On the day of Joe’s arrival, things happened in the Detweiler home like any other morning. Esther sat at the rickety kitchen table with the Bivel that she and her mammie had shared. She hadn’t opened it since Orpha’s death. She touched the aged leather and picked at the corner that had once been chewed by an uninvited mouse. She flipped open the front cover, revealing the name written in scrolled penmanship inside: Chester R. Detweiler. She remembered her father taking the Bible out of his bag and leaving it on the same kitchen table. It had been the same morning his hand was bloodied, and he had been pale and shaken. Then he was gone.
Chester had kept his word and moved into Mrs. White’s farmhand boardinghouse. Esther still saw him daily when she went to work. Her small farmhouse was especially quiet now. Even the few days with Chester, though unwelcome, had brought life into the home. Now it was just Esther and Daisy.
She ran a finger over her mother’s name beneath Chester’s: Leah D. Detweiler. She’d been a Bender before she married Esther’s father. The final name in the book was Esther’s: Esther C. Detweiler. The C stood for Chester in the Amish tradition that the father’s initial would be used as their daughter’s middle name. The rest of the page remained blank.
The bookmark, a piece of white fabric, flopped out from the top of the old black book. Her mammie had given her a swatch of Leah’s burial dress, telling Esther she’d want to keep something from her. She fingered the old piece of cloth before opening the Bible further.
The heavy pages were familiar in her work-worn fingers. The black and white lines were filled with such wisdom, though she rarely knew where to turn. The best she could do was read a few verses daily and hope that whatever was meant for that day was what she needed.
Daisy tapped Esther’s arm. Esther smiled at the little girl as she gestured to the open page and tried to vocalize the word read.
Esther looked back at the passage.
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
She knew the passage should be an encouragement to her; these ancient, holy words promised that her pain was only a vapor in comparison to eternal glory in heaven. But the way she saw it was that her pain was not temporal. Losing Daisy wouldn’t be a passing wound, and it was not light. Esther could not unite the biblical encouragement with her pain, and she didn’t experience the daily newness of which it spoke. There was in fact a great piercing ache in her chest. Was her heart formed out of quills? As ill-equipped as she had been to take on Daisy four years ago as a misunderstood three-year-old, she was even less prepared for Joe’s return. Nothing could make her ready for this journey—regardless of what was right.
When she first started signing, Esther finger-signed her name or just patted her chest when referring to herself, but Daisy had quickly begun using the sign for mother instead. Mother Esther. Esther had learned from the sign language book that only the deaf could assign signed names to another, and while Esther knew she should’ve resisted the tender acknowledgment, she didn’t. She loved Daisy the way a mother would.
Esther tried to take a deep breath to manage her emotions, but she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.
If only Mem or Orpha were here.
Esther thought this only briefly, though, then decided it wouldn’t have mattered. Orpha was often lost in her own world and wouldn’t have understood how she felt. Her mother would also have been little help; she never appeared to be strong enough for much. Leah was always pale and weak and almost invisible. When she died, Esther, even at the young age of seven, vowed never to be that way. She would never be weak or let anyone make her feel as if she couldn’t take care of herself. And she was thankful for that decision now, when all she had was her own nerve and the love for a little girl. Her devotion to the church and serving God didn’t waver, though she rarely understood how He was working in her life. What she couldn’t understand was whether it was God who brought Chester back or the devil. Confronting her father had strengthened her will, but it was all a facade. On the inside she was a frightened girl.
Daisy nudged her again, bringing her thoughts back to the verses in I Corinthians.
How could she translate a passage that she couldn’t see in her life? Daisy was going to see her dad today, and Esther, the woman she trusted most in the world, hadn’t even told her yet. She knew it was wrong not to prepare the little girl.
She signed slowly. “Mother Esther has to tell you something.”
Usually she would vocalize and sign the words to Daisy. Now, Esther barely mouthed them as she used her hands. A callus grew over the lump deep in her throat. She winced as she swallowed it down.
Today, she signed.
Esther gently touched Daisy’s chest. Your.
Daisy’s eyes looked at Esther with such hope. Round and innocent. Blue and perfect. Rare.
Esther’s thumb touched her forehead with an open palm. Dad.
Then her pointer fingers pointed out and then back toward her chest. Is coming.
She hesitated signing the final word, though she sensed that Daisy could have finished it for herself with her brow, which had evolved into a deep furrow. Daisy’s head tilted. Esther’s fingers and thumb on her right hand came together and touched her mouth then slowly moved to her right cheek.
Home.