The Judgment

by Beverly Lewis

  “And you have to know I’ve missed seeing you,” Diane said, turning to look at Hen, who was pushing pieces of wood into the belly of the black cookstove and then filling the teakettle with water.

  “I’ve missed you, too.”

  Diane stared at her. “So what’re you doing living out here in the boonies?”

  “Amishville, you mean?” Her ire was rising. “This is my home, Diane . . . my life.”

  “But you married Brandon.”

  “Yes, I did.” Hen had no obligation to bare her heart to Diane Perlis.

  “Why go backward, Hen? I don’t get it.”

  Hen returned and sat down in a wing-back chair across from Diane. “My husband and I are working this out.”

  “Right.” Diane curled her lips into a peculiar smile. “I see that.”

  Looking away, Hen wished Diane would stop pumping her with pointed questions. Questions with no answers.

  After a time, the teakettle whistled sharply. Hen was relieved and rose to pour hot water into a china cup. “I assume you want some tea?” She raised one of the saucers to Diane as she balanced the filled cup.

  “Why not? Maybe some Amish tea’s just what the doctor ordered.”

  Hen nodded and poured hot water into a second cup.

  “Listen, Hen, we’re both adults. I’m going to give it to you straight. There are plenty of women who’d give their eyeteeth for a good-looking, successful guy like Brandon.” Diane’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “If he was my husband, I wouldn’t risk leaving him for a minute.”

  “Well, I’m not stupid,” Hen blurted, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.

  “Then you’d better go home to him.”

  “You don’t understand, Diane.”

  “You’re right . . . I don’t.” Unfolding her legs, Diane rose and wandered to the table and sat down. She spooned a token bit of sugar into the hot water and chose a tea bag. “I mean, really, you two were just the best together, Hen. Why would you want to give up your life with Brandon for . . . well, any of this?”

  Hen considered Diane’s remarks as she added a heaping amount of sugar to her own tea. She stirred it slowly, deliberately, without looking up.

  Hen had already put Mattie Sue to bed for the night and was thinking of curling up with a good book when Rose let herself in.

  Once she was downstairs, Hen immediately saw the anxiety on Rose’s face. “What is it, sister?”

  “Mamm’s awful sick,” she said, then asked her to follow her back to the main house.

  “Oh, poor thing.” Hen pulled on her woolen shawl and hurried along.

  They walked outside together as Rose told of the painful stomach upset that had plagued Mamm today after taking a new pain reliever. “She’s had similar symptoms in the past with other medications, but never anything so severe.”

  Fear gripped Hen as she mounted the back steps of their father’s house. “Shouldn’t I drive her to the emergency room?” she asked.

  “No, Mamm’s opposed to it.”

  “I wish she weren’t so stubborn.” Hen sighed. “Is she resigned to . . .”

  “Only to the will of God,” Rose replied.

  Hen prayed silently, pushing away thoughts of losing their mother. A dart of pain shot through her heart. Not just yet—not this night!

  Stepping softly into her parents’ bedroom, Hen was struck by the sight of her father’s bowed head, his hands folded in prayer. “Oh, Mom . . .” She could not speak further and took the chair next to Rose, pulling it up close to the bed, where their dear mother lay still as death.

  Chapter 12

  It took a long time for Rose to get to sleep that night. She worried she might wake up and discover that Mamm had slipped away from them, into Gloryland. Even though such a thing would be wondrous for Mamm, it was quite devastating for Rose to consider.

  I’d miss her terribly! Rose thought when she awoke in the middle of the night, realizing she must’ve fallen asleep after all. She shivered and sat up to reach for the additional folded quilt at the foot of the bed. She did so quietly, not wanting to awaken Beth, who lay next to her, still as the round moon shining a brilliant beacon beneath the half-open window shade.

  Rose trembled at the deathly quiet. The house seemed to sigh as she lay there, her eyes closed in hope of falling back to sleep. But her eyes flew open again at the slightest sound coming from the room directly below. Was Dat still up, pleading for mercy from the Almighty?

  Concerned about Beth’s excessive attention to Mamm’s health, Rose made herself lie still. She continued to strain her ears to listen as she tried to picture what might be happening downstairs. Was the Lord answering their prayers and allowing Mamm to recover from the day’s terrifying ordeal? Would God give Mamm the strength to live?

  She was certain Dat was pacing the floor, praying. . . . Or had he fallen asleep sitting in the chair next to the bed?

  If so, what was that sound just now? Surely not Hen . . . or Mammi Sylvia looking in on Mamm. Perhaps she’d imagined it, just as Gilbert Browning had suggested when Rose had first heard in the Browning kitchen the small stirrings made by Beth overhead. But, as she’d later discovered, she had not been imagining anything of the kind.

  Glancing now at Beth, who’d asked earlier to sleep with two of her teddy bears, Rose sighed with frustration. She would never get back to sleep until she looked in on Mamm. So she slipped out of bed and reached for her bathrobe, lapped over the footboard. She pulled it on and made her way, quiet as a cat, down the hallway to the stairs.

  When she reached her parents’ open bedroom door, she peered inside. Dat was stretched out on top of the quilts, lying near Mamm. They were holding hands as they slumbered, and Rose’s breath caught at the sight of it. She squinted to see if her mother’s chest was rising and falling, and for the longest time she waited, holding her breath and watching fearfully.

  Then, at last, a great breath escaped her mother’s lips. The sweet murmur reassured Rose, and she leaned her head against the doorframe. Thank the dear Lord . . . the worst must be past.

  Rose willed her heart to slow its beating as she returned to her own room. The day had given her a fright. Oh, she never wanted to find out what it might be like to lose dear, dear Mamm!

  Once upstairs, she tiptoed to her side of the bed, wondering if the bishop and his wife experienced such heartbreak each morning, upon first awakening. That first jolting pain—remembering anew that Christian, the only son of their union, was dead. No longer would he sit at his designated spot at the dinner table, or haul hay with his father. No longer will he live the Plain life of his calling.

  Few talked about the loss, far as Rose knew. Yet, she assumed the bishop and Barbara and Christian’s three sisters and their families must surely dwell on it. Surely!

  She imagined Barbara weeping in silence in the wee hours, or while riding alone in the family carriage running errands or going to quilting frolics and canning bees. But did she and the bishop ever openly discuss their loss the way Dat and Mamm seemed to talk about everything?

  Rose honestly didn’t know, and yawning, she rolled over to face the dresser, her back to Beth, who must be missing her father terribly. Just like poor little Mattie Sue . . .

  Everybody misses someone in this old world. Staring across the room at her top dresser drawer, Rose thought of Nick. There, she kept the two notes he’d written her when they were youngsters. The third and most recent note—the one he’d left her on the day of his disappearance—had never made it to the small drawer. She’d seen to that. The too-telling note had been reduced to ashes out behind the barn.

  But there were times, like this hushed and longing-filled moment, when Rose wished she hadn’t been so hasty. She felt so awful torn now, in the predawn hours when things seemed murky and ever so difficult to resolve.

  I don’t know what to think anymore. Rose sighed.

  Following breakfast the next day, Barbara Petersheim came again to see Mamm, who’d stayed in bed
at Dat’s urging. Dat had told Rose earlier, before heading out to his woodworking shop, that Mamm was feeling less nauseous and had even slept a few hours—all wonderful-good news.

  Rose had taken a small dish of chipped ice in to her mother before breakfast and offered some chamomile tea to help settle her stomach, too. “Later, Rose,” Mamm had whispered, which gave Rose further hope.

  Presently Rose regarded Barbara, whose thick brown hair must’ve been washed just today, because it still looked damp. She wore a black dress and apron, the garb of a mother in mourning. And with the dark shawl wrapped around her, she reminded Rose of Nick’s fondness for dark shirts—the grays and blacks he always wore.

  Morbid, really.

  “How’s Emma this mornin’?” Barbara asked Rose.

  “No worse, thank the Good Lord.” She explained that her mother was resting.

  “Mind if I wait till she’s up, then?” The two women were, after all, close neighbors and had been friends for decades—even before Rose’s oldest brother, thirty-one-year-old Joshua, was born.

  “Sure, that’s fine,” Rose said. “Have some tea with me.”

  A few minutes later, Mattie Sue and Beth came over from the Dawdi Haus, Hen following close behind. The girls each had a stuffed animal toy in their arms. “Mommy’s going to the fabric shop,” Mattie Sue told Rose, “so can we play over here?” Mattie eyed the bedroom but ten feet away, where her grandmother lay sound asleep.

  Hen came in the back door. “All right with you, Rose?”

  Rose said she didn’t mind. “I’ll put them to work helping me bake a cake.”

  Mattie Sue’s eyes brightened. “That’ll be fun. Ain’t so, Beth?”

  But Beth had turned and was focused on the door ajar, where Mamm was beginning to stir, calling for Rose.

  Beth needs a distraction, Rose decided, hoping the little surprise she had planned would get her mind off Mamm. “Excuse me just a minute, Beth,” she said.

  Barbara followed close behind Rose. After their short visit with Mamm, Barbara whispered, “I believe your mother’s goin’ to pull out of it.”

  When Rose and Barbara returned to the kitchen, Mattie Sue was eager to say the cat’s name and all about where she’d “found” her, calling to Beth to come show off her cat, too.

  Barbara made over both girls’ toys, then set the animals together side by side on her lap. “Did ya hear the news, Rose? Annie Mast gave birth to identical twin girls last night.”

  “Oh, first we’ve heard.”

  Mattie Sue frowned. “What’s identical?”

  “Well, the babies look almost exactly alike,” explained the bishop’s wife.

  “Like mirrors of each other,” Beth said softly.

  “Jah, that’s right.” Barbara’s face beamed.

  “What’re their names?” Rose asked.

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Mattie Sue seemed taken by the news. “Can we go an’ see the matching babies, Mommy? Can we, pretty please?”

  Rose looked at Hen. “Are ya heading that way . . . just maybe?” She motioned discreetly at the girls.

  “Why, sure. I just need to pick up some facing. Won’t take long at all.” Hen’s smile gave it away: She, too, wanted to go and see the look-alike Mast babies.

  “I’d better stay here with Mamm, though,” Rose said.

  “No, I will,” Beth said, and by the tone of her voice, she meant it.

  Rose was stumped. What could she say? It wasn’t wise for Beth to be the only one looking after Mamm, even for a short time. And Rose certainly didn’t want to offend Beth by saying she would run next door to ask Mammi Sylvia to come instead.

  Barbara, bless her heart, seemed to sense her quandary and suggested she would be glad to stay with Mamm. Beth’s lower lip protruded into a sulk, but within a few seconds, she was smiling again as Mattie Sue reached for her hand and led her out to Hen’s car, their kitty-cats tucked under their arms.

  “We’re going to see babies that look just the same!” Mattie Sue sang as they went.

  Rose quickly prepared a basket of homemade breads and jams and other food items for the newly expanded family, then slipped through the back porch and closed the door. Outside, she caught up with Mattie Sue and Beth, who were holding hands and jabbering to beat the band while waiting to get into the car.

  During the morning drive to the fabric store, then to the Masts’, Hen apologized to Rose. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I should’ve hitched up the horse and carriage and taken it instead of the car.”

  “Not to worry,” Rose replied, but Hen seemed preoccupied with it, as if driving the car again so soon after visiting Brandon the other day was a grave error. “Ain’t like you’re drivin’ it all the time,” Rose told her.

  “It’s such a temptation, though. I’d be better off never driving at all.”

  This worried Rose. Surely her sister didn’t mean she was abandoning all hope of reconciling with Brandon! She did not know what to think about this, or what to say, so she merely watched as the trees and fence posts whizzed past them.

  “You don’t know this, Rose . . . but I’ve been given a time limit to return home,” Hen said softly, doubtless so the girls wouldn’t hear in the back. She beckoned for Rose to lean closer so she could whisper. “Brandon’s threatening me with divorce.”

  No! Tears sprang to Rose’s eyes and she pursed her lips, not uttering a sound. The thing she had feared most for her sister was coming to pass.

  Hen reached for Rose’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Rosie. I wish I hadn’t said anything.”

  When Rose had composed herself, she turned to glance at Mattie Sue, sitting behind Hen and looking out the window, quietly pointing out different Amish neighbors to Beth. Did poor Mattie Sue have any inkling of what might lie in store?

  When they pulled up to the Masts’, Rose saw Silas’s courting buggy and sleek black horse up ahead. Surprised, she looked down into the hollow and saw him standing near the springhouse with Rebekah Bontrager. Then, lo and behold, if he didn’t hand her something white. It looked like an envelope!

  “I think they may have kept in touch,” Cousin Melvin had stated to Rose at Esther’s wedding. Yet Rose had doubted him. As she continued to watch in amazement, Rose noticed again how very comfortable the two of them looked together. Silas was so engrossed in whatever he was saying, he still hadn’t noticed Hen’s car parked just up the way.

  Bowing her head now, Rose struggled to steer her thoughts away from the things Melvin had said on his sister’s wedding day.

  Hen set the brake and opened the door on the driver’s side, and Rose reached for the door handle and stepped out, unable to pull her gaze from the sight of Silas and Rebekah still talking in the private, sheltered area.

  Not wanting to let on to Hen how she felt, Rose straightened her long black apron and followed her sister to the back door of the old farmhouse, their skirts rustling. Mattie Sue and Beth trailed behind Rose, still talking excitedly.

  Rose wasn’t about to peek over her shoulder again, because each look stirred up more unsettled curiosity—curiosity that could lead to jealousy, come to think of it. She wasn’t even sure she should bring it up to Silas when she saw him next. Even so, no one could argue the fact that it was highly unfitting for him to come to see Rebekah.

  Is there a secret between them? Rose wondered as they entered the back porch.

  Chapter 13

  Hen hadn’t realized Annie Mast’s newborn twins would be impossible to tell apart. Except for a single pink strand of yarn tied loosely around one of the baby’s wrists, they looked exactly alike. Baby One and Baby Two were the names Annie had assigned to them “for now.” Annie and her husband were still deciding whether to give them names that sounded similar—names like Annie and Mandie, or Arie and Mary—or names that were unique.

  The wee babes stirred up such a yearning in Hen. Sitting there in Annie’s front room, Hen could hardly wait to hold one of them. And once Baby T
wo was in her arms—the one without the pink wrist yarn—she found herself blinking back tears and looking away, in case Rose, or even Annie, saw her struggling so.

  Mattie Sue sat with her on the sofa, leaning her head against Hen’s arm. Gently rocking the baby, Hen couldn’t keep her eyes off the tiny round face. All the while, the infant slept soundly in her arms, her little pink lips pursed and occasionally making sucking movements.

  “How will you tell which twin is which, without the yarn?” asked Beth out of the blue. She had been standing near the woodstove, shifting her weight back and forth, as she often did.

  Annie smiled tenderly, her eyes tired. She wore a thick yellow bathrobe. “A mother just knows.”

  By the nod of her head and the look on her pretty face, that seemed to satisfy Beth.

  “The yarn is for my husband’s benefit.”

  They all chuckled at that.

  “How long before you give them real names?” Beth asked.

  Hen felt sorry for Beth—the question was more like that of a child than a young adult. Such an innocent young woman.

  Annie responded kindly. “Oh, we’ll decide pretty soon, I think. Prob’ly tomorrow.”

  Hen leaned her head to touch Mattie Sue’s. “Honey, you were this little once,” she whispered.

  “I was?” Mattie Sue’s eyes widened.

  “Teeny tiny.”

  “Did I smell this good, too?” Mattie Sue sniffed the baby’s fuzzy head.

  “You certainly did.”

  Just then, the back door opened, and in came a beautiful brunette, who quickly removed her woolen shawl and outer bonnet and hung them on a hook near the door. Annie introduced her to everyone. “This is Rebekah Bontrager, who used to live near Salem Road with her family some years ago.” She explained that Rebekah was here to help with the newborn twins. Hen vaguely remembered a girl Rose’s age with the same name attending the one-room schoolhouse.

  Rebekah said hello to all of them, glancing at Rose, who offered a little nod in return. Rebekah slipped an envelope into her pocket, then made a beeline for Baby One, asking Annie if she minded. Meanwhile, Rose seemed rather transfixed, her eyes on Rebekah, who caressed and cooed to the tiny infant in her arms.