by Linda Byler
She obeyed, and was swept into oblivion, blinded by the message in his eyes.
Slowly, he bent his head, touched her lips with his, a whisper, the audacity of a new beginning. When she did not pull away, but stayed, his arms went around her and he drew her close. Their hearts beat as one when he touched her lips with his own, again, and this time it was not a whisper, but the full assurance of everything he had told her.
His kiss spoke the language of a powerful love, one that would not be taken lightly. Her arms went around his shoulders and stayed there, as she was held in a crushing embrace.
Tremulous, ashamed, she turned away.
He held her still, a hand brushed lightly across her cheek, to cup her chin, to turn her face to his.
“You’re everything I imagined,” he said hoarsely. “You are beautiful and sweet and good, and we’ve only just met.”
“This . . . whatever it was, is only a . . . a . . .”
She stopped, confused.
“It’s the beginning of a great love, is what it is,” he said firmly.
“Then we had better get to know each other immediately,” she said, stifling a laugh. “I mean, talk about family, our goals, our past, all the stuff you’re supposed to talk about.”
“Or we could skip all that and go get married,” he said.
But they did settle together on the couch, his arm possessive around her shoulders, and they did talk almost through the night. He told her of his ordinary upbringing in an ordinary Amish household with a loving mother and strict but caring father that set boundaries he respected to this day. She told him about the hard work in the vegetable fields in summer, Dena, her married sisters and their shenanigans.
They shared a love of the outdoors, he promised her a trip to Colorado. She told him about her years of teaching, the good times and the times when she felt as if she would fail at everything, having run the gauntlet of difficult parents with opinions set in stone, children who were underqualified but propelled through eight grades in spite of failing grades.
They made more hot chocolate, sat on barstools to drink it, talked about churches and church leaders. They spoke of the practice of shunning, of excommunication and the amount of young people who no longer gave themselves and their way of thinking to the old traditional way.
“Three of my buddy group left last year for that reason,” Ben said. “I mean, it’s getting to be quite the controversy, and it won’t go away any time soon. So far, I’m okay with staying more conservative, knowing the outcome of so many who have left the church. I’m just glad we live in a country that practices religious freedom, rather than having to serve something we don’t believe is right.”
“I love our way of life,” Emma said, “but I can see how some are upset by shunning. It’s an old practice, but sometimes I still view it as a boundary for myself. We all need guidelines, which is the way of human beings everywhere.”
“That is interesting, Emma. We all say the Bible is our road map, which it is. But the interpretation of the individual verses will lead one person his way, and another in a completely different direction.”
“So in the end, attitude matters.”
“It certainly does.”
They talked about his job, the love and dedication to his craft, the joy of viewing the completed project, the many homes he had helped to build or renovate, the additions they had added through the years.
When the clock struck three, they laughed together, and he drew her closer until she lay her head on his shoulder and kept it there. She allowed herself this bold move, one he accepted with hope, his heart thumping in his strong chest.
A comfortable silence made all the difference now. The agreement of having begun something, even if he couldn’t call it dating, or a relationship—barely a friendship—took away the sharp edge of her denial.
“Why don’t we just sleep here on the couch?” he asked. “I hate to think of going to bed.”
“We can’t sleep together on a couch,” she said.
“In the old days it was called bundling,” he said, laughing.
“Not just the old days. The here-and-now days,” Emma answered.
“Parents and ministers have worked on it for hundreds of years, the practice of bundling, haven’t they?” he asked, giving a soft laugh.
“But when the heart is young, it feels cuddly at times.”
Emma found herself shaking with laughter. He was simply the most outspoken person, the most forthright with his unvarnished view of his surroundings. He was quite simply the most humorous person she had ever met.
“Now what’s so funny about that?” he asked.
“Just the way you express yourself.”
“So that means you’re starting to like me, right?”
“Whatever, Ben,” Emma said, pretending exasperation.
“Yes or no?”
“Maybe.”
In the morning, he fried bacon while she made eggs in a nest for all of them. The truck had been there for an hour, the dull sound of hammers and skill saws in a distance, and still Ben remained at the bar with his coffee, watching Emma with her hair piled in a loose knot on top of her head, her cheeks flushed, her eyelids drooping from lack of sleep.
When the front door opened, they heard voices before Roger and Kathy made their way into the kitchen. Both children tumbled from their stools, shrieking and running to greet their parents, who caught them up into a warm bear hug, complete with effusive greetings and kisses placed all over their faces. Ben and Emma sat watching with smiles on their faces, both thinking what good parents these people were proving to be.
Roger turned to Emma, said how glad he was to be back, clapped a hand on Ben’s shoulder and asked if it wasn’t a bit late to get to work.
Ben wasn’t intimidated at all, merely said it was, yes, but he hadn’t finished his coffee yet. Roger grinned, picked up a slice of bacon, and went to make a cup for himself.
Emma looked up to greet Kathy and was shocked to find her blue eyes cold and calculating, shocked even more when Kathy turned her back to Emma and immediately launched into a conversation with Ben about tile versus concrete for the floor in the kitchen.
Ben was polite, helping her to weigh the pros and cons of each option, but when she placed a hand on his forearm and leaned in as if to whisper something to him, he quickly got up and said he needed to get back to work. “We should really include Daniel in this,” he said, by way of taking his leave. “He knows so much about flooring.”
He disappeared down the steps, and Roger watched him go, then turned to Emma.
“So, that was a homey scene, you and Ben at the kitchen island,” he quipped, grinning widely.
“Yeah, Daddy. He was here all night,” Brent shouted. “They were talking in the bedroom. They thought I was asleep but I wasn’t.”
He laughed at his own sneakiness, lifted his face to the ceiling.
Kathy’s eyebrows were raised, her eyes popping from her face. Roger smiled a wide, knowing smile.
“No, Brent, I was changing sheets so Ben would have a clean place to sleep,” Emma said, as she felt the color leave her face.
“He was there, too. I heard him.”
“Yes. He came to see if he could help.”
“Sounds pretty complicated,” Roger said, laughing good-naturedly as he added cream to his coffee.
“It’s not,” Emma assured him.
“Well, we’ll see whether it is or not,” Kathy said, attacking Emma full force with a level stare of animosity.
Emma swallowed nervously, tried to smile, but failed.
That evening, she was confronted by both parents and accused of sleeping with Ben and neglecting the children. Kathy did all of the talking with Roger silent at her side.
How did a person extricate oneself from this stone cold accusation? Emma felt powerless, trained to be meek and humble, where Kathy was a trained lawyer, with skills honed for this very purpose.
Emma sat at the dining room ta
ble, her face pale, composed, her freckles visible, as beautiful as a carving, and as cold.
“No, Kathy. It’s not what you think. I’m serious.”
“Emma, my disappointment in you is profound. Never in all our weeks together did I imagine you to be like this. Ben is not supposed to be in our house, let alone spending the night. And to lie about it . . .”
“I’m not lying,” Emma broke in.
“I have a difficult time believing you made that bed together and stayed out of it. I mean, come on, Emma. I am a woman of the world and this just doesn’t happen. I don’t know how you can live with yourself.”
“But . . . we . . . it didn’t happen,” Emma said, her lips pale and dry.
“Brent heard you.”
“He heard us putting clean sheets on the bed,” Emma insisted.
Kathy rolled her eyes, took Roger’s hand.
“Sneaky. Sneaky,” she said, in a cold, mocking tone, her eyes already claiming victory. There was no hope of winning this senseless and unfair argument after seeing the light of achievement in those eyes, the gathering of Roger’s alliance against her.
Clearly, she wanted Emma gone. She had wanted her out of sight and mind since the fateful walk in the starlight. The only way Emma could win was if she confronted Kathy about her own attraction to Ben. She could make her squirm, make her admit this was precisely why she was being “let go.”
Roger spoke, then, of the Christian values they tried to uphold, and the fact they did not want their children to be under the influence of an unmarried couple carrying out a clandestine affair.
Emma nodded, her eyes on the knot of fingers in her lap. She remained steadfast in her view of nonresistance, of turning the other cheek. She would accept her fate rather than fighting back with the weapon of truth. Yes, it would be satisfying to see Kathy confronted with Emma’s own accusations, accusations that were actually grounded in reality. The way Kathy spent every free moment over at the house with Ben, the way she positioned herself next to him at dinner that night and pretended like the rest of the guests didn’t exist, the way she took every opportunity to touch his strong arms. But what was the use? She could “win,” but in the end it would just create more strife between Roger and Kathy, and Kathy and Emma would never trust each other again either way.
All she wanted was a chance to say goodbye to Ben.
How incongruous. How bizarre was this turn of events. Kind and unassuming Brent, who never caused a moment’s disturbance, and here he was, accusing her without even realizing it, the blue eyes devoid of guile, having no idea the consequences of his observations.
And darling Annalise, the hurricane of temper fits, who now threw one of major proportions, kicking and howling because Emma would be leaving.
“We have a driver for you at nine tomorrow morning. Here are your final wages. We are sorry indeed that things turned out this way, but we feel it is for the best. Ben is a necessary component there at the house, whereas, you can be replaced,” Kathy informed her.
With leaden steps, Emma went upstairs, sat on her bed, and stared at the opposite wall. There was too much fury, too much self-denial for tears. She felt numb and cold, completely bereft.
To leave this beautiful place, to leave Ben, never knowing if he was told what had occurred. She got to her feet, went to the window, prayed for a glimpse of him. They had kissed, yes. They had not stayed apart the way some couples might have, but they most certainly had not slept together. And she hadn’t neglected the children!
Still, was this God’s answer for her? Perhaps this was God’s way of saying no, Ben is not for you. She went hot, then cold, her body reacting to the fever in her brain. So many unanswered questions, so much blatant unfairness.
And yet, she held some guilt, perhaps. She had let him stay, had kissed and carried on. Was being banished from this beautiful place the consequence of her sin?
She slept fitfully that night, despite being exhausted from so little sleep the night before. In the morning, after glancing at the red numbers on her electric alarm clock, she tugged her luggage off the shelf and began to pack, dashing to the window for a glimpse of Ben. There was none, so she carried everything downstairs and went to find Kathy, who was seated by the television with both children at her side.
She looked up, an icy stare.
“Yes?”
“I would like to say goodbye to Ben, if I may,” she said.
“Ben? Oh, he went into town with Roger early this morning. They’re dealing with some glitch in the plumbing.”
She waved a hand in dismissal.
Taking a deep breath, Emma steadied herself before the confrontation she knew would have to take place before she departed.
“Thank you for everything, Kathy. I’ll miss the children. I’m asking one thing. Don’t lie to Ben about why I left. That’s all.”
There was a slow blink, the eyelids at half-mast, accompanied by a smile that could only be described as an oily smirk.
“You must not hold my Christian values in very high esteem. Now why would I do something like that?”
There was no winning with this shrewd lawyer clothed in the innocence of blond hair and beautiful blue eyes, sitting on the couch with one tanned leg crossed over the other, her foot bobbing the dangling gold-strapped sandal. What else could Emma say?
“Well, it is time for my ride to show up, so I’ll say goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Emma.”
Brent looked at her with a level gaze, then walked soberly over to her and threw his arms around her waist, pressing his head into her stomach.
“I love you, Emma.”
“I love you, too, Brent honey. I’ll miss you terribly.”
She held it together even when Annalise came running. Emma lifted her to hug and kiss her, kissed Charlie Brown over and over, and felt secretly justified when she let herself out the door to the sound of Annalise’s wailing and shouting for her to come back.
The Uber driver was uninterested, so she took the back seat gratefully and began to weep silently before they reached the end of the drive covered in oyster shells. Through her tears, she watched the vast restless ocean on one side, the glittering bay on the other, opened her window a few inches to breathe in the incredible scent that was the sea and the sand and the tall swaying grasses. She listened to the cry of the gulls, her own personal remembering carried on those wings, those mischievous eyes that darted left and right, scrounging all the treats they could find.
But the vehicle moved on, relentless in chewing up the miles that would separate her from the ocean, and Ben. They had never exchanged phone numbers or addresses, never thought beyond the summer. He would find her, if Kathy did not persuade him otherwise.
But Emma knew Kathy had the power to make him give up on her.
Or did she? How strong was a newfound love? She imagined a wobbly newborn calf, a fledgling unable to fly. But he was smart. Surely he’d put two and two together. Well, she knew it was all out of her control now, so she would have to shore up her faith and drive the piles deep below the sand so her house would withstand even the worst storm.
The journey was a time of reflection, one of soul searching and testing of her instability. As the miles rolled away, she finally concluded that everything, simply everything God placed in her path, was for her own benefit, good or bad.
If Kathy appeared downright unmovable, perhaps that, too, was for a reason.
She wavered between applying faith to the situation, and hating Kathy with an almost physical malevolence that made her grip her own hands till the knuckles turned white.
“I need to stop at the next available place,” she told the driver.
“McDonald’s okay?” he asked, glancing in the mirror, his eyes like two black buttons of kindness.
“Sure.”
“You doing alright?” he asked gruffly.
“Yes, I am. I’m just crying because I was fired from my job,” she answered, summoning an attempt at a smile.
He shook his head. “Too bad. S’way it goes. You do one job, you go to another. What’s a person to do?”
“You are absolutely right,” she said.
And he was. This short, fat man with the brown button eyes was like a simple angel of truth, sent to bolster her courage and make her realize how easy life could be if you did not get mired down in unnecessary thoughts and worries. This job was over, done with, so she’d get another. They chatted a little more, the driver introducing himself as Ryan, telling her about his kids who were now mostly grown up, she telling him about each of her siblings.
And suddenly she was shot through with a riptide of joy at the thought of Dena and the produce fields, her mother’s cozy kitchen and her father’s easy stride through the long rows of vegetables.
She would lie in her too-warm bed upstairs with hardly a breeze and be uncomfortable, but she would be at home where she was loved beyond reason. Her married sisters would come home and listen with sympathetic ears, and become outraged at the deceit and unfairness of it all.
At home, people were on your side. You could do no wrong. They would never for one minute think she had done anything wrong, certainly not what Kathy had implied. In the face of all this adversity, she would be alright.
If only Ben would . . . Someday, perhaps.
CHAPTER 11
MOST OF THE WAY THROUGH VIRGINIA SHE DOZED FITFULLY, HALF-HEARING the hum of the tires on asphalt, the drone of passing trucks, and the barely audible music from the car radio. As the afternoon wore on, she began to take an interest in her surroundings, the green rows of corn growing like a regiment, an army of tall green stalks that would bear the hard yellow ears in the coming months.
Corn, the mainstay of the farmers in Pennsylvania, she thought. It was such a normal everyday sight and occurrence, the rolling hills and wooded ridges with farms tucked here and there, the only close body of water a farm pond or a lazy creak meandering through a cow pasture.
A sense of loss settled over her as she compared her surroundings to the heaving ocean, the long sandy stretches she had walked with Ben. He had tried to become her best friend that night, and she had been about as romantic as a porcupine. She smiled, felt the beginning of hope.