Amish Homecoming

Chapter Three

The family buggy usually felt spacious with its double rows of seats, but, tonight, it seemed too small when Ezra stepped in and picked up the reins from the dash. He flipped the switch that turned on the lamps attached to the front and back of the buggy. They were run by a battery under the backseat where Leah’s niece and his, who had begged to come along, were whispering and giggling as if they’d known each other all their lives.

No, not like that, because Leah and he had known each other all their lives, and silence had settled like a third passenger on the seat between them.

“Ready?” he asked as he turned on the wiper that kept his side of the windshield clear.

Instead of answering him directly, Leah called back, “Do you have Shep with you, girls?”

“He’s here.” Mandy burst into laughter again. “Oops! He stuck his nose under my dress. His whiskers tickle.”

“It sounds as if we’re set,” Leah said, but she didn’t look at him. Her hands were folded on her lap, and her elbows were pressed close to her sides.

Did she sense the invisible wall between them, too?

Ezra nodded and slapped the reins to get the horse moving. The rainy night seemed to close in around them while they drove down the straight farm lane. He flipped on the signal and looked both ways along the deserted country road. Not many people would be out on such a rainy night.

He racked his brain for something to say to break the smothering quiet in the front seat. Everything he could come up with seemed too silly or too personal. Listening to the girls talking easily in the back, he couldn’t help remembering how he and Leah used to chat like that. About everything and nothing. About important things and things that didn’t really matter.

“Leah—” he began.

“Ezra—” she said at the same time.

“Go ahead,” they both said at once.

Mandy leaned forward and giggled. “How do you do that? Can you keep talking together?”

“I doubt it,” he said at the same time Leah echoed him.

That sent the girls into peals of laughter.

“They are easily entertained,” Ezra said, risking a glance toward Leah.

“I’ve noticed. I hope they will become gut friends. It will help for Mandy to have someone she knows when she starts school next week.”

“You are sending her to school here?”

“Of course.” She looked at him and said, “You don’t believe we’re here to stay, do you?”

“I don’t know what to believe.” He wasn’t going to admit he was unsure if he was more bothered by the idea she might go away again or that she might stay. Either way, he needed to keep his feelings as under control and to himself as her daed did his. Ja, he needed to act as Abram would.

“Believe me,” she retorted. “You always did.”

“Before.”

She recoiled as if he had struck her. He wished he’d thought before he’d spoken. He didn’t want his frustration to lash out at her.

“Leah,” he began again, but was interrupted by the honk of a car horn.

He stiffened when he looked back and saw a car racing toward them. The driver leaned on the horn. He pulled the buggy toward the right, feeling the wheels jerk in the mud.

The girls cried out in alarm as the car cut close to them, sending water rising over the top of the carriage. He fought to keep the buggy from tipping as he twisted it farther off the road.

Gripping the reins in one hand, he wrapped his other arm around Leah as she slid into him. His breath erupted out of him when his shoulder struck the buggy’s side. Pain ricocheted down his arm and numbed his fingers, but he kept hold of both the reins and Leah.

The car careened past them. He steered the horse onto the road at an angle that wouldn’t send the buggy onto its side. The wheels burst out of the mud and spun on the wet road. He slowed the horse as the car’s taillights vanished over a hill and into the darkness. Warm breath brushed his neck, and he was abruptly aware of Leah sitting within the curve of his arm. She clutched one of his suspenders, and he could see her lips moving in what he was sure was a prayer.

She raised her face, and his breath caught as he realized how long it had been since the other time he had held her close. That night he had surrendered to his longing to kiss her. Tonight...

As if she could read his thoughts, Leah pushed herself away and moved to the far side of the seat. Her fingers quivered as she smoothed her kapp into place.

“Is everyone okay?” she asked, and her voice trembled, as well.

He doubted the girls noticed as they both began to talk about the car that had rushed past them. Shep’s yip announced the dog was all right, too.

As Deborah and Mandy began analyzing every aspect of the near accident, Ezra guided the buggy along the road. He kept an eye out for any other cars and noticed Leah doing the same, though most drivers were cautious around buggies and bicycles and pedestrians.

“I don’t think the driver even saw us,” she said, surprising him that she didn’t let them lapse into silence again. “Not until the car was right behind us.”

“He should have noticed the lights and the slow-moving vehicle sign on the back. When headlights hit it, the colors flare up as bright as a candle.”

“That was rude,” Mandy interjected. “Splashing us.” She looked down at the floor where water was gathering into puddles. “Shep is getting wet again.”

“We’ll dry him off when we get home,” Leah replied.

Ezra turned the buggy into the farm lane leading to the Beilers’ house, and he heard Leah’s sigh of relief. Even the girls in the back became silent as he drove toward the farmhouse set behind the barns.

It was almost the twin of his home, except there never were any lights on in the dawdi haus, which had been empty for as long as he could remember. He slowed the buggy and drew as close to the porch steps as he could, so Leah and her niece wouldn’t get too wet.

She climbed out and took Shep before Mandy bounced up onto the porch. With a wave, the girl rushed into the house with the dog following close behind.

Leah started to follow, then said, “Danki for the ride home, Ezra.” She shuddered so hard he could see it ripple along her. “When I think of that driver speeding past us while Mandy and I might have been walking along the road, it’s terrifying.”

“Don’t think about it.”

“But I must because I need to thank God for keeping us safe tonight when we could have been hurt.” She clasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles grew pale. “When I think of something happening to Mandy, I can’t stand it.”

“God was watching over us tonight.”

“I pray He watches over the driver in that car, too, so he or she gets home safely without endangering anyone else.”

“You still think of others before yourself, don’t you?”

“You make that sound as if it’s wrong.”

“It can be.”

Her eyes widened, and she followed her niece into the house without another word.

“Why is Leah upset?” asked Deborah from the back.

He had forgotten his niece was a witness to the brief conversation. Maybe it was for the best they hadn’t said more.

So why did it feel as if there were many things he should have said?

* * *

Within a few days, Leah could easily have felt as if she had never left home, but no one else seemed willing to let her forget it. Each person coming to the house began with questions about her time in Philadelphia and ended with how happy they were she had returned. She appreciated their gut wishes, but she was tired of relating the same story over and over and seeing no understanding in their eyes. Maybe it was something only a twin could comprehend. When one twin was in trouble, the other twin could not rest easily until she helped him out of trouble. That was the way it had always been for her and Johnny.

Her heart sang with joy when her sister Martha arrived for a visit with her five kinder. Her other sister had moved to Indiana with her husband within a year after Leah left, but Martha lived near the southern edge of Paradise Springs.

The two older kinder were a few years younger than Mandy, and they soon were outside teaching her how to gather eggs and feed the chickens. Their lighthearted voices followed the soft breeze through the open kitchen window.

Leah sat in a rocking chair by the table and bounced the youngest on her knee. She carefully removed her kapp strings from his eager fingers. Beside her sister, who sat where she always had at the table, two other small kinder watched Leah warily. The little boy stuck his thumb in his mouth while the girl had two fingers in hers. Leah remembered Mandy doing the same as a toddler. Joyous shouts from the yard announced her niece was having fun with her new cousins.

“Five kinder and another on the way.” Leah smiled. “I am going to have fun getting to know them.”

“I’m glad they will have a chance to know you.” Martha glanced down at them. “They are shy.”

Reaching out to her sister, Leah put her hand on Martha’s. She had missed her family dreadfully while away, and she was thankful for this chance to reconnect with them. “We have plenty of time to get to know one another.”

“It is lovely for my kinder to have another cousin.” Tears rolled up into Martha’s eyes. “And for us to have something of Johnny in our family. To think we had no idea she even existed...” She shook her head and looked away as her tears glistened at the corner of her eyes.

“I wrote home often, though I know you didn’t see any of my letters.” She wondered if she should have said that. She didn’t want to ruin the warmth of this moment with her sister and Mamm.

“Why not?” asked Martha, her eyes wide.

Mamm said quietly, “Your daed sent back the letters unread, Martha. He felt, Leah, that, if you truly wanted to ease our worries about you and Johnny, you’d come back to Paradise Springs and tell us yourself.”

“But Johnny wasn’t able to travel.” Leah sighed, wishing her daed and her brother hadn’t been so stubborn.

Mamm’s eyes shone with the tears that appeared whenever Johnny’s accident was mentioned. Even though it had happened over nine years ago, Mamm hadn’t learned about it until Leah returned home.

“I know that now,” Mamm said.

“Will Daed understand?” She couldn’t keep anxiety from her voice.

“You need to ask him yourself.”

“I will when he gets home.”

Martha and Mamm exchanged a glance she wasn’t able to decipher before Martha said, “He will forgive you, Leah. That is our way, but you can’t expect him to forget how you and Johnny left without even telling us where you were going. Just sneaking away.”

Leah opened her mouth to protest she hadn’t intended to leave, but saying that wouldn’t change anything. She had gone with Johnny, and she had chosen not to come back while he needed her. Shutting her mouth, she wondered if her family felt as Ezra did, and they were waiting for her to disappear again. How could she convince them otherwise? She had no idea.

* * *

Ezra stopped in midstep when he came out of the upper level of the barn. What was a kid doing standing on the lower rail of the fence around the cow pasture and hanging over it? He should know better than to stand there. Surely even an Englisch boy knew better.

He realized it wasn’t a boy. It was a girl, dressed in jeans and a bright green T-shirt. Leah’s niece, Mandy. She wore Englisch clothing, unlike what she’d had on when he saw her before. Her hair, the exact same shade of gold as Leah’s, was plaited in an uneven braid, and he suspected she’d done it herself. Her sneakered feet balanced on the lower rail on the fence, and she was stretching out her hand to pet the nose of his prized pregnant Brown Swiss cow.

“Don’t do that!” he called as he leaned his hoe against the barn door.

She jumped down and whirled to face him, staring at him with those eyes so like Leah’s. “I wasn’t doing anything.” She clasped her hands behind her back as if she feared something on them would contradict her.

He went to where she stood. When she didn’t turn and run away as some kids would have, he was reminded again of her aunt. Leah never had backed down when she believed she was right.

The thought took the annoyed edge off his voice. “You shouldn’t bother her.”

“Ezra is right,” said Leah as she walked toward them with the grace of a cloud skimming the sky.

He couldn’t look away. So many times he had imagined seeing her walk up the lane again, but he’d doubted it ever would happen. Now it had, and it seemed as unreal as those dreams.

“She needs peace and quiet,” Leah went on, “because she’s going to have a calf soon.”

“Calf?” The little girl’s face crinkled in puzzlement. “I thought they were called fawns.”

“No.” She tried not to smile. “Deer have fawns. Cows have calves.”

“But that’s not a cow.”

“She definitely is,” he said, resting his elbow on the topmost rail.

Mandy put her hands at the waist of her jeans and gave them both a look that suggested they were trying to tease her and she’d have none of it. “That isn’t a cow. Everyone knows cows are black and white. That is light brown. Like a deer.”

Now it was his turn to struggle not to smile. “Some cows are black and white.” He pointed to the ones grazing in the Beilers’ field. “But others are brown or plain black or even red.”

“Red?”

“More of a reddish-brown,” Leah said.

“Then why are all the cows in my books black and white?” Mandy asked, not ready to relent completely.

Leah shrugged, her smile finally appearing. “Maybe those Englisch artists had seen only black-and-white cows.”

Ezra didn’t hear what else she said, because his gaze focused on the dimple on her left cheek. How he used to tease her about it! Had she known he was halfway serious even then when he said God had put it in her cheek to keep her face from being perfect? He hadn’t been much older than Mandy the first time he said that.

“Does she have a name?” Mandy asked.

He replied, “I call her Bessie.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Everyone calls their cows Bessie.” She glanced at her aunt, then added, “At least in books. She’s pretty and nice. She should have a special name of her own.”

“What would you suggest?” he asked, wanting to prolong the conversation but knowing he was being foolish.

He saw his surprise reflected on Leah’s face when Mandy said, “I think you should call her Mamm Millich. That’s Deitsch, you know, for Mommy Milk. Grandma Beiler has been teaching me some words.” She giggled. “They feel funny on my tongue when I say them.”

“I think it’s a wunderbaar name,” he said. “Mamm Millich she is.”

“I named a cow!” Mandy bounced from one foot to the other in her excitement. “I can’t wait to tell Isabella! She’ll never believe this.” She faltered. “But there’s no phone. How can I tell her?”

“Why don’t you write her a letter about Mamm Millich?” Leah asked. “Think how excited she’ll be.”

“But I won’t be able to hear her being excited. I miss Isabella. I want to tell her about Mamm Millich.”

He watched as Leah bent so her eyes were level with her niece’s. Compassion filled her voice as she said, “I know, Mandy, but we must abide by the Ordnung’s rules here in Paradise Springs.”

“They’re stupid rules!” She spun on her heel and ran several steps before turning and shouting, “Stupid rules! I hate them, and I hate being here. I want to go home! To Philadelphia! Why didn’t you let me stay with Isabella? She loves me and wants me to be happy. If you really loved me like you say you do, you wouldn’t have made me come to this weird place with these weird rules.”

“Mandy, you know I love you. I...” Leah’s voice faded into a soft sob as her niece sped away.

When Leah’s shoulders sagged as if she carried a burden too heavy for her to bear any longer, Ezra’s first thought was to find a way to ease it. But what could he do? It was Leah’s choice—hers and her family’s—what Mandy’s future would be. He was only a neighbor.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Leah said as she stared at the now empty lane. “The change has been harder on her than I expected it to be. I tried to live plain in the city, but Johnny consented to letting her have a cell phone, which he allowed her to use whenever she wanted.”

“So he didn’t want her to grow up with our ways?”

“It wasn’t that. It was more he couldn’t deny her anything she wanted.”

Seeing the grief in her eyes, he wondered if she was thinking of her brother or her niece or both of them. “Why isn’t Mandy with her mamm?”

“I don’t know where she is. After Johnny’s accident, Carleen spent more and more time away from the apartment. One day she was gone. She left a note saying that she couldn’t handle the situation any longer. She refused to marry Johnny because she wasn’t ready to settle down. She surely hadn’t expected to be tied down to an invalid.” Her voice grew taut. “Or tied down to a baby. She took the money we had, as well as everything that was hers, and vanished. We never heard from her again.”

“Does Mandy know?”

She shook her head. “Johnny and I shielded her from the truth. No kind should think she’s unwanted.” Squaring her shoulders, she said, “But Mandy isn’t unwanted. In spite of what she said, she knows I love her, and she’s already beginning to love her family here. She will adjust soon.”

“And what about you?”

She frowned at him. “What do you mean? I’m happy to be back home, and I don’t have much to adjust to other than the quiet at night. Philadelphia was noisy.”

“I wasn’t talking about that.” He hesitated, not sure how to say what he wanted without hurting her feelings.

“Oh.” Her smile returned, but it was unsteady. “You’re talking about us. We aren’t kinder any longer, Ezra. I’m sure we can be reasonable about this strange situation we find ourselves in,” she said in a tone that suggested she wasn’t as certain as she sounded. Uncertain of him or of herself?

“I agree.”

“We are neighbors again. We’re going to see each other regularly, but it’d be better if we keep any encounters to a minimum.” She faltered before hurrying on. “Who knows? We may even call each other friend again someday, but until then, it’d probably be for the best if you live your life and I live mine.” She backed away. “Speaking of that, I need to go and console Mandy.” Taking one step, she halted. “Danki for letting her name the cow. That made her happier than I’ve seen her since...”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. His heart cramped as he thought of the sorrow haunting both Leah and Mandy. They had both lost someone very dear to them, the person Leah had once described to him as “the other half of myself.”

The very least he could do was agree to her request that was to everyone’s benefit. Even though he knew she was right, he also knew there was no way he could ignore Leah Beiler.

Yet, somehow, he needed to figure out how to do exactly that.

Chapter Four

As soon as she opened her eyes as the sun was rising, Leah heard the soft lilt of her mamm’s singing while she prepared the cold breakfast they ate each Sunday. It was the sound she had awakened to almost every day of her life until she went away with Johnny. It was only on rare occasions when Mamm was helping a neighbor or the few times she’d been too sick to get out of bed that her voice wasn’t the first thing Leah heard each morning.

Leah slid out from beneath the covers, taking care not to jostle Mandy. A nightmare had brought her running from the room across the hall. As one had every night since they arrived on the farm a week ago.

Maybe she should ask Mandy to share her room. She could bring in the small cot that was kept for when they had more guests than beds. It wasn’t the most comfortable cot, but she would let Mandy use the double bed where Leah had slept during her childhood. Leah suspected she’d get a better night’s sleep on the cot than being roused in the middle of the night by a frightened little girl who kicked and squirmed while she slept. Had Mandy always been restless, or was she bothered by her dreams even after she crawled into bed with Leah?

Going to the window where faint sunlight edged around the dark green shade, Leah looked out. The rain she’d heard during the night had left the grass sparkling at dawn as if stars had been strewn across the yard. She smiled when she noticed the barn door was open and the cows in the field.

Her hand clutched the molding around the window when she saw Daed emerge from the chicken coop. Like Johnny, he was not too tall, but very spare. The early light sparkled off silver in his hair and beard, silver that hadn’t been there years ago. When had he arrived home? It must have been very late, because she hadn’t heard a vehicle come up the farm lane.

She started to pray for the right words to speak when she came face-to-face with her daed for the first time in a decade. Her silent entreaty faltered when, instead of striding toward the house at his usual swift pace that made short work of any distance, he put one hand on the low roof while he placed the other on his brow. He stood like that for a long moment before looking at the house. His shoulders rose and fell in a sigh before he pushed himself away from the coop. With every step toward the house, his steps grew steadier and closer to the length of his normal stride.

Was her daed sick? Perhaps he had picked up some sort of bug at the auction. Or was it more serious?

Leah hurried to get dressed, making sure no speck of lint was visible on her black dress or cape. Settling her kapp on her hair that was pulled back in its proper bun, she stared at herself in the mirror over the dresser. She was not the girl who had left Paradise Springs, but she suddenly felt as young and unprepared for what awaited her as she had been that night.

Trying not to act like a naughty kind sneaking through the house, she went down the back stairs. She opened the door at the bottom and stepped into the kitchen.

Mamm wore her Sunday best and aimed a smile at Leah as she set the oatmeal muffins she had baked last night in the center of the kitchen table. At one end, Daed sat in his chair. There was a hint of grayness beneath his deep tan from years of working in the fields, and she could not help noticing how the fingers on his right hand trembled on the edge of the table.

Was he ill, or was he as nervous as she was?

She got her answer when he said in his no-nonsense voice, “Sit, Leah. We don’t want to be late for Sunday service.”

She obeyed, keeping her head down so neither he nor her mamm could see the tears burning her eyes.

“Is Mandy asleep?” asked Mamm gently as she took her chair at the foot of the table.

“Ja,” Leah answered. “She didn’t sleep well last night.” She glanced at her daed, who had remained silent save for his terse order.

What had she expected? For him to welcome her home as the daed had in the parable of the prodigal son? Daed wasn’t demonstrative. While Mamm spoke of how she loved her family, Daed had never uttered those words to his kinder. Yet, he had shown her in many ways that she was important. Her favorite had been when he asked her to ride into Paradise Springs with him so they could have special time together.

Be patient, she told herself. The words from James’s epistle filled her mind. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

As if she had repeated those words aloud, Daed bowed his head to signal the beginning of grace. Leah did the same. During the silent prayer, she asked God not only for patience but for Him to open Daed’s heart and let her back in. God’s help might be the only way that would happen.

When her daed cleared his throat to let them know grace was over, she looked at him again. He poured a hearty serving of corn flakes into his bowl, then handed the open box to her.

“Danki,” she murmured.

He did not reply but set several of the muffins on his plate. Again he passed the food to her.

“Danki,” she said more loudly.

Again he acted as if she had not spoken.

She bit her lower lip and handed the plate to her mamm without taking a single muffin. Her appetite was gone. Her daed clearly intended to act as if she were nothing but an unwelcome outsider who had invaded their family. It was almost like he had put her under the Meidung. She wasn’t actually being shunned, of course, because he was willing to sit at the table with her and he handed her the plates. However, he did not speak to her or look in her direction unless absolutely necessary. Silence settled around the table, and she had no idea how to break it.

She almost cheered with relief when footsteps pounded down the stairs. Mamm rose quickly when the door at the base opened and Mandy emerged, yawning and rubbing her eyes. She had dressed, but her hair hung down her back in a disheveled braid that she’d worn to bed.

“I need help with my hair,” Mandy announced.

“Ja.” Leah started to stand.

Mamm motioned for her to stay where she was. Taking Mandy by the hand, Mamm led her to the table and toward the end where Daed sat.

Mandy shot an uneasy glance at Leah. Even though she wished she could reassure her niece that everything was fine, Leah said nothing as she waited to see how her daed would act when meeting the granddaughter he hadn’t known he had. Again she noticed how his hand was shaking until he put his left one on top of it as he leaned forward.

“This is Grossdawdi Abram, Mandy,” Mamm said with a smile. “He has been eager to meet you.”

Mandy regarded him with hesitation, and Leah wondered if she was disconcerted by Daed’s long, thick beard. She had seen the little girl staring at other men who wore beards, especially those that reached to the middle of their chests. Even though Leah had explained many times during their years in Philadelphia about how the Amish dressed and why, Mandy seemed uneasy around the married men with their full beards.

Leah had tried to hide her own unsettled reaction when Mandy asked why Ezra was clean shaven. She had seemed startled that he wasn’t married. Leah had to admit that she was, too. His older brother and sister had wed years ago, and Isaiah, who was less than a year younger than Ezra, married last year. It probably wouldn’t be long before the others found spouses, including the youngest Stoltzfus, Esther. With his mamm already depending on Esther’s help, she couldn’t handle the household chores by herself. Ezra needed a wife, so why hadn’t he found one by now?

Telling herself that was a question best left unexplored, she watched as Mamm bent to whisper in Mandy’s ear. The little girl leaned forward and gave Daed a tentative kiss on the cheek. Leah held her breath, not sure how her daed would react.

She swallowed her shocked gasp when Daed lightly stroked Mandy’s cheek as he said, “You are as pretty as your grossmammi was when she was your age, ain’t so?”

That was all the encouragement Mandy needed to begin chatting as if she wanted to catch up her grossdawdi on everything that had happened from the day she was born. She barely slowed down to eat and paid no attention when Leah reminded her that it was rude to speak with her mouth full of food. She asked about the animals on the farm and told him about Shep.

Only because she was watching did Leah notice Daed wince when Mandy began talking about how Shep had helped alert them to Johnny’s seizures. When he abruptly said it was time for another prayer before they left the table, he gave them no time to bow their heads before he’d pushed back his chair and was striding to the back door. He called back over his shoulder that the buggy would be ready to leave in a few minutes.

Mandy looked at Leah. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Of course not. We simply don’t want to be late for the worship service,” Mamm answered before Leah could. Coming to her feet, she picked up the almost empty muffin plate. “Leah, help Mandy with her hair while I clear the table.”

Leah brushed out her niece’s hair, braided it and wound it around her head properly with the ease of years of practice. Sending Mandy back upstairs to get her white, heart-shaped kapp and her black bonnet, she began picking up the dirty dishes and stacking them by the sink where they could be washed once the Sabbath was past.

“That went well,” she said without looking at her mamm. “Daed seemed very glad to see Mandy.”

“Why shouldn’t he be? Mandy is a sweet, gut kind. You’ve brought her up well.”

Warmth spread through the iciness that had clamped around Leah from the moment she witnessed her daed’s weakness by the chicken coop. She considered asking her mamm if Daed was feeling poorly but had to wonder if she’d misconstrued what she saw. After a long trip away, Daed probably was exhausted. Could that explain his terse reaction to her homecoming? She longed to believe that was so.

“Danki. I made sure that we lived a gut Christian life while we were away,” Leah replied.

“I know you well, daughter. I have never doubted that you did your best to live as you were taught. Since you brought Mandy home, I have seen how you made efforts to teach her our ways and our beliefs.”

“If you see that, why can’t Daed?” She clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. She’d blurted out the words from the depths of her aching heart.

“I warned you. He was hurt and humiliated when you left. To lose two kinder when they jumped the fence...” Mamm shook her head and sighed.

“But I didn’t jump the fence.”

“You left.” She turned to the stairs as Mandy bounced down into the kitchen.

Leah didn’t answer as her mamm checked that Mandy’s bonnet was properly tied beneath her chin before her niece rushed out to watch Daed harness the horse to the buggy. Leah wasn’t sure what she could have said. She had left...to go with Johnny and persuade him to return, though she never had succeeded with that. Was her failure why Daed was so upset with her? That she’d never convinced his only son to come home?