Fall From Pride

Sarah kept talking, slowly, calmly. “That man was sent by the state government in Columbus to find out about our neighbor’s barn, why it burned. No Amish were burned or will be.”

“I was afraid you would be lost in the fire.”

“Me? No, I’m just fine. All I lost were some paint cans, my scaffolding and two ladders.”

“They killed our people on tall scaffolds as a warning so all could see. They tied women to ladders, then tipped them into the fires just because they disagreed with the state religion.”

“That’s all in the past. No one is going to burn. Even the horses were safe from that fire. Now brush your teeth, and I’m going to read to you from the Budget, all kinds of news about our people visiting and how well things are going.”

“Except for Amish martyrs being burned,” Miriam Kauffman mumbled as she thrust her toothbrush in her mouth and bent over the bathroom basin where she’d left the water running.

Sarah sighed. She knew she resembled her grandmother in her height and coloring, so she sure hoped she wouldn’t inherit the mental hauntings that plagued her. She’d been better lately, but seeing that barn fire across the fields had obviously set her off again. The Martyrs Mirror, with its lifelike etchings, was in almost every Amish home, along with the Holy Bible, of course, and the Ausbund, which contained the words to the traditional Amish hymns sung in the regular church meetings every other Sunday. As for the Budget, that newspaper was the Amish community glue that held the Plain People together wherever they lived. Births, deaths, marriages, horse sales, new addresses or endeavors and chatty tidbits were listed on page after page. Yes, she was going to spirit away the Martyrs Mirror and substitute it with the Budget right now.

Later, Sarah was glad she did. Not only did the chatty items in the Budget calm the old woman, but Sarah noted one about the Eshes that explained why they might have been out last night. Mattie Esh’s niece had just given birth to triplets, and they probably went to see them. As usual, Grossmamm fell asleep quickly, and Sarah took the kerosene lantern with her down the hall and into the living area. Most Amish farms had a grossdaadi haus for the older generation. When the grandparents who had worked the farm and raised their children were ready to retire, they voluntarily turned over the big house to the eldest married son, or the one who wanted most to keep the farm going, and moved to the smaller place on the property. No rest home, retirement village or shuffling off the older generation among the Amish. They cared for their aging parents or grandparents on-site and included them in as much of life as they cared to be a part of. After their grossdaadi, Gideon Kauffman, had died five years ago, his widow had started to slip into another world. Alzheimer’s, sure, and she’d had a doctor’s care, but they were still going to keep her here and look after her themselves.

Sarah found Martha sound asleep, sprawled on the sofa, breathing heavily. She covered her up with a quilt. That sofa made into a double bed, so where was she going to sleep? They both had their own rooms in the big house, but it was Sarah’s turn to stay here tonight. Should she wake Martha and send her away so she could have the hideaway bed?

She sat down in her grandfather’s big rocking chair very carefully, because she knew it squeaked. Her eyes were so heavy. She hadn’t slept last night…was dead on her feet today, except when Nate MacKenzie was around twice because he seemed to give her energy.

When her lids drooped, she saw fire, saw Nate’s intense gaze. She wondered how he was doing living in VERA down by the pond on the woodlot…. And what if the woods, all those trees around the pond, caught fire and the blaze burned him, burned her, too, crackling…popping…

She jolted alert. Her heartbeat pounded. That sound! Gravel against glass, against the window? That was the signal she and her friend Hannah Esh had always used during their rumspringa years to get each other up at night when they wanted to sneak out. Not to meet boys like some did, but to go for a night swim in the pond in the summer or just stuff themselves with candy or listen to a transistor radio until dawn while Sarah sketched pictures and Hannah sang along with every Top Ten hit. They knew better than to get their friend Ella from the Lantz farm for such goings-on. No way Ella, as much fun as she could be, would take a risk sneaking out like that.

Again, she heard the sound of gravel against the window. As she stood and looked, the glass was like a big black mirror since they hadn’t pulled the curtains closed. Sarah turned down the kerosene lamp and peered out, seeing at first only her own reflection. The Martyrs Mirror, she thought…now why had they put the word mirror in the title? She’d never thought about that. Were the Amish all martyrs to something or other? Did it mean to look deeply into your own life, to see yourself as you really were or to decide what you were willing to die for?

And then Hannah’s face appeared, not the old Amish Hannah but the new one her parents were so riled about. Hannah and her friends in Cleveland had gone goth. Whereas Hannah was a natural blonde with eyebrows and lashes so pale they hardly showed, she now had red, spiky hair and eyeliner dark as sin. Sarah was used to seeing her friend in the soft pastel dresses unwed women wore, not in black, partly ripped and fringed tight pants and wearing silver chains and pins and piercings. Even now, Hannah looked like some kind of worldly Halloween freak. And she was gesturing for Sarah to come outside.

Sarah held up one finger and, her hands shaking, scribbled a note for Martha. “I had to leave for a little bit. Stay with G., please—S.”

She grabbed the windbreaker she wished she’d worn last night and tiptoed out. Hannah here! She wasn’t shunned so she could come back anytime, but she didn’t. After she’d had the argument with her father almost three years ago, she’d left for Cleveland. Their daughter’s loss was the cross the bishop and his wife bore, and Sarah’s and Ella’s loss, too. When Hannah’s plan to record and sell her own songs didn’t work out, her friends and family prayed she would come home. Instead, her worldly boyfriend got her a job in a recording studio mixing something or other, answering the phone and greeting people at the front desk, looking just like this.

Sarah and Hannah hugged hard. Hannah smelled of an exotic scent Sarah could not name. Something smoky. She’d had incense burning in her little apartment the one time Sarah and Ella had visited her in Cleveland. Or had she been over to her family’s burned barn?

“Jacob phoned me,” Hannah told Sarah as they stepped awkwardly apart. “I couldn’t believe the barn was gone. It’s supposed to be in the Cleveland paper tomorrow, but I had to see it first, before all the gawkers in the world come flocking in.”

“You didn’t have to come at night. Everyone would have been glad to see you.”

“Give me a break. About like they’d be glad to have Satan himself drop by. But I knew I could come to you, that you’d go with me. I just can’t go see it alone, any more than I could face my father. I parked back down the road by the graveyard and walked here. He—Jacob—said you were the one who spotted the fire and he called it in, but that you weren’t back together yet.”

“Yet? Never. He crashed our party for Gabe’s friends. That’s why he was here.”

“Jacob also said there’s a superhero here to save the day, solve the crime—if it’s a crime.”

“Word travels fast, because Jacob was asked to leave before the state arson investigator showed up.”

“Will you go with me, Sarah? I can’t go to Ella. I don’t need her telling me I’ve got to mend my ways and come back. She never did quite get the ‘judge not lest ye be judged’ bit, did she?”

“I guess accepting that comes with suffering, and she’s been all wrapped up in traveling the road of her perfect Amish life.”

Sarah instantly regretted she’d said that with such a sharp tone. But sometimes she resented Ella’s sticking to the straight and narrow, when she herself would like to go her own way at times. How she yearned to paint entire landscapes instead of the geometric quilt squares that called for no more creative decision than what color of hardware store paint to use.

“In other words,” Hannah said with a bitter laugh, “she still hasn’t found out ‘it’s not all cakes and pies.’”

“I’ve been thinking lately that it’s not all quilts and pies.”

“You never did like to stitch quilts. And you think I’m a freak? But your painting—that’s you. Jacob told me about the quilt square you did on our—my family’s—barn.”

“A real font of information, isn’t he?” Sarah said, surprised again her voice was so sharp. Maybe Hannah’s rebellious nature was rubbing off on her. And was Nate right to be suspicious of Jacob? Nate had said that some firefighters loved the attention from a blaze, but did Jacob, too? Nate had also said that some arsonists returned to the scene of their crime, not only to watch the fire, but even later to relive the excitement. Maybe that’s why Jacob stopped at the very next farm. Or did he think his phoning in the fire would build bridges back to his people—and her?

The two young women started down the Oakridge Road that linked their farms. Sarah was glad Hannah didn’t insist on a run through the fields, like she’d done last night. They didn’t worry that there would be buggies or cars on the rural road now, because traffic was rare even in the daytime, unless a buggy clip-clopped past or tourists pleasure-driving some back byways happened by.

As they sneaked around Hannah’s childhood home, not going up the lane but skirting along the fence, Hannah cursed. “Damn! There’s a hole in the sky where it should be! Nothing but blackness and stars! It’s so—I can’t believe it, all of that destroyed to almost nothing!”

Her family’s team of horses plodded over to the fence as if to commiserate about the loss of their stalls, feed troughs and harnessing gear, the wagons and equipment they used to pull. Hannah put her hand out to one’s muzzle, and he snuffled against her palm as if he were crying.

“At least you guys still know me,” Hannah whispered.

“Why don’t you write your family a note!” Sarah suggested. “They’d love to hear from you, know that you cared enough to come see it.”

“It won’t help them to know I was here and saw this,” she insisted. Even in the darkness, with only the wan quarter moon rising, Sarah could see her friend’s tears track down her cheeks. “The heart of the farm, so many good times here… I’m so sorry, so sorry about what I’ve done,” Hannah cried, and began to sob so hard that some of her mascara ran down her face in dirty lines and smeared against Sarah’s cheek as she hugged her again.

“Good evening, ladies.” The deep male voice came from behind them. “Sarah, I thought you were going to stay all night with your grandmother, and what is this person confessing she’s sorry she’s done?”

4

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE IN THE DARK?” Sarah demanded.

The other girl glared at Nate and tugged her arm free. He was so shocked by her appearance that he let her go. He read in her defiant stare that she wouldn’t run, but he kept a light hold of Sarah’s arm. It was the first time he’d touched her. She radiated warmth from what must have been a walk down the road from her farm.

“I’m going to ask the questions, Sarah,” he said more harshly than he’d intended. “I’m Nate MacKenzie, state arson investigator,” he told the other young woman, riveting his gaze on her. “I want to know who you are and what you are doing here in the dark.”

Since he’d been in a sleeping bag near the back of the barn, Nate knew they hadn’t come across the fields. He’d seen the Eshes turn off their house lamps over an hour ago, so he’d been startled to hear women’s voices. Earlier, the bishop had sat outside with him for a while, over milk and cookies, no less. Nate had explained to him that he had obtained a search warrant to examine the ruins of the barn, but the bishop had said he had his permission and didn’t need anything from the government to say so.

Bishop Joseph Esh had also reminisced about the barn, which his father had bequeathed him. Amish barns were almost a part of the family, he’d learned, the cornerstone of their way of life, necessary not only for running their fifty-or-so-acre farms but for keeping the generations working and worshipping together.

“This is Hannah Esh, from Cleveland,” Sarah said when the stranger continued to glare at him in silence. “She’s the Eshes’ third-oldest daughter, but she hasn’t lived here for three years because she’s away building her career.”

“It’s okay, Sarah,” Hannah said. “I can talk for myself. He just surprised me. I thought, at first, it might be my… Never mind. Mr. MacKenzie, a friend phoned to tell me my family’s barn burned to the ground, and I wanted to see it without bothering them. I’m a big disappointment to them and am living in so-called worldly exile.”

Hannah Esh, Nate noted, had a bitter tinge to her voice and a defiant expression on what could be—with that harsh makeup, he wasn’t sure—a pretty face.

“She’s not being shunned like Jacob. She left home before joining the church—perfectly permissible,” Sarah said.

“Then she’s able to be welcomed back with what you called open arms,” Nate said.

“I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell my parents I was here,” Hannah said. “And I certainly don’t want to see them tonight.”

She stared straight at him when she talked. Like Sarah, a strong woman—or were all Amish women?