by Adina Senft
“Of course getting his own way made him happy,” Will snapped. “Cars and electricity in our homes and cell phones in our pockets—these things would all make the Youngie happy if we were foolish enough to give in to them. But do they make God happy? And do they help our brothers and sisters to walk in His will?”
There was only one answer to this, and Emma would not give it. Why wouldn’t she just say “I’m sorry” and be done with it?
“It’s finished,” Emma said at last. “He has already asked me to get the packets at our place for the new school year, and I told him no. And I told him I would not be getting them on Old Orchard Road, either. That’s why the packet was sent to Sarah’s, I expect. He couldn’t think of anywhere else to have them send it.”
Kathryn’s chest rose and fell with what Carrie could only imagine was relief. She looked up at her husband.
“But you are not sorry for this sin,” Will repeated.
“I am sorry that my actions have distressed you,” Emma said. “Very sorry. But I cannot be sorry that a young man whose mind can challenge any boy his age in the county should get on with his education. If he lived in the Beachy church over in Douglas County, he would go to high school and no one would think a thing of it.”
“He is not in the Beachy church, nor will he be if I have anything to say about it,” Will said heavily. “Emma, I must know that you repent.”
She was silent.
“How are you going to go to Council Meeting in two weeks and say you are at peace?”
“Because I am.”
“How is that possible? I can’t stand up and say so. This trouble has put me miles away from peace. We must resolve this. We must both be in harmony on this matter.”
“Will—” Kathryn began softly.
“And what about Grant Weaver? How can he marry a woman who cannot tell the bishop she is in unity with the congregation?”
All the color drained from Emma’s face. “This has nothing to do with Grant, or with our wedding.”
“I say it does. I say a man who would marry a woman who is proud and stiff-necked, and not afraid to defy the Ordnung if she feels like it, needs to think twice about his choice.”
“Will—”
“Silence.” Will shook off his wife’s restraining hand. “I will have words with the bishop about this. If you will not repent, then it is his place to step in.”
Emma’s jaw flexed, and when Carrie slipped a hand into her elbow, her arm felt as hard and unyielding as bone.
Will made a sound very like the snort of an angry bull, and turned on his heel. “Come, Kathryn.”
“I will pray for you,” Kathryn said over her shoulder as she was marched away, but the wind snatched at her words and Carrie could hardly hear them.
“Emma, what are you thinking?” Carrie demanded in the softest tone she was capable of.
“I’m thinking of Alvin,” Emma said softly, watching the Esches’ retreating backs. “And the look on his face when he got his grades. They were good grades, Carrie. I wasn’t tutoring him—he was far beyond my little bit of knowledge. He’s a smart boy.”
“His brains better be able to find a roof over his head, if Will goes through with what he said.”
“He will. He’s not a man to say something and not live by it.”
“But that wasn’t what I meant, you know. I meant, what are you thinking, to put yourself forward now of all times?”
Emma dragged her gaze away from the Esches, who had found Bishop Daniel and were talking to him urgently, bowed toward him as though to keep the sound of their words to themselves. “I couldn’t lie. I’m very sorry Alvin was foolish enough to send a package anywhere near Janelle Baum. I’m sorry that I’ve distressed them. But I’m not sorry I gave the boy a place to study. Not one bit.”
“That’s the part they want. They want the whole sacrifice.”
“I know. Look, here comes Amelia.”
They waited for Amelia to join them, and Carrie could see from the look in her eyes that she already knew. “Emma, Liewi, what trouble have you got yourself into now?”
“That didn’t take long.”
“I was coming up to say good-bye—Eli has taken the boys to hitch up the buggy—and I heard Will Esch telling Bishop Daniel. I don’t think it’s gone much farther. Everyone else has gone into the house to get out of this wind.”
“She won’t tell him she’s sorry,” Carrie blurted. “Amelia, please talk to her. She isn’t listening to me.”
“I listened,” Emma said.
“Yes, but you didn’t do. What if he makes a fuss and the bishop is forced to come and talk to you?”
“Then I’ll offer him some coffee and a slice of pie, the same as I always do.”
“And what if he says he will not marry you and Grant next Thursday? Marriage is a holy covenant, Emma. You can’t make your vows when you’re out of kilter with your brother in the faith.”
“You’re getting that mixed up with Communion, Carrie,” Emma said in a tone that was maddeningly calm. “I can face Grant with this on my heart, though facing God is a little more serious.”
“I would say the whole thing is serious,” Amelia put in.
“No, it isn’t. It’s just a tempest in a teapot,” Emma retorted. “Will Esch has never cared about what Alvin has done or not done. He’s the youngest boy, and if that man even remembered he was alive half the time, I’d be surprised. He’s just mad because someone put something over on him. His pride is smarting, and I’m not going to pander to it.”
Carrie looked at Amelia helplessly. “Maybe Grant can talk some sense into her.”
Amelia’s gray eyes were as troubled as the cloudy sky around them. “You know I think you were wrong to do it,” she said. “But here’s a chance to put it right. Even if you don’t believe you were wrong—even if you think Will’s dander is up and he’s like a rooster looking for a fight—Emma, you must humble yourself and say the words.”
“Even if I don’t mean them?”
“Sometimes we have to do what we don’t want to so that we can make peace.”
Emma eyed her. “The words would be a lie. Is that what you want me to do?”
“I want you to do what is right.”
“By lying.”
“By putting our own thoughts aside and thinking of the other person. You’re not exercised by this. Will is. It’s up to you to think of him and not yourself.”
Emma kicked at the brown grass and started down the hill. For one horrified moment, Carrie thought she was turning her back on both of them, but when Emma looked over her shoulder and gave them a quizzical look, she took Amelia’s arm with a sigh of relief and joined her for the walk to the house.
Will and Daniel were still there, though Kathryn had gone in. Daniel lifted a hand when Emma changed direction to go around them. “Emma, a moment.”
Oh dear. Surely he wouldn’t speak to her right out here in the yard, where it was freezing and anyone could hear? Carrie glanced around wildly. Where was Grant? She should go find him. She should—
“Our brother Will tells me you have wronged him and Kathryn in the matter of their son Alvin,” the bishop said slowly.
“I let him study in my kitchen,” Emma said. “And the packets from the correspondence school came to our mailbox.”
“Did Lena know of this?”
“No. She would have stopped it if she had.”
Carrie’s stomach sank as Daniel Lapp noticed her and Amelia, standing a little to the side and clinging together as much for warmth as for moral support. “I think there are others who should have stopped it if they had known about it.” His gaze settled on Carrie. “There are all kinds of worldly thinking going on in this district that must be stopped.”
Carrie’s breath seized up in her lungs.
She didn’t need that letter from Mary Lapp now. She had her answer.
Amelia gripped her arm. “Are you all right?” she whispered. “What is he talking about?”
She nodded—a lie without words. She was not all right. But she couldn’t have spoken if her life depended on it.
The bishop turned his attention back to Emma. “Emma, we must have harmony in the Gmee if we are all to take part in Communion four weeks from now. You saw those who were baptized today. They have been washed clean. This is how we must be if we are to take the body and blood of Christ.” He paused, and gazed at her. He really was a kind man, Carrie thought. It wasn’t his fault that he had no tact and that he found dealing with the problems people brought to him painful. He would much rather be out in his barn with his horses, where speech and action had direct results, and the animals didn’t need counseling on the consequences of their behavior.
“Will you not apologize to your brother and sister, and be in good fellowship with them again?”
Come on, Emma. This can all be smoothed over if you’ll just say two little words. Whether you mean them or not is between you and God.
Chapter 13
The silence crept in, behind the wind and the sound of the leaves being tweaked from the trees.
Bishop Daniel’s gaze did not leave Emma’s face. “Emma, when you came to us asking for our approval to sell your book to these Englisch people, you remember that you made us a promise.”
Emma chewed on her bottom lip. “Yes.”
“Can you tell us all what it was?”
“I promised that I would not let worldly ideas take root in my mind, and that I would remember that my place is here and only I can fill it.”
Carrie risked a glance at Will Esch. She expected him to look triumphant. Instead, he only looked troubled.
“Would you not say that this business with Alvin was prompted by worldly ideas? Ideas about schooling and a man’s place in the world?”
“I suppose,” Emma said, so quietly that if Carrie had been standing a foot farther away, she would not have heard her.
“God does not want a service that has to be extracted from people by threats. But I will offer that reminder.”
“She sold a book? To Englisch people?” Will said as though his mind had got hung up on that and hadn’t moved any farther. “And you gave your approval for this?”
“I did, and it is not your concern,” the bishop told him. “Your boy’s education is what we’re discussing here.”
“But it’s all of a piece,” Will said. “This New York business. Planting crazy ideas in my son’s head. Next we’ll hear that she’s planning to send Grant Weaver’s children to the public school in Whinburg.”
Amelia reached out and gripped Emma’s wrist—and just in time, too. Emma’s mouth was already open on an angry breath.
She closed it with a click of her teeth.
Bishop Daniel seemed to think it was better to let the wind carry such talk away, too. “I remind you of your promise, Emma, and remind you that what the elders approved, they can also disapprove.”
“The book was sold some time ago,” Emma said, her voice scratchy with the need to keep her composure. Carrie and Amelia both swung to gawk at her.
And when had she been planning to share this with them? They should have been laughing and crying around the quilting frame, hugging each other in joy, instead of standing here frozen, hearing the words dragged out of Emma in front of such an unsympathetic audience.
“That is beside the point,” Bishop Daniel said. “I don’t want this to go so far as Council Meeting when all our brother desires of you is repentance. Wouldn’t you rather give that gift to him here and receive his forgiveness than have to go down on your knees in front of the entire Gmee and confess to what you have done?”
Carrie’s cheeks prickled as the blood drained from them. Surely not. Surely this little tiff between neighbors would not escalate to a public confession? How would Grant feel to see his wife of only a few days on her knees on the floor of Moses Yoder’s barn? How would that affect the girls, knowing their new mother had had to undergo such a trial?
Emma lifted her head and met Will Esch’s gaze. “I am sorry for helping Alvin, Will,” she said in a monotone, almost exactly like the dial tone on the phone in the shanty out on the highway. “Please forgive me.”
He took a deep breath and released it. “I do.” Then he said, “It is a whole sacrifice. You have already said that Alvin will not receive help from you in the future.”
“Nei.”
“Then I am satisfied.” He held out his hand, and after a moment, Emma shook it.
She stared blindly into the distance while the bishop exchanged a few words with Will and Kathryn, and Amelia gently took her arm and moved a few steps away. Then another few steps. Carrie took her other arm, and between them, got Emma away from the house and out into the yard, where Eli had just loaded Elam and Matthew into the buggy.
“You came so close to losing everything you worked and prayed so hard for in the summer,” Amelia told her urgently. “Don’t throw away your harvest now.”
“I lied,” Emma whispered. “I lied so that Will Esch would be satisfied.”
“You said the words that would give him peace,” Carrie told her.
“But who will give me my peace?” Emma turned away, pulling her shawl around her shoulders. “I’m going home.”
When Grant came out with his children to fetch the horse and hitch up the buggy, Amelia and Eli had gone, and it fell to Carrie to tell him where his fiancée was.
“Walking home? In this cold?” Grant handed his little son, Zachary, to Carrie while he backed the horse between the rails. “I hope I can catch up with her, then.”
“Be gentle with her,” Carrie said quietly, thankful the two little girls were busy climbing into the buggy and arguing over who was going to sit next to Daed in the front. “I don’t know which was worse—having the bishop threaten to take away his permission about her book, or having Will get her back up so bad she’d have to make a public confession before Communion. There was even some talk about this affecting your wedding.”
“Nothing can affect our wedding except for Bishop Daniel refusing to perform it. And I don’t think it would come to that.”
“I wouldn’t have put it past Will Esch to insist that it be delayed until Emma was brought to her senses.”
“He does not have that power.”
Carrie wondered about that. “He sure seems to have an influence on Daniel.”
“Any strong personality does. I often wish…” Grant’s voice trailed away. “Never mind. Daniel was chosen by lot to be bishop, and it’s not for us to question God’s will.”
Carrie smiled. “Melvin says that if he’s ever tempted to, it would be an open invitation for the lot to fall on him.”
Grant climbed into the buggy next to his eldest daughter, who had evidently won the fight. “If anyone is suited to be a preacher, it’s Melvin.” He raised a hand, and Carrie looked over her shoulder to see her husband coming across the yard to get their own horse. “There is a work frolic on Saturday at the Stolzfus place. We will see you there.”
The Stolzfus place already sparkled like a new pin thanks to Karen, but the benches had to be set up in the barn, and the upper floor given a final cleaning before the girls hung decorations.
Carrie stepped back as Grant clicked his tongue and the buggy started forward. Melvin came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Emma’s not going with him? And the wedding only a few days away?”
She leaned into him so that his beard brushed the organdy of her Kapp. “He’ll catch up to her.” And then she surprised them both by turning and giving him a kiss, quick as the touch of a butterfly’s wing. “Denki for not being a proud man.”
He looked astonished, as well he might. “What brought this on?”
“I’ll tell you at home. Kumm mit, let’s go find our horse before it rains.”
* * *
Amelia glanced at the clock over the stove and then at Carrie. “Where do you suppose she is? Emma’s never late on Tuesdays.”
“I haven’t forgotten. In fact, we still have wedding visits to pay to some of Eli’s family in Maryland. But that wasn’t what I was thinking of.” She walked through to the sitting room, where the windows overlooked the yard and the lane.
“You were thinking of Sunday.” Carrie followed her, pausing to gaze out at the familiar view.
“You don’t think she’s angry with me, do you?” Amelia crossed her arms and rubbed them as though she were cold, but the woodstove was going and it was toasty in the house despite the rain spattering on the windows.
“Nobody could be angry with you,” Carrie reassured her.
“But what if she was offended? She thinks I told her to lie in order to make peace. What if she thinks I sided with Will Esch instead of standing by her like a friend should?”
“A good friend gives the counsel we need to hear, not what we want to hear.”
“She may not appreciate that.” Amelia’s shoulders drooped while she gazed down the empty lane. Then she shook herself. “We should get started or we won’t accomplish anything today. I’ll walk over tomorrow and make sure she’s all right.”
They had barely sat down at the quilting frame when the sound of footsteps thudded on the stairs. “There she is.” Amelia ran down, Carrie right behind her. “How did she come? Surely she didn’t walk in this rain?”
The door opened, and Carrie practically skidded to a halt on polished floorboards that were still a little damp from Amelia’s arrival. “Joshua!”
“And me.” Emma came in behind him, rain dripping off the brim of her away bonnet. “Carrie, we’re going to need a towel. I feel like I’ve been swimming.”
“Hello, Joshua,” Amelia said. “Denki for bringing her safely.”
“I was on my way to town and saw her climb out of the creek bed next to the highway.”
“You make me sound like a fox or a weasel living in the culvert.” Emma shook water from her coat out on the porch and then hung it on the tree next to the door. “But thank you for the ride.” She took the rag Carrie offered and mopped up the puddles.