The Amish Clockmaker (23 page)

“Won't you sit down?” Clayton said, as polite as he could as he motioned to the sofa.
Mamm
appeared then and welcomed them as well, saying she had a pot of coffee going and they were just in time for dessert.

“That's very kind, but no, thank you, Lucy,” Norman said, as he and Abigail seated themselves onto the couch. Clayton noticed that Abigail had a crumpled handkerchief in her hand and her eyes were slightly puffy.

“Is everything all right, Norman?”
Mamm
's brows had furrowed with instant concern. She could see as easily as Clayton had that the Beilers were upset about something.

“No,” Norman answered sadly, and Abigail squeezed her eyes shut.

Clayton's heart skipped a beat. “Is Miriam okay? She's not hurt, is she?”

Neither of the Beilers looked his way as they shook their heads.

Mamm
came to Abigail's side, taking
Daed
's armchair next to her. “Then what is it? What has happened?”

Abigail blotted her nose with the handkerchief. She opened her mouth and closed it again, unable to say anything. Or unable to find the right words. She lifted her head to look at Clayton, who was still standing in the middle of the room. He couldn't read the look on her face, but it occurred to him that perhaps the Beilers needed to speak to his mother alone.

“I have some work to do outside. I'll just be going if you'll excuse me.” He turned on his good heel and had taken only two halting steps when Norman spoke.

“Please stay, Clayton.”

Norman's voice was hopeful but adamant.

Clayton turned back around to face his neighbors.

“Please?” Norman said, less forceful this time.

Clayton hobbled fully into the room and lowered himself into the chair
Mamm
usually sat in after supper.

After a few seconds of silence, Norman cleared his throat. “We have a problem. And we don't know if you will help us, but we know we have to ask. As hard as it is
to
ask, we know we must.”

“Norman, Clayton and I are happy to help you in any way we can,” his mother said, her own woes pushed aside for the moment. “You know that.”

He shook his head. “Wait until you've heard me out, Lucy. We've come to ask no small thing.”

Beside him, Abigail sighed and looked up at her husband. Her eyes were shimmering with ready tears.

“What is it that we can do for you?” Surprise made
Mamm
's words sound airy and unsure.

“It's not what you can do, Lucy. It's what Clayton can do.”

Norman turned his head to face Clayton. So did
Mamm
. Abigail glanced at him and then quickly looked down at the handkerchief in her hand.

“Me?” Clayton exclaimed, his mind instantly awhirl. What could a disabled man like him do for the Beilers?

Norman rubbed his beard with one hand, lost in thought. “The thing is, Clayton, we've… Abigail and I have known for some time that you are fond of Miriam.”

Heat rushed to Clayton's face in an instant. He said nothing.

“And she's always been fond of you.”

“As… as… a friend,” Clayton stammered. “We're just friends. I've barely talked to her in weeks. I hardly ever see her anymore. She… she hasn't been around like she used to be. You have my word!”

“She hasn't,”
Mamm
replied in her son's defense, her voice as earnest as Clayton's had been.

“No, I know that,” Norman said, shaking his head as if Clayton had completely misunderstood him. “Her attentions have been, uh, elsewhere. We just… she… ” He expelled the air from his lungs, apparently unable to say the words to finish his sentence. The pained look on his face made it appear as though he had already said them, and they had been appalling to utter.

“She what?” Fear that something dreadful had happened to the only woman he had ever loved made Clayton's voice quaver.

“She… ” Norman began again but then stopped.

“What?” Clayton heard the desperation in his voice but didn't care. Something was terribly wrong. “She
what
?”

Abigail lifted her gaze to him, the shimmering tears slipping down her cheeks unchecked. “She's with child.”

E
IGHTEEN

T
he silence in the living room was broken only by the gurgling of the percolator in the kitchen as it produced coffee that none of them would be drinking. For several seconds no one said anything. Norman stared at a speck on the rug. Abigail's eyes were closed in obvious distress.
Mamm
was stone still. As the impact of Abigail's announcement slammed into Clayton, a thousand warring thoughts somersaulted in his head—and only one image, that of his beloved Miriam in the arms of another man. Heat rose again to his cheeks, blistering hot this time with equal parts anger and shame. He did not want to picture her kissing another man, lying with another man, and he did not want to imagine who that man was. But he couldn't help it.

“Vernon Esh?” his mother said in a hushed voice, assuming the one who had done this was Miriam's Amish suitor.

But Clayton knew it was not Vernon. It was the man in the car, the one who took her away late at night after her dates with Vernon were done. It was the man who waited for her in secret, who disappeared with her for hours, who dumped her back out on the driveway before dawn.

Clayton felt the fingers of his right hand curl into a fist, as though that man was in the room and Clayton was preparing to slug the living daylights out of him. He covered the fist with his left hand to hide it and quell his
rising rage. It was not the Amish way to respond with violence to any kind of provocation, not even to condemn a man's immoral dealings with a young, unmarried woman.

But how dare that man touch Miriam? How dare he take what did not belong to him? How
dare
he?

“It wasn't Vernon, Lucy,” Norman was saying to
Mamm
, though Clayton could barely hear him over the roaring in his ears.

“It wasn't?”

“It wasn't Vernon,” Norman said again, softer this time, as Abigail swallowed back a sob.

Clayton's voice stilled in his throat, waiting for a name. But no one said it aloud, and he realized he was relieved. He didn't want to hear it. Better this person remain always in his mind as just a shadowy figure inside a car.

“The father of the child is
Englisch
,” Norman continued. “He was a performer Miriam met in Lancaster, at the Fulton. An actor. He was in town for the run of a play. They became friends, so she says.”

“Friends?”
Mamm
whispered, and again Abigail choked back another sob.

“So she says.” Norman repeated, with a slow shake of his head. “The man and the play are gone now, on to another city. He knows what his actions have resulted in, but he wants nothing to do with Miriam or the child.”

“Oh dear Lord!”
Mamm
murmured, and then she bowed her head in silent lament.

Both of Clayton's hands were balled into fists now, and his chest heaved with outrage and anguish.

His sweet Miriam…

“How could a man do such a thing to a young girl and then just leave her?” Abigail murmured, her voice breaking on the last three words.

“Because he's
Englisch
!” Norman exclaimed, his voice now breaking too.

Because he's an animal!
Clayton thought.
Miriam, Miriam…

“And now Vernon wants nothing to do with Miriam either,” Norman went on, wiping his glistening cheeks with his weathered hand.

“Oh, Norman! Abigail!”
Mamm
's mother-heart was breaking for her neighbors and their only daughter.

Clayton had never felt such a blinding ache before, not even when
Daed
died. His father's passing had been expected, though not welcomed. This was not like that at all. Clayton had always known Miriam would someday bear another man's child, but he had never considered it would happen like this.
He was still trying to wrap his head around this knowledge when he realized Norman had said his name.

“
Ya?
” Clayton looked up at Miriam's father.

“We've come to ask if you would be willing to help us. Help Miriam. We wouldn't be asking if the situation weren't so dire. We don't know what else to do.”

“Oh!”
Mamm
said, as she realized ahead of Clayton what Norman was about to say.

As she turned to her son with dread and wonder etched in her face, it also became clear to him why the Beilers had come over.

“We know you're fond of our Miriam,” Norman said, repeating his words from minutes earlier, but this time with a heaviness in his tone that made them seem forged of iron. “We know you're a man of character, and that you would treat her with kindness and respect. The babe she is carrying needs a father and a name. Miriam needs a name. We are humbly asking if you might give her yours, Clayton. Please. Would you consider marrying her?”

For Clayton, time seemed to stand still in the room. It was as if an invisible curtain had been drawn across the moment and the earth was no longer spinning on its slow journey around the sun. For a clockmaker, it was a sensation he was wholly unfamiliar with. Clayton was aware that the Beilers were looking at him—Norman, earnestly, and Abigail, over the tips of her fingers as she dabbed at the tears in her eyes. His mother was looking at him too. Her eyes were wide as she sat forward in
Daed
's chair.

Daed
.

Oh, how Clayton wished his father were in the room hearing this conversation. He would be in this frozen, timeless moment with him.
Daed
would know what he should do.

Clayton could barely make sense of the request that had been placed before him. He had only ever wanted one woman. He had long since divested himself of any notion that she would ever be his. Ever. It was not to be.

And yet now Miriam was in trouble, and here was her father begging Clayton to take her, remove her disgrace, and give her unborn child his name. Marry her.

“I know it's a lot to consider, son,” Norman continued when Clayton said nothing. “Believe me, we don't take lightly what we're asking. But you… you've always cared for her. If you still do, perhaps you could find it possible to look past this terrible mistake she has made. If anyone could, it would be you.”

Clayton looked over at
Mamm
. Her face was awash in questions but she said nothing. It was not her decision to make.

“Does Miriam know you are over here asking me this?” Clayton said as he turned to face the Beilers again.

“Yes,” Norman answered.

“And how does she feel about it?”

Norman exhaled as if releasing a breath he'd been holding for weeks. “She knows you can help her, Clayton. She knows Vernon won't. And she knows this
Englisch
man who took from her what she had no right to offer him won't, nor do we want him to. I wish to never see that man. Ever.”

“Are you saying Miriam will marry me if I ask her?” Clayton replied, barely able to say the words.

Norman nodded. “She will.”

For several long moments, Clayton just sat in his mother's chair letting that notion swirl about in his head.
Miriam will marry me. Miriam will marry me
.

He did not think about the fact that she was pregnant, unwed, and desperate, only that it was possible he could marry the woman he loved. That he still loved.

Despite what she had done, and with whom she had done it, he still loved her. She carried an unborn child who needed a father and a name. Perhaps there would be more children down the road, Lord willing.

A wife he loved and children of his own! These were but daydreams he'd seldom allowed himself to dwell on. And now both seemed inconceivably within his grasp.