A Second Chance

by Linda Byler

  “Edna?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re planning on staying till the end of the month, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think maybe you’d better make plans to stay longer, if it’s possible. I thought maybe you could go home for the weekend, to stay with your parents. They need you, too.”

  “Alright. It sounds like a plan. Yes. I think it will work. I have two jobs coming up in May, though. So perhaps you could find someone else through that month.”

  “You can’t say no to them?”

  “I . . . don’t know. I guess I could.”

  “The children seem to do so well with you here. I . . . we need you, Edna. I feel as if a huge burden has been lifted right off my shoulders. I heard your conversation with Neil. That in itself is amazing. You have a gift, Edna. It seems you know what he needs. He’s such a serious boy, the same as his mother. Your kidding around seems to draw him out.”

  “Oh, well . . .”

  Edna was at a loss for further words. Finally, she told him that Neil certainly didn’t like her, though.

  Orva got off the recliner, folded the paper and put it in the basket. He looked at Edna with an expression she could not begin to understand. Then he walked out the front door without another word, closed the door firmly behind him, leaving her alone. She made her way up the stairs, wondering what she had said to cause the abrupt departure.

  The long, hot shower felt wonderful, erasing the brutal aching between her shoulder blades. That rock garden seemed unconquerable at times. She’d no more than finished weeding the whole thing when a fresh growth of broken dandelion and thistly roots sprouted all over again. But it was so beautiful. Edna imagined a stone patio, an outdoor oven, comfortable chairs, a table with an umbrella, urns, and pots of flowers.

  The possibilities were endless.

  She had to realize this was not her home, her lawn, or her garden. She was the maud. That was it. She couldn’t help it if she encroached on motherly territory with those two girls. How quickly they had turned from angry little ones to normal children, who were left to grapple with life’s fears and failures on their own. She could come to love them, in time.

  Would she say no to other maud duties?

  She knew she wanted to stay here. Even with Neil’s bewildering anger, with Orva’s grieving, his face a maze of feelings, she wanted to stay.

  The house was hers, comfortable, clean, and organized.

  But that was the trouble with a man. He brought all kinds of unrest into your life. It was like crossing a stream, hopping from one rock to another, you never knew which foothold would prove to be stable, and which one would tilt, throwing you into the water of turmoil and doubt.

  Take this conversation.

  Suddenly, he’d cut it off, went out to the porch to brood, likely. Men thought only of themselves. Didn’t he think about her feelings at all?

  Well, she had no business worrying about what he thought of her. She was the established maud, nothing else. He was enveloped in sorrow, reeling from the death of his wife, so naturally, he was entitled to his time alone on the porch if he didn’t like where the conversation was going.

  The road to her future was plain as day. A road dotted with multiple homes, containing Amish people of every variety, a vegetable soup of personalities and habits acquired from their own lineage, their various upbringings.

  She was free to come and go, without being cast into the complexities of family life. If people didn’t get along, lived together in wrecked harmony, it was nothing to her. She’d seen plenty of that. Children in pain, selfish parents occupied with a less than compromising union.

  Here, though, after only a few weeks, she had unknowingly shouldered the responsibility of the children’s well-being, which she found unsettling.

  She cared about Neil, wanted to dig out the root of his anger, the place he occupied too often. What caused it?

  The girls and their box of tissues, used ones crumpled in the small pink waste can, affected her deeply. They were so brave, and yet, at night, their mother’s death brought the harsh reality of their sorrow.

  Edna imagined a vast, dark sea, with glowing little lights bobbing on the surface, motherless children who sought comfort when no one else but their own mother could supply it. In a sense, these children had lost a valuable commodity, the depth and richness of a mother’s love, with their father awash in his own cocoon of grief.

  That night Edna found herself sobbing into her pillow.

  CHAPTER 11

  SHE WAS SENT HOME FOR THE WEEKEND, ORVA BEING THOUGHTFUL that way. Her own home did nothing to dispel her sour mood. She felt displaced, with a restlessness she could not explain.

  She cleaned the bathroom late Saturday evening, a DeWalt battery lamp hung from a hook in the ceiling, using a bucket of steaming hot Spic and Span water with a clean rag, Windex and paper towels, Clorox tub cleaner, and a container of heavy blue gel in a black bottle of bowl cleaner. The physical exertion helped alleviate her mood, helped to lower the lid on her rising steam of frustration.

  Her parents smelled. The whole house smelled of old lard in cast-iron frying pans, bubbling cornmeal, oil of camphor, rugs soaked with Trixie’s constant watering. And Edna had discovered the source of an unpleasant odor in the region of the blue Rubbermaid trash can. Trixie was not notifying either one of them when nature called, so her mother rolled the dog doo in a Kleenex, stuffed it in a plastic bag, and threw it in the trash, without telling anyone.

  Edna had a strong suspicion the shower was not used as often as it should be, the way her mother’s dress and apron front appeared dotted with grease and dried on drops of food. Her father’s hair hung in matted clumps, the surface of his face fuzzy with white bristles.

  She gave them a pep talk in the kindest way possible, which was met with a slow response of mixed language, part justification, part rebellion, and partly blaming each other.

  Like children.

  She scoured and scrubbed, threw the faded rugs into the rinse tubs in the washhouse, tore off the fuzzy toilet seat cover, sniffed it, and pursed her lips.

  “Mam, you can’t use a lid cover. I told you too many times. It’s not sanitary for old people like you,” she yelled.

  “Ach now, Edna. Just wash it on Monday. I don’t like a toilet without a lid cover.”

  “I know you don’t. But . . .” she whispered behind her father’s chair, rolling her eyes in his direction.

  Her mother threw her hands in the air, before grabbing it out of Edna’s hands.

  “Don’t throw this out,” she said sternly.

  “Then it needs to be washed more often,” Edna told her.

  Her mother sniffed before returning to the kitchen to check on her cornmeal bubbling in “blups” on the stove. She lifted the lid and bent over it with a wooden spoon, muttering about the time.

  Weary and just a bit miffed at her parents’ relaxed lifestyle, Edna told them good night and retreated to her calming bedroom. She closed the door and flopped on the recliner, lifted a forearm across her forehead, and stared at the ceiling.

  She had to dig deeper, do better, stop this criticism.

  She was not their boss. They were her parents. Sometimes she just wanted out. Out of Indiana, out of the area jammed with Amish who knew everyone else and his brother, sister, uncle, cousin. Away from eyes who watched her moving from house to house, always ambitious, happy, oozing energy and goodwill while caring for aging parents.

  So unselfish. So dedicated, they said.

  A blessing in the community.

  They had no idea the things she struggled with. None. They were lumped into a crowd, stacked on stadium seats to get a better view.

  She thought of Orva too often. She couldn’t deny the magnetism of his lonely life, the bewilderment of his aching sorrow. She felt ashamed of the intense physical urge to put her arms around those sloped shoulders, to assure him everything would be alright.

  She was confident “
they” were already marrying them off. Poor children needed a mother. Who would be better?

  She imagined herself on her wedding day, the sad-faced Orva elevated to heights of love for her, surrounded by smiling children who approved of this union, understood and accepted her as their new mother.

  The wind came up, springing out of nowhere and riffling the downspout, moaning around the corner of the house. Edna lowered the footrest of the recliner and hurried to close the window as large splats of rain hit the glass.

  Oh good, she thought, a spring rainstorm, so pleasant to hear at night. But then she thought of the rock garden, the vines and ivy, the shrubs that needed moisture, and the half-finished mulching she’d done. She wondered if the girls would remember to close the upstairs windows.

  Poor Emmylou. She’d cried when Edna left. She should have stayed there. She pictured herself side by side with Orva on the black porch swing.

  Edna knew dear Sarah occupied his mind and heart. Barely two months had passed since her burial, and here she was, like a common teenager, thinking selfish thoughts.

  She paged through the stack of mail on her lap. Credit card offers, sale folders from J.C. Penney and Marshalls, a stiff yellow card with her name printed neatly in the lower right-hand portion of the envelope.

  She ripped it open by inserting a thumbnail under the flap, viewed the card that said, “Thinking of You,” in plain gray letters on a white surface. She figured it was from one of her girlfriends. Then she saw something.

  What?

  She went cold, then hot all over. The knuckles on her hands turned white as she gripped the card, then she began shaking, trembling visibly.

  Dear Edna,

  Greetings in Jesus’ Name.

  How are you? I have been thinking of you lately, and feel as if the time is here to ask you out. Would you consider going with me to the Dutch Village on Saturday evening? The 24th?

  I would like to become better acquainted with you.

  A friend,

  Emery Hochstetler

  A friend. After all these years. My word. A friend.

  Well, there had never been a question. Emery had occupied her thoughts much of the time during her years of rumschpringa, and had become an obsession, and here she was at the ripe old age of thirty, and all her dreams were coming true.

  Emery Hochstetler.

  She let her arms hang limply off the side of the recliner, the card on her lap. She stared at the ceiling, her thoughts railing from one remembered picture to another. Here was Emery, standing by his buggy, one foot crossed over the other, propped on the toe of his shoe, an elbow slung across the buggy wheel, laughing with that easy grace, that unaffected sound that came so naturally. Emery standing in line with the boys of his youth group, filling his plate, piling it high, talking and kidding around with anyone or everyone. Girls gravitated toward the sound of his laugh, as did children and old men.

  To be in love was a cruel place to be.

  She had always loved him, with a one-sided love that had never been received. Most girls would have taken offense, tossed their heads and said, “Sorry, bud, there are more fish in the sea.” But not her.

  Oh no, not her. She’d kept her eyes on the goal, slavishly, limpidly, she’d carried that love like a precious gem, always knowing where it was, in the deepest chambers of her heart. Every once in a while it was taken out and polished by the soft white cloth of absolute devotion.

  She didn’t display her feelings outwardly. Edna had done her job well, and this, this unbelievable card, was her reward. He had come to love her, in the end.

  She lifted the card and reread it, slowly, savoring every word. Emery had not written about seeking God’s will, or said a word about prayer. But she felt sure he had done all of that in secret.

  So she wrote back on plain white stationery, in what she hoped was impressive handwriting. She also hoped the words were properly restrained, so that he had no idea how her heart raced to think of being in his presence.

  She told her parents, of course, who reacted with a display of astonishment, then properly congratulated her with kind words.

  “When it rains, it pours,” her father commented wisely, his pleasant face lined with pleased wrinkles.

  “It seems everyone is writing to you,” her mother said, mincing her words into a hash of false humility. But Edna knew her pride was overflowing.

  Her sisters shrieked and raised their hands in the air, brought them down on their laps and shrieked again. They drank so much coffee and ate so many day-old doughnuts from Shop-Rite that they were overflowing with energy and washed all her mother’s windows and scrubbed the porch.

  Edna went back to Orva Schlabach’s house, fell into the usual routine, managing housework, laundry, cooking, and baking with accustomed ease.

  All her extra time was spent on the lawn and garden until her already dark complexion turned the color of a smooth cappuccino. Her anticipation of the coming Saturday evening added a sparkle to her dark eyes, color to her cheeks, and a brilliant smile that flashed on and off all week.

  Orva took notice.

  They sat down in the glow of the evening sun, the table set with tall glasses of sweet tea, burgers she had made on the grill, a large dish of baked macaroni and cheese thick with toasted, buttered breadcrumbs, and a salad that contained every new vegetable from the garden—spinach, spring onion and radishes, tiny slivers of red beet—and was drizzled with a homemade dressing.

  Emmylou sat beside Edna, her small face scrunched up at the salad. She leaned over and patted her knee, softly, but insistently.

  “What, Emmylou?”

  Edna leaned over to catch the little girl’s hesitant whispers.

  “What?”

  Edna leaned even lower, concentrated on understanding. She sat up, tried hard to keep from laughing, but gave up and let it happen.

  “What?” Orva asked, smiling. “What did you say, Emmylou?”

  She shook her head.

  Orva looked to Edna, a question in his eyes.

  Edna shook her head. She’d tell him later when Emmylou wasn’t around.

  She noticed Neil took second helpings of everything, then reached for the macaroni the third time, but kept his eyes averted.

  After the dishes were washed, she set off across the lawn to begin mulching, taking up where she’d left off the previous week. After she’d dumped the garden cart a few times, spread it around new growth, bending the brown tulip pants to layer it on top, her eyes caught a movement at the upstairs window.

  Yes, there he was, again.

  He knew her offer, so it was up to him to join her. Marie did, spreading mulch with her soft child hands, prattling on about everything and anything.

  Orva came across the back yard, his brow furrowed.

  “Where’s Neil?” he asked brusquely.

  Edna had never heard that tone of impatience from him before, so she straightened, then shrugged.

  “He could be helping here. That boy does nothing if he can get away with it.”

  He made his way to the house.

  Edna cringed, but as always, she let it go. What went on in a family was nothing to her, so she practiced the usual indifference, bent her back, and kept working. It was fine for her to encourage husbands to do good, or to lightly correct children, but when it came to family disputes, she stayed out of it. At one point she thought she heard loud voices, but then decided she’d likely imagined it.

  Evidently, she hadn’t.

  Orva marched Neil down to the mulch pile, gave him a pitchfork and the wheelbarrow, along with clipped instructions. Neil never as much as glanced in his father’s direction, just lowered his head and forked mulch.

  He brought load after load, but refused to speak or make eye contact with her, and pushed his little sisters aside when they tried to engage him in any conversation or activity.

  So much bitterness, Edna thought sadly. So much anger contained in one at a precarious stage of adolescence.

&nb
sp; Glad to have the evening come to a close, Edna returned to the house to find Orva on the porch swing, drinking the last of the tea.

  “Come out here, Edna,” he called.

  She washed her hands, took a quick swipe at her hair and went to join him. The porch swing seemed too intimate, so she sat on the rocker facing him, her hands placed primly in her lap.

  “Tell me why you’re so happy this week, Edna. Did something special occur over the weekend?” he asked.

  Edna took a deep breath, set the rocker in motion.

  “Actually it did. I had a letter from an old friend, asking me out.”

  A few seconds went by before Orva spoke.

  “That is good news, of course. I assume you’re accepting?”

  “I am.”

  “Who is the fortunate man?”

  “Emery Hoschtetler. His Dat is one of Dans Jake’s boys.”

  Orva’s brow wrinkled, but he shook his head.

  “No one I know. But, hey, I’m sure this is exciting for you, right?”

  “Oh my yes. I’m known him for years.”

  “Your age?”

  “Yes.”

  “Never married?”

  “No.”

  “How old are you, Edna?”

  “I just turned thirty.”

  “Really? You aren’t so much younger than Sarah was.”

  Then, as if the mention of her name brought back the pain of her passing, his face turned dark and brooding. Here in the waning light of evening, she could study his features like an open book. She had thought him quite ordinary looking when she met him, but his face had taken on a familiarity; the snubbed, wide nose, the mouth that could appear thin and strained, but softened easily to a broad smile, and eyes that were light in color, but were neither green nor blue, certainly not brown. His eyes were not large, but seemed larger with the glimmer of color, like a jewel.

  She could tell when he was sad, when he was missing Sarah, and when he tried to be happy for the children’s sake, which seemed to be the hardest of all.

  “Sarah was one of the best people I’ve ever been privileged to meet.”

  That was the beginning, the opening of the verbal faucet. Edna leaned back in her rocking chair, felt smaller and smaller as the words continued.