Jenny's Choice (Apple Creek Dreams #3)

by Patrick E. Craig

  Jenny sat silent for a few moments. Then she said, “Papa, I feel the Lord is leading me in this, but I asked you about this because I’m in your care and under your roof. If their answer is no, I will do as the elders of the church decide.”

  “Even if it’s contrary to what you believe the Lord is showing you to do?”

  Jenny stared in amazement at her daed. “I want to do what glorifies Gott and honors you. Would you have me do otherwise?”

  Reuben took Jenny’s hands in his. She felt the strength of his grip and the hard calluses that came from working all his life to care for his family.

  “What brings Gott glory is to do as He asks. What brings me honor is to see my daughter using the gift that Gott has given her to bless others. If the elders are not in agreement, they will have to go a long way to show me why. Jenny, I will stand with you in this because I believe you’re right. I believe Gott is healing you as you use this gift, and I believe that your writing could bring healing to others. It’s a blessing not often given and much to be desired.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Meeting

  Jerusha reached behind the quilting frame with her left hand and pushed the needle back to the surface of the quilt to complete her stitch. Wearily she pulled the needle through, quickly knotted the quilting thread, and broke it off. She had been working on this quilt for months, and as she leaned back in her chair, she knew it was the best she had ever made. Thousands of stitches had gone into the work, seventy every ten inches, and the work was indeed a masterpiece.

  But somehow that knowledge couldn’t soothe the ache in her heart. Tears quickly filled her eyes, and she reached up to wipe them away.

  If only Jenna were here with me, I could bear this somehow.

  The November sun shone weakly through a gray overcast of clouds, and the pale light from her window made the fabric in the quilt shimmer and glow. A fitful wind shook the bare branches of the maple trees, and the few remaining leaves whirled away into the light snow that drifted down from the gunmetal sky. Winter had come unannounced to Apple Creek, and Jerusha hadn’t noticed. Her life had been bound up in this quilt for so many months that everything else in her life seemed like shadows.

  Jenny stared down at the words on the page. She was pleased with the way the book had started. She could feel the anguish in her mother’s heart as Jerusha finished the quilt. It wasn’t an unfamiliar story to Jenny. Her mudder had told it to her many times in her childhood. But writing it down seemed to make it real and permanent, and she felt a sense of accomplishment. When she had read the first chapter to Jerusha, her mama had smiled and nodded.

  “Ja, Jenny, you have captured it. It’s what I was experiencing as I made Jenna’s quilt. I was so angry with Gott for taking Jenna from us and so disappointed in your papa. All I wanted was to leave Apple Creek and the Amish church forever. I wanted to pack my suitcase and go and never look back.”

  Jerusha smiled at an inward recollection. “Do you know one of the things I was going to do? I was going to buy a car. Me! I was actually going to learn to drive and have my own car so I could go anywhere I wanted without anybody telling me what to do. Can you imagine? The good people of Ohio would have had to put up warning signs: Watch out! Jerusha Springer wird durch die Stadt heute fahren. Jerusha is coming!”

  The two women laughed. Working on the book together had bonded them in a very special way, and their love and friendship were deepening every day. Once while Jenny was feverishly writing down an idea for the story line, her mama looked at her and smiled.

  “When you were just a little girl, you asked me if Gott had given you a gift that you could use to bless people. You were trying to learn to quilt, and it was very difficult for you.”

  “Difficult! That’s an understatement,” Jenny snorted. “We cut up the quilt I tried to make and used it for cleaning rags. No, Mama, quilting was not difficult for me—it was torture!”

  Jerusha took Jenny in her arms and held her close. “Do you remember what I said to you?”

  “I have never forgotten. You told me that my very life was a gift and a blessing to Papa and to you and to many others. And then you said that what happened with my life was up to Gott. You told me He had given me a quick mind and courage and determination and that He would begin to open doors for me to walk through and that when He did, I mustn’t hesitate, but do exactly as He said. Then I would discover who I was and what my place would be in this world.”

  “And now here you are,” Jerusha said. “Gott has opened many doors for you, and you are still young. I believe the greatest things He has for you are still in the future. And I believe that something very wonderful will come of all of this.”

  “Oh, Mama,” Jenny whispered, “how you bless me. I love you so much!”

  When Jenny had written three chapters, she looked on the back of her notebook for Jeremy’s address and posted a short note to him.

  Dear Mr. King,

  Thank you for your kindness the evening that we met. I was rather a mess, and you were right—I needed to sit and talk with someone, and you were a great listener. Thank you so much!

  I also took to heart what you said about sending you a one-sheet if I had an idea for a story. I do have an idea, and I have enclosed it. Let me know what you think.

  Blessings,

  Jenny Hershberger

  A week later Jenny received a reply.

  Dear Jenny,

  It was so nice to get to know you, and I’m very glad I was able to be of some help to you. I had a wonderful time chatting with you and was encouraged to see that by the time I took you home, your spirits had lifted somewhat. I hope I played some small part in that.

  Now, as for your story idea, I think it’s terrific! Do you have any sample chapters? If you do, please send them to me, and we’ll see if God has something for us in this.

  Sincerely,

  Jeremy King

  As soon as she read it, Jenny rushed in and showed the letter to Jerusha. Her mama read the note and then took Jenny’s hand. “Jenny, I think we should pray.”

  “Yes, Mama, I do too.”

  Jerusha began. “Lord, it seems to us that You are opening a door to Jenny’s future, and we want to be sure that we are hearing You speak and that everything Jenny does as she goes forward will bring glory to You and lift up the name of Jesus in this world.”

  “Amen,” Jenny answered.

  Jenny stood at the post office window with the large brown envelope in her hand. The clerk was busy putting stamps on a box of letters the previous customer had brought in, so Jenny had a moment to think.

  What am I doing? Am I really serious about this? What if he hates the writing? Who said I could write…

  “Can I help you?”

  Jenny stepped up to the counter, her hands shaking. For a moment she almost turned and walked away. But then she felt a familiar prompting…

  Mail it!

  She slid the thick envelope over to the clerk. Inside were the first three chapters of her book. She had fretted about sending them in handwritten form and had mentioned it to her daed. Two days later Reuben brought her an old Underwood typewriter he found in a thrift store in Dalton. She sat up late for a week mastering the keyboard, and by dint of concentrated effort and with the help of some White-Out, she was able to produce a presentable copy. Now she was surprised to find her palms sweating as she handed her package over to the clerk. He took it from her and slid it onto a scale.

  “Seventy-eight cents.”

  “What?”

  The young clerk looked at her with a bored expression. “Seventy-eight cents is the postage, ma’am.”

  “Oh, yes, the postage.”

  Jenny fumbled in her bag and pulled out her coin purse. Carefully she counted out the money. The clerk raked it into his palm, dropped it into the open register, and then printed out a stamp from the postage machine on his desk. He wiped the stamp across a damp sponge in a little plastic holder, slapped it on the envelope, and f
lipped the package unceremoniously into a bin behind him.

  “Will there be anything else?”

  “No, thank you,” she replied.

  Jenny smiled sweetly at him, but inside her thoughts were in turmoil. What about the trumpets and the angels and the voice from heaven? O Lord, please confirm this in my heart.

  She stood there for a moment, resisting the desire to ask for the envelope back. The clerk grew impatient.

  “Will that be all, ma’am? We have other customers waiting…”

  Jenny glanced behind her at the line of people who looked as bored as the clerk. She gave one more longing glance at the top of her envelope, which was peeking up out of the bin. Then she took a deep breath and walked away.

  It’s in your hands, Lord.

  Jenny spent a very anxious two weeks. Just when she had reconciled herself to never hearing from Jeremy again, a letter came from Kerusso Publishing. She grabbed it out of the mailbox and hurried into the house. Jenny ran into the back room, where Jerusha was working on a new quilt, and held up the envelope.

  “Mama! Look!”

  Jerusha looked up with concern. “What is it, Jenny?”

  “It’s a letter from Mr. King. Oh, Mama, I just want to throw it in the fire. What if he hated what I wrote?”

  “Jenny, springen Sie zu Beschlüssen nicht. Now sit down there, take a deep breath, and read it to me.”

  Jenny sat in the chair opposite her mother and tore open the letter. Inside on the Kerusso stationery was a handwritten note from Jeremy King.

  My dear Jenny,

  Please excuse my tardiness in responding to your letter. I have been up against some deadlines and have been remiss in answering my correspondence.

  I received your sample chapters, and I must say, I was very impressed by the quality of your writing. I think the story has the potential of being a terrific book. I would like to meet with you and make a proposal. I will be over from Akron meeting with one of my authors on Thursday, July 14. Can you meet me at the library in Wooster at two p.m? We could visit our coffee shop and share a cup while I go over my idea with you. If you could call me and confirm that time it would be helpful. My phone number is on this letterhead.

  Blessings, and looking forward to seeing you again,

  Jeremy King

  Jenny gasped and held the letter against her chest. “He likes the story, Mama! Oh how exciting!”

  Jerusha laid her quilt aside. “Let me read it, Jenny,” she said.

  Jenny handed the letter over as Jerusha picked up her reading glasses from the small table beside her and perched them on her nose. She read it silently and then looked up at Jenny. “You should confirm it right away. You could ask Henry if you can use their phone.”

  “Oh, Mama. Do you think I should do this?”

  “Jenny, I’ve learned many things in my life, but the main thing is this. Gott is the director of our steps, and our times are in His hands. I can see Gott’s hand all over this. If opportunity is knocking, you need to answer the door.”

  A week later, Jenny sat with Jeremy King at a small coffee shop in Wooster. He had the manuscript and was looking at some notes he had made. Jenny sat waiting impatiently while he read through them. Then he looked up at her.

  “Okay, here’s what I’m asking. Can you make this story into a novel?”

  “I hate to show my inexperience, but how many words are in a novel?”

  “Eighty to a hundred thousand.” Jeremy smiled.

  Jenny’s jaw dropped. She stared at Jeremy and then remembered Jerusha’s words. “When opportunity knocks…”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “And do you think you could come up with two more stories and make it into a series?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Okay, then,” Jeremy said. “Here’s what I propose. If you can turn this idea into a book that will keep my attention all the way through, I would be willing to publish it, with a few caveats.”

  “Caveats?” Jenny shifted in her chair.

  “Yes, and here they are. You show a lot of promise as a writer, but you’re still rough around the edges. If you will let me work with you, give you suggestions, and edit the manuscript as we go, I would be willing to get involved in this project.”

  Jenny paused. It occurred to her that Jeremy’s proposal involved spending time with him—a lot of time. For some reason the thought made her very nervous.

  Part Two

  THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

  When you are with the ones who love you, anyplace can seem like home. But without the ones you love, even home can be a prison.

  “Home Is Where the Heart Is”

  from the journals of Jenny Hershberger

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  An Open Door

  JENNY CAME INTO THE HOUSE, hung up her coat, and walked into the bedroom. Then she pulled off her shoes and flopped down on the bed.

  The book was progressing, but in the process of learning to write better, she found Jeremy to be a relentless taskmaster. Many times he had handed her back chapters with whole sections marked through with red ink. The notes were mostly the same.

  “Show, don’t tell, Jenny. Give me some internal dialogue if you have to, or break the narration up, but don’t just ramble on about what’s happening from your point of view. The reader needs to get inside the story, not stand outside and watch with you. Please rewrite.”

  Occasionally there would be an encouraging comment, such as “You turn a phrase really well, Jenny. That’s your strong point.”

  But mostly it was a grinding, brutal, humiliating process that often found her the way she was tonight—lying flat on her back in her bed, staring at the ceiling with uncomprehending eyes and not one thought left in her head. But still, in the crush of it all, when Jenny stepped back and looked at the places where Jeremy had drawn a small star in the margin by a section that he particularly liked, she knew that underneath the incredibly hard work, she had discovered the thing that she really loved to do more than anything—writing.

  So she kept at it. Her gift with words and phrases and her uncanny ability to get to the heart of things began to blossom under Jeremy’s skilled tutelage. The book began to unfold like a flower in her hands. Many times she felt as though she were reading someone’s personal letters to discover the story—and in a way she was. As she dug deeper into the story, she began to uncover things about her family she had never known.

  One night she sat down with Reuben and asked if she could to talk to him about his part in World War II. At first Reuben was reluctant.

  “Jenny, this is a part of my life that I’m not proud of. I was young and foolish and very rebellious, and the things I was involved in did not bring glory to Christ.”

  “I know, Papa. And if it makes you too uncomfortable, I won’t press the matter. But I will say this. I think there’s something in your story that will help others in our church.”

  Reuben looked puzzled. “How is that, dochter?”

  “When you came back from the war, you believed joining the church and following the Ordnung as best you could would save you from the evil you had seen out in the world. But when Jenna died, you discovered that wasn’t true. In that terrible time, you learned that only a real relationship with Jesus Christ can save you.

  “If there was one thing Jonathan learned from you, that was it. And it guided his life. He loved the Amish church, he loved working the land…he loved everything about his new life. But he used to tell me that those things only gave direction to his life. It was his relationship with Jesus that made everything real and true. I believe that many of our people need to discover that for themselves, and by telling your story, you can help them.”

  Reuben sat silent. Then he reached up and wiped away a tear.

  “Maybe you’re right, Jenny. I did learn about having a real relationship with Christ, and the sad thing is I didn’t learn it from the church, but from an old soldier on a mountaintop in Colorado. I will tell you my story
. Maybe after I do, I’ll be able to put some of my phantoms to rest.”

  For the next few weeks, whenever they could take the time, Reuben and Jenny sat together as Reuben told Jenny his story—how he grew up, how he met Jerusha, his life away from the church when he shared an apartment with Bobby Halverson, and how they both joined the Marines when World War II broke out. One night he told Jenny the story of his basic training.

  “After we enlisted, we had a few days to get ready, and then we shipped out for basic training. The trip to South Carolina wasn’t easy. I had an argument with your mama the day before we left, and I thought I would never see her again, so all the way to Parris Island I had a chip on my shoulder. I’m afraid I was a little cranky with your Uncle Bobby, and we almost got into a fistfight on the train.”

  Jenny put down her pencil in surprise. “You and Uncle Bobby?”

  “Yes, Uncle Bobby and me. Back in those days he was a pretty no-nonsense kind of guy, and he certainly didn’t want to put up with a sulky kid like me.”

  “How soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor did you join the Marines?”

  Reuben paused for a moment and then went on. “We left for basic training on Monday, January 2, 1942. We went down to the train station with our suitcases and climbed aboard a troop train along with a bunch of other guys—just kids. They thought they were on a picnic. They didn’t know that the moment they disembarked from the train, they would be stepping into an entirely different world.”

  “Was it that bad, Papa?”

  “Well, we arrived at Parris Island in the morning. We climbed off the train and were just lounging around, laughing, smoking cigarettes—you know, just a bunch of kids away from home for the first time. A couple of jeeps pulled up, and these really tough-looking Marines piled out. Within a few minutes we were running as fast as we could from place to place while being screamed at and made to feel like the know-nothing kids we were. They ran us to the chow hall and then down to sickbay. We rolled up our sleeves and walked down a row of Navy corpsmen and doctors who stuck needles in our arms, checked our eyesight, and drew blood.”