Three days after her interview, Martha found herself moving into the small cabin behind the B&B. It was all wood, and was really only three rooms, the living room being the largest of all. A stuffed chair sat in one corner, opposite a small fireplace. In the back, there was a small kitchen with a beautiful wood table in the center. Next to the kitchen was a tiny, cramped bedroom, hardly able to contain the small bed that was placed inside it. Still, it was to be Martha’s own home, and she loved it.
Her father was helping her move, though she had tried to convince him she could do fine on her own. “You didn’t even let me bring you over for the interview,” he said when she was trying to talk him out of packing her things up with her and driving his buggy over to her new home. “Ferwas bischt allfatt so schtarrkeppich?” Why are you so stubborn?
“Daed, I can make my own way,” she had said, and her father had laughed. He was a large man, tall and broad shouldered, and his laugh was loud and booming. She loved to see and hear him laugh, and she realized she was really going to miss him. So she let him help, and after a morning of packing her few things into the back of the buggy, she and her father drove over to the cabin.
He didn’t let Martha help carry anything in. “You can unpack it all, so you feel independent,” her father said with a wry smile. “But let your old vadder do one last thing for his dochder.”
“Jah, Daed,” she said, and she stood back and let him unload the buggy. Afterward, they stood just outside the doorway.
“Well, you come by often for meals,” he said.
“I will.”
“Your mudder will miss you.”
“I know.”
“Look at that, looks like you got work to do,” he said, nodding up toward the B&B. From where they stood, they could just see half of the gravel driveway. A car was pulling in, red and new, throwing up a bit of dust as it moved to park in front of the house. It chose a space they couldn’t see from their vantage point, but a moment later they heard the car doors open and then close.
Martha nodded in agreement. “Well, let me go see if she needs me now,” she said, turning to her vadder. “I’ll see you Sunday,” Martha said softly. Her vadder nodded, and then he turned and headed for his buggy. She watched him climb into the driver’s seat, and then he got the horse moving, and headed across the gravel parking lot. She watched until she couldn’t see him anymore, and then she turned and shut her cabin door before heading toward the large B&B.
“Oh I’m glad you stopped by, I know you were supposed to just be moving in today, but I could use your help,” Miriam saw as soon as she saw Martha. “These two came a day early, and I don’t have their room together yet. Can you help me?”
Miriam motioned to a young couple standing nearby. They were close to Martha’s age, if not a little older. The man was tall and thin, the woman shorter with long blonde hair. They stood next to one another, the man with his arm thrown across her shoulder.
“I’m Richard,” the man said, stepping forward with his hand outstretched. Martha shook it, and turned to the woman.
“Bethany,” she said, shaking her hand. “This place is beautiful.”
“It is,” Martha agreed. “Are you two on your honeymoon?”
“How did you guess?” Bethany asked.
“There’s a glow about you,” Martha said shyly, and Bethany smiled.
“Let’s get this room put together,” Miriam said, placing a guiding hand on Martha’s arm and leading her for the stairs. The two women hurried upstairs and went to what Miriam called the Grand Suite. It was the largest room they had, with a massive king sized bed on a hand carved oak frame. Miriam pulled sheets from a closet in the hall, and together they dressed the bed.
Martha ran outside to the back garden and pulled some flowers, snipping the ends off with shears and hurrying back inside to place them in a vase next to the bed. The women worked quickly, and within ten minutes they were showing the honeymooning couple up to the room.
After the guests were squared away, Miriam took Martha through the house one more time, this time not giving her a tour, but explaining what her duties were going to be on a daily basis.
“So for the bedrooms, you’ll be required to complete the usual housekeeping tasks such as making the beds, turn downs, wake up calls and so on. Our guests are usually adults and tend to keep their rooms fairly neat. So far we haven’t had a problem with any room being too difficult to clean, or any guests being particularly untidy.”
They headed back downstairs to the kitchen and Miriam showed Martha where to find everything from utensils to the pots and pans. “You may have to do a little cooking occasionally, but not too much. Most of our guests like to eat out for dinner, but sometimes they like a hot breakfast in the morning.”
Martha followed Miriam around the large kitchen, taking notes and making mental checklists of things she needed to remember and the tasks she needed to complete.
They ended in the parlor next to the front door. “Okay, go unpack,” Miriam said. “Come in for dinner though tonight, all right?”
“Jah, denki,” Martha said, and she took her leave.
Martha spent a lazy day setting up her cabin, putting her few possessions where they had to go. Then she sat in her chair in the living room, and fell asleep.
When she awoke, the sky outside was a hazy purple, the sun sliding behind the trees on the horizon. Martha looked at the little clock on the mantle over the fireplace and realized that dinner was only minutes away. She stood and went to the tiny bathroom, splashing her face with water before patting it dry with a cloth.
Inside the dining room in the large house, Miriam and Martha served Richard and Bethany dinner, and then sat down to join them. They had pork and sauerkraut, followed by wet-bottom shoo fly pie. Everyone spoke and laughed as they ate, and Martha wasn’t sure when she felt happier. After dinner she helped Miriam clean up, and then returned home.
There was a small wooden porch that could hardly be called such outside the cabin, with two old rickety rocking chairs on either side of the front door upon it. Martha sat upon one, intending to enjoy a bit of the warm night. The sun had long since fallen completely, but the moon hung fat and blue in the sky, surrounded by a million stars since there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Martha wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there, when the back door of the B&B opened and Bethany exited. She stood for a moment in the garden, and then she turned and saw Martha. She smiled and waved and made her way toward the young woman.
“Hey,” Bethany said, stopping just short of the porch.
“Hello,” Martha said. “Enjoying the fresh air?”
Bethany laughed and nodded her head. “It’s all just so nice around here. We live in a big city; I haven’t seen the sky look like this in a long time.”
“Have a seat if you’d like,” Martha said, motioning to the other rocking chair.
Bethany smiled and sat. “Have you always lived here?”
Martha nodded. “In this town,” she clarified, “ever since I was a little girl.”
“You’re lucky.”
Martha laughed and shrugged. “I’ve never seen a big city, though.”
Bethany nodded. “Do you want to?”
“See a big city?”
“Yeah.”
Martha thought for a moment. “No, not really, I’m happy where I am.”
The two women were quiet for some minutes, and then Martha spoke. “How did you and your husband meet, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Bethany smiled and looked at the other woman. “High school. We didn’t date then though, not until college. We just graduated this year.”
“High school is around sixteen?”
“Yes, and older, and a little younger. You didn’t go to high school?”
“Not exactly, we do things a little bit different. We have school, but it’s not the same.”
Bethany smiled. “Richard annoyed me in high school. He was obnoxious, but I always sort of liked him too. He was cute, and funny, but he was annoying sometimes. He drove me nuts. Then we ended up going to the same college. Do you guys do college?”
“No, though some of us decide to leave the community, and they often go.”
Bethany thought for a moment. “Have you ever thought about leaving?”
“No.”
“I don’t see why you would. It’s so calm and nice here.”
Martha agreed. “It is.”
Bethany leaned across and looked at her new friend. “Is there a but?”
Martha was usually shy with Englischers, but she felt she had found a kindred spirit in Bethany. “I just wish I was married.”
“You will be,” Bethany assured her. “If you continue to be patient, God will bring a wonderful man into your life, in His own perfect timing.”
Martha simply nodded. The two women sat together for a few minutes more, and then Bethany stood.
“I better get back in there,” she said. “Richard is going to get grumpy.”
Martha laughed and nodded. “See you tomorrow,” she said, and Bethany hurried back inside. Martha stood then, and went in to get ready for bed.
She lay in her bed under the blankets and started at the ceiling in the dark. She was tired but she couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about Bethany, and the little she had learned about her. The way she spoke of Richard, and the way they were together, something about it made Martha sad. She realized as she lay in bed that the sadness was caused by a twinge of jealousy. She didn’t know what that was like, to love a man that way. She didn’t know what high school was like, or college. She knew others went to college to learn a trade. To have a job. She had a job now, and she loved it, but she wondered what it was like to go to school. To be normal.
She hated thinking like that. She had asked her father why they weren’t normal once, when she was younger. It had hurt him, and she had seen it in his eyes. He told her they were normal. That they did things differently than a lot of the world did, a lot of the country they lived in, but it was normal. It was normal to them. He told her of a time he had gone to the beach when he was visiting Delaware. Everyone had looked at him and his friends, but her father hadn’t cared. It was what he wanted. It was normal to him.
Despite the glorious morning, Martha couldn’t ignore the painful longing tugging her soul. Her heart heavy and her face bore signs of melancholy. Every now and then she felt it, like a jab, no, more like a powerful puncture to the heart. The feeling was sporadic. On most days she felt happy and traveled through life on a wave of optimistic euphoria. And then it would hit, on days like this where she craved to share the mystical beauty of her hometown with someone special. It was days like this she longed for love.
She besought for the deepening gap in her heart to be filled. She yearned to share the beauty of life and all it had to offer with someone special. She wanted someone who adored and appreciated her; someone to calm her down when she got mad, and someone to laugh with her when she expressed her silly side. But most importantly, she dreamed of someone to share her life with and love her unconditionally. She had so much love to give and wanted nothing more than to give it to someone else.
She stepped away from the window. She prayed and trusted Gott. She knew she just had to be patient for the right time and for the right man. But she couldn’t hide the fact that her patience was wearing thin.
In bed Martha thought about that, and it brought tears to her eyes, stinging salty things that she tried to blink away, but for every one she made disappear, another took its place. She lay in bed and cried, feeling bad, and she wasn’t even exactly sure why.