The Narrow Path

by Gail Sattler

  He checked the time. "Are you not supposed to be at Betty's house making your quilt?"

  "That's not until after lunch. I'm calling from my cell phone.I'm in the parking lot. I need to talk to you."

  Ted felt his chest tighten. That Miranda had walked all the way to the furniture factory told him something was very wrong.

  "Why did you not come in? The door is always open."

  "Because it's business hours. But I was hoping you could take an early lunch and we could go somewhere."

  Once again, he checked the time, then walked to the window where he peeked through the blinds. Sure enough, Miranda stood in the parking lot, her red hat and scarf almost obscuring her face, her shoulders hunched against the cold, her cell phone pressed to her cheek. "I cannot take a lunch break today. If I do not find the fabric we had set aside for a special order, I will have to drive to Minneapolis to buy another bolt that is like it. Come inside, and we can talk in my office.It is warm." He smiled. "There is also coffee."

  Her posture straightened at the word "coffee."

  "You don't have to ask me twice." She flipped the phone shut and bolted toward the door. She was standing in the doorway of his office in less than a minute.

  "I will show you to the cafeteria where you can pour your coffee. There are always a few people taking a break, I think you probably know at least some of them. I must ask you to wait for about ten minutes while I check for some fabric that has gone missing."

  Miranda tugged off her gloves and stuffed them into her pockets, then nodded as she blew into her cupped hands. He helped her remove her coat, draped it over his own on the coat rack, then escorted her down the hall past Anna sitting at her desk, who watched every step they took.

  As they neared the lunchroom, the fresh aroma of coffee soothed his nerves. Even if he didn't like to drink coffee, for some reason he always enjoyed the scent of it. Because it happened to be so close to the lunch break, Harold was the only person in the lunchroom, only because he had just made the fresh pot of coffee. If it had been a woman, Ted would have left Miranda here, but even though he trusted Harold, it was not right to leave her alone with a man she didn't know, despite this being a place of business.

  "It now appears that you are going to receive an unofficial tour. Unless you wish to wait for me at my office." Miranda seemed to understand that it would be inappropriate for her to remain in the lunchroom. She wrapped her hands around the hot mug. "Am I allowed to take this with me?"

  "If I said no, would you leave it behind?"

  "Uh . . . no."

  "That is what I thought. But I will say yes because as long as you are carrying the mug, you will not be taking pictures.Come this way."

  The closer they got to the cutting area, the more the sharp tang of fresh-cut wood overpowered the coffee aroma, which next became overpowered by the oily smell of the industrial sewing machines in the upholstery section. Once past the assembly area, he found Karen madly searching through the racks that held the bolts of fabric.

  "It must be in here somewhere," she muttered over her shoulder when she noticed Ted standing behind her. "I hope we did not use it for something else by mistake. I thought I had put it in a special place, but I cannot find it anywhere."

  Ted glanced around the room. "Then why are you looking through the regular stock?"

  "In case someone else picked it up and put it back."

  Beside him, Miranda slurped her coffee, then began to giggle."When I was in university, I had this one really awesome pair of earrings that I used to put inside my shoes."

  Ted stared at Miranda. "You kept earrings in your shoes?"

  She shrugged her shoulders. "Only one special pair. I didn't want my roommate borrowing them, so I had to hide them.Even if I forgot what I did with them, I would always find them when I put my shoes on. I couldn't go anywhere without my shoes, after all."

  Karen froze, then rammed the bolt of fabric in her hand onto the nearest rack. "Wait . . . I think . . ." Before she finished her sentence, she ran off.

  Ted stared until Karen disappeared around the corner. "I do not understand. What do shoes have to do with missing fabric?"

  "Nothing that I know of."

  "Did you have other clever hiding places for your special items?"

  "I once hid a snake in the bathroom. That didn't turn out so good, though."

  Ted didn't think he wanted to hear that story.

  "There was also the time that I— "

  Before she finished her sentence, Karen ran back into the room, with lengths of fabric folded over one arm.

  Ted rested his fists on his hips. "Where did you find it?"

  "In the thread cupboard. Because before I started to sew this project, I would first have to get the right color thread. So that is where I put it." She opened her arms to give Miranda a hug but noticed the cup of coffee in Miranda's hands and stepped back. "Thank you, Miranda. You helped me remember where I put it. Now if you will excuse me, I must get busy with this."

  Ted ran his fingers through his hair. "Ja. Danke shoen, Miranda.You just saved me an unnecessary trip to Minneapolis."

  "Uh . . . well . . ." she muttered.

  Ted felt shivers up his spine. "I see. Maybe. Maybe not."

  "This was very generous of Ted to give you his car, ja? I do not know of any time he has let someone drive his car."

  "Yes, Ted is very generous." However, Miranda suspected it wasn't as much generosity as it was being able to avoid being trapped for hours with a carload of single women.

  Miranda gripped the steering wheel tighter as she drove over another icy patch on the road. Ted had told her that it wasn't exactly dangerous, but she had to be cautious. He'd been right. Not only were there piles of frozen snow and ice, there were also unfilled potholes. The only reason she kept going versus turning around and going back was because he'd guaranteed her that once she got off the short country road that hadn't been plowed recently, she would have clear sailing the rest of the way.

  Not that he'd used the words "clear sailing." He'd actually said "unhindered access." But she knew what he meant.However, she would definitely question him for his definition of "short." For her, short meant a few blocks. Out here in the country, she'd gone miles.

  Not a yard too soon, she turned onto highway 371, heading south from Cass Lake, as her notes said. Ted had promised this road would be better, and it was, but not much.He'd also promised that the way wasn't that long, but now that she thought about it, on the day he'd picked her up from the airport, they'd been on the road for more than three hours.Which meant she would be spending at least two of those hours on highway 371. He'd promised that the highway would be significantly better at Brainerd. From there it was a shorter trip to St. Cloud, where she had the address of the nearest veterinary supplier.

  However, since she had talked to Ted, she'd had a change of plans. Instead of just taking Sarah and Arlene along to St.Cloud for company, she now also had Theresa and Debra, and their destination was Minneapolis.

  She spoke to Sarah, who was sitting beside her, although Miranda never moved her head, keeping all her concentration on the road. She'd never driven on such an uneven surface, one made even more scary because she was driving someone else's car. "Ted couldn't leave work, so he thought this was the best thing to do. Is this road always like this?"

  "No. This is a very clear day. It is not going to have new snow. So this is very good for you."

  "I've never driven on anything like this before. In Seattle when it snows, I stay home and the farthest I go is the corner grocery store. And then I walk."

  All whispering from the backseat stopped. Theresa leaned forward, resting her hands on the seat between Miranda and Sarah. "You stay home all winter? What about Sunday services?"

  "It's different on the West Coast. I didn't mean I stay home all winter. Only when it snows. Most winters we don't get any snow at all."

  All four ladies gasped.

  Debra raised her hands to her cheeks.
"No snow in the winter? How can that be?"

  "That's the way it is where I live. Mostly it rains. Sometimes for a week without stopping." In fact, she thought, as she hit another pothole that may have jarred one of her fillings loose, she couldn't believe she had left the nice safe rain for this.

  "If there is no snow, then the grass is bare all winter? Is it green or brown?"

  "It's green, but not bright green like in the summer."

  "Then you never have to miss church in the winter, ja?"

  "That's right. But even if we do have snow on the weekend, I always go. I just walk." She held back from making any further comment. Most of the people here walked anyway, regardless of the weather. They probably thought it very strange to drive a three-block distance to church. But then, her best shoes weren't exactly made for walking.

  "When it snows in Seattle, most people stay home, especially on the weekends. But Daddy still runs the service, even if there aren't many people there because it goes out on webcast."

  "Webcast?"

  Miranda forced herself not to groan. Apparently, Ted wasn't the only one who had a habit of echoing her when he didn't know what she was talking about.

  "We broadcast our services over the Internet for people who are sick or who for any reason can't come. Anyone can watch, no matter where in the world they are, if they want to. You don't have to be a member to view our Sunday services."

  Sarah turned sideways to face Miranda. "Does that mean we can watch too?"

  "I suppose . . ." Miranda nibbled her bottom lip, hoping that none of these ladies ever found an Internet connection. The difference between her church and this one would seem like being transported to an alternate universe. At home, people stood during worship and many raised their hands. No one was shy about crying, or shouting out questions—her father even encouraged it.

  Here, last week was the first time this church had husbands sitting with their wives. The tension was so thick even the young children were quiet. Order and structure ruled. These people worshiped quietly except for when they joined together to sing hymns. They always sang in perfect four-part harmony, and the first hymn was always done a capella. The rest were accompanied very subtly with a piano and Ted strumming gently on his guitar. Always hymns. Never contemporary choruses, not even choruses that were twenty years old.

  At home, her church featured a full band for worship. Lately they had tried to incorporate one hymn in each service, accompanied by the driving beat of the bass guitar and drums.

  Debra's voice drifted from the backseat. "Are we going to the veterinary wholesale supply first or the outlet clothing store?"

  "First priority is the veterinary wholesale. I didn't even know they made special diabetic dog food." What she did know was that she was very glad she wasn't going to be home when Len got there. When Lois opened the box that was supposed to contain Fidette's special dog food and found some of Len's tools, she had been one unhappy camper. Zebediah, who was the only veterinarian in town, ordered only two cases of the special food at a time, and the case Lois had opened was supposed to be that second case.

  "Lois won't take the chance and let little Fidette eat ordinary dog food. Lois is so careful with her diet. Even if we don't get to buy any clothes, if all we get is the dog food, then we'll have done what we needed to do."

  Theresa rested her hand on Miranda's shoulder. "Are you sure we are allowed to buy this special food? We are not a store."

  Miranda glanced down at her purse, where her cell phone was neatly tucked inside the pocket. "Yes, I've already phoned, and they have a case waiting for us. I've also made a note of Zebediah's business registration number, so as far as the wholesaler is concerned, we're good."

  Sarah shook her head and made a tsking sound. "I cannot understand how you write things down in your phone. Do you not have paper at your home?"

  Miranda smiled. "I have paper. I can just never find a pen.Besides, when I make notes on paper, I lose them. I never lose my cell phone. So I keep all my important notes and stuff in my phone." Lately she hadn't used her cell phone much as an actual phone. But in order to keep track of what she was learning about the community around her, she had been using the notemaker, calendar, and word processor more than ever.Also, thanks to the wonder of automatic backups, one of the most important programs she had ever had in her life, which she thought she had lost, had been recovered and was now back on her cell phone.

  "Will we get to the clothing store before they close?"

  "Yes. But we can't take too long. I don't want to drive home on this road in the dark."

  "When my mama was a girl, she said Grootmutta and Grootfoda would take all of them into the cities when they needed things they could not get at home. They would find another Mennonite family and stay with them and not have to travel in the dark or travel too much in one day. She said they would feed them and have them stay the night in their homes, and then they would be on their way the next day, when there was more time to go home in the sunshine."

  "Really? I can't imagine staying with strangers."

  Sarah smiled. "But Len and Lois were strangers to you when you first came to us. Now you are like their family. You have become family to all of us. I hope we will remain like family even after you return to your home in Seattle, where you do not have snow in the winter."

  Miranda blinked to force the tears back. "Thanks for saying that. You're all very special to me. All of you feel like the sisters I never had."

  Theresa rested her hand on Miranda's shoulder. "And sisters go shopping together, ja?"

  Miranda smiled. "Ja."

  Sarah, Theresa, Debra, and Arlene all laughed.

  Debra giggled. "Your accent, it is very bad."

  Miranda smiled, but only for a second. For the first time, these ladies were going shopping in the big city without their parents. Because of that, beneath their coats they were all dressed in their baggy pants with loose-fitting plain cotton blouses. Their purses were plain and functional, and none of them wore their prayer kapps today. They looked a little odd and definitely out of style, but nothing about them was particularly eye-catching, which was the way Miranda wanted it.

  "Seriously, we have to talk. For the most part, you're going to blend into the crowd, but once you talk, everyone will know that you are Mennonites from the countryside. People might stare, and I want you to not pay attention to that."

  They all nodded solemnly.

  Once again, Miranda smiled. "Great. We're going to have a fun time shopping." She only hoped the fun they had outweighed the reaction they were going to get when they got home. "Since Ted doesn't have a CD player in here, how about if we make our own music? Who wants to sing 'How Great Thou Art'?"

  11

  Ted stiffened his back and stood tall. He crooked his elbow and waited. "It is time. Let us go in."

  As soon as he felt Miranda's small hand on his arm, he began walking into the sanctuary. "This is not going well," he muttered as they stepped through the doorway.

  "I don't know if I'd go that far," Miranda whispered as they walked. "But it's definitely interesting."

  "Interesting?"

  "Look at who is in here before us. Most of them are the couples who are the business owners who work together as partners. Zebediah and Rebecca Rempel. Frank and Susan Neufeld. Dave and Gerta Reimer. They are the ones who are bold enough to go to the front and sit together in church without being led in. I think it's great that they've come in so early.I know they're trying to make a statement to everyone else and be good examples."

  "I think you are right." Ted also noticed that the older couples who maintained traditional lifestyles at home were still in the lobby area. They were in no rush to enter the sanctuary; they felt they were being forced to adhere to the new system. "But look in the back. There are still a few widows and widowers who are following our traditions. Since they have no one to sit with, they have also come early, to sit on the right, or the left."

  "Everyone will get used
to it. They'll have to. How do you feel about it?"

  "I am not sure. While I think it is good for couples who pray together at home to sit together during worship time, it is also distracting."

  Ted felt himself relax just a little as Miranda chose to sit on the right, the side that had up until two weeks ago been the men's side. She slid into the pew, and as he slid in beside her, she wiggled and shifted until her skirt was positioned properly. Then, just as she had done the previous week, instead of positioning herself with her ankles touching demurely, she crossed her legs and began to tap the toe of her boot against the frame of the rack containing the hymnals. Her red boot.That matched the large red buttons that decorated her dress in a long row extending from her neckline to her hem. That matched her red earrings. And her red cell phone that she had taken out of her red purse and had laid beside her.

  He should have been praying to ready his heart to worship.Instead he stared at all the red.

  "What are you doing?" he asked between his teeth. "If you are expecting a phone call, you should turn off your phone during the service."

  "Shhh. It's time to pray." She patted his arm, then folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head.

  All he could do was pray for patience as the church slowly began to fill up. When the time came, he left his seat and took his place at the podium.

  "Welcome, everyone, on this glorious Lord's Day morning.Join with me in opening our hearts in praise and worship. Please turn to page 296 in your hymnals, and we will sing 'Standing By a Purpose True.' "

  As the congregation sang the words to the chorus, "Dare to be a Daniel," Ted wondered if he'd chosen the right theme. He'd selected the hymns they would be singing today to encourage everyone to be faithful in following God's direction, and to have courage. Yet, in the historical reality, in staying close to God's ways, Daniel refused to make changes. Here, Ted truly did believe that the changes they were making were good and were God's will. However, not everyone did.