An Amish Christmas With the Bontrager Sisters (3 page)

“I guess you are right,” Sarah smiled brightly. “He does look very handsome doesn’t he?”

“He is a credit to you,” Emma said, leading Sarah back to
Mamm
and Martha who were planning what Martha could put in her quilt. Emma noticed that Martha was glancing at a young man who was smiling her way. He was a handsome young man with ash blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Tall and strongly built he was talking to the David Miller.

Emma suddenly recognized him as Jacob Lapp. He had come to the community a few Christmases ago, visiting his parents. Emma wondered what his intentions were because he kept glancing at Martha as if hoping she would look his way.

The feast was finally served and Emma sat with her family, all three generations, and she felt Eli’s presence strongly, a comforting hand on her shoulder, taking part in the community’s happiness through her. Jarron took a bite from one of the buns she’d baked and gave her an appreciative wink. Emma smiled wide. She wished this happy moment to stay suspended in time.

Emma brushed Ruth’s curls with a brush. The girl squirmed to be let loose. Emma kissed her forehead to keep her steady and Ruth obliged by sitting still for two minutes before she began to squirm again. Emma kissed her again and Ruth giggled.
 

“Must I look nice?” Ruth asked. “
Mamm’s
already seen how dirty I get. She won’t believe I’ve stayed this neat and clean even if you insist I have, so it’s best if I don’t brush my hair.”

“I won’t have your
Mamm
thinking I haven’t been taking proper care of you,” Emma said, brushing all the hair under a tiny lace
kapp
.

“She won’t recognize me,” Ruth said seriously. “She’ll think you switched her
dochder
with some proper girl.”

Emma laughed out loud. The sound of hooves outside alerted her to Jarron’s arrival. She took Ruth’s hand in her own and led the way outside where the buggy was waiting, Isaac sitting beside Jarron ready to return home.
 

They sang hymns as they went along laughing hysterically when the horse relieved itself mid trot. Emma shared a joyful smile with Jarron and knew he was thinking the same thing, how blessed and full of laughter their life would be if they had children of their own.

Sarah’s house looked deserted. There was no pleasant wood smoke rising from the chimney and Jeramiah’s wagon was parked in the small stable beside the house. Emma didn’t think too much of it. It was well past Christmas and Jeramiah must have returned to work on the Lapp’s wagon or maybe he had decided to spend some more time with Sarah. The thought made Emma blush.
 

Emma knocked on the door, thinking it prudent to warm Sarah of their arrival but there was no movement from inside the house. Ruth was beginning to get impatient and Isaac called for his mother. Emma slid the door open slightly and Ruth shot inside. Emma tried to stop her but the little girl went bounding into her parents room.

“
Mamm
,” the girl said and Emma could hear the delight in her voice. “
Mamm
?” Ruth sounded scared now. Emma’s heart leapt in panic and she rushed forward.

A deep sob emerged from the woman on the floor. Her clothes were dusty and her hair wild and unkempt. It took Emma a minute to realize that it was Sarah, her sister, who was lying prone on the floor crying as if the heart had been ripped out of her.

“Sarah!” Emma cried and rushed forward to scoop her up in her arms. Sarah clung to her fiercely. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“He left me,” Sarah sobbed, her voice guttural. “Jeramiah left me!”

Jarron, who had rushed to the room, stepped back from the threshold to provide Sarah her modesty and privacy. He ushered Isaac away and cajoled Ruth into his lap, leaving Emma to handle a distraught Sarah.

Emma was stunned. Jeramiah leaving Sarah? It was unheard of. No one ever left their wives, not in this community. Sarah and Jeramiah had been happy together for so many years. They had been courting each other for as long as Emma could remember, their marriage a shining example for all the young couples in the community.

And now, seemingly without warning, Jeramiah had thrown it all on the wayside. But it hadn’t been without warning, Emma considered as she patted Sarah’s back, letting her cry on her shoulder. Jeramiah’s absence from the farm, his coming home late at night and the greater care he took about his appearance.
 

“He said he’s been seeing a girl,” Sarah hiccupped, “an
Englischer
. She’s twenty three, Emma,” Sarah wailed. “Young and shiny like a new penny. Jeremiah,” she took a shuddering breath to steady her voice. “Jeremiah said he was sick of the plain life, that he wanted a house with central heating, a car and no children mucking about. He’s left with that
Englischer
girl!”

“When did he leave?” Emma asked flabbergasted.

“The day after Second Christmas,” Sarah turned crimson. “He… he said he was too tired but I insisted… and I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. I asked him afterwards if it was something I’d done and he exploded. He said he didn’t want to be trapped in this life anymore.” Her voice dropped a few octaves, “he said he no longer believes in
Gott
.”

It looked to Emma that Sarah was more upset with Jeramiah’s renunciation of the Amish faith than of his infidelity and that piqued her a little. She brushed Sarah’s hair out of her face, her long luxuriant dark hair that Jeramiah had been so fond of. It was tangled and lusterless.

“Why didn’t you come tell us, Sarah?” Emma tucked the hair behind Sarah’s ear. “We could have persuaded Jeramiah to stay.”
 

“I was so ashamed,” Sarah moaned. “She came. In her big shiny car and she waited outside, leaning against her car. She was beautiful, Emma, I could never be that beautiful. I couldn’t tell anyone of my shame!”

“
Ach
, Sarah,” Emma embraced her sister tight. She felt her own eyes sting with the betrayal she must be feeling.
 

When you married someone you gave them your heart, to have and to hold forever. You trusted them to keep it safe, to cultivate it with love and help it grow in fondness. But if they so chose, they could wrench your heart in two and leave it crumpled in the dust and there would be nothing you could do about it. That’s what made trust in marriage so vital for it to last.

*

The community was a hive of gossip. Jeramiah’s actions were so shameful and sudden that it had left them all reeling. The community might not have found out if people hadn’t seen him in the
English
town in
English
clothes openly wandering the streets with the
English
girl. That she was very pretty was something everyone knew and their criticism of Jeramiah was only eclipsed by their disapproval of Sarah’s inability to keep her man by her side.

Martha felt the bile rise in her throat every time she heard the name Bontrager on anyone’s lips. She marched angrily through the field of wheat, laid fallow for this year. The frozen stalks crunched under the new shoes she had got from
Mamm
and
Daed
on Christmas.
 

She felt anger and also helpless distress. Sarah had been there for her, the first person to coax her whole sad life out of her when she’d come back to the community, hiding in Eli’s barn. Martha had always felt close to Eli because she knew that unlike most Plain folk, Eli was the embodiment of the Amish faith. He was humble, caring and never judged and she knew that the only person to help absolve her of her guilt and misery at the time would be Eli, even if it was in an ephemeral form.

Martha wished she could stop people talking, or muster up enough strength to haul Jeramiah back to the community, or at the very least claw his eyes out for what he had done. But the faith preached nonviolence and she had vowed to leave all her
English
tendencies behind.

Martha kicked at a rock in frustration.

“What did that poor rock ever do to you?”
 

Martha jumped about a foot in the air. Jacob Lapp shuffled his feet guiltily. He gave her a shy smile and emerged from behind the apple tree.
 

“I was just on my way to the Williams
haus
,” he said lifting a small basket. “
Mamm
wanted to return the favor of borrowed sugar.”

Martha saw peach preserves in the basket but didn’t reply. She found Jacob distracting. She couldn’t concentrate on being sorry for her sins when he was around. She nodded and began to walk away but faltered when he began to walk with her.

“Do you like to sing?” Jacob asked.

“Everyone likes to sing,” Martha said noncommittally.

“Do you play any instrument?” Jacob asked pulling out his harmonica from his back pocket. He gave a musical toot on it and grinned down at her. Martha felt a dangerous fluttering in her stomach.

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

“Do you like hot chocolate?” he asked, his blue eyes twinkling at the sight of her blushing face.

“Everyone likes hot chocolate,” Martha was curt. She began to increase her pace.

“Will you have hot chocolate with me in my buggy some time?” Jacob asked hurriedly keeping up with her.

Martha was so stunned she came to a complete stop. Jacob grinned down at her.

“So I take that is a yes?” Jacob said and Martha could hear the rumbling of cheerful laughter under his tone.

“
Nee
,” she said harshly and his face fell. “
Nee
, no, never!”

Martha spun on her feet and began to run. She felt hot angry tears trickle down her cheeks and freeze on her chin. Her sister had just been abandoned by her husband, their family was the subject of cruel gossip yet again and everyone must have been revisiting her
rumspringa
scandal with relish. For anyone to think that she would want to be courted at this time was an insult to their family solidarity.

A
boppli
was crying somewhere in the winter mist. The fog rose from the ground thick and nebulous obscuring the sights around her. Sarah’s nightdress was sodden at the hem and her bare feet were caked with mud. She had walked for miles and now she could finally see the roof of Jeramiah’s barn.
 

But Jeramiah didn’t have a barn. Never inclined towards animal husbandry and rearing, Jeramiah had had no ambitions for a barn of his own. He tilled and planted the little land he had around him in the summer but mostly he preferred to work in the
English
town.

The
boppli’s
cries grew more urgent and Sarah looked frantically about for a tiny bundle on the ground. The thought of the poor
kinder,
cold and frightened, made her heart wrench with pity. She stumbled forward, the ground freezing her feet. She found the barn door ajar and wrenched it open to seek its relative warmth.

A bundle lay in the scattered hay, tiny fat arms pushing up into the air in protest as the cries grew louder still. The animals were pushed back into the dark corners of the barn as if they were scared of the
boppli
.
Silly goats,
Sarah thought as she knelt down on her knees and picked the child up.

The
boppli
was beautiful, pink cheeked and pouty mouthed and his eyes were a sea of sadness.
 

“Mother,” the
boppli
said. “Mother, I’m sorry,” and he began to cry in earnest.

Sarah’s blood froze in her veins. She found the talking
boppli
horrifying, a terrifying work of the devil to lead her astray. She wanted to drop the
boppli
to the ground and run. A heavy hand came out of the dark and grabbed her by the shoulders. Sarah screamed.

“You mustn’t,” Eli said gently but Sarah was ripped from her nightmare as consciousness filled her mind.
 

The cold light of early morning peaked in through the windows and Sarah sat up with a jerk. She was late. Her feet scuffed the cold floor for her slippers. Jeramiah would be angry if he didn’t get his breakfast and had to go to work on an empty stomach.

She was nearly dressed when she remembered that Jeramiah had left two months ago, that she no longer lived in her own home but with her
Mamm
and
Daed
and Martha. Sarah’s fingers grew heavy and the buttons on her skirts became impossible to manage. She let her hands fall heavily by her side.

She let her knees buckle and fall to the floor painfully. She clasped her hands and prayed like she used to when she was a child, leading her younger sisters in prayer before bedtime. Every morning Sarah prayed like a child, in earnest, breathlessly and with feeling, for the safety of Jeramiah, for his safe return back to the faith, for the happiness of her children and for the safe delivery of the child
Gott
had blessed her with in
His
infinite wisdom.
 

Sarah needed these moments of devotion to help her build herself back up, little by little every day. She got up on steadier feet and walked out the bedroom door.
Mamm
was baking fresh bread and frying eggs at the wood stove. Martha was tending to Isaac and Ruth, her gaunt children who became fearful every time she came in the room. They had never seen her this unhappy and they were loath to ask where their
Daed
was, lest it make
Mamm
cry again.

“And how are my
kinder
doing this morning?” Sarah asked with as pleasant a smile as she could muster.

“
Gut
,” they said enthusiastically, taking their cue from their mother’s good mood.

“Eliza has a corn husk doll she made with her
Mamm
,” Ruth said through a mouthful of buttered toast. “Can we make one as well,
Mamm
?”

“Of course we can,” Sarah said. “But you will have to find me the corn husks on your way back from school. And have you been helping
Grossdaed
?” she asked Isaac.

“
Ja
,” Isaac said. “I help every day before and after school. I collected these eggs in the barn,” Sarah thrilled at the pride in his voice. She found it incredible that her children still had the will to go on, to feel happy and accomplished when she felt broken.