Meek and Mild Read online

  Andrew stepped toward her. “Someone had to be the first to know. Why not my boyhood friend?”

  He kissed her mouth. Later she could hear the whole story.

  Nine days later, Clara sat in church, still stunned that the old friendship between Andrew and Yonnie had resurfaced. They sat beside each other in the first row of single men right behind the married men.

  It bothered her that Yonnie was the one who knew their secret.

  The skirmish with Noah and Joseph Yoder persuaded them to wait before speaking to Clara’s father or Mose. Neither of them wanted news of their engagement tangled in speculation about their future in the church. They had told each other this and agreed to wait.

  Whatever Yonnie’s attitude was now—and Clara was not sure she knew—the damage was done. Joseph and Noah had called Andrew to task, and with Mose’s dissenting opinion, the ministers disagreed on what action the Bible required them to take. Neither Andrew nor Clara wanted their engagement lost in the swirl of the dark clouds. Andrew had waited two years for her to accept his proposal. They would wait a few more days or weeks.

  Clara adjusted her shoulders, which had started to ache, and moved her eyes forward. Mose stood beside the preaching table, giving the main sermon.

  “ ‘And let the peace of God rule in your hearts,’ ” Mose read, “ ‘o the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.’ ”

  Mose looked up here, catching eyes around the room before he continued.

  “ ‘And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.’ ”

  Mose put one finger on the page open on the table.

  “This is what the apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Colossae, and his words are of equal guidance to us.” He paced a couple of steps away from the preaching table and scanned the assembly. “I do not make light of the differences of opinion among us, even as we are called to be one body. I urge peace and unity above all else, just as Paul did two thousand years ago. On the matters which confound us—and I do not believe I must list them now—I seek the wisdom of bishops in other districts. I seek the word of Christ, that I might share it with you richly. Your part is to grant me patience and continue to live in love one toward the other. Then we will know the peace of God together.”

  Clara hoped Mose would agree to marry her and Andrew. These were the sort of humble words she wanted to attune her heart to on the day she committed to love Andrew for the rest of their lives.

  Mose did not close the door on change. Neither did he swing it wide open. He would be a wise leader. Clara would be glad to see her children grow up under his teaching.

  Her children. What an odd sensation it was to permit herself to think those words without fright.

  The bride in her new blue dress paled against the charm Andrew saw in Clara’s face. Clara wore the same color, starched and unsoiled, with a sparkling white apron. Andrew wondered if she would stitch another new blue dress for their wedding or choose purple or a darker blue. On the last Thursday in November, Peter Troyer and his attendants sat in three chairs facing Ruth Kaufman and her attendants at the front of the church. Directly across from Clara, Andrew watched her eyes, turning over in his mind the question of how quickly Clara would want to marry.

  Soon, he hoped.

  They could marry here, in the Flag Run Meetinghouse, where her parents had wed.

  Andrew heard little of the sermons, but there would always be another sermon. In a white kapp, Clara’s head tilted slightly toward Mose Beachy as he preached, but her eyes seemed to look beyond him as if boring through the meetinghouse wall. Was she also thinking about their wedding?

  When the wedding party began to shift position, Andrew realized Mose had made the statement that would transition the worship service into the wedding ceremony.

  “If anyone here has objection, he now has opportunity to make it manifest.” Mose paused and looked at the wedding couple. “I hear no objection. If you are still minded the same, you may now come forth in the name of the Lord.”

  The bride and groom held hands and stood before Mose. With earnest voices, they promised love and loyalty for the rest of their lives.

  Andrew’s gaze moved back to Clara, who now caught his eye.

  Clara’s lips turned up. Anyone else would think she smiled in gladness, hearing her friend pledge her future. Andrew knew that smile was meant for him.

  “I don’t want to wait,” she told him as soon as the wedding was over. “Talk to my father.”

  “Today?” Andrew said. “Now?”

  “He’ll give us his blessing.”

  “You’re sure?” Andrew glanced at Hiram Kuhn.

  “Aren’t you?” Clara said. “What are we waiting for?”

  Andrew nodded. This was their congregation. They belonged here. Speculation had nothing to do with when or where they married.

  “I want the Hostetlers to come,” Clara said. “I can’t imagine getting married without Fannie.”

  “We’ll ask Mose.”

  Mose Beachy said I can have whomever I want to stand up for me.

  Fannie read Clara’s orderly handwriting on the crisp pale blue paper a week later.

  And I want you. Please say you’ll do it.

  Fannie’s eyes filled. Of course she would do it. After all, Clara had been her attendant when she married Elam. Fannie did not imagine an Old Order wedding was much different than a Conservative Amish Mennonite wedding.

  We’ve decided not to wait any longer than we have to for the sake of planning and sewing the dresses. The banns will be read on Sunday, and we’ll marry two days after Christmas. My daed and Rhoda seem relieved but pleased. Daed gave his blessing almost before Andrew finished asking for it. I’m sure they will come to see how dear Andrew is. Hannah is the most excited, as I’m sure Sadie will be when you tell her.

  A tear dropped on the page just as Elam came in the back door.

  He paced to the stove and peered into the coffeepot.

  “The kaffi should still be warm.” Fannie wiped her eyes with the back of one hand.

  Elam gestured at the letter in her hand. “Bad news?”

  Fannie shook her head and smiled. “Just the opposite. Clara and Andrew have made their plans. She wants me for an attendant.”

  “Then you must do it,” Elam said.

  Fannie felt him watching her and looked up to meet his eyes. “Do you remember, Elam?”

  “Remember what?”

  “When we decided to marry? When we told our families? When everything was ahead of us like a ripe, abundant harvest? When God’s will was a blessing so full that we could hardly stand it?”

  Elam broke the gaze and poured the last of the coffee into a cup, the slosh of the liquid the only sound in the room.

  “I remember,” he finally said.

  “We dreamed of so much,” she said.

  Their arms and hearts and minds were entwined in those days. Seven years later they orbited each other on elongated paths that spun each other out for long distances before drawing near again. In those days Elam would have caught her hand in the kitchen before reaching for the coffeepot. Now, wordless, he clinked a spoon in the sugar bowl. In the void between them, Fannie heard the granules slide off the spoon and drop into the lukewarm liquid.

  “Elam,” she whispered.

  He hesitated but met her eyes again.

  “Will we always be this lost?”

  He stirred his coffee.

  Elam was a good man, just as good as the day Fannie married him. He might yet get past his disappointment that God’s will collided with his own dreams, just as Fannie might yet find relief from the ache that plagued her.

  He put his spoon in the sink. “No. God willing, no.”

  Hope flickered in her chest. Fannie mov
ed toward Elam and laid a hand on his arm. He did not pull away. His hand grazed hers on the way back to his coffee cup.

  Sadie was spinning slow circles as she came in from the dining room.

  “Have you told her?” Elam asked Fannie.

  “Told me what?” Sadie steadied herself on a chair.

  Fannie could see Sadie’s eyes took a few seconds to come into focus. In fine weather Fannie sent Sadie outside for her determined dance with dizziness, but in early December the weather was unpredictable.

  “I got a letter from Clara,” Fannie said. “She’s getting married.”

  Sadie’s eyes widened. “To that man who came when baby Catherine was born?”

  “That’s right. Andrew.”

  Sadie drew in a long, excited breath. “I liked him!”

  Fannie laughed. “Clara will be glad to hear that.”

  “Are we going to the wedding?”

  “Yes.”

  “All of us?”

  Fannie glanced at Elam.

  “Yes,” he said, “all of us.”

  “Did Clara send me a new story?”

  “Not this time,” Fannie said.

  “I want to write her a letter,” Sadie said. “I want to tell her that I’m very happy she’s going to marry Andrew, but I still want her to send me stories.”

  “I think it would make Andrew very happy if she did.”

  “Good. Are we going to go see Grossmuder for supper?”

  “My goodness, you’re full of questions today.” Fannie slid Clara’s letter back into its envelope.

  “Well, are we?”

  “We’d better,” Fannie said, “because I promised to bring the biscuits and the green beans.”

  “I want to help make biscuits!” Sadie slid a chair across the linoleum to her favorite helping spot at the counter. “Can I give baby Catherine one of my dolls?”

  “If you’d like to,” Fannie said, “but she’ll have to be a little older to play with it.”

  “I’ll teach her to play.”

  Her daughter’s wide-open heart was fresh every day. It pained Fannie to think how much of it she had missed in the months of her melancholy.

  In the late afternoon they packed up the biscuits and the green beans and Sadie’s favorite doll, and the three of them rode in the buggy to the Hostetler farm.

  Sitting in the same rocker where she had held all her babies, Martha put a finger to her lips when they entered the house.

  “Is she asleep?” Fannie whispered.

  Martha nodded.

  The bundle in Martha’s arms seemed already to have doubled in size since the night of her frightening birth. Every time Fannie saw her tiny sister, the change in appearance astounded her. With a look warning Sadie not to wake the baby, Fannie scooped Catherine out of her mother’s arms and inhaled the intoxicating new baby scent. These days Fannie’s hips easily found the automatic sway that had soothed Sadie a lifetime ago. She planted a delicate kiss on Catherine’s forehead.

  Martha stood up and smoothed her apron. When she paused to stand beside Fannie and admire the sleeping infant, Fannie turned her head and kissed her mother’s cheek as well.

  How rich she was in love.

  “Fannie is coming?” Rhoda blinked at Clara.

  “I can’t imagine getting married without her.” Clara stacked her plate on top of Rhoda’s and took them both to the sink. Hannah and Josiah were in school, and Mari was napping. Her father was gone all day with a couple of other farmers, already beginning to plan for spring. It had been only Rhoda and Clara for a simple quiet lunch. With only a few weeks until the wedding, nearly every conversation Clara had found its way to wedding details. Without acknowledgment or explanation, Rhoda had warmed to Clara once again.

  “What about Wanda,” Rhoda countered, “or Sarah? You have many friends who would love to be an attendant at your wedding.”

  “I asked Sarah,” Clara said. “But Fannie—if I had to, I would change the date in order for her to be there. Bishop Beachy has given his approval.”

  Rhoda looked away, picking up a napkin to fold. “I would hate for there to be any awkwardness on your wedding day.”

  “Why should there be?” Clara said, though she wanted to say, How could anything be more awkward than these last few months?

  Rhoda went to a drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. “I’ve got a list. Maybe it will help you.”

  Clara took the paper, which had two columns. On the left was a list of tasks—the Forgeher to usher, waiters, roasht cooks, potato cooks, tablecloths, hostlers to care for the horses. On the right, names matched up with every effort required for a traditional Amish wedding.

  “Many people will want to help,” Rhoda said.

  “You don’t think they’re worn out from all the other weddings this season?”

  Rhoda put a hand against Clara’s cheek, a gesture reminiscent of the first time she ever touched her new stepdaughter. “This is your wedding. Of course people will want to give you a lovely day. I want to give you a lovely day.”

  Under Rhoda’s touch, Clara twitched, stifling a tremble before it roared up and ripped her open. In Rhoda’s face, Clara saw the wide-set blue eyes and high cheekbones of her little sisters.

  “I’ve only ever wanted what is best for you,” Rhoda said. “Alli mudder muss sariye fer ihre famiyle.”

  Every mother has to take care of her family.

  When Rhoda removed her touch, relief and regret warred in Clara.

  “You were a good mother to me when I was young,” Clara said.

  “Did you think I stopped being a good mother?” Rhoda ran her hands down the front of her apron.

  Clara let out her breath slowly as fragments of the last few months tumbled against each other in her mind. The times Rhoda politely said, “No thank you” or “Don’t bother.” The times Rhoda redirected her children away from their older sister. The rows of celery growing in the garden as if Rhoda were pushing Clara toward marriage whether or not she was ready. Weeks and weeks of feeling shunned in the home that had been hers before it was Rhoda’s.

  “I know you’ve found me hard,” Rhoda said, “but it was for your own good.”

  These were the sort of words Yonnie would say, or the Yoder ministers. Shunning is for the person’s good, to draw that person back to the church. But Clara had never left the church or her family.

  Clara looked at the list in her hand. “Thank you for this. They are good suggestions.”

  “Your father and I are pleased with your choice of Andrew Raber.”

  Pleased or relieved? Clara wondered. If Rhoda thought Clara should marry and run her own household, did it matter who the groom was?

  “We have much to do,” Rhoda said.

  Clara swallowed. Whatever Rhoda’s motivations, she wanted to help and Clara needed help. Her wedding was just three weeks away.

  “Hannah and Mari are very excited.” Rhoda dampened a rag and wiped off the table.

  “Sadie is, too.” The words slipped past Clara’s usual censors.

  Rhoda turned to wring out the rag and hang it over the edge of the sink.

  Clara pushed forward. “Hannah and Sadie have always wanted to meet each other. A day of celebration is the perfect time.”

  “Yes.” Rhoda lifted the towel draped over a bowl of rising bread dough that had grown into a great white bubble.

  “It will be all right,” Clara said. “They’re little girls with normal curiosity. Why should we teach them to fear or judge each other?”

  “You’re right,” Rhoda said. “A wedding is a new beginning.”

  Clara’s eyes sought Rhoda’s, and they looked into each other. Clara saw uncertainty behind Rhoda’s smile, but it was a sincere uncertainty. Rhoda’s outward ways may have befuddled Clara—even wounded her—but the heart that had embraced a motherless child still lay within. Grief and gladness mingled in the smile Clara gave in return as she prayed for grace in this moment.

  “I have something more than
a list and celery,” Rhoda said. “Come with me.”

  Clara followed Rhoda into her bedroom, where she opened the cedar chest at the foot of the bed and lifted a package wrapped in brown paper and tied in string.

  “What is it?” Clara’s curiosity was genuine. It looked like a bundle from the mercantile in Springs.

  “Open it.”

  Clara laid the thick square package on the bed and pulled away the string. When she folded back the paper, a vibrant, piercing, rich purple burst out.

  Clara gasped and plunged a hand into the folds. Smooth and soft, the fabric was perfectly dyed. The cotton may have come from the mercantile, but the color had not.

  “You dyed this for me?” Clara said.

  Rhoda nodded. “You always said you wanted to wear purple at your wedding.”

  “I still do.”

  “There’s enough for three dresses.”

  “Mine and Fannie’s and Sarah’s.”

  “Actually,” Rhoda said, “if we cut carefully, I think we can get two more dresses—smaller ones.”

  Clara looked up. “Sadie and Hannah.”

  “They won’t be attendants, of course, but they’ll think it’s great fun to match your dress.”

  Clara drew in breath drenched in grace.

  Just because it was tradition did not mean Clara was obligated to be pleased.

  She could have stayed home, in a room warmed by fire, while the rest of her family went to church. Instead she had chosen to ride with them to the Summit Mills Meetinghouse, where instead of going inside the building she transferred to Andrew’s buggy—which would soon be her buggy as well—and wrapped herself in quilts to sit on the bench and stare at the meetinghouse.

  From her chilly post in the line of look-alike buggies, Clara heard the hymns, slow and somber. The stolid, unchanging tempo was a reminder that although Clara felt in a hurry, no one in the meetinghouse would rush. The sermons and prayers were long stretches when no sound from the church service reached her ears. Instead, Clara listened to doves cooing and squirrels rustling through leafless trees and English automobile engines chugging past on the road beyond the clearing.