Free Just Plain Pickled to Death by Tamar Myers

how to church-sleep. I had always believed this to be an inherited ability, so I was pleased to see that Uncle Elias was just as adept at it as the others. Their heads bobbed only occasionally, never inclining to more than a sixty-degree angle. Their snores were as soft as a kitten’s.
    After church we dillydallied in the parking lot while my soon-to-be-in-laws gave thumbnail autobiographies of themselves to old friends and received tome-length accounts of their friends’ lives in return. “Fine,” “great,” and “never been better” were the lies most often voiced by visitors and regulars alike.
    For some reason I got chosen as Lodema’s sounding board that morning. Apparently the choir was suffering from spring fever, the organ needed major repairs, and the prices at Sam Yoder’s Comer Market were far too high. Then she got around to her real agenda. Did I realize her husband was under a lot of strain, she wondered? I did not. Was I aware that the following weekend was the Annual Trout Fishing Championship in Scaleybark, West Virginia? I was not. Under the circumstances, would I consider postponing my wedding so Michael could unwind over his favorite flies? I most certainly would not! I said it as politely as I could, but Lodema still ended up in tears.
    By the time I was ready to leave, everyone but Aaron and his dad—and of course the Schrocks— had long since departed. Even the Beeftrust had taken hoof, although surely they knew that Sunday dinner would not be served until I got there.
    I would like to state here that if Aaron hadn’t been so impatient to get home he might have noticed in time that the left rear tire on the car—my car—was a little low. But he didn’t notice until the loud frump, frump, frump of a total flat punctured the relative silence of the peaceful countryside. By then we were halfway home.
    “Damn!” Aaron said and got out to extract the spare.
    Worse words, army words, surfaced when he discovered I was packing no spare.
    “It’s Susannah’s fault,” I wailed. “She borrowed it last week to go into Bedford. She must have had a flat then and not told me. How was I to know she didn’t replace the spare?”
    Aaron said a few choice phrases that made me think, albeit temporarily, that it might well be in our best interests to postpone the wedding. Maybe a weekend of fly-fishing in West Virginia would straighten out some of the kinks that were rapidly showing up in his armor.
    In the end my Pooky Bear left me to keep his dad company while he strode the five or so miles home to get his car. Although there were several farms along the way, they were owned by Amish families, who possessed neither spare tires nor telephones. It was also unlikely that he would get a lift. At that hour everyone else was long home from church and if not deeply immersed in their Sunday dinners, already beginning to sleep them off.
    “Mr. Miller—”
    “Pops, please,” said Aaron’s octogenarian father. “That’s what my son calls me. You do the same. After all, you are going to be my daughter come Saturday.”
    “Okay, Pops.” It had a certain spring to it. “Anyway, sorry about this flat business.”
    He smiled, and I’m sure his mouth had to work hard to push aside the wrinkles. “I’m not. I wanted a chance to talk to you alone.”
    “You did? Look, Pops, I’m not marrying your son for your money. I inherited my own farm, and thanks to the PennDutch, I have all the money I’ll ever need.”
    I was charmed by his laugh, although it did sound like a frog croaking. “I always knew you had a good head on your shoulders, Magdalena. Not like what’s-her-name.”
    “Her name is Susannah,” I said loyally, “and she’s been your neighbor for thirty-four years, ever since the day she was born.”
    “Ah, yes, Susannah. At my age, names and dates sometimes get lost. Anyway, I’m glad to hear that you are financially set, because Aaron isn’t going to inherit anything.”
    “What?” I