CHAPTER FOUR

 

Martha looked out the hotel window and watched the rain beat down on the pool area. Ripples of aquatic blue tipped the water up above the black engraved three feet mark.  She could swim; that she could do, but there were a lot of things that she couldn’t do, and that was go back to the projects, attend two funerals in one week, Ray L.’s and Mrs. Daily’s, and swim out of the hay that she and Jeremiah had slept in. She felt helpless, in need of a rescuer, but there were none in sight.

Jeremiah, how long has it been? Her mind wondered away to the night at the loft, where she’d downed a fifth of vodka and sweet orange juice.  She remembered drinking with Jeremiah; she remembered nothing else until Jeremiah woke her up the next morning.  How could she have been so careless? 

Martha watched the wind pick up and blow the poolside chair, tossing it against the hotel glass door.  Storms are coming.  I wonder how bad they will be. She rested her face against the cool window and watched the transparent streams of cold rain lace down from heaven. A sudden chill ran down her spine, and she threw her arms up on her shoulders for warmth.

Storms could be cold and frightening. She realized that, unless you were foolish enough to stand out under massive lightning or drive through high waters during a storm, those outside storms wouldn’t hurt you; the inside storms could fill you up with guilt, self-doubt, and bitterness, hurting you more because they ate away at you, nibbling a little at a time.

Inside turmoil is like a raging storm with nowhere to seek shelter. She shivered, her teeth chattering. Storms can be cold.

The hotel phone jarred her from her rain spectating.  Alice wiggled in bed but didn’t open a sleepy eye.  The child had gone to sleep late, in her mother’s arms, over movie theater popcorn, bought from the fourth-level vending machine, and a good round of cartoons. Martha sat down on the bed opposite Alice, grabbed the receiver, and whispered, “Hello, Martha speaking.” 

There was a pause before Jeremiah came on the line in a low tone, “I guess Alice is still sleeping?  The kid’s probably overwhelmed.  My driver, Jacob Schwartz, is taking us out for breakfast at the hotel buffet?”

Martha rubbed her eyes and yawned, “Sure.  What time?  I have to go get Alice’s final papers at school and her medical records so that I can enroll her in the public school in Walnut Creek.”

“Public school, Martha?” He had assumed that the child would be in an Amish school, but since he wasn’t the real father, who was he to say?

An Amish school never crossed her mind. “I can’t afford a Christian school.  The tuition is outrageous, and I will be getting a job, so homeschooling is out.”  Martha scooted her pink pajama-covered knees up onto the bed and felt Alice extend her arms around her stomach, nestling her head against her mother’s back.  “My pretty girl just woke up.”

Martha admitted that her pretty girl deserved a Christian education, plus a new school wardrobe from the mall, and an endless supply of milk and chocolate Cocoa Puffs, but she’d been unable to give it to her because of being broke and unmarried. 

Why am I not good enough for Jeremiah to take as a wife?  She knew that Alice would have everything she needed, even if it was in an Old Order Amish community.  New navy and brown dresses would work as she wouldn’t stand out in hand-me-downs.  Maybe I am not pretty enough for him?

After a pause, Jeremiah said now, “Good, I hope that she is hungry.  Come on down to the first level. The Gliding Skillet entrance is right across from the gift shop.”  His tone was cheerful, mainly because she and Alice were coming back home, but he had to admit that just a small amount of relief over not being Alice’s father had relaxed him.

Martha was hungry, and she wasn’t about to pass up a free buffet. “I never pass up free food.  I miss my friends, but Gott knows best. I’ll see you shortly.” She hung the receiver up and grabbed her dochder in her arms.  “Is mommy’s girl hungry?”

Alice’s stomach growled, and her mouth watered. “Mommy, I want sugary cereal,” Alice said as she cuddled next to her mother.  “My braid fell out.”

Martha stroked her long red hair and spoke softly, “Mommy’s girl has the prettiest red hair in the world.  It looks lovely down.” 

“Thank you, Mommy.” Alice pounced up in the bed, zipping with energy. “Now, I want cereal.” Her long red hair was deep and shiny, even in a hotel room’s dimmed hallway light.  How had she gotten the deep red hair?  Neither parent had any red hair in the family. 

Martha smiled, “Let’s get ready to devour some sugar-coated cereal.”

“Mommy, this is better than the projects. No gunshots,” Alice said as she bounced to her little pink suitcase.

Martha’s heart sank, “Mommy will do better next time.”  She thought about the farm that was left to her and prayed that it was true.  She’d failed Alice once and didn’t want to fail her again.  Would her father help?

******

Jeremiah sat across from his Mennonite driver, Jacob Schwartz, and shook his head.  How do you tell a woman that you’ve been wrong all of these years? He uttered to himself as he sat, his hands folded on the half-moon-styled booth at The Gliding Skillet.  The hanging Tiffany lamp was dim and he was grateful that it was too early to look Martha in the eye over breakfast. 

Useless, careless, and a thief, that was how he had felt since the wild night of partying in Rumspringa. He twirled the half-full cup of coffee around and around and then pushed himself to bravery: he would tell her, after the funeral, about the real father, but he wouldn’t tell her that the answer was in the basket, for she might slip up and open all cards.  He couldn’t do that to Mrs. Miller aka Mrs. Dailey. 

A child’s voice yelled, “Stranger!”  Jeremiah turned and saw red pigtails and a shining child’s eyes run through the restaurant dining room and to his table.  Would she ever call him by name?  Had Martha ever told her about him?  He doubted it, and he couldn’t blame her. The pregnancy had scared him, made him flee from responsibility.  Now, he wasn’t even the child’s father.  Would Ray Miller fess up, take control of parenting for the child, or would he also be scared of being shunned?

“May I have sugary cereal?”  Alice looked with wide-eyes, those that would tempt any parent, even in the grocery store.  “I haven’t had any for a while because we have been out of milk.”

“Alice, don’t tell the whole world.” Martha blushed, grabbed her, and put her in the booth next to Jeremiah.  She took out a wet wipe and wiped her hands off, then looked at Jeremiah, who was smiling. “Yes, food has been low because I had to get the car fixed.  I made my best-yet baked French toast with maple syrup.”  She was talking about the fact that she had finally found something to cook for breakfast on the day that the shoot-out occurred; however, she would never tell him that it killed her to turn down Alice’s morning request for cereal.  If only she hadn’t stayed up at night, reading romance novels and downing her homemade shortbread cookies and milk, there would have been enough milk for cereal.

Jeremiah inquiringly asked, “It is tough being a parent isn’t it?  You miss being back home with a garden and fried pie business?  The city takes all that you have, doesn’t it?”  He grinned, and Martha nodded.  He was talking about the fact that an Amish way of life is more fulfilling that an Englisch one, for the Amish barter; the Englisch usually do not.

Being that Martha’s parents run a dairy, she could have bartered her fried pumpkin pies for milk, although Alice didn’t need sugary cereal every morning; that was something that needed to change.  He wouldn’t be the one to change it; Alice’s real father would be the one to do so: that bright red-headed New Order Amish guy. 

Alice puckered her lips and lowered her little rosy cheeks.  Dots of freckles kissed her sun-burned nose as she wiggled it when she spoke, “You’re ignoring me, stranger!” She had spoken first, and he had ignored her.

Jeremiah grabbed Alice’s left arm and whispered in her left ear, and she gladly nodded, looking ashamed at her outburst. 

Jeremiah was finally acting like a father, teaching his daughter to be polite.  Martha smiled and said, “That’s a good girl, Alice.”

Martha bit her bottom lip and made eye contact with Jeremiah, just like the times that she’d gazed into his handsome eyes down at the lake.  He was such a sweet person, unless he got you pregnant. After she’d told him about the pregnancy, his whole mood had changed; he hushed her away. 

Martha could understand that he had a lot on his plate: a paid-for honey pear orchard, one that was so well-known, that tour buses booked a year in advance to tour the orchard and eat dinner at the on-site café, Dutch Orchards, which his sisters had run for years. 

However, he knew that she’d been interested in him for a long time.  Had he finally loved her back? Martha hoped as she smiled and said, “Thank you, Jeremiah. Alice needs a role model, you know–a father–like you.”

******

Jeremiah studied Martha’s caramel-brown eyes and remembered the many times that he’d caught her gazing in a daydream while she had showed up early to watch him set up the benches for Sunday services.  He hadn’t chosen her because of differences between his family and hers. Although he wanted to have her as a fraa, he wouldn’t choose her, even if the red-headed man hadn’t been in the picture. Jeremiah knew that his mother never visited with her mother, and although she had never told, he had sensed that they had a grudge between one another. Hopefully, the red-haired man would sweep her off her feet, even if he drove her away in a black-bumper-painted car.

Guilt for the later thought made him sigh.  She needed to stay in their community, but how would he convince her to do so and stay a single mamm?  He thought about his friend, Ray Miller, who had requested to ride along; he had red hair, too, so he would fill in good as Alice’s daed. He looked up and saw his driver and Ray, hats respectively down as they crossed the dining room entrance to the booth.  “Martha, this is my driver, and this is Ray Miller.  He and his widowed mamm had moved in right before you left; do you remember him?”

Martha smiled and politely replied, “Why, I sure do.  He’s the one that helped my daed do the early morning milking! His twin bruder is New Order Mennonite”

“I still do, but you’re not there, and you’re not wanted there,” Ray’ s words were rude, piercing Martha’s heart.  He said no more, mainly because he’d seen her mamm cry, and even her daed, who was a man that didn’t cry when she’d run off.  Also, she was a liar, but he’d keep that information to himself because she’d never be back in their community.  She could move back, but she’d never be Old Order Amish; he knew that for a fact. He thought that it was a pity that such a beautiful girl had messed up so much. 

Jeremiah covered for him, “You know what you’re walking back into, and you know how strict our community is, Martha.”

Martha didn’t deny it. “Yes, Alice and I will not be Old Order Amish.  We will find a good church because I want her in church, but she is accustomed to her denim blue jeans and silver-glittered tee shirts.”

Jeremiah was relieved as he sipped his coffee.  “Grandma wanted us to be at her funeral, and she wanted you to take the basket and deliver the notes.  We are such a laid-back, forgiving community.  I am sure that the notes are just a farewell-until-we-all-get-to-heaven spill to those that she had spoken wrongly to, Martha.”

******

Martha smiled as she looked up from the menu.  Her stomach tilted, and the breakfast sampler, of grits, fried potatoes, eggs, cooked to order, and sugar-cured ham, sounded filling.  “I looked up to her.  This will go smoothly. I appreciate you three coming to get Alice and me.”  She smiled and looked at all three men, and studying her, they smiled back. 

Jeremiah smiled, his tone of a sweet nature, “Good, let’s eat.  We have a long day ahead of us.  She’d wanted a one day visitation and funeral.  We are leaving after the funeral to go back to Walnut Creek.  The house is ready for you.  Ray will do your milking for you and work in the apple orchard; he lives in the tenant haus at the back of the orchard; he has already been paid.”

Martha felt a knot spur up in her throat.  A dairy? An Amish man doing the milking, and a rude one at that? He had red hair- did he have a temper? She wanted to slide into the booth and wish that Mrs. Dailey had stayed Mrs. Miller. Did he say there was an apple orchard too?

“I know how to milk,” she said now, quickly, her brow wrinkled.  Her brown eyes deepened as she stared at Ray’s baby blue eyes, realizing that they looked exactly like her dochder’s, and his red hair also glowed like Alice’s locks of love. I won’t have a rude Amish man telling me what to do!

Martha thought that Ray was handsome, but she still couldn’t have a man helping her.  She wanted to stay as far away from Amish men as possible, for the one man that she’d wanted to get closer to had messed her whole life up by getting her pregnant.  She tightened her face as she glared at Jeremiah’s happy, carefree face.  No responsibility! It made her sick at her stomach. She forced herself to hold back her anger.

Ray smiled.  “Have you seen Mrs. Dailey’s farm?” He leaned back and folded his arms against his chest. He wasn’t going to tell her that the farm was a massive dairy producer for a leading ice cream chain. 

Martha broke her gaze and felt defeated.  “Are you saying that I am as new as an Englischer to milking?  I can handle any milking operation, Ray.”  She looked back up at him, scanning the table to see Jeremiah get up. It was time to go to the buffet to get their first plate of breakfast, and for Alice, her first sugary bowl of cereal. 

“Jeremiah, can you help Alice get a bowl of cereal while I have a quick talk with Ray about the farm? Make sure that she doesn’t run the bowl over with milk,” Martha explained, and he smiled, nodded, and grabbed Alice’s hand.  He was no longer a stranger.

Martha leaned back into the seat, folded her arms across her chest, and watched them walk, hand-in-hand, to the cereal section of the buffet.  Alice strained to read the little cardboard cereal boxes that nestled on a pretty white rack, and saw Cocoa Puffs.  “She is going to get Cocoa Puffs, Ray!”

Ray didn’t speak, and although she wasn’t looking at him, his rudeness made her firing mad.  She turned and saw him get up.  “I will be talking to the bishop about going through instruction class again.  I don’t need your help, besides; they would shun you for helping me until I join the church.” She leaned over the table and looked helplessly at him.

Ray seemed stern and cold, “It’s in the will.  There’s something that you don’t know, but I can’t tell you.  The farm is yours, but the mass production part of the dairy was willed to me.  It sits on the back one hundred acres.  Mrs. Dailey had a spat with my mamm, and I think that she left it out of guilt.”

“But you and your familye were new to the community,” Martha became confused.  Ray and his Mamm Jolene and his daed, Ezekiel had relocated from a sister community in Indiana. 

He snapped, “The spat happened at a quilting bee, and it’s none of your business, but I live in the tenant haus at the back of the farm, so I am separate from you. I wish you the best in finding God again.”  He nodded, turned and went to the buffet.  He deserved the whole farm; why hadn’t Mrs. Dailey given him all of it?  Here was a girl, who had run off for Rumspringa, gotten pregnant out of wedlock, and was now inheriting the farm that he’d worked on for almost nine years.  He couldn’t help to be bitter.