The Miting by Dee Yoder Read Free Book Online

preparation of food for field workers at the Bontrager barn raising just a few miles from Martha’s house. Leah was happy to see Martha there, too, so they quickly became a team. After working diligently to help serve the men, the friends stood in line with the women for lunch. Leah and Martha cooled their faces with paper fans and chatted about the young men they’d watched that morning. Most of the older women sat at one of the long tables, but Martha motioned to a table away from the others. An old, shagbark hickory tree cooled the air and provided much-needed shade.
    “Do you think you’re ready to join the church?” Leah nodded to a couple of teens in a group nearby. “Tobe and Rebecca are taking instruction right now. They’re younger than both of us.”
    Martha gazed a long time over the surrounding fields before her gaze finally met Leah’s. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Abe in a few weeks. He took an apartment in Ashfield and is living with a group of ex-Amish guys. He gave me this before he left.” She palmed a tiny cell phone, its bright, shiny red color totally out of place against Martha’s dark, plain dress.
    “Martha—have you been using that?”
    She giggled. “Of course, silly. With Abe gone, how else can I talk to him?”
    “Then you’re not really planning to settle down and join the church?”
    She shook her head. “Like I said, I don’t know. I don’t want to leave my younger sisters, but …” She left the sentence unfinished.
    After a minute of silence, Martha slipped the phone back into her apron pocket and leaned close. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to say anything to your maem or to anyone else?”
    “Well—”
    “You have to promise.” Martha whispered firmly. “I mean it!”
    Leah watched her friend’s troubled face and, thinking about what she’d witnessed in Martha’s room, reluctantly agreed. “Okay. What is it?”
    She ducked her chin and fixed her gaze on the tops of her black shoes. “My stepbrother … he … he’s been doing bad things to me.” Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
    It took a minute for the meaning to register, but then Leah took note of the flush that had slowly spread from Martha’s neck into her cheeks as she told her secret. Shivery tingles covered Leah’s body as she recalled what she had seen in Martha’s bedroom. Her heart beat faster as her mind conjured up even worse scenarios than she had witnessed.
    “You mean—”
    Martha nodded.
    “Abner?”
    Martha glanced around and leaned closer still. “ Ja , you saw him. It’s Abner.”
    The awful scene in Martha’s bedroom suddenly made sense, especially the way her friend had acted, the way Abner had treated her, the things he said to Leah as he left the room. The puzzle pieces came together, forming a terrible picture. Leah’s stomach twisted.
    She reached for Martha’s hand. “You have to tell someone.”
    Tears fell from her gray eyes, but Martha shook her head. “I’ve told you , Leah, so you’ll understand when I leave someday.”
    Knowing now what her friend endured at home, Leah could understand why Martha wouldn’t consider staying Amish. Why had she confessed to the church, agreed to all the rules, and stuck around her chaotic family? She had the perfect excuse to get out.
    “You should tell on him,” Leah pronounced.
    Martha shook her head. “No. I’m afraid he’ll start on my younger sisters if I tell. Maem suspects something, but she looks at me like it’s my fault. I tried to tell her—I tried, but she turned her head away before she heard everything. She told me I should try harder to be good. I should ‘be more pure in thought and manner,’ is how she put it.” Martha swiped tears off her cheeks. Her hands clenched her apron.
    “Abe wanted me to leave that night, and I planned to, I really did, but then I saw my little sisters, and well, I just couldn’t do that to them, Leah.”
    “What about you? How are you avoiding