Courting Cate (11 page)

I’d taught myself to read, but it was my Mamm who had taught me how to pray.

She told me God wanted me to talk to him, tell him about the little things, and the big things. Silently. Respectfully. Consistently. But for the last two years, since I overheard Seth tell Martin and Mervin—and everyone else gathered around—that once he married me his money worries would be over, praying had been a struggle for me. Tonight was no different.

Betsy returned a half hour later. I shone my flashlight in her direction, and she shielded her red-rimmed eyes.

“Sorry.” I turned it off, ready to try to sleep.

Betsy’s steps fell across the wood floor, coming toward me. “Scoot over,” she said.

I did.

She lay down, bumping against my legs, and pulled the quilt around her. I tugged it back my way. I expected her to lash out at me again, but she didn’t.

“Tell me about Mamm,” she whispered.

It was what I used to do, through the years, when she crawled in bed with me at night.

Happy with the change of subject, I started at the beginning. “Mamm liked to garden and cook. She was happy and content.” Her personality was far more like Betsy’s than mine. She always looked on the bright side. I didn’t find out until after Mamm died that she’d had several miscarriages and a stillbirth between Betsy and me.

“She trusted God—and she was a really good mother, the best.” That’s what Dat always said, but I knew both Uncle Cap and Aunt Laurel felt my Mamm had spoiled me.

Betsy scooted closer to me as I continued the story. “As you know, most Amish mothers don’t talk about their pregnancies to anyone, let alone their children, and Mamm didn’t until that
last month. Then she talked about the Bobli—about you—every day. She told me how to bathe and dress an infant, how to change a diaper—even how to give a Bobli a bottle if needed.”

We practiced everything on my faceless doll. Because I liked to learn, even then, about anything and everything, I soaked up every detail. The funny thing was, Mamm kept me home from school a year after I should have started. She said I already knew how to add and subtract, and because I was reading, I was mastering English too. She couldn’t imagine what I would learn that I didn’t already know. She said I had plenty of years to be a scholar, but this was her last year to spend with just me.

Later, once I’d read about premonitions, I wondered if Mamm had had one. If that was why she’d kept me home—because, as it turned out, it was our last year together at all.

“Go on,” Betsy said. I was at her favorite part.

“The day you were born started out as the happiest day of my life. Because of all her complications, Mamm delivered in the hospital. Our grandmother hired a driver, and we went to visit the two of you. I held you the entire time I was there. You were so lovely, right from the beginning. Dat was beside himself with joy, and although Mamm seemed weak, I’d never seen her—the happiest person I knew—as joyful. When it was time for me to leave, Mamm said she and you would be home in a few days.”

Betsy sighed. Now came the hard part. “But only I came home, with Dat,” she whispered.

I nodded in the darkness. The next morning he climbed out of a car holding Betsy. I knew before he reached the house that Mamm wasn’t coming home. “I met him in the driveway and took you from him.”

That was the day I became a mother. I was the one who fed Betsy that day, even giving her a bottle in the middle of
the night. At first everyone was in such shock they didn’t realize who was feeding and diapering her and keeping her clean. When Dat walked into the kitchen and saw me giving Betsy a bath on the table, he gasped and called for
Mammi
as he stepped slowly toward me, as if he might startle me and make me hurt the Bobli.

Because her cord hadn’t fallen off, I wasn’t giving her a tub bath, just a sponge one. I’d told him earlier she had stuff under her chin, like cottage cheese, and my grandmother too, but they’d been talking about the funeral.

“You bonded to me,” I said to Betsy. “I’ve never been more thankful for anything in my life than having you as my Schwester.”

I felt her body tense a little beside me. “So what happened that time after church, before grandmother died? When you tackled Seth. When you were still in school.”

I’d been eleven. The incident wasn’t part of our usual story.

Betsy added, “Is that what Dat was referring to? When he said people thought he should remarry.”

“Ach, Betsy, that was a long time ago.”

“Jah, but I can’t remember the details.”

I scooted closer to the wall, until my arm pressed against it. “I’d made you a new apron—back when I used to try to sew. After church, while we were still in the Mosiers’ barn, Grandmother yanked it off you and said I’d done a horrible job, that I needed to rip out the hem and redo it. I left the barn.” Fled, actually, in absolute humiliation as my grandmother called out,
“You’re going to make an awful frau.”
“I kind of bumped into Seth on the way out.”

“Bumped?”

I cleared my throat. “Well,
knocked
into might better describe it.” He’d been standing in the doorway with a group
of his friends, watching my grandmother berate me. When I turned toward the door, he laughed and pointed at me.

“So that started your problems with Seth?”

“Basically.” The next day was when he tackled me at first base, sending me into the mud.

“And it made the bishop think Dat should remarry. . . .”

I turned toward her. “Jah, but after that I was on my best behavior. And because Grandmother couldn’t sew for us anymore, Dat hired that out. We made it all work.”

Betsy yawned. I hoped she was done with her questions.

She wasn’t. “So why did you court Seth, once you were grown, if he’d been mean to you?”

“I thought he’d changed.”

Betsy’s voice was matter-of-fact. “He probably had.”

Annoyed, I answered, “He hadn’t.”

“People do, you know.” She reached for my hand.

I didn’t answer. I was pretty sure they didn’t.

Betsy yawned again, and after a few moments her body relaxed beside me. A minute later she released my hand.

My thoughts traipsed through what we’d talked about. Through the years, I went from thinking in Pennsylvania Dutch, my first language, to English. Maybe because of how much I read. But there were a handful of words I continued to think of only in my mother tongue.
Dat. Mamm. Bobli. Schwester.

Shahm
was another one of them. That was what I felt after my grandmother’s diatribe—shame—something I’d experienced plenty of times since.

The whole episode with Pete had filled me with Shahm again, the kind that made it hard for me to think, to reason, let alone pray. The kind that made me feel as if I were a child again.

I loved Betsy, but I couldn’t subject myself to more shame just to make her happy.

I held my head high and squared my shoulders as I marched down the hill to the shop the next morning.

The crew parted, making a path to the entrance. I unlocked the door and held it open. Martin and Mervin were the first to go through. They kept their heads down. Levi was the last. He looked at me but didn’t speak.

After I filled my coffee cup, I retreated to my office and stayed there all morning, not even leaving for a refill.

I heard noises a couple of times from the showroom and made out the sounds of a few cars pulling into and then leaving the parking lot. I assumed Pete was working but hadn’t actually seen him. Nor did I want to.

In the afternoon, Dat knocked on my door and entered before I said anything.

“Fess up,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“About?”

“Well, Betsy has been moping around the house all day, for one thing. And I think you know the reason. And then Pete tells me, just now, that he’s giving his two-weeks’ notice. He’s going back to New York.”

I kept my face as blank as I possibly could.

“Did you know about this?”

I shook my head.

“Are you surprised?”

I shrugged.

He put both hands on my desk and leaned forward. “How did you and Pete go from being a couple to this?”

“Technically we never were a couple. We were hardly even courting.” I met Dat’s eyes. “And if Pete wants to go home, who am I to stop him?”

“Is that what this is all about—you not wanting to leave Lancaster County?”

I shook my head, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I moved from Ohio to marry your Mamm. It was the best decision I ever made, for lots of different reasons. Don’t be afraid of change.”

“That’s not it at all. Pete and I aren’t right for each other. We never got as far as talking about . . . any of that stuff.”

He pushed back from my desk and stood up straight. “Could you talk to someone about all of this? Your aunt Laurel?”

I shook my head.

“Nan?”

My voice was a near whisper. “We did. Yesterday.”

“And she’s okay with this?”

I shrugged.

“How about if I talk to Pete?” Dat had his arms crossed now.

“That won’t do any good. Believe me.” I took a deep breath. “How about if you help me start a business instead?”

He ran his hand through his beard. For a moment I hoped he was considering my request, but then he said, “No.” His voice wasn’t loud—just firm. “It’s too soon to think about
anything that drastic.” Without another word he left my office, bumping against the door on the way out.

Not able to concentrate, I quit work early, deciding to go for a walk. Pete must have seen me out the window of the showroom because he came to the door and called out to me, asking me one more time if we could talk.

“We did,” I answered, meeting his gaze and then continuing on my way through the parking lot. A car pulled in behind me and I turned, half hoping it would be Nan. It wasn’t. It was the woman from two weeks before, the one who in my naïveté made me think Pete was a man of integrity. I darted behind the silver maple tree and then to the path that led down to the creek, feeling as if a tourniquet were being tightened around my heart.

As I neared the water, I heard voices. One was Betsy’s. I expected the other to be Levi’s, but it was much softer. I took a few more steps, then stopped and listened. Finally the second person spoke again. It was a woman.

I kept going along the path, coming around the corner. Betsy sat on a log and beside her was Addie.

I greeted them immediately, not wanting to eavesdrop.

Addie said hello and stood. “You should talk to her, Betsy. Now.”

Betsy shivered, even though it was as warm as usual for the last day of April.

“Cate?” Addie motioned to me. “I need to say something to you first.”

I followed her under the willow.

She took my hand. “I’ve been wanting to say this for a while, but I have to say it now. You need to stand up to Betsy.”

I whispered. “What’s going on?”

“That’s for her to tell you. I just want you to know that
you’ve been letting her get away with too much. You need to stop—”

“What?” Sure things had been rough just lately, but Betsy had never been any trouble.

“You need to think about your own life. . . .”

I nodded. I had been. “But if something’s wrong with Betsy . . .” I glanced back toward my Schwester. “I need to help her.” No matter what had happened, Betsy was my top priority. I hadn’t finished raising her—not yet.

“Cate?” Betsy stepped toward the pathway. “I’m going to head back to the house.”

“Just remember what I said.” Addie shoved me forward and then left.

I stepped to Betsy’s side. “What’s going on?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

She sighed. “I think,” she said. “I think I might be in some trouble.”

“Trouble?”

She turned toward me, her hand on her midsection.

Time froze. I thought of the library books on her bedside table that I kept renewing. Had she read them? Were they to blame? Had she not read them? Was I to blame for not forcing her to? “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“How can you be sure now?”

“I’m late. Really late.”

Betsy was never late. I sat down on a log, hard. “How did this happen?”

“How do you think?”

“Levi?”

She nodded, as if she were about to cry.

“What were you thinking?”

Her eyes narrowed. “That I was going to marry him. But you’ve wrecked that for me—you’ve ruined everything!”

I felt sweaty and cold at the same time. “I should make you an appointment.”

“I don’t want to go to the doctor.”

I knew from my reading that it was important for the mother to get prenatal care from the beginning, something most Amish women didn’t do. In the end it didn’t matter so much because our diet and lifestyle were so healthy, but Betsy was young.

“You need to—sometime soon.”

“I want to get married.”

I put my head in my hands.

“I’m sorry,” she wailed.

“We need to talk to Dat.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to Dat. I just want to marry Levi. And then figure everything out.”

Although it wasn’t common, it wasn’t unheard of for an Amish bride to be pregnant when she took her vows. Sometimes the couple confessed and were put under a six-week
Bann
, but other times the wedding took place in a hurry. Betsy and Levi had both already joined the church. It was plausible they could marry. Except for—

“If only you hadn’t broken things off with Pete.” She was crying now. “Think of how this is going to break Dat’s heart.” And then abruptly her voice became angry. “If only you’d explained things better to me.”

“I tried,” I said.

“Not hard enough. You knew all about all of this, right?”

My voice grew shrill. “I gave you the books.”

Her full gaze fell on me. Her usual sweet disposition had disappeared. But I knew fear drove her anger. I understood.

She swiped both her hands under her eyes. “Everything was going so well. Everything would have worked out just fine until you decided to take the high road and dump Pete. Now the whole family will be disgraced.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Dat will be devastated. Remember what he said about wanting to show everyone he could keep us on the straight and narrow? That we didn’t need a mother to raise us? Remember how you tried so hard to raise me right?”

I took a deep breath. The old familiar Shahm started to wind its way around my throat like a woolen winter scarf.

“You think you’ve done such a good job with me, but I have to disagree,” she said. “And now the entire community will know how you failed.”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. “I never said I did a good job,” I answered in my own defense. “I said I always put you first. What I didn’t say is how much I love you, and how much your love has given me.”

My declaration of affection took some of the tension out of the air, and she scooted closer to me, taking my hand.

“Everyone will blame Dat,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“For not remarrying. If I’d had a mother, this wouldn’t have happened.”

For once, I didn’t know how to respond.

She squeezed my hand and said, “Would you reconsider marrying Pete?”

I knew I couldn’t marry Pete—or anyone—just because Betsy wanted me to. But could I if I thought it was what was best for my family . . . ?

Tears blurred my vision as I stood and started back toward the house, with Betsy beside me.