The Parting (8 page)
Betsy was glad for the help she was getting with breakfast preparations this morning. Rhoda hummed softly, gingerly tapping the eggs on the frying pan to break them open while Nellie stirred the pancake batter as the griddle heated up. Betsy found it amusing and baffling that a girl who loved to bake sweets was so thin. She supposed it was because Nellie worked so awful hard.
Reuben liked his eggs fried over-easy, with plenty of pancakes on the side. So did Emma, a chip off the older block. She was balanced on her Dawdi’s knee, her hands folded expectantly on the table. James was due to come for Emma sometime midmorning, and Betsy hated to think they must say good-bye very soon.
“How many pancakes can you eat?” Reuben asked Emma.
She spun around in his arms. “Ach, you know, Dawdi!” A chorus of giggles spilled out.
He played along, frowning a bit. “Well, now, let’s see, was that six or seven?”
Emma grinned and jumped off his lap, going over to watch the pancakes rise on the big griddle, stepping back when Nellie cautioned her.
Betsy moved about the table, pouring freshly squeezed orange juice into each glass. Truly, she couldn’t keep her eyes off James’s next oldest, such a delight she was. Much blonder than even their Suzy, Emma had oodles of freckles, with one almost exactly where one of Suzy’s had been—just left of the tip of her petite nose.
Emma came running. “I wanna wash the dishes, all right, Mammi?”
“You’ll have to ask Aunt Rhoda and Auntie Nan. Aunt Nellie will be out at the shop.”
As usual, Betsy had heard Nellie Mae rise in the wee hours before dawn, quietly pulling out the many pans in preparation for baking her cookies, pies, and other goodies. Every day she performed the same ritual, except for the Lord’s Day. This day, Nellie had baked an abundance of bread, too. How she managed with only a minimum of help from her sisters was anyone’s guess.
Rhoda had been employed for quite some time now by the Kraybills, their English neighbors down the road. Other young women in their church district had started doing much the same, with Bishop Joseph’s grudging permission. Even Reuben had stated his opinion against Rhoda’s arrangement, but by the time he’d known about it, Rhoda had already been working there for several weeks. Truth was, as an unbaptized young adult, Rhoda was to some extent at liberty to do as she pleased.
As for Nan, until recently she had helped Nellie fairly regularly at the bakery shop, although reluctantly. These days she more often cooked and cleaned alongside Betsy in the house, stepping with ease into Suzy’s shoes.
“Can I help Aunt Nellie, then, after I wash the dishes?” Emma’s question broke into Betsy’s thoughts.
Reuben smiled broadly at the wee girl’s persistence. “You’re a busy bee today, ain’t so?”
“Only today?” Nellie Mae commented from across the room. “You should try sleepin’ with her.” Suddenly she seemed sheepish, like she ought not to have hinted at her sleepless night with Emma within earshot. But the truth of the matter was Emma didn’t seem to pay her any mind.
Emma leaped off Betsy’s lap and headed over to Reuben again.
Such a busy girl is right,
thought Betsy, getting some paper napkins for Emma to put around the table. “Here, girlie . . . help your ol’ Mammi out.”
Emma stood and took the napkins, turning her face up to look right at her. “Aw, you ain’t so old, Mammi. You’re just awful sad.”
The innocent words unlocked something inside, and lest she weep in front of them, Betsy inched toward the doorway and stepped into the sitting area. Behind her, she heard her husband call to Emma. Going to the window, she stood there almost out of habit, as she could scarcely see for the tears.
Rosanna set to work after the noon meal crocheting a baby blanket with pale yellows, greens, and blues.
Just right for either a boy or a girl,
she thought, although she hoped for a son for her husband, Elias. A firstborn ought to be a boy. Besides, if they were to have only one child, then a son would be ever so nice.
She pressed her hand to her heart. Ever since Cousin Kate’s visit and the splendid news, Rosanna had been unable to sleep because of happiness. To think dear Kate would offer up her very own! And now beloved Nellie Mae knew the joyous news, as well.
’Tis God’s doing,
Kate had told her several times that day she’d come so unexpectedly, her face shining. The day had been one of surprises, to be sure, beginning with Elias’s bringing in a whole bushel basket of oversized cucumbers and butternut squash. Rosanna had already set about to making pickles—both sweet and dill—when Cousin Kate had shown up, astonishing her with her words.
“I want to give you a baby, Rosanna,” Kate had said. “Seein’ you struggle so . . . losin’ several wee ones to miscarriage, just nearly broke my heart.” Kate had gone on to say she and John had talked it over. “Right away John was in agreement. Something that rarely ever happens, to be sure!”
Sighing now with all the love she already possessed for Kate’s little one, Rosanna took pleasure in the feel of the yarn—the softest she could find at the yard goods store. The beauty of it, the way the pastel colors blended so prettily, made her hope this blanket might be as lovely as some she’d seen at Maryann’s. Nellie’s sister-in-law seemed to have a knack for making baby blankets.
Just as she seems to have wee ones nearly at will
.
Rosanna brushed away the thought; she didn’t see how she could be any happier if she were expecting her own child.
“Ach, if Nellie Mae wasn’t awful surprised,” she murmured as her crochet hook made the yarn loops. She let out a gleeful laugh as she recalled Nellie’s brown eyes growing wide at the news. Nellie knew well of her pain . . . the heartache of waiting and hoping, month after endless month, for a babe that never lived to see his mother’s face. Truly, Nellie was like a sister to her. She remembered the many long-ago times she’d stayed with Nellie and her family; and the same for her friend, spending time at Rosanna’s father’s house with Rosanna and her brothers. Though life was keeping them farther apart nowadays, their dear friendship had remained strong. For this reason, Rosanna had wanted Nellie to be the first after Elias to know.
As she began the next row on the baby blanket, Rosanna wondered how her friend was really faring here lately. She felt a tremor of sadness at the thought of her own losses, particularly her mother—much too young to die.
And Suzy Fisher dead now, too . . .
Nellie’s sister’s drowning still caused Rosanna distress from time to time, and she rose and walked into the kitchen. She set her crocheting down on the table and went to stir the beef stew simmering for dinner. How Suzy’s death had come about was not at all clear to her. The Fisher family had said only that she had gone boating with some friends and an accident had occurred, although Nellie had shared a bit more privately with Rosanna. More than was necessary to be told around, she had added.
So an Englischer had been Suzy’s downfall—her boyfriend, no less. Rosanna leaned over the pot of stew to taste it, adding more seasoning. What would possess a girl to go that route when there were so many nice Amish boys?
For certain, Nellie Mae knew more than she was saying, and it wasn’t Rosanna’s place to pry. To Nellie’s credit, it took some amount of restraint to be tight-lipped—especially when Nellie had always said she felt “ever so comfortable” with Rosanna. From their first encounter as young girls till now, the two had shared openly.
Yet Rosanna had noticed that despite Nellie’s sorrow, she looked almost radiant at times. Was Nellie sweet on someone? And if so, why hadn’t she confided it as she always had before with every boy Nellie’d liked even a smidgen? There was an air of mystery around Nellie lately, which wasn’t like her. If there was a young man, Nellie Mae had evidently decided to keep this one a secret.
Lovingly now, Rosanna touched the unfinished blanket that would warm her baby this winter. Unexpected tears sprang to her eyes. She thought of the last infant she’d seen, at Preaching service last week, and the way the baby had snuggled so blissfully in her mother’s arms. She could only imagine what it might feel like to hold the wee one who was to be her own.
“Will it be a son for Elias? Or a daughter for me?” she said softly, bringing the beginnings of the crocheted blanket to her cheek and holding it there.
They’d all had their Saturday night baths, thanks to Dat, who’d built on a small washroom at the east side of the kitchen two months ago. Nellie was most grateful for a bathtub with running water where she could enjoy the privacy of bathing in a locked room. And she secretly liked having the medicine chest with its small mirror affixed to the wall. Having such luxuries certainly spoiled one.
Nellie and Mamma were sitting on Nellie’s bed after Bible reading and silent prayers, their long hair still quite damp. “’Tis best not to yearn for what used to be,” Mamma said. “Even though I’d like to turn back the clock somehow.”
“I think we all would, ain’t so?”
Mamma nodded sadly. “Every day.” She paused and her face flushed as if she was eager to say something private.
“Aw, Mamma.” Nellie touched her mother’s hand.
Her mother sniffled. “I dream of Suzy so often.”
Nellie rose and picked up her brush from the dresser, feeling a twinge of regret.
Why don’t I dream of Suzy?
Oh, how she’d longed to. The fact that she hadn’t—or couldn’t—troubled her greatly. Did this happen to others who grieved? Was it because she kept pushing the guilt away? Was she pushing away the memories, too?
Her mother reached for the brush. “Here . . . sit awhile. I’ll help you get your tangles out.” She stood and began to brush through Nellie’s long hair.
Nellie sighed, enjoying Mamma’s gentle brushing. She dared not tell a soul, but she had begun to forget what her sister looked like. Try as she might, Suzy’s features were beginning to fade, and Nellie felt panicky at the thought. For the first time, she yearned for one of those fancy photographs. Yet even without it, how could she forget her own sister’s face? So many things didn’t make sense . . . starting with the stunted sweet corn . . . and now all the talk amongst the People.
Was this a sign of things to come?
Preaching service seemed longer than usual. Nellie and her family were cooped up in the deacon’s stuffy house, instead of gathering for the Sunday meeting in the barn, where the breezes could blow through the wide doors. The weather having begun to turn, it made better sense to meet inside today.
From where she sat, Nellie Mae could see the back of Caleb’s head. Susannah Lapp and her mother and three younger sisters all sat primly in a row, off to one side. Normally Nellie wouldn’t have paid any mind to the other young woman’s whereabouts, but Susannah kept glancing at Caleb.
Wouldn’t she be surprised that Caleb likes me?
Nellie thought, feeling more smug than she probably ought to on the Lord’s Day.
Forcing herself to listen carefully, she wished she could understand the Scripture reading. Both sermons, the shorter first one and the much longer second, were always given in High German, which only the older people like her Dawdi Fisher understood. Her father had also picked it up from hearing it again and again over the years. Nellie, though, would have much preferred Preaching to be in Pennsylvania Dutch, with occasional English mixed in, the way the People communicated at home and at work.
Because the sermons were not comprehensible, one of the only clues Nellie had as to the subject matter was the preacher’s facial expression—at this minute Preacher Lapp, Susannah’s uncle, wore a scowl. Susannah’s family was certainly well represented among the church brethren, with both a preacher and a deacon in this generation. Of course, that had everything to do with the drawing of lots, the practice through which the Lord God divinely ordained their ministers.
What else will God choose?
She hoped Caleb wasn’t of the elect, at least not for Susannah’s future husband. She wondered again why Caleb had written to her instead of Susannah. Every fellow surely knew Susannah was the prettiest girl in the district.
