A Simple Hope: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel (7 page)

As Rachel drew back the reins to slow the horse, cousin Ruthie emerged from the cover of the hut with her hands on her hips, her face set in a scowl.

“Ruthie King, I’ve never seen such a look from you,” Rachel said as her sisters hopped down from the buggy. “You need to turn that frown upside down.”

“But I’m not happy.” Ruthie pointed to the stand. “Somebody came by and stole our hyacinths. Every last one.”

“Don’t tell me that!” Bethany rushed into the little booth to see
for herself. “We’ve been growing those hyacinths for weeks, checking them every day. And now they’re stolen?”

“I don’t believe it. Who would steal flowers?” Molly picked up two pots of daffodils, as if the money might be hiding under them. “Maybe they’re coming back to pay us later.”

“I thought of that,” Ruthie said, “but the cash box is empty. Whoever came by took the money we left here to make change.”

“Oh, dear girls, I’m afraid Ruthie is right.” Rachel understood their disappointment. “Someone didn’t obey the honor system.”

“The sign is very clear,” Bethany said, reading:
“Honor system. Place money in box. Thank you.”
She squinted up at the sign, shaking her head. “Why didn’t they follow directions?”

Molly blinked. “Maybe they couldn’t read. That would be a shame.”

“But it’s still wrong to take something that doesn’t belong to you,” Ruthie said firmly. “And there are two jars of pie filling gone. They might have been sold, but I can’t be sure. No one made a note in the book.”

“What a terrible day,” Bethany said crossly.

“Don’t be that way.” Rachel slipped an arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Nothing good will come of this if you let it ruin your day.”

Bethany shook her head. “How could there be anything good in this?”

“Maybe Gott means it as a lesson to us. We need to learn to forgive and forget.”

“Especially if the thief doesn’t know how to read,” said Molly.

“Either way, we must forgive.” Rachel was watching Bethany, whose steely eyes seemed set in anger. “Take your anger and roll it up.” She pretended to be working cookie dough. “Pack it into a ball, and toss it down the road. It’s too heavy to be carrying around.”

Molly and Ruthie exchanged a smile, then did the same, scooping up the air and cupping it between their hands.

“And then throw it away!” Ruthie called, pitching it toward the road.

“Good throw, Ruthie. Next softball game, I want you on my team,” Rachel teased.

“Kumm, Bethany,” Molly urged her sister. “Toss your anger away.”

With a snort, Bethany went through the motions quickly. “I forgive, but I’m still upset.”

Rachel nodded. “Gott heals the heart. Sometimes it takes time.”

“Mmm.” Bethany crossed her arms.

“Maybe they needed the money more than we do,” Molly said.

“Then why did they take our flowers, too?”

“Wasn’t Mammi Nell the one who gave you the bulbs in the first place?” Rachel pointed out. “So, really, they’re her stolen flowers.”

Ruthie wiped a few dirt crumbles from the counter. “If you want to go back that far, you could say the flowers were stolen from Gott, since He is the creator of all things, large and small.”

Bethany scowled. “So they stole the flowers from Gott?”

“Nay …” Rachel said slowly. “Because the flowers still belong to Gott. So in a way, they weren’t stolen at all.”

“Oh, this is such roundabout talk,” Molly said. “Were the flowers stolen or not?”

The girls looked at one another and began to laugh.

“I don’t think it matters anymore.” Ruthie hitched up the skirt of her dress and bent down to reach under the counter. “And look here. Mammi gave us a whole lot of parsnips to sell, along with some potted tulips.”

“There you go. Parsnips are good in stews.” Rachel helped load
the vegetables onto the counter. She had always thought of parsnips as a cross between carrots and sweet potatoes.

“I hope we can sell them,” Ruthie said as she added another bunch to the stack, “because I’m getting kind of sick of eating them.”

“Make room for the tulips, too.” Bethany pushed the parsnips to the side so that all the flowers could be together.

No sooner had the girls reorganized the display than a car pulled up, and an older couple purchased some parsnips. The woman was still chatting with the girls when a little red sports car roared to a stop, and two women got out to look over the flowers.

For a few minutes Rachel hung back near the horse and watched the younger girls handle the customers. Then she went on her way to the bulk store, thinking that she must remember to tell Dat about the theft, though there was nothing to be done about it. Plain folk didn’t report crimes to the police; Gott in heaven was the only judge of a man.

As Banjo’s hooves clip-clopped on the road, she felt a twinge of sadness for the girls, so disappointed that someone would steal from them. Still, it was a lesson to learn, one that she had faced with the accident. Sometimes bad things happened, but Gott healed the heart and renewed the spirit. As Mamm liked to say, “Gott could save us from trauma, but instead he sends us a comforter.”

S
aturday afternoon, bright Englisher voices and scattered laughter filled the Lapp home. The Englisher medical folk were here for the weekly visit that had been the norm since James had checked out of the rehabilitation facility. After Dat’s order to distance himself from the Englishers, James felt an uncomfortable resistance from his father when he greeted the visitors. When you ran your palm over an unfinished piece of wood, splinters would get in the hand.

Luckily, Jimmy stepped out the door when everyone settled into the kitchen. What did that mean? Would Dat back down on his decision to tell these medical folks to stay away? While Mamm and Verena served coffee and shoofly pie, James soaked up the familiar faces and friendly conversation.

He was glad to have Doc Trueherz here. In his denim shirt and jeans, Henry Trueherz had a friendly manner and a streak of common sense that made him different from other doctors. Although
Doc had an office in Paradise, for many years he had made house calls far and wide. Most Amish folk in Halfway liked and trusted Doc Trueherz. James wished his father felt that same solid trust.

As Haley Donovan poured a cloud of cream into her coffee, Doc asked her when she would finish nursing school.

“Graduation is the last week in May,” Haley said, pushing her gold hair back behind her ears, “if I make it that long. There’s a killer meds test coming up, and everyone is freaking out about it.” A nursing student at Lancaster County General Hospital—LanCo General—Haley had witnessed the van accident that had injured James. He didn’t remember much from that night, but Rachel told him many times how Haley had helped in countless ways, probably saving old Jacob Fisher’s life. Folks were grateful that Gott had brought her onto the road at that moment. Even after that night, Haley had helped. When she learned that the Lapps couldn’t afford a physical therapist, Haley had volunteered to make his therapy part of her studies. Since then, she’d been out here every week to supervise James’s exercises.

“Ah, I remember those med school exams.” Doc sighed. “My advice? Try to study a little each week instead of leaving it to the last night.”

“What did I tell you?” Dylan Monroe pointed to Haley.

She laughed. “Dylan warned me about procrastination. He’s been quizzing me, twice a week.”

“And it’s working. You’ve got most of the vocabulary down.”

“I do, thanks to you,” Haley said, her eyes on Dylan.

James had noticed the looks that passed between these two. Like two blue jays, chasing each other over fences and brambles, Haley and Dylan favored each other. Sometimes it reminded him of the way he and Rachel had talked and joked around and walked hand in hand.

Dylan lifted his mug of coffee over his plate. “Edna? Do you mind?”

Mamm looked over from the sink and grinned. “Go ahead. It’s what we do when Englishers aren’t around.”

With the wink of an eye, Dylan poured his coffee over his shoofly pie, causing Haley to let out a little squeal. “Dylan! Have you gone bonkers?”

“It’s delicious.” With a flourish, Dylan scooped up a bite of moist pie.

“Some people like it that way,” Doc Trueherz agreed.

“Without coffee or cream, shoofly pie can be like a mouthful of dry sand,” James said, holding back a grin. He’d been the one to tell Dr. Dylan about the custom of pouring coffee on pie.

Mamm chuckled. “Soon we’ll have ripe plums and peaches. You don’t need to tip coffee or cream on fruit pies.”

Everyone agreed. As the conversation went on, it dawned on James that these people had become good friends. After the bishop’s dismal advice the other day, James felt like these Englishers had brought water to a man in the desert. He looked forward to their visits, clinging to their advice and jokes. Still, Dat was wrong to worry. Nothing would turn James’s head from living Plain.

While Edna talked with Doc Trueherz, James and Haley went out to the living room to review his physical therapy exercises. Dylan tagged along as usual. He had taken to talking with James during the sessions, and now after weeks of prodding, James answered.

James had told Dylan what it had been like to grow up on a family orchard, following his grandfather around through the trees, climbing ladders even as a child to pick peaches and pears and apples. Dylan’s childhood had been very different, centered on riding his bicycle, playing basketball, and swimming in a friend’s pool.
“The only time I ever climbed a tree, I got stuck up there,” Dylan had admitted, spurring laughter from James.

“You’ve made a lot of progress,” Haley said as they completed the thirty-minute workout. “How’s the all-terrain chair working out for you in the orchard?”

“Good. Though I’d like it better if it could climb the trees,” James answered.

“I bet you would,” Haley agreed, tucking a lock of blond hair behind one ear. “We’ll have to get someone to design that feature.”

“Nay. I want to climb on my own again. My arms are strong enough. Now it’s only my legs that need to follow.”

“What’s the latest update on your prognosis?” Dylan asked.

“The doctors say it’s possible I might walk again. I went through some testing a few weeks ago to qualify for a study. They want to use electricity to wake up the spinal cord.”

“And it’s okay to do that?” Dylan’s arms swept through the living room. “I mean, considering that electricity isn’t allowed in your house?”

“It would be all right to use electricity outside the home. Amish do it all the time—in Englisher shops, under streetlights, sending faxes.” James checked the kitchen to make sure Dat had not returned before he continued. Mamm was in the kitchen alone. Doc Trueherz had stepped outside to take a call on his cell phone. “The problem is my father, and now the bishop. They’re worried that I’ve become swept up with the Englishers. They don’t want me to lose sight of the things that matter. My family and community. And Gott.”

“Ouch.” Dylan leaned forward in his chair. “Are you questioning your faith? Have we been a bad influence?”

James lowered the small barbells to the floor and straightened in the chair. “There’s no muddy water for me. When I look inside, there’s only a clear spring. I know I’m Amish through and through,
and I won’t be swayed by Englisher friends or doctors. But my dat, he doesn’t see it that way.”

“And there lies the problem,” Dylan said. “Does that mean Haley and I are getting you in trouble? I mean, our visits here …”

“Your visits have eased my mind and helped me keep my eye on the target. I’ve learned that healing is more than lying back in bed. But Dat and the bishop don’t agree.”

“Are they going to make you stop therapy?” Haley asked, a glimmer of concern in her blue eyes.

“It looks that way. After today, Dat wants no more Englishers in the house. I’m sorry, but today will have to be your last visit.”

“Oh, no, that can’t be!” Haley frowned, hands on her hips. “How will you continue therapy?”

“That I don’t know.” James tucked the weights under the chair. “But when the bishop comes out to the house because he thinks a person is drifting away …” He shrugged. “They’re going to watch me like a hawk now.”

Dylan rubbed his jaw with the knuckles of one hand, taking it all in. “Sounds like you’re in a pickle. What can I do to help?”

“There’s nothing to be done. I’ll respect my father’s wishes, and Dat and Bishop Samuel will come to see that I’m not falling away from Plain living.”

“Okay, my friend.” Dylan sat back in the rocking chair, gripping the armrests. “So I guess this would
not
be the time to persuade you to try our group counseling session? Because the other members of the group keep asking when you’re going to join, and Samuel has given us the nod of approval.”

James shook his head. Rachel had been asking him to go to those meetings, and he’d given it some thought until Dat had come down on him. “I can’t do that now.”

“Understood.” Dylan held up his hands. “You just keep me in the loop. Tell me to back off or step it up, whatever you need.”

The door opened and Doc returned, along with Jimmy.