Promise to Cherish (23 page)

“What was that?”

“I was saying that I think Christine will be very comfortable with Aunt Annie.”

Eli looked over at Christine, who held a bite midway to her mouth. Their eyes connected. Her small ivory gloves lay next to her on the table and her dainty hat hung tilted over the back of the chair. A woman of her culture had never been in his family’s home before.

“What?” Christine said when Eli didn’t say anything for a suspended moment. There was an edge to her voice that spurred him to speak.

Eli cleared his throat.

“Aunt Annie lives just across the field.” He pointed with his fork ahead of him. “She has an extra room.”

After the supper was cleared from the table and cleaned, Sarah gestured for Eli and Christine to follow her. They walked together on a trail through the field, single file, with his mother leading the way with a flashlight.

“Annie? Aunt Annie?” His mother called as she knocked on the door.

Several long moments later an old woman opened the door. Annie was a cute, small woman, with a ready smile and pure, white hair. Eli vaguely remembered meeting her years ago.

“You must be Eli,” she said in English, eyeing Christine up and down as she spoke.

“Sure am,” he said and smiled. They shook hands.

“Who’s this pretty girl?” Aunt Annie put her hand out to Christine, who took it hesitantly.

“Christine Freeman,” she said with a breathy voice. Her eyes darted between Annie’s and Eli’s. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Call me Aunt Annie. Everyone does.”

Christine nodded and pushed up her glasses. When his mother and his aunt walked away for a moment, Eli could hear them talking about him and Christine.

“You’re going to be fine here. Aunt Annie will take good care of you.” Eli pushed his hands deep into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I think it’s for the best, don’t you?”

“You regret it, don’t you? You wish you’d never invited me.” She spoke in a rushed, whispered voice. “I think I should go. I can leave right now for one of those homes for girls like me. I have the information right here.”

She held up a small floral purse with a dainty gloved hand.

Eli looked over her shoulder, to where his mother and Annie were speaking. He took Christine’s hand and led her outside. Once the door was latched behind her and he knew they wouldn’t be overheard he spoke.

“I don’t regret it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it is better for you to live here with Annie than over at the farm.” An unyielding pull ran through his heart—his nerves catching up with him. The melding of his two worlds wasn’t going as he’d first anticipated. All that had been going through his mind when he invited her was that she needed help and the Amish were always willing to help. But this might be stretching the ability of his church and especially his family. “I know this looks bad—with Matilda and the rude things Mark said at the station . . . but I don’t want you to go. I want you to give my family a chance.”

When she was silent he decided to add another thought.

“If you stay here no one will take your baby away from you.”

She swallowed and looked down at her feet.

“I’ll be over first thing in the morning.” He wanted to touch her face but he didn’t let himself. “I promise I’ll work everything out—and I won’t tell anyone anything until you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I do appreciate what you’re doing for me. I know me being here makes things more difficult for you.”

Eli shook his head.

“Don’t take all the credit.” He winked at her.

Sarah Brenneman came back outside and Christine went inside. Without another glance, Sarah walked back to the farmhouse. Eli walked behind her, his heart drumming. She didn’t say anything until they were on the front porch. Sarah pulled her black shawl around her and she avoided his eyes.

“What’s the real reason you brought
sellah maedel
home?” Of course, she deserved to know why he brought that girl home, only he couldn’t tell her the whole truth yet.

“She’s a friend and she didn’t have anywhere to go.”

“But why here? Doesn’t she have other friends, her family, or cousins perhaps? Englishers don’t understand our ways, Eli, this will only end in hurt.”

“
Mem
, I—” he started.

“
Liebje sie
?”

Sarah had never asked Eli if he’d loved a girl. He didn’t know how to answer. His lungs were tight and in the coolness of the evening he was sweating.

“I—um,” he cleared his throat, “I care about what happens to her.” That was the truth.

His mother nodded then opened the door to the house.

“Eli.” She turned around. “Please, let her go back to her world and her own life so you can move on with yours.”

He had nothing to say in return and just followed his mother into the house. An hour later he was handed a stack of clothes and a blanket by his father.

“You can sleep in the loft in the equipment barn. It’s warm enough with the straw. I’ll be ready for your help before sunrise.” His father’s hand clapped his back, declaring the conversation was over.

Eli knew this wasn’t personal. Mark and Sylvia and their twins needed somewhere to stay. Growing up, he’d often slept in the loft when they had company. He and Mark both would. They would crack jokes about their fat Aunt Bertha or the way
their cousins got whipped for not sitting still at supper or in church.

He trained his eyes on the small cottage across the field, noticing a small glow in one of the windows. Was Christine still awake? The way she looked at him when he was leaving almost broke him, especially with the way she said she could go to a home for unwed mothers. Her pretty brown eyes had been round and glassy. The responsibility that weighed on him because of her presence was heavier than he imagined it would be, but his motives were pure. But it also allowed everyone to still see him as the flippant person he was when he left for service. The expression on Matilda’s face stacked atop his burden. Both girls had looked at him in desperation for completely different reasons.

He sighed and looked at the ceiling of the barn as he waited for sleep. Neither was his girlfriend. Both had a unique attachment to him that he hadn’t expected. Christine was the girl he could easily love, but he couldn’t let that happen. Matilda was the girl he should love but never could.

“Eli,” Enos called up to the loft. “Breakfast is ready.”

He sat up. Where was he?

A beat later he remembered that he was home—in the loft in the small barn. His back creaked and he groaned. The loft was worse than the thin cots he had slept on for over a year. Then he realized what Enos said.
Breakfast?
He had slept through dawn and all the way until breakfast? His dad and brothers would already be through with morning chores. He readied himself quickly and burst through the front door. No one moved from their bowed positions and he stood and bowed his head as well. When the prayer was through he walked over and slid into the small space left for him on the bench. Mark was sitting at Eli’s position at the table, at the foot of the table, but he did his best
not to let it bother him. He was the one who had been away for eighteen months. His littlest brother, Enos, elbowed him in the ribs and smiled, but no one else made a move to say good morning. This was his family, so why did he feel so pressured, so judged, and so unprepared for it.

“I’m sorry for sleeping through chores. I guess I—”

“I expected this,” his father said, chewing on honeyed bread. “You haven’t had to work for eighteen months—not hard work like we do here on the farm, that is.”

He couldn’t respond for several beats of his hammering heart. The sting from his father’s words heated his own tongue. “You weren’t at the hospital. I know all about
hatteh avet
.”

“Hard work? Giving grown men baths and feeding them like babies?” Mark sniggered.

Eli’s hands grasped his knees and forced himself not to tighten his jaw and show his frustration. He wanted to stand up and put his finger in Mark’s face and tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about. He could explain the horror that his patients lived in—that few of them knew any measure of love or even the most basic genuine care. There was so much that Mark couldn’t have fathomed, such as the overwhelming pity in Eli’s heart for grown men who’d known no other life. Unless you worked at a hospital like Hudson River there was no way to understand how it was possible to have failure and reward become the two halves of the same heart. Visions of his patients dragged like sandpaper across his memory. His jaw tightened along with his fist.

Sylvia’s brow grimaced when she looked at Mark.

“
Boovah
,
nah schtopes
.” Sarah scolded her boys and told them to stop. She eyed both Eli and Mark equally. Then her face altered when she looked back at Eli. Her warm smile reached across the table and comforted him. “I think a break the first morning you’re home is just fine. Especially on our off Sunday.”

“
Dangeh, Mem
.” After releasing the breath he was holding
as invisibly as possible—not wanting anyone to see how angry he’d become—he didn’t just voice a thank-you but let a thankful gaze fall upon his mother. While he knew she didn’t approve of Christine coming home with him, her tenderness touched him. It was clear, however, that this didn’t seem to be shared by the other adults in the room.

The rest of breakfast was at least as uncomfortable as supper was the night before. Eli couldn’t wait to leave the house and run over to see Christine. His knee bounced during the Psalm and Proverb reading and prayer after they were finished eating. This reading was customary on every other Sunday, when they didn’t have church. An entire Psalm and an entire Proverb. When they got to Psalm 119 they divided the 176 verses among the three meals of the day.

Today’s reading was from Psalm 143, and Eli’s mind wandered until he heard his father say, “Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.”
The words squeezed his heart. It was what he wanted. It was what he’d learned and practiced during his service. Now that he was home he wanted to show his family his devotion to God and the church, only with Christine there, it likely proved the opposite. But, she was now, in part, his responsibility as long as she was in Sunrise.

He only had a minimum of chores to do, since it was Sunday, so he had a bit of time away from his usual duties. The silent looks between his mother and father when he left the house to go see Christine forced him to fight feelings of indignation toward them. They weren’t even trying to understand. Of course, they didn’t know Christine’s secret. They may never have to know if she left for that unwed mothers’ home. He knew it would be better for him in dealing with his family if she didn’t stay long, but the thought of her handing her baby to a stranger made his stomach turn.

Eli tried to rid himself of his worries as he ran through the field to Annie’s cottage as soon as he was able. He was out of breath when his great aunt answered the door and told him that Christine had gone for a walk. She pointed Eli in the right direction and he had a hard time not running. He hadn’t gotten there first thing in the morning like he told her he would.

“Christine,” he called when he saw her bending toward the ground. Was something wrong? Was it the baby? He ran faster than he knew he could. “Christine, are you okay? Is there something wrong?”

“Eli?” She looked up into his face. “I was just picking some flowers.”

Eli wished his heart would stop pounding so hard and that she wasn’t so pretty. The sun was shining on Christine’s face, making her glow even though she wasn’t wearing makeup, or maybe very little. She was wearing her hair loose and untamed. It flitted around her face in the breeze. He’d never seen her hair completely free of the rolls she wore in the front. Her beauty struck him, making him stutter when he spoke.

“You scared me. You were bent over and I thought something might be wrong.”

Christine smiled. “Oh, I’m fine.” She walked by him. Eli couldn’t tell if she was angry with him or not.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t up sooner. I would have slept clear through breakfast if it wasn’t for Enos.” He stayed in step with her.

She stopped and gathered a bunch of weeds in the ditch next to the road. Flowers?

“It’s okay.” Christine arranged them in her hand and walked leisurely, taking in her surroundings. “Aunt Annie made a delicious breakfast for us.”

Her mood was calmer today—so much so that he wasn’t sure how to take her. This was new territory for him on several fronts.
Spending time with Christine away from the hospital was already proving to be vastly different. The burdened lines across her forehead were weakened and a smile bloomed across her face. But still, in this moment, he couldn’t tell if she was angry or not with him for not having arrived first thing in the morning.

“Your aunt is a sweet lady. She smiles a lot.”

“I’m glad—”

“Why do you Amish pray silently?” She kept walking with a slow gait as she spoke but the question came like a shot.