“I’m fine.” She sniffled and pulled her hand out of his grip. He wished she hadn’t. Because he didn’t have anything else to offer her, and that felt achingly wrong.
“Sharon isn’t as bad as she seems, you know,” Elijah said after a few beats of silence.
“No Amish woman would do that,” she replied, ice in her tone.
“Maybe not. They’d be pushed out of the community first. We only keep the ones who can play the part.”
Sadie shot him a sharp look. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” He shook his head. “She struggles with depression, and it can get really bad. Having a few women come and pitch in for housework now and again wouldn’t be enough. Doctors have given her medication for it, but that isn’t a cure. The more pressure on her, the worse it gets, and sometimes she just has to get away.”
Sadie was silent.
“We don’t talk about mental illness in Morinville. We talk about faith, and God, and prayer. And when people can’t handle the pressure, we call them sinful and shun them. Sharon isn’t a bad person. She’s just . . . struggling.”
“She doesn’t seem to love my brother much,” Sadie said.
“Well . . . I guess they’re struggling, too. They weren’t always like that. She used to be the one who understood him best out of the Englishers. She could just let him be different.”
“Do you feel like we’re abandoning him?” Sadie asked.
Elijah sucked in a deep breath. “Yah.”
“Me, too.”
“But I can only do one thing at a time, and right now, I’m honor bound to get you home.”
She smiled wanly. “You had any doubt?”
“Only a small one,” he said. “More of fear.”
Or perhaps a hope? Absolom had Sharon, and Elijah had gone all these years with a few casual girlfriends who’d never really understood him. And cherished in his heart was the memory of the one girl he’d adored—the one who’d always been out of reach for the long term.
“I don’t know why you feel drawn to that life . . .” She sighed, and he wondered exactly what she was picturing from their visit.
“That life?” Elijah laughed softly. “That isn’t the life I want. I want a better life than that. I want a house—a nice one, with a two-car garage and a decent yard.” The image rose up in his mind—the green of the grass, the flower beds vibrant with color. “There would be a job of some sort, where I would be respected and well paid. And I want a beautiful wife to live in that house with me, and four or five kinner of my own.”
“So you endure all that for a hope of something more?” Sadie’s eyes glittered in the low light.
“It’s possible,” he said. “With enough work. I’ve met a few ex-Amish men who’ve built careers in the Englisher world and have very comfortable lives. We can hold out a long time in the hope of something better.”
The headlights from oncoming traffic zipped by, and Elijah leaned his head back against the headrest.
“I held out, too,” she murmured.
“What?”
“I held out for something better . . . with Mervin. They say if you wait, it gets better. There are bumps in the beginning that can be smoothed over . . .” Her voice trailed away.
“What bumps?” he asked quietly.
“He didn’t love me.” Her voice was choked, and Elijah reached for her hand again. This time she didn’t pull away. He twined his fingers through hers. Elijah might dislike the very idea of Mervin Hochstetler, but the thought of a man getting to pull this woman into his arms at night—to have her in his bed, in his home, and to still not love her—that wasn’t in the realm of possibility.
“He might have been bad at loving you, but—”
“No, it’s true. He loved his first wife, and he thought he could love me, but after a year together, he still didn’t. A woman knows—she can feel it. I wasn’t enough.”
“You’re enough,” he said gruffly.
“I cooked. I cleaned. I folded everything the way he told me to.” Silence stretched for a moment. “I was holding out for some improvement, too. And my mother-in-law says that it gets easier as the years go by. But I’m not sure it would have with Mervin.”
“Was he angry? Mean?” Elijah needed something to latch onto here, something he could nail down.
“No. He was perfectly kind and sensible. He never even raised his voice.”
And yet he’d made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t loved. To think that she’d faced day after day like that.... The Englishers were right when they said that a woman’s place wasn’t in the kitchen, after all. Her place was in her husband’s arms, and Mervin had denied her that right.
“I think my brother is in the same position,” Sadie said after a moment.
“He’s nothing like Mervin,” Elijah countered.
“No, he’s more like me,” she said. “Sharon doesn’t love him.”
“She used to.”
“Then she’s stopped.”
Was it possible for love to just stop like that? The sky was dark, the moon hanging full and silvery over the fields that rolled out on either side of the highway. The miles melted beneath them as the car hummed along the road.
Sadie had been holding out for something more—something she’d never get from that man. And maybe Elijah wasn’t so different. He’d held out with the Englishers, waiting for something he’d never achieve, even with his new high school diploma. And perhaps Absolom was doing the same with Sharon. Were any of them so very different?
Sadie turned toward the window, her shoulders hunched up. He couldn’t see her face, but the depth of her sadness filled the vehicle like rising water.
“Sadie,” he murmured.
“I want to sleep, Elijah,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
She wasn’t fooling him. It was obvious that she wasn’t going to sleep, and he could make out the soft, choked sound of repressed tears.
She’d lost her husband, and all hope of being loved. She’d lost her favorite brother and everything he’d been to her. . . . And now she was knowingly turning her back on her newborn niece. Sadie had always had a ferocious heart, but even the most valiant of warriors had a limit to what they could endure.
Elijah signaled, then slowed the car, easing to the side of the road. Sadie wiped her face and looked over at him in alarm.
“It’s okay,” he said, and he put on the hazard lights.
“Where, what—”
But Elijah was out of the car before she could finish, and he slammed his door shut. A car whipped past, the sound of the engine raising goose bumps. Then he headed around the car to the passenger side and pulled open the door.
“Elijah?” Sadie squinted up at him, her eyes puffy from her hidden crying.
“Come here.” He held out his hand, and she tentatively took it. Then he tugged her out of the car. As she stood up straight, he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her close.
“Elijah—” she gasped, but he didn’t let go. She needed this, whether she knew it or not, and there was no way he could drive on with this woman sobbing silently next to him. He had nothing to offer—no words would fix the pain inside of her—but he did have a big, strong body that could shoulder the weight of her.
“Shh . . .” he murmured against her hair, and he shut his eyes, breathing in the scent of her—soft soap and just a hint of vanilla.
She pulled back enough to look toward the road. “People will see—” she whispered.
“What people? We’re alone out here, Sadie. No one will see anything. Your reputation is safe.” She slowly sank against him, her resistance leaking away until she started to shake with silent sobs once more. Her hot tears soaked into his shirt. He tightened his embrace, pulling her against his chest as if by holding her close enough, he could absorb some of her pain along with the tears.
“You were always enough, Sadie,” he murmured against her kapp. “Always.”
If he could have prote
cted her from all of this, he would have. If he could have brought Absolom home, if he could have stopped her from marrying the respectable church elder . . .
Sometimes life just hurt.
Moonlight bathed the field in liquid silver, and beside them, another vehicle zipped past, the engine fading away as quickly as it had approached. He wanted to give her so much more than he could. He was jealous of the next husband who would get to do this—hold her close, dry her tears. Even though he knew he wasn’t the man for her.
She was the bishop’s daughter, and she was meant for another elder, a respectable man in the church. Elijah was dangerous—a walking risk, now that he’d abandoned the community for as long as he had. Whatever they’d shared was in the past, and he knew better than to hope for more, but holding her in his arms like this, he couldn’t help but think of the kisses they’d shared since he’d been back. All logic aside, he wanted more with her, too.
Sadie pulled back and wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek with the palm of her hand. He let his arms drop, and those few inches between them felt like yards. There were so many excellent reasons why they could never be more than friends, but he ached for her as if she were a part of him.
Except his feelings for her were that part of himself that he’d had to carve from his own body. She’d never be his.
“If I’d stayed in Morinville,” he said. “Would you have still married him?”
He didn’t know why he was punishing himself this way. Sadie looked up, ocean-blue eyes meeting his for only a fraction of a second before she dropped her gaze again.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’d still have married him. I knew what I wanted.”
Not Elijah. That was the implication, wasn’t it? She’d known what she wanted, and he’d never measured up—not in that way. He’d been a friend of the family, and she wanted a man with something more to offer her than a strong chest and arms that ached to hold her. And why shouldn’t she? Mervin might have been a bad choice, but that didn’t change what she wanted.
“Yah,” he said, forcing some joviality into his voice that he didn’t really feel. “That’s what I thought. Just makes me feel better knowing I couldn’t have set you straight, anyway.”
A lie to save face. She looked up at him again, and her quizzical look made him wonder if she saw through it. Her tears had stopped, though, and she licked her lips, then gave him a wobbly smile.
“As much as I’d love to blame you for absolutely everything, I don’t think I can,” she said. “I made my own choices.”
Sadie slid back into her seat. Elijah slammed the door shut, and stood there in the cool night breeze as another car sped past them on the highway. He knew why Absolom wouldn’t leave Sharon. Sometimes, a man just couldn’t let go of the possibility of something better. But it wasn’t the house or the cars, or the respect. It was that hope that the naïve happiness of the past would resurface.
It never did, though. Time tramped on, and there was only forward. Elijah, of all people, should know that.
Chapter Fourteen
I’m no boy, Sadie. Isn’t that what he’d said? And Sadie realized with a rush that he was right about that. He was most definitely a man—of the most dangerous kind. He was alluring, and he woke her up in ways that only a husband should do. Her body responded to him; her heartbeat seemed to slow as she rested against his broad chest. He’d smelled slightly musky—warm and spicy, and she’d longed to simply raise her lips and let him kiss her . . . to just let herself slip into another mistake would be ever so easy . . .
But she knew better than to let her body rule her choices, because Elijah had one foot in Chicago already. There was no future between them, so why was she allowing herself to rest in his arms like that? She’d only end up heartbroken in the end.
If there was one thing that had been pounded home in her visit with her brother, it was that the children were the most vulnerable, and the influences around them made a traumatic difference. It would be the same for little Sarah, too, which was equally heartbreaking. But Sammie could still be spared. Her son could grow up safe and secure in an Amish community that would hold him safely to the narrow path. So why couldn’t she dampen whatever it was she was feeling for this man?
The last few miles went by too quickly, but when Elijah pulled into her family’s drive with the headlights flicked off to draw less attention, her heart gave a grateful squeeze. This adventure was over—she was back where she belonged.
Elijah turned off the engine, and Sadie reached for the door handle.
“Thank you,” she said, turning back. “For . . . all of it.”
For bringing her to her brother, for sitting by her side, and for holding her close beside the highway while she cried it all out.
“Yah,” he said gruffly. “It was nothing.”
“I talked a lot—too much, probably.” Now that she was back on home soil, she was regretting opening up as she had. She felt exposed, vulnerable. She’d lost a piece of her armor by talking as heedlessly as she had.
“No, you didn’t,” he said quietly.
“Still—” Her heart sped up, and she licked her lips nervously. “I hadn’t told anybody those things—about Mervin. I’d meant to keep the secret.”
“You can trust me,” he said. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
Were they? Nothing else was safe with him. She looked toward the house as a lamp’s light flickered behind a curtain and the side door opened. Her parents had stayed up for her, as she knew they would. They were anxious to hear the news about Absolom.
“I have to go,” she said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” Those dark eyes met hers, and there was something in his gaze that tugged at her in a way she didn’t want to feel. He’d trampled boundaries between them today that went beyond a kiss, and had sunk right into her heart. She couldn’t let that happen again.
Sadie got out of the car without another word and shut the door as quietly as she could behind her. Then she headed for the house, only glancing back when she heard the engine start again.
“Sadie!” Daet stood at the door. “It’s later than we thought you’d be.”
“I know, Daet.” She looked back again, and Elijah’s car was reversing into the darkness, headlights still out. She stepped inside. “We stayed until sunset, almost. It was hard to say good-bye.”
Mamm and Daet were both still dressed, and there was a pot of tea on the stove, whistling comfortingly.
“Come inside and sit down,” Mamm said, and she looked sadly toward the door as Sadie shut it behind her.
Sadie came inside and looked up toward the staircase. Her own son would be asleep in his little bed, and she longed to wake him up and snuggle him. She wouldn’t, of course.
“Sammie didn’t like going to bed without you, but he finally fell asleep. He’ll be a handful tomorrow, though,” Mamm said, turning toward the kettle.
“Is he in his bed, or mine?” she asked.
Her mother’s face colored. “Yours. I did my best, but he wouldn’t have it.”
Sadie smiled. Her son had been without her for a day, and Mamm was right—Sammie would make her pay for it tomorrow by not letting her out of his sight. But what could Chase do when his mother returned? Nothing. He was already fighting the world with everything in his little arsenal.
Sadie accepted a mug of tea from her mother, and Daet sat down at his usual place at the head of the table. Her parents watched her in agonized silence.
“I saw him,” Sadie said. “And he’s . . . he’s not doing well.”
There was no use in sugarcoating the truth.
“Is he sick?” Mamm asked, leaning forward.
“No, no, he’s healthy,” Sadie replied. “And he has a job, which is important, of course. But he isn’t happy.”
“That’s excellent news.” Daet smiled. “As well, he shouldn’t be. He’s been raised on the narrow path, and he’s finding
out just how miserable the devil’s way makes a man.”
The devil’s way. Yesterday, she wouldn’t even have noticed the phrasing. Today, though, it irked, just a little.
“His girlfriend, Sharon, is struggling with depression,” Sadie went on. “She has another child from a previous relationship—Chase. He’s a handful, that boy. He’s allowed to do pretty much anything he wants. He’s the one who suffers the most, I think.”
“And the baby?” her mother pressed.
“Sarah is healthy, too. The mother left while we were there, so we held her a lot. Absolom is a very doting father.”
“So he’s close to coming back.” A smile toyed at Mamm’s lips. “Isn’t he?”
“No.” Sadie could feel her parents’ disappointment as the hopeful smiles slipped from their faces. “Sharon is having a hard time caring for those children, and Absolom was right about her not fitting in here in Morinville. She seems to have no love for us.”
“Us?” Daet frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Whatever Absolom has told her, I imagine. She stomped off, left the children with Absolom, and hadn’t returned yet by the time we left. But for all of that, Absolom loves her. And they are . . . a family.”
“A family?” Daet shook his head. “They are not a family!”
“He has children who depend on him for food as well as love,” Sadie replied quietly. “He has a woman he keeps house with. And he’s standing by them, Daet. He said that he has responsibilities, and he hopes you’d understand that.”
Daet’s eyes filled with tears, and he turned away. He’d been hoping, Sadie knew, that this would be the end of it all, that Absolom would come back.
“Does he miss us?” Mamm asked, a tremor in her voice.
“Desperately.” Sadie swallowed a mist of tears. “He says to tell you that he loves you, Mamm.”
“If he loved me, he wouldn’t have done this!” Mamm pushed her chair back and rose to her feet. “Love is an action, not a feeling! Not a regret! If he loved his mother, he would come back!”
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