Davey's Daughter

by Linda Byler

  Sarah’s oatmeal turned tasteless, the thick creaminess sticking in her throat. Oh no.

  So he had actually gone ahead and done it, this thing he’d long cultivated on his own, wagging a finger, threatening, the need to make his opinion known, overriding everyone’s advice.

  Dat sighed. “So I suppose all the words I spoke to him were pretty much worthless.” Defeat was threaded through his voice.

  Sarah felt a pity so keen it was physical. Her father had done so much for the community in the past years, treating his congregation with respect and kindness. He did not deserve this outright disobedience.

  Anger welled up on the heels of her sympathy for Dat.

  “That Melvin!” she said, her eyes blazing green.

  Dat shook his head. “Sarah, you agree him sometimes, don’t you?”

  She felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

  “I do. Sometimes. But Dat, do we ever really know one hundred percent of the time how we really feel? Do you?”

  “I think I do. I can’t move past turning the other cheek. Forgiveness. It’s the whole, complete message of Christ. It is.”

  The last two words were spoken firmly, as if to reassure himself that this was really true.

  Mam laid a gentle hand on Dat’s arm, picked nervously at the button on his sleeve.

  “It’s hard, Davey. Truly hard to cling to a message of love when the fires have occurred, one after another. The verse in the Bible about forgiving your brother seventy times seven suddenly becomes almost impossible and hard to understand. How is it possible?”

  “But it’s necessary.”

  “Absolutely necessary.”

  Priscilla’s eyes met Sarah’s and flashed. “It’s only going to get worse since Ashley’s death.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Dat responded. “Remember the night of her viewing? I don’t believe that Mike is a criminal. He was clearly devastated by her death. It was only when I spoke to him, touched him, that he began crying like that. My heart went out to him, as I would have felt toward anyone in a time of grief.”

  At school, the students spent recess sledding, playing snow games, building snow forts. Sarah joined her pupils during the lunch hour. The sun shone on most days, and icicles formed along the eaves, turning the brick schoolhouse into a picturesque building nestled in a grove of leafless, winter trees.

  Wet stockings, boots, beanies, and gloves surrounded the propane gas heater that whooshed dutifully to life, true to the temperature on the thermostat, a modern-day wonder in Sarah’s opinion.

  She clipped the smaller children’s gloves to the homemade PVC ring that hung from its hook above the heater, allowing the wet articles to dry quickly and efficiently.

  Joe and Sam, and Rosanna and her cohorts still refused to go sledding or participate in any running games. They opted to slouch against the wall of the horse shed, although the snickering had all but disappeared. Occasionally, they would trip one of the smaller children or roll one in the snow, but Sarah never let it go, always following the misdemeanor with words of rebuke or having them spend time at their desks.

  Her days went by fairly well, although she constantly had to balance discipline with common sense, patience, and encouragement, working to instill that elusive ingredient into the school—a willingness in most of the children to want to obey.

  There were small victories, the smashed chocolate cupcake, Joe’s outburst of confession that day, Rosanna asking to go to the Strasburg Railroad, the long awaited trip that had gone very well without the stubborn upper grades after Sarah had refused to give in.

  Not having a Christmas program had made Sarah sad at first, but she knew she had saved herself hours of frustration by giving it up.

  Now she was secretly contemplating a spring program around Easter, waiting to see how the pupils would respond to discipline by the end of February.

  Always, just when she felt she was gaining ground, some of the older pupils would get out of their seats to walk around without raising their hands, just to see how far they could go without Sarah calling them back to their seats.

  Or their refusal to work on their scores would start all over again, leaving her in a black mood with no hope of ever changing anything.

  Catherine, a sixth-grader, raised her hand just before school let out one day when Sarah’s head felt like an over-filled balloon, ready to pop.

  “Yes, Catherine?”

  “What are we doing for Valentine’s Day?”

  Sarah stopped and thought.

  “I forgot about Valentine’s Day.”

  “We want to do something, don’t we?”

  “Certainly. Of course. Any suggestions?”

  “Stay home, like, all day,” Rosanna said loudly, looking around for any signs of approval.

  When none were forthcoming, Rosanna slid to the side of her seat and leaned over as if she was searching for something in her desk. When she sat up, her face was red, and she was blinking self-consciously.

  Sarah was thrilled, glad to see her discomfiture. It was, by all appearances, a good thing when no one acknowledged her wise cracks.

  “So, any suggestions?” she asked, pointedly ignoring Rosanna.

  “Pizza?”

  “Hot lunch?”

  “Valentine’s Day party?”

  The suggestions came thick and fast, assaulting Sarah’s headache, but welcome, nevertheless. It showed enthusiasm. Even if it was for something as frivolous as a party, it was still enthusiasm.

  So Sarah traveled home, happily chatting with her driver, took two Tylenol as soon as she came within reach of Mam’s medicine cabinet, and flopped on the recliner before she closed her eyes, breathing slowly, deeply, allowing the tension of the day to evaporate.

  It was unusual to see Hannah striding up on the porch, her breath coming in short, hard puffs, her hair disheveled by the brisk wind, her coat pulled like sausage casing around her ample waist. As in former days, she didn’t knock, just pushed the door open a sliver and yelled, “Hey!”

  Quickly Mam turned the gas heat to low, checking the potatoes with a deft hand, and wiped her hands on her apron as she hurried to the door.

  “Hannah.”

  “Malinda.”

  The words were unspoken questions.

  Mam paused, then said, “Ach Hannah, you don’t come anymore the way you used to. I miss that.” The words were a healing balm, covering old wounds, cleansing them of harmful bacteria, the kind that fester and grow, turning a good, steadfast friend into a foe.

  “Well, Malinda, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since Matthew dated Sarah. It’s just awful, just awful now. His wife is dying. They say there is nothing more they can do for her. She has some sort of rare virus. They’ll lose the baby, too. He is completely devastated. I want him to bring her home for better medical care, but he can’t.”

  Sarah felt her mouth go dry. The room spun, tilted, and righted itself as the blood drained from her face and her hands began a ridiculous quaking completely on their own.

  What if Matthew’s wife passed away? That would leave him free to marry again, to return to the Amish, come back to the fold, resume life as…as what? As it was meant to be? Or as her heart still yearned? Who was to know?

  Her thoughts out of control, Sarah gripped her hands to still their shaking. She squared her shoulders and bent her head, noticing the intricate pattern in the linoleum, the perfection of the copied pattern, so similar to real ceramic tile with grout between the squares.

  Which was real? When was love genuine and when was it counterfeit, only a replica of the original product?

  She heard Hannah’s voice, recognized Mam’s answers as Priscilla’s large green eyes watched them, as keen as a cat. But it was all secondary, as if in another realm. Would Matthew return?

  “If she passes, I guess Matthew could return. But I can’t see him coming back to us, to be Amish again. He knows so much more about the Bible now. He knows more than our ministers, I’m sure. He can
talk about the Bible for hours. He’s so interesting.

  “Elam is afraid he’ll mislead me yet, but I told him, ach, what would an old biddy like me want in another church? I’m about as Amish as they come. You know, Malinda. But Matthew is just something else, so he is.”

  Mam answered Hannah with only a polite nod of her head, her smile becoming fixed, lopsided, as she struggled to keep a hurtful opinion to herself, victory showing as her smile righted itself.

  Mam knew Matthew was firmly glued to the pedestal of his mother’s pride, slowly turning from flesh and blood into various metals, hardening into an idol she would worship her whole life long. No mere words of advice would ever change that.

  She listened attentively to Hannah’s praise of her son, and when the potatoes boiled over, she was genuinely relieved to have Hannah glance sharply at the clock and say she must go as she had cornbread in the oven—nothing better in the dead of winter. She pulled her black men’s gloves over her chapped hands and took her leave.

  With a sigh of resignation, Mam sat down, shaking her head, as if a great weariness had taken up residence in her body.

  “Sarah, what if Matthew returns?”

  A blinding, fluorescent joy shone from Sarah’s eyes, and Mam shivered in the face of it. “Do you think he will?” Sarah whispered, the hope still brilliant after the initial flash of rapture.

  Mam shrugged, then got up from her chair, whipped the pot off the stove, and began beating the mealy potatoes with a vengeance, the potato masher clacking against the steel sides of the pot in harried circles. Mam’s nerves supplied ample muscle power as she resisted the very thought of that cunning wolf showing up again on the front porch, opening up all the fears and sleepless nights yet again, just when they thought God had taken mercy and answered all their prayers.

  Well, if she had anything to do with it, he wouldn’t. Her eyes flashed, and her cheeks took on a color of their own as her arms pumped away at the potatoes. Turning, she snapped, “Grick da dish ready (Set the table).”

  Sarah cast a frightened look at her mother.

  “What in the world, Mam?” she breathed.

  Mam’s composure slid away as her shoulders slumped, tears leaking from beneath her sturdy glasses as she told Sarah in an unsteady voice of the fear in her heart.

  “Matthew has such a strong hold on you, Sarah. I’m so afraid if he does come back, he’ll want you, but not his heritage, not his Amish background, and he’ll persuade you again.”

  That was how Dat found them—Sarah shocked, her face suppressing untold emotion, his dear, faithful wife in tears, which were not often seen, especially not without good reason.

  Quickly, they tried to remedy the situation, and as quickly, Dat insisted on knowing what Hannah had wanted. When they had told him, he sat down heavily, the breath leaving his body, a furrow appearing on his brow as the only sign of his anxiety.

  “Well,” he mused, before his mouth widened into a grin. “This reminds me of a story in one of the old reading books—the one about the bride-to-be who went to the springhouse and found a hatchet imbedded in the ceiling. Till it was all over, the what-ifs, traveling from person to person, had resulted in numerous calamities and suspicions forming in the minds of the villagers. Don’t you think that might be the case here?”

  Mam nodded, shamefaced, but to save her pride, she insisted it was only she and Sarah, not a bunch of others, who had been speculating.

  “I heard it!” Levi bellowed from his chair by the window, where he was identifying birds with his binoculars, the bird feeder stationed just outside for his enjoyment.

  “These women act like the birds. Such a ga-pick (picking) and ga-fuss (fuss) they have!” Levi said, shaking his head.

  In spite of vowing to keep everything in perspective, Sarah had a difficult time keeping her thoughts and emotions from spiraling to untold heights.

  The only thing that remained to keep her anchored was Lee, the agreement they had to wait until the proper time to begin dating, and the love she felt for him. Or was that only desperation to relieve the hurt from Matthew?

  Clearly, if Matthew returned, she would find herself in the most difficult situation of her life, a crossroad piled with insurmountable obstacles, all labeled with puzzling, life-altering choices yet again.

  Priscilla entered her room late that evening, a towel twisted around her hair like a turban, her warm fleece robe tied around her waist, her feet cozy in woolen slippers.

  “It’s so cold in here, you can see your breath,” she complained as she plopped on Sarah’s bed, bouncing her and causing her pen to make a dash across her diary.

  Leaning over, Priscilla raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ll give you five whole dollars to read your diary.”

  “More like five hundred, and then it’s not guaranteed,” Sarah muttered.

  “You know, hopefully, you’re just crazy.” This sentence was spoken flatly, dryly, without emotion.

  Sarah turned sharply, her eyes wide, as she found Priscilla’s, the question hovering between them.

  Not waiting for a response, Priscilla plunged ahead.

  “What is it going to take? What will have to happen before you are finally shaken to your senses? Sarah, I can see it in your face. Matthew, or the thought of him, is still as precious to you as he’s ever been. What about Lee? What about the sweetest, best-looking guy who would do anything he could for you? Are you just going to throw him away like a piece of trash, disposed of—CLUNK!—in the waste can? And he’s already given up Rose for you.”

  “We’re not dating.”

  “But you agreed to start as soon as the time is proper.”

  “Well.”

  “Well, what?”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “She didn’t die.”

  “But she will.”

  “That doesn’t say he’ll return. Perhaps he loves Haiti and will stay there.”

  “And if he does, and if he calls for you, you’d swim the Atlantic for him.”

  When Sarah laughed, Priscilla unwrapped the towel from her head and shook out her long, beautiful, blonde-brown hair. She took a large, black brush to it, wincing as she did so.

  “You disgust me.” The words were harsh, accusing, hard stones of misunderstanding.

  “Don’t judge me, Priscilla. You’ve never been in love.”

  “You’re not in love with Matthew.”

  Sarah laid her diary carefully on the nightstand and turned to look at her sister, holding her gaze without guilt.

  “Sometimes, I’m not sure I know what love is,” she said finally, quietly.

  Priscilla nodded, then whispered, “I do.”

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. “At sixteen?”

  “When I was still fifteen.”

  “Omar?”

  Priscilla nodded.

  “Love is not hard to figure out, for me.”

  Sarah nodded.

  Outside, snow pinged against the window as another snowstorm approached the county. The cold seeped between every crevice around the baseboards, between the window frames, sending a shiver up Sarah’s back.

  Was it the cold, or was it a premonition? Some strange dread of the future, an intuition that lurked around the perimeters of the farmhouse, finding its way into her soul?

  When Hephzibah died, the unborn child going with her, Hannah was one of the first people to know, and she lost no time in coming to tell the Beilers, her tears already streaming down her face, the gulping sobs coming without restraint as she reached the door. Mam ushered Hannah inside, putting a hand on her heaving back and a box of Kleenex at her disposal as she offered a gentle word of sympathy, her fear and foreboding tucked deep inside, where Hannah had no access to it.

  Hannah’s description of the situation took Mam to the primitive Haitian hospital, the heat, the rejoicing in the Lord as she passed into His arms, bringing tears to even Mam’s eyes. Without a doubt, this woman had been a special person. The light of her Master’s love had enabled he
r to serve selflessly, ministering to the poor and the needy, with a heart that was joyous in doing so, and Matthew’s life had been blessed by her.

  On and on, Hannah sobbed, bringing wadded tissues to her bulbous, red nose as more tears streamed from her squinted eyes. Over and over, she removed her glasses, wiped them, and replaced them, before a fresh onslaught of grief overtook her.

  Mam realized, wisely, of course, that this was no ordinary grief. After all, Hannah hadn’t even known the girl, this woman named Hephzibah. She put two and two together and decided Hannah was crying all the tears for another reason. Maybe these were the tears she had never cried for Matthew’s leaving.

  Malinda remained kind and sympathetic. She put on the coffee pot and brought out a tray of pumpkin cookies frosted with caramel icing and another plate of good, white sharp cheese. She added some Tom Sturgis mini-pretzels to the spread and a roll of Ritz crackers and some grapes they’d had on special down at Kauffman’s Fruit Market.

  Hannah grasped the hot mug of steaming coffee, laced it liberally with cream and sugar, and began dunking pumpkin cookies into the thick liquid as fast as she could break them in half and retrieve them with her spoon.

  “Ach my, Malinda. Ach my. How can I doubt your friendship? You always know what I need, don’t you?”

  “You mean pumpkin cookies?” Mam asked sagely, and they threw back their heads and laughed until Mam wiped her eyes and straightened her covering.

  She always did that when she felt guilty for laughing too much, as if the adjustment of her large, white covering could pay penance for her lack of holiness. Hannah knew this gesture well and had often teased her about it. So now, when Mam reached for her covering strings and gave them a good yank, Hannah shook her finger under Mam’s nose and said ministers’ wives were allowed a good laugh, now, weren’t they?

  Their friendship once again restored, Hannah poured out her longing to have Matthew return to the fold. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he and Sarah could get together again, simply resume the friendship where it had left off? she asked.

  Mam remained level-headed, agreeing, but clearly stating her fears. She told Hannah that Sarah had promised to serve Christ among her people, and she would be heartbroken if she broke her vows.