Meek and Mild Page 26

  Hannah’s eyes lit up. “Can I come with you?”

  Clara’s stomach sank. Rhoda would not agree.

  Rhoda stepped outside to welcome Josiah and Hannah. Josiah acknowledged her greeting before going directly inside. Hannah, though, stood beside the buggy.

  “I want to go with Clara. Please, Mamm, may I go with Clara?”

  “You’ve only just arrived home from school,” Rhoda said, taking Hannah’s lunch bucket. “You have chores to do.”

  “I’ll do them when I get back. I promise.” Hannah stroked the horse’s neck.

  “There’s no reason for you to go.”

  “I just want to,” the girl said. “I never get to go with Clara anymore.”

  “You see Clara every day.” Rhoda put a hand on her daughter’s back to point her toward the house, but the child did not budge.

  Hannah tilted her head back, eyes pleading. “Please, Mamm?”

  Clara squatted in front of her sister to look her in the eye. “I’m sure your mamm has a snack waiting for you. She always does.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Hannah muttered.

  “Still, go freshen up.”

  Hannah dragged her feet through the dirt, leaving a set of tracks between the barn and the house.

  Clara pivoted toward Rhoda. “What have I done that makes you think I deserve your shunning?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rhoda hung Hannah’s lunch bucket over one arm and paced toward a clothesline.

  Clara strode after her, close on her heels. “It’s been almost six months. You won’t let me help in the house. You won’t let the children spend time with me. I don’t even know how Hannah feels about Priscilla moving away.”

  “I have told her as much as she needs to know.” Rhoda swiftly removed four clothespins and draped two of her husband’s shirts over one shoulder.

  “And what do you tell her about me?” Clara stayed only two steps beside Rhoda, her voice rising.

  “She’s my daughter.”

  “You used to tell me I was like your own daughter.”

  “You are.” Rhoda removed two more pins, and a pair of Josiah’s trousers dropped into her arms.

  “And you were the mother I didn’t have when I was Hannah’s age.” Clara’s voice cracked. “So why? I only want to know why?”

  “This is for your own good. I have to do what’s best for all my children.”

  “Hannah is my sister.” Words pent up for months, a river running too high, gushed unstoppable through Clara’s lips. “Will I only be allowed to see her if I marry? Do you want me out of your house so badly? Or perhaps I have to wait for Hannah to be old enough to choose for herself. Is that what you have in mind?”

  Rhoda abandoned the clothesline and finally confronted Clara’s insistent eyes. “This is as good a time as any to tell you that I spoke to your English family.”

  “They’re not my family,” Clara said. “I only work for them a few hours a week.”

  “Yesterday I let them know you’re not available to come any longer.”

  Clara’s lips twisted in fury. “I am not a child. I can decide for myself if I want to clean house for an English family.”

  “Well, it’s done. He said he had in mind someone else to ask and wished you well in your marriage.”

  “Marriage! But I haven’t said I was getting married.”

  “Cleaning other people’s homes is as much as saying you intend not to marry and have your own home.” Rhoda yanked two more garments off the line.

  Clara swallowed hard. “When I was a little girl, you filled an empty place in me, and I will always be grateful. But this—whether I marry or where I work—is not for you to decide.”

  “I’m only helping you live in the way of our people.” Rhoda looked around, her shoulders covered with clothing and her fists full of clothespins. “I should have brought a basket out.”

  “A basket! Are you more concerned with the laundry than with me?” Clara snatched one of Mari’s tiny dresses from its pins and hurled it at Rhoda.

  Hiram marched across the pasture and slipped through the fence into the farmyard. “Clara!”

  She bit her tongue.

  “You will not speak to Rhoda in this manner.”

  Clara forced herself to take a deep breath. “Did you know Rhoda thinks my work cleaning houses means I won’t marry?”

  Hiram looked from daughter to wife and back. “She has your best interest in mind.”

  “I’m a grown woman,” Clara said.

  “When you marry,” Rhoda said, “you’ll have a home with your husband. Until then we decide what’s best.”

  “By shaming me? By depriving me of affection?” Clara refused to surrender to the hot tears pooling in her eyes.

  “Mind your tone. Look!” Hiram gestured toward the house.

  Clara saw three sets of young blue eyes looking out the front window.

  “You are forgetting your place in the household,” Hiram said.

  “I seem to have no place in the household,” Clara said, in control of her tone but still unable to filter her words.

  “Think carefully about what you do and say.” Hiram glared.

  Clara clamped her lips closed, her face flaming. She climbed into the buggy and put the horse in motion. It was all too much. Rhoda excluding her for all these months. Fannie’s melancholy. The Schrocks and the Stutzmans. The Yoders’ determination to punish Andrew and her. Hannah’s pleading eyes filling with disappointment over and over.

  And now Clara had behaved like an impetuous ten-year-old. What example to her siblings was she now? She had just given Rhoda every reason to safeguard her impressionable children from their wild older sister’s outbursts.

  She could be married to Andrew within the month if she chose. He had a thriving farm and a lovely house that she could make her own. Rhoda might relax.

  But Clara was uncertain she could ever forgive.

  She would marry Andrew when she was ready—truly ready—and not because her stepmother held hostage three young children.

  Andrew braced his feet, raised the sledgehammer, and slammed it down on a half-rotted fence post. The old wood splintered and crumbled. He stepped back, and Mose Beachy knelt in the dirt to toss aside the larger pieces and scoop rot out of the posthole. Andrew exchanged the hammer for a spade to widen the hole while Mose lifted a new post upright from the back of his wagon.

  “Time matters,” Andrew said.

  “God’s time matters,” Mose countered.

  “How many more families will we lose?” Andrew loaded the shovel three more times, tossing dirt and debris aside.

  “As many as God chooses.” Mose tipped the post into the hole and then straightened to look at Andrew.

  “What if God is not choosing?” Andrew said. “What if people are simply becoming impatient?”

  “Why did God make Abraham and Sarah wait so long before He fulfilled the promise?”

  Andrew had often wondered. He had no answer.

  “What about morale?” Andrew said. “If people realize you are going to enforce a ban that you don’t believe in—”

  “Who said I don’t believe in it?” Mose wiggled the post snug into the bottom of the hole.

  Andrew leaned on the handle of his shovel. “Do you?”

  “A strong argument can be made for respecting tradition on the matter.”

  Andrew tilted his head as he considered Mose’s response. Never before had he heard Mose take this position. “Mose, what are you saying?”

  “The question is not whether to remove the meidung for people who go to the Marylanders,” Mose said. “The question is what is best for the district. What will bring peace and unity to the church?”

  “I don’t understand,” Andrew said. “How can it bring peace and unity to the church to watch our families leave?”

  “They will not all leave.”

  More would. Andrew was certain of that. He had not supposed Mose Beachy to be one to l
ead by waiting for naysayers to leave.

  “I hope that given time, we will have some productive conversations,” Mose said. “In due time we might yet move ahead together on the question. Does not belonging to the community carry greater weight than being right or wrong on a single doctrine?”

  Andrew pushed his black felt hat back off his forehead.

  Mose chuckled. “I can see you are not persuaded.”

  “No,” Andrew admitted. “I’m not.”

  “If I am to be bishop, I must care for the entire flock.”

  “And the sheep who wander to Maryland?”

  “They will find their belonging there, I imagine. But if I lift the meidung with a simple announcement, then where will those who hold to it find their belonging?”

  Andrew had not thought of that.

  “The ninety-nine and the one lost sheep,” Mose said. “Each one matters. No one is diminished.”

  Andrew moved dirt. “Would not those who hold to the meidung also submit to a new tradition?”

  “Like owning automobiles?” Mose said.

  Andrew’s eyelids flipped up. “You know?”

  “If I act too swiftly and in the extreme,” Mose said, “the road to peace will become even more rocky.”

  Andrew lifted his hat and scratched the top of his head.

  “I do not ask you to trust me,” Mose said. “I ask you to trust God. All will be well in God’s time. Now let’s set this post before we lose the light.”

  Yonnie put his hands flat on the table and leaned across it, glaring into his coworker’s face.

  “You will see,” Yonnie said. “The ban will hold.”

  The other young man laughed. “The ban has never held. Why should anyone take it seriously now?”

  “I will pray for you,” Yonnie said. “I will pray every night for the Holy Ghost to convict you.”

  “You seem to have taken that job on yourself.”

  Laughter spattered around them. Heat crawled up the back of Yonnie’s neck as he set his jaw.

  “What’s going on in here?” Dale thundered into the workroom.

  Distracted employees turned back to their tasks.

  “Yonnie, please come to my office.” Dale pivoted and marched out.

  At a less brisk pace, Yonnie followed Dale, finding his employer behind the desk by the time he reached the office. Yonnie crossed his wrists in front of him as he spread his feet to a solid stance.

  “The time has come,” Dale said.

  “The time?” Yonnie glanced at a clock.

  Dale nodded slowly. “The time for you to find somewhere else to work.”

  Adrenaline broke free in Yonnie’s core. His inquiries so far had led to no other employment possibilities, not even among his Yoder relatives.

  “I’ll count you out a month’s pay to give you time to make other arrangements,” Dale said.

  One month. What would change in one month—during the winter when Yonnie could not even hope to find odd jobs on the farms?

  “I was hoping you might settle down when Mose became bishop,” Dale said.

  “Settle down?”

  “Become less…persuaded on certain matters. But since you can’t set aside what you think about church doctrines or accept that others might disagree with good reason, it’s time for you to go.”

  “They egg me on,” Yonnie said. “They ask me for my thoughts and then laugh when I answer.”

  “I believe you,” Dale said, surprising Yonnie. “But the dairy will still be more peaceful if you’re not working here. I only held on this long because I heard you were asking around for work. I thought something would have turned up for you by now.”

  “Nothing has.”

  Nothing in the Amish shops. Nothing on the farms. Even at the height of the harvest, Yonnie had not found anyone who would let him run an Amish farm stand to sell to the English. If he had to lower himself to work for the English—Yonnie shook away the notion.

  “Give me another chance,” Yonnie said.

  Dale sighed. “I don’t trust you, Yonnie. Your chances are over.”

  Dale turned his chair and leaned down to open the small safe he kept under his desk. When he sat up he began counting bills on the desk. Yonnie was too stunned to keep track of how they totaled.

  Five days might have been five years. When her mother turned her back in the kitchen, Hannah lifted her blue eyes to Clara. When Clara opened her eyes at the close of a silent prayer before a meal with the family, she saw Hannah’s wide orbs fixed on her. During family devotions, as their father read from the Bible and Hannah sat tucked in between her mother and Josiah, the sisters watched each other.

  At church the past Sunday, Hannah had been the one to be brave. During the meal, she took her plate and sat down next to Clara before her mother settled at a table. Rhoda looked at the two of them, Clara avoiding her stepmother’s eyes and Hannah staring into them with a dare.

  I’m not moving, her posture said. Don’t try to make me.

  With Mari and Josiah, Rhoda moved to the next table, where she could watch Clara and Hannah.

  It was something, Clara thought. In the safety of a hundred people having lunch together in the meetinghouse, she could at least converse with her sister.

  Clara peppered Hannah with questions about school and her friends, all the while thinking how unfair it was to expect a six-year-old to understand the shift between her mother and her big sister, two people she loved and trusted. Hannah chattered, spilling overdue news of who was in her class this year and what she did when they went outside at lunchtime. Several times she said, “Priscilla used to…” or “I wish Priscilla could…” When they had finished eating, Hannah leaned against Clara, spreading an awkward embrace around her and whispering into her ear.

  “I want it to be like before,” Hannah said, wiggling her way into Clara’s lap even though her parents would have said she was too old for that.

  Clara welcomed her, inhaling the scrubbed scent of her hair, washed just last night, and snuggling the pliant form that squirmed to fit against Clara’s.

  But Hannah had gone too far. Rhoda approached with firm instructions for Hannah to stack dishes. Clara nudged the girl off her lap, but not before kissing one smooth cheek.

  Now, on Tuesday morning, Clara watched all three of her young siblings make their best effort to sit still and appear attentive for the morning devotions before school.

  After he dismissed the family with a blessing, Hiram asked Clara to stay behind. Her mind sifted her actions in the last few days, and she gripped the edges of her apron as if to lift it and catch whatever accusation would fall out.

  “I was harsh,” he said. “The sermon on Sunday convicted me that I must ask your forgiveness.”

  This was her old daed, the one who was quick to admit he was wrong when she was little and he was never certain of his parenting decisions.

  “Please forgive me,” he said. “You have not forgotten your place. You will always have a place here.”

  Clara’s chest tightened, and she reminded herself to breathe out.

  “I loved your mother very much,” Hiram said.

  Though Clara had only the whisper of memories of her mother, she had always known Hiram loved Catherine. Why else would he have been huddled in grief for most of Clara’s childhood?

  “Martha and Catherine were closer than any other two sisters I have ever known,” Hiram said. “There was nothing complicated about the decision to let you grow up knowing your mother’s family. I would never have kept you from them.”

  “I know, Daed,” Clara said. “I know there are some who think you should never have let me cross the border. I’m grateful you did.”

  He waved away the remark and stood up to put the family’s Bible in its place on the shelf.

  “Rhoda also has many qualities that make me cherish her,” he said. “I have to think of her happiness.”

  “I know.” Clara’s gaze went to her lap.

  “Your brother
and sisters deserve to grow up in peace.”

  She felt his eyes on her and looked up into his face. “I know that, too.”

  Clara’s heart closed around all the unanswered questions swirling in this conversation. Do you think I am bad for the kinner? Don’t you see Rhoda has her own form of meidung?

  “I’m going to muck stalls today.” Hiram patted Clara’s shoulder as he passed.

  “I’ll help,” she said.

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “I want to.”

  “I can manage. You enjoy your day.”

  Oh Daed. Not you, too!

  The sound of a racing buggy was not an easy one to ignore, even if Fannie was half asleep on the davenport on Tuesday afternoon.

  “Who’s coming?” Sadie popped up from the floor where she was playing with two faceless dolls and peered out the front window.

  Fannie was on her feet as well. The pounding of the horse’s hooves and the rattle of the hitch and buggy screamed urgency.

  “It’s the gray horse,” Sadie announced.

  Gray horse.

  “Onkel Abe’s horse?” Fannie crossed the room to open the front door.

  Lizzie pulled hard on the reins and jumped out of the buggy.

  “What is it?” Fannie’s heart thudded.

  “You’d better come,” Lizzie said, breathless.

  “Mamm?”

  Lizzie nodded. “The babe is coming. It’s been all day and still she labors.”

  “No one told me.”

  “She thought it would be better if we sent word after the baby arrived. That was…before.”

  “Before what?” Sadie pulled on her mother’s sleeve.

  “Get your shoes and your cloak,” Fannie snapped.

  “Are we going to see Grossmuder?” Excitement put a squeal in Sadie’s voice and widened her eyes.