All in good time, p.19
All in Good Time, page 19
“Of course I would ask you to be my girl. I have never had a moment’s admiration for anyone else. From the first time I saw you, you have had a special place in my thoughts.”
“But not your heart.”
“I have never allowed you to enter. I can’t do that.”
She nodded, understood what he meant, having found herself in the same position numerous times. “Well, Eli, we’re not going to solve anything by sitting here with our wishes. Things will likely never change, so if we want to be honorable upright citizens and obedient members of the Amish church, then I guess we’re pretty much doomed to accept our fate.”
He nodded.
Then, “Do you believe in prayer? Do you believe God answers prayer if we ask in faith, Eli?”
“I do, yes.”
“Then why don’t we both ask God to guide us? To help us?”
“When we already know the answer, should we keep on asking in case He may have changed his mind?”
Mattie laughed, but it was a sad sound of pretended mirth.
“I have to tell you before we go. I’m leaving next week. My mind is made up after tonight. I can’t live here, knowing we don’t have a future together.”
She caught her breath. “Do you have to go? Can’t you stay, and we’ll still be able to see each other? Talk to each other?”
“It will only become more painful. The temptation to do the wrong thing will only increase. You know we both need to find the courage to put our feelings behind us, and God can bless us in other ways we can’t understand now.”
Eli convinced himself as he spoke, shored up the foundation of self-denial, until she began to weep so softly and delicately it felt like a dagger in his heart.
“Don’t cry, Mattie. I’m not worth it. I’ll be gone, and you’ll find someone new, someone you never imagined you could love.” He got to his feet to keep from pulling her into his arms, to erase the tears trembling on her eyelids. “Come, Mattie. We’ll go home now. Forget about this evening. I never should have picked you up in the first place.”
He did not help her to her feet, and offered no assistance to reach the buggy, but strode ahead, a tall, broad-shouldered figure intent on choosing the way of righteousness, to trod the narrow path with his heavy cross laid squarely on his shoulders.
She called out before he reached the horse. “Eli!”
He stopped, turned partway.
With a broken cry, she reached him, stood very close, put both hands on his forearms.
“This can’t be it. I can’t believe this will be the last time I will ever see you. I don’t want anyone else. I will never love again, I don’t care what you say, or they say. Whoever they are. I want you, and only you. I love your dark skin and your kindness, your curly hair, and your . . . your . . .”
Her voice faded away as she fell against him. He felt her hands leave his arms, felt the absence of her presence, and almost, he did the right thing, shook her off and walked away. Her words numbed his resolve, and he shook, as helpless as a dying leaf in a stiff gale.
“Don’t, Mattie. Don’t.”
But his empty arms were filled with her supple body, as she pressed against him. Her arms came like strong bands around his waist, and with a groan, he lowered his face to her upturned one, her eyes luminous in the half light of the pole lamps.
“Kiss me just this once,” she whispered through her tears.
Both of them could not have been prepared for the beauty of the meeting of their hearts. Eli was shaken to the core, finding her mouth repeatedly giving him the assurance of her love, her devotion. She awakened the face of his staunch denial, which he surrendered gladly, and loved her with every atom of his being. The sweetest, most satisfying declaration of a forbidden love, but only for a short time before they realized this was an indulgence which brought on the pain of their parting.
And still they clung to each other.
“I can’t let you go,” he whispered hoarsely.
A muffled cry was his answer, before she renewed her grasp on his waist.
THE HOUR WAS very late when Mattie’s worried mother heard the rasp of steel buggy wheels on gravel. She breathed a sigh of relief, rolled over, and punched her pillow before becoming sleepy and relaxed. Thank goodness Mattie had finally come home. It was way later than usual.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF Eli’s leaving didn’t reach Mattie’s mother till Friday when she shopped at the market in Oakley, but coupled with the news of her daughter’s absence from the hymn singing and the late arrival on Sunday evening, the mother of many teenagers put two and two together. She had a talk with Mattie about the circumstances surrounding the past Sunday evening and was met with a flaming outburst of denial and told to mind her own business.
She berated herself for not having nipped this in the bud way back when it bothered her to see Mattie going away with that black Eli, and now here she was with all these imagined scenes roiling around in her head.
She knew Mattie cried in her room, had found crumpled handkerchiefs under her pillow, had seen her red-rimmed eyes. But she figured if he truly had left them the way Sam Ada had said, well then, she’d get over him. She couldn’t bear to hear the truth, anyway, thinking of the awful mother she might have been, after all, her daughter falling low enough to actually consider black Eli. Well, he wasn’t really black, but certainly not white, either.
She was deeply relieved he had left.
THE WEAVERS FOUND a handwritten note, the bed neatly made, and the brown suitcase missing along with a few changes of clothes. May was beside herself, weeping softly when no one was around, begging Andy to go after him.
Andy was overwhelmed with the responsibility of having all the farm work dumped on his shoulders. Lizzie stepped up and took on the milking Eli used to do, but that did not help with the dozens of other chores surrounding him. He wavered between pity for May, outrage against Eli, self blame, and a kind of crippling humility. The day he so gladly accepted Eli as his own, he could not have foreseen this sad end to having him as a beloved son. And he had been beloved. He had.
He justified himself to May, reminded her of the good times, of which there were plenty, but somehow could never quite get past the barrier of how he responded to Eli’s idea of apprenticeship as a farrier.
Andy sat in the living room, his elbows resting on his big knees, his head bent as he listened to the soft heartbroken sounds of weeping, May curled on the opposite side of the sofa, the girls and Junior sound asleep upstairs. He wanted to take her into his arms, freely, the way he had always done, but knew he might only be tolerated, not accepted.
“May,” he choked out.
There was no response.
“Please. Don’t blame me. He would eventually have left anyway. It was that Mattie Troyer. He couldn’t be here because of her.”
“Don’t, Andy. Don’t say that. He could have at least stayed nearby if . . .” She didn’t finish.
And Andy could only hang his head. He knew he could not comfort his wife, the way she felt he had failed Eli. She believed he had not loved Eli enough. And perhaps he hadn’t. But the cold, hard truth had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with social laws, what the world considered right or wrong. Rules. Would he allow Lizzie or Fronie to marry someone of another race? Hard questions with no easy answers.
The crumbling of the complete trust between Andy and May, the devotion they took for granted, was harder for Andy than anything else. And he could not help being slightly aggravated at Eli for having disrupted the almost perfect peacefulness of his life on the farm with May. And at times, he felt a kind of self-hatred for having been caught unprepared, using blunt force in the face of feeling helpless. Blunt force in the way he had handled Eli’s simple desire to learn the farrier trade. He might as well have hit him with a club.
May simply wept, wasting away in her pool of sorrow and fear, the hovering shadows completely taking over, snatching away her abiding faith in the goodness of God. Inwardly, she railed against the Amish ordnung, the US government, every law and ritual ever invented, then fell into a deep repentance, sitting in a spiritual heap of ashes dressed in spiritual sackcloth.
She read and reread the letter Eli wrote, filled with his love and appreciation, never blaming anyone. He had to accept his fate, so he would be traveling back to Arkansas to find his family, make a home, a name for himself as an experienced farrier. He wished them well and would return for a visit as soon as he was able.
How suddenly this had all come upon them, May thought. How unfair to have it dumped on her shoulders without warning. But still, she supposed the warnings had been there all along, only covered completely by a refusal to see and understand God’s law.
Or was it God’s law? Who made these rules? Her mind never rested, but sought ways to get around this horrible sense of loss. Without realizing it herself, she had doubled her loss by shutting out her beloved Andy, placing blame, pitying herself, which is the most often used fault of human nature.
May was not perfect, in spite of being an inspiration to those around her, a rare light of being the keeper of a serene and loving home. Andy gave her space to overcome the debilitating heartache before trying to work on their own broken trust. It was only after they cried together, allowed forgiveness to do its healing duty, that their lives were restored to the times of peace and happiness. The sun shone again, although with an even more generous light than before. Although they always keenly felt the absence of Eli’s kind, sturdy presence.
HE CAME HOME after two years and nine months, on a brisk March morning when May was upstairs painting Lizzie’s room a muted shade of pink, a color that suited the growing young girl’s fancy, a fact that delighted May, allowed her to revel in the joy of having daughters.
She was moving the stepladder to reach a far corner when she thought she heard a knock on the front door. She was only a bit annoyed, her goal to finish the room by suppertime in jeopardy, but she laid down her brush before flying hurriedly down the stairs, peering through a living room window to find a black Ford pickup truck in the driveway.
She knew no one who drove a black Ford, but didn’t hesitate to throw the door open, expecting to find a salesman, the Fuller Brush man having been a nuisance in the neighborhood.
“Hello, Mam.”
She felt faint with shock and threw up her hands at the sight of her tall, grown-up English son. Oh, he was so English, his hair cut short against his scalp, his plaid shirt denying all traces of his ever having been Amish.
“Eli! Oh, Eli. It’s you!”
The March wind caught the screen door and slammed it against the outside wall, but neither one noticed or cared. What was a broken hinge compared to the joy of seeing her precious Eli?
He took her into his strong arms, and she felt redeemed, blessed beyond measure. She looked into his kind brown eyes and found the same love and admiration he had always had for his mother.
She made him sit at the kitchen table, brought him homemade root beer, a cup of coffee, sugar cookies, and Swiss cheese, crackers, and homemade beef bologna. Lizzie came to the kitchen, shy, standing awkwardly, before he noticed her, small, petite, with traces of his mother’s perfect features.
“Lizzie! Look at you!”
She giggled, but would not come closer.
The past two years had been lessons in survival. Mostly, he had been treated well, especially among those who were extended family. Roy and Martha had both passed on, after their move to Louisiana. May said she would always regret never having been able to apologize for the sad heartache she had caused them.
Eli could barely express the feeling of arriving to the town in Arkansas, the town his father had called home, the outpouring of love and unrestrained acceptance as one of them. Repeatedly tears sprang to his eyes as he related the effusive welcome, the verbal outpouring of gladness that he had returned. They hadn’t even known he was born. He laughed as he recounted the time spent with relatives, the way they expressed themselves, the warm hugs and good-natured teasing. They were poor, for the most part, living happily with what the Lord provided, resting easy on neighborhood porches after a day in the fields. He voiced his anger with lowered brows, the hideous unfairness of sharecropping, white men treating their counterparts like dogs. Some of his cousins, though, were furthering their education, becoming lawyers or dentists, even bankers.
May was rapt, listening to the deepened voice of her son, marveling at this maturity, his attitude of fairness, the humility with which he delivered his thoughts and opinions.
“I guess we were born a step lower than the whites, I don’t know. If things ever even out, it’ll be long after I’m dead and gone.” He shook his head, as if this statement was hard for him to believe.
“Oh, perhaps sooner, Eli,” May said hopefully. “There’s this thing going on called the civil rights movement. I read about it. Andy and I discuss it. He seems to think, if change comes, it will be slowly.”
Eli nodded. He looked around, sighed contentedly. His eyes returned again and again to May’s face, as if frequently seeing her would etch it more permanently in his memory.
When Andy came in to warm his hands, he stopped when he spied Eli, then lifted his hands in disbelief. There was only gladness in his welcome, a certainty to his booming, “Eli! Out of nowhere! Here you are!”
A firm handshake, their faces almost level. Man to man.
May suppressed the lump rising in her throat. All these years together and here they were, these two men sharing her life. One as beloved as the other. A quick prayer of gratitude.
He was staying a week, he said. And then he asked about Mattie Troyer. “And John,” he added quickly. May passed on the small bit of information she knew, saying she hadn’t heard anything at all unusual. Yes, she believed Mattie was among the instruction class to join church in the neighboring district. And then, he asked the hard questions—was she dating? Had she married someone?
Both Andy and May shook their heads and kept their faces impassive. Eli wondered if there was there a chance he could talk to her. Did they think it would be allowed? May trembled, a chill chasing itself up her spine, thinking of the dangerous consequences. She knew all too well the sown seeds of longing, and the repercussions, the doubt and fear.
“Eli, I don’t think I would encourage you to see Mattie. I know it sounds harsh to you, as if I didn’t care about your feelings, but I really think it would be best for you to move on. Really and truly move on, in body as well as spirit. Your thoughts need to release her. I’m afraid nothing good will come of this. You will only hurt people, cause division, setting relatives against one another. I beg you to let her go.”
“But you didn’t. You didn’t just forget about the man you loved.” Eli’s voice was cold, hard.
May paused, remembering her first love, his smooth, dark skin, their very first kiss. She pushed the memories back but her voice quivered as she replied. “No, I didn’t. And though I would never trade you for the world, there have been . . . consequences.”
THE MARCH WIND was relentless, the bare branches of the oak tree by his upstairs bedroom scraping continuously across the shingled roof, tapping on the painted siding. It howled and moaned its way along the eaves, set a loose shingle to whirring, an annoying sound that grated on his raw nerves.
He rolled from side to side, flopped on his back, and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. His main purpose for his return was to see about Mattie’s welfare, he admitted it. But now his mother had made an honest effort to sidetrack him. He wanted to see her. He had to. Every turn of the truck’s wheels had been the closing distance between them. Almost three years, and he’d tried honestly. He’d learned the ways of the world, sat in juke joints of the South and been introduced to the wiles of women. Thick as flies, hovering about, but he’d only felt annoyance. Never once had the night in the park left his mind, the sweetness of her outburst, declaring a love that mirrored his own. If he lived to be a hundred, that incident would surpass any other relationship.
How long did a person wait and hope? He didn’t know. Long into the night, arrows of regret and doubt stung painfully. He was accosted by weakness, had no strength to say no. He knew he should get in his truck and drive away, but the thought of returning to the sweltering Mississippi Delta was more than he could tolerate.
Especially without seeing her.
He dozed fitfully, overslept, and missed his mother’s breakfast. She offered to fry more eggs, fry more bacon in the cast iron skillet, but he said a bowl of oatmeal would do. He felt grumpy, out of place, disoriented.
May looked at her son. He had always worn the expression he felt in his heart, and this morning, his face was a map of misery.
“Eli.”
“Hmm?”
He pushed away his oatmeal, raised his eyes to her, and she was shocked to see the despair, the lack of his usual bright interest in those around him. She sat across from him, her eyes deep wells of empathy.
“I know this is hard. But believe me, you’ll do well to forget her.”
“I know.” He hung his head, lowered his eyes, picked at a thread on the tablecloth. “Why was I born, Mam? Why?”
“We don’t always know, but it’s very clear to God.” She spoke quickly, grabbing at anything that came to mind. She was suddenly faced with a wild, irrational fear, that of Eli’s despair becoming more than he had realized it could be.
“I have to see her.”
“No, Eli, please. Please try and give in to God’s will. I beg you.”
She stood waving as long as she could see the black truck going out the drive, watched until the dust had settled, listened till she could no longer hear the chug of the engine. When she turned to go back inside, her shoulders drooped and her back was as rounded as a much older woman’s. The full responsibility of her son’s life was almost more than she could carry. She had always known it would come to this, but how could she have prepared herself for the poignant reality of his forbidden love?
ELI DROVE BLINDLY, slowly. He had to pass her place at least once. Just in case she might be walking along the road, driving a team of horses in the field, anything. Seeing her face just once more would be enough.
