Turning Home

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  When he told Miriam what he was thinking, she rocked for a minute before her soft voice came from the darkness. “Monday? Can I come over? I could pick some blackberries and bake pies. Abby might like helping.”

  Oh, ja, helping she’d like. With a grin, he pictured his already strubly daughter with hands and cheeks stained purple. He knew from experience and his mother’s exasperation that blackberry stains wouldn’t come out of clothes. If he let her wear the unicorn shirt and pink leggings that now had a tear in one knee, permanent purple splotches might persuade even his stubborn child to agree it was time to throw them away.

  “I’d like that,” he said simply. He could offer to let Julia come out and pick berries, too. With Miriam and her already friends, they’d work happily together in the kitchen. For Abby, it would make for a perfect day.

  Inviting Julia to his house wasn’t something he could ever do.

  After another silence that had allowed him to brood, Miriam said, “Maybe another year, we can start teaching her to quilt. Just a nine-patch first, for her doll—does she have a doll?”

  “Mamm gave her one.” He hesitated. “She has a baby doll that came from her foster home, too.” The doll’s hair, the same color as Abby’s, was as big a mess as hers had been when she came. “It’s hard plastic and has those eyelids that close and I think it might have said ‘Mama’ or cried or I don’t know what else, because there’s a place on her back for batteries.”

  “And someone was smart enough to take them out,” his sister said with approval.

  “Ja.” Unseen in the darkness, he smiled.

  “Has Mamm seen the doll?”

  He snorted.

  Miriam chuckled, but sounded more thoughtful than impatient when she said, “This isn’t like her. I’ve never seen her impatient. I don’t understand.”

  He told her what he’d been thinking, and after a minute she nodded. “That might be. Except for Rose, none of us have followed the expected path. You leaving the way you did and now you’re back but still not marrying, Elam so late to commit, and then there’s me. Mamm can’t understand why I won’t marry and start a family as if . . .”

  He waited, thinking she might go on without prompting, but when she didn’t, Luke asked finally, “Have you talked to her about it?”

  “I’ve tried. She won’t understand. Trust in God, I must.” Bitterness tinged her voice. “He needed Levi. Refusing to quit grieving, that says I won’t accept Gotte’s wille.”

  “Is that true?” he asked gently.

  With only a hint of light escaping a crack between the curtains at the front window, he saw her bow her head. “It might be.” Her voice was so quiet, he shifted closer to better hear her. “I don’t know. I’m just not ready. Or maybe I haven’t met a man who can take Levi’s place in my heart. Anyway.” Now she sounded combative. “Look at you. You’re thirty-two years old. You haven’t married.”

  “No. But my reasons are different than yours. If I’d married an auslander, that would have made my decision to leave the faith final. I suppose a part of me was never sure.”

  “But you’ve been back for a year now.”

  He turned his head to gaze into the night-cloaked yard to be sure Miriam wouldn’t be able to read anything on his face. “Maybe, like you, I haven’t found the right woman. Making the wrong choice . . .” He hunched his shoulders.

  She didn’t say anything for a long time. When she did, she surprised him. “Was there ever a woman you considered marrying, when you were away? Like . . . like Abby’s mudder?”

  “No. She and I . . . we weren’t . . .” He cursed inwardly, in a way he hadn’t in a long while. “I felt sorry for her. She wasn’t happy. I think—”

  “You think?”

  “That something in her home had been very bad. She wouldn’t talk about her family at all. She’d been hurt, that’s all I know. Running away must have seemed her only choice. She couldn’t heal.”

  “If she’d taken her troubles to God . . . ,” Miriam said slowly. She wasn’t making judgment, one reason she was the family member he felt most comfortable with.

  Still, he agreed. “That’s what she should have done, ja, but I’d guess that she blamed God, too, for allowing people who should have loved her to beat her or worse.” Worse was what he believed, that belief reinforced by what Julia had told him.

  He cringed at what his sister must be thinking, that he’d taken advantage of a girl like that, but the only way he could defend himself was to betray the truth about Abby’s parentage.

  Miriam’s soft voice came from the darkness. “And yet she held on to her faith. She trusted God enough to trust you.”

  “A man who’d walked away from his faith?”

  “I think she’d guessed that you would go back. Or before she died, someone might have told her that you had.”

  “She wrote a letter,” he said abruptly. He hadn’t told anyone else. “That’s what she said. She believed I was a good man. I’d talked about my family. That’s what she wanted for Abby.”

  A tiny sniffle told him Miriam was crying.

  “Miriam . . .”

  She flapped a hand. “I’m fine. It’s just terrible to think . . .”

  “About her childhood?”

  “Ja, that, but also about what could have happened to Abby. But she’ll be all right now, ain’t so? Now if we could just convince Mamm not to think Abby must change hurrieder, hurrieder.”

  “Faster isn’t our way,” he agreed, recognizing the irony. The deliberate pace of life, the agonizingly slow discussions before approval was given for any part of modern technology however much it would benefit them, those had driven him crazy when he was young. He’d craved not just the unlimited knowledge but also the fast pace he could see that moderns took for granted. Now, he had trouble understanding how he’d endured the rush out there, the ambition, the competitiveness, the drive to be more successful than anyone else, faster than anyone else, whatever the cost.

  Once upon a time, whenever a car passed the family buggy on the road, he’d studied it with envy. He’d especially admired the ones built for speed. He hadn’t understood then that the speed he’d seen as desirable kept those Englischers in it from seeing much of anything they passed. Did they ever even notice the fragile beauty of bloodroot flowers, newly opened? Or the complexity of Queen Anne’s lace, or delicate bird’s-foot violets? Or the buck half-hidden in the deep shade at the edge of the woods that cloaked the rolling land? Did they know a sycamore from a maple tree? A redbud from a dogwood?

  Did they take time to talk to their children as they drove? Or was that another joy lost to the speed of daily life—and to technology that now allowed televisions to operate in cars?

  No, he had no regrets at all, which led to the perplexity of why the only woman he could imagine marrying, mothering his children, was an Englischer.

  * * *

  * * *

  JULIA WAS DISMAYED to see Luke’s buggy turning into the alley on Wednesday morning before she’d even set the emergency brake in her car. Worse yet, Luke seemed to be alone.

  Well, hurry, then. He’d be relieved if he didn’t have to do anything but nod as she unlocked and left him in peace to unharness his horse.

  But she had to wait until the buggy passed before she could cross to the back door. He was frowning as his sharp blue eyes examined her so thoroughly, she was left emotionally naked. Why was he bothering? She resented what felt like a silent critique. So, she wasn’t at her best this morning. She hadn’t recovered from an awful Sunday, ruined by the tension between her and Nick. That was none of his business.

  She had the door open and slipped inside before Luke got out of his buggy. Up front, she turned the sign on the front door to Open and sat down to listen to messages, safe in the certainty he wouldn’t follow her. He hadn’t spoken to her about anything not work-relat
ed since that encounter in the hospital, when he’d been forced to allow Abby to interact with her. “Forced” was definitely the right word, given his attitude since.

  She heard only silence from the back. Two women were peering in the front window, pointing at individual pieces and oohing and aahing. As she sometimes did, she made a bet with herself; these two wouldn’t come in. They just liked to look.

  She made the rueful admission that her judgment might arise from her sour mood. Anyway, there was nothing wrong with admiring the magnificent furniture. The women might tell other people, among whom would be one who really was in the market for a china cabinet or a desk.

  The door opened behind her just as the two women continued down the sidewalk and out of sight. Bracing herself, Julia turned, pinning on an expression of polite inquiry. It was indeed Luke who approached the side door leading into the office area, handsome enough to disturb her, his suspenders—gaellesse in Pennsylvania Dutch—only emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders and the solid muscle in his chest.

  “Do you need something?” she asked pleasantly.

  His eyebrows twitched. “Only thought to tell you Daad won’t be here until midday. He is taking a turn to harvest early corn at the Grabers’ farm.”

  “Oh.” Didn’t it figure he’d undercut her stiffness? “That’s good of him. I suppose everyone is doing the same.”

  “Yes, I’m taking an afternoon on Thursday.”

  “I see.” It was nice of him to tell her, but really, as long as one of the two men was available to answer questions potential customers asked, it didn’t matter which.

  Only to me, she admitted silently. She liked Eli, but got a tiny thrill every time she talked to Luke.

  Even though she also harbored unfair anger at him, because he’d let her fall in love with his daughter and then taken her away—it made it clear that she, Julia, was unclean.

  She suddenly became aware that those blue eyes were raking her face and that furrows had formed between his dark eyebrows.

  “Something’s wrong. You look . . .” His hesitation was long, as if his instincts didn’t tell him enough. “Sad” was the word he finally chose.

  “How can you tell?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I can see you’ve been losing weight, and you can’t afford it.”

  “Gee, that’s nice.”

  Irritation flashed on his face. “That wasn’t an insult. It was worry.”

  “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

  Instead of accepting the excuse to retreat, he argued, “You’re not fine.”

  She wasn’t. It was as if the walls she’d built to protect herself were crumbling. Luke and Abby had a lot to do with that.

  “I had an argument with Nick last week,” she blurted. “He used to be my best friend, but we don’t seem to see anything the same anymore.”

  Luke came a few steps closer. Tensing, she would have jumped to her feet, but as tall as he was, that wouldn’t really help.

  “Which of you has changed?” he asked.

  Startled at his perception, Julia hesitated to answer. How could she confide in a man, one who’d initially frightened her—and still occasionally did? The man who had been all but shunning her?

  But he’d noticed something was wrong, and cared enough to ask.

  “Me,” she whispered. “It’s me. I just . . . seem to be questioning everything I used to value.”

  Shocked by her own admission, she thought, There it is. It was because of these warm, caring people—even Luke, as remote as he often was—that she’d begun to question how she lived. For all that she’d considered herself a woman of faith, that belief had always been a little . . . smug. She didn’t have a personal relationship with God, and she wanted that. So much.

  “It’s . . . it’s partly all of you.” Her hand wave was vague, but she thought he understood. “I understand why you came home.”

  “Is that why you’ve been learning our language?”

  She stared up at him in bewilderment. What was he implying? She wasn’t foolish enough to think that fluency in Deitsh could make her Amish.

  “Miriam enjoys teaching me.”

  “Ja, I know she does.” New intensity magnified the effect of his already formidable physical presence. “You might like to attend our service a week from Sunday.” One corner of his mouth lifted in what could be a flicker of humor. “Most outsiders are bored and end up with backaches, but you . . .”

  She held her breath.

  “I think you’re different,” he said, voice deep.

  Julia could not have looked away from him if Nick stormed in the front door that minute. She felt peculiar—light as air, yet short on oxygen.

  Was Luke saying what she thought he might be?

  Chapter Seventeen

  HE MUST BE insane. Confessing that her values were changing didn’t mean it had ever crossed Julia’s mind to convert to Luke’s faith. Unlike those who followed their sister Anabaptist faith, the Mennonites, the Amish made no attempt to convert others. The Mennonites had missions in developing countries throughout the world, the Amish none. Bishop Amos had echoed others when he’d said, “There are many ways to find God. Ours is not right for everyone.”

  Back in the workshop, Luke was accomplishing next to nothing. He felt foolish to have thought for a minute that she might consider becoming Amish, with all that encompassed.

  She would have to move from her apartment. Give up her car, and her a woman who knew nothing about horses, far less harnessing and driving one. Give up her internet and her television and the electronic reader she’d confessed to owning along with all those books. Her vacuum cleaner. Her clothes—although, picturing her wardrobe—that she might not mind so much. Except she would also have to throw away her bras. Did she know that Amishwomen didn’t wear them? he wondered.

  He was paralyzed, shaken, ja, ferhoodled, by a possibility that would never come to pass. It had hit him like a lightning bolt. If Julia converted to the Amish faith, he could ask her to marry him. He would teach her what she needed to know, understand her past in a way his brethren and even family couldn’t. She’d understand the forces that made him the man he was, too.

  She already endangered his heart. Letting himself hope . . . ach, that was foolish.

  And what made him think she would agree to marry him in any circumstances? He’d known since meeting her that she had suffered a terrible trauma, that she feared men. That she would likely never welcome a man’s touch, a man in her bed. He could be patient, gentle—but could he face a lifetime with a woman who shrank away from him, who lay rigid in bed only because he was in it with her?

  Even if she felt ready, who was to say she’d choose him? He might be imagining the tension that stretched taut whenever they were together. If she’d been attacked the way he thought she had, what if he looked like that man?

  At length, he forced himself back to work.

  Given that he was alone, he chose to do finish work on a dresser, starting with an air sander, powered by the diesel engine he’d fired up first thing that morning. The necessity of concentrating was good; there was always a risk of gouging wood on a nearly completed piece.

  Done with that stage, he wiped off sawdust with a rag and then shifted to sanding by hand, using a block and frequently running his fingertips over the wood until he was satisfied that every inch was as smooth as he could make it.

  He thought this dresser wouldn’t be in the store long. He’d never intended to make a full bedroom set of this design. The lines were almost Shaker in their simplicity, yet with curves subtle enough to fool the eye. For once he’d done no inlay, thinking the grace and function spoke for themselves. He’d used walnut, a hardwood, and he intended the stain to be rich, not quite as dark as walnut had traditionally been stained. He was pleased with the piece, but no more. Doing goo
d work was important, but this work was no better or more valuable than Jacob Schwartz’s, when he harvested a field of sweet corn that would sell for enough to feed his family, or Sam Fisher’s, when he completed a windmill to bring clean power—God-given power—to a farm or business.

  Or Katie-Ann Kline, quietly acknowledged as the finest local quilter for making traditional patterns new again and for her tiny, even stitches. A modest woman, she would say she did her best, but there were many other women as talented. And then she would name them.

  Luke wondered how much pride Julia took in her quilting.

  By the time his father arrived, he had stained the dresser as well as a rocking chair and two quilt racks. Thanks to Julia’s idea, those were selling faster than ever before. The quilt racks didn’t take long to build, but the rocking chairs were another story.

  He greeted his father and said, “All is well at Sol’s place?”

  Eli grunted. “Yes, the harvesting is on schedule, but little thanks to me. I was so slow. Lucky that there were other men helping who knew better what to do.”

  “We can all only help as we’re able,” Luke said automatically.

  Another grunt suggested his daad was chagrined at being showed up by younger fellows. Luke hid a smile. Pride was something they all struggled with, one way or another.

  “How does it go here?”

  “I’m glad of what I accomplished, and Julia said she sold a blanket chest to a buyer in California and a dresser to a man who lives in St. Joseph but drove up here after being told our furniture was especially fine.”

  Eli nodded, not bothering to deny the truth of that when alone with his son. “California.” He shook his head in astonishment. “Doesn’t anybody out there make furniture?”