The next moments blurred in Esther’s mind. She watched as Uncle Reuben whispered something behind his large carpenter’s hand before gesturing toward Orpha’s casket. Her eyes moved over the rest of the crowd as the murmuring began. There were hidden whispers and faces turned toward one another, but all eyes were on Esther and the return of Chester Detweiler. Esther’s eyes went back to Orpha and then to the suited, balding man. Was this really her father? The man’s strides were long for his stature, and he was in front of Esther and Daisy in a few ticks of the second hand.
“Essie,” he whispered. He looked down at Daisy, who instantly hid behind Esther’s black skirt. Up close Esther saw a scar on his chin. That had happened when she’d tried to hoe the garden like a grown-up and gotten him in the chin instead. He’d only laughed about it, not whipped her for her carelessness. Orpha had stitched him, since Esther’s mother, Leah, wasn’t good with blood.
Chester turned away from Esther. His hands gripped the side of the simple varnished casket, and she saw that he was missing a pointer finger. He hunched over his hands for several long seconds before standing upright. He sniffed loudly and pulled out a handkerchief. He blew his nose, and the sound bounced around in the hip roof of the barn, but he seemed not to notice or, if he did, care.
How was this possible? How could he be here? Her breathing quickened with shock.
“Mem,” he croaked. “Oh, Mem Vee kan ich dich nah geh lessa?” He pleaded several times, asking how he could now let his mother go.
Esther grimaced, sympathy mixing with her confusion. Where had he been all these years? She’d been told he was dead. If he wasn’t a ghost and he wasn’t dead, where had he been? Had it all been a mistake? Had he been sitting in a prison cell all these years?
When Esther was a little girl, after he’d gone to prison as a conscientious objector, some of the other children in her church used to torment her by saying that he’d never gone to prison but had become a soldier; they called him murderer. Others were convinced he had gone out west to become a real-life cowboy. These rumors ceased when her mother received a letter saying that he had died serving out his prison sentence. That news had killed her mother’s will to live.
Memories now came back of the way he would race through the field bareback on his horse and pull her up to join him. The wind in her face would pull her kapp strings into ripples behind her. She remembered the way he winked at her after their silent mealtime prayers, and after her mother tucked her into bed, he would sneak up and give her a small piece of candy. He made one red-and-white-striped peppermint stick last for weeks this way. Then suddenly he was gone. Over the years, her memories had decayed, but now they were flooding back like spring warmth melting an icy stream. What started as a trickle was now gushing. There were so many unanswered questions.
Why did this have to happen in the middle of her mammie’s funeral?
He wiped his tear-dampened face with his hankie and then stepped back. The pallbearers took this cue and moved in to pound nails into the lid of the casket, forever separating Orpha from the living.
As the sun peered from behind the storm clouds and dissolved into thick humid air, a line of buggies drove on gravel roads to the graveyard. A younger cousin held the reins of Esther’s horse as she and Daisy stepped out of their buggy onto the wet gravel road. At the rumbling of a car engine that disturbed the peacefulness of the grassy graveyard, Esther turned to see Chester’s car pull up behind the long line of buggies. She was ashamed of him. It would have been respectful for him to arrive in a buggy with a family member willing to take him.
Esther refocused her mind and took Daisy’s hand and followed the other mourners through the path between gravestones. The ground was damp, and everyone’s black shoes soon were caked with mud. Esther’s stockings were wet as she stood still in front of the gap in the earth where Orpha would be laid to rest. Chester stood next to her. The scent of the passing rain and his aftershave teased her nose. She kept her eyes down. This wasn’t the time or the place to ask her questions.
This also wasn’t the time or place for him to return after twenty-nine years away. She hated him for it. Would her hate cause God to refuse her a place in heaven someday? That thought ushered in the next: How could she hate a man she didn’t know?
She was glad when the preacher spoke only a few quiet words at the graveyard. There was little left to say after the hours of preaching in the Yutzys’ barn. Relatives dropped handfuls of the moist soil onto the casket that was deeply planted into the earth—a seed that would never grow. Her hand plunged deeply into the mound of dirt and her fingernails filled with the dewy blackness. Esther moved forward and tossed the handful of soil into the open chasm. She’d done the same at her mother’s funeral—and her father’s. Her eyes flitted over to the grave marker next to where Orpha’s would eventually be placed.
Chester R. Detweiler was etched into the small stone, with the years 1893–1918. Esther’s lungs tightened and she stepped away. She looked around and the tension among the small group at the gravesite was visible in the lines of the foreheads and in the eyes that diverted from her.
Chester was dead. But, yet, here he stood—only feet from her. Was he really the man he appeared to be? Reuben had shaken his hand as if he’d recognized his brother. The man had called Esther by her old nickname, Essie.
The drive back to the Yutzy farm for the prepared lunch was slow and monotonous. Through the front windshield of the buggy she could see that the meal had already begun for those who didn’t go to the gravesite. Crowds of people were milling around everywhere from inside the house to the barn, where tables and chairs had been set up. The boys helped with the horses and buggies, and the younger girls offered help to mothers with babies. All the buzzing around reminded Esther of worker bees. It was nothing out of the ordinary for a funeral, but suddenly she couldn’t bring herself to join in.
“Give me a few minutes?” Esther said to the boy who offered to take care of her horse and buggy.
The boy shrugged and moved on. Esther pulled the reins to the left, and when she stopped again, Daisy pulled at her sleeve. She put her hands up in question. Esther knotted the leather reins and dropped them from her hands.
“Aunt Lucy will get your food.” Esther signed the letter L moving down from her left jaw for Lucy and then touched the tips of her fingers to her mouth to sign eating. The little girl smiled and nodded. She slid the door open and hopped out without a glance back. Esther reached across the buggy to close the door when a four-fingered hand grabbed it instead. Suddenly she was looking into the face of her dat.
She pulled back as if stung, and the buggy shifted under the weight of Chester Detweiler as he climbed inside. He slid the door shut and looked at her solemnly.
“What are you doing here?” The words fell out of her mouth before she could catch them.
“Hi, Esther. I thought we should talk.” His eyes shifted back and forth.
Esther could suddenly think of nothing to say. Shouldn’t she have a slew of questions? She did, only her tongue was paralyzed. After several long moments, Chester started talking again.
“Well, um, you look good.” He paused and smiled at her, then leaned toward her and winked. “You’re taller than I remember.”
Esther remained placid as she willed her mind to gather her thoughts. It had been only an hour since he’d walked back into her life. How was she to navigate this, having no time to think or space to breathe?
Esther’s gaze fell on his missing finger. There was something vaguely familiar about it, only she couldn’t quite remember exactly why. The air became thick within the small confines of the black buggy walls.
“I am sure you have a lot of questions and I . . .” His Pennsylvania Dutch sounded awkward.
“How are you here?” Esther articulated each word with great care. She looked out through the windshield and watched her community gather in groups to socialize and eat and wished she could be just one of them. She looked back at him for an answer.
Chester stuttered and ran a hand over his face.
“Mem told me you were dead. We had a funeral for you. Were you in prison this whole time?” She became breathless. “Why didn’t you write to me if you were in prison?”
“I can explain,” Chester said in English.
“You can explain?” Esther responded in English. “How is that possible? Just answer one question. Were you in prison for all of these years?”
Chester inhaled and exhaled slowly. “No.”
Esther’s heart seemed to take on a new rhythm at his quiet answer.
“Could you have come back sooner?” Did she want to know the answer to this?
“Esther, I never meant to be gone for so long.” He whispered with his eyes downcast. “I was just going to go for my medical exam and then everything went wrong and—”
“I have to go.” This was too much for her. Esther grabbed her black vinyl purse and after fumbling with the door got out of the buggy.
“Esther, we need to talk.” Chester grabbed Esther’s arm.
She looked over her shoulder at him as she pulled her arm from his grip.
“Have you been away from the church for so long to forget that we don’t put private family business out on the laundry line for everyone to see?” Esther spat every word. “This is not the time or the place to have this conversation. Besides, I just buried my mammie. She was the one who raised me and loved me. I won’t do this here.”
“Esther,” Chester said. His eyes furrowed, and if Esther didn’t know that he’d been lying about his death for decades, she would think he looked sincere. “Maybe we can talk at home? Tonight?”
“Maybe.” It was all she could say, but as she imagined him walking into her home, her stomach flopped from one side to another. “I have to go.”
Sweat bloomed under her arms as she walked away from the buggy and looked for a place to gather her thoughts. Across the drive stood the large farmhouse, and she knew that by now every corner of the house was filled with young mothers finding a space for their young babies to rest. The girls who were dating, rumspringa, would be huddled together to gossip over the boys. There was no place for privacy.
She remembered there was an outhouse near the ball diamond, behind the barn—the one most people wouldn’t use since it was out of sight. She began walking fast, past the barn and lined up buggies, past the boys who were watering the horses and toward the outhouse.
Esther couldn’t turn over the wooden latch fast enough to lock herself inside the small wooden structure. The damp air hung around her, gluing her dress to her skin. She leaned her head against the door and took deep breaths. But the putrid air inside filled her lungs and she dry-heaved.
She needed fresh air, but her hands couldn’t work the handle. It was stuck, and she pounded on the door. Sweat dripped from her face and her lungs tightened. Why couldn’t she work the latch? Finally it opened, and she fell onto her knees outside the outhouse, her hands plunging into the warm, wet grass and soil. The dampness from the storm soaked through her dress and stockings at her knees.
“Esther?” Uncle Reuben said, several long strides away from the outhouse. He offered his hand to help her up. He’d always been a good man and was much younger than his brother, Chester. Reuben had been in his early rumspringa years when Chester left.
“I couldn’t open the door,” she said, breathing as heavily as if she had just run around the bases in the next field. She took his hand and mumbled an apology for her wet and dirty hands as she got to her feet.
“I saw you walking this way.” Her uncle rubbed his hands together, brushing the dirt off. His eyes didn’t meet hers. He paused for several beats before he began again, his eyes remaining off in the distance. “I know you have questions about your dat and I’ll answer what I know.”
Esther was tongue-tied. The shock of everything had suddenly rendered her as mute as Daisy. Esther wondered when the surprises would stop.
“I got a letter from Chester a few months ago. He was in Dover and wanted to meet. We did.” He cleared his throat and returned his gaze to look at Esther.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Esther’s voice sounded shrill in her own ears. He should have told her about the letter months ago. “He just tried to talk to me in my buggy and I know he wasn’t in prison all these years. I couldn’t talk about it with him yet. It’s all happening—tzu schnell.”
It was going too fast, but the twenty-nine years without him had been long and slow.
“He made me promise not to say anything to anyone—I didn’t know what I would say anyway. Who would ever have thought . . .” His voice faded away then he spoke again. “He said he wanted to talk to you himself. I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry, Esther.”
Esther inhaled. She looked away from his stare and let her eyes linger over far away into the distant tree line.
“But then Mem died, so I got in touch with him. I—” Their eyes met again.
Reuben bit his lower lip and looked up at the blue-gray sky. When it appeared that he found no answers there, he looked back down at Esther.
“Why now?” she asked him.
“He was worried about our Mem. He said that he hadn’t gotten a letter from her in years and wanted to know if she was still alive.”
“Vas? Mammie knew?”
Reuben smoothed his beard before putting a heavy hand on Esther’s shoulder.
“I haven’t told anyone else about Mem knowing.” His voice hushed. “Millie doesn’t even know.”
It surprised Esther that her uncle hadn’t even told his wife. None of this seemed real. She was sure she would wake at any moment and her eyes would find the ceiling of her bedroom instead of the sky.
“I don’t want anyone to know that my mem was a part of this—” He paused as if searching for the right word. “—part of this lie. I don’t want her memory . . .” He didn’t finish his thought.
Esther’s nod was listless and faraway. She wouldn’t want Orpha’s memory to be dirtied either, or for anyone to question what a loyal and good woman she truly was.
“Fahgep mich?” Reuben’s blue eyes drooped at the corners in burden over his secret.
Esther swallowed away her emotion. “Ya. I forgive you. I just don’t understand why he didn’t come home sooner.”
“I’m sure we’ll learn more now that he’s home.”
“Home?”
“He’s planning to stay in Sunrise.”