by Jo Ann Brown
“I needed some fabric,” she said, “and your brother sells the perfect cottons and blends for quilts. He has already sold the quilts I brought home with me.”
“I need more of Leah’s handiwork.” Amos chuckled as he returned with the last of the cans. “Last weekend, two customers got into an argument over which one had seen her remaining quilt first, and they were snarling like two cats. I put an end to the quarrel by taking the second woman’s name and phone number. I told her that I would call her as soon as Leah brought in another quilt, so she could have the first chance to see and purchase it.”
An appealing flush warmed Leah’s cheeks, and it took all of Ezra’s willpower to keep from running his fingertip along that soft pink, inviting her to turn her lovely eyes toward him. Would a man ever tire of losing himself in their warm, purple depths?
“That’s great,” he said.
If either Leah or his brother noticed how abrupt his answer was, he saw no sign. Amos quickly wrapped the fabric so it wouldn’t get dirty on the way home, and she paid him, thanking him again for the discount he’d given her.
As she walked toward the front of the store, Amos asked, “Why are you standing here, Ezra?”
“I need some baling twine.”
“You need to stop letting Leah walk away from you. One of these days, she’s going to keep going.”
“She may keep going whether I go after her or not.”
Amos’s brows arced at the unmitigated resentment in Ezra’s voice. Grabbing a roll of baling twine, he shoved it across the counter. “Pay me later. Go after her now while you still have a chance. Set aside your pride and persuade her to stay here. While you can!”
Ezra nodded. Again his brother was right. His pride had been wounded when she had gone without warning, and he had lived the past ten years on the edge of the community. Part of it, but not really. That he’d been unhappy and alone should have been a lesson for him in how worthless pride was, but he clung to its tatters as if they were a lifeline. He had to find a way to let them go.
For gut.
For Leah.
He wasn’t sure, but as he rushed to his buggy, he thought he heard Amos’s satisfied laugh. He looked back to see his brother turning the closed sign forward on the store’s door and giving him a thumbs-up.
* * *
It didn’t take long for Ezra to catch up with Leah, who was walking along the side of the road, her bare feet kicking up dust with every step. She edged off the road as he approached, and she didn’t look back to see who was coming toward her in the thickening twilight.
He slowed the buggy to match her pace and called out, “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to walk along these roads at dusk? Would you like a ride?”
She looked at him, and there was enough light for him to see her conflicting emotions. Unlike in Amos’s store, she didn’t hide her true feelings behind a mask of cheery goodwill.
“Danki,” she said, placing the bolt of fabric in the back with the baling twine.
As soon as she was sitting beside him, he gave the horse the order to go. “How’s Abram now that he’s home?”
“Ornery.”
“Meaning that he’s back to normal?”
She chuckled, and he saw she was astonished at her own reaction to his question. “Ja. He doesn’t like having to take the medicine the doctors gave him, but I think Dr. Vandross, his neurologist, impressed on Daed its importance when he released Daed from the hospital.”
“How did he get past your daed’s stubbornness?”
“He told Daed that there’s no cure for his Parkinson’s, but that if he wants to slow its progress, Daed needs to take his pills at the right time every day.”
“And I’m certain you’re making sure he does.”
“At first. Now that Mamm understands his prescriptions and what they do, she’s taken over scolding him if he forgets.” A wispy smile warmed her soft lips. “That’s the way it should be, and Mamm is enjoying having a chance to take care of him the way she’s wanted to.” She focused on her hands, which were folded in her lap. “Ezra, Daed explained to me why he returned my letters.”
As the sun headed toward the horizon where clouds were rising up to claim more and more of the sky, he listened while Leah poured out what Abram had told her in the emergency room. She didn’t spare either herself or her daed from blame for the years they’d been apart, but the happy lilt returned to her voice as she spoke of how they were trying to mend what they’d almost lost forever.
That’s letting go of pride. The muted voice came from his own conscience. Being willing to assume responsibility for your mistakes and not dwelling on your accomplishments.
Was he willing to do that? As he turned the buggy onto the lane leading to her house, he thought of how he’d kissed Leah the night before she left, then run away like Georgie Porgie in the nursery rhyme he’d learned from Englisch friends. When she went away, he could have gone after her, telling her that he loved her. She’d come home, and still he’d kept his feelings to himself. Another mistake? How many more would he make before he was willing to acknowledge them? First to himself and then to her.
And to God. How could he tell Him that he had let foolish pride guide his life instead of heeding the truth?
All you need to do is trust in Him. That voice, so soft he easily could have missed it as he struggled with himself, came from a place far deeper than his own conscience. It came from his heart.
Was it that easy?
He drew the buggy to a halt in front of the Beiler house and turned to look at Leah. Really look at her. Not just her pretty face, but her generous heart.
“Danki for the ride, Ezra.”
“Don’t go yet. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I’d say it’s the opposite. For the first time in a long time, something may be completely right.”
“I don’t understand.”
He put his hands around hers and drew them and her closer to him. “I’ve been living my life for the future. Not for now. Always talking about the things I dreamed I’d do someday. Never about the things I should be thinking about now. About being a better brother, a better son, a better friend—”
“You have always been a gut friend. The best I’ve ever had.”
“About being a better man in God’s eyes.” He released her hands and framed her face gently, taking care not to knock her bonnet awry. Easily he could lose himself in her wunderbaar eyes that glowed in the last light of the day. “About being a better man in your eyes, Leah.”
“I don’t know a better man than you.” She ran her fingers lightly along his cheek and over the whiskery line of his jaw.
He longed to lean into her touch, but he couldn’t put off what he needed to say. Not again, when she must have been talking to Amos about teaching a quilting class. Why else would his brother have mentioned her students?
“When I said things were going right,” he began, “you said you don’t understand. Don’t you see? Everything changed the day I asked you to ride with me to collect daffodil bulbs for your mamm, and I kissed you.”
Her cheeks grew warm beneath his hands, and he smiled at how she was blushing, though he couldn’t see clearly as the twilight erased the color from everything.
“Asking you to ride with me and kissing you,” he continued, “were the best decisions I’ve made in a very, very long time. Not only because I started listening to my heart, but I started listening for God again.” He brushed his lips against hers.
She gasped with soft delight, then whispered, “I didn’t know you stopped listening to Him.” She raised her eyes to meet his gaze.
His loving gaze, he hoped. God, let her see what is truly in my heart, for words can’t explain fully how much I love her.
>
“Because my life was empty after you left,” he said, “I tried to fill myself up with other matters.” His thumb traced her high cheekbone. “Who would have guessed that God would bring you home, and you could show me that having only a partial faith may be worse than having none? If I hold that God is almighty, then I need to believe, too, that His ways are a marvel to behold. I need to accept that I may be blind to His plan, but everything that happens is part of that plan.” He put two fingers beneath her chin and tilted it gently toward him. “That you may be part of the plan.”
“I know you’re part of what He intends for me.”
“Only if you stay here in Paradise Springs, Leah. Let me ask you what I’ve been wanting to ask you for weeks. Will you stay here, or do you intend to leave again?”
* * *
At his question, Leah pulled back from Ezra as far as she could. She longed for his arms around her, because his touch made her head spin and her heart dance. The answer should be easy when she loved him. But it wasn’t.
“You’re asking for me to choose between you and Mandy,” she whispered.
“No. I’m asking you to choose between living in Philadelphia and living here.”
He made it sound simple, and when she was with him, it was. Deciding became complicated when she heard Mandy speak of home and knew her niece was speaking of the city.
Quietly she said, “I’ve spent the past decade trying to make sure Mandy didn’t feel deprived because her mamm abandoned her and her daed was an invalid. Mandy and Johnny were my whole life. Everything I did, every choice I made, everything I struggled for was for them.”
“Nobody denies that you’ve given every bit of yourself to them. You didn’t stop after Johnny died. You returned, ready to atone for sins that were never yours, because here you could give your niece the home and family you wanted her to have.”
“Ja.”
“But now she wants to go back to the city, and you have to wonder if everything you did was for nothing.”
“No!” She sat straighter. “It wasn’t for nothing! I’ve raised her to know love and to know God. She’s a gut girl who gives love easily and believes everything always works out for the best.”
He folded her hand between his. “And what will work out best for her, Leah?”
Again the answer should have come readily to her lips. Again it didn’t. Tears filled her throat and burned in her eyes. “I don’t know any longer. I do know that I want her to be happy as her daed never was.”
“And if she can only be happy returning to Philadelphia and living with her Englisch friend?”
She blinked swiftly, trying to hold back her tears. “If I want her to be truly happy, I must be willing to let her go back to Philadelphia.”
“Alone?”
“My home is and always has been here.” She pulled her hands out of his and pressed them to her face. “I pray I have enough strength to let her go if that is what she needs.”
“You are the strongest person I know.” He drew her hands down and sandwiched them between his.
“I feel weak and helpless. Can I depend on you to be here to help me remain strong, Ezra?”
“You can depend on me for anything.” His voice deepened to a rumble as he cupped her chin gently again. “And everything.”
“Leah! Komm! Now!” The shout came from the house.
Looking past Ezra, she saw Mamm waving from the kitchen door. She jumped out of the buggy and ran to the open kitchen door. She heard Ezra’s boots pounding behind her.
“Was iss letz?” he shouted at the same time as Leah asked the same question in Englisch, “What’s wrong?”
“Mandy is gone.”
“Gone?” Leah’s happiness and hope in the wake of her conversation with Ezra shattered. “Where?”
Mamm wrung her hands in her apron. “It’s my fault. She got to talking about going to that Isabella’s party, and I said it might not be possible for her to go.”
“Oh, Mamm,” she moaned. “She’s had her heart set on going.”
“But she’s an Amish girl, and she doesn’t belong in Philadelphia.”
Daed came to the door. Drawing Mamm gently aside, he motioned for Leah and Ezra to enter.
“Fannie,” he said as they gathered near the kitchen table, “as much as we wish it to be true and as gut a job as Leah has done in raising her to live a plain life, she is both Amish and Englisch.”
Mamm dropped into her chair and began to cry. “I know. I know. It’s that I can’t bear to lose another one of you. First Johnny and Leah. Then I almost lost you, Abram.”
He sat beside her and put his arms around her shoulders. Leah tried not to gasp, but she’d never seen Daed show this much affection for her mamm. That he did was both a sign that his health scare was changing him and also how fearful he was for Mandy.
“You haven’t lost me, and we’ll find Mandy.” He raised his eyes to Ezra. “Will you help?”
“Ja,” he said, and she knew what he’d told her was true. She could depend on him for anything. “Do you have any idea where she was headed?”
“Philadelphia, I’m sure.” Mamm moaned and hid her face in her hands. “She’s a city girl.”
“Which is gut because she knows how to deal with traffic,” Leah said.
“But she doesn’t know anything about the dangers out here in the country.”
Daed pushed himself to his feet and wobbled for a moment. He waved Leah away as she reached to steady him. Stepping past her, he opened the kitchen drawer and looked inside. “She took a flashlight.”
“Thank God for that,” Leah said as she grabbed the other flashlight. Checking that it worked, she added, “If she has turned it on, we’ll be able to see her, and so will anyone else who passes her. Maybe we can catch her before she reaches Route 30.”
“No, no.” Mamm rocked back and forth with her despair. “They drive so fast on that road.”
Leah blinked back tears as she couldn’t help but wonder if Mamm had reacted just like this the night she and Johnny left. She longed to hug her and apologize for causing her mamm such despair. Instead, she looked at Ezra and yanked open the door. “The quickest way to Route 30 is across your farm, Ezra.”
“Let’s go. We’ll stop at the house and get my brothers to join the search.” He held out his hand, and she clutched it. As her fingers shook in his, she half expected her daed to chide her for being bold.
Instead Daed said, “I will go and—”
“You will sit there,” Mamm said in a tone Leah had never heard her use with her husband. “Let them go and alert the neighbors.”
“But—”
“Sit there!”
“Ja,” Daed said as he sank back into the chair.
Leah was unsure if her daed would remain compliant once they’d left. She prayed that, for once, he would heed gut sense and not be mulish. Holding Ezra’s hand, she hurried with him into the field separating the two farms. She wanted to go faster but had no idea how long it would take to find the little girl. If they ran now, they could tire themselves out before they found Mandy.
Where was she? Mamm was right. Mandy didn’t know enough about the countryside to recognize the dangers she could face being outside as night fell.
Her steps faltered as she heard Shep’s distinctive yip-yip and a coyote’s howl. She hadn’t seen Shep in the kitchen. Mandy must have taken the dog with her. Had she put him on a leash? If he decided to chase after a feral dog, he could be killed.
Wishing for more light than the flashlight she carried, she looked skyward. Light outlined a bank of clouds. The moon should emerge from behind them soon. They could use every bit of its dim light.
She froze when she heard a scream.
Mandy!
Ezra seized her arm to halt her
as she started to run in the direction of the scream. Was he out of his mind?
“Let me go! That’s Mandy!” she cried. “She’s in trouble.”
Suddenly from out of the darkness, Shep began barking in a frantic tone he’d used only once before. It had been when a dog came too fast and too close toward Mandy. He’d been determined to protect her then.
Now...
Snatching the flashlight out of her hand, Ezra aimed it ahead of them. The small circle of light revealed an astounding sight. A few yards away, Mandy squatted with her arms protectively stretched out in an attempt to guard a cow that was lying on the ground. A low growl came from the far side of the cow, who let out a frantic moo. Was that Shep?
No, she realized with horror as the growling animal shifted. Two eyes glittered malevolently in the night. Not Shep’s, because the eyes were too high off the ground.
It was a lanky coydog, ready to attack.
“Scream!” Ezra ordered. “As loud as you can. We have to scare it away!”
She did, scraping her throat with her shrill cries. As she took a breath, she heard Mandy shriek again.
Ezra ran forward, keeping his flashlight focused on the coydog’s matted fur. Reaching Mandy, he grabbed her flashlight and aimed both at the beast. Shep continued barking wildly as they screamed and yelled.
More shouts came from the far side of the field. Lights bounced as Ezra’s brothers ran toward them.
The coydog growled once more, then, realizing it couldn’t fight so many enemies at once, it spun about and fled toward the trees edging the creek.
Leah dropped to her knees and pulled Mandy to her. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” She caught Shep before he could race after the coydog. “We’re fine. Me and Shep and Mamm Millich and her baby.”
“Mamm Millich!” Ezra ran around to the other side of the cow and began to examine her and the tiny calf lying against her side. “What’s she doing out here?”
“I don’t know.” Mandy stroked the cow’s side.
“Thank the gut Lord that you came this way. If you’d taken the other road to reach the highway leading back to Philadelphia—”