Sarah's Sin

Sarah took one look at her fathers face and stopped in her tracks at the bottom of the steps. The fury and condemnation in his eyes stung like a slap across the face. She let go of Matt's hand, then had to endure his look of hurt as well as her own feelings of guilt.

“Pop,” she said quietly, not quite able to ask why he had come. She didn't want to know.

Isaac stared down at her with a thunderous scowl, drawing his beetle brows together and carving deep brackets beside his mouth. He spoke to her in harsh German. “Are you a daughter of mine, Sarah Troyer, that you would shame me so?”

Sarahs eyes flooded, but she refused to let a single tear fall. Old wounds cracked open inside her. He had never understood her, had never tried to. All her life he had disapproved of her spirit, her hunger for learning, the insatiable yearning for something she couldn't define. He had never taken the time to understand how hard she'd tried to be the kind of daughter he wanted.

“Do you ask or do you accuse?” she said, meeting his hard gaze head-on.

Isaac left the question unanswered, ignoring her as if he didn't understand the language she spoke. His gaze raked down over Matt with contempt. “Is this how the English have you care for their guests? This holding of the hands and walking with a man who is not your husband nor even of your faith?”

Sarah turned his own tactic around on him, refusing to answer. Beside her, Matt shuffled his feet restlessly, planting his hands on his lean hips.

“What's he saying?” he asked, his gaze shifting uneasily back and forth between the old man and Sarah. He could sense the tension and he didn't like it. He especially didn't like the tears welling in Sarahs eyes. That alone stirred dislike for her father inside him. “What does he want?”

“Why have you come here, Pop?” she asked in English. As much as she didn't want to hear this in any language, it wasn't right to force Matt to wonder what was going on.

Naturally, Isaac didn't agree. He went on speaking in the guttural dialect out of stubbornness more than habit, she suspected. “There is family business. You are needed at home. Come and pack your things.”

“What family business? Why am I needed? Is Mom ill?” Sarah asked, concern for her fam ily overriding all else. Wringing her hands nervously, she moved closer to the steps to get a better look at her father's impassive face. “What's wrong?”

“Plenty is wrong. We had visitors today. First, Micah Hochstetler, then the deacon.”

Sarah felt a deep chill settle in her bones at the mention of the deacon. If her father was there because the deacon had come, then it hadn't been a social call; it had to do with her. It was the deacon's duty to approach any member of the community suspected of disobeying the Ordnung, the rules of the church. Deacon Lapp was a close friend of Isaac. He would have gone to Isaac first in any matter concerning one of the Maust children. What she didn't know, what she was afraid to know, was what the concern might be about.

“I've spoken with Deacon Lapp and also with the bishop about my job here,” she said, grasping desperately for what she hoped was the root of the trouble. “They said I could—”

“This isn't to do with the work,” Isaac interrupted. His face grew dark and his hand trembled as he raised it and pointed a gnarled finger at Matt. “This is to do with this Yankee.”

“Whoa, wait a minute here!” Matt protested angrily, bringing his hands up in front of him to halt Isaac's verbal assault. “I may not speak the lingo here, but I think I know when I'm being insulted.”

“Insults?” Isaac said, finally consenting to using English. “You speak to me of insults when you shame my daughter before God and her people?”

The look in Matt's eyes hardened to something like hatred. He stared at Isaac Maust and saw the personification of what would forever keep him from the only woman he'd ever loved. He cherished Sarah with everything that was in his heart. To have that love sullied by accusation was something he wasn't going to stand still for, and it didn't matter if the accuser was Sarah's father or God himself.

“Sarah hasn't done anything to be ashamed of. Your daughter is a bright, vibrant, loving young woman. I happen to care for her very deeply.”

“What has Micah Hochstetler to do with this?” Sarah asked, jumping in as quickly as she could to derail her father from the train of conversation Matt had started on. She didn't know yet what damage had been done or what the deacon had had to say, but she didn't want the hole to get dug any deeper.

Her father turned to her with a sour expression. “As he was driving past here yesterday with a load of corn he saw you out on the lawn chasing around with this Englishman, behav ing wild, your hair loose and down for all to see. Do you deny this?”

For an instant Sarah had the wild urge to make up a story that might excuse what her father's neighbor had seen, but none come to mind, and she only felt wretched for even thinking it. How could she consider degrading the love she felt for Matt just for the sake of placating her father? What kind of coward was she?

“Do you deny it?” Isaac demanded again, coming down a step to loom over his daughter like a righteous judge. The breeze caught the ends of his beard, and the porch light backlit him like a holy aura, making him look as formidable as Moses on the mountain. “Do you denyit?”

“Do you ask for an explanation?” Sarah questioned softly, tears crowding her throat. “Do you give me any benefit of doubt?”

“Do you deserve it?”

That wasn't the point, Sarah thought sadly, but she didn't waste her breath saying it. Isaac wouldn't hear her. She looked away from him, tears sliding down her cheeks, hurting too badly to go on looking for some hint of approval or understanding or even compassion from him. Her father was a hard man, unyielding, severe. He loved his family, but he tolerated nothing save absolute obedience. Pity she had been born as stubborn as he was and with a spirit that defied authority at most turns.

“Go and pack your things,” he said, his voice thick with disgust and disapproval.

Sarah's first instinct was to defy him, but she thought of her mother and her family, especially Jacob, and curbed her rebellion. In that moment she didn't care how Isaac might suffer from her disobedience, but she couldn't cause the rest of her family undue anxiety just for the sake of spite. Besides, if it were possible for the trouble to be cleared up by a simple visit to her home for a few days and perhaps an earnest talk with some of the church elders, then she knew she had best take the opportunity and save them all a lot of pain.

She moved toward the steps, but Matt reached out and stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Wait a second,” he said, glaring at Isaac. “This isn't Sarah's fault. I didn't know it was against her religion to have fun. I was just teasing her. It was harmless.”

“Was it?” Isaac said, his gaze going meaningfully to the hand Matt had unconsciously settled on Sarah's arm. “Let me tell you something, Mister English,” he said, wagging a finger in Matt s face. “You may not know our ways, but Sarah knows them well. It is for her to resist the temptations of the world and when she don't, it is for her to atone for her sins.

“She hasn't committed any sins!”

Isaac gave a snort and took hold of his daughters other arm. “That is sure not for you to decide.”

“And it is for you?” Matt questioned angrily. His grip tightened on Sarahs arm. “Who do you think you are? God?”

Isaac's weathered face colored deeply. “I am not God,' he hissed. “I am God's servant. I obey his laws.” He tried to jerk Sarah toward him, but Matt held fast.

“You obey your own laws,” Matt sneered. “Sarah isn't guilty of anything but being in love. That might be a sin in your eyes, but I doubt it is in God's.”

“Love.” Isaac spat out the woitl as if it made a foul taste in his mouth. “I know of your kind of love, Englishman. Love of the flesh. Have you defiled my daughter so?”

A red mist washed before Matte eyes. It was all he could do to not let got of Sarah and take a swing at her father. His muscles tensed to the hardness of granite, his left hand clenched into a fist, but something told him his most important priority was holding on to Sarah, so he clung to the leash of his temper as he clung to the woman beside him.

“I've never defiled anyone,” he said, his tone dangerously low and thrumming with fury.

Isaac looked away from him, pinning Sarah with his gaze instead. “He speaks of your love, daughter,” he said, reverting to German once again. “Are your sins even more terrible than I thought? More terrible than anyone knows?”

Once again Sarah refused to answer. She wouldn't soil what she had shared with Matt in love by calling it a sin. It wasn't a sin in her heart. Her soul was twined with Matt's more closely than it had been with her own husbands. She was married to him in her own eyes and, she prayed, in the eyes of God. She lifted her chin, winning her another black mark in her father's eyes.

“You have lain with this English?” he said, his voice shaking with anger. His fierce grip tightened on her arm, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from wincing. “You are a forni-cator? A whore?”

She bit her lip to keep from saying anything at all. She knew she should have bowed her head. Expressing shame and humility might have won her some mercy, but she wasn't ashamed and she wouldn't pretend it. She looked at her father squarely and let him see her defiance, let him see the rebellion she had held inside for so long. She raised her chin another notch in pride, which was itself a sin.

Isaac cursed her, an expression of pure rage twisting his features. His right hand lashed out like a bolt of lightning and caught Sarah across the mouth, splitting her Up. The force of the blow turned her head and burned her cheek, but still she refused to cry

Matt jerked her back out of Isaacs grasp, swearing viciously under his breath. He turned her to survey the damage her father had done, cradling her face gently in his trembling hands. He wiped a bead of blood from her lip with his thumb, fighting the urge to kiss it away.

“I'll be all right,” she whispered, her eyes huge with pleading. “Please, Matt, don't make it worse.”

“How the hell could I make it any worse than this?” he asked, his voice shaking. He looked up at Isaac with loathing. “You pack quite a punch for a pacifist. Get out of here. Nobody abuses women in front of me, no matter how righteous and pious they think they are. Leave. Now.”

“Come, Sarah,” Isaac commanded as if she were a dog to be ordered about. He showed no open remorse for what he'd done, but his expression had been wiped clean of anger and rage and was now blank.

Sarah started toward him, and again Matt held her back.

“Matt,” she said softly, glancing up at him. “It's all right.”

His eyes widened incredulously. “It s not all right! You're a grown woman. He can't come here and knock you around and drag you off by the hair! He doesn't have any say in your life.”

“He is my father.”

“That doesn't give him the right—”

“Matt.” Ingrid's voice drew his attention to the porch, where his sister had come to stand in the open doorway with her basset hound on her feet, and her arms crossed against the chill of the early evening. Her expression was both strained and guarded as she looked at him. “Let it go. Sarah knows what she's doing.”

He worked his jaw, fighting the urge to argue with her. Deep inside he couldn't escape the feeling that he was Sarah's protector, her knight in shining armor ready to slay any dragon for her. Some protector, he thought derisively. It was because of him her father had been driven to strike her. It was because of him she may be in serious trouble with her people. Once again he had managed to hurt her when his greatest desire was to love her and keep her from harm. Maybe she was right in saying he should go back to his world. It was becoming painfully clear that their separate worlds couldn't mix.

“Please, Matt,” she whispered tremulously, tears spilling past her lashes and down her cheeks. “Please.”

She was asking him to let her go. She'd told him she'd known all along their time together would be brief. He had fought the idea just as he had wanted to fight any threat to Sarah herself. He wanted to fight it still, but she was asking him to let go. If he followed his heart and fought for her, he would only end up destroying her. The selfish man inside him argued that they would still have each other and the love that had blossomed so quickly and so brilliantly between them. But he knew deep down that the cost would be too great. He couldn't force her to change, couldn't ask her to give up her family and her faith and her way of life. She wasn't willing to make that sacrifice for him and if he forced her to, how could their love possibly survive?

It took a terrible effort, but he pulledhis hand away from Sarah's arm and stepped back, conceding the battle to Isaac Maust. Sarah looked up at him with an expression that tore his heart in two.

“I'm sorry,” she said, the words barely audible. I'm so sony I hurt you.”

Matt felt the pressure of tears behind his own eyes as he looked at hen committing to memory her every feature. He reached out and brushed a drop of moisture from the crest of her cheek, “just don't be sorry you loved me,” he said, then turned and walked away, limping heavily and feeling old and beaten.

She was gone in a matter of minutes. Matt sat on a decorative iron bench beneath a maple tree on the far side of the yard and watched the black buggy pull out, white reflective tape glowing eerily in the dark as it made its way down the road. The last rays of the sunset had faded to black, a color appropriate for mourning, Matt thought. He looked out at the millions of stars that dotted the sky like fairy dust, his gaze fastening on the brightest.

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight …

He shook his head in amazement at the nursery rhyme that had popped into his head. He hadn't experienced a sense of wonder in a long, long time. For months now he'd felt as aged and cynical as the world itself—until Sarah had come into his life. In her quiet way she had awakened in him an appreciation for the simple beauty of the world around him. Now she was gone and all the joy of that beauty had gone with her.

Blossom came trotting across the yard, nose to the ground. She made a beeline to him, sniffed his shoes, and plopped down in front of him. Her somber, woebegone expression was clear to him thanks to the faint silver glow of the yard light that stood between the house and the barn.

“I feel worse than you look,” he murmured.

The hound whined and lay her head on her paws in apparent sympathy.

Ingrid emerged from the shadows of the house and came to sit beside him on the bench with his leather jacket draped across her lap.

“You shouldn't let yourself get a chill, Dr. Thome,” she said with absolutely no censure in her voice.

Matt didn't take the jacket, nor did he say anything for a long while. He just sat there absorbing his sister's silent comfort, staring out at the night and marveling at the quiet of it.

“Do you think she'll make them understand?” he asked.

“I don't know. They'll forgive her if she asks for it. They're very forgiving people.”

“What about that thing you told me, that mide thing.”

“The Meidung. Shunning is serious business for the unrepentant. It might not come to that. Like I said, they're gentle, forgiving people.”

Matt gave a harsh laugh. “Her father doesn't seem very forgiving.”

“Isaac is a hard man, almost bitter for some reason. He's very strong in the Unserem weg, the old ways. Very strict.”

“I could have killed him for hitting her.”

“I know”

They sat in silence for another few minutes. Ingrid leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. She took one of his hands in hers and squeezed it tight. “I'm sorry, Matt.”

So am I, he thought, hurting in a way no drug could ease.

“Is there anything I can do to help her?” he asked.

“Stay out of it. They won't tolerate interference, especially not from you. Make a clean break. Get on with your life.”

What life? a lonely voice asked inside him.

Realistically, he knew he would take In-grid's advice. Realistically, he knew he would go back to work, and in a few months his brief stay here and his brief affair with a young Amish woman would be a memory, the awful pain dulled by the anesthetic effects of time. Realistically, he knew all of these things, but in his heart he couldn't accept any of it at the moment. In his heart he knew only that he'd found something bright and pure that had lighted his life when everything had seemed bleak and dingy, and now that special something had been snatched away from him, wrenched from his grasp even sooner than he had feared. In his heart he knew only that he felt more alone than he had ever felt before.

He wondered if Sarah was feeling the same way.

He looked out at the starlit sky and listened to the breeze rattle the skeletal cornstalks and the dried leaves in the trees. He felt the autumn chill bite into his bones, and he thought about Sarah in the house down the road.

Dorit be sorry you loved me.…