The River Read online

  “Ever think she’d let us do this?” Caleb asked his brother.

  “Never in my best dreams” came Benny’s exuberant reply.

  “Listen, fellows, I need to get going,” she said, coming around the other side on the shoulder. She stood near Benny, whose hands were black from his happy exploration. “Mamm’s expecting me.”

  Before she realized what was happening, Caleb had skirted to the opposite side and opened the door, slipping in behind the wheel. He told Benny to close the hood, which Benny did. Next thing she knew, Benny had stepped out of the way, and Caleb started the car, peeling out.

  “Sure has a lot of get-up-an’-go, ain’t?” Benny said, staring in sheer adoration at the soon to be speck of red flying up Eden Road.

  “Looks like he knows how to drive,” Tilly said feebly, not wanting to imagine what Kris might say if he saw their new car roaring up the road like that.

  “Jah, you saw him take to it, didn’t ya? Real natural like.”

  That, she had. “Does he have a driver’s license?”

  “Not yet, but he will.”

  She didn’t know whether to shudder or to laugh.

  “I guess he won’t be back anytime soon,” she said, starting to walk. Should I be worried?

  “Oh, he’ll be back, Aendi.” Benny still looked dazed with glee.

  “I suppose you want your turn next?” Considering the situation, she wasn’t sure she’d let Benny drive.

  “Ach, could I?”

  “Won’t the bishop frown on this?”

  “Only if he knows.”

  Benny’s response was just what she would expect from a teenage boy who hadn’t yet joined church. She wasn’t much different in her thinking at his age.

  “Let’s keep walking . . . see how long he’s gone.” Tilly allowed herself to be lackadaisical about the car. Still, it was high time to get over to help Ruth, Mamm, and Josie. They would have an extra-full day, since Mamma would also tend to her usual Monday chores.

  “Don’t think he’ll take it out on the main highway.” Benny offered a bashful smile.

  “I should hope not.” She slowed her pace, thinking it wasn’t wise to have her nephews tearing around in her car anywhere near Daed’s house. “We’d better wait right here, then.”

  Benny complied and stopped with her. “If ya don’t mind me asking, how long did it take ya to feel comfortable in the outside world?”

  “Quite a while.”

  “So did ya have it all planned out?”

  She shook her head. “Not much planning, no. More than anything, I did a lot of praying.”

  Benny looked befuddled. “You prayed ’bout leaving here?”

  She gave Benny a sad smile. “I realize how strange that must sound to you. But yes, I wanted God’s help and guidance . . . and most of all, I desired His blessing on what I was doing.”

  “Never heard such a thing.” Benny sighed and ran his fingers along the rim of his black hat. “Seems to me we hear ’bout guidance and blessing leading folks to stay put with the People.”

  She nodded. “You know I was raised like you, Benny. The church expects you to believe there’s only one way to live out your life before God. Only one.” She wasn’t sure how much more she should say.

  “Right, which means bein’ Plain.” He looked down at the road, pushing a pebble around with his foot. “Uncle Joseph seems to have a bone to pick with you. Uncle Chester, too.”

  “Not surprising.”

  “Then you must know they think you weren’t searchin’ for spiritual truth . . . that you were just itchin’ for a chance to go fancy.”

  “Actually, I had other reasons to leave.”

  Benny blinked his eyes. “Dat says it was partly because of your little sister’s death.” He frowned. “That so?”

  She felt limp. “Anna’s death was the worst thing that ever happened to our family.” She didn’t feel the need to say that she was responsible, that Anna’s loss had been just one blow too many in Tilly’s young life. Melvin had undoubtedly filled his son in on his own theory about what went wrong that day.

  “Was there another reason you left, Aendi?”

  Tilly refused to delve into that. She couldn’t bring herself to say that her father despised her, or close to it. There was no need to risk introducing that to the Amish grapevine today.

  Chapter 27

  Following her nephews’ car-driving adventure, Tilly finally arrived at Daed’s house. Ruth must have seen her arrive because she came running from the clothesline, wearing jeans. It was Weschdaag—washday—after all, and Ruthie had evidently just finished hanging out the washing for Mamm. Bless her!

  “Josie’s already here,” Ruth said, greeting her. “We hung out the washing together.”

  “It was a busy morning for me, too, in more ways than one.” Tilly felt bad about not showing up earlier, but she was still smiling inwardly at the unanticipated encounter with Caleb and Benny.

  Cows were lowing in the meadow near the fence as Tilly and Ruth headed inside. She was greeted cheerfully by Josie, who had kitchen utensils scattered over the counters, her hair bun covered by a plain blue kerchief instead of her white Kapp.

  “Ruthie and I had fun telling humorous stories from childhood while we hung up the clothes,” Josie said, eyes dancing.

  Ruth looked like she might burst. “We sure did.”

  “Sorry I missed that,” Tilly said.

  Josie recounted the time she and Tilly had climbed into the haymow in her father’s barn and discovered a nest of barn swallows. “Remember that?”

  “Those birds were awfully cozy up there, as I recall. It was the middle of July, right?”

  Josie nodded, grinning. “We named ’em all . . . then decided on names for all ten of our future children, too. Five boys and five girls for each of us.”

  Ruth glanced at Tilly but didn’t say a word.

  The names Jenya and Tavani were never on that list, thought Tilly. “Where’s Mamm?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “Upstairs counting quilts,” Josie said, her eyes searching Tilly’s. “She’s deciding how many she’ll need to take with her.”

  Ruth added, “She says one of us can start boxing up the hundreds of canned goods in the cold cellar, too.”

  “We’ll get to all of that, for sure,” Tilly said, removing her jacket and putting her purse under it on the wood peg around the corner. “It’s nice of you to help out, Josie.”

  “I wanted to spend more time with you both.” There was a glimmer in Josie’s pretty eyes.

  “Where’s your suitcase?” Ruthie asked.

  “In the car,” Tilly said softly, glancing at Josie and groaning inwardly.

  “Are you . . . ?”

  “Same old issue.” It was Tilly’s code—her sister would know what she meant.

  Ruth frowned and shook her head slightly, stealing a glimpse at Josie, who was back to sorting utensils. “Tiptoe lightly, is what I’d suggest. You can leave your things out in the car till you’re more certain.”

  Tilly agreed, then moved to the opposite side of the kitchen, taking an empty box and sitting on the floor in front of the corner cupboard. She marveled at running into Caleb and Benny, thankful the car had been returned in one piece. Hopefully that was the end of their keen fascination with it. But she doubted it.

  Josie asked Ruthie about her job as a medical records assistant, and Ruthie explained that she’d already called her boss this morning about staying longer.

  Tuning them out, Tilly wished there was a way to sneak upstairs. Not necessarily to work alongside Mamm, but to get back in Anna’s room . . . especially if she decided not to stay tonight, after all. Truth be told, she could not put the letter in Anna’s drawer out of her mind. It was such an unlikely thing for her mother to do. Then it occurred to her: Was the letter the reason for the locked door?

  “Nee, ain’t a gut idea to confront Tilly with any of that,” Melvin told Joseph when he stopped by on his way to the
smithy’s. “Just ain’t.”

  Joseph shot back, “But there’s no tellin’ if she’ll ever come back to the valley again.”

  Melvin looked at his younger brother by four years; Joseph was all disheveled, like he hadn’t slept too well last night. His oily bangs clung to his high forehead. “I’d like to suggest that if you haven’t said whatever’s on your mind to her in the last eight years, there’s no need to start now.”

  Joseph frowned, his blue eyes intense. “It’s almost like you think Tilly’s in the right.”

  Melvin regarded him solemnly. “Now, Joseph, you know that’s not what I’m saying. I just wonder what the point is in mentionin’ anything now.”

  Joseph opened his mouth as if to speak, but Melvin hurried on. “It’s time we open our hearts more, I daresay. Judge folk less. Treat others like you wanna be treated.”

  Joseph pulled on his tan suspenders. “Puh! You’re soundin’ too much like Tilly used to, back before she left here. There’s nothin’ wrong with clearing the air.”

  “When it stirs up more trouble?” Melvin stopped to cough. “Friction rips families apart, Joseph. It causes more strife, and the whole thing just goes on in ugly circles. We sure don’t need more of that.”

  “In any case, I have a few things to say to Tilly, and that’s that.” His brother turned heel and nearly ran to his wagon.

  “Won’t ya pray ’bout it?” Melvin called to him.

  “Fer was?”

  “Whatever happened to ‘a soft answer turneth away wrath’?” Melvin replied as kindly as he could, sorry Joseph had decided to stop by, turning the whole morning to the color gray.

  Ruth was starting to fret. Tilly seemed distracted as she kept to the corner of the kitchen.

  Josie kept glancing over her shoulder at Tilly, making Ruthie feel even more ill at ease. She felt sorry for Josie, with her once-strong ties to Tilly. But Ruth also felt tenderhearted toward her sister.

  Ruth believed that if she could just talk to her sister in private, she might be able to find out what was gnawing at her. Surely it has something to do with Daed. Hadn’t Tilly hinted as much earlier? Maybe if Mamm occupies Josie somehow, I can talk to Tilly after the noon meal, she thought. No doubt dinner would be uncomfortable with Daed and Tilly again at the same table. Yet with Josie present, things might be less tense.

  “My husband heard from Will Kauffman this morning,” Josie said just then, her voice soft. “Before breakfast.”

  Tilly made a little gasp and left the room.

  “Why are you telling me?” Ruth blushed as she realized she’d snapped.

  “I wasn’t sure if I should mention this,” Josie said, hesitating before saying that Will had somehow heard that Josie was coming here to help today. “He wanted me to pass along word to you.”

  This was reminiscent of the Amish life Ruth had known, at least amongst the womenfolk—passing word from one person to the next in order to reach the intended ear.

  “Will wants you to know that his friend Arie’s gone back to Ohio. And she won’t be returning here, neither. That’s just what he said, according to Sam.”

  Clear out of the blue? Ruth thought, but she couldn’t let this news faze her. Besides, why should I care what Will wants? She shrugged the whole thing away. Her life had taken a fork in the road—and a major one, at that. And it did not include him. “Not sure how this pertains to me,” she said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Josie replied.

  Ruth glanced out the kitchen window, standing now to take a short break. She noticed Melvin’s sons, Caleb and Benny, peering into Tilly’s car, of all things. Then each boy placed his hands almost reverently on the top of the hood and grinned at the other as if they somehow shared a secret.

  When Caleb caught Ruth watching, the boys darted away like they’d been caught stealing or worse, their faces the color of new beets. They walked briskly up the path toward the turkey and chicken pens, and when her father came out to meet them, she figured he was expecting them.

  The last time she’d seen these nephews before leaving the valley had been at a watermelon feast over at Melvin and Susannah’s place. After they’d eaten their fill, a number of the family had decided to sing some faster hymns, like youth at a Singing. As Ruth recalled, they were well into the third song when her brother Chester had decided to zero in on Ruth, coming over to sit with her, asking probing questions about Tilly. He’d heard she was getting quite a lot of mail from Massachusetts, and also made it clear that he wasn’t any too keen on her keeping in touch with their wayward sister. “She’s a bad influence on you,” he’d said quite adamantly. “And you know it.”

  His words had soured an occasion otherwise marked by sweet watermelon and jovial talk. She’d been thankful at the time for cheerful Caleb and Benny, who had been two of the stronger voices during the hymn singing. It had been later that day that she’d heard through the grapevine that Melvin was starting to have his hands full with his eldest son, Caleb, at just fourteen.

  So now, after seeing Caleb and Benny gawking at Tilly’s car, Ruthie wondered if perhaps they were unsettled about their future. She believed they would find their way eventually, with God’s help and their father’s loving direction. As long as they were sincere in seeking the Lord as their Redeemer and true Guide. “Gott works in ways we can’t always see,” Dawdi Lantz had often said. “Never forget, nor doubt it.”

  Mamm came into the kitchen from upstairs, and Ruth went to pour some cold meadow tea for her, as well as for Josie and Tilly.

  Mamm accepted the drink. “Denki, dear.” She took a sip. “Would ya mind taking some hot tea out to your father?” She directed Ruth to put it in a thermos. “He’ll be expecting it.”

  Ruth wondered if this was the herbal tea Mamm was convinced was helping Daed. “I’ll take it whenever you’re ready.”

  At that moment, Mamm glanced toward the front room, where Tilly evidently was, and a small frown came and went.

  Ruth wouldn’t reveal that her sister seemed to have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, nor would she blow the whistle on Caleb and Benny for their curiosity over the car. “Life is too short to tattle,” Uncle Abner had told her long ago. And thinking suddenly of her father, who was waiting for his specialty tea, Ruth sighed. Much too short.

  ———

  Tilly had left the kitchen, upset at Josie’s reference to Will Kauffman. She yearned for some sunshine and the feel of the wind on her face. She’d once ridden an English neighbor’s bicycle down a nearby hill, her arms outstretched. Glorious, she recalled the summer afternoon. Daed had never found out. Even now, it was one of her private triumphs.

  We all have secrets we keep to ourselves, she thought and again wondered why Mamm had written her a letter that she’d then hidden. It was nearly impossible to fathom, and she was eager to see the envelope once more—enough so to consider staying just so she could sleep in Anna’s room. Maybe once she got herself settled, she’d look again. No matter what, she’d have to wait.

  Walking across the backyard with Daed’s thermos, Ruth remembered being little and accidentally dropping the mail near the spot where she was presently walking. She’d so wanted to surprise her father, who’d witnessed the mishap and came running out the barn door, repeatedly saying it was all right. He’d scooped her into his arms and carried her, crying, back to Mamm in the warm kitchen. Later, he’d gone back to pick up all the letters that had fallen from her little hands.

  At the time, she hadn’t yet discovered that if this very thing had happened to Tilly, her sister would have been rebuked in front of all of them and sent to her room without supper. Not a morsel. The glaring difference in Daed’s treatment of the two of them had long troubled Ruth. Terribly sad.

  When Ruth pushed open the barn door, she found her father there talking with his brother Hank, planning a big turkey slaughter for the Thanksgiving season next month. She hung back and noticed Daed was pushing the earpiece of his glasses into one ear as he sometimes d
id when preoccupied. In spite of the thermos, she felt funny about standing there, so she changed her mind and pushed the door back open to head out.

  But her father called, “Ruthie?”

  She turned and held up the thermos. “Mamm sent this along . . . said you’d be expecting it.”

  He motioned for her to approach and Uncle Hank quickly excused himself, leaving Ruth alone with Daed. He accepted the thermos and smiled at her. “Tell your mother I’m grateful for it. One other thing—let her know I’ll be away for dinner this noon.”

  Not sharing the meal with us. Ruth’s heart dropped. Was it because Tilly had come? She deliberated on what to say, wishing she might ask him something to clear up the query so often in her mind since arriving. Why did Daed seem so put out with her sister?

  “What is it?” Daed studied her, then poured the hot tea into the plastic cup. He began to sip it, his eyes still on her. “Daughter?”

  She noticed how he seemed to enjoy the tea. “Are you goin’ to get better, Daed?” she asked at last, ignoring his questions.

  “Well, that’s up to the Good Lord, ain’t?”

  “But you aren’t opposed to taking medicine, are ya?” she asked, pushing the words out. “I mean—”

  “I went once to the doctor . . . I s’pose I could go again.” He paused and visibly inhaled. “And if I consider it, maybe you’d consider something, too.”

  She was unsure what he meant.

  “My daughters have both left the faith of our fathers.” His voice wavered. “I’ve lost you and Tilly both to the world. It just ain’t right.”

  Ruth shook her head. “I’m sorry, Daed, but what does that have to do with going to the cardiologist again?”

  “Not much, I guess. Just that I might be more inclined to go if ya came back home, Ruthie . . . for gut. Won’t ya think on it?”

  Ruth’s shock and frustration grew as his meaning sank in. Was Daed really saying that her return might prompt him to seek treatment? She decided to ignore that possible implication. “Can’t you just go again for Mamm’s sake?” Ruth asked suddenly. “She’s so worried. . . .”