The Shunning

by Beverly Lewis

  But it was not food for her table that brought Rebecca to the cold cellar. In fact, food was the last thing on her mind as she crept down the narrow steps. In her hand, she held a baby gown wrapped in tissue.

  She had felt uneasy about its former hiding place—the underside of the blanket chest. Last night after Samuel had fallen asleep, she’d gone to the attic, found the dress, and taped the lovely thing—still nestled in its wrapping—to the bottom of the cedar chest. So worried was she about someone, anyone, discovering it, that when Katie unexpectedly left with the buggy after breakfast, Rebecca decided to take advantage of the empty house. She would find a better, more secure location for the dress this time.

  Sadly, the thought of destroying the garment had tempted her, but upon approaching the woodstove, another thought kept her from tossing the tiny gown into the fire. A frightening flash of reason—and absurdity.

  What if someday this is all you have left?

  She tried to shake off the preposterous notion, but in its place came a lump in her throat, nearly choking her. Stunned, she dropped the dress. As she leaned over to retrieve it, a tightness gripped her chest, and she felt as though her heart might break.

  Carefully, she removed the garment from its wrapping and began to pray silently, pressing the soft satin fabric to her face.

  O Lord God, heavenly Father, keep this dress safe from eyes that would hinder and disrupt your manifold great grace and goodness over our lives through Jesus Christ. Amen.

  The words were a mixture of Amish High German and down-home emotion. Rebecca never spoke her prayers the way she “thought” them. The Lord deserved respect and reverence, after all. Oh, she’d heard of other folk who felt that it was all right to approach the throne of grace the way you would chat with a good friend. But such ideas seemed nothing short of heresy to her way of thinking!

  Deep in the dim cellar-pantry, beyond the cabinets of canned goods and crocks of pudding, Rebecca spied the beautiful corner cupboard and its matching sideboard. She found a kerosene lamp, lit it, and quickened her pace toward the lovely pieces handcrafted by Samuel five years before, about the time Katie and Daniel were seeing so much of each other. The solid pine furniture had been banished to the dark cellar—not a necessary gift for this marriage, although there had been some talk that the bishop wanted to auction off his deceased wife’s furniture to make room for Katie’s things. That idea had been discarded, however, when nine-year-old Nancy—sentimental about her mother’s belongings—had pleaded to keep the furniture for her own bride’s dowry someday. So Katie’s corner cupboard would remain in storage for now.

  Perhaps Eli’s bride would enjoy it. Or Benjamin’s. Both boys were secretly courting girls, Rebecca was almost certain. A double wedding might be in the air come November of next year.

  This year, however, was Katie’s. She would be moving into John’s house, where she’d have the use of his furniture—everything a married couple would ever need. A typical bride’s dowry such as a sideboard for the kitchen or a corner cupboard for the parlor would not be called for. Not even a drop-leaf table.

  But there would be a dowry gift, and Rebecca had planned something very special. In addition to a Bridal Heart quilt and some crocheted doilies and linens, she would give her daughter eighteen hundred dollars.

  Though she’d said nothing to Samuel, she was sure he’d agree. In many ways, the money, which had accumulated interest over the past twenty-two years, was a befitting gift, and Rebecca found herself recalling the peculiar circumstances surrounding it. . . .

  The morning sky had threatened rain the day she and Samuel climbed into the backseat of Peter and Lydia Miller’s big, fancy car for the drive to downtown Lancaster. The trip seemed surprisingly fast— only twenty minutes—compared to the typical buggy ride of two hours or so, depending upon traffic.

  Rebecca was grateful for the transportation at a time like this. Her contractions were much too close together, and she feared she might be going into premature labor. After two consecutive miscarriages and in her eighth month of pregnancy, she was weak with worry. She’d not felt life for at least a day now.

  Married at eighteen, she was still quite young. Too young—at twenty-four—to be facing yet another loss. On some days, before this most recent pregnancy, she had found herself nearly frantic with longing and grief. Nearly two years had passed since Benjamin, her youngest, had come so easily that Mattie Beiler, the too-talkative midwife, was scarcely ready to catch him. But now there were problems. Serious ones.

  Cousin Lydia had promised to pray for a safe delivery as her husband, Peter, stopped the car at the curb and let them out in front of the emergency entrance. But much to Lydia’s dismay, Rebecca had insisted on going it alone. Not even Rebecca’s closest kinfolk knew of her fears or the fact that the baby had stopped kicking. She needed only one person with her on this day. Samuel.

  A tall, young orderly met them at the door with a wheelchair. Samuel answered the admittance clerk’s questions while Rebecca sat very still, praying for life-giving movement in her womb instead of this dull and silent heaviness.

  Forcing back tears, she thought of her little ones at home—happy little Benjamin, out of diapers now and a toddler of two; Eli, a busy, confident youngster even at three. Her eldest, Elam, a fine, strong five-year-old, was already helping Samuel with the milking and plowing.

  Oh, but she desired more children—a little girl . . . maybe two or three of them. Samuel, after all, had gotten his sons first off—three in a row—and Rebecca loved them dearly. Still, something was missing. A daughter to learn the old ways at her Mam’s hearth, to bear many grandsons and granddaughters for her and Samuel one day.

  The baby had come quickly. Stillborn.

  Rebecca would not stay overnight in the hospital after her delivery. Her body was physically strong, but her emotions were scarred. How could she face the People—her loved ones and close friends—with empty arms?

  Be fruitful and multiply, the Good Book said. Barrenness was a near curse, and among the Plain community, infertility, an unspoken blight.

  The doctor’s words had been guarded, yet they cut to the quick. “Be very thankful for the children you already have, Mrs. Lapp.”

  The children you already have. . . . Meaning that their boys would be hers and Samuel’s only offspring.

  The nurses were kind, sympathetic even. Some, she noticed, darted inquisitive gazes away from her kapp, trying not to stare. Their curiosity she could bear. But not their pity. Enough pity came from within herself, enough for all of them.

  Samuel had been ever so gentle, standing by her side after the worst was over, staying strong for her as she lay there under the white sheet, brokenhearted.

  Yet “providentially speaking”—as Samuel would later come to say—the anguish of those dismal hours had turned into a day of rejoicing. Everything had seemed to fit, right down to the encounter with the teenage girl and her mother.

  Everything.

  The timing itself had seemed somehow ordered—remarkably so. A divine appointment, she’d always thought. Who would’ve expected such an extraordinary thing to happen—within hours after losing their own flesh-and-blood daughter? But it had, and no one—no one—had ever known the difference.

  The money—five hundred dollars cash—had come as a surprise later. But it had been there all the time, wrapped in the deep folds of the baby blanket. Rebecca had discovered it in the embossed, cream-colored envelope with the words “Please use the enclosed money for my baby’s new life” written in a lovely, flowery hand and signed, “Laura Mayfield.”

  Wondering if they had gotten themselves caught up in some sort of trickery, Samuel hadn’t wanted to keep the money at first. But the sum was soon forgotten, deposited in the bank to collect interest, awaiting an emergency or other needful thing. The tiny new baby— their precious Katie—immediately became the center of their lives. It was she, not the money, who’d soon won them over. As far as Rebecca was concerned, Katie
was as much a part of her body as Elam, Eli, and Benjamin. She’d wet-nursed the infant until toddlerhood, coddled and loved her through sickness and health . . . just as she had her own sons. Katie was the same as her own flesh and blood. Just the same. Yet somehow—maybe because of the way the child had come to them— even more special.

  The memories brought tears, and Rebecca turned, lifted the lantern, and beheld a pine baby cradle, perched high atop the corner cupboard. Eager to see it again, she placed the little dress on the bottom shelf, stepped on one of the old water buckets nearby, and reached for the cradle. When she’d recovered it, she noticed, quite unexpectedly, a milk white vase inside.

  Rebecca smiled, remembering the flowers. Lydia Miller had come for a quick visit that June day after baby Katie’s arrival in Hickory Hollow. She’d arrived bearing a gift of colorful blossoms from her own garden. Rebecca had been surprised, and if the truth be known, a bit startled to see the vibrant blooms plucked off their stems. She and her friends never picked garden flowers; it was believed that they were to be seen and admired right where God put them. Because of this, there was no use for a flower vase in the Lapp home.

  Days later, when the cut flowers were dry and dead, Rebecca had stored the vase here in the cellar. And years later, she had placed it in Katie’s infant cradle.

  The tall vase, quite narrow and deep, would make an exceedingly safe hiding place. Carefully, Rebecca rolled up the baby dress and pushed it down into the empty vase, wondering what Cousin Lydia would think if she knew how her gift was being put to use.

  Rebecca never once thought how she would go about getting the dress out again, or even if there would come a time when she would need—or want—to do so. It was enough that the deed was done.

  Five

  Katie made her way slowly up Hickory Lane. The repetitious clip-clop-clip of the horse’s hooves soothed her spirits and eased her mind somewhat. Out here on the open road, with only Molasses to hear her, she allowed herself the pleasure of humming. The tune was an old one. Familiar and cherished, it was the last song she and Dan had created together. Unlike the others, this melody had words. But Katie couldn’t bring herself to sing them. Daniel—her love, her life—was gone. Drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, leaving her behind.

  Too caught up in each other for trivial details, they’d not given the song a title back then. Their final sun-drenched days had been spent laughing and singing the hours away—as if time would stretch on forever.

  On one such fine day, they had perched themselves on an enormous boulder, smack in the middle of Weaver’s Creek, miles from Hickory Lane. There, with springtime shining all around them, the song had come easily, born of their love and their laughter, and the lazy, warm day.

  Katie found herself humming much too loudly now, partly in defiance of the years. Years that had robbed her of Dan—someone to share her musical longings. Lonely years, in which she’d tried—and failed— to squash her stubborn need to sing, to give her heart a voice, accompanied by the joyful chords of Dan’s guitar.

  And now Dat was insisting she confess—before one of the deacons and Preacher Yoder—the sin that had kept her beloved’s memory alive.

  The idea seemed preposterous. To think of revealing the lovely thing that had connected her with Dan. Why, it would amount to betrayal, pure and simple.

  She stopped humming, considering her options. If she refused to confess privately, then a sitting confession would be required. She must wait until after the next preaching service and remain seated in the midst of the members-only meeting. There, just before the shared meal, she would have to declare—in front of them all—that she had sinned.

  Perhaps, she mused as Molasses picked up his pace nearing home, in order to come clean before God and the church, she should admit that she’d sinned repeatedly through the years—even after her father had caught her strumming the guitar in the haymow as a teenager and forbidden her to play. Still, she wasn’t certain she’d tell the part about the repeated transgressions. It was bad enough—her humming forbidden songs on the way home from a quilting bee held in her honor, where the women were surely making hers and the bishop’s wedding quilt.

  Katie sighed, her breath hanging in the frosty air. Either way, she would be expected to say that she was turning her back on her sin, and mean it with all her heart. But she would keep Dan out of it. No need to place blame on someone whose body lay cold in a watery grave. Of that she was certain.

  The confessing, private or otherwise, would be hers and hers alone. She would have to ask the deacon or Preacher Yoder to forgive her. Either that or go before the entire church membership. Because if she didn’t confess on her own, surely Dat would go to Bishop John himself and report her disobedience.

  On the day of her baptism years before, Katie had agreed to this process of correction by the church. A time-honored ritual, it was the way things were done. Repentance must be a public affair. If she delayed the confession, then in order to be reclaimed, the bishop would come to her with another witness—possibly Preacher or one of the deacons. Matthew’s gospel made the procedure very clear: “‘Take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.”’

  Thinking of John being told, her face grew warm with embarrassment. She didn’t want her future husband, bishop or not, caught in the middle. A decision would have to be reached on her own. She must give up her musical inclination and abandon her guitar, now hidden deep in the hayloft. She must give it all up, forsake the love-link between herself and Dan. Forever.

  The dull clumping sound of the horse’s hooves on the snow-packed road lulled Katie into a feeling of serenity despite the turmoil within. She could trust the old ways. Repenting would make things right. Somehow—though it galled her to think of it—she would have to do it. For her future standing with the People; for Bishop John’s sake and his dear children, if for no other reason.

  She leaned back against the hard leather buggy seat and sighed. If she’d known what to say to God, she would’ve said it then—spoken it right out into the icy air the way her mother’s Mennonite cousins often did at family get-togethers. Though the social times were few and far between, Peter and Lydia Miller were the friendliest, nicest people anywhere. And they seemed comfortable talking to the Lord, during the table blessing or anytime. On the way home from such a gathering, Dat was always quick to point out to Katie and the boys how glib the Millers’ approach to the Almighty seemed to be. Mam agreed.

  Another gray buggy was approaching in the left lane, heading in the opposite direction, and she saw that it was Mattie Beiler’s oldest granddaughter. Sarah was probably on her way to the quilting. They exchanged a wave and a smile.

  Katie rode in silence for a while, then away in the distance, she heard her name. “Katie! Katie Lapp . . . is that you?”

  Little Jacob Beiler had been playing with a rope and wagon by the side of the road, pretending to be the horse, it appeared. His deep-set, innocent blue eyes, framed by wheat-colored bangs peeking out from under his black hat, looked up expectantly as he ran and stood in the middle of the road, waving her down.

  Here comes my new mamma! Jacob thought with delight. Can’t hardly wait ’til she comes to stay all the time. Hope she cooks good.

  Katie Lapp always sat up tall and straight in the carriage, holding the reins almost the way his own Daed did, her bright eyes shining. But she was different from all the other Plain women, no getting around it. Maybe it was her hair. It was sorta red-like. . . .

  Jacob thought about it for a moment. Katie’s parents had no such hair. And her brothers were blond headed—like me.

  She was real pretty, too, and full of fun. And she hummed songs. He knew she did, because he’d heard her humming as she came up the lane—something he’d never heard his own mamma do. But then, he’d been just a baby when she died. Still, he was sure his Mam had never, ever done any singing except at preaching service. None of the other women he knew hummed or sang tu
nes. Katie was the first. He couldn’t wait for her to be his real, come-to-live-with-him mamma. . . .

  Katie slowed Molasses to a full stop. “Well, hullo there, Jacob. Are you needing a ride home?”

  The four-year-old hopped into the carriage, hoisting his long rope and little wagon onto the floor. “Jah. Pa’ll wonder what’s become of me.” He clapped his muffled hands together snug inside his gray woolen mittens and hugged himself against his heavy sack coat.

  Katie wondered if his mother had made the mittens before she died. Or if they were hand-me-downs. With four older siblings, the latter was probably the case.

  She covered his legs with her heavy lap robe, picked up the reins and gave them a plucky snap. “It’s mighty cold for someone your size to be out playing, ain’t it?”

  “Nah. Daed says I’m tougher’n most boys my age.” His eyes sparkled as he spoke.

  “I think he’s probably right.” She glanced down at the bundle of wiggles seated next to her.

  “Daed’s ’sposed to be right.” A touch of healthy pride rang in his voice. “God makes bishops that-a-way, ya know.”

  Katie smiled. She wondered how it would be to hear John’s youngest child chatter every day over little-boy things. Gladly, she’d listen to his babbling. Gladly . . . except . . .

  Giving her love to Jacob and his brothers and sisters would mean giving up something besides her music. Last week, when she and John had gone into Lancaster to apply for their marriage license, she had scarcely been able to restrain herself from gawking at the colorful clothes the “English” women were wearing. Could she give up her seemingly endless desire to wonder, to dream, to imagine “what if”?