Return to Paradise

by Cameron, Barbara;

  Then an awful thought struck him: what if she was seeing someone? For all he knew she was engaged to be married. It was that time of year when Amish couples were getting married. Sometimes there were several weddings each week during the fall months . . .

  Maybe he’d returned too late. Maybe too much time had passed, and she was too angry with him for abandoning him. Maybe—

  “You want another chance,” she said slowly. “After all this time, you came back and you want another chance.”

  “Ya,” he said, carefully watching her expression. He couldn’t read it.

  “You want me to trust you after you betrayed my trust.”

  “Ya,” he said.

  “After what I just said to you?”

  “Lavina—”

  She held up her hand. “Nee, I can’t think of such a thing. Not so suddenly. You’ve been out of my life for a year and suddenly you’re not only back, but you’re wanting us to go back to what we used to be.”

  A tear trickled down her cheek, and she angrily swiped at it with her hand. “I don’t know if I can go back to that, David. I don’t know if I should—if we should.”

  “We were gut together,” he told her, reaching for her hand. “You know that.”

  She sighed and nodded. “Ya, we were. But that was then. This is now. We’re different people now.”

  “I haven’t changed,” he said earnestly. “I haven’t.”

  “But I have.” She lifted her chin. “I learned to live without you. I learned I had to think about life without you. I had to learn to survive without you in my future.”

  David felt a wave of panic wash over him. He’d told himself that she could turn him down, but he’d forced that thought from his mind. He hadn’t been able to think it could happen. She’d been part of his life for so many years. The Amish usually lived in the same community all their lives—generation after generation. They went to schul together, attended church together. Participated in work frolics and community activities. Their lives were so entwined. They became friends and married the boy or girl they’d known all their lives.

  But she was saying he’d ruined things by abruptly leaving and not contacting her for a year. He’d been the biggest fool ever thinking it would be easy to just come back, apologize, and everything would be allrecht.

  And he still didn’t have anything to offer her. Despite what she said, he felt any woman would want to know he could provide for her.

  He pulled the hand he’d offered back, picked up the reins and jerked them. Nellie stepped back onto the road and began pulling the buggy down the road.

  “David—”

  He held up his hand. “Nee, I understand.”

  “Do you? If I let you that close again and you left, I don’t think I could survive. Nee, David, you ask too much.”

  She’d just broken his heart again so he knew what she meant. She probably didn’t know how he’d felt when he walked away from her—when he’d felt forced to leave his home, his community, everything he knew and cared about a year ago. He’d been so angry with his dat he hadn’t even been aware of how he’d felt when he woke up the day after and it really hit him what he’d walked away from. He’d lost the church and community he’d grown up in, but most importantly, it had hit him that he might never see Lavina again.

  But he hadn’t gone back. He’d told himself he had nothing for her. He still didn’t, but he’d taken one look at her and knew he had to find some way to make things work. Maybe his father would realize that he was just so sick he had to retire and take it easy. Maybe . . .

  Maybe he just needed to accept that he’d come back for two reasons—for his dat and for Lavina—and it appeared now that it wouldn’t be for Lavina. If he was honest, neither of them wanted him. He’d known his dat didn’t before he stepped back into his old home. He’d feared Lavina wouldn’t, either. But he’d had to take a chance on it.

  How he wished she’d give him a chance.

  He pulled up in front of Lavina’s house, and before he could get out she’d slipped from the buggy and was running toward the front door.

  “Lavina!”

  But she kept going. She raced up the steps to the porch and threw open the front door.

  David stood there, debating going after her. Then he shook his head. She probably wouldn’t even answer the door if he knocked.

  His shoulders slumped, he walked back to the buggy and got into his seat. “Take us home, Nellie,” he said. “Take us home.”

  She began plodding toward the house down the road.

  Usually he liked the relaxed travel a buggy provided. His mother had always said the Englisch rushed about so in their automobiles, and that they should slow down and learn to “smell the roses.”

  Tonight he found himself wanting to hurry Nellie and get home quickly so he could lose himself in the oblivion of sleep. He’d had two bad days in a row—the first returning home to hear how sick his dat was and to have the man show him just how little he cared about his returning home.

  And then today, hearing Lavina tell him how much he’d hurt her, how she couldn’t trust him not to do it again. Talk about rejection.

  He drove down the long, dark road, feeling depressed and more than a little lonely. It wasn’t a new feeling . . . it had been the story of his life for the past year. Sometimes he didn’t think he’d have made it through without the friendship of Bill, his Englisch friend, and his bruders when they had left the Amish community and moved near him.

  With Nellie in charge of getting them home and no need to concentrate on the road with no other vehicles on it, David’s thoughts wandered back through the years, back to memories of rosy-cheeked Lavina, her braids flying as she played tag on the school playground during recess. How he’d felt to know she’d sit with him for hours and listen as he poured out his pain at trying to get along with his father, and how her blue eyes would fill with warmth and compassion and she’d hold his hand. The happiness in those eyes when he asked her to accompany him to their first singing when she was a young maedel. Then utter joy years later when he asked her to marry him and the sweet taste of their kiss sealed the engagement.

  Tonight he’d looked into the face of a young woman, not a maedel from his childhood, and seen how she’d turned away from him for the pain he’d caused, and he felt a soul-deep bleakness and despair.

  An owl hooted in the woods lining the road, its call echoing in the silence. The wind grew colder and found crevices to creep into around the windshield and the doors of the buggy, seeping into his bones and making him feel old. It made him long for the comfort of his truck; watching the back of old Nellie, knowing she’d guide him home as she’d done for years and years, was a comfort he’d missed. She, the buggy, the family farm, the Amish way of life were such a part of him, just as much as his blood and bone and sinew.

  He’d missed so much. He had to find a way back, not just to help his mudder with his dat and the farm, but to find himself again.

  He told himself he couldn’t let himself get depressed over two bad days, rejection from two people who meant something to him. Gut things didn’t always come easy even when all came from God, from His plan for your life and according to His will.

  There was something to be learned from every road He took you down, every hardship you faced, as well as every joy.

  Maybe Lavina wasn’t the woman God had set aside for him. Maybe there was another he’d find joy in loving, find happiness in marrying, and having the kinner he hoped God would send. Who knew? He sighed. It was evident he wasn’t supposed to find out tonight. Maybe not for many nights.

  He pulled into the drive of his home and got out of the buggy to unhitch Nellie. As he stood there giving her an affectionate hug, he told himself to be grateful for the moment, for the peace of the still night, for the safety and security of a home and a warm bed for the night. He said a prayer of thanks and asked for guidance, and then he led Nellie into her stall for the night before heading to his own solitary
bed.

  5

  They say you can’t go home again.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?” David picked up a box he’d collected from the grocery store and began to fill it with items from one of his kitchen cupboards.

  “It’s an expression.” Bill opened the refrigerator and looked inside. “There’s no beer in here. You have to have beer if you want someone to help you move.”

  “That’s a rule?”

  “Yeah. And pizza. Gotta have pizza, bro.” He sat down at the tiny kitchen table. “Anyway, Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again. We had to read him in high school. You didn’t?”

  “No.”

  David leaned into the open cupboard to make sure he’d gotten everything out. Allrecht, so it wasn’t really that he was trying to make sure he got it emptied and cleaned out. He was really trying to avoid talking about schul. He’d always felt he’d gotten enough education, but once he lived and worked in the Englisch world, it was a real negative that he hadn’t graduated from a high school.

  Back home, it was considered more than enough schul to attend for eight years and then apprentice for your life’s work. He’d learned to farm alongside the most demanding teacher in the world—his dat—and that was more than enough training for what he’d do for a living.

  Not that learning stopped when schul did. He, like many Amish, loved reading. He knew the Englisch enjoyed their television, but most nights he didn’t turn on the small set that was part of the small furnished apartment; instead, he indulged in his love of reading. He was sure Bill would be complaining when he had to haul the boxes of books already packed to go in the truck.

  David used the cleaning cloth to do a last swipe of the shelf in the cupboard and shut the door. That was it for the kitchen. He’d cleaned the refrigerator the day before, and it was as spotless and empty as the day he’d moved in.

  He hefted a box and turned to Bill. “Ready to start loading?”

  Bill rolled his eyes and sighed. “Sure.”

  “I’ll buy us a pizza when we have everything loaded.”

  “It better be loaded.”

  “The truck?”

  “The pizza.”

  “Okay.”

  They were sitting in a favorite restaurant eating a slice of Bill’s favorite meat lover’s pizza when David remembered what his friend had said.

  “So why does this Wolfe guy say you can’t go home again?”

  “Hmm? Oh, Wolfe. Well, you know, nothing’s the same. You can’t recapture the memories, your dreams of glory, that sort of thing.” He shrugged and grinned. “I don’t remember much of the book. I did the Cliff’s version.”

  “What’s that?”

  Now Bill looked embarrassed. “It’s a booklet students buy to read a summary of the book, so they don’t have to read the full book.”

  “Why wouldn’t someone want to read the book?”

  He shrugged again. “Not enough time. Not what you want to read. Rebellion against your teacher who assigns it or your parents. All sorts of reasons.”

  David loved to read, so what Bill was saying didn’t make a lot of sense. “The night I went home my father told me I better not expect to be welcomed back like the prodigal son. You know, like in the Bible.”

  “Now I do know that story. We learned about it in Sunday school when I was a kid.”

  “I liked that story.” Better not think about it, he told himself. His dat wasn’t going to change.

  Bill wiped his hands on a napkin, took a sip of beer, and eyed the last piece of pizza. “You want?”

  David shook his head. “No, take it.”

  “I’ve already had three more than you.”

  But Bill reached for the slice. He chewed for a long moment, his gaze steady on David. He finished the pizza, took a long swig of beer, then balled up his napkin and tossed it on his plate.

  “I know you’re moving back home. But do you want to?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t have a choice.” He looked up with a smile when their server brought him another soft drink.

  “Sure you do. We always have a choice.”

  They both looked up as the door opened and a pack of teenagers streamed in, filling the near-empty restaurant with noise. They settled at a table close to the video games. David couldn’t help feeling old as he watched them horsing around, flirting with the waitress who looked about their age and trying to wheedle her into bringing them a pitcher of beer. She took their order and brought them a pitcher of soft drink.

  He knew they should get going so Bill could get home to his ESPN. It was his favored evening activity. And delaying moving into his old room wasn’t going to make it any easier.

  “Didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” Bill said as they walked out to David’s truck. “I know you feel you have to help your mother. But no one would blame you if you didn’t go back. Not the people who know how your father was, how he threw you out.”

  “I left.”

  Bill settled in the passenger seat and reached for his seat belt. “What?”

  “I said I left. He didn’t throw me out.”

  “From what you said he made your life a living he—” he stopped. “He made your life miserable.” Leaning forward, he fiddled with the radio. “Was he the same way with your brothers?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did they say when you called them? Are they going back, too?”

  David winced. The phone calls with Samuel and John had been short and curt.

  “He’s not going to die,” Samuel had told him. “He’s too mean to die.”

  “Mean people die every day,” David said. “Mamm said he’s really sick. I saw how he looked after his chemo treatment.” He searched for the right words to get Samuel to do the right thing. “Mamm needs us. Don’t do it for him. Do it for her.”

  “Is that what you’re doing?”

  David had rubbed at the ache building behind his eyes. “Look, don’t say no. Think about it. Just don’t think about it for too long.” He sighed. “I have to talk to John. Is he there?”

  The response he got from John, the youngest, wasn’t any better. David could hear hard rock blaring in the background. Of the three of them, John had been the one who most enjoyed the Englisch world.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not going back,” John said bluntly. “Don’t try to guilt me into it, either.”

  The ache built to a vicious headache. “Like I told Samuel, just think about it. I’ll need the help with planting come spring.”

  John muttered a curse. “If you’re still there then, we’ll talk. I gotta go. I have company.”

  With that, he hung up. David shoved the memory of the calls aside as he pulled into the drive of his home.

  Nee. It wasn’t his. If his dat had his way it never would be. What Samuel had said hadn’t been kind but he couldn’t blame him for saying it. Their dat had been equally rough on all of them, but it had seemed to affect John most of all, perhaps because he was the youngest.

  “We can turn around,” Bill said. “Just make a U-turn. I’m sure your landlady would let you have your old place back in a heartbeat.”

  David put the truck in park and turned off the ignition.

  The front door opened and Waneta stepped out, wearing a big smile. She looked at Bill. “Hello, I’m Waneta, David’s mother.”

  “This is Bill, Mamm.”

  “Wilkumm. I just made a fresh pot of coffee. Do you like snickerdoodles?”

  “I sure do, ma’am.”

  “Wish my mom baked cookies,” Bill told David as he lowered the tailgate on the truck and pulled a box toward him.

  “Everybody’s mom bakes cookies.”

  “Okay, she occasionally baked cookies.” Bill hoisted a box and started for the house. “The dog refused to eat them.”

  Leave it to Bill to lighten things up, David thought. Too bad he couldn’t live here with him and make things bearable.

  “You know, there’s a way to get fresh-baked cookies every day,”
he said as he followed Bill up the front steps.

  ***

  Lavina loved sewing. She really did. But sometimes it gave her too much time to think. And too often those thoughts circled back to David.

  How was he doing with his dat? Were they getting along or arguing as they always had? What was his day like? David had always loved working on the farm. It was the slow time of year for farming now, when the land lay resting, becoming colder and harder as the temperatures grew colder. This was a time when farmers turned to repairing equipment, to planning and browsing through seed catalogs. Some made furniture in their barns or basements or worked part-time, seasonal jobs.

  She knew Amos had to go for chemotherapy treatments and wondered if he let David drive him. She didn’t think she’d ever known a more difficult man than Amos.

  “Lavina? Where did you just go?”

  She lifted her eyes from the quilt she was hand-finishing. “Hmm?”

  “You’ve been sitting there not listening to us for the past ten minutes.”

  “Oh? Sorry.”

  “I think you’ve already left the house.”

  “What? I’m sitting right here.”

  “She’s right,” Linda said as she used her scissors to snip a thread. “It’s like when Daed is getting ready to go off to an auction. His body’s still here but you can tell his mind’s already racing ahead to the auction.”

  “I’m only going to the quilting class,” Lavina said.

  Better to let them think she’d been thinking about that rather than David. Then they’d start questioning her and worrying over her.

  She glanced at the clock. “Guess I should be getting ready to leave. Kate will be here soon to pick me up.”

  “Busy young woman,” Linda said as she sewed. “Adding a volunteer class on to her job as a police officer and raising a family.”

  “Her husband volunteers, too,” Lavina said as she folded her quilt and stored it on a shelf. “Oh, not with the quilting. He volunteers at the veteran’s center since he was in the military.”

  She started for the kitchen and then turned back. “Mamm, have you heard from Grossmudder and Grossdaadi this week?”