An Empty Cup

by Sarah Price

  Out of the corner of her eye, Rosanna caught Aaron’s smile. On the surface, she felt vindicated by the fact that her family had done nothing wrong, but she also knew that trouble was brewing. Any warnings or reprimands from the authorities would not sit well with Gloria Smith. They would just cause more animosity. Knowing how much ill will Gloria bore toward others made Rosanna feel that the end to this dangerous game was not even close. Forgiveness was simply not a word in Gloria’s vocabulary.

  “We just want to live in peace,” Rosanna whispered again as they returned to the house.

  Half an hour later, Rosanna finally made it back to her bedroom. This time, however, she knew she’d never be able to sleep. In the darkness of her room, she let the tears fall from her eyes. She was ashamed of herself for crying, but the deep pain in the center of her chest was overwhelming. Her breath grew short as she tried to silence the sobs coming from her mouth. It would do no good to concern Aaron if he heard her, she told herself.

  She hated crying. Her mother had always told her that tears were for nonbelievers. A person with faith—true faith—would remember Isaiah 58:11: “The Lord will guide you always.” Crying felt like admitting that she had lost faith that God would handle everything. She knew all she had to do was believe. She shut her eyes and prayed, prayed for God to take care of all the things that were bothering her. She turned her worries over to Him and prayed her gratitude for the blessings in her life.

  She fell asleep praying.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  His voice echoed in her head as she picked up the dirty plate and fork from the table by the recliner: Cate needs to learn to clean up after herself. Just the night before, Reuben had scowled as he watched Rosanna washing her daughter’s ice cream dish.

  The crumbs on this plate looked like blueberry pie. Cate didn’t like blueberry pie. Neither did Aaron. In fact, Rosanna had made it for one person and one person only: Reuben. He must have awoken during the night again and come to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Like Cate, he had simply left the dirty plate behind—despite the fact that he had walked right past the sink to return to bed. Left it for her to clean up, Rosanna could only assume.

  At least he had turned off the light, she thought bitterly.

  She didn’t know what was wrong with him. Lately he would walk into the house after a long day and not even bother to greet her with a smile or a kind word. Instead, he’d bark some command at her. While she knew that he was under pressure at the harness shop, she felt increasingly disheartened by his moods. After all, she worked, too.

  It didn’t matter, she said to herself. Once the kitchen was clean, she would have the house to herself and could spend some time alone. She needed that time. Her head was still spinning from yesterday’s discussion with Mary King, the visit from the police, and then the news about Elias Beiler. Whenever she thought about Nan or the preacher, her heart began to beat rapidly, and she felt dizzy. Sometimes she even saw little lights flickering before her eyes. More than once she’d had to sit down to catch her breath while shutting her eyes and willing herself to calm down.

  A doctor, she thought. I need to see a doctor. An Englische doctor.

  Of course that meant making an appointment and hiring a driver. She knew that Reuben would be concerned and would insist on coming along, but then he’d have to miss work, and it was too busy right now, especially with the influx of orders from neighboring towns. It just wasn’t practical for him to take time away from the shop right now. She didn’t want to bother him. Anyway, she’d found out that sitting down and taking deep breaths made the palpitations disappear.

  With a sigh, Rosanna pushed the thought of a doctor out of her mind.

  Her last chore of the day was to stake the tomato plants in the garden. She had torn up some old rags to use for tying the plants to the wooden stakes. With the rags shoved into her apron pocket, she headed to the back of the barn to grab a rubber mallet and her stakes. Year after year, she reused the same stakes: tall green metal rods that Timothy had purchased at an auction. Despite the fact that the rods were so heavy, she managed to carry them out to the tomato patch in only two trips.

  No sooner had she started pounding the first stake in the ground—the soft thud of the mallet against the rod reverberating in the still air—than she sensed someone watching her. Without even looking up, Rosanna knew that it was either Gloria or Camille. Ignore them, she told herself. Wasn’t that what Reuben had instructed them to do? Ignore them as if they weren’t even there.

  Quickly she tied an almost-two-foot-tall tomato plant to the rod. She pinched off the young shoots at the bottom of the stem, knowing that this would help the plant grow faster. Then she moved on to the next one. Rosanna could still feel the presence of someone on the other side of the fence. She began to silently repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, she prayed. Hallowed be Thy name. The second rod was positioned properly; she tied it and pinched the stems so that she could move to the next plant. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. The mallet slipped from her hand and landed in the dirt. Someone laughed from the other side of the fence. As she reached for the mallet, she noticed that her hands were shaking. On earth as it is in heaven.

  By the time she finished tying up the third plant, she felt a familiar tightness in her chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Camille dumping sticks over the fence into the garden. Rosanna paused for a moment, but Reuben’s words echoed through her head: ignore . . . ignore . . . ignore . . .

  Why were those two women so hateful? She concentrated on her breathing, trying to slow down the increasing rate of her heart. Did they dislike her family or Amish people in general? Rosanna had witnessed many instances of Englische acting poorly toward the Amish. Just last year Aaron had been using the kick scooter to visit his cousin three miles away when a passenger in a beat-up-looking car flicked a burning cigarette at him.

  Rosanna reminded herself that for every horrible person, there were a hundred kind Englische. Most tourists treated the Amish with respect and honored their wishes not to take photographs of their families. Many of the Englische who lived in neighborhoods that bordered Amish farms were caring and considerate. But something had triggered hate in the hearts of the Smith family.

  “I saw what you did,” Camille called out to her. From the smell, Rosanna knew that Gloria was there too, sucking on one of those cigarettes and stinking up the air with the odor of cheap tobacco.

  Ignore, ignore, ignore. Rosanna focused all of her attention on the tomato plants.

  “He was out here in the garden that night,” Camille continued, her tone mocking. “Drunk as usual and yelling at my mom!”

  With the fourth plant finished, Rosanna moved farther away from the fence to work on the fifth one. Only five more to do, she told herself.

  “I saw you!” Camille laughed. It sounded more like a cackle.

  The fact that the young woman took such joy in saying hurtful things stunned Rosanna. How could a woman who was so unclean in heart and spirit raise a child to be anything but as despicable as she was? The child didn’t even have a father in the house—Rosanna wasn’t even certain if Camille knew who the father was. Rosanna had never seen anyone visit the house since the child was born. It was always just the little toddler playing alone in the yard with the network of red, yellow, and blue plastic gym sets.

  “He called for you, didn’t he? You saw him out here, and you ignored him!” Another cackle.

  Shutting her eyes, Rosanna silently willed the woman to stop speaking. You are evil, she thought. God is my shield.

  “You knew he was coming after you in the buggy and that he was drunk. You could have stopped him.”

  The wave of tightness around her rib cage almost made Rosanna fall to her knees. But she refused to give Camille that satisfaction. Darkness crept into her vision, and she could barely see to hammer in the sixth stake. When her aim missed and she hit her thumb, she winced—both from the pain and the sound of the two women laug
hing at her.

  Gloria tossed her cigarette butt over the fence. It landed in the row of vegetables behind the tomato plants. Rosanna glanced at it, worried that it would catch fire. Fire, she thought. Ignore their fire.

  “You ignored him and left, knowing he would follow,” Camille repeated. “You killed him as much as the car did!”

  The mallet fell from Rosanna’s hand and bounced once in the dirt. Turning her back to the women, Rosanna began to walk toward the house. She couldn’t stay in the garden and finish her work. Not today. Maybe never. Her hands trembled and her knees felt weak. She prayed to God to give her the strength to make it the distance to the house. She pressed her hand against her chest and clutched at her dress. With Aaron at an auction and Cate at the shop, there was no one there to witness the tears that streamed down her cheeks. Her heart pounded and her throat closed. She was having trouble breathing. She wished someone were home. More cloudy darkness flooded the corners of her eyes, creating a narrow tunnel before her. She felt dizzy, and there was a ringing in her ears.

  I’m having a heart attack.

  Gulping for air, Rosanna stumbled twice as she made her way to the house. With uncertain footsteps, she managed to climb the porch stairs. Her hands still shaking, she reached for the railing, but her blurred vision made her miss it. She fell to her knees, and her hands just stopped her face from hitting the floorboards.

  The pain shot up her wrists to her shoulders, and she cried out. Rosanna hardly recognized her own voice. The tears fell freely as she rested her forehead against the floor. For a few minutes she stayed in that position, her eyes shut as she prayed. What is happening to me, Lord? She took a deep breath. If I must come home, Lord, please make it quick. The suffering . . . I need it to end.

  When she opened her eyes, it took Rosanna another minute to realize that her lungs had cleared and she could breathe normally again. Slowly she lifted her head and, moving her arms, was able to push herself so that she was sitting on her heels.

  If this wasn’t a heart attack, she wondered, what was it?

  She managed to steady herself and climb to her feet. Carefully she made her way to one of the rocking chairs on the porch. For a long time she sat in the chair, her head resting against the back and her hands clutching the rounded arms. Her mind was blank as she concentrated on her breathing.

  As she calmed down, her eyelids drooped, and she wiped away a final tear. Camille and Gloria had been there that night. They must have been smoking outside before retreating into the house to lose themselves in front of the television. Rosanna remembered that Timothy had stumbled through the garden, yelling at the dogs and throwing rocks at them. Witnessing her father’s abuse of the dogs, Cate had run outside, screaming to save them from being hurt.

  That was when Timothy had turned and, with a smirk on his swollen face, thrown the rock at his daughter.

  Rosanna wasn’t certain if it was the sting of the rock hitting her arm or the shock that her daed had thrown it at her that made Cate hysterical. Rosanna had run toward her and wrapped her in her arms, pressing Cate’s head against her chest to shield her as she guided the girl away from her father.

  Aaron had stood on the porch, the color drained from his face. With his black pants—torn at one knee—and his beige work shirt, he looked like a miniature version of Timothy. The mixture of disgust and horror in his eyes was the final straw for Rosanna.

  “Kum!” She motioned to Aaron and began walking down the driveway toward the road.

  She could hear Timothy still ranting at the dogs, but by the time she had reached the end of the driveway, he was yelling for her. His deep voice echoed across the fields. Rosanna could not help but look back . . . just once . . . and that single gesture told him that she had heard him—and chosen to ignore him.

  “Hurry,” she instructed her children as she walked faster. She didn’t know where she was going to take them, but she knew that she would not go back into the house with that man. Not tonight, mayhaps never.

  That was when he harnessed the horse to the buggy and came after her. It took him longer than usual, probably because his coordination was off. When she got to the top of the hill, she looked over her shoulder and saw the buggy turn onto the road. She knew she should go back and stop him; she could see that he was weaving onto the wrong side of the road. Instead, she walked even faster.

  As she and the children rounded the hill, a car passed them, headed toward their farm. Moments later, she heard the screeching of tires and knew from the sound of the impact exactly what had happened.

  You could have stopped him.

  It was the thought that had haunted her ever since that night.

  You might as well have killed him . . .

  She awoke many nights with this thought ripping through her. Would God judge her as a murderer? She had not obeyed her husband; she had knowingly walked away. She had only been trying to protect her children and herself, but she had known.

  Was what she had done a sin? Would she be judged as a sinner for not turning back and trying to prevent the accident?

  Shaking herself free of the terrible memories, Rosanna knew that she needed to talk to the bishop. If she confessed to him, he would guide her on this matter. With a clean conscience, mayhaps she would finally understand what was happening to her now.

  She heard a horse neigh and the gentle whisper of buggy wheels on the driveway. She looked up, half surprised and half relieved that someone was approaching. With her strength gone, both physically and mentally, she couldn’t even get to her feet to greet the visitor. Her expression blank, she merely stared into space and waited.

  “Rosanna!”

  It was Reuben. He didn’t even stop the buggy and get out. He merely turned it around. “Preacher Beiler has passed. I’m needed at the Beiler house, but I told them you would make some food to take over! They’ll need bread and some salads, ja? Will be lots of visitors, for sure and certain.”

  She blinked her eyes. A moment passed before she registered what her husband had said. The preacher? Passed? She watched as Reuben lifted his hand and gave her a quick wave before guiding the horse back toward the road. He hadn’t noticed that she never once moved. He hadn’t even waited to hear her reaction. He had merely given her more work to do and then driven away to continue his business.

  As if on autopilot, she stood up and headed to the door. Without emotion, she walked inside. The corners of her mouth were turned down and her eyes were blank. Bread and salads were needed, she told herself. He had promised them, and she would deliver. She always did.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The following Sunday after worship service, a members-only meeting was held in the gathering room of the Peacheys’ large farmhouse. Every piece of furniture had been moved out, and the hinged folding doors to the three main rooms had been opened, creating a space large enough to host the entire church district for this very important event.

  There was tense silence as Bishop Smucker paced before the members, his hands clutched behind his back and his eyes staring at the floor. He spoke about the importance of the role of a preacher to the church, how whoever was selected would help guide the community, preach at services, and, perhaps, one day, become bishop. He talked about the family of the preacher, how they were just as important, for they supported both the man and the community.

  Rosanna barely heard a thing. Since Tuesday, time had seemed to pass like a fog before her. After Reuben had left, she spent the rest of the day baking bread and cooking potatoes for potato salad. Her mind had remained blank, and she had thought of nothing. Absolutely nothing. Habit guided her through the motions of kneading bread and peeling potatoes. She didn’t need to pay attention to the recipes; she knew them by heart.

  When Reuben returned to accompany her to the Beiler house, her lips had remained still as he carried the box of food outside. She followed him and wordlessly crawled into the buggy. She situated herself on the front seat, and after Reuben gently slapped the reins
on the horse’s back, she steadied herself against the buggy’s dashboard. During the short ride, Reuben told her what he knew: Elias had been in the barn and had collapsed in the hayloft. Several days later, he had died at the hospital without once regaining consciousness.

  When Reuben finished speaking, Rosanna hadn’t responded. She’d just stared out the window, Reuben’s words filling the void between them. He didn’t seem to notice her silence.

  When they arrived at the Beilers’ house, Rosanna joined the other women who were helping to wash walls, windows, and floors. The men had already removed the furniture from the first-floor rooms, storing some in the basement and the rest in the barn. As Rosanna worked, she listened to the other women’s hushed conversations. No one seemed to notice how quiet she was. Instead, they spoke of their own surprise and grief that Elias had been called home so suddenly.

  When the undertaker had returned the body to the house that evening, the bishop, the two remaining preachers, and the deacon gathered with Elias’s wife and grown children. A circle of brown metal folding chairs had been set up in the room, and the walls had been removed so that more people could comfort the family. Bishop Smucker spoke for a few minutes, reminding everyone that Elias was now with Jesus and that it was a journey they would all make one day.

  When he finished speaking, everyone knelt before their folding chairs with their faces buried in their hands as they prayed. Rosanna had done the same, but with her hands and face pressed against the bench of the kitchen table.

  Afterward, Elias’s widow, Lydia, her face pale and drawn from the shock of losing her husband so unexpectedly, rattled off names of people to invite to the funeral. Occasionally one of her children would offer a name, and she would nod her head in approval.

  For the next two days, from sunrise to sunset, people had come to the Beiler house for visitation. Rosanna had known without asking that she was needed to help feed the visitors. During the day she worked at the Beiler house, and at night, back in her own kitchen, she made more salads and bread to bring with her in the morning. More than four hundred people had filed through the house to pray over Elias’s body, laid out in the simple pine coffin in the back bedroom. Afterward they sat for a few minutes on the folding chairs in the main gathering room.