Keys of Heaven

by Adina Senft

  “It’s probably an Amish taxi.” That many Amish folks in a van probably meant customers, a welcome interruption, so he washed his hands quickly and tucked his shirt into his jeans. An old straw hat hung on a nail next to the door, so he slapped it on his head—not so they’d think he was like them or was giving respect to their traditions, but because it was hot and bright outside the barn, and he had no idea what had become of his sunglasses.

  Two guys were standing on the barn ramp, looking around the farm with their hands on their hips, like Realtors sizing up the value of a place. In the open doors at the back of the van, a girl with tattoos as thickly applied as sleeves on both arms was heaving on a metal box of the kind that musical instruments or other high-end equipment came in.

  “Good morning,” he called, and the two guys swung to face him. “What can I do for you?”

  “Are you Henry Byler?” The older one came forward, his hand outstretched, and Henry shook it.

  “I am.”

  “Great.” His face broke into a smile. “I’m Sol Edwards, and this is Kyle Madison. We’re the film crew that Dave Petersen from D.W. Frith sent to do the video segment.”

  Henry distinctly felt his jaw sag in astonishment. “What?”

  Kyle dug in his jeans pocket for his phone. “We got the date right, didn’t we? Thursday the twenty-fifth?” He scrolled through his e-mail and showed Henry the screen.

  It was a message from Dave Petersen confirming the date and saying that while he hadn’t yet spoken with Henry about the exact time, they were good to go.

  Dave Petersen hadn’t yet spoken with Henry because…well, other than the ones from Ginny, he hadn’t picked up any of his calls. He knew there were messages on his phone, but he’d been so consumed by his work and Ginny and dealing with Eric that nothing else had seemed very important.

  Except that D.W. Frith was important if he planned to have a career. What had he been thinking, ignoring Dave Petersen’s number? Was he setting himself up to fail before he even started?

  “Sorry,” he said, pasting on a smile that he hoped was reassuring. “I’ve been pretty busy and it completely slipped my mind. Can you brief me on what we’re doing?”

  At the van, another box of equipment thumped on top of the first one. Why was the girl doing all the heavy lifting when there were two perfectly strong and healthy men standing here? He took a couple of steps toward her. “Can I help you with that?” he called.

  “No,” she said. “Do I look like I can’t handle it?”

  “Don’t mess with Carmen,” Kyle said. “The cameras are her department, and she will tear your head off if you get a fingerprint on them.”

  Too late, Henry saw Eric emerge from around the back of the van and reach inside.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the girl snapped, her red, angular haircut swinging as she whipped around.

  “Helping you.” Eric froze in mid-motion, his hands around a box about two feet square.

  “Did I ask for help?”

  “You shouldn’t have to ask. If a person sees work that needs to be done, he should pitch in and do it.”

  Henry distinctly heard the echo of Caleb’s voice and, behind that, Sarah’s, but the urge to smile was buried in the need to save Eric from having his head torn off.

  The girl regarded him. “You aren’t Amish.”

  “Nope. But I still want to help. Is this all camera equipment?”

  “Yes. Break something and I break you.”

  “Okay. Where do you want it?”

  “Here for now. I want some establishing shots. Maybe you can be my guide. You live here?”

  “No, I’m taking pottery lessons from Henry. But I can show you stuff.”

  “Deal. Watch that, it’s heavy.”

  Sol exchanged a glance with Kyle. “That’s a first.”

  “I heard that,” Carmen called.

  Henry began to revise his assumptions about exactly who was in charge here. “So what is your plan, Sol? Eric and I were about to start glazing, so if we’re talking hours here, that’s going to affect our schedule.”

  “Not hours, I hope,” Sol replied. “A couple maybe. And I know you Amish are sketchy about having your photo taken, so mostly it’ll be shots of the farm and the surrounding area, which we won’t need you for. For the interview, maybe we could—”

  “I think there might be something lost in translation here,” Henry interrupted gently, before the error went any further. “I’m not Amish.”

  “You’re not?” Sol looked him up and down, and Kyle began to look worried. “You look Amish.”

  Henry pulled off the straw hat, and ran his hands through his distinctly non-Amish haircut. “It’s just a hat that was hanging in the barn. I thought Dave was clear on this. We already talked about it.”

  “That’s not what we were told,” Kyle said. “This video is for the home page of the D.W. Frith website, introducing your line of pottery, right? The marketing department is going crazy about the Amish stuff—back to the land, simplicity for your home, made by hand, all that. They’re thinking fifty thousand hits a day.”

  “I suggest they think about the pottery, not about their marketing slant, then.”

  Sol adjusted his weight, as though he were digging in for some serious persuasion. “You know as well as I do that the marketing brings the customers in, and the product sells them. The creative brief said you were Amish.”

  “I used to be. And I explained to Dave that I’m not now. It wouldn’t be honest to market me, as you say, as something I’m not. The people buying my pieces aren’t getting anything more than the piece itself. They’re getting a Byler bowl, not an Amish bowl.”

  Again the exchange of glances between Sol and Kyle. “That’s what you think. Because what marketing is selling is a shared experience of Amish life, my friend, not just a bowl.”

  “How do you want to play this, then?” Kyle finally asked his colleague, when it was clear Henry—who had run through a dozen things he could say and decided against all of them—wasn’t going to speak. “Because this isn’t how the script reads.”

  “There’s a script?” Henry managed.

  “Talking points,” Sol said, and then raised his voice so the woman at the van could hear. “Yo, Carmen, better cancel the establishing shots of the women and kids in the garden with the bonnets.”

  “Sarah’s probably in her garden,” Eric put in.

  “Never mind Sarah,” Henry said hastily. “Bad enough I might have to do this. I’m absolutely not allowing my Amish neighbors to sell the experience by appearing in a video.”

  Sol looked as though a lightbulb had gone off in his mind. “But that’s how we can get around it,” he said. “The magazine copy is all ‘Amish fields and flowers’ so the outdoor shots can be about that. Your house. Your neighbor’s garden. Bonnets in the distance, you know? No identifying shots or faces—oh yeah, they briefed us on that. Can we do close-ups of you in the hat?”

  “It’s an Amish hat. It says something about the man who wears it—primarily that he belongs to the church.”

  “Yeah, I know. Do you have any suspenders?”

  “No.” Henry was getting more than a little concerned. “I’m not dressing up Amish for this. It would be a lie. I left the church two decades ago and have no plans to go back.”

  Sol looked crestfallen. “No on the hat. And the shirt’s just a plaid shirt, not a solid like those guys in town were wearing. So how are we going to shoot you?”

  Carmen had finished unpacking her equipment, and hefted a video camera the size of a suitcase onto her shoulder. “Okay, kid. Show me some fields and flowers. And a few bonnets would be good.”

  Henry started forward. “No, you can’t—”

  “Mr. Byler, do you want those fifty thousand hits or not?” Sol demanded, clearly coming to the end of his allotment of persuasion. “Either I get this segment filmed today or I don’t get paid, and D.W. Frith is one of my best clients. They’re probably one
of yours, too. Now, do we make them happy using whatever means we have available, or don’t we?”

  If he refused, Henry had no doubt that whoever wanted those fifty thousand hits on the website would make good and sure his pieces were relegated to the bargain basement, and that would be the end of his career outside the confines of the Amish Market in Willow Creek.

  Eric and Carmen were nearly to the top of the hill behind the barn. “Eric, if Sarah is outside, run down and ask her if it would be okay to film her garden. If she’s not, only go to the fence. I won’t allow trespassing.”

  “Great.” Sol brightened, clearly taking this as permission to go ahead with whatever Plan B was. “Kyle, get busy with the lights in the pottery studio so Carmen doesn’t have to stand around waiting when she gets back. Meanwhile, Henry, if you don’t mind, we’ll wire you up with a mic so we can do some voice-overs. Any chance you can sound more Amish?”

  Henry didn’t even reply to that one. Instead, he allowed Kyle to hook a battery pack to his belt at the back, and run a microphone wire up under his shirt to clip on his collar.

  “Now, if there’s anything you don’t feel comfortable answering,” Sol said, “just say, ‘No comment.’ Picture yourself talking to a customer who’s stopped by your studio. Be relaxed, breathe, don’t be afraid to pause and think before you answer. We’re going to scrub everything in post, so any slips of the tongue will be taken out, too. Be natural.”

  Be natural. “That’s an un-Amish concept. The natural is something to be overcome in favor of the spiritual.”

  Sol nodded at Kyle, who nodded back, and Henry realized he was being recorded.

  “So in one way, I’m going against my upbringing when I focus my work on natural forms, but in another way, I’m celebrating the shapes and curves that the Amish believe God made, and turning the lily of the field into something that can be used in home and kitchen.”

  There. That wasn’t so hard.

  As Henry talked, he thought less about the man he used to be and more about the man he was now. He talked about his process, and the more he told Sol about the forms he created and the glazing method he’d discovered down in the creek bottom, the more Sol drew him out until his philosophy of art was articulated in full.

  When Carmen came back, Eric was still in tow and Caleb was with him. “Who’s this?” Sol wanted to know. “Do we have a release to film him?”

  “No,” Henry said quickly. “This is Caleb, and he’s underage.”

  “It’s all right, Henry,” Caleb said. “This lady already filmed Mamm and me from the top of the hill. She promised she wouldn’t show our faces. I wanted to come and see. I’ve never seen a film before.”

  “Caleb, I want you to go home.” He wouldn’t put it past any of this crew to sneak a few shots of the boy without anyone being the wiser. That’s all he would need, is to have Caleb’s face seven hundred pixels wide on fifty thousand computer screens.

  “But Henry, I just wanted to—”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. Take Eric with you.”

  “Henry!” they both complained.

  “Now, please. Eric, I’ll come over and get you when I’m ready to start on the glazing.”

  Slumping, dragging their heels, the boys slouched out of the barn and their voices faded as they climbed the hill.

  “That was a shot for a different commercial,” Carmen remarked. “Did I really just see two teenage boys do what they were told?”

  “Never mind,” Sol said. “Come on over here and we’ll film Henry working. Tight focus on his hands, and Henry, if you’ll just wear the hat, we can do some three-quarter shots from above with the voice-over.”

  Pointedly, Henry hung the hat on its nail near the barn doors, and took his seat at the wheel. Sol sighed and turned away to give Kyle some instructions about the lighting.

  Maybe the key was to be very un-Amish and not cooperate much. The sooner he did that, the sooner he could get this crew out of his barn and get back to work.

  Chapter 28

  Sarah set off for sisters’ day at Corinne’s with a couple of jars of face cream for Amanda in her basket, a letter for Corinne in her pocket, and a heart lighter than it had been for some time. The prospect of actually sewing had always been a daunting one for her, and her family seemed to have determined by mutual consent that she should be the one in the background of a quilting frolic making everyone comfortable—seeing that there was enough coffee made, preparing the snack for after the work was done, and sweeping up the cut threads around the quilting frame.

  As long as no one put a needle in her hand and expected ten stitches to the inch, it was a place she was happy to fill.

  Corinne’s delight at the sight of the letter warmed Sarah’s heart. Her mother-in-law wanted for nothing, so it wasn’t often Sarah could give her a gift that made her as happy as sharing a letter from Simon.

  Dear Mom,

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table in the big house with a few minutes to spare before Teresa the cook gives me my next job to do. I wanted to thank you again for sending the leaves and things so fast. They seem to be working. Joe—who is a pretty good doctor—changes the dressing every night before we go to bed, and while it’s a messy business, it’s better than losing the toe, or at least the nail. It’s still pretty ugly, but the swelling is going down fast. The foreman wants to know what’s in the leaves that does that. Maybe you could tell him when you write next. And probably send another big jar of B&W because this one is only going to last another week.

  They keep me busy in the kitchen. I’ve peeled more potatoes than I ever knew existed in the world, mixed biscuits, kneaded bread, dropped cookie batter on sheets by the hundreds, and even mixed up a cake or two. Teresa says I’m real handy in the kitchen, but I’d sure rather be out on the trail with Joe.

  He’s gone again this week, with a family group from some big city in the Midwest. There are probably seven girls around our age in the group, plus four guys our age and a little younger, plus a bunch of kids and all the adults, so he and the trail boss are going to have their hands full.

  One of the girls was making eyes at him. Don’t tell Priscilla. He carries Pris’s letters around in his pocket. Don’t tell her that, either.

  One thing about being laid up is it gives you lots of time to think. And while they’re real nice here and are treating me like I’m actually doing the job they hired me to do, it’s not home. I don’t know what Joe’s got in his mind, but I’m thinking that when the snow flies in October, I’ll get back on that train and come on home. I miss you and Caleb and Grandma and Grandpa and the family. Even if I was walking properly, we probably aren’t going to get down to the Amish settlement until September, when things start to slow down here at the ranch. It feels funny not going to church. Guess I’m not cut out for Rumspringing and the English life the way some people are.

  I hope you are keeping well. Please share this with the family.

  Love from your son,

  Simon

  “That is such gut news,” Corinne breathed, passing the letter on to Amanda, who read it eagerly while Miriam did the same over her shoulder. “I know you didn’t want him to go out there and did everything you could to stop it—but Sarah, if it makes him realize his need for God and the church, then it has all been for the best.” Corinne took her seat on one side of the new quilt, a Flower Basket that she and Amanda had pieced and was now neatly pinned to its batting and backing and rolled up on the frame, ready for its first stitches.

  “I see that now,” Sarah said, “but if I had it all to do over again, I’m not sure I could stop myself from trying to do the same.”

  Amanda handed the letter to Barbara Byler and went out of the room. When the door closed to the bathroom down the hall, Sarah pulled up a chair next to Corinne and said in a low tone, “What has happened to Amanda? She’s so pale. Is she sick?”

  “Lovesick,” Miriam murmured, threading her needle with a long skein of black thread.

 
A niggle of worry swam through Sarah’s stomach. So much had been happening in her own life and that of her patients that she had not given a single thought to Silas, who had been staying with Miriam and Joshua. “What happened?”

  “I wish I knew,” Corinne said. “She hasn’t confided in me. She just keeps refusing dessert and half her dinner and won’t say what’s on her heart.”

  “She talks to you,” Miriam said to Sarah. Down the hall, the toilet flushed, and she said quickly, “See if you can get her to tell you what the problem is. Because she’s not acting like the usual girl in love.”

  Amanda wasn’t like other girls, so that wasn’t surprising. Then again…lack of sleep and weight loss weren’t so unusual if you were staying up late with someone and trying to slim down a little. But as Sarah moved between kitchen and dining room, stealing glances at Amanda’s face and downcast eyes as her dutiful needle rocked through the layers of the quilt, she realized that the girl hadn’t been using the skin cream she’d given her, either.

  A woman who wanted to bloom for her man by losing weight would not skip the skin regimen that would add to that bloom.

  Something was wrong.

  There was nothing to do but bide her time until the quilting was done. The quilters spent the morning anchoring the layers of the quilt, beginning in the middle and stitching in the ditch along the flower basket blocks. They managed to anchor about half the queen-sized quilt before sore hands demanded that they break for snack time and coffee. Even then, Amanda did not seem inclined to take herself off alone so that Sarah could corner her. It wasn’t until Miriam and Barbara had gone, taking their oldest sister and her two nearly grown-up daughters with them, that Sarah and Amanda finished doing the dishes and Sarah saw her chance.

  “Amanda, maybe you could come out to the garden with me? Corinne said she has a big crop of dock leaves out behind the springhouse, and I want to send Simon another batch. Between him and the little boys around here this summer, mine are nearly all used up.”

  Amanda hesitated, but her giving nature overcame whatever had briefly held her back. “I’ll get the garden scissors.”