“I’m all right,” she told him.
“What can I do,” he asked, “to help you?”
The question surprised her and warmed her heart. “You’ve done it, Toby. Just by being with me. That’s all.”
He frowned. “It doesn’t feel like enough.”
She took his hands and looked into his eyes. “I know you want to fix things for me, honey, but you can’t. There are no magic words to say, and you can’t get out a hammer and pound it straight. You can’t fix me.”
“I don’t know what to do,” he said gruffly. “I’m not good at this.”
He was better at it than he realized. “Nothing will make this go away but time.”
Grudgingly, he nodded. “Okay.”
She sighed and hugged him, then sat back against the pillows. “Do you think we could go downstairs and get something to eat? I’m starving.”
“Do you think you should get out of bed?” He looked alarmed.
Elanna thought longingly of sinking back into the soft pillows and pulling the blanket over her head. The idea was tempting, but she knew she had to move. It was useless to linger, letting herself dwell on what she couldn’t change.
“You’re too protective,” she teased, just to watch his expression.
“Am I?”
“No,” she said softly, and touched his cheek. “I like it. I’m just not used to it.”
“Doesn’t this get any easier?”
Elanna laughed. “I don’t know, honey.”
He grinned. “I like when you call me that.”
“Honey,” she said again. “Help me out of this bed.”
She hadn’t realized that they were on the second floor until he led her out into the hallway. Three closed doors faced them, ringed around a narrow landing. A steep flight of stairs greeted her as she stepped out of the room, and just looking down them made her feel wobbly. She took his arm to steady herself.
“Why don’t you get back into bed?”
“Why don’t you let me get some food?” She retorted. She blinked and the world swam back into focus. “I’ll be fine then. Come on.”
With a long-suffering sigh that made her want to laugh, Tobin moved in front of her. “Let me walk in front in case you fall.”
The stairs were narrow and uneven, posing even more of a walking hazard. The handrail, though, was mounted firmly to the wall. With each step, she felt better.
They came out into a sparsely furnished but spotless kitchen. The main piece of furniture was a long table and two long benches. Faded vinyl covered the floor. A massive stove, radiating a delicious, bread-scented heat, dominated one wall of the room. A small sink, complete with pump and bucket, was along one wall.
Elanna didn’t know the name of the woman bent over the large stove in front of them, but she recognized her as one of those who’d held her hand during the miscarriage. As they entered the room, the woman stood, her cheeks pink from the heat and her eyes sparkling. Her hair, more gray than blonde, was tucked up beneath a white cap made of netting.
“Rachel Stolzfus,” Tobin said by way of introduction. “Enoch’s wife. This is their house.”
“My goodness!” Rachel cried, wiping her hands on the white apron that covered her dark dress. “Out of bed? Sit, sit!”
Elanna did as ordered, sinking gratefully into one of the wooden benches. Her legs still felt a little wobbly. The woman bustled about the kitchen, opening drawers and stirring a pot on the stove.
“Fress, fress.” She plopped a full bowl of soup on the table and followed it quickly with another for Tobin. “Sit down and eat yourself, vunst. Careful, the soup is burny.”
Elanna didn’t need to be told twice. Her stomach grumbled so loudly it was almost embarrassing. She spooned some soup into her mouth and almost groaned at how good it was. The clear yellow broth brimmed with thick, soft noodles and chunks of meat. It didn’t taste like pigeon, but it was good. Small yellow bits floated in the broth too, popping between her teeth as she chewed.
“Chicken corn noodle soup makes a body nice and full,” the woman said. She whirled to look at Amos, who stood fidgeting in the doorway. “Stop your rutching and go outside!”
The small boy fled, his mother looking fondly after him. She shook her head, chuckling softly, and wiped her hands on a cloth. “Ach, don’t eat yourself full, already! There’s cake back yet.”
She poured some white fluid into Elanna’s glass from a tall pitcher. “Drink!”
Elanna took a sip and nearly choked. “It’s milk!”
“Ja, of course it millich is,” said Rachel. Now she looked at Elanna with concern. “Iss der millich sauer?”
Is the milk sour? The words weren’t quite the ones she was used to, but she understood. “No,” Elanna stammered. “It’s not sour. It’s…it’s milk. And it’s cold.”
Rachel laughed. “From the icehouse I brought it. Milk should be cold, ain’t?”
The only time Elanna had ever had anything cold was in the wintertime. And milk….
“Who’s milk is it?” She asked warily, putting the glass down.
Rachel frowned. “Whose milk? Well, whoever wants to drink it, I suppose.”
“I mean, where did it come from?” Elanna asked.
“Bessie,” Rachel said. She put one plump hand on Elanna’s forehead. “Bischt du aarem?”
Are you poor? “No, I’m fine,” Elanna said. “I just don’t want any milk, thank you.”
“Ach, and after I to the icehouse went for you?” Rachel scolded kindly. “Drink up. Healthy.”
Elanna thought of holding her baby in her arms, its mouth to her breast. Though nursing her babies had always been a joy, the thought of actually drinking milk herself made her shiver in distaste. “Maybe for the baby it’s healthy, but not for me. No, thanks.”
Rachel looked at her, clearly puzzled. Then she began to laugh. Her plump cheeks grew rosier as she chuckled, then patted Elanna on the arm.
“From the cow! Not from a mother!”
Elanna’s blank look made Rachel stop laughing. She looked curiously at Elanna. “Cows you don’t know?”
Even Tobin was laughing at her, but she could hardly be angry. Of course she’d heard of cows. But she’d never seen one.
“I’ve never had cow’s milk, either,” Tobin said. “Only from a goat.”
Rachel smiled and poured him a glass, too. “Bessie, she good milk gives. Better than a goat. Drink!”
Elanna tried another sip, letting the flavor rest on her tongue before swallowing. Maybe it was because it was cold, or maybe just because it came from a cow and not her own body, but it didn’t taste so bad. It didn’t have the sweet undertone she’d tasted on her babies kisses, but it was good.
“The only milk I’ve ever tasted was what my babies gave back to me,” Elanna said with a smile. “And I don’t recommend baby burp as a delicacy.”
Rachel paused in her pouring and serving, looking confused. “Babies?”
“Yes,” Elanna replied, thinking the woman hadn’t heard her.
Rachel looked at Tobin and then at her, a question clear in her eyes. “You other kinder have?”
“I have had other babies, yes,” Elanna explained. She took another bite of the delicious broth. “Tobin has never had any.”
“He’s not your husband?”
“No,” Elanna said with a glance at Tobin. “I’m not allowed…I’ve never been married.”
“Gott in Himmel,” the woman murmured. “How many kinder?”
“Thirteen,” Elanna said quietly. “Eleven lived.”
“And no husband?”
“No,” Elanna said, lifting her chin. The soup she’d eaten settled in her stomach like a stone. She glanced at Tobin, who had the good grace to look down. “I am a hopemother. We aren’t allowed to marry.”
“Hopemother?” Rachel asked. “Not allowed to marry? I’m all discumbumperated.”
Elanna stirred the soup to occupy her hands, which she wanted to clench. “Where I co
me from, that’s the way things were. Maybe they’re different here.”
“Ja,” Rachel said slowly. “I think very different, ain’t?”
The two women stared at each other over the table for a long time. Elanna waited to see what Rachel would do or say. She’d never been ashamed of what and who she was. Tobin had seemed to find her life shocking, even reprehensible, at first. Would Rachel react in the same way? Would the kindness the older woman granted be taken back because Elanna was a hopemother?
“How could your kinder you leave behind?” Rachel finally asked.
Elanna could see the other woman’s struggle, and was grateful she’d asked her question without accusing. “My babies were raised by women who couldn’t have their own,” Elanna said with as much dignity as she could.
Rachel still didn’t seem to be getting it. “But…eleven kinder? Eleven times away you gave your babies?”
“Yes.”
“How hard for you,” Rachel said, her face creased in sympathy. She clucked her tongue again. “The tears you must have shed.”
“Their mothers loved them as much as I could have,” Elanna said. “Maybe more, because they couldn’t have any of their own.”
“Let me some bread give you to dop up that soup awhile,” Rachel said, as though she could think of no other response. “Your strength you need.”
When had she not needed strength? Elanna thought, but turned her attention back to the soup. It was cold now, and she wasn’t very hungry any more, but she ate it anyway.
−
33-
It wasn’t until after he saw Rachel’s reaction to Elanna’s story of being a hopemother that Tobin truly realized how badly he’d hurt her. He thought back to how he’d reacted, overreacted, when he’d found out her place in the Tribe, and hot shame flooded him. No matter how the rest of the world lived and survived, Elanna had only ever done what she thought was right. Maybe not fair, but right. What was expected of her.
She was very quiet. Although her eyes were closed and her head rested on the back of the chair, he knew she wasn’t sleeping. Rachel had urged them to go into the living room and relax after they’d eaten. The room was furnished with comfortable, overstuffed furniture, faded but clean and in good repair.
He shifted a little on the couch, stretching his legs. His whole body still ached, but he was sure that was nothing compared to how Elanna felt. Yet, she’d refused to lay down, insisting she’d feel better if she sat.
“Stop rutching.” Her eyes stayed closed, but a smile turned her lips.
Tobin got up from the couch and went to her. Her hands were cold. She kept her eyes closed even when he bent to kiss her lips.
“Don’t you want to go upstairs to bed?” He rubbed her fingers to warm them.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Please stop hovering over me,” she said gently. “I’m fine. I just want to sit here with my eyes closed for a while. That’s all. I don’t need to lie down.”
He still felt so helpless. She said he couldn’t do anything for her, and he couldn’t just sit here and watch her. He was saved from finding something to do when the door from the kitchen opened.
Tobin didn’t recognize the old man who came into the room, but he noticed that his eyes were the same bright blue as Rachel’s. They shared the same plump cheeks as well, though on the old man they seemed out of place compared to the rest of his thin, almost gaunt features. His sparse gray beard reached to his chest, resting on the black vest and deep blue shirt. He wore no hat inside the house, but his hair was creased along his forehead, showing he was more often with it than without.
“I am Samuel Lapp,” he said formally by way of introduction.
“Tobin Winter,” Tobin said, rising. “And this is Elanna.”
“I know who you are, English,” the old man said. His accent was thicker than that of Rachel or Enoch, but the way he spoke seemed clearer. “What I want to know is when you will leaving be.”
Tobin looked at Elanna, who at last had opened her eyes. She sat straighter in the chair. Though her face was calm, her hands betrayed her dismay. She’d clenched them into fists, balling the fabric of her borrowed nightgown in her fingers.
Tobin didn’t quite know how to respond. “I’m sorry.”
“And sorry we will all be, if soon you do not leave,” Samuel said. His voice wasn’t harsh, even if the words were. “The Gappers will come for you looking. You should here not be when they do.”
“Papa?” Rachel stood in the doorway, her rosy cheeks creased by a frown. “Vass is das?”
The old man said something sharp to her that Tobin didn’t understand, in that language Elanna knew. Whatever it was, it made her blink furiously, as though to hold back tears. A slow rise of anger burned in his gut. Nothing should make Elanna cry. Especially not now.
Now Enoch had entered the room behind Rachel, putting his arm around her. She bent her head to his shoulder briefly, then spoke to him in that language. She pointed at her father, then at Tobin. Finally, at Elanna.
“Vatter?” Enoch asked respectfully. “What are you saying to our guests?”
Samuel snorted. “Guests, Enoch Stolzfus? Guests that will our homes bring down?”
Enoch shook his head slowly. “They needed help.”
“And help you gave them,” Samuel said. “And now, they go. Before the Gappers vit their thundermakers come.”
“What are these Gappers?” Tobin was tired of being discussed as though he weren’t there. If they were going to throw him and Elanna to the wolves, at least he wanted to know what kind of wolves they were.
Enoch and Samuel turned surprised faces toward him. Maybe they’d forgotten he was there. The younger man spoke first.
“You don’t know the Gappers, ain’t?”
“No. Who are they? What’s a thundermaker? What’s the barrier?”
Samuel sighed heavily. He looked around briefly, finally settling his eyes on the couch. He made his painful way from the doorway to it and sat slowly, wincing. “Questions you have plenty, ain’t?”
Before Tobin could answer, Samuel found himself with a lapful of wriggling young boy. Amos had come in from outside and launched himself toward the man, squealing.
“Grossvatter!”
The old man held the boy for a moment, smiling. Seeing them together, Tobin could see how much they looked alike. Samuel said something to Amos that Elanna didn’t translate, but the boy clearly understood. Without a frown and only a brief backward glance, he went back into the kitchen.
“I did not want him to hear,” Samuel said. “The story is for a boy’s ears not.”
Rachel sat in the rocking chair next to Elanna. “He must sometime learn, Papa.”
The old man scowled. “Not naw! He chust a baby is!”
“Please tell us,” said Elanna quietly. She’d stopped twisting her hands in the cloth. “I think we need to know.”
Samuel sighed again and rested his head on his hands for a moment before speaking. “We Plain People are. We have for generations worked and lived on this land. We followed the old ways, always. We modern things forsook. The automobiles, the electric lights, the devices. We used them not. We lived as our vatters and mudders lived. Plain.”
He gave them a long look. “Passed, the years did, and moved on, did the world. But the same we stayed. Our farms, working. Our children, raising. Our Savior, worshipping. And around us, moving on the world.”
Samuel’s words took on a droning tone, like that of a story told many times before. Tobin sat, his legs suddenly too tired to hold him up. It was easier to sit, to listen to the man’s story, told in that droning, numbing voice.
“When my great, great, great grossvatter was the earth tilling, the world ran out of fuel. Men made batteries their cars to run, their houses to light. And still, we Plain People the old ways kept. Nothing fancy for us. Candles we used for light. Horses we used for the plow pulling and for travel. Farming we did for food. And ar
ound us, moving on the world.”
The hypnotic drone of the old man’s words was putting Tobin to sleep. And yet he didn’t feel asleep, just that he was dreaming. Though he’d never seen it, he imagined families on their farms, tilling the earth with a horse at the plow. Wearing their plain, old-fashioned clothes while people drove by them in their fancy cars, talking on their fancy telephones. He saw the families gathered in prayer around the dinner table, lit only by the glow of candlelight.