A Perfect Square

Chapter 8




SAMUEL COULD ACTUALLY SEE better once darkness fell.

The Englischers had set up large lights around the pond, mounted on poles and the tops of their vehicles. Harsh and unnatural, they cast everything in a ghoulish brightness. Giant shadows leapt across the water as the Englischers moved west to east, working the net — throwing it into the water, allowing it to sink, then dragging it toward the other end. It wasn’t a fishing net, that much was certain. He wondered what they hoped to find in the deep water among the fish and turtles of the pond, which was surrounded by the wildflowers Katie had found so lovely.

Katie’s body remained in the ambulance.

He’d watched them place it into a dark bag, zip the bag closed, then place it on a wheeled stretcher.

As if they could take her in the ambulance to their hospital and make her well.

As if they could fix all that had gone wrong.

As if they could turn the clock back …

“It seems real, now that we have the official papers.” Katie clutched the envelope with their legal papers allowing them to marry in her hands, scooted closer to him in the open air buggy.

“It is real.” Samuel hunched over the reins as he drove the buggy slowly away from town, back toward her father’s farm.

“Can you believe it though? Less than a week and we’ll be man and wife. It’s what I’ve dreamed of for a long time, Samuel. Since the first day you came to work for my dat.”

Samuel did smile then, there was no helping it. “You’re telling me you knew over a year ago that we would fall in lieb?”

“I didn’t know for certain, but I knew that you were a gut man. I could tell by the way you shook hands and the way you set to work. A woman notices these things. “

A scowl replaced the smile as Samuel thought of his younger self. He’d been so sure he could work hard and make progress on Timothy’s farm in one year. But like most things in his life, it seemed that God or fate had been dead set against him. When the rains had come, they’d nearly flooded the crops. The southern fields had needed replanting, and the harvest had been late. The work was too much for two men, but Timothy refused to hire additional workers, refused to even ask for help from among the local brethren.

Things were different here than they had been in Pennsylvania. Perhaps he’d been wrong to move here alone, but the memories back home had been painful after his daed’s death. Then his mamm had remarried, and Samuel knew he needed to leave. He’d thought starting over would set things right. Meeting Katie had offered him his first glimmer of hope.

Where was his hope now?

A year later he was doing the same chores Timothy had assigned him when he’d first come. The man refused to trust him with more responsibility. He felt as if he were treated like a boy just out of eighth grade rather than a man.

Nineteen years old and he was still living in the little room back behind the barn. Next week would bring few changes. He’d be allowed to sleep in the house, with Katie, but their room would be small with very little privacy. The other rooms were all brimming with Katie’s five younger sisters.

Seeing an Englisch rest area ahead on the road, he pulled the buggy over into it.

“Is there a problem with the mare?” Katie asked, concern coloring her voice.

“No, it’s not that.” Samuel secured the horse, helped Katie out of the buggy, and commenced pacing.

“What is it? You’re not having second thoughts are you?”

“I would never have second thoughts about marrying you. How could you think that? Are you going to question my every move?” His anger spiked, and he felt the desire to punch something, anything. The weeks had slipped past like a noose settling around his neck. He had to think of a way to fix this, and he could only think of one. Pulling in a deep breath, he pushed the anger down, forced a smile on his face. “Katie, darling, do you love me?”

“You know I do. Samuel, what’s wrong?”

“And do you trust me?” He sat beside her at a picnic table, pulled her hands into his, and rubbed his thumbs over her fingers, which had grown cold.

“Of course I trust you.”

“I want us to go north, to marry there. I want to work in the RV factories near Shipshe.”

“But — “

“Hear me out. I have a delivery to make for your dat tomorrow. Tell your mamm you want to ride along. Tell her you want to visit your aenti for a couple of days. Doesn’t she live in Middlebury?”

“Ya, but— “

“We’ll see your aenti but you won’t stay there. That will give us time to marry. I’ve asked some friends, and we can do it with these papers.” He touched the envelope that she still clutched, the one they had signed for in town. It was to be used at their wedding, in Goshen, next week. It was to be used with the bishop.

“An Amish wedding?”

“No. You’re not listening!” Samuel stood again and resumed pacing.

“You want us to marry outside the church?”

“God will understand. Katie, there is no other way that I can see. Your father is a hard man — “

“My father is a gut man.”

“He is that.” Samuel stopped in front of her, rubbed at the headache pulsing in his temples. “But he sees the old ways and no other. He doesn’t remember what it’s like to be our age. He doesn’t remember how it feels to be young, to be starting a family. He clings so hard to the old that he won’t even accept the changes the bishop allows. It’s why your life is so hard. Why your mamm struggles so with the work and your schweschdern.”

“He loves us,” Katie whispered.

Samuel waited ten seconds, then twenty. Waited until she raised her gaze to his. “Ya, I know he does. I love you too, and I believe you love me.”

When she nodded, he continued. “Go north with me. We’ll marry there, among the Englischers. I have Mennonite freinden in the factories who will help us to get started. Amish folk as well — there’s a man my mamm knows. He’ll let us stay with him for a few days. We won’t be alone, and it will actually help your family to have two less mouths to feed.”

“How will dat work the fields alone?”

“He’ll be forced to accept the community’s help. It’s what he should have done long ago. “

She looked away for a moment, across the trees that surrounded the parking area. “There is a community where we would go?”

“Amish and Mennonite. You know this. It’s not as if we’re going to Chicago. I give you my word. They’re gut people. I’ve met them before when I delivered things for your dat.”

Katie nodded once, and though tears escaped from both eyes, she glanced at him and smiled slightly. With that smile, Samuel released the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “We’ll send word to your parents within the week, so they won’t worry.”

“All right, Samuel. I don’t believe you’d suggest this if you hadn’t thought it through carefully.”

“We’ll leave tomorrow?”

“Ya, tomorrow.” She brought his hands to her lips and kissed them once, then stood and pulled him back toward the buggy.