The River (2 page)

R
uth Lantz sat on the tall wooden stool rewriting her grocery list in what her Mamm would not consider a real kitchen, it was that small. “A
gut
thing she won’t ever see it,” muttered Ruth, fretting over which of many Amish recipes to make tomorrow evening for supper. She had been planning the get-together with three of her friends from church, craving some good fellowship. On such occasions, she was ever so thankful for the recipes she’d stored away in her head. Amish recipes, passed down through the generations as if by osmosis—merely by watching her mother gather the ingredients and mix them together. Mamm had never spoken to her about any of the ingredients or instructions as Ruth worked alongside her, even when Ruth was but a child. Yet somehow she’d managed to absorb them simply by doing, just as her sister had.

Goodness, must I think
back to all that?
Ruth checked on the amount of milk and orange juice in her fridge, and chuckled at the memories. It wasn’t often she allowed her thoughts to creep back to those days, but there were times when she felt
more connected to her childhood than others. This afternoon was one of them.

Eyeing her checkbook, she considered reconciling it against her bank statement, then dismissed the idea, putting it off.
It’s been a long and
tiresome week,
she thought, stretching. In spite of feeling tired, she was glad for her job as a medical records assistant—within walking distance of her house, even though she owned a car, purchased shortly after leaving Eden Valley.

When the phone rang, Ruth hesitated to answer. Even after three years, she would readily admit to being startled by its shrill sound. Lately, though, she had been getting calls from James Montgomery, a very nice young man who’d taken her out for coffee, then a lovely dinner at a restaurant near the Rockport harbor. She was becoming fond of him and liked the fact that he was active in her church as an usher and a Sunday school teacher for junior-high boys.
I think
he’s sweet on me,
she thought, wondering if Jim might be calling again.

At the thought, she slid off the stool and took the receiver out of its cradle on the wall. “Hullo, Ruth Lantz speaking.”

“Ruthie . . . it’s your brother Melvin.”

She managed to find her voice. “Melvin? Such a long time since we’ve talked.”

He agreed and went on somewhat hesitantly to ask if she’d received his invitation.

“I did, but . . .” She was afraid he’d hang up if she said right away that she couldn’t go.

“Ain’t a party, really,” he said now. “And prob’ly not anything you’re used to anymore. Just the whole family getting together under the same roof . . . again. To mark the day, ya know.”

“It’s nice to be included, but honestly, it’s such short notice.”
She decided not to string him along. “I can’t go without taking time off work.”

“
Jah
, expected that.” He sighed. “Have ya heard at all from Tilly ’bout this?”

“Not just yet,” she replied, knowing Tilly wouldn’t think of going back for anything.

He was quiet for a moment. “Well, I was hopin’ you two would consider comin’ together, maybe.” There was something in Melvin’s tone, something that made her tense.

“I just don’t know.”

“I planned to call Tilly but decided at the last minute to dial you up first.”

At least he’s frank,
she thought, a swell of memories rushing back.

“Well, if ya can’t come, I understand,” he said flatly.

Ruth almost said,
“No, you don’t,”
but knew better than to speak up to her eldest brother. She wondered what to say.

“But, Ruthie, ya need to know . . . our father’s in an awful bad way. It’s his heart. The doctor’s saying he’s only got a few months unless he gets a pacemaker. And you know Daed.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “Such terrible news.” She sighed audibly. “Tilly needs to be told. She really does.”

“Would ya mind callin’ her, then?”

“I’ll fill her in, sure.”

“Right away?” Melvin’s words seemed to catch in his throat.

She promised she would.

How very odd to think their own brother couldn’t bring himself to contact Tilly, yet he didn’t seem to mind calling her. This was, after all, the first time Ruth had spoken to anyone in the family but Mamm since she embraced the English life.

She thanked Melvin for calling and said good-bye. After
she hung up, Ruth held her breath, then slowly let herself slide down the wall, devastated by the news. She sat on the linoleum, crossing her legs and rubbing her knees, suddenly aware of the soft denim of her worldly jeans.

In all truth, hearing her brother’s voice in her ear was like saying good-bye to Eden Valley all over again. But even now Ruth refused to let herself think too much about the conclusion of her former life. Or Will Kauffman.

———

“I don’t really want to go,” Ruth told Tilly by phone a few minutes later. “And I know
you
don’t, either.” She’d kept her promise to Melvin by calling their sister, and it was clear that Tilly was on the same page with her. “So it’s settled, then,” Ruth stated.

“Absolutely.” Tilly sounded as certain as ever. Ruth could just imagine her sister’s tight expression. “I might consider going in ten years, for their fiftieth,” Tilly said, laughing a little.

“If Daed’s still alive.”

Tilly was quiet for a moment. “So he
is
ailing, then?”

“Evidently so.” Then, realizing she was soft-pedaling, she told her, “Melvin sounded worried.”

Tilly’s silence then surely meant she was considering all of that, but in the end she dug in her heels, even after Ruth explained about Daed’s heart trouble. And surprisingly, Tilly quickly turned the conversation around to their small city’s harvest festival and the annual Scarecrow Stroll. “Rockport’s the place to be this time of year, Ruthie. It’ll be fun . . . remember last October?”

Ruth recalled walking her feet off, visiting every last one of the little shops that backed up to the harbor and voting for
their favorite scarecrows with Tilly and her twins, Jenya and Tavani. “Let’s take the girls along again,” said Ruth.

“It’d be great to see you,” Tilly said. “How about stopping by tomorrow night, too? Besides church, it’s been a couple weeks. We don’t live neighbors, of course, but we’re not that far away, dear sister.”

“It
has
been too long,” Ruth agreed, remembering how often they’d gotten together at each other’s homes when she first moved to the area.
After Tilly helped me leave Eden Valley.

“The twins are growin’ so fast,” Tilly said, her tone more thoughtful. Ruth guessed she might still be pondering Melvin’s urging them to come. The news of their father’s health must be weighing on her, too, just as it was on Ruth. Tilly would never admit that, however.

Ruth begged off politely, saying she had dinner plans. “Some friends from church are coming over.”

“Another time, then?”

“Next week?” Ruth could hear the twins in the background, clamoring for their mother’s attention. “Well, I’d better let you go . . . sounds like you’re busy.”

“The girls send their love to
Aendi
Ruth,” Tilly added. “Take care now.”

Aendi
 . . .

“Talk to ya later.”

Tilly said good-bye, too, then hung up.

Ruth turned to look at the sky, that sliver of blue she could just see from her small brownstone on the edge of town. She pondered her older sister’s reaction to the invitation and seeming disinterest in their father’s health. Why was Tilly so closed to their Amish family?

Moving to the other end of the small kitchen, Ruth stopped
to reach up and straighten her hand-stitched wall sampler. She had sewn it the same fall she’d turned sixteen, the fall she’d just started to attend Sunday-night Singings and other youth gatherings.
When Wilmer first began courting me.

She ran her pointer finger over the smooth satin stitching, a pictorial representation of Eden Valley, complete with the one-room schoolhouse she and Tilly both had attended. “Before things fell apart.”

Glancing outside at the sky again, she wondered how she’d feel if their father passed away before she had the chance to see him again.

Ruth checked her wristwatch and put on her belted navy blue all-weather coat. Then, after grabbing her grocery list and shoulder bag, she made her way out the back door. “Time’s a-wastin’,” she said, once again dismissing the invitation.

Just isn’t meant to be.

“What’d Tilly say?” Susannah asked after Melvin trudged in the back door. Thankfully, she’d waited long enough for him to sit down and get comfortable near her shiny black cookstove. Stretching out his stocking feet, he was glad for the warmth of the dying embers.

“Well, I put in the call to Ruthie instead,” he admitted.

Susannah was
schmaert
enough to sense when he was upset. A good thing, too, since he didn’t have it in him to repeat the phone conversation word for word. “So, are they comin’?” she asked.

Melvin shook his head. “There’s no getting Tilly back here. And whether or not Ruth will come, I’d hate to say.” He drew a breath. “Not sure we’ll ever see those two again.”

“I’m so sorry, dear.” She studied him. “I hope ya know, you’re a very caring brother.”

Despite his gloomy outlook, he did harbor a small fraction of hope for Ruth to come, now that she knew of their father’s struggle, health-wise. As for Tilly . . . well, her reluctance didn’t mean she was a heartless person—to the contrary.
She’s sensitive like
nobody’s business.

Melvin pressed his thumb and pointer finger around the metal band he wore on his right hand and twisted it repeatedly. Far as he knew, he was the youngest Amishman round Eden Valley who suffered with arthritis. The bishop didn’t mind that he and a few others wore the healing rings to help alleviate pain.

Bishop doesn’t mind, but Daed does,
he thought.
How’
s that right?

By now, Tilly had likely turned Ruth against their father, and maybe all of them. Why else was Ruth so adamant about not coming?

People can get
off work if they really need to. . . .

Susannah’s face looked soft in the golden hue of the old gas lamp hanging over the kitchen table. “If Tilly stays away, maybe it’s ’cause she’s still angry. Could that be?” she asked.

“It wonders me.”

Susannah continued. “Some months ago, your mother told me privately that she thinks it was best that Tilly left.”

He was surprised his mother would tell his wife such a thing, though the womenfolk did have ample time to talk—
or is it
gossip?
—at canning bees and applesauce making.

“Some things are better left unsaid,” Susannah said real quiet-like.

So his wife did sense something amiss, but since he wasn’t
one to press, Melvin let it be. “I’m thinkin’ we’ll just go ahead then and plan things as is,” he decided. “Unless we hear otherwise.”

“You’ve done what you could, Melvin.”

He wasn’t so sure. After all, he could’ve said more to get Ruthie to budge a little.
Plenty more.

R
uth set the small kitchen table with her yellow-and-white-checkered place mats the following afternoon, wanting things as pretty as possible for her friends. She’d made a pot of delicious cabbage patch stew, which she’d always loved as a girl, hoping Cathy, Jeannie, and Lorna would enjoy it, too. Ruth had also planned for a pan of homemade corn bread and some red beet eggs, as well as the dill pickles she’d put up last summer with Tilly. After the cozy eating nook was to her liking, she hurried to fry up the apple fritters.
Mamm
’
s
favorite
.

Jeannie Marshall, whom Ruth had known the longest of the three young women, had phoned earlier to ask if they might play Dutch Blitz, a game she’d heard of from a friend of a friend in Lancaster County. Ruth wasn’t especially keen on revisiting that particular game—one she and Will had played frequently with other couples—yet she’d agreed to play tonight. After all, Jeannie was her guest.
“It’ll be so
interesting to have this glimpse into your former life,
”
the brunette with a penchant for drama had told her.

Interesting
was the hallmark of the entire meal, as it turned out. Cathy Donaldson, whom Ruth had met a few weeks ago
and now hoped to introduce to Jeannie and Lorna, brought along a black photo album she’d organized over the years, and after dessert plates were cleared away, she shared the history behind a number of pictures of her older brother, Richard.

“I always called him Ricky because I couldn’t address him by such a formal name. Richard just did not fit,” said Cathy, her brown eyes alight. “Ricky was the kind of person who attracted others without really trying. Ever know anyone like that?”

Ruth had, but she wouldn’t open that door. She rarely divulged much about her former Plain life.
Plain as custard . . .

Lorna Musser nodded her head and bit her lip. “What do you think made Ricky such a magnetic personality?”

“We’d
all
like to know,” Jeannie said, glancing at Ruth and leaning closer to the table to see the page of pictures in Cathy’s album.

Cathy described his friendly, caring manner. “And, as you can see, he had good looks. But there was something about the way he talked to you; a person knew he really wanted to listen.”

“He was fond of people,” Ruth said.
Like Will Kauffman,
she caught herself thinking.

“Was he ever!” Cathy turned the page to reveal a sequence of birthday photos where Richard was squeezing his eyes shut and supposedly making a wish, then blowing out the birthday candles, accepting a piece of chocolate cake from someone’s hand, and taking his first bite. “Ricky was also the most confident and optimistic person I’ve ever known,” Cathy added.

Ruth wondered why Cathy was intent on talking in the past tense about her brother. “Was this birthday an extra-special one, maybe?” she asked.

Cathy covered the magnetic pages with her hands and
looked away for a long moment. “Yes, it was. You see, Ricky died three months after this birthday. Just seventeen.”

Lorna gasped, and the mood in the kitchen grew solemn.

“I cherish these pictures because of that,” she said more quietly.

Jeannie was the first to speak. “Oh, honey . . . we’re so sorry.”

So awful sad,
thought Ruth, unable to say anything. She felt herself closing up suddenly, pushing the sadness away and wishing Cathy hadn’t brought the photos.

Lorna sighed and asked to see the album more closely. She turned the page back to the first photo of Ricky.

Cathy stared down at the table. “This weekend’s the eighth anniversary of Ricky’s death,” she told them. “I miss him terribly.”

They sat there, visibly subdued. Jeannie was sympathetic yet somehow managed to steer the conversation in a new direction, to her sister’s engagement and forthcoming wedding next spring.

Later, after an amusing game of Dutch Blitz, Cathy looked somehow different to Ruth, as if her intimate sharing had altered her. As much as Ruth wanted the evening to go well, she wasn’t sure Cathy had enjoyed herself after the pictures and all the talk about Ricky.

Ruth and her friends lingered in the front room, relaxing and chatting about upcoming church events.

After a time, when they were putting on their coats, Cathy thanked Ruth for the Amish-style meal. “I really hope I didn’t put a damper on things,” she added more softly.

“No, no. I’m glad you felt comfortable sharing,” she replied, trying to be gracious.

“You’re very kind, Ruth. Thank you.”

The four of them exchanged good-byes, and Ruth’s friends headed outdoors to their individual cars.

Felt comfortable
sharing . . .
The irony of Ruth’s own words wasn’t lost on her as she returned to the kitchen to wash dishes by hand. Ruth was comfortable sharing her recipes, but her darkest days in Eden Valley . . . those were something she only talked about with Tilly.

Later, once Ruth had finished drying the dishes, she went to sit in the chair where Cathy had sat at supper, staring over at the colorful handmade sampler on the wall, which presently hung perfectly straight. Her gaze fell on the weatherworn phone shanty she’d embroidered years before; she wished now she’d never included it.
“Be careful who you love,”
Uncle Abner Mast had once stated.

He wasn’t kidding.
Ruth thought again of her first beau.

Uncle Abner was her mother’s oldest brother and, because of his years, quite level-headed.

“Why wasn’t I more careful?” Ruth whispered, getting up out of habit to sweep the floor. But no, she wouldn’t let herself think on that, not on top of everything else tonight.

In many ways, the supper had been a success, yet she wondered why Cathy Donaldson had felt the need to tell them about her brother’s death, and why hearing about it had nagged Ruth so.

Ruth shrugged it off and finished sweeping the floor, getting into all the corners beneath the cupboards. When that was done, she moseyed into the cozy living room, where she turned on her small radio. It was one of her few worldly pleasures, besides her car. She did not yet own a television, nor did she care to, and she permitted herself only wholesome books, especially devotionals.

She reached for the newspaper and flipped through it, but
her heart wasn’t in it. Restless, she pushed one of the sofa pillows behind her head and reclined, thinking ahead to seeing her friend Jim Montgomery tomorrow at the small community church up the street. It was nothing at all like the house-church gatherings of her Amish upbringing. No bishop and no dress code. There was a world missions program she found intriguing, as did Jim, who talked of someday traveling overseas to some of these church-related projects.

A pitter-patter of critter feet scampered across the roof at that moment, and she visualized a long-tailed red squirrel. She’d heard stories of her older brother Chester’s son Curly Pete leaving food out for the squirrels as part of his daily chores, particularly during the late fall months . . . when he was little.

Unable to relax, Ruth got up and went to draw her bathwater. All the while, she felt plagued by the thought of her father’s failing health. She knew she must talk to Tilly again . . . soon.

Tonight,
she decided, after a good, long soak.

Tilly immediately sensed something was wrong when Ruthie called. Her sister certainly didn’t sound her cheerful self and may have even been crying. No, Tilly realized she
was
crying, and the more they talked, the raspier Ruth’s voice became.

“Why
shouldn’t
we reconsider the trip?” Ruthie was saying, calming down a bit now. “I mean, because of Daed’s heart.”

Tilly was puzzled. “I thought we’d agreed not to go. What’s changed your mind?”

“A couple of things.” Ruth sounded more sad than upset. “But I can’t see my way clear without you along.”

“Look, I know this has to be enormous to come full circle like this, sister, but—”

“Please understand, it’s not that I
want
to go. But I think we
ought
to.” Ruthie sniffled into the phone.

Tilly felt a sudden sense of dread. “Have you thought about . . . going alone?”

“I can’t, Tilly. Not without you.”

Tilly didn’t appreciate being pushed into a corner. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it some. I never really imagined myself going back, you know . . . even for a few days.”

“I understand.” Ruth was quiet for a beat. “But I couldn’t bear it by myself.”

The idea of returning to spend time with their family—to see Daed and Mamm face-to-face without anyone to support her—was too much for Tilly, too, but there was no need to tell Ruth what she surely already knew.

“Oh, and have a happy birthday tomorrow,” Ruth said just then.

“Thanks. And we’ll see you at church.”

“That’s right, but I can’t bend your ear there, can I?”

Tilly laughed. “You’d better not. But you’re welcome to join us at the house, of course.”

“I will if I can,” Ruth said. “I volunteered to help out with the women’s luncheon afterward and don’t know how long it’ll last.” She paused. “But I’d like to treat you to a birthday lunch sometime soon.”

Tilly laughed. “A chance to celebrate my birthday twice? How can I refuse!”

They exchanged good-byes and hung up.

Tilly remained seated at the window and stared out at the inky sky.
How can I possibly survive a weekend
in Lancaster County?