Abram's Daughters 01 The Covenant (20 page)

"Who?" Robert asked. :

"Never mind." He leaped out of the car, mad as a threatened dog, and walked partway up the walk toward her. "Come with me, Sadie," he barked, not waiting for her to get up and follow. Marching around the side of the house, toward the entrance to the medical clinic where his father treated

patients, he watted for her to catch up, arms folded across his chest. "What were you thinking, coming here?" he demanded.

She inched her way closer to him, yet keeping her distance. It was then that he noticed she was barefooted beneath

her long blue dress, as she always was, and in the dark coolness of the night, with only the porch lamp to cast a spell of light, he was taken once again with her beauty. "Derry, I'm sorry to bother you, but I must tell ya something," she said softly.

They stood like two statues engulfed in amber shadows.

"My letter," he muttered. "Is this about the letter?"

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"Jah." Her voice quavered. "And . . . something else, too."

"Look, Sadie, I'm sorry about what happened between us. I wasn't thinking "

"No," she interrupted, "but I have been." Then she said softly, almost in a whisper, "Derry, I'd thought you'd want to know . . . I'm in the family way."

Stunned, he took a step back as Sadie's words echoed in his brain. "Are you sure?"

"I wouldn't have told you if I wasn't."

An uncanny silence hung in the air, separating them like a damask curtain. His words were measured. "What're you going to do?"

"This isn't just my concern, Derry. This is your baby, too." Quickly she hung her head not in shame, he was certain. After a time she slowly lifted her eyes to him. "If you loved me half as much as you said all those times before, you could save yourself from goin' off to serve Uncle Sam, ya know."

He did not immediately grasp her meaning. Then he did. She wanted him to marry her, give her baby a name and a home. Any girl would want that. She must think he was looking for an exemption from military duty, and Sadie wasn't simply hinting. He could see by her posture she was giving it to him straight. "What a wonderful-gut excuse to stay home, jah?"

"But I want to join the army."

She fell silent again.

He tried to avoid her eyes. Those beautiful eyes that had taunted him from the first night. "Let's talk about you." He didn't want to sound crass, but what choice did he have? "My father might know of someone in Philly who could take care

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ol' I his problem and soon. I'd drive you there myself."

"No," she said. "What's done is done." She stepped forward, coming face-to-face with him. "This wee one inside me, our baby together, was created out of love. 'Least, I I bought so. You should be ashamed, Derry Schwartz, thinkin' I hat I'd do away with my own flesh and blood." She was crying. "I don't know you anymore. Maybe I never did." Turning, she ran across the lawn, heading for the road.

"Wait . . . Sadie!" he called after her. "Let me take you home."

She stopped abruptly, hands on her slender hips. "I'd rather walk ten miles in the blackest midnight than let you drive me anywhere. You're the cruelest human being the Lord God ever made!" With that pronouncement of his moral (iber, she sped off into the night.

Derek stood watching her at the edge of the lawn. "Dad was right. Women are trouble," he whispered, then spat on the ground. ,

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i_/eah remembered having placed a firm hand on Sadie's shoulder, hoping to talk sense to her, trying to stop her sister from going down the road to "talk to Derry, just this once."

"But . . . you've put the sins of the past behind, ain't so?" Leah had asked, aware of Sadie's glistening eyes. "Honestly, I don't mean to pry, but "

"Then don't." Sadie had pushed away.

"Keep youor vow to God" was all Leah could whisper before Sadie left their bedroom, rushing out into the night.

Now, alone in the room, Leah paced the floor, something she'd never done. Sadie was off somewhere talking to her former English beau . . . just why, she hadn't bothered to say. The letter that had brought such sad, sorrowful news days ago was buried deep in one of the dresser drawers or Sadie's hope chest, maybe Leah was awful sure, yet she wouldn't go searching for it. Would be wrong to read what Sadie had never offered to share.

But Leah wasn't about to take herself off to bed. Not till

Sadie returned home, safe in their father's house again. She

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sat on the edge of the bed in her nightgown, praying silently and waiting for the tiptoed return of her baptized sister.

The biting smell of woodsmoke mingled with the autumn air as Sadie rushed home, indifferent to sharp pebbles tearing at her bare feet. She sometimes ran, sometimes walked on the two-lane highway that bordered the east side of the forest, where she and Derry had met on more occasions than she cared to count, the road that ran between Derry's home and her own. An owl hooted in the distance, the eerie sound coming from deep in the woods, though Sadie wasn't a bit scared to walk alone.

She thought of the toasty fire Aunt Lizzie surely had stoked all evening long, though at this hour the flames were no doubt reduced to smoldering embers, cooling now as she hurried toward home. Come to think of it, maybe Aunt Lizzie's place was the origin of the smoke that hung so heavily in the air, except that the little cabin was clear on the other side of the knoll. Just why was she thinking of her fun-loving maidel aunt on a night like this? Sadie knew how much Lizzie liked to walk in the woods. Sometimes even at night, especially when the moon was out. Aunt Lizzie said she could talk best to God at such times.

Sadie didn't know how she herself felt about the Lord

God tonight. She'd built her whole future round Derry, only to have her hopes come crumbling down. She thought she might want to move to Hickory Hollow, live neighbors to some of her married cousins Uncle Noah and Aunt Becky's grown children, maybe. Get away from not only the raised eyebrows that were sure to come, but the words of rebuke from Mamma, Dat, and eventually Preacher Yoder ... all the

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way up to the bishop, if she didn't confess her terrible sin and come clean. Then, just as awful, she'd end up living alone, without the chance to marry. No Amish boy would want "secondhand goods." No more Sunday singings for her once she began to show, no more rides in an open buggy on a starry night, no more giggling at wedding feasts. Pairing up was a lh ing of the past. And tomboy Leah, of all things, would be i he first of Abram's daughters to marry.

Sadie tied her prayer cap under her chin against the breeze, wondering what it would be like to live near her I lickory Hollow kinfolk. What had it been like for Lizzie, leaving all her friends and coming over here near Mamma? Especially when Lizzie had two sisters who were much closer in age than Mamma was, "and closer in spirit, too," Uncle Noah had said years back, one of the few times they'd visited Mamma's older brother and family. Of course, now it didn't seem to matter anymore. Lizzie was long settled in the Gob' bier's Knob church community, a helper to Mamma, a caregiver for Dawdi Brenneman, and a woman of her own making. She'd never married, which often perplexed Sadie, and whenever the topic came up with either Leah or Mamma, one of them would say something like, "Some women seem content to live without a man." But Sadie didn't believe it, not for one minute. She'd noticed Aunt Lizzie at church picnics and whatnot, enjoying herself and everyone round her. Such a cheerful woman she was. Up until about five years or so ago, Sadie had wondered if Lizzie might not marry an older man a widower, maybe but no such opportunity had come along just yet.

Glancing over her shoulder at distant car lights coming fast, Sadie moved to the far left side of the road, near the

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grassy ditch where wild strawberry vines grew all summer long and lightning bugs could be seen flickering in June.

"I want to join the army. ..."

Derry's words rang in her head. Thinking back to their dreadful conversation, she felt something snap way down inside her. No matter what Derry said or did from now on, she was going to cherish and care for their baby. The innocent child must be shielded from the murderous attitude of

its own father.

Kicking at the road, she scraped her right foot but didn't care. Der Derry Schwartz is en lidderlicher a despicable fellow she thought. And the most frightening thing was she never would've guessed him to be anything but what she'd known of him these past months kind and ever so loving . . . eager to see her as often as possible. What could've happened to change his mind about her? Had he found himself another girlfriend ... in such a short time? Or was his decision to join up with the military the main reason? If that was true, why on earth would he refuse to write the letters he'd promised? Why?

A dozen questions or more gnawed at her peace. The car lights had caught up with her. She turned to see Derry waving his arm out the window. "Sadie! Stop right now and get in."

As soon as she knew who the driver was, she turned her head stiffly, still walking.

"Don't be stubborn," he was hollering at her. And now he'd stopped the car. She heard the door slam and his hard footsteps. Was he running after her to say he was ever so sorry, take her in his arms, tell her he didn't mean a word of what he'd said before? That they should be married right away, he'd changed his mind, decided not to go off with

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Uncle Sam. He loved her, after all.

But no ... his words rang out into the night. "Listen to me, Sadie!" She felt his hand on her shoulder now, turning her round to face him. "You can't go on like nothing's happened," he was saying. "You have to do something about the . . . baby."

"I'll do something. I'll be raising our child by myself," she answered, "and there ain't anything you can do 'bout it. Unless . . ." Looking past him, she saw his gray automobile sitting back there in the middle of the road, the door on the driver's side gaping wide just the way her life and her future felt to her exposed for the world of the People to see and then condemn.

"Unless what?" He gripped her arms. :

"Unless you change your mind."

"That's impossible," he said flatly. "Well, I guess there is adoption, but who's going to take a half-breed?"

She wondered if this might be the truest reason behind his rejection of their child. But she didn't think he'd be so uncouth as to put it into words. And such hurtful words they were. "Turn leose of me, Derry. I'm going home now."

He released her, though reluctantly, stepping back with defiance on his face. "Sadie Ebersol, I wish I'd never met you."

"Jah, well, I wish it more than you." She spun on her heels and began to run. She ran until her callused feet were numb to the sting of the hard pavement. She ran away from what might've been all her wishes and dreams bound up in one horrible boy and rushed toward her father's house, where she would do her best to hide her sin over the next months, sew her dresses and aprons ever wider, till she could no longer hide her secret. The People would then know the

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truth about her and her false covenant. They could either help her live as a maidel with a child, or they could reject her, cast her out shun her. At this moment, she knew she was too stubborn to repent to a single soul.

Soon the rambling farmhouse came into view, and she quickened her pace, glad that Derry had chosen to turn round in the road and head back. She was sure she'd never see him again. She hoped so with all her might.

Leah heard Sadie coming up the stairs and stood in the doorway, waiting. "Gut, you're home at last," she whispered.

"I never want to see Derry again as long as I live."

Such a relief, thought Leah, but to Sadie she said, "I'm glad you're here, sister."

And then Sadie turned and looked at her, falling into her arms. Patting her sister ever so gently, Leah said no more, letting Sadie sob onto her shoulder, hoping her sister's cries were muffled enough to keep from waking Mamma.

Ida was put out with herself, having to get up several times in the night, rejecting the idea of the outhouse. She was thankful for the chamber bucket, especially here lately when her sleep was ever so deep. Like a rock, she felt, of a morning. Was this how her older sister-in-law, Becky Brenneman, felt come the change? She could talk right frankly with Becky face-to-face, she recalled. But it had been such a long time since Abram had agreed to drive all of them over there. "Too far to the Hollow," he'd said when she asked last week. "Not during harvest," he'd said just this evening. So she wouldn't be asking Abram again. Not till after the wedding season, but then it would be too cold, probably, too

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much snow on the road. Then his excuse would be the sleigh couldn't begin to hold all six of them. Seven, really, if Lizzie went, which she'd want to, Ida was awful sure.

Truth be known, Abram and Noah hadn't gotten along for the longest time. "We don't see eye to eye," Abram had often said. Which puzzled Ida when she thought of it, because there wasn't anyone else round the community who rubbed Abram the wrong way. He was a loyal and good friend to all the men in the church here. She sometimes wondered what peeved her husband about her elder brother. But, lying here in bed, she was grateful to have met and married such a man as Abram, who slept next to her breathing softly, not like many husbands, whose wives complained of their snoring. No, Abram's sleep was always placid. He could slumber through most anything, seemed to her. Even the mournful sounds coming from Sadie and Leah's bedroom just now.

What the world? she wondered. Sounded like Sadie crying, and when she leaned up to listen, jah, she was sure it was. Ach, she'd be ever so glad when all four girls were safely past their rumschpringe. To think that now Leah was coming into hers . . . and tha twins not so far behind.

Dear Lord Jesus, help us through the comin' years. May we, each one, commit our ways to you, she began to pray.