by Senft, Adina
Eli raised his brows. “That’s a very generous offer.”
“It is.” Isaac nodded over his roast beef. “But I think Amelia would give a fair chance to an Amish man, even if his offer wasn’t quite so high.” Her father’s gaze held hers.
She almost said, I would?—but bit it back just in time.
“The attraction of the Englisch man’s offer,” she began carefully, “is that it would be enough to finance the treatment, but there would be enough left over for me to start again with a smaller shop.”
“True,” her father said. “But if a good business stayed within the church, then God would bless you with prosperity in another start, even if you didn’t have money right away.”
Oh, dear. This was not what she had hoped for. But she said nothing, only waited for Eli to speak. This money would be coming out of his pockets, after all.
“I’m not sure I could match such a generous offer as this Englischer has made, even if I wanted to,” Eli said slowly. “I was thinking more along the lines of seventy or eighty thousand, depending on how friendly the bank manager is feeling on the day I go in.” Again that self-deprecating smile turned in her direction, but it didn’t warm her the way it had earlier.
Would the church take sides about this, too? Would people judge her for allowing her business to go outside the church, thus depriving an Amish man of a way to make his living? Would everyone see her as greedy and self-serving and proud instead of desperate and trapped in a situation over which she had no control?
Was she flouting God’s will in trying to find a way out?
What was she going to do?
Eli’s gaze, at first warm and humble, had begun to reflect her alarm—though probably not for the same reasons. “I am sorry it is so little,” he said. “I’m not a rich man, just one who knows how to work hard.”
“It’s not little,” she managed, stalling for time. “It’s a very nice offer.” If she hadn’t heard Bernard Burke’s first, she probably would have been thrilled.
“Of course you can’t decide tonight,” he went on. “Why don’t I have a talk with the bank, and then, once I know for sure what I can manage, I’ll come and talk with you again.”
“When will that be?” She wanted to be in Mexico by January, and the wheels of the Amish moved slowly when it came to big decisions. That was often a good thing, but not in her case. With every day that passed, a little more of her myelin got nibbled away. Time was running out.
“I was planning to leave on Friday. I’ll be home by Saturday night, and I could go in and have a talk on Monday. So if you’ll be in the shop Tuesday morning, I could call then.”
She nodded. “That would be fine. I told Mr. Burke I would let him know next week.”
“Gut.”
“Ja.”
There didn’t seem much else to do then but finish her dinner. Ruth asked Eli how they were doing up there at the Martin Kings’, and the conversation drifted away from Amelia’s concerns. But her thoughts ran along the same track, speeding into a future she couldn’t yet see.
What should I do, Lord? What is Your will? And, Lord, why did You bring this kind, hardworking man to sit across the table from me if You had no intention of allowing us to be anything to each other?
Chapter 14
Isaac took the boys out to the barn to help him move some hay from the loft for the few cows he still kept, though Amelia thought it was a little strange to be doing that after dinner instead of during the day. It wasn’t until Ruth vanished, murmuring something about a tisane she had steeping, that Amelia realized something was going on.
“I…I suppose I’d best be going,” Eli said, turning his black hat around and around in his hands. “Tell your mother denki for the dinner. And you, too. Denki.”
“You’re most welcome. Anna’s coleslaw was delicious.” Oh, this was so silly. “Eli, I apologize for my parents. I think they think I’m sixteen and my first boy has come calling.”
He straightened, and his shoulders seemed to relax with relief. “I didn’t know what they thought—or whether I wanted to laugh or run.”
What a gift to be able to be as honest with this man as she was with Emma or Carrie. Well, nearly as honest. There were certain topics you would never bring up with a man—and courtship was usually one of them.
“I hope you won’t run. I hope you’ll feel as comfortable here as you would in your own home.”
“You make me feel that way.” He paused. “Wherever you are. Even out in a rainy field.”
She ducked her head and blushed. “Eli—”
“I know. You’ve told me where you stand. I know it’s only been a year since you lost the one you loved. I can enter into those feelings, too.” She looked up, and at the question in her eyes he said, “I lost my wife and son a few years ago. They were making a left turn in the buggy at an intersection, and a truck ran the stop sign.”
She drew in a shocked breath. “Oh, Eli. How awful.” How strange that they should both lose the ones they loved in nearly the same way. And doubly strange that she had not heard of it, even via Aaron and the Kings.
“It was. For nearly a year, I doubted I would survive. Only the hand of God, the prayers of the church, and the daily care of my family got me through.”
Amelia nodded. “I know. God looks after His own.” She had wondered about his story, but if she’d asked anyone, they would have thought her interest was personal. She would not give people any more to talk about than they already had. “So you have no other children?”
He shook his head. “Kate had very difficult pregnancies. We lost two before Jonathan came along.”
To wait so long for a child and then have him taken away so suddenly and cruelly…Amelia laid her hand on his arm without a thought to how it would look. “Eli, I’m so terribly sorry. We know God knows best, but sometimes accepting His will can be a battle in itself.”
He nodded, covering her hand with his own. “It has been. I won’t be shy about admitting it. Perhaps that’s why I like spending time with your boys. It comforts me somehow.” He looked down at his hand, as if he’d just now realized what it was up to. “You’re a very comfortable family.”
“I think you mean comforting.” With a smile she tried to reclaim her hand, but she didn’t get far.
“I mean, I’m comfortable with you.”
“So…so you said.”
“Couldn’t you tell me why you’re pulling away, then?” His voice was so low it was practically a rumble in his chest.
She let him have her hand. It was her left—the one that didn’t work. It lay in his, inert, and only the fact that he was squeezing it gently gave it any semblance of life at all.
“I have multiple sclerosis, Eli.”
“And so you said. That makes no difference to me.”
“It should.” Her voice gained a little strength as she realized she would have to get him to understand, once and for all. “It will make a very great difference in ten years, when I won’t be able to cook or keep house. When I’ll be in a wheelchair, maybe held up by a strap across my chest. When y— When someone would have to care for me instead of having me care for him.” She took a shaky breath, and this time when she pulled, he let her go. “I would not wish that on anyone.”
“Amelia, you and I have both said the wedding vows. You remember? We promised the ones we married that if they were afflicted with bodily weakness or sickness, we would care for them.”
And we said those vows when we were young and healthy and disease was something that happened to other people. “I remember. But—”
“If someone loved you, he wouldn’t mind caring for you. He’d do it gladly.”
“But it would be a sacrifice I’m not willing to let someone make.”
“You should leave that up to this…someone.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have any idea what he would be getting into.” When Eli opened his mouth to speak, she went on before he could get the words out. “And there’s a
nother reason. If I sell the shop—no matter who to—and go to Mexico to have this new treatment, the bishop has as much as told me I’ll be put under the Bann for disobedience.”
His eyes widened. “Why on earth?”
“Because they don’t believe it’s scriptural to put the substance of an animal into the temple of the human body.”
The significance of this sank in. “But you believe this treatment will help you?”
“For the boys’ sake, I have to do it. If there’s even a slim chance that I won’t become that person in the wheelchair that my teenage sons will have to look after instead of getting out and leading their own lives, I want to take it.”
He nodded slowly. “And that…someone who might be there, too? He would not have to do so either, would he?”
Too late she saw where he was going. “I can’t ask that of…of anyone. To wait and see, I mean. That would not be fair. Even if I did come back better, I would still be facing die Meinding.”
This would be the point where he would realize that it was better to court a woman who was not only healthy but unencumbered, too, instead of wasting his time on ifs and maybes.
“You might. Or you could consider another community, one that doesn’t hold such a strict line where medical matters are concerned.”
“But then I would have to take the boys away from their home and family.”
“Ja, possibly. But Lebanon County, you know, is not so far away.”
He’d put one over on her again. “Eli, it’s impossible.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Nothing is impossible if it’s within the Lord’s will.”
“But finding out His will is the hard part.” The lump in her throat was so big she couldn’t get words past it. How was it possible that this man could hint at a future when she had given him so little encouragement?
Now she knew what it meant to be humbled to the dust. “Eli,” she whispered. “You must not say such things to me.”
“Telling me what to do already?” he teased, his voice as soft as a touch.
“I can’t,” she said, half to him and half to herself.
“You think about it. Have your treatment and know that in Lebanon County someone will be waiting and thinking about you.”
“Don’t. I don’t want you to.” She was so close to tears she could hardly speak. She could not ask these things of him, no matter how willing he was to do them. Not when she hardly knew her own heart. “Don’t waste your life waiting, Eli. How is it that you have never married again? You must go find a girl in Lebanon County who is free to…to care for you as…as you should be cared for.”
“I don’t want a girl. I want a woman. A capable, godly woman who has been tried and tested and come out as gold.”
Fool’s gold. “You may want such a woman, but the one standing here is empty and hurting and frightened.”
“But when God heals those hurts, you may think differently. And you will be thinking of your boys as well.”
Oh, why did he have to say that? Because she was not the only person she had to think of. The fact was that the boys were her first thought—and they missed having a man to look up to. Daadi was wonderful, but they didn’t have him at bedtime when she was fighting them to go upstairs. Or in the middle of the night when Elam woke with his fears of the dark, calling “Daed! Daed!” in such a faint, pitiful voice that she wondered it did not reach Enoch in heaven and break his heart, despite what the Scripture said about there being no grief there.
Her boys would bring comfort to a faithful heart that had lost his family. For those reasons alone—Eli and her sons needed each other—she could be tempted to allow him to court her and see if such a path was really God’s will. But for herself ? The choice was much more difficult, and selfishness was always the easiest, most joyful path.
At first. But when she had to count the cost, would it be worth it then? Better to count it now and make the decision than have to do it later, when the cost would only increase.
The door to the sunroom opened, and Eli stepped back. Amelia realized just how close they’d been standing—he would merely have had to lift his arms and she would have been in them. And only now, as the gap between them widened to a polite distance and pain and loss rushed in to fill it, did she realize the magnitude of what she was giving up.
“And then, to top it off, he offered me a ride home.”
Oblivious to the fact that half the congregation was on the other side of Old Joe’s daughter’s bedroom door, Emma and Carrie sat next to each other on the bed, hanging on every word. They’d come in to pin up Carrie’s hem after she’d accidentally put her heel through it, and Amelia had seized her chance.
“Even Matthew forgot to complain when Eli wouldn’t let him drive. He was too busy listening to his stories about the crazy pigs they used to have on his father’s farm.”
“He shouldn’t have let him drive anyway, not at night,” Emma put in. “But never mind the pigs. Eli Fischer really asked if he could court you, straight out, in so many words?”
“He did.” Amelia sighed. “Right there in Mamm’s kitchen, with me standing at the door like I was wishing he would go.”
“Which you weren’t,” Carrie said. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” Amelia said slowly. “I was practically in his arms the whole time and didn’t even realize it.”
“Your mother’s going to make hay with that one.” Emma tried to smile and failed miserably.
“She didn’t see. He stepped away just in time, and that’s when he asked to give us a ride home. So Mamm had enough hay to make with that.” She put her fingers to her temples, feeling the organdy of her Kapp—a soft reminder that prayer should be a constant thing. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Let the poor man come around.” As if just remembering that someone could walk in at any moment, Emma got up and leaned against the door.
“You know why she can’t,” Carrie told her. She brushed the Ohio Star quilt on the bed with one hand, and in her face Amelia could practically see her own thoughts. What a pity that life wasn’t so organized as those straight, orderly seams. Each lay just as it should, and when it didn’t, a little pressing of the iron soon convinced it where its duty lay, so that its neighbor could lie flat and show to best advantage, too.
“I know why she thinks she can’t.” Emma wasn’t going to give up until she’d said her piece. “If you can do something as daring as travel all the way to Mexico, you can certainly take a chance on a man when he offers himself to you on a plate.”
Amelia chewed her bottom lip. Was that bitter tone directed at her or at Emma’s own circumstances? Perhaps she was still thinking, You’ve had two chances, and I’ve had none. Don’t waste what another woman would treasure.
“I can’t let him go any further—to sacrifice himself for me,” she said at last. “He would come to hate me in the end, like—” No, she couldn’t say that out loud.
Emma settled herself more firmly against the door. “Were you going to say like I hated my father? I didn’t, you know. Being glad he’s at peace isn’t the same as hating him.”
“And being glad there’s peace in the house isn’t the same as being glad he’s dead.” Carrie finished the thought.
“But I wouldn’t be dead.” Amelia struggled to find the right words. “It’s not the same. He would come to resent me, I know he would, and wish that the day-in, day-out drudgery of caring for me were over.”
“I don’t think he’s that kind of man,” Emma observed. “I don’t know him very well, but if there are two kinds of people—givers and takers—it seems to me he falls in the first category. Love makes it easy to give.”
“But givers need to be given to as well.”
“And you would. While you could. After that, it’s up to the Lord. Who’s to say your future is going to look like Lila Esch’s anyway? God might have something different in mind for you.”
“I can’t take the risk. And I can’t let him take it eith
er. Or even think about taking it, which is what he’s doing now.”
“You mean you don’t trust God.” Emma, drat her, sounded just like Mamm.
“I trust that He knows what He’s doing. The problem is, I don’t know what He’s doing. All I know is that I have to sell the shop and go to Mexico. I have to do what I can to get well. Everything else is up to Him. Eli said he would wait, but I can’t hold him to that.”
Emma put her hands behind her and gripped the door handle. “Amelia Beiler, sometimes I just want to spank you. Don’t you know I would give ten years off my life for a man who would say such a thing to me?”
Shame washed over her. “I know.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“I…I guess I have a hard time trusting that it could be so. That it could be real. Because Enoch promised me…and then he…” She couldn’t go on. Instead she pushed away from the dresser and walked over to the window. The sky had begun to clear, just when she would have appreciated a howling gale to match her mood.
“Enoch would have kept his promises if it weren’t for that drunk driver,” Emma said fiercely. “Don’t go losing faith in him because he never got a chance to show it. And don’t lose faith in Eli Fischer because you won’t give him a chance to show it either.”
Amelia blinked, clearing the blur of tears out of her vision. “I wasn’t— I didn’t…”
“You just told us you did. The truth is, if you’re going to shortchange a fine man like that, I don’t want to hear about it.” Emma’s mouth trembled, and she carefully released the door handle, as if reminding herself not to give it a good hard slam.
“I’m giving him a chance to have a happy life and forget a woman who may only wind up being an invalid.”
“I’m not listening.”
She’d known that Emma was stubborn, but she’d never seen her like this. Amelia crossed the room and took Emma’s shoulders, as though offering a massage. But even her muscles felt as stiff and unyielding as bone. Amelia squeezed gently with her right hand. “Don’t let a man come between us, Liewi.”
