Amanda Weds a Good Man (18 page)

The
whack!
of the slammed kitchen door goaded Amanda into action. Without a word to Vera, Jemima, or the kids she descended the steps to see what had happened in her absence. Had the children been downstairs when the Schmuckers arrived? They were capable of creating quite a mess when they played in the basement, but it was a rainy day and a little more chaos was to be expected.

She had
not
figured on seeing her pottery smashed all over the floor.

Nor had she anticipated finding Great-uncle Mahlon's kick wheel on its side with the wheel and the splash pan detached . . . demolished beyond her ability to repair it. While Simon's mischief at the mercantile had broken some of her pieces, this blatant destruction went beyond anything her kids were capable of.
Uriah fancies himself as Christ overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple
.

Something inside Amanda snapped.

She had figured on taking her boxes of pottery back to Atlee's farm, to stash them away. The devastation—the
waste
—scattered across the basement floor was the last straw. And in her despair, feeling as shattered as her pottery, Amanda could think of only one thing to do. One place to go.

Out the basement door she strode, not bothering to fetch her wraps. The cold rain mingled with her hot tears and Amanda didn't care if anyone saw her enter the stable. “Dottie, let's go home, girl,” she called to her mare.

A few minutes later her enclosed buggy was rolling past the pile of furniture covered with ragged blue tarps, then heading down the lane toward the county highway. It was wrong to run from her troubles. She had left soup bubbling on the stove, along with three little children on the sofa awaiting her discipline. But other folks could take care of those things.

Lord knows they don't need me. . . .

That thought was the final crack in the dam that had been holding her frustrations and unrealized dreams in check. It was wrong to run away, like a child defying her parents, thinking the grass had to be greener anywhere other than home. She had promised to love, honor, and obey Wyman Brubaker. Willingly, knowing full well what marriage meant, she had entered into a sacred relationship with him until death parted them.

But she hadn't known much about Uriah Schmucker then. Hadn't foreseen the consequences of continuing the craft that had fed her family since Atlee had died. And she hadn't predicted the growing pains of blending two families . . . or the way Wyman had assumed she could bring all those kids together merely by becoming their mother.

Amanda shivered in the buggy, staring at the road ahead through her tears. No one was out in Cedar Creek to witness her shame, her caving in beneath an emotional burden she didn't know how to bear. Abby was probably sewing in the loft of the mercantile and would surely have words of comfort and support . . . Sam could offer advice from the perspective of a preacher who was not
her
preacher . . . She could fetch the rest of Vera's jewelry and her dishes, if she stopped. . . .

But then she would have to explain why she was leaving Wyman.

Think about what you're doing . . . to your family and your future. Turn around before it's too late
.

It was unthinkable to abandon her family, or to forsake her husband of three weeks. She had vowed before God to commit herself to the Brubakers, and if she carried through on these feelings that churned in her heart, she would be excommunicated from Clearwater. Banned from seeing her kids again. And rightly so.

As Amanda rounded the curve by Graber's Custom Carriages, however, she didn't stop and she didn't look back.
Lizzie and the twins will come home, too—because Jemima will bring them
, she reasoned.
I must find a way to set Wyman free so he and his kids can move on, no matter what the awful consequences. Maybe I can join the Mennonites . . . still raise my girls with Plain principles and values. . . .

Dottie trotted faster as they approached the turnoff to the farm. Down the gravel road the buggy clattered until the faded white barns and the old Lambright house came into view. Within minutes Amanda was unhitching the mare, and she went right back to the stall where she'd lived for most of her life.
She knows where she belongs, and so do I
, Amanda thought.

As she stepped into the back door of the kitchen, the overheated smell of something on the stove greeted her, as did the clutter of her bachelor nephew. Amanda turned off the burner, barely recognizing the stew she and Jemima had left in the freezer for Jerome on moving day. She heard his footsteps above . . . water running through the pipes as he washed his hands before his noon meal.

What will you tell him? Jerome's a man, with a male perspective. He'll drive you right back to Clearwater if you don't go on your own.

For a few moments, however, Amanda drank in the sight of the familiar worn cabinets . . . the dishes in the sink, the stoneware a gift when she'd married Atlee . . . the table she'd eaten on all during her first marriage, shorter now because Jerome had removed the leaves. Oh, how the walls needed a fresh coat of paint, and oh, how she loved this kitchen anyway.

“Aunt Amanda? Is something wrong?”

She turned to face Jerome, her defenses crumbling. “Jah, you might say that,” she rasped. “I can't do it. I can't be a Brubaker or live in Clearwater with those hateful, mean-spirited people.”

Jerome's thick, dark eyebrows rose as though he might haul her right back out to her rig. Instead, he took her in his arms. “Better tell me what's going on,” he murmured. “You're no quitter. And you would never,
ever
leave your girls behind.”

W
hen Wyman stepped into the kitchen, he immediately knew something was wrong. Vera was in tears as she bustled around Jemima setting their noon meal on the table, while Jemima looked as sour—yet as fearful—as he had ever seen her. Alice Ann sat in her high chair sucking her thumb, her little face puckered with worry.

“Why are Simon and the twins sitting on the couch?” he whispered.

“Oh, Dat, it was
awful
.” Vera mopped her face with her sleeve. “While Amanda was at the elevator with you, the Schmuckers came, and—”

Wyman clenched his jaw.

“—after the bishop went downstairs we heard glass breaking against the floor, and—”

“We didn't do it, Dat. Honest!” Simon called from the front room.

“So where's Amanda now?” Wyman asked.

The kitchen fell silent.

Wyman's heart raced faster. The more questions he asked, the more he didn't like the answers he was getting. “Did she go downstairs to assess the damage, or what?” he demanded.

“That's what we figured, jah,” his daughter rasped. “But it got real quiet. And when I went down to see if Amanda was all right, she . . . she wasn't there.”

“Can't say as I blame her, after the way that bishop and his wife lit into her,” Jemima sputtered. “Now Uriah's demanding a kneeling confession, after they found Vera's necklaces at the greenhouse in Cedar Creek—”

“And—and he smashed all the pottery she'd packed up, and broke her potter's wheel, too,” Vera gushed. “How can that be right, Dat? What did Amanda do to deserve such treatment? She put away her ceramics, just like he'd told her to.”

Wyman's heart slid into his boots. If Amanda had left without telling him . . . but surely she just needed to let off some steam. He sighed wearily, wondering whether he should first hunt down his wife or go speak to Uriah Schmucker. Jemima was dishing soup into bowls, so he decided that everyone—including Amanda—needed time to settle down. If the twins were here, it meant his wife couldn't have gone far . . . and that she wouldn't stay away long.
Would she?

Wyman went into the front room, where the younger kids sat in a row with their hands folded in their laps. “Come to dinner,” he said gently. “After we pray, we can talk about the bishop's visit and figure out what to do.”

Simon's eyes widened. “I'm real sorry about Wags getting into the kitchen with muddy feet,” he whimpered. “Mrs. Schmucker got after me for that, and then she talked mean to Vera, and then—”

“It was so
scary
when the bishop made us go downstairs,” one of the twins blurted.

“Jah, I didn't want to,” her sister continued. “And when he started throwin' Mamma's dishes on the floor—”

“We were all grabbin' hold of Wags so he wouldn't attack the bishop—or step in that broken glass,” Simon exclaimed. “Why did he
do
that, Dat?”

As these images raced in his mind, Wyman felt his temper rising.
Why, indeed?
“I don't know, son,” he replied, “but I intend to find out. For now, though, we've got hot soup on the table and we can think about these things while we eat, all right?”

“I don't
want
to think about it,” one of the twins declared, and then she began to cry.

“I don't
like
that man. He's
mean
,” her sister added, and then she, too, burst into tears.

“I want Mamma! Where'd she go?” sobbed the first twin.

“Why isn't she upstairs yet?” wailed the other, while in the kitchen, Alice Ann howled in sympathy.

Wyman felt totally out of his depth. He still couldn't tell Dora and Cora apart, and they turned away from him when he opened his arms. Simon's eyes were wide with the belief that he'd contributed to this catastrophe by letting his muddy dog in the house. Vera was in tears, Jemima was sputtering like a drenched cat, and meanwhile Alice Ann and the twins continued to cry inconsolably.

And Amanda was gone. Not an hour ago he'd been embracing her, enjoying a rare moment alone with her. How had so much happened since then?

It occurred to Wyman that this was the first time he'd been with all of the younger children when Amanda wasn't present.
Does she ever feel this overwhelmed? This helpless?
he wondered as he headed back into the kitchen. Thank goodness the three kids on the couch followed him, for he had no idea how to stop their tears. But he was the man of this family, expected to be strong and invincible. Expected to
fix
this situation.

When Eddie came in from the barn, his eyes widened at the sheer racket of the girls' weeping. “What's going on?” he asked as he hung up his coat. “Why did Amanda race out of here like a house afire? I called after her, but she didn't answer.”

She's gone. Maybe for good . . .
Wyman tried not to act as though he'd lost all sense of control, but that's how he felt. “The bishop stirred things up,” he replied beneath the children's din. “And then Amanda went for a ride to, um—settle herself.”

Eddie's cocked eyebrow said he didn't particularly believe that. Or condone it. Wyman was grateful that Vera and Jemima were soothing the children, reminding them it was time to give thanks for their food.

And, God, I hope You'll watch over Amanda, wherever she is
, Wyman prayed fervently.
Please return her safely here, where we love her and miss her.

Wyman blinked. While it wasn't unusual for his prayers to flow without conscious thought, he
did
miss Amanda—and not just because she wasn't here to restore order. Mere weeks had passed since the wedding, yet she'd become such a part of him that he hadn't realized how . . .
lost
he felt without her beside him. He stirred the fragrant vegetable soup, smiling at the alphabet letters—surely Amanda's idea. She was good about teaching the kids and making them think. The twins were starting to read, so Simon wanted to catch up to them—a positive step for a boy who couldn't sit still.

“When's Mamma coming back?” one of the twins asked as the sandwiches started around.

Wyman gazed at the two little girls dressed in pink, so like their mother with their dark braids and beautiful eyes. “I don't know,” he murmured. “But she
will
return, girls, because she loves you. And she won't want us to worry about her.”

Please make that true,
he mused as Cora and Dora thought about his answer.

“She loves me, too,” Simon declared as he crushed crackers into his soup. “Even when me and Wags get into trouble, I can tell she still wants to be my new mamm.”

Wyman's heart thudded. If his five-year-old son felt so convinced of Amanda's love, surely she would return to care for the boy—and all of them. Surely her devotion to her new family overrode her aversion to the bishop. . . .

“She has to come back,” Eddie said as he grabbed sandwiches from the platter. “She's married to you, Dat. She vowed to love and obey you, so she's got no choice but to follow the rules.”

As Wyman stirred his steaming soup, he came to a startling realization: while his eldest son had stated the truth as Old Amish folks knew it—and while Wyman firmly believed in the tenets of their faith—at this moment he wondered if the rules should be their highest priority. After all, hadn't Uriah Schmucker crossed the line when he had broken Amanda's pottery and her wheel? Bishops were indeed chosen by God, but weren't they also accountable for their actions?

“We have a lot of things to consider, son,” Wyman replied. He glanced at Vera, who was breaking a sandwich into bites for Alice Ann. “I didn't realize you had pieces in Treva's Greenhouse, Vera, and I'm sorry I didn't remove them,” he murmured. “Maybe the Schmuckers' visit would have gone differently if the bishop hadn't thought we were ignoring his instructions.”

Vera sighed. “Jah, well, you told me not to get too caught up in Amanda's pottery. I should've listened.”

“Uriah's mind was made up before he got here.”

Wyman's eyes widened at Jemima's quiet remark. Women of her generation tended to believe bishops could do no wrong—or they kept their differing opinions under their kapps. Amanda's mother-in-law looked older today, more frazzled, and while her sharp tongue often rankled him, Wyman could see how worried she was—probably because she depended upon Amanda for help getting dressed each day.

“Where do you suppose she went, Jemima?” he asked.

Jemima kept stirring her soup instead of eating it. “I think I know. But it's best to leave her be rather than go chasing after her. You have
no idea 
. . .”

As her reply trailed off, Wyman sensed the elderly woman had given the most insightful answer of all. He
did
have no idea what might be going through Amanda's mind—about the bishop, about settling into his home and family . . . about being married to him. First they'd had three scared little girls climbing into bed with them, along with Lizzie's troubles at school, and Simon's mischief, and Pete's and Eddie's defiant attitudes, and Vera's struggle to keep her mamm's house the same. Had Amanda known even a moment's peace since she'd married him?

Peace? Viola never complained about keeping your family together—

Guilt stabbed Wyman's heart. His first wife had complied with everything that had been expected of her . . . but had she been at peace? Had she been happy?

You have no idea.
He winced inwardly. Viola had been a model Amish wife, never complaining . . . letting him make the decisions and set the course their family followed. But Wyman recalled bleak periods of their marriage when she had withdrawn into depression, too—especially after the bishop had forbidden her to paint.

So what are you going to DO about this? Amanda isn't Viola. And she's not getting a fair shake.

Wyman sighed. He'd been staring into his soup as though hoping the macaroni letters would form a message—a sign from God about how to handle this situation. Meanwhile, the silence at the table meant everyone else was waiting for his solution to this problem.

“Jemima's right,” he murmured. “Amanda will come home when she's ready. We can only pray that it'll be sooner rather than later.”

And when had he ever let one woman take off and disrupt his home while another woman told him what to do about it? It went against Wyman's deepest beliefs for Amanda to work out her troubles in her own time, because he so desperately wanted to find her
now
. Would his children think he was weak—or unconcerned about Amanda's welfare and theirs—if he didn't go after her? He knew quite well what Uriah Schmucker would say.

Wyman took his first bite of soup. The situation was out of his hands—not because he liked it that way, but because he was letting go of it. He would allow this problem to resolve itself in the way God intended, and pray Amanda behaved the way he wanted her to. He thoroughly disliked not having control over the outcome, but then . . . wasn't that how the world worked for Amanda every day?