The Mercy (27 page)

R
estless that night, Rose did as her parents had taught her and cast her burdens upon the Lord. She prayed for wisdom and, above all, peace.

The next morning, although tired from lack of sleep, Rose was pleased to hear from Dat at breakfast that their family would be hosting baptismal Sunday, September twenty-first. Such a blessed day! A flurry of cleaning must commence, including scrubbing every wall, window, and floor. Rose would also see to whitewashing the outside fences, as well as tending the flower beds and lawn. Everything must be as neat and clean as was humanly possible.

Today, however, she baked a nice big ham with potatoes for the noon meal. As she puttered in the kitchen, her eyes frequently came to rest on Dawdi’s spot at the table, and she had to look away. She missed him so.

Later in the afternoon, she and Mammi made homemade noodles, then cut up pieces of ham left over from dinner earlier. They also cooked up a batch of buttered peas and canned carrots to serve for supper alongside some chowchow and pickled beets, Mammi Sylvia’s favorite.

Rose politely excused herself prior to meeting Isaac for their dinner out. This was to be the evening she’d dreamed about for months . . . and now she could hardly think straight due to her concerns. Visions of seeing Isaac driving the tractor—and of that car—could not be blotted from her uneasy mind.

Sol had sensed something wrong with Rose at the noon meal. His daughter just wasn’t her cheerful self today, and now that he thought of it, neither was Emma.

He wondered if it might be something related to whomever Rose Ann was seeing each and every Saturday evening.
Still the young man from Bart?

He also knew she’d taken George riding, because he’d seen her leading him from the stable Wednesday evening, before sundown. Sol had assumed Rose’s horseback riding had ceased, at least with Nick. Of course, he wasn’t sure she’d gone with Nick, especially now that she had a beau. Yet even if she had, Sol wasn’t as concerned anymore. Nick was shaping up nicely, becoming as respectable as the bishop had hoped. Aaron had said as much earlier today, when they were shoveling out the manure pit in Sol’s barn with Mose and Josh. To think Nick was still on track, studying for his baptism; it appeared he was truly becoming one of them. Not at all
der Lump—
the heretic—they’d understood him to be.
All of us were so wrong about him . . .
but Rose Ann.

“So why should Rose—his closest friend—be so blue?” Sol muttered to himself.

As soon as Isaac arrived by hired van that evening, he hopped out and opened the door for Rose. “Denki for the surprise birthday cake,” he said, kissing her cheek. He smelled fresh and was dressed in his Sunday best.

“Glad ya liked it.”

“I admit I didn’t share much of it.” He grinned as she got in.

“So it’s all gone already?”

“Jah, nearly.” He chuckled and then turned to her. “Why didn’t ya stay around yesterday? I could’ve shown you the farm—introduced you to Ed and his family.”

She didn’t want to say. He must not have any idea she’d seen him driving the tractor—either that or he didn’t care. “I needed to get back home to help Mamm. Did ya have a nice birthday, then?”

“Sure did, and the best of it was your cake.”

Isaac continued to make lighthearted conversation all the way to the lovely restaurant—a fine dining establishment just north of Strasburg. He must’ve saved his money a long time for this. In addition to paying the driver extra to wait for them, there were candles and flowers on the table, and an appetizer was presented even before their order was taken. Isaac was working up to something very big, Rose was sure of it.

Isaac handed a pretty little box to her across the white linen draped table. “I bought you something. When you open it, you might not understand. Not at first, anyway.”

With everything already going through her mind, she didn’t need more to ponder. A box so small seemed certain to contain jewelry—far from being a traditional Amish gift—but she was polite and accepted it.

Inside, she found a delicate gold wristwatch. It was so beautiful, and yet . . .

She looked at him. “This is . . . really lovely, Isaac. But I’m not sure where I’d ever wear it.”

“How about when the two of us are together?”

Rose honestly didn’t know what to say to this, but at his urging, she put it on to see how it looked on her wrist. “Oh, it’s so perty.”

He smiled and nodded across the candlelit table. “Thought you might like it.”

“I do . . . I truly do.” She didn’t know what had gotten into her, but she loved being treated like this. The whole evening was so romantic, like something out of the wonderful library books she read and reread.

Halfway through dessert—chocolate mousse and a specialty coffee with a hint of mint and chocolate—Isaac said, “I’ve been waiting for the perfect setting . . . and the right moment, Rose. I believe this is it.”

She held her breath and looked into his handsome blue eyes; they shone with promise.

“Will you marry me, Rose?”

She looked down at the gold wristwatch, the time already set to the correct hour. She’d never, ever dreamed of owning or even wearing something so delicate and pretty. Would she wake up and discover this heartbreakingly beautiful night was a dream? That Isaac was too good to be true?

Ach, but I already know he isn’t.
This watch was proof of it, and she’d seen him driving a tractor just yesterday. She couldn’t just sit there and not inquire about that, or about his church’s Ordnung. It was imperative to know where he stood on something so important, as well as his plans for the future. Did he truly mean to embrace the fellowship of the People? How could she give her answer before knowing?

Rose raised her eyes to Isaac as he awaited her answer across the exquisitely set table, his expression clearly one of love and great anticipation.

Gentleman that he was, Isaac walked Rose up the driveway to the back door, seeing her safely inside. She waited till he left, standing on the back porch as he climbed back into the van. A mule
hee-haw
ed in the barn, a wheezing, mocking laugh.

The van pulled away. Rose didn’t bother to change out of her best clothes before hurrying across the yard to the barn. She carefully climbed up the hayloft ladder and sat there with little Tillie in her lap, the gray kitten Dawdi Jeremiah had named on the day of his Homegoing. Perched in the sweet hay, Rose began to cry, letting the purring kitten comfort her.

“I believe Isaac truly loves me.” She sighed and looked about the dimly lit haymow. “He asked to marry me . . . but I had to say no,” she whispered, her tears coming fast now. “I couldn’t marry Isaac. I just couldn’t.”

Torn between the love and marriage she’d wanted so desperately, and what was pleasing to God and the church, Rose felt utterly disillusioned. And wretchedly sad.

Isaac had argued his case, saying it didn’t make sense for him to be completely Old Order—he freely admitted to driving the car she’d spotted at the Mortons’. She’d insisted that such things were against her church Ordnung and the way she was raised. But Isaac had said working for Ed Morton was his livelihood—how he planned to support his family and his wife.
“You’d get used to it, Rose. How can you know if you don’t give it a try?”

Give the world a try? That’s what she believed he was saying. And in the end she had to be true to her baptism and not let Isaac influence her away from her promise to God. Somehow she’d kept her emotions in check during the rest of their time together.

But now Rose gave in to tears of self-pity, grieving for all the lost years ahead of her—of the love she’d intended to show to Isaac, and of the children she would never bear and nurture.

Exhausted, she leaned back in the hay and whispered, “O Father, I know you want what is best for me.” She prayed, “I have to believe this . . . with all of my heart.”

A husband with one foot in the world can’t possibly be right for me,
she thought.
How could such a marriage work?

She hadn’t even thought of Hen and Brandon in making her decision, but Rose realized she’d learned important lessons from the problems their union had faced. She would not make her sister’s mistake.

Sometime later, she was startled by a dark silhouette approaching the hay hole across the barn, then suddenly disappearing to the lower level. When she leaned up to look more closely, she wondered if her mind had played tricks. Or had she cried so hard she was mistaken about having seen anything at all? Rose strained her ears, listening . . . and heard muted footsteps fading below.

Ach no!
How embarrassing!

But then, what would anyone be doing out here at such a late hour? Surely it was merely her imagination.

She returned to her warm spot in the hay and brought Tillie up close to her heart. As far as Rose knew, the last person to hold Tillie had been her devout Dawdi. She felt strangely comforted by the knowledge and soon fell sound asleep, tears drying on her cheeks.

Days passed and the work of digging early potatoes commenced, as did picking and processing an abundance of produce from the family garden. Rose and Mammi Sylvia harvested limas, string beans, corn, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers. They joined with Barbara Petersheim and her married daughters, as well as Hen, to can, freeze, and dry all of it, which took up much of their time and energy through the end of August. Rose also managed to help rake hay and sometimes even drove the mules for baling it. She and all the People looked at farming and caring for the land as a spiritual mandate, one of their highest callings. ’
Tis a gift to be Plain,
Rose often thought.