Jenny's Choice (Apple Creek Dreams #3) (3 page)

She took a deep breath.

There, I’m done. That wasn’t so bad. Cousin Borntraeger can carry all this out for me and take it to the storage place. Mama said to just bring our clothes for now.

She heard boots on the front porch, and her heart leapt. Then just as quickly, reality dashed her hopes. Another deep sigh. How many times had she heard Jonathan coming up the front stoop and walking across the porch to the door? It was always such a comforting sound at the end of the day. But now…

There was a knock and then a voice calling. “Jenny? Are you ready, then?”

“I’m here, Cousin, in the bedroom. Can you help me with these boxes?”

Lem Borntraeger walked down the hall and into the room. He glanced around at the emptiness and pulled his black hat from his head.

“Jenny, are you sure this is what you want? We all want you to stay. I know it won’t be the same without Jonathan, but you have family here.”

Jenny looked at her tall cousin. He had been one of the blessings God bestowed on Jenny and Jonathan when they had come to Paradise ten years before. He had taken her into his heart from the first day they met, and after she and Jonathan married, he became their good friend and helper. She reached over and patted his arm.

“I have to go home, Lem. I need to be with my mama and papa. You will run the farm, and it will prosper in your care. For me, there are too many memories. Sometimes my remembrances of Jonathan and our days here feel like cobwebs that stick to me and hold me fast. They keep me from going on with my life. And I need to go on now or I’ll die inside.”

“Will you ever come back?” Lem asked.

“Right now I would say no,” Jenny answered. “But who knows the
road ahead? We may come back someday when I can be in this house without weeping every time I turn around.” Jenny managed a weak smile. “I need to go, Lem.”

“All right then,” Lem said. “I understand.”

He stood for a moment with his hat in his hands. “Jonathan was a good man, and he was my friend. I will miss him deeply.” Then Lem put his hat back on and smiled. “It’s enough. Now let me load these boxes.”

Jenny watched him as he picked up two boxes and went out. She took one last look at the room and then turned to go.

“Jenny…”

She stopped and turned, thinking she had heard Jonathan’s voice. But it was only the echoes of unspoken longings that filled her aching heart. She went one last time to the bed and touched it softly.

“Jonathan, oh, Jonathan. You are my true love. There will never be anyone like you for me. Thank you, my dearest, for loving me so deeply. Thank you for being a good man, a wonderful husband, and a loving father to Rachel. May
Gott
be with you on your journey.”

Jenny stood silent for a moment and then picked up her suitcase, turned, and left the room. She went into Rachel’s room, gathered up the few remaining things that were still unpacked, and laid them in her daughter’s suitcase. Then she took Rachel’s hand, and together they walked down the hall, through the empty front room, and out onto the porch. A buggy waited for them in the driveway. She boosted Rachel up as Lem put the suitcases in the back, and then she climbed in. She nodded to the driver, who clicked his tongue and set the horse in motion.

The buggy rolled slowly down the driveway. Jenny looked straight ahead. She would not look back. But then just as the horse turned onto the main road, her resolve crumbled, and she turned. The blue two-story house stood in the middle of the harvested fields. As she looked
she could see Jonathan behind the plow, waving to her as the rich soil turned and broke beneath the sharp blade. She could see his smile and his blue eyes. She could feel his strong arms around her as they stood together on the porch, looking out over the land—their land—in awe of the blessings of God. She put her face into her hands and silently began to weep. The clopping hooves beat out a slow and mournful cadence—“He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone.”

C
HAPTER
T
WO

The Journey

S
IX MONTHS EARLIER

I
T WAS EARLY SPRING IN
Paradise, Pennsylvania. The plum trees were clothed with the first blossoms of the year, and the pink blaze of color added the promise of new life to the otherwise still-dreary landscape. The fields lay fallow around the blue farmhouse, awaiting the cut of the plow and the planting of the seed. The snow had melted only a week before, and patches were still here and there where the shadows kept the sun at bay. The grass in the front yard still wore winter’s brown, and the flower beds around the house had not yet felt the touch of Jenny’s loving ministrations.

Jonathan stepped out onto the porch, his breath frosting as he walked. The sun peeked up over the eastern hills, and the few songbirds that had bravely returned to Paradise lifted a hopeful melody, urging on the warmth of spring. Jenny followed Jonathan out the door, her best woebegone expression still masking her lovely face.

“Why must you go, husband? Is it really so important to you? We haven’t been apart in all the ten years we’ve been together.”

Jonathan turned and smiled at Jenny. “God is giving me this
opportunity to be a strong witness to my parents. It’s a miracle that they even asked me to come. And with Dad so ill, this may be my last chance. If I’m to see him, now is the time. Besides, if I wait, I’ll have to delay my planting. I’ll only be gone a week. I’ll be home before you know it.”

Jenny added petulance to her woeful countenance, and Jonathan laughed. “One more expression on your beautiful face and you’ll twist it beyond all recognition.”

Jenny laughed and gave up trying to win him by that means. Instead she moved closer until Jonathan put his arm around her.

“If it was summer, I’d take you and Rachel with me, but I don’t want to take her out of school. If we wait till summer…well, Dad may not be alive by then. So if I’m to see him I must go now.”

“Oh, I know, Jonathan,” Jenny said softly. “But ever since the letter came, I’ve had a strange feeling. What if something happens to you? What would we do without you?”

Jonathan pulled her even closer. “Nothing will happen. I’m going to take a train ride to Long Island, visit my parents for a week, and then come home. I’ll be here in time for the planting, and hopefully my dad will see how my faith has changed me for the better. If he dies without Jesus, he will…well, he’ll be separated from God forever, and yet it’s God’s will that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. I have the truth, and I believe it’s in God’s timing that I should share it with Dad.”

“But he’s been so judgmental since you converted,” Jenny said.

“Yes, in the beginning he thought I was just on another ‘hippie trip,’ but as the years have passed and after he met you and Rachel and watched my life change, I believe he’s softened. In one of his recent letters he said that my religious affiliation seemed to have changed me for the better. He actually said he was proud of me. That was a first.
I’m hoping that with his illness, Dad has begun to think about his own mortality.”

Jenny knew she wouldn’t change his mind, so she let it drop. But she still couldn’t get over the uneasiness she felt. All she knew was that the day the letter came, a warning bell rang inside her. Still, she trusted Jonathan to do the right thing, so she did her best to hear what he was saying and accept that the Lord had arranged this visit home.

Jonathan finished packing the last of his clothes in the suitcase. He closed the lid and looked around the room. Jenny’s words had given him a sense of uneasiness he couldn’t quite shake off. But he had prayed about this decision when he got the letter from his dad, and his course seemed set. He sighed and shut the suitcase as Jenny came into the room.

“Did you pack some long underwear and extra socks?” Jenny asked. “It’s still cold and wet out on Long Island.”

Jonathan heard the note of uncertainty in her voice, and he did his best to present an assured front.

“Yes, dear,” he said, “I have everything I need. My plain clothes are going to look a bit strange to my folks, but they’ll have to put up with it. I know my mom will try to take me shopping for something she thinks is more suitable to Long Island, but it’s not going to happen.”

“She won’t make you shave your beard, will she?” Jenny asked.

“No, but if she tries, that won’t happen either,” Jonathan answered with a laugh. “Where my parents live, there are a lot of sailors with beards, so I should be able to blend in without too much trouble. Hopefully we’ll be spending most of our time at home. Mom says Dad has good days and bad days, so I don’t expect he goes out much.”

Jonathan took Jenny by the hand and led her out to the front room. He set his suitcase down by the door and looked around the room. As
he did, he remembered the early days when they had first come to Paradise to live with Grandfather Borntraeger.

He thought back to those wonderful days when he had convinced Jenny they should take over running the farm, much to
Grossdaadi
’s relief. Together they pitched in and spruced up the old place with a fresh coat of paint and some new furniture, and soon Jenny had put her own stamp on the house.

Jonathan looked around the room that held so many memories. He thought of all those nights he had studied the Bible late into the night as Grandfather had helped him to discover the wonder of God’s Word. When
Grossdaadi
passed five years ago, he left everything to Jenny and Jonathan, and gradually the place had become the Hershberger farm. Jonathan’s favorite times had been spent in front of the huge fireplace, sitting with Jenny before a roaring blaze and reading the Bible or just being together after Rachel was in bed. There were so many things about the farm and their life there that had impacted him deeply. He recalled the day he had taken Lem Borntraeger on as a partner, and from that day, the two of them, with help from the community, had made the farm prosper.

As he stood in the room with Jenny, a strange feeling came over him, as if he were seeing this place for the last time. Without thinking, he pulled Jenny close to him and held her tightly.

“What is it, Jonathan?” she asked.

He couldn’t voice his fear without alarming her, so he pulled her close and held her.

“I love you so, dear Jenny. You’ve been proof to me that there is a God and that He loves me very much, for He gave you to me for a wife. I will always love you.”

Jenny’s arms slipped up around Jonathan’s neck, and she held him as though she would never let him go.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

The Homecoming

J
ONATHAN WATCHED THE COUNTRYSIDE ROLL BY
. He had left Paradise on Monday morning, endured the long bus ride from Lancaster to Penn Station in New York, transferred by subway to the Hunters Point station, and from there boarded the Montauk train. Now the coach rumbled up the south shore of Long Island, headed east.

When he stepped on the train, he felt out of place among the hundreds of commuters in their suits and ties, so he tried to read his Bible and blend into the background. The train was crowded, and several young kids were running up and down the aisle while their parents slept, so he gave up and watched the fields and towns roll by. After a while he remembered that New Yorkers kept pretty much to themselves, so he put aside the fact that he was dressed in Amish clothing and began to take in the surroundings outside. It was planting season, and trucks, tractors, and other pieces of farm equipment were out preparing the land. When the train passed Hempstead, something caught his eye that made him sit up and look. Out in a large field were a group of Amish men on a horse-drawn planter. They had cultivated a large part of the field and were planting something. Jonathan looked closer.