A Simple Hope: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel (32 page)

“James!” Elsie’s brown eyes opened wide. “Don’t be so impatient. You are improving! Sounds like a miracle to me. Do you think you’ll walk again?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been able to stand.”

“That’s amazing! Excuse me while I jump for joy.”

“This is good news,” Caleb agreed.

“But I’m tied to the machine, and I want to be walking already.”

“I sure can understand that.” Elsie’s face was thoughtful as she swung her short legs under the chair. “But some things can’t be hurried. Time is a funny thing. We try to measure it in our own way, but Gott’s measure is different. He’s got eternity on His side.”

“It takes a century for Gott to make a sturdy oak tree,” Caleb said. “We can’t say it’s not worth the wait.”

“Can’t argue with that,” James said. He knew Elsie and Caleb were right. Still, it did not ease his impatience with Gott. He wanted to get back to the business of life, and he wanted it now.

Elsie cocked her head to one side as she eyed him skeptically.
“Ah, but you don’t feel it in your heart.” She tapped her chest with one hand. “I know how that is. Sometimes our hearts and minds are in two different places.”

James nodded. His cousin was insightful.

“I guess time is one of Gott’s great mysteries,” she said.

He tipped his hat back slightly and folded his arms. “What has two hands, one face, always runs, but stays in place?”

“A riddle!” She poked her brother. “Do you know this one?”

When Caleb shrugged, James answered: “A clock.”

The chirpy laughter that floated from Elsie’s throat made James smile. Maybe time was not on his side, but it was good to know that his family was.

C
rossing off one more day on the calendar Rachel had brought her, Shandell counted the days since her arrival here at the sugar shack. In just a few weeks, she was a changed person! The things that used to matter, getting the coolest jeans and the latest Uggs, none of that was important to her anymore. And the friends she had hung out with—Lucia, Ryan, Kylie, and Gary, well, she could just imagine what they were saying about her now when they hung out in Ryan’s garage. Gary would have soured them all on her. Somehow, that didn’t hurt her so much. Probably because she had no intention of wasting away time in Ryan’s garage when she returned back to Baltimore. Nope, she was going to get back on track for school and get herself a job. If she could just go home, she knew she would set forth on a more positive path for her life.

Getting home was the main problem right now. She hadn’t been able to reach her mom. Of course, she had given up on calling the house, since Phil always managed to snatch up the phone. She was
beginning to believe that he was keeping her mother away from her. Shandell couldn’t even get her mother to take a call on her cell phone, and she had ventured out to the phone shanty a few times, late at night, hoping that Mom would pick up. She was beginning to worry that something bad had happened to Mom. Not that she’d ever seen Phil become violent, but alcohol could bring out the worst in a person. It was so frustrating that there was no way for Mom to call her back. All she could do right now was pray that everything was okay and her mother was safe.

A few times, as she stared into the dark shack at night with the wind howling through the thin clapboards, she felt like the last person on earth. So alone. She wondered if her mom missed her. Was there anyone out there who cared about her?

Thinking back over the past few years, she kept flashing on two girls who were her friends when she had started high school—Patti Santonia and Isabel Chapman. Patti’s family had moved to Boston last year, but by that time Shandell had veered off to the kids in Ryan’s garage. She wondered what Patti was up to now. And Isabel—the minister’s daughter with curly red hair—how was she doing? The last time she had talked to Isabel, they had commiserated about the algebra midterm. “When this test is finished, you should come over,” Isabel had told her. “We’ll make some brownies and watch a movie.” Although she’d agreed, Shandell had known it wouldn’t happen. Her new friends would have laughed if they heard she’d spent a Friday night baking, and Isabel’s parents would never have let her hang out in some guy’s garage with no parents around to supervise. Looking back, she wished she had gone out of her way to keep the friendship with Isabel going. If her cell phone was charged, she would call Isabel right now, but she couldn’t call anyone from this one-room shanty.

When loneliness crowded her thoughts, she found some solace
in her Bible storybook. Then one night she remembered what Dad used to say about angels. “You have a guardian angel who watches over you.”

Maybe that was true. Since the incident at the Kings’ roadside stand two weeks ago, there had been no more signs of Gary … no rash of local vandalism or theft. No reports of stolen gas or food at convenience stores. He seemed to have given up on her and left Lancaster County. Good riddance!

That was the good news. The bad news—Shandell had to make numerous trips to the outhouse each day and she felt kind of crummy. It was too embarrassing to explain it to James, but she was going to tell Rachel, next time the two of them were alone.

Although Shandell enjoyed her little morning and night rituals of the one-room cabin, the highlight of each day was spending time with James and Rachel. Every day after James’s PT, the Amish couple came back to the sugar shack for a visit—James’s exercise journey through the orchard—and the hours spent laughing and eating and talking really flew by.

Shandell loved hearing them talk about their families. Once she had thought it was desirable to be an only child—the star of the show—but from the affectionate and teasing way her Amish friends spoke of their siblings, well, it was sort of like trying to follow a soap opera on TV. James had three sisters and four brothers, and Rachel had eight siblings, and they knew lots of families who had even more kids.

When James and Rachel asked about her family, Shandell told them the truth. “I’ll be honest with you. My home life isn’t exactly picture-perfect.” She admitted that Phil had a drinking problem, and her mom had become a workaholic. “I used to think that she was working hard to stay ahead of all the bills. Now I’m beginning to wonder if part of the reason for her two jobs is to stay away from
Phil. He’s surly and mean when he drinks, and the house is dark and depressing. He keeps the shades closed, and he can barely get off his corner of the couch.”

Over the course of many afternoons, Shandell’s story had slipped out, bit by bit. James and Rachel listened as she told them how Mom met Phil, and how the three of them had lived together happily until Phil lost his job. When Rachel asked about Shandell’s father, it was as if she’d unlocked a magic box of memories, and the stories came spilling out, one after another, about how Dad nicknamed her Sunny because of her bright smile, and how he would carry her on his shoulders, and how he would sit with her on the living room floor and let her paint his nails or serve him pretend tea. In winter, he helped her build snow people and in summer he dug in the sand with her at the beach, building sand castles with towers and moats, only to watch them sink and wash away with the tides.

“He was an amazing dad,” Shandell told them. “After he died, I spent the first five years thinking he would walk through the front door at the end of each day. And the next five years, I was angry at my mother for letting him die. As if she had any way to stop it.” She told them about how her father had been killed in a construction accident. He’d been working on the pipes in a high-rise building when the floor he’d been crawling on gave way. Since she’d been young, she had been spared most of the terrible details. Mostly, she was glad he didn’t suffer.

“It’s hard to understand why Gott takes some away to heaven so young,” Rachel had told her. “So hard when we’re left here, hurting and missing our loved ones. But Gott doesn’t make mistakes. It’s all part of His plan.”

“I guess He doesn’t,” Shandell agreed. “But I’ve sure made my share of bad choices.”

In so many ways, Rachel was a sympathetic, responsible older sister. She was quick to smile or offer a sympathetic nod, and she
always made sure Shandell got enough to eat. In the short time Shandell had been here, Rachel seemed to be making up for all the mothering Shandell had missed at home.

And James was like a big brother. When he wasn’t cracking jokes or telling riddles, he was a good listener. His comedic bent definitely made a task like hauling water or chopping wood easier, and it seemed the better she got to know him, the more he joked around. He had a million and one facts about trees and birds, and he had taught Shandell how to build a proper fire and skip stones on the stream.

One day, when Shandell was sitting with James, she teased him about marrying Rachel. “What are you two waiting for?” she asked. “You’re so perfect together.”

“For starters, wedding season is in the fall, and Rachel isn’t a member of the church yet. I can’t marry her until she’s baptized.” He explained that Rachel had just begun meeting with the bishop to prepare for baptism in October. Shandell hadn’t realized that an Amish person chose to be baptized, but James explained that the rumspringa time, which Englishers made such a big deal about, was often a time when teens sowed their wild oats. “After rumspringa, most Amish decide to join the faith. When you have good family and friends, there’s no reason to go anywhere else.”

She understood that. “I think most of us want to live the way we’re brought up. You have a wonderful orchard here, and you and Rachel have been so generous, but I can’t imagine living Plain, as you guys do.” She hurled a stone toward the river, and it skipped a few times.

“Good,” James said.

“Practice makes perfect,” she said. “So … don’t change the subject. After Rachel gets baptized, you two are getting married?”

He frowned. “This is not something I should be talking about with you.”

“Please, humor me. I have no love life or reliable friends or family at the moment. I need a little hope, an emotional lift.”

“We want to marry,” James admitted, “but when I got injured, I called it off.”

“What?”

“Rachel can’t be stuck with a husband in a wheelchair. She doesn’t deserve that.”

“But maybe she wants it. You can’t decide for her.”

“We’ll marry when I can stand on my own two feet. When I’m a whole man again.”

“Really. Do you think being a man is about walking?”

“A man shouldn’t be wheeled around like a wooden toy.”

“I have a cousin in California who was a soldier in the U.S. Army. He lost both legs in Afghanistan, and there’s no shame in that. It was rough for him at first, but he’s doing just fine now. He’s got two kids and he’s a computer whiz. A real hero.”

“I don’t need to be a hero. Just a gardener. A man who can take care of his family’s orchard.”

“But I’ve seen you taking care of things from that wheelchair.”

He shook his head. “It’s not enough.”

“Well, I’m sorry about the accident and all, but from my point of view, it’s what’s inside that makes a real man. Gary—nothing inside. You? Loaded with character.”

He didn’t comment, but cast a stone into the brook below.

“And, really, don’t you respect Rachel’s intelligence?”

“I do. I know she’s a very smart girl.”

“Then let her decide whether or not she wants to deal with you and your issues. Don’t boss her around. Think about it.”

His dark eyes seemed thoughtful when he turned to her. “And I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Where can you get milk shakes?”

She rolled her eyes. “At the Dairy Queen?”

He shook his head. “From nervous cows.”

“Do you always crack a joke when the conversation gets too personal for you?”

He tossed another stone. “You’re getting to know me well.”

“
O
h, honeygirl, I knew something wasn’t quite right.” Rachel bent over the girl curled up on the bench and stoked her hair. The poor girl was so very sick.

When Shandell let out a tiny moan, Rachel clucked her tongue sympathetically. “I knew you weren’t eating right, and now look at you, pale as a sheet.” Rachel had arrived at the sugar shack to find Shandell inside the dark cabin, writhing in pain on the hard wooden bench.