Lucy was exactly the kind of woman he could see himself with. She had a spark about her and was gentle at the same time. Joshua chuckled out aloud. He hadn’t even decided what he would do about the farm, his life, or going back into the community and yet he was daydreaming of a life with Lucy. His vadder had always said he was a dreamer.
His mind drifted to Grace and the feelings he'd had for her. Were they love, or had his feelings of fondness been born out of a sense of duty? He could not remember ever having the same stirrings in his heart when he had been with Grace as the ones when he had looked into Lucy’s eyes tonight.
The morning light streaming in through the open living room window gently woke Joshua. He’d had no intention of sleeping the whole night on the couch but had been so tired he had fallen asleep before he found his way to his old bedroom.
His first thoughts were of Lucy. Joshua rubbed his hands through his hair; he would take Lucy breakfast and help her with the chores. He yawned and remembered the early mornings in the Amish community. Joshua had gotten used to waking at eight rather than five in the morning. Reaching his hands as high as he could above his head, he stretched the length of his body before he left the couch.
Since there was no food in the house, he decided he’d make a quick trip into town to buy himself and Lucy coffee and breakfast. But first, he would wash, shave and change into fresh clothes.
After his shower, he shaved and as he did so, he considered the advantages of cars over buggies. If he stayed in the community he’d have to hitch the buggy whenever he wanted to go anywhere. Hitching buggies was time consuming, and they weren’t convenient to park in town even with the designated buggy parking. Things were so much easier in the Englisch world when it came to transport.
He had found his mudder had stopped using a horse and buggy, which meant he had no animals to look after except for Muggins. Muggins was a moggy of no particular breeding—a farm cat, who thought he was much superior to that. When Joshua was ready to leave the house, he noticed Muggins sitting by his bowls waiting to be fed again.
“How many times a day are you fed, Muggins? I fed you last night, and you’ve eaten it all.”
Muggins looked at him with large green eyes and meowed a deep yowl.
“All right. I’ll see what there is.” Joshua opened the refrigerator and saw a small container of meat, which had to be Muggins’ food. He made a mental note to buy more cat food for him. He was nearly out of the dry kibble as well.
Joshua saw his mother had installed a cat door in the back door. “You’re a spoiled cat, Muggins. You can come and go as you please.”
Muggins ignored him.
Chapter 18
Lucy woke suddenly to loud knocking on her door, and before she could call out, the door squeaked open.
“Can I come in, Lucy?”
She knew the voice belonged to Joshua. Then she realized she was still in the same clothes as the night before, and had fallen asleep without brushing out and re-braiding her long hair. “Just a minute.” She sat up, wound her hair loosely around her head and placed her prayer kapp back on her head. “Jah, come in.”
“You should keep the door locked.”
“Nee, we never lock the door.” Lucy yawned.
“I’ve got hot bagels and coffee.” He walked over to the couch. “You’re not awake yet?”
Lucy hunched her shoulders trying to relieve the pain in the back of her neck from sleeping all night on the couch. “Just now.”
“Sorry. I thought you’d be awake before now; it’s nine o’clock.”
“Oh, I have to feed the animals.”
“Nee, breakfast first.” He sat beside her and placed everything on the low table in front of them. He ripped open the paper around the bagels then took a lid off one of the coffees and handed it to her.
Lucy saw he’d brought breakfast for himself as well.
She took a sip of the black coffee and felt warmth flood through her body. “This is wunderbaar, Joshua, but you didn’t have to do this.” She looked at him and wondered how he could look good for so early in the morning.
“How’s your leg?”
“It’s not hurting very much.” Lucy gave a little laugh. “Not enough to keep me awake.” She looked into his eyes and wished she’d had a chance to clean up before he’d arrived. Although, she didn’t know how she would bathe or have a shower with the cast on her arm—she’d been told to keep it dry. She’d have to wash herself in a basin. One-handed. “Are you working today, Joshua?”
“Not today.” He drank some coffee.
He never had any proper answers for her, which made her more determined to find out his plans. “Have you come back to run the farm, or have you come back and you’re thinking about coming back for good?”
He laughed. “That’s a lot of questions for so early in the morning.”
Lucy did not laugh and kept her eyes fixed on him.
His eyebrows drew together. “I’ve come back to figure out what to do with the farm; I thought I told you at the funeral. The Smiths don’t want to continue with the lease, so I’ve got to make some decisions. They tell me Abe Troyer might like to take it on. He might even want to buy it.”
“You wouldn’t sell, would you?”
“I haven’t had enough time to know what to do. I’m not giving it too much thought. First of all, I’m going to fix up the haus. After I’ve been here a while my mind will be clear enough to make decisions.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve come back.”
“You are?” He held her gaze. “I’m glad too.”
Lucy looked away from him and gulped. “Everyone’s missed you, Joshua. Now that you’re back, you can come to some meetings to help save the farmland.”
He looked down into his coffee then looked back at her. “And what are these meetings about, specifically?”
“About stopping the developments on our farming land.” He was silent, so Lucy continued, “Haven’t you heard what’s going on around here?”
He shook his head, and his lips twisted up at the corners. “Tell me.”
Lucy told him about the farming land diminishing, the prices of farmland rising and the land being turned into suburban housing lots.
“You can’t stop progress, Lucy.” He took a last mouthful of coffee.
“Nee, we have to save the farmland to save our way of life, for one thing. There are many other reasons too.” She narrowed her eyes. “You will support the meetings, won’t you?”
“Of course I will, if that’ll take the frown off your face.” He laughed.
Relieved, she relaxed into the couch.
He bit into a bagel. When he finished his mouthful, he said, “Now, I’ll feed the animals for you.”
“Nee, Joshua, I don’t want to hold you up all the day long.”
“You tell me what needs to be done.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting at eleven and then I’ll bring you back some lunch. No arguments.”
She gave him the instructions on all the animals that needed to be fed. After he had fed the chickens, the pigs, the dog and the horse, Joshua sped back down her driveway toward the road.
Lucy leaned on the windowsill and watched his car disappear. When she could no longer see him, she decided to wash and look her best for when he came back later in the day.
She slowly made her way into the kitchen and soaped up a cloth in warm water ready to wash herself. Lucy hoped Joshua would return to the community.
Was it wrong she was attracted to him? After all, Grace was gone and life goes on, but would he ever forget Grace? He had never married. Was losing Grace the reason?
He hated keeping a secret from Lucy, but he couldn’t tell her his meeting at eleven was with a developer who was delivering him an offer on his farm. Joshua still hadn’t decided what to do with it, but knowing what it was worth was another link in the chain to make a decision. He also had to decide whether to go back to his Englisch life or return to his roots.
When he left the community, he hadn’t meant to stay away for so long, but days had turned into weeks, then weeks into months and before long he had been gone for years. The fact he had been gone so long made it much harder to return.
His mudder would have wanted him to stay on and work the farm and marry a nice Amish girl, but it was his life, and he had to make the decision for himself.
Mr. Keaghan was leaning against his car outside Joshua’s house when Joshua pulled up next to him on the tick of eleven. They shook hands and went inside the house. Joshua directed Mr. Keaghan to the kitchen table, and they both sat. Mr. Keaghan had a large collection of paperwork that he placed between them on the table.
“Mr. Hershberger, I hope you consider our offer a reasonable one.”
“Before we talk further, I must tell you what I told your business partner. I haven’t decided what to do, but I would like to know what I could get if I do decide to sell.”
“Of course, I understand.” Mr. Keaghan wrote a number on a piece of paper. He slid it across the table to Joshua.
Joshua picked up the paper and read the dollar-figure silently. His eyebrows raised, causing deep furrows to form in his forehead.
“As you can see, it’s a very generous offer.”
“Thank you,” Joshua said. “I’ll give it serious thought.” He rubbed his chin remembering Lucy’s concerns. “If I sell to you, what will you do to the land?”
“As you know we’re a construction company. We’ll put houses on it, naturally.”
Joshua grimaced. He thought as much, and what Lucy had said was very much in the forefront of his mind.
“Does it matter what’ll become of the land? With this amount of money, you’ll be set for life. You’ll never have to work again.”
Joshua's thoughts swirled. He put his elbows on the table and placed his chin on his fists. He couldn’t imagine a life of not working. The work ethic had been instilled into him from childhood and was very much a part of who he was. He did not, however, say as much to the man in front of him. “I’ll consider it.”
The man stood and reached out his hand. Joshua shook his hand and showed him to the door. As Mr. Keaghan’s car pulled away from the house, Joshua knew he had to do a lot of thinking.
A movement on the porch drew Joshua’s eyes to the left of him. Muggins was sitting on one of the wooden porch chairs licking his paw. Joshua walked up to him and crouched in front of him. “What do you think I should do, Muggins?” Muggins put his paw down and stared into Joshua’s face as if he was trying to understand what he’d just said. “It’s a lot of money.”
Muggins tilted his head and stared at him some more before he went back to licking his paw.
Joshua’s memory was jolted to buy Muggins more cat food. “You think about it, Muggins, and tell me tonight what you think I should do.”
Joshua stepped inside his house and walked around looking at all the repairs and odd jobs that needed doing. Maybe it was just easier to sell the farm and buy a smaller house somewhere. Yet, this was the home in which he’d grown up. The place held fond memories and had been a happy home before his vadder had died. His vadder had been a pleasant even-tempered man who always saw the funny side of things. He was killed in a buggy accident, and afterwards his mother retreated into her shell. She rarely went out after that except for the gatherings every second Sunday. Even though some of the ladies from the community visited her at least three times a week, she was never the same. She even once told him the spark in her life had been snuffed out.
When Grace died, Joshua knew there was no room in that house for two broken people. It was after Grace’s funeral he made the decision to leave the community. His friend, Peter, had left the community six months before, so he stayed with him until he found work. From there he’d drifted from job to job, from town to town, trying to find somewhere that felt like home. But nowhere ever did.
The old house was a mess and every room needed painting. There was damp coming through the ceiling in the corner of the kitchen, which told him there was a leak in the roof. That will be my first priority. Tiles were coming off the bathroom floor, and the boards and the railings on the porch needed replacing. There wasn’t a ton of work to do, but there were a lot of small fiddly jobs.
Chapter 19
After Joshua bought groceries and cat food, he stopped in at Lucy’s haus to give her lunch. “I’ve got fresh bread, ham and cheese.”
“You shouldn’t have gotten all that, Joshua. I’ve got meat and cheese here.”
He chuckled. “I’ll make you some lunch. How are you feeling?”
“It’s hard to do anything, but I’m not hurting too badly anywhere.”
Joshua walked straight into the kitchen, and Lucy heard him rattling around. He called out, “It’s Sunday today—is the gathering on this week or next week?”
“It’s on next week. Why?” She was still on the couch.
“I thought you might get some visitors wondering where you were, if it was today.”
Would she be able to hobble out to the kitchen to talk to him better? She'd had to manage a trip to the bathroom during the night, and had done okay with the crutches then—there'd been no choice. As she was deciding if she had the ambition to get to the kitchen, he brought two sandwich rolls out on a wooden breadboard.
“That’s way too much for me.”
He chuckled. “One’s for me.”
She smiled and took a roll once he'd carefully placed everything on the low coffee table.
“Here,” he said passing her a napkin.
“Denke.”
“Lucy, I feel I owe you an explanation for the sudden way I left all those years ago.”
She wondered why he was bringing the past up all of a sudden. She swallowed her mouthful of food. “Nee, you don’t, Joshua. Everyone knows you were upset about Grace.”
He placed his roll back down on the wooden board. “Gott had deserted me and nothing the bishop said to me at Grace’s funeral made sense. He tried to have me look at things in a different way, but all I knew was Grace was gone, and I felt deeply it was my fault.”
He took a deep breath. “I was due to get baptized because the wedding was drawing closer; I couldn’t make a decision to get baptized until I knew what else there was in life. I wanted to get out and see what was out there. There’s a lot of talk about Amish keeping separate, but separate from what? I thought if there were evils in the world I should know. If I have kinner, I will need to tell them what they have to be wary of.” Joshua rubbed the back of his neck. “Am I making any sense at all?”
“Jah, I guess.” Was he saying there were other reasons he left besides Grace? And now that Grace was gone, who would he consider having kinner with? He must have realized his wounds over Grace would heal one day.
He looked down. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I don’t remember why I didn’t say goodbye to your familye or you. All I remember is my head was in a fog.”
“It was a hard time for everyone. It was so unexpected, and that was the hardest part. I kept thinking she would get better, but she never got better; she kept getting worse, worse every day.”
“Nothing about it makes sense.”
“Maybe it’s not meant to. Maybe these things just happen for no reason at all.”
“Maybe.”
Lucy smiled at him. “Every time I get sad about Grace I thank Gott I had a chance to know her at all. I can see you’re still upset about it. I mean, I am too, but I guess I’ve had to learn to handle it.”
“I know what you mean.” Joshua took another bite of his ham and cheese sandwich.
When they finished eating, Joshua took the wooden breadboard back to the kitchen. He came back out with the icepack the nurse had sent home with Lucy. “Now, have you been keeping your leg elevated?”
“Jah, I’ve been lying down with it up on a pillow.”
“Sit back and put it up on the table.” Joshua pulled the coffee table closer to her, and she placed her leg on it.
“There’s not much ice left, is there?”
“There’s enough for a day or two. Mostly you'll be able to use this one—they usually re-freeze pretty quickly.”
Lucy bit her lip. “I don’t know why I haven’t heard from Mamm and Dat.”
“They’ll be okay. They’ll be having a gut time seeing everyone they haven’t seen in a while.”
Lucy nodded. “I hope so. Could you get me some water?”
Joshua went to the kitchen and returned with a pitcher of water and a glass. “I should’ve thought to leave this beside you.”
As he poured water into the glass, Lucy watched the muscles move in his strong lean arms.
“Here you go.” He handed her the glass.
“Denke.”
“What about trying those crutches out?”
“I tried them, and I can’t use them very well at all.”
“Yes, you can; you just need practice. They’ll help you get around.”
“You try and use them and see how you go.”
Joshua smiled. “You used them in the hospital after the lady showed you what to do.”
Lucy shrugged. “It’s complicated, and I forgot what she said. I’m getting worse at using them, not better.”
“Where are they? I’ll see if I can figure out how they work.” He frowned at Lucy. “It can’t be too complicated.”
“By the end of the couch.”
Joshua picked them up and placed a crutch under either arm, but since he was much taller than Lucy he had to slump down.
The Amish Maid's Sweetheart Page 13