The Judgment

by Beverly Lewis

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  The Judgment

  Copyright © 2011

  Beverly M. Lewis

  Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services

  Art direction by Paul Higdon

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-1412-6

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  E-book edition created 2011

  Praise for

  BEVERLY LEWIS

  “No one does Amish-based inspirationals better than Lewis.”

  —Booklist

  “Author Beverly Lewis has come up with a new magic formula for producing best-selling romance novels: humility, plainness and no sex. Lewis’ G-rated books, set among the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, have sold more than 12 million copies, as bodice rippers make room for ‘bonnet books,’ chaste romances that chronicle the lives and loves of America’s Amish.”

  —Time magazine

  “Much of the credit [for the growth of Amish fiction] goes to Beverly Lewis, a Colorado author who gave birth to the genre in 1997 with The Shunning, loosely based on her grandmother’s experience of leaving her Old Order Mennonite upbringing to marry a Bible college student. The book has sold more than 1 million copies.”

  —Associated Press

  “As in her other novels, Lewis creates a vividly imagined sensory world. . . . And her well-drawn characters speak with authentic voices as they struggle to cope with grief and questions about their traditions and relationship with God.”

  —Library Journal

  (about The Parting)

  “Lewis’ readers can’t get enough of her tales about Amish life, and this latest installment won’t disappoint.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  (about The Forbidden)

  “Lewis provides a satisfying conclusion to the SEASONS OF GRACE series. Touching scenes make it easy for the reader to connect with the characters.”

  —Romantic Times Book Reviews

  (about The Telling)

  “The reigning queen of Amish fiction is back with another tale of secrets, love, and relationships. . . . Lewis has penned another touching novel with well-drawn characters and a compelling plot. It is sure to be in high demand by the author’s many fans and anyone who enjoys Amish stories.”

  —Library Journal starred review (about The Missing)

  “Once again, Lewis has a hit with the first book in her new ROSE TRILOGY. The charming characters and captivating storyline underscore why Lewis has legions of loyal fans. They will all be anxiously awaiting the next installment.”

  —Romantic Times

  (about The Thorn)

  To

  Paul and Marge Ferrin,

  with blessings and love.

  Happy birthday, Marge!

  Prologue

  November 1985

  T omorrow holds nary a promise, my dear Mamm often says. But thankfully some things are quite certain—we plow, we plant and harvest. We attend canning bees and quilting frolics. Our wedding season always begins on the first Tuesday in November. And this year there are many couples marrying and looking ahead to starting their own families.

  My own first cousin Esther Kauffman will wed John Glick, her longtime beau, tomorrow morning. My pretty plum-colored dress and full white apron, which match Esther’s own, are hemmed and pressed, ready to slip on right after breakfast.

  I should be smiling-happy since I’m one of Esther’s wedding attendants. But I must confess to getting a bit tetchy with Esther last evening when she dropped by. She reminded me that her older brother Melvin and I are expected to spend most of the day together, since he’s the fellow opposite me in the wedding party. This includes sitting with him at the Eck, the corner of the feast table reserved for the bride and groom and the four attendants. So, even though I’ll be within flirting distance of Silas Good, I won’t get to enjoy the day-long celebration with my betrothed, including the evening meal.

  My first thoughts each day are of Silas. His sensible ways and his family’s standing amongst the People make me feel so fortunate. Oh, that wonderful-gut smile when he looks my way! But no matter how happy I am to be engaged to the most eligible young man in Lancaster County, I must admit there are times when I still think of my friend Nick Franco, the bishop’s former foster son. Gone more than a month now.

  I must’ve known a real different Nick than anyone else did. Almost everyone assumes he’s a bad seed—most even believe he caused the death of the bishop’s only son. But when Nick and I were together, I saw his softer side. That’s the part that gnaws at me in the most curious way these days.

  Truth is, I ponder where Nick might’ve run off to . . . and I wonder if he ever misses Amish life. Or me, his best friend.

  After all these weeks since his disappearance, I haven’t told a soul this—not even my older sister, Hannah, known by most as Hen. But the unusual bond Nick and I shared as youngsters somehow managed to get far deeper into my heart than I realized. I continue to beseech the Lord for poor Nick, praying that God might see fit to forgive him for his years of rebellion.

  I pray for my only sister, too. Sadly, Hen’s coffee meetings with her estranged worldly husband have turned out to be all but fruitless. And when she’s not working at the Amish fabric store, or here at home cooking and whatnot, she has a faraway look in her light hazel eyes, as if caught betwixt and between. I daresay she misses her husband more as the days pass. Misses him . . . even though there are many things that keep them apart.

  I am hard-pressed to imagine a solution to their dilemma. So I pray for wisdom from above, knowing I can trust God’s timing and way—and His will to be done for them.

  As for Nick, it’s harder to relinquish him to the heavenly Father, seeing how he always dug in his heels against righteousness. Silas has pointed out to me repeatedly, since Nick’s leaving, how difficult he was for his family. His involvement with Christian’s accident has certainly tainted him in the eyes of the People. Honestly, it still plagues me what was so urgently on Christian’s mind the last time I saw the bishop’s biological son, the day before his death. And if it was Nick he wanted to discuss, as I suspect, what could he have revealed about him that I didn’t already know?

  Despite my struggles with that haunting memory, it is our kindly bishop who must struggle with more bitter memories of his own. He now bears the burden of Nick’s part in the untimely death. Just this morning, while I was in the barn, Dat said the neighboring bishops, especially Old Ezekiel, are putting pressure on Bishop Aaron. “If Nick doesn’t return and offer a solid explanation by year’s end—when the reading of the Weltende comes—they’ll judge the bishop guilty of failing to get Nick into the church fold,” Dat said, his eyes moist.

  I contemplated the prophetic scriptures in Matthew, where the Last Days are revealed—the teachings on the tribulation and great deception. The ministers always read those sobering chapters at Preaching service near the end of the year. “Do ya really think the ministers would oust our bishop?” I asked Dat.

  “Oh, they’ll try.”

  “Even though N
ick’s not the bishop’s own kin?”

  “There’s a debate goin’ on,” Dat replied. “That’s all I’d better say.”

  I paused next to my favorite driving horse, stroking George’s thick mane. Secretly I’d ridden this horse bareback many times, all through the years of Nick’s and my late-night riding adventures—Nick on Pepper and me on George.

  Shivering, I knew that if bullheaded Nick was already caught up in the world—gone to the “edge” and beyond—then he would never return to the haven of the People.

  Later in the day, Mamm and I talked quietly in the bright little room where she found comfort in her midafternoon naps. In the past few weeks, she’d suffered a bad bout with the respiratory flu. The illness had weakened her further, compounding her usual misery of aches and pains.

  I could hear Mammi Sylvia, my maternal grandmother, preparing the noon meal. “We’re havin’ one of your favorite dishes today,” I whispered, touching Mamm’s frail hand.

  Her eyes brightened.

  “Smell the delicious veal loaf?”

  She nodded, grimacing with pain.

  It was hard seeing Mamm in such frail health. Dat doubted she’d be strong enough to witness Cousin Esther’s vows to her beloved John tomorrow. It was awful selfish on my part, but I felt somewhat gloomy that Mamm wouldn’t be there to see me stand up with Esther. After all, this was my first time as a bride’s attendant.

  Yet it is Hen who is most troubled by Mamm’s suffering, because she’s been living in town since her marriage to Brandon Orringer. Now that she’s staying here with her daughter, Mattie Sue, in our smallest Dawdi Haus, she’s discovering a-plenty what things cause Mamm pain. Physical and otherwise.

  “Did ya hear . . . Deacon Samuel Esh’s niece Annie Mast is soon to have her babies?” my mother said suddenly, though in a whisper. “Twins, the midwife says.”

  “Ah, such a wonderful-gut blessing for Annie and her husband.”

  “Jah.” Mamm smiled weakly. “They’ve sent for Rebekah Bontrager to be a mother’s helper. Rebekah’s father is a second cousin to the deacon, ya know.”

  “Oh?” I was surprised they’d chosen someone so far away. I hadn’t heard a peep from Rebekah for a good nine years. Last I’d seen her, she was twelve. Some of the girls, already intimidated by her blossoming beauty, were sure it was nothing less than Providence she’d upped and moved to Indiana, prior to her courting years. Even Cousin Esther had been quite relieved, considering the way Rebekah had begun to turn the heads of more than one church boy. John Glick included.

  “When do ya s’pose Rebekah’s coming?” I asked, sitting near the foot of the daybed.

  “Tomorrow’s what I heard.”

  Esther’s wedding day . . .

  “Well, it’ll be nice seein’ her again,” I said, confident she’d be long gone before she could pose a threat to any of my single cousins.

  “She’s planning to stay all winter, Rosie dear.” Mamm’s eyes held my gaze for an awkward moment, then fluttered shut.

  Sighing, I unfolded the afghan at the foot of the bed and lifted it gently to cover her. “No need to worry . . . Silas only has eyes for me,” I told myself as I tiptoed out of the room.

  Nor is the people’s judgment always true:

  The most may err as grossly as the few.

  —JOHN DRYDEN

  Who so loves, believes the impossible.

  —ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  Chapter 1

  Sunlight was a meager trickle from an ever-darkening sky. The long, rasping shriek of a barn owl echoed in the pastureland to the east, beyond the corncrib. The coming twilight was tinged with the earthy scent of freshly shoveled barn manure that had been hauled out to the dung pit.

  Rose Ann Kauffman pulled her black shawl close around her shoulders and hurried across the backyard with Hen Orringer to the small house where Hen and her four-year-old daughter, Mattie Sue, had been residing for the past weeks. The bungalow-like abode was cloaked in ivy on one side of its back porch, making it the more appealing of the two attached dwellings connected to their father’s large farmhouse.

  Hen reached for the storm door, opened it, and stepped inside the small kitchen. Quickly, she moved to the table and reached for a chair, motioning for Rose to sit, too. “Honestly, Rosie, I never thought things would come to this.”

  Rose wasn’t exactly sure what this entailed, but she knew enough to suspect Hen was speaking about her troubled relationship with Brandon. Settling into the chair, she listened to Hen lament her husband’s growing coolness toward her. “The few times we’ve met for coffee, he always asks about Mattie first. And then he carries on about how he’s not getting to see her grow up.” Hen sighed. “I can’t blame him—Mattie Sue’s his daughter, too. But sometimes I just wish he’d act as if he missed me.”

  Rose leaned her elbows on the table. “I’m sure he does, Hen.” Her heart broke for her sister, and as Hen continued to talk, Rose noticed again how scattered and ferhoodled Hen’s feelings were for her husband.

  “You’ve been through a lot,” Rose added softly, not saying that it was largely Hen’s doing she was in this pickle, impulsive as she was known to be.

  Hen continued on, her face dipping with sadness, then momentarily brightening each time she talked of Mattie Sue. Through their growing-up years, Rose had observed this tendency for Hen to open up her heart after suppertime. When Hen had eaten her fill, as she had tonight, she liked to talk. But Mamm would surely say Hen was talking out of turn with her fickle comments. Rose knew their mother would encourage Hen to be consistently loyal to Brandon in both word and deed. Yet that had hardly been the case since Hen had left him to live here.

  “You know, Rosie, I really hoped Brandon would miss me enough to ask me to come back.” Hen turned to look out the window, her fair hair as neat as a pin, parted down the middle and secured into a tight, low bun. “But he never does. It’s like he’s only interested in Mattie Sue.”

  “Aw, ya really think so?”

  “Sure seems that way.”

  “Would you return home if he asked?” Rose said gingerly.

  Hen shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “I wish I could. But I’ve had a taste of this wonderful-good life again . . . and Brandon wants nothing to do with it.” She wiped her face with her handkerchief. “He’s more interested in his wicked TV than me.” Hen went on to explain that Brandon remained firm about watching whatever he pleased—everything from MTV to R-rated movies. “At our coffee visits, he makes a point of telling me what he watches, as if trying to goad me. He doesn’t care one iota what I think.” She paused for a moment, and then began to spew even more resentment. “And he’s never once brought up exposing Mattie Sue to that Madonna business, either. Ach, it was just terrible, seeing her mimic that woman. Even worse, he thought it was funny.”

  Rose cringed. “Have you talked further to the bishop or Dat about it? To seek out their wisdom?”

  Hen nodded her head and pulled lightly on her Kapp strings. “To tell the truth, Dad’s been prompting me to move back with Brandon. He’s even asked me to pray with him about it.”

  Rose wasn’t surprised. After all, Hen had made a lifelong marriage vow—for better or for worse. But did the English marriage vow mean turning a blind eye to a husband who seemed bent on introducing a child to the wiles of the devil? She couldn’t imagine her brother-in-law wanting to do that intentionally. Brandon hadn’t enjoyed the blessing of growing up Plain, or even of belonging to any kind of a church fellowship. Nor had he learned anything about Amish life, due to his own indifference, or so Hen had always indicated. Could Rose really blame him for behaving like an Englischer?

  He doesn’t know any better.

  “I daresay the Lord will make a way.” Rose truly believed that. “If Dat wants to pray with ya, why not do it?”

  Hen’s eyes welled up again. “On top of all that, Mamm told me recently I should think seriously about the dangers of leaving Brandon alone for much longer.” />
  Rose flinched, guessing why Mamm might be worried.

  “Lest another woman catch his eye,” Hen said softly. “Dad’s hinted at the same thing, suggesting I go and visit my husband one of these evenings, without Mattie Sue along.”

  Such talk made Rose’s face grow warm and she got up from her chair. “You thirsty?”

  Hen nodded. “Sure. I made some mint tea just this morning, before work.” She rose quickly and went to the refrigerator.

  They bumped into each other as they reached into the cupboard for glasses. Hen set down the pitcher of iced tea, then opened her arms and drew her sister near. “Oh, Rosie, I’m so glad we have each other to talk to again,” Hen said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

  “Jah.” Rose stiffened suddenly, not meaning to.

  “You’re not still angry at me, are you?”

  Rose stepped back, frowning. “Why would I be?”

  “For what I did—leaving you and turning my back on our close sisterhood . . . when I abandoned the People.”

  Rose touched Hen’s shoulder. She had been hurt, and terribly so. Yet now with Hen here again, where she’d grown up, Rose was beginning to feel as if they were making up for the time they’d lost. Even so, she worried that Hen’s separation would cause irreparable damage to her marriage—or already had. “Ach, it’s hard to know what I think,” Rose said quietly, not wanting to continue brooding the loss of her sister for those years.

  “I just want you to know . . . I don’t blame you for being upset, Rosie.”

  Rose wished things could resume the way they’d always been. Was it possible to share so fully with Hen once again? She couldn’t help wondering how her relationship with her sister might change once she, too, became a married woman. But that was another whole year away.

  A knock came at the door and Hen turned to look. “Dad . . . come right in,” she called as the door opened. “Rosie and I were just pouring cold drinks—can we get you something, too?”