Broken Roads

by Ira Wagler

  “140,000 copies,” I said again. He seemed impressed.

  Then five minutes later, he asked again. “How many copies?” And I told him again. Seemed like he had to hear the number a few times to grasp it. Or to make sure he hadn’t heard wrong.

  And we sat there and talked, the two of us, and it was good. After a bit, the nurse stopped in to see Mom. She disappeared with Rosemary into the bedroom. Ten minutes later, she emerged. “Her vital signs are all strong,” the nurse said. “She has constipation.” And she and Rosemary talked about what to do about that.

  The evening was moving right along. It was soon time for me to head to the motel. And I told Dad, “I’m here to see you. What do you want to do tomorrow? Do you want to go somewhere, to see someone, to visit?” And I could see the wheels turning in his head. He knew I knew that he wouldn’t ride with me in my car. He never has. His calculations led to the only place they could.

  And he asked, looking at me kind of sideways, “Well, will you drive with me in my buggy?”

  “Sure,” I said. “If your horse is safe.”

  He laughed. “Oh, yes, my horse is an old plug.”

  “All right,” I said. “That’ll work. Maybe we can go see David Luthy at his historical library. I haven’t been there in a lot of years.” Dad agreed. That would be fine. He seemed a little astounded that I’d ride with him in the buggy. “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I came to see you, and we’ll go do what you want.” I said good night then and headed back to Saint Thomas and my room.

  The next morning around nine I drove out to the farm. Stopped in Aylmer at Tim Hortons and bought coffee to drink and a box of a dozen doughnuts to take out with me. Tim Hortons is a Canadian phenomenon. Every little burg has one. And they serve some of the better doughnuts I’ve ever tasted. Way better than the ones at Dunkin’. And their coffee, too, is just quality. I wish that chain would open more stores in the US. Anyway, out I drove into the beautiful cloudless day. All day, I’d spend all day out there. Mostly with Dad, but I’d spend some time with Rosemary and her family, too.

  I arrived and carried the box of doughnuts into the house. Rosemary smiled her thanks. Her daughter Edna was flitting about, working this and that. “Dad and I are leaving for David Luthy’s in his buggy,” I told her. “Can someone get the horse hitched up? We need to leave around ten or a little after. I’ll drive the horse, but I want nothing to do with going to the barn or hitching him up.”

  Edna laughed and disappeared. Ten minutes later, she returned. “The horse is hitched up and tied up, out by the rail,” she said. “Ready for you and Daudy anytime.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll go over and chat with him now. We’ll leave soon.” And I walked over to Dad’s little house. He was in his office. I sat in the chair across from his desk, and we talked. “Ready to go soon?” I asked.

  In the bedroom next door, I heard voices. Rosemary was getting Mom up for a few hours. A neighbor lady was there to help. They’d get her up in her wheelchair so the pressure points on her body wouldn’t cause bedsores. And she’d sit there and recline and mostly sleep. A few minutes later, they wheeled her out into the kitchen. I heard Rosemary talking to her. “Ira is here,” Rosemary said. “He came to see you and Dad.”

  And I heard the murmur of her voice, soft but very clear, in the only lucid moment she had while I was there. “You mean our Ira?” she asked.

  “Yes, our Ira,” Rosemary answered.

  And I stepped out to greet her. “Mom, it’s me.” But in that instant, she was gone again.

  “She knew there for a second you were here,” Rosemary said. “But she’s gone again.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I answered. “I heard her. I’m grateful for that.”

  “The horse is hitched up and ready,” I told Dad. “We need to leave soon. We have to be back for dinner [noon meal].” He was all hyped up and ready. Grabbed his big old black hat and put it on. We walked out to where the horse was tied up. He hobbled slowly, and I walked slowly. We came up to his buggy, specially built for him. It was in the old classic Aylmer style, with rubber-tired wheels. But they’d set it down lower, somehow. It sat close to the ground, so it was easier for him to get in and out. I untied the horse and took the reins. Backed him up a bit, then turned out onto the lane. And headed out to the road. There I stopped and looked both ways for traffic. I wasn’t feeling all that safe right at that moment, I have to say. Those buggies just aren’t safe on the roads. Nothing was coming, so I pulled on the right rein and clucked. The horse, whose name escapes me, lumbered out and down the road. And we were off.

  It had been a lot of years since I rode with my father in a buggy. Decades, probably. Maybe longer. Somewhere in there, I’m sure I had since I was a child. I just couldn’t remember when. We didn’t have far to go. A mile, maybe. And we just chatted right along as the buggy quietly rolled along on rubber-tired wheels. “Junior lives here now, with his family,” Dad said as we passed the old Jake Eicher place. “He had some kind of accident a few years ago, crushed his heel. They have a real nice family.” We passed Pathway Publishers on the left. Then right at the corner and on past a few more homes and the old schoolhouse where I went for first grade. Well, those grounds. They tore the old schoolhouse down years ago and built a new one. But the old pump still sits there, right where it was. And the swing set. Still the same one.

  Then we arrived at David Luthy’s place. At that time the preeminent Amish historian in the world, David Luthy had assembled one of the world’s more notable collections of old books and other paraphernalia that were Amish family heirlooms. He has written extensively for Family Life over the decades. Real research is what he does. Historical articles, a great many of which detail and describe failed Amish communities through the years. And it was a special thing, to have an inside track to his library. It’s not open to the public. You have to have an appointment, and even then you still might not be able to get in, depending on who you are. That’s how hard it is to get in there. But I was with Dad. He can get in anytime, almost. And I could get in with him.

  David greeted us. He was there in his office, typing away. He was older now, his long magnificent beard was no longer dark, but gray. His wife, Mary, rushed out from the house, smiling. She welcomed me. They’d known me as a child. And we walked to a back room and sat around a table. For more than an hour, David told me fascinating tale after fascinating tale of his library, and about some of his acquisitions. He unveiled and showed me an exact replica of an original Gutenberg Bible, complete with gold-plated pages and illustrations. We examined ancient copies of Martyrs Mirror and Ausbund. David talked and talked. Just before noon, Dad and I got up to leave. We walked out to his low-slung buggy, and he stepped in. I untied the horse and stepped in, too. Then we were off, back to Rosemary’s house and dinner.

  Things were bustling at the farm when we got back. It had been wet for weeks, and Lester, Rosemary’s married son who farmed the homeplace, had hay down in the fields. It had been rained on to where it was pretty much ruined, he told me. But he figured he could bale it and get it out of his field late that afternoon. It was junk, but he had to get it off the field so the next cutting could grow. I spent a few hours at Rosemary’s home, while Dad returned to his desk and his writing. And they stopped by to see me for a few minutes, a few of my nieces and nephews, Rosemary’s children. Her oldest daughter, Eunice, came with a couple of her daughters. Her younger son, Philip, and his wife stopped by early that evening.

  And then, around five or so, I wandered over to see Dad again. He was sitting at his desk, typing away. They’d gotten rid of his old manual model. Probably ran out of parts. It was an electric typewriter he used now, adapted to a twelve-volt battery. It hardly made any noise. Sure didn’t clatter and clack and ding, like the one I remembered him using. He stopped typing and leaned back in his chair. And the two of us just talked.

  We chatted for a while about this and that. And I knew he wouldn’t bring it up. So I asked him, r
ight out, “What did you think of the book?”

  And he leaned back some more and smiled self-consciously. “Well.” And he sat there a bit. “I guess I’d ask this: What do you think the world thinks about the Amish and about me?”

  So that was it? That was his sorrow? I chose my words carefully. And I told him, “They will think you are a talented and driven man who got a lot accomplished in your life as an Amish person,” I said. “And they will know you were flawed. But we are all flawed. All of us. You are. I am. It doesn’t make any sense to pretend we’re not.”

  Maybe he grasped that. Maybe not. I think he did, a little. And then he talked some more. “People have told me they were impressed, and I agree,” he said. “You tried, you really tried to make it work. I’ll give you that. You came back and tried again and again.” That was pretty huge, to hear him say such a thing. To recognize that. But then he balanced it out. “I still think it was a mistake to hang around that café so much,” he said. And he talked some more about this scene and that. “You sure got it right about your horse,” he said. “That’s exactly as I remember it. I remember how beaten down you were when your horse died. And how I offered to buy you another one. But you wouldn’t take it. I never could quite understand why.”

  “I was depressed,” I said. “I just needed to get out. I knew I couldn’t make it. That’s why I turned down your offer.” He seemed to absorb that. And we talked a bit more. I wanted to mention a few other things from the book to get his thoughts. I just didn’t get it all done. And then he talked about Sam Johnson. Dad seemed to understand why Sam had cut me off. And he approved of it. Sam had had to cut me off, because I hadn’t stayed. “OK,” I said. “Doesn’t make much sense to me, but if that’s how it had to be, then that’s how it had to be.”

  And he talked again about Sarah, too, and how I’d wronged her. “Yes,” I said. “I did. I did wrong her, very much so. I made that pretty clear, I think. Like I said, we’re all flawed. I certainly am. But I just tried to tell the story. That’s the only way to write a story. Tell it like it was. Be honest about who you were when you tell it. And who you are now.”

  Rosemary clattered into the kitchen then, carrying a large tray. Food for our supper. “The men are out baling hay, so we won’t eat until later,” she told us. “So I brought your supper. Come to the table and eat.”

  Dad and I got up and walked to the kitchen. I sat down. He paused where Mom was sitting a few feet away, napping. He spoke to her, some lighthearted question. “Every day, I try to say something that makes her smile,” he said. And then he stumped over to the little table and took his seat.

  This is a remarkable moment, I thought. Not that long ago, he wouldn’t sit with me at any table. He wouldn’t eat with me. Because he was shunning me. I had told him back then, “I’m not excommunicated.” The Goshen Amish church where I left was more progressive. And I wasn’t excommunicated. Well, I was, but after I joined the Mennonite church in Daviess, they lifted it. Made it like it never was. And I told Dad that. But he’d still shun me, he told me, because he felt like that was the right thing to do. And he did. Back then. For a lot of years.

  But not now. I uncovered the dishes on the tray. Meat, chips, lettuce, freshly chopped tomatoes, and cheese. And dressing. “A taco salad,” I said.

  Dad pulled up his chair then, and we paused and bowed our heads. I wondered if he’d pray aloud. He used to, years back. And sure enough, he spoke it. The meal-blessing prayer. In his cracked voice, with that old rhythm he always had. “Alle Augen worten auf Dich, oh Herr, denn Du gibst Ihn Ihre Speise zu Seiner Zeit…” (The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season…Psalm 145:15). I sat there and drank it in. He finished the prayer, and we took the food on our plates and ate. Just the two of us together, at that little table in that little room in that little house.

  After the meal, I sat with Dad in his office, and we just talked. He was working on his own memoir. Two binders of notes were spread out beside his typewriter. Some months before, he had sent a few dozen pages of the first draft to all his children. So we could check it out. “I liked it,” I told him. “I learned things I never knew before about you. Keep it up. Keep writing. I want to read what you have to say. I liked it a lot. Don’t worry about the moral lessons, though, in your story. Just write it. Trust your readers. And respect them. If there’s lessons to be learned, they’ll pick those up on their own. You don’t need to tell them.”

  He pondered that a bit. I’m not sure he quite grasped what I was trying to say, because he never wrote like that. Just the story. He pretty much always had an explicit lesson poked in there somewhere at the end. Because that was how he wrote. We sat there, and I looked at him from across the desk as the sun slanted to the west.

  Later that night, after I returned to my motel room and darkness closed in, I thought about it. The whole day. The time I’d spent with Dad. Especially our meal together at the little table. And hearing him pray that prayer, that was a special thing. It was a gift, all of it, every minute of this day. And at that moment, I saw it in my mind, as clearly as if I were standing back there, what was going on about now in the little house where my parents lived.

  Mom was in bed for the night. They’d tucked her in earlier. And Dad, well, Dad was doing what he did almost every evening. Sitting in his office, pounding away at his typewriter. Except in his old age, he shut down early. He couldn’t stay up half the night. Not like he used to. He was too old. And he was just too tired, he simply didn’t have it in him anymore. And now he was getting up to get ready for bed. He carried the lamp into the kitchen and set it on the table. Opened the bedroom door so Mom could hear. And then he knelt there by a chair.

  And in a cracked and faltering voice, still laced with remnants of the comforting rhythmic flow his children have always known and will always remember, he prayed that beautiful old High German evening prayer by heart. Beautiful, is what all those old formal German prayers are. Just breathtakingly beautiful. And he spoke it, the prayer for this evening. Thanking God for His love and the gift of salvation. Thanking God for all His blessings. Asking the Lord to lift His benevolent hand of protection over him and his family, those he loved. All alone now, he prayed every morning as the day broke. And every evening after the sun had set.

  Kneeling there, in the bleakness of his bare surroundings, he prayed for all his family. He prayed for Mom. For his children and his children’s children. Wherever they were scattered on the whole earth. And the children still to come, he prayed for them, too, the generations beyond. He prayed for all of them in the only way he knew how. Just like he always had.

  Reuben and Me

  There’s an old friend in my life. His name is Reuben. We’ve known each other all our lives. We were pretty much best friends, in all that time. I mean, from back when we were kids. And a number of years back, he made some very, very bad choices. He chose to walk down some real hard roads. He made some destructive, destructive decisions. And his world blew up. Just blew up into smithereens, like mine did. He chose to leave his wife and family for an idol. He did that. Walked away from his family. And from where I was at that time, well, he chose to leave all we had known as old friends for an idol, too. And we were totally estranged, he and I, for a few years.

  I guess it needs to be said why. This is why. My marriage to Ellen was failing, all on its own. It would have failed, anyway. Reuben kind of hastened the inevitable by having an affair with my wife. My eyes were open. I should have known. But I didn’t. Some places, your mind just won’t go. Refuses to go. It all came out, brilliantly clear, after Ellen left our home. She and Reuben were figuring to be together in the future. The moves he made, those were all geared to that one disastrous goal. It was a brutal blow, and it was a brutal betrayal. From both of them.

  At the time, I wrote savagely at Reuben, mostly on my blog. I swore to curse him and his seed forever. Never quite got that done, though. I wanted to, but somehow, it just never happened. Sti
ll. What is written is written and cannot be easily undone. It’s a record of a journey, whatever that journey was.

  Reuben left then, and moved to a faraway land. He and Ellen were wild and free and together for less than a year. Anyone with half a brain could have known their “love” couldn’t last. I certainly could have told them both that. I guess they had to find out on their own. After some years had passed, he moved back into the area to reconnect with his broken family. Mostly with his children, his sons and daughters. He wanted to get back into the daily operations of his business, too. And he reached out to me to see if some kind of reconciliation could be possible. I was extremely skittish when he approached me and put out the feelers. But I didn’t discount it. And over time, we got to where we could talk, face to face. And there was a glimmer of what once was before. I could see it was worth repairing, the broken pieces. Time had moved on. It couldn’t be what it was before, I figured. The friendship, I mean. But it could be something. Something worth building back up.

  And yeah, I was quite aware that there were many people out there who looked at me very strangely as the reconciliation solidified. “What are you thinking? We’re lined up here behind you with our swords drawn. Ready to follow and strike and condemn Reuben for all his sins. What’s wrong with you? You were real mad. Seething mad, bent to destroy all he is or ever was. And then, all of a sudden, you just laid down your sword. Are you weak or what? How can we hold up our swords when you won’t hold up your own? How can we follow when you won’t lead?”

  And yeah, I heard all that talk. Well, not so much talk as murmurs. I felt those people looking askance all around me. And I felt like telling them, “I am where I am. I choose to walk where I walk. If you think that’s weak, that’s OK.” But my response to all such bloodthirsty Christians would better have been something like this: “Thank you. I appreciate your loyal support. But I got a simple thing to ask. Why don’t you live your own lives and let me live mine? What possible business is it of yours what choices I make about who I hang out with?”