Mending Hearts

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  His memory of his fist smashing into a man’s face was extraordinarily vivid, colored in blood red. It had taken several years before he’d come to believe that the members of his church could or would forgive him. That God would forgive him for the fight that had sent him to jail. He still stumbled over forgiving himself, even for that.

  “I do know,” he said, “and I pray that when I kneel and ask for forgiveness, it will be given to me. As I believe God already has.”

  Amos smiled. “If your repentance is genuine, you will be forgiven.”

  David swallowed. “Denke for saying that. Drinking alcohol might have been the most foolish thing I did. It let my anger and self-hate fly free.” It had eroded the hard-won control he’d gained over his impulses. “I never drank alcohol again. It’s been almost four years now.”

  “Gut, gut.” Amos stopped walking and faced David. “I think when we talk next, I’ll ask Ephraim and Josiah to join us.”

  The other two men were ministers, chosen by the congregation. Already, David had heard that Josiah could be harsher than Amos, his gaze too often critical rather than kind. And yet, no one doubted that his faith was sincere, and it was not only Amos’s forgiveness that David must ask. Once again, his throat tightened, but he nodded.

  One more thing he was not ready for, yet must do.

  Returning alone to his buggy, he asked silently, Have you forgiven me, Levi? He thought it likely. Levi had never denied him forgiveness for mistakes large or small. But David knew how much Miriam had loved the come-calling friend she was prepared to marry. If she knew everything, would she be able to forgive him?

  David didn’t have the courage to find out.

  He must be friendly to her, as he would be to any of the women who were part of his church family, but no more than that. His darkest fear must remain his secret.

  * * *

  * * *

  Saturday was the great cleaning day to prepare the house David had inherited to be ready for him to move into.

  Miriam had left for last the downstairs windows she could wash while standing on the porch, thinking they would be the easiest. She had just risen on tiptoe to spray the vinegar and water mixture on the upper panes of the kitchen window, when the front door opened.

  “You’re too short to reach.” The voice was male and amused.

  Spray bottle in hand, she sank back to her heels and turned. David, of course. He kept appearing, anxious to help anyone who’d allow him, since this was his house they were cleaning. She’d seen her own mother flapping a dish towel as she chased him out of the kitchen, though. Mamm and David’s mother had organized this work frolic, assigned tasks, and made plain he wasn’t to get in the way.

  “That’s what the step stool is for,” Miriam pointed out. “And I’m tall enough to do everything important.”

  The expression on his hard face changed. “Ja,” he said finally. “I suppose you are.”

  What was he thinking? She wished he weren’t so much a stranger for all that they’d grown up in the same church district. “I didn’t volunteer to wash the outside of the upstairs windows,” she confessed. “I don’t like heights.”

  His eyebrows rose. “You call that high? There are window washers in big cities who work fifty floors up.”

  Miriam shuddered. “Why would anyone be willing to do that?”

  “Some people enjoy heights. Imagine the view from up there.”

  “Everyone down below would be like ants.” It almost gave her vertigo just to picture it. “Watching you and Levi scramble up trees was almost more than I could bear. I’m happy to look up from where I am on the ground.”

  He chuckled. “Low to the ground.”

  She aimed the bottle at him and squeezed the trigger. Laughing, he jumped back.

  “God does not judge us by how tall we are,” he said piously.

  “Isn’t that lucky for those who are so tall, they’re arrogant enough to think they can grab eagles out of the sky?”

  A grin flashed that stopped her heart. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like. Grim, he had a compelling face. Smiling, he shook her down to the soles of her feet. Back before, when she often saw him with Levi, David had to have smiled and laughed. How had she never been startled into awareness of him as a man, however uninterested that awareness was?

  Miriam truly didn’t understand. She must have worn blinders, like buggy horses did.

  She suddenly realized that his grin had vanished, as if it had never been. What had her expression told him? Still shaken, she took a step back. “I should get back to work.”

  “Ja, me, too.”

  But before turning away, she said, “Wait. Have you seen Esther?”

  His shoulders literally bowed, as if under a weight. “Thursday.” He hesitated. “Mamm warned me that she can be . . . rigid. I expected . . . ach, I don’t know.”

  “That she would be glad to see you?”

  He grimaced. “That, or that she would be angry because I lived when Levi died, or because I ran away afterward.”

  “We’re supposed to accept that life and death are in God’s hands.”

  His attention somehow sharpened, making her realize she’d spoken too slowly, even reluctantly. What she should have said was we must accept God’s will. Had she never completely accepted Levi’s death?

  Ashamed, she knew it was so.

  “Such a thing is easier to accept when your grossdaadi dies in his sleep than when a young person who should have his whole life ahead of him is tragically killed,” David said.

  “I asked why,” she admitted, barely above a whisper, “but God has never answered.”

  He searched her face with eyes she realized suddenly were a clear, penetrating gray. How had she forgotten that?

  “You haven’t put your loss behind you.”

  She felt her mouth twist into what she’d meant to be a smile. “I’ve been thinking lately that maybe I have, but I took too long.”

  “You haven’t married.”

  “No, although that’s not all because of Levi.” She could not forget her own faults. “You haven’t married, either.”

  “No. I suppose I always knew I’d come home.”

  “But now?” The minute the words were out of her mouth, heat crept up her neck to her cheeks. What had possessed her to ask such a question, none of her business? Would he think—?

  His expression closed. “I’m starting all over. You know how busy I’ll be.”

  “Ja. And I’m supposed to be helping, not being some kind of blabbermaul. Look! I’ve made a mess of the windowsill.”

  The vinegar and water mixture had run down the glass and pooled on the painted wood. Shaking her head at herself, she sopped it up with a rag.

  What would he say? When silence followed, she turned her head to find herself alone. Not so much as a squeaking floorboard had given away his hasty departure.

  A clutch of pain reminded her that Levi had been right about her boldness with men. How was it that she hadn’t learned her lesson?

  Dripping rag clutched in her hand, she tried to pray but for once couldn’t form the words. How could she, when she’d just expressed pain, or even bitterness, because God hadn’t answered her question to her satisfaction? Until this moment, she would have told anyone that she had unshakable faith in God, but if she truly did, she would trust in His love and accept the unexplainable as His will.

  Ashamed of herself in so many ways—had David thought she was flirting with him?—Miriam wished this part of Missouri had those limestone caverns she’d read about that extended miles underground in much of the state. She would walk into the cold darkness and hide until she felt able to face the world again.

  “Miriam?”

  Oh, no—that was her older sister Rose’s voice. Rose was peering at her through the window in puzzlement, no doubt wondering wh
y she stood here like a doppick, staring into space while the soaked rag dripped down her apron and dress.

  Since there was no good answer to that, Miriam forced a smile, dragged the step stool closer, used one hand to crumple an old sheet of The Budget, the Amish newspaper, and climbed up to get back to work.

  Chapter Four

  “Did you plan to sneak away without us knowing?” David’s mother exclaimed, her hands planted on her hips. The moment they finished breakfast, she’d leaped up to clear the table, chatting about all she had to do. She hadn’t taken his protest well. “Of course we must make it a special day!”

  “But, Mamm . . .” Making the move to Onkel Hiram’s house yesterday hadn’t been possible. He’d attended worship with his parents, sitting close to the ministers as he was required to do, and not stayed for the fellowship meal. He’d assumed his mother would guess he intended to go today.

  His father grinned at him from behind her back. “You’ve provided another excuse for a get-together. The women had such fun Saturday, they want to have more fun.”

  Judith whirled to reprove her husband, but he only laughed and held up his hands. “Isn’t that the truth?”

  After an obvious fight with herself, she pressed her lips together. “Is it wrong to rejoice when we can spend time with people we love?” Turning back to her son, she appeared woebegone. “Do you really want to leave your home again without us making anything of it?”

  What could he say after that?

  “Of course not.” He hugged her, lifting her off her feet for a minute. “I love you, Mamm.”

  “You know how much we love you,” she whispered.

  He’d always known that he was loved even when he seemed a misfit in his family.

  She added, “It’s sorry I am that—”

  David shook his head. “Jake is protecting his family, that’s all. I understand.”

  Stubbornly, his mother said, “He isn’t taking Bishop Amos’s word that you’re repentant.”

  “You know the bishop thinks I need time before I kneel before the congregation,” he said reasonably. “He says I don’t need to be under the full meidung, not that I have been accepted fully into the church. Jake has spoken kindly to me. That’s enough.”

  In six years, his younger brother had gone from being a gangly youth not so far past his rumspringa, still overcoming a stutter and acne that made him painfully self-conscious, to a bearded man who worked hard, had married, and had kinder to guide and love. Did he resent his big brother for causing their parents such grief, then leaving him to fill the vacancy? Knowing David had run off to become an auslander would have made it even worse.

  David was discovering how many thoughts he still had that were contrary to the beliefs that were his bedrock. Since coming home barely over a week ago, he had begun to wonder how solid his faith really had been as a young man. The tedious work of farming wasn’t all he’d contended with. He’d been so restless, felt trapped inside his own skin sometimes.

  Making a success of the business he and Levi partnered in had been too important to him, but that was because he had found something he both enjoyed doing and was good at. He’d been curious about the outside world in a way few Amish were, too. Not wanting to experience it himself, no, or so he would have told anyone, but bringing home books he took care to hide from his parents. Perhaps his decision to leave the Amish had been predestined, once he lost both his best friend and the work he enjoyed. And, ja, knowing his love for a woman who would never return his feelings was hopeless . . .

  He shook his head and mentally crossed out the word predestined. That truly was contrary to his faith. Every choice he’d made was on him, as Englischers he knew put it. Most of all, the careless—or deliberate—act that had led to Levi’s death.

  Everything he felt on homecoming was more complex than his parents could understand.

  So, for their sake, he said now, “I look forward to meeting Jake’s kinder, but there’s plenty of time for that.” He paused. “After all, none of them are old enough to be put to work scraping peeling paint or swinging a hammer.”

  His mother scolded him while he and his daad laughed.

  Daad went out with him to help him harness the excitable, ill-trained young horse that had been running free in the pasture all week. Of course, David had had no chance to hold any training sessions. That left him to believe he would have better control of the near three-year-old in harness and between the shafts rather than trailing the buggy, secured only by a lead rope. It was Dexter, instead, who would follow behind. When Mamm and Daad came midday with mountains of food, they’d also deliver Onkel Hiram’s placid brown mare, Nellie.

  After turning onto the two-lane rural road from his parents’ place, David discovered that traffic was unexpectedly heavy. He took consolation in knowing he wouldn’t be going more than two miles, but the road lacked shoulders, while ditches to each side prevented him from moving out of the way of passing vehicles. Normally, he scarcely noticed. Dexter or any other well-trained buggy horse would continue trotting while giving no more than cursory notice—perhaps a flick of an ear—at anything from a car to a full-throated motorcycle swinging around them. It was true that even today, most vehicles slowed and passed safely, the drivers locals who saw horse-drawn buggies all the time.

  The danger and the irritant were the tourists, who tended to race up too close behind him and then gape as they swerved around the buggy. Normally, he made a habit of lowering his head and hiding his face beneath the brim of his hat. Today, all his attention had to be on maintaining control of this narrisch horse—ja, crazy was the right word—that tried to break into a canter and pull the buggy in a zigzag down the middle of the road, occasionally bucking and shying at every passing car.

  Poor Dexter was yanked along behind.

  David had worked up a good sweat by the time he turned up his own lane, leaving behind one of those big SUVs with windows rolled down so children could stare and passengers could use their cell phones to take his picture. Grateful when that last vehicle whooshed away to seek other plain people, he made the mistake of relaxing the reins.

  Maybe only because of high spirits or because he really was off in his head, the horse bucked again, his rear, steel-shod hooves glancing off the front of the fiberglass buggy. Exasperated, David might have used a few fluche words his mamm wouldn’t like and even threatened to send for the schinnerhannes—the man who hauled away dead animals—as he employed all his skill to encourage the brainless youngster to resume his trot.

  No, David decided, the blame was his. He’d let himself feel complacent. The young gelding hadn’t protested the harness or collar, but otherwise David would need to start him at a fundamental level, beginning with poles and no cart. Perhaps he could find someone to assist him by providing noises and distraction as they worked in a field or yet-to-be-built arena.

  Thanking God that man and both horses had arrived uninjured, David pulled the young one up right in front of the barn, spoke gently to him while unharnessing him, and led him into a stall. He tossed hay in the manger before going back out to where Dexter waited patiently.

  Trusting him not to attempt to break out, David turned the older horse loose in the overgrown pasture. Then he squatted to examine the scrapes and dents flying hooves had put into the fiberglass front panel of his buggy, shook his head, and pulled the buggy into the barn.

  At the crunch of buggy wheels on the hard-packed dirt and gravel of the driveway, he emerged from the depths of the barn. He hadn’t expected anyone this early. The harness horse was a handsome, high-stepping black gelding he didn’t recognize but admired. He waited until it came to a stop.

  If not for seeing him at the barn raising and from a distance at the church service, he wouldn’t have recognized the driver, either. Luke Bowman was several years older than he was. They’d been at school together for a short time but separated by so
many grades, they’d had little interaction.

  Blue-eyed, wearing a short beard, Luke was a big man, even taller than David, who still towered over most Amishmen. He climbed out of his buggy with a friendly smile.

  “Daad thought you could use some help rebuilding your chicken coop. I volunteered.”

  “Isn’t the furniture store open today?”

  “No, we close on Sunday and Monday every week.” He hesitated. “I think Daad intends to come over later, but I wanted a chance to talk to you alone. You may have been told that I was away from the faith for thirteen years. I went to college, worked with computers, became more of an auslander than I was Amish, so I thought. Coming home was right for me, but not always easy. Still not always easy,” he admitted. “It seemed to me you might need someone to talk to who would understand.”

  Moved, David said, “You were right. Denke. I was just realizing how much my mind works in ways I must change. I want to put all my faith in God, but I waver.”

  Luke nodded, not appearing surprised or disapproving. “I have that problem, too. Out there, I wanted to fit in, talk like everyone else. I became ambitious, turning my back on many of the dictates of our faith. I had sex with Englisch women—”

  “Did you confess that to Bishop Amos?” David asked with interest.

  Luke grinned. “Not something I like to remember.”

  David’s mind boggled at that. But honesty deserved equal honesty from him. “I don’t know what people are saying, but I started going to bars with fellows I worked with. I didn’t even like the taste of beer at the beginning.” What a foolish boy he’d been, so easily led because he was wild to find something to counter the factory work that made him as crazy as the young horse, as eager to act out. “I got drunk one time. A fight broke out. A man slugged me, so I slugged him back. I hurt him bad enough, the police arrested me, and I was convicted of assault. I served nine months in the county jail.”

  Luke’s eyebrows had climbed. “As confessions go, I think that might be worse.”