Johanna's Bridegroom

Two English girls ran out of the maze together. The women beside Johanna stood and walked away with the laughing children. Johanna glanced back at the straw mountain, saw the boys and sank again into her thoughts.

Many Amish marriages were arranged ones. And many couples who came together for logical reasons, such as partnership, sharing a similar faith and pleasing their families, came to care deeply for each other. As far as she could tell, most of the English world married for romantic love and nearly half of those unions ended in divorce.

The Amish did not divorce. Had she been forced to leave Wilmer and return to her mother’s home permanently, both of them would have been in danger of being cast out of the church—shunned. Under certain circumstances, she could have remained part of the community, but they would still have been married. As long as the two of them lived, there could be no dissolving the marriage.

Marrying a man for practical reasons would be a sensible plan. If each of them kept their part of the bargain, if they showed respect and worked hard, romantic love might not be necessary. She considered whether she would find Roland attractive if they had just met, if they hadn’t played and worked and worshiped together since they were small children. How would she react if he wasn’t Roland Byler, Charley and Mary’s older brother, if she hadn’t wept a butter churn full of tears over him? What would she do if a matchmaker told Mam that a widowed farmer named Jakey Coblentz wanted to court Johanna?

The answer was as plain as the Kapp on her head. She would agree to meet this Jakey, to walk out with him, to make an honest effort to discover if they were compatible. So why, when she valued her mother’s and her sisters’ opinions, had she been so reluctant to consider Roland? To forget what had happened? She closed her eyes and pictured his features in her mind.

“Don’t go to sleep,” a familiar male voice said.

Johanna’s eyes flew open and she jumped so hard that she nearly fell off the bale of straw. Roland stood directly in front of her, holding two red snow cones. “Roland.”

He laughed and handed her one of the treats. “It’s strawberry. If I remember, you like snow cones. Any flavor but blue.” He took a bite of his own.

She searched for something to say. In desperation, she grabbed the snow cone and took a bite. Instantly, the cold went straight to her brain and she felt a sharp pain. “Ow!”

He laughed at her, sat down beside her and reached over and wiped a granule of ice off her chin. “You always did do that,” he reminded her.

“Let me pay you for this,” she stammered.

“Ne. Enjoy. I bought it for J.J.”

Johanna gasped. “I’m eating J.J.’s snow cone?”

Roland shrugged. “I’ll buy him another one. Now that ’Kota and Jonah are up there...” Roland indicated the top of the straw slide. “With him, it would just go to waste. It would be a puddle of strawberry syrup by the time he got to eat it.” He grinned. “So you’re doing me a favor. Keeping me from wasting a dollar.”

“Oh.” She still felt flustered.

“That was smart—what you did with the bees. They went into the box you put out for them.”

Bees were a safe subject. Tentatively, she took another nibble of the snow cone. It was delicious. She couldn’t remember when she’d had one last. Whoever had made it had ground real strawberries into the juice. She fixed her gaze on the ground. Roland was wearing new leather high-top shoes. Black. His trousers were clean, but wrinkled. Very wrinkled. They needed a good pressing.

“I’ve always been afraid of bees,” he said.

She licked at the flavored ice. “I know.”

“J.J. seems fascinated by them. He asks me all kinds of questions—questions I can’t answer.”

She took another bite, chewed slowly and swallowed. “I think he’s a bee charmer. They won’t hurt him. You don’t have to worry.”

“I found the biscuits you left for us on the kitchen table Thursday. And the potato soup. They were good, really good.”

“I’m glad you liked them.” A dribble of strawberry water ran down her hand onto her wrist. She passed the paper cone into her other hand and licked up the stray drop. “Messy,” she murmured.

“Good stuff is.”

Silence stretched between them. Shivers ran down her arms. Should she say something to him about what she’d been thinking? About the two of them? Normally, if a girl and a boy wanted to court, there was talk back and forth, between their friends at first, then between the girl and boy themselves. But she and Roland weren’t teens anymore. They didn’t need intermediaries, did they? She looked around. No one was within earshot. If she was going to say something, she had to do it now, before she lost her nerve.

“Roland?”

“Ya?”

“I want to talk to you about—”

“Johanna! Johanna! Did you see? King David and me! We rode in the blue cart.” Johanna’s sister Susanna appeared in front of them, laughing merrily. “No horse. A dog. A dog pulled the cart! Did you see us ride?”

David, glued to Susanna’s side, smiled and pointed at Johanna’s snow cone. “Ice cream? I like ice cream.”

David, like Susanna, had Down’s syndrome but was harder to understand. Johanna could usually follow what he was saying. He was a good-hearted boy, always smiling, and Johanna liked him.

“Ne,” Susanna said. “Not a ice cream cone. A snow cone.” She stared longingly at Johanna’s. “Can we have one?”

“I don’t like snow. To eat it,” David said.

“You’ll like it,” Susanna assured him.

“I’ll buy you snow cones.” Roland reached into his pocket.

“You have money, Susanna,” Johanna reminded her. “Mam gave you five dollars. Did you spend it all?”

Susanna shook her head.

“It’s nice of Roland to offer, but you need to buy your own. And buy David one, too.”

Rebecca joined them, with Katy in tow. Katy looked longingly at Johanna’s snow cone.

“Here,” Johanna said. “Have the rest of mine, Katy. Or get Susanna to buy you one. She and David were just headed to the snow cone booth.”

Rebecca glanced from Johanna to Roland and back. Johanna could almost see the wheels turning in her sister’s head.

“Ah,” Rebecca said. “I think we need to find snow cones for Susanna and David. Can you help me, Katy?”

Johanna’s fingertips tingled and her chest felt tight. Maybe this wasn’t the time. Maybe Susanna and David’s interruption had kept her from doing something she’d regret. “I’ll come with you,” she said.

Rebecca chuckled. “No need. You two old people sit here in the sun. I think I saw the snow cone stand by the school.”

Roland pointed. “It’s by the gym doors, but if you don’t have enough—”

Susanna waved her five-dollar bill. “I have money,” she said. “Come on, King David.” She started off and, again, David followed.

Rebecca looked back at Johanna. “Have fun, you two,” she teased. “Come on, Katy. Would you like to see the baby lambs?”

Roland watched the four of them walk away. “Smart, your sisters,” he said. “All of them.”

Johanna smiled at him. “Ya. All of them,” she agreed. “Susanna, too.”

He nodded. “I always thought so. A credit to your parents, that girl.”