The Tempted Soul: An Amish Quilt Novel

by Adina Senft

  * * *

  She should be chopping onions and getting down a jar of stewed tomatoes from the pantry for spaghetti sauce. But instead, Carrie spread her songbook on the windowsill and thought over what had happened upstairs earlier that afternoon.

  Amelia had teased Emma about being pregnant, and Carrie had fainted. But in between…for a single moment, she had felt a wave of jealousy so huge that her heart had felt like it was going to explode. No wonder all the blood had drained out of her head.

  As she stood there turning pages, her face heated with shame.

  What a horrid, ugly moment. Jealous of her best friend, simply because of the possibility that she might be blessed with something Carrie was not. Thank goodness she had fainted, then. Better that than to blurt out what she felt and burden Emma with it.

  Ah. Here it was.

  You see your brother walking

  Beside you on the road

  Your burden feels so heavy

  And his a lighter load.

  You wish someone would switch them

  Why should his steps be light,

  When yours have been so heavy

  As you struggled through the night?

  O brother, be not jealous

  Your envy try to quell

  For the Hand that lifts his burden

  Is lifting yours as well.

  She would take a lesson from this song she’d copied down, oh, nearly fifteen years ago. Yes, the green-eyed monster had raised its ugly head and roared. She had been jealous of Emma’s side of the road, and had completely forgotten the nearly eleven happy years she had already spent walking beside Melvin while Emma was treading her path all alone.

  With prayer, she could overcome this fault.

  When the happy day came that Emma actually told them such news, she would actually feel the joy that she’d make good and sure was on her face.

  * * *

  If the previous winter had been one of the wettest on record, Old Joe Yoder declared that this one was a deep freeze to rival any Englisch electrical freezer—in fact, Melvin told her with a laugh one Sunday after church, Old Joe had told them Sarah had put a plucked chicken down on the porch while she opened the kitchen door, and before she could turn around, it had frozen right through.

  Old Joe had a tendency to pull people’s legs, but Carrie could half believe it. The days seemed frosted together, one very much like another. People stayed inside, their animals warm in sturdy barns. Carrie led the chickens through the snow into a fenced-in area inside the barn next to the horses when word went around that the wind chill was going to drop to thirty below. The coop was not heated, but with thick walls and horses in it, the barn was warm.

  And every other week, they went to church, and the Gmee was treated to a front-row view of Lydia Zook, getting bigger and bigger as the winter limped on frostbitten feet toward what Carrie imagined was her due date.

  Mary Lapp had indeed succeeded in getting her to Dr. Stewart, but whether the girl was taking her vitamins and paying attention to things like iron and folic acid was anybody’s guess. Inquiries were met with a shrug and a disappearing act. The only part of their project that seemed to have any success was the food-delivery part, and Carrie suspected that was only because Abe Zook was getting hungrier the more unwieldy and unable to work Lydia became.

  On the last Sunday in March, when the thermometer climbed to a balmy thirty-eight degrees and everything from the trees to the sky to people’s noses seemed to be dripping all at once, Bishop Daniel called Carrie and Melvin, Joshua Steiner, and Abe Zook and Lydia into one of the spare bedrooms in his house, where church had been that morning.

  When they were all inside and the door closed, he didn’t waste any time. “There is a matter that concerns Lydia and our brother Joshua Steiner. And Melvin, you and Carrie and Abe are involved too.”

  Carrie couldn’t imagine what subject might concern the five of them, unless it was something to do with the baby. With an adoption. Her heart began to pound. She glanced at Joshua, who stared at the bishop, much the way a rabbit out in the field stares at a stooping hawk, wanting to run but knowing there is absolutely no escape.

  Since Lydia would not stand next to her father, that meant Joshua was closest to her. It looked eerily like they were about to take wedding vows…except that she was heavily pregnant and he was as white as his good Sunday shirt.

  “I regret that this is necessary,” the bishop began, “but the sin of fornication, while performed in secret, must be judged openly. Joshua, it has come to my attention that you and Lydia Zook committed this sin in the hired man’s rooms at Hill Farms, and in the barn at Melvin and Carrie’s place while they were away in the western part of the state. Is this true?”

  Carrie’s mouth fell open. She didn’t dare look at Melvin.

  Joshua’s throat worked, and it took a moment for any sound to come out. “Nei. She came into my rooms, and to visit one day at Millers’, but all we did was talk.”

  “Lydia, is this true?”

  “Ja. Someone is making up stories. Maybe that someone should be here in this room instead of Joshua.”

  Abe shifted, and his hands twitched as though they were itching to smack something. Or someone.

  The bishop looked at her over the rims of his spectacles. He was the father of five girls, which was evident in this moment. “You are not in a position to judge your brethren, young lady. Have all these months on that front bench taught you nothing?”

  “I’m sorry.” Her head was bowed. She had one hand to her back as though it ached. How, then, was she able to inject so much defiance into two words?

  The bishop’s face settled into lines of sadness. “Joshua, you have behaved foolishly and given the appearance of evil, which has caused distress among your brethren. You are older than Lydia and should have known better. You should have been an example to her.”

  Abe Zook had been shifting his feet, and Carrie could hear his breathing becoming more agitated from across the room. At the bishop’s words, he could no longer contain himself.

  “I don’t believe him!” He shook a finger in Joshua’s face. “No good Amish man lets a young girl into his room—and you’re no good. Everyone in Whinburg knows your reputation, Joshua Steiner. Everyone knows you can’t be trusted around anything in skirts. How dare you bring shame on my name like this!”

  Carrie would have expected Joshua to leap to his own defense with the sarcastic temper she’d seen signs of in her own kitchen. But he merely gazed at Abe as though he were a new species of bull, pawing the ground, but safely behind the fence.

  Instead, Melvin spoke up.

  “Everyone in Whinburg can believe what they want, but I’ll believe what I’ve seen with my own eyes. Joshua has lent me a hand around my farm and never asked a penny for it. He did it out of friendship and because he saw a need. He’s never given us any reason not to trust him.”

  “I heard a few rumors along that line,” Abe snapped.

  Carrie swayed as though she’d been slapped.

  “Then you need to close your ears and use the brain God gave you,” Melvin said quietly. He put a steadying hand on the small of her back.

  Carrie had never heard Melvin speak in such a way to anyone, much less a man so much older than he, and in front of the bishop to boot.

  “My wife and the bishop’s wife have been trying to help Lydia. Maybe you ought to think about that more than these rumors you’ve been listening to.”

  “Don’t you—” With a glance at Daniel, who was being admirably silent, Abe reined in his temper. “It don’t matter if they’re true or not. A godly man would be making an offer to the girl, not letting her be publicly shamed.”

  How could Lydia stand it? He sounded so holy, as if he’d never committed a sin or had a single fault in his life—or done his share to shame her.

  “I have already proposed marriage to Lydia, and she turned me down.”

  It took a moment for the bishop to regroup. Behind the len
ses of his glasses, he blinked rapidly. “In that case, Lydia,” he finally said in a tone that was almost gentle, “I beg you to reconsider this decision. Joshua can offer you and your child a home. If he has been willing to make you his wife, do you not think you can accept him?”

  “Nei,” she said. “I told him I was leaving Whinburg and that he was welcome to come with me. He didn’t want that, so…” She shrugged.

  “I am glad to hear he was not willing to give up his salvation for you.” Daniel looked at Joshua, who had no answer. He gazed at his feet, at the quilt on the bed against the wall, at the door. Anywhere but at Lydia. “So you will not marry him.”

  “Nei. This baby will be adopted by an Englisch couple, I hope, and I will be leaving.”

  “Leaving Whinburg, or leaving the church?”

  For the first time, Lydia hesitated. “Leaving Whinburg.” Carrie couldn’t imagine what would happen if she said she was leaving the Amish in public. Would Abe be put under die Meinding for raising such a disobedient child? Would they all be told they could no longer give her assistance?

  At least Lydia wasn’t willing to risk that. Carrie wouldn’t put it past Abe Zook to take it out of her hide if she put him in that position—even though his neglect had likely led to it.

  What would the bishop do now? He had clearly expected Lydia and Joshua to obey. Had he made a second plan?

  “Lydia, what you have said grieves me,” he said at last. “I must consult with the ministers and pray on this matter. We do not want you to leave, or your baby either.”

  The set of her thin shoulders and the purse of her mouth told Carrie that Lydia didn’t believe it.

  The bishop dismissed them, and Melvin took Carrie’s hand and hurried her out of the room. But afterward, a kind of gloom seemed to hang over them as they ate the simple lunch of bread and Buhnesupp the women set out. Conversation was hushed. Even if the others didn’t know what had been discussed, the simple fact that they had been spoken to privately was enough to cause a waterfall of silent speculation.

  Not for the first time, Carrie thanked God that she was a woman and would never have to find the slip of paper in a copy of the Ausbund that would point to her as the next preacher, minister, or bishop—a responsibility that ended only with death. She did not have to oversee the affairs of the congregation, both natural and spiritual.

  She had enough of a battle to oversee her own.

  Chapter 22

  So Joshua Steiner has chosen the way of God after all.” Melvin shook the reins over Jimsy’s back, and they turned onto the wide shoulder of the highway. The township always plowed it all the way across the shoulders to accommodate buggies as well as cars, but with the sudden warm-up, the banks had slumped into slush and the road was running like a river. There would be black ice tonight. “When I hired him to help us out, I have to say, I had my doubts.”

  “The way he behaved sometimes, it was no wonder.” Carrie tucked the buggy blanket more firmly around her legs. “He’s like the prodigal, only he came to the end of himself after he came home, not before. I’m glad you stood up for him. We all need someone to stand in the breach for us—especially when it comes to Abe Zook.”

  “Abe Zook needs to spend less time listening to gossip and more time listening to the Lord. Speaking of coming home, Brian and I are going back up to Rigby tomorrow to sign papers. I’ll be back Tuesday by noon. After all this, will you be all right?”

  “I’m not going to move a muscle except to go to Amelia’s to work on the baby quilt for Lydia—and I’ll walk. I don’t trust these roads.”

  “I guess Abe is giving her a pretty hard time. Foolish girl.” Melvin shook his head. “The bishop practically hands her a husband on a plate, and she turns him down.”

  “I hope Joshua has the courage to ask another girl someday.”

  Melvin huffed a laugh. “Ja, though after this, even Esther Grohl wouldn’t take him. But Carrie, it gave me peace about this business of her child.”

  “Peace?” Did he mean he had not had peace up until today?

  She wished she could have some peace. Her heart was a whirlwind of shame for Lydia and pity for Joshua. The girl who eventually had the courage to marry him would have to live with the defiant ghost of Lydia Zook for as long as people’s memories lasted.

  “Ja. I know you were disappointed about the baby. But it was the right decision. Think of the child of a girl like that—stubborn, proud, disobedient.”

  “Children aren’t always exactly like their parents,” she said quietly, just loud enough for him to hear over the wet clop of Jimsy’s hooves and the hiss of the wheels. “You can train those things out of a child.”

  “Well, no matter. You and I will not have to do it, will we?”

  No, they wouldn’t. And that night, after they said their prayers together, Carrie lay in the dark and silently prayed what she could not say aloud.

  Father, help me to forgive him for taking this chance away from me—and have peace about it. I know that all peace comes from You, but Lord, I beg You for a portion. I wanted the chance to convince her it would be right for the baby to have a home and parents who would love it. Is that so bad? O Father, help me to submit—to You and to Melvin both. Take this resentment out of my heart by the time he gets back on Tuesday, so I can kiss him with lips that don’t lie.

  It seemed as though the gut Gott had answered her prayers when she hugged Melvin good-bye in the yard and he kissed her soundly, while Brian Steiner looked out over his horse’s ears and tried not to smile. She waved the buggy out of sight and then tugged her shawl around her more tightly.

  The Lord gave His people work to do to keep their minds and thoughts out of Druwwel, and work she did—Monday being wash day. Since Melvin was not home to make a big supper for, Carrie ate leftovers with the appetite of a woman who has done four loads of laundry by hand in a wringer washer. She pegged it out on the line Joshua rigged for her in the new loft, moving around Joshua and his tools, where the warmth from the animals rose to dry it. Of course, that meant carrying the heavy baskets up the ladder, but at least the clothes wouldn’t be frozen to planks in the morning.

  “Another cold one tonight,” Joshua said as he gathered up the reins at the end of the day. “I want to get over to Mamm and Daed’s before dark. I heard on the radio at Hill’s that there were six car accidents due to black ice in the county last night, and tonight is shaping up to be as cold. I hope you brought lots of firewood in.”

  “Melvin made sure of it.” Their conversation had been like that all afternoon—just pleasantries and small talk. No mention of what had happened the day before. Maybe that was a good thing. Carrie patted the buggy door and stepped back, and his horse started forward.

  There might be things in life she didn’t have, but the things she did have were what mattered—a snug, well-insulated house, a husband who showed his love in the little things he did, and one last slice of the Dutch apple pie she’d made on Saturday.

  The only time she got to eat and read simultaneously was when Melvin wasn’t there to tell her not to. She’d borrowed a lovely big book on gardens from all over the world at the library, and after she finished her pie, she hung over it, drinking in the beauty of drifts of bluebells in England, of knot gardens made of herbs in Virginia, and of fountains and topiary in Italy.

  When footsteps pounded up the steps and someone knocked so hard they could only have been using their fists, she practically screamed in fright at being jerked back to real life.

  Good heavens, it was nearly ten o’clock!

  She ran to the door and peered through the four glass panes at eye level, but she couldn’t see a thing. Someone was in trouble, that was clear.

  She yanked it open.

  “Oh Carrie.” Sarah Grohl stood shivering on the porch, tears running down her face and a knot forming over her eye that would be very ugly by morning. “Help. I need help.”

  Carrie grabbed her arm to pull her into the warm kitchen and the gir
l gasped in pain. “I think I broke something.”

  Carrie released her as though she’d been burned. “I’m so sorry. What happened? Oh Sarah, please come in and sit down before you fall down. I’ll—”

  “I can’t. You have to come. You have to help her.”

  “Who? Where?”

  “Lydia,” Sarah gasped. “We were driving back from…from seeing a movie, and the road was so slippery…and some Englisch guys went by in a car and honked the horn and it scared the horse and it slipped and, oh Carrie, you have to hurry. I think it made the baby come.”

  Oh, dear heaven help them all.

  Carrie pulled on her heavy boots and wound a thick woolen scarf around her head. She donned Melvin’s wool work coat and buttoned it up to her chin. “Where is she?”

  “At the cutoff that goes down to the creek. The horse jumped sideways into the ditch, and when she tried to get out of the buggy, it tipped and threw both of us out.” Sarah stopped, gasping for breath. “Hurry. She’s lying on the ground and it’s so cold.”

  “Sarah, I’ll go. You run next door and ask them if you can use the phone. Call nine-one-one and get them to send an ambulance.”

  The girl gaped at her, teeth chattering.

  “Sarah, go!”

  “I don’t need to.” She turned sideways. “In my pocket. I can’t move my arm to get it out.”

  Carrie reached in and pulled out a cell phone. This was no time to ask her why she had one—only a time to be thankful she did. “Call nine-one-one. Tell them where she is, and then tell them where you are. They’ll help you with your arm. I’ll go down there now.”

  She dashed into the guest room and snatched up the heaviest quilt she could find, then pushed out the door. Behind her, she heard Sarah’s quavering voice explaining to someone who she was, and then the door slammed and the silence of the night surrounded her, huge and unforgiving. The only sound was the crunch of melted and refrozen snow under her feet as she ran.