Chapter 44
O ne evening in March, the small family was seated around the light of a kerosene lamp, talking pleasantly of the day’s work while Lilly graded papers.
Jacob was pleased to see his mother-in-law looking so well and he’d come to enjoy her tart humor. But now she sighed with a dreamy look on her face.
“What, Mamm?” he asked with interest.
“Ach, nothing …”
“What is it?” Lilly looked up.
“I just had the thought that I wish I’d been well enough to host a wedding quilting for you, that’s all.”
Lilly smiled and rose to hug her mother. “I have you back, Mamm. A wedding quilting doesn’t matter.” But she spoke with such an unconscious wistfulness that it echoed in Jacob’s heart.
All right, that’s it!” Seth tossed a bridle at him, and Jacob caught it with ease.
“What?”
“You’ve been moping around here for the past two days. I took your advice and got over myself. Now I’ll ask you what your problem is … besides the fact that you can’t seem to bring yourself to … cherish your wife with husbandly affection.”
Jacob hung the bridle up and looked at his brother with a growing light in his eyes. “Well, if you really want to know—you could help me.”
Seth backed off, hands up. “Oh no, that’s between you and your fraa.”
“Seth,” Jacob said, a bit disgusted, “don’t let your artist’s imagination run away with you. I need your help in a very different way.”
“I wasn’t offering help. I thought you were sad, not plotting. I don’t want any part of this—”
Jacob linked his arm over his bruder’s shoulders. “It’ll only take a few minutes of your time.”
Lilly kept her gaze discreet while sitting in the buggy in the cool evening air. By now, though, the group of Amish women who exited the church in Lockport where the depression support groups were held had become familiar to her, and her waiting presence to them. The group served a wide area of about fifteen miles or so and she didn’t recognize anyone from her community. There were about twelve women in all, including her mamm, and they often bade each other good night or stood talking in pairs for a few moments when the meeting was done. For Lilly, it was exhilarating to see her mamm pause and speak to someone, sharing concerns and laughter before coming to the buggy.
“How was it tonight, Mamm?”
Lilly had discovered, to her surprise, that her mother liked to talk about the things she’d learned during the meetings. Lilly had grown to treasure the buggy rides home as a time to feel closer to her mamm.
“It was gut.” Her voice was quiet.
Lilly glanced at her mother’s profile. “What’s wrong?”
“Ach, nothing. The discussion really was good, but one girl brought up the fact that she’d been told that if she only had more faith, then she wouldn’t be depressed.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No, not at all. But it’s still difficult to hear such words.”
“Mamm, Dr. Parker said that depression is a very real illness. Can faith help you as you recover? Surely. But to link faith or more faith with not having depression isn’t fair—”
Her mother laughed and patted her arm. “It’s all right, Lilly. I know all that. I felt bad for the woman who’d had someone say that to her; that’s all. I don’t want her to feel shame over false words.”
“Oh.”
“I’m feeling better, Lilly. Really. For the first time in months I feel like there’s a break in the clouds. But I’m not fool enough to think it’s over. I’ll have to be careful and conscious of this illness for all my days.”
Lilly nodded as her throat filled with happy tears. She was so pleased to hear her mother talking seriously, if not matter-of-factly, about her illness. She lifted her eyes to the star-strewn sky and thanked Derr Herr once more for using for good what had so recently seemed like such an irreparable time in her mother’s life.