Free Amish Breaking Point by Samantha Price Page A

encouragement. “Is this current bishop related to the old one?”
    Elsa-May said, “When the old bishop died, lots are cast between the ministers and the lot fell on the current bishop. As you should know, Bailey, that’s the way things are done.”
    Bailey thought back to his instruction, his lessons of Amish life he’d been given. He vaguely remembered something about Amish menner having to be willing to take up leadership positions in the community if the lot fell on them. Being a former Englischer he knew he would never hold such a position, so he hadn’t taken much notice of that aspect of the instruction. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
    “We didn’t want you to think that you might be cursed,” Elsa-May said jutting out her bottom jaw.
    Bailey grunted. “Might explain a few things. It certainly explains why my grandfather stayed away from the community.”
    Ettie shook her head. “ Nee , he would not have wanted to show his face around these parts.”
    “Not after stealing away the bishop’s dochder . James Byler, the man she was to marry, was devastated as well, but he married a couple of years later,” Elsa-May said.
    Bailey looked back to the newspaper articles again. There were witnesses who heard this man threaten his father and his father’s family. There were other prisoners who came forward and some of your father’s fellow workers at the prison who heard the man threaten your father. Maybe the man had come to his house to kill his father and his family as he had threatened. It was possible that his father was protecting his family and had to kill the man in self-defense. Maybe fear led his father to threaten Bailey and lock him in a cupboard. Bailey screwed up his face. Whatever way he looked at it, he found it hard to excuse his father for what he had done to him.
    It was possible that his father was protecting his family and had to kill the man in self-defense. Maybe fear led him to threaten Bailey and lock him in a cupboard. Bailey screwed up his face. Whatever way he looked at it, he found it hard to excuse his father for such cruelty.
    Bailey lowered the articles and looked up at his two aunts. “Grandfather stole away the bishop’s daughter, who then died in childbirth having my mother. My mother married my father who had a bad temper and was a Corrections Officer who killed a man in apparent self-defense.” Bailey looked at Ettie and Elsa-May.
    “Tea?” Ettie said.
    “ Ach , that will fix everything,” Elsa-May said sarcastically and pulled a face at her schweschder.
    Bailey laughed and said, “I’ll need something stronger than tea, Ettie. My father had a violent temper it appears and was a very hard man. I wonder how my mother managed to cope with it all? She never mentioned growing up without a mother and how it had affected her. It must have affected her in many ways. My grandfather told me nothing about my grandmother.”
    “Too much pain, too many secrets,” Ettie said.
    “You two kept secrets from me,” Bailey said.
    “They weren’t ours to tell, Bailey,” Elsa-May said.
    “I wonder if I’m cursed.” Bailey slumped down in the chair. “Cursed by my own great grandmother.”
    “Go and see the bishop,” Ettie suggested.
    Bailey nodded slowly. “I think that will be my next stop.”
    Bailey said goodbye to his aunts and stopped by the bishop’s place, hoping the bishop might be free to speak to him.
    The bishop was free, and Bailey sat and told him all that had happened to him in the past and all that he was troubled by. “So, do you think that I could be cursed, me and my future kinner ? Are things like that real?”
    The bishop rubbed his dark baard between his thumb and his forefinger. “Our teachings are that whoever does not obey their father and mother will be condemned and lost. The Scripture says to obey your father and mother, so all will be well with you. You have confessed your sins, Bailey, and Gott has counted you as righteous, as a