An Amish Family Christmas (10 page)

Nine

A
day later Luke marched into the house ahead of his sister and headed up the staircase to his room, still wearing his coat and boots. Rebecca looked from him to Naomi, who was unwinding her black scarf.

“What did the doctors say?” asked Rebecca.

Naomi shrugged, her face tight. “They’re happy with Luke’s progress. To a point. They felt the BZD regimen should have loosened his tongue by now. So they’re talking about stronger medication that can have severe side effects. Or shock treatment. I said no to both. And so they tell me I have doomed my brother to a lifetime of silence.”

“Did they speak with Luke himself?”

“
Ja
. As well as they could.”

“Did he respond at all?”

“
Ja
, sure. When they talked about stronger pills he got up and left the room.”

“Ah. So then you’re doing what he wants.”

“And what I want. But not what the doctors want.”

“How bad can the side effects be?”

Naomi’s face grew more rigid. “Bad.”

“Then you’ve done the right thing. We have prayer. And love. And faith. Let’s see how far those will take us.”

“I hope they’ll take us a lot further than we are right now.”

Naomi spotted Micah in the parlor doorway, winter jacket buttoned to his neck, flecks of hay on the arms and collar, coffee in his hand, listening to her. Their eyes met and remained on one another. A warmth suddenly spread through her entire body from
head to foot. He drained his cup and came and put it by the sink. Stepping past her, he opened the door and headed outside. A final look from him caused a flush to sprout from her neck up over her face.

Rebecca smiled. “Even in silence our men can tell us things.”

Naomi put a hand to her cheek, embarrassed by the heat she could feel there. “So it would seem.”

“There may be a
bann
against you two eating together or speaking together, but no
Ordnung
can ban my brother from being your husband or from loving you. I see by the way he looks at you that he’s proud of you—of how you’re standing by Luke, of the strength God has given you, and of the grace in your heart.
Ja
, he’s proud of you in a good way.” She returned to her pan of cinnamon buns, using a butter knife to spread frosting over their tops. “Proud. And in love. More in love than most husbands in our community.”

Naomi’s face flamed a deeper red and cut at her skin with a stronger heat.

“When did you say the bishop and ministers are dropping by to pray with Luke?” Rebecca asked to change the subject.

“Oh.” She continued to stand in the doorway. “It will be after lunch.” She crossed the floor and sat at the kitchen table, still wearing her coat. “It’s not just to see Luke. They will talk to me about the cards and letters. Perhaps they’ll even wish to see Micah, to ask if he’s had a change of heart. Of course I could ask the same of them.”

“Please don’t. I can’t have you under a
bann
too. It would be quite impossible if I were the only one who could speak in a house of four people. It would feel like a tomb.” She gave Naomi a cinnamon roll that was so warm the frosting had begun to melt down its sides. “Here. Perhaps this will sweeten your tongue so that you’ll only smile and nod when the bishop arrives.”

Naomi picked away a strip of the roll and nibbled on it. “How many miracles is it you want God to perform for us?”

“Why? Does his well ever run dry of grace?” She put a cinnamon roll on a plate and handed it to her. “Take this to your husband.”

“My husband? All right.”

Rebecca smiled. “It’s not an emergency, so no talking.”

“
Ja, ja. Nicht redden.
”

Micah wasn’t in the barn. She took the well-beaten path through the snow to the fenced pasture, where she soon spotted him pitching hay to the beef cattle, throwing it over the wooden rails. For a moment she stopped just to enjoy the smooth rhythm of his movements and his easy strength. Then she approached with the plate as if she were holding a whole cake in her hands. He didn’t notice her. She set it down in the snow a few feet from him, but he still didn’t turn to look.

So what is it acceptable to do about cinnamon rolls in danger of freezing when your husband is under the
bann
?

“Hey!” she shouted at one of the steers that was being pushy. “
Kastrierten Bullen Geist! Wohnin du gehst!
”

Micah snapped his head around. She coughed. He saw the plate with the cinnamon roll on it. She glanced up at the sun, which was making its way through a great white heap of cumulus clouds, turned without making eye contact, and began walking back to the farmhouse.

“Hey!”

She stopped and looked back.

“
Nicht, die gut schmecken
?”

He wasn’t talking to her, but to the steers as they ate the hay and he ate the roll.

Doesn’t that taste good?

She smiled and carried on to the house.

When she closed the door behind her, Rebecca asked, “So did you find him?”

“
Ja.
”

“And you gave him the cinnamon bun?”

“
Ja.
”

“Without speaking to him?”

“I didn’t speak to him.”

“Truly?”

Naomi hung her coat on a peg. “I spoke to the steers.”

Rebecca put her hands on her hips. “
Vas
? What are you talking about?”

Naomi smiled and shrugged. “Let’s make some lunch and then prepare for the meeting with the leadership.”

Bishop Fischer and the ministers came in from the bright December sunshine and blazing snow with smiles and a spattering of laughter, immediately asking to see Luke. He was waiting for them, seated at the kitchen table, rising to his feet as they removed their coats and hats and entered the house. They took his hand, and he returned their handshakes weakly but, Naomi noticed, with a trace of warmth in his eyes. The bishop and Minister Yoder hugged him, all the while praising God in German, and Luke raised his arms high enough to put them around their lower backs.

“Wonderful. Thank God.” The bishop gripped both of Luke’s hands. “Let us pray with you.”

The ministers gathered in a circle and bowed their heads as Bishop Fischer began. When he was finished, the others prayed, one after the other, Minister Yoder bringing it to a conclusion with one large hand resting on Luke’s shoulder. Then they sat at the table and helped themselves to the coffee and cinnamon rolls laid out before them.

“We trust you’ll have your voice back soon too, eh?” Bishop Fischer smiled at Luke as he brought his coffee to his lips. “Always you sang well. I could always make you out no matter how many were singing at the same time.”

Luke sat and listened to him, not drinking his coffee.

The bishop leaned back and caught Naomi’s eye. “The ministers have read your letters.”

Naomi nodded.

“I would have brought them back to you, but you said I should let any of our people read them who felt an inclination to do so.”

She nodded again.

“So that will take several days as they circulate among the families.” He ran his fingers through his beard. “There will be no one who doesn’t thank God for the lives saved, no one.”

“But that is not the point of the
bann
.” Minister Yoder folded his hands and rested them on the table near his half-eaten roll. “It’s the breaking of the
Ordnung
that has brought about the problem between your husband and the church. Not saving lives. For how could we censure someone for protecting the sanctity of human life?”

Naomi kept her eyes down, looking at white drops of spilled cream and sprinkles of white sugar scattered over the table’s wooden surface. “If he hadn’t gone to Afghanistan, he couldn’t have saved the men and women whose mothers and wives write to me.”

“God would have ordained others to do the work. He would have brought someone who is not Amish. Someone not called to be an Amish witness in the world,” rumbled Minister Yoder.

“Except God called him to the war zone.”

“He says.”

Naomi lifted her eyes. “So you don’t think God could give you or anyone here a command that would go beyond the rules of our church?”

“No.”

“The man-made rules?”

Minister Yoder shook his head. “No.”

“So the Pharisees and religious rulers also thought.”

Rebecca looked at her friend in surprise and alarm, eyes widening, and quickly spoke up before Minister Yoder could reply. “My brother gave us his reasons for his conduct.”

Minister Yoder was scowling at Naomi, lines deepening around his eyes. He didn’t look at Rebecca. “We have heard the reasons.”

“Suppose—”

Yoder cut Rebecca off. “Suppose, suppose.
Ja
, that’s how your brother talks. Suppose, suppose. We are not in a fairy tale, I thank God.”

“But if there was a gang fight outside our doors and men lay wounded in the ditch—”

He snorted. “You and Micah and your drug gangs. They are in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Not here. They will never come here.”

A hint of steel came into Rebecca’s voice. “Jesus told his parables. I will tell mine.”

Yoder grunted but said nothing.

“The wounded men are bleeding at the side of the road—”

“Yes, yes,” the bishop interrupted. “It is as Minister Yoder says. We have been through all this before. We would call nine-one-one from the phone in the hut. We would try to stop the bleeding. We would do all we could to save them.”

“But that’s what my brother did.”

“Your brother traveled to a combat zone. That’s a far different matter. We merely take care of our neighbors.”

“Christ taught that all men are our neighbors.”

The bishop waved his hand. “It’s always apples and oranges. By helping the military wounded, Micah supported the war effort. By helping the wounded in your parable, we support nothing except the right of those made in God’s image to live and discover his grace.”

“The soldiers can also be healed and live and find his grace.”

“It supports the war effort. We cannot support a war directly or indirectly.”

Naomi spoke up, hands folded on the table like Minister Yoder’s. “If you help the wounded of the drug gang, you help the sale of illegal drugs. How wicked is that?”

“
Vas
?” rumbled Minister Yoder.

“If you help a wounded man who is an atheist, you help unbelief grow. If you help a woman who is in favor of abortions, you help the practice of abortions to continue unabated. If you help a teenager who is a thief, you support robbery. Isn’t that what you are saying when you accuse Micah of spreading war by saving soldiers’ lives?”

Into the silence came the tapping of Bishop Fischer’s fingers.

Naomi spoke again. “We might as well not try to save anyone’s life except those who are Amish in good standing and not under any
bann
.”

The bishop raised his hand. “
Genug.
Enough.” He pushed back his chair. “I cannot say what our people will do about the letters. We shall meet again in a week and let you know. Yet the decision rests on us, the leadership God Almighty has put in place, when it comes to matters of the
Ordnung
.
Ja
, and especially on my head. I will have the final say. So it is with our people. The responsibility is great. May not my soul hang in the balance? What if I should lead hundreds astray? Thousands? It is a weighty thing. You have your clever arguments. I have four hundred years of God’s command to our people—the Amish shall not kill.” He got to his feet. “Or aid those who kill.”

The ministers rose. So did the two women. Luke remained in his seat.