Big Decisions (14 page)

Sure enough, there he was, bent intently over the gun case, muttering to himself. She stood and waited to see how long this would go on. He didn’t look up or notice her for a few minutes, then caught sight of her from the corner of his eye.

“Oh! There you are! Sorry!”

He looked at her closely to see if she felt any resentment or anger toward him. But, oh no, Lizzie was smiling serenely, determined not to ruin the rest of this outing.

“I’m not a very good shopper,” he admitted wryly.

“You’re doing just fine, Stephen. It did take me too long to decide,” she said, smiling sweetly up at him.

She felt no resentment because it made her very happy to think of future shopping trips when he would be at work, safely away from any store where she needed to go. She knew the reason Stephen tried his best to be apologetic and very helpful, loading the boxes of china onto the checkout counter, was because he was thanking his lucky stars that you only got married once, and from now on, it was up to her to go get the things they needed. Large stores gave him a severe case of claustrophobia, and he couldn’t breathe very well if he didn’t look at the ceiling.

What a clamor when they arrived home! The twins squealed and jumped up and down, and Jason asked Stephen dozens of questions about turkey-hunting before they had even finished unloading all of their purchases from the buggy. Mam exclaimed over and over about the beautiful water set, and Dat sat at the kitchen table and shook his head, smiling at Stephen.

“Aren’t you glad you’ll only be getting married once?” he asked.

“Funny you say that,” he said. “That very thought is the only thing that kept me going through all this!”

Dat threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, how well I remember that very same feeling! Although back when we got married, we didn’t buy all these fancy things like they do nowadays. I would never have been able to afford it. I wasn’t even 21 years old yet.”

Lizzie sat down beside Stephen and smiled. “Was it really that bad going shopping with me?” she asked.

“Not the first part of the trip, no. I enjoyed buying the kitchen chairs and the rocking chair. It was the china and silverware that fixed me!”

Jason laughed uproariously, which didn’t impress Lizzie at all. She glared at him and told him to wait and see how much he would like to go shopping with Sharon a few years from now.

“Sharon!”

“Don’t act so shocked,” Lizzie said in a singsong tone of voice.

Jason very seldom blushed, but Stephen laughed when his face turn a decided shade of red.

“Now, Jason!” he said.

Lizzie unpacked her plates and showed Mam the pattern and texture of her silverware. Mam told her she had done very well and that she was proud of her for being careful of Stephen’s money since he was building the new house and all, until Lizzie’s heart swelled with love and gratitude.

Why, even when you had a boyfriend and were getting married, did your parents’ approval still mean so much? Was it something you sought your whole life long? She supposed it must be so, because even with loving Stephen and having him in her life and looking forward to getting married, she cherished her parents more than ever.

Maybe love was just like that. The more you loved, the more you were given to love, until your cup was full and ran over and even splashed on the floor. It was a wonderful thought, and Lizzie hoped it would never end.

L
IZZIE WAS UPSTAIRS ON
her knees, bending over to paint the wide, heavy piece of baseboard in Jason’s room. The wedding was only a week away, and they were putting the finishing touches on the freshly painted and cleaned upstairs.

She dipped her brush into the gallon of thick white paint, than ran the brush carefully along the bottom of the board, very slowly so she wouldn’t ruin the linoleum. Sighing, she sat back on her heels. Time and a bit of paint had certainly made a huge difference in this old house, especially in the rooms that had new flooring.

She heard the kitchen door banging and wondered if it was already lunchtime. She sure was getting hungry, but it seemed too early to be noon. Then she heard the stairs squeak in protest as Mam came up at a fast pace. She appeared at the doorway, her scarf coming loose, her hair windblown, and a hand over her chest as she struggled to regain her breath.

“What is it, Mam?” Lizzie scrambled to her feet, her face ashen.

“It’s Mandy! She had a doctor’s appointment today, and they have a pair of twin girls!”

“No!” Lizzie screeched.

“Yes, they do!”

Then she was laughing and crying, and Lizzie was laughing and crying and dropping her brush and picking it up again. Mam was gasping and fixing her scarf, trying to speak, but all that came out were little gasps and hiccups. Finally, she dug in the pocket of her dress, found her handkerchief, and blew her nose. Then she handed it to Lizzie, and she wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

“S … s … six weeks early! Oh my goodness.
Siss ken fa-shtant!
  ” her favorite Pennsylvania Dutch phrase which means there’s no sense. Mam used the only way she knew to fully express her feelings at a time like this. It didn’t make much sense, but Lizzie knew exactly how she felt.

Then the thought hit Lizzie like a slap in the face. “The … the … my wedding!” she screeched again.

“Yes, the wedding! No, we can’t have a wedding without John and Mandy. We’ll just have to move the date to December sometime.”

“Ma-a-m!” Lizzie wailed. “What will Stephen say?”

“It can’t be helped, Lizzie. You’re going to have to give in. Mandy will need help and lots of it, so there’s no way we can have this wedding in a week.”

Lizzie struggled to give in to this unexpected turn of events. The doctors had assured them that Mandy would be fine to attend the wedding. Why did she have to go have those twins now? Lizzie stopped that ugly thought, knowing it was completely selfish and uncaring. Dear, sweet, big-eyed Mandy. So young, with such an awesome responsibility placed on her shoulders. She took a deep breath and steadied herself as Mam watched the display of emotion move across her face.

“Stephen will be all right with this, Lizzie. He’s not the kind of guy who gets all upset about having his wedding a few weeks later. He’s not that childish,” she said firmly.

So that evening Lizzie’s family all took early baths, changed into clean Sunday clothes, and got on their way in a van to the hospital in Falling Springs. Their first stop was at Stephen’s parents’ place.

Lizzie was met at the door by his mother, a small, round person with big blue eyes like Stephen’s. She wore glasses and was dusting her apron with her hands, removing the flour that clung to it.

“Lizzie! This is a surprise!” she said.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? Is Stephen at home?” she asked.

“I think he’s upstairs. Let me call him.”

She turned to get Stephen, and Lizzie smiled at Daniel who was seated on the wood box.

“Hi!” she said.

“Hi, yourself,” he answered and grinned at her. He is almost better looking than Stephen, Lizzie decided. That dark hair and those blue, blue eyes.

Stephen appeared with his mother.

“John and Mandy have twin girls, Stephen! That means we have to postpone our wedding for at least two more weeks.”

Stephen’s mom held both hands to her mouth and said, “Ach my!
Siss ken fa-shtant
!” exactly like Mam.

In typical Stephen fashion, he didn’t say anything at first, then he smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “So I guess we’ll be getting married later then.”

“I guess. We’re going to have to write a bunch of postcards and make a pile of phone calls.”

Stephen’s mom bustled out to the van to congratulate Dat and Mam, and Lizzie stepped closer to Stephen, putting a hand on his arm. “Stephen, I feel so bad about all this. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, Lizzie. Really. She couldn’t help it. At least we’re still getting married, and you’re not here to tell me you decided against it.”

He looked down at her with so much love shining from his blue eyes that quick tears sprang to Lizzie’s own.

“I would never decide against it. You know that.”

She hurried out to the van as Stephen’s mother stepped back, and Lizzie and her family were on their way to the large hospital in Falling Springs.

KatieAnn and Susan’s eyes grew very large at the sensation the climbing elevator gave them. When it clunked to a stop on the fifth floor, they both suppressed their giggles. Mam was in a fine tizzy. Two bright red spots appeared on her cheeks, and her nostrils flared the way they always did when her excitement ran high. She hustled the twins off the elevator and into the waiting room, giving Jason quiet orders to stay with them until the rest of them found Mandy’s room.

“We could stay here by ourselves,” KatieAnn snapped, shrugging off Jason’s hand from her shoulder. Jason laughed and steered the twins toward a set of chairs.

Lizzie smiled to herself as she walked down the hallway to find Mandy’s room. She was surprisingly nervous. Would Mandy look the same? Would she be awake? Was she in pain? How would she react to being the mother of twins at such a young age?

“There it is,” Mam said much too loudly. Mam always spoke loudly when she was nervous or agitated, but nobody told her to quiet down. Dat winked at Lizzie. Hospitals put them all a little on edge ever since Mam’s long stay several years earlier when she had pneumonia. Lizzie smiled at Dat, glad that they had a happy reason for visiting the hospital this time.

Lizzie followed Dat and Mam into the room. There was Mandy, lying sound asleep in an elevated hospital bed, her head sagging a wee bit to one side. The curtains were drawn, casting a quiet evening shadow across the room. There were no babies in sight.

Mam walked up to Mandy’s bedside, and Mandy’s eyes flew open in an instant. “Mam!” she exclaimed and then burst into tears as Mam hugged and hugged her, fussing like Lizzie had never heard her.

“Honestly, Mandy. Ach, my.
Dess iss net chide
,” she kept saying, laughing and gasping while tears rolled down her cheeks. Dat kept wiping his eyes, and Lizzie hugged Mandy, becoming quite undone as she tried to congratulate her.

“Where’s John?” she finally asked.

“He went home to milk the cows and change clothes. He should be in soon,” Mandy said in a soft voice.

When everyone calmed down, Mandy grinned mischievously at Lizzie and announced, “So, my twins and I thoroughly messed up your wedding plans!”

“You
would
do that to me, wouldn’t you?” Lizzie grinned back. Knowing how well Stephen had accepted this made things much easier for Lizzie. What were a few weeks to wait if they could spend the rest of their lives together?

They all walked to the nursery and peered through the glass at the tiny cribs containing the smallest babies Lizzie had ever seen. There were white cards put in a holder that only said “Zook,” so they didn’t know what their names were. They hadn’t even thought to ask Mandy.

The twins weighed almost five pounds each, although Lizzie had a hard time believing this. They were so skinny! Their little hands looked too fragile to be real, and their faces were actually almost gaunt. Mam said that was because they were born prematurely and weren’t filled out yet.

Lizzie could not imagine being the mother of those tiny, fragile, little human beings. It would be too much responsibility for her. She could never do it. She knew she couldn’t. She became very quiet and sober, pitying Mandy so intensely she could barely make herself go back to her room.

When they got back, John had arrived, greeting them all with so much genuine warmth and enthusiasm. There were tears in his brown eyes.

“Congratulations!” Dat said, beaming warmly.

“Thanks. Thanks. Isn’t it something though?” John answered.

“Their names, Mandy! We forgot to ask their names,” Mam gushed.

“Sarah and Sylvia!” Mandy announced happily.

Everyone talked and exclaimed about the birth of these tiny twins, but Lizzie sat on the wide window ledge and became steadily depressed, thinking about being a mother to two tiny babies all at once. What in the world would Mandy do if they both cried at the same time during the night and there was no one to help her, especially if John was out milking cows? What if they were both hungry? How could she feed two at once?

Like a soft, stifling vapor, the thoughts of inadequacy enveloped her until all the bright, happy moments from just a few minutes earlier were obliterated. She stared at the floor, chewing her lip and scuffing the toe of her shoe against the nightstand. She wasn’t completely sure she was normal where babies were concerned. They quite simply gave her a sense of helplessness, of weary, endless responsibility.

Did you ever want babies? Was it normal to get the blues about having babies? She shrugged her shoulders, shaking off the feelings of despair, and decided she was just tired and struggling to accept this sudden change in plans. Of course, she wanted babies, and, of course, she would be a good mother. Anyone that could teach a roomful of children and thoroughly enjoy it could surely take care of one harmless little baby.