A Stranger's Wish (18 page)

Did you automatically make a new one every fall and spring, or did you wait until the old one got holes? Did you make a new one for an occasion like a wedding you were attending, or was that seen as prideful because you wanted to look your best? I decided that given amazing Amish frugality and practicality, holes got my vote.

“Careful you don’t get lost in all the fabric,” I teased. Ruth was such a tiny girl. Tiny, slim, and petite. I’d noticed that she was wearing her dresses with the hem at the knees, very daring for an Amish girl and a subtle sign of
rumspringa
. Mary’s dresses reached well down her calf, almost to her ankles.

“Love your shoes,” Ruth said with a smile.

I glanced down at my red Chucks and wiggled my toes. “Me too. I found them at a yard sale.”

“I’ve got a girlfriend who would love them.”

“Really?” Intriguing. An Amish girl in Converse high-tops?

“Rhoda Beiler.”

“The one who almost fainted at the pretzel factory?”

Ruth nodded, looking around as if she were checking for anyone listening. She leaned toward me and said softly, “Her running around has gone real wild. She wears jeans and smokes and goes to the hoedowns where they drink and some do drugs. She stays away all weekend with guys and listens to rock music on her iPod all the time. She went to a couple of rock concerts with some of the older kids, and now she wants to be a rock star.”

An Amish rock star boggled the mind. “Does she play an instrument or sing?”

Ruth glanced around again. “She’s taking guitar lessons. She got a raise at work and didn’t tell her father. That way she can keep the extra money for lessons instead of turning it in to him like me.”

“You give all your money to your father?” My dad might have tried to manage my life, but he never asked for any money I made, even when I was young. “Tithe some and save some,” was all he said.

“I give Father most of it. Everyone does.” She glanced toward Jake’s doorway and said softly, “Jake’s care has cost a fortune. If my little can help, I’m glad to give it.”

I pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat beside Ruth. “Jake didn’t have health coverage on his job?”

“Some but not enough.” She frowned. “Mom and Father worry about losing the farm. They don’t think I know, but I do. Elam does too, and Jake.”

“I thought since the Amish don’t believe in insurance, they took care of their own.” Though Jake wasn’t really one of them, come to think of it.

“We do, and people have been very generous with their assistance. But every time we think things are paid off, something new happens or a new bill comes. Father doesn’t like being such a burden to the church. He doesn’t want to take so much because others need help too.”

She picked at a loose piece of thread on the black fabric lying in her lap. “Father and Elam would be so miserable if we had to sell. And Jake would have extra guilt to carry. He knows his injury has changed all our lives, especially Mom’s and Father’s, and it hurts him. I think his guilt is more painful to him than his paralysis.”

She must have seen skepticism on my face because she said, “People think Jake’s a wild man with a hard heart, but that’s not true. Sure, he was wild and now he’s bitter, but he was never mean. He’s a good man, Jake is. He worries because he’s a financial burden.”

I didn’t think Mary and John or Jake would be happy with this discussion of the family finances. Apparently the same thought occurred to Ruth because she colored and turned away. “I shouldn’t have said so much.”

“It’s all right.”

She clasped her hands and closed her eyes as if she were praying, and maybe she was. “God will supply. He always does.”

We sat quietly for a few minutes until she placed the material under the needle and lowered the presser foot. The machine whirred as she worked the treadle.

“So,” I said when quiet returned, wanting our conversation to end on an innocuous note, “do you ever want to do something as wild as wearing red high-tops or playing in a rock band?”

Ruth rolled her eyes and shook her head vehemently. “Not me. I’m going to join the church sometime soon. I know it. I never wanted to do anything else. I’m not interested in cruising and boozing like Rhoda and some kids. I know they think I’m uncool because I enjoy the sings and the frolics, but that’s okay. I think you should get baptized and join church and obey the
Ordnung
. It’s God’s way.”

“How about Elam?” After all, there was that beer in the buggy the other night.

“He wants to be Amish too. Him and his friends like beer, but that’s about as wild as he gets.” She laughed. “His friends decided that if he could make root beer, he could make regular beer. He tried and gave me some to taste.” She made a terrible face. “I think they dumped it all in the creek.”

I had a sudden vision of tipsy cows.

“He wants to join church soon too,” she said. “He’s going to stay on the farm. It’s what he wants. He likes the hard work. Some of his friends think he’s crazy when he could go to a factory or do construction and work limited hours and make lots more money, but he loves farming and he loves the dairy herd. You should hear him talk to the cows. I think he’s given all of them names, which Father thinks is stupider than beer.” Ruth grinned.

I tried to picture Elam in the barn encouraging his girls to give more milk.
Come on, Josie. That’s a girl, Maisie. I knew you could do it, Missy.

“Some people think animals are just for using, not for caring,” Ruth said, and I thought of the bad publicity over the Lancaster County puppy mills, many run by Amishmen. “Sure they’re for using, but they depend on our care. Elam’s a bit extreme, but it’s a nice way to be.”

I had to agree.

“Anyway,” Ruth said, looking at my feet as black fabric cascaded over them, “Rhoda would love your sneakers. She keeps talking about her outfit for being on stage.”

I laughed at the doubt I heard in that “on stage” comment. “You don’t think she’s going to be a star?”

“With six months of lessons? I don’t know anything about rock bands, but I bet it takes a lot of learning and a lot of practice. She met some guys who have a band in a garage, and she thinks she’s in love with the drummer.” Ruth’s hands stilled on the pins attaching a sleeve. “I’m afraid she’s going to go so wild she won’t find her way back.”

She glanced out the window. “That would be very sad.” She frowned, stood, and walked toward the window. “Someone just drove up to the barn in a big black car.”

Todd dropping in for a visit? I made a face. That would complicate tonight. But his car was silver.

I stood, slid my chair back to the table, and went to the window. My blood congealed and I made a little gagging sound as my breath caught in my throat.

“What’s wrong?” Ruth asked, all concern.

“It’s my parents.” I watched them climb from their car, identical looks of disbelief on their faces.

You should have told them, you idiot! You should have told them.

“That’s so nice,” Ruth said, heading back to the sewing machine. “You haven’t seen them in a while, right?”

“Right.” I went to the door and then outside to greet them. My stomach was churning acid like a washing machine agitated soapsuds.

“Hey, Mom, Dad.” I hoped I sounded cheery and welcoming. “I must have missed the memo. I didn’t realize you were coming.”

“We wanted to surprise you,” Dad said, staring into the black maw of the barn’s door. A working dairy barn was quite a revelation to a fastidious man like him. Given the smell alone, he might never again drink milk.

“You surprised me all right.” I gave him a hug and he absently hugged me back. He was too busy scowling at the buggy sitting beside the barn.

“Kristina,” Mom hissed, all the while watching a pair of hens pecking in the yard as if afraid they were about to peck her eyes out. “Is this an Amish farm?”

I pumped up my smile. “Isn’t it great?”

She blinked and turned horrified eyes to my father.

Even on Saturday, wearing chinos and a knit shirt, Dad looked what he was: Mr. Professional.

“You didn’t tell us.” His tone was accusatory.

I acknowledged that truth with a bob of my head.

“Why not?”

I cleared my throat. “Because I knew how you’d react.”

“You knew we’d be appalled?” Mom asked.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“And yet you did it?”

“Mom, I’m twenty-seven.”

“And twenty-seven-year-olds shut out their parents?” Mixed with her shock and disapproval about my new home was a touch of hurt that they had found out about it in this manner.

Guilt sank its talons. In trying to protect myself from their disapproval, I’d caused them pain. I hadn’t meant to. I thought they’d call before they came, and I’d tell them then. That way they’d only have to stew about it during the drive here, and I could hope they would be somewhat accepting of my crazy behavior by the time they arrived.
Best laid plans
.

I put my arms around my mother and kissed her cheek. “Come inside and see where I live. Meet the Zooks. Or at least Ruth. She’s the only one home right now.” And maybe Jake, but I wasn’t going to bother him.

As we went inside, Ruth rose from the sewing machine. She looked adorable and otherworldly in her caped dress, darned apron, and
kapp
, her feet bare.

“Mom, Dad, this is Ruth.”

Everyone greeted everyone, and then I said, a touch too brightly, “Ruth’s making her mother a dress.” I seemed to be in the if-they-see-how-much-I-like-it-here-they-won’t-lecture-me mode.

“Do you make all your clothes?” Mom asked, interested in spite of herself. I knew for a fact that sewing a button on one of Dad’s shirts stretched her needlework abilities to the hilt. Like mother, like daughter.

“Our dresses. Everyone’s jackets and coats. Sometimes Mom makes shirts, but it’s easier to buy them ready-made.”

Mom looked suitably impressed, but whether by the making of coats or the buying of shirts I wasn’t sure.

“I’m going to show Mom and Dad my rooms,” I said as I led the way upstairs. I was very conscious of my red Chucks as I climbed, Mom right behind me, Dad bringing up the rear. I wasn’t certain which they would consider worse, my living on an Amish farm or my being gauche enough to wear such foolish footwear.

We stepped into my living room with its desk and overstuffed chairs, and I watched my parents as they took it all in. Big Bird gave a little chirp of greeting, as if on cue.

I thought the place looked homey and comfortable with the plants at the windows and the papers and laptop cluttering my desk, but I knew that after their luxurious and spacious home, this looked small and Spartan to them.

“Don’t they believe in curtains?” Mom whispered, looking back over her shoulder as if she expected to see Ruth coming through the door.

“No, they don’t. I could probably get some if I wanted—they don’t ask me to conform to their austerity—but I won’t.”

“But you have a TV,” Dad said.

Long story, Dad,
I thought, but I decided not to tell it. “I have electricity.”

“I thought they didn’t believe in electricity.” He stooped to look at an outlet as if he expected it to be merely an illusion.

“We’re in the
grossdawdy haus
,” I said, and then I explained about Jake. “So he’s my landlord.”

“Why didn’t they shun him?” Dad asked. “Don’t they shun people who break their rules?”

“He was never baptized and he never joined the church. They don’t have to shun him.”

“But he was raised Amish.”

“He was, but until you join the church as an adult with knowledge of the choice and commitment you’re making, you aren’t held accountable.”

“Sort of like informed consent?”

I nodded. “They know they’re counterculture, and they know agreeing to be bound by the
Ordnung
is possible only when you know what you’re willingly turning your back on.”

Mom picked up the green-and-blue chenille afghan tossed over one of the chairs. “This is lovely, Kristina.”

“Mary made it,” I said. “She’s the mom. She’s selling homemade canned goods at the farmers’ market.”

“She’s very talented.”

“She is. Come see the rest of the place.” I led them into my bedroom and thought again how welcoming it looked. I noted that a fresh dahlia was in my little vase.

“Beautiful quilt.”

“I think I’ll need it as the weather gets cooler.”

“Just crank up the heat.” Dad frowned. “Or don’t they have central heating?”

I shook my head.

“Bathroom?” Mom said. “Kitchen?”

“Downstairs.”

“Communal?” There was that appalled expression again.

I nodded.

They merely looked at me.

“Donald,” Mom finally managed. “They gave us the wrong baby at the hospital. I’ve long suspected this, but now I’m sure. Not that this cuckoo in our nest isn’t lovely and sweet, but she
can’t
be ours. And as if this weren’t bad enough,” she indicated my rooms with her hand, “just look at her footwear!”

We all stared at my high-tops.

“They match my shorts,” I offered lamely.

Mom, in her sleek navy slacks and her soft rose blouse, discreet gold studs in her ears and a diamond on her third finger faceted to blind people when the sun caught it, merely looked at me and sighed.

We wandered back into my living room, where they each took a chair and I sat on my desk, Chuck-clad feet dangling.

“I love it here,” I ventured. “The Zooks are wonderful, and they have been very gracious to me.”

They nodded and seemed to be waiting for more. The only trouble was, I didn’t know what more was. Where did I go after
I love it
?

Finally Mom said, “But why? You had such a nice apartment.”

“Because I wanted to?”

Dad raised his eyebrow. “That’s it? You wanted to?”

I thought that was a very fine reason. “Yeah.”

“Not because it’s cheaper or because you expected to learn interesting sociological information?”

Mom suddenly looked horrified. She actually gasped. “You aren’t becoming Amish?”