The Love Letters (7 page)

“A considerably curious name for a person.”

“My father dislikes it, tellin' the truth,” he revealed, uncertain why he'd admit such a thing to a stranger.

Bow-tie man opened his notepad once again and flipped through one page after another, muttering all the while. “Somewhere it's written here in large letters, so I can see it. Yes,” and in that moment, his face lit up. He drew a breath, then began to read from the page. “My name is Boston, and the sound of beautiful music eases my soul.” He quickly closed the notepad and stretched out his legs. “I write what I can remember here in my paper memory bank, at least on the good days.”

“Is this one of those days?” Small Jay asked, wishing he could shake his hand again to let the man know he understood. “I'll have one of those hot dogs now,” he added, not quite sure he'd ever accepted earlier. “I don't s'pose ya have any catsup or mustard, do ya?”

Boston must've found this funny, because he tilted his round head back and laughed heartily. A slight breeze blew his hair across his forehead, and when the man reached up to push back the strands, he must have forgotten what he'd planned to do, since he brought the other hand up, as well, and started moving both in midair, stirring up the atmosphere. “Do you hear the music?” Boston asked, tilting his face.

“
Alsemol—
sometimes.” Small Jay bit his lip. He'd never admitted this to anyone, but there were occasional melodies in his head, mostly church hymns.

The man named for a city continued to swirl the air, his smooth white hands moving in careful patterns as he hummed something mighty strange and unlike any tune the boy had heard before. “
Des grebbt mich,
” Small Jay murmured, covering his ears.

E
llie left the house while Dorcas and her younger sisters were putting away leftovers and washing dishes.

Why was Roman so hard on Small Jay at supper?
she wondered, pushing aside her foreboding as she tried to stay focused on her destination—the Martin farmhouse. As her bare feet scraped against a prickly bush, she wished for a path between the two properties. The absence of a footpath revealed what a sorry neighbor she had been to Janice Martin, and she chided herself.
But the urgency wasn't there when Timothy was alive,
she thought, excusing herself. Yet she well remembered how often through the years Janice would stop by in her car with warm desserts and other treats. “I'm embarrassed that I haven't returned the favors,” Ellie whispered. Even so, then as now, Roman wasn't interested in making friends with their Mennonite neighbors—or anyone outside their more traditional Amish connections. It certainly seemed as if Roman wanted Ellie to be content at home.
Stuck, like Small Jay must feel at times
.

Momentarily bolder, she turned back to look over her shoulder at their house below. This was the farm inherited
from Roman's paternal grandfather, a landscape both physical and otherwise. The land hearkened back to Roman's family's early years, and while Roman's father hadn't been bestowed it, somehow Roman had. It was a splendid place to call home.
Even on days I feel nearly suffocated,
she thought.

It was easy to see Roman's movements from where she stood. He was going back and forth from the stable to the barn and haymow.
Raascht dorum wie verrickt—
Rushing about like mad—hauling new straw into the stable for fresh bedding before nightfall.

Ellie rubbed her sore shoulder, inhaling slowly. She felt freer somehow, standing there and peering back at her cloistered life. And she wondered if this was how her married sister Orpha Mast had felt, too, prior to her and her husband's leaving the Old Order to attend the nearby New Order church.
Roman's cut off our fellowship with them, yet they're family!

It was then Ellie noticed several long streamers of toilet paper fluttering in the wind, and white snippets all around the outhouse, used by Roman and the other men during their workday. “That Shredder,” she said, shaking her head. “What're we gonna do with him?”

Roman had threatened to take the ornery cat on a long ride some moonless night and drop him off clear out in the country, where there were plenty of field mice to eat.
He'll do it yet,
she thought.

Turning at last, she walked the rest of the way through Janice Martin's rented hayfield toward the spacious backyard, with its neatly edged grass and flower beds, and Janice's renowned kitchen gardens—lettuce flourishing, asparagus nearly done, and bean bushes billowing. There was an appealing herb garden, too, as well as the enormous strawberry patch running
along the back fence, where a black crow was perched now, warily eyeing Ellie.

Shuddering at the size of the bird, she quickened her pace. She'd never liked the looks of crows; neither did Small Jay, who as a tot had often trembled visibly at the sight of a flock of them sitting on the English neighbors' telephone wires.

“Hullo, Ellie,” Marlena Wenger greeted her from the large porch with an upraised hand. “It's real
gut
to see ya!”

The greeting surprised her. “
Wie geht's,
Marlena?”

“Oh, we're all right, I guess. Would ya like to sit out here, maybe?” the young woman asked. “Mammi's indoors resting while the baby sleeps.”

Glad for a chance to get off her feet, she accepted. It didn't take more than a few minutes with Marlena to know the girl felt in over her head with the addition of her sister's little one. “S'posin' your
Grandmammi
prob'ly can't help out much.”

Marlena shook her head. “Actually, she's better than I am at getting Angela Rose to take her bottle. Still, I wouldn't think of addin' more to her life right now; the baby's my responsibility. Besides, Mammi's arthritis has been actin' up.”

“Well, if you're interested, my oldest daughter, Dorcas, would like to help babysit. Maybe you could use a mother's helper.”

Marlena smiled and shrugged. “I'm not exactly a mother, but
jah
 . . . that'd be nice.”

Ellie named off the other children Dorcas had cared for in the last two years, which seemed to bring a relieved expression to Marlena's face. “Not for pay, mind you.”

“That's awful nice. Really 'tis. And I might just take her up on it, too. Perhaps Saturday morning, when Mammi and I go to market.”

“Should be fine.”

“
Des gut,
then. Please tell Dorcas thank you.” Marlena paused and glanced at the sky. “I wonder how long to let Angela Rose sleep,” she said. “Aunt Becky mentioned she slept the whole way here, so that's two hours already.”

“Well, most babies that age need two
gut
naps a day. You'll know by her cry when it's time for feeding—usually between four and five hours for bottle-fed babies, at least at her age. She'll wake before then unless she's real tuckered out . . . and she just might be that.”

“I'm sure it'll all come back quickly,” Marlena said. “I helped Mamma with Rachel Ann quite a lot during those earlier years, though she hardly ever had a bottle.”

Ellie said she'd assumed as much. Most older daughters helped their mothers with the babies. “But just as important as all the physical care is the loving. Don't forget,” she added.

“Well, the odd thing is, this one pulls away.” Marlena was clearly uneasy. “She seems to sense that I'm not her Mamma.”

Ellie patted Marlena's arm. “The wee one's mother is your sister, ain't so?”

Marlena said she was. “Ya know, my grandmother thinks that might be the problem—Angela Rose misses her mother even more when she hears my voice.”

“Then the two of you must sound very similar.”

“True.” Marlena looked wistful at that, and Ellie supposed she must be thinking of her sister Luella. It had been years since Ellie had seen the oldest Wenger girl; Luella hadn't dropped by Ellie's for visits like her younger siblings.

“Now . . . what else can I share with you?” Ellie asked.

“You've already helped so much, loaning the crib and all.”

“I'm thinkin' a playpen and even a high chair might come in handy, too, ain't so?”

Marlena's eyes brightened with tears, and the dear girl nodded her head silently, unable to articulate her appreciation.

Ellie knew better than to say that Roman would be over later this evening or tomorrow morning, for that matter. There was no asking him to do more than he already had. After all, her husband was a busy farmer, or so she'd just have to let Marlena think when Ellie herself showed up tomorrow with the needed items. Dorcas and Julia could help her load things in the back of the family carriage.
If I have to make two trips, I will.

On the walk home past the willow grove, Ellie enjoyed the soft wind and the color of the evening sky and reminisced about the day Roman had first asked to court her, when they were
Youngie.
She'd sensed his surprising timidity right away but found it endearing. Soon, they began to enjoy each other's company, attending Sunday-night Singings and parent-sponsored activities and extra-long rides in his open black buggy. In only a few months, they were planning their future, yearning to be married.

Folding her arms, Ellie was careful where she stepped. Ah, those early days of their love—she relished every detail. Why, she even recalled where Roman had stood to ask her to ride with him that first time after the cornhusking in the deacon's barn. He'd worn some pleasant-smelling cologne, a fragrance he'd worn every one of their nighttime dates, a mere five months.

She picked her way down through the trees, keeping their house in view, remembering how thoroughly happy she'd been when she'd fallen in love with Roman Bitner. Her bliss continued to their wedding day and beyond, until the night she'd
birthed Jake and witnessed the displeasure on her husband's face. His disappointment had squelched her joy like water poured on flames.

Trying now to shake off her anguish over the lasting strain between herself and Roman, Ellie noticed Small Jay walking this way with his cat. Painstakingly, he inched toward the lane that led to the house.

He defied his father
. . . . She was sorry this was her first thought upon seeing her son. Goodness, it would never do for Roman to discover him returning this close to twilight. In that moment, she realized that she, too, had disregarded her husband's wishes by going up to see Marlena Wenger.

Slowing her pace to time her arrival after their son's, Ellie sighed heavily. Her sadness was deep in her bones these days, one of the reasons she'd started quilting and needlepoint classes for the young women in the neighborhood. She needed to focus on others and forget, somehow, the things that weighed down her spirit. To attract students, she'd even put up a handmade sign on the community bulletin board at Joe's General Store.

As Small Jay crept to the back porch and up the steps, pausing at each step, she held her breath. Their boy struggled to get around, yet he was determined to be a help to his father.
A father who doesn't want his disabled son's assistance.
She didn't know what broke her heart more.

Slowly, she counted to one hundred in
Deitsch
, then began to move through the grass and around the pond's southern edge. Her pulse quickened as she saw Roman leaning his full weight into the barn door to shove it closed.

At least she was this close to the house and not just coming down from the pond. Maybe he wouldn't put together where
she'd been. “Would ya like some homemade ice cream?” she asked, hoping to set his mind on something other than encountering her there.

“Got some left from yesterday?” he asked, walking quickly toward the backyard.

“If the girls haven't eaten it.”

“While you were gone from the house, ya mean?”

She pursed her lips.

“Ellie, what's your attraction to the world, anyway?” Roman raised his eyes toward the Martin farm.

“That's never crossed my mind,” she replied quickly. “Marlena's a Plain girl and sweet as vanilla pie.”

“Well, she ain't our kind of Amish . . . raised in the Old Order church, sure, but attending the Mennonite meetinghouse with her Mammi and wearin' the Beachy garb. What's a body to think?”

“Just wanted to be neighborly, checkin' how things are goin' with the baby,” she said, keeping quiet about her plans to take the playpen and high chair over tomorrow.

“Ellie . . .”

She stiffened, not about to apologize. “My parents taught me kindness and compassion, and that's what I aim to demonstrate.”