The Amish Clockmaker (39 page)

At these words a searing pain in his gut nearly sent Clayton to his knees. “Do not speak that man's name,” he managed to utter through his clenched teeth.

“I can understand how you feel about him, but that's not the point.”

“The
point
?” Clayton echoed, incredulous. Hurting. Livid.

“Yes. The stage manager recognized Miriam as being my former housekeeper, and he called me rather than the police, which he could have, you know. She wouldn't stop banging on the door. Whether Russell is actually in town or not, I doubt he would have wanted to see her.”

Do NOT say his name!
Clayton screamed inwardly.

“Here's what I think, Mr. Raber. I think she just needs a quiet place away from everything to come to terms with all that's happened to her. She's sad and lonely.”

“She's my wife!” Clayton roared, finally finding his voice.

“Well, yes, you married her, but that doesn't mean she's not sad and lonely. She can't help it if she still loves that other man. It doesn't matter how much you don't like hearing it. You can't help who you love, Mr. Raber. That's how love is.”

Clayton took a step toward the woman, surprising himself with how strong he felt on his two legs, the normal one and the imperfect one. She cowered in front of him. “That is
not
how love is. Love doesn't chase after a monster like that actor who treated Miriam as if she is worthless.”

Brenda's eyes widened, and she took a step back, fearful. “Look, all I'm saying is that girl in my car is hurting. You can't fix that kind of pain with a marriage of convenience. You can't make her love you. Not like this. Give her some time, and maybe—”

Clayton would hear no more. “You and I are done here.” He moved past the
Englisch
woman but had taken only one step toward the vehicle ahead of him when he saw that the passenger side of Brenda's car was empty, the door ajar.

“Miriam!” Clayton yelled as he looked from side to side. Where could she have gone in so short a time without him noticing?

He stumbled toward the car and then to the parking lot of the shop and the main road. Brenda caught up with him in no time.

A tour bus was parked at the curb on the other side of the clock shop parking lot and a little crowd was gathered at its open doors. The snow began to fall more heavily now, as if sprinkling the people in ticker tape. Clayton looked for his wife among them and didn't see her.

“Miriam!' he called out again.

A friend Clayton recognized, the
Englischer
who owned the insurance company across the street, was in the throng of people, and he turned now to Clayton.

“Clayton! I was just about to come looking for you. It's your wife. She's sitting inside that bus and won't get off. The tour company wants to get going.”

“She's
what
?” Clayton said, though he'd heard every word perfectly. He just couldn't believe it.

“She's on the bus,” the man said, pointing to the coach.

“Oh, my!” Clayton heard Brenda exclaim from behind him.

He turned to her. “I meant what I said. You and I are done. I'll take care of this.”

Brenda's eyes flashed with anger. “You mean like you have been taking care of it already? This is what you call taking care of something?”

Clayton ignored her taunting questions and pushed through the crowd. The driver was standing on the first step, clearly at a loss as to how to get the unticketed passenger off his bus. He stepped aside so Clayton could move past him and up the rest of the stairs. Miriam was sitting in the front row just behind the driver's seat. Her hair was tumbled about her shoulders in tangles and there was no sign of her
kapp
. She held a fistful of dollars in her hands and was clutching them and staring straight ahead. Her eyes were vacant and wild.

“Miriam,” he said when he was fully inside. “Time to go home.”

She would not look at him.

He took another step forward and put his hand gently on her wrist. “Let's go home.”

Her skin felt clammy beneath his touch. She looked down at his hand and then again at the empty driver's seat in front of her.

“I have no home.”

The air stilled in his lungs.
God, help me
. “Yes, you do,” he insisted, calmly but firmly. “Your home is with me.”

“I
have
no home,” she said again, her tone defiant.

He reached out again, more firmly this time. “Miriam, please.”

Miriam shrank in her seat. “Get away from me!”

Helpless, Clayton looked back toward the open bus door.
Mamm
was there now, but Brenda was nowhere to be seen. Clayton figured she had finally realized that his and Miriam's personal lives were none of her business—either that, or she'd finally gotten a glimpse of Miriam's deranged mental state and realized this was all much more than she was willing to handle.

In addition to the passengers milling around the bus, curious bystanders had begun to accumulate and were now standing around watching. It wasn't often you saw an Amish woman with her hair askew, arguing with her husband inside an
Englisch
touring coach.

“There's Norman,”
Mamm
cried, glancing out toward the road. She whirled away, waving frantically at the buggy that was about to pass by.

Clayton returned his attention to Miriam. Instead of reaching toward her,
he offered his hand as if to ask for a dance. “Here, Miriam. I'll take you home. Everything will be all right.”

She turned her head toward his outstretched hand and then gazed up at him, her eyes shiny with anger. “Everything will
not
be all right,” she hissed.

And then she fixed her gaze upon him and said words that left him dumbfounded.

“You
wanted
my baby to die!”

For a few moments he could only stare at this stranger who was Miriam, the woman he loved. His wife.

When he found his voice, he sensed the same rage inside him that was building in her. Rage at the world, at the fragility of the human body, at God that He had taken not only the child from Miriam but also her ability to be reasoned with.

“Come,” he said curtly, leaning toward her. “We're going home.”

“Get away from me!”

“Everything okay?”

Clayton turned to see a familiar face, a manager of one of the stores along the strip, peering up at him. All Clayton wanted was get Miriam home and away from these people. They didn't know her. They didn't love her. “We'll be fine, thanks,” he struggled to say. “My wife is… she's not been well.”

The man looked uncertain, as if trying to assess the situation, but then
Mamm
returned with Norman in tow, so he stepped aside. Miriam's
daed
was about to come up and join them when the bus driver decided to take matters into his own hands.

“Excuse me, sir!” he barked, and when Norman turned, the man pushed past him and climbed on to the bus.

A heavyset fellow with a starched blue uniform and bright red cheeks, the driver looked from Clayton to Miriam and then leaned forward to speak directly to her.

“Ma'am, this has gone on long enough. You don't have a ticket to ride this coach.”

Miriam startled a bit and then looked down at the money in her hands. “I can buy a ticket.”

“This is a private tour. I'm afraid you'll need to get off. Now.”

When she made no move at all, Clayton again tried to grasp her hand. “Let's go, Miriam.”

Her chest began to heave with anger, frustration, and unshed tears that now rimmed her eyes.

The next instant she bolted from the seat and shoved her way past Clayton and the driver.

“Leave me alone!” she yelled, nearly knocking over her own father in her haste as she pushed through the doorway and seemed to move in the general direction of home.

Clayton struggled to get off the bus as quickly as he could. By the time he reached the pavement and broke free from the throng, he saw that his wife was just about to round the corner ahead of him.

“Miriam!”

She stopped, whirled around, and stared at Clayton for a long, tense moment. The snow that had been falling in a gentle flurry was starting to intensify, as though it wished to cover the ugly confrontation with grace and beauty. Miriam seemed to notice for the first time that the crowd included people she knew and who knew her. Her eyes went to Clayton's mother and then to her own father, both of whom had moved forward and were now flanking Clayton on each side. Her eyes returned to her husband.

“I know what you're thinking, Clayton!” she yelled. “You wish you had never married me! You hated my baby! You wanted her to die!”

There was a collective gasp, the loudest of all from Clayton himself.

As Miriam spun around and kept going, he needed to call after her, but the words seem to stick in his throat. The astonished people, with snow dotting their shoulders and heads, murmured to one another, and someone asked if perhaps the police should be summoned. Norman charged after his daughter, and by the time Clayton caught up with them, they were at the base of the driveway. Clayton cupped Miriam's elbow with his hand and gave it a tug. “Let's go home. Now.”

Miriam cried out as if he'd struck her. Jerking away, she moved backward, flailing her arms at her sides, as if to demand some room.

Torn between fury and heartbreak, Clayton watched as myriad emotions passed across her face. Then, finally, her shoulders slumped and she sank to her knees in the quickly accumulating snow. A cry of anguish erupted from her throat.

“What is it, Miriam?” His mother pushed past Clayton and Norman and knelt down. She spoke in a clipped tone, one that told Clayton she also, was struggling between anger and sorrow.

“What's wrong, Miriam?” she repeated. “Why are you acting this way? How could you say such things to Clayton?”

But Miriam only rocked back and forth, clutching her empty abdomen as sobs racked her body.

“Let me take you home, daughter,” Norman offered, and Miriam only cried harder.

“Her home is with me,” Clayton growled.

“Clayton,” his mother said in warning. But he would hear none of it.

“She's my wife! I am her husband. Her home is with
me
!”

Clayton knelt by Miriam and put his arm around her shoulders. To his surprise, she allowed him to pull her to her feet.

“I don't want it to be like this,” she whispered.

“Like what?” Norman asked, leaning in, with a suspicious eye toward Clayton.

“I don't know…” her voice trailed away.

“Come, Miriam,” Clayton said, attempting to take a step forward with her, but she didn't budge.

“Stop it, Clayton. Just stop it!” She shook his arm off her shoulder. “Leave me be. All of you!”

Then she turned from the three of them and hurried up the drive, slipping twice in the gathering snow. When she reached the dividing point where one direction led toward the Beiler house and the other to the Rabers', she hesitated.

A few seconds later she turned and went into the barn.

Clayton started to follow, but
Mamm
reached out and stopped him. He swung around angrily.

“
What?
” he roared.

For a moment the woman looked terrified, as though she thought he might strike her in his rage.

“What,
Mamm
?” he said again, not quite as loudly this time.

“Do what she asked. Just let her be for a bit,” his mother said, her eyes bright with alarm. He realized she was actually afraid of him, of what he might do. Of how angry he was in that moment.

Maybe because he'd never
been
as angry as he was in that moment.

He tried to calm himself, but it was impossible, especially when he looked at his father-in-law. The grief etched on Norman's face made it obvious he wished he'd never asked Clayton to marry his daughter.

Clayton had never felt so alone in his life. A cry of utter frustration was boiling up inside him, and if he didn't let it out, he would explode. Leaving the two of them there, he took off as fast as his deformed leg allowed and headed for the house. Because of the snow, he slipped and fell several times on the way but finally managed to make it. Once inside, he continued up the stairs to the bedroom, slammed the door shut, and lowered himself to his knees on the floor by the bed. Reaching for a pillow, he pressed it to his face to absorb the roar of his anguish.