The Bishop hesitated and Adam thought, ‘here it comes.’
Their high holy leader encompassed them both in his stern look, then he narrowed his gaze on Adam. “Who tends to your more ... er ... basic needs, may I ask?”
You may not. Might as well ask if Sara took care of his hard need, damn him. Silence held Adam hostage for more beats than he cared. A glance at Sara and she at him, and without a blink he made a decision she approved, and how he knew, he wasn’t sure, but he did. Adam shrugged. “You know Roman. He’s here every day. Mostly so nosy he can’t stay away, but a good and generous neighbor all the same. He does what he must.”
Bishop Weaver chuckled. “Ya, I know Roman. Into everybody’s business, but a good heart.” The Bishop slapped the arms of his chair and stood himself up. “Well, got to visit the rest of the afflicted. See you on Second Christmas.”
Sara didn’t even see the Bishop to the door. She stood staring at Adam, him staring back, while The English said their good-byes for them and let the high Elder out.
The doctor playing host angered Adam, but right now it hardly mattered. He had as much as lied to his Bishop, and Sara had gone along with him by not correcting the impression. They had lied, sinned, together, and in complete knowledge of what they were doing. “This is best,” Adam said.
“Yes,” Sara whispered.
The English returned, not the least bothered that another man’s daughters trailed him like ducklings to the pond. He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “What say we go sledding to celebrate Christmas.”
Adam was annoyed by the ducklings’ delighted whoops.
“Sara too?” Katie asked, jumping up and down.
Sara’s glance left him, to be turned toward The English, and Adam mourned the loss, hating that the doctor’s smile brought Sara’s.
She turned back to Adam. “I’ll stay with Hannah,” she said, and he chose to attribute the loss of her smile to her uneasiness over their shady alliance. They had done more than lie, after all. With a word, she could have dispensed with the intimate side of his care, but uncomfortable as the episodes had become, Spinster Sara did not want them to end any more than he did. And that made him wonder what else the scrapper might want, though nothing could come of it. Ever.
He had killed one woman. He’d not kill another the same way.
“Hannah will be fine with her Datt,” The English said, stopping Adam’s heart and tying his tongue.
She will not, damn it. Adam feared The English would place the baby in his arms, and he could not bear to hold her again. The day Sara delivered the stranger’s child, he had experienced a need to protect Hannah that nearly broke him — rich, when it was him she needed protecting from. Which was exactly why he had never held any of the others.
“Put her cradle near his bed,” The English said. “Looks like they could both use a nap. She’ll wake him, if she needs anything.”
Before long, the sound of squeals and laughter, the girls’, the doctor’s, and Sara’s, carried to where Adam lay. Awake. Mournful. Jealous?
He wanted to be with them. No, he did not.
He wanted Sara out of his life. Did he not?
Adam sighed. He craved freedom from Sara in the same foolish way he craved it from crisp winter frosts that nudged the trees to bud and the sap to flow. Like the elements so vital to life, she nipped at fingers and toes for a time, but the buds and blossoms she encouraged were worth the price.
He wanted to die, but here came his strangest denial, because for perhaps the first time in his sorry life, he wanted to live ... which just about proved him madder than ever.
Adam bent toward the cradle and allowed his new daughter to curl her tiny hand around his finger, another first for him, a dangerous one.
“Sweet Spinster Sara,” he said. “What have you wrought?”
Chapter 5
Five weeks, three days, two hours, twenty minutes ... and eleven baths. That’s how long Sara had been living with him.
But who was counting?
Adam was, ever since the day Roman walked in on one of those baths Adam liked too much, though it was innocent enough. His body could not be blamed for ‘warming up’ to the experience. But Roman had read Adam as clearly as today’s newspaper and knew exactly what the experience did to him. Which reminded Adam that his time with Sara, his baths, must come to an end before he began to like having her around, if that were possible.
Or was it already too late?
When Roman came in on that bath, Sara had been washing his chest. And with his eyes closed, Adam had been imagining a different caress, but Roman’s cough opened Adam’s eyes wider than was comfortable as he regarded Roman’s grin. Roman knowing something that no one else did was dangerous, and always temporary; everybody knew it.
“Ya,” Roman had said with a hearty chuckle. “Way more alive. Chores are done,’” he’d added, whistling his way back outside.
Sara had been stunned by the interruption, and Adam took her hand — Lord, she was soft — and told her not to worry. They stayed that way for a long minute, her hand in his, before he’d growled and told her to finish; he was catching cold.
Since Sara brought his children back, he’d been living in hell, with a taste of heaven thrown in for a teaser.
His splint was still secure and the area around the thigh wound — black, blue, purple — festered more often than not, but Adam wanted the leg healed, so Sara and the girls could go ... most of the time.
He wanted to be alone ... some of the time.
He’d survived a daily visit from The English, who played with his children, which they loved, and who made Sara laugh, which Adam hated. He’d tolerated regular visits from Roman, who seemed to be enjoying his plight, despite the fact that it doubled the foolish man’s chores.
Sara’s fussing and scolding made life seem ... interesting, at the least. His girls sang silly songs as they jumped on his bed most mornings. Their giggles when he growled; this too was new and different, and it bothered him ... somewhat. Adam thought he bore it with good grace ... ill-grace, if you listened to Sara, though he tried not to.
What had been a surprise — and not a good one — and still worried Adam, were the Church Elders who’d come the day before yesterday. Oh, they had an excuse. Preacher Schmidt was moving his family to Illinois and wanted to say goodbye. But they had asked too many questions, one of them concerning the location of Sara’s bedroom, of all things, which had made Adam downright nervous. Still did.
And now, as if his worry conjured the problem, Adam realized, with a start, that Bishop Weaver must be right there in the kitchen. He had totally missed the sound of a carriage, but there was no mistaking the Elder’s hearty Penn Dutch chatter and grand-fatherly chuckle, which relaxed Adam a bit ... until Sara shrieked.
Bolting from the bed, Adam hobbled into the kitchen, prepared to save her, but the stoic Bishop’s chest stopped his forward surge and the pain in Adam’s leg caught up with him and damned-near felled him.
He took the chair Sara offered and tried not to pass out. When he recovered, he saw Roman, looking like a fox caught in the hen-house, turning his hat with nervous fingers, standing somewhat behind the Bishop. This was not a good sign.
When stars stopped dancing before Adam’s eyes, he examined both men’s faces. “What did you say to Sara that would cause her to shout so?”
The Bishop placed his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, seeming to seek guidance from a source far above them.
Adam broke into a sweat.
“Adam Zuckerman,” the grave voice intoned, speeding Adam’s heart the more. “It has been decided by the Elders that you and Sara should be brought before the District on church Sunday next.”
Adam shot to his feet — a stupid move. He sat again and willed the kitchen to stop spinning. “What rule do you imagine we broke? I’d like to know, by God.”
“Besides blasphemy?” the Bishop asked, a shaggy white brow raised for emphasis. “For living
under conditions that could become an occasion for sin.”
Adam laughed — a rusty sound — surprising everyone, even himself, as he pinned Roman with his best scowl. “Who incited this foolish charge?”
Roman made straight for the back door. “Wasn’t me,” he said before he scooted out, but Sara managed to whack him with her broom, all the same, which gave Adam no satisfaction at all. Neither Sara, if her look was to be believed.
* * * * *
At dawn the following morning, Adam removed his splint and hobbled into the barn, ignoring the searing pain in his thigh, and took great pleasure in throwing Roman Byler out. Didn’t even bother to thank him for six weeks worth of chores.
Ornery, that’s what he was today, Adam thought, more so than usual, and he knew it. He’d been fighting a war inside himself, which made it difficult to be neighborly. Should he make Sara and the girls leave before Sunday meeting — as if he could make Sara do anything — or should he let them stay till Bishop Weaver said they must go?
He wanted them to go. He’d wanted it for weeks. So when had it stopped being uppermost in his mind? And why did he feel downright bleak at the very thought?
Because he had no answer, he said nothing, and by virtue of his silence, he let them stay.
But he was not happy about it. He was not.
He and Sara spoke little during the next week, but Adam sensed that she, too, struggled for answers. They had become, in some undefined way, united in their common disgrace, their forced alliance strong and frightening.
Adam watched Sara sometimes, and when she looked back, it was almost as if a ... connection, which gained strength and substance as the hearing grew nearer, might snap them apart one minute, or pull them together the next.
Once during that time, at a moment when that invisible connection became hot and tight, Adam reached out, and Sara reached as well. But their fingers had barely touched before they parted.
Adam knew what it was like, after that, to be branded.
* * * * *
Church Sunday — the alternating Sunday that service was held, and the day he and Sara were to be brought before the Elders in Hostetler’s barn — dawned crisp and finger-cold. His buggy team blew visible puffs of mist in the frosty air as they cantered, heads high, gaits stately.
Very much aware of Sara sitting beside him, Baby Hannah noisily sucking Sara’s trailing kapp-ribbon, Adam drove as if he sat alone, gazing forward, saying nothing. Katie, between them, placed her head on his leg, as if she were reluctant to be separated. From him? Adam straightened in his seat, but he could not bring himself to push her away, because he was not up to her inevitable chatter, he told himself.
Sara saw that Adam was uncomfortable with Katie leaning on him, but he bore it silently so she let Katie be. A few weeks ago, she thought he might have shouted for Katie to move. But what did she know? She had never really seen or heard him shout at his children. The worse she had seen was him pretending they didn’t exist, like he was doing now.
As they drove toward a fate neither of them dared voice, Sara felt compelled to break a silence, heavier than their problems. Since worry was not a topic to uplift them, she chose foolishness, instead. “Lizzie says you call your horses Titania and Tawny. I never heard such names.”
Lizzie smiled. “Silly, Sara. Those are butterfly names.”
Sara questioned Adam with a raised brow, and he grimaced. “For the Tawny Crescentspot,” he said on a sigh, as if he had no choice but to answer, “which is attracted to Asters. And Titania’s Fritillary which favors Azaleas. Butterflies. Like my smart Lizzie said.”
Lizzie perked up at his words and regarded her father with awe, and Sara wondered if he realized he’d both claimed and complimented her in one rare statement. That, and his knowledge of the delicate, colorful, almost frothy creatures, caught Sara’s imagination. “There’s more to you, Adam Zuckerman, than anyone knows,” she said.
Silence became foremost after that, except for the beat of Sara’s heart, which she was certain everyone must hear.
After a time, Adam cleared his throat. “Sara,” he practically whispered, which got her attention better than a shout might have done. “You must take them and leave ... or else.”
Or else she could stay with him ... against the Elder’s wishes? Is that what he was suggesting? It was the first thing that came to her mind. And impossible.
Yet the facts of her life kept intruding. No man for her. Not for Spinster Sara. No children. Too bossy to bed.
If she left Adam, she could have the children, yes, but they did not belong to her, not really. No matter what Adam said, they were his. Only one thing could make them hers — marriage ... to him.
The disturbing thought straightened Sara in her seat. Impossible.
Marriage. A forever bond, dissolvable only by death. Could she bear to allow death to break her again? She mocked herself with a silent laugh. If she married, at least she would know she had lived.
Oh she’d come alive with learning to midwife, and even more so with taking the girls. But when she’d come home with them, to a clumsy, ornery giant who fought and growled at every turn, the sun had all but taken residence in her heart.
She felt complete.
Silly Sara, as Lizzie would say. As if Adam’s home was hers, anyway. But that was how she felt. Only because he was a challenge, she thought. She’d always warmed to a challenge.
Still, could she now shut the door on the sun and accept a winter heart once more? Oh life would never be bleak with the girls, except that Adam would always have the right to take them back, and the threat of it would hang above her like a cloud dimming the sun.
Besides, she’d promised Ab, as they lowered her coffin into the ground, to do her best by the girls. So, wouldn’t raising them with their father be the best? He wasn’t having anything to do with raising them alone, now, was he?
Sara thought about that a long time and about how Adam seemed to be suffering somewhere deep inside himself. Almost as if ... he wanted to lay himself in a wooden box and close the cover. Hadn’t he tried with the drink?
Sara’s composure cracked then, and she forced herself not to reach for his hand. “I know,” she said, “that there seems to be no choice. But I believe you and the children need—”
“I know you believe it. But Abby could not. You cannot either. It is best for them.” He nodded at his children.
Sara understood that Adam believed it was best his children be separated from him, but…. “I do not believe that. Tell me why.”
“Better you do not know.”
Jealousy surged inside Sara and she was ashamed. Jealous of a dead woman whose children enriched her life; this was wrong, and yet she could not seem to stop herself. “Did Abby know?”
It was clear from his look that Adam saw her jealousy for what it was. “She had to.”
“Then why not tell me? You’ve set me to do the same task.” She hated begging but needed answers.
Adam looked at her with an expression she could not read. Pity? Concern? Surprise — that she was subject to such a weakness as jealousy? “Ignorance in this will deliver you,” he finally said. “I could not save Abby, but I can save you and the girls. Besides, you’re stronger than Abby ever was.”
“You make no sense, Adam.”
“More than you will ever know. This is best.”
Sara did not believe it, but, ultimately, neither of them had a choice anyway. “The Elders will tell us to separate,” she said. “And we will. Because we want to stay Amish, we will do what they tell us.”
Adam only nodded.
“But which of us will get the girls?” she asked.
“You will; I promise you will,” he said, giving her the answer she both craved and dreaded.
Adam saw, when they entered the Hostetler barn, that many of their neighbors already sat on the backless benches delivered for this purpose. Rows of hatless, bearded men sat on one side, facing like rows of kapped women sitting opposite
. How often had he seen the sight, yet not taken it in?
Why, today, did it seem so new?
Hung on nails, a crazy-quilt array of wide-brimmed, plain-crown, black felt hats covered the rough barn wall beside the men. On the wall opposite, hung a sparse scattering of small, but identical hats, because the boys sat with their mothers. All the females, no matter what age, kept their bonnets on, because the fire in the barn’s pot-bellied stove did little to take the edge off the cold.
As Adam, Sara and the girls stepped into the barn, they became the center of attention, the coo and rustle of doves in the eaves lonely accompaniment to their entry. Adam bristled at the notion. Why did he notice everything today when usually he heard and saw nothing?
Sara sat with the women, Pris on her lap, Lizzie beside her with baby Hannah in her arms, Katie at their feet.
Adam nodded and took the seat indicated, alone in the center. He was to be the one chastised, then. So be it. Better than Sara, he thought. He would not wish that on her. She had been too good to his girls. And to him.
He owed her.
And if he knew what it was he owed her — or what he wanted from her, for that matter — he would be less uncomfortable, he was certain.
Bishop Weaver entered and began preaching.
Added to the usual three-hour service would be two events. The first would be the choosing of a new preacher, necessary as the new district had grown. This would begin right after the Deacon’s sermon, and before the foolish hearing over Adam’s, ‘occasion for sin.’
Roman looked sheepish when those very words were spoken. Sheepish like Ginger, Adam’s German Shepherd, had looked this very morning, when Adam had taken the pups she’d ‘adopted’ and given them back to Sara’s dog, Trixie. No matter Trixie’s flightiness, those pups belonged with their real—
Adam bristled and wished he had not thought of that. Blasted dogs. Interfering Roman.
At the Bishop’s request, people began suggesting candidates for preacher. Some names came up more often than others. Roman’s was mentioned only once, but Adam saw by his look that he did not want the ‘honor.’ Well that was too bad. Adam did not want to be in the center of them right now. He did not want Sara to leave with the girls, either. Well, he did, but only when she was ready — when he was ready, he meant. Except that Roman had interfered — he was certain it was Roman.
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