A Man of His Word (19 page)

Moriah nodded, then sat down at the table. She held her head in her hands. When she felt Gabriel’s hand on her shoulder, she jerked up.

“Moriah?”

The worried expression on his face touched her. “I’m all right.” She sat up straighter and tried to force a smile. She wasn’t successful.

“Can I get you anything? Are you cold?” He knelt down beside her. “What can I do to help you, Moriah?”

She couldn’t speak for a moment. While she appreciated Gabriel’s concern, she couldn’t help but question it. He’d kept her at arm’s length for so long. Now he was treating her with such compassion, such tenderness. She didn’t know how to react.

John suddenly came in through the back door, his expression a mask of concern. “There you are,” he said, looking at Gabriel as he shut the door behind him. “You weren’t at the house when I woke up, and it didn’t look like your bed had been slept in. Had me worried for a minute.” His gaze went to Moriah, then back to Gabriel, who was now standing. His bushy brows furrowed. “Want to tell me what’s going on here? Where’s Levi?”

Gabriel expelled a long breath. “Sit down,
Daed.
”

Shaking his head, John said, “Now I’m really worried. If you have something to say, just say it.”

Moriah watched as Gabriel quickly told his father about Levi. John sank down in the chair and never said a word. Silent tears streamed down his wizened cheeks. Gabriel walked over and put his arm around his shoulders.

Sorrow filled her as she witnessed Gabriel trying to comfort his father. He knelt down, and John wept on his shoulder. For the hundredth time she wondered why Levi would do this. How could he hurt all of them so deeply? She wiped at the tears dangling on her eyelashes, not wanting Gabriel to see her crying also. He couldn’t comfort them both, even though she knew he’d try.

John sat back in his chair and swiped at his face with the back of his hands. “I don’t know why Levi did this, but we can’t lean on our own understanding. God is in control.” He looked at Gabriel, then at Moriah. “He will see us through this. I trust in that, and I hope you do too.” He held out his hands. “We need to pray for Levi.”

Moriah hesitated to take John’s outstretched hand. Pray for Levi?

“Levi made his decision,
Daed
.”

She looked up to see that Gabriel hadn’t moved either.

“
Ya
, but we don’t know what has influenced that decision.” John kept his hands out, palms facing up. “We can pray against whatever has come between him and his faith and family. We can also pray that he comes back.”

Drawing the slightest bit of hope from her father-in-law’s words, she slipped her hand into his roughened one. After a bit more hesitation, Gabriel finally did the same. Moriah closed her eyes and listened with a heavy heart as a father prayed, through fresh tears, for his wayward son.

The next morning, after spending her first night back at home, Moriah laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling but not really seeing anything. She rolled over and tucked her covers under her chin. She didn’t want to get up. Elisabeth, who she shared a room with, was already dressed and downstairs. Fortunately her sister had the good sense not to ask any questions about what had happened with Levi. But eventually she’d want to know. Everyone would.

With a sigh she realized that it was Sunday. A church Sunday. Services were held every other week, and the whole community would be there. They’d know Levi was missing, and the questions would fly. Part of her wished she had stayed with Gabriel and John. At least then Gabriel would have run interference, sparing her the pain of having to explain to everyone that her husband had left her.

But that would make her just like Levi, wouldn’t it? Refusing to take responsibility, fleeing from the consequences. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t put more of a burden on Gabriel. He had put up with enough.

A soft knock sounded on her bedroom door. “Moriah?” The sweet sound of her youngest sister Ruthie’s voice penetrated through the wood.

“
Ya
?”

“
Mami
wants to know if you’re coming down for breakfast. She made your favorite. Buttermilk pancakes. She even made some strawberry syrup to go with them.”

Moriah’s stomach growled, but she had no appetite. She thought to tell Ruthie no, but knew she had to eat for the baby. “Will you tell her I’ll be right down?”

“
Ya
.”

She listened to Ruthie’s retreating footsteps, gathering her courage to go downstairs. When Gabriel had dropped her off late yesterday morning, only Ruthie and her mother had been home. Her brothers were still in the woodshop with their
daed
, and Elisabeth was visiting a friend. After exchanging a few words with her mother, Moriah had gone upstairs, and stayed up there until her mother and father had come to talk to her. She didn’t want to face a barrage of questions from her siblings.

At that point she explained everything to them. Her mother had cried, but her father had remained silent and stone-faced. Moriah had never seen his countenance so stoic. Her father had always been an easygoing person, quick to laugh like her brother Tobias, but pensive when need be, like her brothers Lukas and Stephen. After a few moments he stood up and walked out of the room, never saying a word.

“Don’t worry about your
daed
,” her mother had said, wiping her tears with her handkerchief. “He needs some time.”

“
Mami
, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, Moriah, sweetheart.” Her mother grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly. “You don’t have to apologize. This isn’t your fault.”

“Isn’t it? He wouldn’t have left me if I had been the wife he needed.”

Emma Byler frowned. “No more talk like that, daughter. The blame is squarely on Levi’s shoulders, not yours. You understand? Blaming yourself doesn’t do any good.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I just can’t help feeling so . . . awful.”

“My sweet
kind
.” A tear escaped out of her mother’s red-rimmed eyes. “I hate to see you going through this. I’m glad you came home. We’ll help you through this. All of us will.”

Now, lying in her bed, thinking about that conversation with her mother, she knew she had to lean on her family almost as much as she had to lean on God. Just because her life was a mess didn’t mean she could avoid them, or anyone else. Church attendance had always been mandatory, and she would be expected to be at the service with her family. She’d always loved attending church services in the past. She loved spending that special time with the community, and the hymns and sermons fed her soul. But today, she wanted to stay in bed. She didn’t want to go, but she knew she’d be expected.

Rising from her bed, she put on her Sunday dress, fastened her
kapp
, slipped on her shoes, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. The hum of her family engaged in quiet conversation reached her ears before she made it to the kitchen.

But when she entered the room, all activity stopped. Everyone except her mother and Elisabeth were already seated at the table. Moriah turned her gaze on each one of her siblings. Tobias had an uncharacteristically sullen expression on his face, along with a dark bruise on his forehead. She briefly wondered how he’d been injured. Lukas, the only black-haired member of the family, looked at her with a mixture of pity and concern. He’d turned eighteen last month, but had an old soul. Thirteen-year-old Stephen kept his focus on the plate in front of him, even though it was empty. Ruthie gave her a look of encouragement that far surpassed her tender age of twelve. Elisabeth finally turned around, carrying a basket of fresh-baked biscuits. She went straight to Moriah and held them out to her. “Want a biscuit,
schwester
?”

With a smile, Moriah took one. “
Danki
, Lis.”

“No problem. Welcome back. It’ll be nice to have another set of hands around here. I’m tired of washing the dishes all the time.”

“Hey,” Ruthie said, scowling. “I wash them too, you know.”

“When you don’t have your nose planted inside a book. Which is never.”

“All right, all right, girls,” Moriah’s father said, holding up his hand, palm facing outward. “Let’s stop arguing and sit down for prayer.”

“Yes,
Daed
,” Ruthie and Elisabeth said simultaneously. Moriah didn’t miss the taunting looks that passed between them.

When everyone was seated, the family joined hands. “Dear heavenly Father,” Joseph said. “We thank Thee for bringing us together and for the abundant meal You’ve given us. We also thank Thee for bringing Moriah to us today, Father. Let her know that she is deeply loved, not only by You, but by all of us. Amen.”

Her eyes burning, Moriah opened them and looked at her family, who had immediately started tucking into their meal. For the first time since she’d read Levi’s letter, she didn’t feel utter despair. This was where she was meant to be. With her family. Her father hadn’t needed to petition God to show her how much she was loved. She felt it all around her.

Gabe watched the barn entrance for Moriah. He wouldn’t blame her if she had decided to stay home. By now it had spread through half the community that Levi Miller had left his wife and the church. The hard wooden bench felt less comfortable than ever, and he shifted in his seat as he looked at his father surrounded by several men, including the bishop and two ministers. He knew they were offering words of comfort, but he also knew that words were meaningless. Thousands of words, even delivered with good intentions, wouldn’t heal the fissure that had formed in his father’s heart.

Over the past twenty-four hours, Gabe had watched his father weaken physically. If he thought his father would even consider it, he would’ve taken him to the doctor, but he knew
Daed
would have none of it. A firm believer in alternative medicine, John Miller would put his faith in the healing power of God and in the other natural remedies he preferred, especially the teas he insisted on drinking.

Gabe watched as his
daed
sat on the edge of the bench in the front of the cavernous room, his shoulders in a permanent hunch, his long white beard touching the center of his chest as Amos Helmuth, one of the ministers, sat next to him, speaking to him in low tones.

The chill in the air began to fade as warm bodies filled the barn. The men took their seats on the left side of the barn, while the women found their places on the right side. The scent of fresh hay filtered through the air. Gabe took one last look at the barn entrance before sitting down in the back of the church. Not only did he not see Moriah, he didn’t see the rest of the Byler family either. Had they decided to skip church? He wouldn’t blame them if they had. Levi’s decision had shamed both of their families.

Abel Esh, the bishop, stood at the front of the room and opened the
Ausbund
, the Amish hymn book. The hymn leader signaled for the congregation to begin singing. Every voice chimed together in an a capella chant, the haunting monotone echoing off the wooden slats of the barn.

They were nearly finished with the first hymn when out of the corner of his eye, Gabe saw Joseph Byler take a seat on the opposite end of his bench, flanked on both sides by his sons Tobias, Lukas, and Stephen. None of them looked at him, instead directing their attention to the ministers up front. On the other side of the room, Gabe caught sight of Moriah, seated between her mother and her sister Ruthie. He didn’t see Elisabeth, but she often sat with her friends.