The Tempted Soul

by Adina Senft

  But he didn’t say a word, just dug into the bowl with enthusiasm. “I hope you’re well?” he asked when he came up for air.

  How to answer that? Carrie couldn’t very well tell him the truth—I’m quarreling with my husband over a new cure for an old problem—so she settled for nodding her head. “And you?”

  “Gut. But I think you’re just being polite. The light’s gone out of your face.”

  Goodness. How could such a harum-scarum man who made a career out of being irritating say something so perceptive…and so kind? And once again, there was no reply she could make that wasn’t disloyal…or any of his business.

  “Now I’ve made you blush. Come on, Carrie. What’s the matter? You can tell old Joshua.”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” He polished off his bowl and pushed it aside, then leaned on both elbows on the table.

  “There are things a woman doesn’t talk about with a man who isn’t her husband,” she told him, swiping the bowl and taking it to the sink.

  “Oh.” His tone said he knew exactly what she was talking about, though that was impossible. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. We men can surprise you with what we know.”

  “I’m sure you can. But that doesn’t mean we women are going to talk about it with you.”

  “Guess I’d do better with an Englisch woman. They don’t seem to have any problems talking about personal things right out in public.”

  Carrie froze. He was just babbling, talking to fill the silence. He couldn’t know about what those two women had been talking about in the fabric store. “Maybe.”

  Now he’d caught her gaze and wasn’t letting her look away. “I think I know what’s bothering you—and believe me, plenty of other people will be bothered about it, too.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carrie said through stiff lips. “If you’re going out to the barn, you’d better go, or Melvin will find you still here and not a single board laid.”

  “Have it your way,” he said. “Maybe you’re wise to keep it to yourself. There’s sure to be a to-do once it gets out that you’ve even let that thought enter your head.”

  That tied it. “Joshua Steiner, either speak plain or stop talking. Or maybe you just like the sound of your own voice, whether it makes any sense or not.” There, if that didn’t sound like Emma, she didn’t know what did.

  To her surprise, he laughed. “If you said that to anyone but me, they’d feel sorry for Melvin, having such a bossy wife on his hands.”

  “No one flaps his lips the way you do, so I don’t have to speak so to anyone else. Now, tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “I heard a rumor, is all.”

  “What rumor?”

  “That there’s a newfangled medical practice that could result in the pitter-patter of little feet at the Miller house. And I don’t mean those chickens of yours.”

  A sudden, awful thought struck her. She had only confided in three people—Melvin, Emma, and Amelia. And not one of them would ever break such a confidence. Or so she thought. But with all his faults, Emma still harbored a soft spot for Joshua, believed in him when many others did not.

  Oh, surely Emma hadn’t…

  “I’m not saying a word,” Joshua said. “But I know a lady in Shipshewana who went through the procedure. And she’s now the mother of a two-year-old boy.”

  “An Amish woman?”

  “Well, no. But she’d been married a long time and come to find out her husband couldn’t father a child. So they did the test-tube procedure using someone else’s, er…” Finally, he looked a little embarrassed, as though it had taken this long for him to figure out how inappropriate this conversation was.

  “Swimmers?” Carrie supplied, not without an edge to her tone.

  Please say Emma didn’t betray my confidence. Not Emma.

  “A good Englisch word for an Englisch idea. Yes. And now she’s a happy mother.”

  “But she’s Englisch. She doesn’t have the Ordnung to contend with.”

  “Such a thing is in the Ordnung here?” She’d never have believed she could surprise Joshua. But then, there were a lot of things she wouldn’t have believed last week that she was forced to look in the eye this week.

  “No, of course not. But both Amelia and Melvin have given me their opinions in no uncertain terms, so it might as well be.”

  “But Amelia and Melvin don’t go over the Amstellung every year, do they?”

  “Nei, Bishop Daniel does, as you know very well.” Goodness, what silly things he said.

  “So Bishop Daniel is the one who can say if this is right or wrong, not Amelia or Melvin.”

  Silence settled in the kitchen. Finally Carrie said, “I will not speak of these things with you. It’s not right.”

  He only shrugged and got up. But she couldn’t let him leave before he answered one question. “Who told you about these things? Who said I was thinking of it?”

  “There are certain things I can’t speak of with you, either.” And he smiled, the most innocent, maddening smile—the kind that would get him shaken by the shoulders if she were only tall enough and brave enough.

  And instead of laughing and telling her, he moseyed out the door as though he had all the time in the world and a clear conscience to enjoy it with.

  Carrie had never stamped her foot in all her life.

  Next time, she would remember to wear shoes. It hurt.

  * * *

  At dinner, Melvin enjoyed his crumble and cream, and neither of them brought up the subject. All the next day, Carrie made meals and spoke gently, and saw him visibly relax. But by Friday morning, she had made up her mind.

  They were expecting Brian and Erica for supper, so she made up a salmon casserole in the morning and put it in the cooling porch for the day. Dessert would be fresh apple-and-cranberry pie, and there were any number of vegetables in the garden to pick yet for side dishes.

  Doing everything early meant she was free to take the shortcut along the creek to Edgeware Road and the Lapp farm, which lay on the other side of the road and about half a mile from the Stolzfus place.

  God must have been with her, because there were no visiting buggies in the yard, and from what she could tell, the buggy horses were out in the pasture, grazing. Chances were good that Mary Lapp was home.

  Mary Lapp’s eyebrows practically disappeared under her hairline. “Why, Carrie Miller. Whatever are you doing all the way over here? You didn’t walk, did you, on such a blustery day? Come on in.”

  “I did walk, but not in faith that the rain would hold off. I brought an umbrella in my bag.”

  “Daniel has to go and see Moses Yoder on church business later this afternoon. He can give you a ride back.”

  Mary Lapp had a terrible reputation for talking—in conversation, you could hardly get a word in edgewise, and chances were good that whatever you said would wind up on the grapevine sooner or later. But Carrie pulled her courage together. All she could do was ask the bishop’s wife for advice and beg her not to say anything about it. After that, it was up to God—and Mary’s conscience.

  “So what brings you here today?” Mary’s black eyes sparkled with interest…and kindness, too, if the truth must be told. More than one or two of the casseroles that had appeared now and again during the lean times had come from Mary’s kitchen, with never a word said about it. But a woman’s cooking was as distinctive as her handwriting, and Mary had a talented hand with the herbs she grew in her garden.

  “I came to ask your advice about something,” she said slowly.

  Mary looked pleased, then puzzled. “But why come to me and not Miriam? Surely a mother knows more about her daughter and is in a better position to give good counsel?”

  “Not about certain things,” Carrie said. “Things that might fall under the Ordnung.”

  “Then you would want the bishop,” Mary said.

  “Female things,” she said, a little awkwardly. �
��I wouldn’t know how to put this matter to Daniel in a way that wouldn’t embarrass him.”

  “Goodness.” Mary got up and put the kettle on. “Sounds like we might be here for a few minutes. Let me cut some pumpkin pie and we’ll have a nice cup of Ruth Lehman’s new tea blend with it.”

  Once she’d seen Carrie settled with a cup of steaming tea and nearly a quarter slice of pie with cream—no holding on to that for special occasions here; they had a pasture full of dairy cows—Mary sat down opposite her. “Now. Suppose you tell me what’s on your mind. Daniel’s out in the barn and he won’t interrupt.”

  Where to start? Mary already knew how it was with her—how every month was a disappointment and every year a cause for grief. So she began with what had put her on this path: the ladies in the store.

  “So then I went to the library and read some books about it, and it seemed that if it were possible to do this thing, then maybe there was hope for me becoming a mother after all.”

  Mary gazed at her, then took a sip of tea and a forkful of pie. And still the silence lengthened. At last she swallowed and said, “What does Melvin have to say about it?”

  “He…well, it was something new for him.”

  “And for me, too, I must say.”

  “He didn’t seem in favor of it right off the bat,” Carrie said carefully. “But I think that if he thought about it a little, he might see it from my point of view.”

  “What did he say, exactly, Carrie?”

  “He said it was an abomination and I was flying in the face of God,” she said miserably. “That I was putting myself above the will of God to use worldly medicine to get what I wanted.”

  “Our human wills tend to grasp at anything to get what they want,” Mary said tactfully. “But I have to say that Melvin is probably right.”

  A man’s feelings were one thing. Men wrote the laws, after all. But there had to be a way to convince another woman that this idea had its merits, even if no one around here had given them any thought before.

  “I know this is a new idea,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s wrong. Thousands of babies have been born this way.”

  “What way, exactly?”

  Carrie told her, as gently as accuracy would allow. Mary’s eyes widened. “Well. I see why Melvin thinks the way he does.”

  “But the question is, will the bishop think the same way? Council Meeting is coming up soon, and Mary, if Daniel were to say some little thing about it—leave me some way where I could have this procedure done and Melvin would be satisfied that it did not go against the Ordnung…do you think that would be possible?”

  Just a few words. That was all she asked for. Just a hint that such a thing would not be a sin, and Melvin could say nothing against it. Whether he would actually go to the hospital and submit to the tests was a whole other matter, but that was something she could handle. His spiritual objections were a much higher fence to jump.

  “What would you have him say?” Mary asked gently.

  Send me the words, Lord. “Maybe something about the blessings of welcoming little ones into the world, no matter how they are conceived, or a word or two about the medical procedures the church will fund….” She looked up from her pie and saw the pity in Mary’s face, and the words trailed away.

  “You know my husband,” Mary said quietly. “He is a conservative man, a traditional man. Maybe another bishop could stand up in front of the congregation he is responsible for and say those things, but I do not think that Daniel could.”

  The little green shoot of hope that Carrie had been nurturing in her heart shuddered under a blast of cold reality. “Could you just talk to him about it? Maybe on this one subject that is so important he might be willing to consider being a little less traditional?”

  “More important than the needs of those who are under medical treatment now? More important than Sarah Yoder’s hip replacement? Or Grant Weaver’s hospital stay, which the Gmee is still paying for?”

  “Not more important,” Carrie whispered. “Everyone’s needs must be cared for. Daniel makes sure they are.” Except Amelia’s, when she wanted that treatment in Mexico. She had not had the elders’ approval for that, and Daniel had been the one to tell her so.

  “These situations are real, physical problems, Carrie. Sarah cannot walk without her motorized chair. This new hip would allow her to come and go to church with freedom again. And Grant’s ability to work and provide for his children was at stake. Childlessness is not an injury, or a disease. It is simply God’s will.”

  “It isn’t an injury, or a disease, as you say. But it is a condition, a medical condition that has a medical cure that has worked in thousands of cases.”

  “Amish cases?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know either, and I suspect it’s because there have been none.”

  Carrie grasped at another straw. “But what if there have been some? What if we wrote to the other bishops and asked if they had allowed it?”

  “What good would that do, Carrie? Other bishops allow lots of things that Daniel will not. Radios in buggies—red trim on houses—yellow dresses on the young girls—the approval of one of these men will hold no water with Daniel, I’ll guarantee you that.”

  Another long silence fell while Carrie stared at her slice of pie and tried to imagine swallowing some. She would not cry. She had drained herself of tears on this subject so many times that all she was capable of now was a tired sense of surprise that they still kept coming.

  “Thank you for talking with me about it,” she said at last, when for once Mary showed no signs of taking the conversation elsewhere. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”

  “I do, but they’ll be there when I’m ready to turn my hand to them,” Mary said comfortably. “I was ready for a little rest, anyway. I’ve been putting up squash all day. Maybe you’d like to take some with you.”

  “I would. Melvin loves squash.”

  Mary gazed at her, compassion soft in her eyes. “I will talk this matter over with Daniel. I just can’t promise that he’ll do or say differently than I told you.”

  Carrie nodded. “Denki.”

  “I’ll write to you with his answer. Now, finish up that pie. I hate to waste it by giving it to the hens.”

  “I don’t give mine anything with sugar in it. They’d still eat it, but I don’t think it’s good for them.”

  “As long as it fattens them up before we butcher them, that’s all I care.”

  Oh dear. She should have taken her leave before this. She shoveled down the pie and escaped before Mary could really get going on the subject, a couple of jars of golden mashed butternut squash in her bag to keep the umbrella company.

  It was a long walk home, but she couldn’t bring herself to stay and talk about the poor hens until Daniel was ready to hitch up the buggy. She didn’t mind. The rain was holding off, and there were even rents in the clouds with blue sky showing.

  Even so, the little shoot of hope inside her did not survive the walk.

  Chapter 11

  Carrie was an old hand at covering up her feelings and getting on with life. Company was coming for dinner, which was something to be thankful for. She could tidy and cook and even spend a few minutes outside picking the last of the autumn chrysanthemums for the table, keeping her hands busy and sometimes even her mind.

  At least the Steiners were good company. Brian and Melvin had a lot to talk about, and Erica was a gentle soul, shy and prone to sitting in the corners of couches, where holding the baby gave her a good excuse not to talk. But she was a little more forthcoming when there weren’t so many people.

  When dinner was over and she and Erica were doing the dishes, the baby in her basket on the floor, Melvin shrugged on a jacket. “I’m going to take Brian out to the barn so he can see what his cousin has been up to lately.”

  “I still can’t believe Joshua is working for you.” Brian tugged on his own jacket and held the door. “I mean
, actually working.”

  “He’s doing a good job on that loft. You’ll see.”

  The door closed behind them, and Erica hung up her dish towel while Carrie wiped down the counters. “It still surprises Brian that any good can come out of Nazareth.”

  “He shouldn’t be surprised. Joshua picked bushels and bushels of apples, painted our sheds, and has started inside the barn. After the loft, I think Melvin is looking at having him wall off the lower section of it for a shop, with shelving and benches and things.”

  “So he’ll be around here for a while, then.”

  “Until Thanksgiving, I think. Maybe longer.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you, being alone with him?”

  Carrie shook her head. “He’s just an overgrown teenager. Sometimes he’s sensible, and sometimes he has his ‘me first’ blinders on. Emma told me how to handle him, and it seems to work.”

  Erica laughed and picked up the baby. They went into the sitting room and she handed her to Carrie with no ceremony and no comment. When the bathroom door closed behind her, Carrie settled the baby in her arms as naturally as though she were one of her own siblings.

  And waited for the pain.

  Little Elsie reached up and patted her cheek, and Carrie touched her perfect hand, chubby and warm. Tiny fingers wrapped around hers with a grip that was surprisingly strong. Elsie gurgled happily, her eyes crescents above plump cheeks, with lashes that were going to play havoc with the little boys when she went to their local one-room schoolhouse for the first time.

  When Erica came back, Carrie realized with a kind of dazed relief that holding the baby had been like a gift, not the tearing in her soul that she’d felt in the past.

  Was this resignation, then? Or had her heart simply given up?

  Erica tucked herself into the corner of the sofa, her feet up under her like the girl she still was. “She likes you.”

  “And I like her.” She smiled down at Elsie and was rewarded by a big-eyed gaze that made it impossible not to make silly noises and a goofy face.

  Elsie giggled, and the two of them laughed in response. “You’re so good with the young ones,” Erica said. “I see you at church with a crowd of the girls around you, and it always makes me smile.”