Fire in the Night

by Linda Byler

  “Mam, I’m always here, working. I don’t get to experience the outside world the way my friends do. I need a break. Why can’t I get a market job? Or a cleaning job? Anything to get out a bit.”

  “You should help Anna Mae more. She has her hands so full.”

  “So does Ruth. If Anna Mae would stay home instead of running to every Tupperware and Princess House party, she’d get her work done. Ruth has two little ones and quilts!”

  Sarah’s voice rose to a frustrated squeak. The tomatoes bubbled over, turning the blue gas flame to orange, so Mam flicked it off with a quick twist of her wrist. Then she turned, put her hands on her hips, and said firmly, “Sarah.”

  “What?”

  Sarah looked up, her eyes pools of misery, and Mam knew the time had come.

  Carefully, she laid her dishcloth on the countertop and said quietly, “Sit down.”

  “No. The tomatoes are ready.”

  Sarah knew Mam was very serious, so she obeyed, her heart beating rapidly as she sat down.

  “Sarah, I know how desperately unhappy you are. You can’t always be so false on Mondays.”

  Gathering her last fortress of defense, her last hope of regaining her pride, she burst out, “I’m not!”

  There was a decided snort from Levi, who sat at his card table, observing all of this.

  “Levi, now you be good, and stay out of this.”

  “Yes, you are, Sarah. And I know it’s Matthew. You have never once let him go the way you should. He is dating Rose, and hopefully he will marry her.”

  Sarah shot a look of complete disbelief at her mother.

  “How can you say that?”

  “What do you care if you don’t want him?” her mother countered. “Sarah, it’s very wrong of you to want him. Thou shalt not covet. Matthew is Rose’s boyfriend. You are not a part of his life, Sarah. He loves Rose very much. You can easily see that. You see, often when we are blinded by our own will, we see only what we want to see, not what is reality. Your frustration is making your life miserable. Just miserable. You try to keep that happy face on, and it’s not working. Accept God’s will, Sarah. Let Matthew go. Pray for God’s guidance in your life. We had to do that over and over when Mervin drowned.”

  Sarah bent her head, hid them in her hands.

  “I can’t,” she whispered brokenly.

  “You can.”

  “It would be easier if he died,” she said with so much misery that Mam’s heart quaked with the fullness of her motherly love.

  “Sarah, I want to promise you Matthew. I want to promise you many things that would make you happy. That’s a mother’s instinct—to keep her children happy. Dat and I want to give you your heart’s desires, always. But sometimes it isn’t possible, and we realize life is made up of choices and difficulties. The greatest gift we can give our children is courage, the will to do what is right in the face of adversity.”

  “Matthew isn’t always happy.” Tenaciously, a bulldog of resolve, Sarah clung to her love, to the terrible, hopeless yearning, the river of misery she chose to visit far too often.

  “Well, Sarah, if you’re going to be stubborn, we’ll just give this a rest, okay? I can talk, but you are the one who needs to see. Let’s get started with the tomatoes.”

  “But Mam, listen to this.”

  Shamefacedly, her eyes blinking back tears, Sarah related the incident at the barn raising, the intense feeling of love, and the way Matthew had reacted to the bandaging of her burned hand.

  Mam held very still, her white covering well over her ears, her hair falling away on each side of her schaedle (part) and smoothed back firmly in the way of a minister’s wife. Finally, as Sarah stumbled to a halt, she reached out a hand and placed it on Sarah’s forearm.

  “And that, Sarah, is precisely why I hope he marries Rose.” Puzzled now, Sarah lifted her eyes to her mother’s. “Matthew had no business bandaging your hand. He does that with more girls than you. Half of Lancaster County’s girls want him, and he knows it.”

  Sarah was shocked as Mam’s nostrils flared. Mam’s voice carried a certain quality she had never heard. Her own humble mother, speaking in this manner!

  “Seriously, Sarah, you have to listen to me. We all like to think that we’re good Christians who don’t decide our love by a handsome face, but we both know that is often the case. Almost always the first attraction. And Matthew has held you in his gaze seemingly always. I wouldn’t trust him farther than I could throw him.”

  Mam’s words were firm and rock solid with meaning.

  Wow. Sarah mouthed the word silently, then slid down in her chair, and gazed at the ceiling.

  “Do you want me to tell you another motherly quality? We want the best for our children, and we’re secretly proud if our sons and daughters have ‘a catch.’ You know what I mean? But it’s all pride, the world’s way, even if we get caught up in it at times. We’re painfully human, and not so perfect.”

  “So what should I do to change things?” Sarah asked.

  “Stop thinking he wants you. He doesn’t. He’s dating Rose. He’s a flirt.”

  Like rocks thrown at her, Mam’s words hurt, and Sarah winced, now painfully aware of her mother’s honesty. This was so unlike her soft-spoken mother.

  Mam lifted the lid of the tomato kettle, and Sarah’s life stretched out in front of her, a long, dry, windblown desert without a road or a map to guide her survival without Matthew. Or the hope of him.

  With fresh resolve, Sarah dressed carelessly in the usual black that Sunday afternoon. Melvin would be by to pick her up with, of course, the trusted Buster. He was almost an hour late, and in the heat of August, her hair would not stay in place, springing from the hold of the hairspray, free to look awful, she thought.

  Well, who cared? She had pondered Mam’s words carefully, or so she chose to believe. No more Matthew for her.

  When Melvin finally did arrive, he tied Buster to the hitching pole, went to talk to Dat, and had a glass of mint tea and a handful of pretzels. Eventually he got up, poured himself a drink of water from the pitcher in the refrigerator, took a long look at himself in the mirror over the sink in the kesslehaus, and told Sarah he was ready.

  The crickets, katydids, grasshoppers, and cicadas were all trying to outdo each other, their symphony reaching a deafening crescendo in the tired dusty weeds by the roadside as Buster walked slowly up the hill.

  “I love the sounds of the insects at the end of summer,” Sarah said suddenly.

  “Why?”

  Melvin’s brown eyes searched her face, his serious expression a magnet for the humor his face always evoked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I love fall and winter. Weddings coming up, Christmas, cooler weather.”

  “Why would you look forward to weddings? I only go for the roast and mashed potatoes.”

  “And taking a girl to the table in the evening?”

  “No, Sarah. You are so mistaken. You are so mistaken it’s not even funny. I do not enjoy taking a girl to the table. You know why? Because I’m old and a member of the church, and the brides are always so glad I’m there. Then they can pan off any homely, unpopular girl on me, because they know I’ll be agreeable and talk to them. Usually they’re my age or older, fat or…”

  Melvin’s eyes became sincere, liquid with goodwill.

  “Sarah, you know I don’t think I have to have some beauty queen to take to the table, but last year about took the cake. I was given every odd-looking girl in Lancaster. I’m sure they’re all precious in God’s sight, and every one of them would make me a good wife. But give me a break. That last wedding at Jonas Esh’s, I hardly knew what to do. I don’t even remember her name, but every time she said something, she sort of shifted and banged her shoulder against mine. She’d go, ‘Yes, me, too!’ Bang! Or she’d say, ‘Did you know Davey Beilers? The ones whose barn burned?’ Bang! It went on and on all evening. I was never so glad to leave the table in all my life. I’m not sure she was all there.”
/>   By then, Sarah was laughing, silently shaking with mirth, listening to Melvin’s one-of-a-kind description.

  “But, Melvin, maybe she just liked to be close to you.”

  “Evidently.”

  After that, Melvin launched into a colorful description of the place they were re-roofing—the shrubs, the lawn, the swimming pool, the gated community—until Sarah realized they had already arrived at the home of her friend, Rachel.

  Would she ever forget that evening when Matthew and Rose arrived happier than she’d ever seen them? Could she ever remember a time when they had arrived and she didn’t bother wondering if they were happy in their relationship, or if they were having a weekend together that was not so good?

  She ate the meatballs with barbeque sauce, the scalloped potatoes with cheese, the salad, and the corn but tasted nothing at all. She smiled and talked and went through the movements of every Sunday. And she hurt so badly somewhere in the region of her heart, or wherever it is that emotions are kept, that she thought she surely could not go on.

  When a tall, dark, good-looking figure stopped and lowered himself down on the grass beside her, looked into her eyes, and said openly and unselfconsciously, “Hey, Sarah! S’up?” she looked into Matthew’s eyes and laughed with a happiness so intense she thought she couldn’t handle it. She knew she hadn’t even started to take Mam’s advice.

  Over by the volleyball net, a tall blond youth with his hair cut in the English fashion leaned against a buggy wheel. He quietly watched that girl whose curly hair always invoked in him a desire to smooth it back with his hand. He thought her eyes were like a restless sea.

  So. That was how it was with her. This Matthew guy.

  He’d bide his time. There was no hurry. He had checked the Fisher book, that thick manual of Amish people’s names, birthdates, and addresses. He’d asked his mother.

  Yes, she had said, she believed that was the minister David Beiler’s girl. They lived near Gordonville. She knew her mother’s family. Why did he ask?

  He had shrugged his shoulders and left the room.

  After supper, Sarah leapt like an agile cat and spiked the heavy volleyball as solidly as any guy, winning the game point. She turned, graceful, her eyes alight with the competition, holding up a slender brown hand to receive the high fives of her teammates, but he didn’t have the nerve to push his way through.

  When the guy named Matthew ducked under the net and teased her, the look of raw adoration she gave him cemented his resolve to stay in the background.

  How, then, could he explain what soon followed? She was yelling, “I got it,” and moving quickly toward the sideline, her hands together in perfect volleyball form. Suddenly she tripped over her feet and collided with him, her weight slamming him to the ground, the volleyball bouncing off as the opposing team sent up a great whoop of victory.

  Blushing furiously, the seawater eyes stormy with defeat, Sarah looked at him and apologized. Before she had a chance to leap to her feet, he was on his, extending a hand.

  “Sorry. I really slammed into you,” she said before accepting his proffered hand.

  Close up, the wonderful eyes were rimmed with thick dark lashes that accentuated their myriad of colors. Her skin was so tan and flawless, the hand so slim, yet bearing a certain power. Her black dress only served to remind him she’d lost her little brother, making her vulnerable still. He wanted to hold her in his arms and smooth her rebellious hair.

  But what he did was say, “It’s okay.”

  She certainly had slammed into him, both physically and emotionally. Maybe even miserably.

  Chapter 12

  THE AUGUST NIGHT WAS unusually hot. A sound woke Sarah from a deep slumber, the aftermath of a restless tossing earlier, the heat making the night unbearable. It was either that or her thoughts.

  Hadn’t she impressed Matthew with that spike! He’d shown in his eyes how much he admired her, the way they had glistened with approval. So close he had been, too, standing right there in front of Rose, and he didn’t care.

  Now if that didn’t mean something, she didn’t know what did.

  But then what a klutz she’d been, falling over that blond guy. He was nice, but she could never date someone who wasn’t, well…Matthew. She wondered if that was the reason no one ever asked her for a date. Perhaps it was as if she walked around with a sign on her back that said, “Don’t touch me. I’m waiting for someone else. Still.”

  The blond guy had jumped up and offered his hand to help her up. Not very many boys were so thoughtful. He was also very good-looking, in a blond, non-Matthew way.

  A sound broke through her deep sleep, and her eyelids quivered, shaking her dark lashes. When the wail of fire sirens hit a high note, her eyes flew open. In one flash, her hand raked back the thin sheet, her feet hit the floor, and she flew to the window, her heart pumping, her teeth already chattering with fear.

  Thank God.

  The barn stood in the hot August night, a great white sentry of safety, the silver roof gleaming in the waning moonlight, the cows scattered like black dots across the undulating green pasture, now grayish-silver, their shadows black strips.

  No flames leaping. No smell of choking black smoke. But the siren’s wails drew closer.

  Grabbing a robe, she felt her way down the stairs, finding Dat awake, wearing only trousers. His arms and shoulders gleamed white and strangely unprotected in the moonlight. She had hardly ever seen her father without a shirt. He seemed younger and more vulnerable.

  “Dat.”

  Turning, he said, “Sarah.”

  He went to the bedroom, where she heard a drawer opening and closing. He reappeared wearing a white t-shirt with Mam following close behind. Together they went out on the porch, their eyes searching the horizon for any sign of a fire.

  The night was still, the leaves hanging as quietly as if they were in the house. The only noise was the tired trilling of the insects, having now rasped and rubbed and sung their way to exhaustion. The stars hung from the blackness of night, winking and twinkling, the moon’s dim light casting over the earth in shades of dull gray and white.

  Dat paced the lawn, lifting his head to watch in all directions, the memory of his own barn fire still fresh in his mind. Mam was the first to see, gasping as the small pink glow turned to orange.

  “Dat!” she called. “Look to the east.”

  Sarah looked, a dagger of fright following as she watched. Dat leaped up on the porch, his eyes wide as the orange light intensified.

  “It has to be close to Ben Zook’s,” he said. “I’m going over.”

  “Walking?” Mam called, not expecting an answer the way Dat ran, hatless and wearing only his t-shirt and trousers. And him—a minister.

  There was no use going back to bed. It was just after two o’clock. Mam and Sarah sat together on the wooden glider listening to the sirens, watching the night sky, and waiting anxiously for Dat’s return.

  After a few hours, they went to the living room and stretched out on the recliners. They knew there would be lots of work ahead of them, and they needed to rest. Finally they dozed off but slept only fitfully.

  When Dat had not returned at five o’clock, they dressed, tied men’s handkerchiefs over their hair and called the cows in. Sarah washed their udders with a disinfecting solution while Mam began to attach the milking machines. The friendly hissing of the gas lanterns that hung from nails on the walls was comforting, but they watched them warily now with, presumably, a barn burning somewhere.

  When dawn broke across the farm, the rooster in the henhouse crowed raucously, the hens began their silly “be-gawks,” the heifers mooed hungrily, and still Dat had not returned.

  Priscilla woke then stumbled wide-eyed to the barn looking for Sarah, Mam, anyone. She said Levi was crying of a stomach ache. Mam hurried back to the house while Sarah and Priscilla finished milking. They fed the horses and chickens, poured milk in the cats’ dish, washed the milkers, swept the milk house, and still Dat
had not returned.

  Sarah decided to check the messages on their voice mail and was relieved to hear his voice.

  “Mam, this is David. The barn at Ben’s burned to the ground. They didn’t save anything. They think it was an explosion. I’ll be home soon.”

  Mam’s eyes filled with quick tears. She shook her head in thought, murmuring as she broke eggs into a bowl.

  “It’s awful. Just awful, girls. What a loss! It’s unbelievable. How long can this go on before someone catches up with these people?”

  Her words fell in a hard rhythm as she beat the eggs with a fork. Still muttering and shaking her head, she added chunks of fresh tomato, parsley, peppers, and onion, throwing in bits of leftover cheese and sausage.

  Sarah fried potatoes and poured juice, while Priscilla hunkered on the floor, waiting until the toast was finished in the broiler. Suzie stumbled sleepily down the stairs, but Levi wouldn’t leave his bed, saying his stomach pain was so bad he hadn’t slept all night.

  They told him about Ben Zook’s barn, and he became so excited he forgot all about his stomach. He hurried, shuffling to the table, exclaiming that the man in the white car was at it again. He ate three slices of toast with butter and peach jelly and fried potatoes with homemade ketchup spread liberally all over them. Then he asked for shoofly pie to dip in his coffee. He burned his tongue on the coffee and said it was Sarah’s fault. She should remember to add cold water.

  Mam told Levi quite firmly that Sarah had nothing to do with it and to stop being so quarrelsome. Levi said that if he had to go to the hospital for his stomach ache, Mam wasn’t allowed to go along.

  When Dat finally arrived, his face was gray with black streaks where sweat had mingled with the ashes and smoke. His eyes gave away his feelings of helplessness in the face of another monstrous fire, flames crackling and leaping, destroying the centuries-old handiwork of another Lancaster County barn.

  He sank into his chair, lowered his elbows to his knees, and hung his head, a gesture so unlike Dat. A dart of quiet fear pierced Sarah’s mind. It was the defeat, the undoing of one who had always been so brave and capable of meeting adversity head on.