by Karen Harper
In the stark winter light reflecting off the snow through the window, Lydia noted how Bishop Esh had aged. He almost reminded her of old Mr. Raber in Amity. His wife, Mattie, fetched the German Bible for him, and he put it next to his teacup, resting one gnarled hand on it. How many people had the elderly bishop advised over the years? Bishops were chosen by lot, not by an election, and their burdens of preaching and counseling must be unbearable at times.
“Years ago,” Lydia began, her voice not sounding like her own, “I came to you with questions about my birth parents. You told me then to let it be, and I assure you I do love and respect my daad and mamm, but I still yearn to know about the—my first parents.”
“You know we are called to think of others first, Lydia,” he said. “‘Think not only of your interests, but also for the interests of others.’ And in this case, the living others are Sol and Susan Brand. Ach, what pain we could cause those who are good to us, who love us. Even if the goal seems right, the end cannot justify the means at times.”
Her hopes fell. Anger rose in her, but she beat it down. Wasn’t the bishop wise enough to realize how important this was to her? “So whether I tell them my need or keep a secret, it will hurt them. Is that what you mean?” she asked a bit louder than she intended. Maybe Josh’s bad habit of showing a quick temper was rubbing off on her.
Mrs. Esh looked as if she’d like to say something. She was fidgeting worse than Lydia, but she held her tongue.
“Lydia, believe me, trust me,” Bishop Esh said. “Best you be content and not begin to search the past or tell others of your wandering thoughts. I can only counsel you to remember one of the Ten Commandments to honor your father and your mother.”
“But that’s what I would be doing, for my birth father and mother, while still respecting and honoring Daad and Mamm. You preached not long ago on another piece of Bible wisdom, ‘Know the truth and it shall set you free.’”
Mattie Esh had tears in her eyes as she showed Lydia out to her buggy. Having lost her own daughter for several years, perhaps she was sympathizing with Lydia’s mother. Or did she know something—something that Lydia could get her to tell?
“Mrs. Esh, I know it must have grieved you when Hannah did not take your advice and went her own way—did what she had to do. But here she came back and things are even better now because she chose to return. If you can help me in any way, I—”
“I wish I could, but can’t,” she said. She tried to smile but it came out as a grimace that made the lines on her face cobweb even deeper. “It’s best— Just can’t.” She turned and hurried into the house, glancing back just once.
Lydia heaved a huge sigh that turned cloudy in the frosty air. As the early evening darkness descended, she knew it would have been a waste of time to ask permission for a rearview mirror. But, though she was bucking what the bishop had said, she vowed she was going to continue to look not only forward, but back.
12
At dinner that evening, Mamm had not said one word about catching Lydia and Josh on a cell phone in the Yoder barn. She wasn’t sure why Mamm had not mentioned it. Maybe she had wanted to see if Lydia would bring it up or apologize on her own. Maybe she had not wanted Daad to know—or not wanted him to know she had taken friendship bread to Josh. But Lydia recognized her familiar knock on her bedroom door later and steadied herself for questions.
“Come in, Mamm,” Lydia called. She was walking back and forth from bed to dresser, brushing her long hair. Mamm came in and sat on the edge of the bed, so Lydia did, too, though they were both facing forward.
“So you and Josh were using a cell phone?” Mamm said, her voice unusually quiet and calm, though the little vein at the side of her neck pulsed as it always did when she was upset. “I thought his friend did his business calls.”
“That was Hank’s phone Josh just borrowed. You may be glad to know we were trying to convince Sandra Myerson, the woman Gid told you I went to Wooster with, not to come back. She upset Ray-Lynn and both Englische and Amish at the restaurant by asking too many questions.”
“And with a little camera, so I heard. She’s not coming back?”
“Maybe just to see Josh’s animals. He said she’s been afraid of them and wants to get over that. Besides, she’s crazy about cats—”
“Crazy in general!”
“—and there are new kittens in the loft. I’m not sure, but maybe she wants to—well, adopt one.”
“That is enough of someone prideful and pushy like her, at least around my daughter. So you won’t see her again? I had a bad dream you got in her red car again and left us for good.”
Lydia shook her head. She would never leave the Home Valley but she sensed Mamm’s hidden fears in that dream. She’d had some, too, lately, ones where she was climbing a tall tree, searching through its thick leaves, looking for her birth parents, fearful she’d fall. Beneath her, someone was cutting limbs off the tree with a loud, shrill buzz saw coming closer and closer.
Again she wondered how much her mother had heard of their conversation. It was so hard to believe she’d brought a peace offering of bread to Josh, though it was the Christmas season. Surely, that had not just been an excuse to see what they were doing in the barn.
She turned more toward her mother on the bed, bending one leg on the quilt bedspread. “Don’t let bad dreams upset you, Mamm. You haven’t had the one about hearing Sammy calling from out by the pond again?”
“No, and don’t speak of that. I don’t want them to start again. But I can’t bear to lose you, too, Lydia, in a red car or any way— Well, only if you’d agree to marry Gid, I guess.”
“He’s backed off a bit, and that’s fine with me.”
“Just don’t you misuse our trust in you to get all mixed up with worldly folk, or even ones who lived in the world for a while. It changes them, rubs off on others. They are what our people call yanked over.”
Lydia fought to keep from arguing to defend Josh and herself. “Let me only say it was kind of you to take Josh the bread, and he was most grateful.”
“So he said, but I did it because I liked his parents. They were good neighbors.”
“And he is not?”
She shrugged and sighed. “In the summer, too many cars for the petting zoo, and when it’s warm the camels smell.”
“Way over here? I’ve never noticed that. And it’s just the camels?”
“No, but if you tend them so close, you must notice, too.”
“I haven’t smelled them here, ever. With help, Josh keeps his animals well fed and cared for.”
Mamm rose quickly and went to the door. “That’s enough talk for now,” she said. “If Sandra Myerson comes back, at least you won’t be near her again. Let him entertain her by himself.” On that she closed the door.
Lydia shuddered at that thought. Mamm always knew how to twist a nice enough thought to a sharp point. Tossing her hairbrush on the bed, she knelt beside it, not to pray but to pull out her birth mother’s snow globe from the darkness. She held it up before the single kerosene lantern on her bedside table. As she shook it gently, its insides swirled and spun. The old snowflakes seemed to turn to silver glitter around the angel and the child inside, and she recalled making angels in the snow with Josh.
* * *
Josh thought he heard something besides the wind outside the barn. He wished darkness didn’t come so early in the winter months. He patted Noah, his strongest donkey, the one who always carried the “pregnant” Virgin Mary in pageants, but the animal seemed nervous, too, maybe since two of his asinine—Hank’s joke—buddies were still outside. Turning the lantern down so he wouldn’t be seen as he stepped out, Josh grabbed his coat and muffler-eared hat, slid the big back camel door open and looked out.
Braying. Something was bothering the two donkeys he had yet to corral. He slid the door closed behind him and edged around the corner of the barn in the direction of the noise. He whistled for them. That usually brought Jonah and Enos, at least when
they were hungry.
He heard a human shout, then more braying. Someone from the road trying to ride the animals? Harm them? Take them?
“Hey, stop!” he shouted into the darkness lit only by starlight. He ran toward the fence along the road, still unsure of what he’d find. The two donkeys rushed at him, past him. He gasped as he stumbled over a body on the ground and nearly sprawled into the snow face-first. Somehow he kept his balance and grabbed the fence. He pictured again poor Victoria on the ground, frozen, dead. But this bundle of flesh and bone yelped and rolled away.
“I just saw the donkeys and wanted to have some fun!” a muffled voice called in Amish Deutsche.
“Amos? Amos Baughman, you been trying to ride a donkey again?” Josh shouted and pulled him up by the scruff of his coat. He gave him a little shake, then let him go. The boy was only twelve and had helped with the animals off and on in the summer. “I told you that you could get kicked!”
“But—but someone else was here and scairt them bad. I was doing good on Enos, but a person was there by the barn and got them riled and Enos bucked just when I was gonna get off. But you said once he was as good as a horse ride.”
Josh backed the boy up against the fence. “What do you mean someone else was there? How do you know? What did you see?”
“Honest, Mr. Yoder, a dark form over there close to the barn. Didn’t see him right away.”
“It was a man?”
“Don’t know for sure in the dark, with a bulky coat, hat and all. He—or she—moved away quicklike. I thought it was you at first and was gonna hightail it out, but then Enos got spooked as bad as me and—”
“You just get on home. Your mamm’s going to be worried about you and blame me. You want to help me with the animals next summer on salary you better mend your ways. Now you get going. But watch the slippery spots. I can’t leave the animals to take you home right now.”
The boy only lived a ten-minute run up the lane on the north side of the road, the opposite direction from Lydia’s. Through the wire-fenced gate, Josh watched the boy go until he disappeared into the darkness. Josh closed it quietly and carefully. He had put a combination lock on the back gate Victoria had come through, and now he’d have to lock this one. Muttering, he latched it the best he could.
He went back inside, got the lantern, turned up the wick and brought it out to look for tracks. Ya, someone had been standing tight against the barn, maybe trying to stay out of the wind. Then he or she had shuffled along to the barn door closest to the house, but stopped there. And then—the boy was right—the person had evidently been disturbed by Amos trying to mount the donkey, and he or she had taken off around the front of the barn. Josh followed the footsteps as far as the woodlot that led toward the Brands’ property.
Shaking his head, Josh trudged back into the barn and put the bar down on the big door. Could the man who’d bothered Lydia Sunday night be hanging around here? She said he’d hightailed it toward the woodlot. Surely Sandra hadn’t come back already. Being secretive wasn’t her style, but she’d really surprised him lately. He had trouble believing it could be one of the rumspringa boys. Maybe he should lock the house up tight and sleep in the barn tonight. Last time he’d done that, at least he’d had a great dream about making love to a woman he now knew was Lydia.
He sighed and went to feed the two donkeys that had been outside. Too bad they couldn’t describe the intruder on his property, but they hardly had the eyesight of those cats up in the loft. When he stopped by to see Ray-Lynn Freeman tomorrow about the arrangements for their church’s manger scene, he’d give her a note for the sheriff telling him someone had been trespassing, and he had no clue who.
* * *
After she’d popped into Daad’s office at the furniture store the next morning and got permission to fill a rush Christmas order, Lydia lingered a moment, then asked, “I just wondered if Mamm told you about Josh and me using a cell phone. You didn’t bring it up at breakfast, but...I just wondered,” she repeated.
He looked up again from behind his big desk. “Ya, she did. And later told me you were both speaking with Josh’s friend from Columbus, Sandra Myerson. I met her, you know.”
He ignored Lydia’s small gasp and went on, “She asked for an interview about how a big Amish-owned-and-staffed business operates. Since she said she was a friend of yours, I told her she could drop by. She came after most here, including you, had left.”
Lydia leaned against the door to steady herself. That woman had dared to meet her father—her adoptive father—to interview him? And just about his Amish business? Sandra had probably slid in a couple of questions about his family and about her. What if he guessed that Lydia had been asking around about her birth parents?
“You look surprised, Liddy,” Daad said. “Sit down. And close the door because I discussed some interesting things with her.”
On shaky legs, Lydia closed the door and sat perched on the edge of a chair across from his desk. She had to remind herself to breathe. Had Sandra risked asking him if his daughter was adopted? But he’d not alluded to that, not seemed different lately, except maybe more tired and distracted.
“When was she here?” Lydia asked.
“Not sure what day it was.” He gave her a little smile. “One of the days she was running amok in town, I suppose.”
So he knew all about that. Realizing there was an awkward silence, Lydia said, “Josh is sorry about loosing her on everyone. As Mamm said, she can be pushy and she doesn’t understand our ways.”
“Despite it all, I liked her.”
“You did?”
“She has a fine mind and she really loved my quilts. Of course, I didn’t tell her I had made them, but I almost did. She bought two off the floor here and said she wished she could afford more. She went on and on about the designs and workmanship, which, of course, she thought was work-womanship.”
Lydia breathed an audible sigh. They had talked about quilts. “They are wonderful and should be admired as well as used.”
“I don’t mean to be prideful, but she made some clever observations I had not thought about, not in all the hours I spend making them.”
“Oh. Like what?”
“She recognized that the quilts, even ones unsigned by our people, are expressions of a personality, not just fabric but stories. And she must have had some hard times in her life because she asked if quilts ever—what was her word?—memorialized a love one who died. She talked about the Christmas season, too, how it brought back sad memories as well as happy ones.”
Lydia twisted the paper in her hand so hard it reminded her of how Grossdaad used to wring a chicken’s neck before Grossmamm plucked and fried it. So Sandra had been fishing for information, maybe hoping Daad would bring up his son’s death and say something about his daughter. Lydia had suspected for years that some of Daad’s quilts with squares of fabric that looked like dark, rocky water were made while he was missing Sammy—a silent memorial to the drowned boy. And Sandra was right that memories of Christmases past could be painful. Sammy had always been so excited on Christmas day.
“She’s right, you know,” Daad continued, interrupting her agonizing. He leaned forward in his chair with his hands folded before him on his desk. “At Christmas, the past is present again. Those we’ve loved who have gone on before, people who have not walked the earth for years, are in our minds and hearts again. A holiday time warp, Sandra called it. But the best thing she said was that when you see a quilt, if you look closely, you see a soul. See a quilt, see a soul, was how she put it.”
Lydia nodded, noting her father was lost in his own thoughts, his eyes distant, not on her now. It was true that Sandra could be almost two people, helpful and kind or contrary and pushy. She guessed that if Sandra made a quilt, and if “See a quilt, see a soul” was true, the design would be a big, open mouth. But would it be a mouth puckered up to kiss a man she’d once dated and might still want?
* * *
Josh stopped at th
e Dutch Farm Table Restaurant when he knew the lunch crowd would be thinned out and the early dinner rush would not have yet begun. With his copy of the list of animals and the time of delivery for the Homestead Community Church just outside of town, he sat at the end of the counter and waited for Ray-Lynn. To his surprise, she came back and took the tall, rotating chair next to his.
“Thanks for stopping by. I’ve got the down payment for you.” She slid a check toward him on the counter. “A check’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Fine, thanks. I just wanted to go over a few things with you. The camel will not be ridden, but Mary, with Joseph walking beside her, will make an entrance on the donkey, right?”
“Yes. I hope it’s not a rainy or cold night since we’re obviously doing this alfresco.”
“The basic three-sided manger you’ve asked for will block some of the wind and put a roof over the heads of the central figures, though bad weather would sure cut down on viewers driving by in buggies or cars.”
“And freeze the four girls who are going to be angels and stand on top of a back platform we’re building for them.”
“It was probably a cold night when Jesus was born, too—real to life. By the way, this camel is well behaved but put out the word people should not come too close or startle her. I’ll be there, but just a word to the wise.”
“My husband thought of that already—no problems, no lawsuits. By the way, will Lydia be coming, too, or your helper, ah...Henry?”
“Hank. He’ll be dropping me off with the animals but will be leaving early for his son’s birthday. Whoever plays the shepherds will have to keep an eye on the three sheep. They love to do their own thing.”
“Don’t we all?”
“Ray-Lynn, I’ve written a short note to the sheriff about someone hanging around outside my barn last night—spooked my donkeys and spooked me.” He extended it to her. He’d decided not to mention little Amos because he didn’t want the sheriff questioning him and getting the kid in trouble with his parents. He wouldn’t have brought the intruder up at all with worldly law enforcement, except that Victoria had died on his land and Lydia had been harassed nearby.