A Wedding Quilt for Ella (12 page)

“But I should be helping.”

“No,” Mamm said, her voice firm. “You need the rest, and a long night’s sleep is for the best.”

“There’ll be no church tomorrow,” Ella said, her mind racing ahead.

“Then you can sleep in, yah.”

Ella managed a weak smile. “I’ll be up with the sun.”

Mamm shrugged. “Then you’d best get to bed.”

Ella nodded, pushed back from the table, and made her way up to her room. Outside, darkness had fallen. She walked over and looked out the window. The night sky was thick with stars now that the clouds had cleared. Her eyes searched the grand sweep of brilliance, her heart throbbing with pain. The night was here, and how was she to face it?

She undressed and slipped into bed, the mattress soft beneath her. Waves of tiredness swept over her. She didn’t know how anyone could find any pleasure in such a sorrowful world, and yet at that moment she did. Sleep felt wonderful.

Ella awoke with the sky still dark and the stars bright in the window. For a long moment, she lay still.
What time is it?
Her eyes searched the top of her dresser where the alarm clock should have been but found nothing. With an effort, she swung her feet to the floor, the surface cool to the touch, and sat up.
I must wake up.

A step toward the dresser revealed where the alarm clock was hidden behind two books that had been left on the dresser top. The clock hands showed a little after two o’clock. Weary, she lay back down, but sleep wouldn’t come. Her mind went slowly over the events of the last few days—over each moment and each hour—until an urge came to write it all down.

Ella pushed back the covers and got up again. She struck a match on the underside of the dresser drawer and quickly transferred the little flame to the kerosene wick. By the flickering light, she crept downstairs, taking each groan of the steps with bated breath. She found a tablet and pen in the living room desk and slowly made her way back upstairs.

With the lamp on the dresser, the tablet lying on her lap, and her eyes wide awake, she began.

Dear journal or whatever you are,

I haven’t done this since my school years, but something terrible happened on Thursday. My beloved Aden died from a ruptured appendix, and my world has come to a screeching halt. I don’t know how to describe the pain I feel because I’ve never felt it before. It is terrible. The pain is now a dull ache. I suppose that’s because it’s nighttime, and even it must sleep. Tomorrow it will be back again like a fire in my stomach that eats all that lives.

It has eaten my hopes, my dreams, my love, and my Aden
—
stolen it all away like the preachers say a thief in the night does. I still can’t believe it happened, but I know it’s true because I was there and saw Aden in the casket at his parents’ house. After they brought us the news, I had wild thoughts that perhaps it wasn’t true. Maybe it had been someone else who they mistook for Aden, but it wasn’t.

It’s now Sunday morning after two o’ clock, and I know all too well it’s true. The funeral was yesterday, and I was there. Now I can’t sleep. My thoughts are about him, about his face, his laugh, his smile, his hands, and just about everything, I guess. I was in his room this afternoon, and it almost seemed he was there. The whole room smelled of him. The memories are still fresh, pretty raw, and very painful.

Today, because we don’t have church and his district doesn’t either, he had planned to bring me the plans for our new house
—
the one he was to build on his land on Chapman Road. I sit here now, and I can almost hear his bugg wheels in the driveway if I listen carefully enough.

I wonder what kind of house Aden planned to build. I only know the house from what he described. Aden said it was large and had plenty of room. He never said the house was for our children because he didn’t need to. I already knew. I know I would have been a good mom, and he would have been a very good dad.

Right now the time in front of me stretches out like the Englisha’s road
—
on and on as far as I can see, without much meaning or end to it. Now I wonder if it was wrong to love another person so much. I don’t think I can ever love another man. I guess I’ll be an old maid.

They say Da Hah knows what He’s doing. I suppose that’s true, even if I was angry with Him. Who wouldn’t be mad after your heart is so painfully torn apart? The preachers say we are being made into something good for eternity, something about God needing pain to accomplish His work. They say all of God’s people have always suffered and that we really don’t suffer that much.

I’m ashamed to say that with how much I hurt inside, I doubt them.

Choring tonight helped with the pain
—
for a few moments at least. Dora even made me laugh. I have a wonderful family and plan to continue to help around the house as much as I can. When I’m twenty-one in may, I don’t know what I’ll do. I suppose Daett will
let me stay home and go on helping around here in exchange for my room and board.

If only Aden were alive…

Ella closed the tablet. She couldn’t finish the sentence. She placed the tablet in the top dresser drawer and crawled back into bed. Sleep came quickly, and she awoke with a start to the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Outside, the rain lashed the window pane. Apparently the Sunday weather would match her mood.

She got out of bed, lit the kerosene lamp again, and dressed. The tablet in the dresser caught her attention, but she pushed it toward the back. No secrets were written on it, and so what did it matter if someone saw the pages.

Downstairs, her mom had the stove fire started, the lid still off. Ella waited as Mamm watched the flames slowly lick the dry wood and seek a path upward. She added two pieces of wood and replaced the round lid with the fire handle.

“I’ll be takin’ care of breakfast,” Ella said.

Her mother nodded, got her coat, and went outside. The wind blew the door shut behind her as Ella began to work quickly. The routine was familiar. Her mom had left no instructions, but that would be no problem. She would simply stick to their regular Sunday morning routine of oatmeal, bacon, eggs, and toast.

She still had the toast to do when the washroom door slammed, and water splashed in the basin.

“Nasty weather out there,” Dora said as she peeked quickly into the kitchen. “Wind’s all over the place.”

“Fits my mood,” Ella said.

“Mine too,” Dora said, disappearing. Ella heard the splash of water outside the house. Dora, at least, had enough manners to empty her basin when she was done.

Mamm came in a few minutes later, followed by Noah, Eli, and Monroe. They washed quickly and with few words gathered at the table. Ella had just finished holding the last piece of bread over the open flames, toasting it to a light golden brown. She laid the plate of toast on the table and took a seat.

Noah bowed his head and prayed, “We thank You, o holy Father, for this day, for the gifts and grace You have given us, for the breath in our bodies, for the food on this table, and for Your holy Son, Jesus, who walked among us. Grant us now grace for this day and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Amen.”

Ella watched them eat. Her body was hungry, yah, but her emotions were still unwilling. She carefully slid an egg onto her plate, hesitated, and then picked up two pieces of bacon. With a piece of toast in her hand, she buttered the surface and then slowly took a bite.

Fifteen

D
aniel awoke troubled, his mind disturbed by the emptiness of his brother’s room across the hall. Even in his sleep, he had sensed the grief like a heavy weight pressing down on his body He threw the covers off with great energy as if to cast the burden away from him.

He dressed and went downstairs. His mother was up and busy preparing breakfast at the stove.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice hoarse.

She nodded, her face red from tears.

It occurred to Daniel that, ironically, Aden would know what to say at a time like this.

With his coat in his hand, he went to his mom, who was bent over the kettle of oatmeal. Clumsily he pulled her tight against himself with one arm. It was the best he could muster.

“He won’t be comin’ back,” she said, sobbing.

“I know,” he said, his arm around her, his grip firm.

“He was just a
bobli
not that long ago.”

“I have to be doin’ the chores,” he said, starting to pull away.

“I still have you, at least,” she said, attempting a smile.

“You have the others too—all the rest of the family.”

“Yah, I know. I want to be thankful for them—and you’re all precious to me—but I still will miss Aden.”

“We all will,” Daniel said as he slipped his coat on and left.

The lantern glowed in the barn window. His dad must already be out, but Daniel lit another lantern anyway. Neither of them had a lot of chores, but they were in different parts of the barn. As he crossed the yard, he protected the gas lantern from the rain by holding it at his side and under his coat, causing the hiss to grow louder. A brisk wind blew steady as, overhead, the sunrise slowly cast its pale light on the grey clouds.

Yesterday morning Ella had been out here by herself to watch the sunrise. How like Aden she was in that way, much more attune to such things then he himself was. Aden had always been the one to wander the fields early in the morning and saw the first daffodils sprout along the fencerow in spring.

Aden and Ella did things on Sundays he and Arlene never did. They stopped and walked the creek on Stoddard Road, bringing home bouquets of flowers they had found along the water’s edge for his mom. Two weeks ago Ella and Aden had brought back purple and yellow flowers. Daniel had no names for them, but Aden and Ella knew, as did his mom.

Aden even kept a book of poems upstairs from some
Englisha
author named Emily Dickinson. Occasionally Aden would read selections to Ella while they sat on the couch in the living room. Although Daniel never paid much attention to them, sometimes he would walk through the house and see them laughing about the lines. His parents were open minded about most things, especially with Aden, but this book from the
Englisha
author came close to pushing the line, especially with his dad. Such
Englisha
things were best left alone in his opinion. Daniel smiled at the sky. What would Ivan Stutzman have said if he had found out? Even Aden’s charm couldn’t have gotten him out of that one.

It was Aden who got to Stutzman, especially when Aden talked about the Amish people using tobacco products. Although Daniel didn’t think Stutzman used tobacco, the preacher had said that all plants that God allowed to grow out of the ground were for the proper use of mankind and for his benefit. He even had a Scripture to prove his point and quoted it one Sunday afternoon when the men had gathered on the benches.