Wonderful Lonesome (34 page)

“They wait so they can become established financially. There is no hope for that here.”

“There is always hope, surely.
Gottes wille
.” Dread gushed through Abbie’s veins on the way back to her heart and lungs. “We may not get any new families now. It is too close to winter. But in the spring—”

“Abigail.”

She pressed her lips together to make herself stop talking.

“Reuben is not far beyond Daniel,” Ananias said. “And what about you?”

Her eyes widened.

“I mean no insult. You are my precious daughter. But I regret that I did not insist that you marry before we left Ohio. You have limited prospects here as well.”

“I do not worry about my future,
Daed
.”

Esther stepped to the bottom of the stairs and called the names of her three sons to summon them to breakfast. To Abbie her voice sounded mist-like, insubstantial.

“Your Willem seems to be in no hurry,” Ananias said.

“Neither am I.”

Ananias cleared his throat. “I may not be able to give my blessing to your union.”

“I thought you liked Willem.” Abbie swallowed back her own reservations about Willem’s forthcoming decisions.

“I do.”

“Then?”

“I have heard that he may not be a true believer. I would want you to be wed to a man who believes in the true church. But you and I agreed we would not speak of this matter at the risk of spreading more division. Leave the family out of it, please.”

The boys thundered down the stairs seeking morning nourishment.

“
Shh!
” Esther said. “Have you forgotten a baby sleeps upstairs?”

“Isn’t Ruthanna getting up for breakfast?” Levi slid into his usual chair.

“She can sleep as long as the child sleeps.”

Esther gestured that her daughter should sit down, and Abbie complied although the thought of eating at that moment caused her stomach to revolt. She spent the moments of silent prayer trying to quell quivering nerves. The family ate, and Ananias quoted in German from memory a passage in Deuteronomy about teaching children to follow the ways of the Lord. Abbie could barely meet his eyes when the meal was over.

As soon as her father left the table, with her brothers right behind, Abbie stood to scrape dishes. There was not much to scrape. The family had long ago learned to eat every morsel of nourishment at a meal. Even Levi had stopped claiming that he was not hungry.

Esther began to fill the sink with water.

“Mamm?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know about this?”

“Your father is the head of the family, Abigail.”

“I understand that he makes these decisions, but did you know?”

Esther dipped a plate in water and rubbed three fingers around the rim. “No.”

“Do you want to go back to Ohio?”

Esther wrapped her hands in a towel and said, “Why do you ask these questions, Abbie?”

“I’m just trying to make sense of it all.”

“I have always trusted your father’s decisions. I will not stop now.”

“But do you want to go back to Ohio?”

Esther sighed. “I have rather come to love living in Colorado. The color of the sky is like nothing I have seen anywhere. The way the mountain breaks the sunset, the peculiar vegetation, even the sound of coyotes. It all has a beauty of its own.”

“I know what you mean.” Abbie put her arms around her mother and whispered, “What if I don’t want to go?”

“You know our way of submission.
Demut
.” Esther gently released herself from Abbie’s embrace and turned back to the dishes. “If you were to marry, it would be different.”

Abbie moistened her lips in thought. As an unmarried woman, did she have any choice but to obey her father? On the other hand, he was right in pointing out that she was past the age when most of her friends had married. She would not be making a girlish decision. Colorado had stolen her heart, and she still believed someday there would be a flourishing church.

“What if I said I want to stay here?” Abbie finally said.

“Stay where?” Levi shuffled in from the back porch.

“I think I’ll go for a walk,” Abbie said.

“I thought you wanted to stay.” Levi wrinkled his face.

“I was talking about something else. I do want to go for a walk—if it’s all right with you,
Mamm
.”

Esther nodded.

“I want to go, too.” Levi widened his eyes in hope.

“I just want to do some thinking, Levi. It won’t be very fun.”

“Please?”

“He’s been squirming the last few days,” Esther said. “It would do him good for you to wear him out.”

Abbie knew Levi would pepper her with a thousand questions, but she nodded.

“Where are we going to walk?” Levi followed her out the back door.

“We’ll just walk and see where we end up.”

“I want to walk in the fields.”

“I guess we can do that.” Abbie adjusted her direction to cut across the yard away from the barn and toward the path that would take them past the pasture to the forgotten wheat fields. “There won’t be much to look at. You know we have no crop.”

“There’s still a lot to look at. I can catch some bugs for my collection.”

Insects would abound, feasting unimpeded on the parched, stunted stalks of the crop that might have persuaded her father to make a different decision.

“What did you really mean when you said you want to stay?” Levi concentrated on making his stride match hers.

Abbie put a hand on the back of his head. It would be
Daed’s
decision what to tell his sons and when. “Never mind. It’s nothing you have to worry about.”

“I’m not worried. I used to be worried that we would run out of food, but I’m not worried anymore.”

“I’m glad to hear that. What changed your mind?”

“
Daed
takes care of the family, and God takes care of
Daed
. Right?”

“Right.”

“Then God takes care of the family. That’s what I decided. It’s better than worrying.”

“Good thinking.”

“Can you give me my lessons from now on?”

“Don’t you like studying with Mamm?”

“I like to study with you. When you give me my lessons, I always think you are a good teacher.”

“Thank you.” She scratched the middle of his back. “I’ll think about it.”

“I want to race. Do you want to race?”

She shook her head. “No. But I’d love to watch you run.”

Fourteen hours later Abbie spread her tree of life quilt out on the kitchen table. She had little progress to show for the last two weeks. Eber’s death had stymied her aspirations. The baby’s early birth and the funeral plans had banished ordinary routines. Ruthanna’s presence in the house with the baby meant there always seemed to be something Abbie felt she ought to be doing to make Ruthanna’s life easier.

But nothing would bring Eber back, and now Ruthanna had decided to make her own life easier by returning to her family.

Abbie’s vision glazed over as she stared at the tiny triangles that made up the finished portions of the quilt. Instead of the quilt, she saw the lush greens of the Ohio countryside, where there were lakes and dependable rainfall and proper houses and worship services every other Sunday. Her father had not yet said where in Ohio he planned to take the family. Perhaps the Weavers would end up in eastern Ohio not far from Ruthanna’s family, and Abbie could see her friend across the Pennsylvania border frequently. She imagined now what Eber and Ruthanna’s little girl would look like when she was two or seven or ten years old. Maybe she would have Eber’s dark hair. She already had his long nose.

Abbie left the quilt on the table and stepped out the back door to listen to the rapid chatter of the magpies, the chirping crickets, the whispering sibilants of the wind. She disagreed with her mother on the beauty of the coyotes howling, still unable to banish the mental image of what might have happened to Little Abe Miller. But the rest of it buoyed her spirit regardless of the crumbling financial realities.

With a sigh she wondered if she were the only one with blinders on, or the only one still clinging to the vision that had drawn them all out here. She glanced back inside at the quilt spread in the lamp’s light and pondered how many of the families she prayed for would still be here when she finished the quilt.

I suppose you heard about my
dead
’s decision.” Abbie laid the sack of bread on Willem’s table and stood with her hands on the three mounds.

Willem nodded from his chair across the table. “He surprised us all. He went around yesterday because he wanted all the settlers to hear it from him.”

Abbie absently picked up last week’s bread sack and folded in half, then quarters, then eighths.

“He is doing what he thinks is best,” Willem said.

“I know.” Abbie did not know where to settle her blurry eyes. “He has never been one to do anything on a lark.”

“Your
daed
is a good man, Abbie.”

“I believe he would say the same about you.” She set the flat flour sack on the corner of the table.

“We understand each other.”

A gasp escaped Abbie’s lips. “Not entirely.”

Willem tilted his chair back and scratched under his chin. “What’s on your mind?”

Abbie reached into her bucket for a clean rag and turned to Willem’s water barrel to drench it. Without speaking she began to wipe off the table.

His chair hit the floor, and his hand reached across the planks to stop her motion. “You don’t have to do that now.”

“It is what I am here for, is it not?”

“Is it?”

She met his green eyes now. If Willem went to the Mennonites, his action would cause more division than any words her father did not want her to speak. “Before Eber…before the baby…I found out something.”

“Yes?”

“My
daed
does not believe there is salvation outside the Amish church.”

“I see.”

Did he? What if her
daed
was right? “It seems the men in the settlement do not agree on this doctrine.”

Willem shifted in his chair, turning to one side. “Obviously I am in no position to dispute that statement.”

“What am I to think, Willem? If you go to the Mennonites, and if I do as you suggest and go with you—”

“Then you fear we would be condemning ourselves.”

Abbie started wiping the table again. “Do you believe I should turn my back on what my father believes?”

“Whatever you believe, you father would want your faith to be based on your own conviction.”

“He does not think you are serious about me.”

“Ah, well. I have not confided in him as I have in you.”

She said nothing.

“Come with me, Abbie. Come with me.”

“So you have made up your mind?” She turned to the sink to twist the moisture out of the rag and kept her back to him.

Willem knew what she wanted to hear, but hypocrisy would be unbearable.

“Will you go with your parents?”

He saw her shoulders lift then fall, but she did not turn to face him.

“Will I have a choice?” she said at last.

“You are a grown woman.”

“A grown
unmarried
woman.”

“Our women sometimes find another calling.”

She slapped the rag against the sink and spun around. “A calling to keep house for a relative, for instance? I don’t have any relatives around here. I have no place to go if my parents leave and you won’t have me.”

“I will always have you, Abbie.” Willem stood now and walked around the table to stand before her and cradle both her elbows in his hands.

She wriggled against him at first, then her hands settled on his forearms. Her touch was light, hesitant, tentative. But she did not move.

After a long moment, he leaned in to kiss her. If his words failed to stir her, perhaps his lips would. The softness of her mouth welcomed him, and she made no move to break away.

When he raised his head again, he moved one hand to her cheek. “Come with me.”

She stepped to the side. “You’re confusing me.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

He returned to his side of the table. “At least take some time to consider your circumstances. I was in Limon the other day and saw a posting at the mercantile.”