Meek and Mild (25 page)

It was only a matter of time, Clara realized. Four girls knew she told Bible stories, and one of them was her own sister and shared her home. One of them would innocently drop a reference to a story into conversation with a parent over farm chores or evening prayers. Clara almost wished that Hannah was not among the girls who would be tangled in confusion when the mothers began to speak to each other. But why would she hold back God’s Word from her own sister?

She wouldn’t.

Priscilla had scampered away after seeing Clara’s slight nod. Now Clara excused herself, slipped out the back door of the Schrock house, and quickly rounded the corner of the barn.

There they were, seated in the grass and waiting.

C
lara jammed a fist against her mouth, stopping the scream rising through her sleep but helpless to thwart the wail flashing through time.

This version of the dream had faces.

Fannie’s. Sadie’s. Martha’s. Atlee’s. Hiram’s.

Drawn. Pale. Stunned. Tormented. Lost.

A baby’s cry faded. Martha collapsed.

Clara gasped and sat up. The morning breeze through the window, still cool in advance of the sun, blew across her suddenly sweat-drenched nightgown. Chilled, she scrambled out of bed, stepped to the washing bowl, and splashed tepid liquid on her face repeatedly until her breathing slowed.

Martha’s baby. How would any of them recover if this dream proved true?

Clara sat on the bed. The vague sadness that startled her every few months now growled full terror.

From down the hall, Mari’s cry sounded. Rhoda’s footsteps responded.

Clara released pent-up breath. Perhaps her little sister crying in her sleep was all that triggered the dream. She should have been used to the sound. It was not unusual for Mari to cry out for her
mamm
without waking and remember nothing in the morning.

Little-girl dreams easily soothed with a mother’s touch.

Clara had no
mamm
to call for when she was little. Would dreams of sadness have followed her for years if her mother had been there to stroke her forehead and hum a soothing tune? She would never know.

An early walk, before the bustle of breakfast and readying for church, would release her burning muscles and relieve her of the image of Martha’s empty arms. Clara pulled on a dress and shoes. When she returned an hour later, the household had wakened. Hiram and Josiah were milking the cows, and Rhoda was braiding the girls’ hair.

A normal morning. Everyone was safe.

After breakfast, Clara went to her room to freshen up. She tucked the last pin in her hair and checked her reflection in the dull glass that hung beside her bedroom door to be sure she had taken captive every rebellious strand. On this first church Sunday in August, filled with worship and socializing, she would have little opportunity for repairs.

She did not hear the footsteps coming down the hall. Bare feet in summer slapped the wooden planks more kindly than winter shoes. Instead, the swish of skirts, which the seasons did not alter, alerted Clara. It was not enough fullness of yardage to be Rhoda. She supposed Hannah, and in a moment her guess was confirmed.

“
Mamm
wants to know if you’re ready,” Hannah said, standing in the doorway.

“Nearly.” Clara looked around for what she had done with her prayer
kapp
.

“Are you going to tell us a story today?” As it always did when she was excited, Hannah’s voice rose in pitch and volume.

Clara sucked in her breath, grabbed Hannah to pull her into the room, and closed the door.

“No,” Clara said softly, “we won’t have a story today. It’s a worship service. We’ll hear sermons.”

“Sermons make me sleepy,” Hannah said. “I don’t understand them.”

“You will soon.”

“We could have a story after the service.”

“I don’t think so.”

“But it’s been weeks and weeks.” Hannah’s pout accelerated.

“It only seems that way,” Clara said. It had been just over two weeks, but to a six-year-old that must have felt like half the summer.

“But Priscilla will be there, and Lillian and Naomi. And lots of other girls.”

Clara had worried the girls would speak to their parents about the Bible stories, but they had only to speak to their friends. Priscilla, after all, had initiated Lillian and Naomi by retelling a story. Another innocent child would ask her mother if she could hear the stories, too. Before she knew it, Clara would be standing in front of Bishop Yoder with his demand that she explain herself pounding in her ears.

“We might not be able to have any more stories,” she said. “At least not for a while.”

“But we like them.” Hannah pushed out her lower lip another half inch.

“I know.” Clara straightened her sister’s
kapp
and knotted the strings beneath her chin.

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.” Hannah’s eyelashes blinked over her blue eyes in wide simplicity.

Clara ran her tongue behind her top lip. Hannah was no secret keeper. She wasn’t a tattletale motivated by self-righteousness or maliciousness, but when she got excited, words gushed out when she didn’t mean them to. It was a wonder Hannah hadn’t already told her mother about the stories. Arranging her own
kapp
, Clara puzzled over why Hannah hadn’t said anything yet. She would never tell the girls to withhold truth from their parents. A secret was too close to a lie. To a child, condoning one would be to condone the other. A six-year-old should not be responsible for discerning the difference, nor burdened with conflicting loyalties should a choice come down to the secret or a lie.

Clara blew out a soft breath. She knelt and put her hands on Hannah’s elbows, trying to form a response that would neither ask the child to keep a secret nor send her running to divulge one.

The footsteps in the hall now were firm, quick, and evident of shoes.

“Where is everybody?” Rhoda’s voice rang out. “It’s time to go.”

“Never mind,” Clara said to Hannah. She pushed up out of the crouch, opened the door, and took her sister’s hand to lead her down the stairs.

In the family buggy, Rhoda sat in the front bench beside her husband with Mari on her lap. In the second bench, Clara sat between Josiah and Hannah. All three of them folded their hands in their laps as they had been taught to do as a reminder to keep themselves still and not cause danger in the buggy. Clara could still remember Hiram setting her on the bench beside him and folding her little hands when it was just the two of them, with a stern warning that she must obey or she would fall out of the buggy. By the time she was old enough to be trusted not to move suddenly, the habit was long instilled.

Clara regarded the posture as fitting for preparing for worship. It quieted the body for the long service and encouraged a calming of the spirit as well. She wanted a clean heart for worship.

Her posture came from outward effort, however, while her heart rebelled against every notion she’d ever learned of being ready for church.

She did not feel guilty about telling Bible stories to little girls, but neither did she want to confuse them about right or wrong.

She did not feel guilty for knowing about Andrew’s car, nor for her lack of judgment over his ownership of it.

She did not feel guilty for her intention to see her relatives in Maryland no matter what the bishop said.

No matter how tightly she wound and pinned braids against the sides of her head or how perfectly her
kapp
sat on her hair, Clara knew what was in her own heart.

At the Summit Mills Meetinghouse, Clara lingered outside while Rhoda ushered the girls inside and her father and brother took their places in the men’s processional. At the last minute, before the men began to march in, she slipped into the bench at the back of the women’s section where she could watch Andrew in the mass of black suits and hats. His defense of her to Yonnie had poured cleansing love over her spirit, washing away the humiliation of a dark night. But at what price? While Clara had never felt personal warmth toward Yonnie, Andrew did. Now because of her a chasm ran through their friendship—if it could still be called a friendship.

And the chasm was one more truth that did not spawn guilt.

Was it possible to feel guilty about not feeling guilty?

Andrew’s urge was to cross his arms against his chest in doubt that Joseph Yoder’s sermon would speak to Andrew’s heart. His brother Noah certainly hadn’t in the first sermon, although his point had been clear. How would the transgressors who strayed from the church turn to repentance without shunning?

Joseph now announced that his theme would look at two Josephs in the Bible. Andrew’s skepticism notched up.

“Where did the brothers of Joseph need to go to become reconciled with him after they behaved so unmercifully toward him? They needed to take the distant trip to Egypt. One might say they went to Egypt only to get grain during the famine, but I believe they were sent of God, since this Joseph is an example of the heavenly Joseph, Jesus Christ. In Egypt they bowed before Joseph and acknowledged their trespasses against him. All hardened transgressors must come to Jesus in the same spirit. Joseph’s brothers came in a spirit of undoneness and brokenness. So long as a transgressor has not come to that place, the status of a child of God is not applicable.”

Andrew did cross his arms now.

“And let us move to the greatest Joseph of the New Testament. Mary and Joseph left the child Jesus, naturally speaking, and could not find him until they returned to where they left him,” Joseph Yoder continued. “This is a lesson for us. If anyone loses a child, spiritually speaking, he should search again at the place where he lost it. Those who have been placed into the ban should be shunned, even if they join another church, so that they may indeed repent, regret, and sorrow with humble hearts and with a demonstration of a sincere lifestyle become reconciled with the church from which they left. The ban can only be lifted if the wanderer renews his commitment with God and the church on bended knees and by seeking the peace where he lost it.”

Joseph Yoder’s eyes panned the congregation in dramatic silence. “By holding fast to the ban, you will be an instrument of God’s will, drawing the transgressor back to true peace. If we do not do so, the transgressor may draw away the entire church. Would such a disturbance of the peace please God? I do not believe so. I call upon each of you to bring to the attention of your ministers and bishop any knowledge you have of individuals who have lost their peace and threaten the peace of the church with their transgressions. Though the ban may seem difficult, we bear the cross Christ calls us to that we may pray for the transgressor’s return to peace before we all share in the disturbance of our mutual peace.”

Joseph paused again, letting his words sink in.

If there were a third sermon, Andrew wondered, and Mose Beachy were to stand with his Bible open, what would he say? The peace was already disturbed. Bishop Yoder disturbed it himself when he insisted on a strong
meidung
against people whose only transgression was to form a slightly different kind of Amish congregation a generation ago—two generations ago. It was sermons like these that could leave a young woman humiliated on the side of the road. Andrew saw no peace in that.

Andrew glanced at John Stutzman and then at Caleb Schrock. They held their posture better than Andrew did, but he knew their straight spines did not express their thoughts. He would seek them out even before helping to turn benches into tables for the shared meal.