Mending Fences

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “Tell me why, Izzy.”

  “Why?” Because Jenny said that’s how a person becomes permanently Amish. I want that more than I have wanted anything in my life. But Izzy had a sense that wasn’t the answer David wanted.

  “Yes. I’d like to know why.”

  Why? She wasn’t sure how to answer him. “It feels right. Like it’s the right thing to do. The next step.” She was actually quite proud of her answer. It sounded like the correct thing to say.

  “Izzy, when a person bends at the knee, it’s more than posture. It’s bowing to God. It’s making him the Lord of your life.” He leaned his back against the counter of the farm stand, crossing his arms, thinking over something. “I don’t want to discourage you from attending baptism classes. But when the time comes to bend at the knee, it must be a sincere, authentic confession of faith. A total dedication. Each person has to get that right with Christ before baptism. I’ve seen too many people get baptized for the wrong reasons and end up leaving the Amish. It creates enormous pain for so many. If you’re not ready to make that kind of commitment, when the time comes, don’t do it. Not until you’re ready, heart and soul and mind.” He smiled at her and climbed into the buggy.

  She watched him drive off, then returned to the farm stand and packed up for the day. She carried a few bags of unsold fruit up to the house where Fern would turn the excess into cobblers or crumbles or pies or something she called grunts, which sounded dreadful.

  Fern was pulling clothes off the clothesline as she crossed the yard to the house. “Much extra today?”

  “Not much. Only two bags of plums.”

  “Good. I want to make a cobbler to take to Teddy Zook. To thank him for his help on that farm stand.” She tucked a towel under her chin to fold it in thirds, then folded it in half and dropped it in the laundry basket. “You don’t look very happy. Did it have something to do with David?”

  Izzy kicked a pebble with her bare toe. “I’m not so sure David wants me to get baptized.”

  Fern stopped folding laundry. “What makes you think that?”

  “He asked me why.” It wasn’t just the question. It was the impossible-to-discern look on his face when he asked her to explain why she wanted to get baptized. When she’d told Fern her plans, she seemed almost overcome with joy. Her eyes had grown shiny and she had to swallow a few times before she said anything. She’d thought David would’ve been pleased. “It was almost as if he wanted me to rethink it.”

  “Oh honey, that’s not it at all. There’s plenty of bishops who would be pushing you up to that bench as fast as they could. David, he has that same talk with every single person who starts the baptism class, young or old. Every one. He always says God doesn’t want a halfhearted, lukewarm church. It’s all or nothing.” Fern took down the last towel and folded it. “Honey, if you’re not ready, nothing has to change. You’re welcome to stay right here, until the Lord tells you otherwise. You were invited to Windmill Farm without any strings attached.” She bent down to pick up the laundry basket. “No strings.” She took the two bags of plums out of Izzy’s hands and plunked them on top of her laundry basket before heading to the kitchen.

  Izzy sat down on the porch, watching the clouds move across the sky, mulling over what David had said. About going Amish, that she had no doubts. Thoughts about God, they weren’t as clear, nor as simple. More like a ball of Fern’s yarn after a barn cat found it. Tangled and knotted.

  After supper, Amos asked Luke to sit with him on the porch for a moment. “Every time I turn around,” Amos said, “you’re back at Alice Smucker’s with a new idea to cure her. David and I, we’re concerned you might be using her problems to avoid the rest of the list.”

  Luke thought that was a little harsh. Part of the problem was that the list kept getting longer and he was the reason why. He made new mistakes, like scaring Alice Smucker, and felt a burden to fix old mistakes, like finding a Massauga rattlesnake in Teddy Zook’s swamp.

  But he did listen to Amos. He knew David and Amos were watching his progress on that list and it was pretty slow.

  The next day, after finishing his chores, he drove the buggy over to Carrie and Abel’s house. A passel of boys were on the front lawn, running through a sprinkler. They froze when they saw him and stopped to watch him pull the buggy to the side of the driveway. Then, when they realized who had come calling, they scattered. Disappeared. All but one boy who slowly walked toward Luke.

  “Nothing better on a hot summer day.” Luke pointed his thumb toward the abandoned sprinkler. “Are your parents at home?”

  The boy stared at him. “Depends. Are you friend or foe?”

  Huh. Luke recognized this boy. He was the boy who had the audacity to ask if there was a pistol in Luke’s boot. At church. Luke admired that kind of pluck in a boy. He held his hands in the air. “I come as a friend.”

  “Then follow me.”

  Luke walked behind this boy—only ten or eleven years old, he gathered, yet he walked with bold confidence. No, he didn’t walk. He strode, this one. The boy stopped at the house and pointed to a pair of mismatched rocking chairs.

  “You wait here. I’ll go get Dad.”

  He shot off in another direction and Luke sat down in the rocking chair. He could feel pairs of eyes watching him from hiding spots all over the yard. Why were children so frightened of him?

  He rocked the chair back and forth as he waited, thinking back to how his reputation had grown to such disrepair. To such disproportion. It reminded him of something his mother had said after his father’s business went under. De lenger as en Schneeballe rollt, de dicker as er waert. The farther a snowball rolls, the larger it becomes.

  People acted as if he had tormented them. That wasn’t how he’d seen himself back then. Mischief maker, yes. A bit of a bully. He never really meant to hurt anyone, not intentionally. Not until Patrick Kelly and that bird of his. And then Galen’s horse had to be put down after he’d stolen it for a joyride, tried to jump a fence, and it broke a leg in a tumble. Luke had crossed the line of mischief making at that point; he knew that much for himself. It was the reason he’d agreed to go to rehab. He had scared himself.

  That was it, he realized in a flash of insight. People didn’t know how far he could or would go. The Amish were a gentle people, and they didn’t fight back. They probably felt very victimized, and by one of their own. Shame settled over him, a feeling that was becoming all too familiar. He took off his hat and ruffled his hair, and as he put his hat back on, he noticed Abel striding toward him, that boy striding along beside him, though he needed two steps for every one of his father’s. “Hello, Luke. My son Rudy said you wanted to see me.”

  Luke rose. “If you have a minute to spare, Abel, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  Abel bent down to whisper to Rudy, and the boy scurried into the house. “Let’s sit here, in the shade.” He sat down next to Luke in the rocking chair. “Hot day.”

  “It sure is.” Luke cleared his throat. “Abel, years ago, I put sugar in the gas tank of your lawn mower.”

  “I remember. Ruined the engine.”

  “I wanted to apologize to you. It was an immature thing to do, and I’m sorry for it. I’d like to buy you a new lawn mower.”

  Abel watched him as he spoke. Those hidden children were watching him. Luke felt an inch tall, like he was sitting underneath a magnifying glass. The door opened and out came Carrie and Rudy, holding glasses of cold lemonade. Carrie handed a glass to Luke and then turned to face the yard, calling out, “Boys! Come out from your hiding spots and start feeding the animals their supper.”

  It was astonishing. From trees and bushes all over the yard, boys emerged. They trudged slowly down to the barn, disappointed.

  Luke looked at Carrie. “All boys?”

  “We have three girls, but they’re over at the neighbor’s.” She laughed. “They aren’t all ours. Some of the boys belong to the Blanks. They have the farm that backs up to ours.” She tapped Ru
dy on the brim of his hat. “You too, young man. Off to tend to the chickens.”

  Rudy’s confident gait was gone. Shoulders hunched, feet dragging, hands in pockets, he obeyed his mother and joined the others.

  Carrie turned to head back inside. “Stay, honey,” Abel said. “Luke came to tell us something.”

  Luke jumped up and let Carrie sit in the rocking chair beside her husband. “I just wanted to apologize for putting sugar in your lawn mower’s gas tank.”

  “So you were the one who did it,” Carrie said. “I was never quite sure.”

  Abel had not doubted the culprit, Luke could see that. He still hadn’t said much. “I’d like to buy you a new lawn mower, if you’ll let me.” He licked his lips. “And I wanted to ask if what I’d done—the sugar in the tank—if it might have had any adverse effect on you.”

  Abel and Carrie exchanged a look. Carrie spoke up first. “The only effect was to make us get rid of that terrible old dangerous lawn mower. We ended up buying two hand-push lawn mowers, and since then I felt better about having the boys mow the lawn.” She gave Abel a nudge on his knee. “And finally this old man could get a nap on a summer afternoon.”

  Abel leaned forward in the rocker, looking earnestly at Luke. “We thank you for coming. We forgive you. And we encourage you to keep going on the path you’re on.”

  As Luke drove away from Abel and Carrie’s farm, he felt some relief. But he also thought, It shouldn’t be that easy. It just shouldn’t be so easy. Something didn’t feel right, deep down.

  Twenty minutes later, he turned the buggy into another driveway. Years ago, he’d cut the rope on a swing hanging off an old tree at the home of Mattie and Solomon Riehl. Just like he’d done with Carrie and Abel, he offered them an honest confession and heartfelt apology.

  When he asked how his mischief had affected them, they insisted that it ended up being a blessing in disguise. “Our children were so disappointed to lose their tree swing,” Sol said, “that I made another. When I threw the rope up and over the branch, I tugged down hard on it, to make sure it was safe. Would you believe that branch snapped off? Turns out the whole tree was rotting from the inside out. I’d never noticed. So in a way, Luke, you did us a favor. One of the little ones could have been hurt.”

  Luke knew they were being gracious. He hadn’t tried to do any favors. That tree swing had always made him mad. Many times he’d passed the Riehl house and noticed Sol patiently pushing one child or another on that very swing. The sight of a father and a son together churned up that gutted feeling inside Luke, and it was only relieved when he took his anger out on something or someone. Why couldn’t he have had a father who would’ve taken time to push his son on a swing? It wasn’t just because his father had died. Even when his father was alive, he never gave any of his sons that kind of personal attention. Something was always more important.

  Mattie and Solomon Riehl only had one son, though they wanted more. They ended up raising foster children. Sol wasn’t even pushing his own children on that swing. He was pushing other people’s children.

  Luke felt a deep shame come over him, worse than any remorse he’d felt after talking to Alice or Teddy or Carrie and Abel. He turned the horse toward the Bent N’ Dent and pulled Bob to a stop when he saw David’s horse standing in the shade. Before he opened the door, he braced himself for a loud greeting by Hank Lapp, who spent most of his free time at the store. Most of Hank’s time was free.

  The store was empty. Relieved, Luke went to the back room and knocked on the doorjamb. David was at his desk and looked up when he heard the knock. “Come in. Sit down. It’s been a quiet day today. I welcome the company.”

  David smiled in that way of his, the way he did everything in life, a look of acceptance and understanding, of offering margin. It made Luke feel good, deep down, that look on David’s face. He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d become to people bracing themselves when they saw him coming. He used to like having that kind of effect on others, but no longer. It bothered him. He felt like he was different than he used to be, but those cautious, haunted looks remained.

  Not with David, though. He recognized the changes Luke had been working on. He affirmed them. He sat across from David and stretched out his legs. “I just came from Mattie and Sol’s. Working down the list.” He lifted his hand to make a checked-off sign in the air as if it was no big deal. It was a very big deal. David knew.

  David leaned back in his chair. “How’d it go?”

  “Good. Fine. They were very understanding. Very forgiving. Even said that I’d done them a favor.” He explained about the tree swing and the rotting tree.

  “Yet somehow you don’t look very . . . forgiven.”

  Luke sighed. “Their kindness . . . it almost made it worse. As I was driving away, I realized that I used to target people or families that had something I wanted. So I took it from them.”

  “What was it they had that you wanted?”

  “There’s not one answer to that. The tree swing, that had something to do with my own father. Wishing things were different. When I used to see Sol pushing children on the swing, it upset me. Made me mad at my own father for not being that kind of dad. Same with Abel and the lawn mower.” He glanced at David. “I put sugar in the gas tank of Abel’s lawn mower. Ruined it.”

  “Go on.”

  “I used to see him pushing that lawn mower around the yard, holding the hand of some small boy. It made me furious. Mad at my own father for not being the kind of dad who spent time with his children. And my father was dead. Silent and absent. I had no one to take my anger out on.” He rubbed his face with his hands, then slapped his knees. “David, what a jerk I’ve been. To such good people. What a fool! You shouldn’t have let me come back here.”

  David was watching him carefully, in the same way that Abel had looked at him, as if he could peer right into his soul. “This is exactly why I wanted you to come back, Luke. You’re finally getting outside of yourself, showing genuine concern for other people. That’s a big step of growth.”

  Tears stung Luke’s eyes. “It makes me feel . . . terrible.”

  David’s chair squeaked as he leaned forward and propped his elbows on his desk. “What’s happening is that your conscience has woken up. You’ve gone from having an underdeveloped conscience to one that is finally aware. Responsive to God’s Spirit.”

  Luke covered his face with his hands. “But this . . . it’s a horrible place to be.”

  “It is. It is. But there’s a far worse place to be. It’s the hard heart, the shameless man, who has a disregard for God, who glories in his shame. That’s the worst place to be.”

  Luke choked up and had to swallow a few times to get out the words he needed to say. “How do I . . . live with myself? The more I see of what I’ve done, the more I understand how I’ve hurt others, the worse I feel.” This experience of mending fences . . . it was the hardest part of recovery he’d had to face. It was the hardest thing Luke had ever done.

  “Accepting the forgiveness of God is meant for ourselves too. Maybe that’s when confession takes on new meaning, because there’s a full understanding of the depth of sin.

  “This is a good pain you’re feeling. The pain of conviction takes you to the feet of God to seek forgiveness. It’s an awareness of how flawed and sinful we are, compared to a holy and good God. You’re not alone in this awareness. There’s plenty of things I’ve needed to receive forgiveness for, to truly believe I am forgiven after I’ve confessed my sin. The feeling might take time to come, but it does come. Look at Psalm 51. ‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’ That was written by King David, a man after God’s own heart. Look at how utterly remorseful he felt. Don’t you think he was feeling the same way you’re feeling now?” He handed a box of tissues to Luke.

  Luke snatched a tissue out of the box and dabbed his eyes.

  David waited a moment. “I’ve found there’s a number of things in l
ife that boil down to a simple concept.”

  He exhaled a deep, painful breath. “What?”

  “It’s pretty simple, actually. An easy phrase to remember. ‘You know better now.’ Isn’t that what life is all about? God wants us to keep growing in holiness. You know better now, Luke. Hold on to that.”

  sixteen

  When Luke returned home, he discovered that some creature had gotten into his tack room. The floor was littered with peanut shells. A jar of peanut butter, nearly empty, lay on his cot. All over his pillow were tiny little peanut-butter claw prints. “Blast! That blasted raccoon!” Just when Luke had a few nights of solid sleep, with Bob securely in his stall all night long, and he thought the raccoon had left the barn for good, back it came. And now . . . his very room was invaded by that conniving beast.

  He stomped into the center of the barn. “That’s it! I’ve had enough!” The two cows lifted their heads to peer at him curiously over their stanchions. Bob the buggy horse shuffled his hooves in the stall’s straw.

  Luke looked up toward the rafters and shook his fist. “Raccoon! Hear me. You’re not getting away with this. I am going to trap you and release you so far from Windmill Farm that you’ll need a taxi to get back.” Something landed on his head and he swiped it away with his hand. A peanut? He lifted his head to scan the rafters. Blast! That raccoon! It threw the peanut at him. He pointed a finger up at the rafters and turned in a circle. “This is personal, Raccoon. I’m coming after you.”

  It was past six thirty in the morning, but Fern and Amos were still upstairs. It seemed to be taking Amos longer and longer to get up and going in the morning, and it troubled Izzy. Neither Fern or Amos talked about this change, so Izzy tried not to think about it much. Instead, she focused her attention on outsmarting the raccoon that was messing with Luke’s head. She’d found an article about raccoons in one of Amos’s farming magazines and set it at Luke’s breakfast setting.

  When he came inside, grumbling about peanut butter, she pointed to it. “I dog-eared an article that says raccoons are easy to trap.”