A Prayer for the Night

by P. L. Gaus

  He waved some of the men down from the porch. Four of them gathered at the back of the buggy. Together, they rolled Sara Yoder’s wheelchair to the edge and then lifted her and her chair gently down. An umbrella popped open over Sara, and Jeremiah began to roll her over the grass, toward the front porch.

  One of the youngest children shyly said, “Hi, Sara,” and the others watched quietly. The men and women stood expectantly on the front porch and watched her approach. She was leaning heavily left in the chair, and her face was slack on the left side, eyes watery. When they lifted her up to the front porch, she held her left hand immobile in her lap, and reached out to take her mother’s hand with her right. Martha knelt beside Sara’s chair and kissed her on the cheek. Sara awkwardly mouthed the words, “I am tired,” and Martha wheeled her over the threshold. Albert met them in the front hallway and scooped Sara up into his arms, to carry her to her upstairs bedroom. Jeremiah stood, hat in hand, and watched through the screened door. When Albert came back down, Jeremiah and he stepped into the parlor for a private talk.

  On the front yard, the game of tag started up again. The milkers came out of the barn, each carrying two pails of goat’s milk, and walked around to the back porch. One of the neighbor ladies served ice cream out of a large bowl, and the men on the front porch sat back down where they had been seated earlier.

  Little was said. Very little needed to be said. To everyone assembled there, it was apparent that Sara had struggled mightily to keep herself upright in her wheelchair. She had mumbled the few words she had spoken. It was unclear whether her face would ever show a convincing smile again.

  When Albert and Jeremiah came out, they were allowed to sit quietly with the men. They were not pressed into conversation. Eventually, Jeremiah said his sad good-byes and turned his buggy to go back down the lane toward home. Caroline came out and nodded to the professor that they should leave. Cal walked them out to their car, but said nothing beyond his thanks that they had come out that afternoon.

  Down the lane, Bishop Raber’s buggy came into view. Raber stopped when Jeremiah came alongside, and the two men spoke for a while, out of earshot.

  When the lane was clear, Caroline and the professor drove toward home. The bishop had gone into the house, and most of the visitors had begun preparing their buggies for their trips home. In the space of an hour, the Yoder family found themselves alone with their sorrows, as Sara slept upstairs.

  FRIDAY, JULY 30

  28

  Friday, July 30

  9:00 A.M.

  JOHN SCHLABAUGH was buried on the high ground at Salem Cemetery, under a towering blue morning sky. The whole congregation tended to the physical and spiritual needs of the Schlabaugh family, who alone sat in chairs, in a fluttering breeze, beside the grave. Cal Troyer and Michael and Caroline Branden attended the subdued services, and Jeremiah Miller brought Sara Yoder in her wheelchair. Abe Yoder was still in the Columbus hospital. Of the remaining members of the Schlabaugh Rumschpringe gang, only Ben Troyer and John Miller attended. Mary Troyer had taken a buggy to visit relatives up in Middlefield, and Henry Erb had left on a bus for Kansas. Andy Stutzman was conspicuously absent.

  The first preacher handled the remarks at the graveside, emphasizing Psalm 139 and God’s refusal to abandon his children. Bishop Raber presided over interring the body. A longer service was later conducted in Albert O. and Martha Yoder’s barn, with martyr hymns sung a cappella, the second preacher giving forth for an hour and a half on the subject of forgiveness.

  After the services, a large noon meal was served on the lawns of the Yoder house, both in front of the big house and between the house and barn, in order to accommodate the large number of people. Long tables were set up under canopies to ward off the sun. The women prepared the meal and first served the men, seated on deacon’s benches pulled up to the tables. The women went about their preparations calmly, carrying platters of roast beef and fried chicken, potatoes, buttered beans, and coleslaw from the bustling kitchen to the outdoor tables. When the men had eaten and the first round of dishes had been washed, the women sat down to eat. The men gathered in small groups, inside and outside, to talk.

  During the men’s meal, Cal Troyer and Michael Branden sat together, across from Bishop Raber. Caroline helped the women serve and then ate with them. Jeremiah Miller ate with Sara Yoder, in the front parlor, when the women were served.

  The smallest children of the congregation played on the swing set and trampoline in the backyard, and sent emissaries periodically to check on Sara and Jeremiah, the little ones unable to mask their curiosity about romance or silence their giggles. Older children gathered behind the black buggies parked up and down the lane, and whispered about the high drama of the Schlabaugh Rumschpringe gang. Cigarettes and a jug of last year’s plum wine were passed secretly among the oldest.

  As the last dishes were being cleared from the tables, the people heard the loud revving of a car engine from some distance up the lane, and an old, brown Chevette lurched into view, weaving erratically, gears grinding out painfully as Andy Stutzman fumbled the gear shifter and the clutch. Too fast for caution, he drove the Chevette up to the line of buggies and slid sideways in the gravel to an abrupt halt. Andy stumbled out of the little car in formal Amish attire, a Sunday suit, and fell over onto his hands and knees, clutching a longneck beer bottle by the throat. With difficulty, he cranked his limbs upright, took a long pull on the bottle, and threw it off into the weeds beside the road.

  He brought his eyes angrily into focus on the people standing in front of the house, and forced himself into a stumbling march across the lawn.

  Andy’s father stepped forward, laid his hand on Andy’s shoulder, and said, “That’s enough, now. Go home.”

  Andy pushed his father away and glared at the people. The younger children were gathered up quietly and taken into the house by their mothers.

  Andy waved belligerently in the space in front of his face and blurted, “You’ve got no right! None of you!”

  His father tried again to restrain him, but Andy pushed him off and stumbled backward. He wiped his sleeve across his lips and yelled, “Johnny Schlabaugh knew more about living than all you clodhoppers put together. You are not worthy to mourn him! Hypocrites!”

  Andy hoisted both arms over his head and threw them to his side in drunken frustration. He skittered sideways on the lawn, lost his footing, and fell over on his side. He lay, curled up, mumbling, until Jeremiah and John Miller came down off the porch, picked him up, and carried him, unconscious, into the barn. They laid him on some loose straw in one of the stalls, and when they came out, the people were starting to move again and to talk. In time, everyone seemed to settle back to normal.

  Bishop Raber drew Andy’s father aside and asked, “Can you get him home?”

  Stutzman nodded wordlessly, eyes cast to the ground, obviously deeply embarrassed.

  Raber said, “I’ll have some men load him into your buggy in a bit.”

  Stutzman nodded again, hesitated, and said, “We’re afraid of him, Bischoff. He hurts people when he’s drunk.”

  “Has he hit you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he hit your wife?”

  “No.”

  “Has he broken things?”

  “All over the house.”

  “Why didn’t you say something to me?”

  A humiliated shrug.

  “We’ve got to do something.”

  “What? He is our son.”

  “The preachers and I need to make a decision about him,” Raber said solemnly. “You need to prepare yourself for the worst.”

  “He’s planning to leave us. It’ll break his mother’s heart, Bischoff.”

  “I know that well enough,” Raber said gently. “But isn’t her heart breaking now, anyway?”

  IN the slow afternoon, before the women ate their traditional meal separate from and after the men, Jeremiah was able to coax Sara up onto crutches long enough to move out onto
the front porch. She leaned on her crutches for several minutes, gratefully watching the youngsters run a marauding game of tag, and then asked for her wheelchair. Jeremiah wheeled the chair out to her, and they returned to the parlor.

  When the women had finished eating and had washed up another stack of dishes, it was announced that pie would be served off the back porch. The men made it slowly around to the back and stood in line with the younger children for their pie. Cal Troyer took two plates to Jeremiah and Sara in the parlor, and sat with them while Jeremiah helped Sara eat and then finished his own pie.

  Sara managed a “Thank you” of sorts.

  Cal nodded and put the empty plates on an oil-lamp stand in the corner of the parlor. He sat back down, saying, “You’re doing better, Sara.”

  She smiled crookedly, the muscles on her left side not quite cooperating with the right side of her face. She looked to Jeremiah and then to Cal and said, “It’s slow.”

  Cal said, “I talked with Abe Yoder yesterday, down at Mt. Carmel East Hospital. He looks better. Should be released soon.”

  Jeremiah said, “I suppose you’ve heard about Johnny’s things. His property.”

  Cal shook his head and said, “What about them?”

  “The Schlabaughs have agreed to sell everything, tractor and all, to raise money. So the church can buy more land close to here. The men will all help to raise a cash crop each year, so the Bishop will have funds he can use when someone needs a doctor.”

  Cal said, “That’s all in the future. What about now? Are you two going to be all right?”

  Sara gave Jeremiah another of her crooked smiles and said to Cal, “Be fine.”

  Jeremiah followed with his own enigmatic smile and said, “You don’t need to worry about us one bit.”

  Cal said, “If it was just the two of you, I wouldn’t worry. But with Red Dog White still running loose, that gives me cause to worry a lot.”

  Jeremiah leveled his eyes at the pastor and said, “You also do not need to worry about him.”

  AS most of the congregation was preparing to leave, Cal took the opportunity to sit in the parlor again with Sara and Jeremiah. Sara cradled her left forearm in her right hand and lifted her left arm as high as she could manage, about level with her earlobes. Jeremiah helped her hold it there for several seconds and then lowered her arm to her lap. They exercised the limb that way several times, and Sara said to Cal, “Supposed to keep moving.”

  Her enunciation of the letter “v” in “moving” produced an awkward “w” sound. She said, “Moving,” again, and struggled to get a better “v,” this time coming closer to the correct pronunciation.

  Cal encouraged her, saying, “If you keep at it, Sara, you’ll come along faster. The key is to keep trying.”

  Sara nodded sternly and let her left arm settle into her lap. She held Cal’s eyes for a spell, turned aside and said, softly, struggling for some of the words, and watching Jeremiah’s eyes, “Jeremiah wants to marry me.”

  “He’s a fine young man,” Cal answered.

  “Got land,” Sara said.

  Jeremiah explained, “Usually, it’s the land that holds a couple back. Land is so expensive. But, I’ve got our land all set up. My uncles have set a tract aside for me when I marry.”

  “You’ll have to make some changes,” Cal said.

  “We’ve already allowed so many accommodations to modern things,” Jeremiah said. “There are batteries under buggies for radios and lights, and cell phones everywhere. Johnny used to say we were all hypocrites. That we’d accept some things and reject others, without any consistency, without any sensible reasons. Hypocrites, Cal. That’s what he would say if he were still alive. How can we be sure what is right?”

  Cal offered, “Only the Schwartzentruber sect is still completely backward. Can you all be Schwartzentrubers?”

  “I couldn’t live like that, so close to the earth,” Jeremiah said. “But it’s the temptation that drives you mad, Cal. You think the English have such wonderful things. Turns out all they have is gadgets. If Johnny showed me anything, it’s that gadgets can’t make you happy.”

  “So, you’re both ready to live Amish?” Cal asked, looking from one to the other.

  Jeremiah said, “I am,” and glanced knowingly at Sara.

  Cal said to Sara, “But?”

  Sara tried for a sentence and failed. Eventually she managed, “Lose me. Lose Sara.”

  Jeremiah took her hand and explained for her. “She’d lose herself, her identity. She’d be swallowed up in conformity, and who she could have been would fade with the years into something indistinguishable from the hundred other Amish women who have tied their lives to a bishop, a husband, the church. She’d lose herself, Cal. We’ve talked about this before. Right, Sara?”

  Sara nodded.

  Cal sat and pondered this, while his fingers brushed across his short white beard. He nodded seriously, then smiled and said to Sara, “You don’t know why God numbers the hairs on your head.”

  Sara looked puzzled. She waited for him to explain.

  Cal said, “In the scriptures, it states that God knows us so well that He has counted the hairs on each of our heads.”

  Sara gave a lopsided nod, still puzzled.

  “It’s not a statement about what God does. It’s not even about hair, really. It’s a statement about God’s capacity to know us, and recognize us, as individuals, Sara.”

  “Amish—all—same.”

  “Aren’t you Sara Yoder?”

  A cautious nod.

  “How many Sara Yoders are there who were born on your birthday, to your parents?”

  “Just me.”

  “Then this alone makes you unique. There is no one like you. There never can be. God’s ability to know you, to recognize you, and to acknowledge you as an individual is infinite. That’s what that scripture means.”

  “I don’t see how that can be possible,” Jeremiah said. “All Amish are the same. Indistinguishable. That’s the whole point.”

  “Think with me. You are different and distinct from every other human being because your path on earth is like no other’s. Where you have gone, when you have been there, is unique to you, and irreproducible. Even if someone tried to make themselves exactly like you, they’d fail in a thousand ways. They could never match your path on earth.

  “Then, your path in life is solely yours. Your decisions, your dilemmas, desires, and responses. All of these are yours alone, and they are known perfectly and completely by God. No one else can respond to life exactly as you have done. No one ever will.

  “Further, your time on earth is yours alone. Even if a million people shared your birthday, to the second, and your death, they will still be distinct and different from you because of the places they have been and the things they have done.

  “It doesn’t stop there. As you walk your path on the surface of the earth, in the precise time limits of your existence, your path in God’s universe is completely and uniquely yours, and equally distinguishable to God. For one thing, you move about on the planet like no one else. Then, the earth is spinning from day to day, so that your location in the solar system is constantly circling. This circling path is made into a unique spiral by the concurrent revolving of earth around the sun. The pitch of this spiral is dependent on the seasons, the tilt of the earth on its axis. On top of that, our solar system is located in the galaxy, which itself is spinning through space, in a universe that is constantly expanding. Your universal path is a complex trajectory through space, made up of all these motions, simultaneously, and all God needs to have in order to identify you, and you alone, is one universal location at one particular point in time. Any particular point, at any particular time.”

  Sara whispered, “God’s GPS.”

  “On an infinite scale, yes. God’s GPS. And this is your identity, uniquely. It’s as much who you are as your personality is. God charts the individual trajectories of every living thing. He knows his creation. He numbe
rs the hairs of our heads.”

  Cal had said this all in a state of reverie, not really looking at Sara or Jeremiah, not actually noticing their reactions to his comments. When he looked up, finally, he saw that Sara was crying, and smiling intermittently, too. He leaned closer, took her hands into his, and said, “You alone are Sara. No one will ever be able to change that. To dress alike, and act alike, and live alike, as Amish, does not hold the power to diminish you. Not in my eyes. Not in God’s.”

  MONDAY, AUGUST 2

  29

  Monday, August 2

  2:30 A.M.

  ANDY STUTZMAN took a pull on a pint bottle of whiskey and climbed out of his car, parked behind the grocery store at tiny Becks Mills. He circled around to the front and keyed John Schlabaugh’s unregistered cell phone to display the number of the last incoming call. At the public phone mounted on the front wall of the grocery store, he dialed the number and waited impatiently as it rang through.

  It was Samuel White’s voice that came back to him, “Yeah? What?”

  Andy said, “I’ve got your Holmes County drugs and money in a briefcase. You want it back?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Never mind that, White. Do you want your drugs back or not? Maybe I’ll just keep the money.”

  “I don’t know who you are, pal, but you just bought yourself a world of hurt.”

  “You’re wasting my time, White. I need an answer. Yes or no.”

  “OK, yes. What’s the deal?”

  “I’m just an Amish kid who needs to make a fast couple thousand. So I’m gonna keep some of your money. If you want the rest, you need to come out to Becks Mills.”