“You want marriage and kinner and a houseful of life,” she said.
“Yah. Of course,” he said, and he smiled faintly. “Don’t you?”
“Thomas, I can’t have kinner.”
Her words hit him in the stomach, and he frowned slightly, trying to make sense of it. “What?”
“I had surgery that left me...unable to have children. I’ll never get pregnant. I’ll never have babies of my own.”
Thomas licked his lips, this new information clattering through his mind. “Never?”
“Never.” Her voice shook. “I don’t tend to announce these things, but I should have said something earlier...before this.”
“It isn’t your fault,” he said. “I kissed you. Not the other way around.”
“Still, we can’t do that again,” she said. “You don’t just want a family, you need one. Rue needs one! And you’ll need a woman who can give you that family and fill your house with babies and laughter.”
She was right—he did need that family, but it didn’t change how he felt when he looked at Patience, or when he thought of her. She’d seeped in through the cracks somehow.
“I can’t help how I feel about you,” he said at last.
“We should try, though,” she replied, and she met his gaze earnestly. “We really need to try.”
And somehow, the serious glint in her eye, the pink in her cheeks and her complete intention to shut down whatever this was sparking between them made her even more beautiful to him. Because she wasn’t just an attractive woman, she was a good woman...and that appealed to him most of all. Her beauty sank right down to her core.
“Yah,” Thomas said nodding. “I’m sorry. I won’t kiss you like that again.”
She shrugged sadly. “It’s no use breaking our hearts over something that will never work, is it?”
“Not really,” he agreed.
“You’re a good daet,” she said, and her voice caught in her throat. “You deserve to be a daet many times over.”
That had been his dream for a long time—a wife and kinner of his own. He’d wanted to be ready to be a good daet—to mature into it. But the woman he’d have those kinner with had stayed a misty blur in his imagination. Suddenly, she seemed to be taking shape—but Patience couldn’t be that mamm to his kinner.
“Have I ruined things between us?” he asked. “By kissing you, I mean. Can we still be friends after that?”
Patience shrugged, but a smile tugged at her lips. “I could forgive it.”
Thomas was relieved to hear that, because he didn’t want to send her out of his life, either. He wanted her insights, her presence, her advice. And maybe she was right about a romance not working between them, but she was still an exceptional woman.
“Then I’ll curb whatever this is I’m feeling,” he said.
“Me, too.”
Those words made his heart skip a beat, because it meant that she was feeling this, too. It wasn’t just him attracted to the wrong woman...
“You, too?” he breathed.
“Yah.” She gave him a nod. “But stopping this now is the right thing to do. We both know that.”
The right thing was often the hard thing—as an Amish man, he knew that.
“Should we head back, then?” he asked, his voice low.
“Yah. That would probably be smart.”
Because staying out here with her by the creek with all this privacy, he wasn’t going to be able to back his feelings off quite so easily. She wouldn’t know exactly how she made him feel, but he did.
So he headed over to where his daughter was still sleeping on the quilt, and he crouched down, scooping her up in his arms. Her head lolled against his arm, and he felt a rush of paternal love looking into her pale face. He’d never been able to see her as a baby—but he’d wondered about the child Tina had kept from him. He’d missed so much, but he wasn’t going to miss anything more.
Rue was his... And she had to be his priority.
“Could you hold her on the ride back?” he asked, rising to his feet.
“Yah, of course,” Patience said.
He’d have to be careful, because his feelings for Patience were growing, and if he messed up this fragile friendship with her, he wouldn’t be the only one to suffer. Rue did better with Patience in her life, too, and she didn’t have many friends who could look past her beginnings and see the bright little girl she was. She needed Patience more than he did—and if friendship was the way to keep her in his daughter’s life, then he’d have to protect that friendship with all his might.
His growing feelings would have to be curbed. There was no way around it.
* * *
The ride back to the house was a slow one, and the bright sunlight, the tumble of scattered clouds, the buzz of the bees around the wildflowers and the soft, floral-scented breeze weren’t enough to soothe Thomas’s heart. The ride out to the creek, with his boyhood memories, was so much sweeter than this ride back.
He couldn’t help but feel the weight of what he’d done. He should never have kissed Patience. It was wrong, overstepping... And on this side of it, he felt incredibly stupid. Would Patience ever be comfortable with him again? Amish courting was a slow process that involved much conversation before any kisses were exchanged. A man and woman needed to be certain of each other, to truly understand each other. Then there would be no regrets later on if the relationship didn’t work out—no lines crossed that would cause any undue embarrassment.
He’d moved too quickly with Tina in the city, too. But that had been pure rebellion—as was his entire time spent with his mamm away from Redemption. And it had been loneliness, too, because he’d missed his brother, his friends, the community that had become a part of him. He’d thought that being with his mamm would give him the comfort he’d been missing while he was in Redemption, but as it turned out, a mamm wasn’t enough. He’d needed more than her presence in his life, and he’d reached for a different kind of comfort. He’d known his relationship with Tina was wrong, and he’d done it anyway.
Was he making a similar mistake now—reaching out for comfort where he shouldn’t be? Because Patience was a comfort, a definite help, and having her around made an already difficult situation that much sweeter. Was he leaning on her because of his own longing for some compassion and support? Was that even fair?
And maybe on his Rumspringa, his loneliness was just part of growing up when a man realized that “home” was no longer at his mamm’s apron. Home started to take on a new meaning, to come with a new sense of urgency to create his own home with his own wife. But Patience had already made it clear that she couldn’t be the wife he needed.
Thomas flicked the reins, urging the horses to speed up again. One horse shook its head, making the tack jingle. He was letting his heart lead when he should be praying a whole lot harder. Hearts could go wrong so very easily, and there was no getting around the fact that his heart was definitely entangled with the woman at his side.
Gott, I’m sorry, he silently prayed. I don’t want to go back to old ways. I want to live a pure life that will please You. I don’t want to play with this. I want to marry the right woman. Obviously, I was wrong in kissing her, but...
He looked over at Patience with his daughter cradled in her arms, her cheek resting tenderly against Rue’s blond head. Her gaze was on the road ahead, and she seemed to be equally deep in thought.
I’m feeling things for her that will only lead to heartbreak if I let it continue. She’s beautiful, and kind, and sweet, and...never to have kinner. And I know what Rue needs—a family to give her a sense of who she is here in our community.
Whatever they were feeling for each other didn’t matter, because even Patience saw that Rue needed siblings if she was to have a hope of settling into the Amish life on a heart level. He couldn’t just raise his daughter for the in
evitable heartbreaking day when she left them. If Gott had brought his daughter to him, there had to be a way to raise her so that she’d feel that an Amish life was home. There had to be. And Rue’s future had to be his top responsibility, not his own comfort.
Take it away, Gott. These confusing feelings that just keep growing—douse them for me. Because I can’t seem to get them under control on my own.
The horses knew their way home, and as soon as they got to the drive, they turned in and carried them at an easy pace down the gravel way toward the stables where oats and hay were waiting. Rue woke up and rubbed her eyes. Patience loosened her grip on the girl as she sat upright and looked around herself for a moment in bleary confusion. Then Rue’s face fell.
“We left?” Rue asked plaintively.
“We did,” Thomas replied, reaching over and giving her leg a pat. “We had to get back.”
“Why?”
“Because—” Thomas glanced over at Patience. Because if he’d stayed longer with Patience, it would have made everything harder. He’d have kept feeling this draw toward her, and she’d likely have felt it, too. Leaving had been the right choice—getting back to the bustling distraction of other people.
“Because grown-ups get tired, too,” Patience said.
It was a good answer, and he cast her a grateful smile. Thomas reined in the horses, and the side door to the house opened and Amos came outside. He looked almost gray, and he strode up to the buggy, his expression grim. Had something happened? Thomas’s first thought was of Mammi.
“Thomas, I’ll unhitch the horses,” Amos said in German. “You’re needed inside.”
“What’s going on?” Thomas asked.
“Your mamm is in there.”
Thomas’s heart hammered to a stop, and he tightened his grip on the reins, looking toward the house. His mamm? She wasn’t due for another visit—and when she came, she didn’t usually come to the house.
“Did you talk to her?” Thomas asked.
Amos shrugged. “Not much. I mean...pleasantries.”
Thomas looked over at Patience, unsure of what to say. Here it was—their family embarrassment.
“You need privacy,” Patience said.
He did. He couldn’t ask Patience to come help him deal with his mother—this was on him. Rue seemed to sense the tension, even if she didn’t understand the language, because her eyes were wide and her little lips were pressed together in a tight line.
“It’s okay, Rue,” Thomas said. “Come with me. There is someone you’ll want to meet.”
“Who?” she whispered. “Are they taking me away?”
“No, no,” Thomas replied. “No one’s taking you anywhere. It’s your grandmother.”
“Mammi?” Rue sounded confused.
“You have another grandmother.” A biological grandmother. A real one.
Rue brightened at that, and Thomas got out of the buggy and lifted Rue down beside him. Then he held a hand up to help Patience from the buggy. When she hopped down next to him, he didn’t release her fingers right away.
“What do I do?” he whispered.
“You pray,” she whispered back.
Thomas licked his lips. He was already praying—a wordless sort of uplifting toward Gott, asking for... He wasn’t even sure what. Just wanting to feel Gott there with him—even more of a comfort than this woman beside him. He realized then that he was still holding her hand, and he released her.
“I’ll go on back to the Kauffmans’, and you’ll know where to find me if you need me more today,” she said. She made it all sound so rational and simple.
“Yah,” he said, his voice thick. “I suppose I’d better go see what she wants.”
Patience headed back up the drive, walking briskly, and Thomas looked toward the house. There was no cheery clatter of dishes or the din of laughter. It was ominously silent.
“Come on, Rue,” Thomas said, forcing himself to sound cheerier than he felt. “Let’s go in.”
When Thomas opened the door, Rue went inside ahead of him. She stood in the doorway of the mudroom staring.
“Is that my granddaughter?” Mamm’s voice said in perfect, accent-free English. “Hi there, Rue. I’m your grandma.”
Thomas followed his daughter into the kitchen, and his mamm sat at the kitchen table with a glass of water in front of her, nothing else. She wore her Amish clothes—they looked worn and a little snug. She needed new Amish clothing for her visits, it seemed, but she was still the mother he loved so well—the same laugh lines around her eyes, and her dyed hair had started to grow out a little bit. The last he’d seen his mamm, she’d been wearing Englisher jeans and a T-shirt. The memory was strikingly different from the Amish-clad woman before him. Mammi was nowhere to be seen, and Noah sat at the table across from their mother glowering at an empty space on the table.
“Hi, Mamm...” Thomas said.
“Son—” Rachel stood up and circled the table to give him a hug.
“We normally get a coffee in town,” he said. “And I thought we were getting together at the end of the month.”
“I know,” she said. “I just—” She smiled hesitantly. “I want to come back.”
Noah’s gaze jerked up as she said the words, and Thomas could only assume that his brother was just as surprised as he was.
“What?” Thomas breathed.
“I want to confess and come back to the community,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “I want to come home.”
After a decade away, after leaving her sons behind and forging ahead, building a new Englisher life with her sister in the city. After all the things she’d told him—how the Amish life was too controlling, too restrictive, too hard to live... After she’d shown him how the Mennonites could live a life to honor Gott while using all the modern conveniences, too... She’d been so certain. She’d said that their daet was the one who wanted to live an Amish life, and she’d been willing to do it with him, but when he died she just couldn’t face another canning season.
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“And why now?” Noah interjected. “You left us when we needed you most, Mamm. And now that we’re grown men, you want to come back?”
Noah’s eyes misted, and he looked away again, his jaw set. Rachel sucked in a wavering breath and she looked pleadingly toward Thomas.
“You have Rue now,” she said. “You might need my help with her. I can understand where she came from, and the kind of life you want for her. I understand little girls. I could help you in ways that you aren’t even considering yet!”
“I want my daughter to stay Amish,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “I don’t want her to have more connections with the Englisher world.”
Mary came to the top of the staircase, and Thomas stared up at her mutely. She met his gaze for one agonizing moment.
“Rue,” Mary called. “Come upstairs with me.”
Rue looked at Thomas.
“Go on,” Thomas said. “You go with Mammi. This is grown-up business.”
“Mammi?” Rachel said softly. She looked like the endearment stung a little—technically, she was Rue’s mammi, too. Rue walked slowly past Mamm, looking at her in open curiosity as she went by, then headed for the stairs where Mary stood impatiently. The old woman snapped her fingers.
“Rue. Now,” Mary said curtly, and Rue picked up her pace as she went up the stairs. When Rue disappeared onto the second floor, Thomas rubbed his hands over his face.
“Did you talk to the bishop yet?” he asked.
“I wanted to talk to you first,” she replied. “I’ll talk with him afterward.”
“You know that’s the wrong way to do it,” Thomas said. “If you want to come back, you’ve got to go to him first! You have to talk to the church leadership, confess your wrongdoing, ask to be rebap
tized and to be admitted into the community again. This—this is just more flouting of the rules, Mamm!”
“And who taught you those rules?” she snapped. “I did! I raised you to be good Amish men, and I did a good job of it, might I add!”
“So you really want to be Amish again?” Thomas demanded. “After all of it...after you halfway convinced me that this life isn’t even what Gott wants of us... Now you think you were wrong?”
“I...” She paused, and then shook her head. “I see things differently now.”
They all fell silent and Thomas looked over at his brother. Noah’s hands were balled up into fists on the tabletop.
“Are you coming back, then?” Noah asked curtly.
“Do you want me to come back, son?” Rachel asked, turning toward her oldest boy.
Noah was silent. He’d never admit it—he was too angry—but Thomas couldn’t let this spiral down into anger and emotional punishment.
“Yah, we want you to come back,” Thomas interjected. “Of course we do.”
“Will you...give me a place to live when I do?” Rachel licked her lips, and Thomas could see that was a hard question for her to ask.
“This is Amos’s house,” Noah said curtly. “And Mary’s.”
“Mamm, even if I have to find a house of my own, you’ll have a place to live,” Thomas said.
Tears welled in her eyes. “I miss you both so much... You don’t know how much I’ve missed you. I didn’t think I could face an Amish life without your daet. He was the one who was most convinced about the theology and all that... But I’ve had my own Rumspringa, I suppose you could call it. I craved some freedom, to just be my own woman again. I was raised to have a career and an education. I missed theater—operas and plays, especially. I missed that life I used to have... As you know, the Amish life doesn’t really allow for all the things that had made me who I was before I got married.”
“But do you believe in the church’s teachings?” Noah asked dubiously.
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