by Amy Lillard
Or maybe she was simply overthinking it.
She waved at Hannah and started back up the lane, no closer to an answer than she had been when she sped down it over an hour ago. For now, maybe there was no answer. Maybe there was just confusion, patience and confusion until the answer was revealed.
But waiting felt a little like allowing life to happen to her, which felt a little like being a victim. Is that what they were?
She pushed that thought away. That was absolutely not true. She might not know the answer to a lot of things, but that was one she knew without question. God loved them. They loved God. Somehow from there, everything would work itself out.
Halfway between her mamm’s house and the cabin, she spotted Gracie walking toward her.
Leah stopped and rolled down the window, greeting her cousin’s smile with one of her own.
“Hey, there,” Leah said.
“Are you going up to see Jamie?” Gracie asked.
“I hadn’t planned on it.” It was better if they had some space. Wasn’t it? All this was complicated enough without having to fight feelings that might not lead them anywhere. It was just too hard, too confusing.
“Oh.” Gracie’s expression grew shadowed.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “Peter.”
Leah’s heart almost stopped. “Something happened to Peter.”
“No. Not really. The people came to get the dog. Peter got upset. It was bad.” Gracie sighed. “I think Jamie could use a friend.”
“You could have stayed.” Leah hated her own tone. It sounded accusatory, though she hadn’t meant to say it.
“He said he wanted some time alone, but I don’t know. When I left, he was sitting at the table staring at his Bible.”
“Staring? Not reading.”
She shook her head. “He couldn’t have been reading it,” Gracie explained. “It wasn’t even open.”
* * *
Jamie shifted in his chair, leaning back to see if he had heard a noise coming from Peter’s room. It must have been something moving outside. He turned back to the book in front of him. His Bible.
He lightly trailed his fingers over the cover, almost testing its weight. He could open it. Look it up. Read what the Word said. Or he could . . . not.
He looked back to the piece of paper Pastor Joel had given him that very afternoon. There was something else written there. It had been printed there by the company that made the notepad. John 3:16. The book, chapter, and verse jumped out at him from the small bit of paper, but he had yet to gather enough courage to open his Bible and read what it said. Somehow he knew it would change everything. Was he ready for that?
A knock sounded on the door so loud that he nearly fell out of his chair. Or maybe it only seemed so loud because he had merely been too focused on what was waiting for him.
He stood, taking a deep breath to slow the erratic beating of his heart.
“Jamie?”
“Leah?” Her name was barely above a whisper.
He stumbled to the door and wrenched it open to find her standing there. “Hi.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. It felt like a lifetime since he had seen her.
“Peter?” she asked, nudging him aside so she could enter.
“He’s still sleeping. Completely tired himself out.”
She turned toward him, her shoulders tense. “What happened?”
“That might take a few minutes. You want something to drink?”
“Water,” she said. “Water would be good.”
He got her a glass of water, and got himself one too, then together they settled side by side on the couch.
He told her about the family who had come to get the dog, Peter’s breakdown, and then going into town. He left out the part about getting the name of the doctor from her church and the tiny piece of paper with a Bible verse written on it. Something about it seemed familiar, but it wasn’t one he knew by heart.
“I wish you had come to get me,” Leah said.
“I got Gracie to come up and stay with him after I got him calmed down, but when I went into town you weren’t at the shop.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “So very sorry.”
He nodded. “I know. Me too.”
“What now?” she asked.
“I’ve got to get him to talk again. And . . .” He stopped, unable to outright say the words, as if saying them out loud would somehow make them bigger than real words. “I’m going to take Peter to that doctor. The head doctor from your church.”
She reached out and clasped one of his hands in hers. Her touch was warm and welcome. He squeezed back.
“I think that’s a fine idea,” she said.
“I hope you’re right.”
She nodded and pulled her hand away. She seemed almost reluctant to let him go. Or was that simply wishful thinking on his part? “You have to try, right? Otherwise you’ll never know.”
And that was one thing he knew to be true.
“Will you go with me tomorrow?” he asked.
“To the appointment?”
He nodded. “It’s at eleven o’clock.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“I do. I . . . do,” he said again. “You don’t have to come in or anything. I would like to have some moral support.”
“You got it,” she said. “Pick you up at ten?”
“Jah,” he said. “We’ll be ready.”
* * *
She shouldn’t be nervous. It was an appointment where she would sit out in the waiting room and do just that—wait. Peter and Jamie would go in and talk to the doctor. Well, if Peter had started talking again.
Leah hadn’t been completely shocked that Peter had melted down after the family came to get the dog. She was shocked that he had spoken for the first time in months—not counting his admission that he didn’t like Deborah. Sometimes Leah felt like it was part of some dream and had never really happened at all. But yesterday had happened, and it had been major enough that the good doctor had come in on Saturday to talk to Peter and Jamie. Leah just hoped that he realized what it cost Jamie, internally, to come here and hand his problem to a doctor instead of putting all his faith in God.
She flipped through a year-old magazine and pretended to have interest in it during the five-minute intervals between checking the time. The hands on the clock seemed to be moving backward. She could almost see the second hand ticking in reverse, but somehow, miraculously, the hands moved forward ever so slowly.
Maybe she should have told Jamie that she would go into the counseling room with him. But she hadn’t. She didn’t have the right. She was a friend; nothing more. A friend that Peter had cried for after his heart was broken over losing another loved one. It didn’t matter that it was a dog, or that he had only had the pooch for a short period of time. His world had come crashing in on him once again. Leah’s own heart cracked at the thought. Tears stung her eyes, and she would give almost anything to be able to go back and be there for him. Hold him as he cried, rub his back, smooth his hair back from his face. She should have been there to help him.
She should have been there for Jamie as well. He loved the boy with all his heart. The thought of him having to deal with Peter, brokenhearted and sobbing, was almost enough to send her to tears right there as she waited. She managed to blink them back. Something had to change. She wasn’t sure what or how, but something had to give.
The inner door opened, and the doctor stepped out into the waiting area. Leah had learned that they had gotten such an appointment as a favor to the pastor. Bill Stephens was a young doctor, though his certificates said he had been licensed for many years. Leah supposed he was either one of those prodigy babies or he had a young face. Young-looking or not, he had a calmness and peace about his demeanor that put her at ease the first time she had met him.
“Leah, can you come in here for a moment, please?”
“Of course.” She stood and tossed her magazine into her vacate
d seat.
“Peter is going to stay out here and play, right, champ?”
Peter tilted his head back and nodded at the same time. It was an odd combination that almost had him spilling across the floor.
She was about to ask if Peter would be all right in the waiting area by himself when she noticed the doctor using some sort of eye signals to communicate with the receptionist.
The woman nodded in return, and Leah followed the doctor inside.
Jamie’s expression was unreadable.
Leah met his gaze, but his clear blue eyes were murky and gave nothing away. Only the hard set of his mouth lent any indication of his true feelings, but even then it was hard to tell. He could be angry or upset, or maybe he just needed to use the restroom.
“Leah, thanks for coming out today. Jamie tells me that you drove him here?”
She nodded.
“That’s very kind of you. You must be a good friend indeed.”
She wouldn’t say that. She tried, but she had failed Jamie and Peter both on so many occasions.
The doctor tapped the end of his ink pen on the notebook he held in his lap. “I sent Peter out to play so the three of us could talk.”
Leah nodded understandingly, but Jamie remained still, almost slouched in his cream-colored leather chair, frown tacked firmly in place.
“I’m not sure how I fit into all this though,” she said.
“Are you aware that when Peter started talking yesterday, you were the only person he asked for?”
She was.
“Not his mother or his father. Not even his uncle, who has been his caregiver all these months.”
She had known that. But when he put it that way . . .
“I’m a friend,” she said.
“I believe you’re more than that.”
Oh, how she wished that were true.
Jamie cleared his throat. “What do I do now?”
“This is going to take some time. Peter has lost so much. But you’re right. He needs a dog. Or any kind of pet, for that matter. He’s learned the hard way that life contains loss. Now he needs to know that there are rewards too.”
“That’s what this is? A reward for kicking and screaming in the yard?” Jamie’s voice was more incredulous than gruff.
Bill shook his head. “It’s reinforcement that the world is a good place. The dog will also teach him that life renews, it goes on. And it will teach him responsibility. But a dog is a big commitment. You have to be all in for this, or it won’t work. Can you do that?”
Jamie nodded. “Pastor Joel gave me Max Myron’s number. I’m supposed to call him about a dog.”
Bill smiled and took a drink from his fountain cup, then placed the sweating paper back on the coaster. “That’s a fine idea.”
“What else?” Leah asked.
“He needs a stable home: mother, father, white picket fence, if necessary. He needs a routine, and everything that goes along with it.”
“A routine?”
“Knowing what’s going to happen and when will help ease his anxiety. If he knows that supper is going to be on the table every night at six on the dot, it’s one less thing for him to have to be concerned about.”
“I can help with that,” Leah said.
“How? You can’t even get supper on the table for you and Brandon. What are you going to do? Work all day in the shop, then cook and drive it to my house? That will get really old really fast.”
“You have a better solution?” she asked.
“Jah.” His voice was stern, almost gruff. “You can marry me.”
Chapter Eighteen
Leah stared at him blankly. It was perhaps the worst and the best thing he could have said to her. “I can’t marry you.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Why not?”
“Perhaps you two could use some time alone.” Bill started to rise from his seat.
“We’re fine.” Jamie waved away the man’s protests as if he were flicking away an annoying bug.
“How many reasons do you need?” She really couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, not after all the times these reasons had echoed in her head.
“I don’t mind waiting outside.” Bill started to stand once more, this time getting all the way to his feet.
“No need,” Leah said.
“I don’t need reasons. I don’t want reasons. I want you.”
How she wished that were true. But she knew the truth—the awful, ugly, painful truth.
“I’ll just wait out front with P—”
“Sit down,” they both roared together. Bill promptly plopped back into his seat. Leah barely registered his startled expression before she turned back to Jamie.
“There are so many reasons I’m not even going to tell you them all.”
“Tell me one,” he egged her on. “Just one.”
“You’re Amish, and I’m Mennonite.”
“What if I told you that I don’t want to be Amish any longer? Maybe I want to be Mennonite now.”
Tears pricked at the back of Leah’s eyes, and a lump filled her throat. “You can’t do that,” she said. “There’s too much at stake here.” She said the words even as Deborah’s came back to her. If I were you, I wouldn’t let a little something like that keep me from a man like Jamie Stoltzfus.
But she knew—Peter was the most important thing to him. He would do anything to protect him, help him, keep him. Anything, including renouncing his church for the sake of marriage. But what did that say about the marriage? It would always be second, always the thing that tore the faith away.
What they had, these feelings they shared, was too special to allow something, anything to make it less than God had intended.
“Did you not hear what I said?” he asked. “I don’t want to be Amish any longer.”
She blinked back the tears, swallowed the lump, and stood. “How I wish that were true.”
Leah got halfway to the parking lot before she realized that she was their ride. They had all driven here together. The odd little family minus the two teenagers. But the truth was, they weren’t an odd little family. They never had been. They never would be. It had only seemed so.
She sucked in a deep breath of the cool midmorning air. Before long, winter would be upon them. By then, she was certain, Jamie would have already found a wife. Maybe he would talk Deborah into coming back south and staying. Or maybe he and Gracie could work out some sort of agreement. That was most likely the better choice, but the thought of him married to her cousin left her cold, icy. The thought of him married to anyone else, actually, but she needed to get used to the idea. Soon it would be the reality.
She took another deep gulp of air, held it in her lungs, then released it slowly.
“You’re still here.”
Leah turned as Jamie and Peter came up behind her.
“I’m sort of your ride.”
“You could have called Uber for us.”
Leah drew back in surprise. “What do you know about Uber?”
“Plenty. See, I’m not uneducated or backward. I’m just an Amish man seeking the truth.”
She thought it best to leave that one alone.
“Get in the car,” she said.
He did as she bade, and before long they were on the road once more.
* * *
“What are we doing here?” Jamie asked. He looked at the sign hanging from the side of the beige-painted, cinder block building: Randolph Animal Shelter.
“You don’t want to . . .” She cocked her head toward the building. “You know . . .”
“Get Peter a dog?”
“Yeah.”
The entire ride over, Peter had been quiet. It was a state that Jamie was quite accustomed to, but now that he knew, for a fact, that there was nothing wrong with Peter’s voice, he wanted him to use it.
But at the mention of the word dog, Peter slumped even farther down in the back seat. His chin hit his chest, his rusty hair swinging
in front of his face. A week ago, the mention of a dog would have sent him over the top. He would have been so happy, clapping his hands and dancing around, even though dancing was so hard for him. He would have done it because a dog meant that much to him. Jamie hadn’t realized it until Peter fell to the ground when Teddy and his rightful owners had backed out of their driveway.
He moved to get out of the car, but Peter and Leah stayed where they were. He leaned down and peered through the open window to where Leah sat. “Are you coming in?”
She gave a quick shrug. “I thought I would sit here.”
“What about you?” he asked Peter.
His only answer was to kick the back of the seat in front of him with the toes of his scuffed black boots.
“You know,” he started, switching his gaze from one of them to the other as he spoke, “the whole point of this was to pick out a dog and have a good time. Not sure what happened.”
“Jamie . . .” Leah shot him a pained face. “I don’t think . . . after our earlier conversation . . . that we should . . .”
“I see,” he said. “You think that because I asked you to marry me and you said no, that now we can’t be friends?”
“Something like that,” she murmured.
“How wrong you are.” He looked into the back seat, where Peter waited. “Okay, everybody out. It’s time to look at dogs.”
* * *
Leah could say that it was the most bizarre day she had ever had. It went from helping a friend to a marriage proposal to filling out forms to adopt a dog. The Randolph Animal Shelter had a screening process that even Pastor Joel’s advance call couldn’t get around. The man at the front desk wasn’t Max Myron, but wore a khaki shirt with Bobby stitched across the left breast, just above where a pocket would be. He had a round, ruddy face, and the name suited him.
“Will the dog be in an enclosed yard?”
Uh-oh.
“Jah,” Jamie said. He cleared his throat. “Yes.”
The man asked a couple more questions about the purpose of the dog and whether Jamie had owned a pet before. She supposed he wanted to know if Jamie understood what he was getting into.