The Tempted Soul

by Adina Senft

  “Would you like a hot drink to warm up with?” The girls could get started on the quilting while she attended to Joshua. After his carelessness from the other week, Carrie couldn’t let a good deed go unrewarded.

  “Not me. I’m having dinner in Strasburg.”

  Which was in the other direction. From under her lashes, Carrie saw Emma and Amelia school their features to smiling acceptance without so much as the lift of a brow.

  “You’ll have a wet ride.”

  “So will everyone on the roads today. Guder Owed.”

  “Guder Owed,” they chorused softly, and Carrie closed the door behind him.

  “Dinner in Strasburg, but he’s going to Whinburg first?” Emma asked no one in particular.

  “He’d be picking up his date,” Amelia said.

  “Who is probably Lydia Zook,” Carrie added. “Who has likely never been to a restaurant in Strasburg in her life.”

  “So it’s true,” Amelia said quietly. “They make a very odd couple.”

  “They could have picked another afternoon for a date. A Tuesday? In a downpour?” Emma shook her head. “It was nice of him to give me a ride, though. I wouldn’t have made it yet. That’ll teach me to start a job I can’t finish before it’s time to go. Come on. Let’s get to work.”

  The relief on Amelia’s face at Emma’s natural tone told its own story. If Emma chose to bring up what had happened, then she would. Until then, Carrie decided, she wouldn’t say a word to upset the balance.

  They settled into the rhythm of the stitching, loading needles and progressing around the whorls and curves of the flower patterns an inch at a time. It was soothing work, keeping the hands busy while ruffled spirits soaked in the quiet and the sound of the rain.

  “You did the right thing, Liewi,” Emma said quietly.

  Carrie sifted through all the “right things” she could mean, but Amelia got there first.

  “I was afraid I had offended you. Put Will Esch before you.”

  “Grant came over yesterday and we talked it out. He made me see that I was setting my opinions higher than the feelings of others. I may think that I was doing right for Alvin last year, and Alvin may think so, but if his family and the church don’t think so, then that’s that.”

  “We’re a conservative district,” Carrie ventured. “It would not be wrong somewhere else, maybe, but it is here.”

  “It’s wrong plenty of places,” Emma said. “But what’s even more wrong is me putting myself above the boy’s father. He was right to ask for my repentance.”

  “Let’s put it behind us.” Amelia reached across the quilt to touch her hand. “Now, what’s this about your book? I nearly fell over when you blurted out that you had sold it.”

  “Technically, Tyler West sold it.” Emma smiled at them, and Carrie rejoiced to see that it reached her eyes and brimmed over. “And just in time, too. The bank had already sent Grant a second ‘payment due’ letter in glaring red type. He was able to take the book contract down to the bank and tell them that the check was on its way.”

  “And you will have a home to move into next week.” Carrie clasped her hands against her chest, as if to keep the joy inside. But it still came out in her voice. “I’m so glad. I’ve been trying not to think of what we would do if you had to move to Paradise or…or somewhere even farther away.”

  “I couldn’t think of it,” Emma said bluntly. “Somehow I felt that if God even heard a whisper of it in my mind, He might take it as a prayer and answer it.”

  “Well, now your prayers will be full of thanks,” Amelia said. “Ours, too.”

  Silence fell again, filled with the warmth of happiness and a feeling of safety. We will not be separated. Carrie’s heart lifted. No matter what happens in this life, we will be together to help one another. Each of us experiences life’s trials in a different way, but somehow it all pools together so that each of us has help to offer when we need it.

  “Amelia,” she said slowly, “when you were going through such a hard time last winter, how did you get through it?”

  “Prayer,” she answered. “Lots and lots of it. If I couldn’t have brought that burden to God, I don’t know what I would have done. It was like trying to walk through the orchard at night—every time I tried to take a step, I ran into something hard and it hurt.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel,” Carrie said eagerly. “Every time I try to get anywhere with this IVF possibility, I run into a tree.”

  Emma and Amelia exchanged a silent glance. Carrie would have missed it if she had been stitching the way she was supposed to.

  But she did not miss it.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “That you’ve given me the counsel I need, not what I want. But I still think you’re wrong.” She paused a moment. They may as well know it all. “Bishop Daniel is, too. Having children is a woman’s matter, and shouldn’t fall under an Ordnung made by men.”

  “Men who have been prompted by God,” Emma said quietly. “Carrie, please don’t pursue this. I put myself above Will Esch…but you’re putting yourself above Bishop Daniel—and God.”

  “Is that what the Englisch women are doing? The ones who all have babies to love?” Carrie demanded.

  “The Englisch women and their babies have not made vows before God to submit to the Ordnung and His will.”

  There was a point you couldn’t argue with.

  “I heard him,” Amelia said. “I was there on Sunday, too, remember? When he said there was too much worldly thinking going on and he looked right at you.”

  “But he hasn’t taken me aside and told me the Ordnung won’t allow it. And no letter has come from Mary, either.” Carrie stabbed her green square with the needle instead of working it gently up and down. “So I’m going to make an appointment with the doctor this week.”

  “And what will you find out there,” Amelia said, “that she hasn’t already told you many times over the last ten years?”

  “A different doctor. I’ll get a reference to a fertility doctor to talk about my options.”

  Another silent glance. Really, why didn’t they just come out and say what they thought?

  “What does Melvin say?” Amelia asked, her eyes on her stitching.

  “After the first time, we haven’t spoken about it again. But I have hope that his mind will change if the bishop says a little word about it at Council Meeting.”

  “It didn’t sound to me as though he will,” Amelia said. “I’d prepare myself for the opposite if I were you.”

  “Even so, I’m still going to the fertility doctor. I wish I’d found out about this years ago. I could have had a baby by now.”

  “Is that why you’re so set and determined?” Emma wanted to know. “Because you’re going to be thirty soon? There’s still time to wait on God.”

  “Are you planning to have children with Grant?” Carrie fired back as though she were spiking a volleyball made of words.

  “If that is God’s will—and I hope it is—then yes. I’m a little old to start, but look at Old Joe’s Sarah. She had her last when she was forty-two, and he was perfectly healthy.”

  “Then you should understand, Emma,” Carrie said. “I’ve spent so many years waiting that I feel I’m running out of them.”

  “I do understand. At least you had a husband while you were waiting. And trying.”

  “But if it’s not God’s will for you, you still have Katie and Sarah and Zachary. I don’t have anything.”

  “Except a husband who adores you,” Amelia reminded her. “And a home. These are blessings many women don’t have.”

  “Like Esther Grohl.” Emma’s needle dipped and rose like a narrow boat on waves of green. “I feel very blessed, children of my own or not.”

  They said they understood, but they didn’t. Not really. Much as she loved her friends, neither of them had this burning urgency under the breastbone, this wild hope that saw the light shining in the darkness and was running toward it at bre
akneck speed, despite the trees standing in the way.

  She would go to that fertility doctor. She would find a way.

  Even if her friends and her husband and her church were not willing to help her.

  Chapter 14

  Dr. Neuhaus was a woman in her fifties who struck Carrie as being as comfortable in her own skin as she was in her white coat. Her own doctor had been happy to refer her to New Hope Fertility Center, which was not in New Hope, but a mile on the far side of Intercourse.

  New Hope on the far side of Intercourse. Carrie resisted the urge to giggle.

  The doctor who might just have the power to change her life settled into a chair in the consulting room and leafed through a folder. “Well, Mrs. Miller, your personal physician seems pretty convinced that you’re healthy, and the fact that you’re here tells me you’re committed.”

  “Please,” Carrie said, “call me Carrie. We don’t use honorifics.”

  “Carrie, then.” The doctor gazed at her. “I can’t say I’ve ever treated a member of the Amish church. I have two Amish neighbors, and I always got the impression that fertility treatment wasn’t…” She searched for the word, and Carrie supplied it.

  “Approved?”

  “Yes. Can you educate me a little on that?”

  “Our folk believe that having children is a blessing from God.” She hesitated. This nice doctor was not going to judge her. She was here to get help, and Dr. Neuhaus was the one who could provide it. “And not having children is also the will of God.”

  “But you don’t believe this?”

  “I wouldn’t say that…I mean, I have believed it. But I think that if the gut Gott reveals something to you, it’s your duty to act on it. And I believe this is what has happened to me. I heard these ladies in a shop talking about IVF and it was like a whole new world opened up to me.”

  “‘World’ being the operative word,” Dr. Neuhaus said. “I can guess that, along with electricity and cars, scientific technology of this nature is probably frowned upon.”

  “Our Ordnung says nothing about it,” Carrie said cautiously. Surely this woman wouldn’t turn her away because she thought Carrie ought to be obedient?

  “I imagine it probably doesn’t come up very much. Ah well. That’s none of my business. My business is babies, so let me stick to that. It says here that you’re married. What does your husband do?”

  “He works at the pallet shop in Whinburg.”

  “So he’s not farming, then. We’d want to ensure the best possible environment for you, Carrie, which includes following the protocols precisely, being available to come in at a moment’s notice, and having both of you engaged and committed to the process. Your husband must be as involved as you are—his support and willingness for the testing and labs is just as important as your ability to carry the child.”

  She must choose her words carefully. “My husband is a faithful man. At the moment we are waiting for word from the bishop about whether we can do this.”

  “And if you don’t get that word? Will your husband—”

  “Melvin.”

  “—will Melvin be coming in? He’ll need to be tested for sperm production and motility, and after that, we’ll need multiple samples from him for the actual IVF process.”

  Oh dear. This was going to get awkward.

  Dr. Neuhaus was silent, watching Carrie’s face. She turned a page in the folder and Carrie jumped at the snap of the paper.

  “Carrie, does your husband even know that you’re here?”

  She wanted to say yes, but she had never been able to lie. Her skin flushed hot, a flag of guilt that anyone could see from across the room. “N-no.”

  “You realize that we must have his complete cooperation, don’t you? That it’s impossible to conceive using these methods unless your husband is willing and able to supply viable samples, preferably here under controlled conditions?”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Neuhaus closed the folder. “Then I suggest that you go home and have a long talk with him. Then make another appointment, and I’ll go through the process with you.” She stood as though their appointment was at an end.

  But it couldn’t be. She’d only just got here. “Please—wait.”

  “Certainly.” The doctor settled back into the chair.

  “What is the process after that? Please tell me.”

  So the doctor told her. About the drugs she’d start on, and the ones that would need to be injected by needles in the stomach, and about egg maturation and ultrasounds and “extraction,” which was nothing more than sucking eggs out of tubes with more needles; and fertilizing them with yet more needles; and “implantation,” which was putting them back in.…

  She showed pictures, too. Carrie felt a little sick. The books in the library must have been out of date. Or incomplete. Or something. How had she missed so many steps that had to do with needles? She couldn’t even watch when the vet had to give the horses a shot. She stayed in the house.

  Don’t be a coward. You can do this. You want this. You’ve come this far. You can’t stop now.

  “So you see, your husband is a vital part of this process. He’s your coach, your cheerleader, the person who drops everything to get you into the clinic every day when we’re monitoring the oocyte growth. Or in your case, the person who makes sure the car and driver are ready at a moment’s notice.”

  “I can do that myself. There’s a phone shanty only a quarter mile away.”

  The doctor took a breath, obviously changing her mind about her next words. “That’s not the point. The point is, this is something you do together. And there’s another thing,” the doctor said gently. “The church would have to approve the funding, wouldn’t they?”

  She should never have come. This was what you got when you didn’t listen to your friends. You got to sit here and have facts flung at you—facts you hadn’t considered or wanted to consider. Facts that hurt just as badly as running face-first into an apple tree.

  “We’re talking anywhere between fifteen and thirty thousand dollars, Carrie. Is the church prepared to give you that? And if not, do you have that amount or can you get it through a loan with a bank?”

  “I didn’t know it would be that expensive,” she said faintly. It was all they could do to pay the mortgage and eat. With Melvin’s job at the pallet shop, she had just begun to feel safe in handing over money for a beef brisket or a pork shoulder once in a while. Even if the church did give them money, it would be a loan. One that would send them under.

  “It’s certainly cheaper to do it the old-fashioned way,” the doctor said with the hint of a smile. “But for some, the old-fashioned way doesn’t work so well.” She gazed at her for a moment. “Go home and think about it. Talk to Melvin. And then we’ll talk some more.”

  Carrie nodded and collected her purse, shawl, and away bonnet. She made sure she took everything she had come in with.

  Because she would not be coming back again.

  * * *

  On the off Sunday before Emma’s wedding, Carrie wondered how Emma was dealing with the temptation to do just one tiny little wedding-related task on her day of rest. She hoped her friend could spend this quiet time with Lena—it would be her last before her new life began.

  On off Sundays, she and Melvin usually spent the morning quietly, singing a hymn or two as they did the dishes, and then spending a little time with Scripture. Some people took their day of rest so seriously that a woman wouldn’t even turn her stove on, which meant she’d have to work twice as hard on Saturday to have three cold meals ready for the next day. However, the elders in Whinburg were sensible—and appreciated a good meal as much as anyone. If a person’s own convictions led them to keep the stove off, then that was their business, but such a thing had not been added to the Ordnung.

  Neither had anything about having babies, from what she could tell. Next week, during the Abstellung, she would know for sure, but no letter from Mary Lapp was going to appear now. That m
eant either that the bishop was going to make a point of it as he went over the standards the people were to keep, or that what he’d said to her in front of Emma and the Esches was his final word on the subject.

  Melvin sat at the kitchen table and opened the Bible. “Come and read to me, Liebschdi. Your voice turns these old words into poetry.”

  She might be in the depths of despair, but who could help but smile at something like that? She settled opposite him and turned the book so she could read it. “I think the Psalms were written that way. Old Joe Yoder could read it and it would still sound the same.”

  “Old Joe doesn’t read English. At least, not if it doesn’t have to do with crop prices and the weights of bags of grain.”

  She looked down. “Oh, is this the English one?” They had two—one in hoch Deutsch and one in English.

  He pointed to Psalm 113. “Here.”

  Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high,

  Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!

  He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;

  That he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.

  He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.

  Her voice only broke once, on the last line. She looked up. Was he trying to punish her? Had he found out somehow about her journey in the market wagon on Friday and this was his way of telling her?

  “Carrie, don’t look at me like that.”

  She closed the book. “How did you find out?”

  His callused hands, which were reaching across the table, hitched. Then he took hers in both of his. “Find out what?”

  “That I went to the fertility clinic on Friday.”

  For a moment, the kitchen was so quiet she could hear the clock ticking over the door. “You did? And what did you learn there?”