Keys of Heaven

by Adina Senft

  Oh, my. The teenagers would have no problem watching this video. But Jacob and Corinne were here, too—what would they have to say about such a thing coming into the house?

  “You don’t want to watch me on an empty stomach, is why,” Henry joked. “Say, Sarah, did I see Trent Parker as we drove in? This is his vehicle, right?”

  “It is,” she replied. “Eric took him inside to see the lantern he made. I think you might be needed in Eric’s room.”

  They all trooped into the house, and while Henry and Ginny went upstairs, Sarah got herself into the kitchen to find that Amanda had finished making the salad. Jacob carried the meat in on a big platter, and in the general commotion of collecting everyone from house and yard and making introductions and getting the food onto the table, Sarah pushed away all the thoughts that were disturbing and simply concentrated on making sure her strange collection of guests was comfortable.

  Trent hitched his chair closer to the table and reached for the macaroni. “Say, this looks good. I haven’t had macaroni and cheese that wasn’t out of a box since I was a kid.”

  “Dad—” Eric clutched his arm. “Not yet.”

  “What?” Trent looked down at the boy next to him.

  “Grace, Dad.”

  Jacob came to his rescue as Trent slowly lowered his arm. “We say a silent grace before and after our meal, to thank God for the blessings he has given us.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  In the ensuing silence, Sarah did her best to focus on der Herr and her gratitude for His blessings, chief among them being that Jacob was here to preside at the table in Michael’s place. His humility was his greatest strength. No one could be offended—not even Trent Parker—when Jacob explained their customs in such a gentle but firm way.

  Thank You for that gentle strength, Lord, because it and not anything I could do is probably the reason that Eric has been so teachable in our homes.

  Henry had a little of that humble strength, which probably helped when Eric was in his studio, learning. All in all, the menfolk around her were good examples to young boys.

  When some of them weren’t dating worldly women.

  Jacob lifted his head and cleared his throat, and Sarah snatched her wandering thoughts from where they’d gone and stuffed them back in the corner of her mind where they belonged.

  She passed the macaroni and cheese to Trent herself. “So, what did you think of young Eric’s lantern? He showed it to me last night, when I went in to say good night. I thought it was beautiful—and practical, too. We’re quite fond of candles around here, aren’t we, Caleb?”

  Caleb grinned back as Trent dished up his plate and one for his son. “It is a nice piece of work,” Trent conceded. “I’m not sure it was worth putting his mother through what he did, or of inconveniencing you folks for two weeks, though.”

  “He did not inconvenience us.” Jacob passed the platter loaded with pork chops, and followed it with applesauce. “I admit I was disturbed that he had disobeyed his parents in such a dangerous and foolish manner, but in my mind he has paid for his sin.” His lips twitched as though he had thought of something that amused him. “Haven’t you, Eric?”

  “Ja, have I ever,” Eric muttered. “A week of shoveling manure paid for that and every bad thing I ever did in my life.”

  Sarah smiled at his unconscious use of Deitsch. “You must still make it up with your parents,” she said gently. “Remember what we spoke of.”

  “Yeah? I like the sound of this,” Trent said.

  “Eric?” she prompted.

  “Help when it’s not asked for, look for a way to make someone happy when I’m bored, and make the beds,” he said.

  “You’ll make the beds?” his father asked. “For real?”

  “And very well, too,” Priscilla said. “I taught him how at the Inn.”

  “And he can make a pie as well,” Sarah told Trent. “He is better at filling than crust, but he has lots of time to practice.”

  “I’d buy a ticket to see that,” Trent said. “I don’t think anyone has ever made a pie in our kitchen at home. I don’t even think we own a pie pan.”

  “Then I’ll be the first,” Eric told him. “What’s your favorite?”

  “Blackberry.”

  “As soon as we get home, we can buy the ingredients. And a pie pan. You’ll see.”

  “Done.”

  Henry reached for a helping of salad. “You can be pr—glad that Eric is learning these kinds of skills, Trent. He has a natural talent with his hands, and a creative mind. I know it’s none of my business, but I hope you’ll reconsider your decision about the arts high school. Eric has worked hard and I believe that work ethic will carry over into his education.”

  Trent cut his chop and chewed for a moment. After he swallowed, he said, “If everything was as great as you say, that work ethic should carry over to his education no matter where it is.”

  “That’s true.” Henry leaned over to catch Eric’s eye two places away. “But his passion is art, and harnessing that passion this young will go a long way to making him successful in the field he chooses.”

  “He’s only thirteen.”

  “Our boys often know what they are going to do with the skills God has given them by the time they are thirteen,” Jacob said. He took the pea salad from Priscilla with a nod. “Caleb here has turned his hand to construction, and lately I have seen him drawing barns in the dirt.” Jacob lifted an eyebrow at his grandson. Even Sarah gazed at him in surprise. “You have been to a barn raising or two, haven’t you?” Jacob said to her boy with affection. “You know that there is always a foreman who directs the others—a man with the design and shape of the building in his mind. Without that man, the crews are only able to do their individual parts of the work. But the foreman brings them all together to create the structure. Someday, Caleb might just be that man.”

  Oh, he was a clever one, was her father-in-law. Without saying a word about it, a person could get his meaning if they were so inclined—that God directed every part of a young man’s life and the people in it so that His plan could be realized. None of them knew what God’s plan was for young Eric. But she had done her individual part for him, and so had Henry, and so had Priscilla and Benny. Maybe his time here would set him on a different path. Maybe it wouldn’t. But her job now was to leave him in God’s hands as he left her own, and pray for him.

  “So what you’re saying is that I should support this art school plan, even though his mother and I both feel it would be rewarding bad behavior?”

  “The cows have done that already,” Eric mumbled.

  When Jacob and Corinne remained silent, Sarah realized that they were prompting her to speak. “Eric has made a good point,” she said with a smile at him. “I don’t think his stay with us was quite the holiday he might have expected, but he rose to the challenge. He has learned a little of the value of obedience and hard work, and he reaped the reward of learning from someone who has done well in his craft. Wouldn’t you say so, Henry?”

  “I would, compliments aside,” Henry said. “And Eric, even if your dad says that art school isn’t in the plan, you’d be very welcome to come back here next summer and study with me again.”

  “You could stay with us!” Caleb said. “And Simon will be home then and you can meet him.”

  Sarah didn’t expect Trent to say yes to this school plan, and he didn’t. But as he cleaned the last of the food from his plate, she could see that he was thinking hard.

  She rose and began to clear away the dishes, and Priscilla got up, too. Then, to her surprise, Eric did as well—and of course if he did, then Caleb couldn’t very well sit while his guest put himself in the place of the servant. So she had more helpers than a woman could ask for and the table was cleared, the food put away, and the dishes done in record time.

  Trent didn’t miss this behavior, either, and rubbed Eric’s shoulder affectionately when they all seated themselves again to watch the video on Ginny’s tabl
et. Even Corinne and Jacob hovered behind Sarah’s chair, their curiosity combining with courtesy toward her Englisch guests. They would never criticize or comment on the device in her home, she saw now. It would go away with Ginny and that would be that.

  The website came up and there was a picture of one of Henry’s batter bowls, one whose handle ended in a spray of—were those peony leaves?—on the side of the bowl. Ginny tapped a little arrow and music came out of the tablet.

  The picture changed to the long view from the top of Sarah’s hill, out over the farms and fields of her neighbors, the camera moving from left to right as though someone were taking it in. And there in the distance was her own house, and her bent figure in the garden.

  “That’s you, Mamm!” Caleb said.

  Sarah blushed scarlet, though anyone outside her family would never be able to tell who it was. She couldn’t help it—she glanced in appeal at Jacob. “They asked my permission, but I told them they must not show my face.”

  “They have not,” Jacob said. “Many of our friends have been in these films in the past. It means nothing to us, daughter, and if it helps our neighbor Henry in making his living, then it has done no harm.”

  Sarah relaxed in relief. After this, she could almost enjoy the little film. The light in it was beautiful—they had caught the sun at her favorite time of day, when it lay soft and golden on the garden.

  “In the fields and lanes of Amish country, you’re likely to see horse-drawn buggies and a simple people dressed in clothes like those their grandparents and great-grandparents wore,” said a friendly woman’s voice. The scene changed and a horse clopped past pulling a buggy. The viewer got a glimpse of a beard and a hint of an organdy Kapp through the open windows. The buggy passed the camera and Caleb stifled a giggle.

  “That was Paul Byler’s buggy!” he said, his voice choked with laughter. “Oh, won’t he be surprised he’s on a video!”

  Thank goodness they had not been able to see full faces. Paul would be a lot more than surprised—if he ever found out about it. As Jacob had said, it meant nothing to them.

  “Nestled among the flowers and trees is the studio of Henry Byler, whose artistry was recently discovered on a trip to Amish country,” the woman said warmly.

  The picture changed to Henry’s lane, then focused on the barn. The viewer passed through the door to see Henry at the potter’s wheel, working on a batter bowl. The camera narrowed in on his hands, and Sarah was struck once again by the strength in them, and the gentle but sensuous way he manipulated the clay to encourage it to take the shape he wanted.

  “Henry’s natural talent with clay and glazes has blossomed in his Amish home,” the lady said. “He observes the shapes and curves found in nature and transforms humble clay into beauty for the home, bringing Amish simplicity and that same closeness to nature into pieces for your kitchen.”

  Henry sat back, as if he had been pushed away from the screen.

  The camera focused closely on a batter bowl, following the curve of the handle, the light hitting it just right so that the leaf shape where it met the body of the bowl glistened. And behind it, in the near distance, hung an Amish man’s straw hat, as if to make the connection between it and Henry’s art.

  “Oh, no,” Henry whispered.

  But the lady wasn’t finished yet. “Let D.W. Frith share Amish beauty and simplicity with you this autumn, and bring nature and all its goodness into your own home.”

  On the road that ran in front of Henry’s and Sarah’s places, another buggy clopped past and receded into the dip where the creek ran, then came up the hill on the other side. The viewer’s last sight was of the buggy cresting the rise, as if to say, “Buy a bowl and be uplifted.”

  Henry pressed a depression in the front of the tablet, and the music shut off and the screen went dark.

  “What’s the matter, hon?” Ginny said. “I thought it was beautiful.”

  “I did, too,” Priscilla said. “Even your cousin Paul’s buggy.”

  “Oh, it was beautiful, all right,” Henry said. “Too bad it was all a story. Every word in it was true—and at the same time, a complete lie.”

  Chapter 31

  Why?” Eric asked, puzzled. “Aren’t you selling your bowls at D.W. Frith after all?”

  Henry did his best to get a grip on himself, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded. “I am—but only because it’s too late to pull out. Don’t you see? I told them specifically I wasn’t Amish. I told them over and over again.” He pushed his chair back and got up from the table. “Not once does it say in that video that I’m Amish, and yet the whole thing implies it. It’s a lie. How am I going to explain this?”

  “Who do you have to explain it to?” Ginny’s amber eyes searched his face. “We all know it’s an advertisement, and only little kids believe everything in an ad is true.”

  “What if someone comes down here on a holiday and visits the studio?” Henry turned to her in agitation. “They’ll see in a minute that I’m not Amish. They’ll think I’m a liar, riding the Amish coattails to make a buck.”

  “They’ll be coming to see your pottery, hon, and buy quilts and eat good food.” Ginny’s gaze was sympathetic, her tone as soothing as though she were calming a spooked horse. Which was exactly how he felt. “Besides, if anyone makes comments about false representation, you can tell them you didn’t make the video. D.W. Frith did.”

  Not so helpful. She wasn’t seeing the point. But maybe only someone who had once been Amish and had chosen to leave would know what it was like to be strapped into that harness, to be thrust back under the same standard, even if it were only in the mind of the viewer.

  Which was not something he could articulate in a roomful of his Amish neighbors, all of whom he liked and respected.

  “Ginny’s right, Henry,” Priscilla put in, her young face bright with encouragement. “People will be coming for your pottery, really, not to see if you’re Amish. And besides, now that you and Ginny are engaged, it will be so obvious you’re not Amish that folks will realize it has to be the store’s fault, not yours.”

  “Engaged?” Sarah and Ginny said together.

  “Why, sure.” Priscilla’s smile filled her whole face. “I totally forgot until this minute to say how happy I am—and congratulations!”

  If Henry had been having a hard time getting his feelings out before, it was nothing to what he felt now. He stared at the girl, his mouth working around words that wouldn’t come, and watching as both light and smile faded from her face.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “Was it supposed to be a secret? Did I do wrong by speaking up?”

  Ginny. What was Ginny thinking? Henry turned to see the same flummoxed look on her face as must be on his own.

  “I—we—who—” His mouth flapped but no sense came out.

  “So it’s true, then,” Sarah said, visibly pulling herself together.

  “I can’t think where you might have—”

  But Benny cut him off in a rush. “If that’s true, then is the rest of it true? You’re going to go and live at the Inn with Ginny? Because I’ll tell you this, no matter what Sarah says to my aunt, she ain’t coming to live on his farm and leaving us. Not now that we finally got something going with the phone company. She needs us, and the baby needs us, and we need her!”

  “Live on the—”

  “Who says they’re—”

  “Baby!” Sarah’s voice cut through the babble and commotion like a scalded knife. “What baby? Is Linda expecting?”

  “Ja,” Benny said. “She told us at supper last night and you should just see how happy Onkel Crist is. But that don’t mean they’re going to do like you said and move onto Henry’s place. Why should they?”

  “Now, wait just a minute here!” Henry roared. He wasn’t the type to holler. In fact, he didn’t think he’d raised his voice in at least a decade. But the sudden silence that fell in Sarah’s kitchen because of it felt good, and he leaped into the breach without a second’s h
esitation.

  “First of all, Ginny and I are not engaged, and even if we were, it’s nobody’s business but ours. And second of all, no one is moving onto my farm! I don’t know where you got such a crazy idea, Benny, but my studio is there, my home is there, and Paul and the boys farm it. I have no intention of opening a boardinghouse for Amish couples.”

  “But Sarah said—”

  Sarah—whose gray eyes were huge and whose face was nearly as white as her prayer covering.

  “What did Sarah say?” Henry pinned her with a gaze that demanded the truth.

  “I—I—” She swallowed, and glanced at Jacob as if he might offer her some help.

  But Jacob was as surprised and confused as anyone in the room. Eric had sidled over next to his dad and was pressed up against him. Priscilla was nearly in tears at having ruined the dinner party. And Benny’s face had so reddened with agitation that his freckles had nearly disappeared.

  “Dochder,” Jacob said to Sarah in quiet Dietsch, “if you have caused a misunderstanding, you had best clear it up before you cause offense and real damage.”

  To Henry’s surprise and dismay, he understood every word.

  “I never meant to cause offense.” Tears filled Sarah’s eyes, and the color flooded back into her face with a vengeance when she realized everyone around the table was looking at her. “I just—I was treating Linda, and was thinking out loud to her one day that if—if Henry and Ginny decided to marry, that maybe he would go and live at the Inn and the farm would come open and Linda and Crist might be able to farm it and—and have their own home.”

  “They have a home now,” Benny said. “It’s a good home. Ja, sure, some people think maybe Dat and Crist should pay more attention to the fields than their inventions in the barn, but it ain’t the fields that made that solar pack and they sure ain’t bringing in the money now like having that cell tower standing in ’em will.”