Miriam's Heart (5 page)

Miriam was beside herself. Who knew when they’d come in? Standing in the kitchen doorway, they could slip outside, have a glass of iced tea, grab a slice of pie and then pop back into the sermon without the elders being any the wiser. She’d made a mistake by falling asleep, but mocking her for it was wrong. When she got hold of Charley, she’d tell him so in no uncertain terms.

“Miriam.” Anna nudged her again.

Everyone was standing for the benediction and she’d been paying so much attention to Charley and his friends that she’d lost track of where they were in the service. Following the prayer, the deacon announced the date and place of the next service and church ended with a hymn. Miriam and Anna filed out with the unmarried girls and went directly to the kitchen to find an apron and help get the midday meal served.

Since the day was so nice, the young men had assembled the tables outside. Once everyone had left their seats, the boys carried out the benches used in the house for service. Earlier, the girls had set the tables. Now it was a matter of getting the hot food to the tables. The guests, ministers and bishop took their places, followed by the older men and lastly the younger men. The boys and girls would eat at the second seating, so they gathered in groups to talk or ran errands for the women working in the kitchen.

Soon, all the men were eating. Miriam and Anna were assigned the job of carrying pitchers of iced tea, water and milk to the diners. To Miriam’s dismay, she found Charley on her side of the table.

“Enjoy your nap?” he whispered.

She poured his glass full of milk. Charley didn’t like milk, so it seemed like an act of revenge, even if it was small.

He didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, I’ve got to talk to you later,” he continued under his breath. “I’ve got great news. If you can stay awake until then.”

“We saw you,” Charley’s friend Thomas whispered as he held out his mug for milk. “Sleeping during church, weren’t you?”

“I was not,” Miriam protested.

“Don’t tell lies on Sunday,” Charley teased. Then he met her gaze and lowered his voice. “You know I’m just teasing. We’ve all done it. Meet me later. Wait until you hear.”

Miriam passed on to the next man at the table, annoyed with herself for dozing off during the sermon. She’d be hearing about it for weeks from the boys, and sooner or later, it would get to her cousin Dorcas and then to Aunt Martha. Anna should have pinched her to keep her awake.

It wasn’t like her to fall asleep during church, although in summer, a lot of the men did. She’d been up since five, and they’d been busy all day yesterday as well. She supposed it was a small sin, but it had been mean of Charley to make more of it than it was. Of course, what could she expect? He always was a tease, making fun of everyone and everything, including himself. Good-time Charley.

It was three hours later when Charley found her and by then, Miriam had almost forgotten her earlier annoyance with him. She was sitting on the side porch with Johanna’s three-year-old on her lap. Jonah had gotten his finger slammed in the screen door by an older child and Miriam was soothing him and applying ice to the booboo.

“Here you are.” Charley stepped up onto the porch from the lawn. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“Busy day,” she replied, trying to shush Jonah.

Her nephew was still crying on and off and trying to tell her how the accident had happened and how his father had said he was a baby for crying. “
Not
a baby,” he protested. “Hurts.”

“No, you are not a baby,” Miriam agreed. “Katie is the baby and you are the big brother.”

“So, what I’ve been wanting to tell you,” Charley started in. “Larry Jones stopped by yesterday. He wants me to work for him full time. Larry’s got a contract to work on the hospital addition. I’ll have steady masonry work from now on. Isn’t that great?”

“Uh-huh,” Miriam agreed above the din of the next wave of sobs. “That’s wonderful.” She stood up with Jonah in her arms. “He mashed his finger in the door. It’s a bad pinch, but I don’t think anything is broken.”

“Hurts,” Jonah wailed.

“All right, we’ll find your Momma and see what she thinks.”

Charley was still looking at her, his face all alight. “Do you know what this means?” he asked. “The steady job?”

“I guess a regular paycheck. That’s great.” She looked down at her nephew in her arms. “I think I’d best find Johanna. If Jonah gets too upset, he’ll throw up his dinner. And he ate a lot of chicken and dumplings, didn’t you?” She looked into the little boy’s teary eyes as she walked away. “It will be all right. I promise.”

“But, Miriam…” Charley said. “I wanted to talk to you…”

“Later,” she promised and hurried off with Jonah to find her sister. To her surprise, Charley trailed after her. As she reached the kitchen door, her mother was just coming out with Susanna.

“Jonah got his finger pinched in the door,” Miriam explained. “I was looking for Johanna.”

“Poor dumpling,” Hannah exclaimed, taking him from Miriam. “We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”

Susanna’s eyes widened and her face paled. Miriam knew that her little sister was especially tenderhearted and hated the thought of anyone being in pain.

“Jonah will be fine,” Miriam assured Susanna, patting her arm.

Susanna blinked as tears filled her eyes. “Poor Jonah,” she said.

Charley cleared his throat. “I have important news, Hannah.”

Her mother looked up at him. “
Ya?
Good news, I hope.”

“Ya.
It is.” He straightened his shoulders. “Larry Jones wants me to work with him on the new wing for the hospital. I’ll have steady work.”

“Excellent,” Mam said, shifting the little boy to her hip. “You’re a good mason. They couldn’t have anyone more dependable.”

“Oh, there’s Johanna,” Miriam said as she caught sight of her sister coming into the kitchen from the pantry. “Johanna. Jonah needs you.”

Mam carried Jonah inside where he was immediately surrounded by sympathetic mothers, aunts and grandmothers. By the time Miriam glanced back over her shoulder to speak to Charley again, he had retreated to male territory in the barnyard.

It was after six when Mam, Miriam, Susanna and Anna walked across the pasture toward home. It had been a busy day, but a satisfying one. There were still cows to be milked, eggs to be gathered, chickens and pigs to feed and water, but Miriam actually looked forward to it. This was a good time, chatting with Mam and Anna, remembering the laughter and shared worship of another peaceful Sunday.

“It’s good that Charley got steady work,” Mam said.

“Uh-huh,” Miriam agreed. “He certainly was excited about it.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “I wonder why.”

“Well, he would be pleased,” Miriam said. “He didn’t have much work last winter. People weren’t doing much building around Dover.”

“He made a special point of telling Mam about the job,” Anna reminded her.

“So?” Miriam frowned. This teasing about Charley and her was getting a little annoying.

“Hey, Miriam!” Irwin called. He’d gone on ahead to get a start on the chores. Now, he climbed up a fence and waved. “Your boyfriend’s here!”

Anna glanced at Mam. “I wonder which one?”

“That’s not funny,” Miriam said, but she quickened her step, wondering who Irwin was talking about.

As if he’d read her mind, Irwin shouted. “It’s John. He wants to see Miriam in the barn.”

“I’m coming,” Miriam called, then turned back to her mother. “He must have stopped to see Molly on his way home.”

“Two times he comes on a Sunday?” Mam didn’t sound particularly pleased. “Susanna, go with your sister.”

Miriam glanced at her mother, not certain she’d heard her mother correctly. “It’s just John,” she said. “I told you Molly’s leg was warm this morning and we’re concerned about an infection. Why do I need Susanna—?”

“Two times to come on his day off,” Mam repeated, setting her mouth the way she did when there would be no changing her mind. “You do as I say, Miriam. Take your sister with you. See to the horse and nothing more. I am lenient with you girls because I trust you, but we’ll give the neighbors no cause for scandal.”

“W
ait,” Susanna cried. “Wait for me. Mam said I have to come with you.” Her short legs pumped as she tried to catch up. “Wait, Miriam.”

Miriam stopped and tried to compose herself. When Susanna reached her, she took her little sister’s hand and smiled at her. “You’re getting faster,” she said.

Susanna grinned. “Mam said that I’m s’posed to—”

“Ya,”
Miriam agreed. She let go of Susanna’s hand and straightened her sister’s
kapp.
“You like John, don’t you?”

Susanna nodded, and Miriam caught her hand again. Together they walked toward the barn. Miriam could feel Mam’s gaze boring into her back, but she didn’t look back.

Maybe Anna is right,
Miriam thought.
Maybe he is coming to see me.
A delicious shiver passed through her. She had to admit that thinking of John as more than a friend was exciting. But it was scary at the same time. She’d never considered that an English boy might be attracted to her. Of course, being a Mennonite, John really wasn’t an Englisher, but he wasn’t Amish, either. The church would frown on anything beyond the friendship she and John had right now, even if she wanted it to be more. It would be wrong, wouldn’t it?

But then, God did work in mysterious ways. Ruth and Eli were proof of that. Who would ever have thought the bad boy Eli Lapp would have been the right boy for her sister, and yet with every passing day, Miriam was more sure he was. What if God had a plan for Miriam that was just as unexpected? What if it was God’s plan for her that she not live her life in the old way?

The idea intrigued her. There were so many things about the outside world that called to her. The possibility of more education was the first that came to mind. If she got a high school diploma, could she work in an animal hospital? Could she become an animal technician?

She pushed open the barn door and held it for Susanna. Inside, it was cooler. “Hello, John,” she called. “Here we are.”

He stood up, removed his baseball cap, ran his hand through his hair, and put the hat back on. “I thought you’d be home from church earlier.”

“We stayed to help clean up and to visit.”

“Ya,”
Susanna chimed in. “We had chocolate cake and ginger cookies.”

They walked through the barn to join John in Molly’s stall. The mare was contentedly chewing a mouthful of new hay. “How is she doing?” Miriam asked, stroking the horse’s neck.

John patted Molly’s rump. “Good girl,” he murmured.

His gaze met Miriam’s, and she knew instinctively, that whatever concern he had for the horse, he’d come to see her as well. She waited.

Outside, in the pound, the cows mooed. It was past time for milking. They’d stayed too long at Samuel’s. Any minute, Irwin and Anna would be here to help with evening chores. “Is Molly worse?”

“Her hoof doesn’t seem any worse than this morning,” he answered, “but it really isn’t any better, either.”

“I’m applying the medicine exactly as you told me,” Miriam assured him. She couldn’t help thinking how cute he was, and how not-Amish he looked in his jeans and long-sleeve T-shirt and green ball cap that read
John Deere.

“Ya,”
Susanna said. “Miriam’s making Molly better. I love Molly.”

John looked at Susanna and then back at Miriam, and she realized that he wanted to tell her something without her sister hearing.

Miriam glanced at Susanna. “I think Molly needs a new mineral block.” She picked up the remains of the one in her feed box. “There’s a new one in the feed room. Could you get it, Susanna?”

Her sister nodded and hurried away, eager to help, as always.

Miriam felt a small twinge of guilt to have deceived Susanna to get her out of the way, but she trusted John. If it was bad news, Miriam would want to pick the time and the place to tell Susanna. She crumpled a corner of her apron into a ball and glanced at him expectantly. “Molly isn’t worse, is she?”

“It feels like the hoof is heating up. Here.” He crouched down beside the mare and laid his hand gently on Molly’s leg just above the hoof.

Miriam crouched beside him and then he surprised her by grabbing her hand. She didn’t know what to do. It was warm and big and—

“Right here.” He pressed her hand to the same spot he’d just touched. “Feel it?”

He was so close, she could smell fabric softener. Even though his jeans were dirty from being in barns, his shirt was clean. He’d put on a clean shirt before coming.

Miriam tried to block out John and just feel what he was trying to get her to feel. Molly’s leg was definitely warm. “
Ya.
I feel it.”

He stood up, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red cell phone. “I was thinking. In case she spikes a fever, or if you needed to ask me—anything…about her treatment. If you had questions.” He passed her the phone. “I want you to have this.”

She stared at the cell phone in her hand. It was a lot smaller than a deck of cards and so bright that it almost glowed. “A phone?”

Some of the boys who considered themselves
rumspringa
—in their running around years—had phones but Miriam didn’t know any girls who did—at least not in Kent County. Telephones weren’t allowed by the
Ordnung,
the church rules.

“I don’t know,” she hedged. She wanted the phone badly. She’d always been fascinated by them. It was so tempting to take it. John was right. If there was a problem in the night with Molly, she could reach him right away, instead of walking to the chair shop and using the phone there.

“It’s okay, right? For something like this? I don’t want to get you in trouble.” His brow furrowed and she saw how concerned he was for her. “This is the power button. You push that and then hit #1. I programmed in my number. To send, you hit this button.”

“I know how they work,” she assured him. “I see the English customers using them all the time at Spence’s and in the stores.” She hesitated, feeling the weight of the phone in her hand.

“I thought…since you haven’t officially joined the church yet, it would be okay. You having the phone.” He sounded nervous. But in a good way. “
Ya,
that’s true,” she said. Having a cell phone or using it to call the vet wasn’t really against the
Ordnung.
Since she hadn’t joined the church, she wasn’t bound by the same restrictions that baptized members were.

When the accident happened, no one thought it was wrong to use the phone at the chair shop to call the vet. In fact, the objection to telephones was the phone wires that connected them to the English world, not the actual phone. A cell phone didn’t have a wire.

Miriam stared at the phone in her hand. She knew she didn’t have much time. Susanna would be back, and if she saw the phone, she’d tell everyone about it. That was the bad thing about her little sister. Whatever Susanna knew, she repeated it to anyone she spoke to. And nothing Miriam could say would make her understand that her having a phone wasn’t a sin—or that she didn’t have to tell Mam about it.

“So this would just be for calling you if Molly got worse?” Her heart was pounding so hard that she was afraid that John could hear it.
Say no,
she told herself. She looked at him.

He took her hand with both of his, cradling hers, cradling the cell phone. His hand felt warmer than the phone and Miriam felt a thrill run to the tips of her toes. This close to him again, she felt almost dizzy.

“I’d be lying if I said it was just for the mare,” John admitted. “I like you a lot. And I want you to call me whenever you want.” He squeezed her hand and then released it. “We’re friends.” He hesitated. “But I think it’s more than friends, Miriam. I think we’re past that.”

“You’re Mennonite,” she said, so softly that it was barely a whisper.

“I know.”

“And I’m Amish.”

“Yes.”

“There would be problems.”

“You’re right.”

“It wouldn’t be easy, if we…”

He shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t, but we should see, don’t you think? We should find out if…if it
is
more than friendship.”

“I’ve got the block.” Susanna held it high as she skipped toward them from the feed room.

A stray chicken squawked and scurried out of Susanna’s way.

“Close the door so the rats can’t get in,” Miriam shouted to her sister. Dat had lined the whole feed room in sheets of tin to keep out vermin. Even the door was mouseproof.

“You have to tell me if you want to keep it, Miriam. I know you want to,” John pressed quietly. “Will you take it?”

She looked up into his eyes and a bubble of mischief rose in her chest. She’d always been a little rebellious. She’d ridden horses when girls weren’t supposed to. She’d played ball with the boys and walked the ridgepole on the barn when everyone else was afraid to.

“Dare you,” John challenged.

She slipped the red cell phone into her apron pocket. “If Mam finds out, I’ll be in big trouble.”

“Me, too.” He chuckled, and she laughed with him.

It would be their secret,
Miriam thought. She couldn’t wait to try out the phone, to talk to him in the night. Just the thought of calling him on the little red phone made her face feel warm.
This is temptation,
she thought. But will it lead to something more? Only time would tell.

“Here you go.” Susanna walked into the stall, carrying the mineral block.

“Good work.” John looked at Miriam and then back at Susanna, again. “You’re a big help, Susanna, the best.” He patted Molly’s withers. “I guess I’d best be getting on home,” he said. “I have an early call in Felton.”

“Ya,”
Miriam agreed. “I have to get to the milking. It’s late.”

“I leave the house at about seven,” he said. “And it takes me about twenty minutes to get there.” He was telling her to call him.
Tomorrow.

“Seven,” she repeated, already planning how she could get away—maybe into the old milk house that served as a library. The walls were thick there. She could make her call from there and no one would hear.

“Mam says get on with the milking,” Irwin called, banging open the barn door.

Miriam looked up, noting that Irwin hadn’t said Hannah but Mam. It was the first time she’d heard him refer to her mother as Mam.

“Before they burst,” Irwin continued. He stopped and scowled at John. “Out late, aren’t you?”

“I was on my way home from another call. Just thought I’d check on Molly.” If John thought he was being rude, he didn’t act like it.

“Never saw so much fuss over a hoof,” Irwin grumbled. “I’ll let the cows in, Miriam.”

“’Night,” John said, walking away. “Talk to you soon, Miriam.”

She nodded. “Soon.” The phone in her apron pocket pressed hot against her thigh. “Thanks for stopping by.” She knew that her mother would not approve of her taking it, but she also knew she’d make that call to John tomorrow morning.

“Hello, is this John?” Miriam asked loudly. It was 7:15 a.m. on Monday, and she’d ducked into the old milk house. She was so nervous that her hands were shaking.

He laughed. “You punched in my number. Who else would it be?”

The radio music in the background ended abruptly and Miriam guessed that John had turned it off.

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“Ya,
I’m here.” She held the cell phone tightly. All night she’d kept thinking of things that they’d talk about, and now that she’d actually reached him, her mind had gone blank. It felt so strange, using a phone just to talk. She had plenty of experience using phones; she called to make appointments for people all the time. But this was different.

“How’s Molly?”

“Good. Same as last night.” She peered out the window, hoping that Irwin or Anna wouldn’t discover her here. If they did, what reason could she give for being in the library so early? What she was doing wasn’t hurting anyone, but it was private. And if there was one thing difficult to find growing up in a house with six sisters and an observant mother, it was privacy.

“Hoof infections are tricky. She’s not out of the woods yet,” John said.

She could picture him at the wheel of the truck, a bottle of root beer in one hand. John liked his soda. He always bought one for himself and one for her when they shared lunch at Spence’s. She began to relax a little. “What is your call this morning? You said you were going to Felton.”

“Oh, just routine immunizations. It’s a horse farm. Trotters. They want me to certify a two-year-old for sale. He’s going to Tennessee.”

Once the talk turned to horses, it was easy to fall into a comfortable conversation with John. She liked the way that he treated her as an equal, as if she understood every thing. Most of it, she did.

“I was wondering,” he said.

“Ya,
of what?”

“Wednesday I have to drive to Easton to pick up something for my grandfather. There’s a nice little restaurant over there. Maybe you could go with me, just for the ride.”

Like a date,
she thought. Was she ready for that? First the cell phone and then sneaking off for the day with him. Mam would never give her permission, not unless she took one of her sisters with her, and probably not then. But was it wrong to want to go with John? They’d had lunch together lots of times at Spence’s. What would make that all right and going with him to Easton the wrong choice?

“I can’t,” she said. “We’re making applesauce with Johanna on Wednesday.” That wasn’t really a lie. Mam had mentioned that they might do that one day this week. Maybe she wasn’t ready to take such a big step, or maybe the thought of sneaking behind Mam’s back made her feel small and mean.

“Maybe another time, then.”

“Maybe,” she agreed. She could imagine him pulling off his ball cap and running his hand through his short hair, the way he did when he didn’t know what to say. A lump rose in her throat. She didn’t want to do anything to hurt her friendship with John, but she didn’t want to betray her mother’s trust, either. “I think I had better go. They’ll wonder where I am.”