by Faye Sonja
Jackson threw the letter at his chest and stormed out of the room. He read it with sadness in his heart, knowing that she had left because, as she had put it, there were too many expectations she no longer felt she could fulfill and things needed to change.
His heart broke and he could just imagine this must have been how she had felt when he had left years ago, and he was sorry beyond words. He would bring her back though. If he could do anything it was that.
“I will get her back here,” he said to Clara. “Just tell Jackson I am going after her and I will bring her back.”
He had no idea where he would start and he couldn’t leave right now. He had to wait a few weeks before that was possible. He needed money and he had just come back to his mother, to leave her again so soon would break her heart into pieces.
* * *
1
Chapter ONE
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“ I will get her back here … I am going
after her and I will bring her back. ”
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Eight months later
Minna glared at the light streaming through the curtains in her room. Soon Sierra would be knocking on her door for her to get up and go do things constructive with her day. It was the price she paid for having left her own Amish community. For eight months she had lived in the Amish shelter trying to save enough money to move out on her own, but some mornings she really just wanted to lie in bed. Today was one of those days. She missed home; she honestly did, but being out on her own made it clear there was no way she was going to go back. It wasn’t that the English world offered her more than her own home did. It offered her more opportunities and that was what she wanted.
Here women were not subservient to men as much as they were at home. Here things were changing and for a woman to be educated and a business owner, like Sierra, it was something to take pride in. It was something that was worth every bit of the struggle she had. And Sierra was great. She pushed them to do better and had become much like the mother she had lost. The other Amish girls staying in the house were like sisters to her and she enjoyed it here.
“Betsy!” there was Sierra now making the morning rounds. “Wake Minna up or she will be late!” Sierra shouted up the stairs right on time.
“Minna!” Betsy stuck her face through her door without even knocking.
“Go away,” she groaned and buried her face in her pillow.
Betsy laughed. “Wake up or Sierra is going to toss a bucket of cold water on you to get you moving.”
That was a good point that got her to roll out of bed, albeit reluctantly. She had to keep reminding herself that working at the diner Sierra owned was what these English people liked to call a means to an end. That was another thing she liked about this world. They had some very interesting ways of phrasing things they wanted to communicate to each other. Nothing that could be said in simple terms was ever said in such a way. Everything was phrased to twist and turn little words into beautiful proverbial sayings that often had her thinking about them for a while.
She didn’t actually mind it to be honest, but just two days before two of the girls had left to go back to the communities they had come from and so she had another person’s job to do as well. The one thing that was certain was that she had more work here to do than she had had in her own house but she would not complain a single bit.
She had often wondered why Sierra didn’t hire regular English girls, but the older woman wanted to keep the diner just for the Amish children who ran away from home and needed help getting themselves settled. Sierra had been Amish once too and she knew how hard it could be to adjust. Some of the older girls had explained that years ago she had taken in boys and girls alike, and English runaways who had come to the north trying to benefit from the felt trades in winter, but that had not quite worked out, and so Sierra decided to narrow the criteria for who she took in. For Minna that was a good thing, a very good thing.
“Can you work the afternoon shift for me today?” Betsy asked her as she walked into the bathroom they shared with two other girls. “I am going into the city to see about apprenticing with an accountant there. I finally saved enough money!”
The girl bounced off the walls with joy and she knew she just couldn’t say no. It was the same thing she was trying to save for. Betsy had been in the English world for five years and at twenty-one she had told Minna of all the plans she had. Though she was tired she couldn’t say no, rather, she wouldn’t say no. Betsy had been like a sister. The other younger girl had helped her to adjust to the new world around her where she would be forever indebted to her and she was grateful.
“I hope it all works out,” she told her as Betsy left her to her morning ritual. Soon that would be her getting all excited about a new life. Well, she hoped so anyway.
Minna remembered how her mother had always told her that she could be anything she wanted to be. It was a bit upsetting to hear that because in the Amish community her only option was to be a house wife, but she had never gotten over her drive to become something more. If only the circumstances had been different.
Don’t think about that, she cautioned herself. Fifteen minutes later she pulled her coat on and made her way to the diner where she would work the day away.
“How are you feeling today?” Sierra asked her as she put her apron on.
“I am okay. A little tired but I will manage.”
“I like the sound of that, because today promises to be a busy day,” Sierra smiled and pinched her cheek.
“Did you hear Betsy would soon be leaving us for the city?” another one of the girls whose name she did not know asked her as she walked to the servers area to pick up the slack from all the morning customers they had.
“Yes, I wish her well,” she said trying to cut into the girl’s intentions to have a long conversation with her. “Someday you and I will be doing the same thing.” It wasn’t that she was anti-social, she just had a lot on her mind today and the incessant shatter was not going to help her.
“Well come next January I will be starting too...” the girl began addressing the others who stood long enough to listen, but Sierra was heading their way and Minna walked away leaving her to enlighten someone else about her plans.
As she walked off to serve her first table she tried to make plans for herself as she went along. It was a little harder because thoughts of her parents kept blindsiding her. Hours later when she broke for lunch she stared at the spring sun coaxing the flowers out of their buds. With spring came hope and new things; with her came the memories and the urge to go back. But she couldn’t. The work in this small road side diner was her gateway to something more than the room she had in her uncle’s house and more than the room she had down the road in Sierra’s half-way house. This was her promise of something new. With that thought she went back to work, staring at the young couple who came in arm in arm and all in love with each other. Maybe she would know that romance someday. That is if she had not made a horrible mistake by running away from the eager love that had returned to her.
* * *
Jake used the hoe to attack the freshly thawed spring ground as if it had wronged him in some way. Truth be told life was wronging him right now, and he was not sure coming back to this little town had been the smartest decision of his life. He was having a bit of a fight adjusting to the old way, after spending years in the city he had missed the peace and quiet, but now it just did not feel like home. If only he had not come back what would his life have become? It had been a year since nostalgia had brought him back here and he was still wondering when the home sweet home feeling he had rushed back to would hit him.
“Lost in thought?” his oldest friend Liam asked. “Dreaming of the life you left behind?”
He glared at the man who simply laughed at him. Liam used to be his very best friend before he had left their Amish town to head ou
t west to join in the gold rush. When he had come back to find that his love had married another man, Liam had made it good with Johnson the mayor, and had suddenly developed a deep sense of community awareness. The sense of community awareness was no issue to him, but when he had sought a job with Liam because he thought it would take him away from toiling in the fields all day he had not anticipated that Liam would have thrown them back into the same tasks he was trying hard to avoid. Now here he was working in the fields, preparing for spring planting season and doing anything but being happy.
He had to get out of here, but he needed the money.
That had become his every thought for the last nine months of his life. What was stopping him? Well the fact that the place he used to stay in the west had recently ran into trouble with the law and he too had had a brush with fate. He wanted the peace and quiet of his home, but without all this hard work and heart break.
“Lunch is here! Let’s take a break,” Liam called to them as his wife Jesse brought them lunch.
He looked at the woman, her stomach extended with the prospective of family to be had and a radiant glow that near blinded him as Liam placed a kiss on her stomach. It made him think of his life. He was twenty-five a month passed, and most men his age in the community were already welcoming a baby into their home, and here he was behaving like he had the gift of immortality.
“What are you buggering about?” Liam asked him while Jacob walked Jesse back to their little house on the hill.
“Have you ever wanted more out of life, Liam?”
The man looked at him with a blank stare. “More? What are you talking about?”
Jake chuckled. “When I was in the west there was so much I had to choose from. Mountains of opportunity to be something more than just this. I come back here because I missed being home and all my options suddenly disappeared, leaving me with a choice between the fields or the stables. Is this all my life is to be?”
Liam furrowed his brows at him. “You just said you missed home, right?”
He thought about that long and hard because he was seriously beginning to wonder if he had missed home or the idea of home. If it was the former he would say yes. If it was the latter… well, he would still say yes to avoid Liam trying to dig into his brain for the deeper meaning of life that was really not there.
“Yes,” he replied, wondering where he was going with all this.
“Well, this is home. If you missed home then this is what you missed. A choice between the stables and the fields. Nothing else. Grow up Jake.”
“Grow up?” he asked. That was a surprising retort. Liam made it seem as if he had been there complaining all his life of acting like a child. It was quite the contrary. He wanted more out of life and that was why he was back here. Liam didn’t give him the chance to say all this and he didn’t bother trying to explain. He had learned that until people faced the same frustrations you did, they would not be able to relate to what you were going through.
Liam walked off in a huff, fixing his hat and pulling his britches back up. Again he was reminded of the fact that growing up was just the problem, he was growing up. He had grown up and he wanted more. He worked the rest of the day in a pensive mood, farming the old fashioned way and taking the time to enjoy the burn of his muscles as he did just that. Later that evening he made his way home to the empty house his parents had left him.
First it had been his mother who had passed when he had turned twelve. As he walked past his parent’s room he remembered the days she had been laid up there with the fever wracking her body until she had finally taken her last breath. His father died three years later and he was sure it had been from heartbreak. The man had never been the same after his wife had died. Most nights he laid in his parent’s bed wondering if maybe his father had had more to keep him busy if he would have recovered from his mother’s death. He had inherited his love of horses from his father who had been responsible for all the stables, but even that passion had not put much of a smile back on his father’s face. The man had all but slipped into a chronic state of melancholy that had later done him in. Jake had left the community shortly after.
A knock came on the door pulling him out of his thoughts. He rushed down the stairs and flung it open to see Beth, the young woman who had taken over the school house since Jesse was pregnant. She was also the woman he had always loved, and his heart skipped a beat in frustration as he remembered she had married someone else.
“My Ma sent these over for you,” she told him holding out a basket he could barely see in the dark.
“Thank you,” he said pulling the matches from his pocket and lighting the lantern that hung over the door.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked him and it was then he realized he had a perpetual scowl plastered across his face.
“I am just feeling a little under,” he admitted trying to smile it away. He peered inside the basket to see fresh homemade noodles, muffins and pot roast gleaming back at him. His stomach rumbled in appreciation.
“Anything I can help with?” she asked and he remembered how close they had been when they were children. He missed that.
“Maybe some other time,” he replied stilling the urge to tell her about his innermost worries. No matter the culture one thing was certain and it was that it was not okay for another man’s wife to be huddle on a porch with him this late talking about the things that made him sad.
“Okay,” she smiled at him. “How about we talk over lunch with the children tomorrow?”
It was an invitation he willingly accepted.
* * *
2
Chapter TWO
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“ I will get her back here … I am going
after her and I will bring her back. ”
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The next day she woke feeling like she had done the work of a thousand horses the night before. At the crack of dawn she was up, feeling like she had just gone to bed. The loud church bell that made it impossible for her to sleep sounded out across the way, and she was reminded that at some point in the day Sierra would demand she went to one of the Thursday masses. That was the one regulation she had to adhere to- going to church.
She really didn’t mind it; church kept her connected to the home and she was beginning to feel that it kept her sane too. She looked out her window at the busy streets as the town was awakened to a new day. Horses trotted by and carriages were drawn. The sounds of the market just beyond the church reached her ears with busy calm and the doors opening and slamming in the house were a signal that told her she had no more time to enjoy the crisp air blowing through her window.
She made it out of her room just as she heard the creaking of the wheels on the carriage that came each morning to take them to work. She ignored the complaining of the late risers and the chorus for breakfast to be had and rushed out the door.
“Good morning, Minna,” Brian smiled at her.
“Good morning Mr. Jones, and how are you in this fine morning?” she asked him not particularly interested but courteous nonetheless.
“I think I am doing better than you are,” he looked with pity at the bags under her eyes that would never go away. “I was wondering if you would do me the honor of going on a date with me.”
She nearly fell right off the wagon at the words that came out of his mouth. “A what?”
“A date?” he repeated with a smile. “Will you go on one with me?”
She tried her best to keep her instinctive response in. It was not that she didn’t find him attractive. He was quite the gorgeous man, but for some reason she had never once thought about dating an English man. They had more vanity than her Amish upbringing could handle and she was simply not interested. Her dream place would be finding something that resembled the Amish farms she had grown up on with a man who did not smile quite as bright and expectant as Brian was doing right now
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“I am sorry Brian, but I am just not that interested in that sort of thing right now,” she replied keeping her eyes focused on the house and wondered where the other girls were.
When they did come she kept quiet for the rest of the journey in fear that he might think it a good idea to speak more about it. No, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. He might perceive her refusal as spite, but she hoped he did not for she quite liked him outside of all this.
What an awful position she had found herself in. When he pulled up to the diner, he got out to open the door for the girls as he always had and she was the last one through.
“I hope my request did not offend you. I have simply liked you for a very long time. Maybe someday you will feel the same way,” he said. “If not maybe we could become friends.”
She stepped through the door and before she could turn to say anything to him, he walked away. She knew her reaction must have hurt or surprised him and she made a note to apologize. She was not yet used to the blatant way English men expressed their desires. They were very gentlemanly, often showing up with roses and such to flatter the faint of heart, but she much preferred the finesse of the Amish. But clearly if she was looking for that here she would not find it.
All things considered, Brian was a good man and she hoped he would find a woman for himself. She was just simply not that person.
For most of the morning she couldn’t help but to think about the fact that he might have been the romance she was waiting on and yet she just threw the opportunity away. It gave her a headache, and coupled with the lack of sleep she couldn’t do much else but walk about the busy diner in a haze.