Esther and Daisy went through their visits quickly, not in the mood for gossip—but she usually wasn’t. No one asked about how she was doing after Orpha’s death. No one asked after Chester. Many of them had no idea that Joe was back and wouldn’t understand why losing Daisy would affect her so deeply. She wasn’t a mother, after all. No one meant to be insensitive, only practical. It boiled down to the choice of accepting God’s will in their lives without murmuring.
As Esther pulled the buggy into the short drive of Alvin and Dorothy Bender’s small Amish home, their two young children with summer feet greeted them. Alvin and Dorothy had a small white farmhouse, typical of the area, that was nearly as run-down as Esther’s. Its chipped wooden siding and sagging porch had been the result of the Depression and the previous owners’ neglect. Alvin had slow but steady work as a horse trainer, but had to go to his parents’ farm to do that work since he had only a small shed for his buggy horse.
“Candy-frau, candy-frau,” the young children chanted as Esther stepped from the buggy. This was the nickname that many of the children had given to Mammie Orpha, who had been known as the candy lady for as long as Esther could remember. How she missed her smile and calming ways. A sudden rush of warm air brushed against her face but was gone a moment later. It comforted Esther, but as she leaned against the side of the buggy, she was reminded that Orpha was dead—she wasn’t in the wind. So was it God? Or simply a breeze?
“Ich hap ken candy, kinnah. Sorry.” Esther walked around to the children and showed her empty hands.
“Kinnah,” Dorothy called for her children. “Leave Esther alone. The candy-frau isn’t here anymore.”
For a moment, the faces of the children drooped until Daisy hopped from the buggy and pointed to their swing set and sandbox. They all simultaneously signed the word for play and ran off together. This happened every week—every Friday when Esther came visiting.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d make it today.” Dorothy stepped off the porch steps and looked up into the sun, as if checking the time of day. The little Amish woman seemed as small as a child though she had two children, and a third would likely not be far behind. She was married to Irene’s youngest brother, Alvin.
“I got held up at Mariellen’s.” Esther walked toward the small house after peeking over at Daisy playing with the Bender children. Junior was only four and Rebekah barely two, and they loved Daisy. “Their baby, Rachel, has the croup still. Mariellen is in a fit of worry.”
“Oh, she always is. That baby would be goot if she stopped fussing over her so much. My Junior and Rebekah had it last summer. They were goot and were only three and about a year. They are as tsunt and busy as can be now. See how healthy they are?” She pointed out the window at the children playing. “Have you already been up to see Marty?”
Dorothy winked at Esther.
“I have. Why do you ask?” Esther knew it was because Marty’s widowed son was visiting from Ohio.
Conversations about the widowers of the community were old news to Esther. She was always one of the first to hear that she might be the man’s next choice for a wife—after all, his children needed a mother, right? She’d also always been told that a man couldn’t take care of himself after first having a mother’s care and then a wife’s. In part, she resented this, having had to do much for herself when her mother died and even more when her mammie was unable to work any longer. Weren’t men supposed to be the stronger sex? And here she had never had a consistent man in her life to prove this or provide any strength. She’d done a lot with little help.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
Esther didn’t have time to be weak.
“Well, I heard her son Harvey specifically asked about you.” Dorothy raised an eyebrow. “You were in your rumspringa at the same time as Harvey, right?”
Esther never could understand the desperate craving some women had for gossip. It was certainly emphasized enough in the Bible that women should refrain from talking about their neighbor, but believing and doing were two different things. She’d learned this about her community since she’d grown up hearing them whisper about her poor circumstances.
“New curtains?” Esther changed the subject and pointed at the curtains that the breeze pulled out the window. She winked back at Dorothy. Esther would not humor her friend by prattling on about a widower that she had no interest in.
“Ya,” Dorothy said, playfully jabbing Esther’s ribs. “Mem gave me some fabric.”
Dorothy’s parents, who lived in a neighboring district, often helped Dorothy and Alvin, who had come on hard times after Alvin’s sickness last winter. He’d been so ill with pneumonia that the doctors said he would always be weak. They had significant hospital bills as well.
A lull settled between the two. Dorothy would never have asked what Esther was bringing her that day, but the woman stood all too patiently, making Esther nervous. She wanted to get the food to her before the waiting woman brought up any more embarrassing topics.
“Mrs. White gave me milk for you today.” Esther handed her several quarts.
Dorothy’s dark brown eyes glassed every week when Esther handed her the donations. Mrs. White considered the milk as part of Esther’s pay but she knew that Esther kept only what they needed and distributed the rest.
“Oh, this will be fine, just fine,” Dorothy said. “You know, Esther, I was telling Alvin this morning that we needed milk. I can water it down for soup and make some butter with the cream and—well, I don’t need to tell you all the things milk is good for, do I?”
The grateful woman took the milk and kept chatting as she set it in the kitchen.
“I think what you do is so nice. I’ve thought long and hard about all you do for us and I am mighty thankful that you’re able to have this job since you’re unmarried.”
“I also brought some beans. Can I trade you for some canned corn?” Esther offered with a smile. They often swapped canned goods and considered this another way to serve one another.
Dorothy led her down to the cellar through the square hole in the floor of the kitchen. It was cool and comfortable.
“Careful of the latch. It’s broken,” Dorothy said, then continued to chatter about news from her family in Ohio.
As they made their way back up the cellar stairs, a wild cry came from outside. It was Daisy. The little girl barreled into the house and waved at Esther to hurry. She put the jars of corn on the table and began to sign.
“What’s wrong?”
Junior’s and Rebekah’s cries came next.
“Junior? Rebekah?” Dorothy ran out of the house.
Daisy and Esther followed to the shed behind the house where she saw a small glow. Daisy looked up at her and made the gesture for striking a match.
“Junior,” Dorothy yelled.
Though the fire was small, Dorothy hastily grabbed her daughter and pushed her out of the small barn and ordered Junior to follow her. Then Esther stomped out the bits of flames with her shoes. It was put out in a few moments. The women both sighed with relief.
Esther picked a box up from the ground. “Where did they get this box of matches?”
“I told Alvin to put them out of Junior’s reach,” Dorothy said, breathy with anger and fear. “They could’ve burned the shed down.”
Esther signed to Daisy, asking if she’d participated. She insisted she hadn’t, and Esther believed her. The young girl had never been one to take risks or be mischievous. Junior, on the other hand, had been a rascal from the moment he could sit up. Even at Orpha’s funeral, he’d put his thumb in the center of half a dozen pies before he was caught.
“Junior’s going to catch it when Alvin gets home.” Dorothy’s complexion was ashen.
Before they left, Dorothy gave Esther a small bag of scrap yarn she’d saved. Many of the ladies would do this as a thank-you on Esther’s visiting day. Esther had been crocheting a small blanket for Daisy for some time, but without the money for yarn, she was dependent on the scraps from friends and neighbors.
Esther and Daisy moved on and went to visit the old widow Matilda Yoder and the even older widower Marlin Miller. Their houses were so close you couldn’t whistle in the kitchen without someone in the other kitchen joining in harmony. The two had married brother and sister and the couples were the best of friends. After brother and sister, Matilda’s husband and Marlin’s wife, both succumbed to the heart disease that ran in the family, the remaining two only had each other. They visited each other daily, just as they had in the decades before the deaths of their spouses. Esther had heard that they ate many of their meals together and it was often suggested by their children that they marry, but they seemed content enough without remarriage. The older woman wasn’t in need of donated food, but she enjoyed Esther’s company and appreciated the help with tidying up her small home. After this final stop, as she drove the buggy toward home, she passed by Angelica Blunt’s house.
Daisy waved her hand out Esther’s side of the buggy at her aunt Angelica’s house. Even from a distance, Esther could see Angelica shake a finger and hear her yelling at her two younger daughters. When Angelica saw Daisy’s gesture, her aunt shooed the little girl away rather than wave back. The yelling had stopped, however.
Play? Play? Daisy formed a Y with her hands and shook them back and forth several times. A bright smile crossed over her fair-skinned face as she asked.
“Sorry, gleah maetleh.” Esther apologized to the little girl by rubbing her right fist over her chest as she held the reins with her left. Mixing English and her first language, Pennsylvania Dutch, and sign language had become second nature, even when driving a buggy. “Not now.”
The last place Esther wanted to go visiting was Angelica’s house. After another quarter mile, on the other side of the road, was Joe’s red clapboard house, one of the prettier houses on Sunrise View Road.
Esther and Daisy drove into the gravel drive. Joe was nowhere to be seen. Daisy didn’t move from her place in the buggy. She wore a placid expression having collected and stowed away the anger from earlier. The little girl was giving her best effort. Esther didn’t unhitch Deano, but tethered him to a small tree on the front lawn. Joe didn’t have any buggy accommodations. When she turned back toward the house, she saw him in the doorway. He stood in the slouched way she’d always remembered, wearing a white undershirt and denim trousers. Memories of his former life traced pictures in her mind—before Irene died, before he was a soldier, when his life was happy.
Should she wave? She wasn’t sure how to be around him anymore. He took a drink from a can, then walked back into the house. When the screen door slapped shut, Esther winced. She looked at Daisy, who widened her eyes. This was not the kind of father she needed.
Daisy let Esther help her from the buggy, though usually she hopped out on her own. They turned toward the house and took in the view. In rural Delaware, with the fields and country roads dotted with white houses, the red clapboard stood out like electric lights on a dark night. It had been maintained impeccably, though the white barn in the back needed some work. The white porch looked pristine in the late-morning sun, and despite the comfortable wear on the path leading to the door, there wasn’t even a creak from the rustic wood beneath their feet. Her own house had not been painted since her father left and every plank of the wooden floor sang an off-pitch tune.
Esther raised her hand to knock when Joe’s voice sounded.
“Come on in.”
When she touched the door handle, a warm breeze circled around them and whisked away her courage.