The Parting (25 page)
“Is it me, or are you up too early?” Nan asked, coming by yet again in her long white cotton nightgown. She hadn’t taken time yet to slip on her bathrobe, and her hair was still uncombed.
Nellie was not amused and quite glad she’d kept Suzy’s diary hidden from view just now. “The question is, why are
you
up three hours before breakfast today?” she asked. “You plannin’ to help me bake some pies?”
Nan grimaced. “Couldn’t sleep anymore, is all.”
Nellie didn’t know what to say to that. Nan had always slept longer and deeper than anyone she knew. Nan had once announced at the breakfast table that she wished she might sleep in longer of a morning, to which Dat had nearly choked on his coffee.
When Nellie offered nothing more, Nan padded back to her room. Nellie waited till the door to Rhoda and Nan’s room clicked shut. She heard their bed creak and assumed Nan had slipped back in for an added forty winks. She had little time left to read before she must begin the day’s baking, so Nellie quickly found her ending spot from yesterday.
Suzy’s written account took Nellie back to February and March of last winter, the time of year when their lives revolved around visiting family, butchering, and farm sales. Even the public schools closed for the latter, since teachers realized that a number of Plain and English students were involved in the auctions’ social aspects.
All the while, Nellie’s beloved sister had yearned after darkness, becoming ever more caught up in the world. . . .
For Suzy, every spare moment these days was spent with Jay Hess and his “clique,” as those outside his group referred to the six students who went nearly everywhere together. Suzy had gladly gone with them to the movies, to bowling alleys, and even several times to a dance hall. Wherever Jay chose to go, Suzy aimed to be right by his side, soaking up his modern life like a dry sponge.
She remembered how light-headed she’d felt the first time she’d puffed on Jay’s half-smoked cigarette, his face close to hers, as if he longed to somehow be a part of her first smoke. They’d laughed at her momentary dizziness and he’d kissed her later, long and lingering. In a few days she’d adapted, eager to have a full smoke of her own when with Jay. He was on her mind all the time now as she cooked and cleaned with Mamma. In her free time, she artfully drew his name and wished she were still in school waiting for him after the bell.
Dat would more than have my hide if he knew
.
Anxious to maintain her secret, Suzy promised herself not to become too keen on Jay’s smokes; nor would she drink more than two beers at once. For his part Jay never suggested she bring a change of clothes when they went out, something she viewed as a sign of his affection—he liked her enough to be seen with a Plain girl, of all things. Besides, there were others like her. Suzy wasn’t alone in her search for a way out of the dead-end street she’d been born on.
The two other Amish girls who ran around with Englischers never dressed Plain when they did so—they let their hair down, too, and even cut and styled it. Both had downright shallow boyfriends who probably would have preferred to date a nice English girl if they could have gotten any of the fancy girls interested in them. At least, that was how Suzy looked at it.
Jay was better. He liked her as she was . . . though that was not how she planned to remain.
By late March, he wanted to spend more and more time alone with her. They drove the back roads, frequently pulling over to park. Together in the private darkness of his car, they talked and drank and laughed till Suzy cried, tarrying longer each time.
How alive Suzy felt with Jay, alarmingly so. The whole world halted in its tracks when she was with him. He admitted the same thing to her in so many words.
“You’re my baby girl,”
he would say and reach for her, holding her so tight she believed he would never let her go.
When it came time for sowing alfalfa in her father’s wheat field, Jay seemed put off by her absence. “You shouldn’t have to do boys’ work,” he said at first. Soon, though, he was more relaxed about her chores, telling her all was well. “I’ll wait for you, Suzy. You do what you have to, to please your family.”
She warmed to his words as she had from the start. Fact was he could get her to see things his way just by the smooth way he suggested them, though she hadn’t done all the things some schoolgirls succumbed to in the name of love. Still, she knew she was treading on dangerous ground, ever so close to getting the cart before the pony.
It wasn’t that Suzy didn’t trust herself to be able to keep resisting Jay. What worried her more than possibly giving in was the emptiness she felt, in spite of the thrill. Was this all she was willing to trade her wholesome, dreary life for? She’d longed for freedom from the heaviness she felt living Plain . . . bound to eventually dying that way, too, if nothing changed. Bored with life, she yearned for more than her roots could possibly offer.
But the more she reached for what she expected would fill her up, the more drained Suzy felt. All the same she simply could not go backward to the repression that had driven her away from her family and their beliefs, in search of light and love. The Old Ways were less appealing than ever.
Jay managed to get her talking about eloping one night after they’d fogged up his car windows but good. She told him she loved him, adding that she was interested in running away with him if he wanted. Just that quick, he changed the subject, muttering something about attending vocational school or a community college next year.
“You don’t really want to get married yet, do you?” she challenged him.
“Why sure, baby. You’ll see.” But he had new excuses for her nearly every time they saw each other.
In early April when the tobacco farmers were sowing seeds in their sterilized tobacco beds, Suzy helped her parents and sisters plant potatoes. She had begun to chew gum nearly round the clock at home, pushing in a fresh stick every half hour or so in an effort to cover the smell of cigarettes. She chewed so many packs of gum, it was as though she were addicted to that, too.
Gum, cigarettes, and Jay Hess . . . but not in that order.
Nellie slammed the diary shut. She felt unclean, like she ought to bathe.
Poor Suzy . . . all mixed up, looking for acceptance far from the People
. She thought back to Suzy’s wild days, stunned by her own naïveté—how little she as a sister had suspected. When Suzy’s clothing had smelled a smidgen like cigarette smoke, Nellie never dreamed her own sister was the one smoking. To think drinking and necking—with an outsider, no less—were also to be counted among her dear sister’s sins.
“Ach, why’d she feel the need to run fast with the world?” For the life of her, Nellie Mae couldn’t begin to grasp that she’d shared this very room—and nearly everything of her own life and dreams—with Suzy, never once guessing her sister was so
ferhoodled
.
She stared at the diary. “This would not just break Mamma’s heart . . . it might make her sick,” she whispered.
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
You fooled me, Suzy! I thought you were merely childish, not this
.
“I trusted you. I thought I knew you.”
The truth she had so desperately sought was too shameful to accept. Nellie slid from her bed and crumpled into a heap on the floor, burying her face in her hands and sobbing louder than she’d ever meant to.
Early Friday morning, Betsy knocked on Nellie’s door, asking to come in. Nellie mumbled a yes and rubbed her sleepy eyes, looking up from her snug spot in her big bed, as her mother entered. Betsy was struck by the fact the bed looked too large without Suzy in it.
She’d heard Nellie burst out crying early yesterday morning but felt she should wait a day, at least, before approaching her about it. She knew all too well that sometimes grieving people preferred to be alone. “Are you all right, dear?”
Nellie Mae nodded. “Are
you
, Mamma? You’re up awful early.”
Betsy couldn’t help but smile.
Nellie, ever thoughtful . . .
“I heard you cryin’ yesterday,” she said.
“Oh jah . . . that.”
“We all miss her terribly,” she said.
Nellie sighed and rolled over, covering her head with the quilt and saying no more.
“I’ll help with your baking today,” offered Betsy, but Nellie only grunted slightly in response.
Closing the door gently, Betsy wondered if Nan was right about Nellie’s reading Suzy’s diary. If so, it didn’t seem like such a good idea for Nellie Mae in her susceptible state.
Seems like a lesson in futility, really
.
She could hardly go on. “I believe . . . just as you do,” she whispered. “I couldn’t put it off . . . didn’t want to wait any longer to receive this blessed salvation.”
Nevertheless, Betsy could not deny her own curiosity about Suzy’s Rumschpringe.
As Betsy and Reuben dressed for the day, she knew it was time to tell her husband of her prayer in the attic—she’d waited too long as it was. She had been hesitant, wanting to keep it to herself, so foreign the experience was to her. She couldn’t help but wonder how she and Reuben would find their way together as new believers.
She finished placing her Kapp on her head and went to him, reaching for his big callused hands. “Reuben, I must tell you that I understand what you feel when readin’ the Good Book.”
His eyes met hers. “You do?”
She could hardly go on. “I believe . . . just as you do,” she whispered. “I couldn’t put it off . . . didn’t want to wait any longer to receive this blessed salvation.”
His smile spread clear across his ruddy face, prematurely wrinkled from long hours in the sun. “Ach, this is the best news, Betsy.” He wrapped his arms around her, enfolding her.
“I’m ever so glad you got me thinkin’ . . . I best be catchin’ up with you, love.”
Reuben laughed heartily and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Our eyes have been opened wide by the grace of our Lord.” He beamed into her face. “I daresay there may be more than we know.”
“What will happen to us all?” Betsy asked.
“We’ll simply go about our business and family, trusting God to make the way clear and straight before us.”
“Will we leave the church?”
He frowned momentarily. “All the present upheaval in our midst . . . I say we bide our time, wait till things calm down some before pulling up roots.”
“It’s not like we’re ashamed. . . .”
“Not at all, Betsy. What makes you say that?”
“We could simply leave the church and face up to the Bann. Look at Cousin Jonathan and almost the whole of his family . . . all of them shunned.”
“’Tis mighty disheartening to think of us—all the People—treatin’ him so.”
“Seems we’re kinder to outsiders who burn down our barns and run over our buggies with their cars—never pressing charges—than we are to our own.” Her words caught in her throat.
“Forgiveness is the expected way.” He picked up the Bible on their dresser. “ ’Tween you and me, Betsy, I’ve never fully embraced our shunning practices. I’ve got private opinions ’bout that.”
“Oh?”
“Our boys know this. The twins are more inclined to see eye to eye with me, but Ephram’s downright outspoken against my views.” Reuben looked at the floor and then raised his eyes to meet hers. “We cut off our own folk . . . and for what? Too short a haircut on a man . . . too wide or narrow a hat brim, for goodness’ sake? What difference does any of that make in the eyes of the Lord?”
“Ach, Reuben, I never knew this of you.”
“Well, I take issue with some of our rules, puttin’ it mildly. But I’ve held my peace for this long, love. Time I began declaring what I believe to someone, starting with you. Upholding the rules of the Ordnung is not vital to salvation.”
Betsy turned toward the window, watching the horses grazing in the distant paddock, the early-morning sun making their hides shine. “We’ve been taught all our lives that it’s not God’s will for folk to get together to study the Bible . . . but I honestly feel the need for it.”
Reuben agreed. “I’ve been talkin’ with Preacher Manny about this very thing.”
She gasped. “Your cousin Manny knows of this?”
He took her hand and sat with her on the loveseat near the window, sharing all he had discussed with both Manny and Cousin Jonathan. “No matter whether we get the bishop’s approval—and we won’t—we’ll start up a Bible study right here ourselves.”
Reuben was a man of surprises, for sure and for certain.
She felt more love for him than ever before . . . knowing he’d gently yet consistently shown her the truth. To think she was God’s child, just as her husband was—this man who had led her to drink of the living water, like the woman drawing well water in the biblical town of Samaria.
“I can hardly keep from tellin’ our girls what’s happened,” she said softly.
Reuben grinned. “We can tell our family together.”
“All of them?”
“What’s to lose?”
She touched his hand. “Oh, my dearest love . . . just about everything. Look at Cousin Jonathan and his family.” Pausing, her eyes rested on her dear husband. “Jonathan lives among the People, yet he and his family are alone in their beliefs.”
