The Calling

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Ella, the eldest sister, was ninety-two and never without a sweet smile on her face. Sylvia said she put her love in things beyond herself, and that kept her spirits high.

  Bethany nodded. “Have a good day.”

  Then Sylvia leaned close to Bethany and placed her wrinkled hands on her arms, peering at her with mortal seriousness. The top of her head only reached the tip of Bethany’s chin, but there was no shortage of stature in Sylvia’s tone when she spoke up like this. “You mustn’t blame yourself or look back—not any longer than it takes to learn what you must learn. After that, let it go. The past is past. But you’re still here,” she whispered urgently and exerted a gentle pressure on Bethany’s arms. “And I’m glad. You be glad too.”

  Tears sprang in Bethany’s eyes. How did Sylvia know how troubled she’d been feeling this summer? She’d never said a word.

  Sylvia gave the carriage house one more look-over and waved her hand. “Oh goodness—this old carriage house can wait another week. What would you think about helping us today? We could always use an extra pair of hands, especially at the end of the month.”

  Bethany wiped away a tear. “I’m all yours.”

  “Excellent!” Sylvia said. “The more the merrier for this project.” She pointed to two little red children’s wagons, filled with food, waiting on the front walk. “You can help us pull those wagons.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the Grange Hall. To make lunch.”

  Bethany was about to ask why, but decided against it. She’d find out soon enough.

  Like any town, Stoney Ridge had good areas and not-so-good areas. The Sisters’ House, one of the oldest in the area, was in the not-so-good area. As the town grew, the original area became run-down and neglected. The Sisters’ House was only a block from the main road. The Grange Hall stood at the corner. On one side of the Grange was a vacant lot. On the other side of the Grange was a group home for wayward teenage girls. The entire block looked tired and worn-out and neglected.

  As the women pulled the wagons past the Group Home, Bethany looked at the house more carefully than she ever had. No one tended the grass. There were no flowers in pots, no curtains on the windows. A television screen, always on, could be seen from the road.

  Hopeless. That’s what the house looked and felt like. It seemed a little disturbing to Bethany, as if the house had a personality of its own—which was ridiculous—but the sisters just waved to the wayward girls and walked right on by it. Only one of the wayward girls waved back.

  When they got to the Grange Hall, they went around back and parked the wagons by the kitchen door. “We’ll need to take a few trips to get all that food inside.”

  “That’s an awful lot of food for lunch for you,” Bethany said.

  “It’s not for us.” Sylvia walked up the three steps and unlocked the kitchen door. “We run a soup kitchen for the folks in Stoney Ridge who are a little down on their luck.”

  Fannie put a large bottle of Dr Pepper at the base of the door to hold it open. “A few years back, when the recession hit head-on, we sisters kept seeing a need in this town. So we talked to the fellow who had the keys for the Grange and he told us we could use the kitchen to serve the hungry. Once a week, everybody in Stoney Ridge who’s in need gets a hot meal.”

  That, Bethany thought, would be a very small group. She didn’t know a soul in Stoney Ridge who was in need.

  Lena read her mind. “Child, look out the window.”

  Bethany turned to see what she was talking about. She could see into the backyard of the Group Home. Five or six girls sat at a picnic bench, a few of them smoking. “You mean, you feed them?”

  “That home is for girls who are in trouble, or their parents are. There’s a woman whose job is housemother. She does her best with what the county gives, but it’s not enough to stretch the week.”

  “So how many people come for a lunch?” Bethany asked. “Those five?”

  “Anywhere from twenty to thirty-five,” Fannie said. “Busier at the end of the month when food stamps run out.”

  Ada handed Bethany a bag of onions. “And we send out five meals to the homebound. Can’t forget them.”

  Bethany was shocked.

  “We cook most things from scratch,” Fannie added.

  “A good cook starts from scratch and keeps on scratching.” Ella chuckled at her own joke while Fannie gave her a look like she was sun-touched.

  “We haul the wagons over here and do the cooking and serve it up,” Lena said.

  “You pull those wagons all the way here and cook all those meals?” How had Bethany never noticed? She’d been working for the sisters, three days a week, for over two months. She had no idea this was where the sisters went on other weekdays. You’d think she would have noticed something. Or asked. She felt ashamed of herself. And yet it was baffling to Bethany too. How could the sisters live in a home of such clutter and chaos, yet have the wherewithal to plan and execute such a purposeful event, once a week, week after week?

  Sylvia read the look on her face and answered her question as if she had asked it. “We’d rather be out, doing things for others, than fussing with a silly house.”

  “Sometimes, it takes two trips to get the wagons to the Grange Hall kitchen,” Sylvia said. “But it’s good exercise for us. It’s a long day. We usually get here by nine and spend the morning chopping and cutting and cooking. The kitchen opens up from twelve to one, then there’s cleanup.”

  “But why hasn’t anyone been helping you?” It was the Plain way for neighbor to help neighbor. It was what they did best.

  From the look on Sylvia’s face, the thought never crossed her mind. “It started small enough that we could manage ourselves. And then, as it got bigger, we kept finding new ways to manage. Besides, it’s summertime and farming families are busy.”

  “Where do you get the food?” Bethany asked.

  “We get most from the Lancaster County Food Bank,” Sylvia explained. “Some things, like this pork butt, are donated by the butcher on Main Street. The Bent N’ Dent gives us their canned goods that are too bent and dented to sell. The Sweet Tooth Bakery gives us their day-old pastries. Some things are from our own garden.”

  The sisters had a system for getting things in the kitchen from the wagon. They lined up along the stairs like an assembly line and passed items along. Ella had a little canvas chair and put things in the chair, then dragged the chair with her cane across the threshold and into the kitchen. She used her cane to prop open the refrigerator. Remarkably resourceful, these ladies were.

  Today, Bethany took care of the lifting. The Grange Hall kitchen was starkly clean. A whiff of Clorox lingered in the air—Bethany could see the tile floor had been recently swabbed. Utensils were neatly hung on hooks. The pots and pans, battered and sturdy, in every imaginable variety, were stacked below the countertop and on the shelves around the room.

  Sylvia had a system for everything. She had gone through a certification process with the Board of Health so she knew what she should serve and how to keep the kitchen sanitary. Bethany realized that she must’ve started this soup kitchen when she was in her late seventies. Amazing! Mammi Vera was only in her mid-sixties and acted like she needed full-time tending.

  Soon, the kitchen was humming. On the stove in big pots were sautéed onions and green peppers. In another pot was the pork butt in a braising liquid. As Bethany chopped onions, she glanced out the window now and then at the girls from the Group Home, sitting in the shade at the picnic table. They seemed so . . . apathetic.

  By noon, they had set tables with plastic spoons and forks and napkins, stirred up the sugary punch the sisters had created and added Dr Pepper to it, and Sylvia opened the doors.

  In walked the girls from next door, the five from the picnic bench and four more. The two knots of girls sat far apart from each other. A handful of old men walked in, a few families, and a single mother with three toddlers. There were the homeless, of course, weari
ng too many layers of clothes, none too clean, and young drifters and runaways, pierced and tattooed, their eyes hungry.

  Bethany had no idea there were so many down-and-outers in need in Stoney Ridge. How had she not noticed? It wasn’t easy for her to see them or to smell them. The musty scent of unwashed bodies nearly choked her. After a while, she grew used to it, though now and then a whiff of someone sorely in need of a bath and a bar of soap hit her hard, and she turned away by faking a cough. It shamed her, but it was the truth. She wished for hot showers and soft beds for them.

  After everyone found a seat, Sylvia insisted on a word from the Lord. “Jesus gave you this day,” she said. “He didn’t have to do that, but he did. So now we are going to hear his words.” Everyone bowed their heads as she read a few verses from the Sermon on the Mount.

  “Amen!” an older black man shouted out, after she read that the poor would be blessed. “Amen for that blessing, Sister Sylvia! Praise the Lord!”

  Accustomed to the man’s enthusiasm, Sylvia gave a nod to Bethany to start serving the paper plates. She liked to control the portions, so each plate received the same amount of food: two slices of pork, mashed potatoes, green beans, a slice of watermelon. People could have seconds, she said, if they asked.

  Bethany took plates to the table of girls from the Group Home. They looked at her with blank stares and took the plates without even a thank-you. Do you realize how hard these old sisters are working? she wanted to ask them. Do you even care?

  Bethany felt the eyes of someone on her. She turned and was startled by one girl at the end of a table, staring at her. Her fiery red hair was long and tangled, as if she had not combed it at all, and she eyed Bethany with a hard-edged hostility. Angry eyes. Bethany looked back, and even from this distance she could feel the radiating resentment, so fierce and terrible.

  By three o’clock, Bethany was exhausted. The five sisters kept at it, making sure everything was spick-and-span in their careful, deliberate way. Each pot had been scrubbed, rinsed, and returned to the shelf. The kitchen was spotless, just the way it had looked when they arrived. And nothing at all like the kitchen in their own home.

  It was Sunday morning. The summer heat lay heavy over the barn, blending the air with barn smells of horse and cow and hay, along with Sunday smells of soap and starch and brewing coffee. Seated on hard backless benches on one side of the large barn were the men and boys, across from them sat the women and girls.

  As much as Jimmy Fisher tried to keep his mind on the sermon, his gaze swept across the room to a checkerboard of pleated white and black prayer caps. Seated along a row of young women, white shawls and white aprons and crisp black prayer caps to mark their maiden status, with them, and yet somehow apart from them, was Bethany Schrock.

  She sat with her shoulders pulled back, and a look on her face as if she was supremely interested in the minister’s lengthy description of the plagues of Exodus. She appeared utterly pious but Jimmy knew better. His gaze fell to her lap, where she was gripping and releasing, gripping and releasing, small handfuls of apron.

  Bethany Schrock didn’t have the hands of a typical Amish girl, Jimmy noticed, not big, blunt-fingered hands. They were slender, delicate hands. He tried to push those thoughts away, to keep his mind on the suffering of the Israelites, but one thought kept intruding—what was Bethany thinking about that made her hands so tense? What was running through her mind?

  It was unfortunate that Katie Zook happened to be seated next to Bethany. Each time Jimmy chanced a look at Bethany, whose eyes stayed straight ahead, Katie assumed he was making eyes at her and she would start to brazenly blink her eyes rapidly and her lips curled into a pleased smile. His interest in Katie Zook had come and gone like a summer rain burst, but her interest in him was more like a coal miner staking a claim. He would have to give some thought as to how to go about dropping her kindly. Katie was the persistent type, cute but clueless.

  He listened to the chickens cluck and scratch outside the open barn door, to the horses moving around in the straw in their stalls, to the bleats of the sheep out in the pasture. The minister was preaching now of how persecuted the Israelites had been as slaves to the Egyptians, how many hardships they suffered. The familiar words rose and fell, rose and fell, like gusts of wind. This was the first of two sermons preached, testimony given, prayers and Scripture read, more ancient hymns sung—and the whole of it would last for over three hours.

  Plenty of time to ponder how to face Katie Zook’s blinking eyes and let her down easy, so gently she’d think it was her own idea. Plenty of time to ponder how to capture and hold Bethany Schrock’s interest.

  Bethany had perfected the art of appearing deeply attentive during church while her mind drifted off in a thousand directions, especially during the long and silent moments between sermons and testimony and Scripture reading. The only part she could say she enjoyed was the last five minutes. If there was any exciting news, that’s when it would be announced. The grim and somber hymns that told the stories of the martyrs through the ages were her least favorite part of the service. Most of these hymns were written in dark and damp prison cells, four hundred years ago, and while she did have a healthy respect for what her ancestors had endured—what Plain person wouldn’t?—it was hard to fully appreciate it all on a beautiful summer day.

  After the benediction, the church sat and waited. Bishop Elmo rose to his feet in the middle of the barn, straightening his hunched back. He raised his head and his gentle gaze moved slowly, carefully, over each man, woman and child. First he faced the women; slowly he turned to face the men. Then he began to speak. “Two of our young people want to get married.”

  Instantly, Bethany came back to the world. Among the Lancaster Amish, weddings didn’t usually happen until the fall when the harvest was in. She wondered which couple might be getting engaged. This was the most exciting moment in a woman’s life. She searched the rows of prayer caps, trying to see which of the girls might be blushing—giving away the secret. She wasn’t alone in her curiosity. All the women were looking up and down the rows. All but one.

  Mary Kate Lapp had her head bowed, chin tucked against her chest.

  Bishop Elmo cleared his throat. “The couple is Mary Kate Lapp and Chris Yoder. The wedding will take place in late August so they can move out to Ohio. The church there is in dire need of a buggy shop and Chris Yoder has been asked to come.” Then Bishop Elmo sat down and the song leader announced the last song. Everyone reached for their hymnbook and opened it to the page, singing a mournful hymn as if nothing unusual or thrilling had just happened.

  As soon as the song ended, Mary Kate and Chris rose and walked outside. By the time church was dismissed, they had driven away in Chris’s buggy. They were off to address invitations to their wedding.

  Bethany felt a combination of delight for her friend, sorrow that M.K. was moving away, and, if she were truly honest, jealousy. M.K. and Chris seemed to have it so easy. They met, fell in love, were getting married, and would live happily ever after. End of story.

  That’s what Bethany had wanted too. But she had the bad luck of falling for that crooked lowlife Jake Hertzler, who had everybody fooled with his easy charm and winning smile. She shuddered. She would never let herself fall in love with anyone, not ever again.

  As she put the hymnal back under the bench, her sister Mim slipped over and stood in front of her, her face filled with worry. “Who is going to teach school next term? When Teacher M.K. gets married, who will take her place?”

  Bethany lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I don’t know, Mim. But they’ll find someone. They always do. Some poor unsuspecting soul who has no idea what’s about to hit her.”

  On Sunday afternoon, Mim suggested a picnic out at Blue Lake Pond to escape the stuffy house, and Mim’s mother was delighted. Naomi, Mammi Vera, and Bethany were invited, but Naomi needed to rest and Mammi Vera said it was too hot and Bethany said she was in no mood for mosquitos. Mim thought that mosquitos or
not, Bethany always seemed to be in a touchy mood lately, but she was disappointed not to have her company, touchy mood and all. Her little brothers caused chaos and turmoil, even if they just stood still.

  Those boys wouldn’t be doing any standing still at Blue Lake Pond. It was their favorite place to be on a summer afternoon. The buggy hadn’t even come to a stop before the boys jumped out and hightailed it for the blackberry vines drooping with ripe fruit. Galen lifted old Chase out of the buggy as he was getting too arthritic to jump, though not too old to run after the boys. He loped behind them, tail wagging so fast it looked like a whirligig. Galen tied the horse’s reins together and fastened them to a tree so it could graze while they picnicked.

  Mim inhaled a deep breath. So sweet. The summer air smelled of sunbaked pine needles and lake water and freshness. She spread a blanket under the shade of a tree and set up the picnic.

  Her mom pointed to those blackberry vines and said, “Mim, we could have great fun making jam.”

  Oh, boy. Mim knew what the week ahead was going to look like: picking berries, pricking fingers, scratches on arms from thorns, followed by hours in a hot and steamy kitchen with pectin, Mason jars, wax, sugar, cheesecloth. Fun?

  Galen sat with his back against the tree and tipped his hat brim over his eyes. Mim liked that Galen was the kind of person who could sit and not fill every second with chatter the way Mammi Vera did. Sometimes, her head hurt from Mammi Vera’s ongoing commentary of Mim and her brothers. Of course, it was always critical. Her grandmother would stand tall and draw in a deep breath and pucker her lips like she was sucking on a lemon and . . . watch out! So unlike Galen, whose words were few and soft, in that deep, gravelly voice, and when he spoke, others always listened.

  Her mom nudged her gently with her elbow and whispered, “Now there’s a sight you don’t see too often.” She pointed to Galen. His hat cast his face in a shadow, and his whole body looked relaxed and lazy. He was the hardest working person they knew, and that was saying a lot for a Plain man in Stoney Ridge. Mim pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and smiled at her mom. It was a peaceful moment and she was glad she’d thought of coming to Blue Lake Pond.