The Tempted Soul (9 page)

“I’m not saying that at all.” Carrie felt as though Amelia had put a hand on her chest and given her a good, hard push backward.

“Maybe not, but it’s what Bishop Daniel will say.”

“My problems are not Bishop Daniel’s business.” Carrie was beginning to think she shouldn’t have made them Amelia’s business, either. “He doesn’t need to know what goes on between Melvin and me.”

“I’m sure he already does,” Emma said to no one in particular.

“What I mean is, I don’t tell the bishop when I go to see the doctor. Why would this be any different?”

Amelia gave her a long look. “Because it is different, and you know it. Before you eavesdropped on those women, you had never heard of IVF…and now you’re ready to go to the doctor and have it done, just like that?”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping. You could hear them all over the store.”

Amelia let this go. “I’m just saying,
Liewi
, that you should think about it carefully—and pray about it, too.”

“Do you think I haven’t been?” Did she have any idea about the hours and hours she had spent on her knees, asking God for just one single moment of mercy—one tiny moment of conception?

“Of course you have.” Emma’s tone was soothing, and Carrie felt her hackles smoothing down in spite of herself. “But here is another thing to think of—something I had to think of when Grant got hurt this summer.” She paused, loaded her needle again. “Money. It’s one thing to go to the doctor and have the
Gmee
pay for it. We all do this and it’s not a problem. But how much will this new procedure cost?”

Carrie bent her head over the quilt. She hadn’t taken a single stitch yet. “A lot, I think.”

“Even if you see a doctor about it in private, when it comes to paying for it, Bishop Daniel will have to know. He and the elders will have to approve.” Amelia inclined her head so that Carrie was forced to look up to meet her eyes. “And if they would not approve a radical treatment when I thought I had MS, do you really think they would approve of a test-tube baby?”

Did she have to put it like that—so bluntly, so unkindly? Carrie’s eyes filled with tears.

And Amelia saw it. “Oh
Schatzi
, I’m sorry. Carrie, please don’t cry—you know I would never hurt you for the world.”

“Well, you have,” she blurted, and then wished she could grab the words and stuff them back where they’d come from. Amelia looked stricken, tears welling into her own eyes.

“My dear ones, don’t do this to one another,” Emma cried softly. “The whole subject is as spiny as a chestnut husk. Please, let’s not say things to hurt when we come to each other for help.”

Amelia pulled Carrie into a hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up like I did, and suffer so much when they’re disappointed.”

“I’m no stranger to that,” Carrie managed. But she couldn’t say she was sorry in return. She hadn’t done anything but speak the truth.

And God would not put this spirit of hope in her heart if He didn’t mean to bring something good to her.

Would He?

A
melia may not have meant to rain on Carrie’s parade, but the cold drops still stung. Maybe that was why she’d got caught up on her quilting stitches so quickly afterward…she really didn’t have much to say, which left her to stitch and Amelia and Emma to natter about Emma’s wedding preparations. With only a couple of weeks left to go, the buzz of activity at the Stolzfus place was building like that of a hive of bees.

Carrie waved good-bye as the buggy rolled down the lane. As she turned, she scanned the lawn. Not a single hen pecked and scratched in the yard. A drop of rain hit her on the forehead. Aha. The hens could tell a raincloud from a hole in the ground. They had put themselves to bed early.

She put on her lumber jacket and went into the henhouse, where she found most of them already roosted up. As she filled the feed cans and topped up the waterers, she rehearsed with the hens what she would say to Melvin tonight after dinner.

Maybe it was just as well that Amelia had had her say. At least now Carrie was prepared if her husband didn’t see things as she did.

When she sat, Dinah walked along the roost and settled onto her shoulder. Carrie spent a few quiet moments enjoying her companionship…well, her body was quiet. Her mind was a jumble of arguments to marshal into order, of gabbled prayer, and snippets of conversation that might happen or might not.

This was no way to prepare herself. She should have brought home one of the books from the library. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Then she could have everything laid out sensibly, with all the information at her fingertips. As it was, she’d probably get things confused, or just like this afternoon, be unable to come up with an answer to what would probably be the same objections.

Gently, she set Dinah back in her place. Talk or no talk, Melvin still expected his dinner when he came in from work. That at least she could do. Then, when they were both full, but before he sat down with the paper, she would broach the subject.

So, when Melvin sat back in his chair with a sigh of satisfaction, Carrie was ready with a pan of apple crumble—his favorite dessert. She even had heavy cream to pour on top of it—a luxury she had cajoled out of Moses Yoder’s wife the day before.

“I wonder what the rich folks are eating tonight?” Melvin said around the first big spoonful. “It can’t be anything better than this meal.”

“You always say that, even when it’s only scrambled eggs.” She ran her fingers up his arm and squeezed affectionately.

“I always say it because I always wonder. If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, you’ve certainly captured mine,
Liebschdi
.”

“Is that all that captured it?” she teased. His bowl was empty already, so she dished him another.

“I think you know. At this moment, I am a happy man.” He waved his spoon to encompass the kitchen, the house, and the world outside. “I have everything I need.”

Here was her opportunity, dropped into her lap like a present. God must really be in this. There was no other explanation.

“What about the things we want?” she asked softly.

He knew what she meant, of course he did. It was a subject that had come up so often there was no need to explain any further.

“What we want is in God’s hands,” he said gently. “I hope we are both willing for that.”

“But what if God is encouraging us to find another way?” she asked softly. “I’ve been seeing signs lately that maybe He might be.”

“What signs?”

She told him about the conversation in the fabric store, about the library books, about the possibilities that lay out there for them if only they would reach out and try. “At my last appointment, back in August, the doctor said there was no reason I couldn’t conceive and carry a child. So Melvin, maybe, just maybe, we might visit the doctor and see if she says the same thing about you?”

Through her whole speech he had watched her gravely, not interrupting. That was one of the things she loved about him. She’d heard many a man interrupt to correct or contradict or simply cut off a woman in mid speech. Melvin never did that. He always listened, and when he was ready to speak, he did so.

Now his eyes looked shadowed. “I should go to the doctor?”

“In my reading in the library, I learned that one of the things that can prevent conception is if the man’s sperm aren’t strong enough to swim all the way to the egg. In that case, there’s something called IVF—in vitro fertile”—her tongue stumbled on the unfamiliar word—“fertilization. In the hospital they bring the sperm to the egg outside the body, and then put it back inside the womb to grow.”

“That is impossible.”

“
Nei
, truly,” she said eagerly. “I can borrow the book that shows you the pictures of how it’s—”

“I don’t care what a book says. Carrie, how can you consider such an unnatural thing?”

Again she felt that sensation of being pushed away by a hand laid right over her heart. Carrie took a deep, steadying breath. “It’s not really unnatural. These would be my eggs, your sperm, my body in which to grow. The procedure only shortens the distance between the first and the second, so that the third can happen.”

“The only thing I see happening here is that you believe the fault lies with me.”

“Melvin,
nei
, that’s not so. That’s why we should go to the doctor, to find out for sure.”

“And then what? Walk into the lab and—and have relations with each other on a hospital bed?”

The heat of embarrassment scalded her cheeks, as no doubt he had intended. “Of course not. The egg is removed from me in surgery, and you provide sperm in a private room. They—” Oh, how could she say this? “They provide worldly men with magazines to make it easier, but you would not do that, of course.”

“I will not do any of it!” He pushed the chair back, and before she knew it, she had jumped to her feet, too. “This is crazy. Unnatural. If I had known you were gadding about today, filling your head with this worldly nonsense, I would have locked you in!”

She reared back. “The door locks from the inside.”

“You know what I mean. I forbid you to speak of this to me anymore.”

“Melvin—”

“And I forbid you to go back to the library and read any more about this. It is obscene. Shameful.”

“It’s just a procedure.”

“It’s your own will, Carrie, going up against the will of God. And you know who will win that battle.”

“I know who is winning this one, if loudness counts for anything.”

He took a deep breath, and she could see him wrestle his temper under control. “I do not want to fight.” The words almost sounded choked by that very control.

“I don’t, either. But Melvin…” Her eyes were already swimming with tears, and one spilled over to track down her cheek. “You know what this means to me. To us. Will you not even talk with the doctor about it? Words will not harm anything.”

“Words have done enough harm tonight. You have put images in my head that will take serious prayer to get rid of.”

Why did he insist in making this about his service to God? “Millions of babies have been born this way, my dearest. It’s not the unnatural thing you think it is.”

He gazed at her for a long moment. “In all our years together, I have never once been afraid for your soul. Until now.”

“My soul? Melvin, if we could have a child, no matter how, my soul would rejoice and flourish.” As opposed to now, when her soul sometimes seemed as gray and wan as the cloudy skies of October.

“The wicked flourish like the green bay tree.”

The tear had dried on her cheek, leaving a narrow track that felt stiff as her eyes widened. “Are you calling me wicked?”

“I’m just telling the truth. If you feel convicted by it, that should tell you something.”

“I am not wicked. I just want a baby, like every other married woman in Whinburg. Why is that so impossible? And why is trying something new so sinful?”

“If you cannot or will not see why, then there is no use my talking about it anymore.” He pushed his bowl away, the second helping only half gone. She had never seen him leave food uneaten, ever.

“But we must talk about it.” Despair choked off the words.

“Not now. Not later.” He paused in the kitchen doorway. “Put this out of your head, Carrie, and come and pray with me about it.”

But she could not. If she knelt beside him, she would only pray for this thing she wanted so badly. He would pray that it would be cleansed from her soul, and all God would hear would be two conflicting appeals. What good would that do?

“I have to clean up the kitchen.”

“After, then.”

But he got no reply, only the clashing of pots and cutlery as she ran water into the sink as hard and hot as it would go.

Carrie could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she and Melvin had quarreled. The few times they had fought were over silly things—the way he drove on the county highway (far faster than necessary, in her opinion), or the time she’d miscalculated while cutting his hair and neither of them had noticed until they were on their way to church. Little spats over little things were easily made up, and the words her father had said to her on the morning of her wedding had remained like the pretty lace tablecloth in her hope chest, there for when it might be needed, but until now, unused.

Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Do not go to bed angry with one another, or you will wake in the morning with cold ash.

She cleaned the kitchen within an inch of its life until finally Melvin decided he couldn’t outwait her, and went upstairs first. She had broached the sore subject and offended him; it was her place to tell him she was sorry and ask forgiveness.

But it was the same as with Amelia this afternoon—she had not really done anything wrong, so how could she apologize? Wanting something good and right and offering a plan to achieve it wasn’t wicked.

But the fact remained that he was offended—or at least, gravely disappointed in her. They had almost never allowed each other to go to sleep angry, and if they did, all was forgiven with a kiss in the morning. But tonight…

Carrie hung up the washcloth when there was nothing left to clean, and took the lamp upstairs with her.

Melvin was already in bed, lying on his side facing the window. Away from her.

All right. She had expected that. She took off her apron and dress and hung them up, then slipped into her warm flannel nightgown—the one with the tiny eyelet frill around the yoke. The
Ordnung
in many districts stipulated that plain dressing extended even to nightwear, but she had always been glad that Bishop Daniel, while he was vocal about externals like house colors and the number of reflectors on buggies, kept diffidently quiet about things that were extremely private. Maybe Mary Lapp went to bed in a silk nightie with satin ribbons. No one would ever know, and Bishop Daniel wasn’t about to tell—or go looking in other people’s houses to make sure the standards were kept.

Carrie shook her wandering thoughts into order, and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, in the crook of Melvin’s body where his knees bent.

“
Liebschdi
,” she said softly. “Please don’t be angry with me. I can’t bear it.”

Silence, except for his breathing. He was not asleep; she knew the cadence of his every breath, and these were not the long, relaxed breaths of sleep.

“Melvin? We have not prayed together.”

“I have said my prayers.”

She bit her lip as a spurt of pain arrowed through her. “You did not wait for me? We always pray together when you’re home.”

“I prayed for you.”

“I like it better when you pray
with
me.”

For answer, he moved away from her, closer to the middle of the bed.

Fine. He was determined to be angry. Very well, then, she would say her prayers on her own side, and they would make it up in the morning. Silently, she got up, but when she settled onto her knees on her side, the floor seemed so hard she could hardly concentrate.

Dear Lord, thank You for opening up another way to me and for giving me the eyes to see it. Please help Melvin see it, too, so that we can stand together in this matter. It’s clear we must do it together. Help him to see this is the only way if we hope ever to be parents. Help him see this is Your will, no matter what he thinks or the bishop thinks.

And Lord, I pray he would forgive me for upsetting him and see beyond it to what You want for both of us—to be a family and have little souls to care for and bring up in Your love.

Amen.

Carrie woke to the sound of rain hard on the roof, and snuggled deeper under the quilts. On mornings like this the woodstove downstairs was nothing short of a blessing. It would be a good day to cook down the last of the apples and get them into the canner. The house would smell wonderful when Melvin got home from work.

Poor man, having to hitch up and go into town on a day like today. She reached over to his side of the bed.

And found it empty.

Shoving the covers off her face, she gaped at the tousled sheets, then looked wildly around the room. He never left their bed without a kiss. Never.

She tossed on her dressing gown and knotted it as she padded barefoot down the stairs. “Melvin?”

“In here.” He stood at the counter, pouring a cup of coffee. The clock over the door said 5:45 a.m.

“You’re up early. Is there a big project at work?”

“No. I just couldn’t sleep.”

Her rest hadn’t been the best, either. She slipped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his back, the clean cotton of his green shirt crisp under her cheek. “It was my fault.” Her poor attitude of last night seemed foolish in the light of those cold sheets. “Forgive me.”

And to her enormous relief, he turned and wrapped her in a hug. “I already have,
Liebschdi
. I had to, last night, before I could pray.”

You might have told me so, and I would have known the sun hadn’t set on your anger
. But she kept the words back—words that might upset this moment of hard-won peace.