MEN OF LANCASTER COUNTY 01: The Amish Groom

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “It’s a 1969 Pontiac GTO.” Dad was smiling from ear to ear. He looked up at me, awaiting my response to his newest acquisition. He always did this whenever he got a new muscle car, but as automobiles weren’t a regular part of my world, I usually had to feign my excitement.

  “Wow. That’s a nice-looking car.”

  “I’ve been wanting one of these for years. This one’s in great shape. The best I’ve seen without taking me to the cleaners, if you know what I mean.”

  I was pretty sure I did.

  I didn’t know what to say beyond another comment that it was a nice car. Whatever I was looking for out here, I knew it had nothing to do with a vehicle.

  “I’m glad you finally found it then,” I said.

  He ran his hand across the car’s smooth side. “It needs a little fixing up, and a good detailing on the inside. But not much else.” He paused for a moment. “Sometimes I wish…”

  I waited, not sure where he had been headed with that.

  “Maybe when I get back from Qatar, I can take you out in it,” he finally said.

  “Sure.”

  An awkward silence followed that wordlessly reminded us both that the life I had lived up to this point had not included cars.

  He abruptly turned from the vehicle. “Well, let me show you the rest of the house.”

  As we moved back across the garage, Dad gestured to the silver, smallish sport utility vehicle that was parked closest to the laundry room door.

  “That’s Liz’s. It’s a Honda CRV. You can use it while you’re here. Or mine.” He turned to me. “Been a long time since you’ve driven?” He said it with a small measure of what I could only describe as trepidation.

  “Ya.”

  He patted my shoulder. “It’s like riding a bike, Ty. It’ll come back to you the minute you get behind the wheel. Just take it slow. And stay in Newport Beach and surface roads if you can. Brady can get a ride to school with the neighbor kid while I’m gone and another kid’s parents will bring him home after football practice every day, so you won’t have to worry about that unless you want to.”

  “All right. Whatever Brady wants. He and I will figure it out.”

  Retracing our steps, we went back through the kitchen, the little dog following us, excited to be on the move again. Dad pointed to a closed door on the farthest family room wall as we walked past.

  “That’s my den. There’s another door to the patio in there, and my desktop computer if…if you care to use a computer. Brady can show you, uh, how to find your way around on it.”

  “I use a computer at the library, Dad. We order parts from our suppliers off the Internet.”

  He seemed pleased. “Oh! Good to know. I guess I haven’t been to your grandfather’s shop in a while.”

  “Twelve years. Brady was two the last time you came.”

  “Really? Has it been that long since I was there?”

  “Last couple times you came to Philly, we stayed in the city. I came out on the train, remember?”

  He nodded. “Right, right. Anyway, Brady can show you the password for the computer. He has his own laptop.”

  We headed back to the entryway, where I grabbed my duffel and backpack, and then we ascended the staircase.

  Three bedrooms were located on the second floor: a master bedroom, Brady’s room, and a guest room where I would sleep, each with its own bathroom. My room was decorated in an African theme. Oversized photos-on-canvas of giraffes, elephants, and zebras hung on the toasty brown walls. The photos of the animals intrigued me.

  “Liz went on a medical mission trip to Kenya last year,” Dad said, noticing my interest. “She took these pictures on one of her days off there.”

  “They’re very…compelling.”

  My dad was quiet for a moment, and I could sense him studying me. “Are you into photography?” he finally asked. “Because your mother was, you know.”

  She was? I blinked, some memory stirring, an image of her with a camera in her hand. I could see her quite clearly, standing on the shoulder of the road, feet planted on each side of her bike, her camera aimed toward the beautiful countryside ahead of us. She and I frequently went bike riding when I was little, and now that I thought about it, I remembered her bringing that camera along many times. Funny that it hadn’t occurred to me for years.

  “I was away a lot, so it gave her something to do,” he continued. “She was good too.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I found a box of her old photos during this last move. I think they’re in our storage unit. When I get back from the Middle East, I’ll see if I can find them for you.”

  “I’d really like that.” I sensed a stirring inside me, the first since I left Lancaster County hours before. The pace of life in Orange County hadn’t drawn me, nor had my father’s muscle cars, but as I stood there looking at these beautiful photos of Africa and thought about my mother and her camera and her picture-taking, I knew here was something that evoked a hunger in me similar to what I had been feeling in recent days at the pond. I didn’t own a camera, of course, but at that moment I suddenly and surprisingly wished I did. Even more strongly, I wanted to see the photos that my mother had saved.

  Dad stepped past me and opened one of the double closet doors. “There’s plenty of room to hang up your clothes. And here are the things Liz got for you. If they’re too small, just leave the tags on. The next time she and I talk, I’ll find out where she put the receipts, and you can exchange these things for ones that fit.”

  I peered inside. Tags still hung from the shirts, which included collared, colorful plaid shirts with buttons and beach-themed T-shirts.

  “They’re great. Thanks.”

  We went back downstairs and headed out back so that Frisco could relieve himself. Like the house, the yard was clean, free of clutter and expertly landscaped. The filter on the pool hummed, and the sapphire-blue water sparkled in the sun.

  “The pool guy comes on Thursdays and the gardener on Mondays. They don’t need keys or anything; they’ll just show up. And the sprinklers are on a timer, so unless we have a heat wave, you won’t have to water anything.”

  Maids. Pool guy. Gardener. Automatic sprinklers. I had never noticed before how little my dad did to make his house a home.

  “You don’t have to have all those people coming to take care of the house,” I said. “I’m happy to do it.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble. I’ve already paid for the month,” he said, as if I merely wanted to relieve him of the expense. “In fact, it would be more bother to cancel everything now and reinstate it later than it would just to leave it alone.”

  I nodded, suddenly seeing the hours of my days here stretch out endlessly, with nothing useful to do other than keep an eye on Brady. I would definitely need to find something constructive to occupy my free time.

  “The gas grill is right over there by the hot tub,” my father continued. “You can grill just about anything on it. Other than that, Liz has a bunch of casseroles in the freezer for you and other stuff she bought at Costco, and you can always eat out a couple nights a week.”

  “I’m sure we’ll manage just fine.” I knew it would be easy enough to throw some food together for dinner every night.

  I was going to have a lot of empty time if the only thing I needed to do when Brady was at school was walk a ten-pound dog. At the same moment I realized this, something else occurred to me. God already knew how my days here were going to unfold. Was this His intention, for me to have the time I would need to explore my interests so that I could find out in which world I belonged? Somehow it felt like it, and I silently thanked Him.

  Dad looked at his watch. “About time to go get Brady. You want to drive? Might as well get back on that bike.”

  He opened the door to the laundry room, grabbed a key ring off a decorative hook, stepped into the garage, and then pressed a button on the wall. One of the garage doors began to rise. He tossed the keys to the Honda to me.

&nb
sp; I told myself as I got behind the wheel and oriented myself to the Honda’s pedals and gears that the vehicle was nothing more than a buggy with a well-trained, invisible, very powerful horse. I backed out slowly, feeling especially nervous as I eased alongside my dad’s car, which was still parked there in the driveway.

  The fifteen-minute ride to the high school was unremarkable. Dad sat beside me giving me directions and pointers. I didn’t break any laws or run into another car or cut anyone off, though one guy did honk at me for driving too slow. Dad just laughed and told me to take as much time as I needed.

  When we arrived at the school, we got out of the car and stood by it while the football team members dispersed onto the parking lot by the gym. Brady was soon walking toward us with another teammate. Both had freshly showered hair and gym bags slung over their shoulders. The friend said goodbye when he arrived at his own car. Brady hiked up his gym bag and continued on toward us, one of the few, I realized, who had no car of his own.

  I don’t know what I was expecting exactly by way of welcome. I hadn’t seen Brady in two years, and though I figured he wouldn’t come running to me with arms outstretched, especially not in front of the other guys, I did think he would at least pick up the pace, maybe drop his bag when he reached the car to give me an enthusiastic hug or two-handed shake. Yet, if anything, his paced slowed when he saw me. As he closed the distance between us, I could see that he had grown more than I had imagined. He was nearly as tall as I was, and he looked much older than fourteen.

  “Hey, Tyler,” he said casually, when he was a few feet away, as though he had just seen me the day before. He made no move to embrace me, which was fine, but he didn’t stretch out his hand to me either. So I stretched out mine.

  “Hey, Brady.” When he took it for a shake, I pulled him close to give him the same kind of half hug our father had given me.

  But he stiffened at my touch and pulled away quickly. When his eyes met mine, I saw traces of disappointment. Or maybe annoyance. Anger, even?

  “How’s it going?” I asked, pretending I hadn’t noticed.

  “Great.” He answered quickly and politely, but with no enthusiasm.

  We got into the car and exchanged a few more pleasantries, and the tone of my brother’s voice and demeanor didn’t change. As we drove out of the parking lot I was sure of two things.

  First, Dad had greatly exaggerated Brady’s enthusiasm that I be the one who stayed with him while he and Liz were out of the country.

  Second, something had changed between Brady and me since the last time we had talked.

  He was definitely not pleased to see me. And I had no idea why.

  ELEVEN

  Dad took us out to dinner at one of his favorite seafood restaurants. It was a noisy place, full of people enjoying buckets of crab legs, beer, and a basketball game on big screens scattered throughout the restaurant.

  It was hard to have a meaningful conversation, though maybe that’s what Dad wanted. Surely he had sensed Brady’s less-than-genial attitude toward me, not just in the school parking lot, but after we got home and in the hour or so before we left to go out to eat. The raucous vibe of the restaurant didn’t lend itself to intimacy, so we didn’t need to feel awkward about our lack of it.

  I tried to engage Brady in conversation anyway, but his one-word replies to whatever I said stifled any true dialogue. He wasn’t rude. He answered every question, but he didn’t elaborate and he didn’t ask me anything in return. Dad was the one who brought up my grandparents and Jake, and he asked whether I was still seeing Rachel.

  When we arrived at the house again, Brady excused himself to go upstairs and do homework. Dad invited me out on the patio, tossing me a UCLA hoodie to wear because it was chilly enough for a jacket but not so cold that I would need the coat I had worn when I left Philly that morning. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and offered me a drink. I spotted a tall, skinny bottle of Italian orange soda, which looked interesting, so I decided on that.

  As we settled onto chairs, he turned on the fire pit. I had to smile at how effortless it was for him to start a fire. Another for the book.

  Fires are worked by remote control.

  I waited to see if he would bring up Brady’s attitude toward me. When he didn’t, I knew I had to.

  “So what’s up with Brady? Does he not want me here?”

  Dad took a swig from his bottle. “I honestly don’t know why he wasn’t happier to see you. I told you on the phone he’s going through a phase of some kind. This must be part of it.”

  “But you also told me he wanted me to come.”

  “He did. Before I called you, he did.”

  “What happened between then and now?” It had only been a week. Something had to have transpired since then.

  Dad shook his head. “I have no idea. I didn’t know he was going to be that way around you. I’m as surprised as you are.” He paused for a moment and then sensed how uneasy that must have made me feel, considering he was leaving the next day for a month. “I’m sure he still wants you to be here. He’s just…he’s mixed up right now.”

  “Mixed up about what?”

  Dad shrugged, as if the answer was a no-brainer. “He’s a teenager living on the edge of the adult world. It’s that way when you’re fourteen and you’re half in one place and half in another. I’m sure it was the same even for you. When you were done with school at Brady’s age and went to work for your grandfather, you felt the same way. Mixed up. I remember it.”

  It had been a long time since my dad had mentioned the year that school ended for me and my adult life began. It was always such a sensitive topic for me, I was surprised to hear now that I had somehow communicated to him my true feelings about the matter.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You came to visit us that summer. I could tell you were sad that school was over for you. I know I wasn’t happy about it, but what could I do? That’s the way things are back there.”

  I nodded, waiting to see where he was going with this.

  “It took you a while to figure it all out. I called you that Christmas and asked if you were happy, and you told me you were. You even sounded happy. So obviously you weren’t feeling mixed up about it anymore. That’s what I mean. Brady is no different than you were. He’s doing what he loves, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

  As I considered this, it occurred to me that maybe Brady had decided I was only there to enforce our father’s will. That I had become Dad’s ally, not his.

  “Maybe he thinks I’m here just to keep him from quitting the team,” I ventured.

  “That’s not the only reason,” Dad shot back quickly. “You’re his brother, Ty. Who better than you to stay with him while Liz and I are gone?”

  “But it is a reason.”

  “So?”

  “So if this is a source of conflict between you two, then it will seem that I am not here as his brother but for your sake, to keep him on the team whether he wants to be there or not.”

  Dad shook his head. “That is not a source of conflict between Brady and me. He loves football. He loves being on the team. He’s just feeling the pressure of being in such a visible spot. It’s scary to have so many eyes watching him all the time. He just needs to settle in to being in the spotlight. You settled in when your teenage life took an abrupt turn. That’s what he needs to see.”

  I took a drink of the soda. It was tangy and sweet at the same time. And highly carbonated. “I’ll do my best, but I’m only human, Dad.”

  “That’s all anyone can do, Ty. I just want Brady to give this his best. I don’t want him to look back ten, twenty years from now and wish he’d made different choices.”

  We were silent as his words settled over us.

  “So. Think you’ll end up marrying Rachel?” he asked, after a long thoughtful pause.

  “Maybe. Probably.”

  “How long have you been dating? Five years?”

  I smiled. “Six, actually.” />
  “Six. Wow. I envy your long courtship. Isn’t that what you call it? Courtship? I married your mother less than a month after meeting her.” He laughed. “Craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

  I smiled and said nothing, wanting him to continue and hoping he would. He hardly ever talked about my mother.

  “I’m not saying I have any regrets. She was drop-dead beautiful and the kindest person I’d ever met. And she was so ready to see the world. I guess we both were. She proposed to me, did I ever tell you that?”

  I shook my head.

  “We’d seen each other every night for three weeks and I was getting ready to head back to New York. I was just in Philly visiting a friend.” Dad raised his gaze to the starry horizon, almost as if he were looking through a glass back to the time before I was born. “I would be heading out to Germany soon, and we were both wondering if we would ever see each other again. I had fallen pretty fast for her, that’s for sure. She wasn’t like any of the girls I’d ever had my eye on. She was fun to be around, but she was innocent too. Everything was new and amazing to her. There wasn’t a jaded bone in her body. I was kind of awkward around girls, but never around her. With her, I felt wise and clever and experienced in the ways of the world.”

  He glanced at me, a tad embarrassed. “I’ve never been a very affectionate guy,” he admitted, “and Liz says I’m still not. But your mother…she didn’t seem to mind that the only thing I knew how to talk about in romantic terms was my ’67 Mustang back home.” He laughed. “Anyway, it was my last night in Philly. We were at a club, dancing, which your mother loved, and I said something like, ‘What am I going to do without you,’ and she said, ‘Take me with you.’ I laughed but she didn’t. She just smiled and said, ‘Let’s get married.’ ”

  Dad grinned at the memory and I continued to listen in spellbound silence.

  “I wasn’t sure if she was serious, so I said something like, ‘And what would your Amish father say if I told him I wanted to marry you?’ And she said, ‘We won’t tell him, Duke. Not until after the fact, anyway.’ And you know what? The minute she said it, I knew that was what I wanted to do. There wasn’t one person in her family who would approve, and the only one left on my side by that point was my dad, who wouldn’t care either way. No one would be happy for us, but we’d be happy for ourselves.”