The Shunning (4 page)

K
atie took her time leaving the attic room. She waited until her brothers were out of sight, then reopened the trunk and returned the baby garment to its original spot.

Downstairs, after washing her face and hands repeatedly, Katie took her usual place at the supper table—to the right of her mother. “Sorry, Dat . . Mamma.” Her face felt flushed, her eyes puffy.

Of course, she wouldn’t lie. But she had no intention of explaining the
real
reason for her delay. No one must ever know of her dreadful obsession. Known sin required confession—she knew that. Good for the soul, maybe, but impossible under the circumstances. Confession would mean turning away, never again repeating the transgression. . . .

The fact that Katie hadn’t looked either of them in the eye troubled Rebecca. Samuel didn’t seem to notice, though. He bowed his head for the silent blessing without the slightest reference to Katie’s tardiness.

After the “Amen,” Samuel served himself first, then Eli and Benjamin wasted no time digging in to the heaping bowl of buttered potatoes. When the ham platter was passed, everyone took hearty portions. Next came lima beans, and chow-chow—a sweet bean relish—cut creamed corn, and bread with apple butter. A fat slice of raisin spice cake topped off the meal.

An occasional belch from Eli and Samuel signaled that Rebecca’s efforts had been a success. Aside from that, there was only the scrape of cutlery against plastic plates, the satisfied grunts of the men, the homey sound of a fire crackling in the woodstove.

From time to time, Rebecca risked a sidelong glance at Katie. The girl hadn’t spoken a word since she sat down.
What’s ailin’ her?
Rebecca wondered, thoughts churning. But it was the fear gnawing at her stomach that brought on the indigestion.

Eventually, Samuel leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, his gesture indicating that he was finished eating. At first, Rebecca wasn’t certain he was going to speak. Finally, in measured tones, he asked the question hanging heavy on all their minds. “Did you find your mamma’s weddin’ dress, then?”

Katie reached for her glass. Slowly, deliberately, she drank from it.

Silence draped itself like a shawl over the barren gray walls.

Seconds lagged.

Rebecca could take it no longer. “Katie, are you ill?” She slipped her arm around her daughter’s trim waist, and Katie stiffened without speaking.

Samuel was not one to tolerate disrespect, and Rebecca knew what was coming. As sure as a brush fire in a windstorm. “Both your Mam and I have spoken to ya,” he scolded without raising his voice.

Still no response from the girl with autumn brown eyes and reddish hair, wound tightly into a bun under the solemn white netting. Katie refused to look up until Eli kicked her under the table. A hefty, swift kick to the shinbone.

“Ach!” She glared across the table at the culprit.

Eli sneered, “Don’t you have nothin’ to say for yourself?”

“Eli!” his father cut in. “That’ll do!”

Rebecca’s grasp tightened on Katie’s waist. Now the fire was sure to come. She braced herself for the heat.

“I . . . uh, Dat,” Katie began at last, “there’s something I have to say. . . .”

Rebecca felt the tension draining out of muscles coiled tight as a garden snake. Her daughter—only nine days before her wedding—had averted a near disaster. The kindling of her father’s wrath.

“There is something I must tell you—both of you,” Katie went on. She looked first at Samuel, then at Rebecca, who had folded her hands as if in prayer. “Ever since I was little, being Plain has been burdensome to me.” She took a deep breath. “More burdensome for me than most, it seems.”

“Bein’ Amish is who you are through and through.” Her father’s voice was unemotional yet definitive. “Plain is how the Lord God meant you to be. You ought to be ashamed, saying things such as that after bein’ baptized . . . taking the kneeling vow and all.”

Rebecca clasped her hands tighter in a wordless plea.

“I best be speaking to Bishop John.” Katie could feel her eyes filling with tears. “I have to speak to him . . . about . . .” She paused, drawing in another thready breath. “About the wedding.”

“Now, Katie,” her mother intervened. “Just wait a day or two, won’t ya? This’ll pass, you’ll see.”

Katie stared at her mother. “But I’ve sinned against Dat . . . and . . . the church.”

Samuel’s expression darkened. “Daughter?”

“It’s the music—all those songs in my head. I can’t make them go away,” she blurted. “I’ve tried, but the music keeps tempting me.” She bit her tongue and kept silent about the other temptings, the never-ending yearning for beautiful things.

Rebecca patted her hand. “Maybe a talk with Bishop Beiler would do us all some good.”

“Alone, Mamma. I must see John alone.”

Samuel’s green shirt and tan suspenders accentuated the red flush creeping up his neck and into his face. “Maybe if you’d destroyed that instrument of evil when I first caught you at it, that guitar wouldn’t be destroyin’ you now.”

He continued to restrain her with a piercing gaze. “You’ll be confessing this before the next Preaching. If you’re serious about turning away from sin and crucifying the flesh, you’ll find a way.”

“I’ve tried all these years, Dat. I wish I could shut off the music.” But even as she spoke, a stubborn defiance surged in her, demanding its way. She did not
want
to stop the music—not her beloved music. Not the precious thing she and Daniel Fisher had so joyously shared.

Stubbornness gave way to guilt. She had just lied to her own father. One sin had given birth to another, and penance was long overdue. If she ever wanted to see Daniel in the courts of glory, Katie knew what was expected of her. A private confession in front of their elderly deacon and preacher Yoder. Her first ever.

Samuel adjusted his metal-rim glasses and scrutinized Katie across the table. “I forbade you to play music many years ago, and I forbid you now,” he said. “‘Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?”’

He pushed his chair away from the table, causing it to screech against the linoleum floor. Significant in its absence was the silent table grace that always followed the meal. With a grunt, he shuffled into the living room. Eli and Benjamin disappeared into a far corner of the house, as if grateful to escape the shameful scene.

Under a ring of light, mother and daughter sat worlds apart. Rebecca willed her trembling to cease, relieved that her daughter’s outburst had nothing whatever to do with the past—that dreadful secret that could swallow them up. Every last one of them.

Still, as she sat beside her only daughter—the child of her dreams— there was one consolation.
This
predicament could be remedied easily enough. A sigh escaped her lips, and with eyes closed, she breathed a prayer of thanks—for Katie’s confession of sin. For having had twenty-two blessed years with this precious child.

She looked into Katie’s eyes and wiped tears from her cheeks, resolving to pay a visit to the attic just as soon as the dishes were done.

Quietly, with Katie’s help, Rebecca set to work clearing the table. She heated the water brought up by the battery-operated well pump and began rinsing the dishes. Then into the same hot water she added the dish detergent. Swishing it around, she lowered a fistful of silverware into the foamy suds, allowing the warmth to soothe her.
Things’ll
be fine
, she told herself,
once the wedding’s behind us
.

The two women made quick work of the dishes, rinsing then drying each plate and cup, without their usual lighthearted conversation. Deliberately, Rebecca put away the few remaining leftovers before finding the courage to speak. “So you’ll be thinking things over, then . . . about talking to the bishop?”

Katie swept the crumbs from the floor. “Don’t you understand, Mamma?” She turned to face her. “I don’t want to back out on the wedding. I’m just wondering if I’m the best choice for a bishop’s wife.”

Rebecca’s eyes searched her daughter’s. “The time for wondering is long past, Katie. Your wedding day’s nearly here.”

Katie’s lip quivered uncontrollably.

“What’s really bothering ya, child?” She reached for Katie and drew the slender form into her arms.

Long, deep sobs shook Katie’s body as Rebecca tried to console her. “There, there,” she whispered. “It’s just the jitters. We womenfolk all get them, but as time passes, you’ll get better at hiding them.” She paused for a moment. Then, attempting to lighten the mood, she added, “Why, I ’spect you’ll feel this way before the birth of your first little one, most likely.”

Rebecca felt Katie pull away, a curious expression on her face replacing her tears. “What, Katie? What is it?”

Katie straightened, adjusting her long apron and dress. “I almost forgot to ask you something.”

“Jah?”

“Mamma, who is Katherine Mayfield?”

Rebecca felt weak, as if her limbs might no longer support her.
This
cannot be
, she thought.

“I saw the name stitched on a baby dress . . . up in the attic. Ach, it was so pretty. But where did you come by such a thing, Mam?”

Without warning, the strength left Rebecca’s legs entirely. She stumbled across the kitchen toward the long table bench.

Katie reached out to steady her. “Mamma!”

Rebecca dropped onto the bench and tugged at her apron. Then she pulled out a white hankie and with short, jerky motions began to fan herself. Everything came home to her at that moment—the worry of the years, the long-kept secret. . . .

Katie ran to open the back door a crack. “There, Mamma,” she called as frigid air pushed through the utility room and into the kitchen. “That’s better, ain’t?”

In spite of the draft, Rebecca felt heat rush to engulf her head. She tried to look up, to catch one more glimpse of the beloved face.

Only a deep sigh emerged.
Katie, my girl. My precious girl . . .

Through blurred vision, she could see Katie closing the door, shoving back the wintry blast, then hurrying toward her, all concerned and flustered. But try as she might, Rebecca Lapp could not will away the peculiar, prickly sensation creeping up her neck and into her dizzy head.

She slumped forward, aware of nothing more. . . .

Three

D
at, come quick!”

     At the sound of Katie’s frantic voice, Samuel, along with Benjamin and Eli, rushed into the kitchen.

“I don’t know what on earth happened!” Katie’s heart was pounding. “We were just talking—Mam and me—and—” Her mother was as physically fit as any farmer’s wife in Hickory Hollow, certainly plump and hearty enough to ward off a mere fainting spell. “I’ll get some tea leaves.”

Reluctant to leave her mother, Katie hurried downstairs to the cold cellar, where neat rows of cabinets stored canned fruits and vegetables. She found the dried mint leaves in a jar and quickly pinched some into her hand, still puzzled over what had caused her mamma to faint.

Katie had mentioned speaking to the bishop. Had the idea of not going through with the marriage troubled her mother enough to make her ill?

She returned the jar of mint to its spot on the shelf and closed the cabinet door, pondering the strange circumstances. “Katie, are ya coming?” Benjamin called out.

“On my way,” she answered, running up the steep cellar steps.

In the kitchen, Katie brewed some mint tea, glancing repeatedly at her mother, who had come to and was leaning her head on one hand, while Eli fanned her with the hankie.

Dat stood at Mam’s side, pensive and silent. He seemed shorter now, his wiry frame bent over his wife. Katie wondered if he was still vexed over her awkward yet truthful admission at the table. Still, she was glad she’d told on herself. At least one aspect of her sinfulness would be dealt with. And if she was to go through with the wedding, she’d be offering her first private confession tomorrow or the next day.

Katie stirred the hot water, hoping to hurry the tea-making process. She stared at Rebecca apprehensively. Spouting off those careless words—that she’d better have a talk with Bishop John—had wreaked such havoc! She hadn’t meant to upset anyone unduly; now she wished she’d kept her thoughts to herself.

“Hurry it up, Katie,” Benjamin said, coming over to see what was taking so long.

She moved quickly, spooning honey into the hot water. But by the time the leaves had steeped long enough to embrace the soothing mint taste, Rebecca had gone upstairs to lie down.

When Katie stepped into the room a bit later, she found her mother still fully dressed but covered with the warmest quilts from the handmade cedar chest at the foot of the double bed. She held out the teacup on its matching saucer, and her father took it from her with a curt nod of his head.

“Is there anything else you need, Mamma?”

Dat answered for her. “That’ll do.”

Katie left without another word.

Rebecca settled back against the bed pillows with a slight smile on her face as she accepted the cup from Samuel and took a sip. “Des gut.”

He reached for the kerosene lamp on the bedside table. “I’ll go on down and stoke up the stove a bit. Can’t let ya catch a chill, not with daughter’s weddin’ day a-comin’.”