Authors: Ruth Price
"We cannot alter God's will," Abram said. He rolled his shoulders back and forced a smile that seemed more tragic than the honest display of sorrow. He held out his hand for the cup, which she handed him, and then stood. "Let me show you how to operate the tub. We have plumbing from the diesel generator, but will can run cold after a while. I generally bathe on Sundays, after our church meeting, unless I have a particularly dirty day in the fields or with hauling the furniture I've built for sale."
Abram lead her through a kitchen brightly lit by sunlight streaming through a far window. The kitchen had clearly been meant to be a family center, and much of that expectation remained in the layout of the room. In the center was a table with a blue and white patterned tablecloth, around it six wooden chairs. The chair closest to the window was pulled out slightly, and the floor beneath it scuffed as though it was often pushed in and pulled out again. The other chairs, in contrast, had a light layer of dust over them. A gas lantern hung over the table and above two wooden armoire at each wall. To the woman's left was a long counter, at the end of which sat a white, humming refrigerator. In the sink sat two pots. The stove was gas and well maintained, but more dust clung to the handle of the oven, and a cobweb had blossomed from the back of the refrigerator to the far wall.
Abram walked to the sink and placed the cup inside. "I apologize for the mess," he said. "I wasn't expecting company, and I haven't even hosted a church service since--" his lips tightened, then he took a breath and continued, "Without a woman in the house to supervise the cooking, well, it's a bit of a challenge, though I rather like preparing simple things, and my sisters and their children bring me baking once a week in exchange for repairs."
"Seems lonely," the woman said, the words spilling out without her thinking. She couldn't imagine how difficult it must be to live alone in a house that had clearly been meant to be shared with love and the expectation of many children to add noise, brightness and life.
Abram shrugged. "Come this way. We have a regular flush toilet also. I can't tell you how many Englischers act as though we Amish have no amenities at all just because we choose not to connect to their electrical grids."
"You don't have electricity?" But how did the refrigerator work?
"We use generators," Abram explained. "For the basics, but we don't believe in progress for the sake of progress, nor do we hold with the idea of acquiring for the sake of showing ourselves better than our neighbors, which is often a byproduct of your modern conveniences. All of these things distance one from nature and a true relationship with our God."
"Okay," the woman said. She wondered if the person she had been, the person she couldn't remember, had a relationship with God or wanted one. It seemed peaceful, lovely even, to call such a tranquil place home. Rebekah had been a lucky woman.
They passed through the kitchen to a bathroom. It was large, and again lit only by sunlight at this hour, though a gas lantern did hang above the sink. The tub was a steel and deep, like a Western movie, the woman found herself thinking. Had she enjoyed Country Western movies? As Abram explained to her the how to turn on the hot water and fill and drain the tub, she tried to recall some titles and scenes. Shane? Old Yeller? Something with Mel Gibson and playing cards...
"We'll let the tub fill while I just get you some clothes, ja."
The woman stood to follow, but Abram said, "No, you watch the tub and turn it off when it gets about three-quarters filled."
"Thank you," she said again, the words inadequate to express the mess of feelings that blew like a storm behind her ribcage. Gratitude, lingering fear, confusion, sadness, and a feeling of being drawn to this stranger. As the thud of Abram's footfalls receded down the hallway and into another room, the woman found herself feeling very, very alone.
It was Friday, and Abram Yoder awakened as the dawn sun kissed through his windows. He slept in one of the guest rooms, as he had for the past two years since his wife had died. Abram entered his marriage room twice only after storms to air the place and make sure that the roof and walls were sound. He hadn't cleared Rebekah's clothing from the armoire he had built her as his gift for their marriage. Atop their mattress the quilt she had sewn was now gray with a layer of dust as dulling as the grief of her passing had made his world.
Every morning, Abram reminded himself that Rebekah's death in childbirth had been God's will, as much as the rising of the sun and the flourishing of the fields, a loss he couldn't understand but with God's aid he would someday be able to bear, but most days the prayers lay empty on his lips and in his heart. He was angry at God though it was foolish to be angry at God, but more than at God, he was angry at himself for allowing his wife to die. She'd been sickly towards the end, ill in the mornings though the time for illness should have long passed, and weak as she bullied herself up to do the household chores, baking and cleaning their clothes by hand. Nothing he said or did would convince her to be less than her perception of the perfect wife, no matter how he'd pleaded with her to rest, that he would take their laundry to one of the Englischer laundries and have his sisters to do the baking, as they did for him now. He should have taken her to one of the Englischer hospitals, instead of following her wishes and allowing her to birth at home. The midwife even had advised Rebekah to give birth in a hospital, she'd told Abram later, but Rebekah had insisted she could do herself.
Every morning, Abram woke in a narrow single bed, and keeping his eyes shut, he imagined that Rebekah might wake again next to him, slip her arms around him and whisper in his ear that the flowers and cows had awakened, that the baby was up and kicking in her belly, and that the Lord ordained that she and Abram shouldn't lay lazy in bed as well, while there was bread to be baked and furniture to be carved. He imagined her cream skin, the beauty of her smile, how her light brown hair slipped from it's plaits in the middle of the night to hang in tendrils about her round cheeks and glinting green eyes. Of course, when he opened his eyes, he was only the weight of the aging Labrador retriever Johanna dozing on his feet. Except for the dog, Abram was alone to dress, alone to tend to sowing and reaping, alone to care for the mare Ruthie, alone to sit on his steps and force shapes from wood, alone to listen to the whisper of God in the corn and wonder how he might have saved his wife from her own good intentions.
He had been in the barn, leaving Johanna to doze against the stairs as he fed Ruthie her grain before leaving the horse to run in the field behind the house when Johanna began to bark. Catching glimpse of his visitor, he'd assumed at first she was a tourist who had somehow gotten herself lost, perhaps injured the tires of her Englischer car or had it lose power somehow, and was now in search of a telephone or some other form of assistance.
"Excuse me, ma'am, are you lost?" As he walked closer, he realized from her disheveled appearance, her torn clothes, lack of shoes, and wound on her head that she had fallen into far larger trouble than mere vehicle trouble. She stared at him, her eyes wide, pupils large, and a quiver in her full lips. So he approached her the same way he'd approach a skittish horse after a storm, slowly, palms out, and speaking in low, soothing tones.
Thus he managed to get her into the house, watered and fed. He sat himself on the second couch as she ate, as was proper, feeling strangely proud as she devoured the simple lunch of buttered bread and tomatoes he'd prepared for her. She was pretty, in the Englischer way: her dark brown eyebrows sculpted and her hair a wavy auburn falling to her shoulders. Her trousers fit her far too well, accentuating the shape of her hips in a way that Abram found embarrassing. He was a married man, though Rebekah had passed on. It was hardly proper for him to ogle this poor woman clearly in need of Englischer assistance.
She didn't even know her own name. That seemed fantastic, even for an Englischer, but the hunch of her shoulders fear in her gaze as it flitted towards Abram then towards her hands, as though she expected he might disbelieve her and put her out made him feel only more protective. He wanted to help her, whoever she was, in the way the Lord intended that man love and help his neighbor, no more. He was far too broken for more, especially with an outsider.
When she had finished eating, Abram showed her to the bathtub, noting how the nameless woman's curious gaze flitted over his kitchen as they passed. She needed clothing. If it wasn't that his own clothing would have been falling off of her, not to mention that he hadn't done laundry for close to two weeks and was thus on his last set of clothing himself aside from what he wore for Sunday services, he would not have considered his wife's clothes. He left her to watch the tub, an excuse more than anything, and ventured for the first time in three months into his and Rebekah's shared bedroom.
He stared at the door of the armoire where her clothing still hung, afraid to open it. It was foolish, her clothes were sewn fabric and nothing more. Rebekah would never have hesitated to offer her clothing to a stranger in need. She would have been ashamed at his hesitation. Rebekah had always been so much stronger than him. Stronger in her faith, stronger in her compassion, truly the best of them both.
Please God, give me strength
, Abram prayed. There was no change in him from his prayer. His chest was still congested with sorrow, and the room, for all the brightness of sunlight streaming through the twin windows on either side of the bed, still seemed gray, clogged with the fog of dust and memory. With stinging eyes, Abram opened the door.
Rebekah's clothes hung, hand-sewn plain clothing in greens, blues and brown. They were solid colors and none too bright. The armoire had protected them from sun damage, and Rebekah's stitching was strong. (more description of Amish woman-wear) Rebekah had been well known for her sewing skills. Even before she was married to Abram, her older sisters had sought her out to make baby and children's clothes, the durability of her work as well as her ability to make patterns that were both plain yet somehow beautiful in high demand. Rebekah's clothing would suit this lost woman's frame, Abram assumed. He chose one outfit in dark green, which would suit her dark brown eyes. Not that such things mattered before the Almighty.
Closing the armoire quickly, he took the pile of clothing back to the bathroom. His guest would have to make do with her own underthings; no amount of human charity would allow him to offer her Rebekah's without her permission, which she no longer had the ability to give, but at least the rest of her clothing would be clean and modest.
When Abram returned to give her the clothes, she was standing in front of the small mirror in his bathroom that he used for brushing his teeth. She had her thin fingers raised to her cheek. She had conformed to the Englischer standards of grooming. Her brows were shaped and her nails, though chipped, had been manicured in a french style. Her eyes, though large and framed by thick, brown lashes, were set a bit close for true beauty, and her skin lacked the tan of most of the plain women of his community.
"Are you remembering more," Abram asked, clutching his wife's clothes to his chest a bit too tightly.
The Englischer woman shook her head. Her lips were tight, and there was tension about her eyes. "Nothing," she said. "It's like I'm looking at a stranger."
"I'm sorry." Abram handed her the bundle of folded clothing. "Excuse me," he said, backing away once she had taken it.
She thanked him, and listened intently to his instructions about the soap and shampoo, discount brands from the local town store, good enough for him though Rebekah had preferred floral scents, and left her to her business while he went to prepare the buggy and Ruthie for the five mile ride to the Miller's. They would arrive a few hours before dark, enough time to make a phone call and have dinner there while they waited for the police to arrive.
Abram prepared the buggy by rote, his mind engaged with the mystery of who this woman was and what had happened to her. Not that he would have cause to know, truly. Once the damage to her head and heart had healed, she would begin to remember who she was and return to her own world. It was foolish to think differently, that he might somehow hold onto her, a stranger even to herself. He had just finished hitching Ruthie to the buggy when the woman came out. She stood on his deck, barefoot like a true Amish woman except for the halo of hair that hung damp around her face. "Have you any shoes?" she asked, pointing towards her feet. "I wear a size eight. Also, what should I do with this?" in her left hand, she held up the dark green hair covering that Amish women wore to show their respect for God.
For a moment, all Abram could do was stare. This woman looked nothing like Rebekah, aside from the clothes she wore, but that moment, framed in the afternoon sun, as she stood there in Rebekah's clothes, it was for an instant like his wife was back. Abram lowered his gaze and tried to school his expression to some form of propriety. The mix of joy and grief that blew through him like a storm wind had robbed him of his words. He wanted to take her hand, press it to her lips, to court her, except of course that was insane. He had been too long alone, Abram decided. It would be better for him to put an advertisement in the circular, or let his sisters know that he was again ready, discretely, to search for a second wife.
"Shoes," he said. Rebekah's feet had been slightly larger, if he remembered, but with socks they would do. If it had been deeper summer, he'd have just had her go barefoot, as he would have as well for working in the fields, but once the afternoon warmth dulled, the late spring night would be too cold for comfort, especially for her soft, Englischer feet. "Come with me, I'll find you something. And we wear the head covering to show our respect and love of God. An Amish woman would wear her hair in two braids, but you aren't Amish so you should wear it as you like." He hoped she wouldn't decide to wear her hair Amish style. It would be too much, less like she was borrowing his wife's clothes and more like she was becoming something akin to the woman who had inhabited them. "Yes, just keep it loose so it dries," Abram added. "The buggy is ready. You should bring your old clothes, just in case the police need them for--" he waved his hand. "Whatever reason it is they might need them. Stay here, I'll get you shoes."