The Amish Clockmaker (26 page)

“Because there has been repentance, there must now be forgiveness—as complete as the forgiveness the Lord gives to us every time we ask for it.”

After that, the crowd had returned to what they had been doing before things started falling apart, pretending as if nothing unusual had even happened. Perry disappeared soon after, gathering up his family and saying they needed to get on the road. Once they were gone, tensions lessened considerably.

As for Clayton, he had done the only thing he could think of. He sought out Miriam, whom he looked for everywhere and finally found up in her bedroom. She was moving slowly and calmly as she placed her belongings into cardboard boxes.

“
Wie bischt du?
” Clayton said softly, hovering in the doorway. Glancing over at the window, he realized that although he had imagined this room a thousand times, this was the first time he'd ever seen it from the inside.

“I'm fine,” she'd replied, not even glancing his way as she folded a nightgown and tucked it into an open box. “I just thought I'd finish getting ready to go. We can bring these things over to your house as soon as the reception is over and everyone leaves. Should I bring my hurricane lamp?”

Clayton hadn't been sure how to respond. Should he bring up the incident or just follow her lead and pretend it hadn't happened? Before he had to decide, however, she paused and spoke.

“I'm okay, Clayton. Really. It's going to happen. I figure even if word gets out all over Lancaster County, it'll be the latest gossip only until some other big scandal comes along.”

He nodded, wondering if that was just bravado speaking or if she really meant it. Hoping it was the latter, he stepped farther into the room and surveyed the open boxes on the bed. Among her personal belongings—shoes, clothes, papers, and books—she'd also packed a number of items he and
Mamm
already had at their place, such as board games, flashlights, candles, linens, coat hangers, and so on. He started to tell her as much but then stopped himself. If it made her feel better sleeping on sheets from her own house or cooking with pots she'd been using her whole life, then so be it. In a way, he felt guilty for ripping her from her home, as if maybe he should have offered his name and nothing more, not even a life shared under the same roof. Perhaps that would have been her preference.

“How about you?” Miriam had asked, interrupting his thoughts. “How are you doing?”

Feeling his face flush with heat, he looked down at the ground. “I'm angry
at myself. At my temper. I don't know why I still let it get the best of me.” Meeting her gaze, he added, “I am working on it, though. I am. I promise.”

Miriam gave him a sweet half smile. “You didn't say anything down there you should regret, not from what I heard. It's going to happen. And I hate to see you worrying so much about what other people think.”

“I don't care about what people think.”

A tiny grin lifted the corners of her mouth. “Of course you care about what people think, Clayton. Why else would you lose your temper the way you do? Everybody cares about what people think.”

He'd swallowed hard and then finally gave her a nod and a smile in return. “Okay. Well, right now, what people are probably thinking is, ‘Where are the bride and groom?' I suppose we'd better get back down there.”

Miriam sighed, her petite shoulders sinking under the weight of that thought. “Suppose we'd better,” she had echoed, and then together they returned to the party and spent the next hour acting as if no one had said anything that day they were going to regret.

Now, with their last guest gone, Clayton knew he needed to apologize to Miriam's parents for his outburst earlier.

As they stepped back inside, Clayton spotted Norman at the kitchen table, both hands cupped around a mug of coffee as he stared off into space. The house was otherwise quiet, the only sound the ticking of a clock on the wall.

Miriam gave Clayton a knowing look and then headed up the stairs to her room. He approached his new father-in-law.

“Everyone gone?” Norman asked, snapping out of his daze.

“
Ya
.”

Norman took a sip of his coffee, grimaced, and put the cup back down. “It's cold.”

Clayton hesitated, wondering if he should sit or offer to make the man a new pot or just say what he needed to say and then leave Norman to his thoughts.

“Guess it's time to move over Miriam's things,” Norman said, and Clayton could tell he was trying to sound matter-of-fact. “Need any help with that?”

“No, we'll be fine. But thanks anyway.”

Norman rose from the table and headed to the sink with his cold cup of coffee.

“I'm sorry I got into that argument with Perry today,” Clayton blurted out. “Really sorry.”

Norman didn't turn around as he poured the contents of his cup down the drain.

“From what I hear, it wasn't your fault. Perry was in a snit. I've never known anyone to have wider mood swings than he does, from up to down and back again. It's not the first time he's spouted off over something that on a different day wouldn't bother him at all. He's the one who should be apologizing, son. But not to me.”

“We both said things we shouldn't have.”

Norman put his hands on the counter, bracing himself as he looked out the kitchen window toward the wide sky that lay beyond. No weight had been lifted from his shoulders that day. “Perhaps it would be best if we forget the words spoken between you two. Go help your wife, Clayton. We just need to move on. All of us.”

The late afternoon air was alive with the sounds of crickets, grasshoppers, and birdsong when Clayton and Miriam started out with the first load a few minutes later. They each carried a box—Clayton's heavy with books and papers and Miriam's lighter with quilt padding and sewing materials and such—as they made their way across the wide expanse of grass to Clayton's home.

They were silent as they went, but he felt that was more from exhaustion than awkwardness. They were too tired to talk. When they reached the house, they set their boxes down on the porch and immediately headed back for the next load. As Clayton hobbled along the best he could, he realized Miriam was having to adjust her pace to match his own slow gait.

The move ended up taking them three trips total, the last one being the easiest as there were no more books or cast iron pots or anything else heavy to lug. In fact, Clayton was able to hoist the final three boxes together. Miriam had just a few last items of clothing draped over her arm and carried in her free hand a covered wicker basket.

As they were leaving the bedroom, she said to go ahead and that she would catch up. She wanted to tell her mother they were leaving. Clayton did as she asked, and when he reached the bottom of the stairs, Norman was there to greet him.

“Looks like this is it,” Clayton said, again hoisting the boxes to rebalance the load.

“Let me get the door for you,” Norman replied as he stepped ahead of Clayton.

“
Danke
.”

As Norman held the door open and Clayton limped down the step onto the porch, the top box shifted in his arms, and a few of its contents threatened to spill out. Norman thrust out his free hand to steady it.

“I got it,” Clayton said when his footing was secure again.

“
Ya
,” Norman replied, nodding once and slowly lowering his hand.

The two men stood for a moment on the threshold between inside and outside.

“If there's ever anything I can do… ” Norman began, but then his voice fell away.

“We'll be fine,” Clayton said quickly, filling the weighty void.

“
Ya
, but I mean down the road. If there's anything you need, or Miriam needs, I want you to know we're right here. We still love our daughter. And we will be good grandparents to the child.”

“Of course,” Clayton said slowly, unsure what the man was wanting from him. Forgiveness? Reassurance? Some sort of promise or guarantee? He was about to offer all three when Miriam emerged at the bottom of the stairs, her mother right behind her.

The four of them shared a quick, awkward, and final goodbye, and then Miriam hiked up the load of clothing higher on her arm, and she and Clayton set off for the last trek across the yard. When they reached the fence, she opened the gate and they both stepped through. As she closed the latch behind them, he glanced back toward her house and saw that Abigail and Norman were still there, standing on the porch side by side, watching them go. Even from a distance, Clayton could read their expressions, which were similar to those he'd seen displayed by Maisie and Joan and others that day. Even by
Mamm
. Worry that a mistake had been made seemed stretched across their faces like a veil.

When they got to the house for the last time, Clayton's mother emerged from the mudroom to hold open the door as they came inside.

“When you're done bringing up all these boxes and settling in,”
Mamm
said, gesturing toward the stack they had left on the porch, “I've some sliced ham, pickles, and poppy seed loaf. Just let me know when you're ready.”

“
Danke
, Lucy,” Miriam softly replied.

“
Danke
,
Mamm,
” Clayton added, taking in his mother's expression in a single glance. Concern and apprehension were written all over her face.

Part of that, he knew, was her consternation about what might happen
next. Neither she nor he had been certain of Miriam's intentions regarding sleeping arrangements, and so she had prepared the guest room “just in case.” Clayton hadn't been comfortable asking Miriam ahead of time if she would share his room with him right away. He was not going to insist that she did.

Mamm
stayed in the kitchen as the two of them climbed the stairs, Miriam first and Clayton limping behind her, taking his time on each step so that he didn't lose control of the boxes. Miriam reached the landing and waited for him. There were several bedrooms down a short hallway, and a bathroom.

“Which one?” Miriam said, without emotion and without looking at him.

Clayton felt a warm current of blood rush to his face even before he answered her. “Where do
you
want to sleep, Miriam?”

She turned her head to stare at him, a strange mix of surprise, appreciation, and sadness on her face. “Where do
I
want to sleep?”

He looked at the boxes in his arms. “I won't make you… I mean, you don't have to be… with me just yet. If you don't want to.”

He could feel her eyes on him.

“Is that what you want, Clayton? Do you want me to sleep in another room?” she asked softly.

Clayton lifted his head to meet her gaze. “No.”

After a few seconds, Miriam looked off toward the hallway and the doors. “Which one is yours?”

“The one at the end.”

Miriam started for it and Clayton followed. She stepped inside, and he realized this was the first time she'd seen his room as well.

The day before, he had installed a new row of clothing pegs and made space in the wardrobe, all in hopeful and yet fearful anticipation that this would be her choice. Last night he and Roger had brought in a bureau that Maisie was donating to the cause, and they placed it against the far wall next to the pegs. Otherwise, Clayton had left the cleaning and final decorating to his mother. Now as he came into the room and stood behind Miriam, he was pleased to see that the space was immaculate, the wood furniture gleaming, the quilt on the bed crisp and colorful.

On the bedside table sat a new kerosene lamp with a shiny chimney, and next to that was a little vase of teacup roses. A larger vase of the same roses sat across the room atop the bureau intended for Miriam. Beside the bureau, Clayton was surprised to see one final addition he hadn't expected, a wood-and-fabric screen, its three zigzagged panels offering a small bit of privacy for
dressing and undressing. Like the roses, Clayton thought it was a wonderful touch.

Miriam's eyes went to the clothing pegs nearby, which held Clayton's straw work hat and all of his pants and shirts, and then to his bureau, the top of which sported a small round container holding a man's hairbrush and a pack of Wrigley's spearmint gum, already opened. Sweeping her gaze around the room, she spotted the second bureau and the screen and the empty pegs and headed there. She placed the basket on the floor behind the screen before taking a moment to hang her clothes along the pegs. Then she turned her attention to the bed, hands on hips, as she asked Clayton which side was his.

“Excuse me?” he asked, startled. With a flush of heat, he realized he was still just standing there in the doorway, frozen, the three boxes in his arms.

“Which side do you want?” she repeated, gazing down at the mattress.

Clayton found that he could barely speak. “I don't care, Miriam.”

She nodded and then gestured toward her corner of the room.

“Anywhere over there is fine,” she said, and then she turned slowly to the foot of the bed and sat down on it. Exhaling heavily, she surveyed the room.