While the children washed up, Rose needed to begin reheating the meaty stew she had cooked earlier in the pot on the wood stove. Instead she waited at the counter, where she could keep an eye on the back door. What would cause such secrecy, such panic in her father-in-law when he dropped the envelope? Her heart thudded mercilessly against her chest.
Joel entered the house, his head ducked as he walked toward the kitchen. He handed her some wood for the stove, then laid the envelope on the counter. “We’ll talk when the children are asleep.”
She knew her place, and it wasn’t to question or argue when the head of the home gave a decree. Getting the fire to burn hotter to reheat the stew came first. To hurry up the process of heating dinner, maybe she should pour the stew into a different pot and set it on an eye of the gas stove. But neither way seemed fast enough. Joel moved to a cabinet and pulled out bowls.
She envisioned herself watching the beef stew warm, ladling it out, and the children prattling excitedly throughout dinner. She even imagined going through the nightly routine of getting them in bed—helping them change into pajamas and brush their teeth before they snuggled on the couch and read delicious passages of fiction before finally saying their prayers and climbing into bed.
Strangely disobedient, her will felt like a feral animal, free from all control. It wouldn’t cooperate with what she knew needed to happen and in what order, so she remained in place, staring at the envelope. “No.”
The bowls in Joel’s hand clanked, and she realized he’d almost dropped them.
She picked up the envelope. “Is this connected to whatever is distracting you?”
“I haven’t been…” He dropped the sentence and paused before he moved his head as if he was both nodding and shaking it. “Ya.”
“Joel, I’d like to know what’s in it.”
The children sounded like a team of sled dogs coming down the stairs, yelping and scuffling playfully. She needed to tend to them, just as she had done for four years without fail, no matter what was going on. And it was life, so there was always a measure of difficult things going on.
“What’s for dinner?” Mose asked, sniffing the air. “Smells great.”
Their little voices rose, asking, talking, demanding. It was enough to drown out all possibility of adult conversation.
The stew was only lukewarm, and Joel grabbed a paper grocery bag out of the drawer and went to the refrigerator. He put grapes, oranges, and their reusable water bottles into the bag. He stopped by the pantry and tossed a package of Goldfish crackers into it. “Mose, take your brother and sister upstairs to my room. Eat what’s in here. Do not come down until I say you can.”
Joel’s room was the farthest one down the hall, so apparently he was trying to ensure they wouldn’t overhear.
Mose peered into the bag. “What about dessert?”
Joel grabbed the plate of homemade gingerbread men off the counter and shoved it into the bag. He put his hand on Levi’s shoulder and pointed him toward the steps. “You too. All three, upstairs.”
Grace peered up at him, looking concerned.
He smiled. “Go on, baby girl. It’s an indoor picnic on my sectional.”
Her worry turned into excitement, and she ran up the steps behind her brothers.
The room grew quiet, and Joel pulled out a chair for her.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure I can sit. What’s the bad news?”
“It’s not bad news.”
“Your body language says otherwise.”
He nodded. “It’s only bad news—bad news for me—if you think it’s the best thing to ever happen to a married Amish couple.”
Rose’s confusion expanded. His words made no sense. “What are you talking about?”
As Joel explained, she tried to wrap her mind around the word annulment. She should’ve sat down when he suggested it, but she locked her knees, determined to stay in place. Despite his flowery words and gentle tone, she saw the truth he was dancing around. Joel had found a way to get out of being married to her.
“Rose, honey?” He tried to slip his hands into hers. “I’ve been very concerned how this might sound, so much so that I didn’t want to talk about it until after Christmas. I need you to hear me. What the church leaders back in Pennsylvania are doing doesn’t mean anything. We love you. Me, the children, and this community. We were broken, and God sent an angel to Forest Hill.”
An angel. Ya, right. “An angel you needed four years ago, and now that the children are older, this angel just isn’t needed anymore, right? Especially since there’s a new and attractive widow in Forest Hill.”
He groaned, clearly frustrated. “Rose, could you just try to hear what I’m saying?”
She heard plenty. He just seemed to think she was deaf to what he wasn’t saying. She pulled away, and the only thing she could think was that she finally understood what it felt like to have someone in your life one minute and then gone the next. “Now what?”
He held out the envelope. “Daed gathered information on annulments at the library in Beckley. He copied some of the documents so we’d be fully informed when the decision comes back from the leaders.”
“Very noble.” She took the envelope. “Of course, a more noble thing would have been if the two of you had talked with me about it on Tuesday. Why are you hiding information—from your wife and the one you professed to love?”
“I…Rose, the way you are responding, right now—I wanted to avoid this.”
“Avoid this? You could have just put the truth out there. ‘I appreciate all you’ve done for us, but I just found out the church might allow us to dissolve our marriage. I’m actually not in love with you after all.’ ”
“What?” His brows furrowed, wrinkling his forehead. “That’s not what’s going on here.”
“I think it is. Tuesday morning you said all the right things while trying to console and calm me down when Gertie showed up gifting you with clothing she’d made. But then you learned you could have a different life. One without difficult Rose.”
“That’s not what was going on.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I misspoke to Erma on Monday night, and she took the news to Daed. That’s why he and the preacher came here to talk to me.”
Rose paused for a moment, thinking about Erma and how she treated Joel and Rose’s personal information. Her skin burned as unbridled anger rose from some abandoned place inside her. “But couldn’t you have told that preacher not to even consider discussing our marriage? That we’d never want an annulment and were on our way to an intimate marriage?”
He closed his eyes. “Ya, I tried but—”
“No buts, Joel. You wanted to know if our marriage could be easily voided. You didn’t stop them. And you kept all of it from me while…” She looked at the closed bedroom doors, embarrassed at how hard she’d been pushing for them to begin a new chapter of their lives. “Forget how awful this makes me feel, how unloved and stupid. You know I want us to have a real married life. But why would you be willing to break up the family and wound your children?”
“I don’t want the family to break up. It’s hard to imagine the pain it would cause the children. Listen to me, Rose.”
She shook the envelope at him. “If the marriage was dissolved, what were you thinking was going to happen to me? That I could just visit the children? I have a better plan. You move out. I’ll help you pack, and I’ll live here with the children.”
He blinked, looking bewildered by her suggestion.
“What, Joel? You don’t like it when it’s your life being jerked out from under you?”
“But I’m not trying to take anything from you. This is what I was afraid of! I…thought—”
“Ya, I know what you’re thinking. They’re your children. You remind me and them of that whenever you’re annoyed with me.” Still holding the envelope in one hand, she fisted the other. “I hate when you call me stepmom. Why do you do that? We are very open with the children about who their real Mamm is. We have them call me Mama to make sure I’m not infringing on her place. We talk of her to them. So tell me, why remind them that I’m a stepmom?”
He appeared surprised by the territory the argument had entered, and it took him a moment to answer. “Sometimes I feel they need a reminder that you don’t owe them every breath you take. You’ve been a great gift to all of us—but at the cost of your own interests and identity.”
“I set good boundaries.”
“Sometimes. At other times you give them too much of your day and energy.”
“They’re children. I’m the only mother they have now, and it’s what a mom does. This annulment isn’t about the church’s concerns with our marriage. You’re just looking for a dash toward freedom.”
“Rose, you’re letting your imagination be fueled by old pain. I get how I’ve set a brush fire.” He shook his head, clearly distraught. “It’s what I feared most—that this thing from out of nowhere would fan flames of doubt. How you feel right now isn’t based on what’s happening today or this week. Listen to me. I was so caught off guard and offended that I didn’t gather my wits and argue with the preacher, and that was wrong. But remember that I started the addition of the bedroom. Can’t you hear me when I say I love you?”
“No, I can’t. Not at this point. I heard you when you said it on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been the one asking for every kiss, and I asked the men to help finish our bedroom. And you? You started keeping a pretty important secret.” She shoved the envelope into the hidden pocket of her apron. “Now when you tell me how you feel, I can’t be as quick to believe you. I need some fresh air.” She grabbed her coat and went outside.
Night had fallen, and the darkness pressed in hard. She went to the barn, lit a lantern, and hitched the horse to the carriage. Holding tight to the leather reins, she pulled out of the driveway. In her four years of living here, had she once left the house by herself? Whenever she left without any of the children, she was with Joel.
Her thoughts were as scattered as her heart was broken. She could deal with being a second-class wife. As things go, she had been dealt a very good hand—a fun and kind husband, three sweet and smart-as-a-whip children, a lovely home, a comfortable income, a supportive community, and a few really good friends—like Elise, Shirley Wagner, and Joel’s Mamm, Sarah. But to be uncertain that he ever would or could love her?
Tension made her shoulders ache, and her knuckles were white from gripping the reins. The clippety-clop of the horse’s hoofs against the cold pavement worked some of the angst out of her shoulders. Why would Erma start this kind of trouble between Joel and her? The woman didn’t like her, but did she know the irreversible damage she’d done? Rose and Joel had come so far, respecting and trusting each other all along the way.
When Erma’s house came into sight, Rose was tempted to stop there.
“Just stay on the road,” she mumbled, but despite herself she pulled onto the driveway. What was she doing here? Some people could be reasoned with. From all Rose had seen, Erma was not one of them. Still, she tethered the horse to the hitching post, went to the front door, and knocked.
Leo, Erma’s better half, opened the door. The old man’s eyes grew as big as his smile. “Hey, Rose, kumm.” He peered out the door. “Are you by yourself?”
“I am.”
Either she or Joel brought the children here two or three times a month and stayed to help while the little ones visited their grandparents. Maybe part of Rose’s anger was that she’d gone out of her way to treat Erma fairly. Was Leo in agreement with Erma, disliking Rose and willing to meddle? It didn’t seem as if he was against her. He responded as warm as sunshine to her, had since her first month here.
“Leo?” Erma called. “Who’s here?”
He motioned for Rose to follow him. “Rose is. She’s by herself.”
They went into the living room, where Erma was rocked back in the recliner with a pillow under her knees and one under each elbow. Her ankles and the joints in her hands were quite swollen. Erma stared at her.
Rose took a seat on the couch. Her heart raced, but now that she was facing Erma, she knew what she wanted to say. She had a story to share, one she’d never told anyone for fear of being accused of witchcraft. She no longer cared. “It might sound like deviltry, but in early December four years ago, the same week that Joel returned to work after taking two months off, Mose and Levi contracted the flu. I’d taken them to the doctor’s and had meds and instructions, but I couldn’t get Levi’s fever down, and I couldn’t get him to drink anything. I was starting to panic. I didn’t know Joel well, and I was afraid he’d be angry if I called him home on his second day back. I was terrified for little Levi. What if I handled the situation wrong and he died? All three children were whiny or crying, and I couldn’t think clearly to save my life. I remember standing in the kitchen, paralyzed with fear, asking, what do I need to do? Sometimes I pray these words: ‘Dear God, if it’s not a bother, show me what to do, and let Your truth set me free.’ Is that silly? But peace came from nowhere and encircled me. And just like the night I arrived and knew what I needed to do about getting breast milk for Grace, I knew what I needed to do for Levi. It was as if Florence was right there with me, guiding me. I went to the closet in Joel’s bedroom office, a place I’d never gone to before, and I pulled out an adult-sized tea set. I steeped tea and added ice cubes, and I took it to the bathroom, where I fixed a lukewarm bubble bath and got Levi and Mose in the tub. We played high tea, and he drank every bit of the liquid. He then drank cool tap water directly from the teapot. There was no way I knew where that tea set was or that Levi would take in liquid while he was in a tub.”
“That’s not deviltry. That’s God,” Leo said. “And maybe somehow it was Florence.”
Rose put her arms on her thighs and leaned forward. “Sometimes when I least expect it, it’s as if I can hear her whisper, ‘Denki, Rose. Denki.’ ”
One thing was for sure, despite the overwrought emotions of the last few weeks, Rose wasn’t the same young woman who’d arrived four years ago. That person couldn’t have stood up for herself. As much as she’d given Joel, he’d given back to her—drop by kind drop.
Erma stared straight ahead as if the bookcase held a television showing something mesmerizing.
“That’s nice,” Leo said. “None of us knows God’s ways of leading us. If Florence can see you, I imagine she is saying, ‘Thank you.’ ”
Rose was aware how very dry her mouth felt. “But I know if she can see me and if she’s whispered thanks, it’s not about what I got right. The whispers are because my heart is set on doing as much right by her children and Joel as I possibly can.” Rose stood, focused on Erma. “If Florence whispered to you, what would she say?” She moved to the side of Erma’s chair and whispered in her ear, “I think she’d ask, ‘What are you doing, Mamm? Is your heart set on doing right?’ ”
Erma’s eyes never left the wall. “You need to leave.”
“Did you stir a stink, Erma?” Leo angled his head. “I’ve told you a hundred times to leave Rose and Joel alone.”
Rose’s eyes misted, and she kissed Leo’s cheek. “Denki.”
“Don’t let anything come between you and Joel.”
She wanted to tell him it was too late for that. Erma had wanted to hurt and embarrass her. She’d wanted to come between Joel and her and ruin their camaraderie and trust. The woman had accomplished her goal.
But Rose just nodded and slipped out the door.