Rebecca's Return (19 page)

R
achel Byler’s morning had not been going well. Getting up early, she lit the gas lantern, hung it on the nail in the kitchen ceiling, and began fixing Reuben’s favorite breakfast. She was feeling a bit off. Nothing she could quite put her finger on, but something was wrong.

Stirring the pancake batter, she noticed, to her horror, little black crusty bugs on the spoon.

The flour was bug-infested. There simply could be no other explanation. How this had happened was beyond her understanding. She took great care to keep a lid on the flour box. Although this reflected poorly on her abilities as a housewife, the situation was made worse because she had used the flour yesterday to bake bread. Bugs did not grow overnight.

She flushed with anger. Was this why she felt sick this morning? Was it the bread from last night’s dinner? Did Reuben and Luke awake with a sick feeling? Was this not just a little more than any human being should be asked to bear? Grimly she took a loaf of yesterday’s bread out of its plastic bag and prepared to check for bugs.

Hearing Reuben’s steps coming from the bedroom, she quickly slid the loaf back into the bag. Normally she wouldn’t have cared if he walked through the kitchen. For a man who couldn’t notice much of anything when it was important to her, Reuben
would
notice this. If there was bread out of the bag and pancake mix in the bowl, he would, no doubt, question how they were to eat the two together. A question she did not wish to answer.

“Pancakes,” he said, stopping at the kitchen opening, a smile in his sleepy voice. “We haven’t had those in a long time.”

“Thought you might like them,” she replied, not looking in his direction, hoping against hope he would continue on to his chores in the barn.

“I will,” he said, as he headed out the door.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Horror overwhelmed Rachel once again as she thought about what this meant. It was the prevailing opinion among the Amish, that only the most careless housekeepers found bugs in their flour. Poverty was no disgrace among the Amish, but poor housekeeping was. It ranked among the sins mentioned with lowered voice and raised eyebrows.

Bugs in one’s flour had a way of sweeping away any admiration anyone felt for such a woman. This she was certain of. If it be found out, she would be the one to receive those disdainful looks from the women at monthly sewing.

Rachel slid the loaf out of the bag for the second time, stiffening as footsteps came down the stairs. This would be Luke, following his father to the barn. The chances of him stopping or seeing anything amiss in the kitchen were slim, so she simply waited as the stair door opened.

True to her expectation, Luke continued past the kitchen without so much as a pause or glance in. Poor boy. He deserved so much better than what he was getting from his family. Born by right into a well-to-do Amish family, he was being subjected to a bare existence, not just by his father’s lack of ambition, but by her late father’s eccentric will. An entire family’s rightful heritage was being held hostage by forces Rachel could not understand.

The injustice of it all returned with force as she listened to Luke’s footsteps pause at the front door. He was putting on his threadbare coat, the best they could afford, but not nearly what it should be. She had intended on making him a new one this fall, but the money had simply not been there.

Reuben had seemed to have some sympathies when she told him, but his only solution had been to state that, “
Da Hah
will help us. Life’s not supposed to be easy,” he had added. “Heaven’s our real home.”

That it was, Rachel had no doubt, and so she had not said anything back to Reuben, though she had wanted to. It just seemed to her that with so much treasure stored up with
Da Hah,
like the preachers said there was, He might be willing to share some of the abundance this side of the pearly gates.

But what did she know about theology? Reuben would hardly be taking anything from his wife when it came to such matters.

What he would listen to, though, were her comments on keeping and strengthening the
Ordnungs Brief,
the church rules and other people’s infractions of it. Today was Saturday, the day Reuben would go on his rounds. He would be bringing correction and seeking repentance from the rule breakers who had been reported to him.

Rachel had planned during the night to become involved in Reuben’s work. Last night Reuben had seemed open to the few things she had told him. She had decided what the next step should be on this, her mission to cleanse the sin that must be in her own family.

Rachel had remembered an infraction her brother committed a few months ago. Normally Rachel would never have mentioned it, but now things were different. Finding strength from just thinking about it, the loaf of bread now completely out of the bag, Rachel paused, glad for the good feelings coming her way. Depending on what she found in the bread, she would need all the help she could get.

The brilliance of her deduction from last night swept through her, giving her courage to examine the loaf of bread in her hands. She—Rachel, a woman—had discerned the mind of the mighty God of heaven and figured out His ways. She was sure of it. The joy of this knowledge rose in her.

She broke open the loaf and discovered many black-shelled bugs, dead, but very much in the bread. “
Dei aldi aysel,
” she told them out loud because no one was in the house and because she was angry again.

How in the world had the bugs gotten in the flour? Perhaps it was just one of those mysteries of life for which there was no conclusion. She knew though—with a certainty—that this must never be known by anyone. If Reuben found out, it might very well destroy her credibility for the task ahead. He might even refuse to take her comments about the
ordnung
infractions.

Her options ran rapidly through her mind.
Shall I throw away the bread at once?
That might be too obvious. The bread was almost impossible to dispose of without taking the loaf so far outside that Reuben would see her. And what was to be done with the pancake batter?

Better to wait until Reuben had gone somewhere during the day. Then she would bake fresh bread and feed the current bug-infested loaves to the pigs. They would enjoy the meal and make short shift of the evidence, leaving nothing to be found of the deed.

For now she could get rid of the pancake batter, stir up some fresh flour, and Reuben would never know. Sliding the loaf of bread back into the plastic bag, Rachel turned the twisty tight. Grabbing the bowl of batter, she went outside into the darkness to dispose of the matter into the chicken yard. She would dump it where the chickens could feed on it when they woke up. Thankfully they were not awake yet and didn’t make their usual racket at the sound of food being poured into their yard.

She looked carefully at the pile the batter made just inside the fenced yard. It looked ordinary enough. Reuben would surely notice nothing. If he did see anything in the chicken yard, it would be a first, she thought ruefully. The chickens could die from starvation, their bodies stretched out cold, their feathers blowing away in the wind, and the man wouldn’t see it.

It was on the short walk back to the house that she felt suddenly sick. Before she made it back to the house, she vomited. She bent over, retching on the ground with a force that pounded in her head.

The smell from the pancake batter rose to her face, provoking another bout. Her stomach strained from the effort. Holding the bowl away, as far as her arm could reach, she made her way to the concrete steps and sat down. A sense of deep weariness and hopelessness swept over her.

Thoughts spun in Rachel’s head as she questioned what was going on. It had been many years ago, but the memory came back with force. She placed her free hand on her stomach, feeling nothing, but wondering. Could it possibly be that she was with child again?

After all these years, how had this happened? She knew the how, but it was the why she couldn’t understand. After Luke was born, she had been expecting more children, but none had come. Rachel had been secretly thankful because she carried the weight of their poverty on her shoulders. She considered it the mercy of heaven on her condition.

Even when the women at the sewing had raised their eyebrows at her childlessness, Rachel had been able to wrinkle her brow as if in sorrow, saying with absolute truthfulness that she didn’t know why there were no more children.

If there had been the least doubt in her eyes, they would have known, and there would have been trouble. Intentional childlessness that stretched into years, even by the most natural of means, was not only frowned upon but a matter to be referred to the deacon for discipline.

That Rachel was the deacon’s wife would not have shielded her, but it had been none of her doings. She had assured the questions in the women’s eyes. “Not even natural,” she had whispered once, as if that were even possible. So the childless years had rolled by.

Now though, Rachel remembered the feeling she had known with Luke’s pregnancy. This was the same. Just the same. She sat on the concrete steps by her backdoor and unashamedly wept in the early morning darkness. She wept for her poverty, for her age at which she must bear this, and for the doings of the Almighty she couldn’t make sense of.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FOUR

R
achel finally roused herself, her duties of the moment returning with enough force to make her move. She would go on about her day but with the knowledge that her life was different now. She was with child. The suddenness of it left her numb.

The day had started with such hope but now was full of bugs. The thought of the child should make her feel thankful and glad, but it didn’t. It filled her with a sudden and stabbing guilt.

“It’s the money, always the money,” she told herself bitterly, standing up. The hardness of life pressed in from all sides, matching the hardness from where she had just risen. “It’s not fair,” she told the heavens, knowing no one would hear in this world, hoping someone would in the other.

When nothing happened, a sense of urgency returned and propelled her back into the house. Now, more than ever, she
must
succeed. If there was another child involved—a child to carry to birth and to rear—then she must not fail in her mission. God must be appeased—and right quickly.

Failing to provide Reuben with pancakes, now that he knew she was making them, wouldn’t help. Certainly she couldn’t use the bugs as an excuse for failing to produce pancakes. The news of the coming child might help, but Rachel doubted whether Reuben would think that much of a reason either.

Even if she told him about the weeping spell on the back steps, he would think her sinful for being sorrowful. To Reuben such an attitude was not only against
Gottes villa,
but against His favor and that of the church. Rachel needed Reuben to continue seeing her in as good a light as possible.

Rushing in, she opened a new bag of flour, ran her fingers through it, and checked for bugs. Breathing a sigh of relief when none appeared, she mixed the new batch of pancake batter, careful not to breathe in the smell too deeply lest the nausea return. Even then, with all the rushing, she barely got the pancakes and eggs done by the time Reuben came in from the chores.

A stack of steaming hot pancakes and a full plate of eggs greeted Reuben’s hungry eyes when he walked into the kitchen and sat himself. “Let’s eat,” Rachel told him to cover up her feelings and shortness of breath. “Things will get cold.”

This efficiency he understood—appreciating the practical side of her.

“You do make good pancakes,” he said, a smile spreading across his face.

“I try,” she said, knowing enough to be modest. Any signs of pride would fast change his mind about her, even with pancakes and eggs on the table.

“Maple syrup?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said because there was some—enough she hoped—purchased with precious money that never seemed to stretch for such luxuries as maple syrup.

“That’s good,” Reuben said, his smile even wider, his chair scraping the floor as he pulled the seat in closer.

Luke came in and sat down on the opposite side of the table.

Bitterness ran through Rachel’s mind.
How can the man be so happy about maple syrup?
That he would be was the reason she had some on hand. That he felt that way was the problem. A poverty-stricken man like him shouldn’t take so much pleasure in maple syrup, but that was how things were, deacon or no deacon.

“I’m glad you like it,” Rachel said.

Reuben eyed the precious brown liquid she set on the table and quickly said, “Let’s pray. The food is getting cold.”

They bowed their heads in silent prayer, for which she was thankful because she did not want to hear Reuben pray out loud at the moment. Her stomach was queasy again, and she was trying hard to keep her roiling emotions under control. It was all much easier to handle when he was just quiet.