Following Your Heart (28 page)

“Samuel has always liked you,” Teresa said just before disappearing through the door and up the stairs.

“Did I see tears in her eyes, Susan?”
Mamm
asked when Teresa's footsteps had faded.

“James spoke with her tonight,” Susan said. “He's got Teresa all disturbed. I can't believe this is happening. It's not like Teresa doesn't already have enough problems on her mind with the wedding to Yost coming up.”

“Please sit down and talk sense, Susan,”
Mamm
said. “I can't understand a thing you're saying.”

Susan sat down with a sigh. “I'm not sure where to start really. Perhaps I should have told you what's been going on before this, but it didn't seem like it would amount to much. But now…”

“What's happened?”
Mamm
asked, leaning forward.

Daett
lifted his eyes from
The Budget
and looked at Susan closely.

“James has been making eyes at Teresa for some time,” Susan admitted. “I know that's shocking, and I warned Teresa about it. But really, she couldn't do anything about it.”

“James?”
Mamm
questioned. “Deacon Ray's James? Surely Teresa isn't returning his attentions. She's promised to Yost.”

“She didn't encourage him at all,
Mamm
,” Susan said. “I talked to her about it. Then tonight James comes out as bold as he can be and asked to speak with her. I told him no, that Teresa didn't want to speak to him because there would only be trouble. Well, it didn't do any
gut
. James asked Teresa directly, and she said she would speak to him. They went off a ways and talked in private.”

“Daett,” Mamm
said, “I think you'd better get involved here.”

Susan didn't wait for her
daett
to intervene.

“Can we just sit here and allow this marriage to Yost happen?” Susan asked
Mamm
. “You know in your heart it isn't right.”

“
Nee
, I do not know that,”
Mamm
said. “But it's not up to me anyway. We are a community, Susan. You of all people should know this. I like Teresa, just like you do. She's a wonderful girl, but she is what she is. And she has done what she has done. Nothing can change that. We certainly can't have her dating one of our young men. Yost was a compromise already, mainly because Deacon Ray felt sorry for him.”

Menno cleared his throat. “What did James tell Teresa tonight?”

“I couldn't hear what they said,” Susan said. “But Teresa said James wants to see more of her, perhaps even bring her home on Sunday nights. He said she doesn't have to marry Yost if she doesn't want to. That he could work things out for her somehow.”

Menno sighed. “The boy is being very reckless. But at least it's his doing and not Teresa's. You're sure she didn't give him any encouragement?”

“I didn't hear them talking,
Daett
,” Susan said. “But Teresa said she didn't.”

“Well, I'll have to speak to Deacon Ray about this,”
Daett
said. “I'll give him to understand that Teresa didn't try to hide anything and that she didn't encourage the boy. That should place the blame for this matter where it belongs. Hopefully Deacon Ray can talk some sense into his boy's head. Just because he's the deacon's son doesn't give James the right to flaunt the rules. He has to live by the will of the community just like the rest of us.”

“That sounds like a good plan,”
Mamm
agreed.

Susan cleared her throat.

“While everyone else is making their confessions,” she said, “perhaps I'd better make one of my own.”

“You haven't been thinking about leaving again?”
Mamm
gasped.

“I'm afraid I was,” Susan said. “I'm sorry, but such thoughts still cross my mind.”

“I will take care of this problem tomorrow,” Menno said. “Perhaps that will help with your temptation to leave.”

“Thank you,” Susan said, getting to her feet. “I think I'll call it a night.”

They both nodded as she closed the stair door behind her.

At the top of the stairs, she knocked gently on Teresa's door.

“Come in,” Teresa answered softly.

Teresa was nestled under the covers with baby Samuel beside her fast asleep.

“
Daett
is going to speak with Deacon Ray tomorrow,” Susan said. “They know this is not your fault.”

Tears formed in Teresa's eyes and she mouthed
thank you
to Susan.

Susan nodded and closed the bedroom door behind her.

T
he dream was a rush of
Englisha
automobiles, of faces he didn't know, of long, winding blacktop roads in big cities, and of fear. Menno tried to fully awaken. He rubbed his eyes. Breathless, he sat up in bed and pushed back the covers. Beside him Anna slept, her breathing steady and deep. Moving his stocking-clad feet across the bed, he dropped them to the floor and stood and then pulled on his clothing in the darkness. Walking over to the open bedroom window, he looked out across the dark night. He bent over to lean closer to the windowpane, listening.

Faint sounds rose in the night air coming from the barnyard, the noise of horses banging in their stalls, the low sigh of cattle breathing in mass. Why was his heart so troubled again tonight?
Da Hah
had blessed him beyond measure with possessions, with a
frau
who loved him, with children who were
gut
members in the church. His dreams should be happy, not troublesome.

Was it the temptations of the world coming back to draw him again? Surely it wasn't. He had turned his back on his sin those many years ago. And yet, even now his face burned with the shame. He had left behind a girl with a great pain in her heart, simply thankful to have gotten off so easily.

Walking past the bed, Menno paused and listened to Anna's deep breathing. She was still sound asleep, but even if she should awake, she would understand him being up. A man visiting his barnyard even in the night hours was understandable. What she would not understand was what he needed to ponder. But there was no reason she should know of such things, even now after all these years.

The bedroom door squeaked on his way out, but he didn't slow his steady pace toward the washroom. In the darkness he found his shoes and slipped them on and then draped his work coat over his shoulder. Stepping outside, the brisk spring night air felt
gut
on his face.

Walking past the barn door, he leaned over the wooden yard fence, watching the outlines of the cattle in the field. They lay in the grass, their mouths moving shadows in the starlight as they chewed their cud.

Thoughts ran through his mind, his dream a background of noise from another time and place. It had been so many years ago. Why was this coming back now to disturb his peace? Was Carol looking for him? That was not likely and almost impossible. Why would she wish to see him?

The child would be the only reason, but even that made no sense. Carol had said the child had been lost. His eyes traced the horizon which danced with a thousand twinkling stars. The outline of the cattle below blended in with the hue of the darkened grass.

He saw Carol's face again as it had looked on the day she told him about the coming child, the hope written on her face, the longing in her eyes. How quickly those eyes had darkened when he showed no joy at her news. But surely she hadn't expected him to follow her into the world?

One of the cows stood in the field, stretching and staring at him. He pushed the new thought away, but it came back with greater force, presenting itself again. What if the child had not been lost? His fingers dug into the wooden rail of the fence. This was not possible. Carol would not lie. Yet, had he not lied when he spoke to her of love? Had he not lied with his silence upon his return to the community?

So was it also possible Carol had lied to him? Such a lie would have made it easier for both of them. Especially him. Had she loved him enough to have spared him the decision to leave his people for her world?

“
Gott im Himmel
,” he whispered to the night air. “Is it possible that I have an
Englisha
child?”

But it could not be true. It simply could not. Even if Carol had lied he would have known. He would have had to know. True, he had left the next month, his term of service over, but surely he would have felt the truth. He was not that stupid. Or perhaps he was, and perhaps that was why Carol never came around again, not even to say goodbye on that last day. The day when all the others had gathered to wish him well on his return home. His heart had burned with the pain of her rejection, thinking she had blamed him for everything, while all the time he was the one who was rejecting. He was the one who was placing the blame on another person's shoulders. And she knew and had made it easy for him. Was it possible?

“Dear
Gott
,” he said. “I am a greater sinner than even I knew. Why have You not destroyed me those many years ago? I am a hypocrite. A wolf in sheep clothing. One thing to myself, and another thing to You and the others.”

Menno hung his head and began to weep, the sobs shaking his shoulders. A cow moved closer from the shadowy grass, coming over to stand a few feet away. A low
moo
escaped its mouth, a sort of moan full of questions. He glanced back toward the house. What if his
frau
awakened now and came looking for him? He would have time to move inside the barn before her dim light came to the door, but at the moment it hardly seemed worth the effort.

What a relief it would be to tell her everything. To speak the words inside of him, express the fears roiling in his heart, tell her of the nightmares that haunted him. She would understand, would she not? He hesitated, his eyes on the windows of the house, but no flickering light appeared from the deep shadows.

The moon would be up soon, and he would be visible from the house. Well, let Anna see him. Perhaps then the thoughts would come into form more easily. This weight on his chest which smothered his heart might be removed by the questions in her eyes, by the sheer force of her will to know. But she had never doubted him, never asked why, never probed the things he had done during those long-ago years.

What did she think Amish boys did while serving their times in
Englisha
hospitals? Spend their time keeping the
Ordnung?
He hung his head. This was not a time to blame the others for what he had done. Likely few had fallen as low as he had, driven by the intoxicating freedoms of the great city.

Even those who hadn't come home, choosing instead to stay in the world with their
Englisha
girlfriends, had behaved better than he had. Always he had thought of them as making the worse choice, but had they? He studied the stars, seeking an answer, and finding only the pain rising in his own heart. He had made his choice, and they had made theirs. Perhaps the agony pounding in their hearts was worse than his, but it hardly seemed possible.

Should he be making confessions to Bishop Henry? But what confession? That I think I have fathered an
Englisha
child? Bishop Henry would wish to know on what grounds he made such a statement, and he had none. Only his fears driven by desperate dreams in the night.

He had made confessions at his baptismal vows. Confessions, and promises to forsake the world and all its allurements. Bishop Henry would certainly want further confessions now if he knew about the
Englisha
girl, but what
gut
would that do? He had already made his peace with
Da Hah
and with the community. Living one's life in holiness and humility was a penance and confession all of its own. A life lived was more powerful than words spoken. Did not his people believe this?

“But I have sinned greatly,” he whispered to the stars, “if I have fathered a child who lived and then I walked away from my responsibility.”

The nearby cow lifted its head, mooing again, her nose only inches away now. He jumped back in surprise and moved further down the fence. He placed his weight back on the top rail. The cow looked at him and then moved the other way, settling back on the grass with a solid thump.