The Devoted

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Alcohol, she thought, had done it to him again. “It always does.”

  He crossed his heart. “I’ll swear off the devil’s brew, if that’s what it’ll take to make you happy.”

  She stopped. “Are you happy, Luke?”

  He tried to wiggle his brows at her. “I’d be happier if you’d stop acting so prickly all the time.” He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

  “Do you have any plans beyond weekend back-acre parties?”

  He tapped her nose with his finger. “There’s no call to go looking down that disapproving nose at me. You’ve enjoyed plenty of parties yourself.”

  “A few. Not plenty. That was all I needed to see how tiresome you and your friends can be.”

  “Oh, Ruthie, don’t be like that.”

  “Like how?”

  “What’s gotten into you lately? You used to be fun. You’re so serious all the time. So quick to judge.”

  “It just seems like there should be more to life than living from party to party.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you ever read the Bible?”

  He laughed, then his smile left his face as he glanced at the cottage. “Does this have to do with that guy? Saint Patrick?” His mouth pulled into another smile, this one with a touch of meanness in it.

  “So have you stopped drinking?”

  “Absolutely. I’m done. Clean and sober.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Just how long have you been clean and sober?”

  “I don’t know. What day is it?”

  “Wednesday.”

  Luke counted it out on his fingers. “Two.”

  “Two days? That can’t be right.”

  “Two hours.”

  Enough. She spun around and walked up the driveway. Stomped. As usual, interaction with Luke left her in a riled mood.

  Jesse ended up walking to Windmill Farm from the Sweet Tooth Bakery in the slanting heat of a summer afternoon, thinking of clever retorts he should have aimed at Jenny Yoder. So why was she back in town, anyway? The July sun burned on his neck and he felt drips of sweat stream down his back.

  He walked down the main road for a mile or two, hoping someone would come by and take pity on him. Alas, not a single buggy drove past. Finally, he gave up and took a shortcut through a cornfield and then a cow pasture. He hopped over the rail fence, back onto the road. It was a seldom-traveled road, leading from nowhere and heading to nowhere. Up ahead, he saw something shiny on the gravel road. He stopped to pick it up—a cell phone?—and pressed a few buttons to see if it was working. Dead battery. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead, his thoughts drifting off to wonder what his apprentices were doing in his longer-than-scheduled absence and if they had located his hidden transistor radio to listen to the Philadelphia Phillies game. Probably. That’s where he wanted to be right now. In his buggy shop, listening to the game, tinkering on buggies.

  Jenny Yoder. Of all people. His oldest enemy. By a fluke of fate, she was back in his life.

  They went through a few years together in a one-room schoolhouse in Ohio. She arrived out of the blue, in the third grade, and shared a desk with Jesse for the next four years. The two of them made up the entire grade, year by year—third, fourth, fifth, sixth—and there was not a minute when the two of them did not resent sitting stuck together like a two-headed calf. Admittedly, Jenny was smart. Worse, she was clever. She kept him on his toes in school, but she also had a superior, queenly attitude that never failed to irk him. Professor Pompous, he had nicknamed her.

  Her family life was always a little vague, and she kept it that way. The most Jesse could ever figure out was that she and her brother Chris were raised in a foster home by a kind old Amish woman named Deborah, and that’s why Jenny went to an Amish one-room schoolhouse.

  Then, one summer, old Deborah passed to her glory and Jenny and Chris disappeared. No one knew what had happened to them. Jesse figured the state of Ohio had scooped them up and deposited them in another foster home.

  So why was Jenny Yoder in Stoney Ridge, of all places? Hopefully, she was just passing through. Just long enough to abscond with his cinnamon roll.

  Even now, half a dozen or more years later, Jesse couldn’t account for the depth of passion, of the worst sort, that had risen up in him when he realized that young woman in the bakery was Jenny Yoder. You’d think he’d be more mature by now . . . but apparently not.

  He tried eating the bran muffin, but it chewed like birdseed and tasted like sawdust, so he heaved the muffin into a huge, straggly blackberry bush along the road and heard an odd clunk, as loud as a rock—his muffin—hitting something metal. He peered into the blackberry bush. There was a car in there. He looked back at the road and saw a sign of tire tracks veering off the road and into the bush, tracks that looked fairly new. The rain they’d had the last few nights had turned the side of the road into puddles. He parted the bushes and saw a sticker on the windshield. The car was a rental and it hadn’t been here long. He took a deep breath and peered inside. No one. Phew. Then he tried the door handle and flipped the trunk. Inside was a small suitcase.

  Should he look inside?

  Definitely not.

  Jesse turned around and walked back to town to find Matt Lehman.

  Later that night, Ruthie slipped downstairs to talk to her dad when she knew Birdy was upstairs with Emily and Lydie. She appreciated Birdy, had grown fond of her, but she missed time with her father. Now and then, they used to have late-night talks after her sisters had gone to sleep. You could ask him anything; nothing was off-limits. An “open-door policy,” he called it. Doubts, complaints, questions—he listened carefully, took her thoughts seriously, and never acted shocked or judge-y. Of all the things she loved and admired about her dad, the open-door policy was her favorite. She stood at the doorjamb until he looked up from his desk and noticed her.

  He gave her a fond smile. “What’s on your mind?”

  “What does Proverbs 16:9 mean?”

  David reached for his Bible and opened it. “‘The heart of a man deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.’” He leaned back in his chair. “It means that whatever we think might be the right direction for us, the right path, God has the final say.” He closed the Bible. “What makes you ask?”

  Come clean, Ruthie. “I was putting towels in the guest cottage at the inn and Patrick Kelly’s Bible was open. I didn’t mean to snoop, but I . . . did. That verse was underlined twice, and then he wrote in the margin: ‘Let things come to me instead of rushing at them as I usually do.’ I wondered if that’s what the verse meant.”

  “Setting aside the invasion of Patrick’s privacy, I think you might be missing the point. Patrick wasn’t simply restating the verse, he was applying it to himself.”

  Oh.

  “It was an example of how faith intersects life. Patrick was letting the Scripture speak to him. To change him.”

  Again, oh. Such a thought hadn’t occurred to her.

  “Patrick told me that he spends a lot of time meditating on God’s Word.”

  She glanced up quickly at her father. Was he aware that she was intensely interested in anything Patrick said or did? But her dad didn’t seem to have a hidden motive. She spoke quietly. “I thought reading the Bible was enough.”

  “Certainly, it’s a start. But reading the Bible without letting it sink deep into our hearts and souls isn’t enough.” He looked at the ceiling, as if searching for the right words. “It’s a little like the manna that came down from the heavens each day for the Israelites to gather, to sustain them, while they were wandering in the desert for forty years. When the manna was kept, it spoiled.”

  “Other than on the Sabbath.”

  “Aha! You’ve been paying attention to my sermons. Yes, you’re right. Other than on the Sabbath. And perhaps that means that reading the Bible without letting it affect us is like trying to keep the manna—it ends up rotting.”

  She collapsed into a chair with a heavy sigh. “
I don’t get it.”

  He held up his well-worn Bible. “It has to be devoured, consumed, ingested. Not just read. It has to go deep inside of us and make a difference in how we respond to circumstances, to people. To change us from the inside out. What’s the point of having a head full of Bible verses and a heart full of emptiness?”

  “So what’s the difference between reading the Bible and meditating? Or what’s the difference between meditation and prayer?”

  “Great question,” he said. “Certainly, it all begins in prayer.” He opened his Bible and turned a few pages. “Here it is. Psalm 77:11–12. ‘I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.’ Look at the verbs in this passage that teach us how to meditate: remember, meditate, talk. The focus of our attention is on God. There is a change, a shift, and we are suddenly in an entirely different world. This happens while we are in prayer.”

  “And you’re saying that meditation is part of prayer.”

  “In a way, yes. It’s all part of the same conversation with God. Reading the Bible, prayer, meditating on his Word.” He laced his fingers together. “They all work together to shape our heart.”

  Then the twins came tumbling down the steps to say goodnight and the moment was over. Ruthie quietly slipped upstairs to her room.

  It was a Sunday afternoon, an off-Sunday. One of David’s favorite days.

  The conversation he had with Ruthie about the Israelites, manna, and the Sabbath stuck with him. He had always considered the Sabbath to be one of God’s greatest gifts to man. Certainly, it was made for man, to cause him to rest, worship, and re-center on God, his work, his presence in one’s life. A day of not doing, of not working, of renewal. The very word “Sabbath” had its origins in Hebrew as sabbat, was adopted by the Greeks, and eventually morphed into the Latin word sabbatum. It meant to rest. Stop. Quit. Cease.

  Ceasing, David thought, was just the right word.

  Isaiah wrote that “the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.” God needs no rest. He rested on the seventh day because he had finished his creation.

  David believed that a person’s heart was reflected in how he honored the Sabbath. If the Sabbath were neglected, that meant that something else was “hallowed” or put in the holy place.

  It was fair to say that he hadn’t been greatly alarmed by Patrick’s observations on that late-night buggy ride—curious and perplexed would be closer to the truth. But he also wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information Patrick had indirectly supplied. Very likely, Patrick was mistaken. Hopefully, he was.

  But what if he wasn’t?

  David shook his head in disgust. Why did he have to look for trouble? Why couldn’t he just appreciate the way things were, right now? His mother, now living happily in Ohio with her new husband, told him she had named him after King David the Warrior, but he must have misunderstood her because he acted more like David the Worrier. He was always fretting over something.

  Still he decided to drive down the roads and see for himself if any stores or roadside stands were open on this Sunday afternoon.

  There was so much about the ministry that David loved—leading the church in worship, sharing the joy of baptism and weddings, shouldering the burdens of burials. But this part he loathed—the bishop’s role becoming a stern father scolding errant children. Briefly, he considered giving the task to his deacon to ferret out those who had shops open on the Sabbath, but he knew that wasn’t appropriate in this situation. It wasn’t an issue of not taking the Ordnung seriously. Those issues belonged to the deacon.

  This was a heart issue. A bishop dilemma. At best it was a casual use of this holy day, set apart from all the others; at worst it was a calloused one.

  Lord, he prayed, please don’t make me be that kind of bishop. You know how difficult it is for me to be that kind of father to my own children—to set down rules and see that they are obeyed. I want to lead, Lord, not to scold.

  But as he drove down the road past Edith and Hank Lapp’s chicken and egg farm, he saw the window open on the wooden roadside stand. Inside was Hank, feet up on the counter, sound asleep. David pulled in Thistle’s reins and dropped his chin to his chest. I hear you, Lord. I see.

  He climbed out of the buggy and walked over to the egg stand. Hank was in a deep sleep. His jaw was slacked open, he was snoring like a grizzly bear in midwinter. “Hank,” David said softly.

  No response.

  “Hank,” he said a little louder. “Hank.”

  Nothing.

  “HANK!”

  That worked. Hank jerked awake, dropped his feet to the floor, rocketed upright. “One dozen for two bucks. Two dozen for three bucks! Best eggs in the county!” Then his eyes focused—his good eye, actually—and he realized it was the bishop who stood before him. “David . . . ,” he sputtered. “The thing is . . . Edith’s hens were in a happy mood this week and laid an abundance of eggs. Edith thought it would be best to try to sell them to the tourist buses going down the road . . . otherwise they’d go bad. It’s just a onetime Sunday. Not a regular thing like them quilters is doing.” He pointed a thumb down the road. “That’s who you should be going after. Them quilters.”

  There were so many things wrong with Hank’s excuses that David didn’t know where to begin. Blaming Edith, for one. A little like Adam blaming Eve in the Garden of Eden for giving him the fruit to eat. Another error: rationalizing the eggs would go bad if they waited a day to be sold. It boiled down to a missed opportunity for a sale. Rather than thank God for the abundance of eggs, Edith and Hank felt the burden of the blessing. And then accused the quilters.

  But to make sense of this to Hank Lapp, he needed to think the way Hank thought.

  “Hank, if someone were to purchase your eggs today, what would they do with them?”

  Hank blinked rapidly as if it were a trick question. “They’d have to get them home, into the cooler.”

  “Maybe they want to make a cake for Sunday supper, but they realize they’re out of milk. So then what would they do?”

  “Run down to the Bent N’ Dent and get a carton of milk.”

  “But the Bent N’ Dent is closed today. However, let’s say there’s such a demand for milk on Sunday afternoons, because so many folks are buying your good eggs, that I decide the store should remain open. Then what?”

  “I see where you’re going, David. Other folks might shop on Sundays.”

  “Yes, and then maybe we would decide that church should be shortened up a little so we can get the shopping done. And as long as we’re out shopping, let’s get other errands taken care of too.” He glanced over at Thistle, patiently waiting for him. “My horse needs new shoes. It’d be nice if the blacksmith could take care of that on Sunday, so I don’t have to take precious time out of the workweek. And then there’s buggy repairs. That, too, would be nice to have taken care of on Sunday, but Jesse may need help managing those repairs. Those apprentices of his, well, you know they aren’t overly blessed with intellectual horsepower. You may need to help Jesse out.”

  Hank gasped. Buggy repairs—that was talking his language. “I like my Sunday afternoon naps!”

  “Exactly. And all this happened because you sold eggs on a Sunday.”

  Hank breathed in and out. “I told Edith this was a blamed foolish idea!” He started packing the cartons of eggs into a box. “I told her. She doesn’t listen. But is she the one who’s facing the bishop? No. She’s off visiting her sister. Women are always getting me into trouble.”

  David had to swallow a smile as he climbed back into the buggy. Convict them one by one, Lord.

  But if Hank Lapp was any indication, they were going to need a nudge to get back in the right direction. Maybe more than a nudge.

  10

  David waited for the right moment to drop the bomb. The house was empty, and he was nonchalantly looking for a snack
to tide him over to supper as Ruthie sat at the table, absorbed in preparing a lengthy Penn Dutch vocabulary list for Patrick Kelly. “Ruthie, the school board paid a call this morning. Danny Riehl is going to stay on at Prince Edward Island.They’d like you to consider taking the teaching job this next term.”

  Ruthie’s head remained bent over her work. “No. Absolutely not. Never. Not in a million years.”

  “I don’t understand that. You love learning.”

  She sighed and put her pencil down, then turned around to face him. “I do. But I don’t like teaching.”

  “You’re teaching Patrick.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s only for one month. And he’s paying me a lot of money. Even still, the whole process of teaching tries my patience.” She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “You might not have noticed, but I’m not a particularly patient person.”

  “Actually, I have noticed.” Everyone knew about Ruthie’s short fuse. “What would you like to do for work? The Inn at Eagle Hill isn’t steady work.”

  “I’ve been giving that topic a lot of thought.” Slowly, she pulled an envelope out of her Penn Dutch–English dictionary and handed it to him. “I took the GED. And . . . I passed.”

  He opened the envelope and read the scores. “You did more than pass. You sailed through it.” He smiled at her. He wasn’t surprised she did so well, not at all. Ruthie had a fine mind.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Not that you passed. I’m only disappointed you felt the need to hide it from me.”

  He saw her subtly guarded mask drop and her expression change to discouragement and confusion. A memory, more a feeling than a vision, flashed through his mind. He remembered what it felt like to be seventeen or eighteen, about the time his mother was applying daily pressure to make him get baptized. The closer and closer the day drew, the further and further his interest in baptism grew. He understood some—not all, but some—of Ruthie’s inner turmoil.

  Ruthie propped her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands. “Dad, I know what I don’t want to do. The problem is that I don’t know what I do want to do. Other than . . . I know I want to keep learning. Is that so wrong?”