The Outcast
Page 5
“Home. Please just take me home.”
Gerald nods and shifts into drive. A taciturn man under normal circumstances, Gerald senses that these are not your normal circumstances. He is quiet the whole journey up Copper Creek Mountain.
Before Tobias disembarks outside his white farmhouse, my son reaches into the right pocket of his black pants and draws out a money clip. He lays a fifty-dollar bill on the console despite Gerald’s protests. “You lost some money because of my request,” he says. “I hope this’ll make up for it.”
Nodding his compliance, Gerald smiles at his charitable passenger and pulls away.
Tobias watches the lane until the van’s red taillights are extinguished by the darkness. He turns and plods up the porch steps, more fatigued than when he spent his days lifting up the feet belonging to two-thousand-pound mares. When he enters the silent dwelling, Tobias breathes a sigh of relief.
But not for long.
At his brother’s arrival, Judah stands. His features are awash with frustration as he asks, “Where is she?”
Shrugging off his jacket, Tobias hangs it on the back of the kitchen chair but keeps his hat on to further obscure his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Judah steps closer to his brother. “Yes, you do!” he hisses through his teeth. “Don’t you lie!”
Wiping Judah’s spittle from his face, Tobias says, “Would you please keep your voice down? You’re going to wake the entire haus.”
“Let’s go outside, then.”
Like a dog that feels secure on his own marked ground, Tobias moves closer to his brother and peers down with eyes that dare Judah to strike out the way his anger desires. “Rachel left the community,” Tobias says. “She came and told me at the hospital.”
“And who forced her to go?”
“No one. She just thought it was the best choice.”
“Best choice?” Judah’s face twists with a sneer. “Two days ago, you told me that Rachel would never leave her twin. Now you’re saying she thought that was the best choice? Bishops aren’t supposed to lie, Tobias, and this is the third lie you’ve told in the past five minutes.” Smiling without a trace of humor, Judah shakes his head. “Then again, I guess it’s fitting: you should be allowed to tell as many lies as you want, considering your life itself is one.”
Rachel
Ida Mae hops down out of the cab. I look over while freeing Eli from his car seat and stifle a gasp. This is the first time I’ve seen her outside the truck, and I never noticed that she was short. Her legs, squashed into Wranglers so tight they must be cutting off her circulation, are the same as a chicken’s: plump at the top but narrowing down to ankles that are as bony as mine. She wears mud-caked boots that lace up, and as she stalks off toward her Amish store, I see there’s a perfect worn circle on the backside of her jeans from where she keeps her tobacco tin.
After spreading a blanket on the truck seat and changing Eli’s diaper, I tug a knitted hat down over his ears and carry him across the gravel driveway toward the store. Ida Mae comes out the green door of a tiny outbuilding attached to the main one and clomps down the three steps, waving a brass key in her hand.
“If you ever need in the store and I ain’t around, make sure you remember that I keep the key in the bathroom. I hang it on a little hook behind the curtain.” I nod, and she says, “Welp, c’mon. Don’t just stand there gawking at me, girl. Let’s go round to the front.”
I follow Ida Mae to the entrance of the square white building with a striped awning and green shutters with star cutouts. After using the porch steps to scrape mud from her boots, Ida Mae opens the glass storm door, wedges her key into the lock, and knocks open the door with a hip like a battering ram. A high-pitched bell tinkles above it.
She takes a step inside, then looks back over her shoulder. “Am I gonna hafta give you permission to breathe?”
I shake my head and enter the store right as Ida Mae flicks on the lights. It’s a small building—no bigger than most of the storage sheds Ida Mae has for sale outside—but every inch of space is organized in an attractive manner I would not have thought my new employer capable of. In the center of the store is a wooden shelving unit lined with a green gingham pattern. When Ida Mae sees me looking at it, she says, “That’s for the baked goods. I bring ’em in twice a week from Hostetler’s.”
“The bakery at Copper Creek?”
She nods. “I ain’t much of a baker myself. Don’t like such time-consuming things.”
An antique wrought-iron bed is in the far right corner of the room. It is heaped with quilts with hand-stitched nursery themes and tiny postage-stamp designs or the classic wedding-ring pattern that Amish and Mennonites like to give as housewarming gifts. I know Ida Mae must have gotten these quilts on commission from various communities because I could never imagine her hunched over “such time-consuming things” for hours and hours on end.
The shelves on the opposite wall are filled with jars of jewel-colored jams, honey with chunks of floating comb trapped inside like flies in amber, and sorghum as thick as tar. Hanging from wooden pegs are children’s Amish outfits, each complete with a boy’s suspenders or a little girl’s mini kapp. On a low table is a tiered arrangement of handcrafted soaps made from oatmeal, coconut oil, or cocoa powder. Each small square is tied up with brown burlap string and a cardboard tag reading, Ida Mae’s Amish Country Store.
“I tried that cocoa soap out once,” Ida Mae says. “But it tasted so good, I ’bout drowned in my bubble bath.”
I don’t know which causes me to laugh more: the thought of this loud-mouthed, quick-tempered woman in a gray army jacket and muddy boots taking a bubble bath, or the thought of her being such a glutton for chocolate that she would taste her own bathwater.
Regardless, the laughter takes hold of me and will not let go. Ida Mae is startled at first, for this is the most noise I’ve made yet; then she tosses her head back and laughs too.
When we have both regained our breath, Ida Mae elbows me lightly. “You didn’t know your boss was a comedian, didja?” I shake my head and she says, “Welp, Rachel-girl, get yourself prepared. There are plenty of sides to me nobody but my cats has seen.”
Ida Mae shows me the tiny back room where she keeps her containers for transporting baked goods; it will now serve as my “reflexology station.” She locks up the store and leads me to her house. Four soaring trees with knotty trunks and sweeping limbs overshadow the whitewashed dwelling with a steeply pitched roof, their leaves bathing the green tin in a tangy wash of orange and red. The small yard is enclosed by a white picket fence, and a long-haired calico with striking green eyes slinks along the fence top, mewing and arching its back in an attempt to get rubbed or attract a mate.
“Get down, you!” Ida Mae yells, swatting at the feline. But it’s obvious that Ida Mae’s bark is worse than her bite as she cradles the cat and runs rough fingers through its sleek coat. “This here’s Bathsheba,” Ida Mae says. “The last of Jezebel’s babies.”
My eyes widen at the choice of names. Depositing Bathsheba on the ground like she’s made from glass, Ida Mae straightens, claps her hands, and calls, “Lay-dee!” A shaggy creature gets up from where it was slumbering in the flower beds and waddles toward us. I’ve never seen an animal so obese. Stopping in front of us, it collapses on its haunches and lifts a paw up to touch Ida Mae’s thigh.
“What is that?” I whisper, my voice muted by the hand over my nose.
Ida Mae hunkers over and runs two hands down the animal’s thick neck. “This here’s Lady, a golden retriever.”
Recoiling from the dog that’s decided to place her dirty paw on my dress, I say, “I’ve never seen a golden retriever so . . .”
“Fat?” Ida Mae suggests.
I nod. Ida Mae scratches the dog behind her ears. She drops to the ground and rolls onto her back. Ida Mae rubs her boot on the dog’s extended stomach, and Lady thumps her tail as drool oozes from either side of her mouth.
Ida Mae shakes her head. “No, ma’am. This dog here’s got a little carbo-hydrate problem. I’ve been feeding her my leftover baked goods since I opened. I think they’re starting to catch up with her.” Smacking her own backside, Ida Mae adds, “But then, I shouldn’t talk.”
Ida Mae steps over the obese animal—who’s still stretched on her back, hoping for another rub—and walks down the cracked sidewalk toward the house.
“How many cats do you have?” I glance at the line of beds under the porch and a tin nine-by-thirteen pan heaped with kibble. Having been raised on a farm, my family’s always thought of cats as one step above mice, and that’s only because they kill them.
“Oh, I’d say ’bout fifteen or twenty, but a few of them are feral as mountain lions.” Ida Mae reaches out and touches Eli’s head, which I don’t like, since she has just been rubbing on Lady—a dog who does not live up to her name. “But don’t you worry, Rachel-girl, they don’t come in my house. I got a little shed for them out back.”
Ida Mae opens the door to her house and ushers me inside. The same as in the store, I am surprised by the organization and attractiveness of the modest dwelling. There’s a fireplace flanked by bookshelves. A quilt is draped over a threadbare couch, but neither are covered in the cat hair I had steeled myself to expect. The coffee table has the same crocheted doily beneath a glass bowl filled with dark molasses candy that my parents have on theirs. Really, the only difference between this house and my parents’ is the small TV and VCR combo stowed in a painted cupboard and the gas fireplace rather than wood.
Touching my elbow, Ida Mae says, “I’ll show you to you and Eli’s room.” She leads me through a narrow doorway and points to a blue room that has a lasso and a pair of rusty horseshoes hanging from nails embedded in the far left wall. A child’s red cowboy hat dangles from a chin strap looped over the top of the bunk bed; the blue and red comforter is splashed with a Western theme. The LEGO magazines on the low chest in the right corner of the room are yellowed and the pages are curled. The window ledge is dotted with flies and speckled with dust. Looking closer, I see that everything is coated in dust, which seems strange compared to the cleanliness of the rest of the house.
Holding Eli tighter, for I can feel the shadow’s coolness passing over us again, I ask, “Ida Mae? Was this room your little boy’s?”
My employer looks at me with a mixture of annoyance and dismay. “No, it wasn’t,” she snaps, and then turns to leave. Before she does, she puts one hand on the doorframe and glances over her shoulder at the child in my arms. She opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. “The bathroom’s in my bedroom if ya need it,” she says without meeting my eyes. “It’s the size of a closet, but it works.”
“That’s fine. I’m not used to anything fancy.”
“No,” Ida Mae says, “I don’t suppose you are.”
By four in the morning, after I have counted the whistles of a dozen trains blaring past Ida Mae’s house, I am resigned to the fact that sleep will not come. Lacing my arms, I pillow them behind my head and stare up at the ceiling, which is strewn with a constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars. “Who are you?” I whisper to the sleeping Ida Mae, whose snoring is as loud as she had claimed. “How’d you leave the church?”
I know this is a question I will have to answer for myself soon enough. I cannot go back to Copper Creek, perhaps not even to gather my things. If I go back, I might not have the strength to leave. And if I don’t leave, I fear that Tobias will do as he threatens: tell my sister everything I have tried to shield her from for months. I know there is a possibility that Leah knows everything already, but I cannot take the risk that she does. I would rather live an hour from her and keep her tender heart safe than live under her roof and watch how my sins ravage the person I would do anything in this world to protect.
A train rumbles down the tracks again, causing dishes to rattle in the kitchen cupboards. The instant its whistle pierces the quiet night, I remember the Boxcar Children series Judah and I devoured that first summer he taught me how to read. I remember how those orphaned children made a new beginning for themselves out of an old boxcar they found in the woods. Although their lives were not what they once were, they were happy in their own right. Would Judah and I be happy if I said yes to his proposal of marriage and we fled the community’s ties? Would we be like those children, hacking a future for ourselves out of a worldly wilderness? Mennonite couples often marry soon after joining the church at age seventeen, but for a year afterward, they travel from community to community: visiting with friends and family, eating meals that are prepared for them, sleeping in beds whose sheets they do not change or own. How would Judah and I ever build a life outside the cloistered boundaries of the church? Judah might have a better education than most Old Order Mennonites, but what is that compared to the English?
Flipping onto my stomach, I mash the pillow over my head and groan into the mattress as my tangled thoughts continue to unwind. And if I did say yes to Judah’s proposal, what would he expect in the marriage bed? With my womb still swollen from Eli’s birth and my breasts so heavy with milk they hurt to touch, my body is not one that can bring pleasure to a man; besides, I don’t want it to bring pleasure to a man ever again. I am a mother now; that is all. I might have failed in every other area—disappointing my parents, worrying my sister to the point of death, burdening Judah King with a whiplash of gossip—but I will not fail my son, no matter what it takes. And for now that means finding a way to support our family so we can have a chance to survive.
5
AMOS
The morning after my sons’ confrontation, Judah awakens as the birds start twittering in the trees and slips into the spare room. He stuffs the black valise with the few garments that were folded on the rocking chair beside the bed. He grabs the crocheted blanket in the cradle and rolls it up, slipping it beneath his arm. It does not take Judah long to gather and pack the rest of the items, but he knows he must hurry before those in the house begin to stir.
Once everything is arranged, he exits the spare room just as quietly as he had entered and grabs the small bag he’d packed last night and placed outside his own room this morning. He tiptoes down the stairs, being careful to avoid the third-to-last one, which squeaks in the center, and places the letter explaining his actions beneath the pot of rhubarb preserves on the kitchen table, where he is sure his mother will find it.
Judah has to swallow as he glances around his childhood home for what he hopes, and fears, is the final time. With the perspective of leaving, the old is changed back to new. Even Verna’s crocheted doilies draping the worn arms of the couch and the potted violets on the windowsills hold a special place in my son’s sentimental heart. The wooden floor is scarred and warped from years of abrading rocking horses and chairs and afternoons of grandchildren tromping through snow, then coming inside to thaw in front of the woodstove with a cup of Verna’s cocoa held between mittened hands. But in Judah’s biased eyes it is as unmarred as the face of an ancient lover. The miniature barn, plastic fence, and animals that have been worn smooth and featureless by our children and then our grandchildren evoke in Judah memories that he never knew he had of the two of us playing farmer together.
If Tobias had not tightened his reins on the community as soon as they were taken out of my cold hands, vowing to squeeze out anyone who had the slightest rebellious twinge, Judah might have been comfortable to remain in Copper Creek all his life. He would’ve found a beautiful, soft-spoken girl at a hymn sing, and after a few months of open-buggy courting, he would have brought his bride into our home and raised their family in it just as his mother and I had done. But Tobias’s tyrannical actions no longer allow this to be Judah’s choice. Now all my younger son hopes for is a life with Rachel and her little boy, whose father she will never name.
The thought of their f
uture together, even as he’s in the midst of abandoning his past, brings a smile to my son’s handsome face. Gripping the bags held in each of his hands a little tighter, a slight bounce enters his step as he opens the front door and makes his way down the long gravel lane. Judah passes the path that branches off to Tobias and Leah’s home, and then takes the main road he used to walk on his way to the smithy. The place where he worked alongside his elder brother until my death forced Tobias to sit in the schoolhouse with two other deacons and withdraw one hardback Ausbund from a stack of three. When he cracked the black spine scrawled with dulled gold, a slip of paper fluttered from between the deckled pages like a moth. That simple luck of the draw promoted Tobias from blacksmith to bishop, a mantle he had never intended to wear.
Now, despite the fog pouring down the mountain ridges and pooling in the fields, Kauffman’s General Store, Risser’s Sorghum Mill, Hostetler’s Bakery, Mast’s Cannery, and Schlabach’s Leatherworks all come into Judah’s view. Out toward the end of the lane—where Copper Creek would become just another dead end if not for the signs used to lure Englischer tourists—a white, one-room schoolhouse is adorned with only the cast-iron bell the teacher uses to call the children back from lunch at their homes.
After taking advantage of the outhouse located behind the school, Judah settles in to wait for his driver to appear. It is impossible for an Old Order Mennonite to run away without transportation that goes faster than ten miles an hour. But when Judah learned of Rachel’s banishment from Copper Creek, he hid in the barn and whispered through the phone receiver that the driver should pick him up at five o’clock Tuesday morning in front of the school. Judah knew there was a chance the truck’s engine would be overheard, and the families preparing to open up the surrounding stores would put two and two together. But Judah also knew he would be long gone before his brother would receive the news and attempt to chase him down.