October song by Unknown

fatigue?
    Thinking back on the visit, she recalled that Mary had offered her nothing to eat or drink. Not even a glass of water. Just as well. The bishop’s wife was abiding by the rules of the shunning. Katie couldn’t find fault in that.
    The car parked in the driveway took Katie off guard, but only for a moment as she pulled in, then turned off the ignition. Getting out, she noticed Benjamin perched on the gazebo steps in the side yard.
    “Have you been here long?” she asked, walking toward him.
    “A quarter hour or so.”
    She had hoped he might come earlier, for lunch, but seeing him now was enough to make her smile. “Come in, come in,” she said, hurrying around to the back door.
    They sat together in the kitchen, occasionally looking out over the pastureland from the window, two cups of coffee and a plate of sticky buns between them. “Don’t know why I’m here, really,” he confessed between bites.
    She nodded at him, this brother of hers, who looked so peculiar in his polished
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    cowboy boots and tight blue jeans. Actually, the clothing she could almost overlook, but the gunked-up hair struck her as downright comical. She didn’t laugh. Laughter would be a dire mistake.
    Silently, she listened as he began to share the pressures he was feeling at home. “Comes mostly from Dat,” he said. ” ‘Cept Mam brought it up the other day… ‘bout me taking over the farm, livin’ on their side of the house, me and the girl I marry. But I don’t have my eye on any Plain girls just now.”
    Katie could think of a handful of Amish girls she’d suspected him of courting on and off through the years — before the girl who’d hurt him so awful bad. But she felt it best to keep her peace. Let Ben voice his feelings, speak out his frustrations.
    Looking at him sitting across the table from her, his eyes intent on life, his hair all shiny and hard from whatever it was he was smearing on it these days — well, she had a strong notion he needed to get some things off his chest.
    “Dat’s itchin’ to slow down some.” Ben stared at his coffee. “But why do I hafta planmylife round the old man’s decision to retire?”
    Katie wasn’t too surprised. She’d heard
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    him fussing in the past enough to know he sometimes got riled up.
    “What if Eli took over instead?” she sug gested. “Anyone thought of that?”
    Ben shook his head. “Eli’s got himself a carpentry shop out in the shed behind their new place. I daresay he’ll make a gut livin’ doing what he enjoys. Besides, Eli’s never been too keen on farming.”
    She wondered if the strain coming from Dat was the reason Ben wanted to experi ence the world — buying himself a car and going with the English girl. “What if Dat wasn’t planning to retire for a while?” she said, thinking that Ben needed time to find himself, maybe.
    “Wouldn’t make me any difference.” He took his time drinking his coffee. Then — “I’m thinking of leaving the church, Katie.”
    “For what reason?” she asked, a bit shocked.
    “Tell ya the truth, I’m fed up.” He drew a deep breath. “Need to get out on my own.”
    She was cautious. Ben was clearly upset at the world, not just at their father. “Is this about your girlfriend leaving you for —”
    “}Su got shunned, Katie, and you’re doin’ all right!” She shook her head. “You’re wrong
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    about that.” She breathed a prayerforwisdom. “Let me tell you something. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not cut off from my family, from all the People
    my dearest friend, Mary, too. I live with the pain each and every day. Yet there is nothing I can do to change it. I’m a follower of the Lord Jesus, and there’s no turning back for me.”
    “Same as you, I have no choice but to leave.”
    “‘Well, if you were leaving the Old Order to follow the Lord — to accept His gift of salvation — I’d encourage you. But I’m not
    sure that’s what you mean to do.”
    Ben was