“They are not good?” she asked.
His eyes dropped to the saw in his hands before slowly working their way back to Emma’s. “They are not yours.”
“Perhaps Liddy missed an ingredient or was busy with the wash when they were to come out of the oven. . . .”
“Two times, she has brought them, and, two times, I have tried them thinking they were yours. And two times, I have known they are not after the first bite.” He sidestepped his way to the front of his dat’s buggy and placed the saw on the floor. “That is why I am hoping you will point to your cookies at tomorrow’s hymn sing.”
She dropped her hand to her side and stepped into the shadow made by the barn. “I do not think I will be at the hymn sing this week.”
“Oh?”
“Yah. I-I might be busy.”
“Busy?” Levi echoed. “On the Lord’s day?”
“I will go to church, of course. But it is after—when the hymn sing is to start—that I think I will be busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Visiting. With . . .” She took in the house on the opposite side of the driveway and then turned away, a familiar anger lapping at the edges of her tone. “I will be spending the afternoon with family.”
Levi started to speak but stopped as she motioned toward the road. “I must go, or I will be late. If there is anything else you need, the boys are in the field, and Sarah and Annie are in the house or”—she craned her neck to afford a view of the side yard—“rather, right there, finishing up at the clothesline.”
“No, I have what I need.” Adjusting his straw hat atop his head, Levi covered the distance between them with several long strides, stopping only when he was within arm’s reach. “If you are leaving the farm, I could take you to where you are going. Then you will not be late.”
She looked from the road, to his buggy, and, finally, back to Levi. “Miss Lottie lives in the opposite direction from the pond.”
“You are going to the pond?”
“Yah.”
“How can you be late to the pond?” he asked.
“It is where I am to meet someone.”
Surprise flickered across his face before being scrubbed away by his calloused hand. “The pond is not so far out of the way that I cannot drop you off. I do not want you to be late because you were getting me a saw and showing me new kittens.”
“I do not want Miss Lottie to be trapped inside her home.”
“She is not trapped. She was sitting on the porch reading a letter when Dat’s saw got stuck in the tree. It is Miss Lottie who suggested I borrow one from Beiler or Troyer.”
“But you came here . . .”
“Yah.” A hint of crimson pricked at his cheeks as he leaned forward and brushed something from the top of his boot Emma could not see.
Not sure what to make of his odd behavior, Emma took another step toward the road. “I really must go.”
Her words brought him upright once again. “Wait right there. I will get the buggy and I will take you.”
Five minutes later, they were on their way, Levi’s mare, Hoofer, faithfully pulling them in the direction of the pond while Emma looked out over the farms of their Amish brethren. She saw the Troyer boys combing the fields for the same rocks that held her brothers’ attention one farm south. At the Weaver farm, the laundry was already on the clothesline. And at the Schrock farm, the bench wagon to the side of the house meant the family was inside, preparing their home for the next day’s church service.
“Do you ever think about it being different?” she asked.
Levi pulled back on the reins just enough to slow Hoofer to a walk. “About what being different?”
“All of it.” Emma splayed her hands to indicate the Schrock farm on their right and the Troyer farm on their left. “Your choice.... The way the Amish live . . .”
“No. I made my choice. I am Amish.”
It was such a simple answer—one she, too, would have given just two weeks earlier. Because, prior to her birthday, she hadn’t thought about life outside the Amish fold. She’d had her opportunity to experiment with an English life during Rumspringa and she’d opted against it on any large scale. She’d carried around a phone, but never had anyone to call. She’d taken off her kapp a few times while walking along the county road, but had always put it right back on her head not more than twenty or thirty steps later. Because, ever the pleaser, she’d hoped her steadfast commitment to the life would have made Mamm smile.
A sigh, born on yet another example of her naivete, perked Hoofer’s ear and brought Levi’s focus back on Emma. “Do you think about making a different choice?”
It took a moment to catch up with his question, but, when she did, Emma traveled her eyes back to the land around them. “I didn’t . . .”
“You say that as if it has changed.”
“Because it has. Everything has.”
The clip-clop stopped with his tug. “You know what would happen if you were to leave the church now. You have been baptized, Emma. You have chosen this life.”
“I know.” Soft green fabric oozed through her fisted fingers only to flatten against her skin in tandem with the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “But this was never meant to be my world.”
Feeling the weight of his confusion on the side of her face, Emma looked back at the Schrock farm, her need to find a distraction settling her sights on the bench wagon. “I am sure Waneta and the girls are busy preparing food for tomorrow. Jakob hopes they will make chess pie. He says Waneta’s is best.”
“I do not know about Waneta’s chess pie, but I do know that this is your world, Emma. It is mine, too. We are Amish. We live an Amish life.”
She swept her gaze back to his. “You would not be Amish if your mamm and dat were not Amish. You are Amish because they are, because that is the life you were shown. But what if they were not Amish or one was not Amish, and no one told you that until after you had been baptized? Would it still be your world?”
“If I had been baptized, yah.” With little more than a shift of his hand and a click of his tongue, the buggy lurched forward, the steady clip-clop of Hoofer’s feet shattering the charged silence.
Together, they rode along, the mare’s hooves the only sound between them as they approached the lone bend in the road between her farm and Miller’s Pond. She could sense Levi wanting to speak, to ask questions about their odd conversation, but, in the end, he said nothing.
Still, she slanted a look at him when they came out of the bend, his widened eyes a precursor for the response now making its way past his lips. “Emma! That is the truck! The truck you were asking about at the last hymn sing!” He slowed the buggy to a crawl. “The one that stops at the cemetery each January with the sign on the door.”
“I know.”
Bobbing his head left, then right, Levi strained to make out details, but the late-morning sun made it difficult to discern much of anything beyond the truck’s presence on the side of the road. “Someone is sitting inside. I wonder if it is the same Englisher that I see standing inside the cemetery. The one who looks down at one of the graves.”
“Yah. It is. His name is Brad—Brad Harper.”
Levi shifted his full attention onto Emma. “But I did not tell you his name. . . .”
“You told me enough that I was able to find out the rest myself.”
“Do you want me to stop? We could ask why he is here, why he comes to an Amish cemetery each year.”
She lifted her hand from its resting spot atop her lap and waved a greeting toward the truck. “I know why he comes.”
“You do?”
“Yah. He told me.”
With yet another tug, Hoofer came to a stop a few buggy lengths away from the truck. “You have spoken to the Englisher?”
“Yah.”
“When? How?” Levi split his attention between the man now exiting the truck and Emma. “Why?”
“The day after you and I spoke at the h
ymn sing, I rode my scooter to New Holland. An Amish boy working at a restaurant told me how to find Harper Construction. For many hours I sat next to a shed behind the building just waiting to see him come out. When he did not, I went inside to see if I was right.”
They both turned, in unison, toward the crunch of gravel and the man stepping out from the side of the truck. “I do not understand,” Levi said, glancing back at Emma. “Why did you go inside to meet the Englisher from the cemetery?”
“I needed to see if he was the one—the one who had been leaving things beside my mamm’s grave all these years.”
Levi’s inhale echoed across the road, slowing Brad’s steps in return. “Your mamm’s grave? But—”
“Rebeccah Lapp is not my real mamm,” she managed past the lump making its way up her throat. “And Wayne Lapp is not my real dat.”
“Emma, how can you say that?”
“Because it is truth—a truth they did not tell the bishop, or the church, or me.” Aware of the anger sharpening her tone, she took a deep breath and lifted her face to the sun. “I am sorry, Levi. I do not mean to get angry. None of this is for you to worry about.”
“I do not know what to say.”
“That is because there is nothing to be said.”
Releasing his right hand from rein-holding duty, he hovered it above hers before draping it across the back of the seat, instead. “I am a good listener. Even Mary says so.”
“Hey, Emma! I was just leaving a voicemail for my attorney friend when you guys came around the corner.” Brad stepped alongside the buggy, nodded once at Levi, and then held his hand up to Emma. “But you’re here now so let’s get going. There are some people who are mighty excited to meet you, young lady.”
Levi stiffened on the bench beside her, earning himself a backward look from Hoofer. “But you wanted to go to the pond,” he reminded Emma.
“You are right. I did. To meet him,” She pointed down at Brad and then, placing her hand inside the Englisher’s, stepped down to the ground, the hem of her dress swirling against the top edge of her boots. “Thank you for the ride, Levi. Please tell Miss Lottie hello for me.”
Chapter 14
Even though her shivering had little to do with the February chill, Emma was grateful when, at the flick of Brad’s fingers, heat began to emanate from the slats in front of her seat.
“That’ll have you warmed up in no time.” Returning his hand to the steering wheel, he slid a peek in her direction. “So, who was that, just now? In the buggy? Was that one of Rebeccah’s?”
“No. That was a friend.”
“He didn’t look too pleased to see me.”
Pulling the flaps of her coat closer to her body, she shrugged. “It was not you. It was me. I should not have told him those things.”
“Things? What kind of things?”
She looked out at the countryside, the farms and animals whizzing by so fast she could barely register which family lived where. “I told him you are my birth father. He did not know.”
“Well, then, welcome to the club.”
“Club?” she asked, shifting her attention to Brad.
“It’s just an expression, kiddo. In this case, it means your friend didn’t know just like you and I didn’t know.” A series of quick vibrations from the cup holder between them had Brad apologizing and reaching for his phone. “Brad here.”
She turned back to the passenger side window and noted that the homes were growing larger while the land grew noticeably smaller. Here, there were no cows grazing, no Amish pitching hay or preparing the soil for the spring crops, and no clothes drying in the cold winter sun.
“Okay, okay, slow down. I know you’re excited, but don’t worry. We’re officially on the way. In fact”—his sudden pause drew Emma’s attention back to him and the single word he mouthed: mom—“we’re coming up on Shady Pine right now.”
Emma turned in time to see a wooden sign, mounted atop two stone pillars, with the words SHADY PINE written across the center. Beyond the sign was a narrow road that curved around a grove of trees, vanishing from sight.
“That’s right. Five minutes. Tops. See you then.” He set the phone back in the cup holder and grinned at Emma. “I wish you could have seen your grandmother when I told her about you last night. For the first few minutes after I was done speaking, she looked at me like I was from another planet. She might have blinked a few times, but that’s it. Then, as it all began to sink in, she started screaming—good screaming. From there, we moved into a mixture of questions, tears, and planning.”
“I do not want to make someone cry,” Emma said, ducking her gaze down to her lap.
The index finger of his right hand nudged her focus back to start. “Not all tears are bad, kiddo. And even the ones that were because of sadness came and went. My mom is a multitasker. Always has been.”
“Multitasker? That is not a word I am familiar with.”
“My mother thrives on doing many things at one time. Last night was about the shock, and joy and sadness and anger—each of which came and went depending on the question she asked and the answer I gave. When I finally headed out to my own place, she was sitting at the kitchen table making lists and deciding the order in which to call people.” He slowed to a stop at a four-way intersection and then continued on, the scenery outside the window holding little interest for either of them. “Today will be about meeting you, soaking you up, asking more questions, and then sitting down together over a meal. And while I know it will probably be a little daunting this first time, I’m confident you’ll grow to love her and the way she does things. Everyone does.”
It was all so much to process. The sights out her window. . . Being in a shiny black truck with her English birth father . . . Hearing him describe the woman who was her grossmudder . . .
She felt the car begin to slow again, only this time, instead of stopping because of a sign or traffic light, they turned right and headed down a street with neatly kept homes on either side. “What about your dat? Will he be there today, too?”
“He took off before I was a year old. Apparently two kids in as many years was more than he bargained for.” At the next crossroad, Brad turned left and then pointed Emma’s attention to the lone house on their right. “There it is. The house I was living in when I met Ruby.”
Pressing her forehead to the window, she took in everything she could about the house on her right. The powder-blue exterior . . . The pretty white and powder-blue curtains she could glimpse at the windows . . . The billowing flag depicting a snowman anchored into the ground to the left of a walkway . . . The ceiling-mounted swing nestled in a corner of the porch that appeared to look out over a small frozen pond...
Emma sat up tall, craning her neck as far to the left as possible. “Is that where you took her to ice skate?” she posed. “Like the snow globe?”
He stopped, mid-nod, his widening eyes sending her attention back to the house and the woman stepping out onto the porch with a smile as wide as any Emma had ever seen.
“Is-is that . . . her?” she managed on the heels of a hard swallow.
This time when he nodded, he followed it up with a squeeze of her hand that was both reassuring and terrifying all at the same time. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s go meet your grandmother before she bursts.”
* * *
She could feel the woman watching her as Brad opened the passenger side door and ushered her onto the walkway leading to the house. Somewhere in the distance she heard a child’s voice and a dog barking, but the most prevalent sound of all was that of her heart pounding inside her ears.
Somehow, during the ride, she’d managed to detach herself from their plans. She knew they’d been driving here, that she was to meet a grossmudder she’d known nothing about, but knowing that and actually being less than a dozen steps or so from it happening were two very different things. One, easy to ignore; the other, completely daunting.
“Oh would you look at you!” Scurrying down t
he porch steps, Delia Harper clamped her hands together beneath her chin, her blue eyes ricocheting back and forth across Emma’s face. “My dear, you are the perfect mixture of your mamma and your daddy, what with those big blue eyes and that spray of freckles across the bridge of your nose.”
Delia dropped a hand to her chest in conjunction with a fleeting glance at her son. “Good heavens, Brad, I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Well, believe it. Because it is.” Brad leaned over, kissed the sixty-something on her forehead, and then swept his arm toward Emma. “Mom, I’d like you to meet Emma—your granddaughter. And Emma, I’d like you to meet your grandmother. . .”
Waving his introductions away, Delia stepped forward, scanned Emma from the top of her kapp to the tips of her boots, and, after barely a moment’s hesitation, pulled Emma in for a hug. “Oh, sweet girl, welcome. You are the answer to a prayer I thought was ludicrous to make. But . . . here you are. Alive and well and”—Delia stepped back, her eyes intent on Emma—“so very beautiful.”
“I am Amish,” Emma corrected via a raspy whisper. “I am plain.”
Delia drew back. “You may be dressed in Amish attire, dear, but you’re far from plain. You are, after all, my granddaughter, are you not?” the woman teased, her words peppered with a laugh that reminded Emma of birds chirping on a sunny spring morning—light and calming. “That alone means there’s a little zip hiding inside you somewhere.”
“I do not use zippers. Or buttons. It is the Amish way.”
Delia’s eyes narrowed only to widen back to normal size after a beat or two of silence. “I wasn’t talking about a zipper, dear. I was talking about zip . . . spark, mischief, that sort of thing. It’s my house specialty.”
“And she’s not kidding.” Brad winked at Emma and then gestured toward the steps. “Well? Shall we go inside? Get warm?”
“Yes! Let’s!” Linking her arm through Emma’s, Delia steered them to the steps, across the porch, and through the front door with its snowflake-adorned wreath. Once inside, she instructed Brad to take Emma’s coat and then turned to Emma as he did. “Would you like a tour of the house first, or would you rather sit and warm up? I could make you a mug of peppermint hot cocoa if you’d like—I have some ready to go right now.”
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