The Preacher's Son, page 23
“My daet wrote to me,” Isaiah said. “And I hate to say it, but I think your father was right about mine.”
Seth’s eyebrows rose. “Well, I mean, he did defraud everyone.”
“No, I mean . . . more than that. More than the crime, more than the sin . . . He’s a fake,” Isaiah said. “He acts the part of a religious man, but that’s it—it’s an act.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I thought my daet was wrong about your father, too,” Seth said. “I thought he was just jealous.”
And maybe Mel had been jealous. That couldn’t be completely discounted, but they were brothers, so his feelings would have been more complicated than that. Just like Isaiah’s were. His father was a fraud, a fake, and Isaiah was disappointed, furious, confused . . . and still he loved him. Abe was still his father, even as a complete failure as an Amish man. Those conflicting emotions were hard to make peace with.
His daet had left something for him by that tree, and maybe it would be nothing at all, or maybe it would be something that would only make him angrier, but he couldn’t just leave it there either.
“I’m going to head out for a couple of hours,” Isaiah said. “And I’m not asking permission. Just tell your parents you saw me leaving and I’ll be back.”
Seth nodded. “Where are you going?”
“Just out for a while.”
“You want company?” Seth asked.
He did, but it wasn’t his cousin’s company that he was longing for. He’d go see if Bethany wanted to come. Even if she couldn’t come out with him—which was what he suspected would be the case—maybe they’d offer him some pie and he could sit in a quiet kitchen for a few minutes with the one girl who seemed to understand him most. He wouldn’t have much more opportunity to do that before she’d be whisked off to wherever she’d have the baby. Then, after a few grateful minutes with Bethany, he’d head out to see if he could find whatever his father had left at that tree.
“I’ll be okay,” Isaiah said. “Thanks, though.”
Whatever these feelings were that he was developing for Bethany, he’d be smart to smother them. She wasn’t his . . . and maybe her time away from the community would be good for him. He could rinse his heart clean of these confusing emotions and get back his balance. He knew who he wanted to be . . . he just had to get there. And he couldn’t take shortcuts or he’d end up just as fake as his own father.
* * *
When Isaiah pulled into the Glicks’ drive Bethany and her sister were taking laundry off the clothesline in the lowering summer light. The clothesline squeaked as Bethany pulled it, the sound carrying on a warm breeze, and she pulled off a shirt and handed it down to her sister, then pulled the line again to reach a dress.
Bethany paused in her work when she heard the horses and shaded her eyes against the sun. He waved and she waved back, then she gave the clothesline another squeaking pull.
It was a peaceful scene, one that warmed him on the inside. Micah was giving this up—a chance at an Amish wife taking care of an Amish home.... What could be so alluring out there with the English that he’d give up this kind of paradise?
But maybe it wasn’t peaceful scenes like this that Micah was escaping—maybe he just couldn’t face the parts of their world that didn’t match up with the idyllic appearances. For the first time Isaiah felt like he could understand that sentiment. Because no matter how appealing all this was, if you couldn’t trust it to sustain you, what was the point?
The difference was, Isaiah did still trust their community. He just no longer trusted his own father.
When Isaiah pulled up the horses he tied off the reins and hopped down. Bethany pulled the last shirt from the line and shook it out, then folded it before dropping it on the top of the laundry basket.
“Hi, Isaiah,” Lily said with a grin.
“Hi, Lily.” He smiled back. “How are you doing?”
“I’m good.” Lily blushed and twisted her hands in front of her. “Did you know I’m going to have a new little niece or nephew?”
“Yah?” His gaze flickered toward Bethany and she subtly shook her head. So Lily didn’t know . . .
“My big sister is pregnant,” Lily said. “She and my brother-in-law have four kinner already, and Mamm says we can go visit her to help her with the baby.”
“Enough chatter, Lily,” Bethany said. “Take this.”
Bethany held out the laundry basket to Lily, who hoisted it in her strong little arms and headed for the door. Lily looked back, the screen door propped open against her shoulder.
“And my mamm says I can help make baby clothes this time, and when my sister has the baby I’ll help take care of the little ones,” Lily added with a grin, darting a look at Bethany, then adding, “I already help with the little ones, but I’ve never helped sew the baby clothes before. I can stitch well enough now, though!”
Then Lily disappeared inside, the screen door slamming shut behind her.
Bethany smiled faintly. “She loves babies, that girl.”
Isaiah met her gaze, but he didn’t comment. Lily would have another baby to cuddle and play with if all went according to plan. But how painful would that scenario be for Bethany, pretending that the squirming infant was nothing more to her than a cousin’s child? Would she be able to pull off the act? Or would Lily catch on? Kinner that age weren’t as naïve as their families might hope.
“I—uh—came by to see if you wanted to go for a drive,” he said.
“A drive?” She squinted up at him.
“My daet said he left something for me at the farm— on the far edge, so I won’t be disturbing the new owners or anything. But I thought you might want to come along.”
“Hold on,” she said, and she headed inside, leaving him on the gravel drive. He looked around, watching some brown hens peck at the ground while a rooster strutted nearby, surveying him with a glittery black eye.
The door opened again and Bethany came back out. “Yah. I can go.”
“Really?” He shot her a look of surprise.
“Yah.” She met his gaze evenly enough. “Shall we?”
“Uh—of course.” He glanced toward the house and saw Barbara in the door. She gave him a solemn nod and then disappeared again. It looked like he had her parents’ permission, although he wasn’t sure why. Whatever—he’d take it.
Bethany pulled herself up into the buggy without his assistance and he got back up into the driver’s seat and cast her a smile.
“So, how come they let you?” he asked as he untied the reins and got the horses doing a U-turn to head back up the drive. “I figured they’d be keeping you pretty close to home.”
“You didn’t want me to come?” she asked.
“No, I just expected to have to make do with pie.”
She smiled at that, then shrugged. “It’s because my little sister is always around, and she’s all ears, that girl. She’s figured out something is up and she’s determined to sleuth it out. And . . . I needed to talk to you about something.”
They got to the top of the drive, and he made a clicking sound with his mouth as he guided the horses down the road in the direction of the land that once belonged to his family. He glanced back as they turned, and he saw Nathaniel standing in front of the house watching them.
“What did you need to talk to me about?” he said.
Bethany’s hands were clenched in her lap, and when they went over a bump, she grabbed the seat to steady herself, knuckles white.
“My daet took me to talk to the Weibes this afternoon, and we . . . well, we came to an agreement,” Bethany said.
“Like . . . a marriage agreement?” he asked hesitantly. His mouth felt dry and he glanced in her direction, wishing she’d just spit it out.
“No, not that,” she said, and he felt himself relax with relief. He felt mildly guilty about it, because those two getting married would be the right thing for everyone. So, being relieved that no wedding was on the horizon for Bethany was cruel at heart. He had no right to wish she’d stay single just so they could continue with this friendship that skirted all proper lines.
“Okay, so . . . what kind of agreement?” he asked.
“It hinges on you, actually,” she said, casting him an apologetic look. “Micah says he won’t come back to Bountiful and visit me and make it obvious that he’s this child’s father if you’re willing to keep doing what you’ve been doing.”
Falling for her? Because that’s what he’d been up to these last weeks.
“What exactly does Micah need me to do?” Isaiah asked.
“You said you’d look out for me, before. And if you kept doing that—” Bethany licked her lips. “He doesn’t trust my parents or his to have his best interests at heart in this. I suppose they’re too close to it. That’s what it comes down to. He knows everyone wants us to get married, and he doesn’t want that. He won’t live an Amish life. But if you would be willing to stay in contact with him and send him some updates on the baby, he’d trust things more. And if he wanted to see the baby, he could come back and visit you. Because he isn’t baptized yet, he wouldn’t be shunned, and I’d stop by to see you, as an old friend, and . . . no one would be the wiser.”
Her voice had gotten breathy, and he looked over at her. Her cheeks were pink and her gaze was locked on her hands, which were clasped in a white-knuckled grip in her lap.
“So . . . Micah needs me involved?” Isaiah asked.
“He trusts you.” Bethany turned her gaze toward him pleadingly. “And I know it was presumptuous of us to make this deal with him without even talking to you first, but you’d been so helpful lately, and you said you’d be willing to talk to him for me, and . . .”
“So . . . with me standing clear and giving him confirmation that all is well, he’ll let you get married and have a life and not meddle with your future,” he concluded.
“Yah.” She swallowed.
Right. It all came down to his original promise—to be a good friend to Micah first, and to make sure that Bethany would be okay.
“The thing is,” she went on, “Micah makes us all nervous. He’s not thinking like an Amish man. He knows that the Englisher law would be on his side to see the child and to be a daet to this baby. And the only thing that made him feel better was the thought that you’d report back to him.”
“Because he trusts me.”
“Yah . . . You’re the one who doesn’t have a personal stake in this, I suppose. And maybe it’s because you were such good friends before, but he trusts you more than he trusts his own parents in this right now.”
“It’s funny,” he said quietly. “All I’ve wanted lately is for someone to trust me again. But this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
Isaiah swallowed. He had to start somewhere, didn’t he? Trust, once broken, had to be earned back. This was a start—a good one! He had a job and he could be a part of another family’s solution to a difficult problem. If he felt only friendship for Bethany, this would be an answer to a prayer, a way back into the community he loved so much....
Except he felt considerably more for her than friendship.
“Isaiah, would you do it?” she asked earnestly.
“Would I be that friend that Micah can count on?” he said.
“Would you be the friend that I can count on . . . ?” She met his gaze. “Please? It’s the only way I can see out of this. I know it’s asking a lot, but . . .”
She was right. It was the only way he could see of her getting out of this with her reputation intact and her baby in her arms.
“Yah, I’ll do it,” he said, and he reached over and put a hand over hers.
Bethany was asking him to be a friend—to be her hope. How could he refuse her?
* * *
Bethany let out a slow breath and felt the weight of her worries lift ever so slightly. Isaiah’s hand was warm and rough, and she turned hers over so that their palms connected. Out in the field beside them, a tractor growled and Englisher men’s voices called back and forth as they tried to pull a tree stump out of the ground in front of a house. Bethany let her eyes flow over the scene, but when one of the men looked up and saw her, she quickly averted her gaze.
“I suppose this isn’t very appropriate of me, then, is it?” he asked, squeezing her hand gently. She looked down at his broad, sun-browned hand engulfing hers. In a way it was incredibly strange to be sitting here holding Isaiah Yoder’s hand, and yet it also felt like the most natural thing in the world. She pushed back a wave of melancholy. Whatever this was, it couldn’t move beyond this....
“No,” she admitted. “But no one will know.”
“And if I’m going to be the friend I promised Micah I’d be, we can’t be more than friends. . . .”
“But you are my friend,” Bethany said quietly. “Except maybe we have some weird boundaries.”
He laughed softly at that, and he loosened his grip, running his thumb down her hand.
“All right, then. As friends, I’ll tell you why I picked you up,” he said. “I got this letter from my daet, and he still sounds like Daet, you know? He’s still religious, and quotes the Bible, and . . . In some ways, it feels like he’s just gone preaching at another community. And all of this was just a bad dream.”
She watched as his thumb moved rhythmically over the top of her fingers.
“Anyway,” he went ont, “he said he left something for me, and it was all a little cryptic. Something sentimental, I think. And at first I just felt angry, you know? I mean, my father ruined us—all of us kids! Our farm is gone, our reputation is gone, our relationships are all tense and uncomfortable because of what he did!”
Isaiah looked over at her, his gaze filled with complex emotion.
“But you want to see what it is,” she said.
“Yah. Like some kid, you dangle a surprise under my nose and I can’t help myself,” he said. “Or maybe I’m hoping to find something that will make me feel better. If that’s even possible! I lost my father, and maybe I want to find a way to understand him, or excuse him. . . .”
“Or forgive him,” she murmured.
“I’m not there yet,” he said.
“Where did he leave it?” she asked. “You said it was on the edge?”
“The north side,” he said. “Just by a side road, there’s a big oak tree I used to climb as a kid. Daet used to take us out there when he was planting, and we’d sit up there in the branches and watch the men work. Until we got old enough to actually help, that is.”
“So a spot that was meaningful?” she asked.
“I didn’t think it was, actually,” he replied. “It was no more meaningful than the house, or the barn, or the fence my sisters and I broke over and over again by jumping on the middle rung . . . I mean, it was a part of our life, but . . .” He sighed.
“It’s accessible by the road,” she said quietly.
He looked over at her quizzically. “Yah . . .”
“I mean, if it isn’t important because of a special memory, maybe the importance is that it’s easily accessible from the road.”
“And far from the house,” he said, then he shook his head bitterly. “That’s probably all this is, isn’t it? And when did he stick it out there? Because it wasn’t like he knew he was going to be arrested, was it? And once he was in custody, he never had a chance to come back and put anything out there. That means it’s been there for a while.”
His hand stopped moving over hers and he pulled it back, leaving her fingers cool.
“It doesn’t mean he didn’t put something out there for you,” she said.
“It does, actually,” he replied woodenly. “If there was something he wanted to give me before he got arrested, he’d leave it safe in the house, not stick it out by a tree.”
She had to agree. “You think there’s nothing there? If that’s the case, why would your daet send you a letter telling you to go look?”
“I think if there is something there, it wasn’t originally meant for me at all,” Isaiah replied.
And whatever meaning he was hoping to get, he wasn’t going to find it. She could almost feel his heartbreak from where he sat, his expression stony and his grip on the reins too tight.
“It might be easier to forgive him than to excuse him,” she said softly.
Isaiah didn’t answer, and he slowed the horses as they came to a narrow, gravel road. She straightened, and he leaned forward, then steered the horses around a pothole that the wheels only narrowly missed.
She looked out over the fields to her right—the old Yoder place. She could see the roof of the barn far off, but the house wasn’t visible. She hadn’t been down this road before, never having had any reason to come this way. She’d only been on the Yoder farm for Service Sundays. She used to sit on the women’s side of the service and Micah, Seth, and Isaiah would sit on the men’s side, leaning together to share a joke or pass along some bit of wood or something one of them had picked up. The three friends . . .
And it wasn’t that long ago, either, that everything was so much simpler, and her biggest problems seemed to be Mary Fisher’s crush on her fiancé, and a talkative little sister who refused to keep her mouth shut about Bethany’s engagement.
A large oak tree loomed up ahead, with gnarled branches spreading out over the field on one side and the road on the other. One of the branches had broken, a thick limb that hung awkwardly down to the ground, still connected at the trunk.
Isaiah reined in the horses and sat there, looking at the tree with pursed lips.
“I’m curious now,” Bethany said, nudging his arm.
“Yah, I am, too,” he admitted, and cast her an unfathomable look. “You want to help me look?”
“Sure.”
Bethany moved over to Isaiah’s side of the buggy so as not to step down into the ditch, and he reached up to help her hop down. He was strong, and she landed lightly beside him. There was no other traffic on the road behind them, and this little side road petered off and ended in patchy weeds about twenty yards ahead, so the only sound was that of some twittering birds and the rustle of the wind moving through the leaves of that mammoth tree.
