The Bishop's Daughter

by Patricia Johns

  Boys didn’t forget this, did they? The mother who raised them, snuggled them, and poured her whole self into the loving of them? Because mothers never forgot, no matter how big their children got or how far they roamed.

  Oh, dear God, let Samuel never leave them like Absolom had.

  * * *

  Elijah shoved the pitchfork deep into the hay bale, then pulled it upward, loosening hay before he tossed it into the horse’s stall. The buggy barn would be the last stop for this morning’s work. After this, he’d have earned himself a break. It had been a long morning with Bishop Graber along for the work.

  Bishop Graber was a hard man. He stood by the traditions with the fixedness of a tree stump. He guarded the Ordnung with blind fervor, and if the old bishop could only hold his own in the barn, Elijah might carry his resentment a little more easily, but it was difficult to stir that stew of anger and resentment while the older man seemed to be withering before his eyes.

  The bishop leaned against his shovel, breathing deeply.

  “I can finish this alone,” Elijah said. The bishop was shoveling out the last stall, but he’d slowed down to a crawl. He’d promised Sadie that he’d help her to protect her father from the workload, but that didn’t take her daet’s stubbornness into account. He’d offered twice already.

  “No, no . . .” The bishop’s dismissal was weaker this time, though. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “This is my farm, and I’m not about to let go of the reins completely.”

  “I’ll be able to finish alone,” Elijah repeated. It was better than pointing out that the bishop’s womenfolk would be furious with Elijah for not handling the bishop better.

  Bishop Graber leaned against a stall rung, resting. “Fine. I could use the rest, I suppose, but before I go inside, I have something to ask of you, Elijah.”

  Elijah straightened, his nose tickling from the dust. He rubbed at it with the back of his hand. “Yes?”

  “I want you to write a letter to Absolom.”

  Elijah repressed a sigh. He knew the reason the bishop had hired him to begin with had to do with his son, but now would begin the uncomfortable demands on top of the workload.

  “I don’t know if that is wise,” Elijah said.

  “I disagree.” The older man’s tone held stubborn authority. “He needs to hear from you—his partner in rebellion. You might be able to appeal to his better nature, explain your reasons for return. You could expound upon the beauty of our simple life.”

  Elijah shot the bishop a quick look from beneath the dark brim of his hat. His daughter obviously hadn’t told him that he wasn’t staying.

  “Family matters more than anything else,” the bishop went on when Elijah had not answered. “What do we have if we don’t have our loved ones?”

  “He knows all that,” Elijah replied. How often had Elijah and Absolom hashed through all of this together? No one walked away from the Amish world without some deep introspection.

  “My son might not be thinking about God right now,” the bishop went on. “I’ve tried to remind him of his Maker over and over again, and he’s gone deaf to me. But if you were to remind him of his duties to God—”

  “It’s not so simple.” Elijah turned back to forking hay. Was it his place to tell the bishop about his son’s spiritual defection? He was tired of holding it all back—it felt too close to a lie by omission. “Absolom has gone Mennonite.”

  Silence sank around them, all but the scrape of metal tongs against the concrete floor and the rasp of the bishop’s breath.

  “But the Ordnung—” the older man said faintly.

  Going Mennonite was worse than simple rebellion—it gave that rebellion a home, a church where the Ordnung was ignored and faith was enough.

  “I cannot write to him about the Ordnung,” Elijah replied. “He knows it all already. You have written to him about it several times yourself, and he read every letter. He no longer sees things the same way.”

  And that was something that the old bishop could never fathom—the other way of seeing things. The Englishers didn’t live in sinful chaos as the Amish assumed. They had reasons for their choices, as did Absolom.

  Bishop Graber leaned his shovel against the stall, but it slipped and clattered to the ground.

  “Bishop—” Elijah sprung forward, but the older man was fine—still on his feet and staring emptily down at the stall floor.

  “I believe I will go inside and pray on this,” the bishop murmured, and walked woodenly toward the door. Elijah bent and picked up the fallen shovel, his heart thudding almost audibly in his chest. The bishop should not be out here—it was dangerous, and the next time he collapsed, there might not be time enough to get him the medical care he needed. That was a selfish load to leave on another man’s shoulders.

  Elijah followed him to the door and watched him walk slowly across the scrub grass toward the house just as Sadie opened the door and stepped outside.

  “Daet?” Her voice filtered toward him, and Sarah, the bishop’s wife, appeared on the step behind her daughter. There was a bustle of activity as the bishop was ushered inside. Elijah expected the family to stay indoors, but a few minutes later, the screen door at the house banged again, and Elijah went to the door to see Sadie coming back out. But this time, her son was in tow behind her.

  She wore a bonnet over her kapp, and as she walked, she tied the strings beneath her chin. Elijah crossed his arms over his chest as she approached the covered overhang that housed the buggy in summer months, before it required more protection from the elements.

  “Elijah—” She startled. “Hello.”

  “Hello.” He uncrossed his arms. “Hitching up?”

  “Yes, I’m going to town.” She headed into the barn toward the draft horses’ stalls. Sammie hung back, waiting.

  “For the doctor?” Elijah asked, following her.

  “He’s just tired. We’ve seen him worse.” Sadie turned toward him, then shook her head. “Daet says he just needs his pills. I’m going to town for flour and sugar and a few other things.” She turned back. “Sammie, stand back, son!”

  “I’ll hitch you up,” Elijah said.

  Sadie paused, then regarded Elijah for a moment. “What happened out here? Is he upset about something?” Sadie took a bridle and blinders off the wall and headed for the first stall.

  Elijah took the second bridle and blinders and headed for the other horse. “He asked about Absolom.”

  “And?” Her voice came to him slightly distantly as she approached the large horse.

  “I told him that Absolom went Mennonite,” he replied. “That’s all.”

  They emerged from the stables a few minutes later, each leading a draft horse toward the buggy. Samuel stood obediently next to one of the buggy’s big wheels.

  “If he’s gone Mennonite, then he won’t come back. Ever.” The words came out in a breathy rush. “They’d give him the easy path—tell him it’s truth.”

  “It’s not exactly like that.” Elijah slung the harness over the first horse and began tugging at straps and doing up buckles. “It’s different out there. It’s hard to explain.”

  “What does that mean?” Her voice was pinched as she worked next to him, harnessing up the other horse. “Mervin always believed that he would come back.... Mervin’s son had left for a little while. He met an Englisher girl, but he came home after a few months. He missed his family. No girl could take the place of a whole life—”

  “Sadie, what am I supposed to say? I can’t predict the future.” He came around the front of the horse and stopped short in front of her. She straightened, and looking down into her face, he could see her faint freckles across her nose, her lips slightly parted. She looked up at him, eyes clouded with emotion, and he found himself ever so tempted to duck his head down and catch those pink lips with his. But he wouldn’t—obviously. He cleared his throat and took a step back. Her cheeks pinked.

  “I know. It’s just . . . Mervin’s pare
nts are coming to visit.” Sadie backed the horse in front of the buggy. “They’re coming in two days.”

  “To see Sammie,” Elijah concluded.

  “And to see me,” she replied primly. “I’m their daughter-in-law. I’m part of the family.”

  Of course—her in-laws. Stupid of him not to think of them that way. She had a family associated with Mervin, a whole heap of connections. He didn’t know why that made him feel irritable, but it did.

  And suddenly, as he attached the shafts to the harness, the full realization struck him so forcibly that he let out a huff of breath. She’d been a married woman. She had in-laws, a husband, a whole life while he’d been gone. It was easy to imagine that the slower life out here with the Amish had simply ground to a stop while he was away, but that hadn’t been true. She may have accepted a man beneath her, but she’d indeed married him, and while she was now a widow, Elijah—two years her senior—still wore the fresh-shaven face of a single man. More than that, Mervin’s death didn’t erase those connections.

  Elijah crossed in front of the horses and took the shaft from her hands to finish hitching up for her. Sadie took a step back, and Sammie slipped a small hand into hers.

  Why was it that Elijah could see her with her little boy at her side, and he still hadn’t been able to picture her properly wed? He’d known it for a fact, but his heart had never given him a picture of what that might look like. Maybe it was because he’d never seen her in that role of wife. Or perhaps something inside of him wanted to keep her down at his level—single, free, still learning.

  “I’m going to see Dawdy and Mammi,” Samuel lisped. “They’re coming to visit, and Mamm will make pie to eat. They will rock in the chairs on the porch with my other Dawdy.”

  Elijah finished the last buckle and slipped his hands over the reins to straighten them all the way up the front of the buggy. Then he stopped and looked down at Samuel.

  “He’s excited.” Sadie shrugged faintly. “The timing is difficult, but it will be good to see them, all the same.”

  “I never knew how to picture you married,” he admitted quietly. “When I knew you, you were the girl who used to tell me off when you thought I was being stupid, and you never wore your shoes often enough. You kept getting your dress dirty when you kneeled on it in the garden—”

  “I’m not a girl anymore,” she said.

  “I know, I just . . . in my mind I see you catching minnows in the creek, and I haven’t caught up.”

  The creek was his most powerful memory of her, the place they’d escape to to be alone. He could vividly remember how she’d leaned into his arms, the taste of her lips, the way his heart would pound in his head as he pulled her ever closer. . . . They’d thought too little about the future, and too much about the moment. All he’d been able to think about in those long summer days was getting her back into his arms. He’d been young and stupid, and figured maybe he could court her one day when they were both older. . . . But he hadn’t been thinking anything through then, just following his youthful passion.

  “You missed a lot.” Sadie lifted her son up into the carriage, and the boy disappeared into its depths, giving them a sense of false privacy. She turned toward him. “You both should have been here, Elijah.”

  Her tone seemed to tremble with meaning, but if there was more to her words besides resentment, he had no way of knowing. Neither of them should have left—Rumspringa wasn’t for that level of disobedience. And if he had been here in Morinville, what would he have done? She’d never have gone for the likes of him, even if he’d been stupidly in love with her as a heady teen. He was as far beneath her as Mervin had been.

  “I can’t change it, Sadie,” he said quietly.

  “I know.” Sadie lifted her skirts to the knees to hoist herself up into the buggy. She settled on the front seat and accepted the reins he handed up to her. Samuel planted himself next to his mother, his legs sticking out straight in front of him.

  “You be good for your mamm,” Elijah said, slapping the side of the carriage and stepping back.

  “I’m going to get a stick of candy!” Samuel shouted out the window as Sadie flicked the reins and the horses started forward.

  “Hush.”

  He heard her remonstrance to her child as the horses pulled out of the shelter and struck a rhythm as they headed toward the drive. Elijah stood there in the shade of the overhang, thumbs in the front of his pants and his gaze locked on the back of that buggy.

  Life in Morinville hadn’t stopped when he’d left, and neither had his. He hadn’t been married, but in place of that, he’d experienced a world of computers, cell phones, cars, and gas stations. He’d worked construction with Absolom and they’d inhaled the scent of oil and gasoline as roads were pressed out in front of them like dough on a countertop. He’d met women who treated him like a baby animal to be coddled, and he’d met other women who’d had holes in their hearts as big as his. He liked the wounded women better because they didn’t shrink away from him when he talked in his slow and halting way, working his mouth around the English phrases he wasn’t used to.

  Never once when he was away was he able to describe to anyone that feeling of belonging that he got here with his own people. There weren’t enough English words for it. In Chicago, he’d been a number at best—so many different numbers had clung to him. Here, he was a full person—a man to some, a boy to others. He might be a burden or a reminder of unpleasantness. Some might like him, and others might not, but all the same he was Elijah Fisher, son of Abram and Nettie Fisher. He’d been born to fence making, quite solidly below the likes of Absolom and Sadie. He knew who he was here, and a social security number couldn’t give that kind of identity.

  And even so, Morinville could not be his home again. Elijah told people that he’d changed too much, but the truth of the matter went deeper. He’d always trusted in his parents’ love and support, and when he went to the city as a teenager, he’d been terrified. He wrote his daet a letter, pouring it all out onto paper. He was scared, angry, heartbroken. He wanted a conversation, a discussion; he wanted to be heard. His father’s reply had been brief: The bishop advises us not to talk to you about such things unless you come home. The rest of the letter had been religious discussion about the strength of community. His father’s choice was clear.

  The betrayal had been as shocking as a slap to the face. The feeling of security that had surrounded Morinville in his mind evaporated upon reading that letter. He was no longer Abram’s son, at least on a heart level, if he moved away. There was a limit to his father’s love, and that limit had been determined by the bishop.

  Boys hardened into men, whether they did it at home or away. Manhood had found Elijah, and he decided that he would have to build a life for himself. He wanted financial security and a business that thrived and grew under his leadership, unfettered by a church’s restrictions. He wanted a chance to see how far he could go.

  The community of Morinville might know him better than Chicago ever would, but he couldn’t trust them. The group always came first—even before confused sons who needed their daet’s support. That wasn’t a place Elijah could ever call home again. He preferred the Englishers. At least with them, he knew where he stood.

  Chapter Five

  Elijah clomped into his home later that evening, his body aching from the day’s labor. He wasn’t used to farm work anymore, and it would take some time to build up his stamina. Besides, he’d never worked more than the family plot before he left for the city. He’d spent long hours with his daet in the back of the store, guiding barbed wire into the machine that wove the fencing together. He’d lifted and stacked heavy rolls of wire. He’d helped to load up customers’ trailers, and then he’d gone home and helped his mamm with the family’s chickens and milk cow. So he was no stranger to hard work, but all of that work, including construction, had been nothing compared to the demands of another man’s farm.

  “Are you hungry, son?” his mother called
from the kitchen.

  “Yah, Mamm.” He pulled off his boots and hung his hat on a peg. The house smelled of fresh baking—bread and shoofly pie.

  “How was it today?” his father called from the kitchen. Elijah emerged to see his daet at the table with a mug of tea in front of him, and his mamm at the counter, buttering two thick slices of bread.

  “The same as usual,” Elijah replied. “Lots of work. The bishop isn’t doing well.”

  “How sick is he?” His mother cast a concerned look over her shoulder.

  “He needs to rest a lot,” Elijah said. “And he keeps trying to work like he used to, but he can’t keep up.”

  Elijah could barely keep up with the work, either. He had blisters on his feet and hands to attest to that, but at least his heart wasn’t going to give out.

  “It was kind of the bishop to give you this job,” his father said.

  “Kind?” Elijah dropped into a kitchen chair. “I’m doing the work of two men and getting paid for one. Besides, after what he did to your business, he owes us.”

  “Owes?” Daet raised his eyebrows. “Don’t let pride get the best of you, boy. The community voted on the machinery. This wasn’t the bishop’s fault.”

  “The elders voted, yes,” Elijah conceded. “But that isn’t to say that the bishop’s views didn’t factor in. He’s an influential man, Daet. You know where that decision came from.”

  “Money is not everything,” his father replied curtly.

  “No? Then why am I here?” Elijah heard his voice rising, and he bit off the words and looked away. His father wanted it both ways—Elijah’s help, and to keep his idealized view of their community.

  Elijah’s mother handed him the buttered bread, casting him a look of warning.

  “Thanks, Mamm.”

  She smiled in response, and her eyes looked tired. She’d been up since before dawn, and it was nearly ten now. She nudged a jam jar toward him, and he dipped a spoon into it, daubing lumps of strawberry preserves on top of the creamy butter.

  “We need the money you make there, son,” Daet said after a moment. “Now is not the time to cause waves.”