“Then what’s the problem? Please tell me,” I begged.
“Noah, I don’t think my dad will go for it. He expects me to go to college. If I told him that I was converting to Amish-hood and getting married at sixteen, he’d probably kill me.”
She had a point, but I still plowed on. “We would wait until you were seventeen to get married, giving us a reasonably long courtship. You said yourself that he’s preoccupied with his own girlfriend.”
“Not that preoccupied!” she chirped.
As a last-ditch effort I went down the road I had vowed not to. In a coarse voice I suggested, “Maybe if your father thought you were pregnant he’d agree.”
“My dad’s a doctor, Noah. I couldn’t fool him about something like that.” She stopped speaking abruptly, and comprehension must have dawned on her, because she shrieked, “Are you kidding?”
“No—I mean, they’ll have to agree to a wedding, and what’s the difference if the baby is born after we’re married anyway?” It seemed logical enough when I said it like that, but I could tell she wasn’t buying it when she jerked off my lap and sat close—not touching me.
I could feel the tension coming from her. I was confused that she was so upset about my suggestion. Her voice darted out of the darkness, “Noah, I am in no way, shape or form ready to have a baby. So don’t even go there.”
“But you’re the one who’s been so eager to go all the way,” I accused, my own anger building steadily.
“No, I haven’t. I just like kissing. There’s a big difference between making out and trying to get pregnant to force our parents to let us be together!” she thundered. Briefly, I worried someone might hear her, but I was too caught up in my own emotions to care much.
“I don’t see any other way for us to be together. So if you don’t want to try that option, and you don’t want to become Amish…then I guess it’s over between us.” I didn’t want to say it, definitely not with the venom that I’d used. But damn it, I wanted to wake her up and scare her.
After an unbearably long moment, she felt for my hand and finding it, pulled it up to her lips. She kissed my palm so softly. My skin hardly felt it at all, but the tiny nerves below did, and they went crazy.
“I love you, Noah… I do, really, but…I can’t marry you…not right now. I’m too young and…stupid for that kind of commitment. I’m so sorry.” She stuttered the words out, sniffing and wiping tears away the entire time.
Shocked, I watched her scramble away over the hay, across the loft and down the stairs without looking back. My heart was tight and I had a difficult time drawing in a breath of air as the realization dawned on me that I’d lost Rose forever.
19
Rose
Not Alone
I RAN THROUGH the house not caring about any noise I was making. When I reached the bed, I couldn’t remember the trip across the yard or up the stairs to my room. The only thing in my mind was Noah—and the look he gave me when I told him that I wouldn’t join his world. The memory of the devastation on his face was crushing what was left of my heart. As I cried into my pillow, I kept wishing over and over that Noah was not Amish.
I heard the rap on the door but ignored it. It didn’t matter now who knew about me sneaking off in the night—nothing mattered at all.
When Sam’s voice spoke close to my head, I wasn’t surprised. “Damn it, Rose, what the hell’s going on now?”
I turned my face on the wet pillow and breathed out in exhaustion. I felt as if I’d run a mile-long race, and I had to blink several times before Sam’s face and bushy hair came into view clearly.
“It’s really over.” I sniffed, trying desperately to control my voice from cracking. “I told Noah I wouldn’t become Amish.”
Sam’s face was tight with concentration, as if he was angry that I had even considered doing such a thing. But then his face relaxed, and he came off his knees and sat on the bed beside me. When his arms extended toward me, the tears came freely from my eyes again and I rose up, letting him pull me into a hug. Sam patted my back awkwardly and maybe a little too hard, but I didn’t care. I was just happy that I wasn’t alone.
“I wish Mom were here to handle this. But, I guess, since she’s not, I’ll have to fill in for her,” Sam mumbled near my ear, and I pulled back and looked up at him to see his own eyes glistening in the moonlight from the window.
Somehow, seeing Sam all torn up about Mom pulled me together, and I was able to speak again. “If Mom hadn’t died, I’d never even have met Noah. She’d never have allowed Daddy to move us out here.”
“Oh, I don’t know ’bout that. Mom had an adventurous spirit. And she always wanted to see Dad happy. She might have gone for it. But then again, if she hadn’t died, Dad probably would have been content to stay where we were.”
The fact that Sam hadn’t cracked a joke or said something rude yet made me even more thoughtful. I leaned back against the pillow, finally able to breathe normally again. The threat of tears was still present, but a strange calm came over me.
Sam and I sat in silence for several more minutes, both lost in our own thoughts, when I looked back at him and asked, “Are you happy here, Sam?”
“Oh, it’s all right, I guess. I mean, I miss our friends back in Cincinnati, but it’s also exciting to meet new people. I’m looking forward to my senior year and playing ball here. I’ll be able to help the little school’s country team win a few games.”
Sam’s arrogance made me feel lighter—as if things were the way they should be.
“Do you miss her?” I said, knowing that I didn’t need to say her name to him.
He sighed heavily. “Yeah, of course. But I think she’d want us to stick together as a family, Rose. She’s probably smiling down right now.”
Yes, I believed she was. Even though my heart was broken and I felt as if all the life was leaking out of me, I also could feel the peacefulness creeping in that Mom always created when she was beside me.
I reached over and squeezed Sam’s hand. He was right—as long as we stuck together, everything would be all right.
20
Noah
Life without Rose
I SAT IN stunned disbelief. This can’t be happening, I screamed in my head as I raked my hands through my hair. She had made her decision and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Sadness, disappointment and anger mixed together to create a tidal wave of emotions slamming into me. I couldn’t cry or scream. All I could manage was to get up in slow motion and make my way to the stairs and out of the barn into the cool night air. With the moon shining down, I made my way through the hay field, half expecting Rose to run up behind me and say she’d changed her mind. That she’d made a mistake.
But that didn’t happen.
Just as I passed the shed, with my head hung low and my thoughts racing, Father stepped out of the shadows. Normally, the sight of him in this kind of situation would have made me tremble with fear, but I was too numb to feel anything. I stopped and met his gaze in the moonlight.
“Where have you been, son?” He voice was barely controlled, a little louder than a whisper.
My throat was suddenly dry, but I managed to choke out, “It’s over, Father—between me and Rose. It’s done.”
Father exhaled, rubbing his fingers through his beard. After a minute, he said almost sympathetically, “Do you want to talk about it?”
I drew a breath and found my voice. “You were right, Father. She didn’t want to leave her world for ours.”
Father did something very uncharacteristic at that moment, stepping over to grab my shoulders and pulling me into a rough embrace. His bear hug did nothing to make me feel better, but at least he wasn’t angry with me anymore.
“Son, how do you feel about going to Pennsylvania now?” he asked solemnly.
Shaking my head, I answered truthfully, “I don’t know, Father. I certainly didn’t want to go before. But now, maybe it would be good to get away from here for a while.”
“It’s up to you, Noah—we’ll not be sending you there against your will now that the relationship with the English girl is over,” he said kindly.
I decided quickly, answering, “I think I’ll stay here for a few weeks and think about it some more before I make a decision.”
“Fair enough, then, and that will give you some time to reconsider Ella Weaver. You know, we’ll be having a picnic dinner here at the house with the Weavers on Thursday. That might give you the opportunity to explore your options.” He winked and threw his arm over my shoulders as we walked to the house.
The numbness was beginning to wear off, and a wrenching pain was filling my insides. I could hardly believe that Rose was no longer mine. She had chosen to turn away from me.
Somehow, I’d have to live with it.
* * *
The week went by in a strange blur. I could hardly recall anything at all from it. I woke, ate, worked, ate, worked and slept. Of course, by Monday, the entire community had heard the news of the breakup. My family walked around me cautiously, not saying much at all, which was just as well because I didn’t feel like socializing anyway.
Mother had given me a big hug and murmured to me in Dutch that everything would be all right. Jacob had patted me on the back a few times, mumbling something I couldn’t understand. It didn’t seem right that it was already Thursday—and up until this moment, the girls had completely ignored me.
Now, uncomfortably, Sarah had followed me into the barn and was quietly watching me nail a shoe on Rumor’s hoof. I pretended she wasn’t there for most of the process, but her eyes boring into my back became too much to take. I sighed in frustration, straightening up, and asked, “What do you want, Sarah?”
She shrugged and replied, “I just wondered if you needed to talk to someone.”
“Why would I need that?” I narrowed my eyes at her, wishing she’d just go away.
Quietly, she said, “I know how much Rose meant to you.”
“And how would you know that?” I questioned in a voice that probably sounded mean to her.
She leaned back against the wall, swirling her bare foot in the shavings on the floor, and said, “I had an inkling something was up between the two of you. I caught you looking at her in a love-struck way a couple of times. Then, when she got hit by the ball, you absolutely gave yourself away.”
Hating myself for it, I asked, “Did she ever say anything to you about me?”
She thought a minute and then nodded her head. “The night we were at the schoolhouse dinner, she got very upset when she heard that Mother and Father might send you to Pennsylvania.”
“Really?”
That was interesting.
“Yes.” She paused, fidgeting with her cap’s white ribbon, and asked in a very curious but hushed voice, “But, Noah, did you really think that she’d become one of us?”
I was tired of keeping it all in. Sarah seemed willing to listen, without being judgmental, and that’s what I needed at the moment. I decided to trust her and admitted, “Yeah, I believed she would do anything at all to be with me—stupid, huh?”
“No, it wasn’t stupid at all. I think she really cares for you, Noah, and she’s so beautiful and full of life. I can see why you fell in love with her. But you shouldn’t take her decision so personally, I think.”
“Why not?” I was beginning to wonder what she might know about Rose that I didn’t.
“Well, for one thing, she’s so young. I certainly couldn’t imagine getting married for a couple more years myself.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t have wanted to get hitched that quickly either, but it was different with me and Rose. We couldn’t have waited for a long courtship.”
“Why not?”
She asked with such naive interest, I had to turn away to keep her from seeing my blush. I certainly wasn’t going to attempt to explain to her the crazy physical attraction Rose and I had for each other.
“It’s not anything I want to discuss with you, Sarah.” I stayed turned away from her while I clinched the nails on the hoof.
But then she got my attention again with her next words.
“I don’t think you should rush into another relationship right now, Noah. If you really cared that much for Rose, you should give her some time to change her mind.”
All week I’d been trying to forget about Rose. Now my sister was stirring up my feelings again. I wasn’t going to have it. I threw her a hard look, and with an angry voice I yelled, “She’s not going to change her mind, Sarah. So just stay out of it.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you, really I didn’t,” she said and ran out of the barn.
What was with all the women in my life crying so much? Well, Rose wasn’t in my life anymore, but what Sarah had said sunk in a little bit, even though I didn’t want it to.
Maybe Rose was regretting her decision?
The clip-clops up the driveway pulled me from my wavering thoughts. I peeked around the doorway to see three buggies carrying the Weaver family park at the hitching rail close to the house.
Running my hand through my messy hair, I exhaled in annoyance. I had almost decided to consider Ella for courtship. It would be the easiest thing in the world to do. My parents and her parents were all for it, and she was the prettiest girl around. If Rose wouldn’t have me, then I had to move on and make other plans. That was the only way I could get by—the only way that I wouldn’t go insane with regret. But I knew that once I announced a courtship with Ella, any chance of getting together with Rose would be gone forever.
It was odd that Sarah would be encouraging me to get back together with an English girl anyway. What was she thinking? I guess she’d been put under Rose’s spell, too. But I wasn’t fooled by the beautiful girl any longer. When given the choice, Rose picked her comfy, materialistic world over me. And even though it still hurt like hell, I knew what I had to do to get over her.
With my mind made up, I sneaked in the back door, hoping I didn’t run into any more family members before I took a shower and washed the horse smell off myself. There was still a heavy weight resting deep inside me, but for the first time in days I felt the stirrings of life under my skin—and I was ready to embrace the feeling.
21
Rose
Consequences
STARING DOWN AT my calzone, I wasn’t hungry at all, but I managed to swallow the piece I had in my mouth without choking. The little Italian restaurant was cute, I had to admit. The green tablecloths were perfectly pressed and the white napkins were folded fancily. The water was in gold-rimmed goblets and the bread sticks sat in an intricately woven basket neatly. The sparkling chandelier above our heads was close to the table, sending off a dim, romantic light.
I couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to sit in a nice restaurant like this with Noah—alone. That would never happen now. I’d made sure of that when I refused his marriage proposal, then ran away from him crying into the night. I was the one who made the decision. I dumped him, not the other way around, but why was I in so much pain, then? I couldn’t get rid of the twisting knife in my gut. It just kept turning and turning, making it almost impossible to exist. I could hardly eat, sleep or move around. Sometimes I could hardly even breathe. I thought I might just keel over from a heart attack at any moment.
My mind played the scene over and over until my head hurt from the image.
Sometimes panic would take hold of my insides, and I wished that I’d agreed to his pregnancy idea. How bad would it have been? Surely it wouldn’t have hurt as much as the pain that I was feeling now.
Today was the first time in the two weeks since the breakup that I’d been out of the house. After Sam had blabbed to Dad about everything, my father had left me alone, keeping his distance. He probably figured that I’d come out of my depressive state on my own in a few days, but when that hadn’t happened, he’d finally taken the matter into his own hands, insisting that I come with the family out for dinner. I would have
refused, but when Dad had threatened to take me to some shrink friend of his in Cincinnati on Monday, I changed my mind. The thought of telling some stranger all my insane inner thoughts about my ex–Amish boyfriend was not something I wanted to do. The threat finally got me up and moving again.
So here I was, Sam on my right and Justin on my left, squeezed into the couple-size booth across from Dad and…Her. She had a name, but not only would I not utter it out loud, I refused to think it also. Glancing up from my calzone, I studied her face for a moment. She was pretty, in a sort of soap-opera way, with her perfectly layered blond hair and her pert little nose. She was being exceptionally nice, too, still in the “I want to show my new man how loving I can be to his adorable children” phase. I wondered how long it would be before she grew a tail and horns.
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