Davey's Daughter

by Linda Byler

  Sarah’s shin throbbed painfully beneath the heavy blankets, and her face was numb with the piercing cold. She pulled the blanket higher, hiding her face behind it until they slowed to a stop back at the house, and Melvin jumped out.

  “Come in for hot chocolate,” Sarah said.

  “You know I won’t turn that down.”

  “Good.”

  Limping, her leg causing her serious discomfort, Sarah made her way into the house and hung her wet, snow-covered things by the coal stove to dry.

  Levi was getting ready for bed, taking his blood pressure medication and his vitamins and minerals. He was dressed in flannel pajamas, navy blue ones with the white pin stripes. He had on brown slippers, and his hair was clean and wet from the shower.

  “Melvin’s here,” Sarah told him.

  Levi shook his head, slowly gathering the small pile of pills in his hand.

  “I’m going to bed.”

  “But Melvin wants to talk to you.”

  “No, I don’t feel good.”

  “But Levi, he’s worried that our barn isn’t safe, the way Dutch died.”

  “No, I’m sick to my stomach.”

  With the words spoken forcefully, Sarah knew his mind was made up, and he would refuse to cooperate at all.

  Levi turned away and shuffled heavily to his room. He sat on the edge of his bed and muttered to himself before turning off the battery lamp and swinging up his legs, grunting with the effort of settling his large body comfortably.

  Mam appeared out of nowhere, clucking, bringing an extra comforter to spread over Levi’s great bulk. She tucked him in, worrying about the roaring wind outside as the snow blasted against the windows. She returned to her bedroom and opened the lid of the cedar-lined chest that had been her great-grandmother’s and had the initials A.M.K. inscribed on the front.

  She pulled out homemade comforters, pieced with blocks of fabric cut from remnants of fleece. They were knotted securely with brightly colored yarn from leftover skeins from afghans she had crocheted.

  None of the colors matched, but that was not the purpose of the comforters to begin with. As long as the fleece patches were sewed firmly and the yarn was pulled through twice and securely knotted, they were well done and served their purpose.

  Those comforters stayed in the cedar chest all year except for the coldest part of the winter, which had come early this year.

  Mam bustled up the stairs, Suzie in tow, distributing the necessary comforters. She spread them over the beds, tucking them between mattresses and box springs, saying, “Ach my. Siss kalt do huvva (It’s cold up here).”

  She clattered back down the stairs, a cozy light shining from her kindly eyes, fer-sarking (taking care of) her children on a cold winter night, the way she had done ever since her firstborn lay in his crib in a corner of the bedroom in the old stone house.

  She’d bustled then, and she bustled now and was fulfilled by her motherly duties.

  “Just listen to that wind!” she exclaimed to her husband and her nephew, Melvin, who had followed Dat into the kitchen.

  Dat shook his head, saying he’d watched those gray clouds just as the sun left that red slash in the sky. He figured a real wind would be kicking up.

  Melvin looked around for Levi, clearly wanting to have him describe in detail what he had seen during the night.

  “Where’s Levi?”

  The question was inevitable, and Sarah knew he’d be disappointed, knowing once Levi refused to talk, it was like trying to budge a two-ton rock. Impossible.

  “He’s in bed.”

  “Well, ask him to get up. I want to talk to him.”

  As always, Melvin’s voice was clear and precise, and it carried well, producing a rumpus from the hospital bed.

  “Melvin, just go on home. I’m not well.”

  “Ach, come on, Levi!”

  “No.”

  “I’ll give you some gum.”

  “No.”

  Melvin looked to Dat for assistance, then to Sarah, saw the futility of his attempts, and sank resignedly into a kitchen chair. Sarah served him hot chocolate and peanut butter cookies, and they talked far into the night.

  The fear wrapped itself around Sarah, an unsettling cloak of mystery, the unknown a burden as Melvin’s words rang in her ears.

  “Mark my words, Davey. There’s more trouble to come. If he thinks we Amish are all going to turn our backs and let him terrorize all of us, he has another guess coming.”

  Maybe we’re the ones who have another guess coming, Sarah thought to herself.

  The wind wailed around the eaves, sending a section of loose spouting clattering down the side of the stone house with a metallic crash that woke the whole household. Levi cried out in alarm, and Suzie called from her bedroom in hoarse terror.

  Sarah jumped out of bed, grabbed her woolen robe, and hobbled painfully down the stairs, meeting Mam already halfway through the kitchen, her small flashlight slicing a path across the darkened room.

  No one went back to bed before Dat dressed warmly, lit a gas lantern, and searched the barn and the outbuildings, holding the lantern high, before finally coming upon the indentation in the snow left by the section of spouting. He carried it triumphantly to the porch, his great relief visible.

  Mam sighed, the tension leaving her body, and told them they could now go back to bed. Sarah took two Tylenol tablets and swallowed them at the kitchen sink. She cowered at the window as a mighty gust bent the great, old maple trees in the front yard, erasing the vast bulk of the new, white barn for only a few seconds.

  She shivered.

  The cold lay around the baseboards along the walls and crept along the windowsills, where the coal stove’s heat could not quite keep it at bay. Little swirls of chills shivered up Sarah’s back as she turned to Mam, who was warming her hands by tentatively touching the tips of her fingers to the top of the coal stove. Mam pulled Suzie close against her when Sarah came to join them.

  In the dark and cold, they huddled, the warmth a comfort, creating an aura of normalcy. Though they didn’t say it, they all knew this whole scene contrasted sharply with the way they would have reacted previously to a noise in the night.

  The truth hovered between them, driving them into isolation with their own thoughts. The shame of their fear, or the admission of it, would have to remain unspoken, a denial of the fact that it existed.

  They were people of faith, weren’t they? Christian folks of the Old Order who placed their trust in God. They were blessed by Him as seasons came and went, with the rain and the sun and the good, brown earth sprouting the seeds they planted and the barns bulging with the abundant harvests as the leaves turned colors, signaling winter’s approach.

  So what were they doing now, cowering around this stove and casting furtive glances over their shoulders, peering into the dark corners that had become hiding places for strange men, Bic lighters flicking as they terrified good, strong, sensible horses into a state of deathly panic?

  Barns that stood tall and stately had crumpled and burned to useless black piles that no one could ever fully erase from their minds. The memories left apprehension lying thick and suffocating over Lancaster County.

  “Go back to bed,” Mam said curtly.

  Everyone obeyed, silently padding their way up the staircase, knowing that in previous years, they would all have remained in their beds and later laughed about the great crash the spouting had made during the night. But that was before the ongoing mystery was wedged into their lives. Now, they would need to adjust, over and over, to overwhelming waves of fear.

  In the morning, Leacock Township already had the great, rumbling snowplows shoving walls of snow to the sides of the roads. Heavy chains were secured around the big tires, and the machines clanged and banged as they scraped along, yellow revolving lights warning passing vehicles—if there were any—of their approach.

  The wind remained stubbornly stiff and unrelenting, so Sarah helped Dat shovel paths to the barn an
d everywhere else anyone would need to go on the property. The wind had their walkways blown shut again in a few hours, so they kept at it. The sun was shining, however, and Sarah preferred the outdoors far above being cooped up inside with Levi.

  His stomach pained him terribly as a result, of course, of his over-consumption of peanut butter cookies.

  Mam was at the phone half the morning. She was in quite a stew about Ruthie’s two year old who had the croup. She worried he’d have to be taken to Lancaster General Hospital ivver vile (soon).

  Suzie couldn’t go to school, so she sang the same song over and over as she sharpened her colored pencils with a battery-powered sharpener that emitted a high whir as each pencil was poked into it.

  “My Lord, my King, you’re my—WHIRRR—everything—WHIRRR—Glory sing.”

  Sarah could only take about two minutes of that until the cold and the wind looked positively inviting. Back outside, she looked up to see her sister, Priscilla, wading through the snow on her way to find a sled, no doubt.

  As Sarah turned in the opposite direction, she saw another familiar tall figure wading through the snow, coming over the small hill from Elam’s.

  Matthew!

  As usual, her breath caught in her throat, and her heartbeat, thought it was already elevated from shoveling snow, accelerated to an even faster rate. And, as usual, she felt her confidence slip away, afraid that this time she would need to accept that he was back together with Rose, the relationship resumed, and this time, they would remain together, inevitably being married the following year.

  She was surprised to see he was waving, his arm swinging wide with enthusiasm as he caught sight of her. She stood still, awaiting his approach, a smile playing around her lips.

  “Hey, whatcha’ doin’?”

  She lifted her shovel and turned her face to smile at him.

  “Shoveling?”

  She nodded. “What does it look like?”

  “Shoveling snow?”

  She reached out to hit his forearm playfully, and he smiled at her, his teeth dazzlingly white in his dark face, his black beanie pulled low on his forehead, his eyes warm and brown and inviting.

  “Hey, Sarah. I walked the whole way up here through the cold and the wind and the deep snow to ask you to go to the Christmas singing with me. Want to?”

  There was no shyness, no hesitation with Matthew, and she answered quickly and maybe a little too loudly with a resounding, “Oh yes!”

  Her eyes were shining, her face glowed, the tendrils of her curly, brown hair swirled about her forehead, and she could not take her gaze away from him.

  “Good. Good, then. I’ll pick you up Sunday evening. Around six, six-thirty.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “You have a Christmas dinner that day?”

  “Yes, of course. Though it’s a little strange with Christmas on a Sunday this year.”

  “Well, we have Monday off, too. Second Christmas.”

  “We have the Lapp Christmas dinner that day.”

  “Your mam’s side?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s cool.”

  Matthew stood, relaxed, unwilling to leave her, so she leaned on the shovel and watched his face, taking in the way his nose turned down just perfectly, the two black wings for eyebrows.

  He said, “Your hair’s a mess,” as he reached up and lifted off his stocking cap. He set it firmly on Sarah’s head, pulling it down well below her eyebrows, then stood back and laughed aloud.

  “You look really cute like that.”

  Sarah pushed the beanie up, a warmth spreading over her face.

  From the kitchen window, Mam’s paring knife slipped, wobbled, then stopped completely, her jaw sagging in disbelief as Matthew put his cap on Sarah’s head. Her mouth compressed, her eyes sparked, and her nostrils distended only a millimeter as she brought the paring knife through the potato with a new intensity.

  Did that boy have no shame? In broad daylight, traipsing right in their driveway to flirt openly with their daughter, who he knew was an easy target. In her day, in her rumspringa years, that was completely unthinkable, and here he was, larger than life, without a care in the world of what she or Davey thought.

  A sharp pain shot through her thumb as the knife slipped again and cut a nasty slice into the skin. Quickly, she bent and opened the cupboard door, ripped a paper towel off the roll, and wrapped her it around her thumb.

  She wanted to cry. She wanted to bang her fists against the window and chase him away like an unwanted starling at the birdfeeder. Instead she walked calmly to the oak medicine cabinet, got out the box of Band-Aids, and applied one with all the concentration she could muster, avoiding looking out the windows as much as she could.

  Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself and sat down heavily. She knew this was not right. So she bowed her head, the part in her hair perfectly centered, her hair sleekly falling away on each side. Her hair was graying but still retained most of its dark color under her large, snow-white covering with its wide strings falling down her back.

  Her lips moved in prayer as tears hovered between her eyelashes and quivered there before dropping onto the gray fabric of her apron, creating dark splotches while her cheeks remained dry.

  Mam had reached her Waterloo. It was such a maddeningly futile situation, and she knew she must let go, give up her own will, and replace it firmly with God’s will.

  How could her own precious, beloved daughter be so blind when the dashing Matthew was so obviously still in love with the beautiful Rose?

  Or was she, herself, blind to God’s will? She didn’t know, so she gave herself up to God, following the advice handed down from generation to generation, the sound principle of the ages for every Amish wife and mother. You could never go wrong by giving yourself up.

  Mam had just resumed her potato peeling when Sarah bounded into the kesslehaus, yanked open the door to the kitchen, and charged over to Priscilla at the sewing machine.

  “Did you see Matthew?”

  Priscilla looked up.

  “Where was he?”

  “Here. He came to ask me to go to the Christmas singing!”

  “He did? What did you say?” Priscilla ducked her head and giggled as Sarah swatted her shoulder. “You said no, right?”

  But Sarah was already on her way up the stairs, taking two steps at a time before bounding back down.

  “Mam, may I go to Lizzie Zook’s store?”

  “Why?”

  “I have to have a new Christmas dress. I have to.”

  Resigned, Mam turned, her face inscrutable. “Why?”

  “Matthew was here. He asked me to go to the Christmas singing with him. I only have my burgundy dress from last year, or that homely looking dark green. I look sick in that one. Please, Mam?”

  What Mam wanted to say and what she did say were two entirely different things.

  “I suppose you can. How would you go? Surely not Fred and the buggy on a day like this?”

  “Of course!”

  Priscilla was elected to accompany her in spite of Suzie’s protests. Levi came to the rescue and promised her a game of Memory, and Sarah promised her a new book.

  The town of Intercourse was digging itself out of the snowstorm, but as it was only a few days before Christmas, plenty of cars crawled along Route 340. Horses and buggies clopped along the roadside. Pedestrians hurried along swept sidewalks and ducked into shops to frantically looking for last-minute gifts. Trucks carrying fuel oil or tanks of milk geared down for the red light at Susquehanna Bank as the girls neared their destination—the fabric shop in the heart of the village.

  Bolts of fabric stood upright along low shelves, an endless display of colors and patterns making it difficult to choose. Sarah remained indecisive till Priscilla began tapping the toe of her boot and looking at the ceiling, accompanied by a hum that grated on Sarah’s nerves. Her sister’s impatience distracted Sarah and scattered her resolve to settle for the red that was
not as pretty as a more brilliant shade—one that would be completely unacceptable to Mam.

  Mam was so strict, Sarah thought. She never changed with the times. Well, not never. But not very often.

  “Priscilla!” she hissed.

  “Hmm?”

  “Would you get this one?”

  “You’re crazy,” Priscilla said flatly.

  “Why?”

  “You just are. You know Mam will never allow it. Don’t even think of letting Dat see you in that orange red.”

  “They’ll hardly see it.”

  “Not at the singing?”

  “Oh, I forgot.”

  Her shoulders sagged with defeat. Well, it would have to be the dull red with the barely discernible stripe. That was all there was to it.

  She took it to the counter to have it cut, paid for her purchase, and returned to the buggy, stowing the white plastic bag beneath the seat.

  On the way home, they ate broken pieces of Fifth Avenue candy bars from the plastic bag they had purchased at a reduced price from Nancy’s Notions. They examined the Christmas wrap and bows Sarah had purchased for her gifts, and Sarah launched into a colorful account of the elaborate gifts she would buy for Matthew once they were dating. She shrugged off the look she was receiving from Priscilla.

  “You don’t like Matthew,” she said out of the blue much later.

  “I like him okay. I just don’t want you to get hurt. I’m sure you know as well as I do, he likes every girl in a hundred mile radius.”

  “But he will like me best, once we’re dating.”

  Priscilla pretended to read the new children’s book she’d purchased for Suzie and shrugged her shoulders with an air of disinterest.

  “Yeah. Could be.”

  The subject was over almost before it started, and nothing more was said.

  On Christmas Day, the sky was a spectacular shade of blue, crowning the white snow, creating crevices of blue and gray where the shadows lay beneath the drifts.

  Sarah was up early, helping her mother arrange all the wrapped presents in a large pile on the drop leaf table in the living room. It was overflowing with gifts beneath and beside it as well, the way it always was.