CHAPTER TWO

 

As expected, but not wanted, the funeral director pulled into the parking lot of the Harrodsburg projects, his shiny black Cadillac screaming silence for all but the playing children, who had no clue about death. His eyes squinted to find building number 300, which was where Mrs. Dailey had instructed him to go if she had passed: she had passed, so there he was, looking for a Martha Yoder. 

He held his breath and scanned the complex. Sitting on the top concrete steps of complex 300 were two young ladies, one leaning her head against the other’s shoulder, sobbing away.  Of course, he was a specialist dealing with death, under God’s guidance, so he shouldn’t have hesitated.

He did.

******

The late autumn evening had started like any other as the funeral director had been preparing for an evening visitation with a family. Busy, as usual, but not out of the ordinary for a busy community leader and funeral director He’d had the local radio news to tape, plus the errand of swinging by to pick up a country ham tray from The General Store for the family lounge. Then, the rattling of the phone had swayed him away from his daily planner as he nibbled on peanut butter crackers and sipped a Diet Coke. The phone call had said that Mrs. Dailey had been killed, and he’d immediately found that was sad but doable as she had everything planned out: her floral casket spray, her modest dress and kapp, to the funeral hymns, from a hymnal entitled, “The Ausbund.” And a quilt of fall foliage was to be given to a little girl named Alice for comfort and warmth during the long drive to the cemetery.

As usual, he’d prayed before looking at her additional wants, which were sealed in a peach-colored envelope.  Unlike most people, who prepaid funerals, Mrs. Dailey had had some unique requests, and only he was to open the sealed envelope before the family was notified. Actually, the family member was the second person to be notified; the first being Martha Yoder. 

As he opened the envelope, what he read rocked the whole funeral home, including his own two daughters who worked in the Harrodsburg Memorial Chapel.  Mrs. Dailey had handwritten a lengthy note:

“Below is a list of people, all Old Order Amish which I have wronged.  Please have Martha Yoder, who is also former Old Order Amish, being from my community, to be exact, to take the large wooden basket back home and deliver the notes to each of these people.  She will know all but one of them. Tell her to say nothing, just deliver the notes.  I kept them updated monthly, so most should still be living.  In return, I give her my farm in rural Walnut Creek.  Everything else will be sold and will go to the Amish church in which I used to belong.  You will find that in my sealed will.

Lastly, tell her that keeping on keeping on as a single parent instead of deserting her child was why I left her these things.  That little girl, Alice, whom she chose not to give up for adoption is my granddaughter.  True, she does not know it. She does not know the man that she was actually with the night of Rumspringa. I know who she was with that cool, crisp night of Rumspringa, for I snuck in on them, and being embarrassed, I had no idea what to do, for they were, indeed, in Rumspringa.  I should have confronted them, and I live with that guilt.  Deliver the notes, and she will find out who the real father is for I have added a footnote in the apology card to his mother who was the daughter that I gave up for adoption to another Plain family, all because of my sins during Rumspringa. Thank you and I will see you all in heaven as my sins have been forgiven.”

Delivering this news would be a total shock to such a young lady, but an hour later, he got a returned call from the bishop that said that he wanted the basket of secrets right away: he would send a driver down to get them.  It was a hard blow, for he had to refuse his request; per Mrs. Dailey’s wishes, Martha Yoder got the basket of secrets.

The funeral director had seen many secrets exposed at the coffins of the deceased, but he hadn’t expected to be exposed for the Old Order Amish.  They were God’s people, infallible, untarnished by the world.  He now knew that was not the case. He took his black handkerchief out and brought it to his face and wiped the tears from beneath his eyes.  He sent up a prayer. Lord, please help me be strong like I am during all hard times. And please bless this close-knit Amish community as they deal with secrets from long ago.

********

 

Martha and Laura both sat perched firmly on the cracked top step of the three concrete steps that lined the entrance to their complex, tears running down their bronzed faces. Martha had arrived home hours earlier than normal and fallen into Laura’s arms, weeping uncontrollably.  Mrs. Dailey was dead; she would never be back.  Most of all, Martha had the guilt of never getting to tell the locals that the late woman was from her own close-knit Amish community before she had passed on. 

It was true; Martha had been stubborn; she’d wanted to experience more of the world that was outside of her Old Order Amish community.  She was now feeling partly to blame for Mrs. Dailey’s death.  If she hadn’t moved away, then Mrs. Dailey wouldn’t have moved too.  She could have stayed put in Ohio where she would have been away from Kentucky. Her selfishness had cost the life of a wonderful lady. But so had Mrs. Dailey’s selfishness.

The day she’d passed the judgment down.

Martha wiggled her head against Laura’s left shoulder and nervously uttered, “There’s the Undertaker.  I wish he’d go away, fly up in the sky like the birds. I’m not ready to be part of a funeral for a lady who I really never got to know.” 

The funeral director had a solemn, professional demeanor as he walked through the parking lot of the projects, his tall stature, deep black hair, and velvet-glazed eyes were somewhat of a warmness that contrasted the day’s events.  He gently smiled and eyed Martha; he was there for her. 

Why can’t it be Laura, and not me?  Martha stopped herself from blurting the words as a rush of heat hit her face.  It was odd how, in a moment, one would wish unfortunate luck on a friend just to avoid it themselves.  Martha got up from the concrete steps, brushed the dust off of her bottom, and walked down the narrow sidewalk.

Calmly, with a compassionate gaze, the funeral director stepped onto the sidewalk and motioned for Martha to come with him.  Martha nodded and turned to Laura.  I’ll be right back.” Laura smiled, nodded and then yelled at her son who was pushing another child in the middle of the littered parking lot. Heaviness hung over the littered parking lot as Laura broke the gaze she had swept over her son, returning it to her grieving friend.  She watched Martha walk slowly toward the undertaker.

“I need to speak to you alone for a moment,” he whispered, his long arms extending up like an eagle to escort her.  The aroma of a nice men’s cologne echoed from him, and his neatly pressed black suit made her stomach knot up. Could she handle this?  Death was always something that she’d somehow been able to avoid, but not now.  It had come knocking.

******

Martha rested into his warm arms and felt him give a loving squeeze. Tears streamed down her sun-kissed cheeks as memories of Mrs. Dailey and the farm house on Fern Creek back home in Walnut Creek flooded her mind.  The reality that Mrs. Dailey was truly gone hit her.

I’ve killed someone. 

Martha quivered and lost sudden control of the imaginary wall, the cold front, that she’d always put up during difficult times. She was mourning and getting ready to say a final goodbye to the woman that she’d actually never knew.

But she should have. Martha should have let Alice see her. She should have hung around her. She should have let Alice tell the locals her real name.

Schwester Miller. Master quilter. Lover of the Ordnung, but most of all, woman of the Lord.

Server of Gott.

The funeral director opened the car door for Martha, and she slipped inside, leaned her long dust-covered hair against the closed door window, and reflected on the love that Mrs. Miller aka Mrs. Dailey had had by scolding her for her sin.  Everything was going so fast that her temples were throbbing, her chest half numb.

 

Although Martha wouldn’t admit it, her mind turned to the wealthy widows on Elm Street. They had lost their husbands, and some had lost their entire families, but they all continued going on about their life, nibbling on Schwan-engraved chocolate-dipped vanilla ice cream bars.  Maybe money changed things and hardened one’s heart up to death and loss. Who knows, maybe if she had gotten to Elm, she wouldn’t be sitting in a dark funeral Cadillac, grieving over the loss of a woman.

Named Grandma.

But Alice didn’t know. How would she tell Alice?  Usually, Martha had wished that she was living the dream on Elm, but at this moment as she leaned against the passenger-side window of the cool, spacious Cadillac, she wished that she could be one place on earth.

Back home.

Back where people meant everything. Back home where the loss of one person was mourned in dark, swaying cape dresses and a funeral preached by a strong, faithful bishop of the Lord. Farmhouses lining the scoping hills of Holmes County held head-bowing families under hanging oil lamps and the strong reading of the German Bible.

The German Bible.

Not the Englisch Bible.

“Don’t be chasing after the wind,” the bishop had warned as Martha had her bottom firmly planted on a backless bench during Sunday services at a church member’s home. She hadn’t been listening.

She was now.

She reached up and pushed stray strands of golden hair beneath her ears. Her kapp was not there. Her eyes traveled down to her tanned legs. Her beautiful cape dress was not there. She looked up at heaven.

Gott was there.

What would happen now?  Was the bishop notified?  What about her family?  She could lean on them right now.  A careless life hadn’t brought her any comfort when death came knocking, but if she’d stayed put in her Amish haus, there would have been plenty of comfort from friends and family. Actually, if she had stayed put, there would be no man dressed in solemn black wheeling into a littered project parking lot to get her.

But she wouldn’t have Alice.

 

******

 

“Would you like a hot chocolate or a cup of coffee, Martha?” The Funeral Director’s wife, Abby asked as she grabbed some tissues from the box that sat on the left corner of her office desk. I know it’s a hard time for you.  It’s okay to cry. It’s part of the grieving process.”

Martha denied it, “I am having a migraine today; that’s why I am crying.  I am a brave person.  I don’t cry over anything.” Martha sat in silence for a moment, staring down at her folded hands.

Abby had read her thoughts and felt her pain as she leaned over her cherry-stained desk, “You were raised not to cry, weren’t you?” Abby’s bright blue eyes, perfectly golden hair twisted up carefree atop her head by a black-netted ponytail holder, and warm sparkle seemed odd in a funeral home.  Nonetheless, it comforted Martha. 

Martha loosened up. “Yes, Ma’am, I was trained to be brave.”  She grew a slight smile and patted the white tissue against her watered eyes.  “May I have another tissue?  This one is so wet.” Martha sighed and slumped down into the warm chair.

A smile between her lips, Abby gave a warm reply, “Of course! Here, you can take the whole box home.  Grieving comes in spells, even at night; you’ll need them.”  She was talking about the death of her whole family wiped away by a mad gunman in downtown Detroit.  Grief, Abby knew all too well how it worked, and that’s why she’d moved to a rural Bluegrass town over twenty years ago and opened the funeral home.

“You’re so polite, exactly like Mrs. Dailey.  Did you know that she came down here to take me back to my Amish home?”  Martha was talking about the practice of families coming after teenagers who had left the Amish way of life as it was common practice for one’s parents to go get them.

Having read Mrs. Dailey’s note to the funeral director that lay atop her stack of pertinent papers, Abby knew the story: one about betrayal, a pride that was shunned, but still there, and the need to bring back a stray sheep to the Old Order way of life.  Not wanting to tell a lie, Abby said, “I know a little. She left us a note.” She wouldn’t tell her that the bishop had shunned Mrs. Dailey for handing down the Rumspringa sentence, for she didn’t think that it was fair that the fellow quilters didn’t get shunned.  Mrs. Dailey had been the oldest of the quilters; she verbally handed down the sentence.

Martha’s head etched up, her eyes puffy. “Well, it is a strict way of life, and once you’ve sinned, you’re under the radar of the bishop and his wife forever.”  Martha hung her head and folded her hands in her lap, gripping the saturated tissue. “I did the ultimate sin.  I violated my parent’s rules, my community’s rules, and God’s rules.”

“We can all be forgiven; everyone makes mistakes.  Abby felt a snap of guilt pierce her spine for speaking out against the Amish way of life.  But, she had always been outspoken and full of love, and especially forgiveness.  She scooted up in the leather seat and added, “Your whole culture is built around a society of forgiveness, isn’t it?”  Abby eyed her, and Martha lifted her head, her eyes uplifted.

Abby was right! The lines in Martha’s face wiggled, drawing a warm smile, her tone relaxed, “I am forgiven so I can go back home.”  Would it be that easy? Her self-doubt slid away, being filled with grace and love.

 

******

 

 

Jeremiah Yoder was in trouble, the biggest trouble that he’d ever known, and there was no way out.  He sat cross-legged on the green grass that lined his honey pear orchard and sobbed.  No one would want to see a grown man cry, so he stayed put until he could cry no more.  His dark blonde hair was heavy, his head lowered, and his mind in chaos. Martha Yoder, the mother of his dochder, out of wedlock would  be coming back to Amish Country with a basket full of secrets, one of them being his own. His grandmother’s best friend, the late Mrs. Miller, known as Mrs. Dailey to the outside world had made a hasty decision to hand down a judgment that five fellow quilters had agreed upon, although she was not entitled to do so.  What would the bishop think if he knew this?  He would find out soon.

Jeremiah’s heart sank as he recalled the precise day that he ran down the front doorsteps of his parent’s white farmhouse, excited about Rumspringa; that excitement was now sorry, and he wished that he could warn each and every last Amish teenager about the dangers that lurk behind the independence of Rumspringa. The morning sky lit up, casting a warm stroke of heat against the top of his head.  Look up at God?  He couldn’t, but he knew that he needed to, for he’d never repented for the pain that he had caused.  He took his fingers and twirled the thick green grass: it needed to be cut again, but he hadn’t the energy to do it.  The sweet fragrance of ripe honey pears and their nectar blew down from the bountiful pear trees, making him hungry for fruit.

He looked up to face God and saw a tiny, rusty-brown honey pear falling. He jerked his head to the left as the fragrant, brown pear almost hit him between the eyes.  He grabbed it and reached to grab his sanitized cloth from his basket.  He had always let customers sample, but the fruit had to be wiped clean per health department code.  He looked at the perfect skin that surrounded the immature fruit: it was like him, ready on the outside to jump out into the world, but not ready on the inside, to be let go. Once it was plucked, it couldn’t go back.  That was how it undoubtedly was for he had a secret, one that his grandma and five quilting ladies had kept, and they’d made up many more lies to cover up his lie. 

Jeremiah uttered, “What am I going to do? How am I going to get myself out of this mess? Why would I be so dumb as to get myself in such a mess in the first place?”  A grimace traveling across his face, he leaned up and tilted his head back, closed his sun-kissed eyes, and folded his hands in prayer position: God had to help him.  No seconds, no back-up plans; there were none.

The phone call had come to the white shanty, just at the time that his older brother, Samuel, who lived one state over with his wife and seven children, usually called his daed. The sudden call had rocked the small Amish community as much as the news had: Mrs. Dailey’s had passed on, and Martha Yoder would be in town to handle her affairs.  Martha Yoder was the last person that he wanted to see, for his indecisiveness had caused her to leave the community.  He should have been a good father to Alice. He should have given money to support Martha. He should have done a lot more things, but selfishness had coated him, making him turn on her. 

Now, Jeremiah heard the crinkling of orchard leaves, footstep, in the field behind him, so he slowly got up; took his hands and patted the dirt clods away from his bottom and back legs, and turned to the sound of rush steps. The man wore a baby blue button down shirt, navy suspenders, and had a weathered brown straw hat like the hat that rested on his own head.  Mennonite!

The stranger reached out his hand, smiled, and spoke softly, “The funeral home in Harrodsburg, Kentucky just called me; you do know Martha Yoder?”  He was actually talking about one of the funeral director’s daughters, who had snuck and read the notes that Mrs. Dailey had left him, and then sealed them in different envelopes, penning their names in fancy ink.

Jeremiah sighed, brought his hands up to his face and tried to rub the tension away. It didn’t work.  He said now, “I know her all too well.  I am her baby’s father.”

The Stranger grinned, “Actually, I am. I was the one in the barn with her.  You were passed out in my grandma’s house. But ask no questions, for I am in a hurry.” It was my grandma’s wishes for her to find out through the written cards.  I honor her request.” Immediately the stranger felt guilt for his false words. He’d come there on a mission for this twin brother, and although he was a disguise for the real father, he played the substitution role well, looking sincere.

Jeremiah bought into it, although he was stunned; actually, he was speechless, paralyzed by this Mennonite man’s words. How could he have not known that he hadn’t slept with Martha in the hay that night?  His mind flashed back to that night: he was drunk.  How could he believe someone else’s words about that night?  Ray Miller had smacked him silly for talking to her while he was unloading the benches from the bench buggy, so he saw it fit that he invited his rebel bruder, the one that stood before him and him to the Rumspringa party.  He studied the man’s eyes and realized that he was Ray Miller’s twin bruder. 

However, there was something that he’d missed that night of carefree partying: Mennonites didn’t have Rumspringa. Why in the world had they accepted his offer to party with them?  He hadn’t really been interested in Martha much, so after getting smacked by Ray, he was determined to let Ray have Martha, and even encourage them to party together in the loft. 

The red-haired stranger spoke with gusto in his baby blue eyes, “I knew that this would shock you.  I am with the conservative Mennonite community in Sugarcreek. We drive black cars and buggies. Have a nice day.”

Jeremiah spoke up, “I know who you are now; Ray Miller’s bruder?    How is your mother doing? She was friends with my grandma, Mrs. Dailey.”

“She’s fine. She was my grandma, too; she adopted my mother out, but that’s a story in itself. It is nice to see you.  Have a nice day.” The Stranger turned and walked away.

I am Ray Miller’s cousin?  Jeremiah was shocked. That was why Mrs. Dailey had yelled at the other quilters to hurry up and get Martha out of town with child: she didn’t want the community to find out that she had given Ray L.’s mother up for adoption to a Plain family.  What a twist of lies!  It gave him a headache, and he rubbed his head.

Jeremiah didn’t doubt him; he just saw a sad similarity in himself, and he’d lived for years, with the ridicule and heartache of fathering a child that was not his, one that didn’t even know who her father was mainly because of strong-willed Martha Yoder. How would he tell Martha and would she even believe him?  He had to finish his work.

First, the grade two honey pears needed to be boxed up to take to the flea market, then he would carefully wrap the grade one honey pears, and finally, he would load the benches into the bench buggy to take to Clayton Benders as he was having service this Sunday, but he got tied up with several livestock births at one time.  At least, with this much to do, his mind wouldn’t be occupied by the visit from the New Order Amish man.  He took his straw hat off, gazing at its weathered brown ends.  The sweet fragrance of honey pears blew a snap of autumn, cooling his damp black hair.  God, please tell me what to do.