The Witnesses

by Linda Byler

  Sarah brushed the last of the paint onto the wall beside the door to Levi’s room, hid her smile, and brought him a package of dried apricots from the pantry.

  Levi roared with indignation.

  “Sarah! Now you know I don’t eat dried apricots! They look like earlobes. They even feel like the bottom of my ears!”

  Sarah laughed and laughed. She hugged Levi with both arms and smeared paint on his best everyday shirt, but he smiled and was glad for Sarah’s hug. She brought him a Nutty Bar. Oh, how he loved those Little Debbies from the store!

  “Don’t tell Mam,” Sarah whispered. Levi bowed his head humbly, put his hands under the table, and said, “Denke, Goot Man, fa my Nutty Bar.”

  Sarah told Mam that Levi was getting lost in the shuffle, getting ready for this wedding, but Mam was so hot and so tired, she gave Sarah a look of impatience and told her to go clean her brushes. Why in the world were Elam and Hannah having a cookout on a Wednesday evening when it was ninety degrees, she wondered. And if that Matthew was going to try and worm his way in here again, why, she had a notion to shun him good and proper.

  Sarah laughed so hard she had to sit down. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, looked at Mam, and shook her head. “Are you going to be so . . . well, dumb, from here on?” she asked.

  “Go clean your brushes, Sarah,” Mam said, but there was a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

  Mam was still a bit abrasive on the walk to Elam’s, saying she didn’t know why they wouldn’t trim those maple trees. They looked so schloppich aufangs (sloppy now).

  Dat cast a pitying glance in her direction and caught Sarah’s eye. They both looked in opposite directions, their mouths twitching. Planning a wedding was taking its toll on Mam’s good nature.

  Hannah met them at the door, wearing a soiled purple dress. The sleeves had been whacked off too far above the elbow, revealing pearly white forearms with distinct tan lines below the sleeves. It was just about the most unattractive thing Sarah had seen in a long time. She decided it was just like Hannah to cut the sleeves without measuring, creating results that were less than appropriate. But for her, it was alright, good enough.

  When Matthew entered, Sarah caught the scent of his overpriced men’s cologne before she actually saw him.

  He was dressed in a thin white shirt and spotless clean jeans. He was wearing a pair of sandals with his short hair crisp and wet. Sarah had to look elsewhere, the look in his eyes a remembered temptation.

  “Good evening, folks!”

  His voice was hearty, confident, full of energy. In spite of herself, Sarah’s knees turned weaker as she looked at him.

  “Ready to start the grill?”

  Hannah immediately lowered her head, rambled on about getting the steaks out of the “stuff,” and yanked open the refrigerator door, dumping a square Tupperware container of applesauce all over the floor. Putting both hands to her cheeks, she screeched loud and long about the applesauce, then hastily got down to wipe up the mess. Sarah saw that her dress was so old and faded that where the pleats pulled apart in the back, the dress was two completely different colors.

  “What did you marinate them in, Mother?” Matthew asked.

  Cool and suave, such a man of the world, Sarah observed.

  “Well, Matthew, you said French dressing, didn’t you?” she asked over her shoulder, straightening and going to rinse the cloth under the faucet.

  Sighing in exasperation, Matthew rolled his eyes, shook his head, and said, “Italian, Mother,” with practiced patience.

  “Well. I don’t have any. We don’t eat it. It’s not good,” Hannah said simply.

  “Whatever. We’re not going to eat these steaks if you have them in French dressing.”

  “Ach now.”

  But that was the end of the discussion. There were no steaks.

  Matthew grilled hot dogs—they’d all eaten one an hour before—but no one said anything. Hannah’s scalloped potatoes were amazing, as always, and her green beans laced deliciously with bacon and cheese.

  Levi was in his glory. A Nutty Bar and two hot dogs in one evening was more happiness than he could contain. He became so jovial that he turned into the life of the party.

  Matthew genuinely enjoyed Levi’s sense of humor and laughed uproariously when Levi described the evening snacks that he hid away from Mam.

  Sarah sat in a patio chair under the shade of the huge maple trees and watched Matthew’s enjoyment of Levi. She thought maybe his self-righteousness was already diminishing. He seemed so much more like the Matthew of old, joking, comfortable, at home here on the farm with his parents.

  Elam, as usual, had very little to say. He was quiet, a slow smile spreading across his weather-beaten face and a slight twinkle in his dark eyes. His hand was slow to pass the salt or the ketchup, but he was always friendly.

  Sarah thought Elam had to be the most mild-mannered man she had ever encountered. He was completely overridden by his condescending wife but was happy to let her be that way.

  Elam knew there was nothing he could do to change the situation with Matthew, so he made peace with co-existence. Matthew lived in the farmhouse with them, doing as he pleased. It made life easier to just go along with it.

  They drank cold grape juice and ate Moose Tracks ice cream as the sun settled below the horizon and the heat of the day faded with the setting sun. Robins chirped, calling their children to bed and hopping about on the lawn before flying into the fluttering leaves of the maple tree.

  Elam’s collie, Lassie, romped on the gravel driveway with Suzie. Sarah sipped her juice, her eyes on Matthew. When his eyes met hers, she looked away hurriedly.

  As twilight fell softly, the conversation turned to the two men who were responsible for the barn fires. Elam said, in his slow, wise manner, that the absence of the Amish in the courtroom wasn’t going to make much difference, that the Walters man’s goose was pretty much cooked either way.

  Dat observed Elam, a slow smile of understanding spreading across his face. He knew Elam well, had lived beside him most of his life, and understood his pureness of heart. There was no hidden animosity, no hatred. He was only stating a fact. He’d forgive the arsonist his mischief, acknowledge the wrong-doing of Aaron, accept events as the days brought them.

  Elam watched his wife shoveling ice cream into her mouth and wondered why she didn’t get a headache, eating it that fast. He smiled at her and thought she still was the amazing young woman he’d married. He had a heart of gold.

  He never could figure out what had gone wrong that Matthew didn’t want to be Amish, but he guessed that was his son’s business, and none of his own. Matthew was an adult now.

  Tomorrow was another day, another chance to plant his late rye seed, milk his cows, and spray the weeds along the fence. He really should get to trimming those maple trees, they looked so schloppich aufangs.

  Then Matthew got up, stretched, and asked Sarah if she wanted to go for a walk for old times’ sake. Maybe they could go visit the Widow Lydia and see if Melvin was there. Elam watched Sarah’s face and thought of Daniel and the lion’s den. She’d need the courage of Daniel, that was one thing sure. Hannah choked on her ice cream, and Malinda looked as if a thunderstorm had settled over her head.

  Davey caught Elam’s eye, calm, unperturbed, trusting. It was all that was necessary.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE TWILIGHT TURNED SLOWLY INTO A WARM SUMMER night as Matthew walked beside Sarah.

  He turned to her and said, “Let’s not visit Lydia.” His voice was husky, breathless. Sarah stopped and looked at him.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Anywhere we can be alone.”

  “Matthew, listen. I am going to be married to Lee. In two and a half months. I am not going for a walk with you if you are. . . .”

  Embarrassed, her voice trailed off.

  “I just need advice, Sarah. You were always a true friend. How should I go about winning Rose?”

&n
bsp; Taking a deep breath, Sarah looked into Matthew’s eyes, those black pools she had gazed into so many times before, when she was always seeking, hoping, wondering. Now here she stood, back to square one, back to the beginning when he had chosen to ask Rose for his first date.

  This time, however, there was a difference. Matthew’s dark eyes did nothing for her. Instead, she compared them to Lee’s blue ones and the purity of the love she found in them. He gave her strength, happiness, an objective for life.

  Suddenly she blurted out, “You really want to know?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Grow up.”

  Clearly startled, Matthew drew back and stopped walking. They were in the field lane, between fields of freshly mown alfalfa and waving corn. The dust under their feet, like sifted flour, rose up with every footstep, leaving soft puffs.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Exactly what I said.”

  “Boy, you’re being mean to me, Sarah. Just because you’re going to marry someone else doesn’t mean you can get all high and mighty on me now.”

  “Rose is my friend. Or was. I seldom see her now, since I’m no longer at market. Lee and I rarely go to the supper crowd. I taught school, you know, until the accident—when I was burned. I planned to teach again, but Lee asked me to marry him, and I accepted. I feel bad for Rosanna, my eighth-grade girl last year. We had been looking forward to teaching together.

  “But that’s not really answering your question. I think you could win Rose if you chose to be Amish, and if you had a steady, full-time job, and made a commitment to stay at that job for at least a year.”

  “You think I’m lazy, don’t you?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sarah, I’m not. I’m just not interested in farming. It’s an endless and repetitive thing, over and over and over. My back isn’t good enough to be a roofer, and framing houses is dangerous work. I could landscape, start my own business, but it’s too much like farming. I don’t have any money saved up either.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “You could always work at McDonald’s, flipping burgers, making fries. You always enjoyed cooking. I remember the first barn raising, that whole roaster of French toast you made. It was delicious.”

  “I bandaged your hand that day.” Matthew shook his head ruefully. “I should have taken you when I had the chance.”

  Sarah saw her life with Matthew. It appeared before her like an empty ship, bobbing on uncontrolled waters. It was impossible to guide and had no destination, no rudder to control it, no way of predicting if it would reach a harbor.

  Here was Matthew, twenty-three years old, no job, no money, no goal, no roots. The one single thing in life that he was concerned about was himself. Doing anything he did not want to do was quite out of the question. Every excuse he uttered was rife with the old unwillingness to bend his back and perform the duties expected of him, the one true source of every man’s happiness.

  At the end of the day, a man or woman who had worked, performing physical labor of some kind, was tired, content. The sun had risen and shone on their labors. When it set, they rested and thanked God for their sound bodies and their blessings.

  Paychecks at the end of the week were distributed, used for mortgage payments, utilities, food, clothes, and if there was anything left over, small luxuries. For almost every family, there were sacrifices to make, giving up things they could not afford, learning to live frugally, the sacrifices no big thing.

  Matthew had no paycheck. Where was his money coming from? Sarah knew Hannah would try and keep Matthew with them, eagerly handing him cash whenever he required it. Her love for him provided the monetary funds, and what did she receive in return? No respect, none of her feelings taken into consideration. Poor, misguided Hannah.

  Without a doubt, she felt superior to Elam. He was too quiet, didn’t do his dale (share). Why would he even try when he knew any attempt at reining in Matthew would be met by the unyielding brick wall named Hannah?

  So they existed peacefully together, but so far out of God’s order. They lacked that priceless, perfectly structured family with God at the head, then Elam, and then Hannah in her place below them, the white covering on her head an outward symbol of subjection to God and her husband.

  Brought back to earth by the cloying scent of Matthew’s extravagant cologne, Sarah shifted her weight on first one foot, then the other, her hands clasped firmly in front of her.

  Softly, Matthew spoke again.

  “Aren’t you going to answer?”

  “There wasn’t a question.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  Matthew gazed out across the dry fields of Lancaster County, his expression unreadable. Sarah looked at him, this man handsome enough to be a model in a worldly fashion magazine, and felt the familiar tug at her heart.

  “I should never have broken up with you.”

  A sadness seemed to erase the evening’s light, a melancholy fog settling over them, wrapping them both in the stillness of a mournful remembering.

  “But you did.”

  Suddenly, Matthew grasped Sarah’s shoulders, his breath coming thick and fast.

  “Sarah, you’re just marrying Lee to forget me. It’s not going to work. After you’re married, you’ll wake up and discover you don’t even like him. Your future will look long and unhappy, and it will be too late. You know you love me.”

  Shrugging her shoulders, she stepped away from him.

  “Matthew, listen. I love Lee Glick, not you. I told you that before, but you’re not giving it up. You don’t want me. I am like the carrot dangling from a stick in front of the proverbial donkey. The only reason you think you love me now is because you can’t have me. I think there’s another old story about the fox that leaped endlessly after a cluster of delicious-looking grapes. After he finally did manage to get them, they were sour, and he spat them out and knew he’d wasted his time for nothing.”

  “Sarah, stop comparing yourself to carrots and grapes.”

  “A carrot. Not carrots.”

  They laughed together, their sense of humor fine-tuned over the years.

  It was dark now, their closeness turning into an intimacy. How many evenings had they shared, just like this?

  “Sarah, let’s sit down, shall we?” Matthew’s voice was husky with feeling. “I want to tell you a few things before you marry Lee, okay?”

  Realizing the slippery slope she would be descending, Sarah found a soft clump of grass a safe distance away from him. Matthew folded himself close to her. She shrank away from him and the warm, beguiling sensation of nearness.

  “I always liked you. Even in ninth grade, I liked you, the way a fourteen-year-old boy does. It was my mother’s fault that I asked Rose Zook that first time. She had a fit about what a nice girl Rose was. Then Rose broke up with me, but by then I couldn’t have you. It was Mother’s fault. She messed up my life, not me.

  “And I’ll tell you another thing. It’s my father’s fault that I don’t have a job. Everything I did at home was wrong. I could never please him. Mother used to pity me so much.”

  His martyrdom wrapped securely around him, he rambled on, but Sarah was not listening. She was thinking of Lee, her beloved man. Yes, man. He was a man, so grown up, always thinking of Anna and her “littles,” of Omar and the Widow Lydia’s plight. He was so busy caring, nurturing, loving others, she doubted whether he ever had a minute to think of himself. And if he did, she thought—oh, if he did!—he would fill that time loving her.

  She was the blessed recipient of the love of a man that was so fine and so good, she was sure she did not deserve him, not even for a minute. All his life, Lee would work, till the soil the way his brother-in-law had. They would prosper, endure life’s trials, rejoice in the blessings, working side by side, the way their Swiss ancestors had. And then their children after them, and their children after them, on and on, they would hand do
wn the treasured tradition of hard work and love of the land, raising generations in the same order.

  Silently, humbly, Sarah bowed her head with this knowledge. She was blessed among women, like Elizabeth and Mary and many other women who came after them. God had granted her the wisdom to make a difference. Blindly, He could have allowed her to marry Matthew.

  Why hadn’t He? She supposed God was a mystery, and she simply had to hold the goodness of Him to her heart. That was just the way it was.

  She sighed.

  “Matthew, I don’t think it’s fair to blame your parents. They did the best they could.”

  “Who then?”

  Should she tell him? Her heart thudding, she said, “Try blaming yourself, Matthew.”

  “Myself?”

  He was completely bewildered, at loss.

  “You make your own choices, Matthew. You are an adult now. You chose to leave the Amish way of life. You chose Rose. You chose Hephzibah. You chose Haiti. You did. Not your parents.”

  “But maybe I would have chosen differently, if they had acted differently. Parents are a huge influence on their children’s lives.”

  There was nothing to say to this. The futility of her words, the sheer helplessness of them, struck Sarah as being so sad she could not bear it.

  Matthew was comfortably held captive in the grandiose imagining of his own martyred state. He was innocent of any wrongdoing, firmly entrenched in this misguided belief.

  Born again, in his own eyes, he was oblivious to the fact that he was reveling in life’s greatest trap—that of laying blame on others and being comfortable with it.

  By your fruits, ye shall know them, Sarah thought. Matthew would learn and would mature. She just wouldn’t be there to take the punches in the process.

  Inevitably, someone like Matthew would be sent headlong into fiery trials but delivered by God’s hand, so that when he was old, he would be a vessel of God’s handiwork.