Aiden’s stomach churned with acid. “I guess he had a lot on his mind.”
Samuel dragged veiny fingers through his grizzled beard. “Maybe it’s best if you stop seeing each other so much.”
Aiden widened his eyes. “What?”
“It’s not good for him… to see you, I think. Maybe you should stay away. We like you, and always will be grateful for what you did for us, but that doesn’t make up for the differences between our world and yours. It’s best if Daniel not spend so much time with you.”
Aiden looked away. Worse than if Samuel had slapped him solidly across the face.
“Daniel will be married to Tara next year, by the second week of June. We’re happy for him, that he’s getting on with his life.” Samuel fidgeted with his hat. “Maybe for Daniel’s sake, for all of us, including you, it would be best if you leave Henry altogether. A small town, it can’t be good for you. There’s nothing in Henry for a single young Englishman like you.”
Aiden lifted his face to meet the Amish man’s stare. There he was. Standing before him. Just like that first time, many months ago, at that very hospital, where Samuel had visited him after he had swerved his Chevy Cavalier into the path of Bobby Jonesboro’s pickup truck. He’d held his black felt hat in the same manner, his rough fingers clutching and unclutching the brim. Only this time, instead of inviting Aiden to his home, he was asking him to go away, to leave his family and community for good.
“Leave Daniel alone, Aiden,” Samuel said.
Aiden’s mind went blank, anesthetized. Whatever Samuel’s pronouncement meant to Aiden, rebuffing him was impractical. As patriarch of his clan, Samuel was doing what he thought best for his son. His Amish ancestry almost demanded it from him.
Despite everything, Aiden reached his hand out to Samuel. It was a small solace that Aiden’s hands were calloused now, though nowhere near as much as Samuel’s, unlike that first handshake they had shared in the emergency room months ago when he had worried that his hands were so soft and underworked.
As he left the hospital, dazed and numb from rejection, Joe Karpin was pulling his van away from the main entrance drive-thru. Noticing Aiden, he grinned, his face crinkling, and waved. Good to see some people never changed.
Chapter 24
No surprise when the Schrocks did not invite Aiden to Thanksgiving dinner. He spent the day alone, watching the traditional football games and a DVD of his favorite movie. Alone on his sofa watching Richard Dreyfus struggle up the face of Devil’s Tower, he realized Samuel was right. He did not belong in Henry. He never did. Just like the aliens in the film, he was an outsider on unfamiliar turf. He had encroached on a foreign culture and had tried to insert his ways into it. The result? A pathological contraindication, like an adverse reaction to medicine.
Samuel did not want him there. Whoever had written those two threatening messages and smashed a pumpkin against his house did not want him there. Daniel no longer wanted him there.
Even the pimple-faced girl who worked at the IGA no longer looked up to Aiden. Whenever he’d purchase anything from the store, she’d avoid eye contact and scowl. Not too long ago she’d treated him as if he were a rock star for having saved the Schrocks.
There was nothing keeping him in Henry any longer. The chief reason why he’d even moved there was out of his reach.
Daniel was engaged to Tara Hostetler and they were to be married in June.
His time in Henry had come to an end.
The following Monday, he resigned from the Blade. Kevin, who had just gotten back into town from visiting his eldest daughter and her family in Davenport, Iowa, seemed almost relieved. He accepted Aiden’s resignation with a nod and a sturdy handshake. He wished him all the best and asked him to stay in touch. That was it. The job ended as easily as it had come.
Aiden wanted to say a formal goodbye to Daniel. He crossed the street to the Schrock’s furniture shop, hoping he’d be there. But it was Uncle Eldridge and his two daughters’ turn to man. They told him Daniel was home from the hospital, but he would not be manning the shop for a few weeks until he fully healed.
He did not dare drive out to the Schrock farm, not after Samuel’s rebuking him at the hospital. He would’ve liked to have said goodbye to the entire family, especially the children, but he supposed it was all for the best to leave them be. To slink away from Henry like a wounded coyote to its lair. He’d caused enough trouble already.
Deep down, he hoped Daniel would come and see him once he heard the news that he was moving. Everyone had to know by now. Perhaps Samuel had told him about their conversation at the hospital. Each time he heard the familiar clip-clop of horse-drawn buggies pass his house while he packed the belongings he wanted to take with him, he’d rush to the window and peer out. No Daniel. All for the best, he supposed.
With his month to month rent, it was simple to terminate the lease. He informed the realtor by facsimile that he was leaving at the end of the week. He mentioned he planned on leaving most of his furniture behind. She could do what she wanted with the prefabricated junk he’d bought while in college. Probably wouldn’t survive another move anyway.
Chicago seemed a million miles away, another world. Returning there would be futile. Everything Chicago represented for him was in the past, from another era. Like Henry, there was nothing for him there. No one to lure him back. No family. No real friends.
He considered heading west to Montana like he’d always dreamed. But the thought of such a drastic move alone sapped his mouth of moisture. He knew not a soul out west. With his meager savings, only the unknown awaited him in Montana. To up and move to an isolated part of the country on his own, where freelance work could only trickle in? His dream of living in a cabin deep in the woods surrounded by snow-capped mountains was just that—a dream. How many people his age could afford to make such fantasies come true?
The best option was to return to Maryland. Back to his boyhood home in St. Mary’s County. A few of his high school and college friends still lived there. Besides, he hadn’t seen his parents since he’d moved to Chicago, more than two years ago. Time he got back home for an indefinite visit.
Life back in Maryland wasn’t so awful. The weeks passed slowly, but it was nice to feel he belonged. His parents, comfy in their midcentury rancher, were congenial, as always, and easy to live with. Quiet and smiling. No matter what life dropped into their laps, they always took it with a smile. Even when Aiden had come out to them six years ago during a weekend visit from college, they had merely smiled. No outrage. No questions. Never to mention it again. They were as malleable as the rubber fittings Aiden’s father used to fix bathroom sinks in his plumbing business.
He saw his old college and high school buddies once in a while. They would do crabs, go for beers, hang out and chat sitting on the hoods of their cars like old times. Most were married with babies, and seldom could get away for more than a few hours a week. Being around his married friends made Aiden long for something he worried he would never have: love and commitment.
During the passing weeks, Aiden fell back full-time on his freelance work. He’d even earned a two-month assignment working on-site as a technical writer for a defense contractor in Lexington Park. Working there filled the yawning days.
Sometimes while driving the winding roads of southern Maryland, he’d spot a horse-drawn buggy from the region’s small Amish population, and he’d watch with moist eyes as it jostled past an Amish-owned tobacco farm. Seeing the Amish forced to the forefront of his mind those persistent images of Henry. He’d picture Ivy Street and the IGA and the cornfield across the road from his squat white bungalow with the robin’s-egg blue shutters. He’d reflect on the Henry High School marching band and the quaint villages scattered about Frederick County. He even started to see the adult superstore along I-57 as charming.
He wondered if Christmas had treated the Schrocks well. If they were preparing for the spring oat crop now that New Years had passed. He’d grin, thinking abo
ut Mark’s rumspringa roadtrip to the Texas shore, and imagined he and his companions had had a fabulous time. He trusted he was staying out of trouble. He fretted over little Leah, hoping she was battling bravely against her MLD. At times he could picture the family so clearly, nestled together in their sitting room after the evening chores were complete, going about their diversions by the glow and hiss of gas lanterns. He imagined he was there with them. Rachel crocheting a shawl, Samuel reading The Budget, David scribbling in his coloring book.
He’d think about The Henry Blade and wonder if his former boss had received any more complaints since his “ace reporter” had gone. Did Kevin really think Aiden’s investigation into Kyle Yoder’s death a waste of time? Aiden understood that Kevin had a business to run, after all.
Still suspicious of Kyle’s death, Aiden had learned to let go. Although the image of Kyle Yoder’s body hanging from a rafter in the barn continued to haunt him, as the weeks passed he was bothered by it less and less. He still believed his death had many unanswered questions—too many—but he accepted the possibility that he might have been misguided about the entire investigation.
The question of who had left those two threatening messages and hurled a pumpkin at his house still puzzled him. He considered that the Reverend Yoder himself might have done it, whether he was guilty of filicide, or manslaughter, or neither. One time he had laughed, thinking the threats had come from Tara Hostetler, jealous of his and Daniel’s relationship. But he supposed that was unlikely. He even considered that the family of Bobby Jonesboro might have been the culprit. Possibly they had wanted to frighten Aiden as revenge for their loved one’s death.
Or maybe it had been an angry neighbor who wanted to prevent him from making the Amish “look bad.” Kevin had said it was the English who had lodged the most complaints against him. Was it so strange that the English wanted to protect the Amish? To protect a seemingly more innocent era long past in American culture? Even Kevin and the police seemed to want to protect the Amish from “bad publicity” by overlooking obvious incongruities in the deaths of Kyle and that man found in a cistern. Hadn’t Aiden himself risked his life to protect the Amish when he had swerved his car in front of the drunken Bobby Jonesboro? Would he have done the same if the Schrocks had been an English family in a minivan?
And, of course, Aiden never stopped thinking about Daniel.
The tall, dark, and brooding Amish man always hovered somewhere in his mind. Daniel had become such a fixture in his thoughts, he would appear without Aiden’s realizing he was even thinking of him. Reaching for a drink from the refrigerator, brushing his teeth at the bathroom mirror, reading a paperback in bed. There he would be, as real as if he were flesh, like something he could taste. At times he was certain he could smell the musk from his hard-worked body.
So often he dreamed Daniel would leave Tara, give up on Henry, and rush to Maryland to sweep him away. He almost believed it true sometimes, and would insist he could see him coming toward him from the corners of his eyes. But when he’d turn quickly to look, it was always just his mind playing a cruel trick.
Many times he considered calling Daniel at the shop, but he’d talk himself out of it. What would be the point? They were from two different worlds, just as Samuel had said. To assume after everything that had happened between them they could go back to being simple friends, while Daniel led the life of a married Amish farmer…. There was no way.
He understood that their short juncture in life was over, yet forgetting about him was not so easy. Did he recover from his injuries fully? Had he absolved himself from the deaths of Kyle and Esther and Zachariah? Was he happy he was to wed Tara?
Daniel had never verbally stated he loved Aiden. But as Aiden replayed their relationship over and over in his head, from their first meeting when they shook hands so clumsily the day Samuel had brought him home from the hospital, to that moment when Daniel had tried to kiss him on his sofa, he suspected at some point Daniel had fallen in love with him. As tacit as it had been, undoubtedly he and Daniel had courted. For Aiden, it was a beautiful, old-fashioned, genuine courtship. One he would have difficulty forgetting.
Yet in the end, Daniel had made his choice. He had chosen his destiny. A destiny apart from Aiden’s. It was as simple as that.
People always have choices. Despite all their talk of God’s will, even the Amish have choices. Joining the church came down to a choice. One is free to stay or leave.
Social pressures could sway one’s decision: fear of loss of livelihood, family, friends. Dread of the Amish shunning must work wonders in keeping even the most agnostic in their ranks. Even the gay community had its own ordnung, an unwritten code that dictated style of dress, beliefs, behaviors. In some ways, it was more fiercely enforced than that in the Amish world. Aiden had learned that firsthand. But, ultimately, everyone is at liberty to make his or her own way in life.
Daniel had made his.
As the months progressed and the mild and wet southern Maryland winter passed like a yearling leaping over a creek into a warm and dry spring, Aiden tried to put everything in Henry behind him. He forged ahead. He did whatever was necessary to avert his thoughts from it all. He worked at his writing, occasionally socialized with his friends, helped his parents with the upkeep of their rancher. Time was his best friend. If he got through the next year, everything would be easier after that. Daniel would inevitably evaporate from his mind.
Chapter 25
One night during the Memorial Day weekend, Aiden was working on a freelance writing assignment at his parents’ dining table when he heard footsteps near the side of the house. His father was out on an emergency pipe break and his mother was upstairs in the master bedroom watching television. The house was dark, except for the hanging lamp spotlighting Aiden and his work.
The sound of footsteps was crisper, coming from near the detached garage. He could hear the sound clearly, for the house was still. Voices from his mother’s television program were barely audible. He had turned off the air conditioning unit in the living room once his mother had gone upstairs; he was still unable to acclimate to the artificial coldness after spending so much time with the Amish. He’d even stopped watching so much television and rarely bothered to turn on his car radio while driving.
He thought at first it was his father returning home, but he hadn’t heard his van pull up in the driveway. He was also familiar with his father’s step. His gait was careless, less deliberate. These steps sounded furtive, like a prowler trying his best not to be heard.
He heard the steps shift closer, this time near the dining room window. There was almost no crime in this small part of southern Maryland, but the thought of a recent rash of burglaries in the area alarmed him. He nudged aside his laptop and, holding his breath, peeked out the window.
Light from the streetlamp was blocked by a large maple tree on the side of the house. He saw in the faint light that the driveway was empty where his father would park his plumber’s van. More crunching of earth fading toward the back yard. Uneasy, he let the curtain dangle back into place.
He scurried into the kitchen and looked out the window above the sink. He saw nothing in the darkness. Rustling seemed to be coming from his left. Whoever it was, he was circling the house, heading for the front.
He made sure to make as little noise as possible when he opened the front door. There was a scant orange glow coming from the door lamp. The glass globe was covered in muck and filled with dead bugs. The streetlight was unhindered from this view; he could just see the rhododendrons bordering the driveway, dim and colorless in the night. Along the curb was the murky shape of his Chevy and an unfamiliar Jeep that he hadn’t recalled seeing parked there before. He figured it belonged to a visitor of one of the neighbors.
He pushed open the door wider and scrunched his forehead into the night. A smack of late night mugginess made him wish he was back at his laptop, finishing his article about southern Maryland’s African American crabbers. He detect
ed a hint of the briny scent in the air, a smell he’d never grown used to even though he’d lived there most his life. Another crunching sound to his right.
He caught sight of something, a figure moving. His breathing stopped. He let go of the door handle, and, inhaling, balanced himself in preparation for fight or flight.
Out of the darkness the outline of a person came toward him, hovering closer. The streetlight hit the figure from the side, casting a long shadow over the tulips abutting the brick skirt of the house.
“Aiden?”
A man’s voice. A familiar man’s voice. Peering toward the figure, he tried to make out who it was.
“Who’s there?” He wanted to force warning into his voice, but his words came out in a coarse, frightened whisper.
“I wasn’t sure this was your house.”
The figure came into focus.
“Conrad?”
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“What… what are you doing here?”
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