The Search (31 page)

“Not in so many words,” Lainey said, handing them towels. “The Amish don’t use terms of endearment the way we—you—do. They show how they feel about someone by example.” Like the time Jonah cut a cord of wood for her and stacked it neatly into a pile by her front door. She thought of him preparing the vegetable garden for her, then helping her to plant. Or accompanying her on medical appointments for Simon. Even changing her friends’ tire today, without being given a word of thanks. Were those things not evidence of love? She knew her thoughts showed on her face, and her cheeks grew warm. “Jonah Riehl will make someone a fine husband,” she added. She wasn’t sure why she felt as if she needed to defend him.

“Oh, will he really?” Robin asked in mock amazement. “I’ll grant you this . . . if he shaved off that beard and took a shower and got a haircut and wore a T-shirt and blue jeans, he could be a looker. But what about that cane? And his limp? How old is this guy, anyway?”

“Not old at all,” Lainey said in a crisp tone. She thought Jonah was quite marvelous just the way he was: wise and kind and wonderful.

Robin stood and pointed a finger at Lainey. “And you? You always told us you weren’t the marrying kind. Not Lainey O’Toole!”

Robin’s words rankled Lainey. It was true, she had said many times marriage wasn’t for her. Hadn’t she thought this whole thing through a hundred thousand times before? But that was before she met Jonah and grew to care for him. It was a frightening thing—to realize that you wanted to love and be loved more than you could have ever imagined.

“Do you actually think he’s going to marry you?” Ally asked. “Wouldn’t he be driven off for marrying someone out of his commune?”

Lainey stiffened. “No one ever said anything about getting married.” That was the truth. Jonah had never hinted at marriage in any way, shape, or form. He seemed to carefully avoid any discussion of their future. She didn’t know if he was planning to return to Ohio or stay here in Stoney Ridge. All she knew for sure was that Sallie Stutzman had married his business partner, Mose, and he didn’t seem bothered by the news. Lainey often wondered if Jonah even thought about marrying her at all; she thought about it all the time. “And the Amish do not live in communes. Nor is it a cult.”

“But what about culinary school?” Ally asked. “You scrimped and saved for years! It was your dream!”

Lainey shrugged. “I’ve learned more about cooking in the last few months here than I ever could in a formal school. Here, food means more than nourishing a body. Sharing a meal nourishes a community. It’s like women are feeding a big family.”

“That’s another thing Simon told us about,” Ally said. “Amish women are oppressed. They’re always serving the men and the men are controlling and mean-spirited. The women can’t speak their mind and they have to do whatever their husband tells them to and they have no self-esteem and they have at least a dozen babies—”

“And you . . . Miss Independent!” Robin interrupted. “How many times have you given us a lecture about respecting ourselves and not falling in love with every guy that looks our way? About how we should have goals and plans? And how a man would only derail our dreams?”

Ally nodded in silent agreement.

Robin lifted her hands in the air. “But along comes a guy in a beard and a buggy—who walks with a cane and has a teenaged daughter, no less—and Lainey falls for him, hook, line, and sinker.” She looked back at Ally as if to say “what is the world coming to?” then turned to face Lainey. “Well, honey, if you’re not derailed, I don’t know what is.”

Lainey sat down on the bed. “Listen, you two. I’m
going
to become Amish. Not
because
of Jonah. This has nothing to do with Jonah.”

Robin and Ally exchanged a doubtful glance.

“I’m becoming Amish because that’s what I think God wants me to do.” Once she said it aloud, she realized that was exactly what it was. She truly believed God was leading her in this direction.

Robin put her hands on her temples, as if she had a headache. “I’d like to think your bonnet is on too tight, but you always did go a little overboard with the God stuff. I never imagined you’d go this far.”

Stung, Lainey felt no need to reply. Without a word, she rose to leave and went downstairs to start dinner. Still upset, she decided to go sit on the porch steps for a few minutes of solitude and watch the sunset. Why did it seem that when a person really started listening to God, others assumed that person had gone off the deep end? Maybe because God does lead us into unusual places. She looked up at the streaks of red that blazed out from the dying sun. What was it Jonah said? Red sky at night is a farmer’s delight. Red sky at morning, a farmer takes warning.

The wind unfurled strands of her loosely pinned hair and pressed her dress to her legs. She smoothed out the apron over the blue dress Bess had made for her. Maybe she shouldn’t be so hard on Robin and Ally for their concern. If someone had told her six months ago that she’d be dressing in simple garb and living a Plain life, falling in love with a Plain man, making a life in Stoney Ridge, she would have laughed out loud.

But she was here and so very glad to be . . . where life was simple, where people cared for each others’ needs, where faith in God and life blended together as one. This was where she belonged.

She noticed the first star appear on the horizon. Looking up at the bruised blue of the evening sky for a few minutes—at the vast and empty sky—always cut human problems down to size. A short laugh burst out of her as she rose to her feet.
Maybe it is a little crazy.
But it was a crazy that suited her.

All through dinner and into the evening, Robin and Ally tried to convince Lainey to return to Harrisburg with them, but she wouldn’t budge. She tried to explain her feelings, but they couldn’t see her point of view.

“Can’t you just be happy for me?” Lainey asked them at last. “I’m still me. I might be wearing a Plain dress and living without modern conveniences—”

“I’ll say,” Robin interrupted with a sneer.

“—but I’m really, truly happy.” Lainey could tell that they still didn’t believe her, and it hurt her. The three of them had been friends since high school; Robin and Ally were the closest thing to a family that she’d ever had. The way they looked at her—especially Robin, but Ally always followed Robin’s lead—was almost as if she had to choose one or the other, the Amish life or her old friends. Why did it have to be that way?

She would have thought it to be the other way around, that Jonah might frown on her English friends. She knew there were some Amish who avoided the English as much as possible, as if they might be corroded by worldly rust. Jonah didn’t seem to share that belief. As he left her cottage yesterday afternoon, he had quietly suggested to her that she might bring them to Rose Hill Farm tomorrow afternoon. He said he wanted them to meet Bess.

On Sunday morning, Lainey tiptoed into their room at seven to ask if they would join her for church. She thought that maybe, if they could see the gathering for themselves, if they could see the kindness and the sincerity of the people, then they would understand why she felt so drawn to this community. If they could only see what a wonderful father Jonah was to Bess, then maybe they could see why she cared for him. And if they could meet Bess, they would understand why Lainey wanted to be close to her. She wanted Robin and Ally to come to her church because it was becoming so much a part of her, the backbone of her life.

Robin opened one eye and said emphatically, “No. Way.”

Bess couldn’t wait to meet Lainey’s English friends. Her father had told her what he knew about them, but it wasn’t much. Lainey had mentioned their names to Bess once or twice, but then she would change the subject, as if she just wasn’t sure how to combine her past with her present. Bess was curious about them. She knew they were important to Lainey, and she was eager to know everything she could about her. Lainey fascinated Bess.

After a light lunch that followed church, Bess, Jonah, and Lainey returned to the cottage. As Jonah hitched the horse’s reins to the fence post, they heard Simon singing. It sounded slurry and strange and off-key. And loud. Very, very loud. Jonah motioned for the two to stay put while he went inside. He opened the door carefully, then pushed it wide.

He looked back at Lainey with a look of sheer disgust. “Er is gsoffe.”
He is drunk.
Jonah’s patience for Simon hung by a thread.

Lainey and Bess went to the door. A near empty bottle of an amber-colored liquid was on the floor and Simon was sprawled on the couch, singing at the top of his lungs. The smell of alcohol oozed from him, sour as old sweat. His eyes shone too brightly.

Lainey stomped over to him and picked up the bottle. “Where did you get this?”

Simon’s chest heaved as he drew in a ragged breath. “Don’t even think about sharing,” he said, slurring his sibilants.

“Your English friends is my guess,” Jonah said. He took the bottle from Lainey and poured it out on the grass.

“Did Robin and Ally give that to you?” Lainey asked.

“They . . . might have . . . left it behind,” Simon said. “They went into town to get a new tire, then came back and waited for you, but you took too long. They had to get to Philly by nightfall for a rock concert. Said to say goodbye.” He waved his hand carelessly in the air.

Silence covered the room. Bess saw the disappointed look on Lainey’s face. Jonah saw it too. How could her friends leave like that?

But then Lainey stiffened her spine. “Did you ask them to buy you that booze?” she asked.

“All of you, quit looking down your noses at me!” Simon snapped. “People been looking down their pointy little judgmental noses at me for as long as I can remember. Nobody believes in me! Nobody has ever been in my corner!”

Eventually his voice grew slower, his hand movements less exaggerated. His arms fell to his sides, and soon his head began to hang as if it were a great weight. Then he stopped altogether. His face was white, but he was not going to ask for mercy, or understanding, or a second chance.

Bess felt a surge of pity for him. She took in his thin, greasy hair and his long, white narrow face. There was some sincerity in the way he spoke. If this was his version of his life, then this was his life.

“Very well, then,” Lainey said. Something in her tone made them all look at her. “You should leave now, Simon. If that’s how you feel, if that’s what you think—after all Bertha went through to bring Jonah and Bess here, and after all Bess went through to donate her bone marrow, and after all I’ve been doing just to get your sorry hide healthy—if that’s how you feel, you should leave this afternoon.”

It was more decisive even than Bess would have been. She looked at Lainey in admiration. So did Jonah. There was no hate, no revenge in her tone. Just a simple statement of the position. It startled Simon just as much.

Something clicked then. Simon knew she meant it. He looked at them, one by one, as if he had never seen any of them before. Defeated, he retreated.

Simon turned a corner after Robin and Ally’s visit. He grew noticeably stronger and healthier. He stayed in the spare bedroom now and cheered when the truck drove away with the rented hospital bed. He still napped quite a bit, but his face gained color and he was filling out some.