“Look, we can discuss this better face-to-face,” I said. “I’ve decided to stay at Agnes’s tonight. Little Jacob is in her bedroom watching cartoons, so I haven’t told him yet. Why don’t you come over right now and we can discuss this more in person?”

“What? In front of Agnes?”

“No, silly. I’ll send her over to visit her weird uncles.”

“You serious, babe? Because you’ve just socked me in the gut with a punch out of nowhere and-”

“Come,” I said and hung up.

19

First Gabe was incredulous. Then he was angry that I had not consulted with him before shipping our beloved son off to the butter farm-No, angry is an understatement. But I’d expected some of that, so I was as ready as one can be on that score.

It was, however, the fear he felt and the torrent of tears it brought on that came as a surprise. Nothing in my life had prepared me for an experience of this nature.

I’d never seen anyone cry like that, male or female. In my culture we are reserved, stoic even. We bear up under our burdens or give them over to the Lord, who shoulders them for us. Yes, there are times when we are overwhelmed, and Satan is nipping at our heels, when we might succumb and weep quietly-but always in the privacy of our own bathroom or bedroom. We never, ever sob openly-in a living room, and most certainly never with streams of water cascading down our cheeks.

Agnes, dear friend that she was, prepared for Gabe his own version of hot chocolate and ladyfingers. I knew that Agnes belonged to the First Mennonite Church of Hernia, which was vastly more liberal than Beechy Grove Mennonite, but just how liberal, I had no idea. Gabe’s hot “chocolate” turned out to be “Irish coffee,” and his ladyfinger was a shot glass of straight- up liquid comfort served on the side. Considering how distraught he was, I held my counsel like the good little wife I was supposed to be. For the time being.

It was decided that I would spend the night with Agnes on the pretext that Gabe and I were still fighting. Surely by the morrow we would receive word that the eagle had landed and I could return home, but with lips sealed so tightly that even waterboarding couldn’t pry them open.

Sure enough, around seven a.m.-I’d already been up for three hours-I got a call from my little one.

“Mama?”

“Darling! Are you all right? Are you safe?”

“I’m at Cousin Hilda’s farm and they have every kind of animal, just like you said. After breakfast we’re going to feed the Obamas.”

“Uncle Sam’s cereal?”

“I don’t know, Mama, but then we’re going to hunt for eggs in the barn, ’cause they don’t keep their chickens penned up like we do.”

“That’s wonderful, dear. So you are all right?”

“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.