Between Two Promises (26 page)

“You’re no longer my minister. I can speak as freely as I wish.”

The reverend remained silent, calculating. “Then why don’t you,” he said. “Instead of playing shussly games, speak freely, Daniel Schrock. Go ahead. I’m listening. You got my full attention.”

“I know about you, what you did. It’s no mystery anymore.”

Reverend Yoder stirred, his cheeks puffed out above his straggly white beard. Daniel went on speaking, holding himself steady. His fists clenched and unclenched as he formed each word, words that had been fermenting inside his mind for many months.

“You threatened Aiden Cermak, leaving him those horrible messages, spray painted his door with threats, threw a pumpkin at his home.”

Reverend Yoder chuckled. “I did no such thing. How absurd. And why would I do that?”

“To keep him from revealing the truth.”

“There you go with that truth again. Seems to me you have as much to hide as me. Perhaps you’re the one who threatened Aiden Cermak. I know about your secrets too, Daniel Schrock.”

The reverend’s words stilled Daniel. He floundered over the snow, as if he had been struck against the forehead with a wood plank. The sound of the snow settling filled the gap of silence. They eyed each other. Reverend Yoder’s chapped lips puckered, ready to spew Daniel with words. Daniel regrouped his thoughts, determined to be the first to strike and carry the altercation to its finality.

“We both know you walked in on me and Kyle.” Daniel nodded toward the barn where Kyle Yoder’s body had hanged from the highest rafter. “After you saw us, you and Kyle had an altercation, and something horrible happened, didn’t it, Reverend?”

Steam shot from between Reverend Yoder’s clenched teeth. “What kind of thoughts rankle that head of yours, you and that Englisher? You’re living like bandits out in the woods with nothing but your fantasies. I feel sorry for you.”

“It’s true what I said, admit it.”

“I admit what you did with Kyle made the eyes of God burn with anguish. I never been so shocked. But that’s all there is to admit.”

Daniel chewed his lower lip. Angered by the reverend’s tactics, he would not allow him to spoil his long-dreamed-of confrontation. Even his piercing blues failed to sway Daniel.

“You killed your son,” he blurted. “You struck him on the head and he died. Then you hung him up, hung him up like he was nothing but deer kill, to make his death look like a suicide.”

“How do you get so impertinent?” the reverend said. “Such vile accusations you utter, and while you trespass on my property.”

Resisting the urge to back off, run and hide, Daniel shot back. “I know why you never called me out before any of the gmays after all these years, Reverend. I know you were only looking to protect yourself from your crime.”

“Yes, I’ll admit it was to protect myself,” the reverend spat. “But not for the vile actions you accuse me of. I would never fend off one sin with another out of spite. Especially not against my own son. I kept my mouth sealed all these years to protect the reputation of my family. And yes, I’ll admit, to protect my own. I would not have our name sullied merely because of your sins. Even God must stand by my silence. No one in my family deserves such punishment. We’re not the ones who transgressed against da Hah. That sin is for you to face.”

“I don’t believe you. We have too much evidence against you.”

A semi-trailer careened down the nearby lane, its engine brake grinding. Once the jarring noise receded, Reverend Yoder raised his head and peered at Daniel.

“I battled to put God back into him,” he said. “I prayed with him hours each day after I saw the two of you. We’d get on our knees and beg God to forgive him, forgive us both. I thought I reached him. But then….” Reverend Yoder dropped his head, his hoary beard dangling past his pants flap. “Then I… I found him hanging in the barn.” He shot blue fire at Daniel. “It’s what you did to him. You corrupted him; you led him astray.”

Shame burned Daniel’s cheeks. For many years he had blamed himself for Kyle’s death. Whether he had killed himself or had been murdered, none of it had made a difference to Daniel. But Aiden had convinced him he should no longer hold himself responsible. A new surge of fault scored into him. He wrestled against the old remorse. He would not allow the reverend to win.

Boldness overtook him. “What we did, Kyle and me, it wasn’t so vile,” Daniel said. “It’s not so uncommon, not even here in Henry, in Amish Country. What was it you really feared when you spied your own son kissing another man, Cousin Amos? Did seeing us together make you feel things you wished you hadn’t? Did you see something of yourself in us?”

A strange, wry smile curled Reverend Yoder’s lips. “Go back to Montana, Schrock,” he said. “Go back and hide in the mountains. Go live with your bears and buffalo.” He turned his back on Daniel and strolled back inside the barn.

Like that, the confrontation ended. Standing alone in the driveway, Daniel suddenly felt exposed. He’d had his say. Now no reason remained for him to stand on that alien land belonging to Reverend Yoder.

He turned to leave, trudging down the lane. Not until he was halfway home did he realize he was still trembling. He had actually confronted Reverend Yoder, dug up every sordid detail buried for nearly ten years, and had tossed it in his face like a fistful of dirt.

Yet satisfaction eluded him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

H
E
WAS
unsure how long he’d been asleep when he opened his eyes to the dull eggshell ceiling. An itchy haze wrapped around his head. Chill nipped at him. Scant heat flowed through the floor vents from the kitchen. Probably the first time in weeks the ovens had gone cold.

His head ached. Was it the same day? Outside, the sun still struggled to burn through the slate-gray clouds. Another snowfall would come at any time. Groggy, he glanced at the alarm clock atop the night table. Almost two o’clock. He had slept a good hour.

He caught sight of his reflection in the clock’s glass face. He touched his beard. Still Amish looking.

He sat up, scratching his head. What had happened earlier that morning? Something unpleasant, surreal almost.

Jagged claws clamped onto his brain.

Elisabeth’s confession.

After all this time, she’d explained why she had never courted. Why she had never married. She had been blunt. A visiting minister had raped her. Violated her while she had chored in the barn. Although she had seemed content, happy even—God’s will, she’d said—her confession had hollowed Daniel.

As he struggled to accept her words, to look on the bright side, that he and Elisabeth had shared a moment of closeness and she’d made the most of her ordeal, another recollection from earlier that day awoke inside him.

His confrontation with Reverend Yoder.

The reverend’s defenses had come across too frankly. Daniel had seen the honesty in his horribly piercing blue eyes.

Reverend Yoder had been telling the truth. He had not killed his son and staged his death to look like a suicide.

Reluctantly, Daniel admitted that he and Aiden had been wrong about the reverend the whole time.

Even worse, Kyle
had
committed suicide. And because of one little kiss shared between two close friends who sought to become closer. Perhaps Daniel should blame himself for Kyle’s death, after all.

He pulled the quilt over his chest, as if to conceal his sins from the world. Had his confrontation with Reverend Yoder sealed his fate? Or would the reverend go on, the way he had for nearly ten years, pretending nothing had ever happened? Concerned with his and his family’s reputations? As he watched the sky churn with gray clouds, he wondered if everything had all unfolded the way it had for any good reason.

But a far larger worry grated on his mind. If Kyle had committed suicide, then who had threatened Aiden last autumn? And what for?

He withdrew the portrait Elisabeth had drawn of him and Aiden from his pants pocket. She had captured Aiden flawlessly—the curly hair, the curve of his lips, like rose petals. But she had drawn Daniel full of joy. Lately, he hadn’t viewed himself so cheerfully.

Should he call Aiden again? Any incentive drained from his fingertips. Aiden would refuse to answer, like all the other times. He had surrendered much of his world for Aiden Cermak. Now he was gone.

He pictured Aiden at Mark and Heidi’s wedding. So handsome in his olive suit. During the reception, when they’d played slap-a-pig, watching him bent over the chair, Daniel had had to hold back a grunt of arousal. If not for his pacifist upbringing, he’d have belted the man who had swatted Aiden’s rear end. Heidi’s burly cousin looked like he had enjoyed it too. Daniel had not wanted to believe he was jealous. But the stingers of jealousy had pierced him nonetheless.

Many times he had wanted to embrace Aiden in front of everyone and flaunt him as his own. But how could he have? Too much was at risk to be so overconfident. Aiden had said he wanted to get married. Of course Daniel wanted to claim him. If Aiden wanted a wedding, Daniel had never really been that opposed to the notion, even if he did think it shussly. But there were other matters to consider.

Aiden had even once mentioned how he would like to have children. Either by adoption or surrogacy. Seemed gay couples from all over the world were coming to the United States to take advantage of the lax surrogacy laws. Aiden was serious enough to have written an article about it for the quarterly magazine,
Surrogate Family.
Daniel had learned after reading Aiden’s copy that California had been commercializing the practice for decades. Even some famous openly gay singer and his boyfriend Aiden had written about had their surrogate baby in California. Elton Something-or-other.

The idea seemed absurd at the time. Now, staring at the portrait of him and Aiden, he smiled at the idea. For sure he would be happy with little kinner running about. Aiden would make a wunderbar goot father. He had such a kind and understanding disposition.

Sighing, Daniel climbed out of bed and tucked the drawing in his suitcase. He grabbed for his cell phone from the night table and speed dialed the Amish mechanics. After ten rings, a man with a pleasant voice answered. He told Daniel the parts had arrived and that the truck would be ready by tomorrow morning. Daniel figured he could wait.

After he clicked off the phone, he wondered what he would even need the truck for. Other than to tie up loose ends, he had no reason to rush back to Montana. Aiden was gone. Left him. No longer living at their cabin. Daniel supposed he could stay in Montana. Live like a hermit. His base needs for survival the only spur motivating him.

Was that what God had intended the entire time? Were the clues laid before him? Aiden was mere bait to take him to his final place in the mountains, to live alone, isolated, separated from all other humans?

Hunger pains kneaded his stomach. He smelled no cooking, but it was nearing time when his mother and Elisabeth would start on supper. Heeding his hunger spasms, he left his cell phone on the night table and made his way downstairs.

Thank da Hah everyone was still out of the house. He would not want to face them, not now, not with the crazy emotions he carried around with him that he feared even baby Gretchen might read in his eyes.

In the quiet of the downstairs, he saw down the hall the faint light of a lantern coming from the sitting room. Elisabeth must still be crocheting. He rummaged through the refrigerator and cupboards, deliberately clattering and banging, hoping she would hear him and offer to make him a plate. The shoebox full of his mother’s labels that Kevin had printed for her sat on the counter. She would use the labels for her baked and canned goods. He was glad business had picked up. One less worry for her.

After a few minutes fiddling about and finding nothing to eat—and realizing Elisabeth must be too focused on her crocheting to check the commotion in the kitchen—he wandered back upstairs.

Loneliness settled over him like a fog. He wanted to roll to his side on the bed and snooze again, but the Amish in him still struggled to forgive him for having napped in the middle of the afternoon in the first place.

A glimpse of Aiden’s laptop case that he’d left behind when he’d packed in such a haste beckoned him. Longing clawed at his chest. Was that all that was left of Aiden Cermak?

Trancelike, he looked through the case that seemed to hold onto Aiden’s scent. Finding his digital camera, he sat down on the edge of the bed and clicked it on with a light ding, like the yap of a newborn lamb. After several trials, he found the photo files.

He began looking through the hundreds—maybe even thousands—of stored pictures. His heart leaped into his throat.

A picture of him and Aiden the first day they’d run into each other at Glacier National Park in June. Daniel had had a clean-shaven face, and his hair had been near completely cropped, like a Marine’s. Shellshock shimmered in their eyes. So much disbelief streaking their faces. The uncertainty in Daniel’s expression, but also the excitement, the utter comfort of having seen Aiden again. He hadn’t remembered ever experiencing such exhilaration. Even the rustle of the bashful cottontail had made him laugh out loud in a way he rarely had.