Abby Finds Her Calling (12 page)

“We appreciate your patience, Bishop,” he said. “Since Barbara’s birthed a few babies in similar circumstances, I’m going to let her say what we came up with. Knowing, of course, that we’ll abide by whatever the church members decide tomorrow.”

Bishop Gingerich nodded. “Let’s hear it, then.”

Zanna’s face tightened. She eyed her mother… then studied her brother and his wife.

“We realize, Vernon, that most pregnant Amish girls stay with someone away from home and then give up their child for adoption,” Barbara said quietly. “Yet, in some ways, it seems such a tradition relieves the young woman of responsibility—gives her a clean slate when she comes home, if she and her family can keep the baby a secret. It also takes away the lifelong accountability that comes with raising a child—especially one conceived outside of marriage.”

“Jah,” Sam joined in, looking at Zanna. “We’re not happy about this situation, not one little bit, but Zanna’s got to face the consequences of her actions—and the way this child will change the rest of her life, and her family’s, too. It would be too
easy
to let her give up this baby, especially now that she’s told her friends about it. I can see that now.”

“You realize that if you keep the child, the whole family suffers the shame, then. The Grabers do, too,” Preacher Paul added with a scowl. “Besides that, Zanna’s got no way of supporting a child—”

“She’s said she’ll find one. And we’ll hold her to that. It won’t leave her much time to get into any more trouble, ain’t so?” Sam looked at Zanna to drive home the fact that they intended to carry through. Beside him, Mamm nodded her agreement.

“So be it, then.” Vernon glanced at Paul, who stood up beside him. “We’ll see you all tomorrow.” He donned his broad-brimmed black hat. “You’re making a big mistake, keeping the baby’s father a
secret, Suzanna—letting him off the hook while you shoulder the whole load. But as I told your brother when you fled from your wedding, we all make our choices. And we face the consequences for a long, long time.”

Zanna had never felt so humiliated or so helpless, with no say in the way she would spend the rest of her life. After the meeting she hurried over to Abby’s house, and then—late as it was—she returned to Sam’s before he and Barbara went to bed. “Here!” she said, tossing the two twenties on the kitchen table. “I was wrong to take this money from the store’s cash box, and wrong to run off, and—well, it seems that everything I do or say is just wrong, wrong,
wrong
!”

Sam lowered his face to the same level as Zanna’s. “Don’t be getting me started up again.”

“I gave back what I took and I’m sorry, all right?” As she turned toward the door, Zanna fully expected a big hand to pull her back into the kitchen for another talking-to. But only the night wind whipped her, coming around from behind the sheep barn with a whistle that hinted at winter and smelled like rain.

She went into Abby’s house again, to pull another coat from the closet. Her older sister had put on her nightgown and was letting down her rich brown hair to brush it.

Startled, Abby looked at her. “Zanna, don’t tell me you’re running off again, after you promised to—”

“Here’s Mervin Mast’s barn coat, all washed and clean,” Zanna said, hanging it on the doorknob. “Jah, it would be the better thing for me to return it to him myself, but since I’ll most likely be put under the ban tomorrow, he couldn’t accept it from me. Will you see that it gets to church, so he can have it?”

Abby gripped her hairbrush. “Jah, I can do that.”

“Never let it be said that I added stealing to my long list of sins.” Zanna exhaled loudly, not that it made her pulse slow down. “Don’t wait up. I’ve got a lot of walking to do. A lot of thinking.”

“Praying helps,” Abby reminded her in a choked voice. “That’s what I’ll be doing for you, Zanna.”

“That’s all well and gut,” Zanna muttered as she opened the front door again, “but I’m thinking God’s not in much of a mood to listen to
me
right now.”

Why did she feel so scattered? What was this tingling, tight energy that forced her to keep moving? As Zanna strode down Lambright Lane, she had no idea where she was heading. How could anyone be expected to go through all that she’d endured today?

No rest for the wicked
, her thoughts taunted.

But she didn’t feel wicked.
Terror
better described her emotion: outrageous fear about what would happen tomorrow nipped at her heels as she hiked along the dark, windswept country roads.

The thought of becoming an outcast, a misfit—not a girl anymore but not a wife, either—loomed like a huge black hole in front of her. Would she ever have
fun
again? Who would want to be her friend? Zanna yanked off her kapp and unpinned her hair to let the wind whip it around her face. Loneliness gripped her heart and she couldn’t stand to think about such total isolation. So she kept walking even though her shins ached.

What would happen tomorrow? Kneeling confessions were required for those who had blatantly strayed from the path, but most folks simply sat with their heads bowed as they admitted their wrongdoing. Ezra Yutzy had used his boy’s cell phone to arrange delivery of some deer he’d raised to stock the woods at a Minnesota hunting lodge. Zeke Detweiler had hauled hay with a modern tractor, while Bessie Mast had bought new dishes without first asking permission of her husband, Mervin.
Piddly
sins, compared to hers!

Folks in Cedar Creek might go through the motions of forgiving her premarital relations, but they’d be reminded of her trespass every time they saw her baby. Hers was not a forgive-and-forget kind of sin, and her child, too, would grow up in its shadow. And then, after
she’d served out her punishment, what man would want her for his wife? They’d never forget how she had betrayed James Graber.

Maybe you should have gone along with the bishop’s way. Sounds a whole lot easier to let somebody else raise this baby.

The thought made her double over with pain. She stepped off the blacktop, bracing herself for another vomiting fit, but nothing came up. After she caught her breath, she took note of her surroundings.

How had she made it clear out to the Ropps’ dairy farm? When had it started raining? Nearly two miles she’d traveled, yet she hadn’t gotten rid of that jittery craziness that made her pulse pound so hard.

There’s the highway—your chance to keep on walking. Might be the best thing for everybody.

But Zanna turned toward home, hunkering down against the wind as the rain fell in sheets. She gasped at a lightning flash, wishing she’d paid more attention to the weather when she left.

When it rains, it pours. And this is only the beginning.

Abby jumped at the first bright flash of lightning. She didn’t feel right, being here in her cozy little home while her sister was out in this oncoming storm, but Zanna could have taken any of a dozen back roads or shortcuts across neighbors’ places. Finding her in the darkness would be nearly impossible. Maybe she had taken shelter in a barn…

A flapping sound, and a motion outside her kitchen window, made Abby lift her lantern to see outside. How had laundry gotten hung on her clothesline? As she rushed outside to rescue the dresses and pants that danced crazily in the wind, she realized Zanna had washed the clothes from her rag bin when she’d laundered Mervin’s coat. Abby raced back inside and shut the door against the first drops of rain.

“Oh, Zanna,” Abby murmured as the shower pelted her roof. “It seems like nothing’s gone right all day, and tomorrow isn’t likely to get much better. I wish I knew what to do for you, little sister.”

She dumped the contents of her laundry basket on her table and began to fold the pieces. Here were faded dresses she’d seen Eunice Graber wearing for years, worn thin at the elbows… three pairs of broadfall trousers with hems that had tattered from dragging on the ground. Abby had noticed how Merle seemed to be shrinking with age.

How would Eunice and Merle feel, watching their grandchild grow up across the road without a dat, instead of in their home with James? And how would they and Emma and James handle unkind remarks from folks around town who didn’t think Zanna should be allowed to keep this baby?

Abby folded clothes that Adah Ropp must have donated—drab dresses she and her two girls had worn, as well as her husband Rudy’s old shirts, which were stained and torn from working with his dairy herd. There was plenty of fabric for a large rug, even if it wouldn’t be a very colorful piece.

A loud rumble of thunder reminded Abby that Zanna was out there in the darkness somewhere, probably feeling lost and alone. She closed her eyes as she clutched the last wrinkled shirt to her chest. “Lord, I’m tired and I’m at a loss for answers,” she prayed above the patter of the rain on her roof, “but I can’t just stand by while my sister and James—our two families—flounder in the storm that’s blown into our lives. What would You have me do?”

For several moments she heard only tree branches tapping her window to the rhythm of the rain. It occurred to Abby then that while the Ordnung cautioned against interpreting Scripture, the best advice could be found in the Good Book. She went to her bedside table, where she kept her grandmother Abigail’s Bible, and opened it to her bookmark at Isaiah 61, where she’d left off reading.

“‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,’” Abby whispered, “‘because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted…’”

She felt tingly with goose bumps. There was no question about
who was feeling meek and brokenhearted—and right now Zanna was out there getting drenched. Abby rushed to her closet for her raincoat, chiding herself for not going after her sister at the first rumble of thunder. She had no idea where to look, but she trusted God to guide her along the dark, wet roads. Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if she always had such faith?

“Zanna! Zanna, come here and get in!”

Zanna turned. Was she hearing voices now, truly going insane? Shielding her eyes from the rain, she saw the lanterns of a closed carriage as it approached. How had she gotten so lost in her fear that she hadn’t heard the horse’s hoofbeats? Who would be out in this storm, offering her a ride?

“Get in, before you catch your death! Something told me to turn down this blacktop, or I might never have found you.”

“Abby!” Zanna clambered into the carriage. All this way she’d walked, determined to fight this battle alone, yet the sound of her sister’s voice—the proof of Abby’s unconditional love—broke down her defenses. She bawled like a baby as the carriage lurched forward, until the sound of the rain on its roof and the muffled
clip-clop! clip-clop!
of the horse’s hooves lulled her into a sense of peace.

She was safe. She would soon be dry and warm, in a cozy bed. And she was
not
alone. All that inner struggle… what had it accomplished, except that she felt as worn as an old choring dress?

Zanna sighed. “I can’t thank you enough, Abby.”

Her sister turned, smiling tiredly in the darkness. “You’ve got that right,” Abby teased. “We don’t want you to feel thankless ever again, ain’t so?”

“S
ister Suzanna, the members have heard your confession and have decided upon a six-week ban.” Bishop Gingerich’s voice resonated in the Yutzys’ basement as he gazed solemnly at the young woman who knelt with her head bowed and her hand over her face. “We’re not to shake your hand or eat with you, nor can we accept your gifts or assistance. We separate ourselves from you to show our love in Christ Jesus, that you might think on your sin and fully repent when your shunning has run its course.”

As James focused on the knees of his black pants, his insides twisted tighter than a pretzel. During the Members’ Meeting he’d been cleared of any blame for Zanna’s pregnancy, yet he felt no joy in it. Before she’d left the crowded room, Zanna had tearfully confessed to her sin of the flesh, but that didn’t fill the emptiness that yawned inside him.

“Do you understand the serious nature of this discipline?” the bishop continued. “Do you realize, Suzanna, that we all pray you’ll return to the fold, submitting fully to God’s will and ready for right living again?”

She sniffled loudly. “Jah, this is the punishment I deserve,” she
murmured. “I was wrong to defile the love James Graber has always shown me.”

James squeezed his eyes shut, stabbed by a pain like none he’d ever endured. He’d known Zanna had a willful streak—a tendency to work things around to her own way—but never, never had he anticipated her unfaithfulness. Since he had no carriage orders lined up for the next couple of weeks, it might be best to visit kin, as he’d planned. He wouldn’t collect any wedding presents, of course, but time away from this humiliation would do his heart good.

His dat leaned into him, talking louder than was polite because his hearing was almost gone. “Ain’t that the Lambright girl, son? The one you just married?” he asked in a thin voice that carried above the crowd. “Why’s she confessin’ to havin’ a baby? Ain’t that the natural way of things?”