An Unlikely Amish Match

by Vannetta Chapman

  “It could be you’re right. I’m not saying you are, but I will say that I feel...confused. Some days I do find myself thinking that Micah would make a fine husband, and yes, occasionally I drift off into daydreams about that.”

  Deborah smiled, but she didn’t interrupt, and she certainly didn’t say the four dreaded words: I told you so.

  “I realize how silly that is. He’s not even staying here in Indiana. If you could hear him go on and on about Maine.”

  “I have. We all have.” Deborah set aside her knitting, walked over in front of Susannah’s chair and squatted in front of her. “It’s okay to enjoy this time with Micah.”

  “It is? But—”

  Deborah put her hands over Susannah’s. “Maybe it will lead to something else and maybe it won’t. All we know for certain is that Gotte brought you two together during this time in your lives for a reason.”

  “But I have no idea what that reason is.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?”

  “How about you do the simplest of things? Just savor it and stop worrying about where it might or might not lead.”

  * * *

  Micah nearly swallowed his gum when Susannah walked into his daddi’s barn early that evening.

  “I thought you weren’t talking to me.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you walked away.”

  “Oh, yeah. I did.”

  “Not that I blame you. I overstepped. I tried to lecture you on your life when my own life is a mess.”

  Instead of denying that, she simply said, “I might have overreacted.”

  Which was all the apology he was going to get. But then, maybe she didn’t owe him an apology. Maybe he owed her one. Regardless, Susannah seemed to have moved on.

  Micah had been oiling and mending one of the harnesses. He set it aside and studied her as she stood there in the doorway to the barn, the last of the day’s light splashing over her. She was a sight for sore eyes, that was for certain. He’d tossed and turned until midnight the previous evening, wondering how he was going to survive the remainder of his Indiana exile without Susannah by his side.

  “My parents used to have tiffs,” he admitted.

  “Did they, now?”

  “Couple of times a year. Nothing terrible, just a bit of a row and then an awkward silence for the remainder of the day.”

  Susannah looked intrigued. “My parents never fight, not that I’m aware of.”

  “Could be because my mamm has a temper, or because my dat is more stubborn than any mule you will ever encounter.” He walked past her, out into the fading sunshine. Watching the sun set in the west, looking out over the fields, he realized that Indiana had a certain unique beauty. Not that it could compare with Maine, and not that he’d ever want to live here, but he could understand why people did. “It used to upset me when I was a youngie.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What most Amish kinner do. I ran to my grandparents. This would be my mamm’s parents. They moved up to join us in Maine after the first year. You’d think that they would be on her side.”

  “They weren’t?”

  Micah shrugged. “Couldn’t ever tell, but I do remember what my daddi said to me after one particularly loud argument my parents had. I was sitting out near the pond, but not fishing. He came over and told me not to worry. He said if my parents were perfect, they wouldn’t have married each other. But since neither one was perfect, I could rest assured that they would forgive each other.”

  Susannah started laughing, and then Micah started laughing, and then he knew that everything was okay between them. They both sat on the bench under the barn’s overhang.

  Susannah bumped her shoulder against his. “No perfect people in your family, huh?”

  “Not a single one.”

  “Mine, either.”

  “Which, I suppose, means we’re not perfect.”

  “Not even close.” Susannah pulled a folded sheet of newspaper from her pocket. “And now that we’ve established that neither of us is perfect, we should probably talk about this.”

  Micah stared at it, dumbfounded for the space of a few seconds. Then he hopped up, walked across the barn and retrieved his phone from the shelf where he usually stored it. He returned to where Susannah was and attempted to turn it on, but nothing happened.

  “Problem?”

  “It’s dead.”

  “Ah.”

  “I don’t think I’ve even used it since the workday at the barn.” He waited, expecting her to begin scolding him for using it at all. When she didn’t, he sat back down beside her. “There was a time when I checked it every day. Who am I fooling? I checked it every hour. I thought... Well, I guess I thought I was going to miss out on something.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I have freinden on different chat apps.”

  “Real friends?”

  Micah shrugged his shoulder. “They seemed to be at the time, and maybe they were. Or they could have been, if our lives had connected in a more tangible way. I don’t know. At the time that I bought this phone, I was feeling like no one understood me. And suddenly there was this virtual community where people did understand. It was nice.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I don’t know if any of what goes on through this device is real.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “If I were to be honest? Now I would rather spend time with you and Deborah and even her bruder Elias.”

  “I didn’t know you’d spent any time with Elias.”

  Micah didn’t try to explain that Elias was okay but he enjoyed his time with Susannah more. He didn’t know how to say that without making a fool of himself. As he mulled over that fact, Susannah studied him, and he almost fell over when she started laughing.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” he asked. “You’re acting a little odd.”

  “It just occurred to me that your chat apps aren’t so very different from the Englisch pen pal that I have.”

  “Now you’re just tugging on my suspenders.”

  “Nein. It’s true.”

  “How did Susannah Beiler, bishop’s doschder, end up with an Englisch pen pal?”

  “Jayla was in the hospital when I was... We shared a room for a while.”

  “Did she have cancer, too?”

  “She did. She’s older than me by a few years, African American and already had one boppli. We’re as different as two people can be.”

  “Like me and my freinden on Snapchat.”

  “Maybe, which I guess is part of what I like about writing to her. She helps me to see my life from a different perspective.”

  “And you still exchange letters?”

  “We do. We’ve even met up for coffee a couple of times, when she was back in town for treatment. She lives over by Millersburg, so it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, but I always look forward to seeing her. And her letters—it cheers me up just to see her return address on an envelope.” Susannah reached out and poked his phone with a finger. “So, how were you going to learn more about the picture you took from the phone?”

  “I was just going to check and see if I could figure out how this happened.” He picked up the paper again and stared at it, as if doing so would make the puzzle pieces fall together.

  Finally, he handed it back to her. “I don’t know how that photo ended up in the paper.”

  “But you took it?”

  “Ya. Plainly it’s a selfie that I snapped. I even remember taking it. I was thinking I’d like to show it to my family when I get back to Maine.”

  “Why?” There was no condemnation in her voice, only curiosity. “Surely you have barn raisings in Maine.”

  Micah was shaking his head b
efore she even finished. “Not like here. That...” He nodded toward the paper she was now holding. “That was a completely different experience for me. In Maine, our communities are much smaller.”

  “You still help one another.”

  “Of course, but a barn isn’t raised in a day. We might have one big workday at the beginning, but the majority of the work is done as people are able over the period of a week or two.” He stood, paced back and forth in front of her for a minute and finally leaned against the barn post, crossing his arms. “I don’t know how that picture ended up in the paper, and I know nothing about winning fifty dollars.”

  “But you think you can figure that out through your phone?”

  “Maybe.”

  Susannah stood and straightened her apron, then stepped closer and smiled up at him. “Perhaps we should go to town tomorrow.”

  “Town?”

  “I heard Dairy Queen has a special on their ice cream.”

  “Do they, now?”

  “Personally, I could go for something cold and chocolate.”

  “I could probably charge my phone while we’re there.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What time should I pick you up?”

  “We can go whenever you finish your work with my dat.”

  Micah couldn’t believe how much his mood had lifted since she’d stepped into the barn. Did Susannah’s opinion of him matter so much? And why wasn’t she more angry about the picture? She was always lecturing him about staying within the guidelines of the Ordnung, but she hadn’t said a word about it since arriving. He knew that asking her wouldn’t yield answers, and maybe the why didn’t matter so much after all.

  When she’d arrived, the sun was just beginning to set, but while they’d talked, twilight had crept over the fields.

  “Let me hop inside and tell my grandparents that I’m going to walk you home.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can find my way.”

  “Still...” And rather than explain, he jogged toward the house, returning in a few minutes with a flashlight, a napkin filled with a few of his mammi’s brownies and a quart jar full of milk.

  “Didn’t expect you to bring a picnic.”

  “Just thought you might like something sweet.”

  They stopped at the top of the small hill that sat just inside the boundary line on her parents’ property. Susannah was wearing a sweater, and Micah had on a jacket. He slipped it off and put it on the ground for her to sit on.

  “Seriously?”

  “Wouldn’t want you to get your dress...” And then words seemed to fail him as he looked at her in the soft light of the moon. The stars shone as if they’d been flung there particularly for the two of them. He thought of kissing her, then wondered why he’d even have such a thought and then wondered if she’d want him to. Finally, he thrust the brownies at her. “Hope you like walnuts.”

  “I love walnuts.”

  They didn’t speak again until they’d finished the snack. Passing the quart jar back and forth felt curiously intimate. The brownies were still warm, the milk cold and the sky above them offered a spectacular canopy of the heavens.

  He didn’t want to push, didn’t want to spook her away again, but he wanted to know. For some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, he needed to know. And since she didn’t seem in a rush to get home, now was as good a time as any. Now might be the best chance he’d get. So he crossed his legs at the ankle, leaned back on his hands and asked what he’d wanted to ask since the day he’d walked up on her drying her short hair in the sun.

  “What was it like?”

  “Cancer?”

  “Being afraid that you might die. How did you get past that every day?”

  “I guess during those first few weeks, I was just in shock.”

  “You didn’t realize something was wrong before your diagnosis?”

  “Not initially. I became worried when I started losing weight, had trouble eating and then there was the pain.” She placed a hand on her stomach.

  When she didn’t continue, Micah reached for her hand and entwined their fingers together.

  “And you had surgery?”

  “Ya.” Her voice was a whisper, practically a caress.

  “That must have been frightening.”

  “The diagnosis was probably the worst part. After that, it was simply a matter of weighing my options. And my parents were very supportive for whatever I wanted to do.”

  “Did you have options? Other than the surgery?”

  “Not really. But if I’d said I needed time, if I’d wanted to wait, my parents would have understood.”

  Micah stared down at their hands, which he could just barely make out in the darkness. He rubbed his thumb over hers. “I would never have guessed that you’d been sick.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You’re so spunky.”

  “Spunky?”

  “I guess I was a little afraid of you when I first met you.”

  Susannah began giggling. Snatching her hand from his, she covered her mouth...until she’d worked herself up to a full belly laugh.

  “Not that funny.”

  “It...it sort of is.”

  Which was followed by more laughter, and Susannah gulping for air, which started Micah to laughing, though he couldn’t have said what he was laughing about.

  But suddenly it didn’t matter why they were laughing, sitting on top of the hill, the stars spread out before them like grains of sand on a beach.

  It occurred to Micah then that he should step back. The be-careful voice in his head asked what he thought he was doing.

  She’s not your type, buddy.

  She’s out of your league.

  She’s the bishop’s daughter, and don’t forget you’re heading back to Maine as soon as possible.

  As they walked toward her parents’ home, he realized that most people he knew would agree with that voice of reason. But when had he ever listened to reason or cared what other people thought?

  Never.

  And he didn’t plan on starting now. He might be in trouble with her dat for the picture, but he suspected things would be even worse with his daddi. In fact, the picture on the front page of the Goshen News might be the final straw. Micah understood he should be worried about that, but at the moment he would rather keep his attention on the beautiful woman walking at his side.

  Chapter Seven

  When Susannah suggested going to town to charge Micah’s phone, she had thought she could sneak away from the farm for a few hours. Normally that wouldn’t have been a problem. Unfortunately, the next day her mamm was called to a neighbor’s to help with a sick aenti and her dat was attending a monthly meeting of area bishops.

  “I’m stuck with these two,” she explained to Micah.

  “Hey! You’re not stuck with us. You love us.” Sharon was sticking flower seeds into pots, though in the process, more dirt ended up on her than around the seeds.

  Shiloh was sitting on the back porch step, writing her letters on a tablet. “Does this look right, Susannah?”

  “Sure it does.”

  “I think the tail of my g needs to hang down more.” She flipped the pencil around and began vigorously erasing.

  “Those two are yin and yang.” Micah sat in the rocking chair beside Susannah. He kept watching her, like he wanted to say something, but then he would look away. Perhaps he didn’t want to talk in front of Sharon and Shiloh—little pitchers having big ears and all of that.

  “Yin and what?”

  “They’re like flip sides of the same coin.”

  “Oh, ya. They look alike but often act very different.”

  “Which one is more like you?”

  “I don’t have freckles like Sharon.”

  “You called them stardust.” Shar
on put her dirty hands on her nonexistent hips and cocked her head. “Remember?”

  “She has gut hearing.”

  “Yes, they both do.”

  Shiloh remained focused over her tablet. “I don’t have freckles, either, but you said I had the stars in my eyes.”

  “Yes, you do, Shiloh.”

  “You told them that?”

  Susannah’s mind was spinning, trying to keep up with three conversations at once. She finally gave up and focused on Micah. “The point is that we can’t go to town for ice cream.”

  She knew she’d made a mistake the second the words slipped out of her mouth. Her schweschdern might be complete opposites on some things, but at other times they merged together into one entity. This was one of those times.

  “We want to go for ice cream.”

  “We did all our chores.”

  “And you promised we’d do something fun.”

  “And planting flowers isn’t that much fun.”

  “And I love ice cream.”

  Micah looked as if he were going to burst out laughing. Fortunately, he held it in or Susannah would have been tempted to dump one of Sharon’s pots of dirt over his head. Laughing at the girls convinced them they were entertaining, and from that point there was no turning back.

  “We could take them with us,” Micah suggested, which pretty much sealed her fate for the day. There was no stopping her twin sisters when they had another adult on their side.

  Susannah insisted they walk next door with Micah while he fetched his daddi’s horse and buggy. “It’ll wear these two out, and as you’ve noticed they have a lot of energy.”

  Sharon had repeatedly dodged ahead of them and circled back. As usual, Shiloh stuck close to Susannah’s side, though at the moment she was hopping from foot to foot.

  Micah’s mammi actually clapped her hands when they walked up to the front door. “It seems I haven’t seen you girls in ages.”

  “We’re going for ice cream.”