The Love Letters Read online

  She should have known her grandmother would talk this way. Mammi always did.

  “The Lord Jesus says ever so gently, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.’ He offers rest and peace. Think of that, honey-girl. Rest and peace during this awful sad time.” Mammi dabbed her eyes with her hankie. “Come . . . oh, come unto me, He says. Don’t wait a minute longer, He pleads.”

  Marlena had never seen Mammi so moved.

  “If we sow seeds of compassion, we harvest love. If we sow kindness, we receive kindness, Marlena. And the Lord calls us to be witnesses to that compassion and kindness, too, remember.”

  “This must be the reason your church—and others—sends missionaries to other countries.”

  Mammi nodded her head slowly. “I just wish someone had put their arms around poor Luella to let her know how precious she was to us . . . that we cared for her and wanted the best for her.” She turned her head toward the Bitners’ farm, looking that way for the longest time. “I don’t mean that none of us did, mind you. It’s just that once she was gone from the family, who knows if she remembered how much God loved her.”

  Marlena thought of Olive’s correspondence with Luella.

  “Do ya hear that music?” her grandmother asked. “I hear the same melody nearly every day now.”

  “It’s Small Jay’s friend Boston. Is the tune familiar to you, Mammi?”

  “I don’t recall ever hearin’ it before.”

  Marlena didn’t say what she was thinking, but the melody sounded like a sad yet sweet love song. Maybe the sweetest she’d ever heard.

  Chapter 27

  You can do it . . . you can do it, Small Jay told himself as he tried to lift the weighty leather harness up and onto their biggest driving horse on Thursday. But it kept falling to the ground, no matter how hard he strained. He’d wanted to surprise his father and muttered his frustration under his breath.

  Boston came to his rescue just outside the stable, at the very moment Small Jay thought of calling for help. “ ‘Many hands make light work,’ my grandmother Calvert liked to say.” With the Plain haircut Mamma had given him just that morning, Boston looked nearly Amish. His bangs were straighter than even Small Jay’s as they marched across the man’s creased forehead. And with the new straw hat sitting just so on his head, well, Small Jay liked the effect just fine.

  “I ’spect Dat told ya the surprise, jah?” Small Jay said as he and Boston fastened the harness around the mare.

  Boston nodded his head so vigorously, his straw hat slipped forward. “And I can’t thank you enough, young man.”

  “Wasn’t my doin’, really.” Dat wouldn’t have agreed if it was me asking. “Mamma’s the one to thank.”

  “Your good-hearted mother is laundering my clothes, as well.” Boston started to go about his sweeping again once the harness was carefully in place. “Since it’s not clear how long I’ll be here, it’s especially kind of your father to go to the trouble of supplying a bed for these old bones.”

  Small Jay felt so happy, he could hardly think straight, which he figured he rarely did anyway. “Mamma will be clearin’ out all her sewin’ things from the Dawdi Haus.”

  “I can hardly expect that.”

  “After tomorrow, she’s quittin’ her classes.” Small Jay knew this because Mamma had mentioned it at breakfast, a flat sort of look in her eyes. Dorcas had wrinkled up her face and opened her mouth to object, but Mamma put a quick stop to it. “You’ll have the Dawdi Haus all to yourself,” Small Jay told Boston. “Not much furniture but the bed, though.”

  Boston dusted off his black broadfall trousers and straightened to his full stature, his eyes soft on Small Jay. “I’ve sincerely come to think of you and your family as my own.” He paused, sputtering a bit. “And I have you to thank for that, young man.”

  The lump in Small Jay’s throat ached so that he couldn’t have said anything in response even if he wanted to. In his bedtime prayers, he had been sneaking in some requests to the Lord God ever since he’d brought Boston home. “Just think, tonight you’ll be sleepin’ on a real mattress,” Small Jay told him, feeling mighty good about saying so.

  “Instead of a straw pallet,” Boston said, sounding mighty clear in his thinking today. “And very soon, a new Sunday suit, too. Blessings abound . . . and I am rejoicing.”

  Small Jay joined with his friend’s deep laughter, and for a brief moment, he almost wished Boston might stay put in Amish country all the days of his life.

  To help out her grandmother that morning, Marlena called Vernon Siegrist to drive her to Joe’s General Store while Angela Rose giggled in the playpen. They were in need of additional canning rings and lids for all the strawberries she’d picked before breakfast to make more jam for Saturday’s market, as well as a few odds and ends like new needles and some modest white buttons for a nightgown Mammi was making for herself.

  The day was already hot and sticky, and Marlena fanned herself with the tail of her black apron as she rode in the large van. Vernon had indicated there would be more stops for passengers along the way, which was all right. She never much cared for being the only passenger; most trips passed more quickly when there was someone to talk to.

  She noticed that Vernon was taking the long route, heading up the hill from Mammi’s farmhouse past Rosanna Miller’s parents’. Marlena looked carefully as they drove by, wondering if she might see any sign of her former friend. She gawked again when they passed Olive Hendrickson’s family home, too. She’d thought of letting them know of Luella’s passing. The neighborly thing to do, she decided, making a mental note.

  Letting herself sink into the bench seat, she relaxed fully, as she did each night when she fell into bed—though since leaving home for Brownstown, she dreamed fitfully at times, often of Nat Zimmerman. Sometimes the dreams were peaceful as she was wrapped tenderly in his embrace; other times they were worrisome, and she’d wake up breathing fast, like she’d just run from the barn to the house and back in a single minute. She tried to let those fretful dreams fade away, but the gentle dreams she enjoyed reliving, hoping Nat would wait for her, as they’d planned.

  And she dreamed about Luella, too, particularly since her death. But in those stark and wordless imaginings, Marlena reached out to a sister she could never quite touch. And when she awakened, her heart was ever so heavy.

  ———

  Up ahead, Marlena could see Luke Mast waving Vernon down at the end of his lane. Not expecting to see him, she watched as Vernon slowed a bit, then stopped along the shoulder.

  Luke leaped into the van and brightened when he saw Marlena there, and right away asked if it was all right to sit next to her. She scooted over to give him plenty of room, surprised that he hadn’t taken the seat up with their driver, like most men did.

  “Sarah said she saw you at the quiltin’ class at your neighbors’.” Luke smiled warmly.

  Marlena nodded. “Your sister’s really wonderful.”

  “She thinks you are, too, Marlena.”

  They talked about the recent lack of rain and how warm the days were. Then, comically, Luke began to tell her about one of their Jersey cows. “For some particular reason, she didn’t seem interested in bein’ milked this morning. My brother called her a mule head, which wasn’t the best way to strike up a conversation with a dairy cow, ain’t?”

  A mule head? She covered her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh too loudly. “What was she doin’ that she didn’t wanna be milked?”

  “No idea. It was the oddest thing, her bein’ so contrary like that. Sarah had to go and get her attention.”

  “Did she manage to get her in?”

  “Took a while, but we finally did.” Luke explained that he’d also gone out to help coax the reluctant cow.

  “That happened sometimes at my grandparents’, too, back when Dawdi Tim was still alive.” She told how her grandfather liked to whistle with his fingers between his teeth. “It was a signal his dairy cows obeyed, believe me.”r />
  Luke listened, seemingly interested, unlike her brother Yonnie, who rarely paid attention when Marlena told stories.

  “So Sarah said she invited ya to visit our church sometime.” Luke’s comment came out of the blue.

  Marlena told him what she’d said to Sarah.

  “Well, if you ever change your mind about it, you’d be welcome, that’s for certain.”

  “I appreciate that, Luke.”

  “There are a gut number of die Youngie who attend, just so ya know. Not to boast, but the New Order Amish church is really growin’, and not just in this area but in Ohio, too.”

  “I’m curious ’bout something,” Marlena said. “How does your minister sound when he prays?” It was a bold question, but she really wanted to know if they prayed the way Mammi Janice did. Dat and Mamma, too.

  Luke turned to her. “Why do ya ask?”

  She didn’t think she should say what she really felt—that she yearned for the kind of relationship her parents and grandmother seemed to have with the Almighty. Talking to the Lord God as if He was their dearest friend seemed like a big part of it.

  “It’s all right, Marlena.” He gave an encouraging smile. “Say what’s on your mind.”

  Her neck grew warm, and she wondered what Nat might think of this.

  “Are ya searchin’?” he asked.

  “Not sure that’s what I’d call it.”

  Luke studied her thoughtfully. “You asked about our pastor’s praying style.”

  “Jah.” She so wanted to pursue this.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  She went ahead and shared everything, all that her soul longed for in wanting a closer relationship with God. “Maybe I’m all mixed up—too many churches in my life. Could that be?”

  Luke raised his hand to remove his straw hat. He took his time answering, running his tan fingers through his thick blond hair. “Not necessarily. Sounds to me like your heart’s hungry.”

  “My Mammi talks like that, too. ‘The cry of our hearts is to follow in the Lord’s footsteps,’ she says.”

  “And ya know, she’s right. Nothin’ else can fill up that longing. I know . . . I felt this way, too, a few years back.”

  Luke’s answer intrigued her. “Honestly, though, it seems arrogant to talk to the Lord the way some folk do when prayin’.”

  “Reverence is important, jah . . . but so is honesty.” He went on to say that as his bond with the Lord Jesus grew over time, he began to feel comfortable praying aloud rather than using only the silent rote prayers he grew up with. “It took a while, though.”

  “Were you raised in the Old Order church, then?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “I guess I’m torn between that teaching and what I’ve come to enjoy at my grandmother’s church,” she admitted.

  “I’d really like to talk with you ’bout this another time,” Luke said as the van slowed to pick up two Amish ladies who were laughing and gesturing as they talked while waiting along the road.

  “Denki, Luke.”

  He got up and moved to the very last bench to make space for the womenfolk.

  Marlena contemplated everything he’d said and realized it lined up with Mammi Janice’s own vibrant faith. So wasn’t it time for Marlena to settle things, to embrace the answers to the cry of her heart?

  Chapter 28

  When the mail arrived Friday morning, Marlena was so anxious for a letter from dear Nat, she dashed out to the road while Angela Rose was safely settled in the playpen. Angela had been pushing up, trying her best to get up on all fours. She will be soon, thought Marlena.

  She fingered through the mail and found mostly letters for Mammi—three from her older sisters in Hickory Hollow and Strasburg, and a couple of circle letters. But there were two for Marlena—one from her sister Katie and the other from Nat Zimmerman. Smiling, she had to decide which to open first.

  At the sound of a buggy, Marlena spotted one of the neighbors coming down the hill in a gray family carriage and waved. She decided to read her sister’s letter first, because she wanted to savor Nat’s later, when she had plenty of time to read it slowly.

  Dear Marlena,

  How are you? Thank goodness you got to come for Luella’s funeral. Even though it was a hard day for all of us, it made me happy to see you and Angela Rose. Oh, that little one brings a smile to my face! I loved holding her in the parking lot when we first got there.

  Mamma says we might not see her very much from now on, but I’m praying we will. Preacher Ranck always says God knows the desires of our hearts.

  I really hope we get to see our little niece grow up, don’t you?

  Marlena could almost hear her younger sister’s voice. “I feel the same way,” she whispered into the humid morning breeze, recalling everything Mamma had implied Wednesday evening about Gordon’s parents’ possibly coming for Angela Rose. But Mammi Janice had sounded rather accepting of it, so she guessed she ought to be, too. “Always take the high road,” she often said.

  Angela was beginning to fuss now, and Marlena hurried inside and placed Mammi’s letters on the kitchen counter. “Here’s your mail,” she said to her grandmother, who was preparing to can more jars of strawberry jam for tomorrow’s market day.

  “Looks like you have some letters, too, dear.”

  “Jah, one from Katie and one from my beau.”

  “Your little sisters were so kind to me at Luella’s funeral,” Mammi said, telling how Katie and Rachel Ann had wanted to sit on either side of her on the front row of the women’s side of the church.

  “I miss them,” Marlena said.

  “Well, and they miss you, too, don’t ya forget.” Mammi looked at her attentively. “I can’t tell you how much it means, havin’ you here . . . giving up your summer back home to help me.”

  Marlena waved her hand. “I’m just glad it worked out.” She slipped the letters into her apron pocket and stooped to get rutsche Angela out of the playpen. Taking her upstairs for a diaper change, Marlena wondered when Gordon’s parents would arrive—this Lord’s Day? On Monday?

  It was hard to be cheerful as she took care of Angela when likely there were only a couple days remaining.

  Later that afternoon, after picking the ripened produce in her grandmother’s garden, Marlena came close to dozing off while Angela napped in her arms; she wanted to spoil her just a little more. In her haze, she remembered walking through her mother’s sweet corn crop with Luella, their brothers, and several older girl cousins, combing row after row for weeds. “Redding up the corn,” her brother Amos had called it.

  Luella had kindly shared some of her cold lemonade with Marlena on that scorching day when Marlena complained that her tongue was turning thick, she was that thirsty. Luella let me drain her Thermos and never once made a fuss about it.

  The pleasant memory gave her pause, and she drew in a deep breath. Were there more such memories buried somewhere in her heart?

  Mammi called up the stairs to ask if everything was all right. Still holding Angela Rose, Marlena got up and went to stand at the top of the stairs.

  “Ach, sorry,” Mammi said, seeing her with the baby. “I didn’t realize . . .”

  “I’ll be down right quick,” Marlena said, worried that losing Angela Rose to her English grandparents might set Mammi back emotionally.

  “The jars are ready to fill, when you’re ready,” Mammi said, turning the corner and stepping out of sight.

  Marlena went back to the room and put Angela in her crib. Then, opening the right-hand dresser drawer, she dropped the letters inside and headed downstairs to help Mammi make jam for market.

  “All right with you if Dorcas runs up to Janice Martin’s to ask about babysitting tomorrow?” Ellie asked her husband midafternoon. He’d lingered at the table after coming in for some cold meadow tea to wet his whistle.

  “Don’t see why not.”

  “I’ll let her know, then.” She was glad Roman seemed all right with i
t.

  She hadn’t told him how things had gone when she’d announced to her class that she wouldn’t be continuing. Such sad expressions on all the faces!

  Instead, she mentioned the girls’ response to Marlena’s baby niece last Saturday. “They really enjoyed having the baby here,” she told Roman.

  Roman nodded, his eyes fixed on some distant point out the window.

  “As for market, I’ll be takin’ some preserves and a few other things myself, but you’ll be around, I s’pose, in case Dorcas and the girls need anything.”

  He said he would. “And Jake and Boston? Will they be goin’ with ya?”

  “I’d thought of takin’ Small Jay along, jah.”

  “Leavin’ Boston here?”

  “Guess I thought he would be workin’ in the stable, groomin’ the horses, maybe.”

  Roman shrugged and said that was true. “But I doubt Jake will want to go.” He sighed. “Seems to me the boy’d rather stay and help Boston.”

  Ellie was conscious of the ticking day clock. “There are other young men at market,” she volunteered. “Luke Mast goes with his sister to help their mother.”

  “They’re New Order, though, remember, Ellie.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured, realizing she’d put herself smack-dab into that corner.

  “Not car-drivin’ Amish, though,” he added. “That’s one gut thing ’bout them.”

  She knew now wasn’t the best time to bring up what she thought about all the splinter groups of Amish—more, seemingly, each year. Seeing Roman sitting there, so relaxed and rather pleasant, she couldn’t bear the thought of a stressful word coming between them.

  “Ya know, I’ve got Boston’s harmonica tune stuck in my head,” Roman said just then.

  “It’s so appealing, ain’t?”

  “Perty, if ya really listen. Like it needs words.”

  She’d never heard Roman say such a thing. “I’ve wondered that, too.”

  “Boston plays it all the time. Must be mighty special to him.”

  Hearing this, Ellie actually had to look away. She didn’t know what had gotten into her husband . . . but she liked it. “I’ll go out and find Small Jay and let him know it’ll be just the two of us for market tomorrow.”