Meek and Mild (5 page)

“I’ll take them,” Clara said.

“No need. I can manage.”

“Then leave Mari with me.” The three-year-old would only slow down the others.

“I’ll take her,” Rhoda said. “I simply wanted you to know I’ll be out of the house for a while.”

Clara glanced out the window. “It’s a lovely morning to walk. Take your time. I’ll start the laundry water to boil.”

“I’ll do that when I get back,” Rhoda said. “If your father comes in, you can tell him I’ll have coffee cake for him at midmorning.”

“I’ll mix it up,” Clara said.

“I’m sure you have things to do,” Rhoda said. “I know just how he likes it.”

As if I don’t
, Clara thought as Rhoda herded her children out the front door. Clara followed them out and sat on the top step. Rhoda supported Mari on her hip with one hand while with the other she straightened the shoulders of Josiah’s white shirt and smoothed his black suspenders. At the last minute, before they stepped out of the yard and onto the path to the road, Hannah turned and waved. Her expression was lost in the morning glare, but Clara was certain her mouth was a wide smile. It always was when she waved good-bye.

Clara blew out her breath and closed her eyes to focus on the sensation of the sun bleeding orange through her eyelids. The truth was, she had little to do since Rhoda had begun refusing her offers of help around the house, so she closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun. Each day was warmer than the one before, and the heat came earlier. Another week would bring unquestionable summer, vanishing the threat of retreating into the cool, damp days of spring. At least Josiah and Hannah would be out of school after tomorrow. Josiah would be eager and content to work alongside his father in the fields. Hannah would be the wriggly one. Hiram had never let Clara work in the fields, so she doubted his policy would change for Hannah. And Hannah wouldn’t want to. She would prefer to flit in and out the back door doing whatever caught her fancy. Rhoda, on the other hand, would have a more structured method to keep Hannah occupied.

The approaching clatter of horses pulling a rickety wagon demanded Clara open her eyes.

Yonnie Yoder. Andrew brushed off Yonnie’s mannerisms in amusement, but Clara was not so noble. Yonnie usually did the second collection route for the Amish dairy that employed him closer to midmorning, though occasionally he took a turn at the early-morning route. But what brought him to the Kuhn farm? The Kuhns did not keep extra cows. With six people in the house—and Hiram’s well-known affinity for cheese—they consumed most of what their two cows produced.

Clara descended the porch steps and paced out to meet Yonnie’s wagon.

“
Gut mariye
,” she said when he pulled to a stop. Who could complain about a morning greeting? For Andrew’s sake, she injected an extra dose of friendliness into her words. “What brings you here this morning?”

“Your cousin was out at the road first thing this morning waving me down,” Yonnie said.

“Fannie?”

“She sent a note.”

“So early?” Clara took the envelope from Yonnie. “Thank you for coming out of your way to deliver it promptly.”

“Are you suggesting sometimes I am not prompt?”

“No, of course not,” Clara said, wondering how Andrew tolerated someone so inclined to be suspicious and snippy. She was not sure she would have the fortitude if one of her childhood friends had grown up to have Yonnie’s temperament. “Thank you, Yonnie. I pray God blesses your day.”

He turned the wagon in a wide circle around the yard and left. Clara tore off the end of the envelope and unfolded the single sheet inside.

Dear Clara
,

Please come as soon as you can. My heart is heavy once again, and I have received stunning news which ought to make my heart glad but which instead weighs on my spirit. I can tell no one but you
.

Your cousin
,

Fannie

Clara read the words a second time but found no further meaning in them. An empty day stretched ahead of her. Why should she not go to Fannie now? She could walk and be there before the midday meal. Clara pivoted to scamper up the porch stairs and then to her second-story bedroom as she considered whether she ought to pack the overnight bag. When she heard movement downstairs, she expected Rhoda had returned from her errand to send the children off on their walk to school. Instead, the heavier footsteps ascending the stairs were her father’s. Clara stepped into the hall.

“Hello,
Daed
. Rhoda asked me to tell you she will have a coffee cake ready by midmorning.”

“I hope she does not go to a lot of trouble. I’m not feeling well.”

Clara looked at him more closely. When his head drooped at the breakfast table, she had supposed he hadn’t slept well. Now she could see he was pale and his breath labored.

“You should lie down,” she said.

“That is my intention,” Hiram said, “but I must ask a favor of you.”

“Of course.”

“Take the buggy and go over to John Stutzman’s farm. I promised I would go to help him with roofing repairs today. He will understand that I am ill, but I don’t want him to think I have forgotten him.”

Clara glanced into her bedroom at the bag on the bed. “Of course.”

The Stutzmans lived on one of the most outlying of the Amish farms. They were near the Maryland border, but well west of the Kuhn land. A round-trip journey, with time for polite socializing or the meal John’s wife was likely to offer, would take half the day. Clara was grateful, though, that Hiram had enough sense not to go up on a roof when he felt unsteady.

Fannie would have to understand.

Fannie tucked the lightweight quilt around her daughter’s shoulders and cracked the window to coax in cool air. Sadie bounced through her days with enough energy for three children. When bedtime came, she dropped into bed and often was asleep before Fannie finished murmuring soft prayers for her household. Tonight was no different.

Fannie sat on her daughter’s bed and put out the lamp before listening for Sadie’s even breath. She had hoped that Clara would come before the day’s light petered out. Even without conversation, Clara’s presence would have been a comfort.

Clara feared childbirth as deeply as Fannie longed for it. They knew each other’s secrets more than anyone else. But this—who would have expected this? After five children, the youngest of them twelve years old? At Martha’s age?

Elam sat in the front room studying papers about crop rotations. He knew Fannie’s news now. But did he know Martha’s?

Clara lost the entire day. By the time she got home from the Stutzman farm, she’d missed the afternoon run of the milk wagon, her usual prospect for hitching a ride to a farm near Fannie’s. Though she might still walk the six miles before darkness fell, she hesitated to leave without being sure her father was on the mend—or at least resting well—and Hannah was so full of after-school chatter that there was no place for Clara to break in and explain she was leaving. Clara recognized the precise moment she looked out the window and knew it was too late.

She barely slept.

On Friday morning, Clara paced before daylight the mile to the corner where she knew the milk wagon would pass. The words in Fannie’s notes replayed in her mind. Though a stone dropped in her stomach when she realized the driver was Yonnie Yoder and not one of the two other—more pleasant—dairy drivers, Clara put a smile on her face and asked for a ride that went past the Maple Glen Meetinghouse the Marylanders used. At least she knew he would not require conversation beyond an initial greeting and departing pleasantries.

When he let her off, Clara ignored Yonnie’s silent scowl and thanked him for obliging her with a ride. He no more approved of her visits to her Marylander relatives than he did his employer’s choice to do business with the Marylanders.

None of that was Clara’s concern. She only needed to see Fannie. When she knocked on the back door, Clara smelled the bacon and eggs Fannie cooked every day for Elam’s breakfast. Her empty stomach gurgled in response.

Fannie fell into Clara’s arms. Elam was gone to the fields or the barn, and Sadie stood on a chair with her skinny arms in the dishwater. Clara felt Fannie’s tremble and squeezed her shoulders hard, while at the same time catching Sadie’s grin. The girl was especially proud that she had lost three teeth and smiled wide to show her accomplishment.

Fannie composed herself and touched her daughter’s shoulder. “Sadie, thank you for helping with the dishes. We’re going to go see
Grossmuder
, so please tidy your bed before we go.”

Sadie pulled her hands out of the water, splashing droplets on Fannie and Clara. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said to Clara, pulling her lips wide again.

Clara smiled at Sadie and then turned to Fannie as soon as the girl was out of sight. “We’re going to see your mother? Is she all right?”

Fannie pulled the last plate from the sink and rinsed it in clear water. “Yes. As far as I know. It seems she has not been confiding in me.”

“But you’re very close to your mother.”

“You’ll see,” Fannie said. “Sadie!”

Fannie would reveal little in her daughter’s presence, so Clara did not press. Instead, as they walked they talked about the state of Fannie’s vegetable garden and whether the hens were laying enough eggs. Sadie circled around them in her bare feet, asking the names of sprouting vegetation and pointing out the birds swooping from their nests. On an ordinary day, Clara would have enjoyed the leisurely two-mile morning stroll. Today each step twisted her anxiety tighter.

Clara heard the aching breath Fannie drew as they approached Martha kneeling between the budding rows of flowers across the front of the house. Sadie raced ahead to greet her
grossmuder
, throwing her weight against Martha’s back and disturbing her balance. Martha recovered quickly, but in the effort it took to stand up, Clara saw more than the strain of age.

Martha was not an old woman. She was only forty-four and actively managed her household.

Not
only
forty-four. Clara corrected herself mentally. A woman having a child at forty-four was not the same as a woman weeding her garden at forty-four. Already Martha’s balance was off. Already her back arced slightly to compensate for the rising mound in the front.

Clara swallowed hard. Worry shot through her even as she reached out to put a hand on Fannie’s arm.

“But your youngest brother is twelve,” Clara whispered.

Fannie’s response was a choked sob.

Even as Clara kissed her aunt’s cheek, she felt the color drain from her face. Once, a woman in the church was pregnant at forty-six. Even the
English
doctor said it was dangerous.

Martha patted Sadie’s head. “There’s strudel in the kitchen. Why don’t you go get a piece?”

Sadie’s penchant for strudel propelled her into the house.

“You don’t have to hide what you feel,” Martha said softly to the two young women before her. “Clara, you’re worried something will happen to me or the baby—or both of us. Fannie, you’re heartbroken even though you want to be glad.”

“
Aunti
Martha,” Clara said—but she did not know how to finish her sentence.

Beside Clara, Fannie pushed her breath out slowly. “You didn’t tell me. You waited until I could see it.”

“I didn’t know what to say,” Martha said. “I know how much you want another child.”

Clara moistened her lips and glanced at her cousin.

“
Gottes wille
,” Martha said. God’s will.