An Amish Picnic

by Amy Clipston

  “Because you didn’t receive a letter for a week?” Faith was having trouble wrapping her mind around this. It seemed like such a simple misunderstanding. Why would Mary act so rashly if she’d really cared for Peter? “Any number of things could have happened to cause him not to write. Breaking off the relationship seems like an overreaction.”

  “Have you never overreacted? Had your feelings so sorely bruised that you were all emotion?”

  Faith slowly nodded, remembering how she’d felt after her original date with David. She stole a glance at him as he nodded slightly, and she knew—she was positively certain—he was remembering the same thing.

  “It was childish, I admit. But I was certain he no longer cared for me.”

  “I didn’t blame her. It was confusing—to receive the letter confessing her feelings followed so quickly by another saying she’d changed her mind. But I understood that Mary was young, and I was not a very confident young man. Honestly, I didn’t know what she saw in me to start with.”

  “Your goodness, Peter. I saw your goodness.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, until David finished off his cranberry bar and asked the obvious question. “So what happened when you came back, Peter?”

  “I stayed in Ohio for more than a year. That was where I was assigned due to filing as a conscientious objector. Farm work was better than serving overseas. I had no desire to be anywhere near a battlefield. When we were released from our assignment, the family I was staying with—”

  “The Nicholsons.” Faith could imagine the family and their hound dog barking at a rabbit hidden underneath a pot.

  “Ya. They were gut people—Mennonites. We’d become friends of a sort, and I couldn’t see my way to leave them in the middle of harvest season. So I stayed a few extra months. I was in no hurry to come home by that point. My mamm had written that Mary had published her intentions to wed Clyde.”

  “He was a gut man too.” Mary’s chin came up a fraction. “We shared thirty-seven years together. Had seven kinner and now thirty-two grandkinner.”

  “I’m glad, Mary.” Peter folded his arms on the table and studied the little group in front of him. “Whenever I thought of you over the years, I prayed that you had known a happy life—a full one—and it sounds like you have.”

  “What about you, Peter? Why did you never marry?” Faith glimpsed light out the window, relieved to see the sun peeking through the clouds. The storm she’d suffered through, the one that had terrified her only minutes ago, had vanished. Like most spring storms, it was there and gone.

  “Well, by the time I returned home, my parents had their hands full with the farm and my younger bruder . . . He was disabled and could be difficult to handle at times.”

  “Thomas.” Mary pressed her hands to the table. “I’d forgotten about him. He was such a sweet child.”

  “His teenage years were difficult. He’d become frustrated because he couldn’t do certain things. By the time he turned thirty, he had settled down some, but during his teenage years, I couldn’t imagine marrying. Afterward it seemed too late. Not that I’m complaining. My life has been full and hard, but also gut.”

  “What happened to Thomas?” Mary asked.

  “Passed a year ago—cancer. He had a gut life, though. He was a gut bruder.”

  They stayed a few more minutes. Then David admitted he needed to get home, and Mary said the grandkinner would be wondering about her. Faith was exhausted from the events of the afternoon.

  They’d climbed into the buggy when Peter asked them to wait. He went back in the house and returned with a scrap of paper, handed it to Mary and said something too low for Faith to hear. But as David turned the buggy toward Shipshewana, Faith thought she heard Mary humming in the back seat.

  * * *

  David spent much of the evening thinking about all that had transpired. He wanted to give Faith space, but he didn’t want to wait too long. He had no intention of letting her slip through his fingers a second time.

  Mary and Peter’s story held an important lesson—one he had needed to hear. A person’s path in life could turn on the smallest decision. He’d made a mistake when he assumed Faith didn’t care for him after the fiasco of their first date. He’d mistaken embarrassment for lack of feelings.

  Everything had changed when they stepped beneath those kudzu vines, when they found the box hiding in plain sight.

  Had Gotte directed their steps that day?

  Had He been nudging them back onto the path they’d left several years ago?

  The older couple’s situation replayed in David’s mind over the next few weeks. Peter had known that Mary cared, but he’d been so insecure that he’d readily believed she could stop caring. One phone call could have straightened out the entire thing. Instead, they allowed their fears to drive their actions.

  He and Faith were no better.

  They had let a misunderstanding build a wall between them, but now they could peek over the wall and see one another. The letters between Peter and Mary had brought them back together. Gotte had brought them back together, and now David dared to believe that Faith did care for him.

  He hoped she did.

  There was only one way to find out.

  The next day, he left her a message at the phone shack, and the day after that he stopped by the animal clinic to see if she’d like to go to dinner with him Saturday. He didn’t push—didn’t rush their relationship. Instead, he thought of the long game. Over the next two months they grew closer, their friendship strengthened, and his feelings for her blossomed more than he could have possibly imagined.

  By the time the summer days were at their longest, David knew it was time to step out in faith and act on his feelings.

  He arranged to pick up Faith at four on the first Friday afternoon in June. He’d only worked half a day so he’d have time to prepare. He took the old push mower out behind his work area and mowed the grass between the tiny houses and the large elm tree. The shade would be perfect as the sun slanted west.

  Joseph and his wife, Betty, had travelled back to Pennsylvania because her mamm was having surgery. David’s mother had come to help with the children while they were gone. David walked into the kitchen, stared into the refrigerator, and then asked what type of food he should pack.

  “Let me take care of that,” his mamm said.

  “That’s not what I intended. You have enough work with the kinner.”

  “I do.” His mamm stood and walked over to the kitchen counter where Betty kept her small but well-used collection of cookbooks. “But this is important. You’ve never taken a girl on a picnic, have you?”

  “Only with the group.”

  “Group outings are fun, but I suspect you and Faith have moved past that now. In fact, I suspect you’ve fallen in lieb.”

  David sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “Is it that obvious?”

  “To me it is, but then I’ve known you—”

  “My whole life.”

  “For sure and certain.”

  “She’s special, Mamm. I know we had a rocky start, but that was because I was young and foolish. My pride was hurt after she refused to talk to me, after the House of Mirrors.” He’d been fiddling with a piece of junk mail—a postcard of sorts announcing a sale at the Fabric Bin. He looked down and saw that he’d torn it into tiny pieces. “Oh, sorry.”

  “Not a problem, dear.”

  “I look back on our first date, and I can’t believe how naïve I was. And stupid! I never even stopped to wonder why she might react the way she did.”

  “You were both young then, and you’re both older now—more mature.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “I noticed a gray hair or two this morning.”

  “Well, you know what they say about that . . . It’s the beginning of wisdom. Go do whatever you need to, and I’ll take care of your picnic dinner.”

  True to her word, his mamm had a full basket waiting when he returned to the ho
use. The thing weighed a ton. Had she packed enough for a family of six?

  “Why’s this so heavy?”

  “I put in two quart jars of tea—one sweetened, one unsweetened. Plus dishes and lots of food.”

  “Danki.” He kissed her on top of the head, hoisted the basket in one hand and the faded quilt she’d put on top of it in the other. Faith mentioned once how much she liked flowers, so David picked a few sunflowers and stuck them in an old Coke bottle he’d filled with water. He wedged it between the basket and blanket in the back seat of the buggy, hoping it wouldn’t tip over.

  Hoping there wouldn’t be an emergency at the vet that would cause her to cancel.

  Hoping he’d have the courage to tell her how he felt.

  Chapter 9

  Faith wished David had told her where they were going, but he’d only smiled and said he had planned a special outing.

  Then he told her not to dress too fancy.

  Which could mean any number of things.

  Maybe he was taking her fishing or . . . Her mind stalled. She couldn’t think why she was supposed to dress plain. Besides, all of her clothes were plain. She was Amish. She picked an older dress that had begun to fade. For some reason, she liked it even better now—the color had started out as a royal blue but was now faded to robin’s egg. It reminded her that sometimes age could be a good thing.

  Fortunately, her parents had gone to town to run errands, so she didn’t have to endure a hundred questions. Not that her mamm would have asked that many, but the ones she did ask would have been pointed. She’d been dropping even more hints lately.

  Reminding Faith that fall weddings were perfectly acceptable.

  Leaving letters lying around from her Ohio cousins—twins who were only twenty-two and had both married recently.

  She’d even gone so far as to leave the family Bible open to Corinthians 13. As if Faith needed to be reminded what the Bible said about love and marriage.

  Faith respected and admired her parents, but she did not think they understood how it felt to walk in her shoes. How could they? Her parents had married a few months before they turned twenty. At twenty-five, it was no wonder Faith seemed like a spinster to them.

  She pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  Tonight wasn’t about her parents’ expectations. It was about relaxing and having a good time with David, something she now looked forward to at the end of each work week. She often thought about Mary and Peter, about the love they’d denied and then found again. Few people received second chances like that. Faith believed the letters came into their lives to remind them how valuable time is and how opportunities to care for someone, to really connect, should not be squandered.

  She was waiting on the porch when David pulled up in his buggy.

  As David climbed out of the buggy, Pebbles bounded over to them.

  “The beast is growing.”

  “That she is.”

  “Is your mamm still insisting you keep her outside?”

  “She’s softening. I smuggled Pebbles into the mudroom during the storm last week. Mamm knew, but she didn’t say anything.”

  He walked with her to the barn, where she put Pebbles back in her stall. “I’m afraid she’ll follow us if I don’t.”

  Somewhere between the barn and the buggy, David reached for her hand.

  “You look pretty today.”

  “I do?” She realized after she said it that she sounded as if she were fishing for more compliments. Cheeks burning, she added, “I mean, danki.”

  Faith hopped up into the buggy, but instead of closing the door, David leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips.

  Whoa! This was new. They’d shared a few parting kisses over the last month, but they’d never kissed at the beginning of a date. The sparkle in David’s eyes told her tonight was going to be different.

  “Where are we going?” she asked once they were on the road.

  “I thought I’d take you on a picnic dinner.”

  “Ya?” She turned and looked into the back seat. “Looks like your mamm packed us a basket.”

  “Now how you do you know I didn’t pack that basket?”

  “Ummm . . . I don’t. It was a guess.”

  “And a gut one. Mamm did pack the basket, which means the food should be wunderbaar.” David reached across the seat and squeezed her hand. “I did pick the flowers myself.”

  “Did you? They’re beautiful. I’ve never had a picnic with flowers. Mostly we have picnics with my nieces and nephews, which involve a lot of toys.”

  They fell into an easy rhythm—talking of their week, their families, and even Mary and Peter.

  “I heard they told the bishop they plan to marry.” Faith noticed the crops in the fields. Soon it would be time for another fall harvest and then winter again. She wasn’t sure why that thought sent her mood plummeting.

  David’s voice brought her back to the present, to the bright and sunny summer day. “It’s gut, Faith—that they found each other again. That we solved the mystery of the letters. I think in some small way, Gotte used us to bring them back together.”

  And suddenly she wasn’t worried about winter anymore.

  She was determined to enjoy this evening and get out of her head. That’s what her therapist had said at her last visit. “Sometimes it’s good to get out of your own head, stop the thoughts that are circling around, and enjoy the moment.”

  She’d no sooner made that decision, than David directed the horse to turn into the back of his bruder’s property.

  “We’re going to your workshop?”

  “Ya.”

  “Oh.”

  If he noticed her disappointment, he didn’t respond to it. She’d visited his bruder’s house many times, met his mamm, and spent several evenings playing games with his nieces and nephews. But the last time she visited his workshop was when she had the panic attack in his tiny house.

  Fortunately, he drove toward the far side of the property and stopped the mare near the shade of a giant elm tree. The grass was freshly mowed, and she helped him spread the quilt over the ground.

  “This is nice,” she admitted, once they were sitting with the basket open, food spread around them, and the yellow sunflowers propped up next to the basket. David’s mamm had packed freshly sliced ham, homemade bread, potato salad, fruit, and peanut butter cookies.

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  “And the food is gut.”

  “Mamm knows how to pack a picnic. I don’t know about your parents, but mine are dropping hints left and right.”

  “Yours too?”

  “Mamm would have made ten picnic baskets if she thought it would help move our courting along.”

  Faith wanted to be morbidly embarrassed, but she wasn’t.

  It was too funny when she stopped to think about it.

  David laughed, and then she started laughing, and in that moment she understood what the counselor meant about getting out of her head. Sometimes voicing the thoughts she was struggling with stopped the power they held over her.

  She told David about her mamm and the talk of fall weddings, the letters from her cousins filled with wedding details, and the family Bible left conspicuously open to Corinthians. By the time she was finished, they were lying on their backs staring up at a clear blue sky and holding hands.

  David sat up. “I want to show you something.”

  “Ya?”

  “But you have to stand up.” He pulled her to her feet.

  When Faith realized they were walking toward the tiny houses he built, her heart sank. She must have pulled back, because David turned and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “It’s going to be okay. If you start feeling an attack, just squeeze my hand and we’ll go back to the blanket. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He stepped closer, kissed her lips softly, then turned back toward the small houses.

  She was proud of his work, but what if she had another panic att
ack? She didn’t want to ruin their evening together.

  Faith felt torn in that moment between the woman she was and the woman she wanted to be. She could accept her condition, and she knew David could too. What was holding her back? Fear that the evening would turn into a disaster? Or fear that she was stepping into a new phase of her life? As they walked toward the tiny houses, she felt like they were walking toward their future.

  “I’m working on three different houses right now, but this one at the end is the one I wanted to show you.”

  “It wasn’t here before.”

  “Nope. It’s a new model. I modified the design myself. I think you’re going to like it.”

  They stood outside the small building for a moment. There was something different about this one, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. David pulled her toward the steps.

  “Let me just get the door first.”

  He opened the screen and slid the front door into a pocket in the wall.

  “That’s different.”

  “The inset makes it easier to leave the door open and lets in more light. I want this to be a surprise, though.”

  “A surprise?”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Close them?”

  “Just for a minute.”

  He reached for her hand, his eyes on hers, and Faith understood in that moment that she could either choose to be scared or choose to trust him.

  She was tired of being scared.

  * * *

  David knew Faith was struggling, and he understood when she put her hand in his and stepped up into the tiny house that she was offering him a very precious thing—her trust.

  “Just a few more steps. Wait. Okay. This is it. You can open your eyes.”

  She stood in the middle of the room, blinking and turning in a circle, taking in all the work he’d done.