Keeping Secrets (33 page)

Just how close could a person actually get to God? Was it possible to have a personal connection? It was a bit scary. Completely unnerving, really.

“We gotta pray us through this,” Tom said. “Prayer is what my Man wants from us, y’ know? He got the power. We don’t, even though sometimes we think we do, y’ know?”

That lilting “y’ know?” served to include you fully into his outlook in a way that was not forceful or intimidating. Certainly, this man was not
fer-fearish
, the Pennsylvania Dutch term for being misled. The Amish were always alert for anyone with beliefs strange to them. They exhorted on this subject quite regularly.

Somehow, Tom was not to be feared, Sadie could tell. He just lived his faith in complete fullness. Nothing stood in his way. The way people dressed, their skin color, their way of life, their beliefs, their doctrine, it was all the same to him. He was amazed at the Amish way and glad of it.

“We all people. We all lose sight of the Glory. We sin, slip away. We come back when the Man chastens. He’s the God of Glory, y’ know?”

Is that how God worked? That would settle a lot of things, Sadie thought.

Tom nodded toward Mark. “Tell me about you and your mother.”

So Mark told him his story. His voice was gruff, his eyes hooded sometimes, his manner brusque. But he spoke simply, leaving nothing out.

While they talked, Sadie refilled their coffee cups. She glanced at the clock, then set about grilling sandwiches and heating the chicken corn soup.

All the dishes and utensils in the kitchen were of the highest quality, bought in stores Sadie was sure she never heard of. She loved the feel of the heavy silverware, the weight of the pots and pans, and the china that was so smooth when she ran her hands across it.

“Noritake,” it said on the back. Never heard of it, she thought.

Tom’s hand was on Mark’s now as tears dropped on the leg of his trousers. His head was bent so far, his dark bangs hiding his eyes safely from Tom’s gaze.

Tom was praying, his lips moving to the words. Mark looked up and wiped his face.

With tears now in his eyes, Tom said, “We’ll pray us through this, my man. You my man, Mark. You my man.”

What absolute beauty in those words. Tom spoke as if every prayer went directly to God, who was so glad to have his power acknowledged that he, in turn, made all things possible. What a new and unbelievable thought.

No, unbelievable was not the right word. It was believable. It was just different. Tom had a large, hopeful perspective on God’s promises.

After inhaling his lunch, Tom left with a promise to return the following day.

The Hospice nurse also left, but not before giving Mark and Sadie clear instructions. She was professional and precise, giving only the necessary information. She was friendly but firm. Hospice would send over a hospital bed. The morphine would have to be administered in regular doses with no let-up. Once the pain threshold got out of control, there was no bringing it back down easily. They were to give her any food she could keep down, but no caffeine.

The nurse said she’d return each day on a regular basis, and with that she was gone.

Tom and the Hospice nurses from Lutheran Home Care became a grounding regularity, especially as Meely’s condition deteriorated.

There were also phone calls now. Long, emotional calls from Sadie’s Mam and sisters begging her to come home. Reuben told her that Paris wasn’t eating her oats. He said it jubilantly, as if that fact alone would bring Sadie flying back as fast as Amtrak could carry her. He also informed her that Anna could finally ride now that she was as thin as a rail. Sadie stiffened with fear and insisted he put Anna on the line right now and get out of the phone shanty while they talked.

He turned the phone over to Anna, but not before he told Sadie about the latest horse shooting. They shot a palomino, but it survived. The police traced the caliber of the rifle. Many detectives were now on the case, according to the local paper.

“It’s Paris they’re after,” Reuben concluded sagely.

Anna said she was not as thin as a rail. No, she was not throwing up. Neither was she forcing herself to purge the food she ate. Yes, she was eating healthily.

The rasping note in her voice set off an alarm in Sadie’s mind, but she said nothing. She would deal with troubles back home when she returned. She had more than enough concerns here with Mark and Meely.

Mam was wonderfully supportive and sympathetic. She even cried tears of joy when Sadie told her about Tom. Mam told Sadie that, as she went through life, she would meet people from all walks of faith. Her view of God would widen and deepen. But no matter where her life led her, Mam told her to never lose sight of her wonderful heritage. She was privileged to be born and raised in an Amish home.

“We’re people same as everyone else, Sadie, but hang on to your background. It is worth something.”

When possible, Meely would have a bowl of soup or some oatmeal. Sometimes she asked for a soft-boiled egg or a piece of dry toast. Most of the time, she didn’t eat at all, just drifted in and out of sleep.

Once, when the sun was unusually hot and the dry prairie winds began to blow, she asked to have her bed raised. She asked Sadie to come sit with her and Mark, and she began to talk.

She asked about Tom first in her hoarse, weak voice.

“Who is that big, black guy that’s in here? He walks through my dreams. He’s always calling me, and I’m tied to the bed by my ankles. So I can’t go. I can’t reach him.”

“He’s a preacher,” Sadie said.

“I figured,” she whispered.

Then her tone changed, and she spoke forthrightly. “Yeah, well… I’m not stupid. My time is almost here, and I want to talk. I’m done, now. What I mean is, I’m done blaming everyone else for my life. You know I’ve always done that?”

Mark nodded in response to Meely’s question.

“You don’t know if I did or not, Mark, so why are you nodding?”

She was sharp, Sadie thought. She was surprised to see Meely let go of the pitiful thrust of defiance. There was a new expression in her eyes.

Mark said nothing, kept his eyes hidden.

“It’s okay. I blamed Atlee. Then I blamed my father. Even my mother. God rest her soul.”

She said the last few word in the softest whisper possible, but Sadie heard.

“To blame other people is how you do it, you know. You justify leaving a devoted husband and six beautiful children only by the power of blaming others. It’s the easiest way. As long as you can do that, you can convince yourself that you’re okay; you’re a good person. It’s the others, the bad people, who made you this way.”

She stopped to cough. She was so weak that it raked against Sadie’s heart and brought tears to her eyes.

“So you do what you want,” Meely continued. “You don’t do what you know is right. You … you …
recht fertich
—justify yourself—by your own way of thinking. It starts to grow like a parasitic vine that eventually kills the tree that hosts it. The vine is your attitude—killing the truth. Soon you don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. And you don’t care.”

Meely bowed her head, her black hair hiding her tortured eyes.

“I’m so afraid of the truth,” she whispered.

Neither Mark nor Sadie knew how to respond. They remained quiet. The clock in the corner supplied the only sound for several minutes.

“What if I say it was all my own fault? Then what? My sins are so … monstrous, there’s absolutely no way I can even hope of getting to… Ach, you know. I can’t even say the word. I’m too dirty and wretched and lost.”

The dogs whined at the door. The clock kept up its rhythmic sound. The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen.

“Mam, at least you admit that what you did was wrong,” Mark said quietly. “That’s a start, isn’t it? I’m no saint either, Mam. But it seems to me, you’d be on the right track.”

Mark was suddenly embarrassed by his halting speech in front of Sadie, not sure how she felt about his mother to begin with.

“Well, no doubt about it, if I die, I will go to hell. The devil made me believe I was this pitiful person all my life. Well … not all of it. I have six beautiful children. I see their faces every night before I go to sleep.”

A sob tore at the ravaged throat, but she lifted her head and pressed on.

“Beulah. How happy I was to have a daughter! Oh, she was so cute. Even the midwives fussed about her when she was born. Eyes like half moons, a little button for a nose. I kissed her little face constantly. We named Beulah out of great joy.
Beulah
sounds almost like ‘bugle.’”

The happy glow that spread across her face was replaced by a look of despair as she described Timothy’s birth the following year.

“I wasn’t ready. I resisted this little boy growing in my stomach. Oh, where is Timothy now? I pity him so
veesht
.

“He was so thin when he was born. I didn’t eat right, I… Oh! Do I have to confess everything? Tell the whole truth?” she groaned. “Well, I have nothing to lose.

“I didn’t want Timothy or any of the others after that. I tried to starve myself… I was selfish and mean and thought of no one but myself.

“Diana was as cute as Beulah, but so colicky. Atlee rocked her at night or carried her around on a pillow while I slept. He was always good with the babies. He wanted to name her Elizabeth. Lissie!”

Meely spit the word out with all the force she could muster.

“Lissie! His fat, vile mother. How I hated her! She accused me of so many things. How was I possibly supposed to keep all the laundry clean and white and have the meals ready on time with a colicky baby? That’s when I…”

She lowered her head yet again, then asked for a drink of tea. She took a tiny swallow of the icy liquid before she resumed her story.

“When Rachel Mae was born, I knew there was no way I was going to make it. I had no interest in my children anymore. I just wanted out. I planned my exit secretly. Atlee felt it. He became steadily more despairing.

“Because I clung to tradition, I continued my wifely duties, at least for a while. Atlee was very conservative, too. He said the wife is subject to her husband in all things, and I believed him, although I rebelled inside. So horribly.

“I had already started seeing Evan when Jackson was born.”

Suddenly Mark burst out, “Mother! Why? Why did you have all these children? It wasn’t our fault that you couldn’t stand your own life, but you blamed us all the time? That’s all you did! Why did you bring innocent souls into this world only to raise them like some stinking …
vermin
!”

He spat the last word into her face, and she cringed beneath his hot wrath. He clenched his fists to his side.

Sadie rose partially, her hand outstretched as if to stop the flow of seething lava from the volcanic crater that was Mark’s past.

“Don’t, Mark,” Meely whispered, weaker now.

“I will if I want to!” he seethed. “In your wildest imagination, Mam, you will never fully realize what you did.”

Mark was panting now, his eyes terrible in their anger.

Sadie then broke in calmly in what she hoped was a quieting tone. She talked about Dorothy and Jim and how they couldn’t have children and how they felt that God had finally answered their prayers by sending Marcellus and Louis into their lives.

“Perhaps,” Sadie concluded, “God is answering your prayers. Perhaps things are not as bad as they looked.”

Meely raised her eyes to Mark’s. His fell first.

“Mark, I know that I’ve done a lot of wrong. But will you promise me one thing? I won’t live long enough to find my children. Will you find them for me? I can die easier if I know that somehow, you will know where they are and … what they’re doing. It might help for you to forgive me, too. Can you promise me that?”

“I’m not made of money.”

Sadie could not believe her ears. How could he deny his mother’s dying wish? How could he be so cold, so … uncaring?

She opened her mouth to tell him, then decided against it. She could never know what he’d been through or what it was like when he struggled to keep his little siblings from starving.

Who was to be pitied most? It was unanswerable. The past hung over them like a black shroud of misery.

Was Meely the only one at fault, or did Mark do wrong, too? Perhaps he hadn’t as a child, but how long would it be until he came to grips with his past? Did those wrongs condone his festering grudges? How long was long enough?

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. How often do we say that? Sadie wondered. How often do we do it?

Was Mark’s unforgiving spirit as bad as his mother’s sins in God’s eyes? Sadie shrank before the truth. Then she thought of Tom. We’ll pray our way through this, she thought.

“Mark, listen. I want to contact my lawyer. You will get all this: the house, the farm, such as it is. I have no one else. Before you showed up, I considered leaving it to the dogs, but that’s just nasty. And it is my wish that somewhere, somehow, you can find my … little ones, especially Timothy. Oh, he was so skinny. Please find Timothy someday.”

Mark said nothing.

Meely sighed, a long, shaking sound. Then she let her head fall back onto the pillows. Her long dark lashes, so peculiarly thick in spite of the cancer treatments, brushed her cheeks as she closed them.

“I need to rest now.”

There was nothing for Mark and Sadie to do but go to the kitchen. When they sat down at the table, Mark wouldn’t even look at Sadie. His face stony, the features closed as tightly as a prison door.

Sadie was more than grateful when the phone rang. She grabbed the receiver like a drowning person grabs a life preserver. She smiled when she heard Dorothy’s nasally voice say much too loudly, “Whatcha doin’, Sadie?” followed by a lengthy list of all the wrongs Erma Keim performed every day, turning that whole ranch upside down.

She glanced out the window and saw Mark whacking furiously at weeds in the garden with an old sickle. She laughed out loud and let Dorothy think it was because of her.