The Telling (9 page)

sixteen

Well, what’s this?” Judah muttered from where he stood just inside the stable. He could see Preacher Josiah coming toward the barn, his long stride marked by the thud of his work boots on the pavement.

Judah stepped forward to meet Josiah, who stretched out his hand right quick. “
Wie geht’s,
Judah?”

“Oh, fine... just fine.”

Josiah looked like he’d slipped out of bed without a thought to his appearance, his straw hat pushed back a ways on his disheveled hair. He glanced about the stable. “Judah... are we alone?”

“’Cept for the animals.”

The young preacher placed a hand on Judah’s back and led him into the stillness of the stable. “Might be best if ya sat down somewhere,” he said, his voice low.

“No... I’m all right.” He looked at Josiah. “What’s on your mind?”

Frowning, the preacher eyed him cautiously. “Lettie’s back... came in last night. Stayin’ over at our place.”

Judah’s heart fluttered against his rib cage. “Lettie, you say?” He could hardly get the words out.

“She asked me to come see you.”

Not waiting to hear more, Judah swept past him, rushing toward the barn door. He never once stopped to consider that acting so impulsively – not even taking leave of the man of God – might be wrong. Only one thing drove his actions now, and he heaved open the barn door and set off running down the driveway, toward the road. Tears stung his eyes as he went.

Lettie’s back!

Adah noticed the preacher follow Judah out of the barn, shaking his head as Judah scuttled down the driveway. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure where her son-in-law had taken off to, all red in the face.

She tried to return her attention to mixing the dough to make noodles. A nice hot supper of chicken and homemade buttered noodles might just put a smile on her husband’s face.

“Mammi!” Grace called to her from Judah’s side of the house. “
Kumme
quick!”

Well, now.
She’d have to clean the wet dough off her hands before dashing over there – and from the urgent sound in Grace’s voice, she’d best do it fast.

She nearly bumped into Grace in the center hallway; the dear girl’s eyes were all lit up. “Mamma’s back! Preacher Josiah just told me so on his way to his carriage. Oh, can ya believe it, Mammi Adah?”

Her breath caught in her throat and she looked around her. “Where?”

Grace said that, according to Preacher Josiah, Lettie had shown up on the Smuckers’ doorstep and spent the night there. “Dat’s on his way to see her... on foot, of all things.” She was smiling to beat the band.

“I saw him dart out to the road,” Adah told her. “Oh, Gracie... such wonderful-
gut
news!”

Without saying more, they hurried to the front room windows and peered out. In the near distance, Adah spotted Judah still trying to run, huffing and puffing as he stumbled along. Preacher’s buggy was bumping down the road after him.

“Well, I’ll be,” she whispered.

Judah’s chest burned with every breath, yet his legs had a mind of their own. Lettie – his Lettie – was but a mile or so away! She’d come home on her own, just as he’d wished. The thought impelled him onward, despite the cramping pain in his hip.

Then, suddenly, Preacher Josiah pulled up next to him, motioning from the right side of the carriage. “I’ll take ya, Judah... you’ll get there faster.”

Stopping, Judah tried to catch his breath but could only pant. “Jah, prob’ly... a
gut
idea,” he murmured, going around to the left side and climbing up. “Denki, Josiah... ever so much.”

Grace watched the preacher’s horse slow and her father limp around to get into the gray buggy. She glanced at Mammi Adah, who also was still staring out the window. Grace’s heart beat so hard. She was thrilled beyond words, wishing she might’ve thought to dart after Dat and catch up with him.
Oh, to see dear Mamma again!

“Maybe we should hitch up the horse and head over there, too,” she said suddenly.

Mammi Adah shook her head. “Better to give your parents time to work things out.”

“Puh, maybe so.”

Looking more solemn, her grandmother blinked her big gray eyes. “Trust me, Gracie... ’tis best we stay put.”

Disappointed, Grace felt helpless to step away from the window. With all of her heart, she yearned to go to be with her mother. She could just imagine Mamma surrounded by Sally’s youngest children, maybe balancing one of the littlest on her hip and walking round the kitchen, cooing in her ear. “Why’d she stay at Smuckers’, do ya think?”

Mammi brushed a hair away from her face. “Your Mamma’s not one to push her way back, I daresay.”

“But this is her
home
.”

“Well,” said Mammi, “she may need some time, is all.”

Is she sticking up for Mamma?

“Your mother would’ve come home straightaway if all was well,” said Mammi Adah. “That’s what I’m sayin’.”

This response frustrated Grace no end. She looked hard at her grandmother, knowing for certain she
did
know more than she’d ever let on.
And all along, no doubt!

A raucous chorus of tree frogs had kept Judah awake last night as they called back and forth over yonder by Mill Creek. The reverberation of the frogs had progressed in his mind to the sound of
Lettie... Lettie
as he lay in his bed, trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep. And to think she’d been only several farms away!

Judah sat pitched forward on the buggy seat to the left of Josiah, who held the reins. “How’s Lettie look?” he asked, impatient to know more now that he could speak again.

Josiah took a few seconds to respond. “Very tired.”

She’s traveled a long way....

“Seemed well, though?” Judah asked, struggling for more information.

“You’ll soon see for yourself.”

Jah, slow down
, Judah told himself, aware that his heart was still beating much too fast. He also wanted to inquire about whether the Bann remained an issue now that Lettie was back from her wanderings. But Judah could not bear to ask, and the more he mulled things over in his mind, the more he hoped the ministers would go easy on his wife. After all, she’d returned before the stipulated time they’d set.

One step at a time,
he told himself as the short distance to Preacher Smucker’s seemed to stretch onward unendingly.

The kitchen was thick with the chocolate-like aroma of naturally sweet carob chips. Lettie was eager to help Sally all she could, baking “healthy treats,” as Sally called them. All the while, Lettie tried to picture Judah’s reaction to her returning unannounced.
Is he at all happy about the news?

She spooned out the cookie dough, placing each lump carefully on the greased cookie sheet. As she worked, she wondered what Judah might say to Preacher Josiah... to their children, too. Would he allow her to return, or had her selfish decision to set off in search of her eldest child, telling no one, strained the fabric between them beyond what it could bear? Lettie had been so blind to the possibility of a permanent tear that she had been willing to jeopardize her life here in Bird-in-Hand for a child she’d never known.
Chasing dreams...

Yet wasn’t it too late to ponder any of this now?

Such thoughts distressed her, especially knowing Preacher Josiah had gone to speak with Judah this morning, after a brief word with Lettie. She heard the clatter of Josiah’s buggy returning now all too soon, and a thin strand of dread wrapped around her as she worked alongside Sally.
What’s it mean?
she wondered, her heart sinking.
Has Judah rejected me?

Lettie forced her trembling hands to keep busy with cookie making... and looked over at Sally to see if she might be wondering the same.

When, at last, Preacher Josiah made the turn into his dirt lane, Judah looked for Lettie outdoors. But apparently she was insidecooking or cleaning with Sally... or helping with the youngest girls. Lettie was so good with little children.
The dearest mother my children could’ve had!

He noticed the old tire swing out back swaying slightly. The older boys must be off at a fishing hole somewhere, he guessed, seeing no signs of them. As he followed the preacher up the back stoop and through Sally’s little soap shop, he felt a pang of sadness, and by the time he looked past Josiah and into the kitchen, hoping for a glimpse of Lettie, the feeling had swelled to grief.

Will she want to see me?

Following the preacher into the kitchen, Judah heard his wife’s gentle voice before he ever laid eyes on her. She was talking quietly to Sally... something related to baking, he thought. Then he smelled the fresh cookies, and in that moment all the years of their marriage raced back. Lettie was a mighty fine cook indeed.

“Judah’s come to see Lettie,” he heard Josiah tell Sally, probably hinting for them to skedaddle as Judah stepped into the bright kitchen.

Lettie looked his way and their eyes caught. He saw her lips move silently as she mouthed his name. Her eyes were pretty and blue, as always, but this minute, as she smiled at him, they were filled with expectation. He wondered when the preacher and Sally would scram.

“Lettie, you’re here,” he whispered, moving toward where she stood at the wood-block worktable, an oven mitt on one hand, holding a cookie sheet. He stopped within a yard or so of her, still caught up in her loveliness. It seemed they were the only two people on God’s green earth.

Her lips parted. “Hullo, Judah.” She smiled tentatively.

He nodded, wanting to say,
It’s wonderful-gut to see you.
But in the background he heard Sally mutter something to one of the children who’d wandered into the kitchen. Just that quick, Judah’s awareness of others in the room jolted him back into his usual self-consciousness.

Undoubtedly sheepish, Lettie turned back to her work and removed the warm cookies onto the wax paper on the worktable. Her face was flushed, and if he wasn’t mistaken, a tear rested in the crease under her eye. “Would you like a cookie?” he heard her say.

With a trembling hand, he accepted the warm treat. His fingers brushed against her cool hand, and he felt like a schoolboy at forty-two.

Then, by some small miracle, Josiah was herding the child and Sally out of the kitchen, heading for the front room. Judah waited till they were out of earshot before he spoke again. “Lettie... so nice to see ya.” He touched her dimpled cheek with the back of his hand.

She put down the cookie sheet and removed the oven mitt, turning to him with a full smile. “It’s
gut
to see you, too, Judah.”

He moved toward her and kissed her soft cheek, and the sweet smell of her provoked thoughts he’d nearly forgotten. “Come home with me. Will ya, Lettie?”

Her eyes searched his; then she surprised him by reaching for him. “Oh, Judah,” she whispered against his chest, starting to cry. He held her close, cherishing the moment he’d yearned for all this time.

The days and weeks of waiting seemed to dissipate with the warmth of her, and he wanted to hold her for hours on end. “I hoped you’d return.” He kissed her other cheek. “Truly, I did.”

She looked up at him and a great sadness swept her face. “Preacher Josiah wants to speak more with me. Then... with the two of us.”

He let her step back slightly, away from him. “Jah... in due time.”

“Today,”
she said. “Before I can return home with you.”

He nodded, immersing his eyes in hers... admiring the way her pretty lips moved.

“There is much to tell you.” She blinked back tears. “Ever so much, Judah.”

Something about the way she said it caused a heaviness to crowd out his breath.

“Where can we go?” He pulled her near again.

“Let’s walk,” she said.

He reached for her hand and led her toward the soap shop, filled with the sweet-smelling things Sally made for sale. But his surroundings were of no consequence to him now. His wife’s small, lovely hand clung to his big, callused one, and she was following him toward the back screen door, then down the back steps, not so much as uttering a word.

Gladly, he would listen to Lettie
this time
, hear her out. And they’d return home together and be done with whatever had caused such an uproar in his wife’s poor heart that she’d run away. Soon – very soon – they’d get on with their lives... somehow find their way again.

As they walked toward the springhouse, Judah fought hard the urge to simply wrap Lettie in his arms right there and then. He set his jaw, fearful of what might be in store.
Do I really want to know why she left me?

seventeen

L ettie began to tell her secret slowly at first, with Judah still holding her hand. She skipped parts that were unnecessary – such as the times Samuel had urged her to ride in a car to destinations their parents would’ve frowned upon. Or how Samuel had talked privately with her about
not
joining church.

“I should’ve told you the truth ’bout Samuel and me... right away when you and I first started seein’ each other.” She paused, gathering strength. She recalled writing her thoughts while visiting Cousin Hallie – her tender thoughts about the hummingbird... how it could fly backward. And likening that to her yearning to revisit the past.

The breeze that had cooled her face earlier as they walked down here to the springhouse abruptly stopped. The stillness seemed remarkable to her, and Lettie glanced at the sky in wonderment. “But all that’s behind me now.”

“I’m not surprised you were fond of him,” her husband offered kindly. “I’d guessed as much.”

“Well, you were never told why I went with Mamm to Ohio, though. I’m awful sorry ’bout that, Judah.” She hesitated a moment. “Maybe you figured that out, too.”

Her husband’s gaze held her own. “To help a family member, your father said.”

“But it was only part of the truth.” She must continue and not lose heart. She’d come home to tell Judah everything. Oh, but her words would hurt him terribly, she realized yet again – the reason she’d never wanted to come clean with Judah. Such shame she felt, just looking into his sincere and trusting eyes.

“What I’m tryin’ to say, Judah, is ever so hard,” she said, her heart breaking. “You see, I had Samuel’s baby in Ohio. Mamm and I went to Kidron for the birth... and to give the baby away.”

His mouth dropped open, and he let go of her hand.

“My parents thought it best... that no one should know.” Her lip trembled. “In so many ways, I was deceitful, goin’ along with it.”

His ruddy face had turned white, devoid of color. “You had a child together?” He looked like someone had struck him square in the face.

“It’s nagged at me all this time. Oh, Judah, I’m ever so sorry for keeping it from you!”

He shook his head. “I suspected things... that you’d made a mistake.”

She nodded, understanding what he implied.

“But I never suspected you’d had Samuel’s baby.” He turned slightly, facing toward the road. “I never dreamed
this,
Lettie.”

“Daed and Mamm advised me against telling you for this very reason.”

His ashen face filled with misery.

“I was young, Judah. Ever so young and foolish.”

“But you knew better. You know what the Good Book says.”

I’ve wounded him.

He tugged at his suspenders and stared at her, his feet firmly planted in the soil before her. His eyes were like coals of fire. “Who else knows?”

“The doctor who placed the baby... and the midwife.” She told how she’d found midwife Minnie Keim in Baltic, that she’d only then discovered she had birthed a daughter. “I selfishly went in search of Minnie. I felt I had to do it, but I was wrong to leave you as I did.”

“Did ya search for Samuel, too?” His eyes were moist, but not, she thought, with sadness. His resentment formed his tears.

Lettie admitted how sorry she’d felt for Samuel after encountering his twin sister at the spring barn raising in Bart. “It was the first I knew that Samuel’s wife had left him a widower... and childless. I thought it might ease his pain to know of our child.” Weeping now, she covered her eyes.

“He left Bird-in-Hand – he and his family – before knowing?”

She looked into the pain-ridden face of her husband, stunned at how his words seemed to pour out. Stunned, too, that he still stood before her. “Samuel never knew about the baby. Not till I told him a little more than three weeks ago in Ohio.”

Judah folded his arms across his burly chest.

“I asked Samuel’s forgiveness for what I’d done – for not bein’ forthright.” She struggled to go on. “I wanted to make things right with him, just as I want to make amends now with you.”

“Samuel’s held first place in your heart for too long.” He said it so quietly, she wasn’t sure if she’d heard clearly. Yet, seeing him this distraught, she didn’t have the heart to ask her husband to repeat himself.

“I was wrong, Judah.” She wanted to add,
If I could do it all again, I’d do things differently.
But her tongue remained locked in place.

“I wish I didn’t know this, Lettie.” He shook his head repeatedly.

“I’m askin’ for your forgiveness, Judah.” She almost sobbed the words. “If you can find it in your heart somehow...”

His eyes held hers for a long, awkward moment. “I don’t know what to say.” Then he turned his back to her and waved his right hand absently before walking forward in a daze toward the road.

She wouldn’t call after him. No, she deserved exactly this... just as she’d known deep within herself on their wedding day.

With a sigh, Lettie walked back toward the Smuckers’ house, knowing full well that the bishop and all the ministers had the power to dole out the harshest discipline possible. It was the kneeling confession she feared most. If required, she’d be expected to disclose her many sins before the entire membership of the People.

But Judah’s response, and the pain she had carried for too many years, were entirely different matters. Judah was clearly displeased with her. Bewildered too. She had no guarantee he’d ever extend the forgiveness she longed for... just as her parents had predicted so long ago.

What right do I have to expect it?

Lettie reached for the screen door and heard the happy sounds of Sally and Josiah with their children – a toddler’s soft whimper and the giggle of a youngster, maybe bouncing on someone’s knee. The door made a creak, announcing her entry. And the house fell suddenly still.

While Grace waited for the next batch of clothes to dry – and while her hotdish was baking – she wandered out to the stable to see Willow. Yonnie had been walking the recovering mare little by little, back and forth in the barnyard. Yonnie grinned when he saw her, waving her over. “Come help me,” he said.

As cheerful as Yonnie always was, she was glad to comply. “Looks like she’s not favoring her hurt leg anymore.” She touched Willow’s shoulder, and Yonnie covered her hand with his own.

“Willow’s goin’ to be all right,” he said. “Like I told ya all along.”

She laughed softly and slipped her hand out from beneath his. “Did you hear my mother’s back – over at Preacher Smucker’s house?”

“Jah. Preacher told Adam and Joe before he left for home.”

“Ach, I’m so happy, Yonnie.” She smiled up at him. “I wish I could go over there this minute.”

He pushed his straw hat firmly down on his head. “If you’re happy, then I am, too,” he said more seriously.

“I see you’re wearin’ a broader hat brim than before.”

“Wondered when you’d notice.” He winked at her.

“When did ya change it?”

“My father and I decided it was time.”

“The ministers didn’t prompt you, then?” Her smile was wide; she couldn’t help it.

“
Nee –
no. We just finally got around to it.”

She couldn’t stop smiling. Yonnie was the kind of fellow who brought life into any room – or any barnyard. He had an uncanny way of making her feel like he was paying close attention when she talked, too. Like right now. There was no getting around it: Yonnie made her want to be around him.

Even so, what she’d told him last night remained true – with so much about Mamma still up in the air, now was not a good time to begin courting.

Judah walked, stunned, for a half mile before his brother-in-law Ike Peachey happened along in his hay wagon. He accepted the ride without saying why he was heading home on foot from the direction of Preacher Josiah’s farm.

“You gettin’ your lambs all fattened up?” Ike asked.

“Some.”

“Des gut.”
Ike eyed him askance. “You look like you just lost your best horse.”

Judah shrugged. Ike was a friendly sort, but he had no idea of the pit Judah was in.

“Wonder if Adam and Joe could come over and give me a hand with haying this week, maybe.”

“Don’t see why not.”

Ike went on. “Heard that a bunch of fellas are getting together tonight, over at Andy’s.”

Judah knew all about it. “Bring your sharpest ax.”

“Think they can clear out that kudzu vine?”

“We’ll sure try.”

Ike clicked his tongue, urging the horse to go faster. “Heard any more from your wife?”

“Jah.” No need to check his words. “She’s stayin’ over at Josiah’s for the time bein’.”

Ike’s eyebrows rose. “Well, now... so she’s back.” He smiled. “Grace must be mighty glad, ’specially after her recent trip.”

“Grace hasn’t seen her yet.”

“Well, for pity’s sake.”

“She’ll go and see her mother soon,” Judah muttered.

“So, then, Lettie’s not goin’ home just yet?”

“It’s up to the ministers.”

Ike looked serious. “Any idea why she left?”

Judah leaned forward. “Wanted to make peace with her past.”

“Well, jah, that’s a mighty smart thing to do,” Ike said. “But only if it don’t cause more trouble in the doin’.”

Ain’t that the truth....

Lettie had looked awful vulnerable standing there before him at Josiah’s springhouse. He wished he’d never let her talk so much – just pulled her near and held her for dear life. Because the way he felt now, his love for her seemed mighty desperate... even out of place. Lettie had opened her mouth and destroyed his heart with her talk of Samuel and their baby.

Another man’s baby? How could she have kept such a terrible secret for so long?

Samuel Graber. The mere thought of his name made Judah’s legs feel stiff as boards. Lettie’d gone all that way to ask
him
to forgive her? Judah was still so jealous, he couldn’t shake off the animosity that plagued him.
She chose to comfort Samuel with the news of their child... never caring enough to tell me anything at all!

This was not the time to think again of those maddening frogs that had tormented him last night! They would surely besiege him again tonight, only it would be far worse, knowing what he knew now. And Lettie would sleep in the Smuckers’ house, waiting for the next Preaching service to confess her rebellious ways.

Hopefully, the People will forgive her....