“I didn’t know.”
“It was my son’s heart. Menno was his name. I just can’t . . . give it up. Not this heart. It’s my last tie to him.”
Luke ducked his head. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. “How long?” He wiped his face. “How long do you have?”
Amos lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “There are some things that are on God’s side of the fence. Dok wants to try some new tests, and she’s talked about some new medicines. I don’t know. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. One thing I have trust in, I won’t be dying a minute too soon and not a minute too late. And for now, I’m still here. So don’t start planning my funeral just yet.”
“I’m not.” He knew Amos was trying to lighten the moment, but those words felt like a solid slap. He couldn’t bear the thought of Windmill Farm without Amos. Couldn’t bear it. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I do. There’s something I want you to do for me.”
“Anything. You name it.”
“Fern has a dream. I promised her that I would do it but that she had to give me time to warm up to it. We had to go slow, so that’s just what we’ve done. What I didn’t realize was that time was the one thing I couldn’t give her. I think I’m going to need to pass this promise on.” He put a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “I’ve prayed long and hard about this, and the Lord has shown me that you’re the one to do it.”
“Amos, you are making me really nervous. What are you talking about?”
“You know how Fern is about children who need homes. What is it you boys call Windmill Farm?”
“You know about that nickname?”
“Of course.”
“We call it Fern’s Home for Wayward Boys.”
Amos chuckled. “Has a nice ring to it. Fern never had any children of her own. There are a few women, like my Fern, who have an unusual capacity to love other people’s children. Mattie Riehl, she’s another one like Fern.”
Luke clasped his hands behind his back and squeezed. Amos always took a long time to get to the point, and he could tell this was going to be a slow rollout. Patience, Luke. Something he’d never had in abundance. Maybe that’s another gift Amos had given to him—like it or not, he was building a muscle for patience.
“She wants to empty out Lancaster County of foster children.”
Luke was so surprised that he couldn’t answer for the longest while. He had that frustrating dreamlike confusion of racking his brain for the answer and then forgetting what the question was. There was a question, wasn’t there? “What exactly does that mean, to empty out?” Then it dawned on him. “Wait. You mean, get those foster children into Amish homes?”
“That’s exactly right. Empty it out.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. Lots of siblings. They need to stay together.” He lifted a hand and waved it in the air as if he were swishing away a fly. “Empty it all out.”
“How? How in the world could I do that?”
“That’s what’s always stumped me. I don’t know. But you’re a smart fellow. You can do this, Luke.” Amos suddenly looked drained. Fatigued. Worn out. “I’m asking you to do this. For me. After I’m gone.”
Again, tears pricked Luke’s eyes. He swallowed. “Amos, I . . . don’t know how I’m going to get along without you.”
Amos smiled. “You’ll muddle through. I have faith in you.” He put a hand on the back of Luke’s neck, the way a father grasped a son. “Will you see it through? Help me fulfill my promise to Fern?”
“I’ll take care of it, Amos. I’ll take care of everything. Windmill Farm, Fern.”
Gently, Amos gave Luke’s neck a squeeze. “What about Izzy?”
Luke looked at Amos in surprise. “What about her?”
“How do you feel about her?”
How did he feel about Izzy? Luke hesitated. His feelings about Izzy were complicated. “She’s . . . a challenge.”
Amos laughed and clapped his hands together. “That’s what I thought. Luke, I have a hunch she’s the one for you.”
The one? That one? Luke felt gobsmacked, as jolted as if he’d just gotten a kick in the gut. He felt himself unraveling before Amos. He’d tried so hard to stamp out feelings for Izzy, convinced she felt nothing for him. They’d had a moment together now and then, but mostly, like now, she avoided him. “Amos, you do realize that 99 percent of the time, she can’t stand me.”
“I do.” He grinned. “But there is that 1 percent.” He crossed his arms against his chest. “And you are a boy who loves a challenge.”
“What makes you so sure Izzy is the one for me?”
“I see how you look at her. Your eyes, they’re all for her. Your heart’s in your eyes.” Amos’s gaze swept over the farm. “Ask any man, Luke, and he can tell you the moment he realized when a certain woman would be the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. It’s the moment you realize she makes you a better man.”
Watching the sun drop below the orchard, Luke mulled that thought over. For the first time it dawned on Luke why Izzy always set him off-kilter. That girl made him earn her respect. And he worked for it. In that way, she made him a better man.
“You’re not the same fellow David dropped off last May. I think Izzy has had a lot to do with that. And you’ve been good for her too. Even if she won’t admit it.” Amos coughed a few times. “Izzy’s tried hard to keep her heart small and contained and carefully guarded, but God wouldn’t leave her be. Thank heavens that he doesn’t leave any of us be.”
Something shifted into focus for Luke, a vision that had been fuzzy for a very long time. Most of his life, in fact. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself striding up the driveway to Windmill Farm, as Izzy was coming out of the kitchen, with a child or two hanging on her apron strings. A little girl who looked like Izzy, a boy who looked like him. The kitchen door’s hinges didn’t squeak.
In that moment, Luke had a plan for the rest of his life. He wanted to marry Izzy. He wanted to fill a house with children with her. He wanted to see her every single day for the rest of his life. She was the one for him.
Now he just had to convince her that he was the one for her.
After closing the fence behind the sheep, Izzy studied the hillside for a glimpse of Amos. She and Fern and Luke, they were all watching him these days, making sure he didn’t need help.
Shielding her eyes from the sun, she let her gaze sweep the farm. The beauty of this place, the deep and abiding peace that existed here, it often overwhelmed her.
Fern came out of the house holding an empty laundry basket. Izzy watched her check the towels hanging on the clothesline for dryness, shake her head and drop the basket, water a potted geranium with a bucket of rainwater, then hurry down the driveway to get the day’s mail. She moved from chore to chore like a bumblebee. By contrast, Amos was a slow-moving bear.
When Izzy saw Amos come out of the barn and cross the yard, she whispered a prayer that was becoming her daily plea. Oh God, please don’t take him. Not yet. We need Amos, Lord. Please. A little more time. Amen.
Izzy was just now learning how to pray and trust God. Praying, she found, wasn’t so hard. She had started to have frequent conversations with God. At least, she did the talking. It was the trusting—that was the hard part. Fern called it the important part. That’s where faith began.
Watching Amos, she thought of the surprising conversation after supper last night, after Luke had gone to the barn.
Fern and Amos had asked Izzy to join them in the living room for a moment. They sat around the woodstove, cozy in its warmth, and drank peppermint tea from the garden. “We’ve given your yarn shop some thought,” Fern had said. “The buggy shop—that’s just the best spot for Luke to start his fix-it shop. The carriage doors of the buggy shop open wide and the driveway leads right up to it. Cars and buggies can come and go easily.”
That wasn’t the surprising part of the conversation. Izzy had known all that and wasn’t sure why Fern felt the need
to tell her. She’d assumed the yarn shop idea had been nixed. But then came the surprising part.
“I mentioned your yarn shop idea to Amos.” She reached out to pat his hand. “He did a little research on it.”
“Starting with Edith Lapp,” Amos said. “The town boss.” His eyes were crinkling at the corners, like he was trying not to smile.
“Edith thinks there’s real potential in a yarn shop,” Fern said. “Hand-spun yarn is getting popular, just like you told me. The closest yarn shop is in Lancaster, and they only sell acrylic yarn.”
Amos chimed in. “Edith says using acrylic yarn is like eating ice milk instead of ice cream. No comparison, she says.”
“And then Amos found out the price of lamb isn’t worth much right now. Too many on the market. He’s willing to forgo sending the lambs out this year, if you really want to give this yarn shop idea a go.”
“Assuming you plan to stay at Windmill Farm, that is,” he said, trying to sound gruff.
She looked from Fern to Amos and back to Fern. Were they serious? She blew out a startled breath. “Yes! Oh my soul, yes.”
Amos lifted a hand. “Slow down a minute, Izzy. I’ve been reading up on raising sheep for wool too. Older sheep—their wool starts wearing down, thinning out.”
“Like us,” Fern said, eyes twinkling.
“Old sheep,” Amos said, “they’ll still need to be culled. Sold off as mutton.”
“Scratch that,” Fern added, waving her hand in the air like an eraser. “Not like us.”
Old sheep meant Lucy and Ethel. Izzy bit her lip.
“But if you can face that hard reality, then I’m willing to try raising sheep for wool.”
Could she? She didn’t know how to feel about it, or maybe she just felt two conflicting emotions at the same time—excited and sad. In truth, she almost wanted to cry. But she was Amish now, this was her life. Caring for farm animals required hard choices. “I want to try, Amos. But maybe you could give me a heads-up when you take Lucy and Ethel away. I’d like to go see Jenny that day.” Far, far away from the farm.
He smiled. “Fair enough.”
“But . . . what about the yarn? I don’t think it could hang in the farm stand. Humidity is bad for wool. And then there’s the spinning. I could put the spinning wheel in my room—”
“Oh no you don’t,” Fern said. “Last thing I want in this house are tufts of wool flying everywhere.”
“But where would I spin the wool into yarn?” And she hadn’t even thought about where it could be dyed yet. That was a piece of this endeavor she had yet to figure out.
Amos and Fern had exchanged a pleased look. “We’ve already talked to Luke and Teddy about building you a store, close to the road, so buses don’t have to come up the driveway.”
A store of her own? A place to belong? Oh my soul.
She tried to seal that moment in her mind for the rest of her life. She studied Fern’s narrow face and intelligent eyes, with her gray hair peeping out from beneath her prayer cap. She took in Amos’s kind brown eyes and bushy eyebrows, his chin framed with a gray beard. “How do I say thank-you for this? How do I even begin to say thank-you?”
Fern only laughed. “We’d better shear those wiggly woollies first, then see if you’re still gung ho for a yarn shop.”
But Izzy would be. She knew she would be. Her mind had started to spin with ideas. Her heart felt full to bursting, she was so overcome with happiness. It was like a door had opened, spilling light into a long dark hallway. Her future.
All those thoughts circled through her mind as she felt a push at her knees and nearly tumbled over. Lucy and Ethel! They wove around her legs and jolted her back to the present. She pushed them away—those two!—and watched Fern riffle through the mail down by the big mailbox. It occurred to her that it had been weeks since she’d last bothered to be the first to fetch the mail. No need. She knew exactly where Grace Miller was—still at the rehab clinic. Fourteen days now. David made it clear not to expect anything from her mother for a long while. Much needed to change, David said, and Izzy trusted him on that.
Maybe trust didn’t have to be so difficult, after all. David had always acted in Izzy’s best interests. If God was good like David Stoltzfus, then maybe she could leave Amos’s failing heart up to him.
Oh my soul, she hoped so.
A dusting of snow covered Stoney Ridge in mid-November, the first snowfall of winter. Just a sugarcoating, beautiful to look at. Living in the barn was another story. Luke crossed the yard to the house, morning frost crackling beneath his boots, and stamped his feet at the kitchen door. He walked into the muggy warmth of the kitchen and went straight to the woodstove to warm his hands. He was surprised to find Amos up, alone in the kitchen, sipping coffee at the table. “Amos, the nights are getting mighty cold.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
Luke’s eyes lit up. “So can I move into the house?”
“I’ll ask Fern to put extra blankets on your cot. Maybe you could insulate the walls with hay, once winter really hits.”
Once winter really hit? The night temperatures were already dipping below freezing.
“Can I use the kerosene heater down there?”
“And risk a fire around Bob? Never. A thousand times . . . no.”
Luke sighed. “Amos, why can’t I just stay in the house?” He pointed to the floor. “Down here. Near the stove.”
Amos took another sip of coffee and set the mug down. “Now that I know you’ve got complicated feelings for Izzy, I can’t allow it. Wouldn’t be proper.”
Luke groaned. He’d stepped into a trap.
That night, as Luke settled in for the night, he had to admit that it really wasn’t too bad in the barn. Chilly but not as cold as it had been, now that he had extra quilts piled on him. Fern had left him a knitted woolen hat, too, and even though he felt silly in it, it made a difference. Now the only part of him that was still cold was his nose.
As he shifted and turned on the cot to find a comfortable spot, his mind envisioned another kind of list. A prayer list. He gave thanks to God for the changes he’d observed in Izzy over these last few weeks. Something was different. He could see it in her eyes. A wound had healed.
His thoughts traveled down the mental list. He thanked God for Fern and Amos Lapp, for David Stoltzfus, for their steady and powerful influence on him. For the delicate balance of kindness and firmness that they provided. Just enough pressure to keep moving forward, just enough kindness to give him grace on the journey. Amos had become the father he’d always longed for.
The greatest gift Amos gave Luke was to look beyond the present to see, and plan for, the future. Luke’s prayer was that he would live up to—even somewhere close to—Amos’s legacy. He yawned once, then twice, and drifted off to sleep.
During the night, from somewhere far away, he woke to a jumble of sounds. He rolled over on his back, confused, fuzzy with sleep, as the world slowly started coming back into focus. He could hear the faint yelps of a dog barking on a neighbor’s farm, and the whistle of the cold wind. Then his eyes opened wide when he heard a familiar clip-clop-on-concrete sound. Into the tack room walked Bob the buggy horse. He stood over Luke’s cot and let out a snort of hay-breath.
Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. He winced. The raccoon. It was back.
One
It took a lot to shock Luke Schrock. Generally, he was the one who did the shocking. So on the day that Bishop David Stoltzfus received whispered suggestions from each church member of Stoney Ridge to choose a deacon to replace Amos Lapp, it never once occurred to Luke that his name might be submitted. Never ever crossed his mind. Not once. Why would it? Luke was newly married, only twenty-five years old, and on his best days, he was just now starting to feel like a grown-up.
Yet someone had indeed whispered Luke’s name to David as a choice to be deacon. Just one person. Who? Who would do such a thing, think such a thought? Surely, his wife, Izzy, wouldn’t. When a man dre
w the lot to become a minister or deacon, it was a lifelong obligation. The poor wives of church ministers took the brunt of their husbands’ responsibilities. Year after year, Luke had seen Amos called away from family gatherings for deacon business, and his wife Fern was left to manage alone. No, definitely not his Izzy.
Fern wouldn’t have whispered his name, would she? No. No way. She, more than anyone, knew that Luke wouldn’t be any good at deaconing.
What about Fern’s niece, Mollie? She was new to Stoney Ridge, stepping in as a much needed schoolteacher. Mollie loved to play practical jokes. Was she playing him for a fool? Sammy might know. His brother, he had a hunch, was sweet on Mollie.
Hank Lapp! It had to be him. He was sitting right in front of Luke with his wild and wispy white hair, blocking the view.
Luke leaned forward and gave Hank a poke in the ribs. “Did you give my name to David?”
Hank jerked like a fish on the line. “WHAT’S THAT, BOY?”
Luke sighed. Hank Lapp had one volume: loud. “Hank, don’t say a word. Just nod or shake your head. Do not speak. Just let me know if you were the one who gave my name to David.”
Hank turned around to look at Luke, one lazy eye trailing off to the side like it did. “SON, I DID NOT.”
Heads turned. Lips pursed. Edith Lapp hushed them from across the room. Hank frowned at Luke and swiveled around to face the front.
Leaning forward, Luke put his hand on Hank’s shoulder to whisper, “If you didn’t, then who did?”
Hank batted Luke’s hand away. “I DON’T HAVE the FOGGIEST NOTION. But WHOEVER DID SHOULD HAVE HIS HEAD EXAMINED.”
Luke heartily agreed. But that didn’t help him in the slightest. He was trapped.
He shook off all those troubling thoughts. It really didn’t matter who had whispered his name to David. All that mattered was his complete confidence in God’s great wisdom. Certainly, the Lord God knew better than to guide him to draw the lot. He relaxed and dropped his chin to his chest, praying for the poor soul who would open the hymnal and find the piece of paper that would drastically change his life. There were four other choices, all good picks. Any one of them would make a fine deacon.
Mending Fences Page 25