A blaring silence rang through the air, but Lucas could not regret his words. He had nothing to lose anymore, and being completely honest had a way of lightening the soul, freeing all the garbage polluting his life.
“I don’t know what to say,” Maam replied.
Lucas understood this. He hadn’t unloaded on them to receive advice; he’d just needed to be truthful. “There’s nothing to say,” he agreed. “I’m glad I was able to tell you in person, but honestly, that’s not what I want to talk about.” He returned to the table and sat. “Daed, what did you do with the letters I sent to Maam? Burn them like they didn’t exist?”
“Ephraim?” Maam said, looking at him.
His father gazed back steadily, unshaken. “There’s a box in the barn under my tool chest. Well, boxes now, four of them. I didn’t read the letters, but they’re all there.”
“I don’t understand.” Lucas ran a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his head. “If you thought you were protecting Maam and didn’t want anyone to read them, why did you save them?”
Daed was blinking now, rapidly, like he was facing a strong, oncoming wind. “Because you’re my son.”
opened his eyes to see Daed staring at him, his lips pressing together firmly.
“It’s no excuse,” he said, “but I had reasons at the beginning. Your mother was so heartbroken Lucas gazed at his father, Maam standing at his side. The two people who had had the most influence in his life. The two people he wished he could rely on now.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” Daed added, looking down, tugging at the end of his beard.
“Lucas,” Maam said, once again wrapping her arms around him, holding him in a bear hug. Just as before, he could barely breathe. He’d missed his mother, his entire family. Almost instantly, he forgave even his father for hiding his letters.
Lucas when you didn’t come home, especially after we lost Jacob. Eventually, I should’ve allowed her to read your letters, even to respond.”
“Allowed?” Maam said, shaking her head. “Do you know how old-fashioned you sound?”
A tiny smile curved one side of his father’s mouth. “I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be.” He reached a hand out to his wife. “I’m sorry.”
Maam stared at the outstretched hand, placing her hands on her hips. “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”
Lucas felt as though his heart had frozen like a glacier, understanding what his mother meant. He also knew the Ordnung; he’d learned the rules of the church every day while growing up in this very house. As head of the family, his father had every right to choose to allow no communication from Lucas after he hadn’t returned from Rumspringa.
“Luke, I’m sorry.”
He heard what his father said, but because of the crushingly disappointing end to his relationship with Esther, his mind and body would not allow him to react naturally, to really trust again.
“I forgive you for that,” Lucas said, knowing it was not his right to withhold forgiveness, especially now that he knew the truth and his father had apologized.
“Son.” Daed put out a hand for Lucas to take, to make amends. But he could not take it, as heat from ten years of resentment still flared inside Lucas’s chest. “Son?” Daed repeated.
“I need to ask you something,” Lucas said.
“Yes?”
He stared down at the table, recognizing the carves and knots in the wood he’d made when he’d been a teenager. “You knew he was sick,” he said, tasting sourness, feeling nervous waves in his stomach. “Jacob,” he added for clarity, looking directly at his father. “He’d been seriously ill for years—everyone could tell. Why didn’t you take him to the hospital? He had cancer. You would’ve known that if you’d allowed him to see a proper doctor. If it’d been caught early, he might’ve been able to fight it. By the time I got to him, it was too late.”
“You?” Maam said, her brown eyes staring wildly at him.
“Jah.” Lucas nodded, wondering briefly if he should burden his mother with the whole story. But after a moment, he repositioned his chair so he was facing both parents, then started at the beginning…
How he’d known Jacob was different—had different weaknesses, more weaknesses than other boys his age. How he’d made a promise to himself that he would study childhood disease and figure out Jacob’s ailment and thus its cure. How he’d finished high school, then college, then gone to work with a cancer research team.
Tears filled Maam’s eyes when he explained about the leukemia diagnosis, the bone marrow surgery, chemotherapy, and finally taking his brother to the beach, the one place Jacob had always dreamed of going.
“Was he cured when he came back from Rumspringa?”
It was difficult, but Lucas shook his head. “It’s called remission,” he replied. “Even the best experts can’t predetermine how long a patient’s remission will be. I’d worked at getting Jacob as healthy as possible, but I didn’t know…” He couldn’t finish the sentence when Maam began to cry.
“He was different, but not better.”
Lucas turned to his father, who was staring out the window. “What do you mean?”
“I could tell he still wasn’t right, but he was calmer about it, like he’d accepted a new fate.” As his father continued to describe Jacob’s health, the story matched what Esther had told him. His brother had become pious and serious, prayerful and obedient to a fault.
“One night,” Maam said, continuing the narrative, “he caught a cold.”
“It wasn’t a cold, Lydia.”
Maam closed her eyes and held up a hand. “I know, Ephraim, I know.”
“He was feverish and weak,” Daed added. “He had a cough that wouldn’t go away.” When Maam began to cry again, he put an arm around her. “He was having trouble breathing.”
“He couldn’t sleep,” said Maam through her tears. “We gave him hot baths, warm bone broth, peppermint tea, wrapped him up like a mummy—I thought if he sweated enough…” Her voice trailed off as she looked at Lucas. “I suppose those all seem silly to a real doctor.”
Lucas didn’t bother explaining that he hadn’t gone to medical school but was a physician’s assistant who specialized in research. That wouldn’t have helped the situation.
“Not at all,” he replied. “That’s pretty much how I would treat a bad cough at the clinic.”
“But like your daed said, we knew it wasn’t just a cough,” Maam said after patting her damp cheeks with a corner of her apron. “He wasn’t getting better, and he had to sit up all day and night or else he couldn’t breathe.”
“RSV,” Lucas whispered under his breath.
Maam reached for Lucas’s hand, gripping it tightly. “What is that?”
“Respiratory Syncytial Virus,” Lucas explained. “It’s, um, it’s pretty common when—”
“It’s an infection,” Daed cut in. Lucas stared at him. “It happens a lot when someone’s immune system has been compromised. Which, obviously, is leukemia’s main job.”
“Ephraim?”
“How do you know about that?” Lucas said, probably asking his mother’s question.
Daed began pacing around the living room, fingers scratching the sides of his beard. “Do you remember when I took Jacob to the farmer’s market in Lancaster?”
Maam nodded. “I do. Why?”
For a long moment, Daed didn’t speak but continued to pace. Finally, he stopped and stood before them. “There was no farmer’s market.”
“What are you talking about? I packed a bag for both of you. You were gone for three days. Where were you?”
“Hershey. At the hospital.”
In confusion, Lucas’s mind spun, his fingertips feeling cold and numb. Was he going into shock again?
“You took Jacob to a hospital?” His mother as
ked the question he could not.
Daed nodded. “I didn’t know what else to do. My boy was…” He wiped the back of a sleeve across his nose. “It wasn’t until we arrived there that Jacob told me everything—what you’d done for him, Luke.”
Lucas slammed his eyes shut, unable to meet the penetrating gaze of his father or mother. “I failed,” he said. “I tried to help, but in the end, it was for nothing.”
“That’s not true.” Suddenly, Lucas felt his father’s hand on his arm. “Son, that’s just not true.”
It took a moment, but when he thought he could control the emotions pressing up against him, Lucas looked up. His father’s eyes were wet, red-rimmed, probably matching his own.
“What happened at the hospital?” Lucas asked after a hard swallow.
Before replying, Maam gestured for them all to sit down again. She took her place between the two men, reaching out to hold both of their hands.
“The ER wouldn’t see him right away, until Jacob talked to a passing doctor,” his daed continued. “I don’t know exactly what he said, but he probably told him he’d been treated for cancer.” Maam squeezed both their hands. “We were taken to an exam room almost immediately. They ran some tests that I didn’t understand, yet Jacob…he grasped every word the doctor said.” Daed paused to lift a strange kind of smile. “He was very brave, especially when they explained about the RSV.”
“Respiratory…something virus?” Maam asked. Then they both looked at Lucas quizzically.
“Because Jacob had been so sick before,” he explained, “the cells in his body that were supposed to fight off simple things like a cough or cold weren’t working anymore.”
“There was nothing the doctors could do,” Daed added. “After three days, he…” At the last word, his father’s voice broke. “Our son wanted to come home. He said he was ready to go to heaven but wanted to be with his family.”
Maam was crying again, and Lucas was hovering on the verge, finally understanding, finally comprehending the pain his parents had been feeling for years—especially his father.
“I’m sorry,” Lucas offered, ready to forgive, while also finally ready to truly repent.
“Luke,” Maam said, “none of it was your fault—your brother was sick.”
“No,” Lucas said, squeezing her hand, then reaching out for his father’s—not afraid anymore. “I’m sorry that I thought you didn’t care.” He averted his eyes to stare down at the scuffed table. “I’m sorry I didn’t think you’d do whatever you could to help him. Please forgive me. Please.” He was looking at his parents, but he was also speaking to his Heavenly Father. “All this time I assumed…and so wrongly…” When he didn’t know how to go on, he simply stopped speaking.
He didn’t have to anymore—at least not on his own. For the next hour, he and his parents talked, really talked. And he felt as close to them as he ever had, maybe more so, since they were all adults now. A weight lifted off his shoulders that he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying around for years.
When the grandfather clock in the corner gonged three o’clock, Daed consulted his wristwatch.
“Your meeting with the bishop,” Maam said.
Daed nodded. “It’s an important one.”
It took a lot out of him, but Lucas managed to stand. “I didn’t mean to take up your entire afternoon, but I sincerely thank you for…everything that’s happened today. Being in this house with the two of you has meant a lot.”
“Don’t go,” Maam said, rising to her feet.
“I think I have to,” Lucas said, knowing the rules and the kind of trouble his family could be in if the church leaders knew he was visiting. Still, he couldn’t help glancing at his father, ready to follow his lead.
Daed remained at the table, scratching his chin. “Earlier, you said you wanted to come home. Do you mean to be Amish again?”
“Jah.” Lucas’s palms began to sweat, though he’d answered truthfully. “But I know how it is. I chose to leave.”
“You were sixteen,” Daed said.
“What about your job?” Maam interrupted.
This time, Lucas had an answer ready, for the subject had been in his heart for more than a month, maybe even years. “I’ve been thinking that Eliza Fisher is really getting on in years,” he said. “I wonder if she’s eager to retire.”
“Probably so,” Maam said. “And honestly, when folks have serious issues, they’re more interested in reaching out to someone with professional training these days.”
“That was my thought,” Lucas agreed.
“I don’t know,” Daed added. “There are still plenty of old order Amish and Mennonites who don’t feel comfortable visiting the clinic.”
“Maybe you could be a sort of…go-between, Luke,” Maam said. “Folks might be more at ease if someone like you referred them to a proper doctor.”
“Hmm.” Daed ran a hand down his beard. “Interesting idea. Very interesting.”
This was exactly what Lucas had been considering the past few days. And he was so relieved his parents seemed to be on the same page without Lucas having to bring up the concept in the first place. His heart beat firmly and steadily, and he was motivated more than ever now. After so much time, the puzzle pieces were finally falling into place. At least some of them.
Almost on cue, he felt his cell buzz. “Sorry,” he said, “excuse me.” Keeping the phone under the table, he quickly read the text message, relief spreading through his body like a B12 shot.
Thank you, Lord, he silently prayed. Young Tanner can live a long, joyful life with his family, and his family to come. Thank you for blessing him with health, and for blessing me with knowledge and patience and a desire to serve others.
“Pardon me for one second,” he said, quickly walking out the back door. The call was brief, as if Tanner and David had been waiting by the phone in their barn. Once Lucas had explained the test results—zero cancer!—he allowed his new friends to celebrate after making them promise to set an appointment to see Frank McDonald at the clinic the next day.
“Good news?” Maam asked.
Lucas grinned and flipped his cell in his hands. “Very good news.”
After whispering something to Daed, she added, “You’d really consider giving up your big salary and your truck to come home? Your prestige in the world?”
Lucas chuckled. “I don’t have much prestige, Maam.” He could’ve explained further how he’d give up almost anything if that meant he could come home. The last few weeks had taught him what he really wanted in his future, how he longed to live a life of service.
“You’d have to talk to Bishop Abram,” Daed said, his voice low and with something of a warning tone.
Lucas nodded. He’d considered this, too.
“And the rest of the church leadership,” his father added. “Then the whole congregation votes.” He scratched a sideburn thoughtfully. “Though that would be further down the road.”
“It’s a lot to think about, son,” Maam said, resting a comforting hand on Lucas’s shoulder.
“I know,” Lucas said, feeling the weight of making such a huge, life-altering decision.
Then again, the way his heart felt as light as air every time he considered his future, it didn’t feel like much of a decision at all.
He had spent three hours with his parents, and those two previous days with Jerry’s family. For an outsider, there wasn’t much more he should’ve allowed himself to hope for.
Nevertheless, he hoped. Even though it hurt.
“Do you have anywhere to be right now, son?” Daed asked, standing up from the table.
“No,” Lucas replied.
“Gut.” A squinty-eyed smile Lucas remembered from his childhood brightened his father’s face. “I have an idea.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“You’re joking.
”
“Completely serious. Every word.”
“Huh.” Louisa stared off into space while chewing on a knuckle. The early November breeze ruffled the puffy dress material at her shoulders, while the strings of her kapp danced around her face.
“I should’ve told you sooner,” Esther said, in an attempt to fill the silence. “But honestly, before this morning, I hadn’t told anyone everything.”
“Not even your maam? Not Anna or Sarah?”
This made Esther laugh under her breath. “Definitely not my sisters.”
Almost two weeks had passed since that day at Ephraim Brenneman’s house. After running into Lucas in town so many times the past two months, it was odd to not see him at all now.
It worsened Esther’s heartache when she considered that he was purposely staying away from her. As he should.
“It’s hard to believe—not that I don’t believe you,” Louisa said, turning her body to face Esther as they sat in two of the folding chairs they’d just set up for the choir’s performance later that day. “Lucas Brenneman.”
Esther’s heart pitter-pattered from just hearing the name. “I know.”
“Jacob’s brother.”
“I know.”
Lou flung her arms into the air dramatically. “Honey Brook’s own prodigal son.”
Esther ran her fingers along the hem of her apron—the one she and Sarah had finished sewing the day before. “He wasn’t all that prodigal,” she said. “Wasn’t living in an opium den or anything.” Before she went on, she paused to make sure her breathing was stable. “I’ve seen into his heart, Lou. I know he still believes—I know it with all my soul. There’s no way I could love him like I do if he didn’t.”
“Es.” Lou’s expression crumpled as she reached out to take her hand. “I’m sorry this is happening. It doesn’t seem fair.”
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