Summer Promise (15 page)

“What was so awful?” he asked. “Tell me.”

“The women at the food table,” Leah blurted out. “I couldn't hear much of what they were saying. But I could see who was speaking. It was that horrible Berthe Meyer and her daughter Erma, who's just as bad. So I knew what it meant. They were gossiping.”

“Gossiping about Miriam?” Eli asked.

Leah nodded. “I think so, yes, because I could see Miriam, too. She was carrying some plates of food for the table. She was about to come around the side of the barn. But when she heard the women speaking, she stopped, and then she turned around. They must have been saying something terrible. I could tell by the way she was walking that something was wrong. It was like she couldn't see what was right in front of her. For a minute, I was afraid she might fall down. And the look on her face . . . She says she wants to go home. She wants me to find Daniel. Have you seen him?”

“No,” Eli said, turning quickly to look behind him. “Come, let's look for him.”

They set off at a quick walk, moving through the crowd of people gathering for the meal.

“I don't see him by the food tables,” Eli said. “But there are still more people coming out of the barn. Let's head that way.”

“I don't understand it,” Leah said, still furious on Miriam's behalf. “Why do people do things like that? Don't they stop to think about how it might make other people feel?”

“No,” Eli said. “They do not. People who gossip think only of themselves.”

Leah opened her mouth to ask how on earth he would know such a thing, then closed it with a snap.
Of course he knows,
she realized. She now understood why Eli assumed she had heard the gossip about him.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “It must be terrible to know that people are talking about you behind your back, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.”

Some quick emotion flashed across Eli's face, there and gone so swiftly Leah had no chance of identifying it.

“It is, in fact,” he said. “But you get used to it.”

“I don't think that can be right,” Leah said. She pulled in a deep breath. “I want you to know that I never told anyone what you told me when we were driving back from town the other day. I never talked about you behind your back. And I know that I have faults, lots and lots of them. But I would not do that—not to you or anyone. And I understand now what you were trying to say about that
Englischer
boy in that red car. You were trying to tell me to be careful or people might be gossiping about me. I guess I should say thank you for that.”

“You say the most amazing things sometimes,” Eli said. “Though I think the most amazing thing of all is that I followed all of that. I—”

“Eli! Where have you got to? I need your help.” Victor's voice rang out.

Eli's head whipped in the direction of his brother's voice.

“I'm here,” he called back. “I'll be right there.” He turned to Leah once more. “It looks as if the men are still in the barn. I bet I can find Daniel there. I am sure Victor has seen him.”

“
Danki
, Eli,” Leah said. “I will go back to Miriam.”

But as Leah headed back toward the house, Leah saw that things were not as she'd left them. Miriam was no longer on the steps of the King house but sitting on a bench on one end of the porch. And her
aenti
was climbing the steps of the porch, heading straight for Miriam.

Thank goodness! Aenti Rachel could make anyone feel better, Leah thought as she turned back around and continued her search for Daniel.

Thirteen

O
h, Miriam,” Rachel said. “There you are.”

Miriam started. She was feeling a little better, well enough that she realized the surest way to head off any additional gossip about her was to stop sitting out in plain sight on the front steps of Victor and Rebecca's porch. She had pushed herself up, collecting the plates of food as she stood. For one brief moment, Miriam had considered turning around. Marching down the steps and around the side of the barn to confront Berthe Meyer and the others. To see their faces when they realized she knew what they had said.

It's what Sarah would have done,
she thought. But Miriam was not Sarah. She could never be Sarah, and wasn't that the problem? In the end, she had simply walked to a bench at the far end of the porch, sinking down upon it and setting the plates of food at her side. Then she'd sat perfectly still, her mind as blank as a new sheet of paper, until she'd heard the sound of someone saying her name.

Miriam looked up. Slowly, as if she had to regain the use of her eyes, a familiar face came into focus.

“Rachel?” Miriam asked, her voice coming out in a croak.

“I saw you sitting here on your own,” Rachel said in a calm, straightforward tone. “I thought you might like some company.”

“
Danke
,” Miriam said. She hadn't wanted to talk to anyone. But Rachel was the exception. Rachel's company was always welcome. “I wasn't feeling well and wanted to go home early,” Miriam explained. “I'm just waiting here for Daniel.”

Rachel made a face. “He's involved in a spirited discussion about the upcoming horse auction, I'm afraid.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Miriam said. She cleared her throat, striving to match Rachel's easy manner. “We might as well get comfortable. We'll be here a while.”

Rachel's kind eyes sharpened in concern. “But are you all right?”

“It's nothing serious. My stomach is upset.” This was not far from the truth, Miriam told herself. “I just came to sit here, because I don't think I can eat the meal. Don't worry. Leah said she would look for Daniel for me.”

“I'm sure Daniel will come once he knows you need him,” Rachel said.

Miriam made an inarticulate sound. She lifted a hand to her mouth, pressing hard against it to keep from sobbing aloud. Rachel sat beside her in silence, eyes straight ahead, hands folded quietly in her lap. Never had Miriam appreciated the other woman more. One touch, one word, even a single syllable of support, and Miriam was sure she would have lost control. She pulled in deep breaths, focusing on the air moving in and out of her lungs. After a few moments, she dropped her hand down into her lap. She swallowed hard.

“Did I ever tell you,” Rachel said after several minutes had passed, her tone conversational, as if she were discussing the weather or the garden, “that, at one time in my life, I thought I might become your mother?”

Miriam's head turned toward Rachel as if jerked by a string, all thoughts of her present upset forgotten.

“What?”

Rachel smiled. And now she did reach for Miriam's hands, giving them a quick squeeze before releasing them to fold her own in her lap once more.

“Of course, it was many years ago, about a year after Edna died. Jacob's first year of mourning had come to an end and everybody just assumed he would begin looking for another wife. It wasn't so unreasonable. That would have been the sensible, Plain thing to do, after all. He had two young girls to raise, and he was just a little over thirty, still a vital man. Surely he would want more children; he would want a more traditional family life.

“I'm still not quite sure how it happened,” Rachel continued quietly, “but the day came when I suddenly realized that everyone around me seemed to be of the opinion that
I
would be Jacob's choice.”

The two women sat in silence for several moments, Miriam waiting for Rachel to continue. How many more surprises could the day hold?

“Did they say why?” she finally managed to inquire.

At this, Rachel gave a quick laugh. “Oh, yes. Over and over,” she replied. “Though never to my face, of course. But I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how effective gossip can be.”

“No, I don't,” Miriam agreed.

“I was considered old to still be unmarried,” Rachel went on. “Just a little over twenty. Apparently, a marriage between Jacob and me would be the perfect solution to both our ‘problems.' He would get a mother for his children, and I would be spared becoming an old maid.

“Everyone around me seemed so sure of what would happen that, eventually, I became sure of it myself. I even became convinced that this was what I wanted: I wanted to become Jacob Lapp's wife.”

“Daed never spoke about any of this,” Miriam said.

“I don't imagine that he did,” Rachel answered with a smile. “But then he had no reason to, did he? He had made his choice, and I'm sure he never regretted it.”

“The choice not to marry you, you mean?” Miriam asked.

“The choice not to marry anyone,” Rachel corrected her softly. She fell silent for a moment. Her eyes looked straight ahead, but it seemed to Miriam that Rachel was no longer seeing what was right in front of her, the Kings' front porch. Instead, she was seeing something that had happened many years ago.

Rachel finally spoke once more. “I still remember the Sunday Jacob asked if he could speak with me after worship service. I was so excited! So sure that this was the day he would ask me to become his wife. I had butterflies in my stomach all during the service. I don't think I heard a word the bishop spoke. All I could do was try to picture the moment when Jacob would ask me to be his wife.

“After the service, we went for a ride in his buggy. We drove to the top of Stoneridge Hill. Do you know the place I mean?”

“I do.” Miriam nodded. It was a popular courting spot. “It's beautiful there. You can see in every direction.”

“In every direction,” Rachel echoed. “As if the whole world could be yours.” She paused yet again, as if she could see the view before her, right at that very moment. “We got out of the buggy,” Rachel continued. “Jacob even held my hand. His touch was strong and steady. I remember that so well! Just as I remember the quiet, steady way his eyes held mine when he told me how sorry he was that he could not ask me to be his wife. It wasn't me, he said. I shouldn't think that it was. But he would never marry anyone.”

“But
why
?” Miriam said. “Why would he be so opposed to taking another wife?”

“For the simplest reason imaginable,” Rachel answered. “Because in his heart, he still had one. Your father was, and always would be, married to your mother. Nothing was ever going to change that, he said. Not even the fact that Edna wasn't alive anymore, that now she walked with God. Believing that,
knowing
that, the way he did, he could never ask another woman to become his wife.”

Rachel gave a long, deep sigh. Looking into the other woman's face, Miriam discovered there were tears in Rachel's eyes.

“Your father loved your mother, Miriam. I have never seen a love quite like it, not in all my life. Another man might have done what everyone expected of him, and it certainly would have made life easier. He would have had a helpmate, someone to help him raise you and Sarah, to run the house, the farm stand, and the farm.

“But Jacob Lapp was not that man. He knew his own heart and mind. Even more, he believed that he could not feel as strongly, see as clearly, as he did, if the path he was choosing to walk was not also the will of God. And this faith gave him the strength to choose a path that many people would not understand, might even criticize him for.”

“Sarah,” Miriam whispered. Sarah had sounded so much like Daed that day in the blackberry patch. Sarah, too, had followed a rocky path, but it was the one she believed God had paved for her inside her heart.

“I have always thought that Sarah and your father were much alike,” Rachel said. “But you are like him, also. You have his steadiness and his quiet determination. You have the same devotion to those you love.”

“But what if they don't love you back?” Miriam whispered, and she felt a fine trembling seize all her limbs. This was as close as she had ever come to speaking of her innermost fears to anyone.

“What I think,” Rachel answered slowly, “what I learned from Jacob that day, is that we can never know what is in another person's heart. Not until they decide to share it with us. Until that moment, we have only our own hopes and perhaps our fears.”

Unexpectedly, she smiled once more. “We certainly have our own expectations, which may or may not be met! As long as I'm telling you the truth, I must also say that I didn't take what your father had to say particularly well. I was upset. I was
very
upset. I felt that I'd been made to look like a fool, and that it was all Jacob's fault.

“But as the days passed and I had the chance to think about all he said to me that day, I changed my mind. The more I thought about it, the more I could see how courageous Jacob was. How honorable, even, to explain to me why he could not marry me, rather than to simply leave me dangling, never knowing the truth. Or marrying me, knowing I would speak the vows in good faith, but for him, they would have been false.

“And, slowly but surely, I realized something else: Jacob's actions had created in me the desire to look beyond what others thought I should do. His courage gave me the courage to look into, and to know, what was in my own heart.

“John Miller and I were married that winter. He's younger than I am by several years, you know. People flapped their lips about that, too, but I never let it bother me. I knew, just as Jacob did, that I had made the right choice.”

Miriam was silent, taking in Rachel's words, taking in all the unspoken things she thought the older woman was trying to tell her.

“I cannot be sorry that Daed made the choice he did,” she said at last. “Because then, I think, I would have to be sorry that he was who he was. But I think having you for a mother would have been a fine thing, for Sarah and for me.”

“I will tell you a secret,” Rachel said. “In my heart, I have always thought of you as my daughters. And I have always been proud of you both.”

“Oh, Rachel,” Miriam sobbed.

“There, now!” Rachel said. She put an arm around Miriam's shoulders. “I tried to make you feel better, but still you are crying after all.”

“You have made me feel better,” Miriam said. “More than you know. And I don't know what's come over me lately.” She scrubbed away the tears with the backs of her hands. “It seems I'm crying all the time.”

“You have had many changes in the last few months, Miriam,” Rachel said. “Sometimes, getting used to them takes time. It is hard to be patient, particularly with ourselves. Ah! And here is Daniel, just in time.”

Rachel gave Miriam's shoulder one final pat, and then stood up. “Here we are, Daniel,” she called out.

“Miriam,” Daniel said. He strode toward them. Even from a distance, Miriam could hear the worry in her husband's voice. “Is everything all right? Eli said you were feeling unwell.”

“Eli!” Miriam exclaimed.

“Leah must have asked him to speak to Daniel,” Rachel said. “So that she would not call attention to herself, and him, by asking to speak to him when there were so many menfolk around.” She took a step away from the bench where Miriam still sat. “Well, I will leave you two alone. But I will call on you tomorrow to see how you get on, Miriam. Good day to you, Daniel.”

“Good day, Rachel,” Daniel said. The second she was past him, he knelt at Miriam's feet, gazing intently into her face. “You look pale,” he said. “Let me take you home.”

“I would like to go home,” Miriam admitted. “But I hate to have you leave, Daniel. This will be your last chance to talk with all the other men before the horse auction.”

“I'll take my chances with the auction,” Daniel said. “If you are unwell—”

“It's nothing really,” Miriam assured him, “and it will not be a problem for me to take the buggy on my own. That is, if you don't mind walking.”

“Of course I don't,” Daniel said at once. “Or, if there is room, I can ride home with my mother and father.” He looked at her again, concern in his blue eyes. “You're sure?”

“Yes, I am sure,” Miriam told him.

“Very well. Then I'll just go get the horse hitched up. Do you want to wait here, or will you come?”

“I'll wait here,” Miriam said.

She expected Daniel to get up at once, but, to her surprise, he stayed right where he was. With gentle fingers, he reached out and touched Miriam's cheek. “I think, perhaps, you look a little better.”

“Anything would be an improvement, don't you think?” Miriam said, striving to keep her tone light. Her skin tingled everywhere Daniel's fingers had touched her.