Johanna's Bridegroom (10 page)

Johanna was suddenly filled with thankfulness that she’d been born into the Amish faith and community.
We are a people apart.
People who try to spend each day and each hour serving Him and doing His work on earth in hopes of greater reward in heaven.

“I like church,” Katy said, smiling up at her.

“So do I, sweetie,” Johanna replied. “So do I.”

* * *

That day, Uncle Reuben preached on the Good Samaritan, a story from the New Testament that he often chose for his message and one that he could speak on at great length. It was one of Johanna’s favorite passages, and she enjoyed his words for the first hour, but as the minutes ticked away and Katy began to wiggle in her lap, Johanna found her attention wandering.

She had chosen a seat near an open window, beside Anna and Mary. Anna’s baby, Rose, had fallen asleep, and Johanna couldn’t help glancing over at her. Rose was such a precious child, and she brought so much joy to her parents. Johanna loved her dearly—the entire family cherished the little girl—but Johanna couldn’t help comparing her to Katy. Next to Rose, Katy seemed so big, no longer a baby, but an adorable little girl. Johanna longed for the baby that Katy had once been, and she longed to cradle another infant—her infant—in her arms.

Uncle Reuben’s voice thundered out, echoing off the rafters as he warmed to his subject and began to repeat himself for the third time. Johanna tore her attention from the sleeping babe and tried to focus on her uncle’s words. But as her gaze swept the room, she spotted Roland. He wasn’t watching Uncle Reuben, either. He was staring directly at her. And when their gazes met, Roland grinned at her.

Startled, Johanna averted her eyes, but when she glanced back from under her lashes, Roland was still watching her. She should have felt disapproval, and she should have let him know that she didn’t appreciate his levity during worship, but the truth was, she was secretly pleased. Worse, when Uncle Reuben finally wound up his sermon and the congregation rose to offer the final hymn, she looked at Roland and found him looking at her again, instead of his hymn book.

Anna elbowed her. “Johanna,” she whispered as voices raised in praise around them. “Stop flirting and pay attention to service,” she admonished. Mischief danced in her eyes. “Stop watching Roland.”

“I’m not,” Johanna protested, but then she had to stifle a giggle. What was wrong with her? She was acting like a giddy teenager, and it was all Roland Byler’s fault.

The hymn ended. Everyone sat down, and Bishop Atlee offered a traditional prayer in High German before dismissing the congregation for the midday break. There would be a short service after the communal meal, but that would consist of prayers, a few more hymns, and everyone would leave by four to head home. As in the morning, the only chores that would be done would be those that were absolutely necessary, mostly involving caring for the children and farm animals.

“
Mam
will have your head,” Anna teased as service ended and families rose and gathered their children and belongings.

“She will not. I didn’t do anything,” Johanna murmured in her sister’s ear. “He was staring at me.” She reached out for Rose. “Here, let me take her. Your arms must be tired.”

Anna passed the sleeping baby, and Johanna cradled her against her chest. Rose never stirred. “She’s such a good baby,” Anna said. “She slept through Uncle Reuben’s entire sermon.”

Katy scrambled up on the bench. “Can I hold Rose,
Mam?
” she begged. “Can I?”

“Later, when she’s awake,” Anna said, stepping around Johanna and sweeping Katy off the bench to safety. “Now I need you to come with me and help me take bread to the tables.”

Johanna followed Mary, Anna and Katy. As she passed through the crowded workshop, neighbors stopped her to admire Rose and to exchange news of the past two weeks’ doings. There was a crowd of elders at the back of the spacious room, so she turned left to leave by the door that led to the showroom. When she reached the hallway, however, she found Roland alone, arms folded, blocking her way.

“For a woman who isn’t interested in me, you spent a lot of time staring at me during service.”

Chapter Ten

“I
was not staring at you during worship,” Johanna said.

“Were, too.”

“Was not.” She pressed her lips together tightly to stifle a giggle and glanced over her shoulder to be certain no one was too near. She looked back at him. “And I suppose you weren’t staring back at me?”

“Me?” Roland smiled that sweet mischievous smile of his, and for a moment, the years fell away and she was looking into the dirty face of the eight-year-old hero who’d chased two bigger English boys at the Delaware State Fair and rescued her
Kapp
from them. “Not me,” he teased. “I was watching Preacher Reuben the whole time. I think he preached on the Barren Fig Tree.”

“He did not.” She could hardly keep from laughing. “Shame on you. You know his sermon was the Good Samaritan.”

“Again,” they both said together.

Still chuckling, she tried to duck past him, but Roland stretched out both arms and suddenly she was very close to him, with only the still-sleeping Rose between them.

The game was no longer innocent fun. Her heart raced and, for an instant, she thought Roland was going to kiss her. “Please let me go,” she whispered. “Someone will see us.”

“And what if they do? Why shouldn’t we talk to each other? I want to court you, Johanna. I know that if you give yourself the opportunity, you’ll fall in love with me all over again.”

A whisper of fear raised goose bumps on the nape of her neck. Not fear of Roland, but fear of herself—fear that she wanted him to kiss her. She tightened her grip on Rose. “Don’t you think we’re too old for courting? I said I was willing to be your wife, but you turned me down. You said you didn’t want to marry me.” She felt her lower lip tremble and for a moment she feared she’d embarrass herself with tears. “Courting is for couples intending on marrying.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to marry you. I never said that. I said I wouldn’t marry you for convenience’s sake...or because our families think we should marry.”

“Roland,” she sighed. “I’m not the innocent girl I used to be...the one you want me to be now.”

“Excuses. Fears.”

The intensity of his gaze made her tremble.

“You’re stubborn,” he said softly. “You know that we’re meant for each other. You’re letting that stubbornness stand in the way of real happiness. Happiness for both of us.”

A flush of heat shimmered under her skin, and her eyes teared up.
God help me.
And aloud she whispered, “Why can’t we just go on being friends?”

Tenderly, Roland brushed a single tear from her cheek. “I can’t settle for that. Not with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to be my wife...because I want to stand before the bishop...before God... I want us to be a real family, Johanna.”

She forced herself to meet his gaze. “I don’t know if I even want a husband,” she admitted. He was standing so close that she could smell the starch in his shirt. It was a good, clean scent, and it made her even more uncertain...more afraid. If he frightened her now, how much worse would it be if they married?

“Is it taking another husband? Or is it me?”

She tried to think how to answer, but her thoughts were all aflutter. Rose stirred in her arms, and Johanna seized on the excuse. “Let me go,” she said. “You’ll wake the baby.”

“And if I do, you’ll soothe her. You were born to be a mother. I want more children, and I think you do, too. We could have them together, if you’d marry me.”

Another baby.
The sweet thought of carrying another child in her body—of bringing new life into the world—made her weak. “Don’t.” Tears clouded her vision as she turned her face away.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“
Ne.
That’s
lecherich.
Foolishness. How could I be? It’s me...”

“What did your
dat
say?” Roland demanded. “You can’t have forgotten. Didn’t he tell you to face what frightened you the most? It’s what he told me when he taught me to swim.”

He moved a step closer, and her breath caught in her throat.

“Let me court you,” he said. “If love doesn’t grow between us, I’ll trouble you no more. But if I’m right, and it’s your own stubborn nature keeping us apart, you’ll thank me for it.”

“Will I?”

Door hinges creaked behind Johanna, and someone cleared her throat. Roland stepped back a decent distance, and Johanna heard her mother say, “There you two are.”

“I was just...” Johanna said.
Just what?

“Roland, they’ve called you to the first seating for dinner. Bishop Atlee himself asked for you.”

Roland nodded. “We’ll talk later, Johanna,” he said as he strode away.

Her mother eyed her suspiciously. “Is this what I think it is?”

Johanna shook her head. “I didn’t meet Roland on purpose, if that’s what you’re asking. He wants to court me, but I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure I want to marry again.”

Women’s chatter, followed by laughter, drifted through the doorway.
Mam
motioned toward a small room that Eli and Roman used as an office. Johanna followed her in and nudged the door closed behind them. A rainbow of sunlight spilled through a single window and the skylight. Her mother reached for Rose and settled into a rocker, one of the fine spindle-back chairs that Eli designed. Rose slept on.

“You haven’t remarried,” Johanna said. “You’ve made a life for yourself without a husband. Why can’t I?”

“What is right for me may not be best for you.”

“Why not? I’ve proved I can support myself and my children.”

“You’re still a young woman. I’m nearly fifty, child. I have eight daughters, counting Grace, an adopted son, four good sons-in-law and a bevy of grandchildren. Your father and I had a strong marriage, a loving marriage. My life is full to overflowing with God’s bounty, but you...you, my precious daughter...you have yet to know that blessing.”

“I have a family. Katy and Jonah. You and my sisters and their children. Why do I have to marry again and have a man...” Words failed her.

“Marriage to Wilmer was difficult.”

Johanna nodded. Even now, pride kept her from telling her mother just how difficult. What went on between a husband and wife was private, not to be discussed, not even with a mother. “Wilmer called me hardheaded, said that I was an unnatural woman...that I couldn’t accept that my husband was God’s appointed head of the family.”

“Do you believe that you are unnatural?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes, maybe.” Johanna sat on the floor by her mother’s feet and rested her head against her mother’s knee. “What if he was right,
Mam?
What if I don’t know how to be a proper wife? What if I were to marry Roland and make him as unhappy as I made Wilmer?”

“Roland is a better man than Wilmer ever was. Do you think Roland would ever raise a hand to you in anger?”

“Ne.”

“Is he an abuser of alcohol?”

Johanna sighed as her mother’s hand rested on her cheek.
“Ne,”
she managed. “Never.”

“And you believe him to be a good father—that he would be a good father to Katy and Jonah as well as his own son?”

“I think... I’m sure he would be.” She squeezed her mother’s hand, and then got to her feet.

“You loved him once, didn’t you?”

Johanna didn’t answer...couldn’t answer. The truth was too painful to share even with her dear mother.

“All I can tell you is to pray to the Lord for guidance and search your own heart for the answer,”
Mam
said. “You’re right to be cautious, but know this... With all the love I have from my family, my friends and my church, there are times when I’m lonely. I miss having a partner to care for and to care for me...a man’s hand to hold mine when we walk through the orchard after a long day’s work. I miss the looks that pass between a husband and wife and the quiet laughter. I’ll always love and remember your father. But, I tell you, Johanna, I still have a lot of life left in me. If the right man came along, I would marry again.”

Johanna lifted her head and stared at her mother. “You’d take the risk to love again? After
Dat?
”

Her mother laughed. “Life
is
risk, Johanna. Be cautious, follow your conscience, but never stop taking risks. If you do, part of your spirit will wither and die as surely as a garden without rain.”

* * *

Monday was so busy that Johanna hardly had time to worry about Roland or the possibility of their marriage. On top of her normal chores—caring for Katy and Jonah, helping Susanna with ’Kota while Grace was at work and school, feeding and looking after her turkeys, bees and sheep—Johanna spent the day helping Ruth. She did her wash and stitched up another two dozen cloth diapers for the expected twins.

On Tuesday morning, she and Rebecca finished a queen-size rose-of-Sharon quilt for an Englisher lady in Salisbury. Then they spent the afternoon making kettles of strawberry-rhubarb jam and mulberry jelly in
Mam’s
summer kitchen.

Rebecca, always clever with pen and paint, fashioned hand-printed labels and topped each half-pint jar with a checked cloth cap that fit over the sealed lids. Aunt Jezzy insisted that fancy jars sold for more money and went faster at Spence’s than plain ones. If the jams went as well as Aunt Jezzy promised, Johanna decided that she and Rebecca would come up with something equally clever to dress up the honey containers, as well.

Normally, on Tuesdays, Johanna would walk to Roland’s to check on the new bee colony, but not this week. The bees at his farm were doing well, and there were plenty of wildflowers and blossoming vegetables and clover to keep them happy. After Sunday’s encounter, she was determined to keep far away from Roland until she made up her mind as to what she wanted to do.

Wednesday, she, Rebecca, Miriam, Susanna and
Mam
scrubbed floors, washed windows, polished woodwork in the entire downstairs of the farmhouse, and washed and ironed all the window curtains. Thursday, she and Katy helped Miriam and Susanna in the garden, planting lima beans, green beans and corn, cutting the last of the spinach, and setting out the eggplant, peppers and late tomatoes that Miriam had started in the greenhouse.

Friday, Johanna packed produce and jam, honey and jellies for Aunt Jezzy’s table at the sale and spent the rest of the day cleaning the front and back porch, raking the yard and helping her sisters clean the second floor as thoroughly as they had the first. Since no cooking could be done on Sunday, the Yoder girls worked in the kitchen all day Saturday, baking, churning butter, stirring up a huge kettle of chicken and dumplings, roasting a turkey, and making salads and desserts.

Saturday night, when Johanna knelt beside her bed for her evening prayers, she was tired but pleased at the work she’d managed to do that week. The following day would be a day of rest, a day for laughter and talk, playing quiet games with her children and welcoming friends and relatives.

Sunday began with family prayers around the kitchen table. It was a beautiful morning, with low humidity and glorious sunshine. Anna and Samuel and the children were coming for supper, and the whole day of fun and visiting stretched before them. As a special treat, Johanna planned to take picnic baskets full of fresh fruit, yogurt, deviled eggs and blueberry muffins to Ruth’s house so that they could all share breakfast together—all but Grace and her son. Grace and ’Kota had left early with John to attend the Mennonite church service. Afterward, they were planning to visit John’s mother in Pennsylvania, so they wouldn’t be back until evening.

Irwin had gone to spend the day with his Beachy cousins, which left
Mam,
Aunt Jezzy, Rebecca, Susanna and the children to go with Johanna to Ruth and Eli’s. As they walked down the dirt lane that ran from one house to the other, Johanna was sure that this was God’s plan for her. She and her children were happy; they were useful and loved. Surely, risking everything to marry Roland, or anyone else, would be the wrong choice. She’d been truly blessed by the Lord and expecting more of life would be selfish, not to mention foolhardy.

For a few seconds, Johanna felt a wave of sorrow, and the image of Roland’s face as she’d seen it last Sunday afternoon formed in her mind. What if he
had
kissed her? What then? What would she have done? But that was past and over. “I have to do what’s right for my children,” she murmured to Susanna.

“Ya,”
her little sister agreed with a wide smile.

“This is where I belong,” Johanna said, clasping Susanna’s chubby hand and squeezing it tight. “Home.”

“Ya,”
Susanna repeated. “Home is
gut.
”

A shiver ran through Johanna. “Home is best,” she said. And then, she smiled at Susanna. “I love you, Susanna Banana.”

Her sister giggled. “I love you too, Johanna. You are the
bestest
sister.”

* * *

After such a large breakfast, dinner was light, and everyone was hungry again by suppertime. Eli and Charley had come over to help Irwin set up two long tables end-to-end on
Mam’s
lawn. They carried out chairs and benches, and a big rocker for Ruth. She was getting so large with the babies that her back often ached, but she never complained. From her comfortable cushioned chair, Ruth could direct the setting of the table and help with organization.

Johanna had just carried out a large pitcher of lemonade when suddenly Susanna squealed and ran around the corner of the house. A minute later, she was back, walking hand in hand with her friend David.

“King David!” Susanna shouted breathlessly. “King David is here!”

Johanna looked questioningly at her mother. “I didn’t know the Kings were coming. We’ll have plenty of food, of course, but...”

Hannah shrugged. “I didn’t know, either.” She rose to welcome David and his parents, but the only other person to round the house was Jonah, kicking his soccer ball.

Susanna tugged David across the lawn to where Hannah stood. “King David,” she repeated. Susanna was smiling so hard that Johanna was afraid her face would crack. “My friend.”