Running Around (and Such) (5 page)

The sun shone with a golden light on the new spring leaves as they wound their way along the twisting mountain road, following closely behind the loaded moving truck in a van Dat had rented for the day. It was a lovely time of year to move, with a fresh spring breeze making everything seem soft and new. Lizzie supposed the four seasons would be the same in their new home, which was somewhat comforting.

When the van turned down the farm’s steep drive, the front door of the house opened and Lizzie’s Glick aunts and uncles filled the yard, ready to help unload their belongings and carry them into the house. The yard looked so much better without all the pieces of junk strewn about, Lizzie thought.

Inside the house, the girls ran excitedly from room to room. The place didn’t seem nearly as hopeless as it had on their previous visit. Mammy Glick and two of Lizzie’s aunts, all of whom lived right there in Cameron County, had emptied the house as soon as the English family had moved out. The tall, old kitchen windows shone, the glass sparkling in the spring sunshine. Even the grayish white tile of the kitchen floor was waxed to a glossy shine.

While most of the family helped unload the van, Dat and his two brothers worked in the kitchen, connecting the gas stove and refrigerator to the propane tank that sat outside the kitchen wall. When they were finished, Lizzie turned the burner handles, one by one, and watched as an even blue flame burst forth. Next she opened the refrigerator door and stuck her head in, enjoying the cold air that brushed her cheeks. Now they could have ice cubes again and ice cream whenever they wanted.

Mam came into the kitchen, carrying a box.

“There is so much to be done,” Lizzie said.

Mam nodded. “We could paint for a year and still find something to paint. But that will have to wait till we’re settled and everything is put in order,” she said.

Lizzie knew that Mam was right. The walls looked dirty, even after Mammy Glick had scrubbed them clean. But at least they had nice things in this new house.

That hadn’t always been the case, especially when Mam and Dat had first started the pallet shop. Then, it seemed, they were so poor that all they had to eat was lumpy potato soup.

“What’s wrong with Mam and Dat?” Emma had asked one evening back then as she scraped Lizzie’s uneaten soup into her own bowl and added the crusts of leftover bread.

“I think we’re very, very poor,” Lizzie had said as she gathered a handful of silverware from the table and carried it to the sink.

“Why are we so poor?” Emma asked. “I mean, Dat and Mam are always busy in the shop. Dat makes lots of pallets, and the little bell above the door rings an awful lot lately.”

“I know,” Lizzie said. “But they argue all the time.”

“No, they don’t, Lizzie. Mam and Dat really like each other, and they don’t argue all the time,” Emma said.

“I don’t care what you say, Emma. I heard them.”

“When?”

“One time.”

“Lizzie, you stretch stuff. Everything isn’t nearly as bad as you make it sound.”

“Well,” Lizzie sighed, grabbing a washcloth and wiping the plastic tablecloth furiously. There were little rips and holes in the cheap fabric, and Lizzie caught her washcloth in one. “See, if we weren’t so poor, we wouldn’t have this pitiful-looking, old, torn tablecloth on our table.”

“Lizzie, you should be ashamed of yourself. Lots of Amish families have torn plastic tablecloths on their tables. When I get married, I’m not going to go buy a new tablecloth just because it has a hole in it. Everybody has holes in their tablecloths,” Emma said.

Lizzie drew herself up to her full height.

“Emma, I don’t care what you say. Anyone that has a torn plastic tablecloth on their table is poor. If they weren’t, they’d buy a new one. When I’m married, I am not going to keep mine that long. It looks sloppy and makes you look like you’re poor, anyhow,” she said.

Emma added dish detergent to the hot water in the sink. “Well, I pity Mam.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just do.”

“I pity Dat,” responded Lizzie.

“I pity Mam most, because she’s always working in the shop and it’s just a fright how sloppy this house looks,” Emma had said.

Lizzie shook her head, remembering Emma’s words and the terror in her own heart. Well, at least they weren’t poor anymore. Not yet, at least. She turned to help Mam finish putting the pans away.

“Do you like it here now, Mam? I mean, better than you did that first time we saw the place?”

Mam turned and gazed across the kitchen. “Yes, Lizzie, I do,” she said quietly. But Lizzie heard a sigh in her voice, a kind of hollow undertone that wouldn’t quite go away.

“But you’re worried about Emma, right?”

“Well … yes, I am. I mean, turning 16 years old is hard enough in a settled community like Jefferson County. But here … I don’t know.”

“She’ll be 16 in six days.”

“I know.”

“Are we having a birthday party?”

“Who would we invite? There are no young people here.” There was an edge of bitterness to Mam’s voice.

Lizzie pushed the last pot into the cupboard and then quickly closed the door so it wouldn’t fall out.

“Who will Emma marry if there aren’t other Amish youth in this area,” she asked.

“I don’t know. Two new families are moving into the area from a neighboring community, but they have only a girl about Emma’s age,” Mam said.

“That’s nice!” Lizzie said, even though she knew Mam didn’t think that was enough to be happy about.

“Yes.” Mam opened a new box and started to unpack silverware, placing it into a drawer next to the sink.

“Mam, how does God’s will work if there are no boys to marry, anyway? How will poor Emma ever get married? I mean, this is getting serious. She’s soon 16, and in a year I’ll be, too. What are we going to do?”

Mam put down a handful of forks so she could look at Lizzie. She was clearly trying to muster her own conviction about this subject.

“Lizzie, if you would only read your Bible more and try to be more mature about your faith, you would not be so troubled. If you pray honestly, God will direct you to the right husband. Even if right now you can’t figure out how that’s possible.”

Lizzie nodded, but she couldn’t help but wonder how God would direct her if there weren’t any boys nearby. Before she could ask Mam more about God’s will and future husbands, Mommy Glick called them to dinner. Lizzie followed Mam into the dining room where the table was covered with food.

Mommy Glick had made chicken potpie with large chunks of potatoes swimming in thick chicken gravy. Chunks of white chicken meat were mixed with the potpie squares and sprinkled with bright green parsley. Mommy Glick made her own noodles, too. She mixed egg yolks with flour, and the potpie turned out thick and yellow and chewy. It was the best thing ever to eat with creamy chicken gravy.

Lizzie also admired the baked beans that had been baking most of the forenoon and now were rich with tomato sauce and bacon. Bits of onion floated among the beans, and steam wafted from the granite roaster. Applesauce, dark green sweet pickles, and red beet eggs completed the meal.

Lizzie was so hungry she forgot all about her diet for the day. When they finished eating the main part of the meal, Lizzie and Mandy helped themselves to pieces of shoofly pie and sat on the steps of the porch together. They each bit off the very tips of their pieces.

“No one else in the whole world can make shoofly pies like Mommy Glick,” Lizzie said.

Mandy nodded, her mouth full as she ate her way through the whole delicious piece.

“Do you think we’ll ever feel at home here?” Mandy asked, finally.

“Probably.”

“It’s going to take a while.”

“I know.”

“We can’t hear any traffic or see any lights. We don’t even have neighbors.”

Lizzie pointed toward a white house in the woods down by the creek. “There are people,” she said.

“Who are they?”

“Old people, Dat said.”

“How does he know?”

“I have no idea.”

They sat in silence, the breeze stirring the leaves of the walnut tree beside the sidewalk.

“We can make a nice farm out of this junky place,” Lizzie said, even though she wasn’t sure that was true.

Mandy nodded.

M
AM CAME OUT TO
the enclosed back porch, her back bent as she coughed deeply, her handkerchief to her mouth. Mommy Glick and Emma followed close behind her.

“Emma, how long has she been coughing like that?” Mommy Glick asked, her brows drawn with concern.

“Most of the winter, it seems like,” Emma said, her eyes filling with unexpected tears.

Mommy Glick turned to Dat. “Melvin, I think Annie needs to see a good doctor, and soon,” she said.

“I’ve begged her to go,” Dat replied.

“I don’t like the sound of that cough,” Mommy continued as she helped Mam into a chair.

Mam sat down slowly. One of the twins ran over and buried her face in her apron. Mam stroked her head absentmindedly as she cleared her throat repeatedly. Mommy Glick watched Mam, while Emma hurried back into the house to get Mam a drink of water.

Lizzie and Mandy huddled together. “I wish Mam would stop coughing.”

“She’s going to end up in the hospital.”

“She can’t. We need Mam more than ever now.”

Lizzie gazed across the field and the trees beyond that, where the creek ran wide and cold. She shivered. She hoped fervently that God would watch over them way back here on this winding country road in the middle of nowhere. She had never felt quite so alone, or quite as old as she did right this minute, sitting on the concrete porch steps.

About a week after they had settled in, Mam’s cough became an alarming rasp. She held a Kleenex to her mouth as she bent over, painfully hacking from the persistent ache in her chest.

She had gone on as best she could, even as her strength sometimes failed her, Lizzie knew. But she worked more slowly every day.

One afternoon, Lizzie was outside pulling weeds around the little log cabin. She was tugging with all her strength on a very stubborn weed almost as tall as herself. She didn’t notice Emma running down the sidewalk until she called for Dat in a tone of voice that made Lizzie stop yanking on the weed.

She watched as Dat emerged from the barn and listened to what Emma was saying. When he walked toward the house with her, Lizzie knew there must be something wrong. She wiped off her grimy hands on her apron and hurried up the slope to the house.

As she entered the kitchen, Dat pulled up a chair and sat close to Mam, a concerned look making his tired face seem soft and vulnerable. Mam was struggling to breathe and her complexion was almost blue in color.

“Annie, you should have done something a long time ago,” Dat said. “You just go on and on and on, even if you feel so bad.”

“Well, Melvin, I can’t go on. I need to go to the hospital now. Every breath I take burns in my lungs, so I suppose I have a bad dose of pneumonia. I guess we’ll see a doctor first, but who? Everything is so strange and new here.”

Dat sat up resolutely.

“No, Annie, you won’t go to the doctor. You’re going straight to the emergency room in Falling Springs. There are no two ways about it.”

“I’m just so sorry. It will cost thousands of dollars if I’m admitted,” Mam said anxiously, searching Dat’s eyes.

Dat smiled at her tenderly, covering her hand with his own. “What are thousands of dollars compared to losing you, Annie?”

Mam tried to smile at Dat, but her nostrils flared as they always did when she had to cry. Her face turned a darker shade as her tears came uncontrollably.

“Ach, now you made me cry,” she said.

“I’ll go call a doctor. You get yourself ready and we’ll leave for Falling Springs.”

Dat glanced anxiously at Emma. Lizzie knew she was the one who would keep everything else going. She would take full responsibility for the laundry, the cooking, and the cleaning. She was naturally a very capable girl for her 15 years, as she had always been, even as a child.

Lizzie met Dat’s concerned look and smiled bravely, consoling him with her cheerful appearance.

“We’ll be all right, Dat. Please don’t worry about us,” she said, although Lizzie could see that Emma’s smile was a very good cover-up, hiding her own worries. Lizzie vowed to do all she could to be a good helper, working along with Emma, even taking on jobs she didn’t want to do.