Rebecca's Promise (12 page)

No doubt she had long wanted me to ask her out.
The thought warmed him. Why, yes, he would do it—he would indeed. He would ask her this very week, and by Sunday those eyes would be for him alone. Susie would be beside him in his buggy as he drove her home after the singing.

Shaking the snow from his coat with a shrug of his shoulders, Luke took one last glance at the cattle gathered in front of him and turned to leave.

“You don’t know anything about love or money,” he told them, as if they could understand. “Just chew your cuds and be quiet. I am now ready to take a girl home.”

T
ime to start the pies,” Mattie’s voice echoed up the stairs, startling Rebecca as she had just closed the drawer in her room, the ring now well-hidden.

Knowing that she needed to respond and concerned that her face might betray her, Rebecca opened the door but didn’t show herself. “I’m coming right away,” she said.

A measure of peace was in her heart now. The answers seemed to be coming, and the fear was fading away. “The Lord is helping me,” she whispered.

“We need to start before lunch,” her mother added, softer now that she could see that Rebecca’s bedroom door was open. “Your dad wants some for supper, I’m sure.”

There was silence at the bottom of the stairs after her mother’s soft footsteps faded away on the hardwood floors. Rebecca knew she had only moments more before questions would start, if she did not come down the stairs.

Taking a deep breath, she prayed one last quick prayer.
Let this be the right thing, Lord. I don’t want to be making more mistakes than I have already made. And please don’t let me lose John.

A calm came over her, and she thought again that the upcoming trip to Milroy must be God working things out through her mother and her aunt. In Milroy, she could walk the roads and the woods where she had been with Atlee and perhaps discover how to finally let this all go. Perhaps there her memories of first love would find their proper resting place, and she would bring her heart home, whole and new again.

Then she could finally throw the ring away. She could now only remember faintly where he had given it to her. Flashes of summer’s woods went through her mind…sounds of water running…and of a bridge.
The Moscow covered bridge,
she thought.

Yes, that was it. The Moscow bridge. And then she remembered Atlee’s hand holding it out to her. The ring. The first thing she had noticed about it was how it sparkled. Then she could hear him asking, “You will keep it, won’t you? For me, please? I will come back for it and you…” She suddenly refused to finish the memory. She must get downstairs.

But her mind wouldn’t let it go just yet. She remembered slowly taking the ring from his hand and saying, “Yes.”

Taking another deep breath, she walked out the door and down the stairs to the kitchen.
I’ll be okay,
she told herself.
John loves me, and I love him. Is that not enough?

Her mother already had bowls spread out on the table. Two small ones and a larger one in front of them.

“Can you get the flour?” her mother asked, with a glance at her.

Rebecca nodded, letting what she hoped was a smile play on her face. Walking to the pantry just off of the kitchen, she opened the large bag of flour. A smaller dipping bowl was already in the bag, and so she grasped the edge closest to her and sent the other end plunging deep into the soft flour.

Shaking the now heaping bowl over the bag, she lightly brushed the edges with her hand. A good Amish girl did not spill flour. Her mind still distracted and hoping she wouldn’t spill any flour, Rebecca walked toward the kitchen table, where she would measure it into cup size measurements as it was needed.

“Don’t fill it so full,” her mother said, glancing at the amount she carried in the bowl. “It spills too much on the table.”

Rebecca nodded.

“It’s better to make two trips. With smaller amounts you don’t have to spend so much time being careful,” her mother said. She then
added gently with an unspoken question in her voice, “You learned that years ago.”

“I know,” Rebecca said.

“Is something wrong?” her mother asked, catching a full look at Rebecca’s face and placing both hands on her hips. “Is it something between you and John?”

Much as Rebecca had been dreading questions, the start of them was almost a relief. “No,” she responded, feeling herself actually relaxing.

Her mother was silent for awhile, then said, “You and John have been together a lot. Has he talked marriage yet?”

“Yes,” Rebecca told her, not wanting to go further than that. “It has come up.”

“Oh,” her mother smiled and continued, “that’s good. John’s such a nice boy. A good Amish church member. Family seems solid and all. How long have you two been dating? Time goes by so fast with us old people. It’s probably much longer than I think.”

“Some two years,” Rebecca said. She walked over to the icebox to get the eggs.

“Well, that’s plenty of time! You ought to have figured out by now what you think of him. Maybe even whether you’d want to marry him.” Mattie glanced in Rebecca’s direction. “I know that’s such a big decision. Yet done in the Lord, it is always good.” Mattie reached for the cup to measure the flour, glancing again at Rebecca’s face. “Oh!” she exclaimed with a smile. “Maybe he has asked already.”

Rebecca felt the redness spread across her face.

Her mother needed no words to confirm her suspicions. “That was what the visit to the bridge was all about yesterday. A right romantic fellow, John is. Asking the question the real English way, now did he?”

Rebecca still said nothing. There was no need to. Her mother might as well know, and figuring it out herself was just fine with Rebecca.

Mattie dipped the measuring cup into the flour and then looked at Rebecca. “Your daddy was that way too.” She paused as if in astonishment herself. “I know you would never guess it. He lets on terrible like…” Mattie explained, waving her loose hand, “like there’s nothing to it. But he was. Yes, he was. Stopped the buggy one night right soon after we left the singing. We had been seeing each other for about three years.”

The second cup en route, Mattie paused. “All the other buggies had already broken off. Down other roads. Never thought of it like that, but your daddy had to have it all figured out. We were all by ourselves on one of those open bridges. You could hear the water running underneath us. Right there with his horse barely wanting to stand still, he asked me. Yes, he did,” Mattie pronounced.

“Dad?” Rebecca said, totally surprised. “You say Dad did this?”

“Yes, that’s how it went. He took my hand when I said ‘yes’ and squeezed it real hard, he did.” Mattie quickly glanced up at Rebecca. “Now don’t you be getting any ideas. That’s
all
he did, mind you. A right proper young man he was. The Lord knows. I wished sometimes, especially in that buggy while riding beside him, that he wasn’t. Yet, in the end I always knew what a good man he was.”

“Yes, I can see that he is,” was all Rebecca could think to say, thoughts of John flashing through her mind.

“John’s right proper too, I suppose. You two are behaving yourselves?” Mattie questioned, looking her full in the face.

“Yes, Mother!” Rebecca answered, a little exasperated. “Dad already asked me that this morning. What do you think I am?”

“You are a
good
girl,” Mattie allowed. “It’s just that we’re all weak in the flesh. That’s a fact, now. We need to have someone watching over us at times. I thank God we did as well as we did. Our parents were concerned. I wondered sometimes why Mother didn’t ask more questions than she did. It’s such a hard time in life. I suppose that’s why I’m asking now.”

“Yes, it is a hard time,” Rebecca said with emotion, content in
knowing her mother wouldn’t fully understand exactly why she thought so.

“It will all come to an end,” Mattie intoned. “Soon enough you are married. Then there’s nothing in the way. It is a right good time, it is. Even after all these years. It was well worth waiting for. Made even sweeter, I think, by the waiting. God must be honored in all His ways. Especially on this thing. It’s too powerful to get wrong.”

“I know,” Rebecca said, cracking a third egg into one of the smaller bowls. “We will do our best. We want to walk in a way that is right and holy.”

“That’s good to hear,” Mattie said. “We must always be on watch. One never knows when the devil might throw something in our way. Trips us right up.”

“That’s for sure,” Rebecca replied, wrinkling her forehead.

“Ah! It’s already hard then,” Mattie replied, sighing at her daughter’s reaction. “You will make it though. God will help you.” Then after a moment’s pause, she admitted, “You had me so worried.” And Mattie poured the last cup of flour into the large bowl.

“I already told you. We are behaving ourselves,” Rebecca responded, irritation in her voice. “Are you ready to have the eggs beaten?”

“Yes,” Mattie said. “It’s not that though. I was talking about something else. It’s when you were going to school in Milroy.”

“To school?” Rebecca managed in what she hoped was a normal voice. A chill was creeping up her spine.

“Ya. That Atlee fellow you used to spend so much time with,” her mother said.

The chill increased.
What did she know about Atlee? Did Mother know how much she had liked him? She must have.

“What about Atlee?” Rebecca asked, as casually as possible.

Her mother gave her a strange look and said, “You should know. You were the one always walking home with him from school. It seemed innocent enough, you know. The schoolgirl crush we all have had. You were young though,” she quickly added.

“So why were you worried?” Rebecca asked. She was ready to start beating the eggs but stopped to hear her mother’s response.

“It was always you and Atlee this—you and Atlee that. You were even with him sometimes on Saturdays.” A look of worry crossed Mattie’s face, but she said nothing more except, “Beat those eggs. I need them right away. I’ll start melting the butter.”

Rebecca nodded, laying her shoulder into whipping the eggs. As the racket of metal hitting metal filled the room, the yellow and white mixture quickly blended, and there was no more distinguishing between the two. Her mother, in the meantime, turned on the gas burner on the stove and dropped a bar of butter into the pan. It turned golden brown and slowly spread across the bottom.

With the eggs whipped, Rebecca left the bowl on the kitchen table and switched places with her mother. Mattie dumped the eggs into the flour, stirred them gently, cleared her throat, and jumped back to the unfinished conversation. “I never did worry about that, you know.”

“What did you worry about then?” Rebecca asked.

“After his parents went Mennonite. He didn’t stay on at the school for the rest of the year. I sure hoped you didn’t have your heart too set on him. He was a nice boy and all. But
Mennonite.
That’s another matter, I would say! I’m just so glad that you are getting a good Amish boy in John Miller.”

“I am too,” Rebecca said truthfully. Not just because he was Amish, but because she knew she loved him.