Jacob's Return

by Annette Blair

  His face changed as he seemed to look inward at what must be a grim sight. “I remember hearing during Anna’s funeral that when the spasms finally stopped, she was gone. But Emma is still with us.”

  “She’ll be all right, Jacob.”

  Hope shone from his eyes. “Promise, Mudpie.” He examined her face for long moments and his hope seemed to fade. “You think this is God’s judgment on us?”

  Rachel had wondered, herself, if this was their punishment, and yet … “For what sin of your parents do you think God took Anna?”

  Jacob lay his head on her knees, Emma’s hand in his. “Thank you,” he said.

  Rachel put her lips to Emma’s forehead, her hand on Jacob’s shoulder, and she prayed.

  * * * *

  Four more times before midnight, the convulsions wracked Emma. Four more times, they put her in the tub of cool water.

  Sometimes Jacob thought the night would never end. Then, fearing what morning might bring, he prayed it never would.

  Emma roused around one. After making her thirst known, she drank every drop of oatmeal water. Rachel had to slow her down, she was so greedy. Jacob chuckled at her chubby little fingers grasping the cup when Rachel would take it from her. He thought he’d never seen such a beautiful sight. Her rash was worse, but her fever was lower.

  She received the drink so well, Rachel warmed the oatmeal and fed her some. Her hunger gave them further reason to hope.

  But before long, she vomited everything in her stomach, over herself and both of them. Rachel washed and changed her and put her in her crib.

  “Clean and sweet-smelling again,” Jacob pronounced as he kissed his daughter’s fingers. “And the fever down a bit too.”

  Rachel examined her dress, then Jacob’s pants. “At least one of us is sweet-smelling.”

  “Go wash up and get into your nightgown. Try to sleep. I’ll call you if I need you, I promise.”

  Rachel nodded and left.

  Twenty minutes later she came to stand beside him near the crib. “How is she?”

  “Better.” He put one arm around her shoulder and brought her close until their foreheads touched. “Thank you.”

  “Wasn’t me who did it.”

  “Already thanked Him, and considering we haven’t spoken in a while, He must have been surprised. Thought you agreed to sleep.”

  “As if I could.”

  Rachel’s beauty was as open and natural as her love. An age-softened, tawny wool robe covered her white cotton nightgown, a rebellious ruffle peeking out at the neck. He touched it. “You add that since you moved from Simon’s room?”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Ya.”

  He shook his head. “Daring.”

  She nodded. Kapp off, her curls hung down her back like rich burgundy velvet. Simon’s cruel work, hidden by the thickness of the rest, showed hardly at all now. Still, scars from that night remained in both of them.

  Annoyed, Emma murmured Aaron’s name in her sleep.

  Jacob looked at Rachel and smiled. “Ach,” he said, touching Emma’s forehead once more. “She is better.”

  “Ya, if she’s ready to bean Aaron, like normal.”

  Rachel’s presence in his bedroom, all warm and ready for sleep, was like a dream. He slid his hands over her abdomen. “Go and get some sleep. There’s another babe needs tending here. I want you both healthy.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t leave. Don’t ask me to.”

  He lifted her in his arms, making her gasp in surprise, and carried her to his bed. He threw back the quilt and placed her dead center, facing both cribs. “Can you see her?”

  “Ya,” she said, not turning around, but he could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Good. Stay there then, and watch her.”

  He sat in the rocker for about an hour, his gaze moving from one of his girls to the other. Funny, he thought, how love could both fill, and break, your heart.

  When they both slept deeply, Jacob slid into bed behind Rachel and put his arm around her.

  She turned to him. “Jacob?”

  He savored the moment. In her sleep-filled daze, it was him she expected to find holding her, him into whose embrace she turned willingly. “I just want to hold you and our child for a bit,” he said.

  She stiffened. “No, Jacob.”

  “No? Well, if you don’t need to be held, I think our child does.”

  “I did not say it was ours.”

  “No you did not. But I wish you would.”

  “Even if I do not know?”

  Her words cut him. “Do you not? I suppose it is possible. He came to you nightly, then, even up to the night before he … hurt you last.”

  “I’ve a need to hit you for saying that, yet I do not know why it should be so.”

  “Neither I. Well?”

  “This child is my child, Jacob. And I am married to Simon, therefore, Simon is my child’s father.”

  “This is not what I wish to hear, Mudpie.”

  “I am sorry.”

  He felt her tears as they slipped from her cheek onto his shirt, and tightened his hold. “No, I am sorry. Though it might break me, I promise I will never ask you again. I also promise that I will always be here for you and this baby. I love you both. Never forget it.”

  “There is your answer, Jacob.”

  “What?”

  “You will love this baby, no matter the father. I thought about that this afternoon in the buggy, when you worried about me, for the baby’s sake—”

  “For your sake.”

  She held tighter. “Do you think the same could be said of Simon? That he will love this baby, no matter the father?”

  “Oh, Lord,” Jacob whispered. “Heaven help us.”

  Rachel closed her eyes. “All of us.” After a minute, she pulled away from him. “We should not be like this, in each other’s arms. No matter how peaceful and wonderful it feels after our frightful day.”

  “Your baby needs to be held, Rache. Be quiet and let me hold you both. Sleep. Too soon it will be morning and the world will intrude. Emma could wake at any time, though she is cooler and sleeping well. If you can’t sleep, just close your eyes for a bit. I will keep vigil.”

  Rachel sighed and calmed. “I will not be able to sleep. But I will close my eyes just to shut you up.”

  The last thing she remembered was his chuckle.

  The next was her father calling her name.

  Rachel opened her eyes.

  Her father stood at the foot of Jacob’s bed a frown on his face. “Judgment has been passed, Daughter.”

  Chapter 12

  Caught.

  Rachel sat up, heart pounding, warmth infusing her.

  Caught. In bed with Jacob.

  Then she saw him. Jacob. Asleep in the rocker, Emma in his arms.

  Her senses returned; she remembered to breathe.

  Still, this did not look good, her sleeping in the bed of a man not her husband.

  Jacob yawned, opened his eyes, and saw her father. “Bishop Zook.” He stood and put Emma down and ran his hand through his hair. “Rachel refused to leave Emma’s side last night,” he explained. “For the sake of her own babe, I made her lie down and rest.”

  Her father nodded. Rachel could not read him, but of approval, there seemed no sign. This was, perhaps, one instance where he could not give her his look that said, ‘nothing you ever do will disappoint me.’ And for such a loss, Rachel grieved.

  She rose, glad she was still wearing her robe, and stood awkwardly, facing the tall, commanding man who had given her life.

  When he opened his arms, she stepped joyfully in, his big heart beating under her ear. This reminded her of every childhood fear he’d calmed. How she wished he were not Bishop, so she could confide in him now, without ruining all their lives.

  He squeezed once and loosened his hold. “About the newspaper—”

  “Bishop Zook? Where is Aaron?” Jacob asked. “I thought he was with you.”

  �
�I did not keep him last night. Simon did.”

  “Simon!”

  “Not Simon,” Rachel said.

  “Stay with Emma,” Jacob said as he left the room.

  Rachel shook her head, rather than answer the question in her father’s eyes. If Simon frightened Aaron the way he’d frightened her … “Oh, Pop. How could you?”

  Emma roused when Rachel touched her forehead. Rachel lifted and hugged her then she took her downstairs, her Pop behind her. In the kitchen, she could tell by the sun that it was late. At least eight, if the Elders’ meeting had already taken place. “Pop, didn’t Simon vote with the Elders? Wasn’t Aaron with him?”

  “They did not want him voting.”

  Rachel entered Simon’s house from the kitchen. “He won’t like that. When was the last time you saw him and Aaron?”

  “Yesterday noon.”

  Rachel shook her head as she climbed the stairs to the bedrooms. “I thought you were taking him, Pop.”

  “I would have if I knew how upset you would be.”

  Simon’s room was empty, the bed made, everything neat.

  “I didn’t want you to worry about the boy,” he said, “so I let you think I was taking him. But Simon needs to learn—”

  “You don’t know what you did, Pop. Aaron might have been frightened.”

  Her father scowled.

  Back in the main house, in the middle of the best room, her father put his hands on her shoulders to turn her around, and she tried to hide her fear when she looked up at him.

  “You’re frightened, both you and Jacob. You can tell your Pop why, Rachel. You know you can tell me anything.”

  But she couldn’t. There were times having a Bishop for a father didn’t help, and this was one of them. She shook her head as she stepped from his hold and went outside. “You do not really know Simon, that’s all.”

  He followed her to the barn. “I am beginning to learn more than I want to. And it’s not making me happy.” In the barn all was peaceful. The milked cows had been led to pasture. There was plenty of fodder. Everything tended as usual.

  Emma pointed out the window. “Aaron,” she said.

  Near the open doorway of the tobacco shed, across the sweeping back yard, Simon examined a tobacco plant to test its moisture. Aaron, hale and hearty, hid beneath a leaf bigger than him. He kept peeking out to get Simon’s attention and Rachel sighed with relief.

  Jacob strode toward them, but they didn’t see him coming.

  She and her father followed at a distance.

  Jacob stopped when Simon ‘found’ Aaron by catching him up in his arms and throwing him into the air with a bark of laughter.

  Rachel stopped too. “I never heard Simon laugh before.”

  Her father threw her a look with as much shock as disgust. “Why did you marry him, then?” he snapped, but he did not break stride for an answer. He passed Jacob and made for Simon.

  Jacob stayed where he was.

  When Simon turned at the sound of her father’s approach and saw all of them, his habitual scowl returned. Aaron got put down with a firm move, indicating their game’s end and he began to cry. Spotting his father, he ran.

  Rachel could only imagine Simon’s mortification at being caught laughing and playing when he chided her for it so often.

  A heated discussion between Simon and her father took place, and though Rachel could not hear, their postures and scowls held her in place.

  When Ezra Zook faced his son-in-law, he shook with an anger that had been simmering for years, but had come near to boiling since yesterday. He took a minute to pray for composure before he began. “I am happy to see the boy is all right. After I spoke to your father this morning, I needed to make certain.”

  Simon straightened in affronted dignity. “Of course he is all right. Why would he not be? Was you who gave him into my keeping.”

  “More fool me. But I did not truly know you until today, though I should have. When you shamed your wife for her barrenness before the entire congregation, I tried to believe your higher goal was your mission in the church, and I held my tongue.

  “When I learned some weeks back of your deceit in separating Rachel and Jacob before your marriage, no matter that I grieved for my daughter, I hoped your union was part of God’s plan.

  “But when you brought her before everyone for so foolish a reason as publishing a newspaper … When your true purpose was to humiliate her once again … Bah, what is the use? I will be plain.

  “As I reflect on these things, on you ‘Deacon’ Sauder, I am disquieted. I have watched you cover self-interest with piety, shroud condemnation in sermon. I have sometimes noticed a feigned, deceitful regard for the community. For those reasons, I do not quibble to tell you, for the sake of our brothers and sisters, I am uneasy with your membership in the church, never mind with your performance as Deacon.”

  Simon’s lips tightened and his stance stiffened.

  “As Deacon, your admonitions at service are often harsh, though sometimes that is necessary. You spend less time than I would wish looking after our needy members, but I understand the needs of a farm. However, the role you perform best, and with great relish, is the finding of transgressors. But the one you have found most often — and pursued doggedly — is your own wife.

  “My daughter is no transgressor!”

  Ezra knew his words mattered less because of his status as father-in-law than Bishop, which made him angrier. “Yesterday, when I gave Aaron into your care, I did not worry for his physical well-being. That sin I did not expect of you … not until I listened to your father this morning, tell me, with great sadness, of my daughter’s bruises and her fear of you.”

  Shock whitened Simon’s features to such a degree that Ezra thought the man might lose consciousness. But as Rachel’s father and as Bishop, he needed to go on. This business was too serious to sugar-coat.

  “Because of what you did to Rachel, and how you hurt your father in the process, were I a man given to rage, I would … But it is not our way. Instead — may I be granted such grace — I must forgive you. But I will not, I cannot, until I see that Rachel does.

  “You will change your ways, Simon. You will show your wife, and all of us, that you honor and respect her. I will know if she forgives you, because she will be happy, again. And I can tell when my Rachel is happy, so there will be no fooling me on this. And I pray this will happen before the child is born.

  “The sins you commit against Rachel, you commit against your Maker. If you cannot care for one of His daughters, you cannot care for any of his children, especially not their souls. Change your ways, Deacon Sauder. If you do not, I will bring you before the district for excommunication. Since, I do not see you right now as a good man, much less a fit husband — or Church Deacon — you will not preach again until I say so.”

  “Everyone will know.”

  “Everyone knows how you treat your wife. What is the difference? One lowers you in their respect as much as the other.”

  “All the Elders must decide such a thing. Not just you.”

  Ezra laughed. “You wish me to bring this before them? I can tell you, there would be no chance for you. They are not pleased with you. They are angry and embarrassed you forced them and their families to witness your personal rage against your wife. And now they are compelled to make a decision none wished or needed to make. Not one feels it is his right. Mildly put, they are not kindly-disposed toward you right now.”

  Ezra let his words settle. “Well? Shall we put it to them?”

  “No.”

  “No. Good. We’ll put it to them instead, if you do not change your ways, shall we?”

  Simon nodded.

  If he could turn any more purple, he might expire, the Bishop thought and begged forgiveness for wishing it would happen. “It is time for you to begin,” he said before he left.

  As he came away, Rachel could see her father was struggling with his anger, but Simon, passed silently by him and reache
d Jacob first.

  Rachel stepped up to them as Simon approached.

  Jacob hugged Aaron protectively. “What did you do to him?” he asked.

  Simon sighed and clenched his fists, his jaw rigid. “I did nothing.”

  “Where have you been since yesterday morning?”

  “I went—”

  “Have you kept Aaron with you since then?”

  “Of course I have!”

  “Tell me what you did then.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know what my boy did and saw, and experienced. Tell me now or I’ll—”

  Aaron opened his arms to Simon. “Unkabear?”

  Rachel was glad, though Simon shook his head, that he took Aaron, anyway, because the call had been a plea. And when Aaron closed his arms around Simon’s neck, Simon allowed it!

  Her husband’s actions in the past half hour almost made Rachel dizzy.

  “We went to market down Cattail Crossing,” Simon said.

  Aaron giggled. “Yup!”

  “Oh, yes. I forgot. Aaron learned to drive the buggy.”

  “Honest to heaven, Simon, if something had happened to—”

  “Do not be stupid, Jacob. We drove so slow, you could have shoed the horse as we went. He sat on my lap the whole time and I held him good.”

  “After that,” her father prodded. “Did you feed the boy the noon meal, and then supper?”

  “Breakfast this morning, even.” Simon’s tone was sarcastic and Rachel had to swallow an urge to giggle.

  “Where?” Jacob asked.

  Simon sighed again. “We ate the noon meal with Sarah Yoder, up Applebutter Hill. Her Abram is sick; I went to visit him. After we milked the cows here, we ate supper with Joel Schrock and Gerta. Oh. Aaron has a lamb.”

  “Pokey!” Aaron scrambled down from Simon’s arms and ran to Rachel, then he stopped to look at Emma and smiled. “Emma not sick.” He took Rachel’s hand and tugged. “Come see Pokey, Momly.”

  They fetched and brought the lamb to show Jacob.

  Black with a white face, Pokey had a tender caretaker in Aaron, who cherished him almost as much as he cherished the uncle who purchased him.

  Jacob would have none of the emotion. “Where did Aaron sleep last night?”