The Parting (16 page)

“Oh, my dear child, I missed you so!” Mamma stooped down to kiss the top of Emma’s blond head.

Emma’s brothers—one older and two younger—Benny, Jimmy, and Matty—ran to greet their Dawdi Reuben, who hugged them quickly and patted toddler Matty on the head. “Ach, look at yous. You’ve grown in just one week,” he said as all of them jabbered at once in Dutch.

As promised, Emma readily showed her dolly to Nellie and her sisters, though Rhoda and Nan sat a bit aloof over in the corner of the front room. Emma told them the handkerchief doll had been one of Suzy’s many creations, her eyes bright as she described her dolly’s pretend adventures.

Rhoda perked up some during Emma’s telling. But Nan, however, continued in a dismal mood.

Problems with her beau?
Nellie wondered. Or was Nan peeved about having to stay put so long at home this morning?

But Emma’s antics would not permit Nellie to wonder long.

The girl crawled up on her Mammi’s lap. “I have me a secret,” Emma whispered, leaning close.

Mamma listened and then pulled back and played at clapping her hand over her mouth. “My goodness, that’s just wonderful-gut!”

Rhoda got up to move to a chair closer to Mamma. Removing her shoes, she tucked one pudgy leg under her, perching there like a pumpkin about to roll off. Nan stayed where she and Rhoda had initially sat, appearing almost unaware of the goings-on around her.

As for Nellie, she was mighty curious about Emma’s socalled secret, especially when the child slid off Mamma’s lap and hurried upstairs. In short order, she was back, carrying a small block of a potholder, three-fourths finished.

“See, Mammi? It’s crocheted . . . Mamma taught me how, this very week.”

Martha smiled, bobbing her head to confirm it. She sat on her father’s old hickory rocker with twenty-month-old Matty sprawled on her lap. “I daresay all I did was show her a few loops and she kept on goin’,” Martha said, blue eyes sparkling. “Not to boast a’tall, but she’s got a knack.”

“Is that right?” Mamma inspected the potholder with its green, blue, and purple strands of variegated yarn, oohing and aahing as she made over Emma’s creation. “It’s awful perty. Really, ’tis. Maybe you can make a whole bunch of them to give as Christmas presents.”

Emma smiled her crooked smile and touched Mamma’s arm. “I’ll make one for
you
, Mammi Elizabeth.”

“I’d like that very much,” said Mamma, acting startled upon hearing her formal name.

“ ’Cept it won’t be a secret now,” Emma lisped.

To this, Mamma reached over and cupped Emma’s chin with her hand. “You’re quite the chatterbox today, ain’t so?”

Rhoda laughed softly.

Martha attempted to redirect Mamma’s attention away from Emma to towheaded Matty, who was pulling on the hair of one of Emma’s ragdolls on Martha’s lap. In spite of Matty’s adorable grin, Nellie saw it was all Mamma could do to keep her eyes off Emma.

After a while they all sat down together and enjoyed some of Martha’s delicious baby pearl tapioca and chocolate chip cookies. Mamma, Martha, and Nellie were clearing the table when Emma tugged on Mamma’s skirt and looked up at her. “Aunt Suzy really ain’t comin’ back ever?”

A frown quickly appeared on Mamma’s face. She glanced nervously at Martha.

But there was no time to talk things over, not with Emma within earshot. Mamma smiled ever so kindly. “Our dear Suzy’s gone forever, jah. . . .” Her lip trembled and she turned slightly so Emma wouldn’t see.

Rhoda quickly diverted Emma’s attention, taking her into the smaller sitting room near the front room. Nellie and Nan stayed close to Mamma, comforting her by getting her some hot tea and having her sit at the table awhile.

Later on their drive to the last visit of the day—Benjamin and Ida’s place—Nellie couldn’t help but notice again how considerate Dat was of Mamma, asking her if she was all right. Nellie wondered if Emma’s question had grieved Dat, too . . . knowing full well that even if it had, he would never speak of it.

After she’d completed her baking and helped her sisters and Mamma hang out the wash early Monday morning, Nellie took herself off to the bakery shop. She waited on more English customers than usual, or so it seemed. She didn’t mind, as long as they didn’t stare, which did happen occasionally—Rosanna observed the same thing, tending her roadside vegetable stand. Nellie preferred the regular Englischers, who were more accustomed to the Plain way she and Nan dressed.

Rhoda had already headed on foot to work at the Kraybills’. So bubbly was she that Nellie wondered if something had happened between yesterday afternoon’s visits and this morning.

Nan, on the other hand, remained as
schlimm—
sad—as Nellie had ever seen her. With Rhoda gone for the whole day, Nellie wondered if maybe she might get a chance to hear what was up.

But Nan was slow to assist at the bakery shop, not arriving until midafternoon. By then the place was too swamped with customers for any sisterly talk.

About that time, Rebekah Yoder showed up. “Dat’s been draggin’ his feet about puttin’ down our old buggy mare,” she said, seemingly in the mood to chat. “Every time anyone’s mentioned it, he’s said, ‘Ach, there’s one more mile in her. A good-natured horse like that’s determined to die in the harness.’ Anyway, this mornin’ he hitched her up and took off to town, going by way of the one-lane bridge on Beaver Dam Road.” Rebekah paused for a breath, appearing eager to tell the whole story.

“What happened?” Nellie asked.

The other customers leaned in to listen.

“Well, if the horse didn’t collapse right in the middle of the road!”

“That’s just awful.”

“It was sad, of course, but kind of funny, too, accordin’ to Dat.” Rebekah shook her head. “There was a long, long line behind Dat’s buggy—a whole bunch of buggies, and a good many cars, too. Amish farmers and English drivers both were jumpin’ out and askin’ what a dead horse was doin’ on the road.”

“Well,
was
she dead?” asked Nellie.

“Apparently not. A large truck somehow’d got off course and onto the narrow road. When it gave a few loud blasts from its air horn, ach, if the horse didn’t leap up on all fours, and they were off again.” Rebekah giggled before composing herself, and Nellie laughed, assuming that was the end of the story.

“Turns out Ol’ Dolly let out a final shudder on the way home and fell down dead in the middle of the turn lane on Route 322. Poor thing. Probably a heart attack, Dat says.”

“Oh, Rebekah . . . what a fright for your father.”

“Jah, it was.” She sighed. “But he told me he had nobody to blame but himself.”

“Good thing no one got hurt.”

“Or killed,” Rebekah added. “ ’Cept the horse, of course.”

The cluster of customers began chattering at that, but Rebekah’s story had gotten only a halfhearted crinkle of a smile from Nan.

As they closed the shop for the day, Nan took issue with Nellie. “I daresay you overreacted to Rebekah’s storytellin’.”

“You think so?”

Nan nodded. “Nothin’ funny ’bout what she was saying.”

“Well, it struck
me
that way.”

Nan folded her arms. “You seemed terribly pleased to see Rebekah today. What with the hearsay . . .” She flashed a teasing grin. “I think you must like her brother an awful lot, that’s what.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Well, Benjamin’s brother-in-law told Becky Glick that he saw what looked to be you and Caleb over in some bushes after Singing, of all things!”

Nellie was stunned. She stopped to stare at her sister. Caleb
had
hugged her in the thicket, but only momentarily. Old Joe Glick’s granddaughter—Susannah Lapp’s best friend—had made too much of an innocent gesture. Oh, how she despised the grapevine!

“Benjamin’s brother-in-law knows nothin’ at all, and neither do you,” Nellie spouted.

“Well, you did meet up with a boy after Singing. Don’t say ya didn’t.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Jah, and so is your fate.”

“You have no idea what you’re babblin’ about, Nan!” she hollered back.

Face red, Nan ran off to the house, slamming the back door.

As much as Nellie wanted to ignore her sister’s cutting words, she could not stop thinking about the possibility Susannah had one of Nellie’s own brother’s kin spying on her.
Susannah must be afraid she’s going to lose her chance with Caleb. That’s what!

Nellie followed her sister’s lead and went inside, where the smell of one of Mamma’s best hot dishes almost cheered her, turkey casserole being a favorite. She hurried to help both Nan and Mamma get the table set and all the serving dishes on the table, trying not to pay Nan any further mind.

Nellie was surprised at the feast, which included baked beans, buttered carrots, and cut corn in addition to a gelatin salad and homemade muffins. Nellie looked at her mother and was heartened to see a healthy blush on her cheeks.
Is she finally feeling better?

When Dat came in from getting the mules into the barn, he washed up quickly. Rubbing his hands together, he went to get the Good Book down from the tall cupboard at the far end of the kitchen. “We’ll be havin’ some Scripture reading right after the meal.” He took his seat at the head.

Nan and Rhoda exchanged glances as Nan filled the last of the water glasses. She sat down next to Nellie, across from Mamma, who sat in her place to their father’s right.

“Let’s bow our heads,” Dat said. “Our heavenly Father, we ask for your blessings on this food, which we are ever so grateful for . . . just as we are for your dear Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.” Instead of praying silently, he had blessed the food aloud.

Nellie had never heard such praying, let alone at the table. She looked first at Mamma, who was beaming at Dat nearly like a schoolgirl. Then she looked at her father, who was getting on with the business of eating, reaching now for the large spoon stuck in the casserole dish.

What on earth was that?
Nellie wondered the whole way through the meal.

After they’d finished, Dat resumed his prayerful mood and bowed his head, offering the usual
silent
blessing this time.

Half Amish prayer . . . half not?

Nellie rose to clear the table with Nan’s help, telling Mamma and Rhoda to stay seated. As she worked, putting away food and scraping clean the plates while Nan got the water ready for washing, she kept trying to sort out what had just occurred. She’d heard her father pray aloud with her own ears, addressing God as he would someone he knew well.

When at last the kitchen was clean, Dat asked her and her sisters to come and sit at the table, a departure from their usual evening Bible reading, when they were allowed to sit wherever they wished, perhaps even playing checkers or doing something else while he read. Not this night. Dat asked them to listen carefully as he read from passages in the Gospel of John she’d never heard in her life.

The Scriptures told of a man whose name was unfamiliar to her: Nicodemus. Full of questions, he was.
Just as I’ve been since Suzy passed away,
Nellie thought. She liked this new story from the same old Bible Dat had read from since they were born.

He paused and rested his gaze briefly on them before going on to the next verse. “ ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.’ ”

Nellie found herself fighting back tears. She reached into her pocket and squeezed Suzy’s Kapp strings, wanting to ask her father to read the verse again. If only poor Suzy had the everlasting life promised to those who believed on the Son. Was the wrath of God abiding on her?

Not wanting to draw attention to her state of mind, Nellie Mae headed upstairs and closed her door as soon as Dat excused them. She longed to be free of the guilt she carried in her heart, but she had no way of knowing if that was possible.

Her legs felt too weak to hold her, so she knelt beside her bed for the first time ever. Because she didn’t know what to say to the Lord God and heavenly Father, so tongue-tied and ashamed was she, Nellie merely wept.

Dat began to make a routine out of reading from the New Testament following breakfast and again after supper. By week’s end, he had read them the entire book of John. Nellie had especially enjoyed the story about the woman who’d come for well water and left with something better, her soul satisfied.
The Lord’s abundant water . . . life-giving
.