Davey's Daughter (23 page)

Mam answered Hannah with only a polite nod of her head, her smile becoming fixed, lopsided, as she struggled to keep a hurtful opinion to herself, victory showing as her smile righted itself.

Mam knew Matthew was firmly glued to the pedestal of his mother’s pride, slowly turning from flesh and blood into various metals, hardening into an idol she would worship her whole life long. No mere words of advice would ever change that.

She listened attentively to Hannah’s praise of her son, and when the potatoes boiled over, she was genuinely relieved to have Hannah glance sharply at the clock and say she must go as she had cornbread in the oven
—
nothing better in the dead of winter. She pulled her black men’s gloves over her chapped hands and took her leave.

With a sigh of resignation, Mam sat down, shaking her head, as if a great weariness had taken up residence in her body.

“Sarah, what if Matthew returns?”

A blinding, fluorescent joy shone from Sarah’s eyes, and Mam shivered in the face of it. “Do you think he will?” Sarah whispered, the hope still brilliant after the initial flash of rapture.

Mam shrugged, then got up from her chair, whipped the pot off the stove, and began beating the mealy potatoes with a vengeance, the potato masher clacking against the steel sides of the pot in harried circles. Mam’s nerves supplied ample muscle power as she resisted the very thought of that cunning wolf showing up again on the front porch, opening up all the fears and sleepless nights yet again, just when they thought God had taken mercy and answered all their prayers.

Well, if she had anything to do with it, he wouldn’t. Her eyes flashed, and her cheeks took on a color of their own as her arms pumped away at the potatoes. Turning, she snapped, “
Grick da dish ready
(Set the table).”

Sarah cast a frightened look at her mother.

“What in the world, Mam?” she breathed.

Mam’s composure slid away as her shoulders slumped, tears leaking from beneath her sturdy glasses as she told Sarah in an unsteady voice of the fear in her heart.

“Matthew has such a strong hold on you, Sarah. I’m so afraid if he does come back, he’ll want you, but not his heritage, not his Amish background, and he’ll persuade you again.”

That was how Dat found them
—
Sarah shocked, her face suppressing untold emotion, his dear, faithful wife in tears, which were not often seen, especially not without good reason.

Quickly, they tried to remedy the situation, and as quickly, Dat insisted on knowing what Hannah had wanted. When they had told him, he sat down heavily, the breath leaving his body, a furrow appearing on his brow as the only sign of his anxiety.

“Well,” he mused, before his mouth widened into a grin. “This reminds me of a story in one of the old reading books
—
the one about the bride-to-be who went to the springhouse and found a hatchet imbedded in the ceiling. Till it was all over, the what-ifs, traveling from person to person, had resulted in numerous calamities and suspicions forming in the minds of the villagers. Don’t you think that might be the case here?”

Mam nodded, shamefaced, but to save her pride, she insisted it was only she and Sarah, not a bunch of others, who had been speculating.

“I heard it!” Levi bellowed from his chair by the window, where he was identifying birds with his binoculars, the bird feeder stationed just outside for his enjoyment.

“These women act like the birds. Such a
ga-pick
(picking) and
ga-fuss
(fuss) they have!” Levi said, shaking his head.

In spite of vowing to keep everything in perspective, Sarah had a difficult time keeping her thoughts and emotions from spiraling to untold heights.

The only thing that remained to keep her anchored was Lee, the agreement they had to wait until the proper time to begin dating, and the love she felt for him. Or was that only desperation to relieve the hurt from Matthew?

Clearly, if Matthew returned, she would find herself in the most difficult situation of her life, a crossroad piled with insurmountable obstacles, all labeled with puzzling, life-altering choices yet again.

Priscilla entered her room late that evening, a towel twisted around her hair like a turban, her warm fleece robe tied around her waist, her feet cozy in woolen slippers.

“It’s so cold in here, you can see your breath,” she complained as she plopped on Sarah’s bed, bouncing her and causing her pen to make a dash across her diary.

Leaning over, Priscilla raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll give you five whole dollars to read your diary.”

“More like five hundred, and then it’s not guaranteed,” Sarah muttered.

“You know, hopefully, you’re just crazy.” This sentence was spoken flatly, dryly, without emotion.

Sarah turned sharply, her eyes wide, as she found Priscilla’s, the question hovering between them.

Not waiting for a response, Priscilla plunged ahead.

“What is it going to take? What will have to happen before you are finally shaken to your senses? Sarah, I can see it in your face. Matthew, or the thought of him, is still as precious to you as he’s ever been. What about Lee? What about the sweetest, best-looking guy who would do anything he could for you? Are you just going to throw him away like a piece of trash, disposed of
—
CLUNK!
—
in the waste can? And he’s already given up Rose for you.”

“We’re not dating.”

“But you agreed to start as soon as the time is proper.”

“Well.”

“Well, what?”

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “She didn’t die.”

“But she will.”

“That doesn’t say he’ll return. Perhaps he loves Haiti and will stay there.”

“And if he does, and if he calls for you, you’d swim the Atlantic for him.”

When Sarah laughed, Priscilla unwrapped the towel from her head and shook out her long, beautiful, blonde-brown hair. She took a large, black brush to it, wincing as she did so.

“You disgust me.” The words were harsh, accusing, hard stones of misunderstanding.

“Don’t judge me, Priscilla. You’ve never been in love.”

“You’re not in love with Matthew.”

Sarah laid her diary carefully on the nightstand and turned to look at her sister, holding her gaze without guilt.

“Sometimes, I’m not sure I know what love is,” she said finally, quietly.

Priscilla nodded, then whispered, “I do.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “At sixteen?”

“When I was still fifteen.”

“Omar?”

Priscilla nodded.

“Love is not hard to figure out, for me.”

Sarah nodded.

Outside, snow pinged against the window as another snowstorm approached the county. The cold seeped between every crevice around the baseboards, between the window frames, sending a shiver up Sarah’s back.

Was it the cold, or was it a premonition? Some strange dread of the future, an intuition that lurked around the perimeters of the farmhouse, finding its way into her soul?

W
hen Hephzibah died, the unborn child going with her, Hannah was one of the first people to know, and she lost no time in coming to tell the Beilers, her tears already streaming down her face, the gulping sobs coming without restraint as she reached the door. Mam ushered Hannah inside, putting a hand on her heaving back and a box of Kleenex at her disposal as she offered a gentle word of sympathy, her fear and foreboding tucked deep inside, where Hannah had no access to it.

Hannah’s description of the situation took Mam to the primitive Haitian hospital, the heat, the rejoicing in the Lord as she passed into His arms, bringing tears to even Mam’s eyes. Without a doubt, this woman had been a special person. The light of her Master’s love had enabled her to serve selflessly, ministering to the poor and the needy, with a heart that was joyous in doing so, and Matthew’s life had been blessed by her.

On and on, Hannah sobbed, bringing wadded tissues to her bulbous, red nose as more tears streamed from her squinted eyes. Over and over, she removed her glasses, wiped them, and replaced them, before a fresh onslaught of grief overtook her.

Mam realized, wisely, of course, that this was no ordinary grief. After all, Hannah hadn’t even known the girl, this woman named Hephzibah. She put two and two together and decided Hannah was crying all the tears for another reason. Maybe these were the tears she had never cried for Matthew’s leaving.

Malinda remained kind and sympathetic. She put on the coffee pot and brought out a tray of pumpkin cookies frosted with caramel icing and another plate of good, white sharp cheese. She added some Tom Sturgis mini-pretzels to the spread and a roll of Ritz crackers and some grapes they’d had on special down at Kauffman’s Fruit Market.

Hannah grasped the hot mug of steaming coffee, laced it liberally with cream and sugar, and began dunking pumpkin cookies into the thick liquid as fast as she could break them in half and retrieve them with her spoon.

“
Ach
my, Malinda.
Ach
my. How can I doubt your friendship? You always know what I need, don’t you?”

“You mean pumpkin cookies?” Mam asked sagely, and they threw back their heads and laughed until Mam wiped her eyes and straightened her covering.

She always did that when she felt guilty for laughing too much, as if the adjustment of her large, white covering could pay penance for her lack of holiness. Hannah knew this gesture well and had often teased her about it. So now, when Mam reached for her covering strings and gave them a good yank, Hannah shook her finger under Mam’s nose and said ministers’ wives were allowed a good laugh, now, weren’t they?

Their friendship once again restored, Hannah poured out her longing to have Matthew return to the fold. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he and Sarah could get together again, simply resume the friendship where it had left off? she asked.

Mam remained level-headed, agreeing, but clearly stating her fears. She told Hannah that Sarah had promised to serve Christ among her people, and she would be heartbroken if she broke her vows.

Oh, Hannah understood this. Indeed, she did. Halfway through the pack of Ritz crackers, the block of cheddar cheese dwindling rapidly, her stomach full and her spirits mellow, Hannah lowered her head, leaned forward, and confided in Mam. She admitted that Matthew made her so angry
—
just sometimes, not always
—
but he could come back and live among his lifelong friends and family and behave himself. Even if he was well-versed in the Bible, he better watch out or he’d be as bad as the person in the Bible who lifted his face and thanked God that he wasn’t as bad as other people, and she meant it.

With that, she nodded, clamped her mouth shut, and said there was a very real possibility of Matthew being too big in his own eyes.

When Hannah polished off the last of the grapes and headed home, Mam’s spirits were strangely uplifted, and she sang quietly to herself as she worked on her quilt, the light of the sun on the snow more than sufficient, her needle quickly rising and falling in and out of the soft fabric.

Who was she to map out God’s ways? One simply never knew what He had planned, or what He was thinking, exactly the way Davey said.

At school the next day, Sarah sat down hard, the unforgiving wooden seat of the toboggan rising up to meet her backside before she was quite ready. “Ow!” she yelled, and the third-grade girls howled with laughter.

“Ready?” Martha Ann called.

“Ready.”

Sarah gripped the narrow shoulders ahead of her and hung on, yelling with the rest of them as they careened down the icy trail that had been there for too long, the noontime sun turning the snow into a dangerous, slick path of pure, unadulterated terror.

The speed with which they shot down the hill was absolutely unsafe, but it was the thrill of each school day, the pupils arriving breathless, their entrance into the schoolhouse accompanied by their answers of, “Morning!” when Sarah greeted them. It was rarely “Good morning,” just “Morning,” but it was sufficient as long as her eyes were met, her presence acknowledged without hostility.

Constantly, Sarah reminded herself to be content with baby steps, little steps of progress, small differences in the children’s attitudes, small changes, but changes, nevertheless.

In school, the turmoil in her heart was stilled, the challenges of the day occupying her mind as she focused her attention on the children and the work, constantly striving to be the best teacher she could be.

Dealing with the students in the one-room school, with all eight grades in such close quarters, was as challenging and nerve-wracking as it had always been. But, slowly, there were differences.

Geography lessons turned into discussions, in spite of the eighth-grade boys initially refusing to co-operate and instead tapping their fingers, fiddling with their pens, and making annoying sounds, which were all duly ignored. When Alaska was chosen as a project, with its vast expanses of unspoiled acreage, pipelines, and animals of the tundra, the lure of the exploration proved to be too much, and they were slowly drawn into the discussion. Their drawings and maps were truly phenomenal.

Joe proved to be an outstanding artist, although not without constant praise, words of admiration spoken whenever an appropriate moment presented itself.

The parents who occasionally took time off from their hectic schedules to visit the school were in awe of the artwork, the projects done so precisely, the pencil drawings and intricate designs done so well. And by their own children! My, oh, they said later. I didn’t know Henry could draw like that.

Praise was hard to come by for the teacher, however. No one mentioned the artwork to Sarah, they just walked along looking at the drawings on the walls, their arms crossed around their waists. They sniffed, spoke in low tones to one another, and then changed the subject before approaching her.

That was alright. Sarah understood the need to withhold praise in order to keep someone humble, on the straight and narrow. She really did.

But a wee bit of affirmation would be nice, an unexpected ray of warmth on a chilly day.

When Lee’s sister, Anna, showed up that week, she was so effusive with her loud words of admiration, it was as if the blazing summer sun itself had entered the classroom. Sarah’s face grew flushed with heat as Anna repeatedly threw up her hands, squealing in amazement, turning to Sarah repeatedly, asking how she could get these children to draw like this.

Anna’s youngest boy was entirely engrossed in cleaning out Rosanna’s desk, books thumping on the seat, pens and pencils rolling across the floor, but it all went completely unnoticed by his awestruck mother.

Sarah winced when Rosanna spied the boy and pulled him away with an impolite jerk of his arm. This was followed by an indignant howling that brought his mother scurrying, flustered and apologetic. Her apologies were received coolly by the queenly Rosanna. Sarah felt like slapping her, but, of course, she didn’t.

Anna settled herself on a folding chair, her son perched on her short legs, her hands holding him closer than was necessary, her eyes alert, eager, radiating good humor.

Sarah conducted classes as usual, and the children sang three of their favorite songs for Anna. At recess, Anna was close to tears, praising Sarah’s teaching ability with a deluge of admiration, holding nothing back. Leaning close, she nudged her rounded shoulder into Sarah’s and whispered, “I heard! Oh, I’m excited. I can hardly believe you are actually going to date. It’s an answer to prayer!”

Sarah smiled, but her smile was followed immediately by a wave of horrible guilt, knowing that Matthew’s potential homecoming had largely occupied her thoughts, enveloping her days with anticipation.

Perceptive, smart, Anna watched, her eyes like a bird.

“What? Isn’t everything okay?”

“Yes. Oh, of course.”

“Good. Sarah, for real, you have no idea how thrilled I am, how thrilled we all are.”

A smile that felt untrue, somehow, was all she could manage, but it would have to suffice. At least she hadn’t spoken words that were not quite truthful. She hadn’t said anything at all.

Sarah completely underestimated Anna’s perceptive abilities. She was taken by surprise, to state it mildly, when Lee knocked on the door of the schoolhouse late that afternoon.

Her heartbeats multiplied, skidded, steadied, but her face still showed alarm when she opened the door.

Ever since the night that car had followed the girl with Sarah watching the fight, hearing the heated exchange of words, she did not feel completely safe at school after the children went home.

She was jumpy, lifting her head at any unusual sounds, going to the window to be positive nothing out of the ordinary was going on, telling herself it was foolish. Was it, really?

“Oh Lee.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I’m….No, you didn’t.”

“May I come in?”

“Of course.”

Sarah stepped back.

She forgot how tall he was. She forgot how blond his hair was, how tanned his skin, how clean-cut his profile. His eyes were so blue they were ridiculous.

Before she could say anything, he found her gaze and held it with his own.

“Sarah, I came to ask if it’s true. Is Matthew returning?”

Sarah lowered her head. Her eyes noticed the dust on the high gloss paint in the intricate pattern along the side of a wooden desk. She thought she should clean it.

“Yes. He….Well, his wife, um, died. I don’t know if it’s really true that he’s coming back here. To stay. Hannah, his mother, thinks he might.”

A silence hung over the empty classroom like a suffocating blanket, cutting off Sarah’s air supply.

Finally, Lee spoke.

“And when he does return, will things change between us, Sarah?”

Sarah answered too quickly.

“No. Oh no.”

Still her head was bent, her eyes hidden from his, the top of her head the only way he could gauge her emotions, which was a lot like looking at a broken thermometer.

“Sarah, look at me.”

It was impossible, and she knew it.

When he said nothing, the suffocation from the unbearable blanket of silence increased, and her desperation mounted until she knew there was no way out. The despair folded her into a child’s seat. Her arms rested the desktop, her head on them, as shameful, terrible sobs shook her body. The sounds were muffled, polite, even, but they put a dagger through Lee’s heart.

When he didn’t place a hand on her shoulder, when he didn’t crouch by her side to murmur condolences, the sobs became shorter, then weaker, then stopped entirely, before Sarah lifted her head long enough to look, search, bewildered. Had he gone?

He remained in the classroom, standing stiffly by the window, gazing through it at the late winter light, his hands clenched behind his back.

When he stayed silent, Sarah cleared her throat and said very softly and quietly, “Lee.”

He turned at the sound of his name, his expression unfathomable.

“I…I…” Completely at a loss for words, her voice faded into silence.

When he spoke, his words were restrained, his tone soft.

“I thought Matthew’s leaving was a clear, bold answer for me, straight from God. Now I’m not so sure. I guess perhaps if someone loves the way you loved him, there is never a time when that goes away completely. In other words, even if you choose to date me, I will not have you fully. A part of you will always love Matthew.”

Sarah’s denial began with a slow back and forth movement of her head, her eyes still lowered to the desktop.

Lee sighed, walked over, and stood so close to her, she could feel his presence. She could detect the odor of lumber and steel nails and strong hand soap, even the leather from his work boots.

“So Sara, I think the right thing to do in this situation would be to set you free. How does that old saying go? If you’re not sure something
—
someone, in this case
—
is yours, set it free, and if it doesn’t return, it never was yours to begin with. How does the rest of it go?”

She didn’t think before she spoke. She just lifted her head and looked into his blue eyes and said, “If it comes back to you, it always was yours. Or something like that.”