Between Two Promises (21 page)

Despite the early hour, the younger kinner had already opened their Christmas presents. An armful of boxes scattered about the sitting room floor and decorative fabrics used to wrap them were draped over the furniture. The kinner had probably opened the gifts before sunup, by the glow of lanterns, the way they’d used to when he was a boy.

Rosy cheeked, Leah sat in the sitting room in her wheelchair, attempting to play with a faceless Amish doll on her lap. He was happy to see her home from the hospital. She appeared much healthier. He waved to her when she smiled and struggled to raise her head. Amazing how her smile muscles seemed to be the only part of her body unaffected by the MLD.

He set the bags in the corner by the wall pegs and was about to head for the kitchen when the chaos of the church rush pushed him backward. Heidi and Mark raced up and down the stairs at least three times before they even noticed him. Heidi gave him an unexpected and quick hug and wished him Merry Christmas. Moriah near ran straight into him where he stood in the hallway.

“My flu is mostly gone,” she said. “I’m much better.”

“That’s goot,” Daniel said.

“Look at the dress Elisabeth made me for Christmas.” Moriah dangled the dress before his eyes. “Isn’t it pretty? I’m going to wear it to the gmay today.”

“It’s very nice.” Daniel smiled. “You’ll look pretty in it, for sure.”

“We’re not supposed to look pretty in things,” Moriah said, cocking her head, her brow braided. “But I like the color. Lavender is my favorite.” She hurried upstairs, the dress flailing behind her in a blur of fabric.

“Where’s Aiden?” Grace asked, coming off the last step as she sidestepped her younger sister. She was in the process of securing her bonnet over her kapp.

“He had to go back to Montana.”

“He left?” Rachel looked at him from her rocking chair, where she had been nursing Gretchen all along. Daniel hadn’t noticed her in the sitting room from where he stood. She must’ve moved the rocker from its usual position to be closer to the window to catch the morning light while she nursed.

“Ya, he left last night,” Daniel said.

Rachel raised her eyebrows. “But how?” She glanced out the window. “Your truck’s still in the shop, nay?”

“Kevin Hassler drove him to the airport.”

Grace’s arms dropped to her sides. “I wanted him to come to church with us.”

“He’s gone,” was all Daniel could utter. The icy words had fallen from his chapped lips like hailstones. He spoke the truth. Aiden was gone, and they would not be sharing that first Christmas together, the way they had planned. But there would be more Christmases. Wouldn’t there?

Watching his family, allowing them to sink into his eyes, he wondered if he would ever be as much a part of their lives as he’d once been. Would this be one of the last times he might ever see them? How unbearable would that be?

“Frehlicher Grishtdaag,” Elisabeth said to him. She stood under the kitchen archway clasping a dish towel, dressed and ready for services in her violet dress and white cape and bonnet.

“Merry Christmas,” Daniel replied, trying to grin himself out of his melancholy.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked. “I already washed the pot, but I can brew some more.”

“There’s no time,” Samuel said, stepping into the hallway from his and Rachel’s bedroom as he fastened the top two hook-and-eyes on his stiff white shirt. “Best we get going, especially with the streets full of snow.” He called upstairs. “Kinner, let’s go. Gertrude is waiting, and we don’t want to be late for Christmas service.”

Grabbing for his black down jacket from the wall peg by the front door, Samuel glanced at the corner of the floor. “I can see you brought your bags from the inn. Are you leaving?”

“I’m still waiting for the truck to be repaired,” Daniel said. “I figure I’d stay here until then, since Aunt Frieda and your brothers are gone. I can share David’s room. It’ll be only a few days.”

Samuel stroked his grizzled beard. “You’re going back to Montana?”

Hesitating, Daniel nodded.

Without responding, Samuel pulled on his winter jacket, dropped on his black felt hat, and slipped out of the door.

Gertrude led them along the snowy backcountry lanes to the Stahley farm, where services were to be held. Mark, who was driving, pulled her more toward the center of the lanes since the English snowplows had left cumbersome berms along the shoulder. The English did their best to keep the shoulders clear for the local buggies, but sometimes their efforts fell short.

Crammed in the backseat, Elisabeth, holding the snoozing Leah on her lap (her junior-sized wheelchair was strapped to the back), whispered to Daniel, but not low enough to appear they were sharing a secret. “Too bad Aiden couldn’t spend the holiday with us. I wonder why he left in such a haste without saying goodbye.”

Daniel chewed his bottom lip, realizing how harsh he must’ve been with Aiden if he’d rushed off without saying goodbye to the family. He knew how much Aiden had regretted not saying goodbye to them the last time he’d left unexpectedly. That time Daniel’s father had been the one who’d banished him. Had Daniel, in some way, done the same?

Aiden’s leaving was for the best, he told himself again as the guilt pressurized inside him. The best. For him. For everyone. Good everything had come to a head last night. Their quarrel had pushed Aiden back to where he belonged. To Montana.

“He’s sorry for not saying goodbye,” Daniel said, swallowing his pesky remorse. “He wanted to, but he was in a rush to make his flight.” Aroma from his mother’s homemade cinnamon rolls and donuts she’d brought along for the noon feast filled the buggy, yet instead of comforting Daniel the way it usually would, the delicious smell exaggerated his sullen mood.

“I hope nothing’s wrong.” Grace, seated in the backseat closest to them, spoke in a low voice. “He’s not still sick, is he?”

“Nay, nay.” Daniel shook his head, his eyes focused on his hands clasped over his scrunched knees. “He had business to take care of, some article or something he had to get written.” He hated lying to his family, especially his sisters, but what else could he say?

“None of that whispering,” Rachel said, turning her head around briefly to glare at her kinner with Gretchen squirming in her arms. “Especially on a Church Sunday when we’re to celebrate da Hah’s birth.”

They heeded their mother’s words the remainder of the way to the Stahleys’. At church, Daniel continued to keep his mouth shut. He sat on the men’s side with his brothers and father. Droning hymns from the gmay flowed around him. He sang along but mostly mouthed the somber lyrics. Everyone was waiting for the ministers to descend from the upstairs, where they were discussing essential community affairs.

Daniel wondered if the ministers were, at that precise moment, deliberating about him. Today they’d likely want to speak to him about whether he should be shunned. They would corner him during the noon feast or wait until after the services. Christmas would not deter them. They would keep their words untangled, Daniel figured. Daniel too must speak frankly. He had to commit to a definitive answer. No dillydallying like the last time when they’d harangued him in the barn.

Pinpricks covered his body as he thought about the shunning. There would be no more contact with his family—at least not openly. No more interacting with friends and neighbors. His association with Uncle Eldridge, who supplied him with a steady stream of woodwork orders through the website his English friend administered, must be severed.

He knew of only two others in the community who had been shunned. One was a woman who, ten years ago, had moved in with her Englisher lover soon after she had been baptized. Daniel assumed after three years, neither could take the ostracizing, and they’d fled in the night. The community hadn’t heard from either since.

The other was a young woman who had run off to attend college in Virginia two years after being baptized. Six months later, like a dog with its tail between its legs, she had scampered home, asking to be allowed back into the community’s fold. After repentance, the ministers forgave her, and they lifted the shunning. He spotted her now from where he sat, her two-year-old twin boys bouncing on her lap, seemingly content and glad to be in everyone’s good graces once again.

The black shoes of the ministers appeared on the staircase. Nudging unpleasant notions aside, he gripped his knees. Once the ministers moved to the makeshift pulpit, the singing came to a gradual stop. Most Church Sundays, Daniel sought to glean something from the ministers’ words. Now he only scorned them. He believed in God’s grace and strength, but he suddenly wondered who these men were to interpret Scripture. Did they know any more than he? They had been elected by the community, but what did the community know? They were all yet ignorant of Reverend Yoder’s crime.

The more he considered it, the more Aiden’s accusation seemed probable. Reverend Yoder had murdered his son, Kyle, and he’d gone on with his life as if he’d done nothing less offensive than use modern machinery on his farm.

He held back a grimace, wondering how he and that young mother of twins should face the harshness of the shunning when Reverend Yoder had done far worse. A murderer had been preaching to the community each Church Sunday for the past almost ten years, and no one seemed the wiser.

When Reverend Yoder stepped up to the lectern, he kept his icy blues on his Bible. Daniel understood why he avoided looking at anyone with those eyes. He had much to hide. Like any criminal. Disgusted, Daniel could barely look at him either.

He shifted his gaze to Tara, sitting on the women’s side of the room. Pink and proper-looking, she seemed pleased to be leaving soon after Christmas to meet her boyfriend in Maryland. He was happy she had found someone new.

He had near abandoned Tara kneeling before the bishop on their wedding day, and now she was moving on with her life, with someone she apparently cared for. Daniel, on the other hand, wondered if happiness would sidestep him. He recalled the bitterness in Aiden’s voice before he had left last night.

Had he done the right thing, letting Aiden leave?

He was surprised during the noon feast that the ministers kept their distance. Bishop Hershberger glanced at him from across the large oak table where he nibbled off his plate, but no words were exchanged. When the family was crammed back in the buggy heading for home, Daniel could hardly believe that he had not even swapped one single word with any of the ministers.

Perhaps they had determined it best to leave him be for Christmas. Or perhaps no shunning would be issued at all. They might avoid him entirely during his stay in Illinois, and he could return to Montana and still keep his connection with his family and everything in Henry. But Daniel realized that was unlikely.

The ministers were probably plotting a surprise attack, waiting for when he was alone and vulnerable and his guard was down, like how cougars pounce on unsuspecting prey.

Chapter Seventeen

“
Y
OU
seemed distracted at church,” Samuel said to Daniel at the kitchen table, where Elisabeth had served them stovetop-brewed coffee and warmed-up apple pie. The others were busy going about necessary chores or their personal needs. Daniel had begun to relish the quiet, on the verge of attacking his second slice of pie, when his father had sat at the table across from him.

“I’m a bit tired, been a long week.” Daniel sipped his coffee, finding the hot liquid soothing and revitalizing. Never much of a coffee drinker, today he needed a boost wherever he could find one. His spirits dragged like a shaft after a horse had broken loose from its buggy. He only hoped his father’s interrogation of him would be short.

“Do you plan on leaving for Montana as soon as you get your truck?” Samuel asked.

“I haven’t decided.” Daniel figured maybe he’d stay a bit longer, since Aiden had already settled back in Montana. He had the luxury to remain, especially if the ministers stayed clear of him. But he held back from expressing this thought to his father. He did not want to award him with a false sense of victory.

“Why did Aiden leave so suddenly?” Samuel’s tone emanated a lightness, a lilt of delight that Aiden and Daniel were not heading back to Montana together.

Daniel shrugged. He took a bite of his pie and washed it down with a sip of coffee. The steam from his mug washed over his face. “He had a sudden change of plans,” he said. “I already mentioned it.”

“You did say he lives near you in Montana, ya?”

“Ya,” Daniel said, his head heavy. “He lives near me.”

“How close?”

Daniel lifted his eyes and ogled his father. Suddenly, he felt like a cocked hunting rifle. “You’d be surprised how close.”

With a grunt, Samuel pushed his empty plate to the center of the table and stood. Wordlessly, he strode into the hallway. A moment later, the front door shut. Suspecting he’d gone out to do chores, Daniel grabbed for his coat, hat, and gloves and followed him outside through the utility room.

Elisabeth called to him. “What about your slice of pie? You haven’t finished.”