Rebecca's Choice (10 page)

Rachel was suspicious about Luke and Susie being engaged, but Luke didn’t talk much to her anymore. He wasn’t disrespectful around the house—just kept any conversation they had to the basics. If he wanted to marry Susie—marry poor—then so be it.

Last night her inability to control the situation made her pace the floor in the hall just outside the bedroom where Reuben couldn’t hear her steps. Emma’s will affected her directly. Good news waited for her, perhaps at the lawyer’s office, if she could just obtain it. On Sunday afternoon she could have brought up the fact she knew which lawyer was involved. That might have produced cooperation from her brothers, but it would also have produced questions she couldn’t answer—questions that might have led her into a swamp of intrigue where she didn’t desire to go.

That Luke knew was bad enough. Reuben had gone to bed around ten. He glanced at her as he went into the bedroom but said nothing. She ignored him but was unable to sit still for long, let alone think of sleep yet. She had paced the floor until sometime after midnight and then, exhausted from her frantic thinking, slept fitfully all night.

Now the letter was in her hand. The return address stated it came from Bridgeway & Broadmount, attorneys at law, in Anderson, Indiana.

Its contents could contain only good news, she was certain. This was the key to her bright future. Her hands trembled as she opened it.

“To the relatives of Emma Miller,” the letter began.

In accordance with instructions left by the late Emma Miller, we are contacting you and other relatives. It is requested, at your earliest convenience, that you contact this office for a reading of the will of the deceased.

Rachel exhaled. She hadn’t noticed she was holding her breath. No doubt Ezra had received a similar letter. Even if he hadn’t, this would still be all she needed to press the matter. Abe and Jonas would just have to miss out. She and Ezra would visit the lawyer’s office at once.

Ezra would not refuse—she was sure of that. He still had enough of the Miller sense to know better. With Abe and Jonas gone, he might not have his nose quite so high in the air. Those two were a bad influence wherever they went.

She hitched the driving horse to the buggy, then checked where Reuben might be but could see nothing of him. He was likely in the back field, away from his goats for a moment, at work with the cattle. Rachel scribbled a quick note and left it on the kitchen table.
I’ve gone to see Ezra.

If she came back in time to fix lunch, then well and good. Otherwise the man could fix his own lunch. Let him experience the true effects of poverty, which he so loved, without her around to dull the sharp edges.

She stopped at the first phone shack she came to. Holding the reins of her horse, she went inside. Her fingers trembled with excitement so much she could barely hit the correct numbers. Before the call went through, she glanced up and down the road just to make certain no other Amish people were approaching and in need of using the phone. There was no reason for her conversation to be overheard by anyone else. Her moment of triumph was sweet, and she had no need of meddlers.

“Bridgeway & Broadmount, Lisa speaking,” the voice said at the other end.

“Yes, Lisa,” Rachel answered, knowing her voice trembled but not caring, “this is Rachel Byler. I’m calling in response to a letter I received from your office today. I need an appointment.”

“What is this in reference to?”

“Emma Miller’s will,” Rachel said and tried hard to keep the excitement out of her voice.

“Oh, yes,” the voice said, “of course. How soon would be okay?”

Rachel thought wildly. “This afternoon perhaps.”

“How about three thirty here at the office? Mr. Bridgeway will be through with court by then and has no other clients coming in.”

“That would be fine,” Rachel said. She barely trusted her own voice. The moment was so close, so near at hand. There was simply no way she could have gone through another night without touching what was hers.

“We will see you then,” the voice said, and the call ended.

Rachel dialed another number and made arrangements with a taxi driver the Amish used for the trip into Anderson. If Ezra consented to go along, they would stop at his place last. She would pay for the entire trip herself if Ezra didn’t go. It wouldn’t be too expensive, especially with what she knew would soon be in her checking account. Her world was about to change.

How much is it going to change?
she wondered. She certainly wouldn’t have to worry about details like payment for a taxi trip. She felt satisfied and got back into the buggy just as Eli Mast, from down the road, pulled up to use the phone. Rachel smiled at him, as she knew the Lord smiled on her.
Da Hah
had even arranged for a time alone, where she could use the phone uninterrupted. There could be no other explanation, as busy as the phones were sometimes. This was just a little sign sent from heaven to comfort her until the real comfort arrived.

Ezra didn’t need a lot of talk to convince him to go to the attorney’s office. He had received the letter, he said, and would be ready when she arrived with the taxi driver. She got back home in time to fix Reuben’s lunch—a shame she thought bitterly—then decided this must be in the plan. Reuben needed help. She would be kind to him, poor man, now that heaven was kind to her. Reuben couldn’t really help the way he was born.

At the lawyer’s office, they were ushered in, after only a little wait. Rachel glanced around. The surroundings were still as imposing and overwhelming as they had been so many years ago, when they had gathered here to read their father’s will. Mr. Bridgeway welcomed them in and invited them to have a seat with a sweep of his hand.

“I am glad you could come,” he said. “Are there not more relatives?”

“Two more brothers,” Ezra told him. “They have returned to Missouri where they live.”

“You didn’t know about the will?” he asked.

Ezra and Rachel shook their heads.

“That’s strange,” Mr. Bridgeway said, raising his eyebrows. “I’m just following instructions. Emma was pretty specific. Let me read the will first.”

With a rustle of paper, Mr. Bridgeway read, speaking the words slowly. Rachel’s mind went into a whirl, and her arms and legs turned cold. After the first two sentences, little seemed to register. The awful news came through clear enough.

Emma had left everything except a small pittance to Rebecca Keim from West Union, Ohio, to be transferred after her marriage to an Amish boy. If Rebecca married outside the Amish faith, all the property was to be given equally to…and Mr. Bridgeway read off the names of Abe Miller, Jonas Miller, Ezra Miller, and Rachel Byler. An executor of the will was named—a Manny Troyer. Rachel had no idea who he was.

They each were given copies of the will, and Mr. Bridgeway said he would mail copies to Abe and Jonas. He would also contact Mr. Troyer and give him some other instructions he had from Emma. Somehow Rachel found the strength to follow Ezra outside. Shuffling slowly out to the taxi driver’s car, she hadn’t felt this weak in years.

Thankfully Ezra insisted he drop her off first. Apparently he noticed Rachel’s condition and even offered to help her into the house. She shook her head and numbly wrote out the check for the trip—it would cut deeply into their scarce funds.

“We have to do something,” she whispered before Ezra left.

He only shook his head, and left her standing in the driveway. A bitterness grew in Rachel’s chest, a fire with flames that torched every corner of her soul.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

T
he matter might have disappeared because Rachel, for once, had no idea what to do. Given more time perhaps she could have come up with a solution. As it was, the news was broadcast thoughout the Amish communities two weeks later in a manner that couldn’t be easily ignored.

It happened by a confluence of events. Rachel, if she had known, would have called them divine. Others, perhaps, would have believed differently.

Margaret, Emery Yoder’s wife, who usually wrote the weekly article for
The Budget,
had travel plans to visit relatives in Pennsylvania. In her and Emery’s absence, their daughter, eighteen-year-old Ruth, was left in charge. Normally such a young girl would not be trusted with such a burden, but Margaret had reasons for her decision.

Ruth had always expressed a great interest in writing and had excelled in English class during her school years. Ruth had even submitted a short work of fiction to the Amish publishing house, Pathway, this past winter. The submission itself was no small accomplishment in Margaret’s eyes, not just something to whisper about to the women at the sewing. She held this opinion even when the article was returned with a rejection slip.

The rejection slip contained much praise for the short story. It described the high regard in which the editor held the article. The editor explained that he had no present use for the material, that Pathway Publishers had just recently run other articles on the subject.

This had encouraged Margaret greatly and set Ruth to work again. She made some changes to her story, used the editor’s comments from Pathway as her guide, and submitted the story to Christian Light Publications, a conservative Mennonite publishing house in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Margaret said that even though it might be unusual for Mennonites to publish material from Amish writers, they might consider it. She supposed Ruth’s story, about the blessings of a single’s life, to be of enough quality and depth that even the Mennonites would want to publish it.

Ruth thought so too. She continued to think so even though Ben Zook asked to take her home in two weeks. This was a nice turn of events for the eighteen-year-old-girl—not just because she liked Ben but because both Margaret and Ruth thought this showed how when one accepted the circumstances of life as they were, God could change things for the better.

This little detail had been left out of the new submission. They figured if Christian Light wanted to know of Ruth’s present relationship with boys, they would ask. Apparently this decision was the correct approach because a nice letter came back almost right away. The letter thanked Ruth for a well-thought-out and written article and stated the board of Christian Light would review and consider it for publication.

In this surge of euphoric emotion, Margaret left Ruth to write the weekly
Budget
letter. Ruth, in her debut letter, paid special attention to the events of the community and felt fully prepared for her task. In the course of writing the letter, something was inadvertently added. Perhaps Ruth’s recent preoccupation with the subject of the single lifestyle made her more receptive to what Ezra’s daughter, Clara, told her about Emma.

What Clara whispered on Sunday struck Ruth as noteworthy. Emma, the single woman who taught school for much of her life, who lived an outwardly normal life, had done a mighty strange thing. She had left all her property—three farms, Clara said, and lots of money besides that—to an unrelated pupil of hers. Her name was Rebecca Keim, and she was from West Union, Ohio. Clara knew this because her dad had said so, and he had a copy of the will because Emma was his aunt.

“You might have seen her at the funeral,” Clara then whispered. “She stayed long at the coffin with her aunt Leona. Probably knew what was coming.”

Clara said that the strangest thing about the will was that Rebecca had to marry an Amish man to get the money. Clara made a face and said, “It wouldn’t take money to make me stay away from an
Englisha
boy.”

“Maybe Mennonite,” Ruth had whispered back. She felt the need to defend Emma because Emma lived her life single, and the article submitted to Christian Light spoke highly of such a choice.

“Same thing,” Clara said, and she was firm on the point.

All this had given Ruth reason to think, bringing her mind to a sharp focus. It was the focus on Emma’s single lifestyle that bothered Ruth the most. If her mother had been home, she would have consulted her. But she wasn’t, and
The Budget
letter needed to be in the mail. Her mind wrestled with the matter.