by Amy Clipston
“He a-a-sked . . . l-letters . . .,” Mamm started to say. She stopped talking and closed her eyes, then her face turned as red as a Red Delicious apple as she struggled to speak.
“Calm down, Ruth.” Dat touched her arm. “What are you trying to say?”
Mamm glared at Dat and shook her head while she tried to think of the words. Solomon couldn’t stand seeing her so frustrated.
“You can do it, Ruth,” Dat patiently encouraged her. “Just take your time and concentrate.”
“L-letters. H-he wrote . . .” Mamm continued to struggle and then smacked her good hand on the table. “W-wrote m-me l-letters.”
“Letters?” Dat asked. “Who wrote letters?”
“H-h-e di-did.” Mamm sighed. “Aar-on.”
“Are you saying Aaron wrote letters to us?” Dat asked.
Mamm nodded.
Solomon’s shoulders stiffened as his parents looked at each other, confused.
“That’s so strange,” his father said. “We never received any letters. I wonder how they got lost.”
Solomon forced himself to clean his plate during the remainder of the meal while his family continued to discuss Aaron. He tried to tune them out, but their analysis of why Aaron came, how long he would stay, and how miraculous it was that he returned droned on through dessert. Once supper was over, Becky and their daughters began to clean up, and his father pushed Mamm’s wheelchair into the family room.
Solomon pulled on his coat and turned toward Manny. “Let’s go finish our chores.”
“I’ll come too.” Junior pulled on his coat as well and zoomed out the back door.
Solomon followed Junior as he walked toward one of the barns, shuddering in the crisp winter air.
“Dat,” Manny called as he jogged to catch up with them. “Wait a minute. I want to talk to you.”
Junior turned back toward them, and Solomon waved him on.
“Go on, Junior,” he instructed. “You start checking on the cows, and we’ll be there in a minute.” He waited until Junior disappeared into the barn and then turned to his older son’s concerned expression. “Was iss letz?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Manny began as they started walking. “You seemed upset during supper.”
Solomon fingered his beard while trying to concoct a reason for his behavior. He couldn’t possibly tell his son the truth and risk losing his respect. “I’m just concerned about your grossmammi.”
“I thought she seemed better today.” Manny kicked a stone with the toe of his boot. “She’s so froh that Onkel Aaron came back. Maybe this is what she needs to get better.”
Solomon wished his stomach would stop churning at the mention of his brother’s name. “I’m concerned she will be disappointed.”
“Why would she be disappointed?” Manny looked up at him. “I don’t understand.”
Solomon fingered his beard and considered his response. He didn’t want to speak badly of his brother to his son, but he also didn’t want to lie. “Aaron left abruptly once. I’m concerned that he’ll do it again, and Mammi won’t be able to bear it. She’s in a delicate state right now.”
“I think it’s gut that Onkel Aaron came back.” Manny turned and gazed back toward the house. “I can’t wait to meet him. I’m sure he wouldn’t recognize me since I was two when he left.”
Solomon grunted a response. “We have work to do.” He started toward the barn. He was tired of hearing about his brother. After all, he was the one who had stayed and taken care of their parents. Aaron had abandoned the family.
After checking on the animals, Solomon told his sons to head into the house and he stayed behind in the same barn. Memories swirled through his mind. He was still stunned that his brother had returned. Was it because Aaron heard about their mother’s stroke? How? And why would even that be enough for him to return after all these years?
He still clearly remembered how his mother had sobbed when she discovered Aaron had left. She cried for him for months and begged God to bring him home. Her heartbreak was apparent on her face every time Solomon looked at her. For several months, she couldn’t say Aaron’s name without tears shimmering in her sad eyes. Aaron’s leaving also hurt their father. He didn’t cry in public, but Solomon had caught him wiping tears from his cheeks several times while he worked in the barns.
Solomon couldn’t understand why Aaron had left. He knew their home life had been tense after the bishop’s barn burned down, but it wasn’t bad enough for Aaron to just leave. He resented the hurt his younger brother had caused his parents, and he was determined to shield his mother from suffering more pain, especially now.
He stepped into his shop and reached for a locked box hidden under his workbench. He fetched a key from his pocket and opened the box, revealing a stack of envelopes addressed to his mother. He held up the top letter and examined the return address, reading his brother’s name written in his perfect penmanship. Ever since he’d been the one to see the first letter, he’d intercepted the mail for years, hiding anything sent from his brother’s address in an attempt to allow his parents to heal from the anguish Aaron had caused.
But had they? Had they healed? They seemed so happy to see Aaron, as if they had been broken the whole time he’d been away.
Solomon pushed those thoughts aside. With his mother’s stroke, his parents’ lives were difficult enough without his brother returning to make a terrible situation even worse. Solomon’s heart hurt every time he talked to his mother since the stroke. Every day he prayed, begging God to heal her. He wanted her to return to the strong, vibrant woman she’d been, and he didn’t need his younger brother rubbing salt into old wounds. He placed the letters back in the box, locked it, and slipped it back into its hiding place. He’d never even opened and read any of them, and he still didn’t care what Aaron had to say.
The key went back into his pocket where he’d kept it all these years.
The sun was beginning to set, and the now-frigid air caused Solomon to shiver again as he exited the barn. He ambled across the frosted ground. He glanced over at his parents’ home and spotted his father sitting on the glider on the screened-in back porch, a lantern by his side.
“Is everything all right?” Solomon asked as he climbed the steps and opened the screen door.
“Ya, ya.” Dat patted the seat of the glider.
“Why are you sitting out here in the cold, Dat?” Solomon sat down beside him. The cold wood seeped through his trousers.
“Your mamm is resting. I wanted to step out here for a few minutes to clear my thoughts.” He shook his head and rubbed his hands together. “I still can’t believe your bruder showed up out of the blue today. I would’ve loved to have seen him, but it sounds like he’ll be back tomorrow.”
Solomon looked toward his house and scowled. If he’d gone home with his sons, then he wouldn’t have been stuck listening to more accolades for his brother.
“It’s just a miracle,” Dat continued. “Your mamm was so excited when I came in from working in the barns. When I first saw her, she was crying, and I was terrified that something was wrong, that her condition had worsened. She was so worked up that I couldn’t understand what she was saying. When I realized she was saying ‘Aaron was here,’ I started crying too. Jocelyn filled in the rest for me.”
Dat chuckled. “Oh, we were a pair, but it was like a dream come true. For years, she’s asked me if I thought Aaron would ever come home. The truth is that I was worried he was dead. I mean, he was only fifteen when he left, and I had no idea if he could find his way in the world without an adult to guide him. I guess he’s smarter than I thought he was.”
Solomon looked down at his hands. “How did he know about Mamm’s stroke?”
“I don’t know. I was wondering if you had found a way to contact him and did it as a surprise for your mamm.”
“No.” Solomon met his gaze. “I didn’t contact him.”
“I wonder what happened to the letters he
says he wrote. It’s odd that they didn’t make it here. How could they all have gotten lost in the mail? I would imagine he remembered this address correctly.”
Solomon looked back toward his own house while trying to ignore the guilt that nipped at him. Why should he feel guilty for hiding the letters? He was only protecting Mamm.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter about the letters now. I’m just froh he’s back.” Dat stood and patted Solomon’s shoulder. “I’m grateful God decided it was time for our family to be back together. It’s freezing out here. We’d better head indoors. Gut nacht.”
“Gut nacht.” Solomon made his way to his house while silently praying that God would shield his mother from further heartbreak. Surely God wouldn’t lead his brother home only to hurt their mother in the process.
But though he trusted God, he didn’t trust Aaron.
Later that evening, Linda thanked her driver and started up the rock driveway past her cousin Raymond’s large, two-story house to the cottage in the back of the farm where she lived with her onkel Reuben. She glanced up at the large farmhouse that sat at the front of the property and wondered if Raymond and his family were already sitting down for supper.
Perhaps it was because Raymond had lost his own parents—her onkel Elam and his wife—that Linda’s parents had left the place to him and not to her or Onkel Reuben. Linda didn’t know. She didn’t even know why Reuben hadn’t inherited as the oldest son instead of her father, Matthew, who had been the youngest of the three brothers. Her onkel did not like to talk about anything in the past.
She was nearly thirty minutes later than when she normally arrived home after working at the bed-and-breakfast, but she needed a few groceries for the meal she planned to cook tonight and stopped at the market on her way home.
Even in a glance, her eyes studied the big house, taking in the sweeping wrap-around porch and large windows. For a moment she tried to remember the four short years she’d lived there. It had been nearly twenty-eight years since she’d moved out of the house, and her memories were blurred, like faint whispers caught in the wind. She vaguely remembered sitting on the back steps and watching her mother hanging out laundry. She also recalled holding her father’s strong hand while they walked together toward the large barn that still stood behind the cottage where she now lived with her onkel. Her happy life with her parents was erased in a cloud of screeching tires and twisted metal, when a semi-truck carrying a load of new cars slid on ice and slammed into the buggy carrying her and her parents. She recalled the powerful impact that sent her catapulting behind the buggy.
When she awoke in the hospital, Linda’s right leg was in a cast, and her aenti Verna was at her bedside. Although Linda was immersed in a confusing fog due to medications and gripping pain in her leg, she understood when her aenti tearfully told her that her parents had been killed on impact. They had been crushed by the truck, while Linda had landed behind the buggy, her right leg mangled in the wreckage. After four surgeries, her leg was repaired and she underwent months of therapy to learn how to walk again.
Her onkel Reuben had been named her guardian, and she moved into the cottage behind the farmhouse, where he and her aenti Verna lived. Losing her parents changed her life forever. Linda had often wondered why the childless couple agreed to take her in. She supposed because it was expected. Neither had ever shown any real affection toward her. Most of the interaction with her aenti was learning how to cook, clean, and sew, and she’d spent a lot of time on her own.
Linda pushed away the memories and balanced two grocery bags in her arms. Making her way toward the cottage, she felt her posture shift as her right leg began to ache. She climbed the porch and wrenched open the front door. As she stepped into the house, her shoulders reflexively hunched, and her left leg favored her right one, giving her a slight limp. It always seemed to be worse when she was at home, tired from the day’s work.
Her gaze moved to the left, and she spotted her onkel sitting in his favorite chair by the fireplace and scowling at the empty hearth. The small family-room area included a sofa, end table, two propane lamps, a coffee table, and his favorite chair.
“Hello.” She crossed to the kitchen area and placed the bags on the counter, then hung her coat on the peg by the back door before returning to put away the groceries. The kitchen was tiny compared to Hannah’s kitchen at the bed-and-breakfast. The walls were plain white without any decorations, other than the oak cabinets. The appliances included a propane stove and refrigerator. A small dinette set with four chairs took up most of the free space.
Reuben stared at her, his wrinkly face creased in a frown. In his mid-seventies, he was tall and wide, a giant of a man with a booming voice that matched his more than six-foot stature.
“How was your day?” she asked while putting away the groceries.
“You’re late,” he barked. “Where have you been?”
Linda breathed a heartfelt sigh, reaching deep inside herself for patience. “I told you this morning that I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home today. Don’t you remember?”
“No, I don’t remember you saying that. I’m starved. What’s for supper?”
“I’m going to make my favorite meat loaf recipe. I’ll mix it up right now.” She pulled a pan out of the cabinet and began gathering the ingredients from the cabinets and refrigerator.
“That will take too long. I don’t want to wait over an hour for it to bake.” He shuffled into the kitchen. “We’ll have sandwiches and potato salad. You can make the meat loaf tomorrow. I’ll get the lunch meat, and you get the bread.”
“Ya, Onkel. That’s a gut idea.” Linda knew it wasn’t any use to argue. After all, she’d disappointed him by not having supper ready on time. No matter what she did, it never seemed to please him.
They brought the food to the dinette set, and he sat at his usual spot, which was at one end of the table, its head. She took her seat to his right. After a silent prayer, they began putting together their sandwiches.
As Linda piled turkey, cheese, and lettuce onto the bread, her mind flickered back to Aaron. When she first saw him, she was upset that it took him over a week to come to Paradise to see his mother, and she was further hurt that he didn’t remember her. But then she was struck by the sadness and desperation in his eyes after he’d visited his mother. He truly had believed his mother had forgotten him, and he was stunned to hear she had missed him. His anguish touched her heart. She cautioned herself not to let this emotion affect her too deeply, though. After all, he wasn’t Amish, and he wasn’t going to stay in the community permanently.
“Do you remember Aaron Ebersol?” she asked.
“Who?” He shook his head. “The name is familiar, but there are probably several men named Aaron Ebersol in the area.”
“He’s Ruth and Jonas’s younger son,” she explained while spooning potato salad onto her plate. “He left the community when he was fifteen.”
“Ruth and Jonas’s bu?” Onkel Reuben nodded as he piled potato salad onto his plate. “Ya, I think I remember him. Why do you ask?”
“He came back to see Ruth. He heard about her stroke, and he’s back. He’s staying at Hannah’s bed-and-breakfast. He went to see his mamm for the first time today.”
“Gut.” He picked up a copy of the Budget and began to read the front page.
“I think he’s—” She stopped talking when she realized her onkel didn’t want to hear her story or her thoughts concerning Aaron and his family.
She ate her sandwich, hoping he’d look up from the paper and ask her to finish her story. She wanted him to value her as a person. She longed for him to care about what she had to say.
Instead, he looked at the paper while chewing. He found the stories of other Amish folks from around the country more interesting than his niece, who was sitting across from him. She glanced at the chair where her aenti Verna sat at every meal until she’d passed away several years ago. Linda wasn’t one to question God’s plan, but s
he realized she missed her aenti. Reuben had been less abrasive when Verna was alive. Now it seemed as if he was stuck in a bad mood for eternity.
Linda chewed her sandwich and glanced toward the front window, where she had a clear view of her cousin’s house. She imagined he and his family were all sitting down to eat together. Their long table was probably bursting with noise and laughter as they enjoyed their supper. Linda used to enjoy spending time with them, but between caring for her onkel after Verna died, her part-time job at the hotel, and now her job at the bed-and-breakfast, there just wasn’t time. Besides, she didn’t want to intrude on their family life very often.
She wondered what it would feel like to have a real family. A family of her own.
She pushed that dream away. She knew she wasn’t worthy of a family. Instead, she was supposed to stay with her onkel and care for him. After all, this was God’s plan for her. Yet she couldn’t stop that tinge of longing that bubbled up inside of her periodically.
Linda sighed, feeling defeated and ignored once again. No matter how hard she tried to share her feelings and thoughts with her onkel, he walked away from her. What was she doing wrong? She considered Aaron’s reaction when he first saw her this morning. He hadn’t remembered her, and that had hurt just as badly as her onkel’s disinterest in what she had to say. She was tired of being invisible. Though she wondered what had made Aaron remember her later, when she’d been cleaning his room.
As she finished her supper, she wondered if she would ever find anyone who would love her completely and appreciate what she had to say. But how could that happen? She was convinced that she wasn’t worthy of love, and the idea broke her spirit. She wanted a family and a home of her own, but maybe she was meant to care for her onkel and then live in this little house alone after he passed away.
The thought echoed through her mind while she finished her sandwich and also while she cleaned up the kitchen and took care of the dishes. Then she headed to her room and sat in her favorite chair next to her bed. She picked up her Bible and flipped to the book of Ephesians, and her eyes fell on a scripture verse that seemed to speak to her. She softly read it aloud: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
