Where Love Grows

by Jerry S. Eicher

  “At least I’m thankful for that,” Deacon Ray said. “But this won’t be an easy decision for any of us. I know it has broken my heart already this morning. The others will feel the same. The shame of this will be a heavy burden on the community.”

  “As well it should be,” Menno agreed. “And now we will be going. I’m sure you have things to do, and we have cleanup from the wedding to tend to.”

  “May Da Hah have mercy on all of us,” Deacon Ray said, stepping back from the buggy. Menno helped Anna climb in. He then untied Toby and got into the buggy. Menno turned the horse, and they drove away. Esther, returning from the wash lines with an empty hamper, waved to them as they drove out of the driveway.

  A mile down the road, Menno put his arm around Anna’s shoulder, pulling her tightly against him. “You didn’t have to do that, dear. I would have borne my shame alone.”

  She leaned against him and burst into tears. “Why did you do this sinful thing, Menno? I know you were young and still thinking about whether to join the world or not. But an Englisha girl? How could you? Is that why you never told me? Because she was more beautiful than I? Is that why I never asked questions? Because I feared the answer? Did you ever wish you stayed in her world, Menno? Did you want to? Tell me the truth. I need to know.”

  “Anna, please…” Menno soothed her. “It was none of those things. Nothing but my shame has followed me from those days. I never wished to go back. I could have if I’d wanted to. I wasn’t forced to leave my work at the hospital. Carol would have stayed with me.”

  “Are you telling me the truth, Menno?”

  “Yah. And you’ll just have to believe me because I don’t know what else to say. I love you, Anna.”

  “I don’t know what to believe right now, Menno. I could have said something before now about the sorrow I saw in you. I could have asked about the little things. Like how troubled you were when Susan left for the Englisha world. And, especially, when she brought Teresa back. Or when our children were born. You seemed to have a sadness inside. And all of them were girls. Do you regret that, Menno? Did that bring you sorrow? I knew there were questions in your mind. I knew something from your past haunted you.”

  “Anna…Anna...” He drew her close. “It’s not your fault. This problem lies with me. This was my sin…my doing. And it’s only by Da Hah’s grace that any good has come out of it.”

  Anna looked at him. “Do you think the darkness of being separated from the church will be a small matter? We’re both old, Menno. What if our souls are called home during those weeks? How will we explain that to Da Hah?”

  “That is why you must not walk with me through that valley. And, Anna, Da Hah knows what has happened. He knows I repented of this sin and talked to Him about it many years ago.”

  Anna sighed. “Perhaps Deacon Ray will have some sense and keep a level head about him.”

  Menno snorted. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”

  Anna ignored him. “We will pray. We will pray hard. So much gut has already been done by Da Hah in these past years. Susan has come back, and Teresa is now married and in the community. Perhaps Da Hah will do more. We should not imagine evil where there is none, remember? You always look on the dark side of things, Menno.”

  “It must be my old age and my sins,” Menno said, pulling into the driveway and coming to a stop by the barn.

  “We will not speak so anymore,” Anna said, climbing out of the buggy. “Let’s count our blessings and be thankful for what Da Hah has given.”

  “You are a gut wife, Anna. Too gut for me.”

  She smiled, reaching up to rub the last of the tears from her cheeks before walking toward the house. Menno watched her before unhitching. He led the horse to the barn, where he unhooked the harness and hung it on the wall. He put Toby in his stall. Through the open double doors he saw Steve still working in the cornfield. Sheaves of corn were kicking out of the back of the cutter and falling to the ground.

  “Da Hah,” Menno prayed, “what am I going to do? What do You want me to do now?” Slipping behind the manger, he threw his hat on the floor and fell to his knees beside a bale of straw. He buried his face in his arms. The face of Donald came into focus. There were questions in his eyes, and Menno groaned. He saw each of his daughters after they were born, one by one. Each one precious. They had been his and Anna’s. Why had he been allowed such joy after what he had done? “Please spare Anna from the pain of my sin,” he prayed. “And change her mind about walking through this darkness with me. It’s not her fault, dear Da Hah. You know that. She was pure when I married her. It was I who wasn’t honest. And protect my daughters from the shame of what I’ve done. Help them bear this. Let the worst fall upon my shoulders. But I do thank You that Donald has found me. I thank You that he’s my son. And that he lived to see the light of day. I give You thanks that he walks on the earth. Be with Donald as he returns home. And allow him to view me with forgiveness in his heart.”

  After a few moments of silence, Menno rose and put his hat back on. He walked across the field to Steve. Sorrow and joy had arrived together in his heart, and they were at war. And this was as it should be. Da Hah was revealing what had been long hidden. If the pain was more than he could bear, Da Hah’s grace would be made available. And Menno could blame no one but himself. This was all his own fault.

  “How did things go?” Steve asked after stopping the horses at Menno’s approach.

  “As well as could be expected. There will be difficult days ahead as everything is sorted out.”

  “My heart has been heavy thinking of Susan and how she will handle this.”

  “I know.” Menno bent over to stack corn sheaves. “So have I…and also of the other girls. This will hurt all of them.”

  “I’m glad you met your son,” Steve said. He nodded and then commanded the horses to move on. They stepped forward.

  Menno watched Steve go. Now there was a gut young man, he thought. One who knew what to say in times of sorrow.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Donald watched the rolling Missouri hills pass by his car window as he drove toward his mother’s house. She would want to know about his adventure. In fact, she had called again last night asking for news. Of course Mom has a right to know. To share in the news of how he had found his biological father. But how would he explain everything to her? This feeling he had from visiting the Amish community—it was like he had sleepwalked into another century. What a life the Amish lived. In his short time there, he’d noticed they were disciplined, hardworking, punctual, and deeply devoted to doing the will of God on this earth. Ironically, his biological father was one among them. All men had weaknesses, he supposed. Even godly ones. Menno had certainly given him a welcome, which couldn’t have been easy. Everyone at the wedding festivities had been friendly. But underneath he’d felt a current of something, perhaps a streak of hardness that wouldn’t bode well for people stepping outside the Amish traditions. And his birth father certainly was a transgressor. He might not fare that well when the news of his son’s visit reached the ears of the community. Perhaps he should have stayed away? Kept this to himself? Especially after he realized his birth father was Amish. Yet driven by a need to know more, he hadn’t been able to help himself.

  Approaching the edge of town, Donald slowed down as he wound through the streets of the small burg. His mother’s house appeared on the right. A small, blue, single-story his parents had purchased twenty years ago, soon after his father’s first stroke. Now that his adoptive father Charles was gone, Ruthann kept the place up on her own. That would end soon, whether either of them liked it or not. She would need to move to a retirement home so she wouldn’t have to deal with cleaning, laundry, and cooking meals.

  He pulled into the driveway and parked. Ruthann was sitting on the front porch in her wooden rocker, her favorite place on sunny summer afternoons. The chill of autumn was already in the air, but she would keep the ritual going for a while, hoping to draw the
last warmth from the Indian Summer days.

  He walked up to the porch and bent over to kiss her on the cheek before sitting down on a rocker next to her.

  She smiled. “Good to see you, Donald. Sorry to bug you last night. How did it go? I want to hear everything.”

  He smiled back. “Well, I found him.”

  “I knew you would. I’m glad for you, son. What is he like?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Amish?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “My birth father is Amish, Mom. How strange is that?”

  “That’s interesting. Did they chase you off their property when you arrived?”

  “Not at all!” Donald laughed. “They were friendly, really. I got invited to a wedding. Their deacon’s son was marrying one of my birth father’s daughters. Only it wasn’t his real daughter. She was sort of adopted, they said. It was all nicely done. And it gave me a chance to observe them before I dropped the news of who I was.”

  “What did he have to say?”

  “He was a little incredulous, of course. But Carol had written him. He said he wrote to me, but he’d only mailed the letter the day before. He said he just received Carol’s note a week or so before. He remembered Carol.”

  “Did he try to convert you to his religion?”

  “No.” Donald laughed again. “No one made any pitch at all for me to join their community. I think you would have liked them, Mom.”

  “Well, maybe. At any rate, I’m happy for you, Donald.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I knew you would be.”

  They rocked on the porch in silence until Donald said, “You know what, Mom? Being with the Amish gave me an idea. A solution to the problem of you living alone here.”

  “Donald.” She held up her hand. “I appreciate your concern. But I can get around fine. I’m not going anywhere—especially to some adult care center.”

  “Mom,” he protested, “that’s not where I was going.”

  “Plus your father didn’t leave me a rich woman, Donald. And don’t tell me you’ll pay for a better place. I’m not falling for that line, regardless of how loving a son you are.”

  “Mom, please. What I want to say is that I could move here or you could move to my place. Either way is fine with me. We can rent out the extra house to get some cash-flow going. It’s ridiculous that we’re living alone in separate places when we have plenty of room to share.”

  She wasn’t looking at him. “You should get married again, Donald. The single life isn’t good for you. And I don’t want to be in the way when you find the right woman.”

  “I’m not seeing anyone, Mom.”

  “Well, you should be. You were seeing someone a while back, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t change anything now. We’re family, you and I. If Mandy and I ever get back together and get serious and marry, well, she’d be joining our family. In the meantime, you can have one of the bedrooms at one end and I’ll take the other. Surely we can get along with each other, Mom. The Amish do it all the time.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, Donald.” She patted his arm. “I’ll have to think about it. It would mean moving to your place, since your house is better situated for that arrangement.”

  “When you’re ready, I am.” Donald rocked gently in the chair.

  A smile crossed her face. “So tell me about this Amish man who is your father.”

  “You and Dad will always be my true mother and father,” Donald assured her.

  “I know that, Donald. But tell me about your birth father.”

  Donald spoke without hesitation. “His name is Menno Hostetler. He’s medium-height, gray-haired, has a long beard down to the middle of his chest, friendly face, and seems quick to smile. Your average, loving, Amish grandfather, I suppose.”

  “Is he married with children?”

  “Yes. And his wife was very understanding. He has nine daughters. He was very excited about having a son.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “In southern Indiana. It’s a place of rolling hills. Not unlike here, only better farming country. I can’t imagine it getting quite as hot during the summer. I noticed Menno has a large farm and a hired hand.”

  “You’re not thinking of an inheritance from the man, are you, Donald? Because you shouldn’t.”

  “Of course not.” Donald chuckled. “I wanted to meet him, that’s all. And Menno must feel the same way. He and his wife, Anna, invited me to come back for Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

  “And you’re going?”

  “Yes, I would love to go. They’re wonderful people—not to mention that they’re family.”

  “What did his wife have to say about her husband having a son from another woman? And out of wedlock, at that.”

  Donald sighed. “She was nice enough. No hostility that I could see. She seemed to know something about me, so he must have told her before I arrived.”

  “Good for him. There’s nothing like hiding a sin to make things worse.”

  “I have a bad feeling though.” Donald grimaced. “I think my visit to Menno will result in serious problems for him. I got the impression the Amish aren’t the kind of people to sweep things like my existence under the rug. He mentioned that he hadn’t told anyone about Carol.”

  “Well, that’s interesting.” She settled back in her rocker. “It might do the man good to suffer for what he did. Forsaking a young girl in the hour of her need.”

  “Carol told him she miscarried, so he didn’t even know about me until a week or so ago. And I believe him, Mom.”

  “I still don’t think he was very eager to find out he was going to be a father. That’s probably why she told him what she did.”

  “Possibly, but we’ll never really know. And that’s in the past. It’s the future, I’m thinking about. Say, would you like to go back with me for one of the holidays? I’m sure they would welcome you. And I’d love to have your company.”

  “I think you’d better go by yourself. I doubt I’d fit in very well with the Amish from all I’ve heard.”

  “I suppose not.” Disappointment flashed over his face. “But you’ll consider moving in with me, won’t you? That much Amishness you can accept, right? And you know it’s time. You could fall and hurt yourself. Or you might need something, and I wouldn’t be here to help you. Think of the benefits of being at my place. And I wouldn’t be around during the day, so that would give you time alone.”

  She smiled. “I’ll have to think about it, Donald.”

  “Well, I haven’t even been home yet. I stopped here first. I’d better go.” He got up and kissed her on the cheek.

  “I’m glad you found your birth father, Donald.”

  “I know you are, and I appreciate it,” Donald said. He turned and walked to his car. He got in, started it up, and backed down the driveway. On the way home, Donald ran the idea of his mother moving in with him through his mind. The longer he thought about it, the better the idea seemed. How wonderful this was. Already good was coming out of his visit to Amish country. The idea to bring his mom to his place seemed so simple now, so obvious. Why hadn’t he thought of it on his own?

  Was modern life like that? So far removed from the ordinary, from the idea of a home place, that common sense no longer grew? It certainly seemed so. Having seen horses working in the fields and Amish buggies from another era driving up and down gravel roads, even he had changed. And wasn’t that singing at the wedding something? It had stirred feelings in him he didn’t even know were there.

  Was this his Amish blood coming forward? Donald laughed at the thought. Half Amish, that’s what he was. That didn’t make sense either. One wasn’t born with such things. They had to grow in the heart, had to be cultivated with silence, with prayer, with humility, with the virtues of another time and place. One didn’t just drop those desirable qualities into one’s life by right of birth.

  But one thing was certain. His son could use some of what the Amish had. All
of the decency he and Sonia had tried to plant in him were being cast aside right now. The music his son listened to was awful. The boy had been named Charles because Donald’s adoptive father had been so upright and law abiding. And now the boy was turning into a rebel, even wearing his pants down over his hips and hanging halfway to his knees. Charles and his buddies were into being cool. Acting like ghosts traveling through life…and arriving at nothing.

  Structure. That’s what Charles hated. And so quickly he had turned from the likable boy into this person who wasn’t very likable at all. Could he get Charles to go to Amish country with him at Thanksgiving? What a clash of culture that would be! The essence of structure running into its most bitter enemy. Donald sighed. Somehow he would have to convince Charles to go with him. Lure him with tales of the quaintness and uniqueness. Perhaps talk of the weirdness of Amish life. After all, the Amish were a little weird, and Charles did weird.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  On Monday morning Susan hitched Toby to the buggy and climbed in. She waited, holding the reins loosely in her hands. Maurice’s suitcase was already behind the backseat, but she hadn’t come out yet, no doubt taking her time saying goodbye to Mamm. Not that Maurice was going far this morning—only over to James and Teresa’s place. Maurice had grown close to Mamm in the short time she’d been in the community. How long she was staying was still anyone’s guess. If Teresa had anything to say about it, her mother wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

  Finally the door on the porch swung open and Maurice came out, followed closely by Mamm. They embraced, lingering for a moment before Maurice came across the yard.

  “Sorry I didn’t help with the horse.” Maurice paused to wipe her eyes. “But we got to talking. I’ll miss your mother even though I’ll only be down the road a bit.”