Accidentally Amish (48 page)

“Conestoga is not as far as all that,” Christian said.

Jacobli shook his head. “I am not Amish, Christian. You’re my brother, and I love you, but we’ve made different choices.” He raised his eyes again to the rolling land outside the window. “Katie likes the idea of something entirely new. Someday I might like to see North Carolina. I hear a man can build a good life for his family there.”

February 1771

H
e is gone.” Elizabeth emerged from the bedroom, from the reek of death that had taken so long to come, and told Jakob’s gathered children.

Earlier she had shooed them all from the room, wanting only to be alone with him, to feel the thickness of his hair grown long in the cold months, to put her hand in his and hold their intimacy between them, to press her lips on his. And she had not wanted spectators for any of that, especially not the whispering kind.

They all came, except Maria, who had never returned, and Lisbet, who awaited her father in the burial plot.

They came and they brought their children. Barbara and Anna even had grandchildren. They rotated in and out of the bedroom saying their good-byes. The number became too great for Elizabeth, and when it seemed to her that some were returning for a third good-bye, she banished them all to the outer room. The end was breaths away. In the final moments, she heard their murmuring hum from the corners of the house and ignored it, listening only for the air going in and out of Jakob’s lungs. Elizabeth held his hand.

And then the ragged rhythm stilled and the hum became thunderous.

When she could no longer resist the creeping weight of his lifeless hand, their clasp fell off the side of the bed. She laid her head on his chest and listened to the emptiness.

Jakob was gone.

Only when Elizabeth was sure she could speak did she gather her skirts and walk into the main room. She spoke three simple words. Then without even a shawl around her shoulders, she walked straight through the house, out the front door, and into the February wind. Snow gave way beneath shoes made from her son’s leather, while voices on the porch called to her to come out of the cold. She paced from the house to the barn, then to the smokehouse, then through the garden, brown and crunchy. “Maria’s beet patch,” the square of land at the far end of the garden, had long ago grown over but never lost its moniker.

Shivering and out of breath at last, she leaned against the stable, breathing in the hay that fed and warmed the horses. She and Jakob had built this together. It would never be the same. He was gone.

They assembled the next month for the onerous reading of the will, which Jakob had written just weeks after Jacobli’s first son was born. Perhaps with Jacob Franklin’s birth, his mind had moved to the next generation. Elizabeth imagined the conversations between father and son about looking after her. Christian had become surprisingly wealthy buying and selling land, which seemed to increase in value every month. It should have been no trouble for him to provide for her. But ultimately, Christian was not her son. She was not Amish, so Christian and Lizzie would never take her into their home. Not that she wanted to go there. She did not. Nor to Barbara or Anna or even her own John. Jacobli was the eldest of the children Jakob and Elizabeth shared, and it was his concern to do what he knew his father wanted.

A widow’s seat, the will said. She would have the house and the stable and the garden. To continue an income, she would have the three cherry trees near the house and a meadow behind the barn, which the next owner—Jacobli—was obliged to plow for her.

Two rows of trees in the orchard.

Ten bushels of wheat and five bushels of rye each year.

The right to keep a cow and a hog in the field.

Jacobli was the only child mentioned with a particular grant in the will. All the children received a few pounds, but Jacobli was permitted to clear ten acres around the tanyard and build a house of his own. Katie would like that, Elizabeth knew.

Jakob had thought this through. He so clearly expected the land to be sold to settle his estate. But he also expected that Jacobli would be the buyer. Elizabeth would be comfortably cared for in the years without Jakob.

If she married again, she would lose it all.

Marry again?

No, she was not tempted, and Jakob had made sure she would not need to. Even if she were twenty years younger than her sixty-six years, she could not imagine another life with another man. She would see out her days in her widow’s seat, surrounded by land she no longer owned but upon which they had built their life together.

He was gone.

T
wo weeks later, Elijah Capp turned the wrench on the last bolt behind the refrigerator. “That does it. This house would pass
Ordnung.
”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Ruth Beiler said. “I’ll probably still have to teach Annie how everything works.”

“I used propane and bottled gas whenever I could,” Elijah said. “Seemed like the simplest thing.”

“Thank you. I know Annie is so pleased.” Ruth was determined to smile at him, despite the knot in her stomach that came with being in his presence. His familiar shrug. The way he was hinged at the shoulders and elbows and knees. The faint smell of oil perpetually sunken into his pores. The arms that had held her when no one was looking.

“We’ll get through this, Ruth.” Elijah turned to pick up his toolbox.

“I know it’s been awkward,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you when you first came to the house any more than you were expecting to see me.”

“I’m glad Amos sent me out on that call,” Elijah said. “I knew you were back in the valley sometimes, but I didn’t know how to approach you.”

“I can never tell you enough how sorry I am.” Ruth found the nerve to look him in the eye. “We should have both said we wanted to wait another year for baptism. We might have figured out our doubts.”

“I’m not giving up,” Elijah said.

“On us?”

“That’s right.”

“But I’m not baptized into the church, Elijah, and I’m not going to be.”

“I know.”

The weight of contradiction hung between them. Ruth remembered what it felt like to have Elijah at her side—the security, the certainty of love. She shrugged off the sensation. “I won’t be the reason you leave the church.”

“You won’t be.”

“No Elijah, don’t talk like this.”

“You’re the only one who ever understood me, Ruth. We can go back to that.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going back to school,” Ruth insisted.

“I know. You should.”

Ruth swallowed. “You were the only one who understood me, too.”

“Then don’t say no. We’ll keep talking.”

She looked at him a long time before she nodded.

They both jumped at the knock at the front door. Ruth moved swiftly to answer it, expecting to see the face of her brother. She was not disappointed.

Rufus smiled with half his mouth. “What are you up to, Ruth?”

“I thought you might like a tour.” She pushed open the screen door and pulled him into the room. “This is the living room. Tell me what you see.”

Ruth glanced through the house to the kitchen. The back screen door closed. Elijah was gone.

Annie saw Dolly and the buggy in the street and retreated into the dimness of the garage. She smiled to herself as she pictured what was happening in the house while she waited in the narrow, listing structure. Ruth would make Rufus look at every room—the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, then up the narrow stairs to the bedrooms and bathroom. The basement would be last. Rufus would look behind and under everything. What he saw would tell him more than any words she could muster.

Elijah Capp had been busy during the last two weeks. After walking through the house with him and hearing his observations about what changes were needed, Annie gave him a key and left the adaptations in his hands while she returned to Colorado Springs for final preparations.

Now Annie did not plan to return to her condo. Following her real estate agent’s advice, she left enough furnishings for a potential buyer to imagine the place as a home. When the unit sold, the agent would sell or give away the furnishings. As a concession to her mother, Annie agreed to store the Prius at her parents’ house rather than sell it at this point in time.

Curious, Jamie drove Annie and Ruth down, saw the house, poked around town, and continued on to weekend plans at the nearby Great Sand Dunes. On Sunday evening, she would return to ferry Ruth back to school. Sadness trickled through Annie in the shadows of her garage. She had not written a personal letter in years, but she expected to discover the virtues of the postal system very soon. She would miss Ruth too much not to write. Annie would keep a cell phone but planned to use it as minimally as possible. A second concession to her mother was a weekly phone conversation, but otherwise Annie would follow Amish practices about using phones only for business and emergencies. And at the moment, she had no business.

When Annie and Ruth saw what Elijah had done, they nearly giggled. He was thorough, modifying everything from the heating system to the water heater to the aged major appliances. Nothing in the house ran on public electricity.

Annie smoothed her skirt for the fiftieth time and once again straightened the shoulders of the dress. Through the small window, she saw that Ruth was now leading Rufus down the three steps from the small back porch and following broken cement blocks toward the garage. Annie stood straight and got ready to smile.

Dear God, this seems crazy and right all at the same time. Be here, please.

A moment later, the garage door creaked open and a square of daylight framed Ruth and Rufus. Annie stepped forward.

“Annalise, what have you done?” Rufus said.

For a flash, she thought he was angry. Then she saw the smile twitching in his jaw.

“You’re wearing the dress,” he said.

Annie caught Ruth’s eye as Ruth stepped out of the garage. “Ruth says I can keep it. It’s the only one I have.” She pulled up handfuls of purple cotton skirt. “But I’m going to find someone to teach me how to sew, and I’ll make more.”

Rufus laughed more heartily than Annie had ever heard him do.

“You don’t think I can learn to sew?”

He grinned and wagged his head. “I believe you can do anything you decide you’re going to do. I suppose you’re going to learn to cook, too.”

“Yes I am,” she said. “And next spring I’ll plant a garden.”

“Where is your car?” he asked.

“In storage.”

“How will you get around?”

She turned around and pulled a bicycle away from the wall, another thrift-store find.

Rufus stepped over to the bike and took it by the handlebars. “It looks like a sturdy bike. Simple, practical. Useful baskets. Good tires.”

“Of course. Did you think I would buy something fancy? Simplicity. Thrift. Humility. When I can’t bike, I’ll arrange an Amish taxi, just like you do.” Out of long habit, Annie’s fingers went to her neck, where she found only the simple curve of the dress.

Rufus’s eyes followed her fingers. “Where is your chain?”

“I gave it away. It was a trophy of my old life. I don’t need it anymore.”

“Annalise,” he said, his voice low, “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“Say what you want to say.” Annie put a hand on top of his on the handlebars.

“You must know I’m fond of you.”

“You’ve never said so.”

He paused. “I’m saying so now. But …”

“But there’s no such thing as accidentally Amish.” Annie finished his sentence. “I’m not playing dress up, Rufus. I don’t know where this journey will lead me, but I know I have to take it.”

“You really want to live as we do?”

“I want the faith I see in you. I want to understand what you value, how you make choices that bring meaning to your life.”

“When I see you in that dress, I’m inclined to believe you.” He leaned toward her slightly.

“Maybe you knew something that morning after I stole away in Tom’s truck, when you first brought the dress to me.”