The Bishop's Daughter

by Patricia Johns

  “He can’t come back, Mamm!” Sadie’s voice rose to meet her mother’s. They wouldn’t understand—they hadn’t seen him, seen his life there. She wished that his choices made less sense—it would hurt less if there was some hope, or at least some indignant anger at his outrageous behavior. But she had neither.

  Daet sat in somber silence, and when Sadie looked toward him, she read the grief in his face. He rubbed his hand over his gray hair.

  “If this were another family,” he said slowly, “I would advise shunning.”

  Sadie’s mouth went dry. “Daet, please don’t. He asked me to write to him. There might still be hope!”

  “You are already defending his worldly ways.” Daet shook his head. “I have to consider the community—the weaker members of the church who might stumble because of my own weakness.”

  “It isn’t weakness to love your son!” Sadie was too tired to dampen her words. “I have a son of my own, and, Daet, I’d swim oceans for him.” Tears prickled at her eyes.

  “I have more children than just one,” Daet said, his voice low and thick with emotion. “I have an entire congregation, as well. The Good Shepherd might have gone after his missing lamb, but he didn’t do so at the risk of the rest of the flock.”

  Sadie looked toward her mother, but Mamm stood immobile, her face ashen.

  “Daet—” Sadie rubbed her hands over her face. “Please, Daet.”

  “It is better for us to face facts than to have the elders come and inform us that we’re straying from the Ordnung. I won’t risk your reputation any further. We will never speak of this visit to your brother, and I will tell the elders of my decision for a vote.”

  Shunned. The word was ugly and sharp in her heart. It wouldn’t be so very different from the way Absolom lived now, but it would solidify his position of outsider. And his letters would go unopened instead of just unanswered. No one would be permitted to speak to him, to look at him, to have anything to do with him until he came back, humble and penitent.

  Small feet sounded on the stairs, and Sadie turned to see her bleary-eyed son coming down.

  “Mamm?” he whimpered.

  “Mamm is back,” Sadie said with a misty smile. “Come here, sugar.”

  Samuel descended the last of the stairs, and she picked him up in her arms, cuddling him close. He smelled of the soap his grandmother had washed him with before bed, and Sadie closed her eyes, breathing him in. Her little boy.

  “Sadie,” Mamm said, and Sadie opened her eyes to see her mother’s agonized face. “Your brother isn’t a little boy any longer.”

  And she knew that—but she didn’t care how big Sammie got; he’d never stop being hers.

  “If you saw how sad he was . . .” Sadie said.

  “Does he care about my broken heart?” Mamm asked, her lips quivering with repressed tears. “Does he care about your daet’s heart?”

  Sadie looked around, as if she could find some answer hidden in the walls or the windows. She’d gone to see her brother in hopes of giving him a bridge back home, but she’d discovered that it wasn’t the bridge that was holding him back.

  “He cares! He’s just . . . trapped.”

  Samuel squirmed in her arms and he caught one of her kapp strings, tugging it loose. Sadie reached back to pluck her kapp free, along with the bobby pin that held it in place. She’d bring him back to bed and tuck him in properly.

  “Don’t think I love him any less than you love Samuel,” Mamm said, pressing her lips together to hold back the tears. “The Lord disciplines those He loves.”

  Sadie turned toward the stairs and started up them. Samuel was heavy now, and he felt like he’d grown over the last day—fitting into her arms just a little differently than he had last night. She climbed the stairs carefully, feeling her way since she couldn’t see her feet past Sammie. As she made it to the top stair, she heard her mother’s sobs burst out through the kitchen.

  “My son . . .” Mamm wept. “Oh, Absolom, my son, my son . . .”

  And her father’s deep voice, hoarse with grief, murmured back to her.

  Sadie looked down at her kapp in her hand. It represented submission before God and before the men God put over her. She’d always accepted that submission as a fact of life, but now she realized just how dangerous a potential husband could be. She’d be under his authority—as would her son—just like they were under Daet’s authority here at home.

  Sadie held Samuel a little closer as she carried him into her darkened bedroom. She knew the way by feel, and she brought him to his little bed.

  “No, Mamm,” Sammie pleaded. “Sleep with you . . .”

  “No, you’ll sleep in your own bed, son,” she said, kissing his forehead. “And I’ll be in mine. But it’s very late, and we both need to sleep, all right?”

  Samuel’s pale face crumpled into tears, and he reached for her. He’d missed her—he’d gone a whole day away from her—and she didn’t have the heart to push him away. Sadie sank into the rocking chair in the corner instead, snuggling her son into her lap.

  One day she would be forced to marry, and that thought was even more frightening than it had been before, because Samuel wouldn’t be the natural child of whatever man chose her. And that was even more of a danger than she’d realized, because Samuel didn’t have a living father to match her ardent love for him. No one on God’s green earth loved this child just as deeply as she did.

  No one.

  But marry she must.

  * * *

  The next morning, Elijah arrived early at the Graber farm and unhitched his buggy in the barn. The morning quiet was punctuated by the first twitter of birds as the sun eased up over the horizon, spilling rosy light over the cattle-dotted fields. Elijah kicked the door to the buggy barn shut behind him and was about to head toward the cow barn when he saw the bishop standing on the porch.

  Elijah hesitated—did the old man want something from him, or was he simply standing in the cool morning air?

  “Elijah.” The bishop’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried, and Elijah suppressed a sigh. He suspected that the bishop would want to ask about his son, but Elijah had nothing to tell him that Sadie couldn’t.

  Elijah headed in the older man’s direction, and the bishop came down the steps, meeting him down on the grass.

  “Good morning, sir,” Elijah said.

  “Thank you for bringing my daughter home safely,” the bishop said quietly. “I appreciate your willingness to help us in this matter.”

  Elijah nodded in acknowledgment.

  “I’m sure we can count on your discretion still . . .”

  “Of course.” He wouldn’t be discussing this outside of his own home, and neither would his parents.

  “Good.” The older man paused. “Sadie told us about Absolom’s situation. I understand why you weren’t able to bring him back home with you.”

  “Thank you.” It wasn’t exactly the response he’d expected. Elijah tucked a thumb into the front of his pants.

  Elijah was less worried about Absolom right now than he was about Sadie. She’d try to be strong for her parents, but she’d been shaken by the view into her brother’s world . . . and maybe he should have expected that, but he thought that she’d use judgment and religious certainty as a shield. He’d even considered the possibility that she might offer a little discipline of her own to Sharon’s wild and unruly son—but her heavy heartbreak had been worse. Elijah could still remember that distinctive scent of Sadie’s hair as he wrapped his arms around her, trying for just one moment to be enough.

  The bishop started to walk slowly toward the cow barn, and Elijah matched his pace. The older man wanted to say something—Elijah could feel the unspoken words humming in the air around him. Would this be the end of his employment? He couldn’t imagine that the bishop was keeping him around for more reason than Elijah’s connection to his son. Elijah would almost be relieved if the bishop replaced him, let him lick his wounds and get over whatever new, un
settling feelings he seemed to be developing for the bishop’s daughter all over again.

  “You said before that I am more flexible for my own family than I am for anyone else,” Bishop Graber said, coming to a stop.

  They reached the gravel road that led up to the cattle barn, and Elijah let his gaze travel up the curving road.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” Elijah said at last.

  “You were right. I was willing to give Absolom more grace than I’d have given anyone else’s son.”

  “Including me?” Elijah asked bitterly.

  The bishop’s face clouded, but he nodded. “You were the reason my son left, Elijah. And while I do my best to be unbiased, I may have allowed my personal feelings to cloud my decisions.”

  “He would have left, with or without me,” Elijah said, his voice low.

  “No, there you are wrong.”

  “Am I?” Elijah asked, looking up to meet the bishop’s gaze. “Can you be so sure?”

  “Are you saying he lied to us when he said he would bring you back?” The older man laughed bitterly. “No, my son is many things, but not a liar.”

  “He was angry,” Elijah said. “Yes, I pushed him to come with me, but I also asked him to come home with me several times over the years, and he turned me down. You expected perfection from him. Other boys could make a mistake, but if Absolom did, he was whipped.”

  “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” The bishop’s voice was less certain now.

  “Spare the rod once in a while, and your son might not hate you so much that he leaves the community,” Elijah snapped back.

  “I quote the Bible. What’s your foundation?” There was a low, dangerous simmer in the old man’s eyes now.

  “I’m simply looking at the fact that Absolom left and never looked back.”

  Bishop Graber looked ready to retort, but then he sighed. “Don’t question a father’s love, Elijah Fisher. I did all I could to bring him back into salvation. I did more than I’d have allowed anyone else to do. And in that, I was wrong.” The older man nodded several times. “Very wrong.”

  Was he? Was compassion and an honest attempt to reach out to his son a mistake? The bishop should have bent more readily for other people’s sons, other children who turned their backs on the community . . . but he hadn’t done wrong by Absolom. Elijah might have said so, but the bishop raised a hand to silence him.

  “It is time to stop bending with the wind and whim of a disobedient boy.”

  Elijah’s breath froze in his throat. “What do you mean?”

  “I have done more for my son than I allowed even your father to do for you. Now, I must do as I advise others. It is time to shun.”

  Shunning? Elijah swallowed. “Bishop . . . please . . .”

  “No, there is no need for that,” the bishop said with a tired sigh. “I have prayed and prayed over this matter, and I vowed to the Lord that if my son didn’t return with you, that I’d follow the Lord’s will through the Ordnung.”

  “He is already so far away,” Elijah pressed. “Is it even necessary? If you shut him out this way—”

  “You yourself told me that I am unfair in the public eye,” the bishop interrupted. “If I don’t take this step, the community will be weakened. I must not show favoritism. My son is in full defiance. The only answer is to shun him until he is willing to confess his sin and return home.”

  It was a cruel twist on Elijah’s words. Now, not only was Elijah responsible for Absolom’s defection, but he was responsible for his shunning, too. All because he’d pointed out the bishop’s bias.

  “Does Sadie know?” Elijah asked woodenly.

  “Yes, she knows.”

  Did she blame him, too? That’s what he wanted to know, but he couldn’t ask that. If Elijah had taken his anger and left the community alone, it all might have been different . . .

  “I will send for the elders today,” the bishop went on, “and we will discuss the matter and take a vote.”

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  If the bishop heard him, he showed no sign of it.

  “Do not contact my son again,” the bishop said, his words heavy and slow. “Do not answer his letters, or even open them. We are permitted to help him if he is going to suffer unduly, but we will not eat with him, talk with him, or even look at him until he has chosen the narrow path once more.”

  Elijah knew the rules for shunning. What Amish person didn’t? It was a horrible consequence where the community had to cooperate in the punishment of the person in question. Everyone had a hand in it, and as long as Elijah was living with his parents, he would be forced to participate, too.

  I shouldn’t have taken her to see her brother. He’d known it was a mistake from the start. He’d known that Absolom couldn’t come back as easily as all that, and now his father’s hand had been forced. Absolom would be formally separated from everyone he’d ever known and loved in Morinville.

  All because of a quiet moment in the dark with Sadie. . . . Who was he fooling? Elijah hadn’t been trying to help her—he’d been offering her the only thing he could give that no other man could provide, and he’d proven himself to be even more damaging to her well-being than he’d imagined.

  “Do you still want me to work for you?” Elijah asked.

  “Yah. Of course. You’ve done well by us, Elijah Fisher.” The bishop reached out and squeezed Elijah’s shoulder. So welcoming, so approving. Why? Was it because he knew their secrets?

  “Then I should get to work.” Without waiting to be dismissed, Elijah turned his steps toward the barn.

  Shunning.

  Elijah had only wanted to let Sadie connect with her brother, but it seemed like everything he touched was soiled somehow. He’d come back to Morinville to help his parents, but he wasn’t improving Sadie’s life by being here. If he really cared about her, he’d take a big step back and let her put together the traditional Amish life she craved.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sadie bent down and kissed Sammie’s damp forehead. It was naptime, and as predicted, Samuel had been following her around all day, wanting hugs and attention. He hadn’t completely forgiven her for being gone the day before, and she knew he could sense the tension around the house, even though no one would speak about Absolom in front of the boy. Especially now. But the silent grief was still there—the disappointment that reaching out to Absolom hadn’t changed a thing.

  Sadie pushed the window open another few inches to let a tenuous breeze into the bedroom, and as she looked outside, she saw a buggy coming up the drive. Sadie waited until it came closer, and she recognized the girl holding the reins—her friend, Mary Beiler.

  “Now you go to sleep, Sammie,” she said. “You understand?”

  Sammie rolled over onto his side, his eyes wide open. He’d fall asleep, but it was taking longer the last few weeks. So small still, but she could see the bigger boy inside of him starting to emerge. If he’d only hold off on that a little longer.

  Sadie headed down the stairs. Mamm was seated at the table shucking a bucket of peas from the garden. Her mother looked wan, faint circles under her eyes.

  “Where are you going?” Mamm asked.

  “Mary Beiler just drove up,” Sadie said, and Mamm looked toward the side door instinctively, then to the sitting room where Daet was sleeping in the rocking chair again.

  “Well, don’t take too long,” Mamm said, her voice low. “I’ve got your sister weeding the garden, and I’m going to need you to check on the goats.”

  They exchanged a somber look, and Sadie nodded. “I’ll go check on them as soon as I see what Mary needs. Don’t worry, Mamm. When Daet wakes up, you can tell him I’ve already done it.”

  Sadie headed out the side door, catching the screen door so that it wouldn’t slam. It felt like a death in the family, except that their grief couldn’t be shared. Sadie had been so hopeful that seeing her brother would make some kind of difference, but the letdown had been almost physica
lly painful. And now, Daet was determined to have Absolom shunned.

  It wouldn’t bring him back, it would only allow the family to save face, as if that even mattered anymore.

  Mary reined in her horses, and from here Sadie could see that her face was ashen, and her eyes were rimmed in red. Sadie picked up her pace and crossed the lawn.

  “Mary?” Sadie stopped at the side of the buggy, looking up into her friend’s face. “What’s the matter?”

  Mary’s face crumpled into tears, and she covered her face in her hands. Sadie hoisted herself up into the buggy and settled onto the seat next to her friend. Something was terribly wrong, and her heart hammered just a little faster. Had someone died? Had there been an accident? Sadie grabbed Mary’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze.

  “What’s happened, Mary?”

  “It’s Jonathan—” Mary choked back a sob. “He just . . . he came by and he . . . we were supposed to get married, Sadie!”

  “What do you mean, were?” Sadie asked, confused. “He didn’t call it off, did he?”

  Mary nodded, wiping her eyes. “An hour ago. He drove up in his buggy, told me we needed to talk, and said he couldn’t do it.”

  “Just like that?” Sadie looked toward the garden where Rosmanda was pulling weeds, and her sister looked toward them, but didn’t stop her work. Had her sister really managed to break them up? It hardly seemed possible. Rosie was young still—definitely naïve. Did Jonathan really think he felt that strongly for a sixteen-year-old girl?

  “Oh, Mary, I’m so sorry . . .”

  “I don’t understand it,” Mary went on, sniffling into a handkerchief. “One day he says he can’t wait to make me his wife, and the next he’s telling me he never loved me. How is that possible?”

  “Is there another girl?” Sadie asked.

  “Who?” Mary spread her hands. “I can’t see who he’d be with!”

  Sadie knew exactly who Jonathan Yoder had been fooling around with, but she was shocked that he’d actually called off his engagement. Rosmanda had insisted that they were in love—could there really be more between them than Sadie had imagined? She’d thought this was mostly one-sided, that Jonathan would tire of flirting with her sister soon enough, and Rosie would end up with a broken heart and a mite more wisdom . . . but a broken engagement changed things.