Until Angels Close My Eyes

by Lurlene McDaniel

  She gritted her teeth, afraid to answer him because she was so angry. How could anybody stand by and let some idiot pound him into the ground and not lift a finger? Some things about the Amish made no sense to her at all. “I’ll put some medicine on your lip when we get home,” she said. “Or is that against your rules too?”

  He said nothing. They didn’t speak for the rest of the ride home.

  SEVENTEEN

  Scuttlebutt at school the next week had it that Dave and his two friends were in deep trouble. They could have been suspended, but the coach intervened and they were spared. For punishment, they had to pick up trash and paper from the school grounds every day after school for two months. They steered clear of Leah, which suited her fine. But she couldn’t forget the fear she had felt and Ethan’s absolute refusal to do anything to protect them.

  “Would it have been better if he had fought and gotten pounded to a pulp?” Neil had asked her when she told him her feelings.

  Leah shuddered at the image of her tender, gentle Ethan after a bashing by Dave. “Of course not. But what about the next time some jerk comes along and threatens him? Will he never stand up for himself? I see bad stuff every day on TV. Sometimes a person has to fight. Or die.”

  Neil sighed. “I agree—the world’s a mean place. But the Amish are pacifists and always have been. They don’t fight in wars. If they must serve in the military, it’s in a noncombat support role.”

  Ethan had once told Leah the same thing, but at the time she’d hardly paid attention. Now she couldn’t shake her fear that something awful might happen to Ethan if he never did anything to protect himself.

  Neil added, “This is one of the reasons that the Amish keep to themselves—so that they won’t have to fight and quarrel. Their world and ours don’t mix. You’ve known that all along.”

  Yes, Leah had known it, but now the disparities between her and Ethan’s worlds had taken on a sinister note. This time it was more complicated than not using electricity or modern conveniences. As for Ethan, he went about his everyday life as if nothing had happened. Neither Leah nor Ethan spoke of it again.

  Leah was out in the barn helping Ethan with the cars late one afternoon when Neil came in to see the two of them. His gait was little more than a shuffle and he was slightly stooped, but Leah could tell he was excited about something. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Neil waved a piece of paper. “Ethan, I think we’ve found your brother.”

  Ethan dropped the rag he was using to polish chrome and hurried up to Neil. “Eli? You’ve found Eli? Where is he? Can I go to see him?”

  “Whoa … One thing at a time.” Neil thrust the paper into Ethan’s hand. “This is a report concerning him. It appears he changed his name to Elias Long. That’s why it took so much time to track him down. I hadn’t thought about his renaming himself, but he did.”

  “This will shame Pa,” Ethan said, shaking his head.

  “I’m sure Eli had his reasons. Anyway, here’s the good news. He’s a schoolteacher, and he’s employed in the southern part of the state, in a small rural school district not far from the Kentucky border. His address and phone number are in the letter.”

  Ethan stared at the paper, but Leah saw a slight tremble in his hand. It was Ethan’s only outward sign of excitement. “Do you want to call him?” she asked.

  “No. I want to see him. With my own eyes, I want to look into his face. Will you come with me, Leah?”

  Leah and Ethan left on Saturday. Since the trip was about two hundred miles, Ethan asked off from work and Dr. Prater excused him. Ethan said little during the drive down the interstate. He drove while Leah watched the countryside fly past as they headed south. Pale pink blossoms adorned plum trees, and new leaves sprouted from trees like insets of green lace. Tulips and daffodils pushed through the hard, dark earth in spikes of brilliant color. Even the cold air was tinged with the scent of spring.

  “Are you excited?” she asked.

  “I have dreamed of this for years, but now that it is about to happen, I feel … well, like there are butterflies inside my stomach.”

  “He’s probably missed you as much as you’ve missed him.”

  “I am not so sure. If he wanted to see me again, he would have come home.”

  Leah had no reassuring words to offer.

  Once they were off the interstate, Leah checked the map and the directions a gas station attendant had given them. “I think that’s it up on the right,” she told Ethan. A lone mailbox stood by a gravel driveway that led to a house set far back on the property. “Yes, this is the place,” she said, checking the number on the mailbox.

  Ethan turned onto the driveway.

  “It sort of looks like your place,” Leah said. “Not the house, but the property.” A garden could be seen off to one side, and clusters of trees dotted the land.

  “I am surprised,” Ethan said. “Eli always hated working in the garden.” He stopped the car behind a pickup truck parked in front of a garage. His knuckles looked white on the steering wheel.

  A dog bounded from around the side of the house and started barking. Fearlessly Ethan got out of the car. Leah waited patiently while Ethan made friends with the big black Lab. When she thought it was safe, she got out and, with Ethan, walked up to the house. The dog trotted at their heels.

  The front door opened and a man stepped out onto the porch. He was tall and thin and dark-haired. His eyes were blue, like Ethan’s. His features were hauntingly familiar to Leah, although she’d never seen him before in her life. Leah knew he was around twenty-five, but he looked much older. He asked, “What do you want? Are you lost?”

  “Eli?” Ethan said.

  The man stared. Color drained from his face. “E-Ethan?” he stammered. “Is it you, Ethan?”

  “Hello, my brother.”

  “Dear Lord. It is you.” Eli staggered backward. “I never thought … I mean … How are you? What are you doing here? How did you find me?” His flood of questions stopped abruptly. “Is it Pa or Ma? Have they—?”

  “They are well,” Ethan interrupted. “I have come on my own. I have come to see you.”

  Suddenly Eli swept Ethan into his arms, buried his face in Ethan’s neck, and began to cry.

  Fifteen minutes later Leah and Ethan were inside the house sitting on a worn sofa. Ethan had explained about Leah, about Neil’s search, and about his coming into the English world with Leah’s help. “It took a very long time to find you because you changed your name,” Ethan said.

  “I wanted to be more like the English,” Eli said, his eyes still shining with emotion. “It was easier to fit in if I used a more English-sounding name. And at the time, I didn’t want anything to do with the Longacre name.”

  Leah saw that the confession hurt Ethan. “And are you like the English?” he asked.

  It was a needless question. A television set in a bookcase, piles of books and videos, wall-to-wall carpeting, lamps and a computer on a desk painted a clear picture. There were also toys, blocks and a game board scattered in one corner of the room.

  “Nice place,” Leah said, smoothing over the awkward moment. She pointed to the toys. “Do you have kids?”

  “Sure do. My wife, Camille, and the two boys, Jason and Timmy, are grocery shopping. They should be back any minute now. Hey, would either of you like something to drink? Soda? Coffee?”

  They both accepted a cola.

  “You look great, Ethan,” Eli said, handing him a can. “You’ve grown up.”

  “You have changed also,” Ethan said.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Five years now. Camille works at a day care center. Jason’s almost four and Timmy’s just turned two. I’m a teacher. But you know that.” Eli grinned self-consciously. “I teach high-school English, and I’m planning on graduate school as soon as the boys get a little older. I want a Ph.D. in education. I’d like to teach college someday.”

/>   “You have many plans,” Ethan said.

  Eli cleared his throat. “What about you? School?”

  “I am finished with school. I was not a student like you. Or Charity.”

  “Charity!” Eli exclaimed. “How are our sisters?”

  “They are well. Charity is very pretty—almost grown. And Elizabeth is already thirteen. Sarah is married and has a new son. Simeon is growing tall.”

  “Simeon was Timmy’s age when I left.” Eli got a faraway look in his eye. “Is he still as blond as you?”

  “Yes,” Ethan said. “And there is also Nathan.”

  “Ma had another baby?”

  Ethan nodded. “Ma also had Rebekah. She died last summer, when she was six.”

  “Died!” Eli looked stricken. “But how?”

  Briefly Ethan told Eli about Rebekah’s short, sweet life. “We miss her very much,” he added.

  “That’s how Ethan and I met,” Leah said. “Rebekah and I were in the hospital together, and we got to be friends. I’m sorry you never knew her. She was the sweetest, nicest little girl in the world.”

  Eli raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry too,” he mumbled. “And—um—the others?”

  “Oma is ill. The winter has been hard on her,” Ethan said.

  “Pa never got electricity in that old barn of a house, I guess.” Eli’s expression hardened.

  Ignoring Eli’s question, Ethan continued, “Opa still works with Pa. The crops have been plentiful these past two years. Yet the old ones are predicting a hot summer—maybe a drought.”

  Just then the door banged open and a small boy hurtled into the room. “Daddy!” he yelled. He stopped abruptly when he saw Leah and Ethan.

  A younger boy trotted through the open door, followed by a long-haired woman carrying a sack of groceries. “Whose car?” she asked.

  “Camille,” Eli said, “I want you to meet my brother, Ethan.”

  Camille allowed the grocery sack to slide to the floor, her expression wary. “Hello,” she said. “Eli’s told me about you.”

  Leah watched Camille as Eli explained what was going on. It was obvious that Camille wasn’t thrilled to see Ethan. She was a small woman with plain features, and she wore a tiny cap on her head. Leah had spent enough time in Nappanee to recognize that Camille was Mennonite, a member of a more liberal religious group than the Amish. While the Mennonites held to many of the traditional Amish values, they believed in using modern conveniences and didn’t mind mingling with the English.

  The toddler, Timmy, started rummaging through the forgotten sack of groceries. Jason hung on to his father’s pant leg, peeking around it with serious blue eyes. Leah saw the family resemblance in Eli’s sons. Both boys looked like their father, who looked a lot like Mr. Longacre.

  Eli took both boys by their hands. “I want you to meet your uncle Ethan.”

  Ethan crouched so that he was face to face with the children. “Hello, Jason. Hello, Timmy.”

  Jason continued to act shy, but Timmy grinned and gave Ethan a hug. The gesture tugged at Leah’s heart. With his winsome, open smile, Timmy reminded her of Rebekah.

  “You must stay for supper,” Camille said in a tone that told Leah she’d rather they wouldn’t.

  “Yes,” Ethan said. “This would be good. I have much to learn about these years we have been apart.”

  “You could stay the night,” Eli said. “We’ll put the boys in with us. Leah can have their room. Ethan can take the couch.”

  “All right,” Ethan said without hesitation.

  “I’ll call Mom and Neil and let them know,” Leah said.

  “Well, let’s help unload the groceries,” Eli said cheerfully.

  A look passed between Eli and Camille that Leah caught. She’d seen her mother pass enough such looks as she was growing up and read it instantly. It said: Why are you doing this? I don’t want them here. Leah felt instant rejection but also firm determination. Ethan had come too far and worked too hard to lose his brother now. He deserved to get to know Eli—whether Eli’s wife liked it or not.

  EIGHTEEN

  Later Leah found herself sitting on the sofa with Ethan, listening to Eli tell of the years between his leaving home and the present.

  “College was difficult,” Eli said as he flipped Timmy’s sponge basketball from hand to hand. “Not because of the studying, but because I didn’t fit in anywhere.”

  “I do not understand,” Ethan said.

  Leah understood perfectly, but she listened to Eli’s explanation without commenting.

  “When you’re raised Amish, you just don’t slide into the English world so easily.”

  “But so many of your friends were English back home.”

  “True, but they were also small-town and raised around an Amish community. I wasn’t quite prepared for dorm life, for all-night parties where everybody got blasted, or for drugs.”

  “You took drugs?” Ethan looked appalled.

  “I tried them, but they weren’t for me.” Eli gave a sardonic chuckle. “You know what they say, ‘You can take the boy out of Amish country, but you can’t take the Amish out of the boy’—or something to that effect.”

  “Why did you hate our way of life so much? How could you leave us and never write? Never come home?”

  Eli flipped the basketball across the room and sank into his chair, his fingers laced in his lap. “You know as well as I that when you leave, you aren’t welcomed back.”

  “You could have come home. Pa and Ma would have forgiven you.”

  “I couldn’t go back, Ethan. I hated the farm. I hated living in the eighteenth century instead of the twentieth. I was never accepted by the other Amish boys. Books were my only true friends. When I opened a book I could escape into other worlds by myself. I sailed with Ulysses. I climbed Mount Everest. I traveled to other planets—all within the pages of books. I didn’t like slopping out pigpens, pitching hay, plowing fields. I hated the long, boring church services. And most of all, I hated the hypocrisy in our community.”

  Ethan’s face colored. “I, too, have disliked some of the rules, but it is not so bad.”

  “It was bad for me. Do you remember Jonathan Meyers?”

  Ethan shook his head.

  “He was the blacksmith until he was shunned.”

  “Shunning is only done to bring a person back into fellowship.”

  Eli rolled his eyes. “That’s the party line. Do you know what his crime was? His hat brim was one inch wider than the bishop allowed. And for that ‘crime’ he was ostracized. He was driven away by his neighbors, forced to sell his farm and move.”

  Leah was shocked. The size of a man’s hat brim hardly seemed like a reason to destroy his life. This was the part of Amishness she could never accept—the complete smothering of individuality.

  “He had only to repent—”

  Eli thrust out his hand. “Don’t start, Ethan. How could this be a crime? How can we, whom the church teaches not to judge, judge so harshly?”

  “It was his pride that set him apart. It is pride that can get a man shunned.”

  Eli scoffed. “Well, I liked Brother Meyer. I liked his daughter, Ruth, also. I was in seventh grade and madly in love with her.” A smile of remembrance touched his face. “When she moved away, I thought the world would end.”

  “I do not remember this,” Ethan admitted. “But we have a new bishop now. He is not so traditional as the old one.”

  How so?, Leah wondered, but she kept quiet.

  “Ethan,” Eli said with a sigh, “it does not matter. I didn’t want to live among such people. I threw myself into schoolwork. I was happy inside my books. I was smart, and in the English world I was admired just because I was smart. At home I was considered prideful and rebellious. You know how Pa can be.”

  “He allowed you to go to high school.”

  “So what? We argued about it all the time. But by that time I knew I didn’t want to remain Amish. I was ashamed of my backward family and
their simple ways.” Eli shifted forward, leaning toward Ethan and Leah. “Look at you, Ethan. You are dressed English. You are with an English girl. I know you’ve had the same feelings.”

  Leah stiffened. She had often felt guilty about Ethan’s decision to take his fling. If it hadn’t been for her, perhaps … “I wanted to help Ethan,” she said defensively. “He wanted to take his fling.”

  “Trying out English things and leaving Amish ways forever are not the same thing,” Ethan said. “And as for Leah”—he turned toward her on the sofa—“she means much to me. She has made my life happy and good.”

  “But I’m not Amish,” Leah added. “You don’t have to keep reminding me.” Turning to Eli, she said, “I’ve had to deal with your leaving too, Eli. Your father’s very distrustful of everybody English. The only reason your family allowed me to come around last summer was because of Rebekah.”

  “She must have held extraordinary power over him to have persuaded him to let you within a hundred yards of his precious farm,” Eli said.

  “Pa is changed,” Ethan insisted. “He has suffered much over your leaving—and Rebekah’s dying.”

  “I’m sorry about my little sister. I can’t change that. But as Jacob Longacre’s eldest son, I don’t believe Pa will ever forgive me. I do not want to be a farmer, Ethan. I can’t be what he wants me to be. I never could.”

  “Yet you have chosen what most Amish men choose. You have a wife and a family,” Ethan pointed out.

  “Do you really think Old Order Amish would accept my Mennonite wife?” Eli shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You will not know unless you take your family back home.”

  Eli stood abruptly. “No way.” He left the room.

  ———

  Later, while the boys watched a video and Camille prepared dinner, Leah and Ethan took a walk. “I guess you didn’t persuade Eli to go home for a visit,” Leah said.

  “I did not.” Ethan looked dejected.