Accidentally Amish (43 page)

“You sure you want to do this?” Lee Solano asked.

Annie exhaled and rolled her eyes. “You ask me that every time we speak to each other.” They stood together outside the doors to a downtown bank. Walking through them would take her to the meeting at which she would sign papers that meant she was letting go.

“I have to ask,” Lee said. “I’ve never had a client express such extreme wishes. I wake up in the night thinking I must have heard you wrong.”

“You heard me right. This life is not for me anymore.”

“Maybe someday you’ll do another start-up.”

Annie shook her head. “I’ve done it twice. That’s enough.”

“You’re only twenty-seven,” Lee said. “Don’t paint yourself into a corner you can’t get out of.”

“You’re in cahoots with my mother.”

“Never met the lady,” Lee said, “but it sounds like she has the smarts you used to have.”

“Let’s just do this.” Annie pushed open the bank door.

Lee did not have to understand her choices. He was being paid handsomely for arranging the legalities. Beyond that, Annie was not trying to persuade anyone of anything. She wanted only to make a choice and see it through.

Lee pushed the elevator button, and they rode to the third floor without speaking. From there it seemed as if she were watching someone else’s motions. Annie wore a blue silk suit and four-inch navy heels, the tried-and-true choices she relied on for business meetings of this caliber. Though young, female, and casual in an old boy’s world, she was not some sort of teenybopper with a ponytail and chewing gum. But even as she shook hands and took her seat and tugged the bottom of her jacket straight, the weight of the purple dress in the barn draped off her shoulders, and it was soft cotton that she adjusted around her waist. She picked up a pen to sign documents with elevator music playing in the background and phones ringing and lights blinking, but she was sitting on the sofa in a hundred-year-old house, listening to sounds hidden in silence. Bearers of modern success surrounded her in a sleek conference room while outrageous numeric figures popped off the printed pages for something she could not hold in her hands, but she was on the Beiler front porch, sitting next to Rufus in the fragrance of a garden that proved where food came from.

Finally, the others left, with handshakes and claps on the back for a deal well done, and Annie was alone with Lee, holding in her hands a manila folder of legalese.

Lee picked up his briefcase from the floor and set it on the table to open it.

“Okay,” he said, “now for stage two.” He slapped a stack of papers on the table. “You can still back out of this part.”

“I’m not backing out of anything.” Annie picked up the pen again. “Where do I sign?”

“That’s a pile of money in your hands,” he said. “If you sign these, you’re not leaving yourself much to live off of.”

“I don’t plan to need much. And there’s still the condo. I told the real estate agent to lower the asking price by 15 percent.”

He groaned. “Annie, please.”

“I want it to sell quickly.”

“The market is soft on high-end stuff like your place. You’ll take a loss.”

Deadpan, she looked at him.

“All right, I get it. You’re not worried about money.”

“In my recent experience, it’s been more trouble than it’s worth.”

Annie paused only briefly over the signature line. The bulk of her assets would go into a holding account that could never revert directly to her. She needed more time to sort out just where it would go eventually. She couldn’t just leave it without a purpose, like a forgotten trinket in a box. But it would never be hers for personal use.

Annie signed.

“You’ve been a great help in all of this, Lee. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He picked up the document and returned it to his briefcase. “The money should be transferred before the end of the day.”

“You know where to find me if you have questions.”

They exited the conference room, descended in the elevator, and stepped into the blinding Colorado sun. Annie squinted at her car parked across the street. Above the sounds of traffic, she recognized the vibration of her cell phone in the small purse she carried when she dressed up. Lifting the flap of the purse, she saw that the caller was Ruth.

“Hello, Ruth.”

“Hi,” came a diminished voice. “Do you think … could I … maybe see you today?”

“Yes, of course.” Annie was eager to see how Ruth was. “I have one other meeting to go to right now. Should I pick you up later?”

“I can get a ride to your place,” Ruth said. “I thought I could bring what I need to make dinner for you.”

Annie smiled. “Yes. Absolutely. About six?” She dropped the phone back in the purse.

Now to talk to Barrett.

Sated with chicken stew and shoofly pie, Annie picked up a box of books and added it to the stack in the entryway.

“Are you really giving all this away?” Ruth followed with a second box.

“I didn’t need most of this stuff living here,” Annie answered. “I’m sure not going to need it in Westcliffe. I’ve tagged some furniture to take, with some bedding and practical items. But a lot of my things will find better homes elsewhere.”

“I admire how ruthless you’re being in packing things up.”

“I’ve got time now.” Annie grinned. “No job.”

Ruth laughed. “How soon will you move?”

“I couldn’t arrange for the furniture movers before next week, but I’ll take some things this weekend by car.”

“Oh good. I mean, that sounds like a good plan.”

Annie paused, a roll of packaging tape in one hand and a permanent marker in the other. “Would you like to come with me, Ruth?”

Ruth straightened the top box in the stack then turned hesitantly toward Annie. “I can’t leave things the way they are with my mother. Rufus is right about that.”

The ashen face of her friend twisted Annie’s heart. “Then we’ll go together.”

Annie padded down the hall in her bare feet to the bedroom. Ruth followed. The twin doors to the walk-in closet were wide open, though most of the closet’s contents were strewn in piles around the room. In one corner a supply of flattened boxes awaited new lives of service. Annie picked one up, popped it open, and sealed the bottom with tape.

Ruth wandered to the bed and momentarily hung a soft pink cashmere sweater from her fingers. She folded it neatly then reached for a starched white shirt with a delicate string of blue and green flowers hand-embroidered down the front. “You have some very nice things.”

“You know, you can have anything you want.” Annie scribbled a label on a box. “If you need some clothes. Sweaters. A coat. Or a radio or a lamp or anything you see. A TV.”

Ruth picked up a linen blouse, sat on the bed, and folded the blouse in her lap. “Thank you, but I would never be comfortable. I am still Plain at heart.”

Annie put down her packing tape and sat next to Ruth on the end of the bed. She leaned into Ruth’s shoulder. “I think your mother would be glad to hear you say that.”

“Perhaps. But I have a lot to ask forgiveness for. And being Plain at heart will never be the same as joining the church.”

“Perhaps if your family understood more about what you’re doing, they would soften. You’re doing something noble, in my opinion.”

“Noble is too close to proud,
hochmut.
Is it humble? That is always the question.
Demut.
Am I submitting?”

“Well, how do you answer those questions?”

Ruth fingered the collar of the linen blouse. “If I submit to God, I can’t be anything but what I am. If God created me to care for people, perhaps He also means for me to have the education to know how to do it.”

“Rufus would be dead without people who knew how to care for him in a crisis,” Annie said. “Surely your parents can appreciate that fact.”

“I was not baptized.” Ruth’s voice was barely above a whisper. “So my choice to leave is not the greatest wound to my mother. It is the way I left that stabs her.”

Annie wasn’t sure she knew what Ruth meant, but the moment quivered too fragile for questions. She put an arm around Ruth’s shoulder and leaned her head against Ruth’s. “Talk to her.”

In the silence, her advice echoed in her own mind. Perhaps it was true that her own choice to leave her life in Colorado Springs would not be her mother’s greatest wound if she too did not leave well.

Ruth was the one to rupture the stillness. She stood and began folding vigorously. “We’re going to need a lot of boxes.”

“I can always buy more.” Annie pulled a box closer to the bed and dropped in the linen blouse then a whole stack of shirts from the bed.

“Make sure you keep enough warm things for the winter. Westcliffe gets cold.”

“I will.”

“Does Rufus know you’re doing all this?”

Annie grimaced. “He knows about the house but not that I sold my business and put my condo on the market.”

“When do you plan to tell him?”

“I’m not sure it matters.”

“Of course it matters.”

“I don’t want Rufus to think I’m doing any of this because of him.” Annie expertly laid another strip of tape across a box.

“Are you sure you’re not?” Ruth challenged.

“I’m not expecting anything from your brother, if that’s what you mean.”

“But you have feelings for him,
ya
?”

Annie dropped a trio of sweaters into a box. “It’s hard not to,” she admitted softly, “but that does not mean anything. He already said he does not expect me to be Amish. I am
English.
So what can happen?”

“He would not ask it of you, that is true,” Ruth said. “But if you were to choose?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to choose to be Amish. And I don’t think he believes I ever could. Besides, it would be wrong to make Rufus the reason.”

“That is true.”

“I’ve seen a different picture of life, and I wonder if it’s meant for me. A life that does not ignore God.” Annie taped a box shut and labeled it. “You and I are not so different. I never really asked what God wants of me before. Now I will.”

Ruth laid a pair of wool trousers in the new box. “I wonder about our ancestor Jakob Byler. Growing up in the church, I heard stories about his son Christian, who is my ancestor. But now you discovered Jakob had a second family—your family. What made him choose as he did?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t easy.” Annie went into the closet and came back with a load of dresses on hangers. “I believe he arrived in Philadelphia an Amish man with a wife and five children. Then his wife died. There he was, in a new land—not even a country yet—with five children and a plan to homestead with a few other Amish families. It had to be tough. We have to put ourselves in his place and imagine the rest.”

“And choose the best we can, just the way Jakob did.”

Annie nodded. “I think so.”

They folded clothes without speaking for a few minutes and filled two more boxes.

“So when are you going to talk to your mother?” Ruth asked.

Annie looked up and caught Ruth’s eye. “Tomorrow. And then we’ll go to the valley, and you’ll talk to yours.”

December 1750

O
ne more day,” Christian said to Lizzie Yoder, “and you’ll be stuck with me forever.”

“I don’t want to be stuck with anyone else.” Lizzie shivered under her shawl.

They sat in separate straight-back chairs next to each other on the Yoders’ front porch. Early December sun looked brighter than it felt to Christian. It was probably selfish to keep Lizzie out in the cold, but it was the only place they could have a private moment. They were in plain view, but members of the large Yoder family thoughtfully managed to be occupied elsewhere.

“What a blessing to be ready to marry just when Bishop Hertzner has come to stay.” Christian set his jaw in satisfaction. “Our children will grow up going to church every other Sunday, and not just when a visiting minister comes through.”

“Christian, do you hope that God gives us a baby right away?” Lizzie looked at him shyly out of the sides of her eyes.

He reached over and patted her hand briefly. “We will be grateful for whatever God gives us. His will is certain.”

Lizzie nodded. “Ours is the last wedding. All the fuss of the last few weeks will be over.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t be first instead of the last of five,” Christian said. “If only I had spoken to the bishop when he first arrived.”

“It would have been prideful to insist on being first. Besides, what difference does a few weeks make when we have our whole lives before us?”

Christian twisted his hands together. “I wish I had finished our house. I didn’t know we would have such difficulty getting the harvest in this year.” He brightened. “But now we have our own land just a few miles away. Next year we’ll have our own harvest.”

“Do you really think so? Can we get enough acres cleared by spring?”

“I will chop down trees in the middle of a blizzard if I have to.”

“I keep telling you I can help.”

Christian shook his head. “You will be busy visiting and gathering the things we need for the house. We will spend a few weeks here with your family, then with the Kauffmanns and the Troyers and the Zooks. Before you know it, we’ll be in our own home.”