An Amish Kitchen, page 18
Eve was working on the recipes in bed when Benny crawled underneath the covers beside her. “What are you writing on the back of the card, or is that just a very long recipe?” Her husband eased up against her, his beard tickling her face. She turned and gave him a quick kiss.
“I’m writing down things that I remember about me and mei mamm.”
“Like what?” Benny nuzzled her with his beard again.
She gave him another kiss. “Now scoot over and let me work on this.” She playfully pushed him away. “My fondest memories of me and Mamm are when we were cooking, so on the back of every card I’m writing what I remember related to the recipe.” She shrugged. “I mean, I don’t have something to write on every card, but if we had a gut time making this recipe, or if something gut happened . . . I’m writing it down.”
“I think that’s very nice.” Benny smiled. “You’re a gut dochder.”
Guilt flooded over Eve. “Nee, I don’t think so.” She paused as she took a deep breath. “I haven’t been seeing mei mudder enough, and she’s gotten worse. She hides it well during worship, but being with her all the time, I really notice how much her hands shake. She still refuses to go see Dr. Knepp.”
“I know it frustrates you to see her suffer, but you can’t make her go.”
Eve set the cards and pen on her nightstand, then rubbed her eyes. “She didn’t even argue today when I asked her about buying some extra propane heaters for downstairs. She was too busy worrying about her glasses she’d lost.” She rolled over on her side and faced Benny.
He eased onto his side and propped his head on his hand. Her sweet Benny. He always knew when to just listen.
“She’s so cranky. Worse than ever.”
“We’re working on the haus as best we can, but the storm is supposed to blow in tonight. If we get all the snow they say we’re going to get, that will slow us down.”
“I’m not worried about that.” Eve blinked her eyes a few times as a knot formed in her throat. “I’m worried about her. About Mamm.” She paused again, trying to find the words to explain her feelings. “It’s not just the shaking. She’s different. And I don’t mean just crankier. Sometimes she looks at me in a fremm way.” She took a deep breath, then heard a movement downstairs.
“Your daed eating a late-night snack again?” Benny grinned.
Eve looked at the clock. Nine thirty. She and Benny were up later than usual. “Ya.” Eve pushed back the covers on her side and swung her feet over the side of the bed. “I’m going to go talk to him. About Mamm.” She wrapped her hair in a tight bun, pinned it, then found her robe. After she picked up the lantern, she leaned down and kissed her husband. “Sleep, mei lieb. I’ll be quiet when I come back in.”
Benny nodded as he yawned, then his face faded from view as Eve moved with the lantern toward the bedroom door.
A minute later she entered the kitchen. Her father was sitting at the table with a flashlight illuminating a round circle on the ceiling. His eyes grew wide when Eve entered the room.
“Ach, you scared me,” he said through a mouthful of cake. “I thought you were your mudder.”
Eve smiled. Mamm had told her years ago that Daed got out of bed every night for a late-night snack. “He needs to feel he’s getting away with something,” her mother had said. “But it does give him an awful case of indigestion the next morning.”
She pulled out a chair and sat down across from her father. He pushed a pan of sliced kaffi cake toward her. “Taste this.” He frowned. “Something don’t taste right about it.”
Eve picked up a slice of the cake her mother had made yesterday. She took a bite. “It’s not bad. It’s just not really . . . good.”
Her father frowned. “Your mamm is the best cook in the district.” He put down his half-eaten piece of cake and shook his head.
“I wanted to talk to you about her. She’s getting worse, isn’t she? I mean, the shaking has increased, but she also seems so ill-tempered—”
“She’s not ill-tempered.”
Her father spoke with an authority that Eve wasn’t used to hearing. Even when she was growing up, she’d rarely heard him raise his voice, and any disciplining had been left up to her mother. Although neither of her parents had ever laid a hand on her. Mamm would make her sit in her room when she’d misbehaved, but that was the extent of it.
Daed rubbed his forehead and sighed, then went on. “She’s sick, Eve. I’ve been telling you that.”
More guilt. Eve bit her bottom lip for a moment, blinked her eyes a few times. “I know that.”
“Nee. I don’t think you do. Until this past week, you’ve only seen her every other week for a brief time. You’re just now getting an idea of how sick she is because you are with her every day.”
“Daed, I have a family to take care of. It’s not that I avoid you.” Especially not you. “I’ve tried to get her to go see Dr. Knepp. Englisch medications could help with the shaking.”
Her father sighed. “I know you to be right.” He gazed at her across the table in the dimly lit room. “But she needs you. Modern medicine can only go so far.”
A tear found its way down Eve’s cheek, and she quickly swiped it away. She’d just lied to her father. She did avoid her mother as much as she could, and she’d been dreading this extended visit.
“Mei sweet maedel . . .” Her father reached over and put his hand on top of hers. “Use this time to get to know your mudder.” He stood up, then leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “You might be surprised by what you learn.”
Eve heard her father’s bedroom door close. She picked up the slice of cake and took another bite.
Sugar. That was it. There was no brown sugar, which Eve knew the recipe called for. She ate the rest of the cake anyway, not ready for sleep just yet. She folded her hands in front of her and bowed her head.
Elias chuckled. “It’s been so easy, sneaking out this week.” He pulled Elizabeth close and kissed her again. Afterward he pushed back a strand of loose hair that had fallen from beneath her kapp. “Daadi just sits at the table eating his snack and waves to me as I go out the door. He usually tells me to have a nice walk and to stay warm.”
Elizabeth frowned. “He’s on to you, Elias. He knows you’re not just going for a walk every night at this hour.”
Elias shrugged, grinning. “Maybe so, but I never lie to him, and he has never mentioned it in front of mei mamm or daed.”
“I guess that’s gut,” Elizabeth said, shivering.
“I’m going to go. You’re freezing.” He pulled her into his arms, kissed her again, then sent her indoors. “Be careful,” he said as she made her way to the barn exit. “We don’t want you getting caught either.”
Elizabeth nodded, and once she was safely inside, Elias fought the bitter cold across the Lapp pasture to his grandparents’ house. He knew a storm was due to blow in, and he probably shouldn’t have traveled to see Elizabeth tonight. He could see a faint light shining from the kitchen, and he was surprised that his grandfather was still up. Every other night, Daadi was in bed when Elias returned from seeing Elizabeth.
He trekked softly up the porch steps, pulled back the screen, and twisted the handle on the wood door. A light hit him in the face.
And this time it wasn’t his grandfather.
CHAPTER FIVE
ELIAS CRINGED AS HIS MOTHER STOOD, YELLING AT HIM in a whisper from the other side of the kitchen table. “You are grounded, do you hear me?”
“Ya. Yes, Mamm.” Elias was glad that the table was between them. He hadn’t seen Mamm this mad since he dropped a frog down the back of Anna Mae Stoltzfus’s dress after worship when he was nine. Usually she left the discipline to their father, but she’d been so furious about the frog incident she didn’t even wait for Daed, opting to pull a switch from a nearby tree before they walked into the house. Elias wished he were young enough to take a spanking instead of being grounded.
“It is nearing zero degrees outside with a storm coming in. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to be outside in this?” Mamm put her hands on her hips.
He could barely see her in the dim light of the lantern, but he was pretty sure her face was red as a beet, the way it usually got when she was really mad.
“How could you do this while we are staying at your grandparents’ haus?”
Elias opened his mouth and almost said that Daadi knew about it, but there was no reason to get his grandfather in trouble too. “I’m sorry.”
Mamm pointed toward the living room. “Go. We will talk of this in the morning. And you can be sure that I will tell Elizabeth’s mudder about this.”
Elias stopped breathing. “Mamm, you can’t. Please. Don’t tell her mudder. I’ll never be able to see Elizabeth again. Her father will forbid it. Mamm . . .” He squared his shoulders, standing taller. “I’ll die if I can’t see her.”
His mother rolled her eyes. “You will not die. And over time, I’m sure that you and Elizabeth will be able to see each other again.”
Just the thought of not seeing Elizabeth every day caused Elias’s stomach to ache. “What about the singing on Sunday?”
“That’s in two days. I promise you’ll still be punished.”
Elias put a hand on his hip and looked at the floor. “Some rumschpringe this is.”
His mother came around the table and held the lantern up. As he’d suspected, her face was beet red.
“You watch yourself, mister. We’ve allowed all of you boys plenty of privileges, but sneaking out when a storm is coming is dangerous, and you should know better.” Mamm frowned, her eyes locked with his. “I don’t want your grandparents to know about this. Now up to bed you go.”
Elias stomped across the living room to the stairs. He wasn’t a child and shouldn’t be treated like one. He would find a way to see Elizabeth. No matter what his mother said.
Four o’clock came early on Saturday morning. Eve had trouble going to sleep after catching Elias sneaking back into the house. She knew she’d reacted out of fear more than anything. As predicted, the storm had come during the night and dropped almost twelve inches of snow. Despite the weather, her father, Benny, and her three sons left to go work on the house. She’d told Benny about catching Elias, and they agreed that two weeks’ punishment would be sufficient. Benny had talked her out of telling Elizabeth’s parents.
Her father’s words weighed heavily on her heart. “Use this time to get to know your mudder,” he’d said.
What is there to get to know? Eve and her mother were nothing alike. Her mother had shown little to no affection toward Eve when she was growing up. Eve had made it a point to shower her children with affection. Rosemary Chupp was also stubborn, refusing to change with the times or make use of modern medicine to help herself. Eve took advantage of certain luxuries that the bishop allowed—things that still kept them separated from the outside world, but that also improved quality of life or saved time—propane lights, certain canned goods, battery-operated mixers for baking, a modern gas range for cooking, and a sewing machine that was run by a small generator . . . just to name a few.
Eve gathered up the recipe box, blank cards, and her pen. After she stoked the fire, she curled up in the recliner and tried to focus on the happy times she and her mother had shared. Even now, as they prepared meals together in her childhood home, there was a peacefulness between them that was absent the rest of the time. Just like when she was young.
“How are the recipes coming?” Mamm walked into the room toting a yellow feather duster. Eve didn’t think the house could get any cleaner, but she didn’t comment.
“Fine. I can’t believe how many recipes I have in my head. It was a gut idea to get them all written down.”
“Danki for doing that.” Mamm smiled, and again Eve’s father’s words flowed through her mind.
“You’re welcome. I’m enjoying it.” Eve paused. “We cooked a lot of things together over the years.”
“Ya. We did.” Mamm exhaled, sounding content, and Eve wondered if her mother wished they were closer too.
They were quiet for a few moments, then Eve decided to share her project. “I—I hope you don’t mind, but on the back of each card I’ve written memories I have of us preparing the recipe.” She bit her bottom lip for a moment, keeping her head down. “Or maybe where we took the food, or what we were doing when we first made it.” She shrugged. “Just little things like that.” She looked up after a moment and was shocked to see tears gathering in the corners of her mother’s eyes. “Mamm?” Eve waited, not sure what to do. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her mother cry.
“I think that is gut. Very, very gut.” Mamm raised her chin, blinked her eyes several times, then began dusting around the lanterns on the mantel.
They were quiet while Eve wrote and her mother cleaned the living room. Eve had already gone upstairs to make sure that Amos’s lizard and cage were still safely hidden in the closet behind a bunch of boxes. So far they’d been lucky that Eve’s mother hadn’t stumbled upon the reptile while tidying up the boys’ room.
Eve finished her card for Chicken in a Cloud. It was a favorite of both hers and her mother’s, although Eve had long ago given up making the sauce from scratch, opting for cream of chicken soup instead. It wasn’t as tasty, but it was much easier. However, it was her mother’s recipe, so Eve wrote it out the way her mother had originally taught her—to save some chicken broth, then mix it with flour and butter to make the creamy sauce. But the best part of Chicken in a Cloud was the story that went with it. She turned the card over and wrote.
I remember the day we had chicken and potatoes, and you suggested we do something other than just bake the chicken and make mashed potatoes as a side dish. I was standing on the little red stool as usual, so I was tall enough to help. You always stood to my left.
Eve paused, looking up. She could see the red stool through the doorway into the kitchen, tucked into a nook on the other side of the refrigerator; same place it had always been. She smiled.
You added milk and cream cheese, the way you always did when making mashed potatoes, but I asked you why you didn’t add any butter. You told me to wash my hands, and we both did. Then you thrust your bare hands into the mashed potatoes and pulled out two handfuls and laughed. I wasn’t sure what to do, but you nodded for me to do the same. Then we tossed the mashed potatoes into a casserole dish you had laid out, both of us laughing the whole time.
I was eight or nine, I think, and I couldn’t believe we were playing in the food! We formed a crust with the potatoes, then talked about the chicken filling. I felt so much a part of the process, and when we were done, you told me to name our creation. And Chicken in a Cloud was born.
Eve leaned her head back against the recliner, noticing that her mother had left the room. Mamm’s bedroom door was closed. She’d been known to sneak in a nap this time of day, so Eve closed her eyes and let the Chicken in a Cloud memory linger in her mind. There’d been so many good days for them; she wondered why she allowed herself to focus on the negative in their relationship. Maybe they were just two different women with varying ways of doing things.
She opened her eyes and looked into the recipe box. She’d written close to a hundred, she figured, and probably had at least a hundred more to go. There wasn’t a story to go with every card, but each time she recalled a fond memory, she felt one step closer to her mother, even if it was only one-sided. Glancing at the clock, she knew she was going to miss the two o’clock prayer gathering at Our Daily Bread, but Benny had asked her not to travel in this weather. She knew he was right, but she would miss the fellowship of the local women in the community. Her mother hadn’t been to the prayer gathering since the tremors in her hands had started. Sometimes Eve was surprised Mamm still went to church.
Shaking her head, she once again forced out the negative thoughts.
Rosemary sat on her bed staring at the plain white wall as shadows of her past danced in front of her. She’d gone for years without the haunting images surfacing. Why now, Lord? Why are these demons in my head?
She thanked the Lord every day that her relationship with Eve wasn’t like the one she’d had with her own mother. Rosemary had never laid a hand on Eve. She’d made it a point to stay distant from her only daughter, just in case that type of thing ran in the family genes—like mother, like daughter. Now she wanted to be closer to Eve, but they’d been this way for so long that Rosemary wasn’t sure how to change. She saw the outpouring of affection that Eve gave to her own children, even if she wasn’t raising them the way Rosemary would have liked. The boys had brought all their electric gadgets along, and she reckoned everyone thought they were hiding them. But there were small boxes with wires in the twins’ room, a radio in Leroy’s, and Eve had lotions from Walmart. Rosemary cringed.
If there was one thing she’d learned from her mother, it was that change wasn’t good. That belief had been beaten into her and her siblings. She’d tried to make sure Eve didn’t evolve with the times, but she and Joseph had rarely disciplined their daughter. Maybe it was their fault that Eve didn’t feel the same way about change. As another generation was nearing adulthood, Rosemary could see that things were only getting worse. Soon there’d be generations of Amish folk who wouldn’t rely on the Lord’s will, but instead on all those gadgets and what-nots.
Rosemary heard a ringing in her ears—so loud she brought her hands to her head. But she could still hear Minerva screaming. Mamm must have the horse whip after her again. Rosemary didn’t understand why Minnie couldn’t just mind her manners with their mother. Most of Rosemary’s beatings had come from defending her sister. She hauled herself up off the bed and burst out the door.
Minerva was curled up in a ball in the recliner. Rosemary ran to her and dropped to her knees. “Minnie, hush your cries. Stop it now.” She pulled the girl into a hug to try and muffle her sobs before Mamm came back again. Minnie pulled away and said something, but Rosemary could barely hear her for all the buzzing in her ears.
