by Sarah Price
"Mrs. Lapp, if you've seen the boys, you must come and identify them. Our laws can force you."
"I'll remind you again that I left your ways and your laws. Whether it is right or wrong, I am not able to come to the station and identify those boys. I'm sorry you made the trip out here for naught," she whispered and started to walk away from them. “Good day," she retorted with stiff, even words.
Later in the afternoon, after she had finished her chores and taken a fresh shower, Shana sat in the freshly cut grass near the fields of growing corn and played with Noah. She held him up as he tried to steady himself on his weak legs. A toothless smile lit up his face whenever he wobbled and Shana caught him from falling. In his miniature suspendered pants, which were one size too big, and his bright blue shirt, he was the vision of a baby Amish man. He was the image of Emanuel, from his tiny brown ringlets that crowned his head to his big, blue eyes that beamed up at her in tiny crescent moons.
"That's Mommy's boy. You can stand!" she encouraged. But this time, when he fell, he toppled forward into her arms. She laughed as he nuzzled against her chest. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" she said, lifting him into the air and over her head. He gurgled and smiled as she brought him back down to the ground and tried to get him to stand one more time.
"Is he walking yet?" Emanuel teased as he walked up the hill in time to see her laughing with Noah.
Shana looked up and smiled. She cradled Noah in her lap, his small fingers wrapped around her thumbs. "Running the marathon," she teased back.
Emanuel took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Then, sliding his hat back onto this head, he stretched out on the cool grass next to her and leaned his head on his hand, staring up at her. "No doubt from your coaching, then." Noah struggled out of Shana's arms and crawled over to his father. Steadying himself, he tried to stand, his one small fist entwined in Emanuel's curls. But his legs wouldn't quite support him and he fell backward.
Emanuel caught him and pulled him against his chest. "Keep that up and you'll never be able to work the fields with me, Noah," he teased. He looked over at Shana, pleased to see a smile playing upon her lips. "It has been a while since I heard you laugh."
"It has been a while since I had a reason," she whispered, a soft reminder that the past few weeks had been anything but happy ones at the Lapp farm. Especially when she had missed the last church Sunday, a fierce headache keeping her at home with Noah. But she wanted to try, to return to life in order to mend her fences with Emanuel. "How are the new crops?" Shana asked, hoping to change the subject.
"Ears are sprouting."
"Already?"
"Ja," he nodded. "The alfalfa is doing well, too. It’s just a matter of enough sun and rain now. And the Lord's blessing, of course."
"Daniel was a big help."
"Without him, we couldn't have done it. With the new field and so much plowing, it was too much for one man, let alone two. We'll need an army of children to help us after Daniel starts working his own farm, ja?" Emanuel teased, reaching over to tug at Shana's prayer cap string hanging over her shoulder.
The smile rapidly faded from her face and she stiffened at the mention of more children. Noticing the quick shift in her mood, Emanuel directed his attention to Noah. But Shana quickly broke through his wall of silence. "The police were here today."
"What did they want?" he asked suspiciously.
"They caught some boys two towns over. They wanted me to come identify them." She hesitated, noticing the darkening in his eyes. "Of course, I said no," she quickly added and looked away.
"Of course you said no," he repeated.
"Of course," she confirmed softly.
Emanuel stood up and bent over to pick up Noah. He stared down at Shana. "I know what you're thinking, Shana. You don't need to identify them now. If they've been caught, someone else will identify them. The Lord will pass His judgment on them. It's time you open your heart and forgive those boys."
Quickly, Shana jumped to her feet and faced him. "How can you stand before me, holding our son in your arms, and tell me to forgive them for killing our daughter?"
"They burnt the barn, Shana. They did not intend to cause your miscarriage."
"But they did."
Emanuel bowed his head from the blow of her words. Although she could not see his eyes, she could feel the power of his frustration. He rubbed Noah's back and shifted the baby in his arms. Finally, taking a deep breath, he said, "If you go to the police, the community will shun you. There has been talk already of bringing you before the elders. They are meeting on it tomorrow night."
"What?"
He raised his eyes. She could sense the pain he felt at the awkward position her sorrow had placed them in. "They are saying they you have taken the vow without truly believing, Shana. That you haven't adapted to our ways and they were too hasty in letting you take your baptism." Emanuel turned away from her, averting his eyes from the shocked expression on her face. His voice was soft as he added, "If they excommunicate you, they will have to excommunicate me as well." Then, he walked away, carrying Noah on his hip.
Shana stared after him, her heart pounding inside her chest. That explained his distance from her. He had been keeping to himself, waiting for her decision. People must've talked to him, told him about their concerns. Katie had warned her. Emanuel had broken his own values by fighting with her about going to the police. Now, reality was facing her. Was identifying and testifying against those youths worth losing her family and the community she had fought so hard to become a part of? Was the loss of her unborn child worth the destruction of her marriage?
It was her turn to lower her head. She stared at her bare feet in the grass. It felt cool under her feet and, while she usually felt free from not being confined to wearing shoes all summer, her heart suddenly felt imprisoned. Her ears were still ringing from his words. She knew what that meant. Once excommunicated, they would no longer be a part of the community. All of their friends and even Emanuel's family would not be a part of their lives. There would be no Daniel to help with the crops when Emanuel was short-handed or Sylvia when Shana had her next child. They would be alone, an island in the midst of a sea of a loving community whose waves would never touch their shores.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It hadn't surprised her when, after the Sunday service, Bishop Studer had dismissed the children and non-members of the church while the congregation discussed a particular matter that had been plaguing the community. Her heart had practically stopped as the bishop, waiting for those dismissed to disappear outside, finally turned his gaze upon her. She sat on the hard bench, her hands folded in her lap. But when his eyes met hers, she knew that Emanuel's prophecy was about to come true.
They called her to the front of the room. She had stood up and, slowly, forced her way up the narrow aisle on the side of the large, opened kitchen into the living room where the men had sat during the sermon. She felt the heat from the hundred and fifty pairs of eyes on her back as she stood before the five older men, dressed severely in their Sunday black slacks with a black vest over their starched white shirts, who represented their church district leaders. These were the men, she realized, who had already decided her fate.
Like the other women, she wore her Sunday best outfit, a black dress with a black apron over it, complete with her white prayer cap, the freshly iron strings hanging over her shoulders and down her back. But even with her prayer cap, she expressed her own Englische ways: the strings should have been tied under her chin. She kept her head bowed, her eyes wide and frightened.
She hadn't slept for the past several nights and, most mornings, after she had cleared away the breakfast dishes and Emanuel was in the fields, she allowed herself to cry. But then, after the tears had been wiped away and her face freshly washed, she sat down in the living room. She stared at the grandfather clock for twenty minutes, enough time to listen to the beauty of the chimes twice. Then, overcoming her fright, she ha
d sought comfort from the very Scriptures that the people who had taught her to seek solace from the Bible and allowed her into their lives would base their decision on when voting to ask her to leave.
"Shana," the bishop began solemnly. "You know why we have asked you here, ja?"
She nodded her head. "Yes."
He placed his hands together and nodded his head with her. Shana fought the urge to raise her eyes and look at him, her shame was too great. The bishop continued with a stern tone in his voice. "You have failed the community and church."
The house remained silent and Shana could hear her heart pounding inside her chest. She wondered where Emanuel was and whether he could feel the intensity of her horror and humiliation. He had warned her but it was too late. The Zooks had spoken with Emanuel several days earlier that someone had seen the police at their farm and reported back to the deacon that Shana had spoken to them. No one asked what she had said. At Emanuel's urging, she had not volunteered this information. "Wait until asked, Shana," he had coached. Now, she realized, no one was going to ask.
The bishop stepped forward and stood in front of Shana. "Your loss is the loss of the community, Shana. But it is over and nothing, except the will of God, can change it. You are still a newcomer to our ways. All of our instruction and teaching could not prepare you for the pain you felt so recently. But God willed the loss of your unborn. And our Ordnung does not permit dwelling on such losses. To dwell upon it means you are questioning God's Will. To question His will means you are straying from the teachings of the Bible. In your straying, you are denouncing the very vow that you so solemnly took last year. Last summer, you had approached me, taking me aside to tell me that you wanted to raise your children Amish, to feel God's love and live within the Ordnung. Yet, now we are faced with the realization that your children cannot possibly be raised Amish since you have not fully accepted the Amish faith and way of life yourself!"
He placed his hand on her shoulder, waiting until she forced her eyes upward to meet his gaze. She was surprised to see concern and tenderness in his dark gray eyes, especially since his tone had been so harsh. "The leaders of our district have spent many hours discussing what to do about this obvious rebellion against the church and the Ordnung." His hesitation added to the weight of his next words. "Do you understand what it means to disobey your vow to the Ordnung?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Did you learn of the consequences of such rebellion prior to taking your vows of faith?"
"Yes," she repeated softly.
"Do you realize you face the Meidung? Being shunned from the community until you have confessed your sins and reconfirmed your vow of loyalty to God and His word? Not being able to socialize with your friends and family? Including your husband? That he cannot take food from your hand and eat at the same table?"
"I do." She fought the urge to cry.
"Ja, we have spent many hours discussing and debating your sin, Shana. And, as a community, we have decided that, should we impose Meidung upon you, we should have to impose it on ourselves." Out of the corner of her eye she saw a wave of nodding from the congregation behind her. She lifted her head and stared at the bishop.
He continued. "In many ways, Shana, we have failed you as well. We accepted you into our community and our church, based upon your willingness to accept our faith as your own. We had acknowledged the difficulties involved with an Englische taking our vow. We had promised to work with you, assist you in learning the life and beliefs behind the vow. But in your time of loss, we turned our backs on you before you were ready to let go. So, it is I, as representative of our district, that stands before you in asking your forgiveness as we confess our sins."
The bishop sank to his knees and bowed his head before her.
Confused, Shana glanced over her shoulder, scanning the room for Emanuel. She saw him as he, too, stood up and approached her. For a moment, she met his gaze and questioned him with her eyes. But, his expression remained solemn and he bowed his head as he stood up in front of the rest of the congregation.
"And I, as your husband, must confess my impatience with helping you, Shana,” Emanuel said softly, walking toward her. “When you needed me in your time of adjustment, I did not offer you guidance or assistance. I, too, turned my back on you when I had promised I would never depart from you in any circumstance for which a good Christian husband is responsible. I did not guide you spiritually when you required it. I ask for your forgiveness." To her increasing dismay, Emanuel knelt beside the bishop.
She stared at the two men kneeling before her. And she realized that these two men symbolized all in her new life that she had been fighting against for the past two years: first in her courtship, then in her marriage. She had fought the religion and then her husband. Yet, when she had broken her vow, they asked for her forgiveness?
She looked over the downcast eyes of the congregation behind her. These were the same faces, the same people, who had been there when the barn burned down to help them rebuild, supplying the lumber, the food, and the labor. These were the people who had opened their arms to her, a stranger to their beliefs and labors, teaching her how to garden and can the foods she grew.
Who had turned their backs on whom, she wanted to cry out. She had been the one who, after all of their goodness, had questioned everything about them. She had been so close to fighting her way out in order to seek what the Englische called justice and throw her rebellion in their face. After they had offered an outstretched hand of hope and love, she had almost tossed it aside for her own self-gratification.
She swallowed and, not knowing what to say or do, reached down and helped both of them to their feet. She smiled at Emanuel through her tears and whispered, "There is nothing to forgive." She turned her eyes on the bishop and nodded her head. "If I ever questioned God's Will in the tragedy that struck our farm and family, it is due to my own ignorance. If I was lost, I see now that I am found. God never left me. He has been surrounding me in my community and my church. If I forgot that in the wake of the tragedy, I have been shown the light and will remember forever the gift you have just given me. And I will never question His Will again."
She felt enlightened, the burden of her grief finally lifted from her shoulders. And she finally understood that, for the past two years, she had been fighting against the invisible shield of goodwill from her community. Where else had she ever felt the love and caring that she had felt here? From her courtship to her marriage to the birth of her child, she had felt the power of the Amish behind her at all times. Whether the decisions that Emanuel and Shana had made, both separately and together, pleased everyone was irrelevant. Instead, once the decision had been made, the family and the community had accepted it and moved on, not praying for lighter burdens but for stronger backs to carry God's Will, never questioning it, never trying to escape it.
"Oh Emanuel," she whispered, grabbing his arm as the bishop having resolved the issue of Shana's 'disobedience' dismissed the congregation for fellowship. "I understand it all now."
He reached out as a neighbor handed him Noah. Cradling their son in his arms, Emanuel stared down into his face. "It is amazing, ja? How God can created such a wondrous being and give it the capacity to think, feel, live, and love." He looked up and smiled at Shana. "I only pray that Noah will one day experience the same wondrous being in his wife as I have in you." Then, without another word, Emanuel slipped into the crowd of men that were filing out of the room to the sunshine outside.
Shana stared after him, her heart swelling with love. She fought the urge to smile, to laugh aloud in her glorious happiness. She watched as Emanuel stood on the porch, Noah snuggled against his hip as he spoke with several men under the shade of an old oak tree. She saw him laugh, his eyes crinkling into half-moons, his face radiated from his own happiness and perhaps a touch of relief.
Virtue may have a high price, she thought as she took a final look at Emanuel and Noah before she had to return to the kitchen to help th
e women prepare the after-sermon meal. But, she realized, every sacrifice she had made was worth that moment. Indeed, she was blessed but the realization was worth more than the blessing. She was blessed to be able to stand there at the window and look outside at the two men she loved while surrounded by the community who had offered to teach her about their traditional values and adopt her into their way of life. At last, she realized that she had found the faith in God to provide and, with that, came the feelings of belonging and identity that she had sought. At last, she realized, she had finally become the Amish woman she had desired to be.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Price’s ancestors emigrated from Europe in 1705, settling in Pennsylvania as the area’s first wave of Mennonite families. Sara Price has always respected and honored her ancestors through exploration and research about her family’s history and their religion. At nineteen, she befriended an Amish family and lived on their farm throughout the years. Twenty-five years later, Sarah Price splits her time between her home outside of New York City and an Amish farm in Lancaster County, PA where she retreats to reflect, write, and reconnect with her Amish friends and Mennonite family.