The Englisch Daughter

by Cindy Woodsmall

  Someone knocked on the door. “It’s just me,” Roy whispered. “Simeon woke up and was looking for you. May I come in?”

  “Ya.” Jemima jerked the clean diaper off her shoulder and swiped it across her face and nose, but she didn’t really care how she looked.

  Roy brought Simeon in. The baby reached for her, and she held both infants on her lap. Simeon patted her face. “Mamm.” He grinned.

  “Simeon, look!” Roy pointed at the basket of toys in front of Carolyn.

  Their son reached toward the toys, and Roy put him in front of the basket. The services were so long for little ones. She had no doubt that Simeon had been far more anxious to get down than to see his Mamm.

  Roy sat on the bed. “Are you doing okay?”

  Since Carolyn didn’t understand much English, they could talk freely in front of her. “The day you were missing I went into Tiffany’s place. It didn’t take long to make sense of all the things that hadn’t made sense for months. She had a newborn you hadn’t mentioned. Your phone was on her property, you had a few belongings in her house, you’d emptied my account, and you and Tiffany were missing. Those were the facts. My trust was broken. But despite everything else, somewhere deep inside me I knew you’d come home to me—come hell or high water…or come Tiffany and the baby. I knew that if you had breath, you’d come home.”

  Roy studied her, seemingly at a loss for words.

  “It’s why I spotted you so quickly once you were on the horizon, stumbling toward home.”

  “I love you with all my heart.” He scooted forward on the bed and placed his hand on her hand. “We can start again, Jem. I know we can.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” She moved her hand over his and squeezed it before pulling free. “I just don’t know if what’s left of us is enough. I can’t see my way past my anger with you. Pray for me, Roy.” Tears fell. “Please.”

  Twenty-Five

  Chris stood in a makeshift locker room with four walls of hay. He could hear the crowd cheering for the undercard fight that was happening just thirty feet from him. The guy he would fight was bigger and possibly a much better boxer. Chris paced back and forth on the straw-covered floor. His trainer, Mike, had told him that there were boxing scouts here today and that if Chris won the fight, he could begin a boxing career. Is that what Chris wanted?

  Thoughts of Abigail and the horse farm distracted him. How were they doing? At least Aaron was there now, had been there five days. He knew that much because he’d called Roy to ask.

  Mike threw him a jump rope. “Just to get your blood pumping.”

  Chris nodded. He was too much in his head to respond. He began with single jumps. Was he here because of his brother Dan? Or did he enjoy this and was he looking for an excuse to fight?

  “Switch,” Mike said.

  Chris began to do double jumps.

  His mind wandered to the overly energetic Abigail Graber. What was she doing today? Whatever it was, it was bound to be very Amish. She could outmatch anyone with her energy and ability to move from one volunteer task to another even when working full time.

  “Time.” Mike clapped his hands together. “One round of shadowboxing.”

  Did he like this—the anxiety before a fight, the feeling of getting hit and keeping on the move, the thrill of hitting his opponent and seeing the look of surprise in his eyes? Was that what drew him? He knew the answer. The adrenaline rush was addictive. After the embarrassing breakup with his fiancée many years ago, his willingness to go outside the Amish world came with some fun and powerful emotions. But he also had put himself in a place where he wasn’t welcome in his home, and he’d ruined all chances of a lasting relationship with Abi.

  “Time.” Mike slapped Chris on the back. “You’re ready.”

  Chris couldn’t let his thoughts rattle anymore. His head wasn’t in a good place. He was wavering before a fight. No half-decent fighter did that, so why was he? He liked winning. That he knew for sure.

  The crowd grew louder, and he knew the undercard fight was over.

  Mike stepped toward Chris, standing chest to chest, and pinned Chris with a stare. “Never in my life have I met a boxer more naturally gifted than you. But you have a decision to make, a simple one. Do you want to give this fight your all? If so, you have to set every thought aside that isn’t about winning. There are no two ways about it.”

  One of the walls of hay came crashing down. A burly bearded man ushered Chris forward. The crowd cheered. In that moment, he saw his opponent for the first time: pale skin, perfectly muscled body, and a thick beard. He was smiling and had a massive hand raised over his head. Chris stepped forward. The crowd stood in a circle around the area where Chris and his opponent were to fight.

  The referee brought them both forward. “All right, gentlemen, I want a clean fight. No kicks, knees, or biting. You break when I tell you to. Touch hands if you want to.”

  Chris put his wrapped fists out.

  His opponent slapped them away. “That’s the last time you’ll ever touch me.”

  They went to opposite sides of the circle.

  Ding, ding, ding.

  His opponent ran forward, throwing a wild hook. Chris ducked and stepped back, trying to keep his distance. His opponent was the aggressor, coming fast and hard. He caught Chris with a jab, and a jolt of reality about how powerful this man was ran through him. Two right hands to Chris’s body, followed by another straight jab to the face, had Chris covering up. His opponent fought with such tenacity that Chris didn’t know how to match it. He covered up and moved around, keeping his head dodging about, while he waited for the round to end.

  The bell rang, and Chris went back to his corner. “That’s not what we talked about.” Mike squirted water in his mouth. “Focus, Chris. Protect your ribs. He’s heavy on his left foot. Move around him. Get him off balance and move in.”

  Chris looked at his opponent.

  “Chris, a house divided falls. You’re here to win, not debate with yourself whether you should be here at all.”

  The bell rang again. Chris stood and moved forward, eating a few punches on the way in. He clinched and then jabbed, catching his opponent on the nose. The crowd grew louder. He could hear the sound of his own heartbeat.

  His opponent had a wild look in his gray-blue eyes. He came forward, swinging at Chris’s body. Chris threw a straight jab and felt the soft skin flinch under his fist.

  “Hook!” Mike shouted.

  Chris obeyed, throwing an immediate hook after the jab. His opponent stumbled back for a moment, only to rush forward swinging wild haymakers. Chris backed up, but he was greeted by a hard right hand.

  Chris fell to the floor. The ref was standing over him, counting. Chris’s vision blurred. He saw something through the spots popping in front of his eyes. Abigail was facing him, motioning for him to get up. Chris stood up, searching for her.

  The ref grabbed his hands and pulled tight on them. Chris snapped back into reality, knowing that he was in the fight.

  “You good?” the ref asked.

  Chris nodded. He put his guard up and marched forward. The ref told them to fight. A right hand and a left hand hit Chris’s chin. Now was the test. He could give up. There was no shame. He’d landed a few good blows against a much bigger opponent. He shook his head. No, that’s not what he came here to do.

  Chris remembered what Mike had said about seeing if his opponent could fight while backing up. Chris jabbed twice, and one landed flat on his opponent. He threw a hook to the body, followed by another one. His opponent swung wildly, missing and misjudging the distance. Chris attacked him with an onslaught of punches. It was clear that his opponent didn’t know what to do. Every time the guy tried to establish distance, Chris rushed forward, digging in body shots. His rival dropped all orthodox technique and tried to clinch. Chris pushed him away and
swung as hard as he could, connecting with his opponent’s chin. His opponent collapsed to the floor, spitting out his mouth guard. The ref cut the count short when Chris’s opponent went limp.

  Chris raised his hand to the wild, cheering crowd.

  Mike ran up and gave him a pat on the back. “You did it, and if you want a career in fighting, this win will open every door you need.”

  But the victory felt wrong. It felt like an assault on his inner man. Fighting wasn’t immoral, but apparently it was completely out of sorts with his inmost self. How could he stand here on the threshold of everything he wanted and be completely baffled by the simple question, Who am I?

  Abi was right. He wasn’t Amish. He’d walked away from that. He wasn’t Englisch either. He’d stepped into the lifestyle, but it hadn’t stepped into him. Standing here now, he realized that his choices that got him to this place felt out of place, like wearing a winter coat in summer.

  Part of him was a fighter, but he was just now beginning to realize that it tore him up inside more than it filled in the missing pieces.

  Mike put a hand on Chris’s shoulder. “You ready to move up in the boxing world?”

  Chris pulled away from searching his heart, but he knew he was far from looking for answers. “I’m sorry. I’m done with fighting, and I need to go home.”

  Mike smiled, his resignation clear. “Good for you, Amish Mayweather. Good for you.”

  Despite Mike’s words, Chris knew he was disappointed. “I’m sorry, Mike.”

  “We each get one life, Chris. What’s inside here”—he jabbed Chris’s chest—“has to match what you’re doing with your life. You’ve been mismatched for too long. Figure it out and get busy living who you are.”

  He’d done a lot of damage with his parents and community, but he had to go home and try to set things right. Had his very public and difficult breakup all those years ago splintered him like this? Or had the fascination and adrenaline rush of being good at something that was so foreign to his upbringing seduced him?

  He didn’t know. But unsplintered time at home, living Amish in every sense of that faith, would answer his questions.

  Twenty-Six

  The bank seemed unusually quiet as Roy sat across the wide mahogany desk from the loan officer as he explained why Roy didn’t qualify for a loan. Roy tapped the folded newspaper in his hand against his leg. He’d found what seemed to be an ideal food truck. The desire to take Jemima and Abigail to see it was strong, but first he needed to know that he could come up with the money for it.

  “Mr. Graber, we’re a small-town bank, and we have to consider the big picture.” Brad Jones looked at his computer screen. “Right now your accounts are depleted, whereas a year ago you had two savings accounts with us, one for your business and one with your wife and sister. Those totaled seventy thousand dollars. You’ve borrowed money to buy more horses than usual.”

  “I was injured”—he held up his arm with the cast—“and that slowed things down, but I’m doing better, and I have good help.” Aaron had arrived eighteen days ago. He was young and green, but he was a hard worker and learned fast, just as Chris had said. “I’ve begun training the new string, and half will be ready to sell in a couple of months.” This rejection gave him a sickening feeling of having been kicked by a horse, and it sent a wave of despair over Roy.

  “Yeah, I understand, but…” Mr. Jones shuffled through the papers inside a folder on his desk.

  When had Roy stopped feeling like himself? He used to feel confident and hopeful. Now he often just felt stupid. Life after the driver ran into the back of his horse and carriage had been unfamiliar. But the emotional upheaval aside, his only way of being able to work the farm had been to consume pain pills. Worse, he kept having to increase the dosage regularly in order to get the same relief he once had. Looking back, he realized the pills had begun stealing pieces of him but he’d been too busy striving forward to really notice.

  Another bank employee brought something to Brad. “Excuse me. I hate to interrupt, but could you look at this information concerning the Lee account?”

  Brad reached for the papers in the man’s hand, and Roy sank into his thoughts. Jemima had no idea what she meant to him. Women seemed funny that way, or at least Amish women did. His wife’s value was just as the Word said: “She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.”

  But that’s not how Jemima or most Amish women saw themselves. Even before any of this began, Jemima had quietly voiced unrest with herself. Condemnation and loathing were common feelings. Why?

  Was it because life made her feel helpless, like he felt sitting at this banker’s desk? Or maybe she was mired in unrealized dreams, unable to bring creative business ideas to fruition because no one backed her the way she backed him.

  The other bank employee took the papers back from Brad. “Thank you. Very helpful.”

  Brad returned his attention to Roy. “I understand that things haven’t gone as you’d hoped this past year. Business ventures go south for myriad reasons, and often those reasons aren’t the fault of the owner. But we…I feel that it isn’t in the bank’s best interest to loan money, especially not for this new business venture.”

  “What needs to happen for me to be able to sell ten to fifteen acres of land?”

  “Since it’s not legal to sell a mortgaged piece of property without paying it off first, you’d need to refinance your mortgage. You’d need to have a new survey done, and the closing cost would cut into any profits you’d make selling that land. Added to that, if the buyer intended to use the land to build a house, the property would have to be rezoned, and water and electricity lines would have to be run out, lessening the value of the land. And when it sold, you’d owe capital gains tax.”

  “That’s a lot.” Making it worse, Roy knew that the problem with selling land went deeper than what Brad had just explained. Roy had horses on the Kurtz farm and now on his grandfather’s land. He needed more land, not less. He rose. “Thank you.”

  He walked out of the bank and toward his horse-drawn carriage. Maybe the answer was to sell some of the horses earlier than he’d planned. He’d begun training the new string a couple of weeks ago, and he’d been working with the older string for several months. If he sold the best trained in the older group, he would improve his cash flow, giving him money for a food truck. But none of the horses was trained enough to resell. Horses without proper retraining were problematic for the new owners, putting his and the farm’s reputation on the line and causing buyers to look elsewhere for their horses.

  He sighed, weary of every idea hitting a brick wall. Defeat ate at him as he climbed into the rig. He stared at the newspaper. Dear God, how can I make this work? He tapped the paper against his forehead, longing for an answer.

  An idea hit for a second time, only this time he knew it was the right thing to do despite the lasting effects it would have for the horse farm. He pulled out his cell phone.

  * * *

  Spring’s cool air rustled Abigail’s dress and the strings of her prayer Kapp as she went out the side door of her Uncle Mervin’s recovery house, carrying a laundry basket of wet clothes. With the EHV-1 scare behind them and Chris’s cousin Aaron working at the farm, Abigail’s schedule was finally returning to normal.

  For the Amish, Monday is laundry day. But here at the recovery house, Abigail’s washdays were Friday afternoon or Saturday morning because that’s when she had time. Other women volunteered time throughout each week too, and they could choose their laundry day when it was their week to do the wash. The men did a lot of the work themselves, including laundry, cooking, and cleaning.

  She let the tub thud to the ground and grabbed a wet pillowcase, feeling grateful for the warmer weather. As she snapped each wet item in the ai
r before putting it on the clothesline, tiny droplets of water flew, causing a flash of something akin to a scattered rainbow. Since she hadn’t gotten the laundry on the line before school, she hoped the steady wind would dry everything before nightfall.

  Her uncle and his friends, as he called them, were in a circle of chairs in the side yard, coffee and cigarettes in hand. A few had an open Bible propped on their legs or lap. The men ranged in age from midtwenties to over sixty, but no one in this group of sixteen was currently from Mirth. Six states were represented among these Amish men.

  Because of her years of helping out at Endless Grace, she knew that smoking and drinking loads of coffee were part of the addicts’ lives, but she didn’t really understand why. The addicts said it took the edge off, making their desire for drugs slightly less monstrous, and alcohol was considered a type of drug. But smoking, although also addictive, was acceptable while dealing with drug addictions because it helped people win the battle and didn’t immediately ruin lives, relationships, and jobs.

  Her uncle was an addict, but he hadn’t had a drop of alcohol in thirty-five years.

  Her phone vibrated. She stepped behind the line of wet laundry and pulled her cell from her pocket. Uncle Mervin didn’t allow the residents to have personal phones, so she used hers discreetly. It was a text from Roy.

  Hey, LS. Have an idea. Where are you?

  LS stood for little sister, but she bristled at his using a term of endearment. Her loyalties were with Jemima. Still, she replied, Uncle Mervin’s. Doing laundry.

  K. See you in a few.

  What did he want now? She returned to hanging laundry. She couldn’t hear what the men said, but she knew this was a rough time of life for each of them, a battle some would not win. Even if they did win for a period of time—weeks, years, or decades—addiction was a relapsing disease. Some would stay clean for life, while others would be clean for years and then need to get clean again. She hurt for them, but she hurt worse for their spouses and children.