As they discussed the work that had to be done, David told them about his plans. Both seemed enthusiastic. Before he knew it, Miriam talked about bringing a brigade of other women to scrub the interior of the house top to bottom, while Eli and he discussed when the work could be done outside. Despite his discomfort with having Miriam here, David felt a surge of gladness at how naturally these neighbors and other church members had welcomed him back and took for granted that they would help get the property in good shape again despite knowing now that he was under the bann.
“We miss Hiram,” Eli said as he prepared to leave. “But I think he was tired. He was never the same after Martha died, and with his heart failing, he was ready to join her.”
“Mamm said the same,” David agreed. “I should have been here when he needed me.” He’d failed all the people he loved, and for Onkel Hiram and Levi, he had no way to make amends. Both would have forgiven him, he knew that, but the knowledge didn’t lessen his sense of shame. He’d been staggered when he received his mother’s letter and learned that even after he had disappeared, his onkel wanted him to have the farm. Hiram and Martha hadn’t had kinder of their own. He could have left it to any of David’s cousins on Daad’s side of the family. He should have left it to one of them. Any would have been more deserving. Yet David had been the closest to his elderly great-uncle. Hiram had once said, “You remind me of myself at your age. Determined to find my own way, always seeking.”
He had shaken his head, declining to answer, when David asked what he’d sought and whether he ever found it.
Now, Eli climbed into the buggy, and took up the reins. Miriam started toward the other side but stopped close to David. To his shock, she laid a hand on his arm and looked up at him, her smile soft, her eyes warm.
“I’m sehr glad you’re home, David.” She spoke quietly enough that her father wouldn’t be able to hear her. “We all are, of course, but you and I have something in common. I know that you miss Levi as much as I do.”
His forearm must have turned rock hard beneath her gentle hand as he fought for composure. She was right in one way, but what they shared was nothing compared to the ugly truth. She would despise him if she had any idea that he was responsible for Levi’s death.
* * *
* * *
Seeing the intensity of the grief on David’s face, Miriam hurt for him. That must have been the worst of the homecoming for him: reminders of Levi everywhere he looked. His reserve when he saw her with her father made her wonder if seeing her gave him pain instead of solace.
Letting her hand drop to her side and backing away, she prayed that wasn’t so. She wanted to heal a man who appeared to be suffering, not hurt him. With desperation that took her aback, she knew that from the moment she’d recognized him, she’d imagined she wouldn’t feel so alone. But asking him to fill her need was selfish of her. He owed her nothing. Truthfully, she had no idea how he’d felt about her then. He might have thought her young and shallow, believed she wasn’t good enough for his friend.
And she had increasingly come to believe he would have been right.
Accepting the blow, Miriam turned away and hurried to the buggy to join her father.
Behind her a deep, gruff voice said, “You’re right. I do miss him. Every day. Denke for saying that.”
She hesitated, but couldn’t let herself look back. She climbed into the buggy, aware of her father’s concerned gaze, but unable to meet his eyes, either.
She fought hard for a light tone. “If I had a cell phone, I could call Ruth to tell her why I’m late.”
Daad watched her for a little longer, making her suspect she hadn’t fooled him, but he said nothing, only backing Polly from the hitching post and turning her toward the lane that would lead them out to the road.
They drove in silence for longer than she liked before he said thoughtfully, “You must have known David well, ain’t so?”
After a moment, she answered, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But I realize now that I didn’t. All I saw was Levi.”
Her father surprised her by saying, “Your mamm and I worried about that. You never looked at other boys. It was always Levi. Sometimes I wondered—” He broke off.
“Wondered what?” she asked, both curious and disturbed to find she’d been so oblivious to her parents’ concerns.
“Ach, I don’t know. Your mamm especially feared that he was making you unhappy toward the end. I suppose I wasn’t sure he was right for my daughter.”
Her laugh must have sounded strange to him, so shattered and devoid of humor as it was. “No, Daad, you have it wrong. If anything, it was the other way around. It was me—”
Even deep in grief after Levi’s death, she’d known that if the accident had never happened, she would have had to accept that he didn’t want to marry her. How soon would he have been ready to tell her that? Surely he wouldn’t have taken the coward’s way by driving another girl home from a singing? By now, he’d have likely been married, had kinder, while she—
“What foolishness is this?” her daad asked sharply.
She forced a shaky smile. “Nothing. What does it matter now? Levi and I were both so young, and it was a long time ago. I can’t change anything.”
“You were young,” he said slowly, “but Levi was near to being a man.”
Compared to David, he’d been astonishingly boyish. Her laugh was far more natural. “At barely twenty? Come, Daad. You still think Elam is a boy, and he’s almost twenty-seven.”
“I’m learning that I might have been wrong,” her father admitted. His voice was stiff, but he was being honest when he didn’t have to be.
Wanting to cry for no good reason, Miriam briefly rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I know, Daad. We’re all so lucky to have you.”
“No, Daughter.” He smiled at her despite the increased traffic in town. “I count my blessings every day to have you. All of you. Luke home, when we’d almost given up hope that we’d ever see him again, Elam finding the path that’s right for him, Rose happy as a mamm, and you . . .”
“Happy to still be home to help you and Mamm,” Miriam said firmly.
They turned at the corner just before the block where both the furniture and quilt stores were located, then into the alley where Polly would be left in a paddock in the shade of an enormous old sycamore. She’d have company; Luke and Julia must have long since arrived. Their black gelding, Charlie, lifted his head from lipping hay and nickered to greet Polly.
A minute later, her father having snorted at her offer to help unhitch Polly, Miriam hurried down the alley toward the back door into A Stitch in Time.
Despite being late, she hoped she could take a break at some time today to visit Julia, who had gone so quickly from being an auslander who worked for Daad and Luke to being Miriam’s best friend. She had other good friends, of course she did, but after Levi died, their lives and hers had diverged so much, she had become a puzzle to them. Or maybe a piece that didn’t fit. Julia and she had recognized something in each other almost from the first moment. They had been hurt in different ways, but because of the damage, each had found herself alone even with loving family.
Julia gave Miriam hope. That this new friend had been able to open herself—first to God; to the terrified, mute little girl Abby was; and finally to Luke—showed what was possible.
Then what’s holding me back? she asked herself, but of course she knew.
Through no fault of her own, Julia had been attacked, raped, beaten, and left for dead. In contrast, Miriam could never forget her own faults—or her fear that their last quarrel had left Levi distracted, contributing to his death. She couldn’t excuse herself for letting her fear of abandonment lead her to anger.
She believed with all her heart that he would have forgiven her, that God had forgiven her, but from things he’d said that day, she’d lost her faith tha
t she had it in her to be a good and loving wife.
She wasn’t at all sure she’d ever regain that faith. That was what held her back.
Even as she pushed open the door to the shop, Miriam made herself count her many blessings, as her parents had taught her to do. She had so many: family, friends, her quilting, and this job. And now, maybe, the chance to see David Miller overcome grief that equaled hers and find joy in his homecoming.
Chapter Three
When he was ready? David doubted he would ever feel ready to lay himself bare for Bishop Amos Troyer, but he also knew he couldn’t put off what would be one of the toughest conversations of his life. His standing in the community was too uncertain; without the bishop’s approval, many people would keep their distance from him. David knew his mother wanted to have a big family gathering to welcome him home, but his acceptance of the bann on Saturday had reminded her that attendance would be skimpy. Sunday dinner had been just him and his parents. Jake felt he had to keep his wife and children from this renegade brother who had fled the Leit though he was baptized.
Jake was doing what their faith required of him, if carrying it to an extreme, but Mamm didn’t want to see that. And, ja, David couldn’t help feeling some hurt. He’d had good times with Jake, let his brother tag along with him and Levi. Didn’t the fact that he was here at all, come home after so many years away, tell everyone that he intended to confess and make right what he could?
Ja, he would go talk to Bishop Amos late this afternoon.
He had put off stopping to see Esther Schwartz longer than he should have, hesitating in part because, however reluctantly, Mamm had conceded that Esther had become even more reclusive and crankier after losing her son.
“She says such things—” Mamm had drawn a deep breath. “I try to forgive her, to understand that her life hasn’t been easy, but, ach, it’s hard.”
Esther had lashed out at him the minute she learned about the accident. She would see him as something like a leper until he’d knelt before the congregation, and perhaps even afterward.
That didn’t excuse him, though. She had never been a warm woman, but she’d welcomed him into her home and fed him countless meals. As a boy, he’d done chores with Levi to free him sooner to play; as an adult, he had helped Levi with the farm so that they also had time to log. The draft horses they had used for their business stayed at the Schwartz farm, although David had purchased them with his own money. He’d left them there when he ran away, and assumed Esther would have sold animals she didn’t need.
He wouldn’t go farther than her front porch, and perhaps not even that. Working on Onkel Hiram’s farm—his farm—getting crops planted, starting up his business, would consume all his time, but Esther had been left without a son to farm her land.
Since corn sprouted in tidy rows on well-tended fields that were all he could see of the Schwartz farm without cutting through woods or following the lane over a rise to the house, he assumed she leased the land to someone. Even so, to stay in her house, she’d have to plant and maintain a large vegetable garden, prune and harvest fruit from the trees, and do the extensive canning that consumed so much of every Amish woman’s life. She probably needed nothing from him, because it went without saying that the church members would have stepped in to give her the labor and support she needed.
But David owed her more than she would ever know. Part of his homecoming was a resolve to accept responsibility for wrongs he’d committed. Miriam and Esther were the two people he’d most wronged.
Perplexed and unenthusiastic about turning in to a farm lane that didn’t lead to his own barn and dinner that afternoon, Dexter reluctantly complied. When the buggy crested the low hill, David frowned.
The yard was unkempt, the farmhouse—never as large and solid as his parents’—badly needed a paint job, the porch sagged, and grass grew knee-deep in the orchard beneath trees that he was willing to bet hadn’t been pruned since Levi’s death.
Was Esther’s health failing? She’d never seemed to have close friends, but she’d been an active member of the community, joining in work frolics, selling jams at the annual street fair in Tompkin’s Mill, contributing to auctions held to raise money to help someone. Was she turning away help she would gladly extend to anyone else? Didn’t she recognize that as hochmut, the very pride their faith required them to set aside?
He stopped the buggy as close to the house as he could get and hopped out. He had often tethered his horses to this same short stretch of fence, but now a splintered top rail was joined by posts that leaned drunkenly.
Ja, to his shame, he knew what it was like to wobble drunkenly.
The front door opened when he had almost reached the porch steps. Those looked recently rebuilt and solid, he was relieved to see. The woman who came out onto the porch had aged more than six years justified. She had become lean, almost stringy, and those years had carved deep furrows in her forehead and beside her mouth. None of those were smile lines.
“David Miller,” she said flatly. “Until Sunday I didn’t know you were back.”
He had kept his gaze down during the service Sunday. “Just last week. Onkel Hiram left me his farm—”
“Well, you won’t get mine, if that’s what you were thinking!” she snapped.
He blinked. “I never imagined such a thing.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To see how you are. To offer what help I can. I can mow the grass in the orchard—”
“In place of Levi?” Her voice came out harsh. “Six years too late?”
“I can never take Levi’s place,” David said painfully. “And I know I abandoned you—”
Her mouth thinned. “Mow if you want.” Then she turned and stomped into the house, slamming the door behind her.
He stood stock-still for what had to be a full minute or even two before he returned to the buggy, untied the reins, and took another dismayed look at the house, barn, and fields that had once felt like a second home to him.
Tomorrow was Friday. Thinking about his list of chores, he decided he could come back in the morning to scythe the grass in the orchard.
* * *
* * *
By the time David arrived at Amos Troyer’s home, the sun was low and the air chilly, usual for spring. The bishop suggested David join him for a stroll around his property for their talk. Recalling the reputation Amos’s wife had for gossip, David agreed readily.
At first they walked in silence. He watched robins pecking at the rich earth in the large vegetable garden, the lacy white canopy of blooms on the apple trees. Once he sneaked a sidelong look to see that Amos had clasped his hands behind his back and seemed perfectly content to wait as long as necessary.
Finally, David said, “You know why I left.”
“Do I?” the bishop said mildly.
“I know God called Levi home.” Yet he didn’t—couldn’t—accept that. Not when he knew in his heart that what everyone had seen as a simple accident was much more than that. “But his death hit me hard.” He tapped his fist to his chest, above his heart. “He was my best friend from when we were boys. My brother, as much or more than Jake.” Levi had understood, or maybe just accepted him in a way no one else had. “Gone, just like that. The plans we’d made together, the way it hurt so many people.”
“You as much as anyone,” observed Amos.
“Ja, sure, but—” No use arguing. “I couldn’t seem to just go on as though nothing had happened.” His throat clogged. “I felt guilty. Why him, and not me?”
“We must take on faith that God had His reasons.”
David clamped his mouth shut to avoid saying, I can’t do that. Or, worse, God had nothing to do with Levi dying the way he did, when he did.
“I thought that if I went away for a while, I could deal better with my feelings.”
Amos looked at him, his brown e
yes wise and far too perceptive. “Where did you go?”
“I ran away from the Leit. I felt anger and hurt so deep, I couldn’t talk to people I loved. I quit feeling God at my side.”
“And yet He said, ‘Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’”
David knew the quote from Isaiah. He’d heard it countless times.
“I didn’t feel as if I deserved His help.” And that was the honest truth.
The expression on his bishop’s face looked a great deal like grief. Yet he only asked gently, “Will you tell me about your life these last years?”
David started talking; he talked until he was hoarse, spilling his despair, reaching his lowest moments before he could tell of reclaiming himself, until he believed himself ready to accept God’s grace.
He might have felt cleansed when he finished had it not been for the sin he feared he had committed. The one he had kept to himself, even knowing that it would gnaw at his soul until the day he died and must face judgment. All he could hope was to be as good a man as he could be, extend a generous hand whenever needed, and redeem himself as much as was possible.
Drained and physically exhausted in a way he hadn’t been when he arrived, David stumbled when he’d finished his story. Amos grabbed his arm to steady him.
“You know that our heavenly Father tells us we must forgive the trespasses of others, as He will forgive ours.”
If there was a central tenet of the Amish faith, that was it. It was why David was so ashamed of the act of violence he’d committed that led to a jail sentence.
But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
The quote from Matthew was equally familiar, taught to him from the time he was a toddler. If a man punches you, you do not swing a fist at him in turn. You accept, and you forgive.
Mending Hearts Page 3