Finding Love at Home (The Beiler Sisters)

by Jerry S. Eicher

  “That’s gut to hear, Alvin.”

  The deacon doesn’t sound convinced, Alvin thought.

  “Why did Crystal come then, and why did you stay home from the hymn singing?”

  Alvin took a deep breath as he considered what to say. He had to tell the truth, hard as that was. “Yah, I admit Crystal came,” Alvin said. “Seeing Crystal did disturb me considerably at the service… it was unexpected, though she had hinted she might visit. I was worried what Debbie would think. But why Crystal came, I know only what she told me. She said she was drawn to the community. She wanted to see what our way of life is like because she is searching for peace.”

  The deacon probed. “Was this not the girl you confessed to dating while you lived in Philadelphia?”

  These were the exact questions Alvin didn’t want to face. He couldn’t speak at the moment.

  The deacon took his silence as a yah. “You must still have feelings for the girl then. Is this not correct, Alvin?”

  “I do not!” Alvin exclaimed. “Crystal had no reason to come in like this, disturbing me and the life of the community. I told her so!” Alvin tried to calm himself. Vigorous denials would accomplish little.

  “You spoke these things to Crystal on Sunday night…when she came to see you?” Deacon Mast stood up to look at him.

  “Yah!” Alvin coughed and ducked behind a cow. He didn’t have anything to hide, yet his face burned with shame.

  “And you told Crystal… about not having feelings for her?”

  “Yah. And that is the truth!”

  “Yet there was some need to say it?”

  Alvin stood up straight. “Crystal told me she came because she wants to find out more about the community. That I had stirred a desire in her to learn of our life in her search for peace.”

  Deacon Mast’s voice was pensive. “That’s what she told us—when she first came. She also said she had family in the area. Do you know if this is true—about her family?”

  Alvin shrugged. “She never mentioned anything of her family to me.”

  “And yet you spoke of love?” The deacon’s voice dug deeper.

  “Yah, but not love as you are thinking. We spoke of the possibility of love. We did go on a few dates, yah.” Alvin beat the barn wall with his hand. “How many times must I confess to this thing? We did go out, but I left it all behind when I returned. I did not make any kind of commitment with Crystal. Isn’t that plain enough? I’m here, am I not?”

  The deacon’s face was sorrowful. “Your anger does not speak well of you, Alvin. There are many questions raised by all of this. You should still have known better than to associate with a divorced woman.”

  “I did not know she was divorced until our last date just before I returned to the community. I am sorry for what I did,” Alvin whispered, all the fight having seeped out of him. “I will bear my shame before Da Hah and His church. I tell you plainly that I have no further interest in Crystal.”

  Deacon Mast stepped back from the cow he worked on. “I accept your apology, Alvin. That is always gut. But with the history that Crystal has with you…” Deacon Mast paused.

  “Crystal would never do anything indecent.” The words slipped out. He wished he hadn’t said them. Why did he defend her? He didn’t know the woman nearly as well as he’d thought he did. Otherwise he would have thought earlier of the possibility that she might show up.

  Deacon Mast shrugged. “Only Da Hah knows the hearts of men, Alvin. Maybe Crystal has only gut motives. Emery Beiler spoke with me about Crystal. He wants me to encourage her to learn more about our faith and to join the community if she so desires. Emery only wants to see her settle into a decent life that befits holiness and godliness. Crystal says she might move in with her relatives in Penns Creek. Her nearness increases our concerns about you and the issues that have come to the surface. Are you telling us all of the truth? Is your heart perhaps still out there in the world, Alvin?”

  All his blood seemed to drain to his feet, and his body turned icy cold. Alvin couldn’t get a word out of his mouth. Not that his denials would do much gut.

  Deacon Mast continued. “Did you perhaps come home, Alvin, so you could take over your daett’s farm?”

  Alvin had nothing to say. What was the use?

  Deacon Mast’s tone grew more serious. “Your daett says he found letters you and your mamm wrote each other while you were in Philadelphia. He says there’s a lot in there about coming home so the committee would let you run the farm. Why have you not told us this, Alvin? And now we find out that Crystal is divorced, which you knew. You knew even then that this would never be acceptable to the community. Is that why you left Crystal—maybe with her feelings hurt and her not understanding why you cut off the love between the two of you?”

  Alvin groped for the clips on the stanchions. He released the cows one by one and shooed them out the back door of the barn. Then he settled down on a three-legged stool set against the wall.

  Deacon Mast waited for him with a sober face. “Perhaps it’s time you begin confessing your sins for real, Alvin?”

  “None of what you say is true,” Alvin’s voice croaked.

  “You should not deny the truth, Alvin. Your daett did find the letters.” Deacon Mast’s voice was insistent.

  “It’s not what it seems,” Alvin managed. “Yah, the farm did have a pull on my heart. Yah, Mamm did encourage me to come home. But I came home for the right reasons, Deacon Mast. I wanted what we have here… not what is out there.”

  Deacon Mast’s voice stayed calm. “So now you tell us. After you must. But what if there are other things you are not saying?”

  “Things such as what?” Alvin forced himself to take another deep breath.

  Deacon Mast shrugged. “About Debbie maybe. Were you honest about all things in your relationship with her?”

  Alvin couldn’t yet find the strength to speak about how Debbie used to drive past the farm to catch glimpses of him in the fields before she joined the community.

  Deacon Mast regarded him with a tilt of his head. “There is something more, is there not?”

  His words came out in a rush. “Debbie and I noticed each other… before she moved in with Bishop Beiler and joined the community. She drove past here at times, and yah, my heart did beat faster. But what is wrong with that? We never met or spoke until much later.”

  “This might explain much, Alvin.” Deacon Mast’s words were clipped. “Your heart seems much drawn to the Englisha world. And then you leave for that world, even accepting excommunication. Just think about that, Alvin. Why would one do that? Why would a person throw his soul into the risk of darkness? And yet you did. Maybe it was because you had doubts about your ability to win Debbie’s hand once she joined the community. Was that the problem? So you left to find another Englisha girl, one more fitting to your lusting heart? But once your mamm told you what was going on with the farm, you couldn’t resist coming back and being put in charge. And when Debbie was still available, everything kind of fell into your lap. And you thought all was going well until Da Hah revealed your sins by having Crystal come. Is that it, Alvin? Does that sound pretty close to right?”

  Alvin frowned. “None of it is right even if some of it is true.”

  “Now what kind of sense does that make?” The deacon regarded Alvin with a steadfast gaze.

  Alvin met his look. “It doesn’t, but I still speak the truth.”

  Deacon Mast sighed. “These are serious matters, Alvin. They are also complicated. You deny them, so what can I say? I will speak to the ministry. I know we will not rush into any conclusions, and I’m not sure what can or should be done. I exhort you to search your heart and repent of any evil you find there. It would be gut if you confessed to Debbie about why you came back. Bishop Beiler seems to think her heart is in the right place. And Emery speaks well for Crystal, so she may have honest motives as well. In the meantime, I’d pray, Alvin, that Da Hah will open the truth to you so you can see clearly
.”

  Alvin put his head down and leaned his forehead on both his hands. He listened as the barn door swung open and shut. Moments later he heard the deacon’s buggy wheels roll down the driveway. The sound of horse hooves hitting pavement soon died away.

  He would never live this down, Alvin thought. Not in a dozen years.

  Sixteen

  Early the next morning Alvin walked toward the barn, his gas lantern swinging by his side in the brisk morning air. He was still tired after a restless night, but the chores wouldn’t wait. Each hour of the night had been a torment. Wild dreams he hadn’t had since his childhood kept him first on one side of the bed then the other. Deacon Mast had chased him with his buggy over open ground while thunderclouds moved across snowy fields. Winter lay heavy on the land, and from behind the deacon’s buggy had come strokes of lightning that broke through the ice on the pond. The heat had sizzled the ice as the bolts struck. The more Alvin ran, the more the rain fell from the skies, turning into steam before it reached the ground. He’d awakened gasping several times. Each time he had to assure himself this was a nightmare, only to have it begin all over again when he dozed off. There was no need for the alarm this morning. He’d waited for this hour long before it arrived.

  He must calm down, Alvin told himself. He must do that before he made something out of Deacon Mast’s visit that wasn’t there. The deacon had nothing against him other than questions about the motives of his heart. How could he be disciplined for that? And even if Deacon Mast stood firm in his wrong conclusions, unless Alvin committed some further transgression there would only be the shame he had to bear. Hopefully the community would eventually forget about the entire situation. This comfort was slim. Alvin’s heart told him something else entirely. There were screams of “Run, run, run!” But to where? There was no place to hide. Not unless he wished to bolt for the Englisha world again, which he did not.

  Alvin pushed open the barn door, and hung his lantern on the ceiling hook. Before he turned around, light from Mildred’s lantern bounced off the barn walls. She’s out early, he thought. It was a gut thing Mildred hadn’t been here last night. If she learned what the deacon had to say, her nose would go right back up in the air like it had after their school days ended. And this time her rejection would burn even deeper. He paused. He hadn’t known he cared so much about what she thought, but he did.

  Alvin stiffened and turned to face her. “Gut morning,” he said curtly.

  She looked him over for a moment before she spoke. “My, you look rough. The deacon did you over gut, I see.”

  He searched her face for signs of scorn and found none. There was only compassion and concern. “He came… but it’s not like it might seem, Mildred.”

  Mildred gave him a sad smile. “I’m sorry you have to go through this, Alvin. Your daett gave me the full load last night after we saw the deacon’s buggy over here. I can’t say I blame Deacon Mast for thinking such things about you, but I told your daett I think he’s wrong in questioning your character.”

  “You did? But it doesn’t look gut for me. You have to admit that.” Even as he said the negative, Alvin felt jabs of pure joy run up his back. Mildred believed in him. Mildred! The girl who had rejected him all those years ago.

  She stepped closer and touched his arm. “Not everything is like it appears, Alvin. It makes perfect sense to me that your mamm would want you home to take over the farm. You know how things used to be run around here.” She gave him a meaningful glance. “I used to think you were made of the same stuff as your daett—incompetent when it comes to running a farm. But your mamm knew you weren’t. So what’s wrong with her wanting you home again? And of course you jumped at the chance. What man wouldn’t? I’d disrespect you if you hadn’t come back.”

  “But,” Alvin sputtered, “but I really came back because I didn’t like the world out there.”

  Her smile was sweeter this time. “I know that. And in their hearts the people of the community know that. I even think Deacon Mast knows it. He just has to consider the worst. And your daett is speaking out of his bitterness right now, Alvin. You must forgive them all. And with time your daett will see that he’s wrong, that you weren’t trying to take something away from him that didn’t belong to you.”

  “Crystal is still here,” he admitted. “As long as she’s around, people like Deacon Mast will get the wrong idea.”

  Mildred’s look was direct. “I understood that you didn’t invite her or give her any encouragement to come. That you don’t have feelings for her.”

  “Of course I don’t!”

  Mildred’s smile was back. “Then there you go, Alvin. Keep your chin up. It’ll be okay. Things might be rough for a while, but if you don’t do anything foolish, you’ll make it. Now, shouldn’t we be doing the chores? It’s Sunday morning, and you don’t want to be late for the service.” She stepped closer to pat him on the shoulder. “And do put on a more sunny face, Alvin. You look guilty, and there’s no reason for it. You don’t want Debbie thinking there’s something to all of this, do you?” She gave him another pat. “Debbie will be right by your side tonight, and everything will be just fine.”

  “Thank you!” Mildred seemed like a sister to him… even more than that perhaps. Her words made that plain enough, although she was likely trying to make up for her actions all those years ago. Alvin gave her a warm smile before he turned to open the barn door for the cows. What a gut heart the girl had. Da Hah had supplied exactly what he needed during this difficult time. If he’d had this kind of support before, he never would have bolted for the Englisha world. He slapped the back ends of the cows as they pushed past him toward the feed bins.

  Mildred had the feed spread out when he returned and snapped the clips shut on the stanchions. She gave him another smile before she began to work in silence.

  Alvin allowed her presence to soothe him. She worked so efficiently without words. She didn’t need instructions. It was as if she belonged here… and had always belonged here. She was one of their people, just as he was one of them. And like Debbie was, Alvin reminded himself. Except Debbie had joined from the outside. The thought troubled him. He wished it didn’t. He shouldn’t blame Debbie. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and Bishop Beiler had the utmost confidence in his boarder. So should he.

  Alvin finished his share of the cows and turned them loose. Mildred shoveled the next batch of feed while he shooed the cows out and brought the next round in. She still hadn’t said anything more by the time they finished and he let the cows out again.

  Now she spoke with a warm smile. “You’re coming over for breakfast, Alvin. After you’ve finished the rest of the chores, of course. I’ll have bacon and eggs with biscuits and gravy ready. I can even make sausage, if you like.”

  His mouth fell open.

  Her smile never dimmed. “You’re not eating by yourself this morning. I will not have it. Not after the night you’ve had. You still look awful. And I can’t stand it anyway. Being over there at the dawdy haus and thinking about you in that cold kitchen all alone and trying to stir something up to eat. All I have to do is add a little extra, and there we go.”

  He wanted to protest, but what came out was, “You’re way too nice, Mildred. But how can I?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “How hard is walking over on your two feet? You don’t expect me to carry you, do you? The deacon wasn’t that hard on you.”

  When he still hesitated, she gave another push. “You and your daett really need to talk, Alvin. You can’t go on living next door to each other with these bad feelings between the two of you. I don’t know if one breakfast will fix things, but why not try? Be nice to the old man, Alvin. He’s your daett. And you have taken over his farm.”

  Alvin’s resistance vanished like the dreams of the night in the light of day. “Thank you, Mildred. This is very nice of you.”

  “Think nothing of it,” she replied. “Now don’t dawdle.” And she was gone.

  Alvin’s head s
pun as the light of her lantern disappeared through the doorway. What had he just agreed to? Breakfast at his daett’s place? But what was wrong with that? And he did need to speak with his daett. Mildred was right on that point. Alvin could feel the need in his bones, even though she was also right that the conversation might lead nowhere. He still needed to try. And a hot breakfast? His mouth watered at the thought of hot biscuits and gravy, to say nothing of eggs and bacon. Cold cereal from a box was a horrible comparison to that.

  Debbie need never know, he told himself. Not that she should care. There was nothing between Mildred and him in a romantic way. She worked for his daett and, of course, wished to comfort her friend Alvin in his troubles. Breakfast was just one way Mildred could do that. Nee, Debbie would have no problem if he ate breakfast once in a while at the dawdy haus.

  Alvin rushed to finish his chores. He turned off his lantern and stepped out to the dawning sky. The last faint twinkle of stars overhead drew his attention, and he paused for a moment to look upward. It amazed him how much gut the thought of a hot breakfast did for him—that and Mildred’s encouraging words this morning. Who would have thought she would stand by him in such an hour of trouble?

  Alvin approached the dawdy haus and entered without a knock. His daett was seated on the rocker, his mamm on the other. He didn’t appear surprised so Mildred must have told him.

  “Gut morning,” Alvin greeted.

  “Gut morning,” his daett returned.

  Alvin approached his mamm’s side to give her a quick hug. A sorrow swept over him at the sight of her. Not that long ago Mamm had been so alive and full of love for him. No doubt that love still beat inside her heart that was gradually freezing within her crippled body and mind.

  “I love you, Mamm,” he whispered. She gave him a weak smile. He turned in the direction of the waves of delicious smells rolling out of the kitchen. The aroma of baking biscuits and frying bacon almost took his breath away.

  Mildred’s cheerful face appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Sit down and wait for a minute. Breakfast will soon be ready.”