“I can’t believe that I’ve agreed to do this,” Leah exclaimed. Three of her sisters were making up the bundling bed in her mother’s front parlor and setting the room to rights for that evening. “This won’t change anything,” she insisted. “It will just make me feel stupid and give Thomas reason to hope that our relationship isn’t over.”
“I think it’s old-fashioned,” Miriam said as she tucked a corner of the sheet neatly under. “And a little odd. But if Sara, Mam and the bishop all think there’s a reason for trying it, then I think you should go through with it. I trust them, and I know they only want what’s best for you.”
“I agree,” Anna said. “Sara has had a lot of experience in matching couples. Why would she suggest this if she didn’t think it was right? Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? You could be right and all of us could be wrong. You love being right, Leah.”
Leah glanced around at her sisters. It was impossible that they had all been won over by this absurd idea of Sara’s. Why couldn’t they see how much this was upsetting her? How could she bear to spend an entire night lying next to Thomas? It was wrong. It had to be. If it wasn’t, why would she feel like this? “I think I’m sick,” she said to Miriam. “I can’t do it.”
Miriam grimaced and threw her arms around her. “You’ll be fine, baby sister. You’re the tough one, remember? The one who went to the jungle and fought twenty-foot snakes and ate cannibal fish for Sunday breakfast.”
“Be fine,” Susanna echoed. She dropped the pillow she’d been stuffing into a pillowcase onto the mattress and came across the room to join in the hug.
“It wasn’t twenty feet long,” Leah protested. “It was seventeen. And I had to chase it away because it was trying to get through the window near the baby’s bassinet.”
“Exactly.” Miriam chuckled.
Just the thought of her baby made her throat tighten. That loss ran so deep that she tried not to think about it. No mother should have to bury her child. And she shouldn’t have to lay her precious baby in the ground when her husband lay close to death racked by the same tropical fever.
That day had been a nightmare. It was the rainy season in the Amazon. Water had poured from the skies, drenching her hair and clothing, filling the tiny grave with water. She’d wanted to go into the ground with her precious little one, but she couldn’t allow herself to give up. God’s strength had kept her upright and moving when she’d wanted to surrender. But she’d still had her husband to fight for, the man who had been the love of her life, the man she’d given up home and family to go with into the wilds of an unknown world to follow his dream.
Leah had shared that dream. She’d given herself wholeheartedly to ministering to the St. Joes and teaching in the one-room school. But hard work and good intentions hadn’t been enough to protect them from the sorrows of the world. Sickness had come with the rains, devastating the villagers. When Daniel became ill, she’d prayed that he would survive the fever, but it ravaged his mind and body as swiftly as it had taken their beloved baby.
Two days, two long nights, and both were gone, lost to her on this earth. She would see them someday in heaven. She believed that with all her heart and soul, but someday stretched before her.
Close to tears, Leah went to the window and threw up the sash. She stared out at the green lawn and flowering shrubs that filled the air with a sweet and familiar scent, feeling lost even in her mother’s home. She’d carried a seed of hope that here among her people she could find happiness and a new family, not to replace the dear ones that she had lost, but to help fill the emptiness inside her. Now she wondered if that had all been wistful thinking.
“Leah.” Susanna stood beside her, tugging on her dress sleeve.
Normally, Leah would have gone out of her way to do anything for her sister, and she’d never ignore her. But Leah was so full of sorrow and grieving that she knew if she turned away from the window, she’d fall into a desolation of weeping. Crying always upset Susanna. And crying wasn’t something that had been encouraged growing up in her mother’s house.
“Save tears for the suffering of the long-ago martyrs,” Hannah would say. She was always quick to kiss a scrape and hug a wailing child, but it was plain what was expected. “Stand tall, take your bumps and laugh at small injuries.” No sissies under the Yoder roof. They came from a long line of strong women who’d faced death and torture to stand by their faith.
“Leah...” It was Susanna still.
“Leave her, sweetie,” Anna said warmly. “Come on, Susanna, Miriam. We’ll see what Mam’s up to in the kitchen. Sister needs some private time.” Chattering, her sisters had all left her alone in the parlor.
Gratefully, Leah let her thoughts drift back to that small clearing in the jungle and the home she and Daniel had made out of a rough storage building with holes in the roof and vines climbing the inner walls. They’d learned to sleep in hammocks to avoid the ants and other biting insects that didn’t fly, and she had done daily battle with biting flies, giant cockroaches, horned beetles and hungry mosquitoes.
They’d gone to serve a society of indigenous people where they were unwanted, and they had created a family of friends and faith. She’d been happy there at the mission with Daniel, so joyful in doing God’s work, in bringing basic medical care and education to their community, that the hardships didn’t matter. She’d been rich in everything that mattered, and she’d lost it in the space of hours.
Should she have come home at once? Would that have changed anything? Would she have gotten her grieving over quicker if she’d returned to Seven Poplars immediately after Daniel’s death? But there had been no one to take her place. Villagers who she’d come to love and respect were ill and threatened by encroaching cattle ranchers and farmers who wanted to cut down the trees and build roads through the jungle, destroying the wildlife ecology and putting an end to the ancient way of life of the St. Joes. She’d been so busy, trying to do her job and fill Daniel’s shoes that she hadn’t had time to mourn or think of her loss. She’d risen before dawn and fallen into her hammock at night, exhausted. And, gradually, she’d found herself able to smile at a baby’s laughter and found peace in the light of a glorious sunrise.
In time, perhaps, she would have found the satisfaction of her work that she’d known when Daniel was alive. Would she have remained there if the Mennonite committee had allowed it? She didn’t know. She had put her trust in God that He knew what was best. And when the orders came for her to return to the States, she’d returned eager to wrap herself in the familiar scents and smells of home.
A mockingbird lit on a branch of the lilac bush near the window. Its song was so sweet that Leah couldn’t help but smile. Strange that the jungle, with its beautifully plumed birds didn’t have one that Leah thought could compete in voice with the quiet tones of the mockingbird.
Her mother’s voice cut through her reverie.
“Leah, look who’s here.”
She turned back to see her mother and Aunt Martha entering the parlor. Leah steeled herself to keep from showing her dismay at the visitor. Her aunt had always been a plain woman and the years since Leah had been away had taken their toll. Tall and thin as a garden rake with a tight mouth and small, deep-set eyes, Aunt Martha always gave the appearance of a woman who smelled something distasteful on someone’s shoe and was searching for the source.
“Leah, dear,” her aunt said. “I’m shocked that you would consider such a thing. I told your uncle, I’ll just march over there and have a word with Hannah. To think that she’d condone bundling under her own roof. No one does it anymore. At least not here. Maybe in one of those backward communities in the Western states. But it just isn’t done among the pious. I wanted you to know that you’re putting your reputation in jeopardy by spending the night with this runabout ruffian.”
“Thomas is hardly a ruffian,” Leah defended.
“Bishop Atlee has allowed it,” her mother said. Leah could tell that her mother was fighting her amusement. Often, it was either laugh at Aunt Martha or be vexed by her interfering behavior. Usually, Hannah chose laughter.
“Humph.” Aunt Martha sniffed. “Very odd. But Hannah’s daughters have always had her stubborn nature. If you’re determined to go through with this, it’s my duty to make sure that no high jinks take place. I told your mother that I’d sit up with her tonight, just to make sure.”
Leah gritted her teeth. “That’s kind of you, Aunt Martha, but there’s no need. Mam will have Sara with her. And, of course, Albert.”
“Your stepfather. Practically a stranger to you.” She picked up the corner of the beautiful quilt that Ruth had made and examined the stitching before wrinkling her nose in distain. “And him fast asleep upstairs in his bed, no doubt. I know men and the good they would be in such a situation.” She dropped the quilt, sighed as if to dismiss the needlework and smoothed it out. “No, indeed. Sara or no Sara, I’m staying. I want no one pointing fingers at you and whispering behind your back. A young widow must guard her reputation. What if you spend the night with Thomas and he still refuses to marry you? What then?”
“I’m not marrying Thomas,” Leah said.
Aunt Martha gasped. “Then why are you sleeping with him?”
“To prove a point,” Leah answered. “And to satisfy Sara and my family.”
“And you won’t be deterred from this nonsense?” Aunt Martha huffed.
“Ne, Aunt. I won’t.”
Standing slightly behind Aunt Martha and out of her line of sight, Hannah shrugged and gave a helpless expression. “I suppose, if you insist on staying, Martha, I won’t turn you out of my house.”
“I should think not. This is my late brother’s house. And I remember him if others don’t.” Her aunt lifted the top quilt and inspected the wooden barrier that ran from the headboard to the footboard and divided the two sides of the bed. “And where did you find this?” she asked, rapping on the wood with her fist. “I wouldn’t imagine that you had a bundling board tucked up in the attic.”
“Sara asked James to make it for her,” her mother explained. “She gave him the specifications. Who knows, if this works, it may catch on in Seven Poplars.”
“Adequate, I suppose.” Aunt Martha sighed heavily, ignoring Hannah’s jest. “But I still believe you’re wrong to agree to it. You’ll regret it or she will. Mark my words.”
For once she’s right, Leah thought. I regret it already.
* * *
Leah closed her eyes and counted to three hundred. Thomas didn’t say a word but she could hear him breathing, slow even breaths. It was unnerving. The sheets that were sewn tightly, making a cocoon around her body, the wooden board that ran the length of the bed, and the light of the single candle did little to allay her nervousness.
Thomas was lying inches from her in the semidarkness. They were supposed to be talking. Communicating. But he hadn’t said anything. Goose bumps rose on her arms and the back of her neck. She was alternately too hot and then chilled. This was unnatural. There was a man in her bed and he wasn’t her husband, and there were four people on the other side of the closed door. Custom aside, the bishop’s permission aside, it was unnerving. It didn’t matter that they were both fully dressed from head to toe; this felt more intimate than the days and evenings they’d spent driving in her car or walking on the boardwalk in Rehoboth.
She lay perfectly still, afraid to move, not knowing what he’d do or say if she did move. Her own breathing seemed too fast, too erratic. Her heart raced. She wanted to call out to her mother or to Sara and tell them that this was a huge mistake. She wanted out. She wanted to be away from Thomas and this farce of a courtship. But Aunt Martha was here in the house. If she weakened, her aunt would seize on it. She would know that she’d been talked into something that she couldn’t fulfill. She would appear weak and vulnerable.
Weakness was ammunition you never wanted to give Aunt Martha. Like a bullying hen who rules the chicken run with pointy beak and sharp claws, her aunt would seize any weakness and take advantage of it. Worse, she would spread the news far and wide that Hannah’s Mennonite daughter wasn’t as much as she thought she was.
Not that she cared so much what Aunt Martha thought of her. Aunt Martha had never been fond of Hannah or of her and her sisters. But weakness would also make Hannah look bad. It would give Aunt Martha pleasure in some twisted kind of way that wasn’t Amish at all. And she didn’t want to do anything that would make her mother look bad. She couldn’t. She owed her that much. So Leah would stick this out. She’d be here in the morning, just as determined not to wed Thomas as she was at this moment. She’d do it if it killed her.
So why wasn’t he saying anything? Had he realized how useless this whole fiasco was and simply gone to sleep? Could he sleep wrapped up as tight as a cured ham? And if he could, what did that say about all his protests that he loved her? It was demeaning, really. According to Sara, she and Thomas were supposed to communicate. They were supposed to exchange thoughts and hopes. At least, that’s what Sara had said.
But Sara was wrong. As were her mother and the bishop and most of her sisters. Susanna didn’t really understand what was happening. She’d thought it was funny when Sara had stitched her up in the sheet, and she’d giggled loudly when Mam did the same for Thomas. Her husband David, who’d followed her into the parlor, had chuckled, too.
“Time you two were abed, as well,” her mother had said to Susanna. “Tomorrow is library day, and you and David will have to be up early to watch for book borrowers.”
“Ya,” Susanna agreed. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Librar-ry day.” And then, as she’d been leaving, she’d giggled and wagged a chubby finger at Leah and Thomas. “No kissing!” she admonished. “Only married kissing.”
Kissing. Leah grimaced. That was the last thing on her mind. “Thomas,” Leah whispered. “Are you awake?”
No answer.
“Thomas?” He had to be asleep. How insulting. What suitor would agree to bundling with his intended and then go to sleep? She wriggled, trying to get more comfortable. She wasn’t used to lying down with her prayer covering on and she knew it had fallen down out of place, but she couldn’t get her hands loose to adjust it. “Thomas?” she repeated.
“Tell me about Daniel.” His voice seem to float in the air.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“He must have been a special person. Tell me about him and your life together at the mission.”
“He was special. He was everything to me. Daniel...” She trailed off as tears flooded her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about Daniel.”
“Why not?” Thomas’s voice was low, but she could hear every word he uttered. “When you talk about Daniel, you honor him.”
“I don’t feel like I’m honoring him.” She swallowed. Tears ran down her cheeks. She struggled to get an arm free and heard the tiny rip as threads pulled loose. Immediately, she lay perfectly still. Had Thomas heard the threads tearing? Sara had sewn these seams. She was an excellent needlewoman. Her stitching shouldn’t have come undone.
“Why would you say such a thing, Leah?” His voice was warm and gentle. “What do you think you’ve done wrong? If you had died instead of Daniel, would you have expected him to live alone for the rest of his life? Is that what he wanted for you?”
If Thomas had raised his voice or if he’d insisted that she answer him, she could have stood firm. But the tender cadence of his question touched something deep within her. “Ne,” she whispered. “The last thing he said to me was to remarry and have more children.”
“He must have loved you very much.”
Grief so powerful that she was helpless against it swept over her. She cried softly, as she remembered Daniel’s insistence that she live for both of them. Thomas said nothing, but she could feel his nearness. And then, as her sobs subsided, she began to relate incidents of her life with Daniel, some funny, others solemn or poignant. And once she’d begun to talk, the words spilled out of her.
She talked for what seemed like hours and in that span of time, she gradually loosened the stitches in her sheet so that her left arm and hand were free so that she could wipe her eyes or scratch her nose when it itched. A nagging guilt told her that getting partially out of the sheet might be against the rules, but it wasn’t as if she meant to do anything wrong. Was it her fault if Sara had used old thread?
Thomas rarely interrupted as she spoke. Sometimes, if the tale she was telling was amusing, he would chuckle, or sometimes he would comment briefly, but mostly, he listened.
Now and then, the parlor door would open and the beam of a flashlight would pass over them. Leah would hear her mother’s murmur or her aunt’s brusque tone or Sara’s matter-of-fact statement, “All is as it should be.” And then the door would squeak closed, and she and Thomas would be left alone again.
Sometime after the midnight chime from the grandfather clock, the breeze through the open window caught the flame of the candle. The candle sputtered and then went out, leaving them in total darkness except for the moonlight that spilled into the room.
She had just finished telling Thomas about the time she and Daniel and two of the St. Joes had gone on a fishing trip on the river and gotten caught in a thunderstorm, when Thomas abruptly spoke up.
“I’m sorry I upset you so much by bringing up the subject of me becoming Mennonite instead of you joining the Amish church.”
“I thought you knew how much I wanted to be Amish again.”
“I thought that you had made the decision so that you could be one with your family again,” Thomas said. “I didn’t realize how important it was to you.”
“I see that now,” she said, “but I would never have believed that you would waver in your faith.”
“It was for you,” he said. “I didn’t want you to sacrifice your religion for me. Besides, your faith didn’t waiver when you became Mennonite for Daniel.” He exhaled. “I just wanted to talk about it.”
“And I wouldn’t listen,” she whispered. “That was wrong of me. You had the right...have the right to decide for yourself. Not everyone is called to our faith.”
“For myself, I’d never walk away. I was born Amish and I’d die Amish. But I’d do anything for you, Leah.”
“So you don’t want to be Mennonite?”
“Nope.”
“Not even for the convenience of the car?”
He chuckled. “Nope.”
She lay there in the darkness, wondering how she could have hurt him so thoughtlessly. Why had they never talked like this before? Things could have been so different.
“I wondered,” Thomas mused. “Is it the same? When you’re sitting in a Mennonite church service, do the hymns lift your heart in the same way?”
“They do.” She found herself smiling in the darkness. “When Daniel asked me to marry him and I decided to become Mennonite for him, it seemed an easy decision. With him and in our home, it was easy. But outside, among other members of the church, it always felt like a new pair of shoes—useful, handsome, but not quite as comfortable as my old, worn pair.” She exhaled softly. “I never told Daniel that.”
“Ne, you didn’t want to burden him with the thought that he had led you away from something you loved.”
“If he’d lived, I never would have thought of returning to the Amish faith. But after he died, I prayed about it every night. I asked God to show me His plan for me. I put my life in His hands, and He led me back home. It’s why I can’t bear the thought of changing again. In my heart, I’m already Amish,” she admitted.
“You won’t miss driving the car or the freedom you’ve had?”
“I don’t think I will. It’s not giving up the world—it’s embracing something more real. I want to marry, to have more children, and to raise them in the faith I grew up in. I want that peace for them.”
“You could have just said that,” Thomas said. “You didn’t have to become so emotional, to start an argument with me. You didn’t have to break off our courtship because I asked a question about our future.”
“Ne,” she admitted. “I didn’t.” And then, suddenly, the truth was as clear as day to her. About what had happened that night on the walk. After the kiss they had shared. The kiss she had enjoyed very much. “I don’t think it was so much what you said, Thomas. I think... I think I was looking for a reason to break it off with you.”
“Because you don’t love me?”
“Because I do, Thomas. Don’t you see?” Sobs shook her body, making it hard to speak. “Daniel was the love of my life. So how can I love you? How can my heart skip a beat when I see you walking toward me across the field? How can I feel such longing to have you kiss me?”
“But you meant to marry. You asked Sara to find you a husband.”
“A husband,” she repeated. “Someone I could respect, a companion, a father for my children. I never thought she’d find me a man I could love. Because loving you feels like betraying Daniel.”
“Did your mother love your father?” Thomas asked.
“Of course she did,” Leah answered.
“And does she love Albert?”
“Ya, of course. But not like she loved Dat.”
“How do you know what’s in her heart? And if she does love Albert every bit as much, do you blame her?”
“Ne,” Leah insisted.
“So if Hannah’s loving Albert isn’t wrong, then you loving me can’t be, either. You aren’t betraying Daniel,” Thomas said. “You’re fulfilling your promise. Living for him, living for both of you. And if you believe God led you home to Seven Poplars, can’t you believe He led you to me, as well?”
“Oh, Thomas.” She sat upright, tearing out the stitching that confined her left side. She reached over the bundling board to touch his face, just as his arms came around her. “Thomas?”
He sat up and pulled her against him.
“How did you?” she began. “My mother’s stitching shouldn’t have torn out.”
“Not unless she intended it to,” he answered, smoothing her hair. “I suspect neither Hannah nor Sara intended us to remain apart all night.”
Leah shivered as his warm lips fit perfectly to hers and they kissed, a kiss so sweet and tender that she didn’t want it to end. “I love you,” she murmured. “Love you, love you.” She gazed into his eyes, their noses touching.
“Enough to become my wife?” he asked breathlessly.
“Can we be married as soon as we’re baptized?”
“As soon as Bishop Atlee gives his blessing.”
“Then, yes, Thomas, I will marry you.”
He kissed her again, and she wasn’t sure if she would have had a third kiss if the door hadn’t opened and her aunt Martha hadn’t shrieked, “Sara! Hannah! Come quick! The fox is in the henhouse!”