THE OUTCAST

Chapter 2

Twisting in the quilts, I would burrow my head beneath the pillow and imagine my sister's face as she begged her husband: it would be as white as the cotton sheet on which i lay , her cheeks and temples hollowed as first by chronic morning sickness, then later- after John's excruciating birth- by the emergency C-section that forced her back into the prison bed from which she'd just been released.

Although I knew everything external about my twin, for in the way she and I were one and the same, Lying there as Tobias and Lea argued. I could not understand the internal differences between us. She was selfless to her core- a trait I once took merciless advantage of. She would always take the drumstick of the chicken and give me the breast; she would always sleep on the outside of the bed despite feeling more secure against the wall ; she would always let me wear her new dress until a majority of the straight pins tacking them together had gone missing and they had frayed at the seams.

Then, the ultimate test : at eighteen Lea married Tobias king. Not out of Love, as I would have required of a potential marriage, but out of duty. His wife had passed away five months after the birth of their daughter Zara and Tobias needed a mudder to care for the Newborn along with her three siblings. Year ago , my family's home had neighbored the king's. I suppose when Tobias realized he needed a wife to replace the one he'd lost, he recalled my docile,sweet-spoken twin and wrote, asking if she would be willing to marry a man twelve years her senior and move away to a place that might as well have been a foreign land.

I often wonder if Lea said yes to widower Tobias king because her selfish nature would not allow her to say no. Whenever she imagines saying no and instead waiting for a union with someone she might actually love, she would probably envision those four motherless children down in Tennessee with the king's dark complexion and angular build, and her tender hear would swell with compassion an the determination to marry a complete stranger.

I think, at least in the back of her mind, Lea also knew that an opportunity to escape our yellow house on Hilltop Road might not present itself again, I had never wanted for admirers, so I did not fear this fate, but then i had never trembled at the sight of a man other than my father, either. As far back as I can recall, Lea surely did, and I remember how i had to peel her hands from my forearms as the wedding days festivities drew to a close, and Mamm and I finished preparing her for her and Tobia's Final unifying ceremony.

"Ach, Rachel," She stammered, dark-blue eyes flooded with tears, "I- I can't"

"You goose," I replied, "sure you can!No one's died from their wedding night so far, and if all these children are a sign, I'd say most even like it."

It was a joy to watch my sister's wan cheeks burn with embarrassment, and that night i suppose they burned with something entirely new. Two months later she wrote to say that she was wth child- Tobias King's child-but there were some complications, and would I mind terribly much to move down until the baby's birth?

Now Tobias finishes reading from the psalms, closes the heavy Bible, and bows his head. The community follows suit. For fiv whole minutes not a word is spoken, but each of us is supposed to remain in a state of Silent prayer. I want to pay, but I find even the combined vocabulary ofte English and Pennsylvania Dutch languages insufficient for turbulent emotions I feel. Instead, I just close my eyesand listen to the wind brushing its fingertips through the autumnal tresses of the trees, to the trilling melody of snow geese migrating south, to the horses stomping in the churchyard, eager to be freed from their cumbersome buggies and returned to the comfort of the stall.

Although Tobias gives us no sign, the community becomes aware that the prayer time is over,and everyone lifts his or her head. The men then harness ropes around Amos's casket, Slide out the boards that were bracing it over the hole, and begin to lower him into his grave.

I cannot account for the tears that form in my eyes as that pine box begins its jerky descent into darkness. I did not know Amos well enough to mourn him, but i ded know that he was a good man, a righteous man, who had extended his hand of mercy to me without asking questions. Now that his son has taken over as bishop of Copper Creek,i fear that hand will be retracted,and perhaps the tears are more for myself and my child that they are for the man who has just left this life behind.

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(⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠) A M O S (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)

I never thought I would enjoy the day of my own funeral, yet that's exactly what i find my self doing . Outside my and my wife's haus , which has been scoured from top to bottom by my sister, I watch my grandsons discard their sorrow like a worm-out garment and begin to rollick with the enthusiasm of pups. Before you can count to zehn, the knees of their best pants are stained brown with dirt, and their straw hats with the black bands have gone sailing off into the yard, causing the fine hair not constrained in the bowl cuts to poke into their eyes.

If the mothers, Aunts and sisters of these boys could see them all now, they would surely wag their fingers along with their tongues . But they can't. They are too busy slicing schunke and mashing grummbeere, beating egg whites into stiff meringue peaks and pourin pickled chowchow into crystal relish bowls. My wife brushes a tendril beneath her black bonnet and stoops to slide an apple strudel into the kochoffe. If given another chance, I would pull the black bonnet and prayer kapp back and burnish every silvered tendril of hers with a kiss. I imagine how Berna would scold while swatting me out of the kitchen, but all the while her dark eyes would shine as she reveled in the fact that she was loved by a man no longer afraid to show it.

I imagine, too, how i would go up to my three daughters- Jim, Mary, Abby- who are right now filling the chocolate whoopee pies with peanut butter cream, and I would hug them. Oh, how i would hug them! All these years as husband and father, I allowed my stiff German upbringing to inhibit the demonstrativeness of my love, for i thought the congregation might perceive physical touch to be improper. Now that my mortal eyes have been replaced with something far more heavenly, I can see how my girls yearned for my touch until they became women who expected it no longer.

The banter of my wife, sisters, and daughter as they prepared the evening esse reassures my heart that theirs will mend, despite eyes still being swelled from tears and chests heaving with the flood of those they have not shed. The only one who worries me is Liza McFadden. Though she is of no immediate relation, I wish I could do something to ease the pain etched across her features because i feel responsible for it.

You see, when the heat of a Tennessee summer no longer allowed Liza to conceal her illegitimate pregnancy beneath a shawl, she was placed amid those few who remain in the church while living outside its doctrinal parameters. The community, as they'd been taught by the generations before them, withdrew from Liza so she could see the error of her carnal ways, ask for forgiveness, and rejoin the flock. I had always counted myself blessed that i was not bishop over a congregation that enforced the shunning. But watching everything unfold from this higher plane, I have to wonder if the shunning might be easier on the person it is placed upon. Without it, Liza does not know her place, and the community does not know where to place her . They cannot be cruel- for what is christlike in that?- but neither can they have her around the young women and men who haven't joined the church and could still be lured into leaving plain life for the glamour of the Englischer world.