by Jo Ann Brown
He wasn’t sure what she was doing until she came back down. He heard smothered gasps from the Donnellys and swallowed his own. Katie Kay was dressed in plain clothing.
Sean’s and Gemma’s surprise was because they’d never seen her wearing an Amish cape dress, but Micah had forgotten how pretty she was when she dressed plain. Her blond hair was in a miniature bun held in place by a handful of bobby pins beneath her kapp, and her cheeks were almost the same color as the warm pink dress she wore with a black apron that concealed her baby bump. Beneath the white kapp, her blue eyes seemed brighter. Instead of the jeans she’d worn since her return, her legs were covered in modest black socks, and she wore scuffed, black sneakers.
He said nothing as she thanked Sean and Gemma for welcoming her into their home. Both of them gave her a hug and wished her well before the kinder embraced her, as well.
Nodding his own thanks to his friends, he held the door for Katie Kay and followed her to the buggy. She climbed in without his help and remained silent while he got in, picked up the reins and gave Rascal the command to go.
The horse was eager to return to his warm stall, so he trotted along the road leading toward Paradise Springs. The Saturday traffic was light on the back roads, and Micah kept to them instead of risking the rush of cars and trucks on Route 30.
Almost ten minutes after the Donnellys’ house had disappeared past a curve in the road, Katie Kay spoke for the first time. “Danki, Micah, for driving me.”
“It’s the least I could do, seeing as I didn’t take you home a few weeks ago.”
She glanced at him and away as the buggy wheels crunched leaves that had fallen from the trees by the fences. Smoothing her apron over her dress, she reached up to touch her kapp. “I shouldn’t have cut my hair, but...”
When her voice faded, he looked at her. She appeared so nervous that, if he hadn’t known the truth, he would have guessed she was going somewhere she’d never been before. His fingers settled on her hand to calm her.
“Reuben is going to be pleased to see you. He won’t care you cut your hair.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I’m right, and so do you. Your daed lives the life he preaches.”
“I know that, too.” Her voice sounded dull, and he took his gaze from the road to check her again.
The last of the color had drained from her face, and she sat as tense and unsure as the night he’d discovered her walking along the road. Had something he said caused this change?
“What is it?” he asked, not willing to let her hide behind the wall she’d raised between them again.
“Daed does live the life he preaches. I’ve never been able to. It’s another of the reasons I had to leave, Micah. I couldn’t be the bishop’s perfect daughter. I’m not quiet and proper and a role model for other daughters in my daed’s districts. In fact, I’m the opposite. Where I go, instead of peace, there’s chaos.”
“You’re right about that.” He didn’t let his smile fall away when she glared at him. Resting his elbows on his knees as Rascal continued along the familiar road, he glanced at her again. Longer this time. “Katie Kay, I’ve heard you talk many times about your little sister Sarann.”
“She was the light of our family.”
“But she was also a challenge for your family.”
She frowned. “You know we didn’t think of her that way. She was a blessing from God.”
“Aren’t you the same?”
“I’m not handicapped.”
“No, you’re not. At least not outwardly, but, like Sarann, you’ve been a challenge for your family. Do you think they love you any less than they loved Sarann?”
“Ja.”
His shock at her answer must have been visible because she seemed to shrink into herself. Was this how she saw herself? Unloved by her own family? How could she think that when her daed had spoken well of her and was distraught when she left home?
Another bolt of astonishment struck him. Maybe she didn’t know how Reuben loved each of his kinder. The bishop spoke of them often, admitting he couldn’t hide his pride in his four living daughters and his son who helped him on the farm. Had Reuben told her that? Even if he hadn’t, how could she miss how much her daed adored her and the rest of his family?
Realization struck him. She knew Reuben loved her siblings. She couldn’t bring herself to believe he felt the same about the family’s wandering lamb.
“Katie Kay Lapp,” he said, “Reuben doesn’t love you less than any of your siblings.”
“I never said Daed doesn’t love us.”
“Then who?”
“Micah, it’s not something I should be talking about beyond my family.”
“But we’ll soon be family. When Mamm marries your daed.”
“Maybe, but we aren’t family yet, and I’ve already said too much.”
He had to accept her gentle chiding. It was true he was poking his nose where it didn’t belong. He wondered if Mamm knew of this underlying cause for Katie Kay jumping the fence. Was it more than her older sister’s pressure for her to be perfect? Curiosity about what had happened to sour Katie Kay on her family teased him, but he refused to ask. She was right. It was none of his business.
But that wouldn’t stop him from trying to persuade her to tell him the truth.
* * *
Katie Kay was sure she’d forgotten how to breathe as Micah’s buggy turned toward her daed’s house.
Toward home.
Her youngest sister, Marnita, was bringing in the laundry from the line that ran from the house to the main barn, and in the distance her brother, Lester, drove a team of five mules through a field. As the buggy drew to a stop by the white house, she saw Ina Sue, her other younger sister, walk past the kitchen window.
Where was Daed?
As if she’d shouted, Daed came striding from the barn. His bibbed denim overalls and knee-high rubber boots were covered with bits of hay and sawdust, a sign he’d been fixing something. He called a greeting to Micah, and she knew he’d recognized the buggy by the horse pulling it.
Micah took her hand and squeezed it, but he said nothing.
Katie Kay pushed open the door on her side. She climbed out and walked toward where her daed had stopped.
“Daed, it’s...” Every word she’d practiced over and over fell out of her head as her daed stared as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
He looked old. Older than she remembered, as if she’d been gone for years instead of months. The lines in his face were gouged a bit deeper and his shoulders bent more. Was that a tremor she saw in his hands? The hands that had held the family’s large Bible and had cradled a newborn as gently as a spring zephyr.
“Daed,” she began again, trying to remember what she wanted to say first.
He strode forward and swept her into his arms and held her. She drew in the scents that had been a daily part of her life until the past few months. The smells of fresh air, hard work and the laundry soap the Lapps had used for as long as she could remember.
She clung to him, her eyes closed. If she opened them or moved a single muscle, the wonder of the reunion might disappear like the dreams she’d had of this moment. In the distance, she heard Marnita yelling for Ina Sue to come out of the house. Pounding feet rushed toward them and other arms were flung around her. She savored the embrace of the family she’d thought might be lost forever.
Daed stepped back but kept his eyes on her as the wrinkled planes of his face eased into a smile. Tears ran along his cheeks, falling into his beard. Marnita used her apron to wipe away her own, and Ina Sue leaned against her younger sister before whirling to pull Lester into the family circle as he came running to learn why they were shouting.
“Katie Kay...” Daed whispered her name as if it were a prayer.
>
She realized it was, because he was thanking God for bringing her home. “Daed, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
“There is no need to ask for forgiveness, my dear daughter. As Jesus told us in His parable of the man with two sons, when the prodigal son returned home, the whole family celebrated because the one who had been lost was found.” He embraced her again. “Now you have found your way home, and you’re here with your family, where you belong.”
Her siblings joined into the group hug. She squeezed them, not wanting to let go of this moment or them.
“Danki, son,” she heard Daed say and realized he was talking to Micah.
Katie Kay’s sisters led her toward the house as Lester went to unharness the team and join them. Both of her sisters talked at the same time, reminding her of DJ and Jayden. As they stepped onto the porch, she glanced over her shoulder.
Happiness, greater than when she’d been in her daed’s arms, swept over her when she saw Daed with his arm draped over Micah’s shoulders as they followed. Both of them were grinning like cats with a fresh bowl of milk.
She hated ruining their gut cheer, but she paused and turned to face them. She waited until they reached where she stood with her puzzled sisters. Watching her daed’s face, she whispered, “I’m pregnant, Daed.”
“Your boppli is as welcome as you are here,” he said as if she’d announced she was making his favorite pie for supper.
Tears burst out of her as his words touched the part of her heart that had ached every hour she’d been gone. When he hugged her again, she heard the house door open and close. She saw her siblings had gone inside.
Micah started to do the same, but Daed put up his hand to halt him.
Realizing what Daed wanted to know, she said, “The boppli isn’t Micah’s.” She pushed the rest of the truth out. “The boppli’s daed is Englisch.”
“And where is he?” His voice was calm, but she heard the thunder of anger resonating beneath his words.
“Out of our lives, Daed.”
He took a deep breath and let it out in a long, slow sigh. “Is this your decision, Katie Kay?”
Was it? Austin had thrown her out of his car and his life once he knew she was going to have a boppli. “Ja, Daed,” she replied, knowing it was the truth. “I made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean the boppli needs to suffer its whole life for it.”
“No boppli is a mistake.” He cupped her chin and tilted her face so she met his eyes. “Each one is God’s gift to us and the future.”
“Danki, Daed. I needed to hear that.”
He glanced again at Micah. “I’m sure I’m not the first one to tell you that.”
“You’re not,” she whispered.
Without another word, Daed went into the house, leaving her alone with Micah.
Katie Kay wasn’t prepared for the rush of shyness flooding her. She’d never been timid with Micah, but she was now.
He must have sensed that because he said, “I’m glad everything went well.”
“You knew it would.”
He grinned. “If I say ja, you’ll think I’m saying ‘I told you so.’”
“You have every right to.”
“No, I don’t.” He became serious again. “I’d prayed for a gut homecoming for you, but only God knows for certain what’s to come. We can only hope and pray.”
“You are a gut man, Micah Lapp,” she said as she had before. “And I’m glad you are my friend.”
“Is that all we are? Friends?”
Through the early twilight, she felt the intensity in his eyes. She wished she could unsay her unconsidered words. What must he think of her calling him a friend when she’d kissed him so eagerly yesterday?
Before she could say anything, he walked to his buggy, climbed in and drove away.
She stood and watched as the buggy faded into the darkness, knowing she had hurt him worse today than she ever had in the past.
Chapter Fifteen
The bench wagon was parked in the yard when Sean dropped Micah off at the Stoltzfus farm the following Monday. Thanking his partner, Micah got out and waved as the van turned around before driving toward the road. The wagon must have arrived earlier. With most Amish weddings celebrated from late October until the end of the year, the bench wagon would be making many stops in addition to the homes where church Sunday services were scheduled to be held.
Inside it were the benches for the service, as well as extra dishes and flatware for feeding the Leit after worshipping. That wouldn’t be enough for the large number of guests Mamm and Reuben had invited. He suspected most people would be at the house bright and early on the wedding day to enjoy their bishop’s wedding.
But he could think of only one person who’d be attending.
Katie Kay.
He knew he shouldn’t have stomped off when she called him her friend, but he felt as if he was reliving the past. As before, she’d kissed him and then she’d told him she didn’t consider him more than a friend. Well, it wasn’t quite the same as before. Last time, she hadn’t even wanted to remain friends.
He might be a coward, but he wasn’t going to put his barely patched heart on the line and let her squash it like a bug.
Sean had been curious about what had happened, and Micah had told him how Reuben had welcomed his wayward daughter home. Nothing else. His partner had given him odd looks. Sean knew there was more to the story but respected him enough not to ask. Gemma was as circumspect.
Another barrier between him and the people who were important to him, and he hated it.
As he approached the wagon, he saw two of his brothers there. His twin, Daniel, and their older brother Jeremiah, the only Stoltzfus sibling besides Micah who didn’t have a spouse or plans in the next few weeks to marry. Micah called a greeting, though he would have gladly walked past and sought the sanctuary of the room he soon wouldn’t share with Daniel after a lifetime together.
“We figured helping Ezra get ready for the wedding was the least we could do,” Jeremiah said with a smile.
Daniel added, “Which is why we’re doing it.”
Laughing along with his brothers and surprised he could pretend to be happy enough to laugh, Micah set his tool belt on the front porch. He opened the rear of the long wagon and began pulling out the benches. He handed benches, two or three at a time, to his brothers, who toted them into the upper level of the white bank barn. In a couple of weeks, they would be repeating the motions at Isaiah’s house, a short distance down the road. Isaiah’s plans to marry Clara Ebersol and become the daed to two sets of irascible twins had been published the previous church Sunday. It hadn’t been a surprise for anyone, because he and Clara had been taking care of the kinder since their parents’ tragic deaths earlier in the year.
Daniel and his Hannah would be having their wedding before Christmas, giving the bride’s relatives time to travel from New York State and other settlements to the west. They planned to keep the number of guests to a minimum because too much excitement would overwhelm her great-grandmother.
Micah would have been glad to work in silence, but his twin brother wouldn’t have it. Daniel was happy to be in love, and he wanted everyone around him to feel the same.
“Have you talked to Mamm about whom you’ll have the evening meal with?” Daniel asked as they toted a trio of stacked benches into the barn.
One of the favorite Amish traditions among newly married couples was arranging for their unwed guests to come into supper two by two and sit together through the evening. Courting couples dropped hints, so they would be matched. The rest were put together in the hope that the matchmaking would lead to them falling in love.
“No,” Micah said in a tone he hoped his brother would realize meant the subject was closed.
Daniel either missed it or
wanted to have his say. “You should talk to Mamm if there’s someone special. Who knows? You could fall in love and get married, too.”
“Love?” Micah sniffed his derision. “As far as I can see, there’s not much difference between that and infatuation.”
“Really?” Daniel grinned at him. “You haven’t figured out the difference between them?”
“When did you?” he fired back, hating the envy pulsing through him that Daniel had won the woman of his dreams and Micah had failed twice.
“About ten seconds after Hannah slipped into my heart.” His expression softened as he spoke of his fiancée. “Is this about Katie Kay?”
“You know we aren’t supposed to talk about the person we’re walking out with.”
“You aren’t walking out with her, though the two of you spend more time together than some married couples. When are you going to stop being a scaredy-cat and ask her to let you take her home?”
Knowing he had nothing to lose since Katie Kay had announced she wanted no more than friendship with him, he said, “I did. Last year.”
Daniel’s easy grin withered. “You never told me.”
Micah realized he’d hurt his brother with his reticence. Growing up, the two of them had never had secrets from each other, and Daniel had been very up-front about falling in love with Hannah and her little sister and outspoken great-grandmother. Why hadn’t he turned to his brother at the darkest point in his life?
“You were happy,” he began and then halted himself before Daniel could reply. “No, that’s not why I didn’t say anything. I was humiliated when she told me to get lost. I didn’t want to admit she’d dumped me.”
“Because it would have made the breakup feel more final?”
“Ja.” He sighed. “I’ve learned why pride is denounced. It leads a man to do things he normally wouldn’t.”
“You are beginning to grow up, bro.”