More Than a Marriage Page 3

  Tess never heard them complain about the hardships they had come through. Emily always had a smile on her face and Elam seemed to be a caring, loving husband. She could see it in his eyes every time he looked at Emily.

  Jacob used to look at her that way. Back before they got married. Back before they moved to Wells Landing. Back before a lot of things.

  “Tess?” Fannie Stoll laid one hand on her knee, drawing Tess’s attention out of her own thoughts. “Are you ready to sew?”

  “Jah. Of course.” She reached for her bag with the squares she had pieced together at home. Everyone except her and Clara Rose had theirs out and ready to begin stitching.

  Tess hurried to get herself together and began. They were making a Star Dahlia quilt. Not necessarily more difficult, but it did require a great deal of ornamental quilting. And Tess didn’t mind. She needed something to keep her mind off . . .

  Jacob.

  “So tell me again why you have the puppy with you?” Emily asked.

  “It’s for Gabe Allen Lambert.”

  “Titus’s brother?”

  Clara Rose nodded. “He’s been building doghouses for the English. Obie wanted to gift him a dog since they’re working together. That way if someone comes to look at doghouses and they want another pet . . .” Her words trailed off.

  “Has anyone heard from Zeb?” Eileen asked. Even in her time of sorrow, she was thinking of others.

  Tess looked up just in time to see a shadow of sadness pass across Clara Rose’s face. Tess knew that Obie had been hoping that his twin brother would come back from Pinecraft to attend their wedding, but he hadn’t showed. Zeb and Obie were as close as brothers could be. And she made a mental note to say a prayer for Zeb tonight. Something was happening down in Florida, but no one could say exactly what. The spring and summer months were far too busy to abandon their farm chores and head south. But she couldn’t say that early fall was any better.

  “Paul says he’ll come home when it’s time for him to come home, but I know that Obie worries.”

  “Worry comes to nothing,” Verna said shortly.

  That was true and several heads bobbed in agreement, but how did a person stop worrying? Tess worried all the time. She worried about her family and living so far away from them. She worried about Jacob. He didn’t seem very happy these days. She looked around at the faces of her friends. They all seemed as happy as women could be. With the exception of Eileen.

  “You’re awful quiet, Tess.” Verna pinned her with her sharp blue stare. That was the thing about Verna. She could see straight through a person and had no hesitation about voicing her observations.

  “Tess is always quiet,” Clara Rose countered.

  “I believe I said awful quiet. There’s a difference.”

  “There’s nothing wrong, if that’s what you’re asking.” Could she have sounded any guiltier? “I mean, nothing’s wrong.”

  And that was the crux of the matter. What truly was wrong in her life? She had a roof over her head and a husband who worked night and day to care for her, but her life still didn’t seem to be turning out the way she had thought it would.

  “Uh-huh.” Verna peered at Tess over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses, then looked back to her stitches.

  The puppy, having decided that no one was going to give him any more attention, curled up at Clara Rose’s feet and laid his head on the toes of her shoes.

  “I’ll be glad when Mariana can come again,” Fannie mused. Her needle stilled as she surveyed the group. “You think she’ll come back, don’t you?”

  Eileen shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I mean, she will have a lot to do with two babies at her age. And it’s not like Reuben will be at home all day to help her.”

  Mariana had discovered she was pregnant just before her husband died from cancer. His best friend Reuben Wiesel had promised to take care of Mariana, a promise that almost ruined their own budding romance. Now the two were planning to get married sometime in the fall. Still, Reuben checked on Mariana every day. Such a sweet ending for what could have been a tragic story.

  “I’m happy for her,” Clara Rose said. She had finally finished her early snack and had settled down to quilt.

  “Are you going to tell us what has you glowing like a firefly?” Verna turned her all-knowing stare to her granddaughter.

  Clara Rose blushed again, dropping her hands into her lap. “I’m going to have a baby.”

  Murmurs of good wishes and joy went up around the room. Normally they didn’t talk so much about having babies and such, but Tess knew that the quilting circle had become so close in the years they had been sewing together. The group had become more like sisters than Tess even felt toward her own siblings.

  She reached out and captured Clara Rose’s fingers, giving them a little squeeze. “I’m so happy for you.” And she was, but there was a part of her that was also so incredibly sad.

  Like her sisters before her, and her friends and neighbors, she had been raised to be a wife and mother. She had gotten the wife thing down. She could cook with the best of them. She kept a fine house and did everything in her power to have her laundry on the line bright and early. She raised a couple of goats in her tiny backyard and made goat cheese along with soaps and lotions and such to help bring in a little more money. Everything she earned went into the cookie jar over the stove, destined for the down payment they so desperately needed.

  A baby right now would only take money away from that fund. And she knew that her sisters would chastise her for her English way of thinking, but she had to have a reason for their lack of a child. Clara Rose and Obie had only been married a few months, and already she was with child. Tess and Jacob had been married for going on three years. She knew that God had a plan for everything, but she wished she knew when He planned for her to have a family. She wanted to ask Jacob how he felt about it, but he had become so stern lately, working all sorts of weird hours. He seemed to pour himself into his job, leaving no room for anything else, including her. What happened to the dream of moving to Wells Landing and buying some farmland?

  But she knew. They needed money, which meant living in a house without much property and Jacob working for an English company until they could save up enough to buy a piece of land of their own. But sometimes even that dream, much like her dream of family, seemed as far away as the stars.

  * * *

  “Tess? Is that you?”

  She walked into the house just after three. “You’re home?” What was Jacob doing at the house during work hours?

  He came around the corner and into the kitchen as she shut the door behind her. All at once she was slammed with just how handsome he was. Rusty chestnut hair and eyes so blue as to rival the summer sky. His beard was neat and full and she loved the sight of it. To her it represented the pledge they had made to love one another. Yet it was the frown on his face that commanded her attention.

  “The neighbor called me at work. Your goats got out again.”

  Her stomach sank. Just the disappointed tone of his voice was enough to turn her heart over in her chest. “And you had to come put them back up.”

  He nodded. She could tell that he was angry. “Those goats are more trouble than they’re worth.”

  “But the money from the cheese—”

  “Doesn’t come close to the wages I lose when I have to come home from work early and put them back in their pen.”

  “They haven’t gotten out that many times.” She nearly slapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late; she had already said the words.

  “They’ve gotten out plenty. They take your time away from the chores you need to be doing and they eat up more than their milk brings in money to replace.”

  Something snapped inside Tess. She worked hard. She did everything she had been asked to do. She lived her life in a Godly manner, and yet, He seemed to pass her over. She might not be able to do anything about God’s plan, but she surely could alter her husband’s. “What are yo
u saying, Jacob?”

  “I’ve got a man coming by tomorrow to look at the goats. I want them out of here by the end of the week even if I have to give them away.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You can’t sell my goats.”

  “I surely can. They are on my property, and as the head of this family, I can get rid of them if I see fit.”

  “But . . . but . . .” She couldn’t find the words she wanted. The goats had become like the children she hadn’t been able to have. She loved their weird eyes and scratchy fur on their long, sweet faces. “That’s not fair.”

  “What’s not fair is me having to leave work to come home and chase them around in one-hundred-degree heat.”

  She stiffened her spine. “You are not going to sell my goats.” Just saying the words went against everything she had been taught about being a good wife to her husband. The man was the head of the household. But Jacob was being completely unreasonable.

  “I can, and I will.” He started toward the door as if he had said what he needed to say and wasn’t hanging around to see if she had any feelings on the matter.

  That was the problem. The realization came to her like the clouds opening up and the sun shining down after a long rain. He didn’t care about her feelings. He didn’t care about her goats. He didn’t care how hard she worked. Nothing.

  She stopped in her tracks as he made his way to the door. She was unable to move as he pushed out of the screen door and into the bright and happy Oklahoma sunshine.

  But she wasn’t happy. And she hadn’t been in a long time. She was tired of Jacob coming home too exhausted to have a conversation with her but not too tired to scroll on the Internet on his company-provided smartphone. She was tired of him being surly and stomping around the house like an angry giant with a score to settle. Amish didn’t settle scores; they turned to God. But Tess wasn’t sure God was listening to them anymore. How had it gotten to this? How had it turned from simple inconvenience to outright arguing? And what could she do about it?

  She eased down at the kitchen table as the tractor engine started outside.

  Nothing. There was nothing she could do about it. Jacob Smiley was as stubborn as God made them. He had made up his mind. He was getting rid of her goats, and he hadn’t given her feelings even half a thought. She might not be able to divorce him—wasn’t even sure if that was even a consideration if she could—but that didn’t mean she had to live under the same roof with a man who had already forgotten the vows they had exchanged.

  She pushed to her feet. She was going home. Back to Clarita. Back to her family who loved her and cared for her.

  And her goats? As sad as she would be to see them go, she knew this was about more than goats. This was about two people who should have never gotten married to begin with.

  Mind made up, she walked over to the cookie jar and extracted the money. With any luck she would have enough to get a driver to take her home.

  Chapter Four

  The tears started halfway between her house and Obie Brenneman’s. They ran down her face without so much as a sob or a hiccup. Tess supposed it was because she was more mad than sad. She was hurt and felt wronged. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and kept going.

  The bag she had packed was beginning to get heavy. She hadn’t taken all of her things, just essentials. She could send for the rest later. She had to get away and fast, before she lost her nerve, before Jacob came home and talked her out of it.

  As much as she hated it, this was the only solution she could see. He was never going to change. And she needed him to.

  She was tired of looking at all of her friends and their wonderful husbands and boyfriends. Caroline Fitch, Emily Riehl, Sadie Kauffman, and Abbie King, even Lorie Kauffman. She might live with the English now, but Tess could see how much she loved her new husband and how much he cared for her. Was it too much to ask to want a little of that romantic, undying love?

  She dashed back a few more tears and moved farther onto the side of the road as a car whizzed past. Jacob had been loving and kind when they were dating. Of course, things had been different then. They had all lived in Clarita and her parents were right next door. But when his parents had decided to come to Wells Landing, Jacob had wanted to remain close and chose to move as well. Tess hadn’t bothered to point out to him that if they moved he might be closer to his parents, but she would be farther away from hers. She hadn’t said anything because they were looking for farmland and Wells Landing seemed to have more of it available than Clarita had. At the time. Apparently they weren’t the only ones looking for land, and the demand outweighed the supply. They had moved but weren’t able to afford the house and land they had both dreamed of. Now they rented a house and scraped and saved every penny in order to be able to afford a house with property as soon as possible.

  Now it was all for naught. She was going home tomorrow. Or as soon as she could get a driver.

  A few cars passed her as she walked, but thankfully no one on a tractor. She wasn’t sure how she could explain her actions to another church member. She didn’t know how she was going to tell Clara Rose and Obie, but she would think of something.

  Their mailbox came into view before she had the words formed in her mind, but she trudged down the lane toward her friend’s house. How ironic. She had just been less than a quarter of a mile down the road for the quilting circle meeting only an hour or so before. Now she was back again, but not for the same reason.

  “Tess?” Clara Rose must have seen her through the window. Her friend rushed out onto the porch, greeting her before she could make it halfway across the yard.

  “I—” She had no words.

  Clara Rose’s eyes flicked to her suitcase, then back, snagging her gaze with soulful eyes. “I think you’d better come on in the house.”

  Neither one said a word as they made their way up the porch steps and inside. Once upon a time the house had belonged to all of the Brennemans, but once Clara Rose and Obie got married they took it over. They bought a double-wide and placed it behind the main house, the perfect Oklahoma dawdi house. Now Paul and Obie’s two brothers who still lived in Oklahoma were living in their new trailer.

  “Where’s Obie?”

  Clara Rose led her into the living room. “He’s out in the barn. He has some new puppies. Just born last night.”

  More babies. Never mind that they were dogs. She wondered how proud and happy the mama dog was. “I’m going back home.”

  Clara Rose frowned. “But you just got here.”

  Tess shook her head. “I’m going home. Back to Clarita. Tomorrow. But I need a place to stay until then.”

  Clara Rose’s frown deepened as she mulled over everything that Tess had just said. She took so long that Tess was afraid that she would just tell her no without hearing what she had to say.

  But what did she have to say? That she didn’t think her marriage would work? That she had made a mistake? That she missed her family, and if Jacob didn’t appreciate her she was going back where she knew people who would?

  How could Clara Rose understand any of that? She had the perfect marriage. She was having a baby. She had a wonderful house, land to farm, everything that Tess herself didn’t have.

  “I-I’ll have to talk to Obie.” Clara Rose stood and smoothed her hands down the front of her dress. She sucked in a deep breath as if she was having as much trouble as Tess in deciding what was next.

  “Rosie?” Obie’s voice floated to them from the back of the house.

  “In here,” Clara Rose called in return.

  “I thought I heard someone.” He smiled at Tess. “How are you?” he asked, then his eyes widened as he took in her tearstained face. At least, that was what Tess thought he was looking at.

  She wiped at her cheeks, feeling new moisture. She had thought she had stopped crying. Apparently her eyes had other plans.

  “Obie,” Clara Rose started, “can I, uh, talk to you for a minute? Alone. In the kitchen.” She all
but took him by the arm and bustled him from the room.

  Tess sank back into the couch cushions, the weight of the world pressing down on her. She knew that Clara Rose was talking to Obie about her wanting to stay. How could Clara Rose tell him what was going on when Tess hadn’t had a chance to even tell her?

  She pushed to her feet and followed the path they had taken until she was standing outside the full swinging door that led to their kitchen. One hand placed to push her way inside, Tess stopped.

  “I don’t know, Rosie.”

  “Please.”

  “It’s a lot to ask.”

  “Do it for me?”

  What were they talking about?

  “Why do you think me talking to Jacob will help?”

  Talk to Jacob? About what?

  “I don’t know. I think they are having problems. Why else would she come here saying she’s going home?”

  Obie heaved a huge sigh, one large enough to be heard through the kitchen door. “Fine. If you think it will help.”

  “I do.” Clara Rose’s voice rose on the end. Tess could almost imagine her leaning up on her tiptoes and giving her husband a quick kiss on the cheek. When was the last time she had kissed Jacob like that? For no other reason than she wanted to? It had been a long time. Perhaps even before they had moved to Wells Landing.

  But another thought crashed through her head. Jacob didn’t know she was gone. She hadn’t left a note or anything stating her intentions. She hadn’t thought about letting him know where she was going or why. He could figure that out on his own. Maybe then he would understand where she was coming from.

  Or maybe not.

  Suddenly remembering that she was eavesdropping, Tess hustled back to the couch and sat down just in time for Clara Rose to come through the door.

  “Well, now.” She came back over to where Tess sat and perched on the sofa next to her. “Would you like to talk about this?”