At Home in Pleasant Valley

by Marta Perry

  “I tried to comfort her, but she just keeps crying.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, hunching his shoulders.

  “We’ll take care of her,” Leah said crisply. She climbed over the low barrier to the hay mow, sending Anna a glance that should have singed her. “Send him away at once,” she said in Pennsylvania Dutch.

  “I don’t see why—” Anna began, looking mulish.

  “Now,” she snapped. “We’ll talk about this later. There are more immediate things to deal with.”

  Sulky, Anna grabbed the boy’s arm and shoved him toward the door, muttering something to him that Leah couldn’t hear. Maybe that was just as well.

  Leah sank down in the hay next to the crying child. “There, now, Elizabeth. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  She shook her head.

  Leah pulled the child toward her, wrapping her arms around the small figure. “All right.” She held her close. “It’s going to be all right.”

  Some hurts went too deep for talk. She knew that for herself. Sometimes all you could do was hold someone.

  Guide me now, dear Father. I don’t know what to do for this suffering child. Please give me the right words to comfort her.

  She held Elizabeth, rocking back and forth, crooning softly in a mix of lullabies and comforting words. She could only hope that the little girl understood enough to take comfort, at least from her presence, if not from her words.

  After a while the sobs began to lessen in intensity, though the little body still shook with involuntary spasms. Elizabeth reached up to run her hand along her hair in a futile effort to right herself.

  “There, now, it’s all right.” Leah continued in dialect instead of the English she’d have used with her in school. “Don’t worry about how you look.”

  Elizabeth drew back a little, not meeting Leah’s eyes. She sniffled, her hands twisting in her lap. “I’m sorry.” She whispered the words.

  “Don’t be sorry.” Maybe a calm, matter-of-fact approach was best. “Everyone needs to cry sometimes, and the hay mow is a good place for it. Usually it’s nice and private, but today you had company, didn’t you?”

  “Anna came in with her friend.” Elizabeth hiccoughed. “I wanted to hide, but I was crying too hard. I didn’t want her to see me.”

  Leah stroked Elizabeth’s hair, smoothing the tumbled strands. “Anna won’t say anything to anyone. Besides, she’s done her share of crying out here from time to time.”

  “She comes here to cry?” Elizabeth looked up at her, eyes round.

  “She used to.” Today she’d come with something different in mind, and that was still to be dealt with. “Or she’d climb up in the willow tree when she wanted to be by herself. Once she went too high and couldn’t get down, and Levi had to bring the ladder to fetch her.”

  That brought the faint smile to the child’s face Leah had been hoping for.

  She used her handkerchief to wipe the last traces of tears from Elizabeth’s cheeks. “Were you upset because people found out about when you . . .”

  She hesitated. What was the right phrase? She wasn’t sure.

  “They were talking about my mamma.” Elizabeth burst out with it before Leah could come up with the proper words. “I don’t want them to.”

  Leah’s throat tightened. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Sometimes people talk, but they’re not really being mean. They’re just not thinking about the fact that you might be missing her.”

  “I don’t miss her.” The child’s hands clenched. “I don’t. I don’t want to talk about her ever again!”

  The vehemence in the child’s voice took Leah aback.

  “It’s all right. You don’t have to.”

  Was this grief or anger? She wasn’t sure, and not knowing the circumstances made it impossible for her to respond the right way. If Daniel had seen fit to open up a little more, maybe she’d be better able to deal with this.

  Elizabeth was looking at her with a doubting expression, and all she could do was try to reassure her.

  “Really. You don’t have to talk about her at all if you don’t want to.”

  Elizabeth stared at her for another moment. Then her face seemed to relax, and she sighed. “Ser gut,” she murmured.

  Was it good? She didn’t think so, but she didn’t have the right to interfere.

  The barn door creaked open. Daniel loomed for a moment on the threshold, probably to let his eyes grow accustomed to the dim light. Then he strode toward them, scooped his daughter up in his arms, and turned away.

  Leah scrambled out of the hay, shaking her skirt. “Daniel—”

  He glanced at her, his face shuttered tight against her. “I’ll take care of my daughter,” he said, and walked out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Leah tapped lightly on Anna’s bedroom door. At a murmur from within, she opened it. Barbara and Levi were on the back porch, watching the children play as twilight drew in. This was probably the one chance she’d have to talk to Anna without anyone hearing.

  She closed the door and leaned on it. Anna was rebraiding her hair, meaning that she intended to go out again. A small navy duffel bag lay on the bed, zipped closed.

  If Leah looked, which she wouldn’t, she’d probably find it contained English clothes. Many, if not most, Amish teens tried out modern clothing at one time or another during their rumspringa.

  If only that was all Anna was doing. It was one thing to have English friends. It was another to be meeting a strange boy in the barn. She murmured a silent prayer for guidance.

  “Well?” Anna, apparently tired of waiting, swung toward her. “Say what you’ve been waiting the whole day to say already.”

  Leah sank down on the bed. She wanted to have this conversation without blaming or scolding, but how could she?

  “What were you thinking, Anna? Why did you invite that boy here today, of all days? With all that had to be done and with half the church here—well, it was foolhardy, at best.”

  “I didn’t invite him today.” The defiance in Anna’s face faded, and she shifted her gaze away from her sister. “I’m not that dumb. He just showed up. And don’t call him ‘that boy.’ His name is Jarrod Wells.”

  “All right.” At least her little sister had more sense than she’d been fearing. “Why did Jarrod Wells come today, then, if you didn’t ask him?”

  Anna shrugged. “I don’t know. He just wanted to talk, that’s all.”

  “Talk?”

  “Ja, talk,” Anna flared. “I have a right to my own friends, don’t I? You and the boys had your rumspringa, and I’m having mine. Don’t tell me you didn’t do things you wouldn’t want Mammi and Daadi to know about.”

  “I suppose I did.” But those things had been pretty tame, it seemed, by Anna’s standards.

  She suddenly felt the more than ten years’ difference in their ages. Those years separated them as if they stood on opposite banks of a river.

  She had been nearly twelve when Anna—the much longed-for baby sister after the boys—was born. Leah had been her second mother, so happy to take care of her and play with her. She’d thought they would always be as close as they had been then.

  “Anna, please.” She tried to put all those years of love into the words. “You must know I don’t want to be the interfering older sister, out to ruin your fun.”

  “Then leave me alone. Trust me.” Anna grasped the footboard of the bed, leaning forward with urgency in her voice, every line of her body proclaiming how passionate she was about this.

  When Anna wanted, she wanted with her whole heart. Her emotions were always on the surface, ready to burst out in an instant. Maybe that was what frightened Leah so about her sister’s choices.

  She put her hand over Anna’s. “I just want you to be safe.”

  “I’m careful.”

  “Is
it careful to be meeting that . . . Jarrod in the barn? How many times has he met you there?”

  Anna jerked her hand free. “All right, so I met him there a few times. Don’t tell me you never smooched with Johnny in the stable when you were young, because I wouldn’t believe it.”

  That hurt, but she wouldn’t let it show in her face. “That was different.”

  “Different why?” Anna demanded. “Because Johnny was Amish? Because you were going to marry him? But Johnny’s not Amish anymore, and you didn’t get married.”

  The pain sharpened, all the worse because the hurtful words came from her precious little sister. She wrapped her fingers around the bedpost, trying to focus on the present.

  “Are you in love with Jarrod?”

  Please, she murmured silently. Please.

  Anna shrugged. “I don’t know. I might be.”

  “Anna, stop and think what you’re saying. You can’t fall in love with him. He’s—”

  “Englischer. Auslander.” She threw up her hands in an extravagant gesture. “Listen to yourself, Leah. You talk as if a person can control who they fall in love with. Love isn’t like that.”

  Leah’s fingers tightened; her stomach twisted. She had to find the words that would turn her sister from her headstrong course.

  “What is love like, then?”

  Anna looked startled at the question. “Love is—well, it’s overwhelming. It takes you over and makes you willing to do anything, anything for the person you love.”

  “What about the other people you love? The people who love you and want what’s best for you? What about your duty to them?”

  “You don’t understand.” Anna swung away from her. “Honestly, Leah, sometimes I think you don’t have any feelings at all. You can’t talk about duty when you’re in love. If you were really in love, that wouldn’t matter at all.”

  No feelings. That was what Johnny had said to her, too, long ago, when she’d sent him away. But if she had no feelings, what was this pain in her chest, so sharp it took an effort to breathe?

  But she would breathe. And she would control her emotions, because that was what she did. It was for the best.

  “Anna, I just want you to be careful. And I want Mamm not to have to worry about you. Is that so much to ask?”

  Anna’s lips tightened. She grabbed the bag and headed for the door.

  But when she reached it, she stopped, hand on the latch. She didn’t look back at Leah.

  “I’ll be careful, all right?” Her voice was impatient. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

  She opened the door and was gone.

  • • •

  “Come in, come in.” John Kile stood in the center hallway of the medical clinic a few days later, holding the door open for Leah. “Let me show you around our facility.”

  She stepped inside a little gingerly, not sure what awaited her. She’d hired a driver to bring her, because the clinic was too far to go with horse and buggy after school and still get home by dark. Her driver, Ben Morgan, would be waiting for her when she finished.

  It wasn’t that the idea of the clinic was foreign to her. She’d certainly spent a great deal of time in medical facilities last year when Mamm had been ill.

  But this was different, both because Johnny was here and because of what he wanted from her.

  The decision to come, even to look around, hadn’t been easy. She’d struggled with it for over a week, praying endlessly, staring at the ceiling when she should have been sleeping.

  Finally she’d realized why it was so hard. Because of Johnny. Because Johnny was the one who’d asked her.

  If anyone else had approached her, her thoughts would have been for the children and how she could help them. Chastened, she’d made her decision.

  “You can hang your bonnet there.” Johnny nodded to a row of wooden pegs on the wall of the hallway. His blue eyes were alive with excitement, and he was as eager as a child with a new scooter.

  She took her time removing her bonnet and straightening her head covering, trying to get accustomed to the place.

  On the outside, the clinic had clearly been designed to make Amish visitors feel welcome. Although new, it was built in a style reminiscent of a sturdy Pennsylvania Dutch barn. A row of hitching posts lined one side of the parking lot under a row of shade trees.

  “This is the clinic area.” Obviously impatient, Johnny seized her elbow and steered her through the archway into a waiting room lined with chairs.

  Leah had to pause and blink. In contrast to the mellow exterior, this room fairly shouted at her. The walls were covered with bright wallpaper in an abstract design, the plastic chairs bore brightly colored pads, and posters were plastered on the walls over the chairs.

  “Great, isn’t it?” Johnny gestured. “We even have a play area for the children.”

  The play corner was filled with bright plastic toys, some of them representing objects Leah couldn’t identify, but she nodded and smiled.

  He ushered her over to the counter that lined one end of the room. “I’d like to introduce our receptionist, the person who keeps us all on track. Leah, this is Julia Alcott. Julia, Leah Beiler.”

  Johnny gave Julia his most charming smile, and in that moment Leah realized that underneath his outward assurance, he was nervous. With all his education, did he still question his acceptance here?

  Julia nodded, her eyes cool. She was probably in her midthirties, although Leah found it difficult to judge the ages of non-Amish women, and the beige suit she wore made her look more like one of the professionals than a receptionist.

  Before Leah could decide what, if anything, to say, a door behind the counter opened. The man who loped through was tall and thin, with keen gray eyes behind his glasses and an eager, youthful smile. He came quickly through the break in the counter and extended his hand to her.

  “Welcome, welcome. I’m Alex Brandenmyer. You must be the friend of John’s who’s going to help us. I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “Leah Beiler,” Johnny said, and his voice had an undertone of increased nervousness.

  It was little wonder. Leah shot a look at Johnny. She had said she’d consider this job, and the doctor acted as if her acceptance was an accomplished fact. Either Johnny was overly optimistic about persuading her to do this, or else he felt he knew her so well that there was no question of her cooperation.

  With no help for it, Leah shook the man’s hand, feeling awkward. “I’m not completely sure that I will be able to help you.”

  His eyebrows lifted at that, and he gave Johnny a questioning glance. “Well, we’ll just have to convince you that we need you, won’t we? Tell me, what do you think of our waiting room? We want it to be comfortable and welcoming for our Amish clients.”

  “It’s . . . It’s very nice.” She found it anything but comfortable, but she couldn’t say that.

  “That isn’t really what you think, is it?” He smiled, but his gaze was keen and assessing. “Tell me. I’d like to hear your opinion.”

  He was quick to size people up. A good quality in a doctor, she supposed, but she found it a bit uncomfortable when it was turned on her.

  “Well, I . . .” She glanced at Johnny, hoping he could get her out of this awkward situation, but he was gazing attentively at his mentor. “It’s very . . . busy. If your visitors are already nervous about being here, they might find it a little overwhelming.”

  “Good point. See, you’ve helped us already.”

  The doctor beamed, apparently pleased, but Julia looked annoyed. Had the woman picked out the colors and patterns? Leah hadn’t meant to offend anyone, but he’d forced her to give her opinion.

  “This is the clinic area, as you can see.”

  Dr. Brandenmyer seemed determined to take over the tour. She’d find it less intimidating to be shown around by Johnny,
but he faded back in the presence of Dr. Brandenmyer.

  “We see patients daily, but over here on the other side of the hallway is where the real work is done.”

  He moved quickly, towing her along as he crossed the hallway and opened the door. A completely different atmosphere permeated this side of the entry area. A hallway stretched the depth of the building, with rooms and cubicles off it to the left.

  Dr. Brandenmyer gestured as he walked, giving her the impression that he liked to do more than one thing at a time. “Here we have an exam room with an area for drawing blood. Next we have the laboratory to analyze that blood.” He nodded to a young man in a blue lab coat wearing goggles.

  “The Amish provide a unique opportunity to study genetic diseases, you know.” He paused. “Genetic diseases are those that are carried in the genes, passed on from parent to child.”

  He apparently assumed that she had no understanding of the problems at all.

  “Like the Crigler-Najjar syndrome and the maple syrup urine disease,” she suggested.

  “Yes, exactly.” He looked at her approvingly, as if she were a brighter pupil than he’d anticipated. “You see, most Pennsylvania Amish are descended from the same small group of ancestors. That means that genetic diseases can be more prevalent. If we’re able to trace the family trees of those who are affected, we can come that much closer to identifying the causes.”

  “And finding a cure?” Her heart clenched at the thought of the families who would be touched by such a thing.

  “We’re a long way from that right now,” he admitted. “But everything we learn moves us forward. Early testing and intervention can help many of the affected children live a much more normal life.”

  He stopped at the entrance to a room that seemed completely filled with computers. Johnny brushed past her and crossed to a woman who swung away from one of the screens as they came in.

  “Leah, this is Stacie Corson.” He rested his hand lightly on the back of her chair.

  The slight, dark-haired young woman shot Johnny an intense glance before nodding at Leah.