The Amish Clockmaker (32 page)

“We cannot have secrets from each other, Miriam.”

She opened her mouth as if to protest but then closed it again. She turned to face the trunk. The look in her gaze told Clayton that whatever was inside, it was precious to her.

“Show me what you have in the trunk.”

For a long moment she did nothing. Then she looked down at the gloves and fingered a shimmering button.

“Everything that makes me happy is always taken from me,” she finally whispered, but not to him.

Clayton reached out and covered the hand that Miriam held over the gloves. He could feel the silky satin just under his fingertips.

“Miriam,” he said softly.

She exhaled deeply and her shoulders slumped as she lifted the lid with her other hand.

Clayton leaned over and peered inside. Down in the bottom sat an array of fancy items
.
A sky blue hat with a netted brim and silk forget-me-nots woven into its band. A nearly empty perfume bottle with a sparkling pink sprayer. A rhinestone bracelet in need of polish. A butterfly-shaped brooch of gleaming green and blue. A beaded evening bag with a missing clasp. And more.

He had never seen such extravagant items. As a member of the Amish church, Miriam had no business having them. She had taken vows. She had pledged to live a life apart from the world, vows of separateness and simplicity.

“Where did you get these?” Anger was seeping back into his tone. And fear for her.

Miriam didn't look at him. “I told you! Brenda didn't want them anymore. She was going to donate them to a thrift shop. I said I knew somebody who would enjoy having them, so she let me take them.”

“Somebody who would enjoy having them?” he echoed. Clayton wanted to believe that that
somebody
was someone other than Miriam, even though deep down he already knew she had meant herself.

She sighed heavily, angrily. “Yes,
I
wanted them.
I
wanted to have them.
Not to wear or use or show anyone. I just wanted to be able to look at something beautiful from time to time. Is it really so terrible that I wanted to have a tiny little part of the world out there in here?”

Clayton was quiet for a long moment as he considered her words and genuinely tried to process her question. Was it so terrible that she'd lied to her husband? Yes. Was it so terrible that after all that had happened to her out in the world, her heart hungered for it still? Yes. Was it so terrible that she'd hung on to fancy things despite having taken vows to the contrary?

Yes.

“Miriam, you took a vow before God and the church,” he finally said, as gently as he could manage. “You know what the Bible says about storing up treasures here on earth. Our treasures are to be stored in heaven.”

The defiance in her countenance seemed to melt somewhat. “I know.”

“Then you know that you cannot hold on to these things. You
must
know I cannot let you keep them.”

Miriam looked up at him, perhaps sensing for the first time that Clayton had a role of authority over her she had not considered until now. It seemed she had suddenly realized he was more than just her rescuer from a scandalous situation, more than just someone who would be the father to her child from another man.

He was the one she had married. She had vowed to love and support her husband, just as every Amish wife had done in all the decades there had been Amish wives.

Clayton saw the depth of this realization as she stared at him.

“Can't I keep them for just a little while longer?” The distress in her voice at the imminent loss of that which she found dear made part of him want to take her into his arms and another part of him want to shove that trunk over the edge of the loft and let it crash to the concrete floor below, destroying everything inside it. Her attitude toward these
Englisch
trinkets put her on precarious ground.

“What would be the good in that?” he asked, his tone a mix of gentle counsel and solemn authority.

Miriam hesitated only a moment. “It would give me time to get used to the idea of not having them.”

“Not having them
would get you used to the idea of not having them, Miriam. You must know I am right about this.”

For several long moments she just sat there with the gloves on her lap.
Then she picked them up by the wrists and dropped them onto the hay-strewn floor.

Before he could reach for her, she rose to her feet and headed for the ladder.

“Miriam,” Clayton called after her.

She turned to face him, and it seemed the light had gone out in her eyes. “Do what you think you must, Clayton.”

“Miriam!” He exclaimed angrily as he struggled to his feet.

But by the time he got to the ladder, she was stepping off the last rung and running out of the barn.

T
WENTY
-F
IVE

F
or the next several days Miriam barely said a word to Clayton, not even to ask what he had done with her treasures. He'd wanted to burn them that very night with the week's rubbish, but he hadn't been able to figure out how to carry out that plan without his mother noticing. Miriam still slept next to him in their bed, but she made sure their bodies no longer touched. And when she came down to the shop in the morning, she arrived after he did and stayed in the back room until customers came, at which time she would emerge and plaster a semi-cordial smile on her face while she waited on them.

If that wasn't distressing enough, it seemed other people noticed the animosity between them. Thanks to Uriah's speech at the wedding about forgiving and forgetting, their closest friends and family members no longer seemed to be whispering about them behind their backs. But for the members of the church who hadn't been there that day, Clayton and Miriam Raber remained the big topic of conversation—and now that it appeared their marriage was in trouble, there were even more sideways glances and whispered comments.

Clayton didn't know what to do about it, nor did he know how to get rid of those
Englisch
trinkets in the hayloft. He wished they would just disappear on their own, along with Miriam's displeasure.

Mamm
witnessed firsthand the tension between the two of them, but
she made no mention of it until Wednesday morning, when she appeared in the mudroom at daybreak as Clayton was sitting on the bench, pulling on his work boots.

“I don't mean to pry, son,” she said softly. “Your marriage is your business. But seeing as I let you agree to this marriage without doing much to talk you out of it, I'm going to speak my mind. I don't know what's come between you and Miriam, but if she's been unfaithful to you in her heart, I think you should go to the bishop. If she still loves this other man, Uriah needs to step in and handle it from here, maybe even require another, more public confession and repentance from her.”

Clayton nearly dropped the boot he held in his hand. Hot anger pulsed inside him in an instant. “Unfaithful to me?” he exclaimed. “What would make you say that? How can you even
think
that of her?”

Her tone turned defensive. “She hasn't been a proper wife to you, Clayton. I
know
she hasn't. And she's barely spoken to you for days. She barely speaks to anyone. She walks around with her hand on her belly, stroking that child and looking off into the distance like she's waiting for that
Englisch
man to come rescue her!”

Clayton rose to his feet as swiftly as his disfigured leg allowed. He was only a few inches taller than his mother, but she shrank back from him as in his anger he seemed to now tower over her. “You
will not
speak of Miriam that way.” He could scarcely get the words past his lips.

She was instantly flustered. “I only meant—”

But Clayton cut her off, raw emotion now lacing his words. “You
cannot
speak of Miriam that way. She is my wife. She is your daughter-in-law. And that baby will be your grandchild.”

Mamm
's eyes turned glassy with tears. “I just… I just don't want you to get hurt, Clayton. I'm afraid she is going to hurt you!”

“She is not the one hurting me right now.”

The two of them were quiet for a moment. When she spoke, a tear ran unchecked down her cheek. “I just can't help feeling that we all made a terrible mistake. That we stepped outside of God's will and took things into our own hands—and far too quickly.”

For half a second Clayton wished he could turn to
Daed
and ask him if that's what had happened.
Had
they all made a terrible mistake? Had they acted in contradiction to what God desired for their lives? Clayton couldn't imagine it to be so. In fact, he realized now, he had known exactly what God
would have him do the moment Miriam's parents stated their request on that life-changing day. He didn't need his father to affirm what he had decided, what he had pledged. What God had
led
him to do.

“It was no mistake,
Mamm
, I can promise you that. But even if it were, Miriam and I are married now. I took my vows. What's done is done.”

His mother seemed to grapple for a response, finally having to go with a repeat of her earlier words. “She's not been a proper wife. She doesn't deserve you.”

“Deserve me?
Deserve
me? Is that how Christ loved us? Did He wait until we were perfect before He died on the cross for us? Do we
deserve
His grace?”

Mamm
wiped her cheek as she shook her head. “No, son. We don't,” she whispered. “But that doesn't mean Miriam can continue to treat you this way. She took vows too. To support you. To love you.”

“And I will give her as many reasons as I can to want to make good on those vows.”

Mamm
had nothing at the ready to say in reply. Clayton sat back down on the bench, slipped on the other boot and tied it tight. Then he stood, grabbed his hat off its peg, and opened the mudroom door.

His mother reached out her hand and laid it across his forearm just as he stepped onto the threshold. She opened her mouth to say something else, but then closed it. He hesitated only a moment before walking out into the half-light of dawn.

Clayton went down to the shop early that morning, alone, not bothering to get cleaned up after doing his chores and not waiting for Miriam to go with him. Apparently, she hadn't appreciated that, because she never showed up at all. Opening time came and went and Clayton remained alone.

As far as the store went, he didn't care. Things were always their slowest midweek, and he passed the first few hours of the workday with just two customers and no sales.

He was glad. Alone at the table, he poured all of his anger and frustration and confusion about his wife into his work, finishing up several quick repairs so that he could start on the order for the Uptons. Theirs was to be a real showpiece, a highly polished and buffed wood mantel clock with brass bushings, beveled glass panels, and satin black Arabic numerals on a silver
chapter ring. Its base would be larger than the norm, large enough in fact to sport a single hidden drawer in the front panel, one that could be opened using a recessed latch in the back. Mrs. Upton wanted the drawer for her husband's smoking supplies, and she especially liked the fact that the compartment and the latch were both virtually unnoticeable, as that would keep the grandchildren out of the tobacco.