that.”

  Anna laughed. “Making cheese? Ja vell, at first, it was trial and error for a little while, but Isaac kept encouraging me to stick with it.” She hesitated before she added, “Now that you have your own kitchen, mayhaps I could teach you too, some time.”

  My own kitchen, indeed, she thought bitterly. With a shrug of her shoulders, she shook her head. “Nee,” she said. “I’d much rather enjoy yours.”

  A moment of silence fell between the two of them, the only noise coming from Anna’s moving the large five-gallon pot over the counter. Pushing it to the sink, she tilted it on the side and continued breaking up the curds with her hands. “Everything going right as rain at Menno’s, then?”

  Another shrug. “Not much has changed,” she said softly.

  Again, Anna laughed, the sound light and cheerful. “How can that be, now? After all, you are a wife and mother all at once! And before you know it, you’ll have your own baby to add to the love in your home.” She peeked over her shoulder. “Like we will have in the summ
er.”

  It took a moment for Anna’s words to resonate with Mary Ruth. Baby? Summer? “Oh Anna!” she gasped, forgetting her own plight for just a moment. “That’s just so wunderbaar!”

  The color flooded to Anna’s cheeks as she beamed. “Been trying, you know. Seems God has His own plan and timeline. I didn’t want to tell anyone until the doctor confirmed it.”

  “Doctor?”

  She shook the curds from her hands and reached for a towel as she turned to look at Mary Ruth. “I lost a few babies, you know. Lost one over the summer last, too.” She sighed and shook her head. “Isn’t always easy to get pregnant. I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have another miscarriage. Isaac insisted that I’d see a doctor this time around to make certain everything is fine.”

  “And…?”

  Another broad smile crossed her face. Clearly, Anna was elated. “I even saw the heart beat!” She sounded like a young girl as she giggled. “Those Englische doctors have such amazing technology! We saw the heart beat on a small television-like screen! It was amazing!”

  “Oh my!” Mary Ruth gasped. She had never heard of such a thing. “That’s truly miraculous.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Anna gushed on about the new baby and how she was going to wait to tell the children until after Second Christmas, perhaps even as late as January. Her joy was so overwhelming that Mary Ruth knew that she could not share her troubles with Anna. Not now. She didn’t want to upset her sister-in-law, especially since there was nothing anyone could do. As she listened to Anna, Mary Ruth realized that only one person could solve this problem and that was, indeed, Menno himself.

  It was close to two when Mary Ruth reminded Anna about the sweater. She needed to return back to the farm in time to greet the children and start preparing the evening meal.

  “The sweater? It’s upstairs,” Anna said.

  Following Anna, Mary Ruth walked up the stairs toward Katie’s room. She held the handrail and listened as the stairs creaked. She smiled to herself, remembering the memories of having grown up in this house before Isaac and Anna had moved in with their kinner. Mary Ruth hadn’t liked moving next door with Steve, John David, and her parents but she had known that Isaac’s family needed the space.

  It had been years since she had been upstairs. In many ways, the dark hallways and long row of doors looked exactly the same as when she had been growing up. Yet, when they walked into Katie’s room, Mary Ruth immediately saw that it was a new generation living in the house.

  There was a stack of books and a battery-operated light on her nightstand instead of a lace doily and a kerosene lantern. On the top of her dresser, Katie had small pony figurines, something that Mary Ruth never would have possessed as a child. Growing up, Mary Ruth had led a much more conservative life. The only books were devotionals or the Bible, not storybooks. Her dresser had only contained her hairbrush and a dish for her dress pins.

  Mary Ruth ran her finger along the dresser and looked up at Anna. “So different, ja?”

  Anna tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

  “Vell,” Mary Ruth began. “When we were growing up, we didn’t have these types of things.” She picked up the closest pony figurine, holding it carefully in her hand. “Menno’s children have similar knick-knacks. I think it’s nice.” With a smile, she set it on the dresser. “Gives them individuality, I suppose. Independence.”

  Anna raised an eyebrow. “Individuality and independence, you think?” She shook her head, clicking her tongue. “I think that today’s kinner have a bit too much of that! You should see what I found this morning.” Anna walked over to the books on Katie’s nightstand and opened the Bible to the inside cover. She pulled out an envelope and handed it to Mary Ruth. “What do you make of this?”

  For a second, Mary Ruth frowned as she turned over the envelope in her hands. The handwriting certainly looked familiar but there was no return address. She glanced at Anna before she opened the flap and pulled out the single piece of paper inside. As her eyes read the three lines of text, she felt her heart beat faster and her pulse quicken:

  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

  But the greatest of these is love.

  1 Corinthians 13:13

  “Oh!” was all that Mary Ruth could gasp as she recognized her own note, the very one that she had spent so much time researching then writing to Menno. She had sought the Bible for the perfect verse to let him know what she was feeling and had put all of her own faith and hope in writing it.

  Now, her mind was racing, trying to understand what could possibly have transpired in order to bring the private note that she had written for her husband to the bedroom of her niece, Katie Fisher. Images of the note in the coffee mug that she had left on the hay bale suddenly mixed with an image of Melvin wandering outside to help his daed with morning chores. Surely the child had seen the note, read it, and took it to send to Katie. The color flooded to Mary Ruth’s cheeks as she realized that not only had Menno never seen her note but, Melvin had. Why would he steal it, she couldn’t help but wonder.

  “Appears my Katie has a secret admirer,” Anna said, a look of disapproval on her face. “Yet, the handwriting concerns me. That’s not a child’s writing, not like what is on the envelope.”

  Mary Ruth caught her breath, wondering how to tell Anna without revealing too much private information about her situation with Menno or the fact that Melvin had stolen the note. “I…I…”

  Anna nodded her head. “Ja, me, too! Completely speechless when I saw it.”

  “That’s not it,” Mary Ruth started to say. What would Anna think? How could she possibly explain? “It’s just that…” She looked up at her sister-in-law and tried to think of a way to say just enough without disclosing the extent of the problem. “It’s mine,” she finally admitted, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. “Melvin must have found the note.”

  Anna gasped. “Yours?”

  Nodding her head, Mary Ruth gulped. She didn’t want to lie; that would be a sin. But she didn’t want to admit to the problems she was having with Menno. If she had wanted to talk to Anna before, she was more than thankful now that she had not. Perhaps the problems were not what she had originally thought. “I like this verse and wrote it on a piece of paper the other day. He must have found it and sent it to Katie.” There, she thought. The truth told in a way that masked the underlying reason why I wrote it.

  A frown crossed Anna’s face. “I wondered about that,” she said softly and handed the paper back to Mary Ruth. “I reckon you’ll want this back.”

  Mary Ruth reached out and reached for the folded piece of paper. Her hands trembled as she realized that Menno had never seen it. That was the reason why he hadn’t responded to her peace offering. Yet, she wondered about the other note…the one she had left on his pillow. Surely he had seen that one.

  “I…” Mary Ruth looked down at the paper, the words jumping off the page at her: Faith. Hope. Love. She had to find Menno. She had to confront him and tell him what Melvin had done. She had to find out whether or not he had seen the other note. “I have to go, Anna.”

  She was halfway down the stairs when she heard Anna calling her. Mary Ruth turned around, the piece of paper still clutched in her hand, and looked up the stairs. Anna hurried after her, waving the blue sweater. “You forgot Emma’s sweater,” Anna said, a funny look on her face as she handed the piece of clothing to Mary Ruth.

  Sweater? For a moment, Mary Ruth looked confused. What was Anna talking about? And then it dawned on her that the sweater was the reason she had come to visit. She tried to laugh off her forgetfulness as she reached for the sweater. “Ja, right,” she said and tucked it under her arm. “Almost forgot!”

  Anna tilted her head and watched Mary Ruth as she dashed down the remaining steps and hurried outside toward the barn.

  Steve tied the horse and hauling wagon to the hitching rail outside of the Hostetler’s Store. He was hoping to catch Mimi alone, perhaps eve
n spend an hour or so together. He had been working on the grossdaadihaus and needed to order some more supplies. The sheetrock and insulation had been delivered earlier that morning and, in-between milkings, Steve had managed to get the insulation put up between the beams in the kitchen. And then his staple gun had broken.

  Truth was that he could have borrowed a neighbor’s staple gun but he wanted to see his wife.

  “Why, hello Steve!”

  Steve grinned at his father-in-law as he walked toward the back counter. “Good day, ja? Looks like snow!”

  Jonas smiled and reached out to shake Steve’s hand. “Sure does now, don’t it? What brings you out this way?”

  Reaching into his pocket, Steve pulled out a piece of paper with a list of items that he needed. “Need some supplies,” he said, handing the list to Jonas. “More sheetrock, two rolls of insulation and a new staple gun. And thought I might also spend a little time with Mimi”, he added.

  “Well now,” Jonas said. “Bet she would sure like that. Might perk her up a bit.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the back door. “She’s in the house. I’ll put your list together and load your wagon while you go visit.”

  Steve flashed him another grin and hurried out of the back door to head toward the house. Ever since he had brought Mimi back to her parents on Sunday evening, he had spent every free moment working on the grossdaadihaus. He wanted his wife with him, not living apart. He already had decided that as soon as the kitchen was fixed, he would bring her there. They could put a bed in that room until the upstairs bedroom was finished. It would be warm and cozy, perhaps a little tight, but they would, at least, be together. And that, Steve told himself as he opened the kitchen door, was the most important thing to him!

  She was sitting in the chair, staring out the window. Her prayer kapp was on the kitchen table, not on her head. When she heard the door, she barely glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes looked vacant and distant.