All in good time, p.21
All in Good Time, page 21
Levi recovered quickly. “Look, I have to get home. We’re renting till we decide. Come over this evening. We’ll talk. We live on Route 6, about two miles on the left. White bungalow. Black shutters. My car is red. Parked in the driveway.”
“Thank you.”
It was all Eli could think to say. He bought the spigot, paid for it in a daze, counted the hours till it was time to go. He helped Orphus install the new spigot, listened to his groans of pain as he lay on his back below the sink, trying repeatedly to tighten the spigot to the water pipe, with Lavinia shrieking above his laments.
“Get out from under there. Get out, Orphus. You’re worthless. Let Eli get it. He’s a lot younger and skinnier. Get outta there.”
As always, Eli grinned, thought how unlike his own quiet mother, but he loved Lavinia. He knew her words were crude, belittling poor Orphus the way she did, but they loved each other with undying devotion that bordered on worship. It was just her way.
He didn’t tell them where he was going. He simply left in his truck, driving down the way he’d been instructed until he found a home that fit the description he’d been given.
They were in the back yard—Levi, his wife, and their two children.
“Come on back. We’re here,” Levi called out.
His wife rose from the green-and-white webbed lawn chair, plump and pretty in her lavender house dress, her brown hair curling around her petite face.
She put out a welcoming hand, and Eli clasped it in his. The children came to stand with their parents, their hands extended in a way that Eli found to be extremely polite.
“This is Caroline, my wife. And Patty and Bobby.”
Eli greeted them with a polite, “How do you do? I’m glad to meet you.”
They nodded, said they were pleased to meet him, then went back to their game of croquet.
“Come. Sit down. Levi tells me you are a son to his cousin, May Miller.”
Gratefully, Eli took the proffered chair, his knees taking on a sudden weakness, his heart thumping too loudly in his chest. He swallowed nervously, then swallowed again, unsure of how to proceed. There was so much he wanted to know, and he did not want to offend this seemingly perfect family.
“So, where do we begin?” Levi offered, with a warm smile.
“You go first. Tell me what you know.”
Was it only the merest flicker of doubt that crossed Levi’s face, or was it his heightened awareness? He shoved his hands into his pockets, stretched his legs.
“Well,” he began, then looked to his wife for assistance. She gave him a beatific smile, which seemed to bolster his courage.
“I was three or four when they came. I remember May as a sister. My mother was sick a lot. She didn’t like living on the farm. She didn’t like Arkansas, being so far away from her family. I remember my mother as being extremely unhappy, so May brought sunshine into our lives. She sang, played games with us. She was very nice to us. Well, to me. Ammon wasn’t nice to her. My father was a hard worker, very intense. With a temper. Oba didn’t like him at all. They fought. But May picked up more and more of the housework as time went on, with my mother unwell. They went to church with us. We were one big happy family on the outside.” He paused. “Amish as Amish could be,” he said softly.
“I was Amish too. My mother is Amish.”
Levi gave him a piercing look. “Still?”
“I gather by what she told me, she left the Amish when she . . . I don’t know. Did she run away with my father? What happened? My father’s name is Clinton Brown.”
Again, the piercing gaze was directed at him. Then Levi lowered his face, shook his head from side to side. “Unbelievable. I often wondered what happened to her. In fact, after she left, I didn’t want to go on living. She was all I had. When Oba left, it wasn’t as hard. He fought with my father, I told you. But May . . .”
“Why did she leave?” Eli asked.
It was the question he’d wanted an answer to for most of his life. He felt as if he had never known the truth.
For a long moment, Levi said nothing. He looked off across the yard, his eyes unseeing. Obviously, he suppressed a strong emotion, his face working to contain it. Or conceal it.
“Was she the type to . . . to . . . you know, have boyfriends? Was she sneaking out a lot?”
“No.”
The one word sounded strangled, coming from a place deep within. Suddenly, Levi looked straight at Eli, asked if he was strong enough to hear what he had to say.
“Strong? I hope so,” Eli answered.
“My father was not a normal man, in any sense of the word. He beat Oba, with a whip. I can still picture his white face, his eyes like burning coals. He beat us. My two brothers carry the brunt of his cruelty, carry his nature. They have not . . . well, I’m still hoping they can turn their lives around.”
“But what about my mother? He didn’t beat her, surely?” Eli almost choked on the question.
“No, he didn’t.”
Again, there was a heavy silence, thick with unspoken words, words stuffed into the air between them, stifling their freedom to be relaxed, to have an easy exchange.
“He visited her upstairs, in her room, at night.”
A sledgehammer’s blow would not have hurt more. The breath was literally knocked out of him. His mouth opened and closed.
“No,” he whispered. “Not that.”
“These things are not spoken of. She never said a single word. I was a bedwetter, a young, troubled boy who lived with fear and anxiety. So I lay there.”
Eli could not comprehend the strength and bravery of his dear mother. He could not imagine the days, years of shame. How long had she stayed? He wrestled with a thousand questions, a thousand pangs of pain and pity for one as sweet, as perfect as his mother.
Mam, Mam, was all he could think. His heart cried out to her, as words failed him completely. The tears were thick and hot, coursing down his cheeks and dropping on the grass at his feet. His heavy shoulders heaved with the pain of knowing what his beloved mother had endured. He shook all over, his tall frame trembling like a terrified child.
“I’m sorry,” Levi said. Caroline placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder, kept it there.
“Don’t be,” Eli choked, lifting his leg to reach for his handkerchief. He blew his nose, wiped his eyes, then shook his head, words failing him. Finally, he took a deep, shaking breath, swiped at his face, blindly, and said, “She couldn’t have done anything to deserve that. I mean, no one could, but especially not my Mam.”
“No. Oh my, no. She was a quiet whisper of a girl. Obedient. I imagine she thought of herself as a servant. She tried to get Oba to adopt her attitude. Do you know what happened to Oba?”
That was when the smiles could begin. Lemonade was served and the heaviness seemed to lift. Eli talked easily, remembering his mother’s words, then telling them in colorful detail about Oba’s return, his learning to walk with a prosthesis, the friendship and marriage with the unlikely Clara.
And Levi voiced his wish to travel to Ohio, to meet them all. To see May, especially.
“And this Andy Weaver? He’s good to her?” he asked.
“Couldn’t be better. He’s a great guy. We parted ways because I can’t have a future in the Amish church. I . . .” He spread his hands, indicating his skin color.
Levi and Caroline nodded with a hint of sadness in their eyes.
CHAPTER 17
LEVITICUS AMSTUTZ WAS A MAN OF AMBITION. HE HAD MARRIED Caroline at a young age, after meeting her when he applied for his driver’s license. She was a clerk at the courthouse, as young and as purposeful as he was. He managed a course through the mail, acquired his GED, and from there, worked his way into the University of Arkansas and studied law, while Caroline kept working to support them both. When the babies came, they moved to central Pennsylvania, where he took night classes at Penn State University and worked at an electronics place during the day. Now they were back, with Leviticus continuing his studies, although he would be completing them the following year. He hoped to work in civil rights as well as mental health laws.
He gave Caroline most of the credit, having stuck by him through the worst of times, scrimped and saved, living in cramped apartments while he was gone at night. She knew the rewards could come later, when he hung his shingle on the front lawn of a substantial home in a nice neighborhood. She just wasn’t sure if she wanted to live in Arkansas, the low-lying Mississippi Delta with its heat and humidity, the poverty of the sharecroppers and the constant unrest between the colored people and the whites.
Levi was her beloved husband, the love of her life, after having lost both parents in an automobile crash when she was thirteen and a half years old. Her only sibling, Carson, was a scientist, spending years in the Colombian rainforest, studying foreign diseases, so she was alone, save for the single aunt who had raised her.
Levi had shared most of his traumatic upbringing, but this was new, this fact he shared with the handsome Eli. This dark person with the saddest, softest eyes she had ever encountered. Raised in the Amish church, same as Levi, they seemed to have much in common, but where Levi wanted nothing to do with any of them, which Caroline understood very well, Eli longed to return to his childhood people, the community he loved. His mother, Caroline gathered, was a special person.
Night fell, but the porch lights went on, and still they stayed, talking. The children were bathed and put to bed, Caroline returning with a tray of homemade chocolate chip cookies and a carafe of coffee, the flyswatter tucked under one arm.
“Bugs!” she said, setting the tray on a low table.
“They come with the territory,” Levi said, reaching out to touch her arm.
“The heat and the bugs and the smell of the muddy river,” she countered.
Eli contemplated this, listening quietly as they bantered back and forth, weighing all the pros and cons, finishing with the affordability of air conditioning, which was used in commercial buildings, but the high cost of purchasing a large, weighty unit was indeed questionable.
“The time will come when every household will be able to enjoy a cool interior during the summer,” Levi remarked.
“I can’t imagine,” Caroline answered. “If this was possible, we could live anywhere comfortably.”
Eli nodded. “If you’re not Amish. No electricity there.”
Levi grinned. “Well, I remember. We washed our feet in the granite tub by the back door, scuttled off to bed, shucked our clothes, and tumbled into the unwashed sheets, smelling to high heaven.”
They all burst out laughing.
“It was life, though, and it had its good times. I remember May pushing me on the swing, the way it felt when my toes almost touched the branches. I adored her. She was like an angel. She looked like one.”
“Still does. Yeah, she spoke of you, worried what would become of all of her boys. But especially you. She called you Leviticus.”
“It’s an old name from the Bible.”
“I’m named Eliezer, after her father.”
“Wow. That’s quite a name.”
“Glad our names are shortened to ones folks can pronounce.”
As the night wore on, the bond between them deepened. Caroline yawned, slapped mosquitoes and other buzzing insects of the night, before she told them goodnight and went into the house.
After that, Levi and Eli were given free rein to discuss the many things pertaining to their views of life. Eli told him about Mattie Troyer, the girl of his dreams, one who claimed his heart so fully he could not become even remotely interested in anyone else, no matter the wiles, the many attractions placed before him.
“That’s a tough one,” Levi said. “So much against you. The law does not allow an interracial union, not yet. Law or not, what would the Amish church allow?”
“Not that. Never.”
There was a comfortable silence between them as the night breeze whispered through the tress. A screech owl set up its undulating cry, an eerie sound that set Eli’s teeth on edge. He slapped at a whining mosquito in his ear and watched a pair of headlights coming down the road, casting an arc of light across the house before it was gone.
After a while, he asked, “What do you mean, ‘not yet’?”
“Well, there’s a lot going on in law. Segregation is a hot topic right now. Schools, churches, places of business won’t always have the dividing line, which is coming closer every year. I doubt if interracial marriage is too far behind.”
“But that doesn’t help my situation at all.”
“It would be a first step.”
Eli nodded. “You know, there’s this story in the Old Testament, where Jacob worked seven years for Laban’s daughter Rachel. Seven years is a long, long time.”
“After which, he was given Leah, not the one he bargained for, so back to work he went for another seven years,” Levi finished. “I’ve heard that story from the time I was old enough to go to church. It’s an old favorite.”
“So think about it. The way I feel about this Mattie Troyer. I do believe I would gladly work for the fourteen years, if it meant I could have her.”
“You really would?”
“I would.”
“You could always ask her father,” Levi laughed.
“I can’t joke about it.”
“No. I imagine you couldn’t.”
“I’ll stay single for many years. I simply have no desire to be with someone else. I can’t see myself being married to anyone.”
“I’m blessed beyond measure with Caroline. She’s my guiding star. She’s everything I have always dreamed of and more. I don’t deserve her one bit. The way I was brought up, I was ill-prepared for a relationship, but she has helped me to grow, to see the world in a softer light. It’s hard when your upbringing is based on discipline without love, barely even being liked. You’re mistrustful, if that’s a word. And she is the most trusting, the most loving person I know of. She reminds me of May, of your mother.”
“She does.”
“So when are we going to Ohio?”
“I can go anytime. All I have to do is tell my boss, and he’ll get a substitute. He’s easy to work for.”
CAROLINE WAS IN the back seat with the children with Levi at the wheel and Eli beside him, the summer breeze laden with the smell of diesel exhaust, hot tarmac, and the acrid smell of stale, sunbeaten gravel by the side of the road. The tires hummed and the engine buzzed along as the air rearranged sleeves, hair not bound by a ponytail holder, or anything loose in the car.
The children sat quietly, looking at the books Caroline provided, occasionally giggling or pointing fingers at humorous depictions, their heads almost touching as they turned the pages. Levi tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, the length of time behind the wheel making him antsy, just enough to make Eli laugh out loud.
A road trip was an event they all looked forward to, but as one tedious mile clicked into another one, the sun shone fiercely on the roof of the car, and the water Thermoses lay empty on the floor, everyone became cranky, including the children. Caroline managed to entertain them with books and stories, but after Levi began tapping the steering wheel too much, they decided it was time for a rest.
The rest area was nestled by the side of a mountain, the trees thick and green, like a fringe surrounding the rustic building containing restrooms, vending machines, maps, and literature of the surrounding states. Cars were parked in colorful rows, the occupants spilled around picnic tables, small charcoal grills spewing a stream of black smoke as the charcoal heated. There was ice for the Thermos jugs, and cold sodas to go with the sandwiches Caroline had packed. There was a budget to be considered, so meals at a restaurant were limited to once or twice.
They walked, stretched, found an empty picnic spot, and marveled at the tall mountains, the sky that seemed an otherworldly color of blue. Caroline spread a checked tablecloth and arranged small paper plates and cups. The children stood shyly, watching as older children chased each other across the wide expanse of green lawn.
They were ready to sit down when a large man of color approached them and greeted Eli with the familiarity of old comrades, the delight at seeing a dark face among a scattering of whites.
“Hey, brother! How are you?”
Eli grinned and stuck out a hand. “I’m well, thank you. And how are you?”
“Good. I’m good. It’s nice to see a brother on occasion. So where you headed?”
“We’re on our way to Ohio to see my mother.” He gestured toward Levi and Caroline. “These people are going as well. Levi hasn’t seen my mother since he was a child. They grew up together.”
Nodding, he laughed, introduced himself as Harold Wells and politely acknowledged the introductions before wandering away, his hands in his trouser pockets, whistling softly.
Eli was strangely subdued after that chance encounter. He answered the questions Levi and Caroline asked, but they could tell something had upset him. After their return to the car, everything packed back in the trunk, back on the highway, Eli began to talk.
“See?”
“What?” Levi asked, confused.
“I’m just . . . I’m black. My skin is too dark to ever be accepted into the Amish church. Like that back there? I stick out in a crowd of white people—I don’t belong—and no matter what, I can never change that. I try and kid myself, tell myself some kindly bishop will forgive my black skin, but you know it’s not going to happen. They accepted my mother because she’s white. She’s white.”
Levi looked over at him, amazed to see the despair, the hopelessness.
“They accepted her because she was one of them. I was the fruit of her mistake. I’ll always be an outcast, as far as the Amish are concerned. They don’t want me marrying into their pure white society.” He swallowed, grimaced, his eyes squinting as he pulled down the sun visor. “You know I’m speaking the truth.”
“But you’ve never tried. You don’t know this for sure. If you do want to marry into the Amish church, you won’t know until you try. The laws will change in the coming years.”
