Wife on His Doorstep Read online

“Gott doesn’t make mistakes,” Mammi said gently. “Isn’t that what you said earlier? Gott counts out days. He lays them out before us, and when our time to go home to Him comes, we go.”

  Miriam met the old woman’s watery gaze, and for a moment, they were both silent.

  “Are you scared?” Miriam asked weakly.

  “A little,” Mammi replied. “I’ve never died before.” The old woman smiled at her own gallows humor. “I don’t know what that will feel like. But I do know that I’m in Gott’s hands, and I feel confident in that. I’m looking forward to Heaven. I’ll see my own dear husband again, and the babies who died in their infancy—I’ll finally hold them again. I didn’t have an easy life, my dear. All of my children died before me, so I’ll be grateful to see them again.”

  “I hope I have your courage when the time comes,” Miriam said.

  “This brings me to my request,” Mammi said. “Right now, I have some strength to dress myself and wash myself, but the days are coming very quickly where I will need a woman’s help. I know I could ask any number of relatives in Ohio or Florida once I tell them the news, but they’re far away, and it wouldn’t be easy on them. Besides, I’m asking you.”

  Miriam felt her heart skip a beat, and she licked her dry lips. This was a heavy request—one she couldn’t deny if she were part of the community here, but she wasn’t any longer. “Why me, Mammi? I’m not exactly part of the family anymore.”

  “Technically, you are,” Mammi replied. “But more than that, my grandson needs your support, too. I’ve been the woman caring for his home these last ten years, and I’ve helped him in raising two teenagers to manhood. I’ve been the one to encourage him and remind him that Gott loves him still, even when life is hard. And I’m about to die. He needs support through this, and I want you to help him.”

  He’d raised teens—she’d heard the rumors about that. Her husband had taken in two boys.

  “Would he want that?” Miriam breathed. “Because I don’t think he looked overjoyed to see me, Mammi. It’s been a long time. I’m sure there are other people who are closer to him.”

  Mammi was silent, her blue eyes meeting Miriam’s until Miriam dropped her gaze uncomfortably.

  “You left him, Miriam,” Mammi said firmly. “Yah, marriage was hard. It was hard for both of you, but you left this home, and you doomed that man to a lonely life without a wife by his side. He didn’t leave you. There is a distinction there.”

  Guilt welled up inside of Miriam’s breast, and she swallowed. “I tried, Mammi.”

  “I know, dear.” Mammi’s voice softened. “And I’m not asking you to come back and live as his wife. All I’m asking for is that you stay for two weeks—maybe three—and you help Amos through my death. That’s all. As his lawful wife, I think you could do that much for him.” Mammi deflated back into her chair. “But you can decline. I’ll understand, and I’ll never mention it to Amos.”

  Miriam sucked in a breath. The old woman watched her fixedly, and Miriam knew that what Mammi asked was reasonable. This was how the Amish community survived—they pitched in and helped to care for each other. They didn’t have old-age homes, they had family, and Mary Lapp didn’t have any living children to step in. Marriage was a lifelong commitment, and there was no divorce permitted. Mammi was only asking her to do her Amish duty in a time of need.

  “I’ll need my own room,” Miriam said. “I know we’re married, but Amos and I can’t share a room.”

  Mammi smiled at that. “Of course, dear. I’m not asking you to keep up appearances, just to support Amos. That’s all.”

  There were footsteps outside, and the side door opened. Amos came back in, and he glanced at them, then went to the mudroom sink to wash his hands.

  “Am I all right to come back in?” Amos asked.

  “You’re the man of his house,” Mammi replied softly. “You come and go as you wish.”

  Miriam smiled weakly at that. Mammi had always been a strong spirit whose words were sometimes a little closer to the Amish ideal than her actions. She’d most certainly booted Amos out of the house for the conversation.

  “Mammi has asked me to stay,” Miriam said.

  Amos eyed her for a moment, then his gaze slid toward his grandmother. “What?”

  “For two or three weeks,” Mammi said. “I need help that only a woman can provide, Amos. And I’ve chosen Miriam.”

  Amos nodded, but worry creased his brow.

  “Mammi, if this is some attempt to reunite Miriam and me—”

  “Nonsense,” Mammi said with a small shrug. “Do you really think I’d use the last few weeks of my life to meddle in yours?”

  “It had occurred to me,” he said with a faint smile. “But we’re adults who know what we’re doing,” Amos added. “We’ve tried this, Mammi. More than once.”

  “Sometimes things change,” Mammi said quietly. “That’s all you can really count on in life, isn’t it?”

  Amos looked over at Miriam and they exchanged an uncertain look. Even knowing what Mammi was very likely trying to do, how could Miriam turn down a dying old lady who’d always been nothing but kind and good to her? And as much as she hated to admit it, Amos was going to need help getting through this—Mammi wasn’t wrong there.

  “I’ll stay in the guest room, if it’s available still,” Miriam said. “And we’re understood that there is no pressure here. I’m just here to do my duty by you both and help for a little while. Then I’ll take my paperwork and go back home. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  Amos cleared his throat. “So Mammi told you what the doctor said?”

  Miriam nodded.

  “Okay, then,” Amos said with a sigh. “I guess it’s decided.”

  Miriam looked toward the kitchen. There were dishes to wash, and dinner would come soon enough. She grabbed a blue apron from a peg on the wall and tied it around herself.

  “I’ll cook and clean while I’m here,” Miriam said. “So you won’t have to worry about that. I’ll even get some food put aside into the freezer. You still have one in the basement, don’t you?”

  “Yah,” Amos said.

  Other people would come by with food, as well. Amos would be fed after his grandmother passed.

  “I’m ready for a nap, if you two don’t mind,” Mammi said.

  “Let me help you to bed,” Amos said, and as Mammi pushed herself to her feet, he went to her side, steadying her.

  Miriam was back in her married home, and it was strange how little had changed around here. Granted, she could see the corner of a bed in the sitting room, making things easier for Mammi, but the rest of this house remained the same.

  She touched a blue, chipped teapot on the counter, and her mind swept back to the day she’d moved into this old house as Amos’s wife. She’d been full of hope back then, and that blue teapot had been new—a wedding gift. She’d unpacked it, washed it and made their first pot of tea as a married couple. Amos had brought whoopee pies—the chocolate kind with the white, whipped centers. She loved them, and he knew it. Their first meal together in that house had been whoopee pies and hot tea.

  Ten years ago, she’d still thought that Gott had blessed her with a home of her own, and that her talents would be celebrated by this quiet, new husband of hers...

  Miriam picked up the warm teapot and emptied it into the sink. The teabag fell to the bottom of the sink with a splat.

  Ten years ago, Miriam had still thought that those wedding vows guaranteed some sort of special blessing onto the well-meaning couple—a hedge of protection, or a deeper well of wisdom...but she couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Miriam had made a mistake to marry Amos, and as a good Amish woman, there was no way to undo it. But she could help now—for a couple of weeks while they needed it most.

  Chapter Two

  “Mammi, what are you doing h
ere, asking Miriam to stay?” Amos asked as he helped his grandmother lower herself onto the side of her bed.

  The stairs had gotten increasingly difficult for her in the last couple of months, so Noah and Thomas had helped him to bring her bed downstairs. There was no extra bedroom down here, so the sitting room had turned into her private room for the time being, and it saddened him to think that when the sitting room was returned to its proper purpose again, Mammi would be gone.

  “I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago,” Mammi said. “I’m trying to help you two reach some peace.”

  “So you admit to meddling?” he asked with a tired smile.

  “It isn’t meddling exactly,” she replied. “It’s making you face each other. I have no power over what conclusions you’ll come to, but you need to face her, Amos.”

  Amos sighed. His grandmother might be right.

  “Now?” he asked sadly.

  “If not now, when?” she asked. “I wouldn’t have written to drag her back here, but she showed up on the doorstep, and that felt...providential. Sometimes Gott is working in mysterious ways, and you have to let Him.”

  There was no arguing with Mammi. She was convinced that Gott was always working, always moving, and every little coincidence was orchestrated from above. And after his parents passed away—first his father, and when he was a teenager, his mother—Mammi had been the one to take him into her home and raise him. So he knew his mammi very well, and to try to convince her that, just this once, Gott wasn’t up to something...it wouldn’t work.

  “Do you need anything, Mammi?” he asked. “A glass of water?”

  “No, no,” she said, lying down on her pillow. “I took my pills earlier. I’m fine. I just need rest.”

  Amos looked back at Mammi for a moment, and she looked so small, so thin. She used to be a plump grandmother who plied all the kids who came over to play with Amos with pie and sweet, Amish peanut butter sandwiches. When he’d been struggling with his father’s gruff, overly strict ways, it had been Mammi’s softness that had been a respite for him. She’d made him believe that there was still beauty in the world, despite the difficulties in his home. She used to be a source of quiet wisdom, which included some memorized scripture or a line from a hymn.

  But the years had caught up to Mammi, and for all she’d done for him in years past, she needed him now to take care of her. But she was trying to do something good before she left them all—he just wasn’t convinced that she was doing the right thing. She could focus on someone else, or even use these last weeks for herself...

  Would she die disappointed? That thought gave his heart a squeeze.

  When he emerged into the kitchen, Miriam looked up from the sink full of dishes she was doing.

  “I know this is awkward,” she said, then turned back to washing out a pot.

  “Yah,” he agreed. “But I don’t think I could turn Mammi down right now.”

  “Me, neither.” Miriam didn’t turn toward him again. She continued scrubbing, her shoulders hunched up as she worked.

  Amos stood there for a moment, wondering if he should go find some work outdoors, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave just yet. There was something about seeing his wife’s familiar figure at the sink that had him rooted to the spot.

  How many times had he dreamed of this—one more chance to fix their relationship? But it was different in the light of day.

  “Miriam,” he said.

  “Hmm?”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked. “After you leave, I mean.”

  “I told you,” she replied. “I’ve got a strip mall in Edson that brings in an income.” She glanced back. “If I can find the documents that prove it’s mine.”

  “Ours,” he qualified.

  Some color touched her cheeks. “Yes, ours.”

  Amos sighed. “Dry your hands. Come on.”

  He headed for the staircase and didn’t even wait to see if she followed him, but he heard her footsteps as she caught up, and they hit the top stair side by side. Amos opened his bedroom door and headed straight to his closet. He pulled down a cardboard box. When he turned back he saw Miriam standing tentatively in the doorway.

  “You’re my wife,” he said. “I imagine you could step foot in here without fear of scandal.”

  Miriam smiled faintly at that, then stepped inside. “It feels strange. That’s all.”

  It felt a little weird to him, too. This used to be their bedroom together, and even when they were fighting and going to sleep back-to-back, as far from each other as possible, it had still been theirs. He put the box on the bed and sat down next to it.

  “Are the documents in there?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “But I haven’t gone through it since you left, so...”

  He still remembered that horrible day when he’d come back from the shop and found the house cleaned to a shine, and a letter on the kitchen table. His stomach clenched at the memory. It had been four days before he’d been able to cry over his loss, and that had happened in the stable, sitting on a hay bale and sobbing his heart out into his own calloused hands.

  Miriam’s gaze dropped to the box, and she sank onto the bed on the opposite side of it. Amos opened the flaps. Inside, there was an envelope and he opened it and slid out their marriage certificate.

  “There’s that,” he said, passing it over.

  Miriam took it wordlessly. He rummaged through and found an old tax return, and a few pens with their names and the date of their wedding printed on the side. For what that was worth now.

  There was an old kapp, a little dusty, and a few hairpins. He passed them over, then pulled out a comb that had been hers, too.

  “You kept all this?” she asked at last.

  “It didn’t feel right to throw it out,” he said, and his gaze dropped to the kapp in her hands. “It was still perfectly good, that kapp. And the hairpins. I mean...they were still—” he was just repeating himself now, but she’d always left him a little tongue tied “—they were still good.”

  As if that explained why he’d kept it all. Whatever their marriage had become, when Amos had married Miriam, he’d been full of hope, and those last feminine touches around his home had reminded him of the life he’d dreamed of but never got to enjoy with her.

  The last item in the box was a half-finished wooden box. He’d started the engraving on the edges and never finished it. Miriam picked it up and turned it over in her hands.

  “It was going to be for our anniversary,” he said.

  Miriam nodded. “Where did we go wrong, Amos?”

  “We’re just very different people,” he replied with a shrug. “And I drive you crazy.”

  She smiled faintly at his humor, and they fell silent for a moment. She’d driven him crazy, too, for the record. She hadn’t understood how he thought or what hurt him any better than he’d understood her. It was like everything she did was geared to prove him less of a man somehow. But had she meant to do it, or were they just horribly matched?

  “The papers I need aren’t here,” she said.

  “I haven’t thrown anything out,” he said. “They’re around somewhere. We’ll keep looking. And we can check the safe-deposit box at the bank tomorrow.”

  Miriam nodded. “Thank you.”

  “When you find them...and when you go back,” he said, “will you be happy?”

  “I think so,” she replied. “I want to build up my business. My daet started with one store—did you know that?”

  “Yah, you told me,” he replied. Repeatedly. Her daet’s story was like a legend for her.

  “Well, he built it up—store by store—until he owned most of the street. And I want to do that—start with the strip mall that I have, and manage it well so that I can buy another business to actually manage. The secret is in
having more than one business—more than three actually. Leasing out the strip mall is my first, but if I can make a decent profit, I’d like to buy something more traditional.”

  “Like?” he asked warily.

  “I don’t know—something truer to our Amish roots. I was thinking of opening a fabric shop, or a bakery. Maybe a carpentry shop. I could buy another piece of property on another street. I don’t have to be there to physically run the new business, but I could manage it—I can hire people for the day to day operations. But I’d need to choose the type of business carefully so that I could make enough to give decent wages. That’s important to me—that people are able to make enough.”

  “I pay my guys well,” he said.

  “That’s a good thing.” She nodded. “If you were ever looking to sell—”

  Amos pushed himself to his feet. “Sell? You think I’d give up Redemption Carpentry?”

  The business that he’d grown from the bottom up? Was he supposed to give up, or something?

  “No, just—” She shrugged. “I was just saying. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “If I was ever looking to sell, you’d be the last person I’d sell to,” he added.

  “Why?” she demanded, rising to her feet to match him. “Because I’m a woman?”

  “Because you spent every single day of our marriage comparing me to your father,” he snapped. “Your daet, the business genius. Your daet, the respected entrepreneur. Your daet, who was a humble, Amish man despite the fact that he owned a good chunk of that town.”

  That last part was meant to be ironic, because her father hadn’t been humble in the least, but people had been forced to make him feel like he was. He owned too much—they depended on him. Charities went to Leroy Schwartz first, because his support would be the most crucial. Miriam had been used to a certain amount of deference that came from being Leroy’s daughter, except Amos hadn’t deferred to her. He’d been her husband, and he’d expected her to trust him.

  “My carpentry shop never did measure up to your father,” he said.

  “That’s not true,” she replied. “You were only starting out. Of course you wouldn’t have what he did.”