A Plain Leaving

by Leslie Gould

  Aenti Suz shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly. But I heard Silas finally called it off for good.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. Was she implying he’d tried to break it off before? I simply hugged Aenti Suz and said, “Thank you for everything.”

  She hugged me back. I understood Ruby’s fear of being separated from her family. But as it turned out she didn’t have to be. She still had Zachary. And I still had Amos, even though he was half a continent away.

  All I had to do was grab my bag and try not to think about Silas. I’d change out of my dress, for the last time, once I reached Harrisburg. Milton would need to get someone else to help him finish the plowing. I couldn’t bear to stay five minutes longer.

  I hurried to the house, ran up the stairs, collected my things, and then sought out Mamm to tell her good-bye. She was in Dat’s office, sitting at his desk, going through papers.

  “So this is it?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “You won’t stick around and confront Arden with me?”

  I shook my head. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d already taken that route, more than once. It’d only brought me heartache.

  She stood and gave me a hug. When I pulled away, I grabbed a piece of paper from Dat’s desk and a pen and then wrote down my address and phone number. “Contact me if you need anything. And you’re always welcome to come to Harrisburg. . . .”

  “Denki,” she said. “I may call or write sometime, but I won’t be coming to visit.”

  I nodded. I really didn’t expect she would. Dat felt comfortable traveling all over, but Mamm never had.

  “Tell Leisel good-bye,” I said. “I told her I’d hoped to be here when she returned, but I should get going.” I knew Leisel would call me if she wanted to, but I didn’t mention it to Mamm. I didn’t want her to worry about Leisel any more than she probably already did.

  “All right,” Mamm said. “What about Marie and Gail?”

  “Where are they?”

  “Down at Vi and Arden’s doing their wash.”

  I paused a moment. Marie didn’t want to see me, but then I thought of all the years of sisterly friendship we’d shared.

  “Please,” Mamm said. “Just stop by.”

  “All right,” I answered. I’d do it for my Mamm. Ruby had lost both of her parents, but I still had one of mine, and chances were she’d be alive for a long time yet. True, I wouldn’t see much of her, but I didn’t want to add to the tension between us. I felt as if we’d experienced some healing. I’d do what I could to keep it that way. Besides, I needed to tell Milton that I couldn’t help him with the plowing.

  I drove back up the lane, then on to the short stretch on the highway, and then turned down Vi and Arden’s lane.

  After parking my car, I walked around to the side yard where Milton was planting the garden plot. I waved and he stopped.

  “I’m going to head back to Harrisburg,” I said. “You’ll do fine finishing plowing.”

  He frowned but didn’t respond.

  “It was good to see you.” I wanted to hug him but knew that wouldn’t go over well. “I’m so glad you like farming, that you love the land.”

  He nodded and a bit of a smile crept across his face.

  “You’re doing a good job.”

  He nodded again, grinned, and returned to the planting.

  No clothes were on the line yet, so I guessed Marie and Gail were in the basement using the old wringer washer. I headed to the front door, knocked, waited, and then let myself in.

  Arden and Vi’s house was especially plain. No decorations on the walls, not even a calendar. The weren’t any books in the house either, besides a Bible, Martyrs Mirror, and Ausbund, all on a corner shelf in the living room. The house barely looked lived in.

  As I started down the stairs, I heard my name, but in conversation—not as if anyone was calling out to me.

  “At least she’s leaving today.” That was Marie talking.

  “It seems as if she’s been here forever,” Gail said.

  “Jah, I never thought I’d feel this way about my own sister.”

  My throat constricted as I realized I had three choices. I could leave without saying anything, I could get mad, or I could try my best to love my sister, the girl who had been my best friend until three years before.

  As I descended the rest of the stairs, their voices continued but I stopped listening. I thought of the day I told Marie I was leaving. She wouldn’t stop crying. She was afraid for my soul. And for my life. But over and over she said, “How can you leave me?”

  Of course she’d find a new best friend.

  I stepped onto the concrete floor and said, “I came to say good-bye.”

  Both Gail and Marie stood at the washing machine, feeding towels through the wringer, with their backs to me. Slowly, Marie turned around. Red blotches crept up her neck to her face.

  “It was good to see both of you,” I said. The tears that stung my eyes took me by surprise. “I’m sad to say good-bye.”

  Marie’s surprised expression turned into a frown, but she stepped toward me. She opened her mouth but no words came out. Gail nudged her, but then tears filled her eyes too. She wasn’t as heartless as she’d seemed.

  “Jessica,” she said. “I’m—” She stopped. After a long moment she said, “I’m sad, for what has happened.”

  “Me too,” I answered.

  We didn’t hug or say any more except for our farewells. It felt like a step in the right direction for me, though, simply because I’d been honest instead of defensive.

  As I pulled back onto the highway, a van turned down Arden and Vi’s driveway. Someone in the front passenger waved. Leisel. A driver was taking Arden home from the hospital. For a moment I contemplated going back, but I didn’t. I didn’t have the stamina to be confronted by my brother, not even to tell Leisel good-bye again.

  Driving through the countryside, I thought of Ruby and Isabelle. Aenti Suz owed me more of an ending. Did Isabelle stay? Did she and Ruby continue to support each other? When did Ruby and Duncan marry? Did they move back to Philadelphia? If they stayed in Lancaster, did Isabelle stay with them?

  I tried to sort out what the property lines would have been back in 1777 and what they were now. There wasn’t an oak tree in our neighbors’ field—obviously the oak tree on the Wallis property hadn’t survived. I was grateful ours had, although there was no mention of it in Aenti Suz’s account. The activity around me soon brought me back to the present.

  The warm spring day brought out a workforce of both Englisch and Amish farmers, who were plowing and planting. I would never grow tired of the Lancaster County landscape with the lush green fields, rich soil, and tree-lined horizons. It had to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.

  When I reached Harrisburg, my heart felt hollow, as if the center of it had been scooped out. Already I missed the farm. And there was no denying I missed Silas too.

  I got a few funny looks as I climbed out of my car wearing my cape dress. I grabbed my bag and hurried up to my apartment. Even though the day was warm, my apartment was cool. I quickly went through it, turning on the heat and then turning all the lights on, including my string of tiny bulbs. Next I opened up the curtain.

  But not even the fresh green buds on the plants down in the courtyard brought me comfort. I felt hopelessly alone. The hollow feeling expanded. I thought of when the low branches on the oak tree rotted and how at first we feared the trunk might be rotting too. Dat said the tree wouldn’t live forever. I’d felt hollow then, fearing the tree might die. Thankfully, pruning the dying branch was all that was needed.

  Changing into jeans and a sweatshirt didn’t ease my angst. Neither did looking into my empty refrigerator. I curled up with my laptop to see what I’d missed on social media, but that only made the hollow feeling grow even more intense. I closed my computer. It was only 2:30. I decided to go into work for the rest of the day.

  I quickly changed into sl
acks and a blouse and then grabbed the Stoltz file on my way out the door.

  Tom wasn’t at his desk when I walked down the hallway, but a couple of my other co-workers greeted me and offered their condolences. I graciously accepted. I worked with good people.

  When I reached my desk, I booted up my computer, opened the file, and then started a report, writing it from the notes I’d jotted down while speaking with John Stoltz. Hopefully he wouldn’t change his mind about the interview. An older Amish man who had been deceived would offer credibility—and garner sympathy—that another farmer might not.

  Once I finished the report, I attached it to an e-mail to Tom and cc’d Deanna. Then I started catching up on my e-mails. Twenty minutes later Tom started toward me, a smile on his face.

  “You’re back,” he said.

  “Jah,” I answered, and then shook my head and smiled. “Did you get my report?”

  He nodded. “I skimmed it. I’ll go through it more thoroughly later. Can you go with me on Friday? I’ve already made an appointment with Mr. Stoltz.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I think the interview will go much better with you there.”

  I suspected it would too, but I didn’t want to see Silas again. Especially not with Tom.

  After work, I hoped Tom would want to hang out, but he had a meeting at church. The next day at work he was tied up in meetings over lunch and then had his usual Tuesday night basketball game. On Wednesday after work, we grabbed dinner together, but then he had to rush off for his usual men’s Bible Study at church. Every night that week I sat alone in my apartment with all the lights on, missing home. Jah, I missed everyone. Even Marie. Even Arden.

  I used to see Silas as passive, but now I realized just how passive I was in my relationship with Tom. While he bounced around from meeting to game to meeting, I sat at home pining after him. What had I become?

  I made myself a cup of chamomile tea and sunk down into my couch. I couldn’t help but wonder how Mamm’s conversation with Arden had gone. And how Vi was doing. And how the farming was going for Milton.

  When I first left Lancaster, I felt so wounded that I seethed with disappointment toward my family and community. But going home made me realize something. Even though neither my family nor our Amish district was perfect, they still offered me something I’d hadn’t found yet in the Englisch world: Community. Service. Traditions. It didn’t mean Englischers didn’t have all of that—I knew they did. Tom had it in both his family and church. It was just that all of it still felt unreachable to me.

  I remembered the day I joined the Amish church, proclaiming my faith in Christ Jesus before my community and family. I believed following His teachings and the traditions of the church was what was best for my spiritual life and for my future. I believed salvation came, alone, through my faith in Christ. I believed the support of my family and community would help me live out that faith and serve others in a way I never could on my own.

  And I came to those conclusions mainly through my conversations with Silas. True, he was ready to join the church as soon as I was, but he didn’t. Some, including Arden, saw that as a moral failing on his part. But I knew that was just Silas. I knew first that I loved him. I knew first that I was ready to join the church.

  Silas was more thoughtful than I was. Perhaps a little slower to arrive at a decision. It wasn’t a moral failing; it was simply his personality. We were different, that was all.

  But perhaps that was changing. He’d quit working for my family without looking back. And he’d taken the job with Mr. Stoltz. And he planned to join the church, regardless of the fact that he was no longer courting Gail.

  Then again, maybe what I saw as passivity when we were younger was actually wisdom.

  I sighed. But the shaming by Bishop Jacobs and Marie and Arden toward me destroyed much of my hope, regardless of Silas’s thought process. I was stripped of my dignity. Stripped of self. If only I’d been able to trust Christ through my trial, but by then, in my mind, my church represented Christ. I found no comfort in them—so I found no comfort in Him either.

  That had left me isolated, more than anything. Perhaps that, along with the unfamiliarity, had left me adrift when it came to the Englisch church and traditions. It wasn’t as if I didn’t enjoy worshipping in the Englisch church, but I never felt as if I truly belonged.

  Tom was my one connection. Was it fair to put so much of my hope in him, when I should be putting it in Christ and expecting a community to support me, not just one person?

  I leaned back against my couch and closed my eyes, completely filled with the emptiness that I’d become more aware of since I went back to Lancaster County. The thing was, if I married Tom, he’d continue to be just as busy as he was—or busier. Church and community meetings. Basketball games. Work trips. All good things, but I would be alone, never quite feeling as if I fit in at church or work or the Englisch community. Could I give and serve if I always felt on the outside? If I always felt unsatisfied?

  After a while I fished my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket and called Amos. He didn’t pick up, so I left a message, stammering that I just wanted to check in to see how he was doing instead of confessing how lonely I was.

  He called me back a few minutes later, as I was turning on every light in the room. Without even saying hello, he said, “The funniest thing happened yesterday. Your Mamm called me.”

  “My Mamm?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “What did you say to her?”

  “About?”

  “Arden.”

  I couldn’t remember what I’d said, not exactly. “What did she say?”

  “That she was sorry for not believing me all those years ago. That she hadn’t considered that there could be another side of the story, not after Arden spoke his side first.”

  I grimaced. Mamm had done the same thing to me regarding the narrative Bishop Jacobs, Marie, and Arden spun.

  “What did you say to Mamm?” I asked and then took a sip of my tea.

  “That I accepted her apology. Then she asked me to come visit again and bring my daughter.”

  I nearly choked. “She knows about Becca?”

  “Apparently so. She said Dat told her before he died.”

  “What else did he tell her?”

  “That Arden wasn’t always honest, that she should keep an eye on him.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” We talked a little bit more about things back home, and then he asked how I was doing.

  “Oh, fine. Just having a little bit of culture shock adjusting back to my Englisch life.”

  He chuckled. “I know what you mean. It was all better than what I remembered.”

  “For me too,” I said. “Except for sitting at the kids’ table.”

  He laughed. “I still have bruises on my knees.”

  “Me too,” I said. He started to wrap up the conversation, but I stopped him. “Did you talk to Becca about coming out to Lancaster County for a visit?”

  “I mentioned it,” he said. “She’s interested.”

  A lump began to form in my throat. “I really hope to meet her,” I said.

  “I’d like that,” he answered. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  I promised to call again soon, and then we said our good-byes. After I hung up, instead of feeling less lonely, I felt more so. A numbness spread through me, part of my grief for Dat most likely. But I was missing my Mamm for the first time in three years too. I thought of Ruby’s love for her mother and her sorrow when she died. Would I ever have a chance to improve my relationship with my mother? I doubted it.

  I finished my tea and went to bed early, trying to remember what I’d liked so much about my Englisch life before going home.

  Friday morning Tom picked me up at seven a.m. to go to the Stoltz farm. We chatted on the way there, but it didn’t feel as comfortable as it had before Dat died. Although Tom admired my Dat, his death wasn’t weighing on him. I
was still in mourning. He wasn’t.

  In the Englisch world I wore black all the time. It wasn’t a sign of mourning, not like in the Amish. Actually, there seemed to be no sign of mourning in the Englisch world. And I’d noticed that people only took a few days off work when a parent or grandparent or other family member died—or in my case an entire week, which probably seemed excessive to most.

  Jah, grief in an Amish community meant grieving with others. It meant never grieving alone.

  As he drove, Tom grilled me about how he should approach the interview. I told him to be himself.

  “I brought my camera,” he said.

  “You can’t take photos of John.”

  He nodded. “But could I get one of his back, looking over his farm? Something like that?”

  I shook my head. “But John did say you can take photos of his farm,” I said. “Just don’t photograph him. Not even his back.” Tom could take a photo of Silas, because he hadn’t joined the church yet, but I wasn’t going to suggest it.

  As we crossed into Lancaster County, my heart lifted with the sights of home. The green fields. The black soil. The dairy herds. But it was more than that. It was a sensation of home—a feeling of hope.

  I breathed a prayer of gratitude.

  “What are you smiling about?” Tom asked, his gaze on me for a moment.

  “Nothing,” I replied, glancing toward him. “Just how beautiful the countryside is.”

  He nodded in agreement, but didn’t say anything more.

  When we arrived at the Stoltz farm, Silas was nowhere in sight, and this time I didn’t ask after him. Tom asked John question after question, but the man was much more reticent than he had been with me. Getting answers from him, beyond the basic facts, escaped Tom. I tried to encourage the conversation, asking more direct questions than Tom knew to ask as we walked around the farm, but John couldn’t seem to be as open as he’d been with me alone.

  Tom asked about taking a couple of photos of the farm, and John agreed the land was fine, but he didn’t even want his yellow lab photographed.

  I looked one last time for Silas but didn’t see him. Perhaps John knew what I was doing because he said, “My new farmhand is working out well. In fact, he may be an answer to our prayers.”