The Shunning (20 page)
“Two?”
Rebecca didn’t even attempt to explain. Matters of the heart made little sense to her husband, practical man that he was. Things such as losing your first sweetheart to the sea and then, on top of that, losing your own sense of who you were. Well, she couldn’t fault him for not understanding. He was just like that.
“Our dear girl’s lost right now, Samuel, swimming in an ocean of sorrow and—”
“You’re not makin’ sense yourself,” he interrupted. “You can’t be babyin’ her along when she’s got things to do to get this weddin’ done up just right.”
Among the People, weddings were a reflection on the father of the bride. Rebecca knew that her husband had high hopes that Katie’s special day would come off without a hitch. Besides, no father had ever loved a daughter more, she thought, gazing fondly at his strong profile.
Rising briskly, Rebecca cleared the table. “I best run on up and see how she’s doing. She’s probably got herself a real bad headache.”
“Jah, and I’ll be havin’ one, too, if we don’t get her things moved over to the Beiler place ’fore sundown,” he groused. “And don’t you go lettin’ her make you feel bad,” Rebecca heard him say as she dried her hands on the kitchen towel. “Katie owes her life to us, ya know.”
That’s where you’re wrong, Samuel Lapp
, Rebecca thought.
Don’t
you know it was our Katie who gave me a reason to live twenty-two years
ago?
It was Katie’s coming that had filled Rebecca’s empty heart, her empty arms.
She climbed the long, steep steps leading to the second floor, bracing herself for whatever hurtful words Katie might fling at her first thing. Her love was strong enough to endure it. Strong enough.
As it turned out, when Rebecca knocked on the sturdy bedroom door, Katie’s voice was only a muffled, sleepy sound. “Come in, Mamma.”
Putting a smile on her face, Rebecca tiptoed inside. At the foot of the bed, she looked down at the rumpled quilts and covers. “Were you able to rest at all?”
Katie yawned and stretched, then sat up and pushed up her pillow behind her back. “I don’t remember sleeping much . . . but I must’ve. I dreamed some.”
“Bad dreams?”
“Jah, bad ones, all right.”
Rebecca sighed. “Well, a good breakfast will do ya some good.” She hated to remind Katie that a group of cousins would be arriving soon to help crack nuts and polish the silver. “Elam came over yesterday with Annie’s dishes while you were out somewhere with Tobias and the pony cart.”
“Satin Boy. His name is Satin Boy now, remember? I renamed him.”
“Ah, I keep forgetting. A new name does take some getting used to, I must say.”
Their eyes locked and held, and for one chilling moment, Rebecca felt her daughter’s incredible pain. She could see in Katie’s eyes the reality of what growing up Amish had done to the girl. How it had changed her entire life—stripped her of her true origins. What it meant to be the birth child of a wealthy, worldly family, never having been told of your real roots, yet knowing it in your bones as sure as you were alive.
“It must take a lifetime of gettin’ used to,” whispered Rebecca. “But you’re Katie now . . . Katie Lapp, soon to be Katie Beiler, the bishop’s gut wife.”
Neither spoke for a moment. Then Katie patted the spot beside her, and Rebecca moved silently to sit on the edge of the bed. “I don’t blame you, Mam,” came the gentle words. “I just don’t understand why it had to be such a secret.”
Nodding, Rebecca reached for her hand. “I was ashamed, you see. There was a baby . . . one that died before it ever got a chance to live. And after it was born dead . . . well, the doctor said I was barren, said I’d never have any more children.” She stared down at the floor and caught her breath. “I felt cursed . . . wanting more babies . . . and knowin’ I’d never have ’em.”
Katie listened without interrupting, letting Mam pour out her own pain.
“Then when we saw you—your Dat and I—it was like the Lord God himself was saying to me, ‘Here’s your heart’s desire, Rebecca. Rise up and wash your face . . . put a smile on your lips. The daughter you’ve been longin’ for is here.’ And that’s what we did—brought you right home to be our little girl.”
“Just like that?” Katie asked, full of wonder, not pressing to know how or when or what had happened to bring all this to pass.
“Exactly like that.”
“And the People? They never suspected I wasn’t your real baby?”
“Not for a single minute.”
“And you never once thought I looked like a ‘Katherine’?”
“Not after we undressed you and put away the satin dress. Once we renamed you, I guess . . . well, you always looked like a little girl named Katie to Dat and me.” She thought for a second, glancing at the ceiling with her head tilted to one side. “Jah, I can say here and now, you looked just like a Katie . . . right from the start.”
Katie stared dreamily into space. “Who named me Katherine? Was it my first Mam?”
The words were a hammer blow to Rebecca’s heart. Oh, not today. Not with the wedding so near. Not with Laura Mayfield-Bennett driving around Hickory Hollow, searching.
“Jah, your biological mother named you, I think.”
“Did you meet her?”
“Only for a little bit.” Rebecca’s encounter with Laura and her mother in the hospital corridor had been brief. In fact, she seemed to recollect Laura’s mother more clearly than she remembered Laura Mayfield herself.
“Did you see her long enough to know what she looked like?”
Rebecca was thoughtful. “You have her brown eyes and auburn hair.”
“Anything else?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember much now.”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter, I guess,” Katie said. “I know who my
real
mamma is.” She slid over on the bed and hugged Rebecca, giving her a warm kiss.
While Katie dressed and had a late breakfast, Rebecca jotted down a list of things to be done before tomorrow. In between the writing, though, she wondered at Katie’s response. She marveled that the girl hadn’t ranted and raved, hadn’t caused a fuss. Hadn’t threatened to tell the People the truth. But she’d done none of that.
Rebecca should have felt relieved. Instead, she felt curiously unsettled.
————
Katie stood at the tall window in her bedroom, looking out. The best times of her life had been before she’d learned that she was the only adopted child in Samuel and Rebecca Lapp’s household. Maybe the only adopted child in all of Hickory Hollow. The best times had been the carefree days of her childhood.
Blinding hot summer days . . .
She and Mary Stoltzfus—two little Plain girls—running barefoot through the backyard, Mamma’s white sheets flapping on the clothesline, past the barnyard to the old wagon road connecting Dat’s farm with a wide wooded area and a large pond that lay sparkling in the sunlight.
Two little Plain girls, telling secrets as they worked the oars of the rickety old rowboat, on their way out to the island in the middle of the pond.
Two little Plain girls—birds swooping overhead, oars splashing, sending lazy ripples through the water—laughing and chattering away the sun-kissed summer hours. . . .
In those days Katie was simply . . . Katie. Not Katherine. Not someone sophisticated. Just Plain Katie, inside and out. At least, as Plain as she could be in spite of the constant inner tugging toward fancy things. Still, she did try to follow the rules—what was expected of the People, according to the Ordnung.
But things were changing. Had already changed—overnight, it seemed. And it appeared that they would keep on changing—just like the ripples on the pond, ever circling out and away into the distance. Far, far away.
She was not Katie inside or outside, neither one. The girl with autumn brown eyes and reddish hair had come to see herself as a different person. Someone she didn’t know, didn’t recognize. Someone with a mother who had given her an English name. A fancy, worldly name.
Katherine
.
The name did not sit well. She fought the fog of numbness, attempting to sort out her feelings, to push resentment aside. The growing resentment she was feeling for her parents, the
adoptive
parents who had kept their secret locked up for more than twenty-two years.
For a moment, she allowed herself to wonder about her real parents, especially her birth mother. Who was she?
Where
was she? And why had she stayed away for so very long?
————
The first thing Katie wanted to do when she saw Mary coming through the back door was to take her aside to a secluded corner of the old farmhouse and tell her the secret. Instead, she greeted her calmly and ushered her into the kitchen, along with about ten of her cousins. Then she rounded up extra chairs for the nut crackers as Mam put on a kettle of water to boil. There would be hot chocolate and marshmallows for everyone and slices of cheese, fresh bread, and melted butter. Apple butter, too, and pineapple preserves for those who preferred a tart topping on their warm bread.
Katie went through the motions, performing her duties like a sleepwalker, barely registering the chitchat and laughter swirling around her. She made it through—without a soul suspecting that anything was wrong—all the way to the end of the day, when Eli and Benjamin hauled her cedar chest off to the bishop’s house along with several suitcases, the satin baby dress hidden inside one of them.
That evening, five men arrived to help Dat and the boys move furniture out to the barn for storage, to make room for the long wooden benches that would accommodate two hundred wedding guests indoors.
Early Wednesday morning, John Beiler and his son Hickory John arrived to help set up the benches when the two bench wagons arrived—one from the Hickory Hollow church district and one from a neighboring district. Several uncles and male cousins, as well as close neighbors, assisted in unloading the benches, unfolding the legs outdoors before taking them in the house and setting them up, following a traditional plan—the way it had always been done.
Since John Beiler, at his first wedding, had observed the customary ritual of chopping off the heads of thirty chickens needed for the wedding feast, he delegated the task to three of his brothers and other close relatives, out of respect for his deceased wife.
Rebecca, along with her two married sisters, Nancy Yoder and Naomi Zook, and their husbands, began to organize the workers, including those assigned to peeling potatoes, filling doughnuts, making cole slaw, roasting and shredding the chicken and adding the bread mixture, cleaning celery, baking pies and cakes, and frying potato chips.
Twenty-two cooks—eleven married couples—had been assigned their duties, as well as the four wedding attendants, including Katie’s bridesmaid, Mary Stoltzfus, who arrived just after seven-thirty.
“You seem awful quiet again,” Mary said as they escaped to Katie’s bedroom for a reprieve.
Katie spread her wedding attire on the bed, leaving it out to be inspected one last time. She had starched her white apron and cape and ironed the wedding dress until there was not a wrinkle anywhere. From the sound of the hustle-bustle going on below, she knew there were only a few minutes left to tell her friend what she wanted to say. If anyone could understand, it would be Mary. “You might be surprised at what I’m going to say now,” she confided.
Mary listened, her eyes darkening with concern.
“I’m thinking that I might not be able to love John as much as I should,” Katie whispered. “Might not be enough to make a gut marriage, but I’ll do my best. I’ll do my very best.” Having admitted this, she felt a weight lift from her heart.
Mary spoke tenderly. “I know ya will. And you might even surprise yourself and fall in love with the bishop. In fact, I’m sure of it. It’ll happen, sooner or later.”
“He’s been awful kind, deciding to marry me.” Katie touched the white cape, a symbol of purity. “I might’ve been passed over if he hadn’t—”
“Now, listen,” Mary interrupted. “That kind of talk won’t get you anywhere. You got a lot to be thankful for, that’s true, but when it all boils down, Katie, you are supposed to be marrying the bishop and don’t ya ever forget it. He’s a wonderful-gut man.”
The way Mary said
wonderful-gut
made Katie wonder. Was her friend harboring some secret interest in the bishop? “Just what are you thinking, Mary?”
“Well, I guess you haven’t been paying much attention,” Mary said, dumbfounded. “Don’t you think John’s nice-looking?”
“Well, I guess I never thought of him that way, really.”
Not after
staring into Dan’s face the way I used to
, Katie thought,
wondering how
on earth the Lord God could make such a handsome fellow. . . .
“Well, you oughta be taking another look,” Mary advised, slanting Katie a curious look. “You’re lookin’ through tainted glasses . . . and I know why. It’s because of Dan, ain’t? He’s clouded everything up for you. But you’re
supposed
to marry the bishop now.”
Supposed
to? If she only knew the truth.
I’m not even
supposed
to
be living here in Hickory Hollow
, Katie thought,
let alone marrying a
forty-year-old Amish bishop. I’m
supposed
to be Katherine Mayfield,
whoever that is!
But she didn’t dare reveal Mam’s secret—even to Mary. An unspoken pact had been made. Mam had suffered more than enough already. Now, faced with the opportunity to pour out her soul to her dearest friend, Katie had better sense than to add insult to injury.
She hid the numbness away, as deep inside as she could push it, just as Mam had pushed the baby dress deep into the white vase. If she did not suppress the pain, Katie feared it would surface to wound her mother yet again and tear savagely at her own future. And so she did what Mary would call “the right thing.” She kept her secret safe— buried in her heart.
