Which Way Home?

by Linda Byler

  The men were called to fill sandbags to keep the town of Lancaster safe. Elias and William rode horses through the fields, skirting flooded, low-lying areas, answering the call for assistance.

  Frances and Hester were left alone to keep the animals fed and the cows milked. Normally, Hester did not milk cows. William said it was better for his parents and for him to continue doing the milking by themselves, that it was better for the cows to have familiar and experienced hands working with them. So now, when Hester dashed through the pouring rain, a kerchief tied around her head, she looked forward to milking the cows. She had always milked at home in Berks County.

  Frances was beside herself with worry. She was terrified of flood waters. So many people miscalculated and took risks, driving their buggies through waters that appeared to be shallow but were deceptively high, rolling them over and over after the churning waters caught the bottoms of the carriages.

  Hester shook the water off her head and shoulders, grabbed a wooden, three-legged stool, and set to work, expertly pulling and squeezing the cows’ teats. Thick streams of creamy milk poured into the bucket held firmly between her knees.

  Frances was amazed at Hester’s ability. She did not allow one word of praise to escape her lips, but her eyes were approving. She asked Hester to spend the evening with her; she was afraid that her worry would undo her if she was alone.

  They walked back to the house along the sodden path, the rain pelting them with its fury. Hester looked up at the gray sky as if to calculate the duration of the rain, but had to admit that the heavens appeared the same as they had for three days.

  It was awkward, sitting in Frances’s kitchen. Hester was required to call her Mother, but had never felt any motherly love coming from her, ever. Only discipline and rebuking. Still, she was William’s mother, so she made every effort to be respectful. She helped her set the table for the two of them. They ate slices of homemade bread with good, yellow butter and ladled vegetable soup into big pewter bowls.

  Again and again, Frances’s eyes appeared wild with terror. Repeatedly, she opened the door, peered out into the cold and the wind, and asked Hester when she thought the rain would stop.

  Hester told her the only bit of information she knew. If the wind continued from the northeast, there would be no change.

  That seemed to send Frances into despair. “Hester, do you think the men will be safe?”

  “Oh, I trust William to be careful. They are riding with a group of men. Surely they’ll stick together and use sound judgment.”

  Frances nodded. But she became increasingly restless. She paced the kitchen. She added sticks of wood to the fire. She shivered when a gust of wind sent hard pellets of rain against the windowpane. She got down her Bible and began to read, her lips moving as she formed the words.

  “Hester, do you think the water will come up to the barn?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. We’re up pretty high.”

  When Frances nodded, Hester was reminded of her stepmother Annie when her hands lost their strength, creating a vulnerability and a loss of power that was hard to watch. It was pitiful, in fact. Clearly this rainstorm exposed a hidden weakness, a lack of faith, in Frances.

  “Hester, don’t go home to sleep.”

  Surprised, Hester looked at her. “Where should I sleep?”

  “Here.”

  “Do you have a spare bed?”

  “No.”

  “But.”

  “Oh, go then, I know you don’t want to sleep in my bed with me.”

  “I suppose I could.”

  “No, you don’t want to. Go home.”

  Quickly, Hester ran the short distance to her own door through the rain. She let herself in, poked up the fire, washed, and got into her long, warm nightgown. She crawled under the quilts and fell asleep to the rhythm of the rain on the shingled roof, tumbling down the steep incline from one hewn-oak shingle to another, dripping onto the crumpled brown grass that had been covered with snowdrifts all winter long.

  She was awakened by a sobbing, wild-eyed apparition that struck terror to her heart. A half-dressed Frances, holding her navy blue dress front together with one hand and gripping a sputtering candle with the other, was calling her name between hoarse cries, a dry, sobbing sound that would not stop. “Hester! Komm! Komm!”

  Hester sat bolt upright, alarm drying her mouth and her tongue. “It’s William. Amos Fisher just arrived. William’s horse fell, and he struck his head against a bridge.”

  Dumbly, Hester voiced, “The horse struck his head?”

  “No. William!” Frances was screaming now, hoarsely.

  “Where is he?”

  “They brought him back. He’s lying in the barn.”

  “Is he alive?”

  There was no answer, only the slamming of the door, the rain on the roof, the sound of footsteps as they splashed through the rain.

  William’s inert form was brought to the house and laid on their bed. His heavy black hair clung to his skull, forming a cap that allowed his ears to show. They were white, bloodless, a sight that seemed alien to Hester. She had hardly ever seen his ears since his hair reached to chin-level. Now he was strangely defenseless, even sensitive, somehow.

  Frances moaned and cried, making strange, choppy little sounds of fear and foreboding. Her hands shook as she helped Hester put William into dry clothes, roll him over, and cover him. The doctor would come as soon as the floodwaters receded. Smelling salts brought no response.

  Hester worked as the morning light crept into the room, gray, ghostlike, ominous. She glided from the bed to the fire, stroking William’s forehead with cloths soaked in vinegar and camphor. She sat by their bed, watching his face for signs of awareness, trying to endure Frances’s wet sounds of lip-smacking and crying.

  Elias and Ben Hertzler came, peering under William’s eyelids and pinching his nose to see if he would gasp.

  The doctor came from Lancaster, held William’s hand, and said there was little to do except wait to see how soon he would awaken. His heartbeat was good and strong, his pulse lively. He was a young man and healthy. He would probably be fine after he woke up.

  The doctor left, and still the rain continued to pound on the roof. Hester was left alone with William. How could she begin to sort out her feelings when so many emotions crashed into her senses, leaving her with no clear direction?

  Sad, yes, to see her husband, the William she knew so well, lying inert, unable to move. She was surprised by an overwhelming kindness she suddenly felt toward him. He had been so capable, always following his father’s pattern of managing the farm. His profile was so handsome, yet still. His dark lashes lay on his white cheeks, his nose perfectly shaped and adding to his good looks. No wonder she had been visually attracted to him.

  The pinched lines between his eyes and his dark eyebrows gave away his capacity for raw and unseemly fury.

  The thought of his demise forced its way into her mind. No, he would live. She would be able to bear his children. The farm would prosper, their children would till the soil, and their children after them. God would smile down on her, bless her yet, in spite of her troublesome ways, her uprising against her husband. William would live. It was necessary that he did.

  The rain stopped when the northeasterly wind changed to the west. Unbroken gray clouds tore in two on the western horizon, allowing a darker gray, rolling cloud to emerge, followed by churning white ones.

  Raindrops skittered from the eaves, were blown sideways, and then fell to the ground with a defeated sigh.

  By the time a brilliant blue sky showed behind the gray clouds, the wind was already teasing the tree branches, ruffling the grasses, swaying the weeds that seemed dead.

  Hester listened. What she heard was more than the wind. A low roaring swept over the landscape. The wind crashed against the stone walls of the house, seized the windowpanes, and rattled them in its teeth. It lifted loose shingles and let them fall. Floppy gates swung back and forth. Barn doors
flapped. Windows shivered as men dashed madly, clutching their hats, their beards split in two. They pushed rocks against barn doors, latched windows and half doors.

  Slowly the Conestoga Creek went back to its borders, grumbling and leaving a residue of disease in its wake. Horses pulled carriages through the mud. Mud glued to their wooden wheels, making their load twice as heavy.

  Neighbors hopped down from buggies, knocking mud from their boots in the brown yard. They brought biscuits and dumplings, stews and soups. So many remedies from kindly, well-meaning faces. Rub a potato and bury it at midnight when the moon is full. He will awaken. Use burdock root for the palsy or for fainting.

  Old Hannah Troyer, bent and feeble, her teeth gone so long her gums were tough as nails, put a gnarled hand on William’s forehead and repeated the Lord’s Prayer five times in German, the wart at the end of her nose sliding up and down with each word.

  Hester met each visitor at the door, thanked them for coming, then took her place beside William on the chair by his bed.

  Frances talked and talked, giving each of the visitors a full report of his fall, about the night they brought him home, what an exceptional, well-behaved son he had always been. Each visitor heard an account of his abstinence, how he never touched hard cider or apple whiskey, and how, unlike his father and brothers, he had never smoked a pipe or chewed tobacco.

  William was becoming so thin. Hester repeatedly tried to feed him and give him a drink. Still he slept on. She felt almost crazy at the end of seven days. So many visitors, so many good wishes. They flowed and swirled about the room like incense, leaving a blessed odor of love and kindness, along with pies and cakes and loaves of bread.

  Everyone agreed that no one could be blamed. It had simply been an accident. The group of men had been riding. Their horses were lively and well behaved when they neared the bridge where the water was churning and roiling only a foot below. But when the henhouse floated down the swollen creek and crashed into the bridge, William’s horse lunged to the left, away from the terrifying crash, and unseated William so that he flew through the air. His head hit the side of the bridge.

  Amos Fisher said reverently that it sounded like a ripe melon when he hit the ground.

  Phineas Stoltzfus said, “Ach, du lieva.”

  They came and cried with Frances, wrung Elias’s hand, shook their heads in sorrow at the sight of his beautiful young wife sitting so stony-faced, so unmoving. A good thing she was barren. The little ones need not see their Dat like this. An shaute soch.

  The brothers-in-law and sisters came, their voices hushed, their footsteps muted as they rocked back and forth, their hands clasped behind their backs, unable to voice the emotion they felt.

  Johnny would not enter the room, saying it gave him the shivers. Hester knew better.

  They ate their meals together. The Amish women of the community cooked and did the washing. They spoke of it that the young wife would not cry. Had not cried, ever, that anyone could tell. It was the Indian in her. They didn’t feel the things white people did. Death was different to Indians.

  Hannah Troyer’s voice rose. The wart on the end of her nose jumped when she spoke emphatically, “He’s not dead yet.”

  Eliza Bert’s eyebrows jumped, and she said he may as well be.

  All of this was only a buzz in Hester’s ears. Unable to sleep well, afraid he would wake and call her name, she never slept deeply, which finally caused her days to take on a dreamlike quality. She was finding it hard to separate the real from the unreal.

  When gentle souls clasped her hand in both of theirs and cried great quantities of tears, her face remained serene, calm, dry-eyed. Her large black eyes were rimmed with gray shadows. Her skin was dry from the lack of fresh air and much-needed moisture.

  Toward the end of the ninth day, after everyone had gone home and Frances had swept the floor, she stood over her son, crying and smacking her lips in the odd way she had. As she bade Hester good night with a touch on her shoulder, the door opened and Elias entered alone.

  “Go on home, Frances.” He spoke the words with unaccustomed authority. Frances went without a backward glance.

  Elias came slowly toward Hester and stopped directly in front of her chair. “Hester.”

  She looked up, questioning.

  “He won’t live, you know.”

  Hester said nothing.

  “Not anymore. Tomorrow is the tenth day.”

  Hester nodded.

  “I came to tell you that in spirit, I have stood by you. William is so much like his mother. I don’t believe you’ve always had a good life with my son.” In the light of the fire, a teardrop, like silver, appeared, trembled, and dropped, creating a glistening rivulet of moisture on one brown cheek. “God has mysterious ways, but sometimes they are not so mysterious. You will be free to love again, and I believe that is his will. You are a special woman, and I also believe he has plans for you.”

  He hesitated, then placed a thin hand on her shoulder. “Herr saya.”

  Silence laden with kindness whispered its way into the room. “You will always have a home here. You may always stay if you want to, my daughter.”

  His presence and kind words were hard to grasp as a great knot of fear and self-condemnation formed in her throat. “But, I am not worthy of your blessing. I have not always loved William, nor bowed to his will in the way he required. God is punishing me for rising up against him.”

  “As I have not always loved my Frances, Hester. You and I have done the best we could. I have full trust that we will someday hear the words, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.’” The silence was unbroken as Elias laid a hand on Hester’s shoulder once more, as if the touch could assure her of his words. He offered a solid, warm caress to comfort and fill her with the same faith he carried deep in his heart, covered only by his humble demeanor.

  Then, in a broken cry, Hester breathed. “He must live. He must. So I can have a chance to do better.”

  Elias sighed, a ragged sound of pity which grew from his own agony of living out his years with a woman devoid of compassion. “You could do your best, and it would fall short every time.”

  “But God must give me another chance.” Her words were heavy with desperation.

  For a long moment, Elias stood close to his son, watching the slight rising and falling of his chest. The oil lamp flickered, sputtered, and then resumed its steady glow. The shadows on the whitewashed wall crept after Elias’s form as he stepped forward, bending slowly to brush back a lock of William’s dark hair. The corners of his mouth twisted as he struggled for control.

  “I think unser Herren Jesu understands William. I think he knows his nature. He was born with one much like his mother has. He took Jesus as his Savior and tried to follow him, but his exacting nature often got in the way. He did the best he could. I trust God understands this when he reaches the other shore. William loved you, Hester, in his own way.”

  Why did those words bring her comfort when his previous ones did not? Was she somehow responsible for William’s salvation?

  “Thank you, Elias, for your kindness.”

  He nodded once, wished her a good night, and then moved out the door and into the night.

  It was only then that Hester lost all reserve. The stone in her heart was smashed to tiny fragments as she bent over, pressed down by the weight of her disappointment. It could have been better. Their marriage had fallen so short of her expectations. She had longed to be cherished and loved for who she was, not for who he wanted her to be, as he tried to mold her into a more devoted, strict, and spiritual wife.

  Sobs tore from her throat, dry, rasping sounds of grief and unfulfillment. She rocked back and forth, her hands covering her face, her eyes closed tightly against the awful battle in her heart. If only he would live, she would tell him all this. She would pour out words of love, help him change, teach him compassion somehow. Oh, somehow she would find a way.

  As the oil burned low, the smell of the
rancid wick stopped Hester’s keening. She brought up the corner of her black apron, swabbed her face, and then bent to extinguish the flame, throwing the room into darkness, except for the dying fire in the great fireplace. It was enough.

  Hester sat back in her chair and turned her face to William. He was but a slight bump in the white bed, his hair etched dark against the pillow.

  “Why must you go now, William? Why did we ever meet on my father’s fateful wedding day? What plan did God see?”

  Getting up, she placed a hand on his chest and stroked the fabric of his nightshirt, her hand stumbling on the row of buttons. She felt his forehead and his lips, which were dry and parched. Going to the bucket on the dry sink, she poured a small amount of water on a cloth, wrung it into the dishpan, and wiped his mouth lightly. His cheeks were so sunken, so white. She wiped his face all over as if to instill life.

  She knew that beneath the caked black hair there was a large, angry bruise that had spread almost the entire way across his skull. She touched it now with her long, delicate, brown fingers. Her lips moved in prayer. Turning down the white quilt, she brought his hand, the large calloused hand that held her so many times, tenderly to her lips. “I love you, William.” Her voice was low, whispered, calm.

  The storm of her grief had prepared her for God’s will. Whether he lived or whether he died, he was the Lord’s.

  The windowpanes let in a small amount of the night sky. Hester moved to the door, lifted the heavy iron latch, and stepped outside, closing it softly behind her. The air was cold. The chill crept up her arms and across her shoulders. She wrapped her arms around her thin waist and lifted her face to find the familiar constellations. A sliver of a moon hung low in the sky, the remainder of it like a veil trying to appear invisible, but it was there.

  Unbelievably, she heard Kate’s low laugh. “You know, Hester, the moon thinks it’s clever, showing us only portions of itself, but we know it’s there,” she had said.