Unlike at other communal feasts, at weddings the young, single adults were allowed to eat first. Long tables were set up in a V shape, with the bride and groom sitting at the point of that V—or the Eck, as we called it. Then the rest of us divided out, the men sitting along the table on one side and the women on the other. Once seated, Anna and Tobias’s aunts and uncles served as the Ecktenders, bringing the food to us while the other married adults stood and looked on from the fringes, chatting among themselves.
I sat beside Jake and proceeded to eat until I couldn’t fit another bite in my stomach. But that wasn’t the end of the celebration by any means. Once we were done eating, the adults took their turn eating as well, in shifts, and then finally the “going to the table” ritual began. Reserved for the younger, unmarried guests, it was a custom unique to our district and the part of the wedding day that those my age either dreaded or adored. The young single women filed out to wait in one of the larger upstairs bedrooms of Anna’s house while the young single men stayed in the barn, most standing around pretending they weren’t nervous as each one tried to get up the nerve to go to the room where the girls were waiting and ask one of them to “go to the table” with him. If the girl agreed, then the two of them would come downstairs together, sometimes holding hands, usually blushing, and make their way back to the tables in the barn, where this time the young men and women would sit together, rather than across from each other, and be served dessert and other special treats.
Next to Sunday evening singings, going to the table was the best way to see how you might fare with the young Amish girl who had caught your eye. It could also be the worst way, as there was nothing more awful than working up the courage to ask a girl to go to the table and then have her giggle to her friends in response and tell you no. Or so I had heard.
I hadn’t ever had to worry about it, as Rachel and I had always gone to the table together.
“You are going to come upstairs and ask for me, aren’t you?” she had said under her breath a cold November day nearly six years ago when Ruth Suderman and Wayne Yoder got married. Rachel had just turned sixteen and was allowed to participate. We were passing each other at the beverage table during the noon meal.
“You are going to say yes when I do, aren’t you?” I had whispered back with a grin.
After the third or fourth wedding that year, Jake started complaining that I had it easy, that I had no idea what it was like to have to prove yourself worthy to someone you were dying to get to know.
These days, Rachel didn’t really have to head upstairs with the other single girls because she had no need to find a suitable mate. She’d already found me, and I her, and it was a given that someday we would wed. But she went anyway to encourage her single friends, some of whom were from other districts.
Now, once the young women were gone, I realized I couldn’t wait to go to the table with Rachel and have her all to myself. During the meal, I had been able to steal a few glances, but other than our brief exchange in the driveway much earlier, she and I had barely interacted all day.
I was suddenly so eager to be with her, in fact, that I was the first to head out of the barn door, much to the laughter of my envious friends. When I reached the house, I went upstairs to get her, and then Rachel and I came back down together, hand in hand, and crossed back over to the barn. Though we were supposed to sit where designated, I led her to the far end of the table, nearest the door, so that when the singing started, we could still hear each other talk. We sat there together, holding hands under the table, watching and laughing as one by one the guys headed off and then returned, hopefully victorious, with the woman of his choice.
Once everyone was seated—including the small group of girls who had not been asked or had said no to the asker—plates of candies, fruit, and little pieces of wedding cake were placed before us.
“Nice wedding,” Rachel said, her dainty fingers reaching for a piece of fudge.
I looked over at Anna and Tobias at the Eck, enjoying their own plates of sweets. “They look happy.”
Rachel poked me in the shoulder. “That’s because they are.”
I smiled at her, but my gaze was drawn back to Anna’s new spouse. Tobias had been born in Lancaster County and lived here his whole life. He’d gone through the usual period of rumspringa, eventually even taking a month off to go and explore the outside on his own. That took him as far as Myrtle Beach on the coast, and then he’d come back home to the family furniture business, bowed his head in baptism, joined the church, and now had married an Amish girl. I doubted he’d ever spent a moment wondering who he was or where he belonged.
“Tyler.”
I swung my head back around to face Rachel.
“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Her kind face was sweetly marked with concern.
“I ate too much,” I said, not wanting to mess with the festive mood around us.
“Nice try. What’s up?”
I shrugged, but her compassionate gaze wouldn’t allow me to say nothing at all. “Just thinking.”
“About?”