The Amish Clockmaker (36 page)

Abigail's words stung, but the silence that followed—Miriam's silence—cut him to the quick.

She didn't defend their marriage. She didn't say what a good husband he was or how well they were getting along or that affection for him was growing. She didn't say a word.

Clayton turned and went back into the hall, nauseated. He slumped against the wall and sank to the floor.

The look he had seen in her eyes, the touches on his arm, the late nights talking, her body against his. He was certain she had begun to fall in love with him.

Had he been wrong all along?

Clayton became aware that
Mamm
was there in the hallway. Having returned from the cafeteria, she was now seated on a bench with her forehead resting on an upturned hand. A handkerchief was pressed into her palm, and her eyes were puffy and red.

“Oh, how I wish we could turn back the clock,” she said softly, more to herself than to him.

“You know that's impossible,” he replied, and then he stood, intent on finding a quiet place to pour out his heart to God and remind Him that he did not want to turn back the clock. Not for a second did he want to turn it back, not if it meant Miriam would no longer be his.

T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

M
iriam was released from the hospital a few days later, in time for the funeral on Monday afternoon. As with their wedding, the event was not done in the usual Amish way. Neither family had any desire to spread the word about the loss of the child, so there was no visitation period, no endless comings and goings of friends and neighbors taking over the chores, no gathering of Amish men to dig the grave. Instead, Miriam's father had dug it himself alone in the Amish cemetery, not far from the still-bare mound where Clayton's own father had been laid to rest just months before.

At the family's request, the funeral was a private affair, attended by only seven people: Uriah Weaver and his wife, Norman and Abigail Beiler,
Mamm
, Miriam, and Clayton. Uriah handled the ceremonial portion of things, addressing the family for a while at the house and then saying the usual brief words graveside. As Clayton listened and attempted to comfort his grieving wife, all he could think about was how tiny the grave was, how very much it reminded him of the holes he had dug for the gazebo. As there would be no post-funeral meal, Uriah and Norman stayed behind at the cemetery to finish up there while Clayton took his wife and mother back home. Once at the house,
Mamm
went to the kitchen to start on supper, but Miriam headed straight to bed. Clayton spent the remainder of the afternoon at the closed shop, alternately praying and pouring his grief into the making of a new clock.

In the coming days, though Miriam rose and dressed each morning, she seemed overly tired. Clayton urged her to take it easy, reminding her that the doctor had told them both she had lost a tremendous amount of blood. She was also still mourning the death of her child, and likely would be for quite some time to come.

Eventually, she seemed to rally, at least somewhat. Two weeks after losing the baby, she began coming down to the clock shop again—not to work, but just to go through the mail and sit at her desk and stare off into space. She usually came near the end of the day so that she and Clayton could walk back up to the house together. As they did, sometimes she would reach out and take his hand, as if she could draw strength into her body from his. Occasionally, he still felt her crying at night, her silent sobs shaking the bed, but it was happening less and less.

Clayton grieved the loss as well, though he tried not to burden Miriam with his darker moments. Instead, he took those to God, who blessed him in return with much peace amid the pain. By the end of October, the autumn leaves were at their peak, a sight Clayton had always loved. Each time he noticed them now, he reminded himself of the constancy of the seasons, of how fall gave way to winter and then back around to spring.

Once or twice as he hobbled down the hill toward the shop, bundled in his dark coat against the rain, he thought about his unfinished gazebo on the far side of the building, about the concrete that had cured more than enough now to be built upon. A part of him wanted to keep going with the structure and get it finished, but a bigger part felt oddly reluctant. In the end, he decided he would wait and get back to it once Miriam was well again. The days were colder and shorter now anyway. It was a project best revisited in the spring.

Even
Mamm
seemed subdued and saddened these days, though Clayton suspected there was more than a little guilt wrapped up in her grief. She really had behaved poorly to Miriam before, but at least she seemed to be making up for it now.

Once word got around about what had happened, as they all knew it inevitably would, community members responded by reaching out to them as well. At first Miriam welcomed those who stopped by with food, accepted invitations to the occasional outing, and even returned to worship services. Clayton was relieved, glad to see that love and grace and fellowship were helping both of them get through the hard days.

Or so he thought.

About a month later, there was a change in Miriam. Suddenly, rather than finding comfort in her community, she began to withdraw from it instead. She canceled plans, refused to make new ones, and once even closed the door in a startled visitor's face. Out of the blue, she wanted nothing to do with anyone anymore, not even her own parents. Not even him.

Though physically she seemed recovered, Clayton knew something was definitely wrong. Her emotions vacillated from snappy and churlish one minute to detached and carefree the next. Yet even her calm times were odd. A strange look would come into her eyes, and she was easily agitated and overwhelmed.

As Clayton's concern for her grew, he knew he needed to do something, but he had no idea what. When he awoke on an unseasonably warm Tuesday in November, he made the impulsive decision to close the shop for the afternoon and take Miriam out for a buggy ride. Maybe it was the shorter days that were getting to her and all she needed was a little fresh air and sunshine.

Not surprisingly, she resisted his idea at first. No, she didn't need to get out. No, she didn't want to see any of their friends. No, she didn't want to go shopping or hiking or on a picnic. She just wanted to be left alone.

Clayton finally managed to talk her into a brief ride for an ice-cream cone, but only if they went all the way down in Strasburg, she said, where they were less likely to run into anyone they knew. As he helped her on with her sweater, he glanced over at
Mamm
, who was at the stove stirring a big pot and had heard their exchange. He expected her to give him her familiar look, the one that said Miriam wasn't being a proper wife. Instead, all he saw on his mother's features was concern. She was as worried about Miriam as he was.

A few days later, Miriam chose not to get out of bed—and ended up staying there for more than a week.

“A woman needs time to recover from her child's death,”
Mamm
told Clayton when they talked about it, a response he found condescending.

Of course he knew that, and he was prepared to give Miriam as much time as she needed. He just wanted to make sure she was okay.

As the days continued to grow progressively shorter, not only did Miriam sleep far too much, she nearly stopped eating and drinking. Fearing there was something more serious going on than just grief, Clayton finally insisted on contacting the doctor. The man made a house call that very night, but after a thorough examination, he announced that Miriam's body was perfectly healthy.

Outside, at the car, he was more forthcoming with Clayton, explaining that this was not a physical issue, but that sometimes grief affected people in odd ways and she just needed a little more time.

Clayton thanked him for his help, and over the coming days he tried to keep the man's words in mind. But it was hard to do so when his wife stopped eating almost entirely. When she refused to dress or bathe. When her face grew devoid of almost all expression and she would just stare blankly for hours.

One night she surprised him by having a full piece of toast and almost an entire bowl of chicken-and-rice soup. As he carried the empty dishes back down to the kitchen from the bedroom, he allowed himself to feel a small spark of hope. Perhaps she was finally getting better.

Mamm
noticed the change in appetite as well, so each day following she tried to make the evening meals progressively heartier. On the night supper consisted of baked ham, pole beans, and corn bread, Clayton went upstairs to speak to Miriam, hoping to convince her to come down and eat with them at the table instead of in bed alone.

He stepped into the room, expecting her to be sitting up in bed as she had been for the past few nights. But his heart sank when he spotted Miriam, lying down with her head fully covered by the blankets. As he knelt next to her and pulled the covers aside, she turned toward his movement. Her eyes were open, but it was as if they weren't really seeing.

Clayton was devastated.

“Miriam?” He placed a hand on her arm and gave it a gentle shake. “Please, Miriam. You were doing so well.”

When she didn't respond, he simply laid his head on the pillow beside hers, tears welling in his eyes. “Please come back to me,” he whispered.

After a long moment, she finally responded, her voice soft but hoarse. “Clayton.”

His head jerked up. “
Ya
? Are you okay? What is it?”

She stared at him, and he could almost see her eyes slowly bringing him into focus. “I'm sorry.”

He frowned. “Sorry? For what? Don't be sorry.”

She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I am, though. I'm so very sorry you married me,” she said dully.

Miriam's words hit him in the chest like a hammer. Clayton struggled to stand, and she was saying something else as he hobbled from the room, but
he couldn't hear a sound beyond a roaring in his ears. He stumbled down the stairs and out the front door, the cold November wind blasting his face.

All this time he had been hoping that she was slowly learning to love him, and it turned out that Miriam was sorry they'd ever gotten married at all.

He lumbered across the yard away from the house without a coat, ignoring his mother's calls from the doorway. When he reached the barn, he went inside, retrieved the horse, and hitched him to the buggy.

By the time Clayton got to Uriah's house, his lips were blue and his body was trembling violently. Uriah took one look at him and pulled him inside, wrapping him with blankets and seating him next to the fire as he instructed his wife to heat up soup and coffee.

When she brought both, Clayton couldn't taste a thing but he ate and drank as instructed, like an obedient child. At some point, the mug and the bowl were taken away. The children were ushered from the room. The bishop's wife disappeared and the two men remained alone.

Uriah turned his kind eyes upon Clayton. “What troubles you, brother?”

Clayton wasn't sure how to say what he'd come to ask. Finally, he summoned his nerve and blurted it out.

“I want to know where the church stands on annulment.”

Once the words were spoken, Clayton looked away, not wanting to see the shock in Uriah's face.

The man didn't respond at first. Instead, he stood to get more wood, set it on the fire, and poked it until the flames crackled with intensity. He sat again. When Clayton gained the nerve to look up, he saw that his bishop was neither angry nor horrified.

He was sad.

“Why would you want your marriage annulled?” Uriah's tone wasn't accusing. It was empathetic.

Clayton ran his hand through his hair, fumbling for the words. “It's not for me. It's for Miriam. She… she's sorry she married me. Sorry any of it ever happened.”

Uriah nodded but did not reply, so Clayton continued.

“I don't know how to explain this, but it's like she's dying of grief. She hasn't been the same since she lost the baby. Maybe if she can be freed from our commitment, she can finally begin to recover again. To find a new life. To be happy.” Tears burned Clayton's eyes as he admitted the full extent of his shame. “The marriage has yet to be consummated, if that makes a difference.”