A Mother's Gift

Leah moaned, pressing her hands against her temples. For the third morning in a row she had a throbbing headache, and she’d awakened in the wee hours from a recurring nightmare in which Alice and Adeline had locked her out of the house, taunting her through the door with all manner of hateful names. The pounding of rain on the roof depressed her. Despite the approach of spring, March stretched before her like an endless rainstorm, cold and bleak and dreary, stripping her of the energy to fight her lethargy and depression.

But she didn’t want to waken Jude with her tears. Didn’t want to admit that marrying into the Shetler family had been a huge mistake.

I would rather stand barefoot in a box of shattered glass than face this day.

Despite Leah’s best efforts, a sob escaped her. Her fairy-tale married life had been nothing more than a figment of her romantic imagination, and because the Amish didn’t allow divorce, she saw no way out of her vow to live as Jude’s wife and his children’s stepmother. Mama—and even Margaret—had been right: she’d been a fool to believe that Alice, Adeline, and Stevie would come to love her and that they could all live as a happy, harmonious family.

But where can I go? If I run home to Mama, I’ll eventually have to return here.

Not for the first time, Leah realized that she had no female friends to confide in. She’d spent most of her life in the world of men and sale barns and livestock, and as each day in the Shetler household wore her down, she felt smaller and weaker and more utterly alone. She turned away from Jude, clutching the pillow around her head so she could sob into it.

“Leah? What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Jude fitted himself against her, wrapping his arm around her shaking body.

Leah cried harder, unable to stop. Now Jude would realize how miserable she was and he would ask her questions she didn’t want to answer. He would again insist that he loved her even though those words, once so sweet, couldn’t possibly save her.

“Leah,” Jude whispered against her ear as he gently shifted the pillow away from her face. Once upon a time, the sound of him saying her name had thrilled her deeply, yet she’d reached such a place of desperation that she dreaded proceeding with this conversation. No matter how good her intentions—no matter how much she loved him—if she told Jude the truth, she would devastate him.

“Honey, we need to talk about this,” he insisted, kissing her temple. “You’ve been crying a lot lately, and I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s upsetting you.”

Leah sniffled loudly. When Jude was home, the twins kept their unkind remarks to themselves and Stevie clung to him, so he had no idea how wretched Alice and Adeline made her feel when he was out working at sales and auctions.

“Please, Leah,” Jude pleaded softly. “Turn around and talk to me. No matter what you say, I’ll love you. If I’ve done things that upset you, I need to know about them, sweetheart.”

Leah swallowed hard. The lump in her throat felt like a callus, toughened by her habit of keeping her misery and frustration to herself. Jude wanted their life to be as wonderful and fulfilling as they’d imagined it on their wedding day, yet she couldn’t bring herself to burden him with the daily trials and tribulations she endured. Only a weak, pitiful, spineless wife would hide in the pantry or the bathroom to cry after her husband’s children had hurt her feelings.

But Jude was persistent. Leah considered sharing the most distant of her troubles so he could comfort her and she could pretend her heart was healed. She sighed, turning slowly in his arms as she thought about airing the situations that would bring this painful conversation to its quickest end.

Jude smiled in the darkness, his beard tickling her cheek as he kissed away her tears. “I love you so much, Leah,” he murmured.

She swallowed hard. “Jah. I—I know.”

“You’re the best wife a man could ever have,” he continued softly.

Oh, but you have no idea, Leah thought as she took a breath to fortify herself. A few months ago, she would’ve been echoing his love words—but back in December, she’d been oblivious to reality and other people’s warnings.

“Tell me one thing that’s gone wrong,” he encouraged her, speaking as gently as he did when Stevie was in tears.

Leah hid her face against Jude’s warm, bare chest, wishing she could succumb to the wonder of the lovemaking that had delighted her as a new bride—mostly because it was easier than saying her painful words aloud.

Jude held her without trying to entice her. “One thing,” he repeated softly.

Leah sighed. If she allowed her silent agony to continue, it would soon be time to rise for the day—and the kids would be out of bed, expecting breakfast.

“Well,” she finally admitted, “at church on Sunday, I overheard Naomi and Esther Slabaugh saying how—how odd I am to be raising animals, like a man,” she confessed in a pinched voice. “They talked about how dirty the house was—and it’s not like this is the first time the women here in Morning Star have whispered behind my back. I—I just don’t fit in here.”

Jude sighed into her hair and hugged her closer. “Do you think I care what the neighbors think?” he asked, nuzzling her cheek. “Esther and Naomi are maidel sisters who have nothing better to do than gossip—Jeremiah has had to warn them a time or two about telling tales. Besides, how would they know what our house is like?” he queried gently. “Neither of them ever came to see Frieda, that I can recall. Have they been here to visit you?”

“Hmm. No,” Leah admitted with a sigh.

Jude gently speared his fingers into her hair and let them trail over her shoulder and side. “I have no complaints about your housekeeping, honey,” he said gently. “I know you work hard with the animals, and keeping track of Stevie. Nobody ever died from being attacked by dust bunnies that I know of.”

Leah smiled despite her desperation. She was truly blessed to have such a supportive husband—but then, Jude’s attitude had never been the problem.

“I’ll have another talk with Adeline and Alice,” he continued patiently. “They’re perfectly capable of helping you with the cooking and laundry and—”

“But they hate me!” Leah blurted out before she could stop herself. “Every day when you leave, they call me names. Then they change into English clothes—”

“What sort of names?” Jude stiffened slightly, obviously surprised by what she’d told him.

Leah cringed. She’d let the cat out of the proverbial bag, so there would be no way to keep this insidious information to herself any longer. “Their favorite one rhymes with . . . witch,” she mumbled, wishing she could shut out the tone with which the twins had muttered it. “When I informed them that a bitch is a female dog, they laughed and said it was the perfect name for me. When we’re clearing the table after a meal, they whistle for me and toss bones.”

Jude’s body had gone rigid, and she could feel him trembling with anger. “Why haven’t you told me this before, so I could—? No, wait,” he whispered before exhaling harshly. “I suspect you’ve felt too humiliated to mention their behavior. Leah, I’m so sorry—and we’re not going to let the girls get away with this. What else? Tell me everything, sweetheart.”

Here, doggie, doggie. Come get your bone, you stupid mutt.

Leah tried in vain to shut out the memory of the twins’ insults. Again she pressed her face against Jude’s chest, hoping to draw strength from his muscular body and the steady beating of his heart. He was being so gentle and patient that she hated to spoil this precious time with him by revealing the ugly truth. But then, her silence had only made her more miserable, more sure that she should never have become a member of his family.

“I—I thought by now that Stevie would have taken to me, if only because he loves animals,” Leah admitted with a hitch in her voice. “Sometimes he seems so scared when he looks at me, I’ve wondered if the girls have been telling him things that make him afraid to come near me. I—I hate to dump all this stuff on you, Jude, because none of it’s your fault,” she continued as desperation overrode her rational thought. “Maybe I should just go back home, because I certainly don’t belong here. I—I can’t take any more of this!”

Leah froze. What had possessed her to say such hurtful words—words that would offend and anger a lot of men she knew? From childhood, she’d understood that a wife was to submit to her husband’s ways and to fit into the home he’d provided for her, and Jude would surely think she was ungrateful. Maybe he even believed she was lying about—or at least overstating—Alice and Adeline’s rude behavior.

Leah lay absolutely still, preparing her heart for whatever Jude said or did to her next. Then, despite her fear of angering him, she burst into tears again.

* * *

Jude fought the urge to haul his daughters out of bed and demand an immediate explanation—but their denial would do nothing to console the heartbroken woman who sobbed in his arms. He wasn’t surprised about Alice and Adeline’s negative attitude, because he’d seen the glint of ridicule in their eyes when they’d been around Leah during his courtship—and at the wedding. He’d assumed the twins were still missing their mother, at a time when their hormones were making them a little crazy anyway, and that they would eventually grow out of this phase.

But he was stunned by the name they’d called Leah, and mortified about what his new wife had endured after he’d left the house each weekday to work at the auction barn.

“Leah, I wish you’d told me about this when Alice and Adeline first began acting out,” he repeated with a sigh. “My girls pretend they’re perfect angels when other folks are watching. I’ve suspected they were slipping away when my back—or my mother’s back—was turned, but I—”

“Oh, it’s become much more obvious now,” Leah interrupted with a shaky laugh. “By the time you’ve driven to the road after breakfast, they’ve changed into English clothes and off they go in their buggy. When I warn them about the trouble they might find, they laugh in my face. They tell me they have no reason to pay attention to me because I’ll never be their mamm.”

Jude closed his eyes, wishing he weren’t able to imagine his teenage daughters’ scornful tone of voice and facial expressions as they taunted Leah. It was his job to correct such behavior—spare the rod and spoil the child was the Old Order mind-set when it came to dealing with disobedience, even though he’d never spanked his girls. Now they were of an age for corporal punishment to be inappropriate....

“I confess that I’m at a loss when it comes to dealing with teenage girls,” he admitted with a sigh. “I wish I could’ve nipped this nasty behavior in the bud—so we could’ve stood together to deal with the girls before their name-calling hurt you so badly.”

Leah exhaled softly, wiping her tear-streaked face with the top of the sheet. “I . . . I should have told you these things sooner, but I was afraid you’d think I was as spineless and incapable of being your children’s mamm as they think I am,” she said with a little sob. “Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a mother. Maybe—”

“I don’t believe that,” Jude whispered as he desperately hugged Leah closer. “Nobody’s born knowing how to be a gut parent—and unfortunately, kids don’t arrive with an instruction manual. Frieda and I walked the floors and prayed our hearts out time and again over the years, trying to raise Stevie and the girls right. I can see now that I depended too much upon Frieda to raise them.”

He sighed loudly, feeling as inept as Leah apparently felt. “Why have I been so clueless about Alice and Adeline’s bad attitude and how deeply they’ve hurt you?” he asked as she muffled her sobs against him.

As Jude tried to comfort Leah, a harsh realization made him suck in his breath. Long before he’d married Frieda, he had admired Leah Otto for her competence with animals at auctions—and for the way she’d helped her father with his livestock, and then continued providing for her mother after Raymond died. He’d known all along that Leah was very different from most Amish women—a proverbial square peg—yet he’d expected her to fit neatly into the gaping hole Frieda’s death had left in his life.

You married Leah knowing she’d had no experience with kids and no inclination to become a traditional wife and mother. Is it any wonder she’s miserable and feeling like a misfit?

Jude shook his head, wishing he could turn back time. Ever since the kids’ mother had died, he’d thought only of his own desires rather than what Leah might require if she were to find happiness in his home. He had needed Leah more than he’d loved her. Jeremiah had tried to point this out to him, but he’d been too lonely and desperate to listen.

“I’ve done this to you, Leah,” Jude said sadly. “And I know better—I’ve forgotten all about the love and communication a marriage requires if a husband and wife are to truly become one.”

Leah shifted. After wiping her pale blue eyes again, she eased away to look at him. “What do you mean by that, Jude? What have you done to me?” she whispered. “I’ve never doubted your love, not for a minute.”

Too late to close the barn door after the horse has run off.

Jude was glad the darkness hid some of his anguish. He realized how difficult it had been for Leah to tell him about the twins’ crude behavior, because now he’d opened an emotional door and there was no shutting it until he’d answered Leah’s question. If she’d trusted him with her expression of fear—her need to leave his home because she felt like an outcast—it was only fair for him to share the circumstances surrounding his first marriage . . . the damning details he’d told no one else.

“Hear me out before you judge me, Leah,” he pleaded softly. He was encouraged when she remained snuggled against him, and he hoped his revelation wouldn’t drive her away. “Frieda came on to me like a house afire. I was only eighteen—flattered and delighted that a beautiful woman three years older than I wanted to marry me—and I . . . I believed it was love.”

Jude paused, recalling that time when he’d believed he was so mature and ready to handle anything life threw at him. Leah, bless her, remained silent as he collected his thoughts. Frieda would’ve been pecking at him like a hen, demanding details and expressing opinions about situations she only assumed she knew about.

But Leah isn’t Frieda. Get on with your story and trust her to give you a fair shake when she’s heard it all.

Jude took comfort in running his fingers through Leah’s long, soft hair. “When Frieda got sick a couple of times at our wedding, I figured she was just nervous. I didn’t realize that some of our guests were speculating that I’d already had relations with her—which I had not.”

Leah drew in a sharp breath and held it. Her gracious silence gave him the strength to keep talking.

“As a lot of newlyweds do, we lived with her parents at first,” Jude continued. The story was easier to tell now that Leah had already figured out the punch line. “Her mother didn’t seem a bit concerned that she was vomiting so often. When I asked Frieda if I should take her to the doctor, she admitted she was pregnant. You could have knocked me over with a feather—but I realized immediately that her baby couldn’t have been mine.”

“That was despicable,” Leah muttered. “She knew you’d have no way to wiggle out of raising another man’s child after you married her.”

Jude sighed gratefully into Leah’s hair. “Frieda begged me to forgive her deception, so of course I did as our faith expects us to do, without letting on to anyone about her secret. Nobody said anything about the twins arriving full-term after we’d been married only six months.”

“They figured the girls were yours, conceived before you’d married,” Leah muttered.

Jude held her closer, thanking God for her understanding heart. “Several years and a few miscarriages later, everyone was delighted when Stevie came along,” he continued in a faraway voice. “Maybe I was too suspicious, but when I counted the months back to a time I’d been on the road with an auction company for a long while, the math didn’t work out in favor of my being his father, either.”

Leah gasped. “How could she do that to you? Especially after you were already raising another man’s twins as your own?”

“Here again, maybe my suspicions were playing me false,” Jude said with a shrug, “but Frieda didn’t seem the least bit upset about my leaving to accept that job. Three other Amish auctioneers and I were gone a couple of months, helping a bunch of Plain families in Ohio sell off their farms and relocate farther west, where land was more affordable. Frieda thought such a worthwhile cause deserved a little sacrifice on her part—and my parents were living here then, so it wasn’t as though I was leaving her to raise the girls alone.”

Jude chided himself for stirring up the ghosts of old memories—speaking ill of his deceased wife—yet he wanted Leah to understand his emotional state. “Maybe I was partly to blame. Maybe I shouldn’t have been lured away by the exceptionally gut pay, knowing Frieda had succumbed to temptation before we’d married,” he admitted with a sigh. “Guess I’ll never know how it would’ve worked out had I stayed in Morning Star instead of traveling those months.”

“Who was Stevie’s father?” Leah blurted out. “Was it the same man who’d sired the twins?”

“The kids all resemble their mother, so I have no idea—and at this point, it doesn’t matter.” Jude was relieved that Leah had recovered from her low mood and was being so supportive. “I didn’t tell you these things to win your sympathy, sweetheart. I’m just realizing that I married Frieda in a rush of adolescent hormones, and I’ve married you because of a different need—without fully considering what sort of emotional support I should be providing to help you fit into my family.”

“But it’s not your fault that Stevie and the girls don’t—”

“Hear me out,” Jude said, gently pressing his finger to Leah’s lips. “I love you so much, sweetheart—I’ve known you and admired you for years,” he added, hoping his candor hadn’t disappointed her. “So now I’ve got to find a way to turn your disillusionment and heartache around by replacing my need with a love you can depend upon. A love that helps you more than it gratifies me.”

Leah kissed his cheek. “I’ve always loved you, Jude,” she whispered. “I was only thirteen when you married Frieda, but even then, I knew nobody else would be the right husband for me—so I figured to remain a maidel. I didn’t care if I could cook or sew, because I thought I wouldn’t be leaving home. If I had it all to do over, I might’ve helped Mama in the kitchen more,” she added with a resigned sigh.

Was that the squeak of a floorboard on the other side of the wall? Jude ignored it, determined to help Leah be a happier wife so his children couldn’t drive a wedge between them—or drive Leah away.

“I love you for who you are, Leah. When I married you, I knew you’d never play me false,” he said, reveling in her warmth as she wrapped her arms around him. “Starting right now, I’m going to pay more attention to Alice and Adeline’s comings and goings and hold them responsible for helping you around the house. Will you believe that, sweetheart? Will you stay with me so we can work this out?”

When he felt her body relaxing against his, Jude gave thanks for Leah’s willingness to try again.

“I really want our marriage to be a happy one,” she stated, caressing his chest with her small, sturdy hand. “I knew it would take time and effort to become your kids’ new mother, and now I’m more realistic about what that means. You’re not the only one who didn’t listen when folks told you we’d have a long row to hoe, adjusting to the fit of our new family.”

Jude kissed her until they forgot about the kids. As they succumbed to the pleasures of being a man and a woman, a committed husband and wife who were very much in love, he knew he’d been blessed beyond belief by Leah’s sweet, stalwart belief in him.