The Amish Bride (15 page)

“And there were other hurts, other sorrows. It would have been too hard to face all that again. I didn’t even go back for Gerry’s funeral.” Her voice trailed off, her eyes growing moist. “He died ten years after we left. He had a heart attack out in a field.” She sighed, glancing down at her
wrinkled hands, dotted with age spots. “Maybe I was wrong to stay away, but I was weak.”

“
Mammi
, can I ask you something?” I said softly, leaning forward and fixing my eyes on hers.

Looking back at me, she nodded.

“Why is it so important that I break this code for you? What is it you want to learn from Sarah’s book?”

Mammi
studied my face solemnly, and for a minute I thought she was going to tell me. But then that urge seemed to pass and she merely shook her head.

“If I do break the code, I’ll find out anyway.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Well, then. Let that be your incentive,” she replied stubbornly, pursing her lips.

And there we sat for a long moment, her lips pursed, my chin jutted out, both of us digging in our heels. Suddenly, the absurdity of the moment came clear and we began to laugh.

“Sarah and I aren’t the only feisty ones in this family, you know,” I teased, getting up to refill her tea.

“I suppose not.”

When I sat back down she was still smiling, but she made it clear that the subject was closed. Instead, she asked me about my job hunt, so I told her I’d been cleaning houses and babysitting while I looked. I didn’t add that I’d been looking in and around Nappanee, Indiana.

“That’s needed work, but you should be baking.” She squeezed my hand. “My mother loved to bake too. The other women in our district thought she was fancy with her pretty desserts, and sometimes she’d do things like put lavender in her pound cake. Oh, and the way she’d dress up her pies. She’d draw birds and trees, things like that, in pie dough with the tip of a sharp knife, and then she would cut them out and then bake them onto the top crust. She’d end up with a whole picture.”

I tried to imagine it, the symbols from her book on top of a pie. “Was the Amish church okay with her art?”

Mammi
held the book at arm’s length. “I really don’t have any idea.” She sighed. “I’m sure the bishop wouldn’t have approved of all the time she spent drawing and painting, had he known. But it was our family secret.”

“Did your
daed
approve?”

“Not exactly, but Mother didn’t draw as much when he was around.”
Mammi
had a faraway look in her eyes.

“What happened to all of the artwork she created?”

“I don’t know.” She leaned her head back against the recliner and closed her eyes. “She had many finished canvases and full sketchbooks back then, which she kept in a big closet in the front upstairs bedroom. Though, at some point, she must have taken them out of there and hidden them away somewhere else, because I don’t recall seeing them anywhere later, once I was an adult.”

“So they’re just…gone?”

Mammi
shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“What a loss,” I said sadly.

An odd expression crossed
Mammi
’s face. “Maybe. Maybe not. She was Amish, Ella. She had no business indulging in any endeavor—no matter how talented she was—if that led her to commit the sin of pride. I don’t think she was prideful of her artwork, but she may have been, at least privately so. Perhaps getting rid of it in the end was her way of asking for God’s forgiveness.”

Sobered by the thought, I patted
Mammi
’s hand and said I would make us lunch. Though the Mennonite faith stressed humility, the Amish made a huge deal out of it. And while I understood what she was saying about Sarah’s sin of pride, I still didn’t think a confession would warrant the destruction of a lifetime of art. But I let the subject drop.

After we were finished eating our sandwiches,
Mammi
said she was going to take a nap as she settled more comfortably in her chair.

“I wish I could have known Sarah,” I said, feeling nostalgic. I knew lots of people who had relationships with their great-grandmothers, the way Christy did with Alice. Never mind that mine would have been absolutely ancient if she were alive now. I still would have liked to have known her.

“She loved life, that was certain,”
Mammi
said. “She was much more joyful than me. She saw beauty in absolutely everything. You can see that in the drawings in her journal.” She closed her eyes, and because I couldn’t think of how to respond, for once I didn’t.

Mammi
had never been fun loving, that was for sure, or one to gush
over people or nature, but she had been steadfast and hardworking—at least until a few years ago, when she’d had her stroke. Stroke or not, I always knew she loved me and that she was dedicated to me and to our entire family. I stood perfectly still and watched her for a few moments as she drifted off to sleep.

Next to Zed, I knew I would miss her the most. But then my mind leaped to the Home Place, and I couldn’t help but wonder if something was there that really could help me break the code in the book. Maybe Sarah hadn’t ditched her artwork after all. Even if the art really was gone, there had to be papers or something she’d left behind that might help me decipher it. Because the place was still in the family, chances were Sarah’s things were still there somewhere, probably boxed up in an old attic or forgotten down in some basement.

All I had to do was get to Indiana, get to the Home Place, and get a good look for myself.

I
never did receive the packet from the cooking school in South Bend. When I called to follow up, a machine greeted me, so I left a voice mail message requesting another packet to be sent. It never arrived either, so the day before Ezra and I left for Indiana, I called a third time and left a message requesting that a packet be sent to Penny’s house in Nappanee.

That afternoon Ezra again picked me up at the library. Will had given him the day off to prepare to leave.

“The weather’s cooperating,” I shouted into his ear as we zipped along.

He nodded his head.

“So we’re going to take the bike?”

He nodded again. “I canceled the driver this morning.”

I was feeling giddy by the time we reached the cottage. Mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway, and Zed wasn’t home from school yet.

“Want to come in for a minute?” I asked.

He hesitated.

“Come on, Ez. Just for a minute.”

He followed me inside and I poured him a glass of water. I started telling him all about
Mammi
and Sarah’s book and the Home Place. I hadn’t mentioned any of it to him before because
Mammi
had asked me to keep
her request to myself. But now that he was going to be a part of my adventure in cracking the code, I thought he needed to know.

“I’ll go get the book,” I said once I’d finished explaining.

Upstairs, as I was fishing for the box under my bed, I heard Mom’s car turn into the drive. I must have pushed the box, still wrapped in the pillowcase, farther back than where I usually positioned it. I got down on my hands and knees and was finally able to retrieve it. I hurried to the stairs, hoping to be back in the dining room before Mom came inside, but she must have noticed Ezra’s bike because she hustled into the house in a hurry. I was halfway down the stairs and Ezra was at the bottom when the front door opened and Mom called out my name.

By the time I reached Ezra, it probably looked as if we had both just raced down the stairs. Mom didn’t say anything. She just gave us one of her killer stares. We shuffled over to the couch and sank down onto it. I hated how suspicious she always was, especially when she had nothing to worry about. Sure, I could be headstrong and stubborn, but I wasn’t stupid. You don’t grow up with a midwife for a mother without fully gasping the consequences of certain choices. More importantly, though, Ezra and I were both committed to waiting for marriage—whether my mom believed it or not—and that’s all there was to it.

I took the box out of the pillowcase and then took the book out of the box. Ezra leafed through it briefly, shrugged, and handed it back. Then he took the box, turned it over, and looked at the construction of it as much as at the carving.

As he handed it back, he said, “Cool.”

I don’t know what I expected from him, but I was disappointed. Then I decided he was probably so ho-hum because Mom was in the dining room. He stood, saying he should go, but he wanted to tell my mother goodbye first. Terrified he would say something about my going, I told him that wasn’t a good idea.

“She and I still have a few things to work through,” I whispered, and then I walked him outside and down the steps to his bike.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said.

I nodded. I had to tell Mom what I was up to because I hadn’t mustered the courage to discuss it with her before now.

I walked to the highway and watched Ezra go, tracking his motorcycle as it dipped down the hill and then out of sight.

When I returned to the cottage, Mom was in the dining room.

“Come here,” she said.

I obeyed.

“Ella Marie Bayer, don’t you dare interfere with that young man and his future.” Her voice was calm, but her face reddened as she spoke. “He’s leaving tomorrow. It’s the beginning of his new life.”

“I was just showing him the book and the box of the farm in Indiana because he’s going to be right next door to it.” I met her gaze. “Because he’s been my friend for as long as I can remember.”

It was as if she hadn’t heard me at all.

“You have no right,” she barked.

I spun away from her and fled to my room to pack. How could she care so deeply about the man who cheated on her and abandoned her, and not care about me, her only daughter? She acted as if I had no right to my feelings. She acted as if I had no right to my life. There was no way I was going to tell her about my plans to go to Indiana now.

Shutting my door, I scanned my room. I’d already mailed a box to my new address a week ago. I had filled it with clothes and toiletries, including the hand mirror I used to use when I was a little younger and sometimes wore makeup. I had also included my magnifying glass to continue reading Sarah’s book. And though I would have liked to add the book itself, just because it was so bulky, I didn’t dare. Being irreplaceable, it wasn’t worth the risk of mailing. For the drive out, Ezra had bought saddlebags for the motorcycle, and I would have my backpack. I planned to carry the book with me in there.

I pulled my stack of wedding magazines out from under my bed and leafed through one after the other, tearing out photos of cakes. I folded the pages and slipped them into my backpack. Next, I pulled my remaining two dresses and my cape off the pegs along the wall, rolled them to keep the wrinkles to a minimum, and then put them in my backpack too. My mother never came into my room anymore, but I definitely needed
to keep her out today. If she noticed that all of my things were down, she might get suspicious.

I’d wear my jeans, of course, and warm coat. I had a stocking cap to wear under my helmet and warm gloves.

After a while I went downstairs and started vegetable-beef soup for dinner. Aunt Klara and Uncle Alexander had given us a quarter beef last summer, and I used one of the last pounds of hamburger. Zed came in the door as I was chopping carrots. It seemed he’d grown another couple of inches in the last month.

“Where’s Mom?”

“In her office.” At least I assumed that’s where she was because she wasn’t in the cottage, and her car was still in the driveway. “What’s up?”

“One of the teachers at school is offering a filmmaking seminar, and I want to take it.”

“Good luck with that,” I muttered, scooping up the carrots and dropping them into the pot of broth.

He sat down at the computer without taking his jacket off. “I need her signature to do it. We’re going to meet before school.”

“Starting when?” I tried not to panic, imagining Zed up at five thirty tomorrow morning as I tried to slip out the door.

“Next week.” His answer hardly alleviated my anxiety because I realized then that Mom could be just coming home from a birth or just leaving. She could hear Ezra’s motorcycle. She could be getting up to go to the bathroom. Or she could simply be up already.