MEN OF LANCASTER COUNTY 01: The Amish Groom

by Mindy Starns Clark

  I gaped at him, thinking of the photos in her box, of the gap in time and how much sharper and more beautiful the pictures had been when she’d started up again. Of course. She had taken them with the Leica.

  My father handed it back to me and I took it from him carefully, as if it were a priceless vase or a newborn chick. “It’s yours if you want it,” he said. Then he added, “I mean, I know there are restrictions and all, but it was your mother’s. Maybe you could just keep it as a souvenir and not actually use it.”

  Finally, I found my voice. “Are you sure? Lark said it’s pretty valuable. You could probably sell it for a thousand dollars, maybe more.”

  He shrugged. “It’s not mine to sell.”

  I thanked him, but a strange sadness filled me as I imagined taking it back to Lancaster County where it would cease to be useful to anyone. My mother had loved this camera. She had loved what it could do to a snippet of time and light.

  When I got to Lark’s, we headed to a neighborhood park a few blocks over, looking like two good friends out for a stroll in the generous California sun. But there was uneasiness between us.

  “Did your dad get home okay?”

  “He did. Thanks.”

  We took a few more steps in silence.

  “You came to say goodbye, didn’t you?”

  “I came to say thank you.”

  She cracked a weak smile. “And then goodbye.”

  I felt bad for her, remembering how kind she had been since the night we met. As I glanced at her there beside me, I realized afresh how much she had helped me sort things out while I was here, and not just with Dad and Brady. With her kiss she had, unknowingly, shown me how much I loved Rachel and yearned for the life that awaited me back home. “Yes,” I said. “I’m leaving Sunday night.”

  She shook her head and laughed lightly. “Just like that.”

  “No.”

  Lark looked at me. “What do you mean? If you’re leaving, you’re leaving.”

  “Lark—”

  “Is it because I kissed you? Is it because I told you how I felt about you?” Her voice was tight with disappointment. “’Cause we can go back to being just friends for now, if you want.”

  I shook my head, wishing she could understand. “It’s because that’s my home. It’s where I want to be, where I’m supposed to be.”

  “You’re choosing Rachel over any kind of life here.”

  “I’m choosing to be Amish, Lark. That’s who I am. That’s the life I am suited for.”

  She was silent for a few moments. A runner jogged past us.

  “You didn’t even give living here a chance. And this thing with your brother? You’re just going to take off with him so mad at you? Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “A lot has happened in the last couple of days. Brady and I finally talked. My dad and I finally talked. We understand each other now. And they understand why I need to go back. I finally understand why I need to go back.”

  She said nothing.

  “Do you remember when I first met with you and I told you how I came to be raised by my grandparents? You said it was crazy how I ended up with them.”

  “I didn’t say that.” She frowned.

  I smiled. “You did. I told you my dad made it my decision on whether or not to stay with my Amish grandparents and you said, ‘Wow. That’s crazy.’ ”

  I glanced at her, seeing that her cheeks had turned a faint but rosy pink.

  “No, it’s okay,” I assured her. “You said I belonged with my father, and you were right. Kids do belong with their parents. Most of the time, that’s the best place for them to be. But when my mother died, my dad faced a decision no dad is prepared to make. Maybe what he did wasn’t the wisest choice or even what my mother would have wanted him to do, but God brought good out of that decision, Lark. That’s what He does. He can take even our most misinformed choices and make good out of them. And I can’t help thinking that whatever desirable qualities you see in me were born out of the way I was raised. I was raised Amish.”

  “But you don’t have to stay Amish.”

  We had reached the park. I motioned to a bench in a sunny alcove by a bed of still-blooming impatiens.

  “You’re right,” I said as we both sat down. “That’s the very thing I didn’t realize until I came here. I thought I had to discover who I was. But who I am is not something I need to discover. Who I am is something, with God’s guidance, I decide. Just like you will decide who you will be.”

  “But what about your family here? What about the life you could have here?”

  I knew that there was more to her question than that. What she was really wondering was if I’d stopped to consider what part she might play in my life if I stayed.

  “I am who I am because of how I grew up. I love my dad and my brother and I even love Liz as my stepmother, but their lives are so hectic and disconnected from each other. And none of them think much about how God fits into the picture. I probably would have grown up just like Brady is growing up now if I had been raised the way he’s being raised. I wouldn’t be who I am at all.”

  “But that’s my point. If you leave now, you’ll lose all influence over them. Do you think that’s right, just to abandon them that way?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not abandoning them. Trust me, Lark, I’ll have a far greater influence on them as an Amish man than I would if I stayed. And even if that was the only reason to go back, that would be reason enough.”

  She breathed in deeply and looked down at her empty hands. “But that’s not the only reason.”

  “No.”

  Lark raised her head to face me. “You’re going to ask her to marry you.”

  I nodded.

  We were quiet for a moment.

  “I know maybe you don’t want to hear this, but I have you to thank for helping me realize where I want to be. And who I want to be.”

  She shook her head and smiled thinly. “So I’m supposed to say, ‘You’re welcome’?”

  I touched her arm, friend to friend. “I mean it. God has orchestrated every aspect of my time here to answer a prayer that’s been on my heart for a long while. You were a part of that.”

  She sighed.

  “You’ve been a good friend, Lark. You taught me a lot. Not just about photography but about so many, many things. I’m really glad God put you in my life for these few weeks.”

  She turned her gaze to a pair of children off in the distance, running at full speed toward a swing set. “Would you think me terribly selfish if I told you I still wish you had decided to stay?”

  I squeezed her arm and let go. “I’m humbled and flattered. But that’s not the path I’m on. I know that now.”

  We sat there for a few minutes watching the children across from us squeal in delight as they pumped their legs, sending their swings higher and higher into the sky. Watching them reminded me again of Rachel, of the day I fell in love with her on the swings so many years ago.

  Lark and I were mostly silent as we walked back to her house. When we got there, she turned to give me one final goodbye hug, but I had something else I needed to do first. I led her over to my car, unlocked it, and reached inside, pulling out an envelope of cash with her name written on it.

  “Your fee,” I said, handing it over with a flourish. “Along with my thanks. You were an outstanding tutor.”

  I was smiling, but her expression quickly went blank. She was quiet for a moment, and then she told me she simply couldn’t take it. “I know what we had started out as a financial arrangement, but it became much more. So much more. I wouldn’t feel right taking your money.”

  I was not at all surprised. Before I left to come over, I’d realized she wasn’t going to accept it. But then I’d had another idea, a good one. Without pressing things further, I slipped the envelope into my jacket pocket and gave her an understanding nod.

  “I had a feeling you wouldn’t,” I said, and then I leaned back into the car, this t
ime to retrieve the Leica. “This, on the other hand, might be a different story.”

  I held the camera out to her. She just stared at it for a long moment. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “I want you to have this. I honestly do.”

  “Holy cow. What? Why?”

  “For two reasons.”

  Before I could even list those reasons, she was reaching out to touch it with the tip of one finger, gently, reverently, the way one might touch a child, or a lover.

  “First, it needs to belong to someone who would really appreciate it—and really use it. I can’t think of anyone who might enjoy it more than you. I want you to take it and make the most of it in my mother’s memory.”

  In response, a sound bubbled from Lark’s throat, a cross between a cry of joy and a sob. She put a hand to her mouth even as her eyes filled with tears.

  “Second, I wanted to give you something special—”

  “You can say that again,” she whispered, blinking away the tears, her eyes still on the camera.

  “Something that could symbolize how amazing you are and how very glad I am you came into my life. I owe you more than you could ever imagine.”

  After that, I grew silent, still holding out the camera, waiting for her to take it.

  Slowly, she did. Cradling it her hands, she studied it as if she’d never even seen it before.

  “I can’t…I don’t…”

  I smiled. “Yes you can. Please. I want you to have it. It would make me happy.”

  She met my eyes, almost convinced. “What about your dad? Does he even know what this thing is worth?”

  I nodded. “I told him. And then he said it belongs to me. And now I’m saying it belongs to you.”

  She looked down at her new treasure, a smile slowly spreading across her face even as tears filled her eyes. Lark wasn’t the girl for me, but I knew she would make someone else very happy someday.

  And there would be beautiful photographs all along the way.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I spent the weekend with my family, enjoying every moment with them as I never had before. For the first time ever, I felt completely comfortable staying in my dad’s house. Except for wanting to get back to Rachel, I wasn’t overly anxious to head home, nor torn about leaving California. I knew where I was headed and that God was directing me there.

  On Saturday Dad and Brady and I went to Disneyland, a place no one is ever too old—or too Amish—to enjoy. Then on Sunday, I convinced my family to attend Lark’s church in hopes that a more contemporary style of worship would appeal to their highly contemporary lives. I was happy to see that all three of them appeared to enjoy the music and were intrigued by what the pastor had to say. We found Lark later among some of her friends, and I introduced my family to them so at least they now knew a few people there. My hope was that this would perhaps encourage them to go again. After lunch, we went for a long coastal drive in the muscle car—Dad was very grateful for the cosmetic work I had done on the upholstery—and I even got to drive it for a stretch, my final turn at a wheel before giving up my license for good.

  On Sunday evening, before we left for the train station, I hung all of my Englisch pants and shirts Dad and Liz had given me in the closet and changed into the clothes I had worn on the flight out, my Amish clothes. Never had they fit so well. Never had they felt so right. Though I had laundered them before putting them away, I thought I could still smell the fragrance of Lancaster County in the threads of my shirt. Placing my hat on my head, I stood and looked at myself in the mirror, glad my hair had already begun to grow again. Standing there and regarding myself, I remembered a similar moment of mirror-gazing my first day there, when I was wearing my new Englisch clothes and was so eager to blend in. At the time, I wondered whether I was still Amish or not on the inside. Now that I knew the answer to that question, it was a relief to look Amish on the outside again as well.

  I picked up my backpack to rearrange its contents and remembered the list I had been compiling. I opened the notebook, glanced at it, and couldn’t help but laugh at what I had written there.

  People drive with their windows rolled up, no matter what the weather.

  Used clothes are undesirable.

  Young people text to communicate.

  The number of contacts in your cell phone is too numerous to keep in your memory.

  Young women flirt with complete strangers.

  Homes with just three people can have a dining table large enough to seat more than ten.

  Fires are worked by remote control.

  Houses can be kept by little work on your part.

  One man can own three cars.

  A house can have rooms that are never even used.

  Individual cups of hot coffee can be made in a wide variety of flavors with the push of a button.

  Dog mess must be picked up.

  There are special plastic bags manufactured just for that purpose.

  The Pacific Ocean shines like glass.

  Some young women tint their hair with colors not found in nature.

  Reading and researching simply for knowledge is uncommon, at least once one is no longer in school.

  The first—and often only—step in any quest for knowledge is to search the Internet.

  Young women ask for rides from near strangers.

  People volunteer all sorts of personal information without provocation or invitation.

  The generations are all so divided, even in church.

  Opportunities for service and involvement abound.

  Sometimes, technology really can bring people closer together instead of driving them apart.

  People own so much stuff that they have to rent space in which to store it.

  It seemed like a very long time ago that I had begun writing down what it meant to be a part of the Englisch world so that I might discover if I was meant to live in it. I didn’t need the list to show me—I never had—and I didn’t need it to prove to myself that I knew where I belonged. I crumpled the page into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket.

  Next, I turned to the strongbox of my mother’s photos. Though I would leave them here with my father, I decided that I ought to bring a few home with me to show Mammi and Daadi. I thought perhaps they would find comfort in the knowledge that their prodigal daughter had spent her years in Germany trying to recreate, through photos, the world she had left behind in Lancaster County.

  I opened the box and withdrew all of the envelopes of pictures, laying them across my bed so I could choose which ones I wanted. I flipped through the photos slowly, memorizing the images I wouldn’t be taking with me, trying to pick the ones I would bring home to show my grandparents. Once I’d done that, I also decided to keep one as a memento for myself, the only picture in there that featured not just me but my mother as well. I looked to be about four, small and innocent and completely unaware of how my life would change. We were at a duck pond somewhere in Germany, and she had probably asked a passerby to take the photo of us, or maybe my dad had done it. In the image, she was crouched next to me so that our cheeks touched, her right arm tight around my shoulders. We were both smiling, but my gaze was on the creatures who were vying for the bread that I held in my hands. It was a mere second in time as my mother and I fed ducks on a sunny day in a little town I didn’t even know the name of. I touched the edge of the photo, knowing Mom had also touched it many years ago, and then I reached into my backpack to slip it and the others into my Bible.

  I gathered up the envelopes of photos and was about to lay them back in the strongbox when something round inside caught my eye. At first glance I thought it might be a coin, but when I looked closer I realized that it was a lock, a small metal circle with a keyhole at its center. Studying the box’s interior even more closely, I realized that there was a seam running around its perimeter. This had to be a little door, one that opened to reveal a narrow, separate compartment underneath.

  Heart pounding, I lifted t
he box and shook it, listening for the sound of moving objects inside. I heard only the faintest whiffle of paper on metal.

  More photographs? Something else entirely?

  If only I had a key! Intrigued to my core, I set the box down and started for the garage, intending to get a small screwdriver to try and work the lock free. Before I even reached the bedroom door, however, I froze in my tracks.

  The key.

  I did have a key.

  I had the key from the day my mother died, the one she’d been clutching when she collapsed to the floor, never to awaken. It was a small key. Surely it fit a small lock. Perhaps this lock.

  I came back and sat on the edge of the bed, my heart pounding even harder now. I knew it seemed like a long shot, but somehow I felt certain, deep in my soul, that the key I’d kept in my cigar box all these years was for this very lock.

  Heart pounding, I stared at the keyhole for a long moment then finally went out to the top of the stairs and called down to my father.

  “What’s up?” he called back from somewhere not too far away.

  “Can you come here for a minute? I need to show you something.”

  I don’t know what I expected his reaction to be. Shock. Excitement. Enthusiasm. Instead, once he stepped into the room and I showed him the keyhole and the outlines of the hidden compartment, he just shrugged.

  “Yeah?”

  “What is this?” I demanded. Shaking the box, I added, “I can tell there’s something in here. Something she locked beneath this little door.”

  His eyes narrowed as his expression grew distant. “I don’t think it’s any big deal, Tyler. I seem to recall…” His voice trailed off.

  “What? Is it more photos?”

  He shook his head. “Letters, I want to say. I think that’s where she kept her letters from home.”

  “But why lock them away? Was there something secret about them?”

  Again, he shrugged. “I guess there could’ve been. I never paid much attention. You’re welcome to them. Take the whole box. Maybe once you get home, you can jimmy the lock.”