More Than a Promise
Page 9
Wells Landing had been his home all of his life. Until the night everything had changed forever. Now he had no idea where home was. He had no idea if he’d ever feel at home anywhere. It certainly wasn’t the concrete cell that had been his shelter during the last five years.
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, the stitching in his shirt irritating his skin. These were the clothes that he had worn into the prison. The clothes that his mother had made for him. Nowadays the sleeves were a little tight and a little short, but the uncomfortable feeling that stole over him had more to do with memories than the fact that five years had passed since he had worn them.
He had heard the other guys talking about getting out and their families bringing them new things to wear, driving up to get them, and all the celebration that would be had that night.
But there was no celebration for Titus. He hadn’t told his parents that he was coming home. He didn’t know if he could call it home. He didn’t know if he could actually go through with it.
Another car whizzed past, then he caught the low chug of a tractor.
The sound grew closer, the speed becoming slower until it practically stopped right beside him.
Titus kept walking.
“Titus? Titus Lambert? Is that you?”
He should have known that he wouldn’t make it back into town without someone noticing. Wells Landing just wasn’t big enough for that kind of secrecy. Wells Landing wasn’t big enough for any kind of secrecy.
Unable to ignore the man who had called him by name, Titus turned to see who was driving the tractor.
Jonah Miller.
Emotions rushed him, anger, sadness, and an overwhelming need to hug this person he had known most of his life. He shoved them all into the box he kept buried deep inside and gave his onetime friend a brief nod. “Jonah.”
Jonah swung down from the tractor, leaving it idling as he hit the ground. “It’s good to see you.” He stuck out his hand to shake.
Titus looked at it, unable to move. How long had it been since he had touched another person? One year? Two? Fistfights aside, it had been nearly five years since he had clasped another man’s hand in friendship.
It hadn’t taken long for word to get around the yard that he was Amish. The other inmates had considered it great sport to tease him and see if they could get the pacifist to respond. It took even less time for Titus to learn that if he wanted to have any peace at all, he had to fight, and fight harder and meaner than anyone else. He wasn’t proud of the measures he had been forced to take, but he had done what any and every man did on the inside: whatever it took to survive.
He took Jonah’s hand, then met his tawny brown gaze. They were the exact color of good maple syrup. How long had it been since he’d had a short stack with syrup and butter? A long time.
That was another thing he wasn’t used to—making eye contact. He’d done whatever it took to stay off the radar of the harder prisoners. But he looked into Jonah’s eyes, trying his best to begin his life on the outside. His eyes burned and his hand trembled. This was going to be harder than he thought.
“It’s good to be here.” His voice sounded rusty and unused as he uttered his lie. Was it good to be there? Or was this the only place he could be? Wells Landing was his home. Where else was he supposed to go?
“Are you on your way home?” Jonah jerked one thumb over his shoulder toward his waiting tractor. “I can give you a ride.”
It was on the tip of Titus’s tongue to tell him no, but the trip down memory lane was exhausting. He had seen just about all of Wells Landing he wanted to see for the time being, and he had barely made it past the welcome sign.
“Yes.” He nodded. “I’d like that.” He climbed up into the cab of the tractor next to Jonah and tried not to think about how many times they had ridden this way in their youth.
They were still young, he knew, but the innocence of that time was gone. And he could never get that back.
Jonah didn’t say much as they chugged down Main.
Titus did his best not to stare at everything as they passed. Fitch’s Furniture Store, Kauffman Family Restaurant, Lapp Bakery. He had spent so many hours hanging out in the park that divided Main Street that a part of him wanted to tell Jonah to stop and let him out. He could swing for a couple of hours, maybe use the time to get his head right. Then what? He would still have to go home. Still have to face his parents. Still have to learn to live again.
“You okay?” Jonah asked.
“Yeah,” Titus lied. “How’s Lorie these days?” Anything to change the subject. He wasn’t okay. He was drowning in memories.
Jonah made a face that was somewhere between a frown and a grimace. “Uh, a lot has happened since you’ve been gone.”
Of course it had. He’d been in prison for nearly five years, a stiff sentence for second-degree manslaughter. But apparently the judge had been feeling particularly peevish that day about Amish who thought they could run amok in his district without consequences. Of course it didn’t help that the state’s plaintiff was an attorney himself. Titus hadn’t known it would prove to be important at the time, but it was. Oh, how it was.
“You want to fill me in?” Titus asked.
Finally they were through town and on the other side, where most of the Amish farms were located.
Jonah took so long to answer that for a moment Titus thought he wasn’t going to. Then he took a deep breath and started. “Let’s see, we’ve had a few new folks moving in. Caroline Hostetler came with her daughter Emma. She went to work with Esther Lapp in the bakery, then she met Andrew Fitch. He’s Abe Fitch’s nephew. He moved down from Missouri. They ended up getting married—Caroline and Andrew—you don’t know either one of them but you’ll meet them now that you’re . . . home.” He seemed to have a reluctance saying that last word.
Titus couldn’t blame him. The stench of change clung to him. He knew it. But it was more than change. Things would never be the same again, and those around him didn’t know how to handle it. Until he figured it out, he would just exist. And pray that one day he would understand.
“Then it was about that time that Esther Lapp married Abe Fitch.”
That wasn’t what Titus expected Jonah to say. “You don’t say?”
For as long as he could remember, the man was absentminded, euphemistically speaking, and downright scatterbrained, if a person really wanted to state the truth. But most people hated to say that about Abe. He was as kindhearted as they came, generous and caring, even if he was a little bit unkempt at times and would lose the thread of a conversation as easily as a fish slips off the hook.
“That is quite a bit,” Titus said.
Jonah gave a small nod. “That’s not the half of it. Luke Lambright ran off to drive Englisch race cars.”
Titus nodded. “I’m not surprised.”
“Jah, well, Emily wasn’t very happy about it.”
“Emily Ebersol?”
“Of course,” Jonah said. “Except she’s Emily Riehl now. Elam Riehl stepped in and started to court her. Now they’re married and have a baby girl. Then there’s his father.”
“James?” It was so much easier talking about the many residents of Wells Landing and how they had been doing rather than dwelling on all the aspects of his own life.
He missed these people. He knew in his heart that he would never be a complete member of the community again. The Amish preached about forgiveness and understanding, and that he could understand. But he wasn’t the same person he had been when he’d left. How could he come back and pretend that nothing had happened? That was the saddest part of all.
“Jah, James was hurt. He got kicked in the head by a milk cow. He’s not the same anymore. But he’s doing all right. He and Joy had a new baby. They named her Lavender.” He made a face telling Titus exactly what he thought about the name, then he shrugged it off. “He has a thing about purple.”
“Thing?” Titus asked.
“You’ll just
have to talk to him. You’ll understand then. Let’s see, Sadie Kauffman is getting married this fall to a Mennonite guy named Ezra Hein. Clara Rose married Obie Brenneman.”
“I knew that would happen.” Titus nodded. “I think we all did, except for Obadiah and Clara Rose.” He chuckled.
“Then there’s Lorie.” An undeniable sadness crept into his tone. “Her dad died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” And Titus was. He’d liked Henry Kauffman. He was a good man, always happy. Titus would never forget him buzzing around the restaurant, big smile on his face as he made sure everyone had enough coffee and pie. His death was a shame.
“Lorie started going to Tulsa visiting with a grandmother she never knew she had.”
“An Englisch grandmother?”
Jonah nodded and turned down the farm road that led to Titus’s house.
Titus’s heart pounded a little heavier in his chest.
Almost home.
And then not. How could this ever be home again?
“It seems that Henry Kauffman was really Henry Mathis. And he wasn’t Amish at all. It’s kinda complicated, but when he died Lorie saw that he had a tattoo.”
Titus whistled under his breath. Tattoos were strongly forbidden among the Amish. That was one of the many things he’d struggled with in prison. Everybody wanted to mark themselves to show what group they belonged to. Titus just wanted to keep to himself and do his time. He just wanted to get out with as few changes as he possibly could. He did everything he could to come out of prison unmarked physically, but his marks were invisible, bolder, deeper.
“Anyway, she met this sod named Zach something or another. I forget . . .” He trailed off, and Titus had a feeling he knew exactly what this Zach’s last name was, but he wouldn’t press the issue.
“I’m sorry to hear that too.”
“Jah, well, it’s God’s will.”
Was it? Titus had lost faith in God’s will. What proof was there that God wanted these things to happen? Why would God want some of these things that happened to happen? What good was it all?
He pushed those thoughts aside. He was going to see his parents again for the first time in four years, the first time since the trial. He hadn’t seen his brothers and sisters since even before then. He’d had a few visitors that first year in jail, the year he served before the trial. But when he was shipped off to prison, he hadn’t wanted them to come by. He didn’t want anyone to see him in there. Now he was going to get to see them in just a few minutes. The thought sent his heart soaring even as it sank like a rock in his chest.
“Baby steps,” the chaplain had said when he visited with Titus before his release. “Just take baby steps.” And that was what he intended to do. What was that quote? “Do you know how to eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” And that was what he was planning, to take one bite at a time until he figured out if he should swallow or spit it all out. Until then, he would enjoy what little remained of the life he had before.
“It’s all right,” Jonah said. “I’m doing okay.”
Titus could spot a lie when he heard one. He’d been lying to so many people for so long that it had become easy. And he could tell that Jonah was lying now. As long as Jonah was trying to fool the outside world and not himself, he’d be okay. Titus had fooled himself for years, and he knew that road led to destruction.
“It sounds like it’s been a busy few years.”
Jonah slowed the tractor as they neared the mailbox marked with the Lambert name. It hadn’t changed. Their name was still spelled out in those gold and black letters. Half of the T was missing, as it had been when he left. The mailbox seemed to have a couple more dents in it. But it seemed as if not much had changed at all, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Jonah turned the tractor, and they chugged down the drive. Once again Titus’s heart was stabbed with the sameness of it all. Nothing had changed here. The barn still sat close to the road, the first building they came to when they turned down the driveway. It was still painted a bright red with a white fence wrapping around it. The white fence gave way to barbed wire and a sprawling pasture. On the opposite side of the drive the house sat, all pristine white with green shutters and a gray roof, just the same as it had always been. Only the flowers outside were different. How he knew that he didn’t understand. But when he left there’d been flowers, mounds and mounds of beautiful ones, spilling red, purple, and white all around the house. Now the flowers seemed a little tamer. They were more contained and looked thin as they stood straight and tall and reached for the sun. The flowers themselves were white with a couple of pink mixed in, and it was definitely not what he had been used to seeing in the years before. Maybe that was what he needed, that one difference to bring him into the here and now.
Jonah pulled to one side of the house, then turned to Titus without cutting the engine. “Do you want me to go in with you?”
Titus stopped for a moment, mulling over every facet of the problem. He would love to have Jonah’s familiar and steady support at his side as he entered the house he hadn’t set foot in for five years. Yet this was something that he had to do alone. He needed to face the past and survive. And he needed to do it on his own two feet.
“Nah. You go on home.” Titus climbed down from the tractor, grabbed his backpack, and slung it over one shoulder. He was standing on the opposite side of the tractor from the house, and yet he could see faces peeking out of the window to see who had come visiting.
“I had better get in there before everyone comes out on the porch.” If that happened, then Jonah might not ever get to leave. That was one thing about his family; they were welcoming and loving and enjoyed having company of all sorts. If they knew Jonah was there, they would definitely invite him in, convince him he needed some pie and to drink some coffee, play a couple of games of Uno and do twenty other things until they finally let him go. Titus wasn’t sure they would treat him the same way. He was an outsider now, an outcast, a rebel, an outlaw, a convicted felon.
He couldn’t handle them embracing Jonah with all the love that they always showed him before if they were now going to shun him.
He shook the thought away. Shunned or not, things would never be the same.
“Thanks for the ride,” he told Jonah.
His friend nodded. “I’m glad you’re home.”
Jonah backed up the tractor and turned it around. He started for home, throwing a small wave over his shoulder as he putted along. Titus stood there, backpack slung across one shoulder, and watched him leave.
The front door opened and his youngest sister Rachel came to the door. She looked at him, turned her head one way and then the other. She had been only seven years old the last time she’d seen him. Plenty old enough to remember who he was.
“Titus,” she breathed his name as if she never thought she’d speak it again. “Mamm! Dat! It’s Titus! Titus is home.”
He stood stock still as inside the house movement erupted.
He heard his father’s voice, though he couldn’t discern the words. Then Rachel responded. “I’m not kidding; he’s right there.” She pointed at him.
This was it. This was really happening. He was home.
His mother came out onto the porch, no doubt wanting to see what Rachel was so adamant about. She looked at her daughter and then looked at him. The moment froze. Four years had passed and she looked the same as she had when he left. Maybe a few more lines around her face, a couple more wrinkles on her forehead, and a little more gray hidden under her prayer kapp. But somehow she looked just as she always had. Her blue eyes were kind and loving.
“Titus?” She said the word as if he would disappear if she said it too loudly.
“Hi, Mamm.”
“Abner, get out here! Titus is home!”
After that, chaos reigned. In an instant Titus was surrounded by the members of his family. His mamm, his dat, Rachel, his brothers Gabe Allen, Michael, and Paul along with his old
est sister, June. As the oldest in the family, Titus had been the one who was supposed to set an example for them all. But after all the trouble he’d gotten into he was no role model, that was for sure.
But for now at least he was home. How long he’d be able to stay was anybody’s guess.
Titus allowed himself to be pulled into the house. He did his best to seem as enthusiastic as his family. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy to be home. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family, but he knew that things had changed. And he knew that he wouldn’t be able to stay. Not long anyway.
Before he knew what had happened, he was sitting at the kitchen table with everyone clustered around. His mamm was filling him a plate of leftovers as everyone tried to talk to him at once. He was the only one eating, so he was allowed to sit with them, but next time, he knew it would be different.
“How did you get home?” his mamm asked. “Why didn’t you call us? We could have gotten a driver and come get you.” She sat the heaping plate in front of him, and Titus resisted the urge to snatch up his fork and eat every bite as quickly as he could. That was how it had been on the inside. A person had to eat with single-mindedness or lose their meal to the next guy. The next bigger guy. Or the closest guy, who was meaner.
“I—” He stopped, unwilling to tell his mother that he had hitchhiked home. That he hadn’t wanted anyone to see him walk out of that prison. He was leaving it behind him and wanted them to as well. Or at the very least he was trying. “I caught a ride.”
She reached out a hand to touch his face, but stopped short, just inches away from her target. She dropped her hand back to her side, then went around to the refrigerator and took out a large pitcher of lemonade. She poured him a glass, then hovered around him as if she wasn’t sure what she should do next.
Well, that makes two of us.
“I joined the Turtles,” Michael said. Titus could barely comprehend that his brother was old enough to run around, much less that he had already settled on a youth group.
“Dat wouldn’t let me join the Dragons like you did,” Gabe Allen said. “I’m a Turtle too.”