The Covenant

by Beverly Lewis

  When the good doctor heard the knocking on the side door, he was slow to get up out of his comfortable chair to see who it was. The boys should be back soon, was his first thought. Maybe they’d forgotten the house key. But, no, when he opened the door he was met by the tear-streaked face of a young Amishwoman. “I’m ever so sorry to bother you,” she said softly. “I was wonderin’ . . . is Derry home?”

  “Derek? You wish to see my son?”

  “Jah, if that’s all right.”

  He glanced around her, expecting to see a horse and buggy parked in the lane. “Did you come on foot?”

  She nodded. “ ’Tis important.”

  “Well, Derek isn’t home,” he said quickly, aware of her eyes in the porch light. Lovely, sad, faded blue eyes. “I wouldn’t know when to expect him.”

  “I’d be willin’ to wait.”

  Raking his hand through his hair, he wondered what he ought to say or do, wondering what was best for Derek. “Let me run you home. I can’t say how late it might be before he—”

  “Denki, but no. I must see Derry tonight.”

  She knows his nickname? What sort of relationship does this girl have with my boy? he worried.

  Suddenly, he felt he must encourage her to visit tomorrow, or another day. But no amount of persuading could convince the girl that she should not sit outside on the porch step waiting, and she insisted on doing so. And now here was Lorraine, in her bathrobe, coming to see what all the commotion was, asking why Henry hadn’t invited the poor dear inside.

  “No . . . no, I can’t do that,” the girl said. “I wouldn’t think of imposin’ on you.”

  “But it’s nothing,” his wife insisted. “Please, do come in.”

  The girl, who gave her name simply as Sadie, was more stubborn than the two of them. She turned and planted herself on the second step of the side porch, determined to wait for Derek.

  At last Henry closed the door on the girl, turning to Lorraine. “Why must you be so hospitable at this hour, when we don’t even know the young woman?” he said, checking himself. It wouldn’t do to protest . . . to make a mountain out of a simple molehill, most likely.

  “She’s surely a neighbor, Henry,” his kind and compassionate wife said. “We have lots of Plain folk living up and down the road; you know that.”

  “But . . . an Amish girl asking for Derry?” He forced a chuckle. “How ordinary is that?”

  The tension was ultimately diffused by their laughter, though he found himself checking out the window every fifteen minutes to see if the girl was still there, hoping for Derek’s sake she might change her mind and walk back home. Where she belonged.

  The highway was dark, the headlights the only source of light on the narrow road hemmed in by cornfields on all sides. Robert surprised Derry by breaking the silence. “Did Dad ever warn you about women?” Robert asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Before I left for the war . . . at the train station, Dad said certain things.”

  Derek shook his head. “What’re you getting at?”

  “ ‘Stick to your own kind’—that’s just what Dad said, slapping my back while the train chugged into view. And he seemed to feel strongly about it . . . even wrote letters warning me to keep my nose clean when it came to European girls. Dad said women were trouble.”

  “Not all women,” Derry said. “Dad got lucky with Mom.”

  “Well, I didn’t listen to him. I fell for a German girl named Verena.” Robert stopped talking, having to cough several times.

  “What happened?”

  “She died in an explosion.” His brother paused again. “Thank God she was asleep . . . it happened in the middle of the night . . . she never knew what hit her.” Robert signaled and pulled over, then turned off the ignition and opened the window.

  “Yeah? That’s rough.”

  They sat there for the longest time, listening to the motor ticking.

  Soon Derry was the one coughing. “Are we ever going home?”

  Then Robert turned to face him, as if he were going to whine about the war some more. “This might sound weird to you, but I made a promise to God over there. When everyone around me was drowning or getting blown to bits . . . I prayed that if I got out of that hellish place alive, I’d give my life to Christ somehow. Do something big for Him.”

  “Like what?”

  Breathing in audibly, Robert leaned his arm on the open window. “What would you think if I became a minister, like Grandpa Schwartz?”

  Derry felt like laughing, but this wasn’t the time or place. “Hey, it’s your life. Mess it up if you want to.”

  “But . . . you didn’t see how bloody—how unspeakably brutal the war was. Don’t you understand I shouldn’t be alive today? You should have a brother buried six feet under. . . .” Robert’s voice trailed off to nothing.

  “Well, don’t let me be the one to tell you how stupid it could be to break a vow, or whatever, to God.” Derry was sick and tired of all this talk from his big brother. All this religious talk . . .

  It was time for Robert to quit spilling his guts and drive home. That’s what. And when Derry said so, Robert stared back at him for a moment, then straightened and turned on the ignition, saying no more.

  Sitting on the porch, having just met Derry’s parents—Dr. Henry Schwartz and his friendly wife—Sadie waited for their son, thinking back to her childhood years here in Gobbler’s Knob. For the longest time, she’d had a carefree, happy life . . . obeying the Ordnung and trying to do right. Dat and Mamma had brought her up in the ways of the Lord, no doubt of that. Yet here she was perched on the steps of strangers, really, their grandchild forming beneath her frightened heart.

  Ach, she’d had to tell Leah something. After all, Leah had been by her side to comfort her after Derry’s unexpected letter had clear knocked the wind out of her. She hadn’t breathed a word about expecting a baby, though. Didn’t want to share that news just yet, not with anyone. Only Derry should know. She had told Leah she wouldn’t be seeing her English beau any longer but guarded the letter and didn’t offer to share it.

  Unable to slip away from the house, she’d waited all week to walk down the road a half mile or so because she didn’t dare risk trying to hitch up the driving horse to the family buggy. Not at this hour. And now that she was here, Sadie felt even worse about the things Derry had written her. And awful sad it was, finding out he wasn’t home tonight. She had hoped he might’ve stayed home, sorrowfully pondering the many days and weeks of their love. But now his being gone made her wonder if he had ever loved her at all, to be out having himself a nice time while she was still crying over him—over what might’ve been.

  Or, now that she thought on it, what could still be. Did she dare tell him what was brewing in her mind . . . in her heart?

  Henry wondered now if he might’ve been too hasty with the young barefooted woman. Why hadn’t he invited her inside, welcoming her with the usual gracious bedside manner he was known for? Yet he was a man of his own opinions, and he pushed back alarm at the thought of a tear-streaked Amish girl on their doorstep.

  He walked back to the front room, ears alert to what might unfold. The hour was late. Robert and Derek would surely be home any minute, and his second son was quite adept at handling things, whatever the girl’s issue might be. This was not his concern, nor Lorraine’s, yet he stood to peer out the window as Robert’s car pulled into the lane.

  Derek spotted Sadie instantly, hunched over on the porch step, as if she could fool him and not be noticed. Nevertheless, she was there, brazenly waiting for him. “What’s she doing here?” he snapped.

  “Who?” Robert asked.

  “Never mind.” He leaped out of the car, mad as a threatened dog, and walked partway up the walk toward her. “Come with me, Sadie,” he barked, not waiting for her to get up and follow. Marching around the side of the house, toward the entrance to the medical clinic where his father treated patients, he waited for her to catch up, arms folded
across his chest. “What were you thinking, coming here?” he demanded.

  She inched her way closer to him, yet keeping her distance. It was then that he noticed she was barefooted beneath her long blue dress, as she always was, and in the dark coolness of the night, with only the porch lamp to cast a spell of light, he was taken once again with her beauty. “Derry, I’m sorry to bother you, but I must tell ya something,” she said softly.

  They stood like two statues engulfed in amber shadows.

  “My letter,” he muttered. “Is this about the letter?”

  “Jah.” Her voice quavered. “And . . . something else, too.”

  “Look, Sadie, I’m sorry about what happened between us. I wasn’t thinking—”

  “No,” she interrupted, “but I have been.” Then she said softly, almost in a whisper, “Derry, I’d thought you’d want to know . . . I’m in the family way.”

  Stunned, he took a step back as Sadie’s words echoed in his brain. “Are you sure?”

  “I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t.”

  An uncanny silence hung in the air, separating them like a damask curtain. His words were measured. “What’re you going to do?”

  “This isn’t just my concern, Derry. This is your baby, too.” Quickly she hung her head—not in shame, he was certain. After a time she slowly lifted her eyes to him. “If you loved me half as much as you said all those times before, you could save yourself from goin’ off to serve Uncle Sam, ya know.”

  He did not immediately grasp her meaning. Then he did. She wanted him to marry her, give her baby a name and a home. Any girl would want that. She must think he was looking for an exemption from military duty, and Sadie wasn’t simply hinting. He could see by her posture she was giving it to him straight. “What a wonderful-gut excuse to stay home, jah?”

  “But I want to join the army.”

  She fell silent again.

  He tried to avoid her eyes. Those beautiful eyes that had taunted him from the first night. “Let’s talk about you.” He didn’t want to sound crass, but what choice did he have? “My father might know of someone in Philly who could take care of this problem—and soon. I’d drive you there myself.”

  “No,” she said. “What’s done is done.” She stepped forward, coming face-to-face with him. “This wee one inside me, our baby together, was created out of love. ’Least, I thought so. You should be ashamed, Derry Schwartz, thinkin’ that I’d do away with my own flesh and blood.” She was crying. “I don’t know you anymore. Maybe I never did.” Turning, she ran across the lawn, heading for the road.

  “Wait . . . Sadie!” he called after her. “Let me take you home.”

  She stopped abruptly, hands on her slender hips. “I’d rather walk ten miles in the blackest midnight than let you drive me anywhere. You’re the cruelest human being the Lord God ever made!” With that pronouncement of his moral fiber, she sped off into the night.

  Derek stood watching her at the edge of the lawn. “Dad was right. Women are trouble,” he whispered, then spat on the ground.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Leah remembered having placed a firm hand on Sadie’s shoulder, hoping to talk sense to her, trying to stop her sister from going down the road to “talk to Derry, just this once.”

  “But . . . you’ve put the sins of the past behind, ain’t so?” Leah had asked, aware of Sadie’s glistening eyes. “Honestly, I don’t mean to pry, but—”

  “Then don’t.” Sadie had pushed away.

  “Keep your vow to God” was all Leah could whisper before Sadie left their bedroom, rushing out into the night.

  Now, alone in the room, Leah paced the floor, something she’d never done. Sadie was off somewhere talking to her former English beau . . . just why, she hadn’t bothered to say. The letter that had brought such sad, sorrowful news days ago was buried deep in one of the dresser drawers—or Sadie’s hope chest, maybe—Leah was awful sure, yet she wouldn’t go searching for it. Would be wrong to read what Sadie had never offered to share.

  But Leah wasn’t about to take herself off to bed. Not till Sadie returned home, safe in their father’s house again. She sat on the edge of the bed in her nightgown, praying silently and waiting for the tiptoed return of her baptized sister.

  The biting smell of woodsmoke mingled with the autumn air as Sadie rushed home, indifferent to sharp pebbles tearing at her bare feet. She sometimes ran, sometimes walked on the two-lane highway that bordered the east side of the forest, where she and Derry had met on more occasions than she cared to count, the road that ran between Derry’s home and her own. An owl hooted in the distance, the eerie sound coming from deep in the woods, though Sadie wasn’t a bit scared to walk alone.

  She thought of the toasty fire Aunt Lizzie surely had stoked all evening long, though at this hour the flames were no doubt reduced to smoldering embers, cooling now as she hurried toward home. Come to think of it, maybe Aunt Lizzie’s place was the origin of the smoke that hung so heavily in the air, except that the little cabin was clear on the other side of the knoll. Just why was she thinking of her fun-loving maidel aunt on a night like this? Sadie knew how much Lizzie liked to walk in the woods. Sometimes even at night, especially when the moon was out. Aunt Lizzie said she could talk best to God at such times.

  Sadie didn’t know how she herself felt about the Lord God tonight. She’d built her whole future round Derry, only to have her hopes come crumbling down. She thought she might want to move to Hickory Hollow, live neighbors to some of her married cousins—Uncle Noah and Aunt Becky’s grown children, maybe. Get away from not only the raised eyebrows that were sure to come, but the words of rebuke from Mamma, Dat, and eventually Preacher Yoder . . . all the way up to the bishop, if she didn’t confess her terrible sin and come clean. Then, just as awful, she’d end up living alone, without the chance to marry. No Amish boy would want “secondhand goods.” No more Sunday singings for her once she began to show, no more rides in an open buggy on a starry night, no more giggling at wedding feasts. Pairing up was a thing of the past. And tomboy Leah, of all things, would be the first of Abram’s daughters to marry.

  Sadie tied her prayer cap under her chin against the breeze, wondering what it would be like to live near her Hickory Hollow kinfolk. What had it been like for Lizzie, leaving all her friends and coming over here near Mamma? Especially when Lizzie had two sisters who were much closer in age than Mamma was, “and closer in spirit, too,” Uncle Noah had said years back, one of the few times they’d visited Mamma’s older brother and family. Of course, now it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Lizzie was long settled in the Gobbler’s Knob church community, a helper to Mamma, a caregiver for Dawdi Brenneman, and a woman of her own making. She’d never married, which often perplexed Sadie, and whenever the topic came up with either Leah or Mamma, one of them would say something like, “Some women seem content to live without a man.” But Sadie didn’t believe it, not for one minute. She’d noticed Aunt Lizzie at church picnics and whatnot, enjoying herself and everyone round her. Such a cheerful woman she was. Up until about five years or so ago, Sadie had wondered if Lizzie might not marry an older man—a widower, maybe—but no such opportunity had come along just yet.

  Glancing over her shoulder at distant car lights coming fast, Sadie moved to the far left side of the road, near the grassy ditch where wild strawberry vines grew all summer long and lightning bugs could be seen flickering in June.

  “I want to join the army. . . .”

  Derry’s words rang in her head. Thinking back to their dreadful conversation, she felt something snap way down inside her. No matter what Derry said or did from now on, she was going to cherish and care for their baby. The innocent child must be shielded from the murderous attitude of its own father.

  Kicking at the road, she scraped her right foot but didn’t care. Der Derry Schwartz is en lidderlicher— a despicable fellow—she thought. And the most frightening thing was she never would’ve guessed him to be anything but what she�
�d known of him these past months—kind and ever so loving . . . eager to see her as often as possible. What could’ve happened to change his mind about her? Had he found himself another girlfriend . . . in such a short time? Or was his decision to join up with the military the main reason? If that was true, why on earth would he refuse to write the letters he’d promised? Why?

  A dozen questions or more gnawed at her peace. The car lights had caught up with her. She turned to see Derry waving his arm out the window. “Sadie! Stop right now and get in.”

  As soon as she knew who the driver was, she turned her head stiffly, still walking.

  “Don’t be stubborn,” he was hollering at her. And now he’d stopped the car. She heard the door slam and his hard footsteps. Was he running after her to say he was ever so sorry, take her in his arms, tell her he didn’t mean a word of what he’d said before? That they should be married right away, he’d changed his mind, decided not to go off with Uncle Sam. He loved her, after all.

  But no . . . his words rang out into the night. “Listen to me, Sadie!” She felt his hand on her shoulder now, turning her round to face him. “You can’t go on like nothing’s happened,” he was saying. “You have to do something about the . . . baby.”

  “I’ll do something. I’ll be raising our child by myself,” she answered, “and there ain’t anything you can do ’bout it. Unless . . .” Looking past him, she saw his gray automobile sitting back there in the middle of the road, the door on the driver’s side gaping wide just the way her life and her future felt to her—exposed for the world of the People to see and then condemn.

  “Unless what?” He gripped her arms.

  “Unless you change your mind.”

  “That’s impossible,” he said flatly. “Well, I guess there is adoption, but who’s going to take a half-breed?”

  She wondered if this might be the truest reason behind his rejection of their child. But she didn’t think he’d be so uncouth as to put it into words. And such hurtful words they were. “Turn loose of me, Derry. I’m going home now.”