The Promise Box

by Tricia Goyer

  He cleared his throat. “The next morning I headed out not long after breakfast. With twenty kids running around it took them awhile to realize I was gone—or so Mem told me later.”

  “Do you remember anything else?”

  Gideon nodded, his forehead furrowing as he tried to reconstruct things. “I remember trying to find my way back. Being cold. I fell in a small creek…” He shook his head. “Most of it is blurry.” He crossed his arms over his chest as a shiver ran up his spine. “I remember being alone. I wasn’t used to that. I remember crying and calling for Mem.”

  “They organized a search party.” Edgar looked up at the ceiling as if the memory played out there on a screen. “They looked around the lake first because the property you were staying at was close. Some of the men didn’t think you headed that direction because one of the boy’s BB guns was missing.”

  “Ah, ja.” Gideon ran a hand down his face. “I’d forgotten about the BB gun.” He chuckled. “See, I told ya I was going bear hunting.”

  The front door opened, causing the bell to jingle against the glass, and a few of the other bachelors entered and headed into the dining room. They waved at Gideon, and then continued on. Many of them ate at least two meals a day at the restaurant. It was easier than trying to cook in their small cabins.

  “I don’t remember being rescued. I think I was sleeping when they found me. I remember being carried. I remember waking up sleeping next to my mem.”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t remember more.”

  Fear tightened the muscles in Gideon’s neck. “What do you mean?”

  “You were looking for a bear, but one found you. A few of the guys some him approaching. They distracted him. They called to him, got the bear to chase them instead.” Edgar cleared his throat.

  A hollowness filled Gideon’s chest as his mind tried to comprehend what Edgar was saying—that the older man was talking about him.

  “They split off in two directions and the bear followed one of the guys—a father of twelve himself,” Edgar continued. “It was dark, you see, and the mountain—even the hills—are dangerous. The visiting Amish men weren’t used to the area. The man who was being chased stumbled in the dimness of the afternoon. He fell down a steep incline.”

  Gideon wanted to tell Edgar to stop. On one hand he didn’t want to know more. On the other hand he needed to know.

  “It wasn’t that far of a drop. Woulda been fine except that he landed wrong.”

  A groan escaped Gideon and he covered his face with his hands as a pang of guilt struck hard. The event had happened twenty years ago, but the telling of it made it feel as fresh and painful as if it had happened yesterday. No wonder Mem, Dat had hidden the truth. How could you tell your kinder something like that?

  “They found him twenty minutes later. They found you too, still sleeping. The bear was gone.” Edgar shook his head. “A tragedy to be certain.”

  “You say he landed wrong.” He didn’t know how to ask the rest of the question.

  “When they found him he was alive.” Edgar shook his head. “But his injuries were too severe. His neck was broken. He died as the rescue workers were trying to get him to the hospital.”

  “And the family—the woman and children of the man who died?”

  Edgar clucked his tongue. “A sad story indeed. She married another Amish man, so I heard. I don’t know the details, but it wasn’t a good situation. I suppose you can’t be choosy when you have twelve mouths to feed. Her name was Myrna. I remember that because it’s my sister’s name.”

  “Myrna.” Gideon’s voice trembled. “It’s my mother’s closest friend. They were children together and Mem has gone many times to visit her in Lancaster.” Gideon thought about the sad stories he’d heard about Myrna’s life. All those times he’d never known that he had a part in her heartache.

  “Her husband is cruel,” he confessed, “and most of her children have left the Amish. I never realized I was the reason why.”

  Edgar placed a hand on Gideon’s shoulder, squeezing. “You can’t take that guilt. You were only just a boy. It was an accident.” Edgar released his grip. “Don’t your people believe that everyone’s life is in the hands of God? If anyone is to blame you can talk to God about that.”

  Gideon rubbed the back of his neck. It was tight. His chest felt tight, too, as if it was trying to deflect the truth he’d just heard. He rose and moved to the counter, spreading his hands across the cool surface and leaning against it.

  “You all right?”

  “Ja.” Gideon nodded. He wasn’t all right, but how could he tell Edgar that?

  “So, it seems things are going well with Blue.” Edgar was trying to make small talk, and Gideon felt sorry for the man. It should have been Gideon’s parents who told him the truth.

  He imagined returning home to Bird-in-Hand. Imagined striding up to the porch and opening the front door. In his mind’s eye he could see Mem in the kitchen stirring the pot of soup on the stovetop. He imagined Dat reading The Budget in his favorite chair. He pictured them looking at him. Would they look at him differently now that he knew the truth?

  Gideon also knew why his parents hadn’t told him before. Who wanted to see guilt, like a wild pony, crushing their son’s heart?

  “Thank you, Edgar.” Gideon straightened and then headed to the front door. Today he’d work with Blue. Today he’d gaze at the Wyse place, wondering what he’d done to push Lydia away.

  Today he’d pray for Myrna—his mother’s friend—and also ask himself why he thought knowing would be any better than the silence.

  Gideon turned toward the door, but the rumbling of his stomach caused him to pause. He turned instead to the restaurant. Eve waited tables this morning, and even though she stood before another table of bachelors, with order pad in hand, her eyes fixed on him as he entered.

  “Sit anywhere you’d like,” she called to him. Then she turned to gaze to the table where the salt shakers were lined up, waiting to be filled. Gideon knew it was an invitation for him to join her rather than the other bachelors, and as he looked into her dark brown eyes his heart warmed. Eve’s acceptance of him was like a healing balm. A smile slid onto his lips, and he pushed down the pain of the truth. Then, with quickened steps Gideon moved to Eve’s table. With Eve he always felt valued—and this morning he needed that more than ever.

  Lydia’s face filled his mind, but as he pulled out the chair he pushed the thought away. His heart couldn’t risk rejection…not now. In life the easiest things were the certain ones. And right now the only thing he could be certain of was that during breakfast he’d have a fine conversation with a woman who wouldn’t draw him in one day and push him away the next. A woman who’d chosen to be Amish all her life and whose smiling eyes rested on him even now.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Dirt rose from the dusty road, and Lydia told herself not to think about the fact that getting to the West Kootenai store and back would have only taken five minutes if she could have jumped in her car. But the car had been gone three weeks already, sold to a high school student in Eureka with a generous grandmother.

  The road was lined with trees. Pine, larch. The wooded path opened to a field where two horses nibbled on bright green grass. At the edge of the road, between the dirt and the fence, was an apple tree. Its leaves were covered with dust from the road, but its branches were filled with small reddish-beige apples. Lydia stepped over a few of the rotten fruits lining the ground and then paused. She glanced up at the branches. A small gray sparrow fluttered from branch to branch as if overwhelmed with all the fruit too.

  It seemed a waste that so much fruit fell to the ground.

  A basket swung on her arm—the one she used to carry her shopping to and from her home. She set it down, plucked a dozen apples, and set them in the basket with the rest of her groceries. She’d make an apple pie later and bring a smile to Dat’s face.

  Picking this fruit was similar to Mem’s lette
rs in the Promise Box. While most people drove by this tree in a car or buggy, she’d stopped to pick the fruit. Mem had done the same, pausing to capture the memories, writing them down and tucking them inside her box. Lydia was grateful that she had. Though Mem was gone, Lydia knew her more than ever. Appreciated her more than ever too.

  Dust in the air tickled her nose. Lydia blew out a breath and pulled out the small notebook and gel pen that she kept inside the basket. She wrote down her observations about Mem. She also wrote of the smell of the dusty ground and the lightness of the wind that brushed her cheek like a kiss. She looked at the clouds around her. They looked like the cotton-candy puffs she’d eaten at the carnival she’d gone to with Bonnie, and she wrote that down too.

  She’d been working on her book diligently. When she wasn’t doing the wash, feeding the chickens, cooking, Lydia wrote down her memories and contrasted them with her return. She translated her conversations with Dat, and recorded her reflections on the letters and Scriptures from Mem’s Promise Box.

  The story of her life filled notebook pages, as if she wrote about another. Words for the next sentence, next paragraph, trailed through her mind throughout the day. It was almost as if God was walking beside her, pointing out the beauty of everyday life, and breathing inspiration into her heart. It was new and different. She was new and different. If someone else would have declared such sudden changes she would have scoffed. Yet maybe all the time God had been waiting, ready for her to open her heart.

  Lydia knew that not all writing came in such idyllic moments, and she didn’t want to take it for granted. She didn’t want to waste her time following her fleshly desires when God had so much He wanted to share. She told herself that if God had a plan for her and Gideon to be more than friends He would make that clear in His own time. His promise to His people was that He would be with them always—not that He’d grant them desires from their preestablished list. She had learned that from the promises jotted down in Mem’s box.

  As she turned at the T in the road at the Carashes’ house, Lydia looked to the pasture where Gideon worked with Blue. Gideon had a saddle on the horse. She stopped in her tracks and smiled. The horse training seemed to be going well. She grinned at the thought of seeing Gideon up in that saddle.

  When she neared home, Blue trotted her direction. Gideon followed at a distance. Lydia hadn’t talked to him much lately. He hadn’t been coming around the house, and when she saw him in the pasture, he rarely paused to visit with her. While her heart pinched a bit that his interest in her had waned, she knew it was best. Moments with God and Dat were her first priority, and her time slipped away with the motion of the pen over paper. The right man would be there at the moment her soul was ready for him. Shouldn’t she trust God with that?

  Blue approached the fence and tossed his head as if in a greeting. She reached up to pet him and he scooted, enjoying it. Then, with a toss of his head, Blue stepped back and eyed the basket at her feet.

  Lydia chuckled. “Oh, ja, I understand. You see my apples.” She reached down and grabbed one and then placed it on her open palm, offering it to Blue. He eagerly took it from her hand and chewed it with gusto, eyeing the basket again. She laughed and reached for another one.

  “Stop!” Gideon’s voice split the air. Lydia jumped. Blue didn’t seem bothered by it. He pawed the ground with his front hoof.

  “What?” She placed her hand on her hip and watched as Gideon came her way. The way he stomped over reminded her of the first moment she’d seen him. For the second time, she couldn’t believe how utterly handsome he was with an angry frown on his face.

  Lydia shrugged. “I was just giving him an apple.”

  “Just?” Gideon shook his head. “You rewarded Blue for disobeying me. I was teaching him to listen to my voice commands and when he saw you he bolted.”

  “I can’t help it if he likes me.” She offered a coy smile. “It must be my kapp. He’s liked me much better since wearing one.”

  “I don’t mind that he likes you, but he must learn to listen to me first.”

  “Ja.” Lydia lowered her head, considering his words. “But—” She looked up again. “—I’ll make up for it by inviting you to dinner. I’m making fried chicken with apple pie for dessert.”

  “I, uh, wish I could.” Heat rose to Gideon’s face, and he ran a finger under the collar of his shirt. “But I already accepted an invitation to the Peachys’. In fact…” He eyed the sun lowering in the horizon. “I best get going and wash up.”

  Lydia’s jaw dropped, along with her heart, falling to the ground like one of those apples. “Ja. Have a nice evening.” She didn’t know what else to say. She wasn’t a fool. Eve’s eyes had been fixed on Gideon. Eve had been watching him playing with the kids after the last church service at the Sommer house.

  Lydia took a step back and picked up her basket. With a wave, she turned and hurried back to her house. She’d only done what she felt God was asking her to do. So why did she feel a jab of pain with every step? Why the sudden tears? One escaped and tumbled down her cheek and she wiped it away.

  As she’d sought God and leaned on Him, she’d secretly hoped He had a plan that involved Gideon in her life…and that the time for them to build on their friendship would be soon. She was fine allowing space between them, but if she was honest with herself, she didn’t want to think of him turning his attentions to another young woman.

  She thought about the Scripture verse she’d read this morning, written by Mem’s hand: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord,” Jeremiah 29:11.

  This morning the Scripture’s promise had given her comfort, but now she didn’t know. What if the plans God had for her didn’t involve Gideon? What if she’d been clinging to the promises too tightly? What if they…She didn’t want to consider that they might not come true.

  Lydia blew out a breath. Could the promises be trusted? In all the weeks since she’d decided to return home, return to God, this was the first time the doubt had grown loud, echoing in her head.

  She hurried up to the front door and pulled open the screen. In ten steps she’d crossed into the kitchen and placed the basket on the floor. For some reason she was suddenly too weary to think about placing the basket on the counter. Too weary to think about making an apple pie, much less dinner. She needed comfort. She needed Mem’s words.

  The bishop’s words were given to me a week ago and daily it’s a battle between fear and faith. I have no doubt that if it’s a promise from God it will come to pass. But can I trust a man’s words? How could one hear from God more than another? How could the bishop have been so sure of something that’s been an impossibility in my life? It sounds prideful to me to say God has spoken a message to me alone. I try to remember the bishop’s face. Did he appear to be a prideful man? I can’t be sure and that worries me.

  More than that, I wonder if it was a promise for me, then why didn’t God jest tell me? Don’t I have two ears on the sides of my head? Was it an audible voice the man heard? The questions keep me awake at night. If only I had answers.

  But the more I think about it all, the more I realize I have to have faith. Doubt and tears haven’t got me nowhere. Both have been my companions for years.

  Maybe faith and trust will do their good work. That’s what I keep coming back to. That’s why I’m praying that God will take me to the next step of this faith business. I’m a woman who does right by church and the Plain ways of the community. Is there more to be done? Is there a way to have more faith?

  I was wondering all these things when Augusta Primbridge stopped by. She owns a book shop on Oak Street and is always passing along books for me to borrow. Suppose she thinks since I have no children to tend to I have extra time fer reading, which isn’t far from the truth. In the box were two fiction books, a cookbook of chicken recipes, and a Bible. An Englisch Bible. I was about to put it in a brown sack to return to Augusta when I glanced in the front and back to see if there was a name
in it. There was no name, but a heading read “The Promises of God.” That caused me to pause because in church I hear much about requirements, but talk of promises doesn’t come often. And why does God need to promise anything in the first place? He does what’s right by us; isn’t that enough? It’s not like He owes us more than our breath, this world, and the heavenly place which we all strive to know some day.

  I read a few of the promises, but I’m not sure if I can keep this Englisch Bible around. What would the bishop say? I wrote down a few of the promises, the ones that spoke to my heart the most, and I returned the books to Augusta.

  I have to say that reading these verses has helped me to believe more than doubt. Maybe that’s what faith is all about. Believing a pea-size more today than yesterday.

  “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace,” Isaiah 9:6.

  “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children,” Isaiah 54:13.

  “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver,” Proverbs 25:11.

  Eve waited for Gideon on the front porch of the Peachy house. The front door was closed, but the windows were open, and Gideon could hear the sounds of Mr. and Mrs. Peachy chatting inside.

  “Dinner is ready,” Eve said as he approached. “I made a cherry pie. I heard it was yer favorite.” She perched forward on the rocking chair but didn’t stand.

  Gideon mounted the steps, but his boots felt as if they’d been filled with lead. He rubbed his brow, head aching. He hadn’t slept much from worrying about Lydia, but most from fretting over how he’d ruined so many lives. Myrna, the children, the community. One Amish life lost had a ripple effect, but the loss of a father, a husband, was like a tsunami.