“Towels. Don’t forget towels. And make Jonah wear his hat on the beach,” Hannah advised. “I put a bottle of sunscreen in your bag. I hope it will be enough for everyone.”
“We’ll be fine, Mam,” Johanna assured her. “I promise they won’t come back the color of cranberries.”
Hannah paused in the center of the kitchen, laundry basket in hand, and smiled at her. “I know they will both love the ocean,” she said. “And you have such a pretty day for an outing.” She looked as though she wanted to say something else, but was biting her tongue.
“What is it, Mam?” Johanna chuckled. “Out with it, before you burst.”
“You have a good time, too. You and Roland. You deserve it.”
Johanna pushed the canning jar full of ice deep into the cooler that was resting on the kitchen table. “We’re not walking out if that’s what you mean. Don’t start counting celery stalks yet.”
“So you’re still unsure?” Hannah lowered the wicker basket to the floor. “Sunday night, when the two of you were chasing lightning bugs on the lawn...when you tripped over that croquet hoop and Roland caught you...it seemed like—”
“Like I was having a good time,” Johanna finished for her mother. “I was. It was a wonderful evening. Like old times.”
“Ne,” Hannah said gently. “Not like old times. Neither of you are children anymore. You’re a grown woman with two children, and Roland is a father and a widower. Maybe...new times?”
Johanna squeezed a quart of canned peaches into the corner of the cooler. Roland had insisted on paying for the van and driver, so she had insisted on packing lunch for them all. The only difficult part was choosing foods that would stay cool enough in the summer heat not to spoil. She kept her menu simple: hard-boiled eggs, bread, cheese, fruit, carrot strips and whoopie pies with marshmallow filling that she and Susanna had made the previous night. She was taking plenty to drink, too—a gallon of lemonade and another of fresh well water.
“Johanna?”
She sighed and looked up to meet her mother’s shrewd gaze. “I think I still care for Roland,” she admitted, and then corrected herself. “I know I do. But I’m afraid.” She opened her arms and let them fall to her sides. “I’m afraid of making the wrong decision again and...”
“Afraid Roland will disappoint you as Wilmer did?”
“Ne.” Johanna shook her head. “He’s nothing like Wilmer. I know Roland would never hurt me physically, and he isn’t sick in the head like poor Wilmer was. But it’s hard to forget what my bad choice brought upon me and how much it hurt me. It’s hard to consider placing myself and my children in another man’s hands. Even Roland’s.”
“Yet, our teachings bid us that the husband and father must be the head of the family, and a good wife must listen to her husband’s wishes.”
She pushed aside the containers to make room for the sealed plastic container of whoopie pies, closed the cooler lid and latched it. “I know that, Mam,” she said. “But what if I can’t be a good wife? What if it’s better for all of us if I leave things as they are?” She didn’t want to talk about this today, and especially not with Mam. It was too difficult. Just thinking about Roland was too difficult. Today was supposed to be fun, a day when she didn’t have to be serious or make decisions that would change the rest of her life.
Hannah came close and hugged her. “You must follow your heart, my dear, dear child. And your head. But if you keep Roland waiting too long, he’ll choose another—perhaps even that girl from Lancaster that Rebecca and Aunt Jezzy say is always talking to him at Spence’s. Roland is a young man with responsibilities. He must take a wife and he must do it soon.”
“If he wants to marry that silly Lancaster girl, let him do it and be done with it. I refuse to be pushed into a hasty decision that I might live to regret.”
Hannah hugged her even tighter and whispered, “Do as you will, Johanna. You always have. No matter what, I’ll always love you, and I’ll always be here for you. But if this goes badly, just don’t say that I didn’t warn you.” With a final squeeze, her mother let her go.
As you did about Wilmer? Johanna gritted her teeth and swallowed the sharp answer that rose in her throat. Mam wasn’t one to say I told you so. She knew her mother had been right. She’d known it then and she knew it now. She’d married Wilmer—a man she hardly knew—to salve the ache breaking up with Roland had caused her. Mam had warned her that Wilmer was too rigid.
“I’m sorry,” Hannah murmured. “I’m an interfering woman. The Lord knows it’s a fault I’ve struggled with all my life. I love my children, and I think I know best how they should solve their problems.” She forced a chuckle. “The truth is that I don’t, Johanna. I was wrong to speak so. You’re old enough to know your own mind.”
Johanna smiled back at her. “I should be,” she said. “But it was a lot easier when I was a girl, and all I had to do was listen to you and Dat and do as I was told.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “As if that was ever so.” Her laughter became genuine. “Oh, my sweet girl. You, I’m afraid, are too much like me. Too stubborn and willful for our own good. As my father always said, ‘You, Hannah, are a trial to your parents, but a greater one to yourself. You’d cut off your own nose to spite your face.’”
* * *
The children were so excited when they tumbled out of the van at Delaware Seashore State Park that they were bouncing up and down like jumping jacks. “You look after the kids,” Roland said, “and I’ll get the coolers and the canopy.”
Susanna and Aunt Jezzy ushered Jonah, Katy and J.J. out of the parking lot and onto the beach. Johanna handed each of them a towel and retied Katy’s bonnet, which was in danger of blowing off. There was a brisk breeze off the ocean, and Johanna doubted that the boys’ straw hats would stay on for long. Being bareheaded could be a real problem for Jonah with his fair skin. Both Katy and J.J. were better off, having a complexion that tanned rather than burned. Luckily, she had the sunscreen her mother had packed and she quickly applied it to their faces, arms and legs.
“Look, Mam!” Jonah pointed toward the inlet. “That man caught a fish!”
“And there’s a big boat,” J.J. chimed in. “I wish we could go on it.”
Roland and the driver, Mike, unloaded the bag containing the canopy and carried it across the sand to a place about fifty feet from the water’s edge. Johanna instructed the children to remove their shoes and stockings and then took them all down to play in the waves, while the two men set up the canopy and went back to the van for the coolers.
Roland had suggested they spend the day at the state park at Indian River rather than Rehoboth Beach because there would be fewer Englishers to stare and point at the quaint Amish. Johanna was glad that he had. The beach was nearly deserted: a young man was searching the dune area with a metal detector, and the couple sleeping on a blanket near the high-tide mark didn’t even look up at the children’s shouts of joy.
“Don’t go out too far,” Johanna warned.
Susanna echoed, “Too far!”
Soon, Johanna, Susanna and Aunt Jezzy joined the two boys in a game of Catch Me if You Can with the incoming waves, and Katy simply sat down on the damp sand and let the foamy salt water wash over her. Jonah and J.J. quickly became wet to their waists, and, as Johanna had feared, their hats flew off in the wind. Laughing, Susanna ran to chase them down, as Roland and the driver brought the last cooler down to the shade of the canopy.
“What did you pack in here?” Roland asked. “Rocks?”
“Food, silly,” Susanna shouted back as she captured J.J.’s hat. Then, she squealed and pointed toward the parking lot.
A second van pulled up beside Mike’s and the horn honked. The doors opened and more family poured out. Johanna recognized a waving Charley, Miriam and the identical red mops of Samuel’s twins. ’Kota skipped along beside Miriam, but who was the other Amish man, seated in the front seat? It couldn’t be Eli or Samuel. He wasn’t tall enough.
Taking hold of Katy’s hand and calling to J.J. and Jonah, Johanna walked back up the beach to meet the others. To her surprise, the man turned out to be Nip Hilty. Johanna turned back to see Aunt Jezzy splashing in the waves as she spun around three times and then reached down to grab handfuls of foam and toss them in the air. “Aunt Jezzy, look who it is,” she called.
“I know.” Her aunt giggled. “Nip said he was going to get a driver.” And then, she turned away and began to walk down the beach picking up shells.
“Look! Look!” Susanna shrieked as one more person got out of the van. “It’s my King David. He came! He came!”
“Not more food!” Roland exclaimed as they watched Charley and Rudy unload another cooler from their vehicle. “We’ll never eat it all. We’ll have to stay a week.”
“We hope you don’t mind,” Miriam said as she came toward Johanna. “Nip invited us. It seemed like such a good idea, that Charley took the day off, and we sort of picked up a few more nephews on the way.” Miriam reached into her bag and produced a blue pail full of plastic sand molds and a shovel. “This is for you, little Katy-did,” she said, handing them to her. “You’re the only little girl here today so I think you deserve a special treat for putting up with all these boys.”
“You know we’re glad to have you.” Johanna glanced down at Katy. “What do you say to Aunt Miriam for bringing you a present?”
“I’m not little. I’m big.” She glanced up at her mother and realized her error. “Danke,” she said quickly.
“I’ve got a bucket, too,” ’Kota declared. “Want to make a sand castle, Katy?”
“Don’t you want to go in the water with the boys?” Johanna asked him.
’Kota shook his head. “Nope. Want to build a castle.”
“Me, too,” Katy agreed. “Build a...a...house!”
It seemed like chaos, but soon, the coolers were opened, cold lemonade and apples were handed around, and Susanna, David and the children all ran back to the water, supervised by Miriam, Charley, Aunt Jezzy and Nip. Katy and ’Kota settled down to construct a farmyard and duck pond in the wet sand.
“If you dig a ditch and then a hole for your pond,” Roland explained, “the waves will come in and fill it for you.” He crouched down beside ’Kota and showed him where to begin his trench.
Katy dug furiously, piling sand to make her house, while Johanna brought buckets of seawater to wet the sand and make it easier to mold. It wasn’t long before she and Roland were as wet as the children, much to the kids’ delight. Roland rolled his pants to his knees, but then a big wave broke and splashed the entire front of his shirt and sent water rolling down his beard.
J.J. and Jonah soon joined the fun, expanding the canal to reach more hastily dug ponds. Soon, Nip discovered a small piece of driftwood and with his penknife quickly whittled a tiny boat, which he presented to Aunt Jezzy. She set it adrift in ’Kota’s duck pond, to his and Katy’s delight. After that, nothing would do but that he made boats for Jonah and J.J. as well, and there was a frantic search for more bits of suitable whittling material.
Jonah, expanding his canal, came upon a strange creature buried in the sand and called Johanna to see it. “What is it, Mam? Will it bite?”
She laughed. “It’s a sand flea.”
Katy wrinkled her nose. “Not a flea, Mam. Too big.”
“It’s little. Be gentle,” Johanna cautioned. It began to wiggle and Jonah dropped it, and then shrieked with glee as it scurried away on spindly legs and began to tunnel down into the sand at the waterline.
The wind died down enough for the boys to put their hats back on, and Roland showed them how to look for bubbles in the wet sand and dig for clams. They didn’t find any clams, but they did see a small fish, which swam back out to sea on the next wave. The boys howled in disappointment, but Katy laughed and clapped, shouting, “Swim away, fish. Swim away.”
“When do we eat?” Charley asked. “I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving,” Miriam teased.
“Me, too,” David said. “Me!”
“All right,” Johanna agreed. “Let’s go have our lunch.”
Everyone trooped back to the canopy and dove into the contents of the two coolers. Roland and Nip poured cups of cold water all around and after a brief moment of silent prayer, they began to make short work of every bite that Miriam and Johanna had packed. Afterward, the women took the children up to the bathrooms, washed their hands and faces, and returned to join the others.
The children were all for returning to the ocean at once, but the adults were adamant. No one could go back into the water until they’d rested for at least half an hour. Nip produced a pocket watch and became the official timekeeper. Katy curled up in Johanna’s lap and fell asleep, one small hand still tightly clasping the handle of her blue shovel.
At last the thirty minutes was up, and the kids, all but a sleepy Katy, ran back toward the water, eager to get as wet and sandy as possible. Johanna got to her feet and was about to follow them, when Roland gestured to her. “Come walk with me,” he said.
Johanna hesitated. She did want to walk on the beach, but she was responsible for her children. She glanced at Miriam. “Is it all right if...”
Miriam smiled. “Go on. Take some time for yourself. We’ll watch the kids. Go. Have fun. You always loved the ocean. Enjoy it.”
“Jonah doesn’t always do what—”
Charley laughed. “It’s fine, Johanna. Go with Roland. I think between us, we can handle a few small kids.”
“If we don’t get some practice, how will we know what to do with our own when God sends them?” Miriam asked.
Miriam could have passed for sixteen today. She hadn’t worn a bonnet, but had braided her hair, pinned it up and covered it with a scarf. Somehow, she’d managed to lose the pins on one side, and that braid had tumbled down. Undaunted, Miriam had removed the bobby pins on the other side so that both braids hung down over her shoulders. She looked happy, Johanna thought, very happy. Who would have believed that Miriam would be so satisfied in her marriage to Charley, a boy she’d known all her life...a boy she’d told everyone was her best friend?
Why her and not me? Johanna wondered. How was Miriam so wise in picking a husband? Johanna had been certain that Miriam was going to choose John Hartman. If anyone was reckless enough to marry out of the church and leave the faith, she would have expected it to be Miriam, not Leah. It’s like Grossmama always says, she mused. Only God knows what’s in another person’s heart.
“Johanna?” Roland held out a hand.
“Coming.” She followed him, but didn’t take his hand. He strode off in the direction of the inlet, and she matched him step for step, the wind tearing at her bonnet until she untied it and wrapped the ribbons around her fingers. Removing the heavy bonnet was a relief. She stopped, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, savoring the taste of salt in the air. “I love the ocean,” she said, opening her eyes again and looking up at Roland.
“I love you,” he said. Or...she thought he said it.
Johanna felt her cheeks grow warm, despite the cool breeze. “You shouldn’t say such things,” she admonished. “It’s not decent.”
“What things?” He arched a brow mischievously. “What did I say?”
“That...that you...” She broke off and looked away. What if she were wrong? What if she’d imagined it? She’d already asked him to marry her. What if he hadn’t said that at all and she called him on it? What kind of fast woman would she look like to suggest he’d...
“I’m teasing you, Johanna.” His face crinkled in a grin. “Are you having a good time today?” He began walking again and she did the same.
Safer ground. “Ya,” she answered. “A wonderful time. The best day ever. The children—”
“Not the children. You. Are you enjoying yourself?” he demanded.
“I am.” She smiled back at him. “Thank you.”
The sound of the tide rushing through the inlet grew louder the closer they got, and the air felt cooler. Roland reached out and took her hand, and this time she didn’t protest. They reached the edge of the rocks, and he climbed up and helped her to a ledge where they had a better view of the dark, surging water. The giant boulder felt warm and solid beneath her, and she sat and curled her legs up under her skirt. Her dress was wrinkled but nearly dry.
They sat there, not speaking, her hand in his, with the sun on their faces and the powerful crash and curl of the inlet washing around them. It was Roland who finally broke the comfortable silence. “Well, Johanna Yoder. I’d say our courting is going pretty well, wouldn’t you?”
She threw him a look. “Who says we’re courting?”
“I do.”
“And you’re the judge of that?”
“I know you better than you think.”
She sniffed. “You, Roland Byler, are entirely too fond of your own ideas.”
“No argument. All I said was the truth. We’re courting. Everyone knows it. Even your mother knows it. You’re just too stubborn to admit when I’m right.”
“You’re saying I’m stubborn?”
He said nothing; he just looked at her.
She chuckled. “I suppose I am.” Her eyes narrowed. “But courting doesn’t mean marriage. I haven’t made up my mind yet, and until I do—”
“It’s because of what happened before, isn’t it? Because of what I did in Pennsylvania when I almost got arrested? How many times do I have to tell you that I didn’t intend to—”
“Ne.” She pulled her hand out of his. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not today. Don’t spoil it for me. Please don’t.”
“I just want you to understand that I—”
She put a finger to her lips. “Shh. Not another word about what happened in Lancaster or you can sit on this rock by yourself.”
“If you feel that way.” His shoulders stiffened.
“I do. I came to have fun, not to remember bad times.” She offered him a half smile. “We couldn’t have done anything today that would have made me happier.”
He nodded. “I’m glad.”
His features remained strained and she knew that she’d hurt him. She hadn’t wanted to...at least she hoped she hadn’t. This time, she was the one who reached out a hand. “I do love you, Roland.”
“Then you’ll be my wife?”
She looked at their hands clasped together. “I don’t know. I’m still trying to decide.”
“How long? When will you know?”
She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. “I can’t say, Roland, but when I do decide, you’ll be the first one I tell.”