Miriam's Quilt Page 4

  “Do not be hard on yourself. It is easy to make things worse with Ellie.”

  “You never do.”

  Seth shook his head.

  Laura laid her book on the window seat. “I want to go to college mighty bad, Seth, but what will the boys and Scilla do when I leave and you move out to your farm? I cannot leave them with her.”

  “I sold three horses at the auction.”

  “Three! That is wonderful-gute. Did you get a gute price?”

  “This fall I will have enough to build a small house on the farm and move the boys and Scilla in with me.”

  Laura stared at Seth in astonishment. “What will Dat say?”

  “Do you honestly think he will care?”

  “Of course he will care, Seth. Why are you so hard on him?”

  “Maybe because he’s never done anything to prove me wrong. If he would stick up for his own kinna, I wouldn’t have to.”

  “But to take his children?”

  “Ellie and Dat haven’t had much time alone since they married three years ago,” Seth said. “I will plant the idea in her head and she will convince Dat in no time. She always does.”

  “But how will you support yourself?”

  Seth shrugged. “We will get by. I may not know how to do calculus, but I can add numbers. I will work extra shifts at the mill. Joshua and Jacob can help with the horses and farming. I already pay for most of the food that comes into this house.”

  Laura smiled with restrained gladness. “If we had our own house, I wouldn’t have to put up with Ellie during Christmas break. I could send money home every month from my job.”

  “Nae, keep your money. College is expensive. I will manage.”

  Someone stepped lightly up the stairs to the attic. “Seth,” they heard Scilla say as she knocked softly on the door, “Mamm says come down for dinner or we will eat without you and if you think you can eat later you got another think coming. And Laura too. And wash your hands.”

  Seth opened the door and invited Scilla into the room. He sat down on the bed and pulled Scilla onto his lap. Pointing to Laura, he said, “Look at your sister, Scilla. She’s pretty, ain’t not?”

  “Jah,” agreed Scilla, “she is the prettiest.”

  Seth smoothed the hair sticking out of Scilla’s bob. “I hope you grow up as pretty as her.”

  “Ach, stop with the flattery,” Laura said, but she smiled and blushed bright red.

  “You are very pretty, Laura. Don’t ever let Ellie tell you otherwise, either of you.”

  They heard Pookie from two flights down, yapping his annoyance at Dat’s arrival. Seth scooped Scilla in his arms and hopped down the stairs. Although Ellie was an excellent cook, Seth seldom looked forward to supper with the family. Ellie’s company proved irksome.

  Seth sighed. “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land.” He recited that verse to himself several times a day.

  Ach, if only he could root this knot of resentment from his heart— resentment for his dat’s indifference, his stepmother’s selfishness, and his mother’s death. Seth resolved to pray harder to show more kindness to those who trespassed against him.

  Trespassed against him.

  As soon as the thought formed in his mind, he cringed at his own arrogance. How could he justify holding on to supposed wrongs when his own behavior was so imperfect? Who was he to criticize a mote in someone’s eye with a beam in his own?

  A stab of guilt caught him between the shoulder blades as he thought of his behavior toward Miriam Bontrager. He shouldn’t have let his irritation take control of his nobler instincts. No amount of bad treatment justified hurting her feelings. What a hypocrite he was!

  Seth placed Scilla on her stool and sat in his place next to Joshua. The moment Laura plopped into her chair, Dat bowed his head and the rest of the family followed in silent grace. Seth breathed in the mouthwatering aromas—mashed sweet potatoes with cinnamon, fried chicken, and corn.

  The actual serving of the food went slowly, because Ellie insisted on dishing up the food for everyone. Each family member waited patiently— and quietly—for Ellie to serve Dat first, then Scilla, and on up to Seth.

  And no one thought about wasting even one bite. They ate what Ellie spooned for them. No more, no less.

  Once Ellie served herself, she sat across the table from Dat and declared that the eating could begin.

  Ellie had impeccable table manners and ate as delicately as a bird. “Jacob, elbows,” she said. “And Joshua, quit yapping like a magpie. Close your mouth and eat.” Ellie put down her fork a mere minute after she had picked it up and gazed over everyone at the table. “Next Sunday, gmay will be at our house for the first time since your father and I married. Everything must be perfect. We are doing extra cleaning to prepare. Seth, you will have to spend less time with your horses until then. This place is to be scrubbed from floor to ceiling.”

  Dat smiled at his new wife. “Ellie, you keep this house spic-and-span. Since we married, I have not seen so much as a crumb on the floor.”

  Ellie lifted her eyebrows. “I should say not. My standards are very high. Gmay at Rosie Neuenschwander’s was a disgrace. She may be the minister’s wife, but that is no excuse for the rust ring in her sink.” She picked up her fork and shook it in Laura’s direction. “There won’t be so much as a smudgy fingerprint in this house come Sunday.”

  Laura kicked Seth under the table then grinned at him. He skewered a piece of chicken with his fork and kept right on eating.

  “We will be packed to the rafters as it is,” Ellie said. “Thirty-three families and four widows. Our district is big enough to be divided in half, but it seems the men aren’t interested because they don’t have the hassle of preparing food and trying to squirm their way through a crowd to get one hundred and eighty-three people fed. When the room gets stuffy, the men open the windows and the women and children sit there shivering.”

  “We could bring the extension on the back yet,” Dat said.

  “And put people on the grass, Abbie? Not at my gmay.”

  Ellie took a bite and chewed slowly while Seth enjoyed the silence.

  “Laura,” Ellie said, “you will need to scrub ceilings and walls. With Pine-Sol. Orange-scented.”

  “I will be happy to help redd up,” Laura said. “My last AP test is on Thursday, and then I am all yours.”

  Ellie pursed her lips. “Fine. If you are too important to take time out to help me, then I am too busy to fix your meals. Don’t expect to eat anything in this house until Thursday. Your dat doesn’t seem to care if you jump the fence, but I won’t be a willing party to it. Either pull your weight, or go hungry. It’s your choice.”

  Dat ate his sweet potatoes with a serene look on his face, as if Ellie were discussing the minister’s latest sermon. Seth hadn’t expected anything different. To Dat, a problem didn’t exist if he ignored it.

  Seth silently debated with himself. Should he protest Ellie’s plan to starve Laura, or let it go? Ellie meant what she said. If Laura didn’t lend a hand because she needed to study, Ellie would see that she didn’t put a crumb of food in his sister’s mouth.

  Laura wouldn’t actually starve. She could eat breakfast and lunch at school and go to her Englisch friend Britny’s for supper. Seth could even pick something up from the grocery store and Laura could eat in his stable.

  But if Seth stayed quiet, would Ellie think she could get away with bullying his siblings? And if he said something, would Ellie dig in her heels and insist that Laura starve all summer until she left for college?

  “I will help extra if you let Laura eat,” he finally said, hoping Ellie would recognize how ridiculous her ultimatum sounded. “I am tall. I can scrub the ceilings without a ladder. Laura needs all her strength to take those tests. If she passes, she gets college credit. Saves a lot of money.”

  “What do I care about that? It is not my money,” Ellie said.

  “But it might be mine,” Seth
said slowly, letting the meaning of his words sink in.

  Ellie had never cared to know anything of Laura’s college plans, had almost considered it a sin to talk of them, but Seth and Laura had been able to work out the financial details with the help of Laura’s counselor at school. With a good job, a scholarship, and something called the Amish Education grant—from some well-intentioned people who thought the Amish needed rescuing—Laura would be able to afford school without any family help. But Ellie didn’t know that, and Seth could use her ignorance to his advantage.

  Ellie turned up her nose. Seth could see her debating with herself. She couldn’t stand to back down, especially in front of the other children.

  Seth forced humility into his voice. “Please, Ellie. We will all help extra.”

  “I will give Pookie a bath,” said Joshua.

  What a good boy. Joshua hated Pookie.

  Ellie shook her head. “No one bathes Pookie but me. You have to rub his fur just so or he develops a skin condition.”

  “I will oil the cabinets,” Seth said.

  Ellie relaxed the lines of her frown. She couldn’t resist a well-oiled cabinet. “Very well. If you all work doubly hard to make up for Laura’s vanity, I will agree to let her eat.”

  Seth clenched his jaw and bit his tongue and focused squarely on the beam in his own eye. Ellie couldn’t help herself. She refused to be wrong about anything. Seth’s greatest challenge was to convince her to change her mind while she still believed she was right. It was exhausting. And humbling.

  “Joshua,” Ellie scolded, “quit talking and eat. I declare, you could talk a goat to death.”

  With a few more horses sold at auction, Seth could eke out enough to start work on his own house. Then his siblings would be safe from Ellie.

  That day couldn’t come soon enough.

  Chapter 5

  Miriam glanced around her and ducked into the drugstore, reluctant to be caught anywhere near the scene of the crime. Oppressive, accusing silence attacked her senses as soon as the glass door swished closed behind her. A fluorescent light above her head buzzed and flickered as her gaze darted around shelves piled high with sterile white boxes and jars of antiseptic cream. She covered her nose for fear that her lungs would be scorched by the smell of alcohol and orthopedic shoes.

  A young woman with three different colors of hair and ears full of earrings stood at the cash register. “Can I help you?” she said, popping her gum.

  The force of Miriam’s heartbeat surprised her. It took a minute for her to form words on her tongue. “My…a friend of mine came in here a few days ago and took something from your store. She forgot to pay.”

  The clerk looked at Miriam suspiciously and paused her gum-chewing. “What did she take?”

  Miriam forged ahead with her rehearsed speech. “It cost fifteen dollars. Here is twenty. Will that be enough?”

  “I have to know what it was so I can key in the right code,” said the clerk. “Otherwise my count is off by the end of the night.”

  “Won’t you just take the money?”

  The young woman folded her arms and shook her head. “Show me the item she took so I can ring it up.”

  Miriam felt as if her lungs were stuffed with cotton as she stood at the counter with the twenty-dollar bill wadded in her fist. What could she do now? She refused to even go down the row with the pregnancy tests, let alone touch one. The thought of such humiliation made her ill.

  “Can I help?”

  Already completely mortified, Miriam turned to see Seth Lambright standing behind her. Her throat constricted, effectively cutting off any air she might have taken into her tight lungs. Had he heard her entire embarrassing conversation? The possibility left her light-headed.

  “Hello,” Seth said, with a no-nonsense, stiff line to his lips.

  Until she actually formed the words, Miriam thought it would be impossible to speak. “Nae. No, thank you.” She felt the heat travel up her neck and overspread her cheeks.

  He studied her face as if she were a criminal with a horrible secret.

  She couldn’t bear his piercing eyes. Who was he to judge her? “I—I was just leaving,” she stuttered.

  Seth shook his head slightly, nudged his way past Miriam, and leaned over the counter to the clerk. The young woman backed away, but Seth motioned for her to lean closer. She inched slightly nearer and allowed him to whisper into her ear, as Miriam watched in stunned humiliation.

  He pulled away from the clerk. “Thanks,” he said. He gave Miriam a half smile and marched out of the drugstore as if he had only come in to deliver a message.

  The clerk turned to Miriam and waved her hand dismissively. “Okay, give me the money and I’ll take care of it.”

  Miriam smoothed the creases of the bill and laid it on the countertop. As soon as the money fell from her hand, she made a beeline for the door and burst through it. She risked a look around. As far as she could tell, Seth had completely disappeared. Releasing the stagnant air in her lungs, she raced to her buggy and never looked back.

  * * * * *

  “Hullo, Miriam.” David Herschberger leaned on the counter of the combination fruit/pretzel stand and grinned at her. Flour dusted his shirt and trousers. Susie said he didn’t make the pretzels but still managed to make a mess of himself by the end of each day. David’s parents owned the stand, and not only did Susie work here, but she was a close friend of their daughter Esther Rose. Being May, it was still too early in the season for much in the way of local produce, but pretzels were in demand all year round. The stand offered plenty of dried fruit and jams, as well.

  David, the same age as Miriam, was as skinny as a flagpole. Ever since he’d started in as a teenager, he’d grown to the sky, but his weight stayed the same, so he got taller and taller and skinnier and skinnier. They all teased him for having a bottomless stomach and a hollow leg. One of his friends had started calling him “Hollow Davey,” and the name stuck.

  “Hollow,” Miriam said, “could I take Susie for a few minutes?”

  Susie and Esther stood with their backs to the booth’s opening, rolling out and shaping pretzels with quick, precise movements. Susie made dozens, hundreds, of pretzels every day. She could form a perfect twist with her eyes closed.

  She glanced at Miriam and furrowed her brow.

  “Oh, sure,” Hollow said. “Supper rush ain’t for another hour yet.”

  Susie rinsed her hands and dried them on her apron.

  “Take these.” Hollow grabbed two pretzels from the basket and wrapped them in a napkin. “And the honey mustard,” he said, pointing to the small containers on the counter.

  “Denki.”

  “Anything for the Bontragers,” Hollow replied.

  Susie wasted no time leaving her booth. She scooped the food from the counter, grabbed Miriam’s hand, and led her to one of three red-stained picnic tables sitting in the middle of the grass a hundred feet from the pretzel stand.

  Susie had always seemed so delicate to Miriam, like the exotic orchid that her cousin Rebecca kept in her kitchen. Her skin looked as white and smooth as fresh cream, with eyes like a doe’s set against her thin face. Today her eyes looked even bigger, in contrast with her hollow cheeks and lips pulled tight with worry.

  “You have something to tell me?” she said. “You look like you have something to tell me.”

  “How are you feeling?” Miriam said.

  “Not bad today. Hollow gives me an extra pretzel now and then. They help.” She laced her fingers together. “Do you have something to tell me?”

  Miriam unfolded the letter in her hand and took the flowered stationery from the envelope. “This is from cousin Hannah.”

  “Hannah? Did you tell her?”

  “Of course not. I told her it is a friend of mine.”

  Susie pursed her lips. “She will know it is me.”

  “We can’t worry about that. Hannah has no reason to think that it is you, and even if she did, Hannah is no gossip.
I asked her to keep quiet about it. We will have to trust her.” Miriam patted her sister’s ice-cold hand. “She keeps in contact with Mamm’s cousin, Katie Martins in Ontario. Katie’s children have grown, and she is willing to take you in. They say they can find a gute Amish home for the baby and then you can come home and no one here would ever have to know about the pregnancy. We can tell folks you went to Canada to work for a few months.”

  Susie turned pale, and for the hundredth time, Miriam wondered if Mamm and Dat might be wiser in this than she.

  But how could she ask them for help? Not only had Susie sworn her to secrecy, but Miriam feared that the more people who knew, the more likely the secret would get out.

  No one would ever have to know. Not Mamm and Dat, not Ephraim. Susie’s reputation would be safe.

  Susie slumped her shoulders and lowered her eyes. “I would be away from Apple Lake until January. Away from the family.”

  “It is only eight months, Susie. It will be a great adventure.”

  Tears pooled in Susie’s eyes. “You won’t be there. What if I am frightened? What if the people don’t like me? We don’t even know if they are good Amish folk.”

  “Don’t think about that. Think about the people who love you. The ones, Lord willing, who will never discover the secret. Don’t you think eight months is worth your reputation? Once you come home, you can start your life anew without fear that people will judge you. Or think cruel things about you.”

  “I will be lonely. What if they don’t like me?”

  “Hannah knows them, and she says they are happy to take you in. They will love you.”

  Susie wiped her eyes and sniffed. “When would I have to leave?”

  “We must make the travel arrangements and explain to Mamm and Dat without bearing false witness. I have money to pay for the bus fare.” She thought of the quilt she’d sold at the auction. The Haitian Fund would have to wait. “We need to come up with a good reason for your departure. With all the letters that have to travel back and forth, it might be four or five weeks yet before you can leave.”