The Forbidden (17 page)
Nellie listened, glassy-eyed, obviously daydreaming.
“Beyond a doubt, the buds have begun to rise . . . and all this in the cool darkness.” She sighed. “Of course, we don’t count on using
those
potatoes to see us through the winter, but for cuttin’ apart, an eye for each section, to plant when the ground is thawed.”
“All this is happenin’ in the dark,” Nellie said flatly. “When everything else seems dead . . . or is.”
Betsy smiled. “Jah. On one of the darkest of days comes the first hint of life. ’Tis that way for everything . . . even potatoes.” She wanted to reach over and pat Nellie’s hand, because all of a sudden her daughter looked to be quite taken with the comparison. But Betsy remained still, letting her remarks sift into her daughter’s mind.
Nan surprised Nellie by coming to help carry the few leftover baked goods back down to the house so they wouldn’t freeze overnight. Actually, Nan urged Mamma to go ahead of them and leave the work to her. While alone with her sister now, Nellie took the opportunity to apologize. “I was snooty yesterday afternoon, and I’m sorry.” She added, “I’d like you to come to my room tonight, after evening prayers. Will ya?”
A flicker crossed Nan’s eyes and then she offered a warm smile. “Oh, Nellie Mae . . . I wondered if you’d ever ask.”
“I want to tell you something very dear to me.”
Now I have to keep my word.
Nan looked both surprised and pleased. “I can’t wait. Oh, sister, you have no idea!” With this, Nan kissed her face.
“Well, if you feel as lonely as I do sometimes, then I
do
know.” Nellie set about gathering up the last pie and a few assorted cookies, unable to squelch her own smile.
Am I wise to tell her my secret?
she wondered, but she pressed on with the chore at hand, refusing to second-guess her resolve.
During supper, Dat talked of the cold having turned a corner and become dangerously severe. He glanced outside now and then at the heaviness of the snow as it fell silently, covering the earth with yet another layer of white.
Then, during a dessert of pie and cookies, the focus of his comments took a marked turn, and he leaned forward, looking directly at Rhoda. Nellie flinched, wondering what now.
“Rhoda, it’s come to my ears that you’ve committed a most disobedient deed.”
At the accusation, Rhoda’s eyes turned a stony gray. She pushed away her plate of pumpkin pie, her frown as deep and as harsh as the cold beyond the kitchen walls.
Dat did not beat around the bush about the reliability of his source. “Your brother James spilled the beans ’bout your car.” His eyes tapered into stern slits. “He saw you at the car lot this afternoon.”
Like-minded souls those two—James and Rhoda,
Nellie thought.
Dat must have gone over to try to talk sense to
James today, only to find this out!
“So, then, under God, I ask you, Rhoda, where is your heart in all this?”
Rhoda raised her eyes, her expression moving quickly from embarrassment to anger and suddenly to bitterness. “Am I not of age, Daed?”
Nellie was struck by Rhoda’s use of the more formal address of their father.
Daed
was the word Caleb used to refer to
his
father.
“Are you not living under my roof, under my authority, daughter? And don’t you eat my food? Enjoy the warmth of this house . . . the fellowship of this family?”
Squirming, Nellie held her breath. Rhoda was treading on dangerous ground, and everyone at the table, including Mamma, awaited her respectful response.
“My heart just ain’t here.” Rhoda rose from the table. “I’m leavin’—tomorrow, first thing.”
Mamma gasped. “Rhoda . . . no!”
“Let her be.” Dat touched Mamma’s arm.
Rhoda left the table and the room, her feet pounding fast on the stairs. It was all Nellie could do not to run after her and beg her to think hard before carrying out what she’d so daringly declared.
Nellie’s original plan to tell Nan about Caleb took a backseat to their worries about Rhoda later that night. Mamma’s lip had quivered all through Bible reading, and Nellie wished something could be done to smooth things over with their oldest sister. “What’ll she do out there in the world, anyway?” Nellie sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard, while Nan sat facing her, her back against the footboard.
“Well, ’tween you and me, I don’t see Dat backin’ down,” Nan said. “I’m worried she’ll do what she says and leave tomorrow.”
“And then what?”
Nan shook her head sadly. “She may never darken the door of this house again.”
“Why do you thing that?”
“ ’Cause she’s so headstrong.”
“You oughta be spendin’ time with her.” Nellie felt bad saying this on the first night Nan had come to talk.
So ill-
timed, really . . . like most things these days.
“I’ll go over there in a minute, but you had something you wanted to share with me, jah?”
“It best be waitin’,” she said, thinking only of Rhoda.
Nan studied her. “You sure?”
“If Rhoda goes ahead with what she’s threatened, we’ll be losin’ another sister.”
Nan agreed. “I’ll see what I can do.” With that, she climbed off the bed, saying good night and leaving Nellie to wonder what Nan might say to take the stinger out of Rhoda. And if she did convince Rhoda to change her mind, would Dat change his, too?
By sheer coincidence, Caleb had seen Susannah Lapp at a farm sale that morning, though not for more than a few seconds. She’d arrived with her mother, bringing a hamper of food to her deacon father for the noon meal.
He had offered a tentative smile when their eyes met. In all truth, he’d felt deceitful doing so, but he’d hoped a smile might be enough to set up the possibility of a longer encounter at the upcoming Singing.
No sense putting it off.
Now, ready for bed, he leaned on the windowsill, looking at the inky black sky, recalling the way the dense atmosphere had added to the depth of color, making the sky appear flaming red at sundown, hours ago. He had been on his way out to the barn to check the livestock—his responsibility— when he’d noticed it. He was glad to do whatever he could to prove to his father and grandfather that he was up to the task of taking on this large operation. Willing and ready, minus one small piece of the future—a bride.
Well, he was on his way to fixing that. Once he could honorably report back, man to man, that the deacon’s daughter was of no romantic interest whatsoever, Caleb understood he’d be at liberty to pursue the young woman he truly loved. All it would take to finally obtain his farmland was doing things his father’s way.
Sunday’s the day. . . .
Putting out the gas lamp, he climbed under the bedcovers, leaning his head back on his crossed arms. He felt a peculiar rush of excitement at the thought of seeing Susan-nah again—excitement that quickly turned to mortification, even though she had been as pretty as ever today when he’d bumped into her. He knew his heart belonged to Nellie Mae and to her alone.
Susannah is the only path to Nellie Mae,
he reminded himself.
Rosanna King was up and pacing the floor in the wee hours Wednesday morning, but not with a babe in arms. She simply could not rest, let alone fall asleep. Not with what Cousin Kate had pulled last night before supper. She’d arrived with three of her youngest ones to see “their baby brother and sister,” as she put it, propping Rosie in her blanket on the lap of her two-year-old.
Elias had frowned all the while, evidently expecting –Ros–anna to put her foot down. They’d had words again after she’d fed and tucked in the twins, who continued to sleep soundly now.
The growing tension between herself and Elias gnawed at her. How she resented Kate’s coming to visit for more than the agreed-upon midmorning feeding—and she’d worn out her welcome with even that. It was time someone put a stop to it and mighty fast, lest next time Rosanna stoop to sinning and spew fiery words at Kate.
Fuming now as she relived the intrusive visit, Rosanna went to look in on her sweet babies.
Kate’s undermining
my mothering. Slowly but surely.
She felt nearly desperate, wishing she could confide in the bishop’s wife, Anna, or in one of the preacher’s wives, since her own dear mamma was long deceased. Perhaps Nellie’s mother would have some wisdom to offer. Sighing, she knew she and Elias needed help with this mess. The empathy she had repeatedly attempted to show her cousin was dwindling fast.
Oh, how Rosanna had longed for a child, and now she loved these babies to pieces. Her family was at Kate’s mercy, and things had gone awry faster than either Elias or she could ever have imagined. Truth was, Kate’s visits were starting to feel like something completely different from how they had started out.
Something frighteningly different.
Tossing on his robe, Chris Yoder slipped quietly down the stairs and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. He couldn’t sleep—not with Zach in bed on the other side of the room, talking on and on about Suzy’s bracelet. His brother had even tried to convince Chris to drive him back to the state park after school instead of waiting for the weekend. He wanted that frozen bit of gold from the ice near the lake, and he wanted it now. Chris had firmly refused; he didn’t have time on school nights. Besides, that shiny gold object encased in ice wasn’t going anywhere, and it was most likely not the bracelet, anyway.
But not a single line of reasoning seemed to faze Zach— he was single-minded. He must have Suzy’s bracelet.
Chris ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up. He worried that Zach seemed in danger of losing his sense of reason. His brother’s grief was spiraling off into something weird.
Struck with how helpless he felt, he began to pray.
“Father in heaven, I ask for divine comfort for Zach, in Jesus’ name. Let your light spring to life in his heart and mind. Soothe his pain, and help me be the brother and friend he needs to walk along this hard path. Guide me and let me know when to silently support him and when to offer words of comfort. I’ll thank you for it. Amen.”
Leaning his head into his hands, he remembered an evangelist at the Tel Hai campground who said that when you extend yourself to those who are suffering, you find out who you truly are. You discover yourself . . . what you’re made of.
He decided he needed to be more patient and understanding with his brother. Here he was complaining to himself, wishing Zach would snap out of it. But he hadn’t ever experienced firsthand what Zach was dealing with. He’d never loved a girl that way. Nor had he called upon the Lord for his life mate, fasting and praying for days like Zach had. How quickly the answer had appeared to come . . . only to be taken away!
God’s ways are always higher than ours.
Knowing full well that his parents had prayed since his birth for the young woman who would someday become his wife, just as they had for each of their sons, Chris realized he’d never once prayed that way.
What am I waiting for?
He felt convicted suddenly. Compelled by it, he bowed his head again, this time with deep gratitude for God’s ongoing providence. He didn’t ask for his future bride to be outwardly pretty, as Suzy Fisher had been, but he did ask that she be a partner in whatever ministry he would eventually be called to. “Protect her from sin and harm . . . and may she not be discouraged in seeking your will for her life, Lord . . . wherever she may be. These things I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.”
“I never thought my own brother would tell my secret!” Rhoda bemoaned her state to Mrs. Kraybill that morning.
She told how she’d bundled up earlier to trudge through knee-deep snow to the very same brother’s house before dawn. “I startled James and Martha but good.”
“And why was that, may I ask?”
Rhoda fought the urge to weep. “I asked to move in over there—they’ve got two spare rooms off the sunroom downstairs.”
Mrs. Kraybill frowned and tapped her well-manicured fingernails on the table. “I assume you’ve given this some thought, Rhoda?”
“All night long I pondered it.”
To think Mamma, Nan, and Nellie Mae were all wit
nesses to Dat’s words . . . and mine,
she thought ruefully, reliving the suppertime feud.
“Mamma made a noble attempt at breakfast . . . asked me to apologize to my father.” She stirred sugar into her black coffee. “But I haven’t changed my mind. Honestly, I’m more than ready to start over somewhere new.”
“Well, I do hope you’ll continue working here—for us.”
Mrs. Kraybill searched Rhoda’s eyes. “You have a car payment now, remember.”
She remembered, all right. It was the main reason she hadn’t asked to stay with the Kraybills, even for a short time. She needed pay, not free room and board. “I’m rather strapped now, ain’t so?”
Nevertheless, she was fond of her beautiful car—a black-and-white four-door Buick LeSabre with under thirty thousand miles on it. It was fully loaded with whitewall tires, a 335 Wildcat engine—whatever that was—power steering and power brakes, and a radio. “The works,” Guy Hagel had told her.
Mrs. Kraybill smiled kindly. “You’re a determined young woman, Rhoda. I believe you’ll do well in your new life.”
It was time to spread her wings, anyway, regardless of Dat’s probing words. Maybe the car purchase was exactly what she’d needed to propel her away.
“Would you mind ever so much helping me move my things to James and Martha’s?” she asked. “I’d be very grateful.”
“I’m happy to help.” Mrs. Kraybill rose to pour herself more coffee. “I do have to ask you—are you still thinking of keeping your car here?”
Rhoda nodded. Was Mrs. Kraybill concerned she could encounter trouble with Dat somehow
?
“Don’t worry ’bout my father comin’ over here and giving you a tongue-lashing. That won’t happen, I promise you.”
Mrs. Kraybill appeared relieved.
I’m old enough to make up my mind,
Rhoda thought, rising to clear the cups and saucers off the table.
No mat-
ter how hard Nan tried to talk me out of leaving last night.
And no matter how sad Mamma and Nellie Mae looked at
the breakfast table!