by B. J. Hoff
Gant shrugged and gave a faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Just wondered, is all. Would you have any idea what the life of a slave is like?”
“No more than any other white man would know, I expect.”
It was on the tip of David’s tongue to suggest that Gant most likely knew something more about slavery than he, judging from the looks of the scars he’d seen on Gant’s back during his initial examination. But he had no wish to humiliate the man or pry into his past, though there was no denying he was curious about the unmistakable signs of a beating.
Gant’s eyes bored into him, but he said nothing.
David could see that he was tiring, and so he moved to end the exchange. “Well, then, I’ll be back in a few days. In the meantime don’t try to get out of bed. You mustn’t put any weight on that leg yet.”
Gant nodded. “As you say, Doc. And I do thank you for your assistance.”
David could almost feel that icy gaze on his back as he left the room.
The British and the Irish. A case of old wounds that continued to fester, with hope of healing almost beyond imagining. What would it take to end that ancient, bitter enmity?
Gant didn’t want to like the man. He was a Brit, after all.
On the other hand, would he be alive today if the British doctor hadn’t treated him?
He had to admit it was doubtful. The man might well have saved his life.
Apparently, though, a good measure of credit was also due to the lovely young Amish widow. And she was lovely, this Rachel Brenneman. Lovely indeed. The more he saw of her, the more he looked forward to the times she came into the room, though she spoke only when she seemed to find it necessary. In truth, she turned pink every time she got close to him or caught him watching her. And he did like to watch her.
Her face was enough to make a strong man whimper. She might be Amish, but there was an almost exotic, Mediterranean look about her. Eyes so dark they were almost black, the blush of apricots on her creamy skin, and a wee band of freckles that neatly marched across her nose. Her hair was mostly concealed, of course, under that pert little white cap she wore. Even so, he could see enough to know it was a rich, glossy chestnut. She was slender, like a young willow, and she moved easily and lightly, like a dancer.
He smiled at his own fanciful image. No doubt the Amish Rachel Brenneman wouldn’t take kindly to being thought of as a dancer.
It wasn’t likely she’d take kindly to his thinking about her at all.
But she was fine. Fine, indeed. And when she smiled…Ah, when she smiled, it was a good thing he wasn’t yet able to stand, or surely his knees would have buckled under him.
He glanced at the window, saw that the light of evening would soon be gone entirely. Good. That meant Rachel Brenneman would be coming in with his supper.
The days were long and the times when he was actually awake were dull and boring as dust. The best parts of the day were mealtimes, not so much because he was ever hungry—he had no appetite as yet. But because mealtime meant a few far-too-brief moments with Rachel.
How long might it be, he wondered, that he could keep her believing he was still too weak to feed himself?
12
FOR THE LONELY
God pity all the lonely folk
With griefs they do not tell,
Women walking in the night
And men dissembling well.
LOUISE DRISCOLL
David deliberated between stopping by Susan’s place or going on to the farm. He was finished with his calls for the day and had closed up the office earlier that afternoon, so there was no reason he should hurry home.
On the other hand, he had no reason to stop at Susan’s, other than the obvious one—he wanted to see her. The wiser course would be not to stop. But with Fannie at Rachel’s and Gideon no doubt still at work, Susan would be by herself. They might have a rare opportunity to talk without anyone else around.
The temptation was too great. He pulled up in front of the Kanagy house, making an effort to smooth his hair before getting out of the buggy. After tethering Chester, his mahogany Morgan horse, he walked quickly up the steps of the front porch.
When Susan opened the door, she was wiping her hands on her apron and there was a smudge of flour on her cheek. The sight of her, her tentative but welcoming smile, sent a dizzying happiness through him.
“David! Is something wrong?”
“No, no, not at all. I just left Rachel’s and thought I’d stop and say hello. Is this is a bad time?”
“Of course not,” she said, standing aside and motioning him in. “Kumm re. Come in. I was just starting supper. Gideon’s always late these days, seems like. I never quite know when to look for him. Do you have time for a cup of tea? Or coffee? I have both. My boy always wants coffee when he gets home from work. Here, let me take your coat.”
“No I can’t stay long, Susan. I thought I’d just stop by for a moment and…see how you’re doing,” he said, following her to the kitchen.
The quizzical look she gave him over her shoulder might have had something to do with the fact that he’d just talked with her two days before, at Rachel’s house. Admittedly it was doubtful that much had changed in two days.
“Smells wonderful in here,” he said. The kitchen was as plain as all Amish kitchens, with nothing but a long plank table and benches, a black woodstove, and dark blinds at the uncurtained windows. No ornaments decorated the walls, and the cupboard was for food storage only—no trinkets here. But the room was warm and richly scented with supper in the making. It was a friendly, inviting room that made one want to stay.
“You’re welcome to stay for supper, David.”
He laughed a little. “I wasn’t hinting—honestly. I’ll take you up on it another time when you know to expect me.”
“Oh, I always make too much as it is. Seems I still can’t get used to cooking for only the three of us—and now with Fannie at Rachel’s, it’s even harder to judge how much to fix for just Gideon and myself.”
She talked him into a cup of coffee, but he remained standing as he drank it. He supposed it was foolish, but somehow it seemed less intimate than sitting down at the table with her. He’d learned to guard against excessive closeness, not merely for his own sake but mostly for hers.
Even after all these years of friendship with Susan and her late husband, Amos, and finally gaining the acceptance of the Riverhaven Amish as their physician and friend, David was still keenly aware of the strict code of conduct for an Englischer and an Amish woman. Especially an Amish woman alone. It had taken him a long time to win the respect of the Plain People; he had no intention of doing anything that might cause him to lose it.
He was especially careful to do nothing that might place his friendship with Susan at risk. He stood at the far end of the long wooden counter that ran nearly the length of one side of the kitchen, while she stayed midway, near the sink.
“So, then, how is your patient, Captain Gant, coming along?” Susan asked.
“He’s doing well. I’m actually surprised at how well. If infection doesn’t set in, I believe he’ll heal nicely.”
“Good. Perhaps he won’t need to stay so long, then.”
“It will be some time before he’s able to leave here, Susan,” David cautioned. “A few weeks, at least.”
She drew a long breath. “This is a bad situation for Rachel, you know that.”
David nodded. “I hope your church leadership will be patient. There’s simply no way the man will be able to leave soon. Not in his condition.”
“Surely there’s somewhere else he could go to recuperate.”
“I can’t think where it would be. He certainly can’t take care of himself. He’s going to need medical attention for quite some time.”
“What about the hospital?”
“The hospital wouldn’t keep him for any length of time, now that I’ve done the surgery and he seems to be recovering.” He studied her. “I know you’re tro
ubled about this, for Rachel’s sake, but there’s really nothing else in it except for Gant to stay put until he’s well enough to be on his way.”
She gave a slow nod, but there was no mistaking her unease. “I was concerned about Rachel even before this happened, you know.”
“Because of her being alone?”
“That, and she’s been so sad. It’s been three years, and I would have thought by now…” her voice trailed.
“Yes, I know, Susan,” he said gently. “But have you considered that having someone to look after might actually help her? It can’t hurt to keep busy, to keep from dwelling on her loss too much.”
Susan looked at him, and the pain that lined her features tugged at David’s heart. He didn’t know exactly how old she was, but she’d always looked almost as youthful as a girl. But at this moment, she appeared drawn and tense. She looked, as was only natural, like a worried mother.
He ached to touch her, to reassure her—and immediately dismissed the thought. “Rachel is a strong young woman. She’ll be all right. But it would help if your bishop doesn’t make things difficult for her. She doesn’t need to be badgered about this situation.”
Her eyes widened in a look of rebuke. “Bishop Graber would never badger Rachel. Or anyone else. He has a kind heart, David.”
David knew the bishop and had even treated him, once for a broken wrist and another time for phlebitis. Susan might be right about the man’s kind heart, but he’d always struck David as a stern, patriarchal sort.
“Susan, you’re afraid Rachel might be disciplined for taking in an outsider, aren’t you?”
She hesitated, glancing away for an instant. When she turned back to him, her eyes were dark with sadness. “How is it that you always seem to know what I’m thinking, David?”
The doctor laughed. “I daresay no man can read a woman’s mind.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “I don’t know but what you might not be the exception.” She paused. “Yes, I’m worried that Rachel might face disciplining. She’s a young widow with no children, and this… riverboat captain, who is a worldly man we know nothing about, is staying in her house.”
“But I’m sure you’re in and out often. And Fannie is there most of the time.”
“That’s true, but it’s still a treacherous situation for Rachel. You must know that.”
“Of course I do.” And he did. David had moved and worked among the Amish enough years to be familiar with the Ordnung, the unwritten but uncompromising rules by which they lived. He didn’t have to agree with all their regulations—and he didn’t—to understand that these people truly lived in a world of their own making, as far removed from his own world as possible. They were required to honor the code they’d set for themselves, or else they were disciplined, sometimes severely, for disobedience.
It occurred to him that Susan was regarding him with an uncharacteristically open, curious expression. More often she was careful not to look directly at him and seldom, if ever, made eye contact with him.
“It sometimes puzzles me, David, that you would be so…accepting of our ways,” she said. “You never seem to judge us or condescend to us, like some among the Englisch do. Why is that, I wonder?”
Taken off guard by her observation, David made an awkward shrug and even laughed a little. “Perhaps I’d make a good Amishman myself.”
Her gaze locked with his for another instant before she glanced away. “Perhaps you would at that,” she said, her voice soft.
“I do live a fairly simple life, you know, Susan. I’m probably not as ‘worldly’ as the Plain People might believe. I tend to my patients, my garden, and my house plants. I read, I go for walks, and I enjoy simple food—meat and potatoes are my style. What’s so worldly about that?”
She turned teasing now. “Ah, but think of all your fine education! No doubt you find our disregard for higher learning right peculiar, to say the least. We must seem dreadfully boring to you.”
“I could never find anything about you ‘boring,’ Susan.”
The words escaped David’s lips without his taking time to think. He quickly moved to fill the ragged silence that hung between them. “Well…I expect I should be getting home and let you tend to your supper.”
She hesitated before making a reply. “I’m glad you stopped,” she finally said, no longer looking directly at him. “It’s always good to see you.”
He set his cup on the counter. “Well,” he said again, feeling awkward, “thank you, Susan. You take care now. And give Gideon my best.”
She hadn’t wanted him to go. That was her feeling all too often of late. A forbidden feeling that should have wracked her with guilt. Yet it always seemed so…right, being with David.
How could she have let such a thing happen? Why hadn’t she realized where her feelings were going and reined them in before things ever reached such a point?
And what about David? Did she only imagine what she saw in his eyes sometimes? What she thought she saw?
Surely she was wrong. He knew as well as she that the barrier between their worlds was impassable. Even the thought of anything more than friendship between them could never be more than a ridiculous, futile imagining.
She shook her head as if to cast off her girlish foolishness. How could she begin to believe that a man like David Sebastian might care for her…that way? She was a simple, middle-aged Amish matron, not well-educated, with no fancy manners. Her hands were rough and red from laundry soap and gardening. She was short in stature, a bit too plump in figure, and her face was beginning to line from worry over her children.
David was a professional man, a scholarly man of refinement and gentility. Englisch women would find him attractive—a highly eligible bachelor, for sure and for certain.
There also remained the fact that he was an Englisch man. In the eyes of her church, he was as much an auslander as that wounded riverboat captain he was treating.
Well, perhaps not quite so much the outsider as that man Gant, for the Plain People considered David a friend as well as their physician. But he was still of the world, and any kind of romantic feelings between them, even if such a thing should ever happen, would never be tolerated.
Forbidden, that’s what it was, and that was what it would always be.
So why was she standing here, daydreaming like a young girl in love? She had supper to get and evening chores to do. Best empty her head of such nonsense and get to work before her son caught her at her folly.
As he entered his home, a sprawling old farmhouse he’d restored and redecorated some years back, David stood in the entryway, listening to the oppressive silence.
When Aaron had still been a boy and living at home, there had always been some sort of noise about. Even after Lydia’s death, when David had sometimes felt as though he would choke on the loneliness, there had been the sounds of welcome when he came home: Aaron’s boyish eagerness, the dog’s playful yelping, the sound of Mrs. Cunningham working in the kitchen.
Now Aaron was a man grown, practicing medicine in Baltimore. Abner, the dog, was dead. Mrs. Cunningham, no longer needed, had moved on to another family. So every day David came home to an empty house.
Some days it was all he could do to face the quiet. In his medical practice, he dealt with families. Young families with small children, middle-aged couples helping to tend to their grandchildren, and aging husbands and wives who were still part of their families’ lives. Amish households were almost always large and busy, with lots of children and grandparents, nieces and nephews, and aunts and uncles involved in the lives of their loved ones. Not only did David feel set apart because of being an outsider to the Plain People, but also—perhaps more so—because he was so alone while they almost never were. He spent his days in the company of families joined not only by blood, but by love and laughter and the common cause of taking care of each other.
And then, at the end of the day, he left it all behind and came home to a cold, empty house with shadowe
d rooms that held only furnishings no longer used and hollow echoes of the past.
Sometimes he thought he would die of loneliness long before old age or a wasting disease brought his life to an end. When he caught himself lapsing into such morbid thoughts, he tried halfheartedly, then more rigorously, to drag himself up and out of the mire of selfpity, only to plunge into a flood of overwork that ultimately led to an unhealthy avoidance of reality.
In truth there was a hole in his heart, a dank void that nothing— not work, not busyness, not things or all manner of pursuits—could ever fill. From time to time he considered selling the farm and going to live nearer his son, Aaron, and his family in Baltimore. But they had their own life, and it was a different kind of life from what David had ever wanted for himself.
Besides, he couldn’t imagine leaving Riverhaven and his Amish families. He had grown to be genuinely fond of the lovely countryside and these good people with their simple, decent lives. The thought of separating himself from them—and from Susan—stabbed at his heart with a vengeance.
So he continued to make do. Most times he even managed to be thankful for what he had rather than regretting what he lacked.
But, oh, how bitter the loneliness could be on a cold winter’s night after leaving the welcome and cozy comfort of Susan’s home.
And how empty his own house felt without the sweet warmth of her presence. Sometimes, in a rare idle moment when he let his guard down, he would allow himself to wonder what it would be like to come home to Susan. She seemed to bring a steady sense of peace into any room she entered with the light of her smile, the grace of her goodness.
To all appearances, he himself had a fine home, a good life, an existence some men might envy. Only he knew it was nothing more than a facade.
Until he’d been forced to face the bleak emptiness of his spacious, rambling rooms, he’d never stopped to think about what it actually meant to be alone, truly alone.
Once he realized—once he understood the constant battle that had to be waged against gradually falling into a kind of meaningless existence—he valued all the more the ties of family and friends and faith that helped to keep his heart from becoming as cold and empty as the house in which he lived.
