The Amish Clockmaker (31 page)

Before she left, she made a point of thanking them both for their patience. “Whenever I have decisions to make, I drive poor Homer crazy with all my dithering. I know I'm not easy to work with.”

“I think it just shows how much you care, Mrs. Upton,” Miriam replied. “You want to get things right.”

She nodded emphatically. “Especially on this clock. It's for our fortieth anniversary. I really wanted to do something special for him.”

Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and Clayton recognized what he was seeing. It was the same sparkle his mother had always had for his father, the sparkle he dreamed of someday seeing in his own wife's eyes for him.

“You'll know exactly what I mean when the two of you eventually get there,” she added with a wink to Miriam. “Forty years of marriage, and my heart still flutters when he comes into the room. I'd say that makes me one very lucky woman.”

Clayton was so touched by her words that he had to look away. Would Miriam ever grow to love him like that? In forty years, would she still be pining after the man who had stolen her innocence and then disappeared on her? Or by then would she finally have come to understand that God's plan for her life was the perfect plan and His will for her mate had been the perfect choice for her?

Such questions filled Clayton's mind until Mrs. Upton drove off and Miriam's cool exterior gave way to complete exuberance.

“This is amazing, Clayton!” she cried, waving the check in the air and doing a little dance. “I can't believe a person would pay this much for a single clock!”

His questions faded away and he couldn't help but grin, enjoying her display of enthusiasm.

“And it's going to be so beautiful too! I cannot
wait
to see it once you've finished. This is just so amazing!”

Despite her excitement, she managed to finish out the transaction by putting the paperwork and the check in their proper places. After that, he returned to his table and she went back to her dusting. As she made her way around the room polishing each clock and dusting the shelves, she hummed and sang and occasionally took a few dance steps, her mood the lightest it had been in quite a while.

And though part of Clayton loved seeing her this way, another part was bothered by it. He wasn't sure whether she was thrilled with the infusion of
cash or thoughts of the clock that cash was paying for. Either way, this was the side of her that had always concerned him, and he wasn't sure how to take it now.

Fortunately, he didn't have much time to ruminate. The rest of day ended up being quite busy, thanks to a busload of tourists who descended upon Ridgeview's tiny downtown, scattering customers from the clock shop on this end to the cabinet store on the other and everywhere in between. Together, Clayton and Miriam managed to sell eight clocks, including one of Miriam's favorites, a tiny, jewel-encrusted Sheffield with a matching leather case.

By the time they locked the door behind the final customer, Clayton was exhausted but Miriam was still flying high. As he cleaned and oiled and put away his various tools and she straightened up the counter area and totaled out the cash drawer, she once again returned to her singing, belting out the Mr. Sandman song as she worked. And though she had a beautiful singing voice, something about it just didn't sound quite right.

T
WENTY
-F
OUR

C
layton's concerns stayed with him throughout the next day. For some reason, he found himself watching Miriam as she worked and seeing things more clearly than he had before. The devotion with which she polished the clocks was something closer to worship. The flash of disappointment after selling off a favorite piece was bordering on covetousness. And the gaze she gave Clayton when she stopped to watch him work was something less like wifely contentment and more like hunger. She loved the clocks and the clock shop, yes, but it wasn't because she enjoyed dealing with the public or working alongside her husband or selling heirloom-quality pieces that folks would love and enjoy for generations.

It was because by being in here, she was surrounded by beautiful things, by fancy things. By
Englisch
things she wanted for herself.

These thoughts were still running through his mind as they headed to the shop on Saturday morning.
Mamm
came along with them as well. Things had been so busy in the shop that Clayton had had a feeling the three of them would be needed. Saturdays were usually busy, but if another tour bus showed up on top of the regular customer traffic, then they would definitely want the extra help.

His plan worked in theory. But what he hadn't counted on was that his mother would be as possessive and bossy with Miriam in the store as she was
in the house. More than once he heard her snip or scoff at Miriam and then show her the “right” way to do something. After several contentious hours, he knew he had two choices. He needed to either lay down the law with his mother and tell her to back off or not invite her to work with them again.

He posed that thought to Miriam as the two of them slipped outside for a quick lunch during the noon lull.
Mamm
had eagerly offered to man the store while they did, which made Clayton more than a little suspicious. He had a feeling that even as they ate their corned beef sandwiches out here, his mother was hard at work reorganizing as much as she could in there.

“So which is your preference?” he asked, taking a bite of his sandwich. “Should I lay down the law with her now? Or just never invite her to work with us again?”

Miriam smiled and said it didn't matter to her. She was just glad he had noticed.

“I couldn't have missed it, and I'm really sorry about all of it.”

At the bottom of their lunch pail sat two beautiful, ripe oranges, and Miriam set about peeling them and dividing out the slices. “To tell you the truth, Clayton, for today I'd just as soon take off myself and leave her with you in the shop.”

His eyebrows rose. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to go home and lie down?”

She sucked on the tip of an orange slice and then pulled it, like a lollipop, from her mouth. “I'm fine. I'm not really tired. Just tired of her. Tired of the noise and confusion. Taking the afternoon—especially if she's not up at the house—would be lovely.”

Clayton's heart warmed at the thought of what Miriam described. Yes, he could see how nice that would be, the chance to putter around, maybe clean a little, maybe cook their supper, all without comment or criticism.

“Of course,” he said, and the relief on her face made him feel guilty that he hadn't been the one to think of it.

At the end of the day a neighbor stopped by the store in the hopes that Lucy would be there, and the two women were busy chatting when Clayton was ready to close up. Gently ushering them outside, he locked the door behind them and then went about cleaning and closing out after a long but profitable day.

His mother and her friend were still visiting when he was ready to head up to the house, so he just locked the back door of the shop and then came
around the side of the building to give
Mamm
a wave. She waved back, barely breaking stride in the conversation, so he continued on up the hill by himself.

It had been a beautiful summer day, the sky a rich blue dotted with perfect white fluffy clouds. He had chores to do and animals to tend, but it struck him that maybe he would take his wife for a buggy ride while it was still light out. There were some hiking trails nearby, including one that ran along a beautiful bubbling creek, and after six days in a row of being cooped up in the shop, the thought of strolling along that creek under those trees with Miriam at his side was too appealing to resist. Fortunately, she was a spontaneous person and probably wouldn't hesitate to jump on it once he shared his idea.

To his surprise, when he arrived at the house she wasn't inside anywhere. There were no smells or sights of some bubbling stew or baking bread or any other kind of kitchen work. He decided that maybe she was out in the barn, so he went there, expecting to find her talking to Rosie or brushing the horses or yet again organizing the tack closet.

Instead, she was nowhere to be found there either—or so he thought. He was just about to turn and leave when he heard the soft strains of her humming, coming from above.

She was in the loft. Again.

What was it about the place that held such fascination for her? He didn't want to be like his mother and condemn her being up there outright, but he did have his concerns. The bigger Miriam grew, the more her center of gravity was shifting. One of these days, if she wasn't careful, she was going to fall off that ladder just like
Mamm
had said.

Clayton took a deep breath and blew it out, reminding himself what she'd told him about the loft and what it meant to her. As her husband, he should want that for her if it made her happy. As her husband, he should try to understand what it was really about.

With a smile, he quietly crossed to the ladder and then began climbing, softly and slowly, hoping to surprise her at the top. He knew if he called up to her that she would come down to him, but it was time for him to do this, to join her there, to see what a place of one's own actually involved.

It was slow going, but finally he reached the top of the ladder. As he paused to catch his breath, he saw Miriam with her back to him, kneeling in front of the old trunk where they had kept the spare horse blankets, only now the blankets were stacked in a neat pile next to it.

Miriam, still humming away, was seemingly lost in her own world. On
her hands she wore a pair of white gloves with sparkly, diamond-like button closures at the wrists, and her humming turned to singing as she pulled them off, finger by finger, and then daintily laid them across her knees.

She then turned her attention to the trunk and thrust her hands inside.

Shocked by the sight of those gloves, Clayton shifted his weight, causing a floorboard to creak. She snapped her head around as she yanked her hands from the trunk.

Her eyes were wide with surprise and fear at being discovered, but when she saw that it was her husband rather than her mother-in-law, she seemed to relax somewhat, her expression slowly changing over to something more like sadness and loss.

“What are you doing?” Clayton asked.

“Nothing. Can you please just let me be for a minute?”

“Why?” He took a step toward her. Miriam shrank back a bit before turning toward the open lid on the trunk and slamming it shut. Then she stared up at him, almost defiantly, determination creeping into her expression. It was obvious to him something was in there she didn't want him to see.

Anger, swift and unsettling, swept over him in a rush. Things had been going so well. He thought they had been making progress. He thought they had been moving toward the kind of love and affection a husband and wife should share. Now he realized it had all been a lie, that having a place of one's own merely meant having a place to keep secrets.

“What are you doing?” This time curiosity didn't lace his tone. He heard the anger in his voice and so did she. Miriam leaned back against the trunk as he strode awkwardly toward her.

“Nothing,” she said, but her voice, her manner, and her posture told him she was lying to him.

He tipped his head toward the gloves in her lap. “Where did you get those?”

Miriam glanced down and startled—she had forgotten she'd laid them across her bent knees. When she looked up again, dread and longing were both etched across her face. “They're nothing, Clayton! Brenda gave them to me. She didn't want them anymore. They're just a pair of gloves.”

“They are fancy.”

Her eyes pleaded with him. “Please, Clayton. Don't make more of this than need be. I am not wearing them. I just like looking at them.”

She was definitely lying now—she'd had them on when he first came up here! He took another step toward her. “What else is in the trunk?”

Miriam sat up straight on her knees and put a protective arm across the top of the closed lid. “Nothing important!”

She looked so childlike and afraid that it was almost more than he could bear. Despite her protestations and her lies, she seemed so vulnerable and desperate in that moment that Clayton felt his anger ebb somewhat. He lowered himself awkwardly to the floor beside his wife.