Stars for Lydia

by P. L. Gaus

  Perplexed and also stubborn to make sure of his conclusions, the professor read several of the last passages again. On a Thursday, several weeks before classes had started, Lydia had scribbled:

  This is not right for Mary. She’s the mother of seven children, and leaving her church is not the right answer. I thought they were helping her cope. Would they really advise her to leave him? That’s what they were telling her? It’s too radical. Donna and Dithy? Why? They should know better. It’s right for me to get out, but not for Mary. She’s a member of her church. She’d be shunned. Find Mary! Where? And what about her baby? There is Esther, too. Where are they? Where would Mary have gone?

  The diary contained other types of entries, about the coming semester, about Audi her boyfriend, and about meeting the girl Susan who would be her new roommate. There were several entries about the classes she was to take. Branden’s class on Slavery in the Americas was mentioned. Also, she was very much looking forward to taking her second economics class from her favorite professor.

  Then on a Wednesday, still a little over two weeks before the start of classes, Lydia had written:

  Still no news. She’s been gone over a week, now. John seems worse than ever. Did they actually get her talked into this? Donna! Dithy too. What were they thinking? It’s a radical solution. Way too radical. I can’t believe she’d go this far with it. Talk to the babies. It’s so quiet there, up on the hill. Call Dithy. Talk to the little babies.

  On Monday August 21st, Lydia had made a list titled: Check Midwives. In the list, she had seven names, and the first five had been crossed off, as if she had already talked with those. But at the end of the list, there were still two names, each with an address near John and Mary Yost’s farm: Vera Erb and Hannah Yost. Then following this list, there was another entry:

  Mary. Midwives. There are only two more to check. Maybe she’s already delivered. So that would have to be reported, right? Check how midwives report births. Do they have to? Do they always do that? Check state records. How soon do they report a birth? Amish childbirths, in private homes - who would know? Maybe slaves were like that? Ask Professor Branden in class. Did they report slave baby births? Are all Amish births reported? Maybe not. Midwives - only two more to check.

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  And so it was that well into the night, the professor worked at his computer, on the internet. He immersed himself in a search inside the labyrinthian website for the Ohio Department of Health. In the clickable link to the Office of Vital Statistics, he read the legislation on requirements for reporting and documenting live births. He read the various and detailed reporting requirements for doctors, physician’s assistants, health care professionals and clinicians. The separate and specific requirements for hospitals, ERs, medical clinics and walk-in urgent care facilities. Reporting requirements for births in various locations, including private or commercial vehicles of any variety, whether on the way to the hospital or not. Whether attended by paramedics, officers, relatives, midwives or passers-by. Then in one of several layered subcategories, he found the requirements for midwives who were registered with the state and certified.

  It was a vast and endless swamp of rules and regulations, and the professor was beginning to regret the muck and the mire of the state’s live-birth data system. But this was precisely what he needed to find, now. This was what he needed to do. Wade through the vast and endless miasma of state records on Ohio live births.

  This had also been Lydia’s reasoning, he realized. It had been the reasoning behind her questions about records of slave and Amish births. Because if Mary were to be found, a record of the birth of her eighth child would provide a route to finding her. That is what Lydia had been trying to do, and that was, the professor had concluded, the best thing he could do now, too.

  When Caroline called him to breakfast for the third time, she did it by coming up the steps to retrieve him. She cleared her throat in the upstairs hallway, moved into his study and stood behind him. She rested her hands on his shoulders, peered in from above, and read the display for his computer. The descending tabs for his search read: Ohio Department of Health/Data and Statistics/Birth/Birth Data/Ohio Resident Live Births/2006 – present. It was the kind of arcane organization that only a government bureaucrat could devise. It was the kind of complex system that only an experienced government wonk could use.

  On the professor’s screen, there was a government “chart generator,” with over a dozen birth types to be designated before any search of the state records could be initiated. Plus, filters were required for age, race, pre-natal care, length of gestation, year of birth, etc. and Caroline, befuddled to think that any of it could be useful, said to her husband, whose shoulders were bent with strain, “What can it possibly give you, Michael? Dates? Numbers? Names?”

  “Just the numbers,” the professor said wearily, clicking out of his browser. “Any kind of birth, anywhere in Ohio, sorted by County. But then, it’ll give us only the number of those specific kinds of births. Otherwise,” - he spun his chair around and stood up - “there’s a mind-numbing hierarchy of legalities and rules that makes it pretty much impossible for a non-professional to use the data. It’s the government. What did I expect?”

  Caroline took his elbow and led him over to the steps. When she had him downstairs and seated at the kitchen table, she said, “You look a little dazed.”

  Branden arched his spine and sat himself up straighter. “Midwives,” he grumbled wearily, “are supposed to file a Certificate of Live Birth within seventy-two hours of a delivery.”

  Caroline sat at the table across from him, waiting for him to say more. “Michael?” she prompted after a prolonged silence.

  The professor looked thoughtfully at her, silent for yet another moment, and then he explained it to Caroline, saying, “Lydia was right here, at this point in her thinking. She thought she could find Mary by finding a record of her new baby’s birth. But Lydia had been farther along with it, too. She asked me about births to slave women. As in: ‘Who would know, if they weren’t reported?’ She was wondering about similarities between Amish babies and slave babies, as far as birth records were concerned. Only the immediate families would know. She was searching for Mary, and she was already thinking about an unregistered birth. So, if we’re going to find Mary and Esther Yost, the key is going to be her newborn child.”

  “Lydia had a list, right?” Caroline said.

  Branden nodded. “There are two more left to check.”

  “OK, Michael, but Mary is not in Holmes County anymore.”

  “The midwives here might know something. I don’t know where else to try. I’d be happy if we could just understand a reason for this. Her midwife might be able to explain why she left. Really, other than this, I don’t know where else to try.”

  “Fort Wayne, Michael. Or the CTB in Omaha.”

  “Sure. If the sheriff were still interested. He’d have the resources to search for her.”

  “Michael, if she’s still alive, I don’t think she wants to be found.”

  “We’ll just check this one last angle,” the professor said. “We’ll just spend the weekend on this. Then we’ll let it go.”

  Chapter 25

  Saturday, September 2

  9:05 AM

  As the Brandens were backing out of their garage Saturday morning, Dr. Evelyn Carson pulled her silver Prius up to the curb out front. The professor parked his truck, and he and Caroline got out to greet the psychiatrist on the driveway. They offered a place to sit inside with coffee, but Carson declined.

  “I can’t stay,” she said on the driveway. “I have morning appointments. I stopped to let you know that John Yost has not improved. I spoke with Bishop Yost this morning, and even he agrees that John is not ready to go home.”

  Branden asked, “Have you been able to help him at all?”

  “We’ve talked some,” Carson said hesitatingly. “He’s not accepting any medicine, but he has moments wh
en he’ll talk. If I ask him about Mary, he cries.”

  “Is he more than just depressed?” Caroline asked.

  “That’s his main problem. He was suicidal. Maybe he still is. I got the bishop to agree to take his shotgun away, before he goes home. So, there’s that at least.”

  Branden asked, “Are you going to continue treating him?”

  “If the bishop will let me, yes. But if John won’t talk with me, I’d like him to get some good counseling from someone else. I think it’d do him a lot of good. Anyway, he’s not completely rational on the question of his wife.”

  The Brandens waited while Carson studied the pavement at her feet. After a pause, she looked up and said, “Normally, I would never tell you this. It’s a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality. But when they’re a danger to someone else? Well, I’m obliged to tell someone. You can decide if you want to tell the sheriff.”

  “He’s a danger to other people?” the professor asked.

  Evie nodded. “And he’s irrational. At least on this one point. On the one hand, he insists that his wife would never leave him. On the other hand, it got so bad between them that they were having shouting matches. He told me about that this morning, when his bishop was standing right there with us. John feels remorseful about it now, but he has been depressed for so long that I don’t think he understands how bad it was between them. Bishop Yost was quite surprised by it, though. He got a really good look at how thoroughly depressed John is.”

  “What can we do?” the professor asked.

  “Maybe talk with the bishop?” Carson suggested.

  Caroline asked, “What makes you think that’ll do any good, Evie?”

  “Like I said, the bishop heard some surprising things this morning. I think he’s really surprised about John.”

  “What would we tell him?” the professor asked.

  “Tell him about medicine, Mike. Tell him about antidepressants. If I could just get John started on something. He needs something for anxiety, too. I think in two weeks we’d be able to show the bishop some significant progress. I just need him to tell John that it’s OK to start with some medicine.”

  Evie Carson held a pause. She looked down at the pavement again, shook her head and sighed. Looking up to the Brandens, she said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this. I certainly wouldn’t tell Bruce Robertson. But in my sessions with John, he obsesses over two themes. First, like I said, he doesn’t believe his wife would leave him. Well, something like that. He speaks Dietsche. I don’t always get it all. I don’t know. It’s something more like saying that ‘she didn’t leave me.’ Not so much that he doesn’t believe it, but that it didn’t happen. And second, he muttered something about graves several times. Graves on his farm. I don’t know. I’m not sure I got it right. But the bishop heard him plain enough, and he was quite surprised by it.”

  Branden said, “You should tell the sheriff.”

  “I wanted your advice,” Evie said, nodding her head. “I’m not sure it means anything. Please don’t talk to Bruce about this. I need more time with John to understand what he means. I think he’s muttering and crying about graves on his farm.”

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  As Evie Carson was pulling away from the curb, Bishop Alva Yost arrived in his black buggy. The Brandens showed him inside, to the living room, and the three took seats there. Without any preamble, while shaking his head, Yost said, “John is not any better. He’s actually worse than I realized. What alarms me the most is his muttering about graves. He says ‘Grawbes,’ plural, as in more than one.”

  Carefully, the professor eased forward in his upholstered chair. “Bishop Yost?” he asked and then paused. “Do you think John has killed his wife?”

  Yost frowned. He scratched at his chin whiskers, and he shifted nervously in his chair. He held a long pause, considering, and eventually he said simply, “No.”

  The professor thought it worth pressing, and he asked, “Are you certain of this?”

  The bishop sighed out a hesitant, “No.”

  “What then?” the professor asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s unthinkable,” Yost said quickly. “It’s just not possible. I know things were bad, there, and I know now how deeply depressed John really is. But, no. It’s just not thinkable.”

  Branden pressed again on this point, saying, “But what does that really mean? You hesitated.”

  The bishop considered his answer for quite a long couple of minutes. His thoughts registered honestly in his expressions – first unsure of himself, then searching his memories, with his eyes shifted up and to the left, and finally reaching a conclusion. “Before recently?” he started. “Before Lydia left us?”

  The bishop halted and seemed to hesitate with his next words. The Brandens held silence, to let him continue. Eventually, the bishop spoke. “Before Lydia,” he said, “I’d have been certain of myself. But she got something started in my congregation. There were questions. I could tell that some of my people had doubts, after Lydia left us for your English world. I held the line, but some of my people really did pester me about her. They wanted to know if she were really lost. They wanted to know if she couldn’t repent and come back to us.”

  Carefully, the professor asked, “Did you put a Mite on her? Did you tell your people to shun her?”

  “No,” Yost answered. “She had never taken vows to join the Amish church. So, shunning wasn’t appropriate. Shunning? No. But we did want her to come home to us. We very much did want that.”

  The professor said, gently, “She never would have done that, Bishop Yost. She was never going to go back to living Amish.”

  “But, how do you know that?” the bishop asked. “How could you really know that?”

  Branden nodded. It was a reasonable question. Instead of providing an immediate answer, he said, “There’s a letter on her computer, Bishop Yost. She wrote it to you, but she never sent it.”

  “Can I still read this letter?” Yost asked.

  Branden said, “Yes. Wait right here, just a minute. I’ll print it out for you.”

  When he returned to the living room, the professor handed Yost two printout pages. The bishop read the letter while sitting there. At first, he seemed only curious. Eventually, as he read, he was shaking his head. Before he had finished, he was shedding soft tears, down his cheeks and into his white beard. He composed himself, dried his tears with a bandanna from his side pocket, and asked, while holding the pages forward, “May I?”

  Branden nodded wordlessly, and the bishop read the letter aloud.

  Dear Bishop Yost. Alva. First, let me say, “Thank you,” for the wisdom you shared with us, while I was growing up in your congregation. I was listening. I heard you. On a certain level, I knew all along that you were right. I knew that you are a kind and righteous man.

  The English world is a strange and somewhat frightening place. You have always been right about that. They are often conflicted, arrogant, and malicious. But here at the college – and elsewhere, I imagine – they do honestly search for knowledge and for truth. I find this to be admirable, and I think you would, too. You’d have to keep an open mind at first, because there is so much surface banality in their society, and I fear you’d never be able to get past that. But, if you gave it an honest try, you’d find honor here, and sincerity, too.

  It began for me with starlight. You said once in Gmeinshaft one Sunday that all we needed to know about the stars was that they are beautiful, and that God put them each right where he wanted them to be. And you asked us, “What more do you need to know than that?”

  Well. Bishop Yost, that was the start of it for me. I know you didn’t intend this, but that was when I began to ponder all the other questions, too.

  How do airplanes stay up in the sky? How do we know about mathematics? What is water? Where does it come from, and what composes it? Then, what are the objections to automobiles? Why must we all dress the same? When is a father ever wrong? Why m
ust babies die, when the English have such wonderful medicines?

  So, can you see it, Bishop Yost? Can you try to understand why Amish life was never going to be enough for me? Can you please answer your question honestly? “What more do we need to know?”

  Well, for me, Bishop Yost, it is everything. I want to know everything. Surely that is not a sin. Knowledge is not an enemy of God. Knowledge brings light, and it is the light that sets us free to find our limits. Light, Bishop Yost. For me it was starlight. At age ten, I knew that I was not truly an Amish person. Here at college, I am finally discovering who I was always meant to be.

  And it is OK, Bishop Yost. You needn’t worry about me. I am not lost. I know I can never go back home, but really - I am not lost.

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  Bishop Yost did not speak. He sat with the letter held loosely in his lap, with his eyes closed. His lips pursed, as if he were searching for words, but he didn’t give voice to any of them. Eventually he dried his eyes and rose from his seat. He stepped woodenly to the front door, and he held his place there, with his hand resting on the doorknob. The professor came over to him, and he laid a hand on the large bishop’s shoulder, saying, “I’m sorry, Alva. What can we do for you? Can you rest here a moment longer?”

  Slowly Alva turned back into the living room. He walked slowly back to his chair, and he sat there with his eyes open, but not focused on anything other than his thoughts. His expression framed a state of bewilderment on his face. There was sorrow in his eyes. Branden sat next to Caroline and said, “Please don’t think that you failed her, Alva.”

  Alva looked first at Caroline and then at the professor. “If the failure is anyone’s, Professor, it is mine.”

  Softly, Caroline said, “She was happy here, Bishop Yost. She had found a place for herself in the world.”

  Yost nodded. He drew a ragged breath. He began to weep again, and Branden came to his side, to kneel beside his chair, and he said, “Lydia was not lost to you, Alva. She was not lost at all. That’s what she wrote to you. You can see that, can’t you?”