by Lisa Shea
She smiled that sweet smile and put a cloth napkin down before the chair. “Here. Sit. I’ll get you a glass of water.”
He took the seat, and in a moment Esther was sitting across from him. Her father took the seat in between. Leroy had a feeling that was not by accident.
Jacob looked him over. “How was your ride?”
“It was fine, thank you, Sir. The weather was quite good today.”
Jacob nodded. “Indeed. Although we could use some more rain. The wheat is drying out. If we don’t get rain in the next week or two, I’m worried about our crop.”
Leroy slid a hand into his pocket. “I can just check –”
Esther shot him a warning look.
Leroy’s hand released from his smart phone. He took up the knife and carefully cut away a piece of peach. “It usually rains in August,” he murmured. “Everything should work out for the crops.”
“It is God’s will,” stated Jacob.
Esther nodded. “Also, we plan for most situations. We have a variety of crops planted so that, whatever comes, we will be all right. One can never count on the weather being just the way you wish, after all.”
Leroy took a bite of the peach.
His eyes widened.
He’d thought they had great peaches at the Whole Foods down the block from him. Hand picked, imported from … Bolivia or somewhere. But these were different. Juicier. Bursting with flavor.
Esther chuckled. “My mother planted that peach tree. It makes the best pies you’ve ever tasted.”
“Her spirit lives on through her works,” Leroy agreed. “Twenty years later and we still can treasure what she planted.”
Jacob gruffly nodded. “She was a good woman. Compassionate. Modest.”
“I wish I could have met her.”
Jacob’s eyes shone. “So do I.”
Jacob cleared his throat and glanced at his daughter. Then he spoke to Leroy. “I admit I am impressed that you continued writing to my daughter after she returned from her Rumspringa. When the letters first came I thought …”
“You thought I was merely trying to lure her back to Manhattan,” stated Leroy with a slight smile. “And I would be lying to say that I didn’t hope she might return to me. She was … is … a special woman. Unlike any other I’d met. The way she saw details in Cezanne’s works … in Degas … in Gauguin … it was like experiencing them with fresh eyes. The way they would have been seen when they first were released.”
Jacob’s lips pressed together. “My daughter belongs here.”
“I understand that now,” agreed Leroy. “It hurt me, like nothing else ever had before, but I came to understand that clearly. She is like a beautiful fish who had been crafted to live in one pristine spring-fed pond. To take her anywhere else would be to harm her. I would never do that to your daughter. I would always wish for her to follow her dreams. To seek out her chosen path in life.”
He looked around the kitchen, at the copper cake mold hanging on the wall and the hand-made barrel in the corner. “This is all she ever talked about, even in Manhattan. Coming home again. Finding this peace.”
Jacob’s shoulders eased. “And yet you continued to write her. For almost five years, every week.”
Leroy’s eyes went to Esther’s. “I couldn’t stop. Every day that went by, I thought of what she was doing. What she was thinking about. What insights she had about the world around her.”
Esther’s voice was soft. “There is no Gauguin here. No Delaunay. No Kandinsky.”
“But you don’t need those,” Leroy pointed out. “You can see beauty in the sparkle of morning sun on a lake. You find glory in the scattered sunset on a row of puddles. You are … you are amazing.”
A blush rose to her cheeks.
His hands clutched on the polished table. “I wrote you each week because I missed you. Dreamed about you. And each time I received a letter back I worried that you might have found another. That you might have married a local and moved on from me.”
Her eyes lowered, and her voice was hoarse. “There was never anyone else like you. Anyone who understood me the way you do.”
Jacob gave a low chuckle. “That’s not to say the lads didn’t try. There’s been a steady stream of courters. But none have ever touched her heart.”
Leroy took a deep breath, willing away the image of his competition. He gave a wry smile. “I admit I also tried dating other women. I tried to convince myself that there had to be a hundred others like you.” He shook his head. “But there aren’t. There is just you. And I …”
His voice broke. “I love you, Esther.”
Her eyes shone as two pools of light.
Jacob’s gaze held his. “We take those words quite seriously here, young man.”
Leroy nodded.
He put his hand into his pocket.
He dropped down onto one knee, holding out the velvet box.
Within was a simple gold band with a single, small diamond encircled by silver.
“It’s like us,” he murmured. “Gold and silver. Two things which might seem opposites. But together I know we will be happy. Our letters have proven that. We have the same souls. We have what matters most.”
Her hand reached for it, then stopped. “We do not normally give diamonds in our tradition.”
He nodded. “I know that. But consider it one last nod to my way of life. A token of who I am that you will carry with you each day, even as the rest of you is wholly from your own culture.”
Jacob’s brow drew together. “In our tradition, an Amish woman cannot marry outside her faith. It is against our code of conduct. Our Ordnung.
Leroy’s throat closed up, and it took him a moment to draw in breath. To nod.
To say, “I have done the research and studying. For five long years. I am ready now to fully become Amish.”
Esther gave a soft cry.
Jacob held his gaze with hard eyes. “This is not something to say lightly. You will have to give up your car. Your profession.” His eyes dropped down Leroy’s body. “Your suits.”
Leroy gave a low chuckle. “I will be trading in one form of traditional dress for another. I do not mind that in the least. And Esther has indicated that many in the community are having challenges with their finances. I can be a help there.”
He looked around. “As for the rest, I have always enjoyed carpentry as a hobby. I will work hard to pick up the other skills I will need.”
Her father pressed, “You have become used to a big city life. How will you cope in our quiet farmlands, once the sun goes down?”
Leroy’s shoulders eased. This was easier to answer. “I grew up in the lower ninth ward of Louisiana. We were very poor. We often had our electricity go out. We spent our evenings talking with each other by the light of a candle. Singing the songs of our ancestors. From what Esther tells me, your community is not that different.” A wistful look came to his eyes. “I look forward to that quite a bit.”
His eyes moved over to Esther, and a stronger emotion flowed into them. “But, most of all, to be with Esther, and to care for her, and to raise a family with her …”
Esther’s eyes brimmed with tears and her gaze shot to her father. “Oh, Father, please …”
Her father’s hands drew together. “My daughter, there will be resistance. You know there will be.”
Her eyes shone with heat. “Because of the color of Leroy’s skin? He is the kindest, gentlest, most caring man I have ever met! And if those in our community who call themselves faithful to the Lord’s path dare to say just one word –”
Jacob put his hands up, his eyes sparkling. “Peace, peace, daughter. I would not wish to be the one who stepped between you and your beloved.”
She caught her breath, and her eyes went wide. “Does that mean … do you give …”
He smiled, nodding. “Yes, my precious little one. I give you both my blessing. You have shared his letters with me, and I see the goodness within him. He will become a treasured
member of our community. I am sure of it.”
Her beam lit the room, and Leroy slid the ring onto her finger. She drew him into a warm hug, laughter billowing out of her, and then she ran to hug her father, whirling around in overwhelming joy.
His eyes were shimmering. “You look just like your mother did, when I asked her to marry. I know you two will have long, happy lives together.”
There was a noise at the door, and a young man walked in, perhaps twenty-four, with a straw hat on his head and a simple blue shirt. His eyes matched those of his sister and father.
Esther ran to him. “Oh, Samuel, it is too good to be true! We shall be wed!”
His eyes opened in shock. “Father gave you permission to leave the faith?”
She laughed out loud at the outrageous question. “Of course not, silly! I would never do such a thing. My life is here. No, Leroy is joining me! He will come to be a part of our family!”
Leroy saw the turmoil in Samuel’s eyes. He knew from Esther’s letters that Samuel had also found a dear one during his own Rumspringa – but while Esther had gone to the skyscrapers of New York City, Samuel had retreated to the quiet rural mountains of West Virginia. And where Esther had returned from her Rumspringa with renewed faith, Samuel had become a shadow.
Leroy’s hand went into his other pocket, and it folded around the Mohican love token his sister had sent along with him for luck. It had done everything it could have to bring him the joy he sought.
He smiled.
Now the token would be passed along to another who, it seemed, needed it far more than he did.
Book 10 – Jacob’s Fork
Samuel’s fingers clutched tightly on the steering wheel of the rented truck. He’d practiced driving during his year of separation from his traditional Pennsylvania Amish community. His Rumspringa. But that had been several years ago and his skills were rusty. It didn’t help that he was now bumping down some of the most pitted roads West Virginia had to offer.
And he was heading deeper off the grid.
He almost chuckled. For someone who had grown up surrounded by farmland and horse-drawn buggies, most people in the Internet world would have said he was the one hiding from technology. But his community had experts in farming watching over their fields. Talented authors sharing their stories. There was always plenty to eat and warm homes at night.
Jacob’s Fork had neither.
His eyes shadowed as he passed yet another derelict one-room home. Its tin roof was rusted and pitted. The gray wood slats making up the walls had dark gaps. In his community, a ramshackle home like this would be a clarion call. The families would come together, build a new one for the impoverished tenants, and ensure it was solid enough to last a hundred years.
But he was not in Paradise any more.
There, up ahead, he spotted a house more sturdy than most. It was a two-story with a stone chimney up one side. The gray sides were in decent repair and the metal roof was more silver than rust. And standing out front, wiping a young child’s face with a wet cloth –
Mary Sue glanced up as he pulled in. Her pale blonde hair, the color of winter wheat, hung to her waist, drifting in the gentle breeze. She seemed thinner than when he’d last seen her, and her long, blue dress was even more peppered with mottled stains.
A broad smile stretched on her face. “Samuel! You’re back! Great, because I could use your help with the stove. It’s conked out again.”
He gave a wry chuckle as he climbed out of the truck and followed her into the house. It could have been like he’d never left. Like the six years since his retreat here had flown by in the blink of an eye. That the long months since hadn’t been dense with the unimaginable pain of being apart from her.
“Right over here,” she pointed, leading him through the familiar space. It seemed as if nothing had changed since he’d last been here. The same worn rocking chair by the empty fireplace. The same faded image of the Virgin Mary over the mantel. The kitchen held a pocked wooden table sided by two benches. The thin, dirty faces of the young children on each side had changed, but their eyes held the same deep shadows.
He dropped to a knee by the side of the antique black stove which should have been retired a generation ago. But Mary Sue didn’t have that luxury. He poked his head in and nodded. “That back panel has rusted out, like I warned you it would. We’ll have to make a replacement.”
She nodded, her eyes shining. “I knew God would provide. Dorsel said we should give up on the thing, but I had faith.”
Tension twined in his core and he forced his voice to remain steady. “Dorsel? Is he your husband?”
She stared at him for a long moment.
Then she burst out in high laughter, wrapping her arms around her thin waist. “Husband? Oh, Samuel, you always have the best sense of humor. That’s what I love about you.”
He flinched at the word love. Where he came from, that word had serious meaning. It’s what one said to the woman they were about to marry. It had taken him some time to realize that Mary Sue used the word far more casually. That she did not hold the same feelings for him that he did for her.
And when he had left …
She grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet. “Come on, there’s something off with Bessie, too.”
He followed her back to the shack which Mary Sue optimistically called a barn. It was nothing at all like any barn back home. The ceiling was more patch than substance and the walls had a decided tilt to them. Within was a collection of goats, pigs, and the prized possessions – two milk cows.
Samuel moved over to the larger of the two and fondly ran a hand along its flank. “Hey there, Bessie.”
Mary Sue looked down at the cow. “She missed you, you know. Nobody else cared for her the way you did. She just stood at the fence looking down the road, watching for your return.”
Emotion twisted in Samuel’s heart. It wasn’t Bessie that he wanted missing him. It was Mary Sue. But she hadn’t even stood in the door to watch him drive home. The moment he’d gotten into the car she’d gone inside, apparently forgetting him without a second thought. And, sure, she’d responded to his letters, but there had been no sense that she wished to see him again.
That she cared.
He glanced down at the cow, then his eyes sharpened. His fingers worked their way through the short fur. “There’s a cut here that has gotten infected. We have to get this cleaned.”
“I’ll go start a fire in the fireplace and boil some water,” she stated. “You go on and check on the other animals while you’re here.”
And then she was gone.
He drew in a breath, looking around the space. Half of the farm tools were rusty and the other half seemed to date to the Civil War. He went from animal to animal and each nuzzled against him like a long-lost friend. They were healthy enough, considering what they were able to eat, which wasn’t much.
A young boy, perhaps six, appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a stained shirt two sizes too big for him and ripped jeans. His feet were bare.
Samuel gave him a smile. “And what’s your name?”
“Dorsel,” replied the boy. “Who’re you?”
“My name is Samuel. I’m a friend of Mary Sue’s. I lived nearby, about six years ago. In that cottage by the stream. I helped out with her work here. Caring for you kids. Mending things.”
Dorsey’s young eyes seemed far too shadowed and tight for their age. “So why’d you leave?”
Samuel’s throat grew tight. “I was only here on a break. It was a … a retreat of sorts. When it was over, I had to go home.”
Dorsel’s lips pressed together. “People always say they have to go. Doesn’t mean they do. My Da went. He could have stayed.”
Samuel wanted to draw the thin boy into a warm hug, to reassure him that everything would be all right. But the boy had the skittishness of a feral cat. Samuel had the sense that, should he try to get closer, the boy would slip into the shadows. So he held the boy’s gaze inste
ad and said, “Things can be complicated. But Mary Sue is here for you, and that’s what matters.”
The ghost of a smile came to Dorsel’s lips. “She takes good care of us.”
“That’s because she’s a wonderful woman.”
There was a movement above Dorsel, and Mary Sue ruffled his short hair. “What I am is busy. Here’s the pot of hot water and here’s some towels. I have to go finish lunch for the kids so they can get back to school. Come on in when you’re done and I’ll fix up something for you, too.”
A turn, and she was gone.
Samuel attentively cared for Bessie, aware of just how precious the animal was to those Mary Sue tended to. Once he was sure the wound was clean he gathered up the items and headed back to the house.
The kitchen was quiet when he got there – the benches neatly pressed beneath the table and the dishes clean and dry in a stack. He put his items alongside and then looked around.
There – out the side window – Mary Sue was in the small garden, tending to the row of tomato plants. He strode out to join her.
She beamed as she pointed to the plants. “Those seeds you sent me a few years back really did the trick, Samuel. See how they thrive even in the poor dirt? It’s made a world of difference to what I can cook for the kids.”
He looked up the dirt road, to where it connected like a spider-web to all the ramshackle homes in the area. “Government assistance still not helping out much?”
She gave a shrug. “West Virginia’s got the worst poverty in the entire United States. Nearly one in five families live below that line. Here in McDowell County? It’s more like two in five.”
“It’s rough,” he murmured.
He could almost see the words pouring out of her – frustrations which rarely had an ear to listen. “The remaining families are barely hovering above. It’s more a curse if they earn those few pennies extra and lose their assistance.”
She leaned down to rip out some weeds. “No top-notch teachers want to teach here. They figure it’s a waste of time. Anybody who can find a job elsewhere has moved out, with all the coal mining shutting down. That means only the elderly and infirm are left.” Her eyes shadowed. “And the kids. They grow up in despair.”
