Hope Chest (3 page)

I wonder if I would have been a tree climber if I’d had the chance.
Rebekah’s thoughts pulled her unwillingly back to the past—back to when she’d been a little girl and a tree branch had fallen on her during a bad storm. The accident had damaged her spinal cord, and ever since then, Rebekah had either been confined to her wheelchair or strapped in braces that allowed her to walk stiff-legged with the help of crutches.

“What kind of stupid bird were you looking at, Rachel?” Anna asked, halting Rebekah’s thoughts.

“It was a downy woodpecker, and it’s sure as anything not stupid.”

“Silas is such a
kischblich
man. He likes watching birds, too, but I think it’s a waste of time.”

“Just because Silas appreciates birds doesn’t make him a silly man.” Rachel moved over to the table with a handful of silverware she’d taken from the drawer.

“And speaking of Silas, I know he brought you home from a singing awhile back. Seems to me he might want to start courting you pretty soon,” Rebekah stated.

Anna silently kept stirring the stew.

“Might could be that you’ll soon be making a wedding quilt for your hope chest.” Rebekah smiled. “Or would you prefer that I make one for you?”

Anna pursed her lips. “It was just one ride in his buggy, Mom. Nothing to get excited about. So there’s no need for either one of us to begin an Amish wedding quilt.”

“Why not be excited?” Rebekah set the salad bowl aside and turned her wheelchair so she was facing Anna. “Silas has been hanging around our place for years now, and your daed and I both think he’s a nice enough fellow. Besides, you’re twenty-three years old already and joined the church last fall. Don’t you think it’s past time you considered getting married?”

Anna moved away from the stove and opened the refrigerator door. She withdrew a bunch of celery and took it over to the sink. “I’m thinking the stew needs a bit more of this; that’s what I’m thinking.”

Rachel headed back across the room, removed a stack of plates from the cupboard, and brought them over to the table. She looked a bit disgruntled, and Rebekah wondered if the girl might be jealous because Anna had a boyfriend and she didn’t. She shifted her wheelchair to one side, making it easier for Rachel to reach around her, then glanced over at Anna again. “I think a lovely quilt would make a fine addition to someone’s hope chest, and if Silas is so sweet on you, then maybe you should—”

“I’m sorry if Silas thinks he’s sweet on me,” Anna said. “I just can’t commit to someone I don’t love.”

Rebekah clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “
Ach.
I didn’t mean to interfere. Guess I jumped to the wrong conclusion, but seeing as how you and Silas have been friends for so long, and since you let him bring you home from a singing, I thought things must be getting serious.”

“Anna has other things she wants to do with her life. I heard her say so.” Rachel covered her mouth with the palm of her hand, and her face turned red as a cherry tomato. “Oops.”

“When did you hear me say such things?” Anna turned to face her sister, leveling her with a most peculiar look.

Rachel shrugged and reached for the basket of napkins in the center of the table. “I’m sure you said it sometime.”

“What other things are you wanting to do with your life, Anna?” Rebekah asked.

Anna merely shrugged in response.

“If I had someone as
wunderbaar
as Silas after me, I’d marry him in an instant.” Rachel’s cheeks turned even redder, and she scurried across the room.

“My, my,” Anna said with a small laugh. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think my little sister was in love with Silas herself.”

“Rachel’s only eighteen—too young for such thoughts,” Rebekah said with a shake of her head. “Besides, I’m sure she wouldn’t be after your boyfriend, Anna.”

“How old were you when you fell in love with Dad?” Anna asked.

“Guess I wasn’t much more than nineteen. Even so—”

The back door flew open, interrupting Rebekah’s sentence, and her twelve-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, burst into the kitchen. Her long brown braids, which had been pinned at the back of her head when she’d gone outside awhile ago, now hung down her back. “Perry won’t let me have a turn on the swing. He’s been mean to me all day, Mom.”

Rebekah shook her head. “You know your twin brother likes to tease. The little
galgedieb.
I wish you would try to ignore that scoundrel’s antics.”

“But, Mom, Perry—”

Rebekah held up one hand to silence Elizabeth. “It’s almost time for supper, so please run outside and call your daed and your
bruders
inside.”

“Oh, all right, but if Perry starts picking on me again—”

“You’ll just ignore him.”

“I’ll try.”

Rebekah shook her head as Elizabeth went out the back door. “That youngest daughter of mine has a lot to learn about ignoring a tease.” She clicked her tongue. “Why, I can’t tell you how many times I had to endure teasing when I was a girl.”

“Did your brothers and sisters tease you?” Rachel asked as she placed a napkin beside the plate nearest her.

Rebekah nodded. “Sometimes, but most of my teasing came from kinner outside my family—those who thought my handicap was something to joke about, I guess.”

“Anyone cruel enough to make fun of someone who’s disabled ought to be horsewhipped,” Rachel muttered.

“I agree,” Anna put in.

Rebekah smiled. She was glad her daughters felt that way.

Rebekah’s husband, Daniel, and their oldest son, Joseph, entered the room just then, and Elizabeth and her twin brother, Perry, followed. Soon the family gathered around the huge wooden table, and all heads bowed for silent prayer. When it was over, Daniel glanced at Joseph. “Did you get that old plow put back together today?” he asked, as he filled his plate with a generous helping of stew.

Joseph nodded. “Jah, I did. Should be able to use it again tomorrow morning.”

Daniel pulled his fingers through the ends of his full brown beard, now lightly peppered with gray. “No matter what those English neighbors of mine may think, I say you can’t replace a reliable horse and plow with any kind of fancy equipment.”

“Horses aren’t always so reliable,” Anna put in. “I’ve known ’em to be downright stubborn at times.”

Daniel cast a curious look in her direction but made no comment.

“I’ve been wondering, don’t you think we need to modernize a bit?” Anna continued. “I mean, working the greenhouse would go much better if we had a telephone ... even one outdoors on a pole.”

Daniel frowned. “We’ve gotten along all these years without a phone, so why would we need one now?”

Everyone fell silent, but as Rebekah watched her eldest daughter fiddle with her food, she sensed the frustration Anna felt and wondered if she should say something on her behalf. Before Rebekah could say a word, Anna pushed her chair aside and stood. “I’d like to be excused.”

Daniel nodded, but Rebekah felt the need to protest. “You’ve hardly eaten a thing, Anna.”

“I’m not so hungry.” Anna lowered her head, causing her long lashes to form crescents against her pale cheeks.

“Let her go,” Daniel said. “Just might could be that going without supper is what she needs to help clear her head for better thinking.”

Rebekah had never been one to usurp her husband’s authority, even if she didn’t agree with everything he said. So with a quick nod, she replied, “Jah, all right then.”

Anna rushed out of the room without another word, and Rebekah released a sigh. Her oldest child had been acting a mite strange of late, and it had her more than a bit worried.

***

Rachel leaned against the back of her chair, her shoulder blades making contact with the hard wood.
Such a silly one, that sister of mine. She seems so dissatisfied with her life these days. Guess maybe she doesn’t know how good she’s got it.

As soon as the rest of them had finished supper, Rachel cleared the table and helped her mother and Elizabeth do up the dishes and clean the kitchen.

“Many hands make light work,” Mom said, as Rachel handed her a platter to dry.

Rachel nodded and glanced toward the hallway door leading to the stairs. Too bad Anna was in her room sulking. If she’d been down here in the kitchen helping, like she should have been, they would probably be done already.

When the last dish was finally dried and put away, Rachel turned to her mother and said, “I think I’ll go upstairs and see how Anna’s doing. Unless you’ve got something more for me here, that is.”

Mom shook her head. “Nothing right now. I was thinking about going outside to check on my herb garden.” She glanced at Elizabeth, who was drying her hands on a terry cloth towel. “How’d you like to join your old mamm outside?”

Elizabeth wrinkled her freckled nose. “You ain’t old.”

Rachel noticed the smile that crossed her mother’s face—that sweet, dimpled expression that made her so special. Even with Mom’s disability, she rarely complained. From all Rachel had been told, their mother had been confined to a wheelchair most of her life. But Mom didn’t allow her disability to hold her back much. It was Rachel’s understanding that her mother had been quite independent when she was a young woman and had decided to open the greenhouse she’d named Grandma’s Place.

Rachel smiled to herself as she thought of the stories Dad and Mom often told about their courting days and how they almost didn’t marry because of some silly misunderstanding. Mom had convinced herself that Dad only wanted her because he loved flowers so much and hoped to get his hands on her business. It took some doing, but Dad finally made her believe he loved her most, not the plants and flowers. At last, they got married. They ran the greenhouse together, and a year later, baby Anna was born.

Mom had said she thought it was a true miracle, the way God had allowed her to give birth despite her partial paralysis. Rachel could only imagine how her mother must have felt when she kept having one miracle after another. Two years after Anna was born, Joseph arrived. Another three years went by, and Rachel came onto the scene. Mom must have thought she was done having
bopplin,
because it was another six years before the twins made their surprise appearance.

Five miracles in all,
Rachel mused.
I would surely feel blessed if God ever gave me five children.
She drew in a deep breath and released it with such force that Mom gave her a strange look.

“You okay, Rachel?”

“Jah, I’m fine; just thinking is all.”

“Were you daydreaming again?”

Rachel nodded. Daydreaming was nothing new for her. As far back as she could remember, she had enjoyed fantasizing about things.

“Say, how did you get that blood on your dress?” Mom asked suddenly, as she stared at the spot on Rachel’s skirt where she’d injured her knee.

“Oh, just scraped my leg a bit,” Rachel replied with a shrug. No point in explaining how it had happened. Mom would probably lecture her about it being unladylike and dangerous to go climbing around in trees.

“Want me to take a look-see?”

“No, it’s nothing. I’m ready to go up and see Anna now.”

“Go on ahead. Maybe you can talk some sense into her about courting Silas.”

Rachel winced, feeling like she’d had a glass of cold water thrown in her face. Surely Mom didn’t mean for her to actually try and convince Anna to let Silas court her. If she did that and was successful in getting Anna to agree to do what Silas wanted, then Rachel knew the chance of him ever deciding to court
her
would be slim to none.

***

Anna lay on her bed, staring at the plaster ceiling and tumbling things over in her mind. She thought about her encounter with Silas and wondered if somehow Rachel could have been nearby and overheard what they’d said. She wondered, too, why Silas kept pressuring her to let him court her and couldn’t seem to take no for an answer.

Her mind went over the conversation that had gone on at the table during supper, and she realized that her folks would have a conniption if they knew the thoughts that had been going through her head of late.

A soft knock at the door roused Anna from her musings, and she rolled onto her side. “Come in.”

Rachel poked her head into the room. “Mind if I join you for a while?”

Anna motioned her sister into the room. “Why’s Dad have to be so stubborn?” she asked after Rachel had taken a seat on the bed beside her. “Can’t he see there’s a place for some modern things? He’s the reason I got so upset at supper, you know.” A stream of tears trickled down her cheeks, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand.

“People often blame things on the previous generation because there’s only one other choice,” Rachel said in a near whisper.

Anna sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”