The Bridesmaid (11 page)

D
riving horses trotted up and down Peaceful Acres Lane, the thuds of their hooves accentuated by the evening's quiet. Eben wiped his forehead on the back of his shirt sleeve before he opened the mailbox on the front porch of his father's white clapboard farmhouse. Hoping for a letter from Joanna, he was surprised to find a mighty big stack and wondered why Mamm hadn't come out to check for mail before supper.

A single letter caught his glance as he thumbed through the ads and bills. Looking closer, Eben could hardly believe his eyes.
Leroy's handwriting—and a letter addressed to me?

Quickly, he opened it, holding his breath. How long had it been since he'd heard from Leroy? As best as he could recall, it had been a good six months since his twenty-four-year-old brother had written.

Not wasting a second, Eben walked around the side of the house, peering closer in the dim light of dusk to read the short letter. He felt a surge of excitement at the final lines.
I'll be home a day or so after you get this, and not anytime too soon. I'll look forward to seeing you and Mamm and Daed, too. We'll have a fine reunion. Best regards, your little brother, Leroy.

Eben refolded the letter and squinted toward the barn and the outbuildings, including the woodshed, where he and his brother-in-law had spent several hours chopping wood this morning. “Glory be! A reunion, then?” Eben muttered aloud, making his way around the side of the house, toward the door. “What's on his mind?”

Set back on the narrow country lane and surrounded by two hundred acres of farm and grazing land, the Troyer house was grand and welcoming. His parents and two generations of paternal grandparents before them had built the place up from scratch, tilling and cultivating the soil, raising pigs and chickens, and milking a small herd of cows to provide for the family and to make a living. The house itself was over a hundred years old, and Eben knew first-hand what that meant, having helped with the constant repairs through the years.

He reached for the door leading to the combination screened-in porch and catch-all utility room. The mud room, Mamm called it.

“Is Leroy comin' to claim his rightful place?” Eben wondered aloud as he stepped inside. If so, what an answer to his prayers of the two and a half years since Leroy forsook his upbringing, yearning for higher education. The bishop had preached about advanced learning in a sermon not long afterward, urging young people to avoid it like the plague.
“There's a reason why college is called ‘higher education,'”
the minister had declared. To him the word
higher
indicated a desire for self-advancement and disobedience to God. As if high school and college weren't enough, Leroy had even learned to fly a plane, far and free.

Free . . .

Leroy was apparently that—liberated and modern—to the detriment of his own family and close friends. And to Leroy himself. Initial word had spread right quick through their community: Will Troyer's youngest boy had finally gone fancy.

Still gripping the letter, Eben considered the wisdom of revealing this news to his parents. Twice now Leroy had mentioned returning for a visit, but something had come up each time to postpone it. Eben certainly didn't relish putting his mother through the heartache again, not the way she'd gone around nearly holding her breath, for pity's sake. And it had been just as tough for Daed, poor man. No, it was best to simply wait and see what happened. See if fancy-pants Leroy followed through this time.

Eben pushed the letter into his pocket and tore the envelope in half, placing it in the trash receptacle under the kitchen sink. His dear mother sat in the small room adjacent to the kitchen, her nose in a book—an Amish love story, it looked to be. She said nary a word over there in the corner, all snug in her overstuffed chair, surrounded by devotional magazines and the weekly newspaper,
Die Botschaft
.

Eben headed to his bedroom upstairs at the end of the long hall. It was still early enough this evening to write to Joanna. What he wouldn't give to tell her this news—was the dreadful holdup on their formal courtship finally at an end?

Goodness, if any girl deserved a proper one, it was Joanna, sweet as a honeycomb. And with each month that drifted by and with every letter he wrote, Eben felt downright aggravated at not being able to give his girl so much as an update. There simply had been no word from Leroy . . . till now.

When Joanna arrived home from Cousin Malinda's, she rushed upstairs and noticed Cora Jane lingering near her doorway, looking rather sheepish. “What're ya doin',” she asked, her suspicions rising.

“Just thinkin' is all.”

Joanna excused herself and slipped past her sister. Closing her door, she immediately went to her hope chest to see if her binder of story notebooks was still safely concealed.

Satisfied nothing was amiss, she shook off the prickles of concern and headed downstairs in time for family worship.

Cora Jane had already gathered with their parents in the front room as Joanna came in and sat in her usual chair near the windows. Cora Jane was scrunched up nearly in a ball over in the far chair, her head turned toward the window. Was she thinking about her beau, just maybe?

Settling in across from Mamma, Joanna envisioned each spot where their older siblings had always sat around the front room for morning and evening family worship. Having five older brothers and two sisters, Joanna knew plenty about siblings and their personality clashes, but she also knew that no two siblings were ever alike. Again, she glanced at Cora Jane, wondering how
she
might react to hearing about the heirloom quilt.

Joanna tried to picture Eben and his family beginning their evening prayers, too. And his siblings—six in all, he'd told her—a mixture of sisters and brothers. Did they read and pray every morning and evening as her family did? Except for Eben, all but his younger brother were married. And also like Joanna, he was the next to youngest.
Another common bond between us.

As for herself, for now, Joanna was quite content to be one of the last two children living at home. She had it worked so she was the sole person getting the mail every afternoon, for one thing. Surprisingly, that had helped to keep questions about Eben's plight to a minimum.
Thus far, anyway . . .

Presently, Daed began to read the old Biewel in the firm voice he always used for reading God's Word. He placed his callused hands just so on the thin pages. Mamma sat humbly with her pink hands folded in her lap as Joanna listened, watching her sister fidget.

The Good Book had always held an important place in her parents' hearts, and in Joanna's, too. Dat had shared the Scriptures in this manner with the family from their earliest childhood on, starting and ending each day with prayer and Bible reading.

Someday Eben will want to share the Word of God with our children.
In her mind's eye, Joanna saw herself sitting next to Eben as he read to the family—how many children? Oh, she longed to move ahead, to be done with her single and sometimes lonely life. She longed to be loved.

Later, when it was time to kneel for prayer, Joanna offered silent thanks for Cousin Malinda's fun discovery of the quilt, and she also prayed for Eben's wayward brother, Leroy.

After Dat said amen, Mamma headed to the kitchen, and Dat shuffled out to the barn one last time.

Joanna said good-night to Cora Jane and hurried upstairs to her own bedroom.
If only tomorrow had wings,
she thought, eager to get her hands on the stunning wedding quilt.

Carefully, she lit the gas lamp in her room and went to the window that faced west, toward Indiana.
I miss you, Eben. . . .
For the longest time, she stood there, looking out.

Then, perceiving someone else in the room, she turned to see Cora Jane in the doorway, her golden hair cascading over both shoulders, a brush in her hand. “May I come in?”

“Sure,” Joanna replied. “Want me to brush your hair?”

“Would ya?” Cora Jane's face lit up momentarily.

Joanna motioned for her to sit on the sturdy cane chair near the window. “It's been a long time,” she said quietly.
Too long . . .

Cora Jane sat nice and still, saying no more. Looking at her sister just then, Joanna felt cheerless to think the two of them had been at something of a standstill since Joanna met Eben in Virginia. She tried to make small talk as she brushed Cora Jane's beautiful hair, mentioning things like the next trip to the bakery and wanting to go and see Mammi Kurtz sometime soon. Things that didn't hold a candle to what they'd shared before, sometimes late into the night, lying on each other's beds.

But Cora Jane didn't speak at all.

Joanna shaped the words in her mind:
I'm sorry we're at odds
, she thought sadly. But tonight Joanna believed she could not bridge the gap if she'd wanted to. Cora Jane knew how she felt. Her sister was immovable in her thinking that Eben would never come here to live . . . that he was being less than forthright with Joanna.

Holding Cora Jane's heavy hair in her left hand, Joanna brushed with long, sweeping strokes, again and again.
We've fallen apart
, she mused, hoping this gesture might somehow demonstrate her care for Cora Jane.

And because her sister remained silent, Joanna let her mind wander back to Eben as she continued to brush. Long as it had been since she'd seen him, she wished she had just one picture of Eben. But in keeping with their strict
Ordnung—
the church ordinance—she had none.

I scarcely remember what you look like, my love. . . .

A
fter Cora Jane left the room, Joanna raised the lid on her hope chest—there was scarcely enough room inside for the heirloom quilt. “I'll make a place somewhere,” she whispered, eager to have the wonderful handiwork in her possession.

Then, digging deeper, she carefully removed a wooden letter box, a gift on her twenty-first birthday from Salina. Every letter Eben had ever sent was safely concealed inside.

She found her favorite—one he'd written in early winter—intending to read it for the hundredth time. She'd marked it with a pink heart on the envelope, so when she missed him the most she could always find it amongst his many letters.

Dearest Joanna,

How are you?

You might laugh at this, but I can hardly wait to see if there's a letter from you every other day or so. Denki for writing as often as you do . . . it's always wonderful-good to hear from you!

Here lately I've been getting up earlier than usual, going with my father to nearby farm sales. But even though I'm fairly busy this winter, I'm never too busy to write to you at night, my sweetheart.

I love being with you! And I wish I could see you again . . . soon.

She stopped reading and held the letter close, pondering his final words. “That's the closest he's ever come to sayin' ‘I love you,' ” she said softly, wishing with all of her heart he'd tell her so in person.
Oh, to have that as a memory!

She slipped the stationery back into the envelope and found its spot again, then closed the pretty letter box, slipping it under two knotted comforters and other linens. Joanna then took out the large three-ring binder where she kept her many writings and removed her blue notebook. She carried it to her bed, eager to reread the scenes she'd written yesterday. It hadn't taken long to learn that what seemed good on a particular day often read much differently the next. So she spent time reworking her sentences and paragraphs many times over—
a rewriter,
she liked to call herself.

Joanna tucked her feet beneath the long dress and apron, wishing her church district wasn't so strict. However much some might frown on her spending hours each week bent over her notebook, she loved to express herself that way and couldn't see anything wrong with it. What was she to do? She knew of only one Amish church district, one not far from Harrisburg, whose bishop had given a baptized Amishwoman permission to publish her novels, but they were based on the Plain life, so Joanna guessed that made them all right.

Writing had always been something she did just for herself, but since Amelia's suggestion, the desire to be published sometimes tugged at Joanna during the day when she helped Mamma bake bread or sew. And at night, too, when it poked at her . . . in her dreams. Truth be known, if she could have anything at all, she longed to see something meaningful come from her writing. That, and to marry Eben Troyer.

When she wasn't writing an actual story, she loved jotting down character traits and descriptions of people. Also ideas, things that popped into her head, including questions to explore, like the one she'd asked Cousin Malinda earlier today.

Just yesterday she'd asked Mamma's opinion about the happiest time of
her
life, too, but the question was met with raised eyebrows, as if her mother were saying,
“Think about something useful, child.”

Joanna's oldest brother, Hank, married for some time, had given her a ragged frown when she'd asked him the same thing. He'd spouted his response all too quickly.
“That's easy enough! Courting age,”
he'd said, perhaps implying that marrieds were strapped with responsibilities.

But it was the Wise Woman, Ella Mae Zook, who gave the most profound answer of all.
“For me, right now—this moment—is the very best time.”
She'd spoken with a faltering smile.
“At my advanced age, I've already learned the hardest lessons, or should have, anyway. Everything we learn when we're young is useful for the years ahead. Unfortunately, sometimes we never really learn the life lessons we're supposed to. Sad but all too true, don't you agree?”

Frail Ella Mae hadn't spelled out what those lessons were, but Joanna understood her well enough to know she meant the gifts of the Spirit found in Scripture: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, and faith. Some folk called them the simple gifts.

Joanna whispered to herself, “Cherish each and every moment. That's what Ella Mae meant.”

She took up her pen, continuing to work on her longest story to date, about an Amish couple deeply in love and separated by several states:
At their first reunion, they talked long into the night, sharing their truest hearts.

Hearing a sudden creak behind her, she turned and saw Cora Jane standing on this side of the doorway, inching away.

Quickly, Joanna closed her notebook. “How long have you been there?” she asked, her voice quivering.

“Sounds like ya have a guilty conscience.” Cora Jane was staring at the notebook.

“Oh, sister . . .”

Cora Jane folded her arms. “Just take what I'm about to say as a warning.”

Joanna shifted forward on the bed. “You really can't go through life bossing and judging everyone in sight. It's not your place.”

“I've seen you filling pages and pages, sister. Sure doesn't look like a letter to me . . . nor a diary. Who exactly are these people—and places—you're writing about? Did ya make them up?”

Joanna blushed; she'd been caught. “So you're sneaking round, snooping over my shoulder?”

“Then it
is
a story, jah?”

“Writing stories doesn't hurt anyone!” Joanna justified her secret passion to Cora Jane, just as she'd always done to herself. Beyond flustered, she locked eyes with her sister. “I must answer to the Lord God and no one else for what I do. And I don't believe writing the stories in my heart and mind is wrong, not really.”

“Have it your way,” Cora Jane said. “It sure seems you're bent on that. But what I don't understand is why you've kept this secret from me all this time. You shut me out of your life even before Eben came along, ain't?”

Joanna groaned but said nothing more.

“Why, Joanna? 'Specially if there's nothin' wrong with it, as you say?” Cora Jane demanded. “First your worldly friend, Amelia, then a faraway beau, and now this fiction writing! Next thing, you'll be slippin' away from the People and running off to the fancy English world. It's like I scarcely know you anymore.” With that, she turned and fled the room.

Joanna moved to the door and closed it soundly. Her sister was absolutely wrong to lump Amelia and Eben together with her love for writing.
Oh, if only I'd been more careful!

A torrent of emotions plagued Joanna as she returned to her cozy nest on the bed. She found her place and tried to begin again. But her sister's critical words echoed in her mind, clamoring for consideration until Joanna put her pen down and leaned back on the pillow, tears spilling down her cheeks.