On that day Johan replaced Mother as my lodestar, the pinpoint of light by which I charted my path. It may be that the explanation for my unwise surrender to him lies herein, that I couldn’t perceive my own guiding star, or find it in the Light everlasting.
Yet something new did grow in me after Mother died—a capacity for cynicism. What was the sense in my mother’s death? Was heavenly justice no more than a fantasy? I kept my doubts and bitterness quiet in myself, but through the ensuing months I observed others to see if they held them, too. When, after silent waiting, people stood in Meeting to speak what came into their spirits, most gave forth consoling messages of love; yet others spoke of hardships, within or without, and the barriers to overcoming them. I no longer shrank from the words of these messengers.
Something else, too, was pressing to have its day. Many nights I couldn’t sleep, convinced that knowledge poured through me—all the knowing Mother had released into my body when she died; in vain I searched for words to give it shape. On other nights I slept excessively, as if this growing power required added rest.
Having always been a Friend and attended twice-weekly Meetings for Worship, I was raised on insights and revelations conveyed by God through willing humans. But the person receiving this wisdom and rising from a bench to convey it had never once been me. Now a newfound force gathered during our silent waiting, inciting me to stand. On every occasion I resisted, fearful to become a channel for God’s truths. The force brought on an elation so strong that I feared, if I surrendered, I might be called to the life of a traveling minister, might have to go from Meeting to Meeting to share what I was given. But what was I given? If I opened my mouth, I feared, it might emerge as an unformed ramble.
In any case, my chance expired. I never did find the words to stand and speak. Our lives were too far altered before my inner battle had its victor.
I last attended Meeting for Worship on a chilly spring morning four months after Mother’s death. Peter and I sat as always on opposite sides of the crowded meetinghouse, one side for women, the other, men. Perhaps Father knew what was planned, which might have explained his absence. But we were stunned when an esteemed elder rose from a facing bench and testified against our father. For soon after taking up with his first cousin, Father had begun drinking alcohol to excess. Then he’d married his cousin, who wasn’t a Friend and didn’t seek to become one, and married her two months after Mother’s death rather than waiting the required year. All of this was out of union with our Meeting’s Discipline. Father had been treated with privately, the elder told the assembly, raising his arms. He’d been counseled that he and Patience could acknowledge their errors in writing and that she could apply for membership. “Yet way did not open for Samuel de Jong,” the elder said sadly to those assembled. Father had failed to repent.
In shame I rose and left my seat; Peter met me at the doors. We crossed the broad porch of the meetinghouse and stepped toward home. I reached for his hand, as I had when he was small, and he let me hold his damp palm to my own. Above us spread a blank white sky, a page cleared of its story.
Some days later we learned that Father’s disownment had been approved, when old Hannah Purdes brought a letter stating his right to appeal. Hannah knew Father well; she’d even been a member of the Clearness Committee that had approved my parents’ marriage.
Father was in his workshop and Patience in the yard when Hannah knocked. I unlatched the thick wood door, and she reached her bony arms to embrace me. My face pressed into the long bill of her bonnet until she pulled my head down with gnarled, powerful hands. She kissed my forehead, leaving behind a hint of moisture and a coolness.
“Dear Lilli,” she said. “This is a dreadful shame. If Helen were alive, thee could have remained with us despite thy father’s doings.”
“Dear Hannah, these are trying times,” I replied, unsure of her full meaning. “If Mother were alive, they would not have come to pass. But please, come in.” I pointed to a chair before the hearth, where a fire burned hot. But she ventured only far enough to let me close the door against the unseasonable wind behind her.
“We lost thy mother,” she said in her ringing voice, “a champion of the needy. Now we lose thee from our classrooms! Our most promising young instructor!” Her head shook side to side.
“What can thee mean?” My voice was quavering.
“The School Committee would like to offer thee a respite from thy duties. And we can offer thee a Clearness Committee, if thee desires it.” Hannah’s glittering eyes peered past me.
A respite? I wanted nothing less. And why a Clearness Committee? Why was I being judged as out of harmony with Friends’ ways, when all I’d done was be my father’s daughter?
“Is thy father in?” Hannah asked, just as the door of his workshop opened.
“Who’s come, Lilli?” Father stepped into the room, his work clothes stained and shabby. Seeing our visitor, he rubbed his callused hands together to clean them. “Come in, Hannah!” He reached toward her, his cheeks warming. “Won’t thee join us for tea? I’ll take thy cloak.”
“No, Samuel,” she replied. “I’ve come to express our sincere desire for thy recovery and restoration, and to deliver this.” From the pocket of her plain gown she pulled an envelope of bone-white paper.
Father took it. On its face it read NOTICE OF DISOWNMENT. Unable to speak, he stared at his sawdust-covered boots.
In that quiet, Hannah and I beheld each other. Her wrinkled cheeks held no trace of gladness to uplift them; dark hairs poked forth above her upper lip. When I met her speckled eyes, I sensed her voice in me: Help him repent. For thy whole family’s sake, but especially for thine.
A hard knot formed in my throat. She turned, opened the heavy door herself, and picked her way down our brick path. Father shut the door and fastened it with an iron latch that his great-grandfather had forged. Then he gave out a moan.
Perhaps the full weight of his disownment was falling on him. It fell on me then, for I knew I might never again be considered free enough of his pernicious influence to teach young Friends at the Meeting school. My life’s ambitions had all been staged within that august building.
Holding the sealed envelope, Father paced the room, his lower teeth biting the lip above. His head was low, his black hair unkempt and falling over his eyes. He lowered himself into a wooden seat before the fire and stared without seeming to see. Then, with a flash of his wrist, he threw the envelope into the hearth. It smoked and burst into flame. I inhaled sharply.
“That’s done,” he said, “and I’m relieved. No one can make me feel badly for doing as I wish.” He wiped his outsized hands over his face and looked at me. “It’s deadly to be always aiming for perfection.”