“Yeah, kind of.”
“What do you mean, ‘kind of’?”
“Well, I gots a boo-boo on my foot on account of something bit me.”
First I panicked. “When was that?” Then I took a deep breath. “Show it to Cousin Hilda!”
“It’s all better, Mama. You put a Flintstones on it, remember?”
“Oy veys meer.” Was that all? But you see what had happened? The stress had caused my brain to crosswire. If it kept up, the next thing I knew Swahili might come flying out of my mouth.
“Mama?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Can I stay here for a while?”
“Yes, dear, but you have to brush your teeth.”
“But I don’t gots a toothbrush.”
“The word is ‘have,’ dear-Never mind, dear. Cousin Hilda will get you one.”
“Mama?”
“Yes, darling?”
“I love you.”
In the final analysis, it didn’t matter to me if loving little Jacob was really nothing more than loving myself. What mattered is that I did, and that I would do anything to protect him-even brave Freni’s wrath. Although it must be noted that Freni, being a good Amish woman of an essentially peaceful nature, was slow to anger. Relatively speaking, that is.
“ Magdalena, I cannot believe that you would leave our little one with Agnes Mishler.”
“Agnes is my best friend-after you, of course. And Gabriel.”
“Yah, but she does not have children.”
“Nonetheless, the little shaver adores her.”
Freni, who was rolling out dough, gave my future cinnamon buns a sharp whack. “Maybe, but what will he do there?”
“Watch car-s go by,” I said, compounding my lie. Freni, even more than I, disapproved of television of any kind.
Freni dropped the rolling pin, which promptly rolled onto the floor. Instead of picking it up, she vigorously smeared a handful of butter across the flattened dough. It was like watching her give a Swedish massage to an enemy.
“Agnes Mishler lives on a dead road, yah?”
“Oops. Yes, she does live on a dead-end road-Look, Freni, you’re going to find out, so I may as well tell you now. Melvin Stoltzfus is back.”
Freni froze. Given that the woman abhors alliteration, I hastened to elaborate on the entire situation. I left nothing out; I even told her about the Irish coffee. I did not, however, reveal my son’s location.
Freni seemed remarkably blasé about my revelation. “The Irish are a sensible people.”
“What?”
“A lot of prayer, a little whiskey-not such a bad combination.”
“But you don’t drink! The Amish don’t drink! That’s of the Devil!”
Still a prisoner to alliteration, Freni flinched. “Ach, not me personally, but there are many among us who might take a sip now and then-to calm the nerves. But no, we do not get drunk like the English; this we do not permit.”
“Wow, and I thought I knew everything about the Amish.”
“Sometimes it is you Mennonites who are too strict, Magdalena. You have thrown out the baby oil with the bath salts, yah?”
“Close enough.”
“So now you tell me where my little boy is.”
“Sorry. No can do.”
Freni tossed a handful of sugar over the dough, and then dusted it with cinnamon. The whole time she clucked to herself like a hen about to lay an egg.
“ Magdalena, you are like a daughter to me. When you were little, I washed you in the tub. When your mama was sick, I changed your poopy diapers. I was here for you when you married Aaron Miller-the man who led you into bigamy, yah?”
“I was an inadvertent adulteress,” I wailed. It was the last time I was ever going to wail, or respond to any comment pertaining to that unfortunate part of my life.
“But now you do not trust me?”
“You bet your bippy I do trust you,” I said. It was stress-and of course, Satan-that caused me to lapse into the pagan prose of the vernacular. And to lie.
“Ach! What is this bippy?”
“It’s just an expression, dear; it’s something I heard Susannah say. By the way, she needs our prayers more than ever. She’s not at all the carefree spirit we used to know.”
Freni, who’d picked up the rolling pin by then, began to roll the dough into a log. “She is in prison, Magdalena, yah?”
“But it’s more than that. This obsession with Melvin-it’s taken over her soul. She could barely bring herself to tell me that her little nephew was in danger. I hate to say it, Freni, but I think she’s mentally ill. Maybe it’s depression, maybe something I’ve never heard of. But as her closest living relative-not on the lam, that is-I’m going to ask that she undergo a thorough psychiatric evaluation.”
The Amish, like we Mennonites, do recognize that there are times when people need assistance from the outside world. But especially for the Amish, it can be difficult to determine where the line between poor mental health and weak faith lies. If only one were to submit more fully to the will of the bishop, and the Ordnung of the community, one would surely find the peace one was missing.
Freni loves Susannah as much as she loves me-well, almost as much. I could tell that at that moment she loved my sister enough to struggle with the rigid belief system in which she’d been raised and to consider alternative possibilities. As she grappled with her conscience she brought a butcher knife repeatedly down on the dough log, expertly rendering it into cinnamon buns of equal size. These she plopped into greased pans which she essentially threw into the oven before slamming the oven door.
“So now the truth, yah?”
“Okay, but you don’t need to get so bent out of shape. The truth is that although you are the dearest woman alive-a surrogate mother to me and my best friend-at least of your generation-you do engage in a fair amount of-Well, shall we say ‘news sharing’?”
The Coke-bottle-bottom glasses fixated on me. Thank Heaven the lenses were so greasy I couldn’t see her eyes.
“What?”
“Tongue wagging, dear.”
“Like a dog?”
“Like a woman who gossips. Loose lips sink ships, et cetera. You have a heart of gold, dear, but you just can’t help yourself from sharing with your friends. If I tell you today where our precious one is, by tomorrow at this time all of Hernia will know, and half of Somerset. Besides”-I lowered my voice to a whisper-“these walls have ears.”
Freni slowly wiped her hands on her apron as the truth hit home, as surely it must.
“I quit,” she said after a dramatic pause.
“Okay. But please take the apron home and wash it before you bring it back. Remember that dinner is a half hour early tonight because the gang wants to drive into Pittsburgh to see some movie. Now there’s an opportunity to engage the Devil if you ask me.”
“No, Magdalena, I really quit.”
“Yes, Freni,” I said patiently. “Just be sure that you’re back in time to make dinner.”
She untied her apron and, and covered as it was with sugar, flour, and cinnamon, she folded it neatly and laid it theatrically in the center of my rough-hewn kitchen table. Then, without saying another word, she got her coat and started walking home.
I would have run after her-eventually-and made amends. At the very least I would have sent Gabriel to give her a ride home, had I not been so rudely imposed upon. Besides, Freni was taking the shortcut to her farm that led through the woods, and it was only a footpath, unsuitable for automobile travel. By the way, those were the same woods in which I’d once lain in a bush, from whence I’d untied one of Freni’s shoelaces as she passed in front of me. (I’ve long been of the mind that if a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, then surely a hand in the bush is quite desirable.)
But I digress. My day had only gotten worse by the sudden appearance of Mother Malaise. In addition to being Mother Superior at the Convent of the Sisters of Perpetual Apathy, she’s my husband’s mother, which makes her my mother- in-law, so one might say that Ida is the mother of all-Well, I won’t say it, because I’ve been practicing loving-kindness as of late. If I do say so myself, this effort at self-improvement has really paid off.