Crossing Over (6 page)

Ten

I'd like to sum things up this way. What you did, we feel, was way wrong. But what Dad does to Mom or they do toward each other—and have done for years—is way wrong, too. Their own mistakes are making it hard for everyone around them. My constant plea and prayer is that we can all see our mistakes and truly repent.

—L
ETTER FROM
W
ILBUR
M
ILLER
(
BROTHER)

F
reedom came to me June 8, 1996, a Saturday, ten days before Theodore Kaczynski was indicted by a California grand jury in the Unabomber case.

At about 9:00 that morning, Ottie gathered up Bertha and me and drove us to his house, where we retrieved some of his paperwork—research for a national directory he was compiling that listed people who drove for the Amish.

Because my father had prohibited Bertha and me from working at Ottie's house, the alphabetizing of the directory would have to be done at the farm. My father had also issued a warning: He wanted to talk to Ottie that evening, presumably about severing ties with him as the family's driver and prohibiting further foot treatments.

“What's up with your father?” Ottie asked after we'd arrived at his house and I'd told him about the warning. “What does he want to see me about?”

“He keeps ranting and raving that your divorce was in the paper and that people are talking,” I said.

“Well, what's he gonna do? Stop you guys from working for me altogether? Stop me from driving for the family?”

“I think that's what he's up to.”

“This is beginning to look like they're trying to get me out of the settlement,” he said. “And you know, Irene, if that happens, I won't be able to see you anymore.”

“I know, but I don't know what to do.”

In the hollow space between us, sitting there on the couch in his house, there was the paralyzing realization that we might never make love again, might never share each other's company again, might never see our dreams through.

“There's only one thing to do, Irene,” Ottie blurted suddenly. “We need to leave today. We'll leave, we'll get married in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, we'll settle down near my family in Kentucky.”

“Can't we do this in a couple of weeks?” I protested. “Can't we have time to plan?”

“I don't think so, Irene. Now is the time.”

“I . . . I . . . can't,” I struggled, searching for another solution. “You know I can't leave the Amish. You know I can't leave Mom, and you know I don't want to hurt the rest of the family.''

But no sooner had I said it that I knew instinctively Ottie was probably right. The timing was good; both of my parents had gone to town and would not be at the farm to interfere. Waiting, meanwhile, would run the risk that we'd be caught, either by our own ineptitude, circumstance, or my older sister speaking up.

I trusted Bertha implicitly, but she was the weaker of the two of us. She had been bad-mouthed so much by my father and others in the community that she had lost what little self-esteem she might have once had. It wouldn't take much to twist her arm into talking.

Another thought also occurred to me: Maybe my leaving would finally wake up the Amish community to the troubles at our house. Maybe, in an odd way, my leaving would actually help my mother.

Even so, I couldn't bring myself to tell Ottie I was ready to go. The desire notwithstanding, the words simply wouldn't form.

We packed up his documents, returned to the farm, and began unloading them with Benedict's help. Out of my brother's sight, I took a few dresses from my closet and put them in the van. Just in case, I thought.

Earlier, when Ottie had come to pick us up, I had also boxed up my crystal swans and put them in the van. I had begun to worry they would be discovered and figured Ottie could hide them better than I could. Subconsciously, the reason might have been far weightier.

When we were done unloading Ottie's papers, he suggested we go for a drive to continue our discussion. And so we did. Ottie up front in the driver's seat; Bertha and me in the back, as always, trying not to draw undue attention to a single English man in the company of two single Amish women.

My sister said little during the drive, occasionally interjecting mild protests in her soft, insecure way.

Once, she raised the issue of adultery. Ottie's divorces. His ex-wives still being alive and such.

“Is this really right?” she said.

“I'm tired of everything, Bertha,” I told her. “I can't take it anymore.”

Another time she said, “Don't you ever take your head covering off.”

But I didn't say anything. I didn't tell her I already had. I just looked straight ahead until I came face to face with Ottie in the rearview mirror. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “What will it be?” And I nodded.

I couldn't say, “Yes, I will marry you,” or “Yes, I will go with you.” But I'd managed a nod, and Ottie knew what it meant.

On the way back to the farm, I jotted a note to my mother on a scrap of paper. Two paragraphs, maybe three. Something to the effect of, “I'm leaving with Ottie; it's not your fault; you've been a good mother to me; I love you; Irene.”

I knew that even if an opportunity had presented itself, I wouldn't have been able to tell her in person. The anguish creasing her face would have been too much for me to bear. At the same time, I felt obliged to let her know what I was doing.

We let Bertha off in front of the mailbox, I handed her the note, and we exchanged unceremonious Amish farewells.

“Goodbye,” I said.

“Goodbye,” she echoed.

She began crossing the dirt road to the farm. As she did, my father, who had returned from town, appeared from inside the barn, some sixty yards away. He looked at Bertha, then at the van. When he saw I was not getting out, he began walking toward us.

We didn't let any grass grow beneath the wheels.

Ottie headed down Gable Avenue, turned right on Johnson-Washington County Road, then made another right north onto Highway 1. Up the hill, out of sight, into the unknown.

Worried that we might be followed—that the police might be summoned by the Amish—we took the back roads out of Kalona. We could have taken the traditional route. Iowa City, then Interstate 80. Instead, we circled south and caught Highway 61 into Missouri and Illinois, bound for Glasgow, Kentucky, home to many generations of Ottie's family.

“Irene, honey, you'd better look back,” Ottie said somberly, “because it could be a long time before you see the farm again.”

“I know,” I said, deciding against a last glance. “Please keep going.”

I didn't want to subject myself to any more emotion than I was already feeling. Besides, it's hard for a person to move forward when they're looking backward.

Later, Ottie tried to lighten the mood when he reminded me I'd be able to assemble a new wardrobe.

“You can go shopping and buy anything you want. Satin and silk, frills and pastels. All the things you like.”

“Yes,'' I said, smiling.

“And we can travel, and be alone, and one day, perhaps, raise a family.”

“I know,” I said.

“But if you're gonna be my wife, you're gonna have to do one thing. You're gonna have to shave your legs. You're not Amish anymore, you know.”

“Right here? Right now?”

“Yep,” he said, and he pointed to an electric razor he had brought along, one of the few possessions he had extracted from his house before we left. “You can use that if you like.”

“You're sure?”

“I don't see why not.”

Then he handed it to me, this English gadget of modern convenience, and I rolled down my leggings and began shaving the thin strands of hair from my calves.

I was nervous, just a little bit scared, and missing my family, despite our differences.

At the same time, Kalona all of a sudden seemed a long ways off.

Eleven

The only way I could come to you is if you come home with us. I don't think I could take it to see the one who inflicted so much pain and grief and made you commit adultery and to live in sin in the prime of youth!

—L
ETTER FROM
M
OM

W
e arrived in Glasgow on Sunday, twenty-four hours after leaving Kalona. I had spent the journey in a peculiar state of tired anxiety.

Happy as I was to be on the outside, I was still being guided by Amish instincts, and I worried about the damage I had done to my reputation. Even though I knew I would not be returning to Kalona—at least not as an Amish person. Even though I knew there was nothing I could do to erase the tarnish.

Also hanging heavy in the back of my mind were the plaintive messages left on Ottie's phone in Kalona. We had stopped overnight in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, and Ottie had checked his voice mail. My sister had called. A brother, too. Even several bishops. All of them on the precipice of panic, begging me to come back.

They knew what was at stake, and so did I. If I married Ottie, an adulterer in their eyes, then later chose to return to the Amish, I would never be able to marry again. I would become an old maid.

And on that score, I had changed my tune. I no longer wanted to be an old maid in lieu of taking a chance on marrying the wrong person. I was sure I had found the right one.

En route to Glasgow, Ottie and I discussed getting married quickly—for two reasons. The first is that it might discourage my family and their friends from coming after me. The second is that making our union official—and moral—was paramount if we were to be held in God's good graces.

The contradiction of the latter point was more than apparent to me. We'd already made love, after all.

But I rationalized, as people often do. The night we gave ourselves to each other, I told myself, we did so because we thought it was the only opportunity we would have to share the ultimate human bond. Ottie would eventually leave, I would stay, and we would at least be left with the memory—and the comfort—of knowing we'd consummated our love.

Living together out of wedlock, on the other hand, was different. I had committed to Ottie and he to me, and there was only one choice.

We told Ottie's father, Ottie Sr., and sister, Faye, about our plans when we got to Glasgow. His dad, a spare man in his seventies with an iron will that had allowed him to survive cancer and a heart bypass, was to have surgery Monday morning in Bowling Green for a benign stomach growth. We would visit him in the hospital that morning, then head for Tennessee with Faye's daughter, Angela, and her husband, Chris, a professional wrestler in southern circuits. They would stand up for us at our wedding.

We would get our marriage license in Sevierville—between Knoxville and Dolly Parton's Pigeon Forge—then slip into the Smokies and get married in a mountain chapel. All well and good, we thought. But something happened along the way.

Ottie called Faye in Glasgow after we'd gotten our license and learned some Amish had called Ottie's most recent ex-wife in Indiana. My parent's plan was to get a group together, travel to the Smokies, and try to convince me to return. How they knew where we were going is a matter of conjecture, but they were aware the Smoky Mountains was a favorite of ours.

Everything changed in the wink of an eye. Ottie told Faye to make arrangements for us to marry Tuesday morning in a little white, nondenominational chapel near Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Faye and her husband would meet us there.

None of this was how I had pictured it. In those rare moments growing up when I allowed myself to consider marriage, I thought of a large Amish wedding, usually on a Tuesday or Thursday. There would be a three-hour church service before the fifteen-minute ceremony. Three to four hundred people—including my mother—in the audience. A big dinner in the afternoon and socializing with the visitors, some of them from hundreds of miles away. And gifts for the bride and groom—tools and tack for him; towels, linens, and cookware for her.

Our marriage in Nashville took all of twenty minutes. There were six of my new family members in attendance: Ottie and myself, Faye and her husband, Angela (Angel for short) and her husband. The minister gave a brief sermon, we said our vows, kissed at the minister's command, and walked out.

We didn't have rings. Instead, we lit three white candles at the altar—one for Ottie, one for me, and one for our union. We didn't even wear our wedding best. Ottie had on casual slacks and a navy blue short-sleeved shirt. I wore my head covering, leggings, and a baby blue dress I had made for our Florida trip. The dress was fancy by Amish standards, but conservative by anyone else's.

Even in our free state, we were like fugitives on the run, making do with the final two thousand dollars Ottie had withdrawn from his bank, a stack of 1997 Amish calendars he had produced, the clothes on our backs (and a few to spare), the crystal swans in the van, God, and a yet unrealized dream of making a beautiful life together.

And one more thing. The love and support of Ottie's family.

Since our arrival in Glasgow, they had given me numerous chances to back out. They knew of my fears and wanted me to know that if I desired to return to the Amish, they would take me back. They didn't want me to feel trapped.

They showed their support in other ways, too. When we walked in the door at Ottie's father's house, the two men gave each other a bear hug. Then his father asked if he could give me one.

Silently, I thought, I don't know how to do this. But I reached out tentatively, and he put his arms around me. Welcome home, Irene. Welcome home.

The first place we headed after our wedding was Sugarcreek, Ohio. With all of Ottie's driving jobs gone, he wanted to pick up copies of a book he had compiled,
Amish Communities Across America.
The plan was to take ten thousand of them to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the heart of Amish country, and sell them.

Fortunately, we called before we got to Sugarcreek. The proprietor of the print shop was liberal New Order Amish, but Amish nonetheless. He therefore felt beholden to the wishes of the Amish community at large, and someone had gotten to him before we had.

“Hello,'' Ottie said cheerfully after placing the call. “This is Ottie Garrett.”

“Yes,'' said the proprietor, sounding strangely curt for a longtime friend.

“Well, you got my books ready?” Ottie said.

“No.”

“Is there something wrong?''

“No.”

“Well, when are they going to be ready?”

“I don't know.”

“Then I guess there's no reason for me to be coming down there, is there?”

“I guess not.”

Instinctively, Ottie knew something was wrong, said goodbye, and hung up.

We learned later that my family had driven to Sugarcreek and was listening on the other end of the line. I'm certain they had planned to ambush us at the print shop—where they would have an Amish audience—and create a scene of wailing, praying, kneeling, and raising their arms to shame me into coming home.

A friend later told us: “You sure dodged a bullet.”

But truthfully, we hadn't. Within two weeks, the print shop owner told Ottie the Amish would never buy another of his calendars now that they knew what he had done. The owner threatened to participate in the boycott unless Ottie sold him the business for ten thousand dollars. It was a considerable loss, but Ottie had no other option. He was broke.

Ottie was also forced to sell the rights to
Amish Communities Across America
to a silent partner for fifteen thousand dollars for the same reason. A boycott.

We were newlyweds and we were losing everything. Our livelihood, my family—and soon our van.

Upon returning to Glasgow from our whirlwind wedding/brush with intervention, Ottie parked the van under a tree and left a trailer wire on the ground. Lightning hit the tree in the middle of the night, snaked to the wire, and fried the van.

Months later, when my family found out about our misfortune with the van, they said God was trying to tell us something.

“Yeah,” Ottie cracked dryly. “Don't park under a tree during a lightning storm.”