Saul. She already missed him. Maybe it was because he was on her mind . . . but it looked like him getting out of a van in the parking lot. The man just looked like him because he was dressed in Amish clothing.
No, it was Saul. He searched the bus windows and when he saw her, he waved. She waved back.
The bus driver shut the doors and started the engine, then slowly pulled out of the parking lot. Elizabeth watched as Saul’s hand fell and then she had to turn away from the window. She couldn’t look at him again or she was afraid she would make the driver stop and let her off.
She closed her eyes and told herself she needed to do this. Saul would be there when she came back. The next few days might be unpleasant but she could get through them.
Then, just as she’d done when she got on the bus to come to Paradise, she experienced doubt she was doing what she should be. The bus stopped and her eyes flew open. Was God saying she was supposed to get off and stay in Paradise?
Then she saw that the bus had merely stopped for a traffic light and once it turned green, it began moving again.
Carrying her toward Goshen.
All roads lead to Goshen they said. Well, they’d led out of Goshen, too, and she couldn’t wait to return to Paradise.
Exhausted, she slept on and off for much of the trip. Paula had insisted on packing her some food and in her tote bag she found a thermos of coffee, sandwiches, some fruit . . . and a slice of pie in a little plastic container. A note was taped to the top of the container. It was from Jason. “I didn’t eat the last slice, because I know you’ll be back to make me another pie.”
She smiled. He was such a sweet guy. She was so glad Paula had him in her life.
The container went back into the tote for later. Her fingers encountered the stiff edges of an envelope. She drew it out and found Paula had tucked two twenty-dollar bills inside with a note for her to use the money to get herself something—food on the trip, something she liked at a store—but not to spend it on her family, because it was for Elizabeth.
Sometimes family was made of those you were connected to through birth and sometimes, she thought, it was made of people like Paula.
The trip felt longer than the one she’d taken to come to Paradise. There was no talkative woman curious about the Amish. There was no handsome man with friendly brown eyes who’d boarded the bus and become someone special in her life.
And when the bus finally pulled into the bus station at Elkhart, the town next to Goshen, there was no one waiting for her.
She knocked on the door because she didn’t feel she had the right to enter what had been her home.
The door flew open and Sadie stood there. Her eyes went saucer wide and she screamed, “’Lizabet!” and flung her arms around Elizabeth’s knees.
She dropped her bags, lifted her little sister and hugged her. “Oh, I missed you, Binky!”
“I’m not Binky,” Sadie corrected her. “I don’t use a Binky anymore.”
Elizabeth bet the pacifier was hidden somewhere in Sadie’s room. She’d refused to give it up for years.
She set the child on her feet and rooted around in one of her bags, then held out the teddy bear. “Look who came back with me!”
“Brownie!” Sadie clutched the bear and ran into the other room yelling for her mother. “Mamm, ’Lizabet is back!”
Her mother hurried into the room, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. She looked the same as the last time Elizabeth had seen her: a bit frazzled, her dark hair escaping her kapp, her apron spotted with flour.
“Elizabeth! You’re here already. Mamm, Elizabeth’s here!” she called over her shoulder.
Her grandmother strode out of the kitchen. A tall, spare woman, she looked at Elizabeth over the rims of her metal-rimmed glasses. “So you came.”
She nodded and tried not to shiver. There was no warmth in those eyes, no welcome as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Danki for sending the ticket.”
“I wanted to arrange for a ride for you but Mamm said we didn’t know when you’d arrive.” Her mother waved her hands a bit ineffectually.
Elizabeth tried not to feel it would have been nice if someone had been waiting for her. Perhaps it had been unrealistic to expect such. But not only had it taken time to look up the name of a driver and call him, it had taken precious dollars she couldn’t spare.
“Sadie, go get everyone so we can eat.”
She ran to the stairs and yelled, “Supper’s ready!”
Elizabeth’s mother winced. “Well, I meant you should go upstairs and get them but whatever.”
Nothing had changed. Footsteps pounded down the stairs and her bruders and schweschders came into view. They ran toward Elizabeth, their voices high and excited, everyone talking at once.
“You’ve all grown,” she said as she bent to hug them. It was a good thing there had been no time to sew clothes for them. They might not have fit.
Mary, the second oldest, followed, wearing a sullen expression only a fourteen-year-old could. She shrugged when Elizabeth greeted her.
“Let’s eat,” her mother said and stepped out of the way as the kinner raced toward the kitchen. Mary let out a long-suffering sigh and followed them at a much slower pace.
“Nothing’s changed,” Elizabeth said, grinning.
Then her smile slipped as her grandmother walked toward the door. “Aren’t you joining us?”
“I have to get home to your grossdaadi.”
“Oh. Well, I’m looking forward to seeing him Christmas Eve.”
She nodded and left.
Elizabeth felt a small hand slip into hers. She looked down and saw Sadie gazing up at her with big brown eyes.
“C’mon, ’Lizabet. Sit next to me.”
Here was her welcome, she thought. She nodded and smiled and they walked into the kitchen.
Her father walked into the kitchen a few minutes later and looked surprised when he saw her. “You came.”
She felt a little defensive. After all, she’d written them the date and time of arrival. But she bit her tongue and nodded. This was going to be a good visit.
The kitchen felt the same—warm and comforting, filled with the heat from the stove and the aromas from the food served in big dishes on the big wooden table.
“Mmm, everything looks so good,” Elizabeth said, glancing around the table.
“Mamm made your favorites,” Mary told her, shrugging.
Was it her imagination there was a hint of jealousy in her voice? Maybe not. Their father sent Mary a sharp look.
The family said grace and then bowls and platters were passed. The pork chops reminded Elizabeth of the night she’d cooked them for herself and Paula and Jason had shown up for supper. She’d have to go out to the phone shanty after supper and let her—and Saul—know she’d arrived safely.
The kinner began pelting her with questions about Paradise: Where was she living? Did she have a job?
And—to them the most important question: Had she brought presents for them?
She laughed. Nothing had changed.
Soon little heads were nodding over their plates. Despite Elizabeth’s frequent naps on the bus, she found herself nodding as well.
Her mother clapped her hands. “Baths, then bed.”
“Shall I help with baths or dishes?” Elizabeth asked her.
“Baths,” said Mary.
In the first display of quick movement Elizabeth had seen since she returned, Mary jumped up and began clearing the table, even trying to take her father’s coffee cup before he was finished with it.
“She doesn’t like to help with the kinner as much as you did,” her mother said as they followed the children upstairs. “The girl just doesn’t have a servant’s heart like you.”
Elizabeth was glad to hear her mother hadn’t noticed she’d tired of child care at the end . . . but she was bothered by the term “servant’s heart.” She didn’t want her mother to think she lived only to serve others. S
he wanted some love, some affection, a husband, and maybe a family of her own.
Her father came upstairs once everyone was bathed and it seemed he’d taken over one of Elizabeth’s old routines—reading the bedtime story. Tonight, though, when the kinner begged for Elizabeth to read, he cheerfully relinquished the honor to her and went out to do a final check of the horses in the barn.
“You’re tired,” her mother said before she left the room. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
That night, Elizabeth lay in her bed in her old room and found herself homesick for the bed in the apartment she shared with Paula. Mary slept in the bed next to hers, but had barely talked to her before she went to sleep.
Footsteps padded toward the door and then it opened a little. Sadie stuck her head in. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Can I come in?”
Elizabeth nodded and pulled back the covers. Sadie slid in and she covered her up.
“Wow, your feet are freezing! Where are your socks?”
Sadie giggled. “In my room.”
“Well, get those cold feet off my legs or I’m chasing you back to your room.” It was an empty threat and Sadie knew it.
So she slept with Sadie snuggled up next to her, clutching her teddy bear to her chest.
Sometime in the middle of the night Sadie got up. She patted Elizabeth’s head and then, carrying her teddy bear, went back to her own bed. Elizabeth smiled. Sadie had obviously thought she needed comforting on her first night back.
The next morning, when Elizabeth went downstairs she found her mother making breakfast. Her brothers and sisters were seated at the table busily eating oatmeal. Mary was nowhere in sight.
“Where’s Mary?”
Her mother looked up from the pan she was stirring on the stove. “Probably primping.”
Elizabeth sent Sadie upstairs for a hairbrush, and when she returned, helped brush her hair and braid it. The boys needed a quick grooming they tried to fight, swatting away the brush she wielded, but she prevailed.
Mary came down a few minutes later, turned up her nose at the oatmeal and helped herself to a piece of toast instead. “Kumm,” she said impatiently to her brothers and sisters. “I don’t want to be late.”
“She doesn’t want to be late to see a boy,” one of the brothers said and he got up and pulled his jacket from a peg on the wall.
“That’s enough,” Mary said and the two of them stuck their tongues out at each other when their mother wasn’t looking.
Elizabeth helped put coats on, handed out lunches, and gave everyone—well, everyone but Mary—a hug before seeing them out the door. Mary was already standing by the door impatiently tapping her foot.
“Danki for the help,” her mother told Elizabeth. She poured them both a cup of coffee and sat at the table. “It’s so nice to have you back.” She glanced at the clock. “Your father will be in soon for his breakfast. Do you want some bacon and eggs or oatmeal?”
“Bacon and eggs would be nice.”
Her mother nodded. “Then I thought we could bake kichli for the Christmas play they’re having at schul later this week.”
“Snickerdoodles?”
“Any kind you like. They’ll all be eaten for sure.”
The back door opened and her father walked in. He went to the sink and washed his hands.
“I’ll start your breakfast now,” her mother said.
“In a minute. Sit and drink your coffee.” He poured himself a mug and then sat at the table.
“I was just telling Elizabeth I was glad she was back.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath, then plunged ahead. “I came back because I wanted to apologize to you both for leaving the way I did.”
They looked at each other, then back at her.
“I just needed to go off and make a life of my own.”
“And have you done that?” her father asked her. He took a sip of his coffee and studied her with a calm, steady gaze.
She nodded. “I share an apartment with a nice Englisch girl who’s studying nursing. And I work in a store. It’s a temporary job while someone’s out on maternity leave, but I already have a job lined up after the new year.”
“New year? What do you mean, new year?” Her mother turned to her father. “What does she mean new year?”
He held up a hand to quiet her and turned to look at Elizabeth. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m here for a visit,” she said, glancing from one to the other. “I didn’t come back to stay.”
“That’s not what Mamm told me,” her mother protested.
Elizabeth shook her head. “I said I’d come back for a visit.”
They heard a knock on the front door, then it opened. “It’s me.”
“Well, looks like we’ll get this straightened out right away,” her father said calmly. He looked up at his mother-in-law as she walked into the room. “I thought you said Elizabeth was coming back.”
“Well, she has, she’s sitting right there,” she said with some asperity.
“I said I’d come for a visit,” Elizabeth corrected her politely but firmly. “I didn’t say I’d come back for good.”
“Of course, you will,” grossmudder told her. “You’ll do your duty like a good daughter.”
Something was wrong.
Elizabeth denied it but Saul could hear the strain in Elizabeth’s voice every time he talked to her. He said good-bye and put his cell phone away.
“You haven’t left yet?” Samuel asked as he entered the kitchen.
“Phil will be here in a few minutes. Sit down, I’ll pour you some coffee.”
“I can get my own cup,” Samuel told him. “I’m not an invalid you know.”
“Never said you were.”
“Everyone’s acting like it,” he grumbled as he brought his mug to the table and sat down. He looked up as Waneta walked into the kitchen. “And I don’t want oatmeal. I want some bacon and eggs. I’ll cook ’em if I have to.”
“Be my guest,” she said. She poured her own cup of coffee, nodded at Saul, and left the room.
Both men stared after her.
“Uh-oh,” Saul said when he turned his attention back to his father. “I think she’s had enough of the bad mood you’ve been in for a couple of days now.”
“Tired of hearing what I can’t do,” Samuel said, staring into his coffee. “It’s not easy getting old.”
“You’re not old. You’ve just been shown you can’t push your body around or it pushes you back. How about I scramble you some egg whites and fry up some turkey bacon?”
Samuel made a face but finally he nodded. “So why are you moping around?” he asked Saul. “Elizabeth not back yet?”
Saul shook his head. He got up, pulled a package of turkey bacon from the refrigerator and placed several slices in a skillet on the stove.
“She planned on returning on the twenty-seventh, but when I talked to her just now she wasn’t sure when she was leaving.”
“So, she’s taking an extra day or two.”
He put the bacon package back in the refrigerator, then returned to the stove and poked at the slices frying in the skillet.
“Saul?”
He turned and looked at his father. “What?”
“Are you afraid she’s staying there?”
Saul’s shoulders slumped and he nodded. “Ya.”
“You love her, eh?”
“Ya.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Get on a bus and go up and get her.”
Saul turned to stare at him. “It’s not that easy.”
“Schur it is. You go buy a ticket and climb on a bus to Goshen.”
“What about the store?”
“Miriam’s back, right? Katie and Rosie still work there part-time?”
Saul flipped the bacon. “Ya.”
Samuel shrugged. “Seems to me everyone found a way to keep the store running when you sat with your mother and me at the hospital. So go get Elizabeth and bring
her back here where she belongs.”
Waneta walked into the kitchen and set her empty cup on the counter. “So what’s this about Elizabeth?”
“I told Saul he needed to go get her and bring her back here where she belongs.”
“Saul?”
He transferred the bacon to a plate lined with a paper towel and set about making the egg whites. “He makes it sound like I can just abandon the store and take off.”
“You’re not indispensable,” she said briefly. She took the spatula from him and nudged him aside. “I’ll finish your father’s breakfast. You go pack and make your phone call to Miriam. Phil can drop you at the bus station just as easily as the store.”
“The two of you planning something?” he asked, staring at them dubiously. “Is that why you’re trying to run me off?”
“Schur,” she said. “With your father recovering and me running around taking care of him, we have lots of time and energy to get into mischief. Now shoo!”
Ten minutes later, Saul walked out to the van carrying his suitcase.
“Mind taking me to the bus station instead of the store?” he asked Phil.
“Of course not. Where you headed?”
“Goshen, Indiana.”
“Where Elizabeth just went?”
Saul nodded.
“I see,” Phil said. “How about that.”
Their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
“Ya,” Saul said. “How about that?”
He wondered if he was ab im kop. It felt a little crazy to be suddenly boarding a bus and going to get a woman who might not want to come home with him. Lieb—love—felt a little crazy.
He got the last ticket on the bus and found it crowded with passengers returning North after the holidays. What a different trip it was from the one when he met Elizabeth and they talked for hours on the way to Pennsylvania. This time he sat scrunched in a window seat while a young mother tried to keep a toddler entertained and quiet for hours. This time he ate sandwiches and coffee his mother made while he packed, but he ate them without company like he had on the way to Paradise.
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