All in good time, p.13
All in Good Time, page 13
Oba looked at her, astonished.
“I hated men after that.”
Oba reached out and took her hand. He gently ran his thumb across the top of her narrow hand. Then raised it to his lips. She felt the soft dryness, felt the electricity pulse through her veins, but was helpless in the wake of the onslaught of emotion.
“I hope you don’t feel that way about me.”
She was quiet, so still he heard the whir of a sparrow’s wings as it quietly took flight. Suddenly, without warning, she tore her hand out of his, sat up and forward on the swing, turned her upper body toward him, and said, low, “Oba.”
He was speechless, could only stare at her.
“I mean it. I simply can’t go on this way. Do you actually feel anything toward me? I mean, why are you doing this? I can’t go on. Do you honestly feel attracted to me?” She was almost crying, yet she had to know.
And Oba realized she was a mature woman, not a young girl he would have to put on a display of flowery speeches for. Oba nodded, then pushed her back slightly before taking her hand. “I’m afraid you’ll run, depending on what I say.”
“No. I’ll stay. But tell me nothing but the truth.”
And he did. He told her how she had won his heart by her generous spirit, her honesty, and in time, her beauty had grown on him, like a desert flower on a cactus plant blending into its surroundings.
“I think, Clara, that love and beauty go hand in hand. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Your beauty is not perceived by everyone, but to me, you are like a rare flower others might overlook at first glance.”
“But I’m so homely,” she wailed, clearly distraught. “Life was so much easier before . . . before.” She waved a hand, fluttered it helplessly.
He knew there was no other way to relate his true feelings, so he drew her tenderly to him until she rested in his arms. He was very gentle and very patient. The swing creaked softly. A smattering of sound came from the Rose of Sharon bush as a pair of cardinals chased each other among the branches. A horse snorted by the fence, then stomped its hooves to rid the skin of pesky horseflies.
Finally, she surrendered, lay her head on his shoulder. Her arm came up and around his waist. She caught the scent of soap, fresh air, and newly sprouted grass.
The solidness of him! The solid strength of his waist, his back. She had never known the touch of a man in tenderness. It seemed unfair, undeserved, this blessed liberty of laying her head on this wide chest, to feel the beating of his heart. And when she imagined she would die of sheer bliss, she felt the touch of his fingertips on her chin, a gentle prodding motion. She tilted her head slightly to look into his eyes, splendidly alight with what she could only describe as love and caring.
Slowly, so slowly, he bent his head, while she thought if she never breathed again, but died here in his arms, her whole life leading to this magical moment would have been worth the pain. And when he placed his perfect lips on hers, she felt the beginning of womanly wisdom, the fullness of life, touched by a pure love for the very first time. It was beautiful, astounding, surreal. She did not draw away from him, but allowed herself to be swept away into a new and wonderful love for a man. When he raised his head, he put both hands on the sides of her face, whispered hoarsely, clearly shaken.
“I love you, Clara. It’s the truth. And more than anything on earth, I want you to be my wife.”
To his horror, she burst into harsh, lonely cries of denial. Her head swung back and forth as moans of sadness tore through her throat.
“No, no, Oba.”
“But . . . Clara. I love you.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t. I just helped you with your leg and all that, and now you pity me. All you’re doing is paying me back because you think you should.”
“Please, Clara, no. It’s not like that at all.”
“Yes, it is. You just don’t know it yet. I can’t marry you. I’m a homely thing, covered in freckles. I’m as thin as a stick. I don’t even have . . .” She waved a hand helplessly across the front of her dress. “You’re perfect, Oba. You’re the most handsome man I have ever seen. You have no idea what it feels like to be me. Imagine for one minute. I am not endowed with natural beauty. You won’t want me. Oh, perhaps you feel this way now. You’re a man, you have needs in your loneliness. That’s all this is.”
She got up off the swing, walked the length of the porch and back again. She told him brokenly she could not go and she couldn’t stay. He smiled at her, a long, slow smile that made her sit down beside him, made her want to stay in his arms forever.
But she could not give in to him, she just couldn’t.
For a long moment, there was silence between them, a silence stuffed full of unspoken words, until they tumbled from Oba in the form of a reminder of his own handicap. He became sullen then, a dark mood settling over his features. Turning to her, he asked it was alright if he showed her something, although he did not want to frighten her.
She nodded, her eyes on his.
Slowly, he got up off the swing, began to open the buttons of his shirt.
“Oba,” Clara said hesitantly.
“No. You said you would look.”
He shrugged the white shirt off his shoulders. At first, in the waning light of evening, she did not see. He turned slightly, and a hand went to her mouth.
“Oba, no!” she croaked, broken completely.
She saw the width of his shoulders, the narrow waist, the perfect back of a man, hideously crisscrossed by aged welts, red and purple, some of them white, mottled by lines and wrinkles, puffs of poorly healed flesh. It was a sordid ruination of his back, without imagining the pain and devastation to his soul.
With a strangled cry, she got to her feet, put both hands to his waist, and with tears running down her face, her eyes closed in anguish, she placed her wet face to the most terrible scars, and kissed them.
“Oba, oh, Oba,” she murmured. “It’s so terrible.”
His shoulders heaved as broken cries burst out of him, terrible strangled choking sounds of a pain so deep and endless, there were no words to describe them.
He stepped away, kept his face hidden as he pulled his shirt on, then turned to her. She would always remember his half-buttoned, lopsided shirt, his arms spread wide, his palms up, his hands outstretched in the twilight.
“It’s me. Oba. All of me.”
She shook her head, her eyes agonized as she met this.
“Who?” she whispered.
“You know. May told you.”
“Yes. But I had no idea the severity of it.”
She took his arm, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and said, “Come, Oba. Let’s light a lamp and go inside. I’m cold.”
He wiped his own eyes, then gave a rueful laugh. “There you go, bossing me around again.”
She tried to laugh, but the sound from her mouth was a small, sad cry. He was smiling when she placed a hand on each forearm to look into his eyes, and he put his hungry arms around her and drew her close. This time, he kissed her with abandon, and they drew apart, shaken, unwilling to admit just quite yet the perfect plan God was slowly unfolding.
They talked most of the night, and he asked her to marry him the second time. She told him if he only pitied her, she supposed that was something, after all, wasn’t it? He assured her it was so much more than pity, but he was willing to wait for her answer.
When he decided to stay, she told him no respectable driver would come pick him up in the morning without gleefully telling anyone who had access to his blue coupe that he had picked up Oba Miller at Clara Yoder’s house, in the morning.
Clara did not sleep at all, but lay wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling, questioning God and herself and Oba. Sometimes, she wished she had never met him, other times she knew she had to be with him for the remainder of her days.
“Oh, God, answer me. Come on, just show me.”
She begged and bargained and prayed, made coffee at six o’clock, and watched Oba asleep on the couch in the living room, his arm flung to the floor, his face slightly pressed into the pillow. Would he love her in the alarming light of a sunlit morning? Her freckles, her long, beaked nose, like a homely fledgling bird. Would he love her when she got hopping mad, which was bound to happen sometime? Did a terribly scarred back and half of a leg equal one skinny freckled wife?
He awoke when she dropped a coffee mug, lifted himself off the couch, came to the kitchen with tousled hair and slightly swollen, sleepy eyes. He had never been more attractive. She seemed almost terrified, stayed as far away as possible when she poured their steaming cups of coffee.
“Good morning, Clara.”
“I never say good morning. Just so you know.”
He burst out laughing. “Does that mean you’ll say yes, so I can prepare myself for the lack of being wished a good morning?”
“No.”
“Come sit down, Clara.”
She obeyed.
“I can hardly wait for our future. I am looking forward to living with someone who always speaks her mind, is the most honest person I know, who gets mad as a hornet, who is perfectly lovely, slim, red-haired, and freckled all over.”
Slowly she exhaled, her eyes suddenly weary. “It’s such a bunch of bologna,” she said dryly.
He laughed uproariously this time. “See, I love that so much. I never know what will come out of your mouth. You will entertain me, delight me, just by listening to you.”
“We got a bit emotional last night.”
“We did. And I hope to get emotional with you quite often.”
“Just be quiet about it now, okay?”
She got briskly to her feet, asked if he liked scrambled eggs or fried. Bacon or canned sausage.
She drove him home with Ralph, spoke a few words to May, and took off in a cloud of dust. She returned to the farm and cleaned three stalls before falling into bed, completely exhausted. She slept the night away and rose the next morning, rummaged in a drawer until she found her pen and paper, sat down at the kitchen table, and held her pen above the lined paper for a long moment.
Dear Oba,
Why don’t you ask someone else to be your wife? I’m not good wife material.
That made her sound like a piece of fabric from Spector’s, so she tore off the sheet of paper and began again.
Dear Oba,
I think a younger girl like Sally Troyer would be a much better match.
She thought how much that sounded as if she was putting up a matching pair of horses, so she ripped that page off, crumpled it and threw it in the woodstove.
Dear Oba,
You could marry Amanda Mast. She’s very pretty. You could have a whole row of children.
That was not appropriate either, so she tore that page off, let it flutter to the linoleum. Suddenly, she threw the pen and tablet across the kitchen where they hit the opposite wall and slid to the floor.
She decided anew that marriage was not for her, then spent a miserable week watching the driveway for Tom’s old blue coupe. It rained nearly every day. Low clouds scudded across the horizon like churning, dirty wash water, the horses kicked up mud and brown water on the white board fence, and a skunk crawled under the stone foundation of the house and wouldn’t come out. She left nuts and raisins, cold oatmeal, and bits of cookie at a place he might have been able to squeeze through and then chased the neighbor’s dog out the drive with a broom when he ate everything, leaving the skunk underneath to spray the toxic scent that wafted through the floorboards as thick as if the skunk stood on the kitchen table.
All day Sunday she sat in the stench, now a bit milder after opening all the doors and windows, froze in the brisk spring breeze after the rain, and finally started a roaring fire in the kitchen range. She glared out the window and regretted the day she met May Miller. Like a wilting flower, a pansy. She had no backbone, or she would have let that spoiled Oba fend for himself out in the world. She made a list of reasons why Oba should not marry her, then a list of why he should, which only served to befuddle her even further.
She wished someone would come to visit, but when Elias Amstustz drove in, the surrey bulging with unkempt, snotty-nosed children, she ran upstairs and hid in the closet. She heard the door banging, the “Helloo! Bisht do (Are you here), Clara?” and gave no answer. When they piled back into the surrey and made their way out the drive, she felt like a traitor, a spy, or a liar, maybe all three.
And she watched the driveway.
By Wednesday of the following week, she came to the hard-won conclusion that she was meant to stay an old maid. Cut and dried.
She was deeply ashamed of her emotion. (She had kissed his back.) Had she really done that? The searing shame was like drowning in thick molasses.
She would gather her wits about her, then, and go on with her life. She thought of Oba and Sally, Oba and Amanda, doing what they had done on the porch swing, and a sort of rabid anger sliced through her.
She contemplated packing her things and moving to Wisconsin, where an Amish settlement was being pioneered by a few hardy Ohioans.
When Tom’s blue coupe drove in and Oba got out on a gloomy Thursday evening, she slowly lay down her spoon, took a deep breath, and met him at the door. She flung herself into his waiting arms, sniffed and blubbered, and said yes.
“Yes, yes, yes. I will marry you, Oba.”
And she did, that November, when the weather turned cold enough to keep the roast chicken and tapioca pudding, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the many pies and cakes. Andy’s farm was dotted with Ohio folks dressed in their wedding finery, the family from Indiana sporting all the latest styles, wavy hair and smaller coverings, the men with neatly trimmed beards.
Everyone said they made a handsome pair, Clara having the glow of a bride in love. When they stood by the earnest old minister and he pronounced the sacred vows, more than one young girl felt confused.
Really. Clara Yoder of all people.
The day was like a rose in full bloom, they all agreed. Something was special. The singing in the afternoon rose with great volume, ascending to the heavens. It seemed as if the angels smiled down on the white farmhouse that day.
All May and Oba’s remaining family, the aunts and uncles who had rejected them, were in attendance, and every last one apologized for any heartache they might have caused. None of them would ever know the extent both had suffered, but was it necessary? God would judge in the end. May and Oba had faced the brave journey of forgiveness, had found the road to be much harder than anything in their life, but possible. With the help of their faith in God, they had overcome severe and crippling bitterness and could now reap the benefits of their labors.
On their first evening in the cozy little house, Oba could tell he had been right in looking forward to life with Clara. She was heady with praise, admiration puffing her up like spring toadstools. She chortled to herself about her perfectly beautiful sister’s jaw-dropping assessment of Oba, the desperate need to hide the fact they could not see how she could ever land a husband like him.
She told him all of it, unabashedly, honest, gleeful.
“They say we all have our day in the sun,” she laughed. “Mine was so bright it was blinding today.”
And Oba laughed, the sound of freedom from bitterness and unforgiveness. He could honestly say he loved the guests as one, harbored no ill will, which freed his heart to love Clara, his red-haired bride with the audacious spirit to match.
THE BRIGHT NOVEMBER moon created patterns of bare branches across the roof and the brown lawn on the horse farm. The cold, frosty air made the wooden siding creak after the warmth of the sunny day. The banked fire in the kitchen range popped and crackled. A lone coyote yipped in the woods by the pond, and a dog began to bark a warning to the few sheep and cows still in the pasture as the cold descended.
And since Oba could not easily kneel, they sat side by side on their marriage bed, her hand in his and bowed their heads in silent prayer, the old tradition handed down from the forefathers. Clara was not one given to long prayers, and Oba was only a fledgling in the faith, but their prayers were sincere, their hearts full of love, and God looked down with benevolence, with grace and acceptance, at two people battered by the storms of life, their sturdy raft now resting together on the shores of holy matrimony.
CHAPTER 11
IT WASN’T PERFECT, THIS THING CALLED MARRIAGE.
Clara decided this early on, but it was a bonus in life, an added blessing by which she was truly astounded. She often wondered if she was the only Amish wife who could have spent all her days looking at her husband. Simply observing his beloved face, the determination in his brown eyes as he attempted more and more of the work around the farm. It was a joy to wash his clothes and cook his meals, and never once had he been unkind.
There was a fullness to life, having a husband, and she rarely wanted to go back to her single state. Only occasionally, like when she wanted a quiet moment with the daily paper and Oba seemed to deem it necessary to talk incessantly, telling her all sorts of things about life in general. All the solitude he had ever found himself to be in had exploded into a myriad of thoughts that had to be delivered to her ears alone. At first, she had been thrilled, all these observations of life and she the sole recipient of his views. Sometimes, though, she wished he’d simply be quiet when she was reading.
And he never wanted to go visiting. She had to threaten and pout and carry on before he’d accompany her on a social call, then clam up and sit there like a rock until she finally consented to go home. Oh, it made her hopping mad. When she told him this, he shrugged, said he didn’t like people. They made him nervous. He only liked her. Which made her smile, of course, but still.
And Oba was as delighted as he had always imagined himself to be. Clara was outspoken, funny, smart. She was entertaining, a bright, vivacious part of his life, and his love for her never wavered but grew as the years went by.
