A Simple Hope

by Rosalind Lauer

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way.” Elsie patted her shoulder, her brown eyes aglow with concern. “Do you have a cell phone to make your call?”

  The Amish woman was kind, even motherly, though she seemed young to have children herself. “I do, but the battery ran out.” She hadn’t thought about bringing the charger, and she couldn’t afford to buy a new one.

  “Then use our phone. We just got it. The bishop allows shop phones if the wiring is already there.” Elsie pointed to a white phone hanging on the wall over a tidy little desk in the storeroom.

  Swallowing back her nerves, Shandell picked up the handset and punched in the number. It was late afternoon, almost suppertime, and she imagined her mom in the kitchen, the scent of roasted chicken in the air and a wispy cloud of steam rising from a pot on the stove.

  As it rang, she rehearsed her apology. Mom, I’m sorry for the bad choices I made. I should never have argued with you. I’m sorry about failing math. Give me a chance to fix things. I’ll make it better …

  The line clicked, but the low snarl wasn’t her mother. “Hello?”

  “Phil …” Disappointment tugged at her. “It’s Shandell.”

  “Shandell who?” He slurred her name, but the malice in his voice was sharp and clear.

  “I know that’s a joke, but right now I don’t feel much like laughing. I was hoping to talk to Mom.”

  “She’s not here. She’s working the laundry. Trying to pay the bills. Your bills.”

  “I’m sorry, Phil. About everything.” It hurt her to think of him sitting there in the folds of the couch, tossing back a beer, while their family was crumbling like a cookie. “But I need to talk to Mom. I … I’ll call her on her cell.” She should have done that in the first place.

  “Good luck with that,” Phil Darby said. “There’s no cell phone reception in that laundry. Besides, she couldn’t talk with you, even if she wanted to. She’s got a job to do. A job. That’s what you need, instead of whining over school. When are you going to wise up?”

  A wave of remorse swept through her when she thought of the mistakes she’d made. Granted, she had been trying hard in school, and the math grade wasn’t her fault. But instead of shutting down and letting herself fail, she should have stood up and gotten help. She should have appreciated the support her parents gave her—good food and a roof over her head. And then it had been wrong to cut off Mom, the only person who was really on her side. Instead, she had jumped in Gary’s car, dazzled by the thought of adventure. She’d actually thought that a few days at his sister’s house would be like a vacation.

  What an idiot she was! And she had no one to blame but herself.

  Shandell told Phil: “Tell her I called, okay?”

  “I’m not your secretary,” he grumbled.

  “Please, Phil.” She ran her hand over a little scar in the surface of the desk, bracing against the sting of his retorts. Although she knew it was the alcohol talking, it still hurt. “Listen, I gotta go—”

  “So busy doing nothing,” he snapped.

  “Bye, Phil.” Wincing, she broke the connection and quickly dialed her mother’s cell phone. Phil had been right; there was no answer. She left a message saying she was all right, that she was in a town in Lancaster County, and that she would try again later.

  When she hung up, the Amish guy was standing behind her with a plate of food.

  “Ruben got some fresh rolls at the bakery, and we have cheese and apple butter.” As Ruben put the plate on the little desk, Elsie scooted the chair out for Shandell. “Sit. Have a little bit to eat.”

  “Thank you.” Shandell smiled at the tall young man, who nodded. Next to Elsie, he seemed like a giant, but she liked the way he looked at the Amish teen. There was fondness in his eyes, as if Elsie were a bright bouquet of flowers. They were a cute couple.

  Shandell’s mouth watered at the sight of the soft rolls with a wedge of buttery cheese. “I haven’t eaten for a while.”

  “I thought so.” Elsie opened up a folding chair as the door bells jingled. “We’ll be right with you!” she called toward the door.

  “I’ll go,” Ruben offered, heading out to tend to the customer.

  “Did you talk to your mamm?”

  “I left a message for her,” Shandell said, breaking off a piece of roll.

  “A message? But how will she find you?” Elsie sat down in the folding chair, and frowned over the cloth bag in her lap. “Is she coming for you?”

  “She’ll be coming later.” Shandell didn’t want to pile more worry on Elsie; the young woman had done enough, hiding her from Gary. And she certainly didn’t want to try to explain about Phil. She had kept her stepfather’s bad behavior a secret from her friends; Gary had been the only one to figure it out, and that had been only because he’d been pushy. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Scraps of cloth to make quilt squares. If you have to wait, it’s good to have something to pass the time.”

  “But I’ve never made a quilt,” Shandell said.

  “I’ll teach you.” Elsie pulled out a square of maroon cloth and smoothed it down on the desk. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

  Watching her go through the scrap bag, Shandell had a feeling there was nothing Elsie couldn’t smooth over. Maybe there was hope for Shandell, too. Maybe, with Elsie’s caring touch, her ragbag of a life could be pieced together.

  Nervous excitement fluttered in Rachel’s chest as she washed pots while her sisters Rose and Bethany dried and put away the last of the dinner dishes. It was Saturday night—courting night—and Rachel had been thinking about James all day.

  “Here’s a stubborn patch,” Rachel said, putting some muscle into the scrubbing of a fat kettle that had been used for bean soup. She lifted the kettle for a look. “Still there.”

  Rose wound her dish towel around the pitcher she was drying. “At this rate, you could be scouring all night.”

  “And I’ve got somewhere to go.”

  “Are you going to see James?” Bethany asked. “Did Dat say you could use a buggy?”

  “Mamm and Dat trust Rachel with a horse and buggy,” Rose said, rising on tiptoe to put the pitcher on its shelf. “And we’d best help her get going, so she can start before dark. Why don’t you finish that last pot, Bethy, while I hitch up Pansy for Rachel.”

  Bethany shrugged. “Sure.”

  Rachel squeezed the sponge, surprised by her sisters’ generosity. “Gott truly blessed me with loving sisters.”

  Rose smiled. “Ya. Sisters who hope you’ll be helping us out when it’s our time to be courting.”

  “I would help you in a heartbeat.” How she loved her sisters! She dried her hands as Bethany stepped to the sink. Rachel patted Bethany’s shoulder, placed a kiss on Rose’s cheek, then bounded up the steps. She wanted to wash the grime from her face and fetch the painting.

  Out in the barn, she helped Rose harness Pansy. The girls brought the horse to the side of the barn, where they worked alongside brother Ben, who was hitching up his own buggy, obviously going off to see a girl—probably Hannah Stoltzfus. Rachel felt a little awkward, calling on her beau. By tradition, an Amish boy came to visit his girl on Saturday nights. But James hadn’t been able to drive a buggy since his accident.

  “So you’re off to see James.” Ben held up the heavier part of the rig while Rachel fastened the lines. “I heard the Lapps might be looking to hire a few men, come the summer. Did James say anything about that?”

  “He didn’t mention it,” Rachel said.

  “I might want a job like that. It would sure beat working in the factory.”

  “I thought you were going to take the job at the family stand in the city?” Rachel said.

  “Maybe. Right now, nothing really grabs me.”

  That was Ben … already eighteen but still waiting for the right star to twinkle in the sky for him. Meanwhile, the family was counting on him to work the cheese stand at Reading Terminal Market. The Philadelphia hub was one of the oldest
markets in the country, and sales in the city were a major source of income for the King family’s two dairy farms.

  Rachel carefully tucked the painting into the buggy, then came up behind her brother and clamped her hands on his shoulders.

  “That tickles.” Ben winced, chuckling. “What are you doing?”

  “Just showing you that something’s grabbing you,” she teased. “And what is it? I think it’s the job at the market. A good job for a young man who needs work.” She squeezed his shoulders, causing him to squirm and laugh.

  “Cut it out,” Ben exclaimed.

  From the other side of the rig, Rose joined in their laughter. “Rachel? Did you hitch the wrong horse?”

  “Looks that way. This one’s wild and untamed.” Rachel dropped her hands, and her brother scrambled away, still chuckling.

  “You’re going to make me late.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” Rachel said.

  “Tell Hannah we didn’t mean to keep you,” Rose called. She was only guessing that Hannah was the girl their brother was courting; like most Amish young men, Ben kept his love life close to the cuff.

  Ben just swatted her comment away, and then climbed into his buggy. He called to the horse, and was off riding into the pink and orange sunset on the horizon.

  Pansy’s black tail swished back and forth contentedly, no doubt in anticipation of some attention from Lovina and Mark, James’s two younger siblings who enjoyed tending animals. As they passed the neat rows of trees leading to the Lapp house, Rachel searched the foliage for the lovely blossoms that had burst from the branches in her dream. So far nothing was in bloom, but many of the trees were thick with buds.

  She turned toward the farmhouse, where the porch had been rebuilt to include a wide ramp for James’s wheelchair. It was one of the ways the orchard house had changed in the months since the accident. These days, Englishers came twice a week—doctors and medical folk, checking on James’s health and updating his exercise program and such. James’s parents had also given him their bedroom on the ground floor and moved to the second story so that he didn’t have to be carried up the stairs. There were the wheelchairs, the bars suspended from the ceiling beams so that James could lift himself and make the transfers. The widened doorways. So many changes.

  But the renovated house was just the outward shell. The changes that frightened her were the dark moods that James slipped into from time to time. Dylan had said that depression and post-traumatic stress were normal for a person with an injury like James’s. Rachel understood that. She had lapsed into her own bad moments of guilt and sorrow, a dark and sour time. Thanks be to Gott, those clouds had lifted from Rachel’s heart. But James still had his bad times.

  His path will be different from yours, Dylan had told her. Ya, James had gone through lots of physical therapy, lots of work learning how to do basic things from a wheelchair.

  And then there was the fear … the terrible possibility that James would never walk again. Rachel had made her peace with this, trusting James’s future to the Almighty. She couldn’t change the past, and Mamm had hammered the reality of Gott’s will to Rachel and her siblings. Gott doesn’t make mistakes, Mamm told them every time tragedy struck. One day, Rachel and James would accept that the accident was not a mistake. But for now, they both had to trust Gott and keep moving on.

  Eleven-year-old Lovina emerged from the barn and offered to tie Pansy up in a good spot. Rachel dropped down from the buggy and passed James’s father, who was splitting logs by the woodshed. Jimmy gave a curt nod, then kept going with his work. On the grass by the picnic table, Verena was tossing a Frisbee back and forth with sister Hannah and brother Mark, who were racing the dog for the plastic disk. Rachel wished that James was out here, teasing his siblings or giving the Frisbee a toss from his wheelchair. She always felt a twinge of sorrow when she saw life going on around him. Sometimes, when James was in despair, he let his injury hold him back.

  Edna met her at the kitchen door and went about making tea for her, while Rachel pulled a wooden rocker up beside James, who was staring at an open book. The Bible.

  He nodded in greeting, but there was no flare of warmth in his smoky, dark eyes, and he didn’t hold his hand out to touch her or pull her close. It didn’t bode well for her visit. Already she could tell that today he was a million miles away.

  “I brought you a gift,” she said, holding the canvas board out for him to view. Bracing herself, Rachel watched as James took in the painting she had done for him.

  He squinted. “A peach?”

  “A peach hanging on a tree. It’s a bit different for me, so close up you can see the drops of dew on the peach fuzz. What do you think? Is it good enough to eat?” she asked, repeating something he once said about one of her paintings of a wedge of watermelon.

  “I reckon. But no matter how tasty it looks, it’s just a painting. It’s not real life. Sometimes I think you hole up and paint a different world to get away from the one Gott gave you.”

  She blinked, off-guard. “I’m not trying to get away.”

  “Mmm.” His lips were tightly pressed together as he propped the small canvas board on the table. She could tell he didn’t care much for it. Of course he didn’t. Men didn’t appreciate decorative things like crocheted potholders or the photos on calendars. It had been a mistake, thinking that she could cheer him up with a little picture. “I figured that if you couldn’t work the orchard, I’d bring the orchard inside to you.”

  “But I don’t need a painting to see the orchards.” His words were drained of hope, as if someone had pulled the plug and all his enthusiasm had run out of the sink. “You know I work out there every day. Someone has to tell Peter and Luke and Matt what’s to be done.”

  “And you’re the one who followed your doddy around since you were a little boy.” Rachel knew James was fond of his memories from when he was a toddler, traipsing through the orchard behind his grandfather, soaking up tidbits on which insects were helpful and which harmed trees, when to prune and when to let a tree be. “He taught you everything about the orchard, the gardener’s alphabet from A to Z.”

  “Ya. All that so I could work in the office.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do? I thought your dat managed the sales end of things.”

  “He wants me to learn that side of the business.” He closed the Bible and put it on the table beside the painting. “He thinks I’m stuck in this chair for good.”

  Sensing the venom in his words, Rachel changed the subject as Edna delivered her tea. “Denke. Hot tea is good on a night like this. Once the sun goes down, you forget it’s spring.”

  James’s mother agreed, and they chatted a bit about how a late frost might hurt the trees. When Edna returned to the kitchen, Rachel went to the shelves to pick out a board game. She knew James wouldn’t open up for a serious talk when his family was still apt to wander through the living room. They played a round of Trouble, though Rachel felt sorry for James; his tokens were trapped inside the starting spot because he just couldn’t roll a six for the longest time. It was too close to reality, with him being trapped in the wheelchair, unable to walk and climb wherever he wanted. After one round of the game, she put it away and dealt the cards for Go Fish.

  They played on in a shadow of tension until James’s parents and young siblings headed up to bed.

  Alone, sitting in the glow of the fire that James had just fed with logs, Rachel pulled her chair closer to him. “There’s a group counseling session on Monday,” she said. “Can you come to this one? Everyone would like to see you, and I think it would do you good to get out for a while.”

  “I can’t.”

  “James, talk to me, please. Tell me one of your good stories.”

  “There’s none to tell. I had a visit from the bishop this week. It seems he and Dat have decided I should give up on walking and stay a cripple for the rest of my life.”

  “What? James, that can’t be.”

  “
But it’s true.” He told her about the bishop’s advice to accept God’s will and how Dat was worried that James’s association with the world beyond their community was pulling him away from Amish life. “Dat won’t allow Englishers in the house anymore.”

  “What about Dylan and Haley? Your counseling … your physical therapy.”

  “No more, unless I can get myself into town to see them.”

  Rachel gripped the worn armrests of the rocking chair. This was going to be a new challenge for James, who already had a full plate. “What about that study? Will they let you do it if you qualify?”

  “Doc Trueherz told me I made it into the study. The treatment is free.”

  “And you’re allowed to do it?”

  “I don’t want to give Dat a choice on that. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, don’t you think?”

  “Bishop Samuel has never stopped you from getting treatment,” she said. “When it comes to health, he knows that medicine can save people’s lives.”

  “If it’s Gott’s will,” James reminded her.

  “Ya. Gott is the only one who can really heal you.” The crackling fire was the only sound in the room as James fell back into his brooding. He got caught in that glum mood a lot these days, stuck in the muck of worry. Thinking back on how James had been so miserable, she realized the bishop’s idea was a good one. Samuel was trying to help James deal with the reality of today, here and now. If James could accept the way things were, he would be happier right now.

  “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing, to accept what Gott has given us to work with today,” Rachel said. “My mamm always says that Gott makes no mistakes. You know it’s true. We have to accept the changes He sends us.”

  “I’m sick of hearing that. Does it mean I have to accept this? That I can’t learn to walk again?”

  “It’s not about learning, James. You can learn how to crack an egg. But you can’t learn how to walk again if it’s not Gott’s will. It’s about accepting Gott’s plan for you.”