Abby Finds Her Calling

by Naomi King

  Jonny Ropp. You had to pick the most unlikely candidate for a dat on the planet.

  But wasn’t it Zanna’s way to leap at an enticing challenge before she considered the consequences? Abby understood Jonny’s allure. Last she’d heard, the youngest and best-looking of the Ropp family had taken to driving fast cars and reveling in all the English ways he’d been denied as a child. A dairy farm’s success revolved around a milking schedule that made the daily routine even more restrictive than most Amish observed, and Abby hadn’t been surprised when Jonny left Cedar Creek on his sixteenth birthday without a backward glance.

  Some said he’d gotten such a wayward streak while helping Adah at the cheese factory store, where English tourists and the Mennonite owners put worldly ideas in his head. He’d toed the mark at home to avoid Rudy’s discipline, but he was gone like a shot first chance he got. His brother, Gideon, left soon after that.

  But what did all that matter? Right now—even though it went against the strictest sense of shunning—Abby held a young mother-to-be who felt more alone and terrified than she could admit. Zanna was under the ban, so she was to eat at a separate table at home and would remain in social quarantine until her six weeks’ punishment had passed. For this energetic, sociable young woman, the members’ imposing such seclusion would be akin to plucking a butterfly’s wings or silencing a robin’s song. Sam had said he’d make their little sister suffer for her sin, and now that they knew who’d led Zanna down the path to perdition, he would surely see that she felt the full brunt of her shunning.

  Abby sighed, still rocking Zanna’s shuddering form. “You’re sure Jonny Ropp’s the father?” she murmured. “I’m not doubting you or putting judgment on Jonny’s head, understand. Just hoping you didn’t blurt out his name to spite Adah for raising that question.”

  “Is it any wonder he left home? And Gideon, as well?” Zanna swiped at her eyes. “Can you imagine how that woman’s tongue shredded her kids’ confidence? And Rudy spanked them with his belt, out in the barn!”

  Abby cringed. While good parents made a point of disciplining their children, Rudy Ropp’s punishment seemed more heavy-handed than what most dats would do. She thought back to the Members’ Meeting, when Adah Ropp had spoken out of turn. It wasn’t so much that Jonny’s mamm was hateful. She was just more insistent on being heard than was common among Plain women. “Some would say Adah spared the rod… let her younger boy pick up on those Mennonites’ progressive ideas,” Abby remarked quietly. “We never see our parents in the same light others do. But I believe it’s a gut thing, the way you turned loose of Jonny’s name.”

  “How can you believe that, Abby?” Zanna raised her tear-streaked face, looking wretched. “He’s no more inclined to act like a dat than he is to join the church! I—I haven’t even told him about the baby, knowing he’d rather run the roads with his taxi service, chattering on his cell phone, than settle down with a wife and child. Not that Mamm or Sam would let me marry him.”

  Abby absorbed as much of this as she could while watching the emotions shift on Zanna’s pale face. Before long, Adah or Barbara or Mamm would find them here, and this heartsick young girl would clam up again. “So he drives, does he? For the Amish?”

  “Jah, or whoever will hire him.” She swiped at her eyes, smiling in spite of her pain. “He’s on call with a couple of retirement complexes, taking folks to doctor appointments. Does a gut business carrying Plain folks to weddings and funerals at a distance, too. Makes enough that he’s bought a used stretch limo for those trips.”

  Abby smiled. Now that Zanna was talking about Jonny, her sister had perked up and was in a frame of mind to move forward, to deal with her situation—and it seemed a fine time to glean as much information as she could. “So… what on earth might a stretch limo be?”

  Zanna’s blue eyes sparkled in spite of their red rims. “Oh, Abby, it’s the loooooongest car you ever saw! The front and back ends are joined together by a stretched-out middle section that holds a lot more folks, in wider seats. Mighty fancy inside. Makes you feel like royalty, riding in it!”

  And how would you know what royalty feels like? Abby heard footsteps, and she wanted to avoid any more confrontations. “Let’s get you home,” she suggested. “You won’t be eating with us today, and I bet you’re half starved—”

  “Oh, Abby, I’m so hungry, I could eat my fingers!”

  “—but we’ve got to figure a way… maybe Matt could drive us.” They rounded the far corner of Ezra’s pallet factory and saw the long tables where folks were sitting down to the sandwiches and pies the women had set out. “There, I see him.”

  “Jah, but he’s sitting right next to James.”

  Abby closed her eyes against a welling up of emotions so mixed she wasn’t sure what to make of them. Zanna would have to speak to James sooner or later—just as she’d have to face up to Adah Ropp and Jonny. It was their brother, Sam, who rose from his seat, however. His stride was long, as though he intended to prevent Zanna from approaching those who had just banned her.

  “There’ll be no more skulking about, missy!” he declared in a low voice. “Now that your carryings-on with the Ropp boy are common knowledge, everyone in Cedar Creek will be watching to see that you make gut on your promise to repent.”

  “Sam, she’s feeling puny and I’m taking her home,” Abby insisted quietly. “We wanted to see if Matt could drive us.”

  “And what’s wrong with walking? Zanna had no trouble getting herself out of the house before the wedding, now, did she?” In the midday sun, their older brother’s face looked ruddy, more etched around the eyes and where his mouth curved downward toward his beard.

  When Zanna drew in a breath to protest, Abby squeezed her arm in warning. There was no point in challenging Sam’s perfectly valid statement, or in getting him peeved at her. “Jah, there’s that,” Abby murmured. Never mind that Indian summer had set in and the day was unseasonably warm, or that the two-and-a-half-mile walk home might make their younger sister woozy or dehydrated. “We’ll go along, then. Enjoy your dinner, Sam.”

  Zanna’s wretched expression nearly made Abby cry. One of the pies Barbara had brought was peach, Zanna’s favorite, and she could use a piece of that sweet goodness herself after the morning they’d all endured. Sam returned to his seat, and there was nothing to do but head on home—or risk having Adah make another spectacle.

  “All right, then,” Abby murmured. For appearances’ sake she stepped farther away, because the rules of shunning required her not to be in close contact with her sister. “We’ll start home, and if you need to sit down, just say so. We’ll find a hydrant for a cool drink, and plenty of folks between here and home would be happy to let us pick an apple from their trees.”

  Down the gravel driveway they walked, with Abby slowing her pace to match her sister’s. The sun beat down on the backs of their necks, and the weed heads in the lane’s center strip of green brushed their skirts. At the county road they turned left, and once they were walking on the blacktop, the waves of heat felt more intense.

  “Do… do you think I’m a bad person for letting Jonny… do what he did?”

  Abby smiled sadly. “I think you’re young and you’re human—and Jonny is, too,” she added with a hopeful rise in her voice. “Maybe you’re both getting your wayward streaks behind you now so you’ll have an easier road later on.”

  “It won’t be easy, raising a baby by myself.”

  “Do you really think I’d make you do that?” Abby asked gently. “Barbara and even Mamm will come around once that little punkin’s born. Suckers for the wee ones, they are.”

  They walked for a while before Zanna stopped in the shade of an old oak tree. Her face shone pink with sweat and she looked done in. “I made a mess of things with James, Abby. How can I ever make amends?”

  “Well, you could start with an apology. And follow it up with the truth.” Abby smoothed her sister’s kapp into place again. “James suffered a big hit. It ma
y take him a while to come around.”

  “He won’t want to hear about Jonny and me. What else is there to tell?”

  Abby shrugged. “All you can do is apologize. You can’t make him accept it, or expect him to be your gut friend again—leastaways not in the near future. For now, you have to keep yourself healthy, and serve out your six weeks so you can be reinstated in gut standing.”

  Zanna nodded forlornly. “It’s all so scary now… and my feelings jump around like grasshoppers, sky-high happy one minute and lower than mud the next. Just when I decide something would be a gut move, everything changes. And then I do something stupid. Or I throw up.”

  “Oh, Zanna, I can’t imagine what your body’s going through, not to mention your mind.” Abby looked around, but the nearest hydrant was at the Detweiler place a half mile down the road. “Do you want to wait here in the shade while I fetch you some water? Or can you—”

  “Don’t leave me, Abby. Please.” Zanna’s eyes widened as she clutched Abby’s hands.

  Where had such fear come from? They’d walked this road since they were kids—knew every place around Cedar Creek and all the families who lived there. Did the poor girl think Adah or James had followed them to lecture her some more?

  “I’m right here,” she replied. Please, dear Lord, let me see the next right thing to do so Zanna doesn’t collapse before I get her home.

  Her sister nodded, and then tilted her head. “There’s a buggy coming. Hope it’s somebody likely to give us a ride.”

  “And who wouldn’t?” Abby gazed back the way they’d come, hoping the driver would be sympathetic to their plight. She, too, had grown weary of raised voices and constant stress. Some quiet time in her porch swing with a glass of cold lemonade would bring her closer to God than she’d felt all day. And how she needed that chance to listen for the still, small voice of calm that might guide her in the coming weeks.

  “Well, now, would you look at this,” Abby murmured. “It seems our Phoebe has hitched a ride with Owen Coblentz.”

  “High time, too.” A sly grin brightened Zanna’s face. “All the while Owen was building your new place, Phoebe could hardly keep her eyes in their sockets.”

  “Took Owen a while to figure that out, did it? He seemed mighty intent on his work all those months—like maybe he felt her watching but didn’t know what to do about it.” Abby stepped closer to the road, waving happily as the buggy halted beside them. “Going our way?”

  The young couple’s two bright smiles lifted her spirits. “When we noticed how puny Zanna was looking, I took it as my cue to leave—not that I told anybody we were coming after you two.” Phoebe scooted closer to her handsome driver, reaching for her younger aunt’s hand. “I tucked some sandwiches and a couple slices of pie into the basket for you, and Owen poured a big jar of water.”

  “Best news I’ve heard all day—right, Zanna?”

  “Jah, I’m parched and starving after all the goings-on at the service,” Zanna replied as she clambered into the backseat. “I wasn’t going to make it one step farther. Denki for thinking of us.”

  “Jah, double that denki.” Abby joined Zanna in the back and then lifted the picnic basket between them. “Just goes to show how the Lord truly does provide. You’ve got to love a cold drink, fresh pie, and a ride home—and gut company. Ain’t so, Phoebe?”

  Her niece’s cheeks turned a pretty pink. “You and Zanna are the best company, Aunt Abby,” she teased. “Owen’s a lucky fella to have the three of us along.”

  Chapter 11

  Monday afternoon James slipped into the back room of his carriage shop. The CLOSED sign would stay in the front window because he wasn’t ready to deal with people, but coming here to work offered his only chance at regaining some peace… some perspective, after all the surprises of the past weekend. Running the Members’ Meeting through his mind again and again was driving him crazy, yet he couldn’t stop. Zanna’s confession filled his memory: the way her hand shook as it covered her face… his name on her lips as she admitted she’d been wrong to betray him, to forsake the love he’d shown her.

  Jonny Ropp. Jonny Ropp! Of all the fellas she could have chosen…

  James walked through his large back room, where he parked wagons awaiting repair and the buggies and carriages that he was constructing for customers. It was a senseless exercise, second-guessing why Zanna had succumbed to such a hellion as Jonny Ropp. What James needed was work to occupy his mind, his hands. He perched on the stool at his workbench, where a large piece of creamy white upholstery leather awaited the clear beads and fake jewels that would transform a basic rig into a carriage fit for an amusement park princess.

  Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

  James frowned as he tried again and again to thread a large needle. “So why weren’t You with Zanna, that moment when she forgot her promises?” he muttered. It was wrong to challenge the Scripture that ran through his mind—probably a form of blasphemy akin to contradicting Christ—but the words had come out before he could stop them.

  It might have happened just that fast for Zanna, too. In the heat of the moment with a silver-tongued devil, she forgot the Old Ways she’d been raised with—just as Eve succumbed to the serpent.

  James blinked. He was no more immune to a lingering kiss and deep eye contact than Zanna was. And had he been alone with her when he was Jonny’s age, before he’d joined the church… oh, temptation would have been so easy to fall into.

  The memory of Zanna’s kiss made him knock the open box of beads off his workbench. He cried out in frustration as dozens of shiny fake diamonds rolled all over the floor and underneath his equipment. What he didn’t need was another mess to clean up—and was that someone tapping on the window?

  He looked up to see Abby… dear, dependable Abby Lambright, peering in at him. He wasn’t in the mood to talk, but he could hardly send her away, either. He opened the side door. “Be careful as you come in,” he warned her. “It’s one of those days when every little thing’s getting on my nerves. A whole box of beads just scattered all over the floor.”

  “Goodness, James, I’ve never seen your shop when it had such a sparkle! Here.” Abby handed him a small brown bottle and then laid aside the clothing draped over her arm. “I’m on my way over to see Emma, with a couple of new dresses I’ve started for your mamm. I noticed you hadn’t come to the mercantile for your break this afternoon, and I thought some homemade root beer might hit the spot.”

  “No need for a break when I haven’t been working—and my shop fellas are on paid vacation for a few more days yet.” He tipped the bottle to his lips to savor the cool, spicy sweetness of a beverage Barbara Lambright was especially good at making; at any given time, several bottles of root beer sat brewing in Sam’s cellar. “How’d you know I’d be needing this?”

  Abby snatched the whisk broom off his workbench and began sweeping beads into the dustpan. “Even without what’s been going on with Zanna, it’s a mighty warm Indian summer day. I’m hoping this heat won’t come between us, James.”

  James blotted his mouth on his shirtsleeve. He admired her for being the one to offer an olive branch, even though he certainly didn’t blame Abby for her sister’s waywardness. Before he’d downed half the root beer, Abby had plucked a polishing rag from his shelf and emptied most of the beads onto it. With quick, efficient grace she rolled the fake gemstones up in the cloth and used the bundle to wipe the dust from his floor. “You’re a saint, Abby.”

  Abby’s face turned a pretty pink. “Nah. Just your average garden-variety sinner. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my day and I’ll make lots more.” She smiled up at him, looking so serene and wise. Her gentle friendship, along with the sight of her glossy brown hair, tucked neatly under her kapp, and her sparkling brown eyes made James feel a lot better.

  “Well, if you’re a garden-variety sinner, you must be a daisy or one of your mamm’s mums,” he remarked. “Me, I’m surely a weed. Pesky as a dan
delion.”

  She shrugged. “Dandelions make mighty gut wine, they say—and greens—you know. And truth be told, there’s nothing that brightens a spring day like a hillside dotted with those little yellow flowers.” Abby picked up his needle and threaded it without a second thought. She studied the crisscross of lines on the white leather, which marked where the beads should be stitched on the back of the carriage’s seat.

  Her smile soothed him. James exhaled some of his tension, realizing he felt better just being in her presence. Wasn’t it just like Abby to see something as lowly as a dandelion in such a positive light?

  “And I reckon Zanna’s like a morning glory,” Abby continued in a wistful voice. “Lovely and fresh. Able to take hold and grow just about anywhere.”

  James swallowed more of his root beer. He had no idea where Abby was going with this line of thought, but he allowed his mind to follow her easy talk because it surely was an improvement over his previous fretting. She pulled the needle up through the leather… dropped two of the sparkly hollow beads down the length of thread, and then poked the needle through the heavy upholstery material again.

  “But like the morning glories out amongst our crops,” Abby went on, “Zanna tends to grow best where she’s not supposed to, and twines herself around every plant and post until it’s a real effort to get rid of her.” Her smile went lopsided. “Not that anyone wants to see Zanna gone. Even if she’s caused us more trouble lately than we’d like.”

  And didn’t that perfectly sum up Suzanna Lambright? James sighed, aware of how Zanna’s blue eyes brought to mind the shade of the morning glories his mamm trained up the trellis alongside the porch. “You make it hard to hate her,” he murmured, “even if I want to.”