The Amish Bride (8 page)

That thought should have given me joy, but instead it gave me more than a twinge of irritation. Ezra and I should be free to marry too, without objection and without interference. My cousin Ada was Amish, so everybody had been thrilled with the news of her engagement to Ezra’s brother Will, especially considering how their union bound us all together. But thanks to my mother’s break with her Amish heritage years ago when she got married, I had been raised Mennonite, which was a huge sticking point. At least we were able to have a relationship with our Amish family and friends, thanks to the fact that my mother hadn’t yet joined the Amish church when she made the switch and thus was never shunned. But the way they saw it, maintaining friendly ties was one thing; marriage, quite another.

Along the way from nineteenth-century Switzerland to twenty-first-century Pennsylvania, plenty of our forebears had switched back and forth between the two faiths. Despite that fact, when it came to Ezra and me, the families just wanted us apart, all because Ezra was raised Amish and I was raised Mennonite.

Give me a break.

We left for dinner at Aunt Klara’s at four thirty, just after Zed arrived home from school. On the way, after we had crossed the covered bridge, the rain started to come down in buckets, casting a pall over the darkening
landscape. The swishing of the windshield wipers, even on high, could barely keep up with the rain coming down.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be going out tonight,” Mom said.

“We’ll be fine,” I answered, hoping Ezra would be there. He hadn’t sent me a text all day, even though I’d sent him several.

When we reached the highway, Mom turned right toward Aunt Klara’s. Sheets of rain bounced against the pavement. It was so dreary, I hoped
Mammi
hadn’t gone back to bed. Some days she did that, even though she was much better than she’d been a few years ago, before my medically trained cousin Lexie had come into our lives and discovered some dosage issues with the prescriptions
Mammi
had been taking.

Lexie’s visit here had had a huge impact on our family in many ways. Before then, a lot of secrets had been kept under wraps, secrets that had to do with why she’d been given up for adoption years before to a childless couple who lived out in Oregon. Lexie had come here searching for the identity of her birth parents and ended up blowing the lid off a whole shocking web of lies and secrets. That had been a painful time for all of us, but in the end the truth really had set us free.

Since then, we’d all seen a lot of healing take place. Aunt Klara wasn’t so bitter. Aunt Giselle was no longer so estranged from the family. Uncle Alexander stood taller and spoke stronger than he ever had before. And
Mammi
seemed far less burdened and remorseful.

I turned toward the window. Here I thought that time was all about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and yet Mom hadn’t said a word about my father being Zed’s father too. I’d thought that all of our family’s secrets had been brought into the light during that great come-to-the-truth meeting, as Lexie liked to call it, but in fact one of the biggest secrets of all had stayed in the dark—and right under my own nose, no less.

Mom turned down the lane and the car bounced through puddle after puddle until my aunt and uncle’s white house with the balcony finally came into view. The wisteria that wound its way along the railing was as bare and ominous as a skeleton. Up ahead, I spotted a carriage headed toward the barn. Perhaps it was Will’s. Or his parents’.

Mom parked under the pine trees, and then she and I dashed toward
the house, holding our capes tight to keep our hoods on our heads. Zed came along behind us at a more leisurely pace.

My mom’s older sister, Aunt Klara, had the door wide open before we reached the porch.

“Come in before you drown,” she called out. She motioned to us to hurry and then stepped over the threshold, peering around us. “Come on, Zed!”

As we stepped through the doorway and paused to take off our shoes, I was greeted by Ada and her stepdaughters, thirteen-year old Christy and three-year-old twin girls, Mel and Mat. Izzy Mueller was with them too, a young teen who had been working with Ada as a mother’s helper. She’d grown tall and willowy since the last time I’d seen her, and her hair had darkened to a deep chestnut.

Standing near the kids were Ezra’s grandmother Alice, and his parents, Ben and Nancy. Ezra himself, however, I didn’t see anywhere. I didn’t see Will either, for that matter, and wondered which one of them had been driving the buggy around to the barn. I called out a hello to everyone as I shed my cape and gave a hug and kiss to
Mammi
, who was standing in the midst of the fray.

Zed closed the door behind himself, flicking his wet bangs from his eyes. When he also hugged
Mammi
, I noticed he towered over her now.

“Oh, how you’ve grown,” she gushed, reaching to pat his shoulder. “You’re going to be well over six feet, aren’t you?”

I stepped back, taking in the two of them and wondering if
Mammi
knew whom Zed’s father was.

Alice and
Mammi
sat down in the living room. Ben said he would go out and help Uncle Alexander finish his chores, and Mel and Mat grabbed Zed’s hands and led him over to the stack of puzzles on the bookcase by the fireplace. Izzy joined them. Mom and I followed Aunt Klara, Ada, Christy, and Nancy into the kitchen. The table, extended for tonight, was already set, and the scent of roasting chicken filled the air.

“I just need to mash the potatoes,” Aunt Klara said. “Then we’ll be ready to eat when the men come in.” If Zed and I weren’t around, they would have all been speaking in the German dialect of Pennsylvania Dutch instead of English. We’d picked up some through the years—Zed
probably more than me because he seemed to have a knack for languages—but I hesitated to speak it because I was sure I was getting it wrong.

The thing was, Mom never spoke it at home, not even when I was little. Because my father hadn’t grown up Plain, he didn’t know the language at all, and Mom said she didn’t want to teach me something he couldn’t understand and had no reason to learn. Given that I was just three years old when he left us, it seemed a little silly for her to have persisted with that notion even after he was gone. I gasped, my mind filling with one very disturbing thought:
Was it possible that she did so because she thought he’d be coming back soon? Had she wanted him to come back?
Last night I wondered if she’d ever really stopped loving him. Whether she had or not, surely once he was gone, she had closed off her heart to any possibility of his return. Hadn’t she? That’s what I’d always thought, but maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe she’d been pining for ol’ Freddy since the day he took off fifteen years ago, a ceaseless yearning that had never abated. Maybe his reappearance now was the answer to her prayers, her dream come true.

The thought made me so sad.

Trying not to go there, I wandered to the back door and peered outside, even though I couldn’t see the barn from there, just a corner of the garden and the lawn.

“How are those grandbabies of yours?” Mom asked Nancy.

Nancy laughed. “Do you mean all of them or just the youngest three?” She had eight altogether, ranging in age from two months to thirteen years. Mom had delivered every single one of them except for twins Mel and Matt, who had been born in the hospital.

Nancy began to talk about the newest baby in the family, and as she did, I noticed Aunt Klara glance at Ada, who smiled in return and shyly ducked her head. I knew it! Ada
was
pregnant. I tried to catch her eye, but she avoided my glance and focused her attention on retrieving a pitcher from the cupboard and filling it with water.

“Here, Ella,” she said, handing me the pitcher and gesturing toward the empty glasses on the table.

I took it from her and started pouring as I made my way around the large rectangle. Aunt Klara had put out her wedding china, the same she
used at holidays. Ada handed Christy a stack of napkins, and she, too, began quickly zipping around the table.

“How’s school?” I asked.

“Fine. I have one more year after this one, and then I’ll be done.”

I cocked my head as I looked at her. “Already?”

She grinned. “What do you mean ‘already’? It’s been the longest seven years of my life.” She groaned dramatically. “I don’t know how I’ll manage to suffer through eighth grade. That’s another whole year!”

I was surprised to hear her say that, as most Amish kids I knew lamented the end of their formal education. Then I remembered how Ada had been hired to tutor Christy on their trip to Switzerland last year, and I realized the book learning probably wasn’t her strong suit.

Still, Christy was as sharp as a tack, not to mention pretty and feisty too. With her bright and lively brown eyes and beautiful strawberry blond hair, Will was going to have his hands full a few years from now.

The back door opened and I spun around. Uncle Alexander came through first, followed by Ben. Then Will appeared, his eyes finding Ada’s immediately. I knew he’d been happy with his first wife, Lydia, but he seemed absolutely enchanted with Ada. Sure, they had only been married a few months, but I’d never seen a couple so enamored—except maybe Lexie and James. My cousins were both lucky when it came to love.

Ezra popped through the door after Will.

I turned back toward the table and picked up the next glass, filling it slowly, trying not to look flustered.

Christy was directly across the table from me, placing a napkin under a fork.

“How’s your new cousin?” I asked.

“He cries all the time,” she said. “Alice Elizabeth was such a good baby, but he’s a little pain in the neck.”

“Christy,” I scolded, chuckling. “You might end up with one of those at your house, you know.”

She rolled her eyes. Then her expression changed as she smirked at someone over my shoulder. Ezra was behind me. I knew without her little antics. I could feel his presence.

“Hi, Ezra,” I said without turning around.

“Fancy seeing you here.” He stepped to my side.

Christy put the last napkin down and then made a funny face at her uncle. “I thought you were hanging out with Ruth today.”

“Ruth?” The word slipped from my mouth before I could stop it.

“You know, Sally’s little sister from Ohio.” Christy was clearly enjoying herself. “The one who’s just crazy about Ezra. The one who went to the singing last night, just because
he
would be there. She’s back again because Aunt Sally is—”

“Christy, that’s enough.” It was Ada, stepping toward the kitchen. “Please go tell the little girls to wash up.”

“I need to as well.” Ezra held out his dirty hands, giving a valid reason for his escape.

I filled the last of the glasses. So Ezra’s sister-in-law Sally was pregnant again. I wasn’t surprised Ruth had come to help out. She’d come the last time Sally was pregnant too—and stayed for at least six months that time, during which she’d made no secret of the fact that she had a major crush on Ezra. Maybe there was one advantage of him being sent away to learn the dairy trade now. He wouldn’t be anywhere near Ruth, who, it seemed, was planning to stick around Lancaster for a good long stretch to come.

I refilled the water pitcher, put it on the table, and noticed that both Nancy and Mom were standing idle, which meant Aunt Klara had fewer jobs than people. I decided I was no longer needed in the kitchen and went in search of Ezra. Moving into the living room, I saw Alice at the card table helping Mat with a puzzle and, across the room,
Mammi
sitting by herself on the couch. As soon as
Mammi
spotted me, she waved me over, and I could tell by the conspiratorial glint in her eye that she wanted to seize the opportunity to speak privately about Sarah’s journal and my attempts at code breaking.

Though I would have preferred to share a few quiet minutes with Ezra before the meal instead, I didn’t really mind talking with
Mammi
.

After all, I had some questions for her too.

“Well?” she whispered eagerly as I settled onto the couch beside her. “Have you made any progress with the code and the symbols?”

“No. I’ve been trying really hard, but so far I haven’t figured out either one.”

I knew she would be disappointed to hear that, but I wasn’t prepared for the absolute devastation that came over her features.

“Hey, don’t give up hope yet,” I said, sounding more optimistic than I felt.

She squeezed my hand, sighing heavily. “Oh, Ella. Thank you for trying at least.”

She looked so sad that I wished I could cheer her up somehow. “Even without knowing the code, the book is awesome. I love it. The recipes are great. And Sarah’s artwork is amazing.”

Mammi
smiled in spite of herself. “She definitely had a gift. I remember sitting out in the garden with her and watching her sketch the chickens.” She shifted toward me and lowered her voice even more. “I don’t know why anyone would draw those crazy birds.”

“Did she ever draw people?”

Mammi
shook her head. “I don’t think so. That would have been in violation of their
Ordnung
, I feel sure.”

“That’s too bad.” Lowering my own voice, I added, “I don’t know if you ever noticed, but there’s something really strange about the eyes on those chickens. They look more like human eyes. If she’d drawn pictures of the people she knew, I could compare the eyes in those pictures with the eyes on the hen and maybe figure out who it represents.”