The Brethren (5 page)
Authors: Beverly Lewis
56 H
as H as
“I’d rather not say,” she said so softly she scarcely heard herself.
Officer Keller gave a fleeting look to her partner. The man frowned briefly then glanced about the room, as if looking for clues. What did he hope to see holes in the wall? Broken dishes?
“I really need to get back to my little ones,” Esther said, getting up from her chair.
Surprisingly, the officers rose when she did and followed her to the door. She could scarcely breathe as they said their good-byes and left the sanctity of her house. “O my Lord and Savior,” she prayed, folding her trembling hands tightly to her breast.
Ben drove to one of his favorite hiking trails, ten miles from the house. His chest ached every time he recalled his mother’s shocking revelation.
Adopted? The startling knowledge was like a ton of bricks smashing into his psyche.
“Twenty-one and just now finding out?” He parked his car, got out, and slammed the door.
He hurried toward the trailhead, moving swiftly up the dirt path. He was aware of boulders on one side and a shallow ravine on the other. Farther up he noticed some deer a doe and two young fawns looking at him momentarily before scampering into a grove of white oaks.
“If I’m not really Ben Martin, who am I?” He asked it of the trees, the sky, and a blue jay nearby as he made his way up the gradual incline.
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He had the urge to shout but suppressed his emotions. It was bad enough that his father was scarcely ever at home and his two beat buddies were away at out-of-state colleges. The idea of joining the Peace Corps appealed to him even more. For a flicker of a second, he’d actually thought his mother crazy, but knowing her as he did, that notion quickly melted into disbelief. Now, though, he carried anger and a real sense of betrayal with him as he made furious strides up
the trail.
He considered his family … all the framed pictures of his sisters, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents on both sides. The extended family he’d always known. Not a single person with his blood in their veins? No one he resembled? Why hadn’t this fact hit him before?
“They are not my real family … not related to me at all,” he spit out. “My sisters aren’t my sisters.” He could not begin to fathom it and suddenly felt more alone than ever before in his life. Lonely and lost, he realized anew how very much he missed Annie.
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Louisa was already awake the following morning when she heard banging coming from the other side of the wall, from the apartment next door. It sounded like pots and pans tumbling out of a cupboard. At first she wondered if she had been dreaming, but how could that be when she had been looking at the clock off and on for the past full hour? Annie’s mother had been such a quiet cook, even graceful at times, adeptly juggling baking many loaves of bread each morning and pies, too, along with many other homemade goodies.
The thought of Annie’s mom creating her homespun culinary delights pulled Louisa quickly back to Paradise. But it was not the Zooks’ house nor their kitchen that held her
captive. She couldn’t get Sam Glick out of her mind, in spite of Michael’s visit to the studio yesterday. There was something unique about Sam, something she hadn’t encountered in any other man. She was still trying to decipher the quality … and decide whether she could walk away from it for good.
Fer gut.
59 She smiled. Quaint Dutch words and phrases kept popping into her mind, nudging her back to Amish country, where, she was afraid to openly acknowledge, so much of her heart still resided.
She wondered how Sam was doing. Had he managed to move on without her? Her departure had been too swift even for courtesy’s sake, although she had taken a few minutes to write him a good-bye letter. Too often, even now, she had the urge to write him again or to call him at his barn phone … just to hear his voice.
Getting out of bed, she hurried to the shower, attempting to push away thoughts of her mad dash from Pennsylvania. It seemed mad dashes were getting to be almost a habit for her. Last year, she had been rather insane to take off so impulsively from Colorado, leaving her parents holding the financial “bag” for Michael’s and her planned lavish wedding. And part of her had been equally crazy to leave Sam behind, no doubt wondering what kind of flighty girl she really was, and maybe even thinking good riddance.
Reaching for her towel, Louisa determined that today she must discard all thoughts of Sam and set him free in her own mind. “Once and for all,” she whispered to her cat, Muffin. “This is where I belong, ain’t so?” She groaned as yet another Amish saying rolled from her tongue.
Over the noon hour, following the main meal, Jesse huddled with Bishop Andy and Moses in the bishop’s barn. “This thing with Zeke could get out of control in a big hurry,” Jesse began. “There’s no tellin’ what could happen.”
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Andy nodded, slow and long, pulling on his beard. His face looked mighty pale. “I daresay we keep our peace and stay out of the public eye as much as possible.”
Old Moses shook his head, eyes solemn, head bowed. He drew in a deep breath; then his eyes rose and met Jesse’s, holding his gaze for a time. “Here’s what I think, and Bishop, you tell me if I’m wrong on this.” Moses leaned forward, as if to be heard better, though it was he who suffered the hearing loss. “The Lord God knows what’s what, and none of us is guilty of any wrongdoing here.”
Jesse thought on that. “Well, in your thinkin’, did we do wrong not to report Isaac’s disappearance back when?” He looked right at Bishop Andy.
The bishop was slow to respond. When he did so, there was fire in his eyes and his voice was high-pitched in agitation. “Jesse Zook, you as a minister of almighty God know better than to question the appointed shepherd over this flock … of which you have been entrusted with the care, as well.”
Jesse groped for the right words and wished he’d kept his mouth shut, even though he felt this was something the three of them must discuss. They did not have their ducks in a row, so to speak, and they were all vulnerable to attack from the outside world. And, what with Zeke wanting representation from Jesse … well, he wished they’d been honest from the outset. “I know it was your word we followed, back in the beginning,” he admitted, knowing that the rule of thumb was clearly on the side of trusting what the man of God decreed. In this case, it had been Bishop Andy’s words that had guided all of them, all these years.
61 “If we’d been forthright with the police,” Old Moses spoke up, “we’d have had an even bigger mess on our hands, I daresay.”
The bishop turned suddenly. “We daresn’t question the Almighty.”
Jesse was reminded once again what his father and father’s father had always believed, what the ministry, the brethren, said was always right. “There is little room for budging on this,” he stated, hoping to drive home the point that they, each of them, were in a real pickle with Zeke in jail saying who knew what. “We must help the police if need be, but only as much as necessary.”
“Jah, we hold steady … stay the course,” Andy said. “No reason to doubt when God has spoken through His servant.”
Jesse had always believed that the bishop was to be honored and obeyed. There had never been any question on that till now. Now he struggled, day in and day out, and not one thing Andy or Old Moses said today, tomorrow, or next week could convince him otherwise. Honesty was always the best way, his father had taught him. Honesty must prevail under the Lord God. Sadly, in this case, covering up the truth had led them down a path of thorns, and Zeke’s telling the police where to find Isaac’s bones might be only the beginning.
Days of sorrow, he thought, greatly fearing what was bound to come. Bishops decree or no.
Annie was ever so glad Yonie kept his word and came for her at Esther’s, although his car looked awful funny with the
62 ladder tied to the top. She called her farewells to Esther and the children and went out to her brother’s car with the swing in her arms.
During the ride over to Belmont Road, she was restless and excited both, until she spied a cash box on the floor of the car. “What on earth is that for?”
Yonie’s ears blushed red. “Don’t be askin’,” he said. “I forgot it was even there.”
“You’re driving the People around for pay, aren’t you? Takin’ them to work, to the doctor, and whatnot all?”
He nodded sheepishly. “Got the idea here lately, and honestly it’s helpin’ me pay off my car loan.”
“Well, isn’t that a fine howdy-do?” She was truly shocked.
“When Daed got wind of it, he told me never to bring my car onto his property till I got my wits ‘bout me again.”
“And just when do you expect that to ever happen?”
He shrugged, pulling out a cell phone from his pants pocket. “See this? I’m a taxi service amongst my own folk. They call me, day or night, and I drive to their houses and take them wherever they want to go.”
She held her breath. “I hope you’re kidding.”
“Nope. I’m tellin’ you the for-sure truth.”
Sighing, she looked out the window, watching the fields blur as she stared, not sure why tears threatened to fall. “I guess you’re not planning to join church anytime soon.”
“You guessed right.”
She couldn’t say anything to him, really. Her own procrastination had been and continued to be a thorn in their father’s flesh for both their parents, truth be known, and
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for the brethren as a whole. This she knew, though she simply couldn’t change anything about A
untied the rydVedthe familiar unt.ed the ladder and hoisted it over his shoulder, and
Ann. led the way down the bank, toward the grove of trees In a matter of minutes, Yonie had the ladder in place and the rope swing swaying from his efforts.
Annie stared taking in the beauty of scene in every direction the flowering trees, the verdant sjpe, and Ae gurgling creek below. For a moment, she was a little girl again, and she and Isaac were swinging together, thejr bb ter on the breeze. general
laddT-‘y” Annie! Your daydreaming and the
!:dtoreirsvoicejerkedw
The next day, Louisa was pleased when her father called the studio, the midafternoon, “Your mother baked a lemon sponge pie,” he said with a chuckle. “Imagine that ” what’s the occasion?”
We offered to grill salmon in hopes you’d join us for dinner this evening.”
She smiled. Her father was like a puppy dog when he was desperate. “Sure. When’s dinner?”
Come over when you’re finished at the studio ” “Okay. I’ll bring a salad.”
“Sounds great. Yoar mother will be happy about this ” Dad added. “Good-bye, Louisa.” ‘
“See you tonight,” she said. “And thanks!”
64 She clicked off her Palm and began the cleanup between classes. When that was done, she hurried to her own easel, anxious to get in some work on her painting of an old barn. Jesse Zook’s barn, she thought, wishing she’d taken even more pictures of it than she had in her possession.
She often thought of simply going back to visit Annie, over a long weekend perhaps, if for no other reason than to surprise her. Annie occupied such a huge portion of her thoughts. Their letter-writing days had already resumed, yet she still longed to call Annie, to hear her voice. But she knew the nearest phone was the neighbor’s barn phone up the road from Esther’s. There was always the option of simply writing to Annie and alerting her to what day and time she might call. Of course, Annie wouldn’t want to break the Ordnung as decreed by the bishop and use the telephone for personal communication. Though what was one more broken rule?
And Sam? No point in stirring up anything she couldn’t follow through with, even though she missed him terribly. He was somewhat more progressive, as some Amish referred to themselves, so it wasn’t out of the question that she might contact him by phone.
Someday.
There’s not a lot of wisdom in growing older, Louisa decided as she sat on a fine upholstered chair at her mother’s lovely long table in their spacious, candlelit dining room. Wisdom came in appreciating the true but simple things in life. Things more important than the topics her parents seemed
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to delight in discussing this evening, like bridge partners and golf scores.
“Did you watch that special on the Triple Crown last night?” her father asked.
“No. I … um, got rid of my TV.” He furrowed his brow. “Why would you do that.7” She shrugged. “Never watch it. Mm … this salmon is so delicious.” Her mouth watered as she cut the tender salmon fillet with the side of her sterling silver fork. Her father had outdone himself with the basil butter. Her tossed salad and the steamed veggies were delicious, and Mother’s lemon pie rivaled Barbara Zook’s.
Louisa refused to let the aroma of great cooking send her thoughts whirling back to Annie and her people this time. No, this was home, and here she was destined to stay. She had grown up in this luxurious place nestled in Castle Pines, just south of Denver. Sure, it was her parents’ exquisite abode now, but it was hers, too. She was, after all, her parents’ daughter, Louisa Victoria Stratford. A modern hightech girl with a yearning for the simple life. And no longer did she wonder how she could possibly fit into this world with its opulence and elitist mentality; she knew how by ; being her new self. She would dress the part when necessary, but she would live with an eye for the significant. She would live, if not a less complicated life, then a tranquil one filled with true purpose. For she had tasted and embraced a peaceful, meaningful life, and it had changed her from the inside out.