The Calling

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Geena held her gaze.

  “It’s them stupid HIPAA laws.” The woman pressed her lips together. “I could lose my job.”

  “Please,” Bethany whispered.

  The woman looked at Geena. “You really a preacher? You ain’t wearing a collar. You don’t look much like a holy roller.”

  “I can assure you . . . I am an ordained minister.”

  The woman hesitated, wavering. She turned to Bethany. “Your mother is a chronic schizophrenic.”

  “What is that?” Bethany asked, confused. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Her brain is sick, baby.”

  “It’s a mental disorder that makes it hard for the patient to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t,” Geena said.

  “I don’t understand,” Bethany said, her voice gravelly and dry. “How does someone get schiz . . . schizo . . .”

  “Schizophrenia,” Geena finished.

  “Was my mother born that way? Had she always been sick?”

  The caregiver glanced up and down the hall, then lowered her voice. “From what I heard about your mama, it started with acute schizophrenia when she was in her late teens, then it went on to chronic schizophrenia. She’s on some heavy antipsychotic meds. They help her with her hallucinations, long as she stays on it—and she can be tricky that way—but even on her best days, she can’t take care of herself and she can’t live on her own.” She started walking down the hall again and stopped in front of a door. “Baby, you look awful pale. Why do you want to do this?”

  Bethany followed behind her. “I need to.”

  “You sure you’re up for this?”

  Bethany closed her eyes. Was she? She heard Jimmy’s voice: You’ve come this far. And you’re stronger than you think. “Yes.”

  The woman opened the door. “Mary, honey, you got some company.”

  Bethany hesitated before she stepped toward the open door. It was a small room with a single bed, a nightstand, and a chair in the corner next to the window. Curled up in the chair was a small woman, staring out the window, her long dark hair pulled back severely into a ponytail.

  As Bethany crossed the room and stood beside the chair, she could feel her heart pounding. There was a salty, bitter taste in her mouth that she recognized as fear. Her gaze searched the woman’s face, then went slowly over the rest of her. She was small boned and fine featured and her skin was so pale that Bethany could see the blue veins on the insides of her wrists. Eyes shaped like Tobe’s—half moons with those thick lashes that Bethany had always envied—but these eyes seemed flat and empty.

  Bethany groped for a thought, something she could say. How did a person introduce herself to the woman who gave her life? “My name is Bethany. Bethany Schrock.” She enunciated each word slowly and carefully.

  The woman—this was her mother!—blinked her eyes rapidly, but looked at Bethany without recognition.

  She tried to clear the gritty feeling out of her throat. “Do you remember me? I’m your girl. I’m Bethany. Your daughter.” She reached out to touch her arm, but the woman flinched. “Tobe is my brother. Dean Schrock was my father. Your husband.”

  The woman clutched and unclutched her hands. The lines at the corners of her mouth pulled deeper.

  Bethany crouched down so she was face-to-face with the woman. “I came because I wanted to see you.” She tried to sound calm but couldn’t quite keep the quiver out of her voice. “I’ve missed you. My whole life, I’ve missed you. I’ve never stopped missing you.”

  “No,” her mother whimpered. She drew her legs up tight against her chest and started to rock back and forth, her arms tightly around her knees, her eyes squeezed shut.

  Bethany noticed her hands. She held her hand up next to the woman’s. “Look. Look how similar our hands are. Even the nails. Tobe always teases me that my hands are small. They’re just like yours.”

  The woman responded by balling her hands into a fist and ducking her chin to her chest. “He said not to give it to anyone.”

  “Give what?” Bethany asked. “Who said such a thing to you?”

  “No, no, no, no, no.” Her whole body was so rigid it shook.

  The caregiver stepped in and put a hand on Bethany’s shoulder. “She’s getting agitated. Maybe you need to come back another time, baby. This isn’t a good day for her. Don’t feel bad. Even before you came, I knew it wasn’t a good day for her.”

  Bethany reached out a hand toward the woman’s shoulder, then dropped it so it hung limply at her side. Slowly, she rose and walked toward Geena, waiting by the door, then turned back for a final look. The woman was sucking in great gasps of air, breathing, breathing, breathing frantically, as if she dared not stop even for an instant.

  This was her mother. This was her mother!

  Tobe was right. She should have left it alone. Once you know something, you can’t unknow it.

  Bethany turned and stumbled toward the door, fumbling for the tissue she put in her dress pocket. She squeezed her eyes shut against the burn of tears, but they came anyway.

  The caregiver told them to wait for her in the hallway while she tended to Mary. “Any doubt if she’s actually your mother?” Geena asked. “There could be a mistake.”

  Bethany shook her head, splattering tears. “No doubt.” Those eyes, that hair, even the shape of her fingernails. There was no mistaking the family resemblance. She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue, then lifted her head slowly and glanced upward. “All my life, I assumed my mother was living a grand life somewhere, happy to be rid of us, never giving us another thought. I never ever imagined her life to be . . . to be like . . . that.”

  The caregiver came out of the room and walked them to the front entrance.

  “Can you tell me anything more?” Bethany asked. “How long has my mother been here?”

  “Don’t know. I started here about six years ago. All I know is that she’s been here a long, long time, and her bills are paid for every month, right on time. That’s all I know.”

  Geena tilted her head. “When we first arrived, you said something about not expecting anyone until the last day of the month. What did you mean by that?”

  “That’s when the ladies come to visit her. Three or four of them, like clockwork. They pretty her hair and fuss over her. The last day of every month, rain or shine, unless it’s a Sunday. Then they come on Monday.”

  “What made you think Bethany was part of that group?”

  The caregiver looked Bethany up and down. “Well, because she’s dressed the same—with them little bonnets.”

  “They’re Amish?”

  The caregiver nodded. “They sit and quilt with Mary. It’s her best day. She’s always real calm after they visit.”

  Bethany leaned forward. “Did you say they quilt?”

  “Yes. They’re a quilting group, they say. Call themselves the Sisters’ Bee.”

  15

  Jimmy,” Naomi said, resting her forehead in her hand as she talked, “for the tenth time, I don’t think you did anything wrong.”

  “But I told Bethany I’d take her home from the singing. She didn’t say anything about having to leave early. I did end up giving her a ride, but she was mostly quiet. She’s never quiet. Usually, she’s complaining about my bad character. She even wore that lavender dress that I like so much. She looked beautiful. A little tired, though. Did you notice?”

  “I did.” Naomi sighed. Jimmy was her friend. So was Bethany.

  “I just don’t understand what’s happened,” Jimmy said. “At times, I think she’s genuinely interested in me, you know? And other times, she acts like I’m invisible.”

  “I don’t think you should be worried. She went to the singing, didn’t she? If she wanted to avoid you, she wouldn’t have even gone.”

  “That girl flashes hot and cold faster than I can keep up.” He worried his hat in his hands. “Doesn’t it seem like something’s bothering her
lately? More than her usual fiery temper?”

  It did seem so to Naomi too, but she had no idea what exactly was troubling Bethany. “Maybe there’s just a lot on her mind with her brother’s coming, then going.” Tobe was certainly on the top of Naomi’s mind.

  Jimmy wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “By the way, you and Tobe sure did make a fast getaway at the singing.”

  Naomi froze. “Did anyone else notice?”

  He grinned. “Your secret is safe with me.” Then his smile faded. “So do you think you could talk to Bethany?”

  “If there’s a chance to talk, then I’ll try. No promises. I’m your friend, not your matchmaker.” That wasn’t entirely true, Naomi did enjoy matchmaking and thought she had a talent for it. But she hadn’t had any time alone with Bethany for quite some time now. She didn’t even know where she’d gone today.

  Naomi looked out the window at Sammy and Luke, racing behind her brother Galen as he led a horse into the ring for training exercises. Those two boys never seemed to walk in a straight line. Instead, they ran in zigzags. What would it be like to have that much energy?

  “I’d better get out there before Galen wonders where I’ve gone,” Jimmy said. At the kitchen door, he stopped. “Hank Lapp told me the other day that there were only two women in Stoney Ridge who could ever manage me on a full-time basis—Mary Kate Lapp, who spurned me for Chris Yoder, and Bethany Schrock. Think he’s right?”

  Naomi grinned. “Let’s just say I think you and Bethany are perfectly suited.”

  “Me, too. I just need to convince her of that.” He fit his hat on his head. “Thanks, Naomi. You’re a good pal.”

  The ride home from Hagensburg was a silent one. As they drew closer to Stoney Ridge, Geena glanced at Bethany and wasn’t surprised to see tears pouring like hot, silent rain over her face. She fished a small package of tissue out of her purse and handed it to Bethany. “Do you want to talk?”

  Bethany pulled a tissue out of the package and wiped her eyes and cheeks. “All these years, as long as I could remember, I was so angry with my mother, so angry that she’d torn our family apart. How could I even have thought such a thing? If I could, I’d take them all back. Every resentful thought, every hateful word. I feel riddled with as many holes as a wormy apple.” She blew her nose.

  “You didn’t know,” Geena said kindly. “You had no idea what had happened to your mother. Is that typical of the Amish? For your father to not tell you the truth about your mother?”

  “I don’t know if he knew the truth. Knowing Dad, he might have sugarcoated my mother’s illness, but he wouldn’t have lied.” Then the tears started again. “How can God ever forgive me for being so hardhearted? At times, I hated her,” she whispered.

  “But he does forgive, Bethany. He does.” Geena turned off the highway onto the back roads that wound toward Stoney Ridge. “Sometimes,” she said softly, “we have to make decided efforts to let go of the past. Not so that we pretend hard things didn’t happen, but so that the power of hard things is lessened. In the Bible, Isaiah talks about forgetting the former things and not dwelling on the past.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “No, it’s not. ‘The past is not a package one can lay away.’ Emily Dickinson said that.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “She’s an American poet. Lived in the 1800s.”

  “Well, no wonder I’ve never heard of her if she’s passed on.”

  Geena swallowed a grin. At times, Bethany seemed wise beyond her years. Other times, she seemed so young, so naive. “Are you going to tell the sisters from the Sisters’ Bee that you know they’re visiting your mother?”

  Bethany turned toward the window. “I don’t know. I just don’t know what to do about that piece of news. I’m still stunned. I’ve been working for them for months now and they’ve never said a word about my mother. Though, not long ago, I discovered they were feeding lunch once a week to thirty people. They are a puzzle, those old sisters.”

  “Mind if I give you some advice?”

  “Please.”

  “Don’t do anything about it for a while. Just give yourself some time to wrap your head around what you found out about your mother today. After all, the only thing you know for sure about the sisters is that they visit your mother once a month. That’s not such a bad thing.”

  Bethany glanced at her from the corner of her eyes. “Keeping it a secret is.”

  “Bethany, just pray long and hard before you talk to the sisters. Make sure God is the one leading you to talk to them, if you do it at all.”

  Bethany nodded. “Now that is some advice I could’ve used recently. Any time I get all puffed up and self-righteous, I make a mess even bigger.” Laughter broke through her self-pity. “I need a nap. It’s been an emotional day.”

  Geena patted Bethany’s arm. “In a good way.”

  Bethany closed her eyes and Geena drove past rolling fields, farmhouses with clotheslines flapping, horses hanging their heads over fences. The weather was changing—gray clouds were moving in from the north and the wind was picking up. Geena rolled down her window. The air was at least ten degrees cooler now than it was when they headed to Hagensburg this morning.

  She was glad she had gone with Bethany today. She wasn’t sure if the caregiver would have been as forthcoming with information had Geena not slipped into the conversation that she was in the ministry. Finding the truth today was much harder than she expected, but she couldn’t help but feel it was necessary for Bethany to come to peace about her mother.

  For the first time in months, perhaps in years, Geena had a sense that she was right where she was supposed to be.

  A headache came over Naomi in the afternoon that was so painful she had to come inside the house to rest her eyes from the bright sunshine. She brewed a cup of tea from the spearmint leaves that Sadie Smucker, the local herbalist, had given to her. Sadie had recommended that she distract herself from the pain, rather than lie in bed and dwell on it. So Naomi sat in the living room and tried to put a binding around a quilt, a Basket Garden pattern she had just finished.

  Sitting quietly and sewing the bright green binding inch by inch to the border, covering all the uneven edges and raveled threads with a smooth band of green, seeing all those different bits and scraps of fabric come together, stitch by stitch, into a neatly finished whole, did help lessen the pounding in her head, just a little.

  She had made this quilt with all kinds of scraps from her piece bag, and the scraps brought up happy memories of her siblings when they still lived at home. There were five brothers and sisters in between Galen and Naomi—they were the bookends, their mother had called them. They were the most alike too. Quiet, thoughtful, introspective, and frequently underestimated by others. Her sisters, now married with families of their own, had invited Naomi to come live with them, but she didn’t want to leave Galen. She understood him. She wondered when he would get around to asking Rose to marry him and what that might mean for her. Knowing Rose, she would want Naomi to remain with all of them. One big happy family.

  And that was tempting, especially when Naomi considered Tobe, which she did quite a lot.

  She wondered how the week was going for Tobe and hoped he was being completely candid with that lawyer. She had encouraged him to tell everything, to not hold back anything. Tobe seemed skeptical, but then she reminded him that he had spent most of the last year hiding from the truth and where had that gotten him? Honesty, she said, was always the best way.

  Even if being honest might open up a Pandora’s box of troubles? he had asked her.

  Even then, she said.

  Naomi had been stitching around a corner, which took careful attention to set the tucks just right, when the headache took a severe turn. She put down the fabric pieces and rubbed her temples.

  Outside, the sun disappeared as if someone had popped a lid over it. She went to the window and saw the weather was changing—no wonder she had such a headache. Whenever the
barometric pressure in the air changed suddenly, she felt the pressure in her head. She watched streaks of lightning light the sky, muted and hidden by low-lying clouds. Not rain clouds, just those empties. “Always threatening, never delivering,” Galen called them. She saw Galen and Jimmy lead some horses from the paddock into the barn. No more training would happen today if lightning flashed in the sky.

  Finally, she went down to the darkest part of the basement to curl up and rest on a cot. The basement was usually her last resort, but the quiet and the darkness often helped to alleviate the headaches. Sometimes she felt as if tiny men were inside her forehead, pounding on it with little hammers. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. The lightning was closer now, with large cracks of thunder quickly following. The sound filled her with such tension that she didn’t think she could endure it. If it went on much longer, she felt it would twist her like a wire.

  A gust of wind rattled the basement window and she shivered. For no reason she could have named, Naomi felt a ripple of foreboding. In her mind flashed images—bright lights, like a spinning police siren. She smelled freshly turned earth, then saw a shovel and . . .

  Naomi’s eyes popped open and she was on her feet. Something terrible was about to happen.

  Jimmy listened to Naomi’s vision and didn’t know what to make of it. Sometimes, when Naomi had a fierce headache, she would have these . . . visions or dreams or second sights . . . and while they often turned out to mean something, just as often they didn’t. He wished Galen were here, but he had gone into town to pick up some liniment for a horse’s lame leg. Jimmy appeased Naomi by saying he would check every horse on the entire King farm.

  “It’s not here,” Naomi said, trembling. “The trouble isn’t here.”

  “Then, where?”

  That . . . she didn’t know. Jimmy saw Hank Lapp saunter up the driveway with a fishing pole in his hand and waved him into the kitchen. Maybe he could make sense of Naomi’s vision. At this point, Jimmy wasn’t sure what else to do. Hank listened carefully to Naomi, asking details as if she were a witness to a crime and not just dreaming the whole thing up. He suggested they check over Galen’s livestock first, so he walked with Jimmy through the barn, then out to the pastures, but the horses were all accounted for and nothing seemed awry. “I’m not sure what to do to appease Naomi, Hank,” Jimmy said, walking back to the house. “Those headaches can make her a little . . .” He whirled his finger around his ear.