by Linda Byler
She sighed, weariness washing over her as she remembered the visit from the school board members. How could a person come to a sensible decision without adequate sleep?
Sarah washed her face, brushed her teeth, put up her hair as fast as possible, and threw on her clothes without knowing exactly which dress she was wearing. She pinned on her covering and ran down the stairs, just as the headlights of the market van swept across the yard.
Mam had told Sarah not to worry about Ashley. Priscilla was good at being with people like her, so they’d be fine. Levi would win her over as well.
Sarah slumped against the side of the van, asleep before they hit the interstate on the way to New Jersey, oblivious to the girls’ chatter and the roaring of the great trucks moving past in each direction.
The day was long, and her mind weary at the end of it. She packed up a few bakery leftovers without talking to anyone about the school board’s visit, collected her pay, and went to the van, suddenly knowing with startling clarity what her decision would be.
She needed to get away, she’d told Mam. Out of Lancaster County, which held Matthew’s memory and all the painful details in every road, every field, every farm and house and restaurant and store they’d ever been to.
She no longer wanted to see his house with the spreading maple tree across the rural road, the picket fence beneath it, his bedroom window shaded by it.
If she did go away, could she truly escape? The pictures would remain in her memory. Perhaps filling her mind and heart with a roomful of boisterous boys and girls would be the perfect answer.
Hadn’t the men said those boys were almost uncontrollable? It would take every ounce of her strength and likely more of her patience than she could produce, but she knew she wanted to try.
She imagined Matthew being chased out of Lancaster County by a group of rowdy children from the problem school and shook silently with inward giggles. Well, so be it, Matthew Stoltzfus. So be it.
Saturday evening was always a joyous time with the return home from market, the usual happiness and lighthearted talk, the anticipated end of her work week, and the long awaited opportunity to see Matthew. Now when the market van drove up to the door, the anticipation was replaced by a certain acceptance, a feeling that seemed to signal a better place, although not a perfect one.
Matthew was gone. Over and over, she had to remind herself of this fact, but no time was quite as difficult as the return from market on a Saturday evening.
She was shocked to see Mam’s pale face, her lips compressed with restraint, Priscilla sitting on the couch staring into space, her eyes wide.
“What?” Sarah asked immediately, afraid for them all.
“She left,” Mam said, her tone anxious.
Levi broke in.
“A white car. A little one. She went to the phone shanty. She did. She called. Someone came.”
He was speaking in loud tones, clearly distraught. He had wanted Ashley to stay. She was his friend. She said she’d play Memory.
The real story came from Mam, who said Ashley had come down the stairs late, about ten o’clock or around there, refused breakfast, and asked for the telephone. She waited on the porch shivering, her coat pulled tightly around her thin frame, talking to herself, until a car pulled into the driveway. She’d gone without a goodbye or thank you. She simply walked down the steps and into the waiting car.
The driver of the car was wearing dark glasses, a cap pulled low over his forehead, and a dark coat, so there was no way anyone could tell who he was or what he looked like.
Sarah was frustrated, afraid for Ashley.
“If I knew where she went, I’d hire a driver and go look for her. But I have absolutely no idea where to start. She never told me anything about her background, her whereabouts.
“One thing is sure, she’s afraid of the person she’s with. He seems to have some control over her, and she knows much more about these barn fires than we think.”
Mam nodded, saying wisely that Ashley held a secret about something, and it was so bad it was making her literally sick.
For now, they could only pray for her safety and hope for the best. God loved Ashley same as everyone else. He had a plan for her life, and she was important to Him.
“Just because we’re Amish and have a stable home doesn’t mean we’re above her in God’s eyes. He cares deeply about Ashley and so should we. That poor girl is so pathetic,” Mam said, tears rising unbidden.
Sarah ate a slice of sweet baloney and a dill pickle, drank some tea, then poured a glass of creamy milk, and took two oatmeal cookies from the Tupperware container in the pantry.
“You know what I think, Mam? I honestly think Ashley knows who started every one of these fires. I think deep down she’s a good girl, one who lives with a conscience that can barely tolerate the guilt, and I think this Mike, her boyfriend, is every bit as dangerous as she says. But I’m not convinced he’s the actual arsonist.”
Levi looked up from the puzzle he was assembling, his eyes shrewd, narrowing.
“I think you’re right, Sarah. You know, the other day I was thinking hard. I remember the small, white car that was here the night of our barn fire, and I think the person driving the car then was much bigger than the thin guy that picked up Ashley today.”
“Oh no, Levi,” Mam cautioned.
“Malinda!” Levi held up a warning finger, and Mam smiled widely, the way she always did when Levi called her Malinda.
The peace that entered Sarah’s life came slowly, in bits and pieces, in times she least expected it.
On her way to church the following morning, when the sunlight glistened on the frost in the hollows, wisps of fog hanging like ghosts above it and the sun so brilliant it hurt her eyes through the glass of the buggy window, she felt peace.
A calm, unhurried feeling of having cares that were not so enormous that God would not be able to handle them. Peace.
It came in many forms—the sound of the steel buggy wheels on the cold, hard gravel coupled with the dull, familiar sound of iron-clad hooves pounding on pavement, the tinkle of snaps slapping against the reigns, the homey clop of another team following them and checking the rearview mirror to see who it was.
It was familiar, home, her life, her culture. This was the only way she understood the accompanying peace.
This peace, however, was shattered by the appearance of Hannah, greeting her effusively the minute she stepped out of the buggy, chilled, eager to get into the house with her friends.
“Sarah! Oh, it’s good to see you! I just have to share this with you. You’ll be so happy for Matthew. They’re expecting! Imagine! The Lord is surely with them, wouldn’t you say? I can hardly wait to tell your mother.”
Sarah nodded her head and began to walk away, but was stopped by Hannah’s voice again.
“Sarah, Matthew called to tell me the good news. He asked about you. He wanted you to be the first to know. He cared very much what you thought. Oh Sarah, I can’t tell you how happy he is. I can just hear the joy in his voice when he talks about his work in Haiti. He’s serving in an orphanage now. Think of it, Sarah.”
Sarah met Hannah’s eyes, behind the glasses, eyes that sought her approval, searched for agreement, strengthening the faith she had in her beloved son.
Hannah saw the colors in Sarah’s eyes change from green flecked with gold to a turbulent surf of brown and gray and restless green. She stepped back, away from the ongoing reality she saw there.
Only a whispery sigh and a hint of an accompanying smile gave away any emotion. Rachel Zook handily stepping between them, shaking Hannah’s hand with a hearty good morning, as Sarah fled to the safety of the house.
She found peace was elusive, especially in the face of adversity. She listened closely as the young minister paced the floor, expounding Christ’s life and his lessons, but her mind wandered constantly, thinking of Matthew, his life, his calling, his wife and the child they were expecting.
He wanted me to b
e the first to know, Hannah? Really?
Sarcasm and rebellion crowded out the morning’s peace, and she felt torn, embattled, losing ground, her feet slipping down the dangerous slope of doubt and self-pity wrapped up with remorse and what-ifs until she couldn’t concentrate on the long closing prayer in German and the final song.
She blinked back the tears that the rousing melody forced to the surface, checked every youth seated on the boy’s bench, and had never felt Matthew’s absence so keenly. Would it never go away?
Would his memory dog her happiness all the days of her life, a barrel of darkness she’d drag along with baler twine slung over her shoulder, crippling her, holding her back from her normal, free walk?
Well, if it did, there wasn’t too much she could do about that now. She would have to do the best she could.
She dressed carefully that afternoon in a crisp navy blue dress, pinned her cape neatly, was careful about her apron, precisely lining up the two ends of the belt, pinning it securely.
Her hair looked better than she had ever seen it now that Priscilla had introduced her to a new product from Pantene, which helped hold the curls in place even better than hairspray.
She put a new white covering on her head, satisfied with her appearance, for once.
“Think of it, Pris. When I teach school, I’ll have to pin on a cap and apron every single morning. And tie my covering, then yet.”
“Then yet?” Priscilla mimicked from her perch on the bed.
“Whatever.”
“What’s with this Pris thing? I don’t want that nickname. You better not start it. I’d rather have Cilla.”
Sarah laughed.
“Who’s taking you?’
“Guess.”
“Melvin?”
“You got it.”
“How can you stand riding around with that old Melvin? He’s way past the time that he should even be running around. He’s not popular at all. You’ll never get a husband, hanging out with him.”
“Priscilla, I like Melvin.”
“I know you do. That’s nice. But, seriously, how old is he?”
“I think twenty-eight or twenty-nine.”
“Shoo!”
“Yeah, really.”
“And every time he comes to pick you up, same thing. He comes in, sits down, eats and eats and eats, talks to Dat endlessly—probably because he’s closer to his age than yours—then goes through the ritual of combing his hair, and he doesn’t even have any in the front. And there you sit, when I know you’d much rather be on your way to the youth supper.”
“Oh well, I’m not sixteen anymore. And Matthew isn’t here, so going away on Sunday holds very little excitement. The thrill is simply gone. Which shoes should I wear?”
“The flats.”
“Not the heels?”
“No, you’re tall enough.”
“Giraffe tall?”
“No, just tall.”
“Priscilla, I can’t wait till you’re sixteen. It’ll be so fun getting ready to go away together!”
“Yeah, but you have to remember, Omar is going to take me. Melvin won’t be in the picture, okay?”
Sarah raised her eyebrows, bumped Priscilla’s arm with her fist, and said, “My, my.”
“For someone who says there’s no excitement in going to the supper, you certainly are being very careful about your appearance, which is just a nice way of saying you sure are sprucing up for someone. Who is it?”
Sarah slapped her sister playfully. Priscilla yelped and ran down the stairs ahead of her. Suzie looked up from the card game she was playing with Levi, sniffed, and went back to her game.
Dat was seated on the recliner, a large ceramic bowl of popcorn beside him, a steaming mug of coffee on the lamp stand, his white shirt and black Sunday trousers making him look younger, relaxed.
He smiled at Sarah, asked who was picking her up, then smiled again, although his eyes clouded only slightly as he watched her walk to the kitchen for a bowl to fill with popcorn.
“Mam, you may as well make another popper of popcorn, if Melvin’s picking her up.”
As it was, Melvin was late, and they all got into a discussion about Ashley Walter’s strange existence, which seemed to escalate Melvin’s opinions about the barn fires to zealous heights. Sarah watched the clock and figured the day would soon be past and she’d still be sitting there at her parents’ kitchen table.
She agreed it was troubling, but if Ashley made the choice to go back to her boyfriend, there wasn’t too much they could do except be patient and hope no tragedy would come of it.
Dat’s eyes filled with tears of compassion, and Levi looked somber, contemplating the loss of a promising Memory player.
When they finally got to the supper at Aaron King’s, Sarah found an exuberant Rose beaming happily, waiting eagerly to extol every last one of Lee Glick’s virtues to her best friend, who listened, expressed amazement, happiness, disbelief, whatever was required of her.
Aaron King sei Anna had done an outstanding job of planning a menu for over a hundred youth. The scalloped potatoes and ham, creamy with onions and cheese, and the green bean casserole were perfect. Sarah balanced her paper plate on her knee, ate appreciatively, talked to her friends, and rose above her heartache once again.
She whipped Rose at an intense game of ping-pong and was surprised when Lee stepped up and asked to play.
Rose acknowledged her new boyfriend coyly but handed over the ping-pong paddle, saying Sarah would never, ever beat Lee, there was simply no way. She followed that statement with a high shriek that drew exactly the amount of attention she’d hoped it would when heads turned, smiled, and watched for a while, before returning to their games.
Caught off guard, Sarah blushed and became flustered, nervous, with Lee towering only a ping-pong table’s length away, his blue eyes challenging, alight with interest.
They were a match, one almost as skilled as the other, but Lee was a wicked server and won by three points. Sarah laughed, her eyes the color of spring water with sunshine dancing on its surface, her hair gleaming in the lamplight. Lee handed over the red paddle as she smiled up at him, guileless, unafraid. Unafraid or released?
He reached for the paddle, his fingers closed over hers, so firm and warm, so compelling, and stayed for seconds longer than was necessary.
On gossamer wings, the breath of attraction dipped and hovered between them, sacred, beautiful, but scarred now by the years of disappointment for Lee, by the doubt that real love could ever be possible again for Sarah.
Without a word, they wondered at it.
Sometimes, Sarah thought, life goes by so fast, and quite unexpectedly a situation arises that would have been unfathomable before.
She put both hands on her desk, clasped them firmly, the fingers intertwined, took a deep breath, and said loudly, “Good morning, boys and girls,” to the echoing, empty classroom, then bent forward, laid her head on the desk, and whispered, “You’re going to have to help me here, Lord. It’s really scary.”
Teaching in an Amish one-room school was not a job that required any further studies than the eight grades she had already had. She had finished her schooling at age fourteen and then attended vocational class once a week until she was fifteen, as Pennsylvania state law required.
She remembered the order of school, the work, the way eight grades were managed. This school, Ivy Run, had twenty-three pupils distributed among eight grades, so it posed no threat as far as the number of children she would be required to teach.
The frightening part was the bad attitude, the disrespect that had run rampant the past few years, the children, or some of them, grieving their teacher terribly with blatant disobedience, among other things.
Ivy Run School was only about four miles from Sarah’s home, but she rode to school with a driver rather than by scooter or horse and buggy. The school board offered to make arrangements to save her time.
The board members had been extremely kind, offer
ing assistance, volunteering services, but so far, she had not heard a single word from any of the parents. She hardly knew who they were, anyway, so that was no big deal. She just hoped they’d be able to work with each other when things got out of hand, which Sarah felt sure was bound to happen.
It was Thursday afternoon, which left two days at market, one Sunday, and one early Monday morning, before she would stand at this desk and wish every pupil a good morning.
She wondered if her knees would support her, or if she’d faint dead away.
The school was an older brick school on Hatfield Road, set in a grove of chestnut and maple trees. The roof had been replaced a few years before, and the windows were fairly new, but the old brick structure remained the same, the porch built along the gable end, the cloakroom enclosed on one side.
The floor was a smooth, varnished hardwood, gleaming with years of hundreds of little feet walking across it. The cast iron desks were painted a shining black with refinished oak tops and seats that folded up or down.
A blackboard ran the length of the front with a white border along its top, the alphabet in cursive, print, and German on it. Rolled up maps hung just below the letters, and a row of shelves stood beneath the blackboard.
A gray metal file cabinet stood off to the right, a propane gas heater to the left. Above the heater hung a round PVC ring with wooden clothes pins attached to it with nylon string, a homemade wonder for drying caps and mittens in the winter.
The rows of windows on each side of the classroom were topped with beige, roll down blinds, serviceable when the sun blinded a row of pupils hard at work.
The artwork on the walls had been done by the previous teacher, such as it was, and Sarah could tell that had not been her interest at all as the name charts along the top of the blackboard were colored poorly and coming loose at several corners.
Perhaps, if they had time, she’d make her own name charts, colored brightly, with black lettering.
Sarah sat back, sighed, and then became quite giddy with anticipation.