The Refuge

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Sister Leatrice still came to help with the babies at mealtimes, often alone since she was more familiar with the lay of the village. Occasionally, Sister Janice came with her, and now and again, since that unhappy first time, Sister Mona walked along with us.

  Our prayers had not yet made a change in the girl, since she continually tried to upset Sister Leatrice. However, perhaps our prayers helped in a different way, for Leatrice kept her peaceful calm even when I was the one ready to throw a shoe at the girl. I prayed then for a love for the girl that passed understanding.

  I knew the Lord could give such love, for I had prayed the same for Eldress Maria, and now I could truly say I was fond of the old woman. That could be, Sister Genna reminded me, because Eldress Maria had softened.

  “Perhaps because of prayer,” I told Sister Genna.

  “More likely because of Anna Grace.”

  Sister Genna was ever a realist, and of course, she was right. Eldress Maria made some excuse or another to come wherever I was working each day and hold Anna Grace for a while. To let me work, she said, but I saw the way she smiled at my baby girl. Anna Grace was a child ready to reach for anyone to hold her. I tried to be glad about that. I was glad about that. If the day came when they did separate her from me, she would not mourn the same as I. And yet I wanted her to need me, her mother.

  As young Leatrice needed her father. He came faithfully to see her, at times bringing along Leatrice’s grandfather. When he showed up early enough to catch Leatrice walking with me to the morning meal as he had that first time, I was always happy to see him coming toward us. And not only because of Leatrice. He seemed like an old friend, even though I hadn’t known him long.

  That first day when Sister Reva spooned the thin gruel into Benjamin’s mouth, more ended up on his face and clothes than inside him as he pushed it out with his tongue. But then he rolled a bit of it around in his mouth and swallowed. After that, plenty still spotted his face, but some also found a way to his stomach. The sisters in the kitchen and I cheered him on as we opened our mouths when Sister Reva pushed the spoon toward him as if to help him eat.

  Later, after the evening meal, we had worship practice. Eldress Maria had decided I should once more attend the practice times to learn the songs and dances, although I still did not attend the Sunday services. I was just as glad, for I feared drawing the notice of the Ministry elders and eldresses to my babies. I think Eldress Maria felt the same.

  On those nights, Sister Ellie, Sister Genna, or I took turns staying with the babies in our retiring room. Not only did Sister Helene not want to miss the worship time, tending to both babies was challenging for her. This night Sister Genna looked up at me from the rocking chair when we came back to the room after the final song was sung and the last dance labored, as the Shakers said. Benjamin slept contentedly against her shoulder.

  “Do you think he is sick?” She looked concerned. “He has hardly cried at all.”

  “Nay, I think he is full. Sister Reva made him gruel. She worried that I didn’t have enough milk for him.”

  “So he’s eating solid foods now.” Sister Genna looked thoughtful as she studied Benjamin’s sweet head. “He could stop nursing.”

  “Nay,” Sister Ellie spoke up. “He still needs to nurse.”

  “But he could survive with food mashed and fed to him.”

  “He could, but he won’t need to. My milk has not dried up.” I took the baby from her and put him in his cradle. Anna Grace was already asleep. The stomping and singing in the room down the hall never disturbed her. But then she had heard it ever since she was born. Songs in the night were as natural as sunlight in the morning to her.

  “Where’s Sister Helene?” Sister Genna asked.

  “She told us she would be along soon. She needed to talk to someone.” I sat down on the bed and undid my shoe lacings.

  “Not one of the brothers, do you think?” Sister Genna lifted her eyebrows as she untied her apron and hung it on one of the pegs along the railing behind her bed.

  “Wouldn’t that be the sweetest thing? Our Sister Helene in love.” Sister Ellie held her hands over her heart and sighed. Then she shook her head. “But nay, I don’t think so.”

  Sister Genna laughed. “The very idea of one of the brethren making eyes at her would have our sister breaking out in hives.”

  “You never know,” Sister Ellie said. “Love can sometimes sneak up on a person.”

  “Was it that way for you, Sister Ellie?” I asked.

  “Yea. I was so young when Albert came calling. He said he’d had his eye on me at church for some time and was merely waiting until I was old enough to court. He is ten years older than me.” Sister Ellie sighed as she sat down on the bed and rolled down her stockings. “He brought me a fistful of daisies he’d picked along the road to my house. He quite knocked the breath out of me. I hadn’t even thought of falling in love, but when he smiled at me with those blue eyes, I think I would have taken his hand and walked right out of my house to the preacher’s that very day. We had some good years.”

  “Before the Shakers,” Sister Genna said.

  Sister Ellie sighed again, a sorrowful sound this time. “Yea, before the Shakers.”

  “Did you not try to turn him against coming to the Shakers?” Sister Genna asked.

  “Yea, but the Shakers came to our house and convinced him the Lord intended him to be a Shaker.” She shrugged and raised her hands up and let them fall back into her lap. “Once he believed that in his heart, my words were nothing more than the clanging cymbals spoken of in Corinthians. They meant nothing. I hoped that once we were here and separated from each other and our children, he would miss the love we had shared for so many years, but that did not happen. Perhaps the Lord did lead him here, and I am wrong to still wish for a different way.”

  “Nay.” Sister Genna pulled on her nightgown. “Men get odd ideas sometimes. Just like my Jeremy thinking I couldn’t go west with him and sending me here instead. I shouldn’t have meekly agreed. That is one thing the Shakers have done for me. Helped me see that what a woman wants can matter. While I don’t believe everything this Shaker Mother Ann taught, she had to be strong and vocal in her beliefs to get so many to follow her. Not just other women, but men too.”

  “It is good Sister Helene is not hearing us talk,” I said. “Or Eldress Maria. They might both think I have led the two of you astray, for they know that I have many doubts about the Shaker way.”

  “In a way, you have changed my thinking,” Sister Ellie said. “You brought the babies to our room.”

  “The babies?” I frowned, not understanding.

  “Yea, the babies have reawakened my yearning for a normal life,” Sister Ellie said. “A life where I can rock my grandbabies and teach my young daughter how to cook and sew instead of letting others do so. To be a mother again instead of pretending to be a sister.” She looked over at Sister Genna and then me. “Not that I haven’t loved being sister to you both. And to Sister Helene too, but I need more.”

  Sister Genna and I both moved over to sit with her on her bed. “You sound as if you have made a decision for change.” Sister Genna took her hand.

  “Yea. My older daughter is in the family way again. She already has one little one and she needs me.”

  “What about Abby?” I asked.

  “Yea, Abby.” Sister Ellie’s voice was very quiet. “I got permission to speak with Albert. And he agreed to let Abby go with me should I decide to leave.”

  “That’s good.” I looked at her sad face. “Isn’t it?”

  Sister Genna tightened her hold on Sister Ellie’s hand. “Tell us what has your heart so heavy.”

  “He said she could go with me, but only if it was her choice.” Distress was evident on Sister Ellie’s face. “A child cannot know what is best for her.”

  “Have you talked to her?” I asked.

  Sister Ellie’s head drooped as she stared at her lap. “Not yet.”

  “They ar
en’t refusing to let you see her, are they?” Sister Genna was tense, ready to do battle with someone, anyone, on Sister Ellie’s behalf.

  “Nay, Sister Corinne says I may talk to Abby tomorrow.”

  “Then why the long face?” Sister Genna asked, but I understood Sister Ellie’s worry. I had seen young Abby at the Children’s House.

  “She won’t come with me. Not willingly. Perhaps if Albert came too. If we were a family again, but nay.” Sister Ellie’s voice died away.

  “Perhaps you are wrong.” My heart was heavy for her.

  She slowly shook her head. “I wish I could believe that, but it does little good to refuse to face the truth. My Abby is happy here. Others have replaced me as her mother. She barely remembers me, if she remembers me at all. She was only four when we came.” A tear dropped from her eye to land on her hand. She didn’t wipe it away.

  “We will pray you are wrong.” Sister Genna clutched Sister Ellie’s hand and reached for mine. “Now. With all our hearts, Sisters.”

  We bent our heads close together then and silently prayed. I could almost feel their prayers joining mine. I wanted to believe our prayers would be answered, but I think Sister Genna was the only one of the three of us who prayed with belief.

  Benjamin started fussing and brought us away from our prayers. Sister Ellie stood up. “Let me take care of him tonight. I might not get to do so again.”

  “You are leaving that soon?” I asked.

  “Yea, Elizabeth’s husband is coming to fetch me.”

  Tears pricked my eyes. “I don’t think I can bear to see you leave.”

  She blinked back tears of her own. “You will be fine. Sister Genna will be here to help you. And Sister Helene too.”

  Sister Genna picked Benjamin up out of his cradle and handed him to Sister Ellie. “Does she know? Sister Helene?”

  “I don’t think so. I did speak to Eldress Maria. I had to in order to arrange to see Abby. She is very unhappy with me. Says I am stepping onto a slippery slope to destruction.” Sister Ellie sat down in the rocking chair and put Benjamin up to her shoulder, as he most liked being held. “Perhaps I am.”

  “Coming to this village in the first place was the slippery slope to sorrow.” Sister Genna folded the cover back on her bed. “You are doing exactly what you should.”

  “Even if Abby refuses to come with me?” Sister Ellie sounded lost.

  “If she won’t go with you, you have lost her already. Staying won’t change that.” Sister Genna’s voice was as sad as Sister Ellie’s.

  “But she might change her mind when she gets older and want me to be her mother again.” Sister Ellie rocked back and forth and patted Benjamin’s back. He stopped crying.

  “We have prayed that will be tomorrow,” Sister Genna said. “But even if it isn’t and she doesn’t make that sensible decision until later, she can come to you then.”

  “If she knows how to find me.”

  “Of course she could find you.” I looked up from tucking the blanket tighter around Anna Grace. I rested my hand on her, loving the feel of her chest rising and falling. “You and Elizabeth can come see her. They won’t keep you from visiting, will they?” Even though I had been in the village a year, I still did not know many of the Shaker rules.

  “Nay. But they would leave the choice of seeing me or not to Abby.” She let out a long sigh. “I remember poor Mrs. York. I know that was before you came among us, Sister Darcie, but were you here then, Sister Genna?”

  “I was.” Sister Genna shook her head. “The most sorrowful sight.”

  “What was that?” I asked.

  Sister Ellie swallowed hard and new tears slid down her cheeks. “You tell her, Sister Genna.”

  “Mrs. York’s son was here. I don’t know if she went through a bad time and brought him herself, or if his father did. Whichever way it was, she obviously loved the boy, and after a time her situation must have improved. She drove a buggy here to see him every day. I never knew if she hoped to take him away with her or merely wanted to see him.”

  “They wouldn’t let him see her?” I frowned.

  Sister Ellie spoke up. “They did not forbid her to come. Nor did they forbid the boy going out to his mother.” More tears wet her cheek.

  “Then why so sad at the telling of the story?”

  “They allowed him to go see her, but they did not make him do so,” Sister Ellie said. “So he did not.”

  “Day after day after day, his mother came and waited in her buggy.” Sister Genna handed Sister Ellie a handkerchief. “It was dreadful to witness.”

  “He never went out?” I said.

  “Nay.” With her free hand, Sister Ellie wiped away her tears even as she continued to rock Benjamin. “Finally one day, Sister Tansy went out and sat with the mother in her buggy for a long time. I don’t know what she told the woman, but she didn’t come back.”

  “Is the boy still here?”

  “I was never sure which child he was,” Sister Genna said. “So maybe he is, or maybe once she stopped coming, he went to her. I hope that.”

  “But you don’t believe it,” Sister Ellie said softly. “Such might be what would happen should I come back to visit Abby.”

  “You don’t know yet that our prayers won’t be answered. She may go with you now.” Sister Genna pounded her pillow to fluff the feathers before she lay down. “I think Sister Helene is coming. If you tire of rocking Benjamin, wake me.”

  “You won’t leave without telling us goodbye, will you?” I whispered as Sister Helene came through the door.

  “Nay, my sister. I will not.”

  27

  “I get the feeling you’re avoiding me, Flynn.” Irene stepped between him and the door after supper.

  “Just busy, Irene. Lots to do.”

  That was certainly true. He didn’t have two free minutes to rub together, between his work with the horses, keeping up the farm here, and working on the house. That hadn’t gone as quickly as he’d hoped. Here it was the first of August and he still needed to replace floorboards and rebuild part of the kitchen chimney.

  “Surely you have a few minutes to sit on the porch and cool off before you go hide out in the barn. It can’t be all that comfortable sleeping out there.” Irene fanned her face with a folded paper and led the way out the door. She pushed a chair toward him. “Sit down. Rest a while.”

  “Where’s Silas?” Flynn looked around.

  “He took some scraps out to those barn cats. I never knew a man to be so fond of cats.” She sat down. “Sit awhile. I promise not to make eyes at you. I just need somebody to talk to.”

  “You could try your husband.” Flynn scooted the chair away from Irene and sat down. Maybe it was past time for an honest talk.

  “Oh, I try him all right.” Irene smiled. “I don’t think he’s enjoying married life. The poor man is too old. Too sick.”

  “He’s better. Not coughing much at all.”

  “Must be my tonic.”

  He could tell by the way she twisted her mouth to the side to hide a smile that she knew Silas wasn’t drinking the tonic. He pretended along with her. “Could be.”

  She laughed out loud then. “You men are so funny. I’ve known Silas hasn’t been drinking that for weeks.”

  “Then why do you keep making it?”

  “Got to keep up the farce, don’t we? That I’m a loving wife. That he’s a trusting husband glad to be married to a younger woman like me. That you don’t hate my guts.”

  “I don’t hate your guts.”

  “You don’t like me.” She raised her eyebrows as she peered over at him. “Are you going to lie and deny that?”

  “I don’t lie.” Flynn didn’t shrink back from her look, but he didn’t answer her either.

  “You know, I think you think that’s true, but everybody lies. Sometimes to ourselves the most. That’s how we survive in this life.”

  “What lies do you tell yourself?” Flynn was suddenly curious about Irene.
She was attractive enough if a man just looked at the outside.

  “Too many to name.” She stared out at the lane in front of the house. “Then again, maybe I’ve never lied to myself. Only to everybody else.” She looked back at Flynn. “I was married before. Did you know that?”

  “I think somebody did tell me you were a widow when I asked around about you last year.” That was before he hired her to watch Leatrice when she’d been new to the town.

  “Yes, a widow.” She let her gaze drift back out to the road. “A widow of my own making.”

  “So that was a lie? You weren’t widowed?”

  “No lie. His name was Barton. I ran away from home all the way to Kentucky with him. I doubt my father missed me back in Virginia except maybe for the work I did. My mother died in childbirth. Her seventh baby in ten years. I was oldest and so I became mother. Five younger than me. That seventh baby died along with my mother. Somebody was wanting something all the time. I couldn’t even go to the outhouse without one of them tagging along. You’d think that might make me fond of them, but I just wished they’d all disappear. My father acted like he felt the same, except he was ready for me to disappear too.”

  “So you never liked children.”

  “So I never liked children.” She smiled over at him. “Guess that explains why I had no patience with your Leatrice. Did she ever tell you about me locking her in the cellar?” Her smile actually got wider when he shook his head. “I told her not to or else, but I figured she’d run tell on me anyway. I know she told you about the bears.”

  “No. I overheard you threatening her with those bears. Don’t you remember? That’s why I sent you packing.” Flynn gripped his hands together. He wanted to chase her off their porch and away from their land, but instead he clenched his jaw and sat still.

  “She’s such an impressionable child.” She shrugged a little. “I suppose I should say I’m sorry, but that would be one of those lies. We’re being painfully honest here, aren’t we?” When Flynn didn’t say anything, she went on. “Anyway, when Barton showed up to help my father clear some land and took a fancy to me, I jumped at my chance to get away.”