I said that I did not fully understand.
“I don’t either,” she said, her voice soft and plain, still holding my gaze. “God’s will is too big for me to see. It hurts to see even part of it. Like a fire. But I think it will be better if we go, and face the harder journey. More like Him.”
And I knew what she meant.
She looked down, back to her sewing, and nestled back against me as she did. Like when she was a little girl.
We sat for a while.
Then she said, “Dadi?”
“What?” I said.
“I think your memories are hard, a burden. All that writing, of the terrible things. Maybe they are something you should—leave behind.”
I gave a shudder, hearing my thoughts in her voice, and heard the blood suddenly coursing in my ears. Her voice continued, softly.
“There will be enough hardship on the road ahead. Why carry the hardship of the past? Maybe you could leave your remembering behind, with the house and the barn and these bodies in the ground. Maybe in a new place, with new and empty pages, it will be better. You can write about the journey, and about the new place.”
She sat in silence for another moment, and her hands stopped sewing.
She rummaged in her bag for a moment, and pulled out a notebook, simple and leather-bound. “I had Jon get it for you from the store. Not many people buying them, so it was free.”
She placed the notebook in my open hands, and the wind played through the empty, half-open pages.
“But you do what is best, Dadi.”
So. I was decided.
AND WHEN WE GATHERED together, that afternoon at the Schrock farm, I found that most had decided in the same way. Of the twenty-three families in the district, twenty-one saw God’s will in our leaving. The two that did not chose to submit, and so we would all together leave.
The end of it, the certain end of it. Or the beginning of it.
Ah. It is late. I am not tired, but it is late! I must stop writing this now.
November 5
Jon passed through this morning, moving quickly. The news was from other settlements in the district, where the talk of exodus was everywhere. We would move on.
Of the one hundred and eighty-two districts, one hundred and fifty-seven had chosen to leave. Within two weeks, there would be thousands of us going westward, racing the winter. Young men without wives and children were volunteering to ride out ahead, to make contact with families and the bishops of those districts, to bear the message that we were coming.
“And you?” I asked.
Jon gave me a look. “And me?” he said. “Bishop Schrock asked if I can bear the tidings. I can travel much faster, carry a week’s supplies.”
I could see that this pleased him, young and strong as he was. I asked him what his mother and father thought of this, and he laughed.
“Someone’s gotta do it. And who better than me? I’m the best rider in the district. They know that.”
I smiled at him, and warned him not to be prideful.
He winked back. “It’s not prideful. It’s just true.”
Halfway down the path to the road, Sadie appeared, carrying a basket full of potatoes still heavy with dirt. Jon gave me a nod, and cantered over to her.
They exchanged words, words that I could not hear. But I could see the look he was giving her. And I could see that she saw it, too. She handed him something, and he thanked her.
And he was off, riding a little faster than he’d come, faster than he needed to.
HANNAH AND I TOLD Mike and Shauna of our decision later in the morning. The four of us sat together after a late breakfast, after the young folk went to pick spinach and greens, and to continue harvesting the last potatoes. I knew it would not be an easy conversation, but it needed to be done, so I did it.
With Hannah at my side, I told them what we had planned, and why. And that we would leave them this place, and all of the stores we could not carry with us. It will be enough to carry you through winter, I told him. And you have learned enough from these weeks together, I told him, enough to do what you need to keep the farm.
I gestured to the shelf in the sitting room, by the kitchen, to where our books sat, neat and in a row. And there, I said, we will leave you books on farming. It will be at least a week before we are ready to begin the journey, and we can talk so that you can know everything you need to know.
And then I handed him the title for the house, and the document I had written up last night saying that he had the right to live here and care for the house in our absence. It included my signature, and Hannah’s, and a place for him to sign.
“I do not think you will need this,” I said, “because I don’t know that there are many lawyers out plying their trade now. But just in case, if anyone asks, or if there’s a problem. This is your home, for as long as you need it.”
Mike was quiet, for a little, and Shauna sat with her hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes filling, dancing from Hannah to me and then back again.
Mike stood, and made a show of looking at the title and the document, but I could see that he was really staring at his feet. He did not look at me when he spoke. “Jacob, it’s your home.”
“I know,” I said.
He uttered the Lord’s name, but not in vain, I don’t think. Then he took a deep breath, and let it out in a jagged, splashing exhalation.
“I know you folk do what you think you need to do. But from what I hear, from the men I’ve been patrolling with, things are just a total mess everywhere. There’s just, I mean, it’s, just . . . You’re going out like lambs to the slaughter.”
I told him that was God’s will, not ours.
“I knew you’d say that,” he replied. His voice was raised a little, with a tremble in it. “Look, it’s amazing that you’re just leaving all of this for Shauna and me and the boys, but you’ll die out there. All of you.”
I told him that might be so, but that it was not for us to decide.
He uttered a soft curse, then apologized for it. Shauna spoke, her voice unsteady.
“And I don’t know what we’re going to do without you. I don’t know if, I mean, we just can’t . . .” She trailed off.
“Of course you can,” Hannah said, her voice soft and strong. “You will have this place. You will have food enough, and you are known to the community now. Come spring, the land will give what you want. And God will do with us what God wills.”
And Shauna was crying, and Hannah was holding her.
“So that’s how it has to be.” Mike’s voice, a little gravelly, his eyes meeting mine, then looking anywhere else.
“Yes,” I said. And so he signed the paper, and Shauna did, too.
I suppose the conversation could have gone worse.
November 12
Hot again today. November, and it is so hot. But I am too busy to write. It is good, that I am too busy to write.
And better yet that I am too busy to read. This page is the only page I will let myself see today.
November 17