Abby Finds Her Calling (19 page)

“Tell it to the bishop, then!” Adah flashed a resentful look at Beulah Mae as the bakery owner set her items on the counter. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been blamed for my boys taking off, and I’m getting right tired of it!”

“I’ll meet with Vernon about this matter if you will.” Sam gazed at each woman until her eyes met his and were lowered. “These catfights have got to stop, or by the time Zanna has that baby none of us will be on speaking terms. That’s not the right way to go, and we all know it.”

Adah Ropp pinched her lips together in a tight line.

Beulah Mae Nissley focused on her coin purse, picking out the correct change.

Abby stood back, allowing Sam to restore order. Eunice Graber gripped the handle of her shopping basket, closely observing the conversation at the checkout, while Merle seemed to have retreated into his own little world. True enough, Abby had overheard similar remarks spoken behind hands at a recent quilting frolic, and it was time to call such talk to a halt—for Zanna’s sake, as well as for the good of Cedar Creek. Her sister had confessed and accepted her punishment. Weren’t these other folks keeping the sin alive by talking it up?

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Sam said, “All right, then, I’ll ask Vernon to set a time, and we’ll meet together. Seems my house is as central as anybody’s. And from here on out, I want no more of your backstabbing in my store.”

James turned the sign in his shop window from
OPEN
to
CLOSED
. He stretched wearily. Even though today he’d nearly completed the white custom-order carriage for the amusement park in Orlando, the hours had dragged.

Was the change in the weather making him feel so down and dissatisfied? Or had so much time alone made him dwell on the fact that Zanna would never be his wife… and that he had no taste for starting all over again, courting other women? He’d learned his lesson so far as falling for a girl several years younger than he went, yet the women closer to his age were all married or they’d crossed that invisible line that made them maidels. At twenty-nine, he was
beyond attending singings… Would he have to venture over to Clearwater or beyond Bloomingdale to find a wife?

James gazed at the carriage he was making and sighed. With its lustrous white leather upholstery, accented with beaded jewels, and strands of tiny lights strung all along a gridwork of clear, spherical supports, it would be the most wondrous—and the most expensive—vehicle he had ever created. How was it that he could build a coach befitting a fairy-tale princess, yet he had lost all hope of making his own love story come true?

He’d worked through lunch today… didn’t drink much water. He’d neglected his basic needs, and now he had this bad attitude to show for it.

When James stepped outside, tiny pellets of hail pinged against his face. The gray sky matched his mood, too, so he decided that before he went home he’d go across the road to the mercantile. If he drank a bottle of juice and chatted with Sam Lambright, maybe he’d feel better.

James was strolling across Sam’s gravel parking lot, considering what little gift he could take home for Emma, when a familiar figure shot through the mercantile door. Zanna was as upset as he’d ever seen her, her head lowered and blubbering, not watching where she was going—

“Ooph!”
She butted right into him and then wailed all the louder. James lapsed into old habits, better days: he wrapped his arms around Zanna’s trembling shoulders… felt the bulge of her belly and imagined how beautiful she’d be as her pregnancy progressed.

“Ach! James!” Zanna jerked away, shattering the spell. Her eyes streamed with tears and her chin quivered while her face flushed with embarrassment.

Or was that regret he saw?

There was no use in wondering. Although… if she said the right words, made the promises his heart yearned to hear, he might—
might
—consider taking her back. Then again, she’d caught
him in a weak moment. He had known so many of those lately, he couldn’t recall how it felt to be strong and confident.

Zanna mopped her face with her sleeve. “I’m so mad at that woman, I could—”

“Which one?” No need to guess, however: Adah Ropp had swung open the mercantile door and was marching toward her buggy while Beulah Mae Nissley huffed off down the road on foot. This wasn’t the first time they’d stirred up trouble with their tongues.

Zanna glared after both of them. “It’ll never be enough that I confessed—that I took a shunning as my rightful punishment. She’ll keep picking at me like I’m a nasty old scab, and—well, so will Beulah Mae, for that matter. And I’m sick of it!”

Zanna dashed around the side of the mercantile, toward Abby’s little house at the far end of the lane. When she veered off the driveway and bent over to vomit, James’s heart went out to her. Had he stuck with that pie-in-the-sky plan to claim the baby as his own, Zanna wouldn’t be the object of such scorn. But then he remembered the cold hard truth of her words when the bishop and Preacher Paul had talked with them… how she’d only repeated that she loved him because he’d said those words to her first.

Matt’s dogs trotted from the sheep barn to look after her, so James did not. Behind him, the mercantile door opened again and out stepped his parents, each carrying a small parcel. Mamm’s eyes darted warily behind lenses that enlarged them, and Dat… well, Dat appeared oddly amused. He approached James and patted his arm.

“She’s stickin’ out with the baby, son,” he confided. “I’m guessin’, by the way she’s carryin’ it, you’re gonna have a little boy!”

His mamm grabbed Dat’s arm to steer him toward home. “That’s nonsense and you know it, Merle. Why do you carry on so?”

“See you for dinner, James.” His father smiled and then walked beside her, docile as a lamb.

“Jah, Dat. Be there in a few.” James waited until his parents
started across the road to let his mask slip. No matter how often he explained, his father’s muddled mind hadn’t held on to the fact that the wedding had been canceled. Dat was still living in anticipation, with everything rosy and sweet and joyful. He’d always adored Zanna’s pert sense of humor and the way she lit up a room.

So who was the wiser? His father, for insisting it was all going according to his original happily-ever-after? Or him, for thinking he’d never love again?

A
few evenings later, Abby hung her damp dish towel to dry and joined the group in Sam and Barbara’s front room. The mood felt only slightly different from when the family had originally gathered there with the bishop to discuss Zanna’s confession.

“We’re all here now, Vernon,” Sam said. “Thank you for setting up a time to meet with us.” He surveyed the folks, seated with their chairs in an uneven circle. “We need to settle this bickering once and for all. Not just for business, in front of our customers, but because this concerns the fate of our families and our faith.”

Abby noted who had come on this snowy November evening: at the head of the circle, to her left, sat Bishop Gingerich, and on his other side Preacher Abe Nissley occupied the recliner beside his wife, Beulah Mae. James had driven his parents across the icy road, and the three of them filled the green corduroy sofa. Adah Ropp was perched on the ladderback chair to Sam’s right, and Sam had claimed his favorite platform rocker. There were nine of them, all told. Barbara, Mamm, and the girls quietly finished the dishes in the kitchen. At Sam’s suggestion, and quite willingly, Zanna had stayed at Abby’s house. She’d had no desire to endure yet another round of public scrutiny.

“We’ll begin with prayer, asking for God’s guidance,” Vernon intoned. After their moment of shared silence, he glanced at Sam. “Will you fill Abe and me in on what happened the other day? I don’t believe James was in your store at the time, either.”

Sam clasped his big hands over his crossed knees. Now that this meeting was under way, he seemed more settled than he’d been for the past few days. “When Adah remarked about seeing a winter storm advisory on the TV while working at the cheese store in Clearwater, I said I preferred the almanac’s weather predictions. From there, Eunice and Beulah Mae lit into Adah for working away from home, and—”

“Did we come here to talk about the weather—which, by the way, ended up bringing us that big snow the TV predicted?” Adah interrupted archly. “Seems to me the whole argument centered around how
your sister
should not be seen working in public.”

Just that quickly the gloves came off. Abby leaned forward to catch Vernon’s eye. “In all fairness to Zanna—”

“Abby, you were working at the store when this happened, while not being involved in the exchange of words, correct?” the bishop cut in. “Is Sam telling it the way you recall? Did you notice anything else that might shed light on this incident?”

Abby sat straighter. She was here to see that Zanna was treated fairly, but she also had a responsibility to present the truth as she knew it. It was the Plain way to put faith above family, no matter how badly she wanted to stick up for her sister.

“Jah, Bishop, Adah was in a stew about the weather report, and then Eunice remarked about how Adah was taking on too many Mennonite ways, what with watching the TV and all,” Abby recounted quietly. “Then, from a few aisles over, Beulah Mae joined in. She said none of this trouble would have started had Adah stayed home and raised Gideon and Jonny with a firmer hand.”

“Is that how you remember it, Adah?” the bishop asked before she could protest. Beside him, Abe Nissley scowled at his wife while
Eunice focused closely on the conversation so she wouldn’t miss her turn.

“Pretty much, jah. But I’m telling you it all goes back to Sam allowing his sister to work in the mercantile and parade around in public view. Especially now that she’s showing,” Adah added. “And her under the ban, no less!”

“All the while you three women were kicking up a fuss, Zanna was working in the back room, out of sight,” Abby pointed out. As she saw the rising color in Adah’s face, she reminded herself to remain calm and keep her voice low. “Folks are quick to mention Zanna’s mistakes, but when she’s being useful, helping Sam in the store without pay, they find fault with her, too.”

Abby paused, hoping to word her next comment in a way that wouldn’t spark more conflict. “And that’s exactly what you did, Adah, the minute she stepped out with a big box of cookie sprinkles. No matter what Zanna does, it seems to be wrong. Is it any wonder she’s upset?”

Bishop Gingerich held up his hands to silence any further remarks. “It has always been difficult for Suzanna to sit still and stay out of sight—”

“High time she learned,” Adah piped up.

“That’s why it’s called the
ban
,” Eunice joined in. “The whole point is to make her feel removed from the rest of us while she serves out her penance.”

“Don’t we believe that the Lord helps those who help themselves?” Abby pleaded. What they’d said was correct, according to the Ordnung, so she kept her voice low. This was no time to escalate their discussion into another bickering match. “Last time we all met, the night before Zanna’s confession, folks criticized her for not helping at Mamm’s greenhouse or the mercantile, and now they’re calling her on the carpet when she
is
working. What’s she supposed to do, Bishop?”

Beulah Mae sat with her arms crossed, looking straight over at
Adah. “It’s not fair that Zanna’s shouldering this load alone, either. If your boy would own up—”

“Jah,” Eunice exclaimed. “Not fair to anyone, seeing how this problem is partly Jonny’s doing.”

“Nobody asked for your opinion, Beulah Mae,” her husband said sharply. “As a preacher’s wife, you’re to be setting a better example. You women are getting way out of hand.”

“Jah, and when it happens in the store, with other customers and English there, it’s a problem for every one of us,” Sam remarked. “It’s not a gut reflection on our ways or our faith. Not a proper picture of submitting our wills to a higher power, either.”

Eunice and Beulah Mae sat back, chastened, while Adah appeared prickly around the edges yet. Abby wondered why her husband, Rudy, hadn’t come with her tonight, but asking that question might well kick open a whole new hornet’s nest.

Vernon Gingerich took advantage of the pause to glance around the room. “James, you mostly just brought your folks over on this wintry night, but how do
you
see all this? It’s affecting your life in ways we’re not touching on here.”

From his seat on the sofa between his parents James rested his elbows on his knees. His brown hair looked longer than usual and a little unkempt. To Abby, he lacked his usual sparkle—and why wouldn’t he?

“It’s not been the happiest of times for me,” he confirmed in a low voice. “And while I wasn’t in the store during this exchange of words we’re talking about, I did see how upset Zanna was afterward. She was crying and running at the same time—and she ran smack into me.”

Abby felt the blow against her own midsection as though her sister had rammed into her instead. She and Sam had both noticed how James hadn’t been coming into the store lately for his afternoon package of sweet potato chips or jerky. Was it because he’d seen Zanna go in to work? Or was he isolating himself, allowing his emotions to heal?