A Second Chance

by Linda Byler

  The wooden bird feeder swung crazily, emptied of birdseed, the bewildered winter birds twittering in the white pine by the tall fence.

  Edna softly hummed and whistled as she washed dishes, polished the stove, then swept the kitchen floor. She found a yellow can of Lemon Pledge and sprayed it liberally on a rag cut from a T-shirt, dusted the furniture, and Swiffered the hardwood floor in the living room. She searched every closet, every drawer, for birdseed or suet cakes, but came up empty.

  She saw Leona crack open an eye from where she lay on the couch.

  “Good. You’re awake. The birdfeeder is empty.”

  “Who cares?”

  Alrighty, then. Edna said nothing and turned away to hide her rush of annoyance. She ironed two shirts she found in a basket, sewed a button on a pair of trousers, then tiptoed past the resting Leona and went to her room upstairs. Edna tucked her hands under her cheek and fell asleep for a much-needed midafternoon nap.

  It was the cold that awakened her, so she sat up, yawned, smoothed her hair that was pinned to the stiff, white bowl-shaped covering to her head, and slid quietly down the stairs.

  Leona opened one eye.

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “Certainly. You will be.”

  She returned with an insulated tumbler of ice water.

  “It’s 32 ounces. You can drink three or four of these, and it will do you good. It’ll increase your milk supply, keep you hydrated. . .”

  “I know all that.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  Edna sat on the sofa, crossed her arms, and observed Leona like a bright-eyed little bird; her head shifted to one side.

  “You know this is not a time to watch your weight. You need the calories to help your milk supply.”

  “That’s not what Mam says.”

  “Really? What does she say?”

  “If I’m careful now, the weight will drop off easily, the hormones helping me to regain my figure. But I’m so hungry.”

  Her voice ended high, in a little girl wail of pleading.

  “Then you shall eat. What your mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her. You need your strength.”

  With that, she marched to the kitchen, whipped up milk, eggs, and cinnamon, dipped stale sourdough bread in the mixture, and toasted it in a skillet with a tablespoon of butter.

  She made a brown sugar and corn syrup mixture to drizzle across it, sliced a banana over the top, and served it on a tray.

  Leona’s eyes flew open in surprise.

  “Oh my goodness!”

  And she ate. There was no extension of the pinkie, no minced chewing, and small bites. She ate without reserve and washed it all down with gulps of ice water. Edna watched her eyes brighten and her cheeks flush. Leona even laughed a little as she started to tell Edna about how the midwife had gotten confused with directions and almost didn’t make it in time for the birth.

  When the baby cried that jarring yowl of indignity, Leona smiled hesitantly, but reached for her and looked down into her face with something like motherly concern.

  It was a beginning. Just as Edna had predicted. It worked every time, didn’t it? Get rid of the sticky tack visitors and give the new mother some good food, plenty of water, a little rest, and she starts to perk up.

  “I’m still worried about the birdies. It’s fierce out there.”

  Leona looked up.

  “Oh, yeah. You said something. Did you check the basement?”

  So Edna was filling the feeders, half hidden by the looming white pine, when Leona’s husband came home early. She finished squeezing suet cakes into the cages before wading through the powdery snow and into the washhouse.

  Keith, Leona’s husband, had already shucked his outerwear and was kneeling beside the recliner, his arms around his wife and sleeping daughter.

  It was a scene straight from Heaven, and Edna turned away to hide the quick tears that sprang to her dark eyes.

  Oh indeed. She’d passed judgment quickly and without tenderness on this selfish, spoiled young woman and her exacting mother, but here was love in its purest form. Keith loved his wife, spoiled or not.

  Edna sniffed and wiped her eyes with a corner of her white apron.

  Edna had been a maud for so long, to so many families, that she knew how to handle nearly every situation that could come up. Yes, she had done the right thing by kicking Leona’s mother out, and now she could bask in the joy of seeing this young couple step into the world of parenting together, unfettered by the mother’s critical eye. Edna wasn’t a proud woman, but she knew she was good at this job and she loved it. It was a huge reward to give of yourself over and over to these families, to let the blessings pile up like sacks of coin in a bank vault.

  She was blessed, she told herself, over and over to the point of becoming like a broken record stuck in a groove. Blessed, blessed, blessed. Happy, happy, always happy. She was always looking forward to the next house and the next mountain of dirty diapers and sour-smelling bibs and socks. The next frigid morning, hanging the frozen sheets with purple fingers that will never know the feeling of my own newborn, never grip the hand of my husband.

  She caught herself, shaking her head. One moment I rejoice in a family’s perfect circle of love, the next I slide down the ravine of self-pity. She would not allow herself to wallow in the swamp of “what ifs” and “why nots?”

  She was satisfyingly single. Happily unattached. A leftover blessing. There were so many well-meaning names for the single ladies. Wasn’t there a song about “all the single ladies”? She’d heard it once.

  She grabbed the Swiffer, dipped her head, squeezed her eyes tightly, and prayed to God for a new and right heart, and none of these selfish thoughts.

  She started thinking about Leona’s mother again. A rare bird, for sure. She was attentive, but she could hardly qualify as a nurturing mother. Leona was probably doing very well, considering what she’d grown up with. Keith was a treasure.

  They’d named the baby Lucinda. Poor thing. What was wrong with them? Lucinda Raquel.

  Ah well, none of her business. None at all.

  She set to work peeling potatoes, hoping Keith was among the ranks of the ninety and nine who loved a heaping mound of mashed potatoes with a glob of thick chicken gravy sliding down around it.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE TWO WEEKS WITH KEITH AND LEONA PROVED TO BE WHAT SHE could honestly label “good.” There were ups and downs, but all in all, given Leona’s liberal upbringing, Edna decided little Lucinda was off to a good start in a mostly well-adjusted home.

  Edna left the young family and headed home on a cold, starlit night, as still as death and about as bright. Going home meant the usual headshake, a rattling of all her mental capacities, a rearrangement of her thoughts and responsibilities.

  It was always good to see her parents, even though their aging bodies demanded a new and strong perspective from Edna.

  She paid the surly minivan driver, waited till he pressed the button to release the back door, and swung her luggage out in one powerful swoop. She shouted “Thanks” back over her shoulder as she headed toward the low front porch built along the front of the white stucco ranch house.

  The smell of peroxide and Pepto-Bismol assaulted her nose. Without thinking, her hands came up to wave at the air.

  Her father, round-faced with a white beard and matching cap of silvery hair, smiled at her from his deep seat in his chair. His stomach was a perfect imitation of a well-stuffed sausage, his broadfall denims stretched to the limit.

  “Home again, Edna. Like a well-trained homing pigeon, you always return. And if you didn’t, Mam and I would surely miss it.”

  Edna smiled, and thought that was a nice way of saying he was the one who benefited from having an unmarried daughter, but knew, too, that he spoke the truth. There was never a doubt that she was loved and cherished.

  Her mother made an appearance from the bedroom door, tying a clean apron around her
own ample waistline.

  “Oh, it’s you, Edna. I heard Dat talking to someone. How was your stay with the young couple?”

  Edna nodded, said it was good.

  Did she ever say anything otherwise? Why burden them unnecessarily with tacky accounts of the selfishness of youth?

  “I baked bread,” her mother said, “so there will be a fresh loaf for our evening meal. We haven’t eaten yet. Have you?”

  “No. I put a casserole in the oven for Keith and Leona, but I left before it was done. I’ll take care of my luggage and then join you.”

  The long hallway ended in a spacious bedroom complete with a seating area, a large kneehole desk with a marble top, a bookcase groaning under the weight of her many novels, a cherry four-poster bed stacked with pillows on an eiderdown quilt, a tall chest of drawers, and a low dresser with a tall mirror. The walls were decorated with pictures of country landscapes, done in muted colors of gray, beige, and white, and a bulletin board containing homemade cards from various young nieces and nephews who mostly thought she was awesome.

  She shivered, then turned the gas wall unit to the highest setting and was rewarded by the familiar whoosh of the sharp line of blue flame.

  She glanced in the mirror as she threw her luggage on the tufted gray sofa. Ugh. What a bleached potato.

  She needed some sun, which she knew was not possible in winter unless she spent an entire day sled riding. Perhaps she should consider skipping church to find some slope and turn her face to the sun.

  Ah well, it was what it was.

  She left the door of her room ajar, carrying an armful of soiled clothing to be distributed in piles by the washing machine. She’d take care of it on Monday morning.

  She found the source of the strange odor, an oversized bottle of pink Pepto-Bismol, the black cap askew, sticky rivulets drooping from the top, like sweet, pink mucus. Beside it, on the windowsill loaded down with Campbell’s soup cans and Maxwell House coffee cans containing geranium cuttings in different stages of growth, was a white plastic lid filled with a clear liquid. Edna knew instinctively that was the odor of peroxide. Her mother’s pharmacist told her a capful of peroxide among geraniums would keep pests away, which was now her mother’s undisputed law.

  Every time her mother made a trip to Henry’s Pharmacy in Odin, she came away with another truth written in stone, the laws by which she lived. Grimacing, Edna picked up the pink bottle, grabbed a dishcloth, started wiping up the gooey mess.

  Ugh. Disgusting. She quietly took the cloth to the washhouse door and threw it in the general direction of the soiled laundry. She wiped down the bottle, replaced the cap, asked who had an upset stomach.

  “Why, me. You know how my lower intestines fizz like a can of pop,” her father answered. “Nothing beats that pink stuff.”

  Her mother nodded in agreement.

  “Good stuff. Harry from the pharmacy says it’s the best.”

  Edna moved every tin can to wipe the scattered dirt and curled brown leaves, the dead, dehydrated houseflies upended with legs like waxed thread. She chased a stinkbug into a corner with an edge of a paper towel, then flushed him down the commode.

  “Oh now, he wasn’t hurting anything,” Her mother commented, inserting an arthritic finger in the potato soup to check the temperature, then licking it thoroughly.

  “Mom, use a spoon,” Edna said, suddenly weary.

  Her parents were so old and senile, like overgrown children. She needed to be here for them; to clean, monitor blood pressure and heart rates, keep tabs on her father’s diabetes.

  A quick irritation zigzagged through her veins. Where were her sisters? Her sisters-in-law? The minute she stepped in the door, there was everything to be done at once.

  “Wasn’t Fannie here this week?” she asked.

  “No. I don’t believe she was. Sadie stopped in to borrow my pinking shears on her way to town. Come, Edna, leave that now. Put your dishcloth away. We want to eat.”

  The tablecloth was peppered with food, dried to rough flakes. It smelled worse than the dishcloth. The Melmac soup bowls were stained and scratched, with the spoons and forks thrown haphazardly across them.

  Edna compared this table to the one she had left earlier, then berated herself for the comparison. These soup bowls held many childhood memories, of fresh blueberry pie in summer, homemade strawberry ice cream in winter. Spoons clattering, children laughing and talking at the dinner table when it still held four leaves to accommodate eight of them.

  No, this was fine, this sour tablecloth with watery potato soup her mother had forgotten to thicken.

  After her mother had carefully ladled it into their bowls, she looked puzzled, then asked what was wrong with the soup.

  “It’s fine,” her father said.

  “It’s good,” Edna told her.

  Satisfied, her mother smiled happily and ate the thin potato soup and served the crusty homemade bread with the same wide smile of satisfaction she always had at mealtime.

  “Good bread, Mam,” her father commented, buttering his fourth slice.

  “Your sugar,” she warned, pointing with her fork.

  “Ah, I’ll be careful tomorrow.”

  All of the normal everyday chatter crashed down around Edna with a tightening sense of portent. In the two weeks she had been gone, they had seemed to age years.

  But in the morning, after a long winter’s night of deep sleep beneath layers of quilts, Edna felt a renewed sense of optimism, sniffing the familiar smell of frying cornmeal mush and strong coffee, her father singing some off-key version of plainsong as he clattered the lid on the cookstove.

  Edna washed, brushed her teeth, and combed the heavy dark hair up and away from her face and secured it with clip barrettes. She shrugged into a dress of deep burgundy, arranged her white covering on her head, and went forth to address the day.

  “Morning, Edna!”

  “Morning.”

  “How was your night?”

  “Slept like a log. Hardly a dent in the covers.”

  “Good, good. Nothing like your own bed.”

  Edna smiled at her father. Clean, his face shaved, beard trimmed, he was still a handsome old man.

  “Message for you. Dave Chupp’s wife had their baby. Another son.”

  “Really? Alright, then. I’ll go there tomorrow morning. Church today, though, and thought maybe we could visit Chip and Fannie this afternoon.”

  It was another bright day in January, the air sharp with the cold, the sky a deep shade of blue with puffy gray clouds woven through.

  Old Dob, their faithful horse, stood with his neck outstretched, his eyes half-closed as he waited till everyone was safely tucked into the buggy, blankets wrapped securely, gloves pulled on, reins taken up. Then he was off on a reluctant two-step as the steel wheels squeaked and crunched across the frozen snow.

  “Close the window now,” her mother said. It was what she always said in winter. In the heat of summer it was, “Can’t we open both windows, Dat?” In the back seat, Edna smiled before tucking the plaid buggy robe more securely around her legs.

  Yes, her parents were alright. And they would be for another ten years. The next job had already presented itself, which meant more money in her already sizable bank account. Edna felt satisfied, accomplished.

  When they arrived, they joined the other women in the kitchen where there was already a lively discussion about all the latest happenings in the community. She wished someone would ask her about her own life, but no one ever did.

  They were discussing vacations. Florida. Pinecraft. Who was leaving, who was staying for months. The bus schedule and travel mishaps. Edna pursed her lips, lowered her eyelids to half mast, and let her chest heave with disapproval. Plain people frittering away their hard-earned money on worthless pleasure should be verboten. Why the ministers allowed these rampant travels was beyond her. Everyone knew the things that went on in Florida.

  Her nostrils flared, quivered with anger. These folks cha
sed after Florida’s sun, spent their money in expensive restaurants and on pricey bus fares, stayed in luxurious houses with killer rent.

  Well, it wasn’t for her, that was sure. She would do the right thing, sock her money away in the fashion of her forefathers, then disperse it to some charitable cause as she saw fit. All this senseless spending to go on vacation would rip the Amish church straight down the seams.

  Pleased at her own steadfastness, she walked lightly, with sanctimonious tread, following Verna to her place on the varnished wooden bench. She picked up the heavy, black Ausbund, the book of German songs, and laid it carefully across her lap. Yes, she would take up her cross and carry it, be a follower of Jesus by denial of the flesh. She would be a true disciple in serving her Lord. Let others follow the frivolous paths of pleasure. Her lot in life was a glad sacrifice, to travel alone, but not alone, with Christ by her side.

  Verna smoothed the pleats in her skirt and leaned over to ask if she’d heard about Orva Schlabach’s wife’s cancer?

  Edna bent her head to catch the words, shook her head, then drew back, wide-eyed, when Verna said it had spread to her liver.

  “It’s nothing but a death sentence,” she whispered.

  “How old is she?” Edna breathed.

  “In her thirties, I think.”

  Edna made the expected sympathetic sounds, then opened her songbook, carefully leafing through it to find the announced page.

  She opened her mouth and sang, knowing she was contributing to the health and well-being of the Old Order Amish church. A single girl, doing what she could to make life easier for others, being a maud, a good example to the young mothers like Leona. The world tried its best to push and shove its way into the homes of those who instilled time-honored traditions into their children.

  Take this practice of having a maud. Many of the young mothers had a sister helping out a few days a week, and that was it. They did not “take care” after a baby arrived the way their mothers had. It was a shame. But mauds were an expense, so many young women did without.

  She let her thoughts wander, the way they tended to do in church. Everyone was married, bore children, and belonged to a bearded man who was concerned for his wife and children. Good men who followed the ways of our Lord and fulfilled His will, marrying one woman and staying faithful till death parted them. Having been in so many homes, Edna knew there were many men who truthfully gave their lives for their families. Praise God.