The Outcast

by Jolina Petersheim

  Sitting on the schoolhouse steps with the bags between his feet, Judah finds that the only person he feels guilty leaving behind is his mother, who is so burdened with grief over my death, she can barely open her eyes. For years after our first four children were born, my wife begged the Lord for another child. But nothing ever happened. Then one morning she awoke and realized she hadn’t gotten her monthly in the past three of them. At first, she credited it to the onset of menopause, but after she went downstairs and the sight and smell of Mary’s poached egg started making her sick, and the slight cramping in her stomach wouldn’t go away, she decided to visit the midwife, who confirmed my wife’s growing suspicions.

  Six months later, when the improbable became possible, Verna and I could not help but love our surprising blessing all the more. Tobias, at twelve, was far too old to resent Judah, but the lack of attention he paid his brother communicated the feelings his mouth would not. To our consternation, our daughters followed their eldest brother’s lead. My wife and I tried to make up for our children’s slight by coddling Judah. We didn’t give him as many chores as the others; Verna would always keep the bread box stocked with his favorite baked goods and her ragbag heaped with bright scraps that would have been beautiful woven into a quilt but wrapped Judah’s woodland creatures instead. Rather than softening his siblings’ apathy toward him, our attention only seemed to carve it into stone. To counterbalance this, we were soon treating Judah more like a grandchild than a son. I think this is why Tobias assumed the role of the father, one which he tries to enforce to this day, and the very reason, more than any other, Judah is bound and determined to leave Copper Creek.

  Ida Mae’s radio is turned as low as a hum, and she lets the truck engine purr as Judah slings the two small bags inside the cab, then climbs in behind them.

  “You runnin’ away?” Ida Mae asks.

  Strapping the seat belt across his chest, Judah shakes his head. “No, I’m running toward something.”

  “It wouldn’t be no girl, now, would it?”

  Judah looks over with frustration in his eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  Pulling out of the schoolyard onto Copper Creek Road, Ida Mae hides her smile by looking out the driver’s-side window.

  Judah, too tired to fall into her trap, shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t matter how you found out since you’re taking me to her anyway.”

  “Oh, am I? And how do you know where this girl even is?” Ida Mae points out the windshield where the community’s peaked roofs are pricking through the fog. “She ain’t living here no more, is she?”

  My son says, “No. I don’t know where she is, but somehow I’ve got to find her.”

  “It won’t take you too long, I bet.”

  “How do you know?”

  Ida Mae doesn’t answer, just pulls down out of the mountain onto the highway. Taking a left back toward her store, she turns the radio to a country station. “Dunno,” she says and smiles. “Love’s got a way of taking us where we belong.”

  Placing her hands on either side of the sink, Rachel takes a deep breath and then pulls a freckled banana loose from the bundle sitting on top of the microwave. She peels it and takes a bite. For the first time since Amos’s funeral, her stomach feels hollow from want of food, and a piece of fruit is the only thing in this ferhoodled haus she knows how to give it. Rachel isn’t expecting Ida Mae to return until the store opens three hours from now, so she does not clean up the kitchen but just leaves it and pads into the blue bedroom with the glow-in-the-dark stars that have vanished with the dawn.

  “How’d you get in here?” Rachel asks in Pennsylvania Dutch, shooing the feline off Eli’s bed. Jezebel bats at her with retracted claws before leaping down onto the floor and exiting the room with the miffed air of royalty.

  At that moment, Ida Mae opens the front door to her house, and Jezebel is a multicolored streak who darts between her master’s legs into the fresh air outside. Ida Mae takes one whiff of the singed sugary smell pervading the room and does not blame Jezebel her hasty escape.

  “What’s burning?” Judah asks, coming in behind her.

  Ida Mae calls out, “Rachel?”

  Not having heard the front door open or the unmistakable timbre of Judah’s voice, Rachel has no qualms about stepping from the bedroom into the living room. Her dark-blonde hair, released from its standard kapp and bun, trails down to the waist of her nightgown. My son just stands there with his mouth agape and eyes wide, thinking that hair and the person attached to it are the most glorious sight he has ever seen.

  Clearing her throat, Ida Mae sidesteps the young couple and walks through the living room into the kitchen. She has to smile at the pan of charbroiled cinnamon rolls and pot of jet-black coffee sitting on the countertop. She’d made just as appetizing a meal the first night she moved into an apartment on the shady side of a Tennessee town where no one knew her name or her story. Tuning one ear to the low murmurs in the living room and another to the child who is starting to whimper from his bed, Ida Mae grabs a Brillo pad and begins scouring the countertops and the burners on the stove. She dumps the pot of coffee and pan of cinnamon rolls out the back door, but even Lady turns her nose up at the pastries that look nothing like the leftovers from her master’s store.

  Ten minutes later, the kitchen looks like it had never collided with an Old Order Mennonite woman’s first attempt at technology. As if on cue, Eli’s whimpers increase to outraged wails. Ida Mae wrings out the Brillo pad and sets it on top of the sink, then scurries into the blue room and lifts the infant from his makeshift bed. Startled by the unfamiliar, peach-shaped face, Eli opens his mouth to scream, but Ida Mae widens her pitted brown eyes and opens her mouth in an O that mirrors his own.

  Eli’s pale brows wrinkle as he stares at this unusual woman who holds him against her cushy bosom like she will never let him go. If Ida Mae had her choice, she wouldn’t. And for the first time since the arrival of the young girl and her illegitimate child, Ida Mae Speck’s hoping Rachel will not leave with that young man who bit his nails the whole drive from Copper Creek to Blackbrier, but will stay with her in the little tin-roofed cottage between an Amish store and the train tracks, which houses the remnants of lives that were never truly lived.

  Rachel

  Once Ida Mae tactfully leaves, I grab the blanket off the armchair and drape it around my shoulders. Bowing my arms behind me, I begin to fold my hair into a braid, but Judah touches my arm and says, “Don’t. I like it down.”

  I want to tell Judah King that he has no right to determine the way I do my hair or clothes; that from an overbearing father to the man who fathered my child, men have been superimposing their desires upon mine until I couldn’t even tell that they were not one and the same. Even if Judah’s heart is good, that does not mean his intentions are what they should be.

  He must sense these thoughts from the firmness of my mouth trying to keep them all in, for he tilts his head and asks, “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No. I’m just tired from yesterday.”

  Judah nods, looks over at the unblinking gray eye of the TV, and then to my brown bag, which he had placed by the door. “You never have to go back there,” he says. “I packed up everything I saw. But if something’s missing, we can buy it for you. I’ve saved up some money from smithing over the years. Not a lot, but it’ll hold us over. At least until I can get a job.”

  Trying not to appear as disquieted as I feel, I move to the front door and gesture for Judah to follow. I sit on a wicker rocking chair on the porch; Judah’s lips crook into a grin as he takes the seat beside me. I don’t know what he is expecting, but I have a feeling he is going to be disappointed. Pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I tuck my feet on the rung of the rocking chair and use my body to set it into motion. A light rain begins to fall, the contact on the tin roof making it sound like a deluge. An orange tomcat darts from under the porch and curls into a woolly ball at my feet. I scoot my chair back so it won’t la
nd on his tail. To Judah’s credit, he says nothing, but just lets me rock in silence.

  “I appreciate . . .” I pause and try to think of a less formal beginning. “It was very kind of you to get my things for me.”

  Judah just nods and stares out at the yard whose dirt is turning to mud beneath the steady trickle of rain. Knowing then that nothing will penetrate his dreamy mind but the truth, I say, “It was kind of you to pack up my things, but there should be no mention of ‘we’; there should be no mention of ‘us’ until I’m sure that’s a pronoun I want to use.”

  Judah says, “But even as children, I’ve always thought of you as just an extension of me.”

  Risking a glance at him, I see the profile of the young boy who taught me how to read and write English for hours without the smallest complaint. Judah does not deserve the harsh vocalization of my thoughts, but neither can he keep holding out such foolish hope for something that can never be.

  “Until I know the mistakes I’ve made no longer have the power to hurt those I love,” I say, “I have no choice but to be a single mother to Eli.”

  Judah stops rocking his chair and reaches over to stop mine. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he says, his cheeks flushed. “I don’t know what mistakes you’ve made or who you’ve made them with, but I know marrying me wouldn’t be one of them.”

  Dropping the blanket from my shoulders, I snap, “No, that’s where you’re wrong. You think I’m still that innocent little girl who was your childhood friend. Well, I’m not. You don’t even know who I am. I don’t even know who I am. Until I’ve gotten that figured out, you and I can never be ‘us.’”

  Judah looks over, and I can see the reality of my refusal sinking in. As if walking in a trance, he rises and comes over to stand before me. “When you’ve figured out who you are, you let me know. Until then . . .” Stooping, he places his blacksmith’s hands on either side of my chair and slants his body parallel to mine. I flinch at his closeness, at the lure of his proximity. Ignoring my withdrawal, he places a light kiss on the center of my part created by years of braided pigtails and scalping buns. “Good-bye, Rachel,” Judah whispers.

  He then straightens and walks off the porch into the pouring rain.

  His leaving is not quite the dramatic exit his words deserve. Judah first must grab a bag from Ida Mae’s truck before he can walk up to the four-lane highway running past the store.

  I sit on the white wicker chair when I want to sprint after him, when I want to ask how he is going to leave or how he thinks he can. Judah has no vehicle, and he wouldn’t know how to drive one if he did. By his own admission, he does not have much money to pay a driver.

  None of this deters him. I watch how the rain plasters his homemade shirt to his lean body and drips off the back of his black felt hat. Judah lifts his thumb like the hitchhikers we sometimes see on the roads and begins walking up the highway.

  Only when I know he is out of sight do I stand and walk barefoot into the sodden yard, trying to catch one more glimpse of him. It is too late. Judah is already gone, despite not knowing where he is going or how he will get there.

  For all our differences, it seems Judah King and I are living lives that are one and the same.

  I have no idea how much time has passed when Ida Mae appears with a mug of black coffee and a bowl of something that looks like porridge.

  “Grits,” she explains, thrusting the bowl at me. “The staple food for everybody beneath the Mason-Dixon Line.”

  The warm bowl feels good in my hands, but the thought of eating anything right now is appalling. Ida Mae collapses into the chair that Judah had occupied and starts rocking with the rolling of her tiny booted foot. Taking a sip of coffee, she keeps staring straight ahead as she says, “Welp, Rachel-girl, didja send him packing?”

  I nod.

  “I think you done right. Judah’s a sweet boy, but you can’t be raising two kids when you’re just a kid yourself.”

  Feeling defensive, I say, “He’s hardly had a chance to prove himself to anyone.”

  Ida Mae pats Lady’s head. The dog has wobbled over to rest a dirty paw on her master’s knee. “I reckon he’s left the church?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I reply, realizing the enormity of his departure. “I believe he has.”

  “That’s for the best too. Judah can never find himself, tied to his momma’s apron strings.”

  “Or under his brother’s thumb.”

  Ida Mae glances over at the vehemence in my voice. “Gerald drives Tobias here sometimes,” she says. “Along with some other menfolk from Copper Creek. They fix the storage barns and bring me quilts from their women that I can sell. In the summer, they bring their produce. You gonna be all right working round all that?”

  Taking a bite of grits, I swallow the buttery granules and say, “That’ll be fine. I’ll just stay in the store.”

  “And have you thought ’bout where you and that young’un are gonna live?”

  “Actually, I was wondering if . . .”

  “Yeah?” Ida Mae stares out into the yard with a bored look.

  “Well, if Eli and I could maybe stay here? For a while, at least? I can cook and clean for you, and I could grocery-shop if a store’s within walking distance.”

  My stomach sinks as Ida Mae shakes her head. “You telling me you’re gonna make those sorry cinnamon rolls every morning and coffee that could replace the oil in a car?”

  “I’ll have to learn how to use an electric stove, but I’m a fast learner.”

  Ida Mae gives me a skeptical look. “From that twister in my kitchen, I’d say you clean ’bout as good as you cook.”

  “I’m actually a very tidy person. This morning was just a little . . . different.”

  “I’ll say.” She sniffs, setting the empty mug on the porch and shooing the orange tomcat away. “Nothing’s been the same since I picked you and that kid up from the hospital.”

  I stand to go inside, carrying my bowl of grits. Before I open the storm door, I turn back to Ida Mae. “I don’t think anything’s been the same for me, either.”

  She smiles even though tears shine in her eyes. “Nah, honey, and it’s never gonna be. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.”

  On my way to the kitchen, I glance around at the blue room and see the yellowed LEGO magazines and nailed horseshoes that have turned crumbly with rust. I no longer think I can ask Ida Mae if we can redecorate this room, for as we were talking, I saw in her eyes the same strange sorrow I know must be reflected in mine.

  AMOS

  Had Samuel and Helen Stoltzfus known that their young driver left the Amish church only three months before so he could become the next Dale Earnhardt, they surely would have asked for a refund rather than paying him that extra hundred dollars to make it from Pennsylvania to Tennessee in eleven hours instead of the standard twelve. But Helen takes pride in sticking to her word, especially since her husband doesn’t, so, standing outside the hospital with a large suitcase leaning against her skirted legs, Helen hands over the crisp Ben Franklin without giving the young driver the scolding his terrible driving deserves.

  Samuel and Helen ride the elevator up to the third floor, where their daughter lies in a hospital bed recuperating from severe blood loss and dehydration. As the elevator doors slide open, ushering them down the corridor’s maze, Helen reaches for Samuel’s hand in a demonstration of affection considered odd to them both. Still, their fingers remain intertwined as they hurry toward Leah’s room and Helen knocks on the door.

  Tobias opens it at once, his rumpled face relaying the feelings of anxiety and relief his eccentric in-laws somehow always bring.

  Helen’s lips are poised to ask, “How is she?” but she can see for herself the pallid tone of her daughter’s features, the skeletal hands overlaid with parchment skin and an embroidery of thin blue veins. Clucking her tongue, Helen strides to the end of the bed and takes Leah’s feet in her hands. She presses her thumbs into the swollen arches, and Leah, still
asleep, emits a soft moan.

  Moving away from Samuel, whose one-track mind is causing him to discuss his latest set of matching ponies rather than his daughter’s health, Tobias looks at his mother-in-law and barks, “What’re you doing?”

  Nothing about Helen acknowledges Tobias but her lips. “I’m seeing which of her organs are inflamed.”

  Tobias’s thick eyebrows form a V over his eyes and his jaws clench. Striding over, he jerks the thin blue blanket over Leah’s feet. “I did not invite you down here to do witchcraft on my wife!”

  It is easy to see where Rachel inherited her temper as Helen Stoltzfus looks up at the man towering over her and snaps, “I guess you invited me down here to watch her die, then.” She points to the machines clustered around the bed and the IV filtering fluids into her daughter’s arm. “These Englischer contraptions are only masking the problem; they’re not getting to the source.”

  “And you think your powwow doktoring can?”

  Helen shakes her head. “It’s not powwow doktoring, Tobias. It’s holistic medicine.”

  “Still sounds like witchcraft to me.”

  “That’s because you don’t understand it.”

  Looking at Leah lying there in a shifting purgatory of wakefulness and sleep, Tobias says, “That’s not the only thing I don’t understand.”

  Samuel drags a hand over his white beard. “I’m hungry.” He yawns.

  Not attempting to hide his annoyance, Tobias asks, “I take it you want to go down to the cafeteria?”

  Samuel nods and gets up from the hospital chair. “You want anything, Fraa?”

  Helen shakes her head. Only when she hears the sound of the door clicking shut does she feel like she can breathe again. Getting up and walking over to the suitcase, Helen kneels down, unzips it, and throws back the flap. She digs into the netted compartment where she packed her black tights. In the left heel of one pair she feels the small glass bottle. Glancing over her shoulder, trying to listen for the sound of the nurses’ rubber shoes squeaking across the tile, Helen rolls the bottle out of the tights, unscrews the cap, and gets to her feet.