“Denke for allowing me to stay at your haus, Ruth.”
“We’ve loved having you and we hope that you’ll come back anytime. Come back when your mudder is better.”
“I don’t think she’ll ever be better. She’s a broken woman because of my father leaving us, over and over, and then coming back and promising us he was a changed man. She thought she was doing the right thing by taking him back all the time. He’d been shunned many times and then taken back into the community. Even still, Mamm kept back the full extent of things from me.”
“Gott tells us to forgive.”
“It’s not an easy thing to do. I would never put myself through what she’s been through. I can’t believe she tried to kill herself. It’s all my fault. My aunt said I should make friends and make a life for myself here, but what is a life without my mudder in it?” Hazel sobbed into her hands.
“Things sometimes have to get worse before they get better. Now your mudder’s at the bottom, and there’s no place to go but up.”
Hazel sniffed and looked up. “Do you think so?”
“Jah, now she’ll get the help she needs.”
“From the medical profession?”
“Maybe. In addition to her faith. Gott works in many ways, and He can use people and doctors even if they’re unbelievers.”
“Jah, I know.” Hazel took a deep breath. Ruth was saying anything she could think of to make her feel better.
Chapter 14
When Isaac walked into his office, as vividly as a bolt of lightning on a clear summer’s day he realized he’d been set up by Mary Lou. Hazel had seen Mary Lou with the Englischer and Mary Lou must’ve known that. That’s when she tried to poison his mind against Hazel. She told him Hazel liked him so he wouldn’t believe her if she told him about Mary Lou’s dalliance with the Englischer. Her evil plan had worked. He had doubted Hazel’s word when she’d told him.
But what to do? There was no point in talking to Mary Lou about anything. He wanted nothing more to do with her. The only person to show true sense and judgment about relationships was his mother. She might be able to guide him in the right way, since she understood women.
He went directly to his parents’ home and found his mother setting the table for dinner. Sitting down in the kitchen, he told his mother everything he knew about what had happened with Hazel’s mother.
“I’m not really surprised about what happened. Hazel’s mudder was seriously ill. She’d had some kind of breakdown.”
“You knew all this before?”
“Hazel needed a job to pay for her mudder’s medical bills and we gave her a job.”
“Dat did that?”
“Jah, and it was a nice thing to do.”
“That makes sense now. He created a job where we had none. And now we realize we do need someone to do what Hazel was doing. That was generous of you and Dat.”
“We must pray for Hazel’s mudder.”
“Of course. I was praying on the way here.”
“Hazel’s been through a lot.”
“It’s made her strong. I can see the will and determination in her eyes,” he said.
“No girl should go through what she’s been through. Ruth tells me she practically had to raise herself and play nursemaid to her mudder.”
He breathed heavily. “At what point does a person get to where they … I wonder if I have a chance.”
His mother looked up. “A chance of what? She’s not a well woman from what I’ve heard.”
“I feel sorry for Hazel. She's such a young girl to have all this on her shoulders. Did you hear about her vadder?” he asked.
“Only that he left them and he’d done it many times before.”
“I’d like to be able to do something.” What he’d like to be able to do was marry Hazel and give her the life she deserved. A good life with a happy home.
“What else can we do? It’s not easy with her being all the way in Allentown now.”
“Jah, I know. I might visit and see if there’s any way I can help out. I have some money if they need that.”
His mother stopped and looked up again. “Isaac, are you telling me you’ve got feelings for Hazel other than of friendship?”
“Jah, Mamm. I’ve developed feelings for her. Feelings that I never had for Mary Lou.”
A smile brightened his mother’s face. “What about Mary Lou?”
“I forgot to mention we’re no longer together.”
“That is a shock, but you feel what you feel. And if you like Hazel better, then you must do all you can to marry her.”
“Marry her?”
“Jah, I won’t have you engaged to another girl for two years.”
He gulped, feeling guilty about Mary Lou. “I feel bad about that, Mamm. You didn’t need to mention it.”
“The facts are the facts.”
“The facts are that if Hazel agreed to marry me, I would happily marry her right away.”
A smile brightened his mother’s face. “Well, you must tell her how you feel.”
He looked down at the wood grain in the table. It was bad timing. Hazel would never leave her mother.
“Why are you looking so glum?” she asked.
“It seems I’m in a bad situation. With her mudder’s fragile state of mind, she’d never leave her mudder just for her own happiness.”
“Then you must wait until the mudder is better.”
He breathed out heavily. “How long will it take?”
“I don’t know, but the most important thing is, does Hazel feel the same about you?”
He looked down at the table again, rubbing his fingers over the ingrained marks on the table. He'd made his share of them as a child, with the end of a pencil. “I don’t know, Mamm. I can only hope so.”
“You never told her how you feel?”
He shook his head. “Nee. I couldn’t, not when things had just ended with Mary Lou.”
“You have to regard Mary Lou’s feelings in all of this.”
“I know and I’m just glad that Mary Lou and I ended things.”
“You should’ve done it a long time ago if the feelings weren’t there.”
He didn’t like to be reminded. His mother was good at reminding him of his failures. “Jah, well, I know that now.”
“Do you have Hazel’s phone number?” his mother asked.
“We have her Aunt Bee’s phone number on file in the office.”
“That could be a starting point. Call her and ask how her mudder is.”
“Jah, I will.”
“I’m glad you like Hazel. She’s a lovely girl and she suits you just fine. She’s a gentle girl and yet, as you said, she’s strong. And surely her time has come to enjoy some happiness. I hope you can give that to her, Isaac.”
“I will. If she gives me that chance, I will.”
Chapter 15
At the next Sunday meeting, after the preaching was over, Isaac saw Mary Lou’s mother hurrying toward him. He stopped and waited for her to approach.
“Mary Lou has left the community.” Mary Lou’s mother stared at Isaac as if that was all his fault.
“Really?”
“Jah, she left to be with some Englischer. And she said she won’t be back.”
“I’m sure she’ll be back.”
“That’s not what she said.”
Isaac had been there when Mary Lou had been baptized, and among the Amish, that baptism meant if she came back to the community now she'd be shunned. It wasn’t as though she was a young person going on their rumspringa before baptism. Leaving the community after baptism was a serious thing. Mary Lou's mother was staring at him, waiting for him to speak.
“Is there something you want me to do?”
“You could’ve married her years ago and this wouldn’t have happened.”
He looked down at the ground. Her mother is right. You should have thought more deeply about whether Mary Lou was the right one and when you weren't feeling it, you should've
let her go.
“Can you persuade her to come back?”
He looked into Mary Lou’s mother's eyes. “I don’t even know where she is.”
“She still works at the bakery. Can’t you go and see her there?”
He nodded. “I’ll do that. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Very good.” Mrs. White hurried away after giving him another frown.
He knew the chances of her coming back to the community any time soon weren’t good. The only thing that Mary Lou was interested in was getting married and he couldn’t offer her that now. Not now that he was in love with Hazel.
Against Isaac’s better judgment, he waited outside the bakery café for Mary Lou to finish her shift. When she walked out the door, she looked up and saw him right away. Now she was wearing the same uniform as the other non-Amish workers from the bakery—a short pink dress with short sleeves. It saddened him to see that she’d cut her hair, and it now sat on the top of her shoulders. He didn’t want to be the cause of anyone falling and now he was.
She walked over to him. “What do you want?”
“I came to talk to you. Your mudder told me that you left the community.”
“I did. There was nothing there for me anymore, thanks to you.” Her words made him feel worse. “Why don’t you go off somewhere with Hazel?”
“Hazel has left. Her mudder is very ill.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What did you want to talk with me about?”
“I hope you know that when you left, everyone was very upset—naturally.”
She looked down at her hand, slowly pressing her fingertips into her palm. “Well, why did you come here?”
“Because I care about you and want the best for you.”
“But you don’t care about me enough to marry me?”
He looked into her eyes. “I don’t love you, Mary Lou. I thought I did once, and I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
Tears came into her eyes. “I knew it.”
“I still care about you as a dear friend and I don’t want me to be the reason you’ve left the community.”
“So, it’s about you? You came to see me to absolve your guilt?”
“Nee, not at all. I came here to see you because I care about you and I want you to be in Gott’s haus for eternity. I don’t want you to be a lost soul, and it has nothing to do with me or my guilt. Gott has to judge what I’ve done and I’m prepared to take responsibility and stand in judgment for my sins.”
A yellow car pulled up close by and the driver honked the horn.
Mary Lou turned her head. “There’s my ride. See you ’round, Isaac.”
“Wait!”
She continued to walk away, and then got into the car and it zoomed off. He could only hope that his words might sink into her head and take effect.
Weeks later.
Hazel’s mother was doing a lot better. Hazel had managed to find a part time cleaning job to bring in some money. It wasn’t much, and it all went to keeping herself and her mother in food and helping out with their board at Aunt Bee’s house.
The medical bills were mounting and Aunt Bee and Onkel Luke were doing their best to keep on top of them. The bishop suggested a fundraiser to ease the burden for them.
The fundraising auction was on this coming Saturday. Hazel’s mother was embarrassed because the event had been widely publicized and now everyone would know she was ill.
On Friday night, Hazel’s mother had gone to bed early and Hazel sat up talking in the living room with Aunt Bee and Onkel Luke. Hazel recalled her father always teased Aunt Bee behind her back, calling her ‘Can’t Be’ and calling Onkel Luke ‘Onkel Nuke.’ Even as a child, she hadn’t found his teasing funny. It had been out of malice and not out of affection for her mother’s relations.
“Your mudder is doing a lot better now,” Onkel Luke said.
“She is.” Hazel knew her mother was only doing better because she was back for good and had told her mother she wouldn’t leave her again. “I do hope we raise a lot of money tomorrow to cover all these bills.” Hazel was thankful to the community for raising funds. It would take a lot of pressure off their shoulders.
“Trust in Gott,” Onkel Luke said.
Hazel nodded. She did trust in God, but sometimes she couldn’t help wondering why God would have chosen to put her mother and herself through all these trials. Luke and Bee were going through the trials right along with them. Hazel thanked them almost daily, expressing how grateful she was to them. If she was ever in a better position and able to help someone else, she would without hesitating. They had given her a great example.
“I’ll say good night. I’ve got an early start in the morning. I’m off to bed,” Uncle Luke said.
“I think I’m too excited to go to sleep,” Hazel said. “Or too nervous.”
Aunt Bee nodded. “Me too. You go on ahead, Luke. I’ll stay up a while and talk with Hazel.”
“Very well.” Uncle Luke headed up the stairs.
Aunt Bee sighed. “In hindsight, I suppose I shouldn’t have told you to stay away when your mudder was so fragile.”
“You thought you were doing the right thing.”
Aunt Bee shook her head. “It’s hard to know what to do when you’ve never been in a situation like this. It’s hard to sit by and watch you waste the best years of your life caring about your mudder when you should be starting your own life—getting married and having kinner.”
“There’s plenty of time for that. Mamm’s getting better and better every day.”
“Soon, I hope the financial pressure will be off all of us, too.”
“That would be nice.”
“And then you can concentrate on yourself for a while.”
Hazel smiled and wondered what that would be like. She hadn’t thought of herself for the longest time. She thought back to the carefree days of the summer vacation when she was a girl and had met Isaac. Why couldn’t those carefree days have remained forever? It was a beautiful moment in time before the harsh realities of life had set in.
And what were the chances of meeting Isaac again as an adult? If he hadn’t had a girlfriend then things might have been different. Mary Lou seemed to be very much in love with him even though she had slipped. Isaac would’ve surely forgiven her if she'd repented. Hazel decided she would pray for a man like Isaac. Someone like him would make her feel safe, with his strong body and decisive mind. A man like that would always take care of her.
But not only did she need a man to take care of her, she also needed a man who was willing to take on caring for her mother. She was certain her mother would never be able to live alone. She would always need someone to care for her. Thanks to her father, her mother now had a fear of being left alone.
“I would’ve thought your vadder would’ve at least tried to contact you. There’s been no word from him.”
“We’re best off not to think about him, Aunt Bee. And the less Mamm thinks of him, the better off she’ll be.”
“You’re right.”
“What time do we have to leave here tomorrow morning?” Hazel asked.
“We’ll have to leave by eight.”
“Okay, I'll wake up at seven.”
“Your mudder said she’s too embarrassed to go.”
“I thought you had persuaded her. She should go.”
Aunt Bee shook her head. “I did and then she changed her mind back again. Daisy Moulder is coming over to stay with her. She said she’d be here bright and early in the morning.”
“Does Mamm know about Daisy coming?”
“Jah, but I didn’t want to give her a chance to talk you into staying too. You have a problem with saying no to your mudder.”
“It’s hard when she’s so fragile.”
“I know. I learned that the hard way when I asked you to stay away for the weekend that time. I also found out that tough love doesn’t work with your mudder. She needs to be handled in just the right way.”
“Ja
h, very gently.”
Aunt Bee nodded again.
Chapter 16
News had come to Isaac that there was to be a fundraiser for Hazel’s mother. He’d read about it in the Amish newspaper and he’d heard talk of it from two different people. He knew he had to attend. He’d wanted to see Hazel and had also been thinking up a way to help her. A fundraiser was a perfect way to do those two things at once. If he offered Hazel money directly, she’d most likely refuse, but he could do that through the fundraiser with no problem.
He was sitting outside on his parents’ porch on that Friday afternoon when Benjamin walked up to him and sat down next to him. “You heard about the fundraiser for Hazel’s mudder?”
“Jah, I've heard.”
“Are you going?”
“I’ve got the bus timetable. I could go and get there in time for it.”
Benjamin shook his head. “Just go, Isaac. Don’t mess about like you did with Mary Lou. Everyone can tell you’re in love with her.”
“Hazel?”
“Jah.”
“How can everyone tell that?”
“The way you’ve been in a bad mood ever since she left, for one.”
Timothy was walking past just inside the front door and overheard. “He’s been in a bad mood all his life,” he joked. Timothy stood looking over Benjamin’s shoulder, joining in with the conversation.
“Jah, but more so after Hazel left,” Benjamin said. “Go after her, Isaac.”
“I have been thinking about it.”
“If she’d ever looked twice at me, I’d go fetch her back. But she’s not in love with me.”
Isaac looked at Benjamin to see if he was joking. “You think she’s in love with me?”
Timothy laughed. “That got your attention, didn’t it?”
Isaac rubbed his eyes. “I think I have an auction to go to.”
The Amish Bachelor: Amish Romance (Seven Amish Bachelors Book 1) Page 9
