Leah's Choice (10 page)

“She has children already? Didn’t take her much time, did it? As fat as she is, no wonder I didn’t know she was in the family way.”
Grossmama
’s mouth puckered. “If Hannah had kept a tighter rein on the girl, she wouldn’t have had a baby so soon after her wedding.”

Leah didn’t attempt to explain that Anna and Samuel hadn’t had any children yet or that Samuel had been a widower with five children when they’d married, two months ago. She just smiled and hurried for the back door. As she passed Rebecca, she tugged at her sister’s apron. “I won’t be back until afternoon,” she whispered. “Don’t let Johanna leave the house.”

“I’ll do my best,” Rebecca promised.

Mam glanced at them and raised an eyebrow.

“Have a good day in school,” Leah called.

“I’m taking the buggy today, instead of walking,” her mother said. “And I may be late getting home. You girls will have to start supper.”

“We will,” Leah replied. She wished she had a chance to give Rebecca more than a brief account of what she suspected had happened last night. She hadn’t wanted to talk with Jonah in the bedroom. The child probably knew better than any of them what went on in his parents’ home, but Leah couldn’t add more grief to the child’s lot.

Leah grabbed a scarf off the hook by the door and tied it over her hair. She had a
kapp
in her pocket, but the scarf would do for the walk across the field to Anna’s. Because the morning would be hard work—house cleaning and washing clothes—she’d donned her patched but serviceable dark green dress and an old apron of Mam’s. Leah wished this wasn’t one of her Anna days, because she’d worry about Johanna until she got back. Maybe, if she skipped lunch, she might be finished with the day’s chores by two, perhaps even earlier.

* * *

The delicious smell of cinnamon bread fresh out of the oven washed over Leah as she opened Anna’s back door. “Aunt Leah!” squealed four-year-old Lori Ann as she flung herself at Leah’s legs. “You’re here!”

“Yes, I’m here.” Leah laughed and unwound Lori Ann’s arms from her knees.

“M…Mae wet the bed,” Lori Ann proclaimed.

“But me sor-ry,” her little sister shouted.

Samuel, a big, hearty man with a full dark brown beard and kind eyes, nodded, drained his coffee and bid Leah a good day. Leah knew that Samuel had probably been up since four a.m.—he looked tired and there were worry lines at the corners of his eyes.

“Is Samuel well?” Leah asked once her brother-in-law had gone outside. As she watched her sister kneading bread dough, it occurred to Leah that Anna didn’t appear her usual calm and cheerful self, either.

“He didn’t get much sleep last night,” Anna confided. “Deacon business.”

Naomi looked up from her book. “Wilmer was here,” she said. “Talking with Dat.”

Leah met Anna’s gaze. Wilmer had come here? Leah’s thoughts raced as she tried to fill in the blanks. As deacon, it was Samuel’s duty to see that all the members of the church community followed the rules and lived in harmony. He would have been the first one to chastise Johanna’s husband for abusing her. So why had Wilmer come to Samuel? And what had Samuel done about it?

Chapter Eight

A
nna pursed her lips and gently shook her head, warning Leah that they couldn’t talk in front of the children. Turning to Naomi, Anna smiled and raised a flour-dusted finger to her lips. “
Ne,
my love. We don’t tell who comes to talk with your father. A deacon’s family must remember that church matters are to be kept private.” She went to the table and gave her eight-year-old stepdaughter a hug. “Now, if you want to be helpful, I could use your help packing the school lunches.”

Naomi sighed, closed her book and rose to obey.

“Me help,” little Mae chimed in.

“Ya,”
Naomi agreed. “You can wash the apples.”

It was difficult for Leah to curb her curiosity. She couldn’t wait to discuss Johanna’s plight with Anna after the older children left for school, but she knew that her sister was right, so she bit back her questions.

Naomi set her library book safely out of reach of her younger siblings and went to gather the black lunch pails that she and her twin brothers, Peter and Rudy, carried to school. As the girl efficiently began to assemble sandwiches, apples and muffins, Leah couldn’t help noticing what a difference Anna had made in Naomi in the short time since the wedding. Already the child looked far better than she had before, happier and more attractive. Her shining hair was neatly braided under a starched
kapp
, and her new, rose-colored dress fit her perfectly.

Samuel had done his best for his five children after his wife had died, but the home needed a mother, and loving Anna filled that spot perfectly. It was clear to Leah that—despite the difference in Samuel and Anna’s ages—the new marriage was off to a solid start. That Samuel would have courted Anna in the first place was a surprise to the community, but not to Leah. From the first, she’d seen real affection between the two, and Leah hoped that when she married, if she ever did, she’d find a man as good as Samuel to call husband.

She was about to ask Anna what time she’d gotten to bed, when Rudy, Peter and Samuel came back in and everyone gathered around the table for breakfast. Leah didn’t get a chance to speak privately to Anna until the kids left for school and the two younger girls were settled in the sunny pantry with a litter of fluffy kittens to play with and a basket of washcloths and dish towels to fold.

The washroom was just off the kitchen, and with distance between them and the children and the chug-chug-chug of the wringer washer, Leah finally had the opportunity to question Anna about Wilmer’s visit. Alone, it wasn’t difficult to get the whole story from her sister.

“Wilmer admitted that he lost his temper and hit her,” Anna said. “He knew he had done wrong, and he wants help to change. He asked Samuel to pray with him.”

“And what did Samuel say?”

“You know my Samuel.” Anna sighed and reached for a clean towel. “He is a good deacon—firm on church rules, but fair. It’s not the first time he’s admonished Wilmer for his bad treatment of Johanna. I know the Bible teaches us to forgive one another, but I worry for Johanna. Always, the same thing. Wilmer is sorry and he wants forgiveness.”

“Only God can grant that kind of forgiveness,” Leah answered, digging into the basket for a towel to fold. “And not unless we truly repent of what we have done wrong.” She grimaced. “I’m afraid she’ll go back to him. When he’s sorry, he promises her that it won’t happen again. And Johanna wants to believe that things will change…”

“Maybe you’d best go home and talk with her some more,” Anna suggested. “I’ll finish this folding. If you can just get those sheets through the wash, I can manage the rest here today.”

“Are you sure?” Leah grabbed a sheet and began to feed it through the washer rollers, careful not to get her fingers too close to the mechanism.

“Johanna is more important than having my parlor floor scrubbed. We can do it together when you come back on Wednesday.” Anna slid the heavy basket of clean wet laundry aside and gazed at her sister. “So, what is this I hear about you and the Mennonite missionary? Be careful, Leah. You know how people talk.”

“Not you, too?”

“You rode to the Grange with him last night?” Anna rested her hands on her ample hips. “Lucky for you that he’s going back to Africa soon.”

“Africa?”

Anna shrugged. “Well, someplace foreign. I heard he was waiting to see where he’d be sent.”

Leah didn’t ask where Anna had heard that. The Amish didn’t have telephones, but that didn’t keep them from spreading every morsel of news from one end of the county to the other faster than the English could manage it on their fancy computers.
Amish telegram,
the English called it.

“I went with Daniel and Miriam and Charley and the Gleaners…and Rebecca and Susanna…to see the missionary program. He gave a bunch of us a ride in his aunt’s van.”

“And?” Anna waited.

“And after the program, Daniel asked me if I’d like to help out at the food bank in Dover tomorrow. Both of his cousins will be there. Caroline and Leslie Steiner. You know them. They buy eggs from us.”

“And you are going to this Mennonite place?”

“Yes, I am. To help people in need. I told Mam I was, and she didn’t tell me not to.”

“Umm.” Anna’s expression was thoughtful. “Is he handsome, this Mennonite boy?”

“Nice-looking, yes, but…”

“You like him, don’t you? You can tell me.”

“There isn’t anything to tell.” Leah retrieved a stray sock that had dropped to the concrete floor and guided that through the washer rollers.

“Ah. That’s what I told Samuel. You wouldn’t do anything to cause a scandal. And not with a Mennonite.”

“And if I did?”

“I would tell you to think over what you do…but I would love you all the same.” Anna reached for her bag of wooden clothespins. “Help me hang out these sheets and then go on home. Johanna will listen to you if she’ll listen to anyone.”

“I think I should,” Leah said. “I told Rebecca not to let her take one step out of the house, but Johanna…”

“It’s hard to tell Johanna anything,” Anna agreed. “But this time, I think we have to try.”

* * *

Leah climbed the stile and hurried across the pasture. All the way home, she went over and over in her head what argument she would use to convince Johanna to stay at Mam’s with the children. But when she met Susanna, who was on her way to the pigpen with a bucket of potato peelings and kitchen scraps, Leah’s worse fears were realized.

“Johanna went home,” Susanna said.

“Did Wilmer come to get her?”

“Ya.”
Susanna nodded. “In the buggy.”

Leah sucked in a breath. “Rebecca was supposed to keep her here.”

“Ya.”
Susanna’s round face crinkled and her eyes grew large. “’Becka is sad.”

“It’s all right,” Leah told her. “I’ll go and talk to Johanna.”

“Me, too.”

“
Ne,
you stay here and help Rebecca and Aunt Jezzy. Tell them I’m going to take Dat’s buggy and drive over to Johanna’s. I should be home before Mam gets home from school.”

“Okay.” Susanna’s brow furrowed.

“What is it, Susanna banana?” It was the name that always made her laugh.

“I’m thinking.”

“What about?” Leah was anxious to get to Johanna’s, but it was important to listen to Susanna. Just because she’d been born with Down syndrome—which made speech and some tasks difficult for her—didn’t mean that Susanna was a child. She understood far more than most people realized.

Her little sister’s chin firmed in an expression that looked exactly like their mother’s. “Ruffie is married.”

Leah nodded. “Yes, she is. To Eli.”

“And Miriam is married to Charley.”

Leah waited.

The tip of Susanna’s tongue touched her upper lip. “And…and Anna…”

“Married Samuel,” Leah finished.

“Can I marry Samuel, too?”

“No. Samuel is Anna’s husband. You’d have to marry someone else.”

“Who?” Susanna wrinkled her nose. “Not Irwin. I don’t want to marry Irwin.”

“Good. I’m glad you don’t want to marry Irwin.” Leah smiled at her to cover her sudden rush of sorrow. It was impossible to tell this precious sister that she’d never marry, never have a home and children of her own. “Because we can’t have any more weddings now,” she said, making a joke of it.

“Why not?”

“Because. Mam used up all her celery. You’ll have to wait to get married, Susanna. Until you’re older.” Celery was traditionally served in large quantities at Amish weddings, and the joke was that you could tell who had a courting daughter by how many rows of celery a couple grew in their garden.

“Old as you?”

“Older than that,” Leah said. “Twenty-five, at least. How old are you now?”

“Eighteen.”

“Right. So that’s years and years to be Mam’s helper before you’re old enough. Now, you go on and feed the pigs and then tell Rebecca where I went.”

“To Johanna’s house.” Susanna picked up the bucket.

“That’s right.”

“Okay. Tell her to plant celery.” Susanna giggled. “Maybe you want to get married. Next week!”

* * *

Leah drove Blackie and the courting buggy to Johanna and Wilmer’s small farm at a fast trot. She didn’t take pleasure in driving, as her sister Miriam did, but she was at ease around horses. She wasn’t afraid to take them out on the road, and she was undaunted by cars and trucks. Once, when she’d been driving home with Anna and Rebecca from Spence’s Auction, she’d heard the wail of fire engines coming toward them. She’d jumped out of the buggy, put her apron over the horse’s eyes and led horse and carriage off onto the grass until the noisy vehicles had safely passed.

She hoped that once she reached Johanna’s, she’d get a chance to be alone with her, but she doubted that she would. That was all right. She wasn’t afraid of Wilmer. Church member or not, she’d tell him what she thought of him. For once, she wished that she had studied and taken her baptism when Anna did. Baptized women were treated as full adults, regardless of their age, and her word would have more sway in the community if she had joined the church. Surely, none of that would matter to Johanna. If they had a chance to talk this out, she’d be able to convince her sister that the only sensible course to take was to gather up Katy and Jonah and come home to Mam’s to live.

Leah was still going over in her mind what argument she would use when she guided Blackie into Johanna’s rutted dirt driveway. The small farmhouse had seen better days. The roof leaked and Leah suspected that the walls weren’t insulated. Sometimes, in the winter, the children had to wear their coats while playing inside, and Katy got a lot of colds. Still, the rent was what they could afford, and the farm had a lot of outbuildings that Johanna was able to use for her poultry and sheep.

As she tied Blackie to the hitching rail, her sister stepped out on the porch. “Leah.” Johanna’s face was strained, but Leah couldn’t see any new bruises. “Why are you here?”