“Lizzie, I tried so hard not to feel this,” he whispered. “I tried! But I love you.”
“You love me?” She shook her head. “Don’t say things like that, Sol. You only make it harder for us—”
“I think about you constantly,” he said. “I worry about you, I pray for you, I think ahead, wondering how I can take care of you—” He swallowed. “Without a second thought, I throw myself between you and men who would hurt you . . . and the thought of walking away from Bountiful tears my heart and lungs right out of me, not because of the community, or my family, or the Amish life I wish I could have, but because it means walking away from you. So yah, I love you, Lizzie. I can’t help it.”
He ran a finger down her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin. With the words out, he knew he meant them. There was no getting around it now. It was like getting the words out had left a void inside him that was slowly filling with pent-up emotion. Telling her how he felt wasn’t going to make anything easier, but he had to say it.
“You’re asking me to leave the Amish life,” she said.
“First, I want to know if you love me, too,” he said.
“And if I did love you back, you’re asking—” she started.
He lowered his lips over hers once more and kissed her long and slow. She melted into his arms, and he could feel her pulse trembling through her entire body. He wanted to know if he was alone in this . . . if when she stripped away the logic and reasonable response, she was just as helpless as he was. When he pulled back, she blinked her eyes open and stared up at him.
“Do you love me?” he whispered.
Her eyes welled with tears. “Yah . . .”
He laughed shakily. “That’s very good news, Lizzie.”
“No, it isn’t!” She pulled back and wiped her cheeks with her fingers. “I love you, and what does that do for me? You’re leaving, and you’re asking me to walk away from everything I believe in!”
“I’m asking you to marry me,” he said.
“And walk away from my Amish life!” she insisted.
“I have no future here,” he said helplessly. “I can’t support you here, or any kinner we have. I can’t be a proper Amish man following the Ordnung and make enough to provide, Lizzie! Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that if I stay Amish, if I don’t get more education, if I don’t accept the help that’s being offered to me, I won’t have any other option but to slide back into a lawless life of crime just to survive!” He pulled off his hat and shoved his fingers through his hair. “This is the problem! Bountiful won’t accept me. If I’m going to have an honest, law-abiding life, it’s going to be an Englisher one!”
“You don’t know that—”
“Do you know the percentage of convicts that end up back in prison again after they’ve done their time and are released?” he asked. She didn’t answer, so he continued. “Almost eighty percent. And do you know why? Some of them are addicts. Some of them were part of gangs and can’t get away from it. And some of them are poor. It doesn’t take much to get tossed back into prison, and theft will do it. What does a man do when he can’t get a job, when no one will trust him and he has kinner to feed? How far will he go to make sure they’re fed, Lizzie?”
She stood there, her chest rising and falling with her quick breaths. “So you go English?”
“Yah . . . I go English,” he replied. “I have people willing to give me work experience, a good reference if I earn it, and almost twice the pay I’d get working as farm labor. I’ll get schooling, which means I can get better jobs still when I’m done. I’ll be able to earn back some trust and find a place where I can contribute and live in a decent part of town, away from the type of people I got into trouble with before. I can step up, Lizzie. I can do better!”
“Better doesn’t come with more money,” she countered.
“It comes with less desperation!” he said.
“We lean on Gott!”
“And a community!” Solomon shook his head. “Being poor and Amish isn’t the same as being poor and English, Lizzie! I know you don’t understand that—you haven’t seen it. But I’ve lived it! And I have a chance to take a step up, to live an honest life, to accept the help that’s being offered to me. I want to be one of the convicts who stays out of prison and lives a good life once he’s out. I have to accept every hand that’s offered.”
Did she understand this? Could she comprehend the kind of downfall he was trying to avoid? He’d gone with the flow before and ended up in jail. He’d never make that mistake again. He searched her face, looking for some comprehension of what he was trying to explain, but all he saw in her eyes was deep sadness.
“I’m not going English,” she whispered.
His heart sank. He’d known this was coming, but he’d let himself start to hope . . .
“It isn’t even fair of you to ask me!” she went on, and her voice trembled. “Or to tell me that you love me, or to . . . kiss me like you love me!”
“I’m supposed to pretend I don’t?” he said miserably.
“Yah! Exactly that. You should have pretended you didn’t, because then I would have been able to be angry with you, and feel used by you, and tell my daughters stories about wicked men who try to take advantage! That would have been easier!”
“I’m no wicked man trying to use you,” he growled.
“Would you stay Amish for me?” she asked.
But this was his very freedom at stake. If he messed up, he’d be back in prison . . . He’d already started down a very dangerous path and if he wasn’t incredibly careful, he’d lose every helping hand he was currently counting on.
“Lizzie, I don’t dare,” he breathed.
She turned away from him, and he stood there helplessly watching her. When she turned back, he saw anger flashing in her eyes.
“I pitied Johannes,” she said. “I pitied him!”
Solomon stared at her, mute.
“I felt sorry for Sovilla, too, and do you know why?” she went on. “They’re getting married to each other in a matter of days and they don’t love each other. Johannes loves my sister and Sovilla loves her dead husband. But they’re getting married . . .”
“It’s their choice,” he said.
“Oh, I know that,” she said. “But I still pitied them. I thought they should think it through, and remember that they had hearts to consider. I thought that if I was in a similar situation, I would do better than they are—”
“You can,” he said, shaking his head. “You can choose the man you love—”
“No, I can’t!” Elizabeth pushed a loose tendril of hair away from her cheek. “I can’t do better! Do you know why? Because I’m in love with a man who’s going English, and no amount of pleading from me is going to change it! So I’m going to do the smart thing, and I’m going to restart my life in another state, and when I do that, I’m going to find a good man and marry him.”
Her words were like a slap. “I’m a good man, Lizzie—”
“Good or bad, you’ll be English!” Her chin trembled. “And when I marry that good man, my heart is going to belong to another, and I’ll be no better than Johannes or Sovilla!”
He caught her hand and tugged her close to him again. “Your heart will be mine!”
She pulled her hand free. “But my body and my life and my kinner . . . they’ll be his.”
“You have a choice!” he said.
“I do not have a choice!” she said, her voice rising. She dashed a tear from her cheek. “I have no choice left! I’m Amish, Sol! And I will have my Amish life!”
“You love me,” he said softly.
“I know . . .” Her tears fell freely now. “But I can’t be your wife.”
Elizabeth sniffled and wiped her face. They loved each other, but it wasn’t going to be enough. He couldn’t stay Amish and she couldn’t follow him into his new, Englisher life....
He was going to keep on loving her—that was the problem. He’d known he was in t
rouble when he’d taken a beating to give her a few extra seconds to get to safety. That kind of love wasn’t going to stop, but she was right—they were still the same people headed in different directions. Love wasn’t going to be enough to overpower that.
Elizabeth started back toward the house just as Bridget opened the door. His grandmother looked between them, concern etched in the lines on her face.
“Elizabeth?” he heard his grandmother say. “Are you all right? Are you crying?” She raised her eyes toward Solomon. Elizabeth went up the steps, handed the eggs to Bridget, and disappeared inside.
“Sol?” his grandmother called.
Solomon pushed his hat back onto his head. “I’m going for a walk, Mammi.”
He headed in the opposite direction, toward the fields. He couldn’t face his grandmother right now and he couldn’t face Elizabeth. They’d said all they could.
The irony was, he had nowhere to go. No friends who would take him in, no place to bide his time . . . All he could do was walk alone until he was tired, and then go home when it was late enough that his grandmother and Elizabeth would both be in bed.
He couldn’t live here and push forward in an Englisher life. It would never work. If he was committed to this new chance, he’d have to jump in with both feet.
Earlier that day when he’d sat in that office, typing lists of names and baptismal dates from decades past for historical preservation, an elderly nun had put a wrinkled hand on his shoulder. She wore a knee-length black skirt with a matching vest and a black veil over her white hair.
“Solomon?” she’d said. “That is a very powerful name, young man.”
“Yah,” he’d said. “My parents thought so.”
“King Solomon started out strong, but he lost his footing,” she said softly. “He forgot his way and went from the wisest man on earth to a very sad old man indeed. . . .”
He’d stopped his one-fingered typing then and looked up at her.
“You don’t need to be like him,” the nun said. “You’re still young. You have time. You can choose a better path and stick to it.”
And the bitterly ironic part was that the better path that Gott seemed to be guiding him toward wasn’t the Amish life he’d been raised for—it was this confusing new Englisher life, with opportunities that stretched him beyond his abilities, and a way to stay honest.
That very wise King Solomon had also said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches . . . Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.”
And that was the middle road that Solomon was trying to achieve—just enough that he’d never be tempted to slide back down into crime.
Let him learn from his biblical namesake and stay on the righteous path, because if he stayed Amish, he’d tumble right back into prison.
* * *
Elizabeth hardly slept that night. She heard Solomon come back in late and the creak of his footsteps on the stairs, and then she lay there awake. It had been stupid to fall in love with Solomon Lantz, especially when she’d known from the start the kind of man he was. He was dangerous to a woman like her—he made her imagine what it would be like to be with him out there with the Englishers . . . For just a moment, she’d been deeply tempted.
But she’d never be happy away from her culture, her family, her Amish faith. Englishers might have faith of their own, but it wasn’t the same. Spiritual salvation came from within the Amish church, not out there with the relative heathen . . . and yet it was the “heathen” who were helping Solomon, showing more Christian acceptance and love than he was getting from his own Amish community.
And they were taking him . . .
Even if he stayed, Solomon couldn’t give her a solid Amish life of respect and simplicity. She’d be the daughter of a criminal married to an ex-convict . . . That wasn’t the life she’d worked for! She deserved better than that. Wasn’t that what her daet had told her and Lovina when they were but girls? You are more than my daughters, you are Gott’s and you cannot accept less than what you deserve. Too many girls make that mistake, and they live to regret it. Do you understand?
Tell that to her aching heart, because she’d seen a different side to Solomon. She’d seen his bravery and his determination to do the right thing. She’d seen him sacrifice himself for her safety. She’d seen that traumatized heart and she’d wanted to protect him just as fervently as he’d wanted to protect her....
But he wouldn’t stay Amish. He’d asked her to leave with him, to marry him, but how could she when it meant giving up the very core of her being?
And so she lay in bed that night, listening to the sound of his footsteps in his bedroom, then to the sound of his bed’s springs squeaking when he turned . . . then she drifted off, her whole body seeming to be emptied out from crying.
The next morning Solomon ate his breakfast in silence. Elizabeth sat in front of her bowl of oatmeal and couldn’t bring herself to even take a bite. Bridget eyed both of them but didn’t say anything. Bridget had seen that something had happened between them—there weren’t any secrets that well-kept in a home.
“Sovilla needs some help in adjusting her wedding dress to her figure,” Bridget said as she sat down at the table. “I suggested we help her, although really, with my arthritis, I was hoping you would, Elizabeth.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth replied.
“I know it’s hard because she’s marrying Johannes, but—” Bridget began.
“No, it’s fine,” Elizabeth said. She might have more in common with Johannes and Sovilla than she’d like after all.
“I’m going to be working today,” Solomon said, and he pushed back his chair.
“With the Catholics?” Bridget asked uncertainly. “Really, Sol—”
“It’ll be fine.” He bent down and kissed his grandmother’s cheek. “I know you don’t agree, but this is right. You might see it eventually.”
Solomon caught Elizabeth’s gaze, but he didn’t say anything. She could see the grief in his eyes, too, and it made her want to fall into his arms and sob out their mutual sadness together, except they couldn’t. It wouldn’t help. This kind of grief could only be gotten over by forcing oneself to take a step forward, and by hoping that time would indeed heal a few wounds.
“Wait—” Bridget said. “You’ll need a lunch!”
“No, they said they’d provide one actually,” he replied.
“That’s kind,” Bridget admitted.
“Yah.” He nodded, and his gaze moved back to Elizabeth again. He looked tired—his eyes were a little red and his face was pale. Had he slept as poorly as she had? Had he lain awake last night, fighting tears and feeling his chest might split open from the effort? Because she had.
“See you later,” Solomon said, and that dark gaze enveloped her with a look of such sad longing that it made tears spring to her eyes.
Elizabeth didn’t trust herself to answer, and Solomon headed out the door. She sat in silence for a moment, trying to rein her emotions in once more so that she could pretend she was fine.
“Elizabeth?” Bridget said.
She looked toward Bridget. “Yah?”
“Are you all right?” the older woman asked gently.
“Yah.” Elizabeth sucked in a breath. “I will be.”
“Did you two make any promises to each other that you can’t keep?” Bridget asked.
Was that the way her generation described this? Elizabeth rubbed her hands over her face. “There were no promises, Bridget,” she said. “It’s okay.”
Elizabeth was here to help Bridget and be a support to her, not to fall in love with her grandson.
“But you two love each other, don’t you?” Bridget pressed. “No one looks this miserable if they aren’t in love with each other.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly at the old woman’s dry wisdom.
“He’s easy to love, Bridget,” she admitted. “But not so easy to marry.”
&nb
sp; Bridget nodded. “Sovilla and Johannes aren’t so crazy as you thought, are they?”
“Maybe not . . .” Elizabeth rose to her feet and picked up her bowl, still full of oatmeal.
“Sometimes it’s easier on the heart to marry the one who’s easier to marry instead of giving up everything for the one who’s easier to love,” Bridget said.
“Is that your advice?” Elizabeth asked.
“For Johannes, yes,” Bridget said thoughtfully. “Only you can choose your future.”
After they’d finished cleaning up, Sovilla arrived with her dress in a bag and her two little girls in tow. They were sweet kinner, with big blue eyes and rosebud lips. They stared up at the adults solemnly. They’d just lost their daet after all, and Elizabeth squatted down to their level.
“Hello,” Elizabeth said softly.
“Hello,” the older girl whispered.
“I’m Elizabeth. What’s your name?”
“I’m Becca. And that’s Iris,” the girl said, pointing at her toddler sister.
Becca was only five—Elizabeth had heard that already—but she seemed mature for her age.
“Shall we make your mamm’s dress pretty for the wedding?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’m going to have another daet,” Becca replied.
“He’s very nice,” Elizabeth said. “I know him well. He’s a kind man, and he can be really funny, too. I think you’ll like him.”
“I have a daet already,” the girl said, and tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t want another one!”
Iris looked up at her big sister uncomprehendingly, then toddled toward Bridget, who held out a cookie. Sovilla bent down and scooped Becca up in her arms. She held her for a moment, then kissed her tear-wet cheek and looked into the small, mournful face.
“I miss him, too,” Sovilla whispered.
Elizabeth watched the mother and daughter for a moment, then dropped her gaze. What would it be like to be mourning the loss of a husband and to be getting married again this quickly? It wouldn’t be easy on the kinner . . . and it wouldn’t be easy on Sovilla either.
The Preacher's Daughter Page 23
