Child of Mine (19 page)

The following Monday, Laura was scheduled to arrive after lunch, due to a number of appointments in town, including a dental cleaning. Jack was already at his desk, plowing through some accounting tasks—things he could do at home—and anxious to see Laura again.

Jack recalled their conversation in June about Laura's plan to give Nattie a momentary thrill, but after the last few weeks and how far they'd come, he actually thought Laura might be transitioning into a modern woman. Last night he'd even given himself to much puzzled brooding, wondering if it wasn't time to engage Laura in a conversation about a future together. It didn't seem so preposterous anymore, not after his birthday party. The Amish nanny had dressed like an
Englisher
. . . just for him. What was a red-blooded male to think?

Besides, Natalie wasn't kidding. Laura was beautiful.

How had he missed that?

So when he heard Laura come in and Nattie's happy announcement, “Laura's here!” he headed for the kitchen to greet her, expecting a new outfit, maybe even jeans and a blouse. Jack noticed Nattie settled at the dining room table and turned to see Laura closing the refrigerator. She caught his expression at the same moment he took in her
Amish
attire.

His look of disappointment must have lasted only a moment, a split second at most, but it might as well have lasted an hour considering the effect it seemed to have on Laura. She regarded him with an almost dazed expression.

As a pathetic attempt to save himself, Jack forced a smile, greeting her, “Laura, you're here!”

Even Nattie noticed the exchange, her eyes fixed on him as if observing a train wreck.

“Zero cavities,” Laura said, giving him a toothy smile before opening the upper cabinet to check the contents.

Jack slinked back to his office, aware of Nattie's gaze. Ten minutes later, Laura knocked on his office door, asking for a moment. She closed the door and sat in his chair with a list of errands in hand. She noted the placement of her gift on his wall, and he thanked her again.

“Were you surprised to see me today?”

“Not at all,” he replied, which wasn't true.

Uncomfortably, Laura looked down at her hands. Somewhere between Saturday and this moment, it seemed as if all the gains they'd made were lost: the feeling of trust between them, the connection, the romance that seemed to dangle in the air about them.

He swallowed the silly speech he'd planned, the one about a possible future between them, not because he'd changed his mind, but because the shy Laura was back, her Amish culture like a wall, as stark and forbidding as before.

Later,
he told himself.

“Well . . . I'll be back in a bit,” Laura said abruptly, getting up, smoothing her apron.

“Thank you, Laura,” he replied, kicking himself for not recalling that she'd only promised to dress fancy once.

She closed the door behind her, leaving him to his thoughts.

A few minutes later, Nattie knocked. Was he about to receive another grueling interrogation?
Why'd
you act so weird?

Instead, Nattie wanted to know if, since Laura had dressed fancy, she might return the favor and dress Plain.

Jack shuddered at this notion but kept his expression relaxed. “You better talk with Laura about that, make sure it wouldn't seem disrespectful. And you might want to run it by your auntie San, too, just in case.”

Nattie's eyebrows shot up at the mention of her aunt. “Oh yeah. Good idea.”

T
hat Wednesday, late in the morning, Jack's phone beeped and a strange text appeared. He read it, confused by the number at first.

Just touching base.
It
's been a while. How are you doing? I've been
busy, but that's good, right?

Angela
. Long-lost Angela Walberg. Why was she texting him after a month of silence? After ignoring his every attempt to communicate with
her?

He considered asking San. He also considered texting back with something like,
Glad to hear things are going well
, but decided to delay his reply until the end of the day.

After work, Jack found Nattie at the table writing another list. She looked up at him mournfully, pushing her bangs away from her forehead, meeting his eyes. “Something's wrong with Laura.”

Jack frowned. “How do you know?”

Nattie shrugged. “I just do.” She returned to her list. “By the way, I changed the feeder.”

“Hmm, thanks,” Jack said, knowing Nattie was trying to communicate her responsibility in the small things, hoping to parlay this into even greater responsibility, like a black Labrador, which
had recently worked its way to the second spot on her retooled want list.

Before she could launch into a new plea, Jack headed out the back door.

Laura was sitting in the swing, rocking gently, staring wistfully toward the trees. Gingerly, Jack let the screen door close without slamming, and she turned to smile at him. “Hi, Jack.”

The wind chime echoed her greeting, and the swing's chains squealed slightly with her movements. “The hummers are out today in full force, fighting over Nattie's nectar.”

Laura's fine,
he thought, until he saw the letter in her hand. She observed the focus of his attention and brought the letter to her lap. “My cousin wrote.”

Jack reached in and quietly closed the inner door. He joined her at the swing and gestured to the letter, a question in his eyes.

She extended it to him. “It's okay,” she said, assuring him. “Chatty stuff, ya know, nothing personal.”

Jack read the return address: Rachel Mast, Lancaster, PA.

“My cousin,” she said softly. “At one time my favorite cousin. Would ya like to read it?”

Jack shook his head. “Laura, I don't need—”

“But I want you to.”

Still not sure what to make of it, he removed the letter and began to read.
Dearest Laura . . .

Some of it was written in
Deitsch
, but it was mostly in English. It was full of family news, various activities, and names he didn't know.

Rachel's letter had ended with a plea.

I've missed you terribly, Laura. I'm sorry we fell out of touch. We know why you had to leave, but that's water under the bridge, ain't? Please write me. I have so much to tell you, things you can only guess at, if you know what I mean!

Jack closed the letter and felt his heart constrict.

We know why you had to leave
.

They were back to this again, his renewed dread that Laura's departure was imminent, something he'd hoped had died a natural death. In light of his newfound worry and her recent gift, the one now hanging on his wall, probably the best gift he'd ever received, he did something he also wouldn't have considered weeks ago. Reaching gingerly, heart thudding in his chest, he covered her right hand with his own and gently squeezed it.

Laura turned to him, her face going pale, confirming again that she was like a skittish butterfly, always on the verge of fluttering away.

“Don't go,” he said. It was remarkably selfish, but he was feeling selfish. Nattie couldn't bear to lose her and neither could he. If she returned, even for a visit, she might take the kneeling confession, and they'd lose her forever.

Laura closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the padding. “I'm not going anywhere, Jack.”

The growing awkwardness caused him to remove his hand, and she seemed to breathe more freely.

Laura cleared her throat, then frowned. “
Ach
, and I'm certainly not going to write her back.”

Jack was surprised by her strong reaction to a seemingly friendly letter. “Aren't you curious, after all these years?”

She shook her head. “Less now than ever before.” She turned to him, fresh tears in her eyes and yet smiling. Smiling through the pain of whatever was haunting her. He was sorely tempted to enfold her in his arms but resisted.

Laura took a deep breath. “The letter isn't what it sounds like.”

Softly, but with determination in her voice, she told him more about her childhood, the tobacco farm, her brothers and sisters, her parents and her grandparents, her cousins, and especially . . . Rachel. And not once during the tale did the sad smile leave her face.

“Cousin Rachel and I used to spend hours in the hayloft, talking 'bout our dreams, but eventually we fell out of touch when she acquired a mean streak. She wasn't always like that, not when we were kids. She's two years older than me, and I always looked up to her.”

“Maybe this letter is her way of making up,” he said.

Laura shook her head. “It's her way of rubbing my nose in everything I've missed.” Laura took a breath and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “I was shunned because of Rachel,” she said softly. “You see . . . I was engaged to be married to Jonathan. We'd been sweethearts since our teens. I was good friends with his sister, Rebecca Lynn, who everyone knew would never marry. She was
slow—
a special child—she had a dear place in Jonathan's heart. He looked out for her. We'd all practically grown up at the Lancaster County Market, and Jonathan and I couldn't wait to begin our new lives together.” She swallowed. “But we made a terrible mistake . . . we got the cart before the horse, if you know what I mean.”

Jack felt his face flush. It was hard to imagine Laura getting anything before the horse.

“We aren't perfect, Jack.” She tucked a few strands back beneath her
Kapp
, then continued on. “Anyway, Cousin Rachel found out—I don't know how—and decided it was her duty to tell my father. Then she proceeded to share it with the entire community.”

Jack shuddered.

“I was devastated.”

“It's not the first time that kind of thing has happened,” Jack said. “You made a mistake. That's all.”

“Yes, but . . . my father is the bishop, Jack.”

Oh boy,
he thought.

“And he decided to make an example of me to the rest of the community. Couldn't have Bishop Ephraim's daughter sinning so blatantly, under his nose, of all things! He was embarrassed. I
had undermined his authority. He was furious with me. His own daughter had tarnished his reputation!”

“Couldn't you two have just married?”

Laura scoffed. “He forbade me to see Jonathan and threatened to shun me if I did. The marriage was off.

“So
I
refused to obey. And I told my father so. Furious with me, he promptly placed me under the
Bann
and announced he would never speak to me again if I defied him.” She paused, her eyes bright with emotion. “As an Amishperson, you grow up fearing the shunning, but when it happens to you, it's horrifying.”

Jack nodded, wishing now he still held her hand, if only for support.

“I still wanted to marry Jonathan, but he said he couldn't, because it would have meant being put under the
Bann
forever. ‘What kind of life would I be offering you?' he asked, but I didn't care. I begged him to take me away, but he wouldn't.”

Her face turned stoic. “He finally left, Jack. He broke things off, for my sake, he said. Couldn't bear to come between me and my family, though by then I was totally on the outs with
Dat
and
Mamma
, and my younger siblings. So . . . after
he
left,
I
left, too. I went to visit some family near Chambersburg, but they were displeased with my presence, worried I'd be a
Schnickelfritz
—a troublemaker—so after less than a year, I moved out here.”

Laura went silent, lost in the past. Then she spoke again, her voice husky with sadness. “My father wrote me later, telling me that Jonathan was lost to me forever, that my fiancé had his own family now, and God's judgment had been delivered.”

Jack sighed. “I can't imagine . . .”

“Neither could I. If my Jonathan was now married, I didn't want to return. I
couldn't.
To this day, I hold
Dat
responsible for denying me the only happiness I ever wanted on this earth, the dearest boy I've ever known.” Her voice broke suddenly, and she bit her lip.

Laura shook her head. “That's not very Amish of me, Jack. I
have
forgiven my father. But I can't bring myself to go home. By
now, Jonathan is married with a houseful of kids. This letter only reminds me of what I'd be facing.” She turned now and met his gaze. “Nattie has been my life, you know. And you've been so good to me, Jack.”

“We've tried.”

Laura smiled. “You haven't just tried, Jack. You've been like a second family to me, the only family to stick up for me.” Her eyes glistened, and his heart twisted in his chest when she slid her hand into his. “Sometimes, I'm just a confused Amishwoman, Jack, but I felt you should finally know.”

Why now?
He opened his mouth to ask but decided against it. Enough had been said already. They sat there for a moment longer, listening to the chime and the buzz of an occasional hummingbird. Finally Laura removed her hand and simply got up, lingering for a moment with a hand on his shoulder, something she'd never done before.

She paused at the door, her smile cheerful. “Nattie doesn't need to know about my mistakes,
jah
?”

“I won't tell her.”

Jack sat in the swing for another few minutes, staring at the trees while Nattie remained occupied inside. He could hear the beeping sound effects and the musical soundtrack to her computer game, repeating over and over again.

Mournful Laura,
he thought. Not only because of a shunning but from a broken heart. Eventually the noise stopped, and Nattie emerged, popping her head out the door. “What's up, doc?”

“Just thinking.”

Nattie hopped on the swing, but she said nothing, sensing Jack's need for quiet. Eventually she squeezed in next to him, leaning her head against his shoulder. Together they watched the hummingbirds alighting on the feeder, chasing each other away, beautiful tiny warriors intent on syrupy nectar. The swing continued its gentle, rhythmic squeak as he thought about Rachel's letter. And Laura's story. Why had she told him? And why
now
,
when anything romantic between the two of them seemed to be falling apart?

He couldn't imagine her feeling of rejection. Shunned from her family, losing all touch, banned to a shirttail relative in Chambersburg until even they had asked her to leave. She'd spent less than a year there, she'd told him, before traveling west to Ohio.

Yet Laura was still Amish, he mused, after all that. Most folks would have kicked the dust from their feet and gone on with their lives. But not Laura. Not cheerfully sad Laura, observing the customs of the Beachy Amish but Old Order in her heart, and still missing her one true love.
“My Jonathan,”
she'd called him.

Nattie snaked her arm through Jack's. The birds chirped a fitting accompaniment to his tangled melancholy thoughts. He could feel the expansion and contraction of Nattie's breathing, smell the sweet coconut scent of her shampoo.

“I finished my list,” she murmured, reaching into her pocket. “Wanna see it?” She unfolded the spiral-torn paper and handed it to him.

MY
WANT LIST
was the title and it comprised the usual suspects:
Cell phone. Dog. Earrings. Clothes.
The last line read,
But
if I get a mom, you can forget the rest
.

Jack sighed, and Nattie squirmed in closer.
I'm
working on it,
he thought.

After waiting a record amount of time, Nattie finally spoke. “I'm hungry.”

Life goes
on
.