Beside Still Waters (11 page)

They'd be moving to Montana. She was sure of it. All of them.

"Can I speak with you for a moment, Marianna?" It was her dat's voice following her, carrying on the damp air. She turned and paused her steps. He stood by the buggy and watched as the others moved toward the house.

"Of course." She looked down at her sister, who was asleep in her arms, and then looked up at him.

He approached her, and his face looked tired. He looked sad too, as if regretting the words he had to say. "I know this isn't how you planned your life. I know you have dreams of your own." He lifted his hand and touched Ellie's hand that was curled against her neck. He let out a low sigh. "I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think I had to do this—for my family. Your brother David, he sees Levi and wants to follow. I'm worried for him. I know it's a few years yet, but those thoughts settle in one's mind and grow like weeds, choking out the good lessons he ought to be learning. And then there's the job. Trying to tend to the farm and work in town is hard. I don't have enough time with the boys. Can't help your mem."

"I'm doing the best I can. Maybe I should tell Mrs. Ropp that I can't help at her place anymore." Even as Marianna spoke the words, a twinge of sadness pinged against her heart. She counted on that job to get extra money to pay for fabric for her quilts.

"That's not enough, I'm afraid. Your mother, well, I thought she would have told you by now, but she's with child."

Marianna thought back to the numerous signs, her mother's paleness. The way she was just holding her stomach today, as if she thought she was going to be ill.

"But that's a reason to stay. She shouldn't travel—shouldn't have to try to set up a home if she's with child."

"The midwife thinks differently. Thinks it will help your mother to get away. There is a good midwife in Montana she knows and recommends. She believes your mother needs to get fresh mountain air and—"

"And not be around Levi."

"It breaks her heart." He lowered his head. "And now to hear David . . ."

She wanted to argue. She wanted to pout, but the look on her father's face was one of pure love. He had no selfish motives. It no doubt was hard leaving his farm—the place he took pride in for so many years.

"And after the baby?" She lifted her eyebrows.

"Then you can return. If six months comes and you're still not settled, I'll pay for your ticket. Aunt Ada already volunteered her room—for you to stay with her." He lowered his head and she could see how hard it was to ask this of her.

Ellie stirred in Marianna's arms, and a horse tugged on her lead and whinnied, as if wondering what they were doing standing there, instead of taking her to the warm barn and her feed. The bark of the neighbor's dog could be heard from down near the creek and the songs of birds in a distant tree.

Marianna looked away from his face to the land around them. Sometimes she liked to walk through her father's fields and imagine what it would have been like when her great-grandfather had first settled the land. When two thin lines of wagon trails had led him to this place. She heard from the lady at the grocery store that from the sky the fields looked like a quilt. She thought of that every time she worked on her own hand stitching. They were one small quilt square sewn together amongst so many others. It gave her comfort knowing that they were part of a larger pattern. That they were stitched to others. That there was a good design that God somehow knew.

She closed her eyes and imagined her seam ripper, unfastening the threads and yanking them out. She looked to her father's gaze and again realized he knew what he was asking. And for him to ask meant he was desperate for her help. Needed her support to make it.

"
Ja.
I'll do that. I'll go for a time. I'll help." She meant it. She'd move. Help her mother. And return. She focused on his eyes and nodded, making sure he understood she
would
return.

He looked away, staring into the fields he'd planted but wouldn't see harvested. "Six months then for you. Tomorrow we pack our things."

CHAPTER NINE

Twenty of Marianna's friends had gathered for the youth sing at the Zook's house, but Marianna was only interested in one. For the last hour they'd been sitting around a small fire, boys on one side and girls on the other. They sang the same type of hymns they did at church. The same songs that their parents had sung as youth, their grandparents too, and before them many generations of Amish. Marianna thought little about the words lifting from her lips. She repeated as mindless as a young child reciting his ABCs. Her mind was on Aaron, and she hoped he was thinking of her. Would he keep caring after she was gone?

The odor of burning wood and smoke mixed with the fresh scents of spring. In the distance the setting of the sun turned the sky a soft pink. She hadn't realized how beautiful it was.

A few times during the gathering, her eyes had met Aaron's across the campfire, but most of the time she kept her eyes focused on the blades of green grass under her feet, her shoes, even her hands on her lap. Other guys and girls were more obvious with their flirtations—mostly those who'd already begun dating.

After an hour passed, Mrs. Zook exited the house with a platter of sandwiches, placing them on the picnic table. The singing stopped, and excited conversation and laughter filled the air. Marianna rose and followed the others, noting how awkward it was without Rebecca or Naomi. She was friends with the other girls, but she'd always been closest to those two. She patted the back of her kapp, making sure every hair was in place and then stood to the side of the table, not hungry.

Her nerves were balled up, like pea pods under her skin from being this close to Aaron for the last hour. Add that to the fact this was her last youth sing for many months. It was strange to know that all her friends would still be here, gathering to sing and in the summer to play games and visit by the river, but she wouldn't be with them. Would they miss her? Would they even notice?

A hand touched her arm. A small bolt of lightning jolted up her arm and zipped her heart, but when she glanced over it was Mrs. Zook, not Aaron, who stood there.

"Aren't you hungry? I've made plenty. Don't want you returning home telling your mother I didn't feed ya."

"Oh no, I'd never say that, ma'am. Just waiting till everyone got theirs first." She stepped forward and took a bread and cheese sandwich from the stack and then stepped back to Mrs. Zook's side. She smiled and then took a big bite, forcing herself to chew and swallow.

"So, I hear you're going to be moving soon?" The older woman with graying hair tried to make her tone light, but Marianna noted concern in her gaze.

"Yes, my father wants us to go west for a year. Montana."

"Oh, I see." The woman cocked one eyebrow, and Marianna could read from her face what she was thinking. It wasn't an
I-am-worried-about-my-son's-care-for-you
type of look. Instead her eyes said
I-am-worried-you're-leaving-so-you-can-do-as-you-wish-without-the-church-knowing
type of look.

A cry sounded from the house. Mrs. Zook looked over her shoulder to see one of her children standing in the doorway, holding a hand to her head, chin tilted up, crying.

"Will you excuse me? That's Hilly, she could fall and get hurt in a room full of goose feathers. We'll have to talk again, dear, before you leave."

"
Ja,
of course."

She hadn't gotten five steps away when Aaron approached, taking his mother's place.

Aaron crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight from side to side. "Can we talk?"

Marianna glanced up at him, but the pleasant look he had during the sing was gone.

"Sure."

They walked to the side of the barn, still in view of the others who were finishing their sandwiches and once again gathering around the fire. Marianna leaned her back against the wall. Her knees were soft and she used the support of the barn to hold her up.

"You're leaving? Did I hear my mother right, Marianna? I thought it was just a rumor." He removed his hat, turning it in his hands. A ring was left on his blond hair where his hat had sat, and she even found that appealing.

"Yes, Dat has made the plans. I . . . it wasn't my idea."

"But the cabin. I've been working on it for six months."

"You speak of a cabin, but you've yet to even ask me out for one drive, Aaron Zook."

"Nonsense." He ran his fingers through his hair, focusing his eyes on hers. "You've always known how I've felt about you. There hasn't been another girl I've paid attention to since the last year of school when we used to walk home on the same path."

"We were just children. That was four years ago. How was I to know?" Even as she said the words, Marianna felt heat rising to her neck. Aaron was right, she'd always known.

"Do you think I walked one mile out of my way if I didn't care?" He pointed toward the woods behind their house, toward a house she knew he was building back there. "Do you think I'd invest everything I have in a house . . . a home?"

Another song started and the others around the fire sung with gusto. Marianna felt a stirring in her gut. They shouldn't be gone too long. It wouldn't look right.

"Aaron, listen, even if I have known, there's nothing I can do about it. But my father and I have made a deal. He talked to me after church. If I don't like it after six months, I can return and live with my aunt."

"That old maid who always has her nose in everyone's business?" He slapped his hat against his leg. "I won't be able to come around without everyone from Ontario to Kentucky knowing about it. She'll write up all our comings and goings in that
Budget
column she prides herself in."

"It's better than me being a thousand miles away, isn't it?"

Aaron scrunched his face, as if he wasn't quite sure about that, and Marianna punched his shoulder with a soft fist. It was the first time she touched him—well, at least in the last ten years, and not counting that time she'd joined the softball game and he'd tagged her arm with his mitt as she approached third base. Marianna felt warmth spread through her.

"But Mari—" He focused his eyes on hers. She could read questions there. Fears. "What if you find another guy? Maybe there's someone out West who's already ready for a wife?"

Laughter burst from Marianna's lips. "You can't be serious. They're all mountain men from what I hear, and that's not interesting to me at all."

Aaron lifted one eyebrow, as if unsure he believed her. Then returned his hat to his head. "
Ja,
well, it would make me feel better if I could see you at Christmas. I can come to Montana. I suppose I'll be busy building our—my place until then."

He looked to the fire, where the others were gathered, and then back to her again. The pain in his eyes was clear. "I'm worried about you, out in the Englisch world. There are people that will take advantage of your kindness. Men who will see your beauty."

Her stomach flipped as he said his last word, and she pressed her hands down her apron, as if trying to smooth an invisible wrinkle. "You're talking nonsense. We're going to another community. I'm sure it will be very much like here, only smaller. All Amish live the same types of lives. I bet there will be no real difference at all."

"Not from the way your uncle was talking. The people there don't pay as much attention to the
Ordnung.
I heard their women are allowed to work in woodshops along with the men, not just as school teachers and store keepers. My mom said she heard women were allowed to take communion even if their cape is sewn instead of pinned. And . . ."

"And what?" Marianna shook her head, Aaron should know better. She'd never sew her cape.

"And they hire drivers every week to take them to town. That seems like a lot of interaction with the Englisch if you ask me. They let Englisch worship with them, too. Ike said some even attend Englisch prayer meetings. I told my father and . . ." Aaron paused and looked at her. Then he lifted his hand and stroked her cheek.

His hand was warm and strong from work. He took a step near her and a million needles pierced her skin, moving from her neck down through her arms. She felt the rising and fall of her chest, and she told herself to breathe. Aaron's breath was warm on her forehead and she knew if he dipped his head just a bit more their lips would touch. The tip of her tongue licked her lips and her knees quivered. He ran his hand from her temple, down her cheek, stopping just at the corner of her lips. A burst of laughter carried from the other young folks who were still at the fire but they no longer concerned her. Nothing concerned her beyond Aaron's touch. She'd never felt more joy, like hot flames in her chest, than to see the way he looked at her. Then, just when she was sure he would kiss her, Aaron took a step back.

"My father said he's worried about you. About your reputation."

The emotion that had been building in her throat tightened into a knot. She cleared it away, her forehead folding, her eyebrows lowering. "Excuse me?"

"Who knows what type of community is there. What if they are wild? What are you going to do, Mari, stand up to all of them?"