The Calling (9 page)

Bethany felt the eyes of someone on her. She turned and was startled by one girl at the end of a table, staring at her. Her fiery red hair was long and tangled, as if she had not combed it at all, and she eyed Bethany with a hard-edged hostility. Angry eyes. Bethany looked back, and even from this distance she could feel the radiating resentment, so fierce and terrible.

By three o’clock, Bethany was exhausted. The five sisters
kept at it, making sure everything was spick-and-span in their careful, deliberate way. Each pot had been scrubbed, rinsed, and returned to the shelf. The kitchen was spotless, just the way it had looked when they arrived. And nothing at all like the kitchen in their own home.

It was Sunday morning. The summer heat lay heavy over the barn, blending the air with barn smells of horse and cow and hay, along with Sunday smells of soap and starch and brewing coffee. Seated on hard backless benches on one side of the large barn were the men and boys, across from them sat the women and girls.

As much as Jimmy Fisher tried to keep his mind on the sermon, his gaze swept across the room to a checkerboard of pleated white and black prayer caps. Seated along a row of young women, white shawls and white aprons and crisp black prayer caps to mark their maiden status, with them, and yet somehow apart from them, was Bethany Schrock.

She sat with her shoulders pulled back, and a look on her face as if she was supremely interested in the minister’s lengthy description of the plagues of Exodus. She appeared utterly pious but Jimmy knew better. His gaze fell to her lap, where she was gripping and releasing, gripping and releasing, small handfuls of apron.

Bethany Schrock didn’t have the hands of a typical Amish girl, Jimmy noticed, not big, blunt-fingered hands. They were slender, delicate hands. He tried to push those thoughts away, to keep his mind on the suffering of the Israelites, but one thought kept intruding—what was Bethany thinking about that made her hands so tense? What was running through her mind?

It was unfortunate that Katie Zook happened to be seated next to Bethany. Each time Jimmy chanced a look at Bethany, whose eyes stayed straight ahead, Katie assumed he was making eyes at her and she would start to brazenly blink her eyes rapidly and her lips curled into a pleased smile. His interest in Katie Zook had come and gone like a summer rain burst, but her interest in him was more like a coal miner staking a claim. He would have to give some thought as to how to go about dropping her kindly. Katie was the persistent type, cute but clueless.

He listened to the chickens cluck and scratch outside the open barn door, to the horses moving around in the straw in their stalls, to the bleats of the sheep out in the pasture. The minister was preaching now of how persecuted the Israelites had been as slaves to the Egyptians, how many hardships they suffered. The familiar words rose and fell, rose and fell, like gusts of wind. This was the first of two sermons preached, testimony given, prayers and Scripture read, more ancient hymns sung—and the whole of it would last for over three hours.

Plenty of time to ponder how to face Katie Zook’s blinking eyes and let her down easy, so gently she’d think it was her own idea. Plenty of time to ponder how to capture and hold Bethany Schrock’s interest.

Bethany had perfected the art of appearing deeply attentive during church while her mind drifted off in a thousand directions, especially during the long and silent moments between sermons and testimony and Scripture reading. The only part she could say she enjoyed was the last five minutes. If there
was any exciting news, that’s when it would be announced. The grim and somber hymns that told the stories of the martyrs through the ages were her least favorite part of the service. Most of these hymns were written in dark and damp prison cells, four hundred years ago, and while she did have a healthy respect for what her ancestors had endured—what Plain person wouldn’t?—it was hard to fully appreciate it all on a beautiful summer day.

After the benediction, the church sat and waited. Bishop Elmo rose to his feet in the middle of the barn, straightening his hunched back. He raised his head and his gentle gaze moved slowly, carefully, over each man, woman and child. First he faced the women; slowly he turned to face the men. Then he began to speak. “Two of our young people want to get married.”

Instantly, Bethany came back to the world. Among the Lancaster Amish, weddings didn’t usually happen until the fall when the harvest was in. She wondered which couple might be getting engaged. This was the most exciting moment in a woman’s life. She searched the rows of prayer caps, trying to see which of the girls might be blushing—giving away the secret. She wasn’t alone in her curiosity. All the women were looking up and down the rows. All but one.

Mary Kate Lapp had her head bowed, chin tucked against her chest.

Bishop Elmo cleared his throat. “The couple is Mary Kate Lapp and Chris Yoder. The wedding will take place in late August so they can move out to Ohio. The church there is in dire need of a buggy shop and Chris Yoder has been asked to come.” Then Bishop Elmo sat down and the song leader announced the last song. Everyone reached for their hymn
book and opened it to the page, singing a mournful hymn as if nothing unusual or thrilling had just happened.

As soon as the song ended, Mary Kate and Chris rose and walked outside. By the time church was dismissed, they had driven away in Chris’s buggy. They were off to address invitations to their wedding.

Bethany felt a combination of delight for her friend, sorrow that M.K. was moving away, and, if she were truly honest, jealousy. M.K. and Chris seemed to have it so easy. They met, fell in love, were getting married, and would live happily ever after. End of story.

That’s what Bethany had wanted too. But she had the bad luck of falling for that crooked lowlife Jake Hertzler, who had everybody fooled with his easy charm and winning smile. She shuddered. She would never let herself fall in love with anyone, not ever again.

As she put the hymnal back under the bench, her sister Mim slipped over and stood in front of her, her face filled with worry. “Who is going to teach school next term? When Teacher M.K. gets married, who will take her place?”

Bethany lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I don’t know, Mim. But they’ll find someone. They always do. Some poor unsuspecting soul who has no idea what’s about to hit her.”

On Sunday afternoon, Mim suggested a picnic out at Blue Lake Pond to escape the stuffy house, and Mim’s mother was delighted. Naomi, Mammi Vera, and Bethany were invited, but Naomi needed to rest and Mammi Vera said it was too hot and Bethany said she was in no mood for mosquitos. Mim thought that mosquitos or not, Bethany always seemed to
be in a touchy mood lately, but she was disappointed not to have her company, touchy mood and all. Her little brothers caused chaos and turmoil, even if they just stood still.

Those boys wouldn’t be doing any standing still at Blue Lake Pond. It was their favorite place to be on a summer afternoon. The buggy hadn’t even come to a stop before the boys jumped out and hightailed it for the blackberry vines drooping with ripe fruit. Galen lifted old Chase out of the buggy as he was getting too arthritic to jump, though not too old to run after the boys. He loped behind them, tail wagging so fast it looked like a whirligig. Galen tied the horse’s reins together and fastened them to a tree so it could graze while they picnicked.

Mim inhaled a deep breath. So sweet. The summer air smelled of sunbaked pine needles and lake water and freshness. She spread a blanket under the shade of a tree and set up the picnic.

Her mom pointed to those blackberry vines and said, “Mim, we could have great fun making jam.”

Oh, boy.
Mim knew what the week ahead was going to look like: picking berries, pricking fingers, scratches on arms from thorns, followed by hours in a hot and steamy kitchen with pectin, Mason jars, wax, sugar, cheesecloth.
Fun?

Galen sat with his back against the tree and tipped his hat brim over his eyes. Mim liked that Galen was the kind of person who could sit and not fill every second with chatter the way Mammi Vera did. Sometimes, her head hurt from Mammi Vera’s ongoing commentary of Mim and her brothers. Of course, it was always critical. Her grandmother would stand tall and draw in a deep breath and pucker her lips like she was sucking on a lemon and . . . watch out! So unlike
Galen, whose words were few and soft, in that deep, gravelly voice, and when he spoke, others always listened.

Her mom nudged her gently with her elbow and whispered, “Now there’s a sight you don’t see too often.” She pointed to Galen. His hat cast his face in a shadow, and his whole body looked relaxed and lazy. He was the hardest working person they knew, and that was saying a lot for a Plain man in Stoney Ridge. Mim pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and smiled at her mom. It was a peaceful moment and she was glad she’d thought of coming to Blue Lake Pond.

Then suddenly the boys were upon them, jerking Galen out of his all-too-brief nap. Juice ran down their faces and onto their shirts.

“You’re more the color of berries than boys,” her mom said. Sammy smiled, his teeth white in his purple face. She gave him a cake of Ivory soap. “Get in the lake and scrub the stains off. Luke, watch your brother.”

The boys dove into the lake in their berry-stained shirts. When Luke came to the surface, he let out a whoop that echoed off the trees. He went under again and stayed down a long time before coming up in the middle of the lake. Sammy, not as skilled a swimmer, stayed in shallow water with the bar of soap in his hand and watched his brother rise up and down in the water like a whale.

“I don’t think Luke’s got stain scrubbing on his mind,” Galen said.

The three of them sat side by side in the quiet, watching the boys as they swam. “Jimmy Fisher’s been teaching the boys to swim this summer,” her mother said. “Trying, anyway. They exasperate Jimmy. Luke, especially.”

Galen glanced over at Mim. “Notice anything different about Jimmy lately?”

“Like what?”

“He’s . . . distracted. Off his feed.” Galen stretched one ankle over the other. “The kind of work we’re doing with Thoroughbreds—he has to keep his mind on the job.” He looked directly at Mim. “Anything you’re aware of going on with Jimmy? A new girlfriend?”

Mim had a pretty good idea what was nettling Jimmy. “Naomi said his mother’s back in town.”

Galen’s dark eyebrows lifted. “I hadn’t thought of that. I saw her at church this morning. She came to visit Naomi last week.”

“She’s moved back,” Mim’s mom said, brushing some leaves off her dress. “Her new husband passed and she decided to return to Stoney Ridge. And her older son Paul moved with his new bride to her family’s home.”

“That’s awful sudden,” Galen said.

“Quite,” Mim added, though her mother raised an eyebrow at her. It was true, though. Tongues had been wagging about it all week. “I heard that the last straw was when Edith Fisher starched and ironed Paul’s underwear. The next day, they said they were moving.”

“Mim, don’t tell tales.”

Galen stretched out his legs. “I suppose I’d move on too, real quick, if someone were to starch and iron my underwear.”