Chapter Fourteen
I’m no boy, Sadie. Isn’t that what he’d said? And Sadie realized with a rush that he was right about that. He was most definitely a man—of the most dangerous kind. He was alluring, and he woke her up in ways that only a husband should do. Her body responded to him; her heartbeat seemed to slow as she rested against his broad chest. He’d smelled slightly musky—warm and spicy, and she’d longed to simply raise her lips and let him kiss her . . . to just let herself slip into another mistake would be ever so easy . . .
But she knew better than to let her body rule her choices, because Elijah had one foot in Chicago already. There was no future between them, so why was she allowing herself to rest in his arms like that? She’d only end up heartbroken in the end.
If there was one thing that had been pounded home in her visit with her brother, it was that the children were the most vulnerable, and the influences around them made a traumatic difference. It would be the same for little Sarah, too, which was equally heartbreaking. But Sammie could still be spared. Her son could grow up safe and secure in an Amish community that would hold him safely to the narrow path. So why couldn’t she dampen whatever it was she was feeling for this man?
The last few miles went by too quickly, but when Elijah pulled into her family’s drive with the headlights flicked off to draw less attention, her heart gave a grateful squeeze. This adventure was over—she was back where she belonged.
Elijah turned off the engine, and Sadie reached for the door handle.
“Thank you,” she said, turning back. “For . . . all of it.”
For bringing her to her brother, for sitting by her side, and for holding her close beside the highway while she cried it all out.
“Yah,” he said gruffly. “It was nothing.”
“I talked a lot—too much, probably.” Now that she was back on home soil, she was regretting opening up as she had. She felt exposed, vulnerable. She’d lost a piece of her armor by talking as heedlessly as she had.
“No, you didn’t,” he said quietly.
“Still—” Her heart sped up, and she licked her lips nervously. “I hadn’t told anybody those things—about Mervin. I’d meant to keep the secret.”
“You can trust me,” he said. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
Were they? Nothing else was safe with him. She looked toward the house as a lamp’s light flickered behind a curtain and the side door opened. Her parents had stayed up for her, as she knew they would. They were anxious to hear the news about Absolom.
“I have to go,” she said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” Those dark eyes met hers, and there was something in his gaze that tugged at her in a way she didn’t want to feel. He’d trampled boundaries between them today that went beyond a kiss, and had sunk right into her heart. She couldn’t let that happen again.
Sadie got out of the car without another word and shut the door as quietly as she could behind her. Then she headed for the house, only glancing back when she heard the engine start again.
“Sadie!” Daet stood at the door. “It’s later than we thought you’d be.”
“I know, Daet.” She looked back again, and Elijah’s car was reversing into the darkness, headlights still out. She stepped inside. “We stayed until sunset, almost. It was hard to say good-bye.”
Mamm and Daet were both still dressed, and there was a pot of tea on the stove, whistling comfortingly.
“Come inside and sit down,” Mamm said, and she looked sadly toward the door as Sadie shut it behind her.
Sadie came inside and looked up toward the staircase. Her own son would be asleep in his little bed, and she longed to wake him up and snuggle him. She wouldn’t, of course.
“Sammie didn’t like going to bed without you, but he finally fell asleep. He’ll be a handful tomorrow, though,” Mamm said, turning toward the kettle.
“Is he in his bed, or mine?” she asked.
Her mother’s face colored. “Yours. I did my best, but he wouldn’t have it.”
Sadie smiled. Her son had been without her for a day, and Mamm was right—Sammie would make her pay for it tomorrow by not letting her out of his sight. But what could Chase do when his mother returned? Nothing. He was already fighting the world with everything in his little arsenal.
Sadie accepted a mug of tea from her mother, and Daet sat down at his usual place at the head of the table. Her parents watched her in agonized silence.
“I saw him,” Sadie said. “And he’s . . . he’s not doing well.”
There was no use in sugarcoating the truth.
“Is he sick?” Mamm asked, leaning forward.
“No, no, he’s healthy,” Sadie replied. “And he has a job, which is important, of course. But he isn’t happy.”
“That’s excellent news.” Daet smiled. “As well, he shouldn’t be. He’s been raised on the narrow path, and he’s finding out just how miserable the devil’s way makes a man.”
The devil’s way. Yesterday, she wouldn’t even have noticed the phrasing. Today, though, it irked, just a little.
“His girlfriend, Sharon, is struggling with depression,” Sadie went on. “She has another child from a previous relationship—Chase. He’s a handful, that boy. He’s allowed to do pretty much anything he wants. He’s the one who suffers the most, I think.”
“And the baby?” her mother pressed.
“Sarah is healthy, too. The mother left while we were there, so we held her a lot. Absolom is a very doting father.”
“So he’s close to coming back.” A smile toyed at Mamm’s lips. “Isn’t he?”
“No.” Sadie could feel her parents’ disappointment as the hopeful smiles slipped from their faces. “Sharon is having a hard time caring for those children, and Absolom was right about her not fitting in here in Morinville. She seems to have no love for us.”
“Us?” Daet frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Whatever Absolom has told her, I imagine. She stomped off, left the children with Absolom, and hadn’t returned yet by the time we left. But for all of that, Absolom loves her. And they are . . . a family.”
“A family?” Daet shook his head. “They are not a family!”
“He has children who depend on him for food as well as love,” Sadie replied quietly. “He has a woman he keeps house with. And he’s standing by them, Daet. He said that he has responsibilities, and he hopes you’d understand that.”
Daet’s eyes filled with tears, and he turned away. He’d been hoping, Sadie knew, that this would be the end of it all, that Absolom would come back.
“Does he miss us?” Mamm asked, a tremor in her voice.
“Desperately.” Sadie swallowed a mist of tears. “He says to tell you that he loves you, Mamm.”
“If he loved me, he wouldn’t have done this!” Mamm pushed her chair back and rose to her feet. “Love is an action, not a feeling! Not a regret! If he loved his mother, he would come back!”
“He can’t come back, Mamm!” Sadie’s voice rose to meet her mother’s. They wouldn’t understand—they hadn’t seen him, seen his life there. She wished that his choices made less sense—it would hurt less if there was some hope, or at least some indignant anger at his outrageous behavior. But she had neither.
Daet sat in somber silence, and when Sadie looked toward him, she read the grief in his face. He rubbed his hand over his gray hair.
“If this were another family,” he said slowly, “I would advise shunning.”
Sadie’s mouth went dry. “Daet, please don’t. He asked me to write to him. There might still be hope!”
“You are already defending his worldly ways.” Daet shook his head. “I have to consider the community—the weaker members of the church who might stumble because of my own weakness.”
“It isn’t weakness to love your son!” Sadie was too tired to dampen her words. “I have a son of my own, and, Daet, I’d swim oceans for him.” Tears prickled at her eyes.
“I have more children than just one,” Daet said, his voice low and thick with emotion. “I have an entire congregation, as well. The Good Shepherd might have gone after his missing lamb, but he didn’t do so at the risk of the rest of the flock.”
Sadie looked toward her mother, but Mamm stood immobile, her face ashen.
“Daet—” Sadie rubbed her hands over her face. “Please, Daet.”
“It is better for us to face facts than to have the elders come and inform us that we’re straying from the Ordnung. I won’t risk your reputation any further. We will never speak of this visit to your brother, and I will tell the elders of my decision for a vote.”
Shunned. The word was ugly and sharp in her heart. It wouldn’t be so very different from the way Absolom lived now, but it would solidify his position of outsider. And his letters would go unopened instead of just unanswered. No one would be permitted to speak to him, to look at him, to have anything to do with him until he came back, humble and penitent.
Small feet sounded on the stairs, and Sadie turned to see her bleary-eyed son coming down.
“Mamm?” he whimpered.
“Mamm is back,” Sadie said with a misty smile. “Come here, sugar.”
Samuel descended the last of the stairs, and she picked him up in her arms, cuddling him close. He smelled of the soap his grandmother had washed him with before bed, and Sadie closed her eyes, breathing him in. Her little boy.
“Sadie,” Mamm said, and Sadie opened her eyes to see her mother’s agonized face. “Your brother isn’t a little boy any longer.”
And she knew that—but she didn’t care how big Sammie got; he’d never stop being hers.
“If you saw how sad he was . . .” Sadie said.
“Does he care about my broken heart?” Mamm asked, her lips quivering with repressed tears. “Does he care about your daet’s heart?”
Sadie looked around, as if she could find some answer hidden in the walls or the windows. She’d gone to see her brother in hopes of giving him a bridge back home, but she’d discovered that it wasn’t the bridge that was holding him back.
“He cares! He’s just . . . trapped.”
Samuel squirmed in her arms and he caught one of her kapp strings, tugging it loose. Sadie reached back to pluck her kapp free, along with the bobby pin that held it in place. She’d bring him back to bed and tuck him in properly.
“Don’t think I love him any less than you love Samuel,” Mamm said, pressing her lips together to hold back the tears. “The Lord disciplines those He loves.”
Sadie turned toward the stairs and started up them. Samuel was heavy now, and he felt like he’d grown over the last day—fitting into her arms just a little differently than he had last night. She climbed the stairs carefully, feeling her way since she couldn’t see her feet past Sammie. As she made it to the top stair, she heard her mother’s sobs burst out through the kitchen.
“My son . . .” Mamm wept. “Oh, Absolom, my son, my son . . .”
And her father’s deep voice, hoarse with grief, murmured back to her.
Sadie looked down at her kapp in her hand. It represented submission before God and before the men God put over her. She’d always accepted that submission as a fact of life, but now she realized just how dangerous a potential husband could be. She’d be under his authority—as would her son—just like they were under Daet’s authority here at home.
Sadie held Samuel a little closer as she carried him into her darkened bedroom. She knew the way by feel, and she brought him to his little bed.
“No, Mamm,” Sammie pleaded. “Sleep with you . . .”
“No, you’ll sleep in your own bed, son,” she said, kissing his forehead. “And I’ll be in mine. But it’s very late, and we both need to sleep, all right?”
Samuel’s pale face crumpled into tears, and he reached for her. He’d missed her—he’d gone a whole day away from her—and she didn’t have the heart to push him away. Sadie sank into the rocking chair in the corner instead, snuggling her son into her lap.
One day she would be forced to marry, and that thought was even more frightening than it had been before, because Samuel wouldn’t be the natural child of whatever man chose her. And that was even more of a danger than she’d realized, because Samuel didn’t have a living father to match her ardent love for him. No one on God’s green earth loved this child just as deeply as she did.
No one.
But marry she must.
* * *
The next morning, Elijah arrived early at the Graber farm and unhitched his buggy in the barn. The morning quiet was punctuated by the first twitter of birds as the sun eased up over the horizon, spilling rosy light over the cattle-dotted fields. Elijah kicked the door to the buggy barn shut behind him and was about to head toward the cow barn when he saw the bishop standing on the porch.
Elijah hesitated—did the old man want something from him, or was he simply standing in the cool morning air?
“Elijah.” The bishop’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried, and Elijah suppressed a sigh. He suspected that the bishop would want to ask about his son, but Elijah had nothing to tell him that Sadie couldn’t.
Elijah headed in the older man’s direction, and the bishop came down the steps, meeting him down on the grass.
“Good morning, sir,” Elijah said.
“Thank you for bringing my daughter home safely,” the bishop said quietly. “I appreciate your willingness to help us in this matter.”
Elijah nodded in acknowledgment.
“I’m sure we can count on your discretion still . . .”
“Of course.” He wouldn’t be discussing this outside of his own home, and neither would his parents.
“Good.” The older man paused. “Sadie told us about Absolom’s situation. I understand why you weren’t able to bring him back home with you.”
“Thank you.” It wasn’t exactly the response he’d expected. Elijah tucked a thumb into the front of his pants.
Elijah was less worried about Absolom right now than he was about Sadie. She’d try to be strong for her parents, but she’d been shaken by the view into her brother’s world . . . and maybe he should have expected that, but he thought that she’d use judgment and religious certainty as a shield. He’d even considered the possibility that she might offer a little discipline of her own to Sharon’s wild and unruly son—but her heavy heartbreak had been worse. Elijah could still remember that distinctive scent of Sadie’s hair as he wrapped his arms around her, trying for just one moment to be enough.
The bishop started to walk slowly toward the cow barn, and Elijah matched his pace. The older man wanted to say something—Elijah could feel the unspoken words humming in the air around him. Would this be the end of his employment? He couldn’t imagine that the bishop was keeping him around for more reason than Elijah’s connection to his son. Elijah would almost be relieved if the bishop replaced him, let him lick his wounds and get over whatever new, unsettling feelings he seemed to be developing for the bishop’s daughter all over again.
“You said before that I am more flexible for my own family than I am for anyone else,” Bishop Graber said, coming to a stop.
They reached the gravel road that led up to the cattle barn, and Elijah let his gaze travel up the curving road.
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” Elijah said at last.
“You were right. I was willing to give Absolom more grace than I’d have given anyone else’s son.”
“Including me?” Elijah asked bitterly.
The bishop’s face clouded, but he nodded. “You were the reason my son left, Elijah. And while I do my best to be unbiased, I may have allowed my personal feelings to cloud my decisions.”
“He would have left, with or without me,” Elijah said, his voice low.
“No, there you are wrong.”
“Am I?” Elijah asked, looking up to meet the bishop’s gaze. “Can you be so sure?”
“Are you saying he lied to us when he said he would bring you back?” The older man laughed bitterly. “No, my son is many things, but not a liar.”
“He was angry,” Elijah said. “Yes, I pushed him to come with me, but I also asked him to come home with me several times over the years, and he turned me down. You expected perfection from him. Other boys could make a mistake, but if Absolom did, he was whipped.”
“Spare the rod, spoil the child.” The bishop’s voice was less certain now.
“Spare the rod once in a while, and your son might not hate you so much that he leaves the community,” Elijah snapped back.
“I quote the Bible. What’s your foundation?” There was a low, dangerous simmer in the old man’s eyes now.
“I’m simply looking at the fact that Absolom left and never looked back.”
Bishop Graber looked ready to retort, but then he sighed. “Don’t question a father’s love, Elijah Fisher. I did all I could to bring him back into salvation. I did more than I’d have allowed anyone else to do. And in that, I was wrong.” The older man nodded several times. “Very wrong.”
Was he? Was compassion and an honest attempt to reach out to his son a mistake? The bishop should have bent more readily for other people’s sons, other children who turned their backs on the community . . . but he hadn’t done wrong by Absolom. Elijah might have said so, but the bishop raised a hand to silence him.
“It is time to stop bending with the wind and whim of a disobedient boy.”
Elijah’s breath froze in his throat. “What do you mean?”
“I have done more for my son than I allowed even your father to do for you. Now, I must do as I advise others. It is time to shun.”
Shunning? Elijah swallowed. “Bishop . . . please . . .”
“No, there is no need for that,” the bishop said with a tired sigh. “I have prayed and prayed over this matter, and I vowed to the Lord that if my son didn’t return with you, that I’d follow the Lord’s will through the Ordnung.”
“He is already so far away,” Elijah pressed. “Is it even necessary? If you shut him out this way—”
“You yourself told me that I am unfair in the public eye,” the bishop interrupted. “If I don’t take this step, the community will be weakened. I must not show favoritism. My son is in full defiance. The only answer is to shun him until he is willing to confess his sin and return home.”
It was a cruel twist on Elijah’s words. Now, not only was Elijah responsible for Absolom’s defection, but he was responsible for his shunning, too. All because he’d pointed out the bishop’s bias.
“Does Sadie know?” Elijah asked woodenly.
“Yes, she knows.”
Did she blame him, too? That’s what he wanted to know, but he couldn’t ask that. If Elijah had taken his anger and left the community alone, it all might have been different . . .
“I will send for the elders today,” the bishop went on, “and we will discuss the matter and take a vote.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
If the bishop heard him, he showed no sign of it.
“Do not contact my son again,” the bishop said, his words heavy and slow. “Do not answer his letters, or even open them. We are permitted to help him if he is going to suffer unduly, but we will not eat with him, talk with him, or even look at him until he has chosen the narrow path once more.”
Elijah knew the rules for shunning. What Amish person didn’t? It was a horrible consequence where the community had to cooperate in the punishment of the person in question. Everyone had a hand in it, and as long as Elijah was living with his parents, he would be forced to participate, too.
I shouldn’t have taken her to see her brother. He’d known it was a mistake from the start. He’d known that Absolom couldn’t come back as easily as all that, and now his father’s hand had been forced. Absolom would be formally separated from everyone he’d ever known and loved in Morinville.
All because of a quiet moment in the dark with Sadie. . . . Who was he fooling? Elijah hadn’t been trying to help her—he’d been offering her the only thing he could give that no other man could provide, and he’d proven himself to be even more damaging to her well-being than he’d imagined.
“Do you still want me to work for you?” Elijah asked.
“Yah. Of course. You’ve done well by us, Elijah Fisher.” The bishop reached out and squeezed Elijah’s shoulder. So welcoming, so approving. Why? Was it because he knew their secrets?
“Then I should get to work.” Without waiting to be dismissed, Elijah turned his steps toward the barn.
Shunning.
Elijah had only wanted to let Sadie connect with her brother, but it seemed like everything he touched was soiled somehow. He’d come back to Morinville to help his parents, but he wasn’t improving Sadie’s life by being here. If he really cared about her, he’d take a big step back and let her put together the traditional Amish life she craved.