by Emma Miller
He nodded. “All right. I understand.”
But you don’t, she thought, reading the disappointment in his eyes. You don’t understand at all. And if you knew the truth about me, you probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me again. Ever.
* * *
Two hours later, Grace stood in Hannah’s kitchen staring at her stepmother in bewilderment. “I don’t understand,” Grace said. “I’ll have to work part-time for two years until I finish the program, but I’ll still be bringing money into the house. And after that, when I’ve become a vet tech, my wages will—”
“Ne,” Hannah repeated. She laid the rolling pin on the floured board and folded her arms over her chest and shook her head. “I am sorry, Grace, but you cannot do this.”
“Is it because of the driving? I could take a van to school if you don’t want me to use the car.” She hadn’t known about this opportunity a few hours ago, and now she wanted it desperately.
“Oh, child.” Hannah’s expression softened and she dusted her floury hands on her apron. “You can’t do this at all.”
“But why?” Grace’s chest tightened.
“If you truly want to be one of us, you must learn to accept the rules of our community. We do not believe in higher education. It’s why our children don’t go to high school or to any English school at all. It’s why they leave the classroom after the eighth grade. There is no college for us,” she added softly.
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Grace argued.
Hannah took several steps and extended a hand. “I told you that it wouldn’t be easy...for you to make the journey from your world into ours. You must understand.”
“Maybe if I went to the elders and explained...”
Again Hannah shook her head. “You heard what the bishop told you. He will make no decisions for you. But if you do this, you will not be allowed to become one of us.” She offered a half smile. “Believe me, daughter, no Amish man would consider you as wife if you persist.”
“But you work,” Grace argued. “You’re a teacher. Surely—”
“I had worked as a teacher before I married and returned to it after Jonas died. I did have some studies by mail, but I never went to college. And if...when I remarry, I won’t be allowed to work any longer.”
“How can a higher education interfere with my becoming Amish? With how I serve God?”
“Some things must not be questioned, but simply accepted. Remember, we are a people commanded to remain apart from the world. If you want to continue, you must refuse this offer and keep cleaning the kennels or find another job...a job suitable for an Amish woman. You must do this if you want to be considered for admittance to the church.”
“There’s no way?”
“None,” Hannah replied. “You must choose, Grace. This college or our faith.”
She nodded. She wouldn’t cry, she couldn’t. She felt numb inside. This means that Dakota can never attend college, either, she realized. Not even high school. Slowly, she lowered her head in defeat.
“Your choice,” Hannah repeated. “You must learn to accept the Ordnung, to submit your will to the laws of our community. Or find a different path,” she said softly.
“I have to tell John,” she said. “He’s waiting outside in the truck. It’s only fair. That way, they can find someone else.”
“I’m sorry,” Hannah said. “I know this seems unfair to you, but it’s best. And if you’ve made up your mind, best to let him know your decision.”
Woodenly, Grace left the kitchen, not even stopping long enough to put on her coat. She didn’t feel the cold as she crossed the porch and passed through the open gate. John saw her, smiled and waved. She straightened her shoulders, knowing that explaining why she couldn’t accept his offer would be hard.
He got out of the truck and came toward her. “What did Hannah say?” he called. “Does she think the bishop will allow—”
She raised a hand, palm up, and a gust of wind hit her hard enough to almost knock her off her feet. “It isn’t what you wanted to hear,” she said, raising her voice. “I’m sorry, but...” She stumbled through the explanation, repeating the phrases Hannah had used. How could she expect him to understand when he didn’t know her reasons?
“No! You can’t let them dictate to you, Grace. This is too important a decision for anyone else to make for you. You want it. I know you do.”
“I can’t fight this,” she said, wrapping her arms around her waist. “If I went to college, I couldn’t join the church.”
“Then don’t join the church. Have the courage to make your own life. You have a God-given talent for working with sick and hurt animals. It would be a sin to waste that gift because...”
He was upset, more than upset. John was angry with her. Suddenly weary and heartsick, she stopped listening to him. It wasn’t just the job. John still hadn’t realized that there was no future for them.
“Stop!” she said. “Just stop talking and listen to me.” She tried to sound tough, but her teeth were chattering. It was difficult to be forceful when she was so cold that goose bumps were rising on her arms and legs. “I need to tell you something...something that will...”
“You’re shivering,” he said, removing his fleece-lined jean jacket and draping it around her shoulders. “Get in the truck.”
“Is that an order?”
“Please get in the truck.”
What difference did it make? Once he knew what she was, she probably wouldn’t even have her kennel tech position. But it didn’t matter. She was tired of living a lie...tired of hiding.
She was still shivering after she climbed inside the cab. She pulled John’s coat around her, raised her chin and looked him in the eye. God help me, she prayed. I have to tell him.
“Okay,” he said, putting his arm on the back of the seat. “Let’s have it. You’re still married to Dakota’s father, aren’t you? You’re going to tell me that I’ve fallen hard for a married woman.”
“That’s just it,” she whispered huskily. She made herself look him in the eyes. “There is no husband. There never was.”
Chapter Fourteen
John waited. Grace stared down at her hands...small hands, unpolished, but strong and graceful. Like she was, he thought. He loved Grace’s hands...wanted to take them in his and hold them and never let go.
Silence stretched between them. “That’s it?” he finally asked. “You weren’t married when Dakota was born? That’s what’s making you so unhappy?”
Her answer came in a small voice, the tones almost childlike. “You know what that makes my son?” She looked him in the eyes. “What people will call him if they know?”
“Mean-spirited people. But they won’t say it around me or Hannah or your sisters, I can promise you that.” He reached for her hand, but she shrank away, hunching against the door, clutching his coat around her. Her shoulders trembled. Was she crying? The instinct to protect her that he’d felt when they’d first met rushed back, a hundred times stronger. She was so young to have faced so many obstacles so bravely. But she wasn’t alone anymore, not if he could help it.
“Grace, look at me.”
She pressed her face against the glass. “I haven’t told anyone. Even Hannah doesn’t know.” A small sob shook her. “When I tell her, I’ll probably have to leave.”
“That’s crazy. Do you think that your family would turn against you for a mistake? That I would?”
Her breath fogged the window and she rubbed at it with a slender fingertip. “Because I lied...because I let everyone believe that I was a widow.”
“Dakota’s father abandoned the two of you?”
“No.” Her breath caught in her throat with a small sound. “He was a bull rider. He was killed in a rodeo accident.”
John co
uldn’t help feeling a little relieved that Grace hadn’t lied about her husband passing away, that she didn’t have an old love who could come back into her life to claim her and Dakota. He tried to tell himself that it was despicable to feel that for the passing of another human being, but all he could think of was that Grace and Dakota—his Grace and Dakota were free.
Hope replaced uncertainty as his heartbeat quickened. No matter what it took, he’d convince her that she wasn’t meant to be Amish. She liked riding in his truck and listening to the radio. She was friendly and outgoing with the people who came to the office, and she had a special way with animals. And no matter how hard she tried to convince him otherwise, he knew that she desperately wanted to further her education for her future and that of her son.
“Broncs, too.”
John snapped out of his thoughts. Grace was speaking to him. Had he been thinking of her so intensely that he’d missed something important? “Excuse me,” he said. “Broncs?”
“Bucking broncos. Rodeo horses. He rode them.” She half turned. Her voice was little more than a whisper, but huskier than a little girl’s. It resonated under his skin. “As I told you, Joe Eagle, Dakota’s father, was Native American.”
“Dakota’s a beautiful child, and his heritage is something to be proud of.”
“He looks different than his cousins. He always will.”
“He’s an individual, Grace, as are you. It’s a good thing.” He hesitated, and then asked the question that had troubled him the most. “Did you love him—Dakota’s father?”
“I thought I did.” She shivered, nearly lost in his big coat. “Yes, I did love him at first. I wanted so bad to have someone, a husband...a home. But Joe wasn’t an easy man to live with. He had his own demons to fight, and sometimes he took it out on Dakota and me. When Joe died, I think I was more sad than grieving. Such a waste...” Her mouth firmed. “And when—”
“It doesn’t matter,” John said. “That’s all in the past. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“But I want to.” Some of the spunk came back into her and she raised her pointed chin and met his gaze straight on. Her blue eyes glistened with tears. “It was wrong of me to deceive Hannah and...and everyone. You don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake praying for forgiveness...praying for the strength to tell the truth. I did exactly what Joe did, deceived the ones I should have been the most honest with. But I was so scared...” A single tear welled up and splashed against a pale cheek. “We’re all alone, the two of us. I wanted someone...somewhere to belong.”
John fought the urge to pull her into his arms, to cradle her against his chest and promise to make everything all right. The desire to protect her, to make her his wife and to become a real father to Dakota was nearly overwhelming. But he could sense that like a terrified filly that had tangled herself in a barbed-wire fence, if he came on too fast or too strong, she’d panic.
Life had buffeted Grace Yoder until she was at the breaking point. If he reached for her, she might run, and he could lose any chance of making her understand that none of it mattered—that he could never judge her for the mistake of having a child out of wedlock. “Grace, it’s all right,” he soothed with the same tone he’d use on an injured filly.
“No! It’s not. You have to listen. I don’t know if I’ve got the nerve to tell this twice.”
He nodded, folding his hands to be sure he didn’t reach for her. “If you want to, but I’m here for you. Believe me, I know what kind of person you are. If you made a mistake—”
“My mistake was in being stupid. When I first met Joe, I was stranded in the middle of nowhere. I’d been walking for hours, and it was almost dark when he stopped to pick me up in his truck. They can say all they want about cowboys, but he didn’t come on to me like I was cheap.”
John shook his head. “No one could ever call you cheap, Grace.”
“Just listen, please,” she begged.
John nodded and Grace went on. “Joe drove me to the next town and introduced me to a retired Baptist minister and his wife who followed the rodeo circuit. Mrs. Bray had broken her hip and needed help. I stayed with them for two months until the season was over. Joe and I dated, but I never did anything to be ashamed of, not with him, not with any man. Then Joe asked me to marry him. I was afraid that he’d leave and I’d never see him again. I knew that it was too soon, that we hadn’t known each other long enough, but I said yes, anyway.”
“I don’t understand,” John said. “He asked you to marry him, but then went back on his word?”
“Oh, he married me, all right. Reverend Bray married us and Mrs. Bray witnessed it. I have a license from the State of Wyoming to prove it.”
“If you had a marriage ceremony, then...” His shoulders tightened. “This Bray wasn’t a real minister?”
“He was the real thing, all right. It was Joe who wasn’t the real thing.”
“I don’t understand,” John protested. “How could—”
“Shh.” She put her fingers over his lips. “I’m trying to tell you. After...after the accident, things were bad. There were so many bills. Joe had told me he was an orphan, that he didn’t have anyone like me. But when I was going through his things, I found a Christmas card from his mother, dated the previous December. I wrote to the address, but I didn’t get an answer. For Dakota’s sake, I had to try to make some kind of connection with her. I’d had to sell Joe’s truck for rent money, and it took me a long time to get enough money for another vehicle. When I did, we drove to the reservation. I just wanted her to meet her grandson.”
John winced at the pain etched across her face.
“I found her, but I wish I hadn’t. She called me awful names—told me she wished Dakota had never been born. She said that I’d tricked her son, led him to abandon his family—that we should be the ones dead, not Joe.” A sob shook her. “You see, I thought I was Joe’s wife, but I wasn’t. He already had a wife and two children on the reservation. He was married to a woman named Bernadette when he made his vows to me. So...so, I was never really Mrs. Joe Eagle. I was just Grace Yoder.”
She reached for the door latch, but John seized her arm. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “If there was wrong, it was Joe’s, not yours, and not Dakota’s. How could anyone blame you for—”
She whipped around. “For being stupid? For believing a good-looking rodeo rider with a two-thousand-dollar saddle and a mouthful of lies?” She pulled free. “It’s why I have to become Amish, John. It’s why I have to do this. If I accept baptism in the Amish faith, God will forgive me—the stain on Dakota’s birth will be wiped away.”
“Grace, listen to me!”
But it was too late. She flung open the door and jumped out. He climbed out the passenger door and followed her halfway to the gate. “Wait! Can’t we talk?”
She stopped and looked back. “Your coat,” she said, slipping it off and throwing it to him.
“Grace, listen, I know you’re upset. I can come back later. Tomorrow—”
“No.” She shook her head. “There’s nothing left to say. I’ve made up my mind, and you won’t talk me out of what I know is the right thing to do for me and my son.”
“Wanting God in your life is a good thing,” he said. “But your father’s path isn’t the only one.”
“It’s my business, John! Not yours. No one asked you to interfere in my life.”
He felt as though a hard fist had punched him in the gut. He stood there, coat dangling in his hand with the rain pelting his face. “All right, I’m sorry you feel that way. But maybe you’re right. Maybe it isn’t any of my business. I’ll pick you up Monday morning for work, and then we can—”
“No.” She started for the house again. “I can see now that I should never have taken the job in the first place. I have to be apart from the wo
rld. Being at the clinic—”
“I won’t let you quit,” he said, following her through the gate. “It’s not what you want—not what I want.”
“You can’t stop me from quitting.” She was shivering again. “Tell your uncle that I’m sorry to not give notice, but it’s best for everyone if I leave now without a fuss.”
“You’re making the biggest mistake of your life,” he said. “You think about it—about what you’re doing. About what’s best for Dakota. I’ll be here Monday morning.”
“Didn’t you just hear what I said?” she cried, stopping to turn around again. “I’m not coming. I’m not working for you anymore. Tell your uncle I appreciate the offer of the scholarship, but my new faith won’t allow me to accept. Give it to someone else, someone who will appreciate it.”
She ran up the steps and into the house, slamming the door behind her. John stood there, wondering what he could have done differently, feeling the woman he’d come to love slipping away from him. He got back into the truck, and tightened his fingers around the steering wheel, using every ounce of his will to keep from punching the dashboard.
Anger rode him as he started the engine and drove out of the yard and down the lane. Anger clouded his thoughts and made him doubt his judgment. Maybe his grandfather was right. Maybe he had fallen too quickly for Grace. Maybe he wanted her because Miriam had rejected him.
The wipers swished back and forth. He wanted to tramp down on the accelerator and put distance between him and Grace, but he didn’t. A lifetime of concern for other people was too hard to shake. Instead, he did what he always did when he was confronted with overwhelming problems. He found a safe place to pull off the road, put his truck into park, lowered his head and murmured the Twenty-Third Psalm aloud. And as always, he found comfort in the old words from the St. James version of the Bible. When he was done, he sat in silence for a long time before uttering a simple prayer.
