“It’s going to be all right,” he told her. Though he wasn’t sure he believed it himself. Christmas would come and Christmas would pass. Then the new year. February, then March. Time would move on, and folks sassured him that with each passing day it would get easier. He wouldn’t miss Mary quite so much. Wouldn’t think about the things that could have been. How old the baby might be.
He even had people telling him that before long he would start thinking about getting married again. His eyes closed at the thought. He couldn’t imagine. He and Mary had been a couple from the very first time he had seen her. He couldn’t say it was love at first sight, but he had known even then that she was the one he would marry. They had immediately been best friends. Inseparable.
Until death do you part.
From that first moment on, she had been a part of him. He had felt it in his bones, his heart, his very skin. She was the one God had intended for him.
He wasn’t sure he would ever feel that way about anyone ever again. But before he could even entertain the idea, he had to make it through Christmas.
And the new year.
February, then March.
* * *
Was she staying?
She wanted to, how she wanted to, but she never dreamed that coming home would be this hard. Or that Melvin really wouldn’t follow her back.
Tillie stared up at the darkened ceiling. She had forgotten just how dark it was here in Pontotoc. In the city there were lights. Always lights. Even in a town the size of Columbus. It wasn’t like they had gone to New York City, or even Jackson, but there always seemed to be some sort of light or another. Streetlights, car lights, porch lights, and the ever-present lights of the signs that tried their best to lure a person in to taste what they offered. Low prices, pizza, roast beef, cheap gasoline.
Tonight she found the darkness both comforting and disarming. She was comforted knowing that she was home, but a little shaken in thinking about staying. How long are you staying? they asked, as if they expected her to leave, and soon. She knew that without Melvin, she wouldn’t be allowed to stay, but she had hoped . . . hoped that he would follow. Hoped that her family would toss the rules out the window. But she knew. It was only a matter of time before they were forced to adhere to the Ordnung or be shunned in the way they should be shunning her.
They couldn’t keep it up for long. Perhaps they were biding their time until she left again. It was a ridiculous thought. They were her family. Of course they wanted her to stay. Even in her present state. But in the darkness the doubts still crept in.
Tomorrow was Sunday, and from all the talk at supper she knew that it was a church Sunday for their district. In the morning everyone would be stirring around and getting ready for the service. But tonight no one had asked her if she was going.
Leah had her own Mennonite church to attend with Jamie and Peter, but everyone else save Brandon and Shelly would be attending the Amish service. Did they expect her to go?
If she stayed—and part of her really wanted to—she would have to get back into the habit of Amish church. Well, it wasn’t like she had been gone that long. She still knew what was expected of her. But she didn’t want to go tomorrow.
Chicken.
Even in the darkness the word echoed inside her head. She was a chicken, no two ways about it. But she didn’t want to face the entire district. Wasn’t ready for it.
A quick check told her that the next church Sunday would be on Christmas Day. That didn’t happen very often and was surely something she didn’t want to miss, spending Christmas morning with all her family and friends celebrating Christ’s birth. But tomorrow? That was too soon. She just needed a couple more days to come to terms with all that was her life now.
Was that too much to ask?
A soft knock sounded on her door. Before she could answer, light from a lantern filled the now open doorway.
“Who is it?” Tillie whispered into the darkness. She couldn’t see who was behind the light, though she figured it was her mamm.
“Me,” a hesitant voice said. “Libby.”
Tillie awkwardly pushed herself up into a sitting position. It was perhaps the thing she hated most about being pregnant. Everything took so much effort. Then she remembered Gracie’s serene face over supper. It seemed her cousin didn’t suffer from such thoughts.
“I thought you went back to your house at night,” she said.
Libby shrugged. “Not always. Dat thought it would be good for me to spend more time with Mammi.” She gave a little cough. “My mammi, not your mammi.”
Tillie smiled and patted the bed in front of her. “I understand.”
Libby smiled gratefully and eased onto the bed near Tillie’s feet. She was dressed in a nightgown, her long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail at the base of her neck, just the same as Tillie’s was at that very moment. She may have gone to live English for a while, but she hadn’t adopted all of their practices.
Once Tillie’s eyes had adjusted to the light, she could see Libby’s face much clearer. “Secretly, I think they just have their hands full with Joshua right now and they don’t want me to know so much about it.”
“What’s wrong with Joshua?”
“Nothing. Just running around.”
“But I thought—”
Tillie wasn’t allowed to finish that sentence. Not that she had been certain what she was going to say. That she thought Joshua was a good son? If she said that, did it make her a bad daughter? Maybe I thought Joshua was happy being Amish. But hadn’t she been before Melvin convinced her to
