Between Two Promises

by Shelter Somerset

  Aiden shut the door against the snow. “Daniel?”

  “Ya?” His voice sounded as if he had swallowed the sawdust. Aiden wondered if he should leave him be. He longed to be some solace to him.

  “I saw the ministers speaking with you,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  “Good as expected, I figure.” Daniel kept eyes on his project.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not much to talk about. They said what I figured they would.”

  “What was that?”

  “They wanted to know how serious I am about upholding the Ordnung,” Daniel said. “They wanted to know if I plan to leave the church.” He paused. “They threatened me with the shunning.”

  Aiden’s stomach tightened. The scraping of the planing lessened his tentativeness, and he stepped closer to Daniel. A final confrontation was everything Aiden had hoped for in coming back to Illinois. A severing of worlds that would give Daniel to him, wholly and completely. Yet Daniel suffered. He kept his voice soft. “And what did you tell them, Daniel?”

  Daniel waited a moment to answer. “I didn’t say much.”

  “I’m sorry,” Aiden said, “but you had to face it sooner or later.”

  Daniel’s hand froze over the plank. The gas lantern above him hissed. In the silence, Daniel seemed to study Aiden. He returned to his planing. “How do you feel, anyhow?” he asked.

  “Much better, thanks.” Happy thoughts struggled to break through the muck of what he’d overheard in the house between Samuel and Rachel. They wished they hadn’t invited Aiden to Mark’s wedding. He pushed that unpleasantness aside. No reason to mention it mere minutes after Daniel’s altercation with the ministers. Daniel had faced enough troubles for one day.

  “Your mom and Elisabeth have nice bedside manners,” he said, wanting to keep things positive. “Too bad people in your order can’t go to college. They would’ve made fine nurses.”

  “Ya, Mom and Elisabeth were always helpful whenever one of us got sick.”

  Aiden edged closer. He let his fingertips slide over a smooth oak chest Mark was most likely in the middle of assembling. Suddenly, he wanted to rush to Daniel and throw his arms around him and declare his love for him. But wouldn’t Daniel resist?

  “I am sorry for everything,” Aiden said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Sighing, Daniel set aside the plane and turned to Aiden. “Just give me time to think things through.”

  “Think things through?”

  Daniel placed his large hands on Aiden’s shoulders. “I only meant I need time to sort out what to tell the ministers and my family. It won’t come easy.”

  The pull of Daniel’s body lured Aiden. He fell into him, and Daniel wrapped his arms around him. The warmth filled Aiden, even through his bulky coat. Daniel’s beard, which he hadn’t trimmed since the day they’d left Montana, scratched his cheeks and forehead.

  Aiden was about to tell Daniel he loved him when Daniel nudged him away.

  “We best be careful,” he said, taking a step back. “We can’t be stupid after everything with the ministers. How would it look if someone walked in?”

  Aiden wanted to say, “What does it matter?” but he drooped his shoulders and eased off. He watched Daniel work on the plank in silence. After a while, he wandered outside. He did not wish to go back inside the house, where he was certain Rachel and Samuel had had enough of him. He eventually found himself walking back to the inn. The falling snow cut into his eyes while he trudged along the shoulder.

  Chapter Twelve

  WHAT was that dream Daniel had had? Seemed more like a piercing memory of something that had happened. He rubbed his eyes. Staring at the blue haze of morning twilight from his bed, he recalled the horrible sequence of his nightmare.

  He and Aiden were back in Montana, backpacking through the Swan Range, like they had many times. Daniel turned his back on Aiden only a second. When he twisted around, Aiden had vanished. Someone screamed in the distance. Aiden, his voice full of helplessness, calling out Daniel’s name. His heart racing, Daniel bushwhacked through bushes and alders using his bare hands, until they were split open and bloodied.

  Breathless, he came to a clearing. Aiden was shrieking and flailing his arms as a grizzly pinned him to the ground, roaring over him with adze-sized fangs. Daniel wanted to wrestle the beast off Aiden, but the snagging branches of the alder bushes held him back. No matter how hard he struggled, he could not free himself.

  Yanking and kicking, he watched helplessly as the grizzly dragged Aiden deeper into the forest. Finally, Daniel freed himself. When he was about to rush to Aiden, thick mud clamped onto his boots. The more he fought to wriggle loose, the more the cement-like muck reached up his legs. Aiden’s screams faded farther and farther into the forest, until nothing but silence remained.

  Clutching the edge of the bedcovers, he gazed over at Aiden. He looked peaceful in the murky room, snoozing in his bed, unlike in Daniel’s horrible dream. Unlike before they’d gone to bed last night. When Daniel had returned to the inn, he’d made it clear that he did not like Aiden wandering off without telling him and refusing to answer his cell phone. Aiden had seemed hurt. He’d barely spoken the rest of the night.

  Exhausted from the nightmare, Daniel remained in bed. Fortunately, they had a lazy day ahead of them. They had only Elisabeth’s Christmas pageant to attend. He had promised her last night he would go.

  By ten-thirty, they’d dressed and eaten a small breakfast at the inn. Only the crunch of snow under their boots broke the silence as they walked to the farmhouse. Daniel noted how glum Aiden looked. His head hung heavy, and his eyes oozed sadness. Like last night, he had remained quiet most of the morning and right through breakfast. Daniel figured he was still feeling the aftermath of the flu. On top of being still a little annoyed with Daniel for having chewed him out.

  Daniel decided against trying to make nice. He was knee-deep in his own issues. The ministers’ imposing words from when they had cornered him in the barn still filled his head. “The shunning looms near,” Bishop Hershberger had said. How serious had he been? Serious enough Daniel’s father had insisted on a detailed account of their meeting. Daniel had few words. Samuel had expressed annoyance with him, along with a harsh warning to walk the correct path. Afterward, Samuel had marched off to do some chores, as was his way.

  Daniel swept aside his worries when they reached the driveway. Someone had already hitched Badger to the buggy. The family streamed outside the house.

  “Where’re Elisabeth, Moriah, and Heidi?” Daniel asked while everyone scrambled into the buggy.

  “Elisabeth had to get to the schoolhouse early to prepare the kinner for the pageant,” Rachel told him. She settled in the front seat with baby Gretchen, tightly wrapped in swathing, snug in her lap. Daniel and Aiden squeezed into the back seat. Daniel noticed how Aiden flinched when his mother mentioned Moriah was sick in bed with the flu, and Heidi had volunteered to stay behind to watch over her.

  “She’s in a mood because she won’t be able to perform her part in the pageant,” Grace said as Mark steered Badger down the driveway with the crunch of compacted snow under the wheels.

  “She’s too sick for that, for sure,” Rachel said. “She was up most the night. Must have the same thing Aiden had.” From his peripheral gaze, Daniel watched Aiden hunker down in his seat and stare at his knees.

  The drive to the schoolhouse was mostly quiet. About two hundred people had already crammed inside the one-room schoolhouse when they arrived. Daniel stood with his back against the wall, allowing those shorter than him to have a good view of the makeshift stage where he guessed Elisabeth’s desk, pushed against the wall, would normally sit. Aiden kept close to the door. Each time Daniel glanced his way, a placid smile curled his lips. Daniel knew him well enough by now—that smile was as artificial as the paper snowflakes dangling from the ceiling.

  The kinner wore no costumes, but their expressive gestures and clearly well-
rehearsed performances made up for the lack of wardrobe as they reenacted Bible stories. A more extroverted boy of about ten recited from the top of his voice Matthew 1, starting with verse 18 onward, while the children acted out each scene.

  After the reenactments, three older youths with gifted voices sang lulling hymns from the Ausbund. With only a few minor slipups, the children, according to the pleased look on Elisabeth’s face as she stood off to the side with her hands balled under her chin, carried out their performances mostly as planned.

  The pageant lasted about an hour, after which they headed back to the farm. A horse-drawn sleigh gliding along a snow-blanketed field caught everyone’s attention. The driver of the sleigh, Emil Schrock, a distant relative of the Schrocks’, whom Daniel had known since his schooldays, pulled the walnut-brown gelding closer to the lane and gestured for Mark to stop.

  “We’re heading over to Plank Hill for some sledding,” Emil said. “The Planks are opening up their farm and letting anyone on who shows. Word is they’re making an afternoon of it.”

  Emil’s two youngest daughters, twins, popped their ruddy faces above the edge of the sleigh’s carriage and beamed smiles. “Please come,” they said, almost in unison. “We’ll have so much fun.”

  “Can we go, Dad?” Grace said. “Can we, please?”

  “I’d be happy to drive them over,” Emil said. “Your kinner can hop in the back with Sarah and Rhea.”

  “I think it would be best if they were dressed more properly,” Samuel said. “We’ll get home so they can change into play clothes.”

  “Can we take the sleigh?” Grace asked.

  “Ya, you can take the sleigh,” Samuel said. “If it’s in good enough shape. Been a few years since we took it out.”

  Emil Schrock nodded with a grin and, snapping the reins, drove the gelding onward while the twins in the back waved gaily.

  On the way back to the farm, Daniel explained to Aiden the Plank farm was a popular sledding spot with both the Amish and English. The Planks, Amish soybean farmers, owned land that happened to include the highest point in Frederick County, in the southwestern edge where the earth rippled like an unkempt bed. The one-hundred-forty-foot decline was affectionately known as “Plank Hill.”

  “Moriah is going to be upset,” Grace added, shaking her head. “She not only missed the pageant, but she’ll miss the sledding too.”

  Back at the farm, Daniel and Mark pulled the old sleigh, covered with a stiff tarp David and Heidi had brushed free of snow with straw brooms, from behind the buggy shed into the driveway. Samuel worried the runners might be wobbly. With the tarp removed, Daniel inspected the sleigh’s anatomy and assured his father the components looked fine. Mark and Samuel hitched two of the sturdier Belgians to the sleigh. The plow horses’ long brown coats curled like sheep’s manes.

  Mark, Grace, and David piled their old wooden runners and store-bought plastic saucer sleds into the back of the sleigh and climbed in after them. Elisabeth and the parents stayed behind with Moriah. Rachel made sure to get an affirmative promise from Grace and the others to keep a close eye on Leah. Samuel cautioned to drive slowly and to watch for bare spots.

  Daniel steered the Belgians over the snowy farmland, careful to heed his father’s concerns. Heidi and Grace yipped when the Belgians hit a dip that made Daniel’s stomach feel like it was falling to his boots. Everyone expressed astonishment when little Leah, cocooned in two layers of woolen blankets, murmured, “Da hawsli, da hawsli.” The family followed her animated gaze to a white rabbit leaving demure tracks in the snow.

  Settling down as the Belgians led them along, Grace asked Daniel, “Why don’t you stay at the house, now that the relatives are gone?”

  Daniel glanced at Aiden sitting on the other side of the bench. His eyes, more golden than Daniel had ever seen them, teared from the cold wind. “The reservations at the inn are through to the twenty-seventh,” Daniel told Grace. “Not sure I can alter them.”

  “For sure you can,” Grace said. “You can leave early. They won’t charge you. Especially at Christmastime. It would be rude.”

  The Harvest Sunrise Inn Bed and Breakfast had no early checkout penalty, but Daniel resisted the idea. How could he and Aiden—and certainly Grace’s invitation had included Aiden—stay at the farm without making things more complicated? Tensions ran heavy enough with his parents. After his mother’s brooding statement regretting ever inviting Aiden back to Illinois, he figured they should at least maintain separate sleeping spaces.

  “Not sure staying at the house is a good idea.” Daniel fixed his eyes on the white farmland.

  “I think it would be a wunderbar goot idea,” Heidi said. Mark, snuggling against her, nodded his agreement.

  “Mom hasn’t cleaned all the linens,” David said from the back bench, where he lay almost supine with a woolen blanket up to his chin. “There are lots of chores to do before we can have more houseguests. Besides, Grace, you shouldn’t be inviting people over when you’re not the one who has to give up your room.”

  “I’d be glad to give up my room for guests if I had my own like you,” Grace grunted.

  “You would not,” David said.

  “I would too.”

  “Kinner, shtill.” It had been a while since Daniel had had to assert the eldest-brother role. He liked it. “No need to be fahast with each other. Hush up or I’ll turn the horses around and head for home.”

  “But he’s the one being hateful,” Grace said, sliding down in the bench and locking her arms across the chest of her bulky jacket. “He’s acting like you’re not even his bruder, complaining about giving up his room for you.” She turned around and sneered at David. “Now stop being so shussly. Daniel can stay with us if he wants.”

  “I had to give up my room for Aiden Cermak with his flu, and before that, Uncle Abraham and Uncle Wayne.”

  “That was only for a few days,” Grace said. “Hardly a major sacrifice.”

  Grace was maturing, Daniel realized, growing into a proper young woman like Elisabeth. Yet she was still a child, unable to curb her enthusiasm. He appreciated her intervention but noticed how the family’s uproar only bothered Aiden all the more. Keeping his eyes on the slick landscape, Daniel sensed something soured Aiden’s mood more than his coming down with the flu or their spat last night. He seemed ready to leap out of the sleigh.

  The Belgians coughed into the cold air. Steam shot from their nostrils. Daniel tugged the reins harder, getting them to trot speed to the delight of the family, leaving a plume of snow in the sleigh’s wake.

  BY THE time they reached Plank Hill, it seemed the entire community had learned of Emil’s news, including many of the children from Elisabeth’s pageant. People of many faiths covered the distant hill like snow fleas. Aiden sighed heavily. He wished he hadn’t come. Perhaps he should have gone back to the inn after the pageant. Daniel parked the sleigh next to several others in the middle of the field, where the Planks had spread out sweetened hay for the horses. Aiden could smell the molasses.

  A middle-aged woman Aiden assumed was Mrs. Plank ladled hot chocolate into Styrofoam cups from a stainless steel vat heated with charcoal. The Schrocks decided they’d wait and have some when they were good and cold, after sledding down the hill many times.

  Dragging their sleds behind them, the family headed for the hill. Grace led Leah on an old-fashioned runner sled. She clambered up the hill, holding tightly to Leah, and together they eased down. Leah’s brightly lit face confirmed she’d loved every minute. Mark and Heidi, two young lovebirds yoked together on their round plastic sled, laughed like piano music as they whizzed down. They acted as if they were the only two on the entire hill.

  Daniel kept off to the side, chatting with Amish fathers around his age. David hung out with his friends. Aiden stayed clear of them. He was like the new boy in school on his first day, without a friend in the world.

  After about a half hour, he began to feel pushed out. Everyone but him was having such a
good time. He must’ve looked like a fool the few times he’d asked to borrow Mark’s or Grace’s sled and glided down the hill alone.

  Bitter emotions scoured Aiden. Flustered, he slogged off. He had no idea where to go. Only that he needed to get away. At first he figured he’d sit in the sleigh, but noticing how content the Belgians looked with their muzzles in the sweet hay, he passed them by until he found himself wandering down the lane.

  As dusk settled, stringer lights adorning the English homes began to shine brightly. A family in a minivan with a Christmas tree strapped to the top passed him. Must be on their way home to decorate the tree, making a family night of it, Aiden mused. Or maybe they were heading for Plank Hill for some sledding first. He and Daniel had planned for their first Christmas together to be like that, full of joy and laughter.

  The smell of wood-burning fireplaces lingered heavily in the air. He stomped through the snow, still smarting over what he’d overheard in Rachel and Samuel’s bedroom yesterday. They had implied his coming was a mistake. How was he to pretend they had never said anything?

  Moriah, at home in bed with the flu he had most likely passed on to her, for sure wished Aiden had never come back to Illinois. And weren’t each of them right? Hadn’t Aiden been too rash in forcing Daniel to return? The Schrocks had said they thought putting a tree inside one’s home shussly. Maybe they’d been right about that too.

  Smoldering worries followed him down the lane. Why did people choose to live with lies? For what? Religion? Politics? He understood privacy and expression were paramount to liberty, as incongruous as they may appear. One promoted yelling and screaming, while the other encouraged people to retreat and pull within. Yet, cornerstones to American democracy, people needed them both for the free lives they took for granted.