An Amish Christmas With the Bontrager Sisters (7 page)

“I’ll do it,” Martha said tonelessly.
Daed
looked at her as if he understood the pain this was causing her.

“
Duchder
,” he said, “I thought Jacob made you happy.”

“He does,” Martha shrugged. “But if I have learnt anything it is that no child can remain happy by hurting their parents to achieve that happiness. I will not bring you more pain and shame
Daed
.”

“You are a
gut
girl, Martha,” Aunt Lizzie said. “A credit to your parents. The Lapp’s will be very happy.”

Martha smiled weakly even though her heart was breaking. What was worse was that she could see the same heartbreak magnified in the eyes of her
Mamm
and
Daed
, who felt her pain as if it were their own. Even when trying to save them from it, Martha had still caused them agony.

*

The quilt was nearly finished. Martha traced her hands along the thread, the small ridges in the fabric only felt by the whorls of her finger pads, invisible to the naked eye. This is how
Gott
must view the world and our lives within them, Martha thought. The intricate lifts and falls that only he can see, and how they form ripples in the ocean of life, having effects our tiny minds cannot foresee or even comprehend.
Gott’s
plan is greater than the entire universe and us smaller than the tiniest grain of sand upon it.

The thought gave her comfort.

The bell on the door jangled and Martha stood up from her rocking chair to attend to the customer. Jacob stood at the counter, his hat in his hands. He wasn’t smiling like he usually did. His blue eyes were dark and stormy.

Martha felt the ground beneath her legs turn to jelly. She braced herself for his harsh words and his sense of betrayal.

“Hallo, Martha,” he said and Martha could sense the gravel of hurt underlying it. “I get the sense you’ve been avoiding me.”

Martha nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Her stomach was caving into her pelvis.
 

“Don’t I deserve an explanation as to why?” Jacob asked, spreading a beseeching hand.

“You’re parents are not happy with our courtship,” Martha finally said.
 

“I am happy with it,” Jacob said slashing his hand through the air decisively. “You’re happy with it. That is all that matters.”

“
Nee
,” Martha shook her head. “It does not.”

Martha came forward and took Jacob’s hand in her own.

“You have never disappointed your family before so you do not know the consequences of these actions,” Martha said quietly. “I have and look at what it has done. The whole community has accepted me as one of the faith but they still question my purity, they still think of me as other. We are having this conversation because of my foolish actions. I don’t want you to suffer with me.”

“Do you think you can be happy without me?” Jacob asked, lifting her chin up so she could look deep into his eyes.

“No,” Martha said. “But I was never happy so it makes no difference.”

“It makes a difference to me.”

“We cannot be together until your parents agree to the match,” Martha sighed.

“I will marry you, Martha Bontrager,” Jacob promised, a determined sparkle in his eyes. “You wait and watch. I will marry you in front of the entire community that hurts you and judges you. I will make you my wife and you need never be unhappy again.”
 

“But till then,” he held her hand to his chest before letting go, “I will honor your wish and not make the gossip mongers talk about us. Till our wedding day,” he placed his hat on his head, winked at her in his usual mischievous fashion and left the store.

Martha didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry.

The chill permeated the wooden walls and touched every surface in the house. Breath was no longer invisible, pluming in the mouth and coming out as dragon smoke. The children laughed at their pink faces and their cold noses. It had rained for the past two days, the earth had turned to mush and the animals huddled close for warmth in the barn at night. Winter was slowly sinking its teeth into autumn, which was reluctantly giving way.

Warmth spilled from the pool of light around the wooden stove in the kitchen where Sarah’s cot had been placed. She lay there prone during the day, watching Emma work. Emma kept up the cheerful chatter for her benefit, trying to coax her to eat a little bit of this, a little bit of that but secretly she had been worrying.

Sarah had gotten frailer still since they learned of Jeramiah’s demise a week ago. Her time was near and Emma worried she might not survive the ordeal. Emma touched her belly superstitiously. She had been holding onto her secret for two months now, hoping against hope that it would become more than a secret soon.

“And I said to Martha,” Emma said, casually stirring the sauce, “She shouldn’t have rejected that poor boy. This community has a nasty habit of indulging in gossip. If they would concentrate more on
Gott’s
word and not on who is courting whom, we would have a much easier time on this planet. Try this,” Emma thrust the stirring spoon in front of Sarah’s chapped lips.
 

“Emma,” Sarah croaked. Emma put the stirring spoon into the pot and brought a cool glass of water for Sarah. Sarah took a small sip and nodded gratefully. “Emma, how will I ever thank you for all you have done for me?”

“Please, Sarah,” Emma said, tears in her eyes. “You are my sister. And you did far more for me when Eli…” Emma looked away, blinking furiously against the tears. “I would do anything for you!”

“It gladdens my heart to hear you say that,” Sarah breathed. “Will you make me a promise?”
 

“Anything, Sarah, you know it,” Emma clasped Sarah’s weak hands.

“Will you look after Isaac and Ruth?” she asked desperately. “Will you look after my children after I’m gone?”

Emma’s blood froze in her veins. She had never allowed herself to think that Sarah could die. She had assured herself that once the
boppli
was born, Sarah would get the help she needed. But it looked like no matter what Emma hoped for or planned for Sarah had given up.

“Please don’t talk like that,” Emma pleaded. “You’re not going anywhere.
Gott
willing, you will stay with us till you are grey haired and old with a few
grosskinner
on your lap.”

“That is not
Gott’s
will, Emma,” Sarah said.

“Who are we to know His will?” Emma cried in despair. “His will might be to let you live, to cure your illness with a miracle.”

“My children are my miracle,” Sarah smiled. “I have had many miracles, the summers and sunsets I have seen, the joys of marriage I have known with Jeramiah and the product of our union, our children. Please promise you will take care of them.”

“I promise,” Emma said. “But you must promise me not to give up. I won’t be able to stand it if you gave up.”

“What is the point of persisting?” Sarah closed her tired eyes.

“Isaac and Ruth and the new
boppli
,” Emma said gently, “they are enough reason to persist. To keep Jeramiah’s memory alive, to pray for his forgiveness so you may be together in the hereafter. That is the reason to persist. If we do not persist in our hopes of happiness,
Gott
will not grant them to us.”

Emma took Sarah’s withered hands and placed them on her belly.

“I persisted, Sarah,” Emma said quietly. “I persisted after the many miscarriages, after the many false hopes and the painful lack of a
boppli
in my arms and I think
Gott
has finally blessed me with one.”

“Ach, Emma!” Sarah’s face was radiant with happiness. “I pray that it is so. You are a great mother to my children, you will be even greater to your own. Have you told Jarron yet?”

“
Nee
,” Emma blushed. “I am waiting for five months to pass to be sure. I am hoping that this Christmas I can give him the
gut
news of being a
Daed
.”

“He will be thrilled,” Sarah sighed, “
Gott
willing.”

“But see, Sarah,” Emma soothed loose strands of hair from Sarah’s sweaty forehead. “Maybe
Gott’s
plan isn’t as bad as we think it is. There is hope at the end of every hardship. We just need to look for it persistently.”

“That maybe so,” Sarah held Emma’s hand. “But I have lost the rock I could lean on. My Jeramiah has been taken away from me.”

“He still remains within you,” Emma consoled. “Take strength from his memory like I did with Eli’s when he passed away. Jeramiah will be loath to see you in so much pain. It will make his passage so much harder if his soul is bound to your sorrow on this earth.”

Sarah didn’t reply. She closed her eyes. They itched constantly, her breath was hot and ragged but her body was cold.
 

Isaac and Ruth tiptoed in to see their mother. Emma waved them over and they sat gingerly on the cot at their mother’s feet. Ruth had a dirt smear on her cheek but before Emma could lift her hand to clean it, Isaac had already rubbed it off.
 

It was sweet how close the brother and sister had gotten over the past few months. Isaac, who would be loath to have Ruth trailing him like a shadow, now comforted her in the dark of night and even waited for her to catch up on the way to school. Ruth for her part tried to be less of a nuisance to her older brother, saving a choice candy for him and even giving him half of her cake once in a while.
 

They were
gut
children, Emma thought, kindhearted and responsible. Sarah had done a
gut
job raising them and even though Emma would have loved the chance to mother them, she knew that the loss of Sarah would be too great for this family to withstand.

Emma squeezed Sarah’s hand, trying to give her warmth and the will to fight.

The Bontrager’s and the Yoder’s sat in the William’s house to enjoy a Sunday roast. Emma bustled from the living room to the kitchen, her heart swelling with happiness because for the first time in a very long while, Sarah was sitting up in a chair, her hair combed neatly under her
kapp
, her clothes pressed and clean, her face serene and her eyes alert. She had even laughed at a joke Isaac had told and it had brightened the evening considerably.

Jarron had exchanged pleased glances with her. She knew he was just as worried about Sarah as she was. They were all pleased to see Sarah on the mend. Ruth was actually dancing with joy.

Daed watched his daughters with tenderness. These women of his world that owned a piece of his heart each were strong and left him in awe. There was Emma, his middle child, a girl of such wisdom. Her journey from doubts about the church and her inclusion in the faith, to her hardships with Eli’s illness and then demise, she had finally found happiness in a
gut
man. Now if only
Gott
would give them
kinder
of their own.

Sarah, his eldest, whose cry in the world had wrenched his heart open, humbling him to the amount of love he could feel for another person, leaving him in fear of its loss. She had been the perfect child, courted in her
rumspringa
by Jeramiah who was tall, handsome and strong. Married by twenty-one and gracing them with
grosskinner
by twenty-three. She had been a shining example for girls in the community and now look at her, fighting the rejection and desertion of her husband, dealing with his demise and now holding up the life of her unborn child at the risk of her own.

And Martha. High spirited, fickle Martha, who had given him the most worry. Running away at fifteen, getting engaged to an
Englischer
and staying away for years. Then she had come back like the prodigal son and taken up her place in the community as if she had never gone. But the community still remembered and it seldom forgave. Her chance at happiness was strangled by her own past.

Daed
wished there was something he could do for his three daughters, to make their lives as perfect as they could be, but hardship was
Gott’s
way to test man, and without testing faith how would
Gott
know who deserved Heaven and who hell?

Martha brought the big package she had stowed in the buggy when they had left home this morning. She placed it on the polished table piquing everyone’s curiosity.

“I finished my quilt,” Martha said. She opened the box and pulled out a quilt of midnight blue and unfolded it.
 

The mosaic was done in intricate thread, the stitches small and delicate. There was a bent well-thumbed Bible like
Daed’s
in one corner and a wooden rosary like
Mamm’s
in another. A barn with an embroidered E on the side was very much like Eli’s barn and a shiny red truck like the one Jarron had owned by its side.

Emma’s nurturing famous hot chocolate was in one corner and Martha’s purple-pink hair under a lace
kapp
were in another. In the center of the colorful quilt was a cradle with a large S carved into it, two bent figures of children around the cradle and two doves sewed on top of the children.

Daed
watched the perfect tribute to their family, done by his youngest daughter and marveled at how far she had come. It was a touching gesture that was received with an open heart by the entire family. He wished that things had been better for Martha and Jacob but as things stood they were not.

His faith taught him the price for the sin of pride but in that moment he indulged in pride. Fierce, burning pride in his daughters and the families they had made.

*

Lightning cracked like a whip in the torrential dark sky. Rain poured down like bullets against the glass windows. The wind howled, rattling the shutters as it sped past the house. Sarah lay in her cot, her eyes wide open, feeling the pulsing kick of her
boppli
. Isaac and Ruth were asleep in the room next to Emma and Jarron.
 

Lightning streaked across the sky and the kitchen was bathed in white light. Sarah’s belly quivered as another wave of pain hit her. The
boppli
was coming but Sarah could not move her legs, could not call out for help. She was terrified. She knew the coming of her
boppli
meant the end for her and though she had felt she could not live anymore, the evening dinner with her family had proven her wrong.