The Chosen Amish Read online

  “Morning comes early,” David muttered as he pulled the covers over himself, “Better not read for too long.”

  Setting her Bible aside and blowing out the lamp, Ida took a deep breath before announcing, “Well, today didn’t go as well as I had hoped.”

  David raised his eyebrows. As far as he could see, the day had gone exactly as she had hoped. She had managed to make him look like the worst man on earth, so David was certain that her mission was accomplished.

  “You know, I’m not happy about this either,” Ida went on. When David didn’t say anything else, Ida whispered, “I’m sorry, David. Won’t you say something?”

  “I don’t know what to say,” David announced between clenched teeth, “I’m too afraid that I might say something that would hurt you. I don’t want another surprise visit from the church leaders.”

  After that, Ida didn’t try to say anything else.

  Lying in the darkness, David listened to his wife sniffle until exhaustion won out and she finally went to sleep.

  Ida. Such a fine, upstanding woman in their community...and with such a passionate hared of any kind of drinks stronger than soda or homemade juice. Little Miss Perfect had never even touched the stuff. At first, David hadn’t minded but, as time went by, her avoidance of alcohol seemed more and more condescending. How dare she bring up his drinking now? It was all her fault that the elders even knew he drank. That was probably her plan. She had always hated alcohol and, by pointing David’s drinking out to the bishop, she was guaranteed to get her way.

  Well, she might think that she knew how to keep David from drinking, but she was in for a surprise. David wasn’t going to let anyone or anything keep him from doing what he wanted.

  Chapter Four

  Now that Ida knew where David hid his whisky, he realized that he would have to find a different hiding spot. Since he had poured out the last of it, David had his work driver pick some up for him. After getting home from work, David took it down to the cellar where he hid it in an empty cardboard box behind a row of canned fruit. David was certain it was hidden for a while.

  Although things continued to stay tense between David and Ida, he felt like he could survive as long as he was still able to do what he wanted.

  “Daed, look at this,” Lucas exclaimed one night as he sat on the floor, surrounded by an assortment of farm animals, “I’ve got my cows all lined up.”

  David was sitting at the table with a pile of bills spread out in front of him.

  “I think I just need a barn...” Lucas continued slowly, “Or my cows might get wet in the rain.”

  Ida, who was clearing away the supper dishes, motioned toward a pile of boxes by the back door, “You can use one of those. I think some of them are empty.”

  David was instantly alert. Suddenly looking up, he noticed Lucas grabbing for a small cardboard box. Wasn’t that the box he had used to hide his alcohol? Surely not! But, when Lucas pulled it closer to his farm animals, David recognized the symbol on the side. It was the same box.

  Jumping to his feet, David practically bounded across the room.

  “Leave that alone!” David snapped. Reaching out, he grabbed Lucas by the arm and jerked him to his feet, pulling him away from the box and what was hidden inside.

  “Where did you get that box?” David exclaimed, lifting Lucas up so he could stare him in the eyes.

  Setting him down on the floor, David reached for the box and picked it up. It was empty.

  “I got that box in town today!” Ida almost shouted as she ran to Lucas’ side, “It’s for my material.”

  David realized what he had done. It wasn’t even the same box. The entire episode was unnecessary. Suddenly, he realized that Lucas was crying, his wails echoing throughout the house.

  “David!” Ida exclaimed as she gathered the sobbing child in her arms, “Ach, David! What on earth is wrong with you? It is a box!”

  Setting Lucas aside, Ida crossed the distance to her husband, “What are you doing? David, have you lost your mind? You nearly scared Lucas to death!”

  “I didn’t know!” David stormed back, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer.

  “Did know what?” Ida returned, “Didn’t know that it was okay for your child to play with a cardboard box?”

  David found himself shaking with anger, suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to slap the arrogance right out of his wife.

  Throwing her hands up in the air, Ida announced, “Lucas, let’s go get you ready for bed.” Although the little boy was still crying, his wailing had subsided and given way to silent sobs.

  As soon as they were gone to Lucas’ room, David sat down at the table and tried to turn his attention back to the stack of bills.

  He couldn’t believe that he had lashed out at his son like that. David could never remember a time when he had acted against his son in such a violent way.

  If only Ida didn’t consider drinking such a big deal, he never would have done that. It was all Ida’s fault.

  When David arrived home from work the next afternoon, he was surprised to find a car sitting in from of his house. The driver was out and helping Lucas put things in the trunk of her vehicle.

  “What’s going on?” David asked as he picked Lucas up in his arms.

  “David,” Ida called from the doorway of the house, “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

  David set Lucas down on the ground, anxious to find a reason for the driver but also nervous about what his wife might say.

  Ida was standing in the doorway, kneading her hands together nervously.

  “David...” taking a deep breath, she managed to look up into his face, “David, Lucas and I are going away for a while.”

  David raised his eyebrows in surprise, “What do you mean?”

  “We’re going to stay with my parents across town for a few weeks...not for good, just long enough to work some things out...”

  “You’re leaving.” David announced, his voice sounding completely emotionless.

  “Ach, David, you aren’t making this easy at all!” Ida announced as she reached up to cover her face with her hands, “We’re not leaving...we’re just taking a break.”

  “You’re upset because I grabbed him last night?” David chuckled at how ludicrous the entire situation was, “Ida, I didn’t hurt him at all. If you could have seen how hard my daed whipped me when I was a boy...”

  Ida shook her head, “It’s not like that. It’s not this time I’m worried about...it’s next time and the next time. David, I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. Something is wrong with you and you won’t even tell me what!”

  “So this is all about forcing me to tell you everything I’m thinking?” David interrupted, his voice filled with bitterness.

  Ida looked down at her feet, gathering her courage before she said, “You’re a good dad, David. I don’t want that to change. We’ll be back as soon as things are different.”

  David threw his hands up in frustration, “Different? What does that even mean? What do you want me to do, Ida?”

  “I’m firm on this one, David,” Ida whispered, her voice filled with resolution, “I’m not going to let this family fall apart...and, if I have to do something extreme to keep that from happening, then I will.”

  David wanted to stop her. He wanted to physically grab her and hold her down, but he knew that he couldn’t. The church leaders were behind her. And, if David was to act on his instinct, he realized that the police might ultimately get involved.

  Stepping back, he let her walk out the door and away from their home.

  Chapter Five

  David had never realized how lonely their big farm house could feel. Despite the fact that he wasn’t constantly confronted with Ida’s nagging, he couldn’t shake the utter misery of entering the house alone every night.

  Each afternoon after work, David would go to Ida’s parents’ house to visit Lucas for a few hours. Although they said nothing, it was obvious that Ida’s parents
were not too thrilled with him – one day, they would be ready to beg him to make things right with their daughter, while other days they would seem closer to shooting him and making her a widow.

  Although Lucas often cried to go home, he seemed to be adjusting well to their new arrangement. Several of Ida’s sisters lived nearby their parents, so Lucas always had a playmate in his cousins.

  Ida and David hardly spoke at all. Sometimes Ida would make an attempt at conversation, but David would cut her short with his icy, one-word replies. As far as it went, he couldn’t see himself stooping to beg her to come home. If she thought he was such a terrible person that he shouldn’t be in the same house as their son, David didn’t see any reason to speak to her at all.

  Thursday afternoon, David had just returned home from work and was out mucking a stall in the barn. His bottle of whisky sat nearby, with no reason to hide it any longer. At least he had that one benefit of being alone.

  “Hello there David!” The familiar voice of Bishop Pete made David groan inwardly. Turning on his heel, he leaned his weight against the handle of the pitchfork.

  “Hello Pete,” he returned in a cool reception, “What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to spare a few minutes of your time to talk, if you don’t mind.”

  Giving a shrug, David tossed the pitch-fork aside, “I don’t guess I have much choice, do I?” Pausing for a moment, David continued, “If you’re out here to talk to me about Ida, you’re wasting your time. I don’t know what I can do there.”

  Pete pushed back his hat so that he could rub his forehead, “David, watching you and your family...this is painful to see.”

  “Then don’t watch,” David suggested.

  Pete raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath, “I’m God’s chosen leader of our people. It’s my job to watch. David, your family is breaking in pieces. Aren’t you going to do anything to fix it before it’s impossible?”

  David leaded his weight against a barn post, “Pete, I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t know what Ida wants me to do. Everybody acts like I need to do something...but what? I get up every morning, I go to work, and I provide for my family. I don’t know what more everybody expects from me.”

  “Only the Lord knows how to fix this mess,” Pete replied, “And you’d better be spending a lot of time figuring that out with him. David, listen to me, you are losing your wife! Doesn’t that concern you at all?”

  “I guess I’ve been prepared for this for a while,” David announced, the words jumping out before he could stop them.

  Pete looked at him in surprise, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ve known for a long time that she was going to go.” Somehow, David’s admission was a shock even to himself.

  “You knew she was going to leave and you didn’t try to stop her?” Pete asked incredulously, “Ach, David, that makes no sense! If I knew my wife was going to leave me, I’d do everything in my power to change that!”

  “I can’t help it if she’s not happy with me,” David started to list the things that Ida did wrong and point out what a nag she could be, when he was suddenly overcome by emotion. Reaching up to try to brush at his eyes before Pete saw him crying, David managed to say, “There was no way to change anything. I just had to sit back and wait for this to happen. It’s been like waiting for a storm to come...you may not like it, but it’s bound to come when the clouds start gathering in the sky. And with every day that passed, it felt like I was growing more anxious just to get it over with.”

  Pete’s brows were knit together as he muttered, “I’m not sure I understand...”

  “Ach, Pete.” David threw up his hands, “The drinking wasn’t bad when I first started, but things changed...they changed and I didn’t even realize it. One day, I woke up to find that I couldn’t stop drinking, even if I wanted. And since then, things have been just awful.”

  “Does Ida know this?”

  David shook his head, “No, no she doesn’t! And I don’t mean for her to, either. She knows I drink some, but she doesn’t know that it’s like this.”

  Taking a deep breath, Pete asked, “Do you intend to just keep going on like this forever?”

  David hated Pete’s question but he hated his answer even more, “I don’t see that I have much of a choice.”

  The clucking of chicken was the only sound in the silent barn as Pete thought. Finally, he announced, “David, the church isn’t just here for the fun community frolics and get-togethers...ultimately, we’re here for each other. If you want to get past this...we’re going to help you.”

  David could hardly believe what he was hearing. The fact that the bishop had heard his most awful secret and was willing to help him rather than just condemn him was almost more than David could start to grasp.

  Nodding his head slowly, David took a deep breath, “At this point, I think I’m up for any kind of help I can get.”

  His voice growing even more serious, Pete announced, “David, most important next to having the help of the Lord, you’re going to need the support of your wife.”

  The thought of Ida instantly made David’s stomach lurch. Shaking his head vigorously, David fought the suggestion, “Not that, Pete. My wife’s as good as gone. Hearing this...it will only make things worse.”

  Reaching out to give David a pat on the back, Pete assured him, “I don’t know that it can get much worse with her. At least give it a try.”

  Chapter Six

  Standing by the front window, David felt completely nervous as he watched his wife get out of the driver’s car and start toward the house. He had gone against his better judgment and followed the bishop’s suggestion by calling Ida and asking her to come over. Watching her now, David wished that he could go back in time and undo it all.

  “Hello, David,” Ida muttered as she stepped into the house and shut the door behind her, “Why did you call me over?” She seemed nervous, which instantly set David on alert...what did she think he was going to do, anyway?

  Taking a deep breath, David motioned toward the kitchen, “I want you to see something.”

  Following him uncomfortable, Ida let David lead her to the kitchen where he had pile of empty bottles spread out on the table.

  “Ach, David!” Ida exclaimed, her eyes growing large, “What on earth is that?”

  “This,” David announced, “Is what I have drunk since you left with Lucas. I’d like to say that I only drank this much because you took away my son, but that would be a lie. I’ve been drinking like this for years.”

  Ida let out what sounded like a gasp and shook her head, “David...that’s hard for me to believe...”

  “I let you think I only drank a little bit,” David explained, “I’d show you a bottle every once in a while so you’d think I still had it under control. I’ve done that since we got married...and before that, too. When I lived at home, I had my family convinced I only drank for special events...my mom was the only one who knew the truth. She kept telling me that I would end up losing everything if I didn’t stop. When she died, she made me promise her on her death bed that I would stop drinking. At that point, I truly thought I could. It was only when I tried to stop that I realized how bad off I really am.”

  Looking at his wife, David was surprised to see that she didn’t look angry or scornful or disgusted.

  “After that, I realized that she was right,” David admitted, “I realized that mamm had it right when she told me that my drinking was going destroy my life and tear my family apart.”

  “What are you going to do?” Ida managed to whisper.

  David shrugged, “Bishop Pete said that the church is going to help me in some way.” Taking a deep breath, he managed to say, “If you want to leave, I’ll understand.”

  To his surprise, Ida moved closer to him and reached out to put her hand on top of his.

  David wasn’t sure how to accept the fact that his wife wasn’t ready to attack him with a sharp comment or throw his
mistakes up in his face. Looking into her eyes, David remembered the reasons that he had fallen in love with her so many years ago.

  Suddenly, David realized that it wasn’t Ida that he didn’t like. All this time, he had thought he was angry with her, but it was himself that he truly disliked.

  “I’m not coming home yet, David,” Ida announced slowly, “I’m not going to let Lucas be in the midst of all this. But we will come home eventually. Ach, David,” Ida slowly shook her head, her eyes filling with tears, “When we took our marriage vows, I didn’t take them lightly. I believed then that God wanted us to be together for the rest of our lives. I still believe that. I know it’s going to be a struggle through all of this, but I’m going to stick with you, no matter what.”

  For the first time since his mother’s death, David realized that he wasn’t all alone. With the help of the church, his wife, and God, he would get through whatever lay ahead.

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