Plain Jayne (41 page)

I woke when the rooster crowed, horrified to hear several sets of feet moving throughout the house. I threw on my clothes and hurried out to join the others.

Leah met me in the hallway. “Today is Sara's birthday!” “Really?” I gave her a hug as we walked toward the kitchen. “How old is she?”

“Eighteen!” Sara announced from behind us.

“I remember being eighteen,” I said, smiling ruefully.

Of course, my eighteen and her eighteen were two different things entirely. If I remembered right, I celebrated by registering to vote, showing up at the elections office with my purple-streaked hair and Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt.

Sara, on the other hand, wouldn't be voting anytime soon, and her lovely brown hair was twisted up under her kapp.

“Will you celebrate today?” I asked.

Leah nodded and swung my hand from side to side. “We'll celebrate at dinner.
Mutter
will make a cake and roast a ham.”

“Sounds delicious! Do you get presents?”

“Yes,” Sara straightened her apron. “Probably some new shoes.”

I stopped my sarcastic “Oh goody” comment from leaving my lips just in time.

“My sister Rebecca and her family might take a taxi from Washington and stay with Grandma,” Sara added. “You haven't met Rebecca.”

“Not yet, but it sounds like I will.”

We ate a breakfast of dried apple muffins, eggs scrambled with peppers and bacon, fried potatoes, and sausage patties. After helping with the dishes, I made my excuses and drove into town, determined to find an appropriate birthday gift for Sara.

I may have driven past the shop. I wasn't
stalking
Levi, just checking to see if there was a sale or lease sign in front of the building. Just in case.

There wasn't. I proceeded to Fred Meyer's. What do you buy for an Amish teenager that you can give her in front of her family? If it were only between the two of us, and if she weren't being baptized, then I would go a little crazier, maybe find her a pair of sequined flip-flops for the summer. Or a bright scarf with fringe.

Probably should have checked with Martha first.

I wandered out of Fred Meyer's, got back into my car, and drove around until the red glowing sign of inspiration appeared: JoAnn Fabrics.

Inside, I chose several bolts of fabric I thought Sara might like and bought a yard each. I drove back to Freddie's for a gift bag, tissue paper, and a card.

I didn't know if the Amish did birthday cards, but I bought one anyway.

After wrapping the fabric in paper and stuffing it elegantly into the sack, I signed the card and drove back to the Burkholders'.

“Something's baking,” I called as I stepped inside. I found Martha in the kitchen. “It smells wonderful, whatever it is.”

“Sara doesn't have a single favorite cake, so I make a five-layer cake with every layer a different flavor.”

“Oh!” That could either be very good or very bad. “What flavors?

“Pumpkin, coconut, chocolate, raspberry, and lemon poppy seed.”

“Oh.” The jury might remain out for a while on that one. “Need a hand?”

“I'd appreciate it. Sara's birthday is the second most difficult of all my children's.”

“Who's the first?”

“Elam. He doesn't like cake, so I make varieties of ice cream for him.”

“From scratch?”

“Yes,” Martha answered, but at that moment her gaze became shifty. “Well,” she said with a lowered voice, “last year I was very busy with Rebecca's baby's quilt, so I…” her voice dropped still lower, “I
bought
ice cream.”

“Martha!”

“And I made sure I got three flavors I hadn't made before so they wouldn't be able to compare.”

I couldn't help but laugh. “Very sneaky. I would have done the exact same thing.”

Actually, that wasn't true. I wouldn't have gotten conned into making three batches of ice cream in the first place. My mom used to make ice cream, and even with an electric ice-cream maker, it was labor-intensive. She would stand at the stove for ages, stirring the custard. Make three batches of heat-sensitive custard and then churn it? No, thank you.

“Do you make the same cake combination every year?”

“No. Last year it was carrot, yellow, ginger-pecan, chocolate chip, and Jell-O orange.”

I couldn't even imagine, but a part of me wished I could. I wondered what it would be like to spend my days in a kitchen, cooking and baking for my family. To know what my children liked best for their birthdays.

The birthday party unfolded through dinner. Sara arrived at the table in her favorite dress—her favorite, I knew, because it was the brightest-colored one she owned. The rich brick red of her dress, covered by her black apron, accentuated the color in her cheeks and the green of her eyes.

Rebecca and her family arrived via taxi moments later. Out of all the siblings, she bore the strongest resemblance to Levi with her dark eyes and fair skin. She carried Baby Verna on her hip, while her husband, Karl, held young Henry.

Karl's genial smile faded the moment he saw me, dressed as I was in blue jeans and clearly not Amish. But Gideon jumped in and explained how I had called the ambulance for him when he'd had his heart attack and sang my praises about the way I'd cared for Martha and Sara while he was in the hospital, or, as he referred to it, “the clink.”

He clearly didn't know that Levi had also been with us, but that was information for another day.

Ida appeared at the door, bearing a giant smile, and the gathering was complete. Complete except for Levi.

We crowded around the table and gazed at the beauty of the dinner provided. Martha had prepared—on top of the five-layer cake o' wonder—a ham crusted with brown sugar, creamy mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, buttery rolls, and homemade peach butter.

Everyone ate and laughed and told stories about Sara. When we'd all had our fill of dinner, we retired to the living room for a round of Parcheesi while we digested. Sara won, although I suspected everyone let her.

I came in second.

After the game, Martha called Rebecca and me to the dining room. Ida joined us. Within moments we had the dinner dishes cleared and cake plates out. Everyone else filed into the room, and Martha brought in the lit cake, all five layers of it.

I half expected the weight of it to send her toppling over, but after a lifetime of manual labor, Martha had untold brawn beneath her sleeves.

Applause broke out as she approached the table. Elam and Rebecca teased Sara about the flavors, throwing out potential candidates, such as licorice, pork roast, twigs, and bark.

The latter two were suggested by Elizabeth.

As we sang Sara “Happy Birthday,” my eye caught something through the kitchen window. I dismissed it as one of the animals on the farm. Sara opened her gifts one by one—fancy molded soaps from Rebecca, a new pair of shoes from Gideon and Martha, a set of thimbles from Elam, a new dress from Ida. Sara's face lit up when she lifted the fabrics from the gift bag I'd chosen.

“Do you like them?” I asked, although there wasn't much I could do if she didn't.

“Very much,” she answered, hugging them to her slim body. Something moving outside the window caught my attention again. For the briefest moment, I thought I saw Levi in the darkness.

I went to bed that night, warm from the time of family happiness and yet aching in my heart. I didn't want to leave the farm. Not ever.

With the weather just beginning to warm up, Martha spent the majority of her day in the vegetable garden.

I watched from the window and spent a moment envying her ability to provide for her family through the work of her hands. I felt the familiar wrench in my chest at the calm in her life, the lack of distractions, how much purer things were in the shelter of the farmhouse.

Why couldn't I be like that? Why couldn't I keep my apartment clean? I didn't even have children, and clutter still accumulated. My quilt looked like a child's attempt, and I wasn't about to garden anytime soon.

This is not where I have called you
.

I stepped back from the window as if I'd been zapped and looked around.

Are you sure?
I asked back to the voice, so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
If I'm going to follow You, can't I follow You better here? Fewer distractions, no television, no internet—just You and me and the land?

My questions were met with silence, but it didn't matter. I had already heard the voice.

I sighed and decided to take another walk.

The wind whipped my hair into my face; I kept brushing it away, even though I knew it would be back in the shortest of moments.

I wanted to stay at the farmhouse. It was that simple. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the reason why I wanted to stay was because I liked myself better when I was with the Burkholders. I liked helping with the children. I liked being useful.

Could I still be useful in the outside world? Probably. Most likely. Yes. But it was so much more picturesque at the farm, with the bonnets and the buggies.

And yet, I knew the “picturesque” part wasn't entirely real. Levi's family was every bit as dysfunctional as my own. More, if you considered that at least my father acknowledged me as his child until the day he died. I had watched Gideon readily forgive a buggy thief but turn Levi away.

I knew the children were not receiving a quality education, so much more detrimental considering they only had eight years of it. Did it matter? I thought so. We were called to minister to the world, and it was hard
to understand the world if you were unaware of the goings-on for the past thirty years.

Even though my return to the church was recent, I still knew in my heart that my God was a personal God, a gracious God, a God who cared less for our deeds than the quality of our hearts.

I didn't know what He was calling me to, or where, but I wanted the quality of my heart to matter. I wanted my actions to stem from love rather than tradition, guilt, or habit. Just because my life wasn't simple didn't make it insignificant. Owning a cell phone didn't make me a lesser person.

I sighed. It was time to go home.

A
re you packing?”

I turned to see Sara in my doorway. “Hi there. Yes, I'm packing. It's time for me to leave.”

“But—you only just got here.”

“I need to get back to the paper.” And to the rest of my life, such as it was. “It's time.”

“Your quilt! You haven't finished your quilt!”

“I will.”

“Do you have a sewing machine at your apartment?”

“No…”

“Then how?”

“My mom. I'll take it with me when I visit.”

“Oh,” Sara said, her rosy mouth stretching into a frown.

“You can still write me,” I said, continuing to fold. “Although, I probably shouldn't include…” I let my voice drop, in case we had listeners. Little ones. “You're getting baptized soon, after all.”