Second Chance Proposal

by Anna Schmidt

  Clapping her hands, she stepped off the porch and into the yard and called for the children to stop their games. When they immediately abandoned the tree swing and seesaw that Luke had built and came running, she heard Roger Hadwell chuckle.

  “The children mind their teacher better than they do their parents,” he said. But then Lydia noticed a clouded expression pass over his features. “Just wish there were more of the little ones around,” he added softly as he made his way past her and into the house.

  “What did he mean by that?” John asked. He and Lydia were the only adults left on the porch.

  “Enrollment is down at the school and it may have to be closed,” Lydia explained. She was so relieved that his first attempt at conversing with her had nothing to do with their personal history that she was able to speak easily. She saw John’s eyes widen in surprise and concern.

  “But that’s your...that’s the way you...”

  “Times are hard, John. You know that perhaps better than anyone in Celery Fields. If the school building and land can be put to better purpose for the good of the community then that’s the way of it.” She herded the children into a single line and pointed to a basin and towel set up on the porch. “Wash your hands,” she instructed.

  “But what about you—what’s best for you?” John persisted. He reached around her to hold open the door so the children could file into the house.

  She looked at him for a long moment. “You are still too much with the outside world, John,” she said. “You have forgotten the lesson of joy.”

  “Joy?”

  “Jesus first, you last and others in between.” She actually ticked off each item on her fingers the same way she might if teaching one of her students the lesson. Embarrassed by her primness, she followed the last child into the house, leaving John standing on the porch.

  She had not intended to engage in any true exchange of conversation with him, anything that might let him know more of her life after all this time. Her plan had been to remain polite but distant. Still, the realization that he had forgotten the old ways—the idea that community came first—was just one more bit of evidence that John Amman would struggle against the bonds that the people of Celery Fields lived by.

  Why should she concern herself with his happiness? He had left her before and he would leave her again.

  * * *

  After Lydia moved the children into the house, John stayed on the porch staring out over the single street that ran from Luke and Greta’s house to the far end of town where the bakery and ice-cream shop sat. He found it hard to absorb how much the community had changed in eight years and yet so much was familiar and comforting about being back here. In the distance he heard a train whistle and he remembered how as a boy he had dreamed about where that train might one day take him, the adventures he might have. The adventures he and Liddy might have together. But the destinations of that train held no attraction for him now. He knew all too well what was out there.

  “John?”

  Greta stood on the other side of the screen door watching him with an uncertain smile. She was so very different from Lydia in both physical appearance and demeanor. Greta’s smile came readily while Lydia’s had to be coaxed. Greta’s vivacious personality drew people to her while Lydia’s reserve kept them at arm’s length.

  “We are ready for supper,” Greta said.

  John pulled open the screen door. “Gut,” he said with a grin intended to erase the lines of concern from Greta’s forehead. “It’s been three hours since I last ate.”

  Greta glanced back at him and then she giggled. “Ah, John Amman, it is good to have you back. We have missed you.”

  They were still talking and laughing when they entered the large front room where a table stretched into the hallway to accommodate all the adults and children. John paused for a moment to enjoy the scene. This was one of the things he had missed most about the life he’d left behind—this gathering of friends and family on any excuse to share in food and conversation and the special occasions of life. He recalled one time when he had attended a Thanksgiving dinner at the home of his business partner in the outside world. There the adults had sat at a dining-room table set with such obviously expensive crystal and china that John had spent the entire meal worrying that he might break something. The children had been shooed away to the kitchen and a separate table set for them with the more practical everyday crockery.

  He liked the Amish way of having all generations in one room much better, he decided as he pulled out a vacant chair. He glanced around until he located Lydia taking a seat on the same side of the table but with the safety of his aunt and three small children separating them. Luke took his place at the head of the table and all conversation stopped as every head bowed in silent prayer.

  John thanked God for the food and for the willingness of the townspeople to forgive him and take him back into the fold of the community—and for second chances. After a long moment he heard Luke clear his throat, signaling that the meal could begin. Instantly the room came alive with the clink of dishes being passed. Conversation buzzed as the adults talked crops and weather while the children whispered excitedly. No doubt they were all anticipating a piece of Samuel’s birthday cake—a treat Greta told them would not be forthcoming until every child had devoured all of his or her peas.

  From farther down the table he picked out the low murmur of Lydia’s voice and found himself leaning forward, straining to catch whatever she was saying to Pleasant’s husband, Jeremiah. She was smiling as she cut small slices of the sausage and then placed the meat on Samuel’s plate.

  It struck John that she performed this task so naturally that she might have been the boy’s mother. And for the rest of the meal, while he fielded the questions of those around him about his plans for the future, John found his thoughts going back to a time when he had first thought what a good mother Liddy would be. The time when he had imagined her as the mother of the children they would have together. And he could not help but wonder if she regretted never marrying.

  She glanced up then, her gaze meeting his and she did not look away as she continued to speak to young Samuel, reassuring the boy that she had seen his birthday cake and it was his favorite—banana with chocolate frosting. John wondered if she was remembering that this was his favorite, as well. He wondered if she was remembering a day when the two of them had shared a single piece of cake, their fingers sticky with the frosting as they fed each other bites while sitting in the loft of her father’s barn.

  How they had laughed together that day, and on so many other days. But now her expression was as serious as it had been each time he had seen her since his return. In her eyes he saw questions and could not help but wonder if her questions were the same as his.

  Chapter Five

  Lydia had managed to convince herself that once she settled into the daily routine of morning and evening chores separated by her duties as teacher, John Amman would be less of a problem for her. Surely, once everyone in Celery Fields returned to the regular business of living and working, John would cease to be the topic of discussion and speculation. He would be busy with his work at the hardware store all day every day except Sundays. The chores he had taken on for Luke in exchange for living above the livery would occupy him in the early mornings and after the store had closed for the day.

  But when she returned home on Monday she found a basket filled with oranges next to her door. There were orange trees in Greta’s yard and her first thought was that the gift had come from her sister. But she and Greta had sat on the back porch after they’d finished cleaning up after the party on Sunday and Lydia had noticed that the fruit on her sister’s tree was not quite ripe enough to pick yet.

  “The tree outside Luke’s shop is loaded with fruit,” Greta had said. “Every day he brings me a basket filled with the largest, sweetest orange
s I’ve ever tasted.”

  Lydia hesitated before reaching for the basket. She glanced down toward the livery where she could see the tree, its orange bounty reflected in the bright sunlight of late afternoon. The tree stood just outside the stables at the back of Luke’s shop and she was well aware it was a tree that John passed every time he descended or climbed the stairs to his living quarters.

  A square of white paper tucked in with the fruit caught her eye.

  “Remember the day we picked oranges?”

  She folded the paper slowly as the memory he’d awakened overcame her. They could not have been much more than ten or eleven. It had been Christmastime and the children and their teacher had planned a special program to celebrate the season. Their teacher had sent the older children—Lydia and John among them—to pick oranges from a grove of trees at the Harnischer farm to be handed out as a treat at the end of the evening.

  “We will need a gross at least,” their teacher had instructed. “How many is that, John Amman?”

  “One hundred and forty-four,” he’d replied without hesitation. Even then John was good with numbers.

  “And there are how many dozen?”

  “Twelve.”

  Their teacher had smiled and then counted the older children. “There are six of you so how many must each of you bring back?”

  “Two dozen,” the students had chorused.

  “Two dozen of the most perfect specimens you can gather,” their teacher had added. “Now off you go.”

  The other children had finished the task within half an hour of arriving at the orange grove. And so had John. But Lydia had lingered over every orange until he’d lost patience. This one was not as large as that one was. Another had a slight blemish. And wasn’t it more desirable to have the fruit’s stem and perhaps a leaf or two still showing? But the leaves would dry and wither and that was no good.

  “We’re going back!” he had shouted.

  “I’ll be right there,” she had replied as she made her way deeper into the grove, oblivious to the waning daylight. The Harnischers had gone away for the holidays to visit relatives and as the shadows lengthened Lydia had been unaware that all the other students, including John, had returned to the school. By the time she realized she was alone and she had wandered to the farthest end of the large grove of trees, it was dark.

  She shuddered as she recalled how terrified she’d been as she fumbled blindly along the rows of trees trying to find her way back to the farmhouse and the road so she could return to town. Every night sound that she thought of as almost a lullaby when she lay safe in her bed seemed ominous in the dark. Fallen fruit made the way more challenging as she tripped over the oranges on the ground. By the time she reached the Harnischers’ house she was choking back tears.

  She knew it was not that late, but in the country the darkness was like a blanket thrown over any possibility of light. There was no moon that night. She knew that her family thought she was at the school rehearsing the pageant with the other children. No one would come looking for her for hours. She had sat on the steps of the porch, her arms wrapped around herself as she cried and tried to think what to do.

  Then she had heard a sound, faint and in the distance—someone was calling her name.

  “Here!” she had shouted, running toward the sound. “I am here.”

  She had slipped on the root of a banyan tree and gone sprawling onto her stomach, the breath knocked out of her as she tried without success to call again.

  “Liddy Goodloe!”

  It was the voice of John Amman. Although the two of them had had their differences over the years, she had never been so happy to hear him calling out to her.

  “Here,” she managed, and only minutes later he was there beside her, placing a kerosene lantern carefully on the ground as he bent to help her.

  “What hurts?” he asked.

  “I scraped my palms when I fell,” she admitted, holding her hands out to him, “but really, I am all right.” She started to stand up but he blocked her way.

  “Stay still,” he ordered, and he removed his wide-brimmed hat, as if it might block the light while he examined her palms.

  “Really, I am...”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “Why do you always have to be so stubborn, Liddy Goodloe?”

  “I am certainly not as stubborn as you are, John Amman. Now, please move so I can stand up. It’s a long way back to town and Dat will be worried.”

  But instead of doing what she asked, he continued holding her hands as he ran his thumbs lightly over her palms. “You frightened me, Liddy,” he said softly. “You said you would be along shortly so I went back with the others. But when it got dark and you still had not come...”

  Liddy pulled her fingers free and, with one hand, brushed back his flaxen hair from his forehead. “I did not mean to frighten you, John,” she said. She thought she might faint from the rush of pure joy she felt at the realization that he cared, truly cared for her the way she did for him. “We should go back,” she said softly.

  Without a word John replaced his hat and retrieved the lantern and her basket of oranges. He handed her the lantern, and as they walked back toward town she slipped her hand in his and did not let go.

  Remember the day we picked oranges?

  “I remember,” she whispered as she carried the basket of fruit inside and set it on the table. Then she went to place John’s note in the box where she had kept all of her special treasures when she and John were courting.

  * * *

  By the end of his second week in Celery Fields John had settled back into life in the town as if the years he’d spent in the Englischer world had been no more than a bad dream. He took up his duties in his uncle’s hardware store with a familiarity born of the years he had worked there as a teenager. He waited on customers, filled and delivered orders, and even managed the store on his own one day when his uncle took ill and Gert stayed home to care for him.

  He was aware that gossip around town had it that he would one day take over the business permanently, but the Hadwells were still in their prime and it would be years before anything like that might happen. In the meantime, stretching the income of the business to cover the needs of three adults took some doing. To make matters easier on his aunt and uncle, John continued the arrangement of bartering his services at the stables with Luke so that he had no rent to pay and his uncle could keep his wages low. He had revived his habit of going to the bay after finishing work. Twice already he’d brought back buckets of clams and a string of fresh-caught fish that his aunt prepared for the noon meal the three of them always shared at the store. He also planted a kitchen garden behind the store so he could tend it when business was slow, which was often. He planned to give the harvest to his aunt in return for the steady supply of covered dishes she kept bringing him for his supper.

  The main problem John faced was trying to decide whether he and Liddy might have a future, after all. She did not appear to be trying to avoid him. They were both so busy with their work that most days he barely caught a glimpse of her and, when he did, she was usually surrounded by others—her sister, her students or some of the women in town. On the one hand he was glad he had some time to consider his options. If he and Liddy were to find their way back to each other he wanted to make sure that this time he would be fully ready for them to start the life they had postponed for all these years.

  The one thing his father had taught him was the responsibility of a man to provide properly for his wife and children. Of course, his father had insisted that farming was the only way to do that. In his eyes—weather notwithstanding—the land was God’s gift and the only living a man needed to secure a future for his family. He had never understood John’s attraction to building things and found his curiosity about how some machine or tool worked as bordering on dangerous.
r />   “Never mind how it works,” he would grumble. “Just thank the Lord that it does.”

  In spite of his father’s disapproval, John had continued to focus his interest on ways he might make a living other than by farming. And Liddy had encouraged that. How many hours had they spent thinking about all the ways he might put his talent for carpentry to use to establish a business once they were married?

  They had finally settled on the idea of John setting himself up as a clockmaker and furniture builder. Liddy had assured him that in time his father would come around, even when his father accused him of willfully disobeying his elders and from that day refused to speak further of John’s future. Instead, he focused all of his attention and praise on John’s younger brothers—boys as dedicated to farming as their father was.

  “We’ll be fine,” Liddy had said repeatedly. But he could not help but recall how her small hands had tightened into fists as if she alone would make sure that everything turned out for the best.

  But providing for the family was a man’s job and he had been determined to prove himself—to his father and to Liddy. He’d been so sure that she would understand why it was so important for him to succeed.

  “But you haven’t succeeded, have you?” he muttered to himself as he loaded lumber for a neighbor’s new barn onto his uncle’s delivery wagon. “It’s going to take years before you have enough to support a family—even if Liddy were willing...even if you and she...”

  They were both almost thirty years old. Not that age mattered, but if they wanted children...and they did.... Or at least they had once upon a time. Surely she still did want children of her own. In their courting days they had talked often of the offspring they would have, how things would be different for them, how John would encourage them to find the talents God had given them and build a future with those. They had so often talked about how their children would be native Floridians, not transplants like their parents and grandparents. They would have different opportunities.