The Devoted

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Patrick reached for a handful of slices. “Maybe it’s a little like learning obedience.”

  David lit up. “Yes. Exactly that, Patrick. You haven’t heard God until you’ve heeded God.”

  Oh no. That was one of her father’s all-purpose sayings. Ruthie sensed a sermon was about to unfold.

  Her dad took a bite of apple, chewed, swallowed. “You might have just helped me work out a sermon illustration.”

  Patrick was clearly intrigued. “How so?”

  Ruthie had to cut this off before the two of them got carried away into a long and boring theological quagmire. When would her student ever learn? “Pennsilfaanish Deitsch!”

  Patrick panicked. “Oh boy . . .” You could see his mind strain and search for words. “Gfalle! Es . . . hot . . . mer . . . gut . . . gfalle.” I was well pleased with that.

  A smile lifted the corners of Ruthie’s mouth, ever so slightly. “Besser.” Ruthie didn’t mean to sound so mad at Patrick. In fact, she was actually starting to enjoy him. She sensed something different about him but couldn’t pinpoint what.

  He wasn’t handsome, certainly not the way Luke Schrock was handsome. He had a broad forehead and a Roman nose and a long throat with an Adam’s apple that was a tiny bit too prominent. But it was a likable face. The honest brown color of his eyes, the crinkles at their corners, the cleft in his chin, the thoughtfulness over that high brow.

  She gave her father a smug look. “Er is alli Daag am besser warre.” He’s improving every day.

  “If his mental health can take it.”

  “Don’t worry about me, David. I told Ruthie that I was willing to do whatever it takes. And I’m tougher than I look.”

  Ruthie’s smile faded and she pounded the table with her fists. “Pennsilfaanish Deitsch!”

  Patrick nearly jumped out of his chair. David walked past him, patted him on the shoulder and whispered, “Amazing to think you’re paying for this privilege.”

  As the horse and buggy crested the hill, David saw the blue-dark outline of the ridge. Above it hung the gibbous moon. He didn’t usually notice such things—those were the details of life that gave Birdy such joy. Maybe she was rubbing off on him? He slowed the horse down to a walk, then to a stop. How long had it been since he’d stopped to gaze at the night sky above? It seemed years. Beneath a starlit sky, it was all too easy to forget there was anything pressing in, anything demanding his attention.

  He was driving home from the Sisters’ House after what he had hoped would be a brief check-in on Ella, whose health was fading. Those old sisters were night owls and kept him far too late, but he couldn’t pull himself away. Not only did they have riveting stories, but they gave him black-as-coal coffee without a single warning of how it would affect his stomach ulcer. The real stuff! Not decaf. Life was too short as it was to miss out on good coffee, they said. And it was delicious. Strong, too, which was probably why he was wide awake after midnight. But best of all, he felt as if he were eighteen years old again when he was with those lively old sisters.

  Thistle shifted her weight and suddenly David realized a man was walking down the road, toward the buggy. “Patrick, what are you doing out at this hour?”

  Patrick seemed just as surprised to see David. “It was so hot that I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d just walk a while in the quiet of the night.”

  “Hop in. I’ll take you home.” Patrick was walking in the opposite direction, but David didn’t feel right about leaving him alone, so he didn’t pose it as a question. The boy seemed tired. No, not tired. Worried. David knew that look because he wore it so often himself. “Everything okay?” he asked as Patrick climbed in the passenger side of the buggy.

  “Everything’s fine,” Patrick said, in a too-quick way that made David think everything wasn’t fine. “Lately I’ve just had trouble sleeping.”

  “Too much on your mind?”

  “No. Not really. I think it’s because . . . time is passing so quickly.” His voice was thick with feeling. “I don’t want to miss anything. The stars at night. The first birdsong in the morning. Catching the first hint of dawn as it rises above the ridge behind Eagle Hill.”

  David understood Patrick’s reasoning. “When I was your age, I milked cows for a neighbor. There’s something about getting up and going out in the middle of the night that gives an edge to your start of the day. I used to feel as if I had those nights all to myself.” He felt a unique intimacy with God during that year and often wondered if it had to do with those predawn hours. No distractions. No demands. The whole village slept, he alone was awake.

  “Yes. Yes, you understand. It’s almost like time slows down.” Patrick settled back onto the buggy’s bench, relaxing a little. “Before I knew I wanted to become Amish, I thought I might become a monk. I think they know what they’re doing when they get up in the middle of the night to pray.”

  A monk. A life set apart, devoted to vows made to God: obedience, chastity, poverty. Interesting. A monk’s life held a certain appeal, David thought, but not so much the chastity part. He felt a renewed contentment with the life God had given him. “I’m curious about the expectations you had for the Amish. Do they line up with what you’re observing on your walks?”

  “Pretty much,” Patrick said. “The Bent N’ Dent was a surprise.”

  “How so? Don’t tell me you thought the Amish lived entirely self-sufficient lives.” The misconceptions about the Plain life amused David. One woman came into the store last week and wondered if the Amish ate only raw food. When David asked her why she assumed such a thing, she said, with absolute confidence, it was because the Amish had no stoves. David pointed to the woodstove in the store and the woman was amazed. Later that evening, he repeated the customer’s conversation with Birdy and she hooted with laughter. “Someday,” Birdy said, “I want to write a book called We’re Not as Dumb as We Look.” David said he would start writing down conversations with non-Amish customers for her.

  Patrick fanned himself with his hat. “I guess it’s what was in the store that surprised me. So many products of processed foods. Canned goods, cereal boxes, cake mixes. Even a freezer full of frozen prepared foods.” He shrugged. “I guess I just hadn’t thought the Amish would heat up Stouffer’s frozen lasagna like anybody else.”

  “Summertime, especially, can be very busy for the farming families.” But it occurred to David that over the last two years he had, indeed, stocked the store with more and more prepared products. Why was that? Because customers requested them.

  Patrick laughed. “And I really didn’t expect to see a pizza delivery man arrive at an Amish house!”

  Ah. He would be referring to last night’s dinner at the Stoltzfuses’ home. Birdy had been helping Katrina all day and asked David to bring something home from the store. He had completely forgotten and ended up calling for a pizza delivery.

  “Mostly though, I was shocked by the Sunday tradition.”

  “Church is only held every two weeks. Next Sunday will be an off-Sunday.”

  “I know about the every-two-weeks tradition. But I thought Sunday was a do-nothing day for the Amish. A day set apart.”

  “Yes, that’s what all Sundays are supposed to be. Off-Sundays and church Sundays. The Sabbath.”

  “But what about the quilt shops that were open? I saw tour buses stopping at farmhouses.”

  David’s eyebrows shot up. “Certainly not to Amish homes.”

  “I’m pretty sure they were stopping at Amish homes. Starting at the Fisher Chicken & Hatchery. Hank Lapp was in the roadside stand as I passed by, selling eggs.”

  “You’re sure it was Sunday? Maybe you had it confused with Saturday?”

  Patrick gave him a funny look. “Oh boy. I hope I didn’t get it mixed up. I don’t think I did. But maybe . . . No. No, I’m sure I had it right.”

  David was silent.

  “My church back home was the same way.”

  “What way was that?” David asked. Patrick attended a Catholic
church, a very orthodox one, he had said. What would that have in common with an Old Order Amish church?

  “The priest tried to make everyone follow the Sabbath, but no one really did. Other than an hour or so at church in the morning, it was a day like any other.”

  A day like any other? David felt uneasiness stir as he drove up the steep driveway to the house. It worsened as he put Thistle in her barn stall and gave her a handful of oats as a thank-you for a later-than-usual night. Patrick’s frank observations swept away any lingering delight of the evening with the old sisters and left him with a bothersome case of caffeine-induced insomnia.

  7

  With Birdy’s permission (which took very little persuasion because she thought Nyna the Mynah was thoroughly winsome), Patrick brought his bird in its cage into the kitchen during afternoon tutoring sessions with Ruthie, hoping the bird would pick up some Penn Dutch. Ruthie was baffled by his devotion to that bird. It was the noisiest thing. Lots of needless ear-piercing whistles and screeches, followed by shrieks of random Bible verses: “Jesus wept!” “Pray continually!” “Rejoice!” “No other gods!” “Do unto others!”

  In the kitchen, Ruthie cut up apples, dusted them with cinnamon, and put them in a bowl. Then she poured two glasses of iced tea. “Why do you like that bird so much?”

  “Nyna? Because . . . she speaks truth.”

  Ruthie let out a laugh. “You teach it—” she corrected herself “—you teach her every word she knows!” Patrick must have spent hours teaching Nyna the Mynah to mimic him.

  Patrick smiled. “She can say, ‘Gut Tag’ if she’s in a good mood.”

  “That’s why you brought her along to Stoney Ridge? To teach her Penn Dutch?”

  “Sort of. Mostly, I didn’t want to leave her behind.”

  Ruthie took a sip of iced tea. “So what did you leave behind?”

  He didn’t answer for a long moment, which, she was learning, was typical of Patrick. He thought carefully before he spoke. But then he said, “My parents. My friends. My car.”

  She reflected on his answer as he set Nyna the Mynah’s cage on a stool in the corner. It was a life condensed to short, concise words, a little like Nyna herself. Staccato-ese. And Ruthie’s own life in such terms—what would she leave behind if she walked away from being Amish?

  My family. My home. My sense of well-being.

  That last phrase bubbled out of nowhere, but it literally took her breath away. It was a revelation. If she were being brutally honest with herself, it filled her with anxiety to think of what life might be without the safety net of family, home, and the security that came with being Amish.

  But was that any reason to stay? Fear of the unknown?

  She watched Patrick coax Nyna to mimic him. He had absolutely no fear of the unknown. She had to admit, he was growing on her. She liked his openness, his transparency. He was refreshingly honest about himself.

  So different from Luke, who was always hiding things.

  And along with Patrick’s candor was the fact that he didn’t seem particularly charmed by Ruthie. He seemed impervious to her. Or, at the very least, indifferent. She admired that in him too, because most of the young men she knew in her church were tongue-tied and struck by bouts of profound immaturity around girls of their age.

  “Why didn’t you bring your car along?”

  He turned toward her. “Part of the adventure is living without it.”

  She leaned her elbows on the table and propped her chin in the palm of her hands. “I suppose I’ve led a very boring life. The biggest adventure I’ve ever had is when Dad took us all to Niagara Falls. In a bus. But it was rainy and foggy and we couldn’t see the waterfalls.”

  “I’m almost never bored,” Patrick said. “In fact, I can’t remember ever being really, truly bored.”

  “So you’ve had lots of adventures, then?”

  He seemed surprised by the question. “Almost none. This summer, it’s my first true solo adventure.”

  She swept the kitchen with a glance to make sure no little sister was within listening distance and leaned across the table. “I drove a car once. A friend of mine keeps one hidden.” She didn’t say whom.

  “But that’s against the rules.”

  Ruthie wiggled her eyebrows. “Exactly.” A recurring motto of Luke’s floated through her mind: If you come across a rule you don’t like, just change it.

  Patrick smiled, amused. “You think it’s that much fun to drive a car?”

  “Yes.”

  A slow grin spread over Patrick’s face. “Try driving from Ontario, Canada, to Pennsylvania during a steamy hot July, stuck in the back of a car, with a huge shedding dog that has horrible breath. Then you’ll see how fun a car can be.” He reached out and took a slice of apple. “But maybe the fun of it is knowing you’re not supposed to.” He chewed his apple slice, swallowed, then said, “Maybe it’s as simple as the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”

  She suddenly felt annoyed. And aware of how immature she must seem to him. A cliché! She was a cliché. How embarrassing.

  But Patrick seemed oblivious to her embarrassment. “Everyone has been so kind to me here. A total stranger.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t get too syrupy. You haven’t been here very long.”

  “True, but I’m committed. At least for this month. My parents want me to return to finish up college. I’m hoping I can change their mind.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “You said you wanted to know what it’s like to be truly Amish, right? Not just what the tourists think it means.”

  “I did. I said that. I meant it.”

  “Good. Then, you should come to a frolic.”

  “I’ve read about the youth gatherings. The volleyball games, the barbecues.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly the kind of frolic I meant.” She reached out to fill up her glass with more iced tea.

  “An Amish party, right?”

  That, Ruthie thought, was an oxymoron. She frowned as though searching for the right words. She seesawed her hand back and forth in the air. “Yes and no. It’s not churchy, if that’s what you mean. It’s when the community all pitches in to build someone an outbuilding or a shed or a barn. If you’re still here in the fall, I’m sure you’ll be included in corn shocking.” She’d like to see what he thought of Amish living after those soft hands of his were sliced up by the sharp edges of corn husks.

  But he looked like she had just handed him the moon on a silver platter. “Count me in. When and where is the next frolic?”

  Ridiculous! This guy really was one of a kind. She resisted the urge to say that if he thought she was a tough taskmaster, then just wait until he got bossed around by the men at a barn raising. “Dad announces any upcoming frolics at the end of the church service.” She gave him a smug look. “So you can work yourself to the bone for someone else, and all you’ll get for your kindness and labor is a hearty meal.”

  “But they’d do the same for you, wouldn’t they? For your family. For the Schrocks. For everyone. That’s what the community does for each other, right?”

  She must have looked confused, because he hastened to add, “It’s based on the book of Acts, about people taking care of each other. ‘Every man according to his ability.’ Acts 11:29. But I’m sure you know.”

  “Love never fails!” squawked Nyna, and Patrick’s attention instantly turned to praise his bird.

  Ruthie might have known that reference from Acts, but she’d forgotten until Patrick reminded her. She found herself growing increasingly irritated by his romantic notions of being Amish. He refused to see it for what it was. But what irked her most was that he saw things she didn’t see.

  She tore a piece of paper from the notepad, a bit more firmly than she needed to, and ended up ripping it in half. She frowned and pulled out another piece of paper, then handed it to him. “Why are you staring at me?”

  Patrick’s cheeks went pink. “Did I say something wrong? It seems
like I made you mad.”

  “No.” Yes. “If you don’t learn Penn Dutch, then you’ll never know when and where to show up for a frolic.” She raised the bar on Patrick. “You are no longer allowed to speak in English. Not a single word.”

  That kept him quiet.

  Jesse reached for a screwdriver and it slipped right out of his hands and dropped on the ground with a thud. He picked it up and sniffed it. Every single tool had been polished with a thick, greasy coating of lard.

  “I distinctly remember that you said to polish the tools,” Leroy said, looking offended, when he and Sammy arrived at the buggy shop for work. “I distinctly remember it. Polish them until you can see your reflection in them. So clean you can comb your hair from it. That’s what you said.” He reflected for a moment. “We did think it was a peculiar custom.”

  Sammy nodded. “We thought it was strange. But we did what you asked.”

  “Clean and polish! With mineral oil. Not grease them with bacon fat.”

  “So that’s where my can of lard went,” came a certain voice, sharp as a pinch. Fern stood at the door, listening to the lecture Jesse was giving to his clueless apprentices about using common sense.

  It wasn’t easy to discern, because Fern’s facial expressions were not widely varied, but Jesse thought she might have tossed him a rare and catlike smile of sympathy. On the other hand, it was the same expression she used to convey “what goes around, comes around.”

  It was nearly midnight. Standing there at the crest of the steep driveway, Ruthie had one of her odd moments when she felt as though she were on the precipice of discovering something important. What that might be—a calling, an adventure, a true love—who knew? Ruthie didn’t like those moments at all. They only seemed to escalate the longing she felt for whatever it was that she was on the precipice of. What was it?!