Wildcat Mountain rose to the east. What would the trails and ridges look like in the fall? He hoped he would still be there to find out. He hoped he would see snow cover the roads he was crossing now.
Pushing his hat down more firmly on his head, he cinched up the duffel bag and walked resolutely, increasing his pace, when he heard the sound of a buggy slowing behind him.
“Need a ride?” The voice was familiar, as was Gabe’s smile.
“I could use one.” Aaron tossed his duffel into the backseat, grinning at the man who had become like a brother to him.
Gabe signaled to Chance, and they went at a fast trot out of town.
“Gut trip?”
“Ya.”
“Took you longer than you thought it might.”
“It did.”
Aaron had almost forgotten how tall his friend was. Even sitting, it was apparent. Gabe’s somber brown eyes glanced at the younger man once or twice, but he didn’t ask the questions that caused him to tug on his beard.
“How’s Miriam?”
“Gut.”
“And the girls?”
“Fine. Rachel seems to have grown another size, and Grace has put up some of her drawings for sale at the cabins.”
Aaron nodded. They had talked of this before he left, but Grace wasn’t sure she wanted to part with any of the sketches. She’d planned to discuss the idea with Miriam’s parents and Bishop Atlee, whom the young girl had taken a liking to.
“I’m glad to hear that. She has real talent, something Gotte will use to touch people.”
Gabe nodded, opting to study the road in front of him instead of answering.
When he pulled up on Chance’s reins to turn the horse onto the road where the Plain Cabins sat along Pebble Creek, Aaron’s hand shot out and stopped him.
“I won’t be going to the cabins this afternoon.”
Gabe slowed the horse and waited.
Aaron pulled off his hat, and ran his sleeve over the sweat that again pooled across his brow. He peered down the road to his right.
Lydia was there. Was she waiting for him? What would she say when she saw him?
He wanted to know that more than he wanted any other thing. But there were times when you had to put off what the heart wanted. He’d learned that too over the last few weeks. There was still one thing for him to take care of first.
His father’s words came back to him, as clear as the water running through Pebble Creek. They had spoken of it as he’d waited for the bus, moments before he’d left. “Remember, son, one thing you can give and still keep is your word.”
And he had given his word, to his father and his mother, and even in some ways to Lydia. He’d given his word that he would do this correctly.
Gabe waited, not rushing him, while Chance began feeding on the grass by the side of the road.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Aaron said, “I’d like you to take me to the Fisher home. I need to speak with Menno, and it would probably be best if I did so before I saw Lydia.”
Pausing only to slap Aaron on the back, Gabe murmured to the gelding. Chance jerked his head up, and they were moving away from the cabins at a steady trot.
Lydia should have been happy.
She should have been satisfied with the ways things had gone at the cabins, not just that day but all week. Reservations were good. Renters were happy, and sales of their Amish-made merchandise were up. She and Clara were working well together for once. They hadn’t fought since last week, when she’d sent her to clean cabin two and found her in the rocker, peering through the branches of a bush, watching two Amish boys who had come to cut the grass. Even that had lightened Lydia’s heart, for it seemed more like the old Clara, the Clara from before the burglaries and arrests.
The cabins were full nearly every night. Business had been so brisk she’d needed to hire the boys to help Seth, who was now doing Aaron’s work.
She should even be grateful about the quiet ride home—Clara hadn’t worked today because she’d had a dental appointment. Their neighbor had given her a ride into town, and she’d taken the afternoon off.
But instead of enjoying the ride home, Lydia found herself stewing over her life.
The reins to Tin Star fell slack in her hands, and she slouched against the seat as her parents’ home came into view.
Her parents’ home.
Was she destined to always live there? To never have a home of her own?
The old restlessness stirred in her, and she fought once again to push it down. She would turn twenty-three soon. What sort of life had she envisioned when she was Clara’s age?
Why was she never happy?
Part of her discontent had come with the phone call about hiring help for Seth. She’d thought to be able to speak with Aaron about that, but she’d only been able to leave a message at the phone shack near where he lived in Indiana. When he’d called back, she’d been fetching a cat out of a tree and had missed it, so Clara had brought her the message from their own phone in the office.
So much for phones providing fast and easy communication as the Englischers declared. She wouldn’t mind a letter. At least that she could read over and again.
She missed him.
There was no denying the hollowness in her stomach and in her heart. It gnawed at her each day, especially when she arrived at work and he wasn’t there.
He’d been gone for two weeks now. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe he wasn’t coming back.
Stephen walked out of the barn as she pulled into the small drive leading to their house. It was hard for her to believe he was done with his schooling. She’d spent so long fighting to keep him in the classroom, that now she wasn’t sure how to feel with him out and about.
Where would he work?
They had no fields that needed tending, and the few extra hours she needed a man at the cabins—the hours she’d given to the boys she’d hired to help Seth—weren’t enough to provide for her family. Not to mention Stephen wasn’t interested. She hoped he wasn’t running around late at night any longer.
“I’ll brush Tin Star down,” she said as he reached for the horse’s reins.
“No, you should go on inside.”
She sat looking at him for a moment before getting out of the buggy. Stephen knew she preferred spending a few moments with the horse. It helped to ease her mind and relax her a bit from the work day.
“Go inside, Lydia.”
“Is it dat? Was iss letz? Is he all right? You could have called me at the cabins—”
“Dat is fine.” He took the reins from her hands and began to unharness the horse. “They’re waiting for you.”
Lydia’s pulse began to race, and she resisted the urge to run. Why were they waiting? What had happened? Stephen had gazed at her with such seriousness, but if dat was fine…
She practically ran up the porch steps and pulled the door open at the same time her younger sisters burst through it. Martha, Amanda, and Sally Ann all giggled at the sight of her, but only Sally Ann stopped to throw her arms around her legs, embracing her in a tight hug.
“I love you, Lydia.” She was gone in a flash of blue dress and black prayer kapp, running off after the other two into the last of the afternoon light.
Stranger and stranger.
She placed her purse on a hook by the door. As she turned toward the kitchen, she noticed Clara uncharacteristically standing by the stove. Something was not right. She was actually smiling as she stirred what smelled like potato soup.
“You’re cooking?” Lydia asked.
Clara started to answer. No doubt it would have been a retort worth hearing too. Lydia could see now that Clara had cut the biscuits and put them on the baking tray. She could also see the smile blossoming on Clara’s face as if she were hiding the biggest of secrets. It did Lydia’s heart good to see the smile after the weeks of sadness that had followed Jerry’s arrest. But before Clara could speak, Lydia’s mother walked into the room and interru
pted them.
“Lydia, you’re home. Gut. We have company, and we’ve been waiting for you. What kept you so late?”
“I’m late? Company? Stephen said you needed to see me. Is something wrong?” Her voice rose with each question as her mother put her hand to her back and turned to usher her into the sitting room.
She didn’t need to see him though, because suddenly she knew.
It felt as if every nerve in her body had come alive.
The scent of him was in the air, stronger than the smell of the soup on the stove.
Lydia turned and her eyes immediately found his. It was as if he’d never been gone. As if it was two weeks ago and they were sitting at the cabins, and he was telling her that he had to go back to speak with his father. She closed her eyes, and he was brushing her lips with his own.
Her fingers went to her lips at the memory.
“Lydia.” Aaron stood, his hat in his hands, his eyes still locked on hers.
“I…I didn’t realize you were back.”
“Aaron arrived an hour ago.”
“Hour…”
Her feet were moving her toward him, but she felt as if she were back in her room, having another of her dreams that made no sense.
When she sat down, her father reached out and covered her fingers with his own. She looked at his weathered hand on hers. The tears she’d held back for two weeks threatened to spill, but she blinked them away. When she looked up, she realized Aaron had sat down again, and Menno had placed his other hand on top of Aaron’s.
He sat between them, laboring to pull in deep breaths.
It was Ella who explained. “Aaron came here first, Lydia, because he wanted to speak with your dat. Although it isn’t required, he wanted to ask about your marrying. Do you care for him as he cares for you?”
Lydia met Aaron’s gaze. She couldn’t have resisted it if she’d used her last ounce of strength, and she didn’t want to.
“Ya. Ya, I do.”
“Wunderbaar. In that case, your dat and I would like to offer our blessing.”
Aaron’s smile, which was more beautiful than anything Lydia had ever seen, should have been enough. It should have been, but it wasn’t. She stared down at her father’s hand, on top of her own.
“But, if we were to marry, how would you…that is to say, where would we…” She closed her eyes, focused her mind, and started over again. “I mean, I couldn’t leave—”
“Gotte will provide for us.” Ella reached out and touched her softly on the cheek. “He has provided, and He will continue to. It’s not for you to worry.”
But she was worried.
She couldn’t simply marry, move away, and leave her father when he was so sick. She couldn’t do it!
Menno patted her hand as he pulled in another deep, rattling breath. “What…what is faith, Lydia?”
She knew the answer he wanted. She remembered when she was a child, and he’d tuck her in each night, always with a proverb and a kiss on the forehead.
As she glanced up and into Aaron’s dark brown eyes, she felt the tears tracking down her cheeks. “Faith is knowing there is an ocean…”
He finished the saying for her, finished it with a smile that was genuine and sure. “Knowing because you have seen a brook.”
Epilogue
October
Lydia resisted as Aaron tugged on her hand.
“I want the house to be just right when we move in, and there are only three days left.”
“You know Miriam and Mattie will help you set the dishes just so.”
“Ya, but—”
“Not to mention that all of your schweschders have been pestering you to let them lend a hand. They want to help.”
“I know, and I mean to, but—”
“Come with me, Lydia. There’s something I want to show you.”
It wasn’t his words that convinced her, or even the teasing in his voice, but the look in his eyes. Would she ever grow immune to the invitation there? She hoped not. She prayed not.
Pulling her shawl from the back of the kitchen chair, their kitchen chair, she slid it around her shoulders. Aaron’s fingers wrapped around hers and sealed the deal. They walked shoulder to shoulder across the kitchen, through the sitting room and out the front door. She paused on the front porch, turning her gaze to the swing.
“I know what you’re thinking. I can see it in your beautiful eyes, but we’ll come back to the swing.” He tugged on her hand and pulled her down the steps and across the lawn.
“What do you want to show me, Aaron Troyer?”
She thought they would turn toward the creek. These days, with the cabins doing so well and Seth taking on an increasing amount of the responsibilities there, Aaron could be found more often down near the water. He’d even begun serving as a fishing and nature guide to the Englischers. The same creek that ran through the cabins ran through the back of their property. It ran through their community. It was part of what bound them together.
Instead of following the path across their yard to the banks of Pebble Creek, he led her past the small barn toward the pasture and the fence that separated their property from her parents’ home.
“Come watch the sunset with me. It’s beautiful, ya?”
A kaleidoscope of colors splayed across the western sky—everything from purple to rose to blue. The sunset reminded her of walking through the quilt shop in town, when she’d been a young girl, younger than Clara. Her mother had insisted that she choose fabric for wedding quilts, but in her mind those quilts might never be needed. God had known, though, and now those quilts lay on a bed in the cozy two-bedroom home behind her.
“It’s gut to stop working for a few minutes.” Aaron turned and studied her face. “What do you think?”
Suddenly she wasn’t sure if he was asking her about the sunset or about all he’d done to ensure she could marry and yet remain close enough to care for her father. During the two weeks he’d been in Indiana, Aaron had sold his land to his brothers. He’d used that money to purchase the property next to her family’s—the property she’d often passed and stared at with such longing. When they planted in the spring, Aaron would split his time between the cabins and the fields. He’d also teach her brother, Stephen, how to farm.
Presently what they owned was small, only a quarter of the available acreage and the home. If they worked hard, though, and if the floods didn’t come again, maybe in a few years they could purchase the rest of the adjoining fields.
Lydia’s mind went back over the home of her childhood.
The ache of what they had lost so many years ago was still there, but it was replaced now by a hope and a promise for their future.
“What do you think?” he asked again.
“I think I’m happy to be home.” She kissed his hand, and he stepped closer to run his fingers down her cheek and across her lips.
A shriek and then the sound of laughter broke the moment as her younger sisters, Sally Ann and Amanda, ran across the backyard toward them.
“Looks as if we’re about to have company,” Lydia murmured.
“I might have said I’d take them night fishing.”
“Ya?”
“Uh-huh.” He slipped his hand around her waist and walked with her through the gate separating their two properties.
Lydia realized as the sun set and she was surrounded by the childish banter of her schweschders that her life wasn’t perfect—far from it. Some days her father’s illness was worse, some days it was better. Clara still had her times of depression, though her friendship with Mattie was helping both girls. Jerry’s fate was undetermined, largely in the hands of the Englisch legal system. She hoped Stephen would decide on farming, but there was no guarantee he could make a living from it.
All of those things were secondary, though.
Gotte had given them each other, and that was all they needed. What she had learned since Gotte had brought Aaron into her life—Aaron’s love into her life—was that
it was the people, not the place, that mattered.
The people in her life had given her a home.
Discussion Questions
1. Lydia reveals some of the reason for her attitude in chapter 4. She doesn’t believe Aaron will stick around. The Englisch customers don’t stay. Her boyfriend didn’t stay, and she’s having trouble convincing her brother to stay. Lydia has some trust issues. What barriers do people put in place when they are afraid to trust?
2. In chapter 6, Aaron felt “the full weight and responsibility of being an adult.” This happened for two reasons—he finally understood the grief and needs of his aenti, and he received the drawing from his niece. How does God prepare us for adulthood? What does He give us to help us transition to that responsible time in our life?
3. True friendship is a major theme of this book: Gabe’s friendship with Aaron, Miriam’s friendship with Lydia, and even Grace’s friendship with Sadie and Lily. We all need friends in our lives. How has God provided for your friendship needs? In what ways does He want you to provide for others?
4. In chapter 13, we see Lydia’s family gathered together, and we finally learn about her father’s illness. Farmer’s lung is a real disease which has been around for hundreds of years. The mortality rate is nearly twenty percent and usually within five years of diagnosis. At the end of this chapter, Lydia is calmed by the sight of her father’s hands. (In chapter 18, we see a similar scene with Miriam looking at her mother’s hands.) What do someone’s hands tell us? What does the Bible tell us about God’s hands? About Christ’s hands?
5. In chapter 16, Grace turns in a report on Jakob Amman. She’s very proud of her work, but her teacher’s response isn’t quite what she’d hoped for. Have you ever worked very hard on something only to have it rejected? What does the Bible teach us about hard work and finding approval in this world?
6. In chapter 22, Miriam reads the words from Matthew 6:5-8 when she is struggling mightily with her mother’s illness. “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Has there ever been a time when this verse had a special meaning to you? Does it hold a special promise now?
A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series) Page 30
