An Amish Gift (9 page)

“What’s this?” Jennie asked.

“Christmas card,” he said. “We never got around to sending them out. But this one is for your eyes only.”

He winked at her and left, pulling the door shut behind him. Jennie turned to see Shep retreating into the living room, knowing he would spend the rest of the evening sitting on the couch watching television, beer can in hand. Willa and Tim had disappeared upstairs. She would have to argue with them to get some help cleaning up. Before she did that, though, she wanted to see why Michael would have given her a separate holiday card.

She pried open the envelope with her thumb as she walked toward the dining room table to start clearing dishes. Instead of a card, she found a piece of stationery folded over. As she opened it, she caught her breath. Inside were hundred-dollar bills. She counted them. Twenty all together. Two thousand dollars. She read what Michael had written on the monogrammed paper.

Stunned, she sank down onto one of the dining room chairs. This was the Michael she knew, the kind and loving one she now realized she missed terribly. Maybe he couldn’t help showing off his newfound wealth, but underneath he knew his brother was hurting. Tears stung her eyes. She was ashamed that they needed this help, and ashamed that she didn’t dare return the money because they were in such dire financial straits. Yet she couldn’t help feeling a flood of relief that they had received another respite from disaster. Overshadowing everything else was the saddest thought: that she already knew she was going to follow Michael’s unspoken advice and keep it a secret from Shep. More secrets, more walls between them. She folded the money back into the note and slipped it into the envelope, which she set down on the food-stained tablecloth. Then she covered her face with both hands and cried.

Jennie put the paint roller in its tray and straightened up, rubbing her lower back. She had been painting Willa’s bedroom for the past two hours. Thanks to Shep’s prepping over the weekend, she was able to apply the off-white paint to smooth walls, and they were already looking fresh and clean after just one coat. Some bright white for the window frame and ceiling, and the room would be transformed. She smiled with satisfaction. Thanks to her brother-in-law’s generous gift, after this she would paint Tim’s room and then buy some desperately needed new linoleum for the kitchen.

Willa’s room had come first, as Jennie figured her daughter could use a little lift by having it made more cheerful. She was looking more lost with every passing week. There was no sign of her making friends, nor had she come up with any activity at school that she wanted to join. So far, her grades had been acceptable, but just barely. Jennie was growing seriously concerned
about her child’s utter lack of interest in anything other than the computer. She had gone as far as taking away the laptop on several weekends, but that resulted only in her daughter becoming outraged and refusing to speak to her. Even if they could have afforded to give her lessons in something that appealed to her, it would have been a difficult task to figure out what that something might be.

Jennie sneezed. She had opened the window to dispel paint fumes, and frigid winter air filled the room. A snowstorm three nights ago had left the area blanketed in white; by now the snow was dirty and hard. When she and Scout went out that morning, he kept slipping on the icy road, so she curtailed their usual walk, promising to take him out more frequently for shorter durations. Looking at her watch, she realized she owed him an outing right about now.

As she shut the front door behind her, Scout tugging at the leash, she had a sudden desire to stop in at Mattie’s. The Fishers didn’t have a phone, so it wasn’t possible to call before visiting, but they had made it clear the Davises were welcome to come by any time. As she now knew, if Mattie or Abraham were working on something—and when weren’t they? she thought—they would continue, but their guest was welcome to stay or, even better, pitch in. Being able to help Mattie hang wet laundry on the line made Jennie feel a lot more comfortable about appearing unannounced, and she was thrilled that she and Shep were treated with such familiarity. Besides, she was delighted to do anything at all to lighten Mattie’s load of housework, which was a thousand times greater than her own.
What invariably surprised her was how pleasant it was to do the work at their house, with its regular rhythms and order. While no one wasted time, the typical stress and the desire to finish that Jennie associated with housework were noticeably absent. Every job was as important as every other job, and the task wasn’t just something to get through. It was, she thought, like a flowing river, with no beginning or end. Her own view, she realized, was to assess how long something would take and when she would be forced to do it again. The Amish seemed to understand that everything on the farm and in the household was connected and had its place in the weekly or monthly cycle. Instead of rushing, appreciate. What, she wondered, would it take to think that way?

Shep enjoyed his visits with Abraham so much that he was, she noticed, finding some extra free time for them. Occasionally, he went over early enough to help with the morning milking. It surprised her, because he was already so exhausted, he couldn’t really afford to give up the extra sleep, and it wasn’t helping him sell bicycles, but she could hardly begrudge him something he obviously found relaxing. What troubled her was that he preferred to escape to the Fisher farm rather than talk to her about how they could improve their financial situation. Not to mention the emotional distance between the two of them, expanding by the week.

“Am I going to have to storm the shop so he’ll let me do some work there?” she asked Scout.

He was too busy sniffing and racing around the front yard to answer. After a while, they got into the car, and she drove to
the Fisher farm. Just the walk from the car to the house left her shivering as Scout barked outside the now-familiar door.

“Come in.” Mattie was ironing in a corner of the kitchen, as usual wearing black stockings but no shoes under her jewel-toned dress and black apron. Jennie had learned that, like other appliances here, the iron didn’t run on electricity but on propane.

Mattie smiled. “Good afternoon to you both. Come join me, please.” She set down the iron and extended a hand. “Let me take your coat.”

“No, I’m fine, really.” Jennie watched Scout settle down by her feet. “It’s really cold today. Much worse than yesterday, don’t you think?”

Mattie looked a bit surprised. “I thought it was better. Not so windy. Should I make you some hot tea? Or hot chocolate?”

“Well, you have to give me something to do while I’m here, so I don’t feel like I’m interrupting your work. But tea is the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

The other woman laughed. “I do not believe that, but you are very welcome to have some. With a doughnut, if you want one.”

“Do I smell something wonderful cooking?” Jennie turned toward the stove to see a large pot on the burner.

“Bean soup. It will stay there all day. If anyone wants some, it is ready.”

How homey, Jennie thought, immediately envisioning a welcoming pot of soup on her stove at home. Except that, in reality, no one would take any. She would have to eat it all. She
smiled at the image of herself having to gulp down bowl after bowl of thick soup.

“What is funny?”

The two of them chatted comfortably for the next half hour, Mattie continuing to iron, Jennie carrying out an assignment of chopping onions. Some of the younger Fisher children came in and out of the kitchen, in the process of doing simple chores or to ask their mother a question. They greeted Jennie in their typical friendly fashion. Sarah, the fifteen-year-old, came to take the ironed laundry upstairs, then started preparations for the evening meal. In response to Jennie’s inquiries, she explained that she was making ham and corn fritters. It turned out the chopped onions would be used for baked lima beans, to be combined with a mix of ingredients including molasses and brown sugar; it sounded delicious to Jennie, who asked if Sarah would give her the exact recipe another time.

“I’d be happy to. It’s the least I can do to thank you for chopping the onions for me,” Sarah told her.

“Anything I’ve eaten here has been so delicious. I’d love to know more about your cooking—your special dishes.”

“If you want to see cooking, come back tonight and tomorrow,” Sarah said with a smile. “We’ll be preparing for a visit from our aunt and uncle. They’re bringing their six children, and some of them come with their own children. So we’ll have cakes and pies and lots of food.”

“It is my sister and her husband,” Mattie said. “They live forty miles from here.”

“And they come in their horse and buggy?”

Mattie nodded. “Tonight they sleep at another sister’s house that is in the middle. The winter is a time when we do a lot of visiting. Quieter on the farm.”

“In the warm weather, there’s not much time for that,” Sarah added.

“Makes sense,” Jennie said.

Suddenly, she noticed her body was aching all over, as if something had descended upon her and taken over, and despite the hot tea, she was actually getting colder. “You know,” she said finally, “I’m not feeling quite right, and my skin has that crawly sensation. I’d better head home so you don’t catch anything. Just in case.”

Mattie looked concerned. “Let me give you some soup to take home.”

Jennie realized she was getting a headache as well. “No, no, I’ll be fine.”

By the time she pulled into her own driveway and got Scout inside the house, she felt noticeably worse. She groaned inwardly at the thought of being stuck in bed for the next day or two. There was too much to do for that. Yet the effort it took to drag herself upstairs told her she might not have much choice in the matter. She managed to slip into a warm nightgown before getting into bed and yanking the quilt up to her chin, shaking with chills.

By the time her daughter got off the school bus, Jennie could barely raise her head from the pillow. Surprised to find her mother in bed, Willa came into the room to ask what was going on.

“Call Dad,” Jennie said in a weak voice. “Tell him he needs to take charge of dinner and stuff.”

Her daughter sounded alarmed. “Are you going to be okay?”

Jennie closed her burning eyes. “Of course,” she whispered. “But now I need to sleep a little, okay, honey?”

When she opened her eyes again, she realized Shep was asleep in the bed beside her and it was dark outside. The house was silent. She had absolutely no idea what time it was. All she knew was that she felt like she was burning up. Groggily, she pushed off the quilt and reached toward the night table for her alarm clock, but the effort proved too much. She fell back against her pillow, miserable.

“Jen?” Shep stirred and spoke softly. “Are you all right? You’ve been dead asleep all evening.”

“What time …?”

He looked over at the clock on his side of the bed. “Three-twenty. In the morning. Do you want something?”

“So hot,” was all she could manage.

“You must have a fever.” He felt her forehead. “Whoa! Definitely.” He got out of bed. “Let me get some aspirin.”

It was all she could do to get the pills and water down her raw throat. He took the glass away and returned to put a cool washcloth across her forehead. She thanked him, not sure if she managed to speak the words aloud before falling back into a deep sleep.

She recalled only bits and pieces of the next few days, so sick that she was barely aware of her surroundings. The flu, Shep informed her, and a whopping case of it. She agreed. Every
inch of her ached, her nose refused to stop running, and coughing fits left her in breathless pain. Her night table was an island of barely touched glasses of water, bowls of broth, tissues, and pills. It was the first time that she had been too ill even to inquire who was watching the children or taking care of the family’s needs. At least, she thought in a more lucid moment, they weren’t little anymore, so they could manage most things. Still, she couldn’t muster the energy to say much to them when they came to her doorway, forbidden by their father to enter the sickroom. She endured the misery and waited for it to end.

It was nearly a full week before the worst was over, and she lay in bed for another two days, relieved to be better but too weak to do much. She was finally able to ask Shep what had been going on while she was essentially absent from their lives. It was a delightful surprise to find that Tim and Willa had pitched in to help their father. Shep had even finished the paint job in Willa’s bedroom, and the two of them had rearranged her furniture. Both kids had made their beds every morning, fed themselves, and done the laundry.