Between Two Promises (14 page)

But he hadn’t wandered into the fabric shop to renew their courtship. That would be shussly.

A chubby English woman stepped inside the shop. She headed straight for the back, where Daniel heard another woman, probably Tara’s boss, greet her. Daniel, still clutching his hat, wanted to leave. He must look like a fool to any woman finding him standing in the middle of a fabric shop.

“Perhaps we should go get something to eat,” he blurted. He supposed offering lunch was the proper thing to do. He never had been good with goodbyes, and at least lunch would get him out of the shop.

Tara gazed at him, her mouth puckered. “Let me tell Mrs. Harrington I’ll be taking my break.”

A
T
THE
Dairy Queen across the street, they ate cheeseburgers and onion rings at a booth. The lunch crowd had gone, and he and Tara had the place mostly to themselves. Daniel, both relieved and anxious, nibbled at his food.

“How was Mark’s wedding?” Tara asked.

Daniel, after swallowing to allow himself to speak, told her a few details of the wedding, leaving out the game of slap-a-pig. “You shoulda come,” he said. “I know Mom called on you with an invitation.”

“My hands were busy. I couldn’t make it,” Tara said. “I’ll see everyone at Christmas services, anyway. Will you be there? You’re still in the church, aren’t you?”

Tara’s needling question forced him to sit up. Why was answering that question so difficult each time someone had asked him? Perhaps because the answer eluded him.

Tara probably sensed his unease and clarified her reason for asking. “I see you drove that big truck.” She nodded across the street toward the parking lot, where the Suburban slowly accumulated snow. “I don’t figure anyone still in the church would be permitted to drive such a beast.”

“I’m still in the church,” Daniel said, his same pat response. Technically, he spoke the truth. But how long before the ministers came after him with more forceful words than Tara’s or his father’s? Unlikely he could evade their judgmental eyes the entire duration of his stay. Yes, he had been lucky to dodge the ministers at Mark’s wedding, but at some point, he would have to face them and supply them—and the entire community—with a firmer answer.

An English couple entered the restaurant. They ogled Daniel and Tara on their way to the counter. Probably stopping off from the nearby Interstate for a late lunch, out-of-towners unused to running into the old-fashioned Amish eating in fast food establishments. Daniel eyeballed them. Grimacing, he turned back to his cheeseburger.

“You probably wouldn’t be permitted to speak with me if I wasn’t in the church,” he said, chortling off his reference to the shunning. Tara’s mouth remained taut. Deciding it best to change the topic, he asked Tara how she and her new boyfriend had met.

“My cousin encouraged him to write me,” Tara replied. “We been corresponding since September.”

Daniel was happy for Tara’s enthusiasm. The guilt over breaking up with her dwindled, now that he knew she’d gotten on with her life. Yet a strange sensation pinched him. It was that same creeping feeling he’d had while watching Heidi’s beefy cousin swat Aiden’s behind during the game of slap-a-pig. A sensation he wanted to ignore.

“I’m going to visit him after Christmas,” Tara said, “during the Epiphany, with him and his family.”

Daniel remembered hearing a rumor the man she was courting lived in Maryland, and he asked her if this was the case. Tara nodded as she sipped her vanilla milkshake through the straw. How odd, Daniel thought with an internal chuckle, that they both should be courting men from Maryland.

“And where are you living now?” Tara asked, gnawing on an onion ring.

Daniel flushed. How much of his life could he reveal to Tara without stringing her along with lies like he had most everyone else? Perhaps asking her to lunch was not such a good idea. Putting down his root beer, he said, “I’m living in Montana.”

“Ach, I did hear something about you living out west,” Tara said. “How do you like it?”

“I like it fine. The mountains reach to the sky.”

“I never seen the mountains,” Tara said. “Aaron, that’s the man I’m courting in Maryland, he says where he lives they got big mountains. I can’t wait to see them. Are you living in an Amish settlement in Montana?”

“Well, I live near Rose Crossing. That’s a small settlement by Glacier National Park.”

“Sounds like a wunderbar goot place to live.”

They talked a bit about Montana, the region of western Maryland where Aaron lived as a dairy farmer, the mountains. Daniel, nibbling like a bird, was unable to let his hunger override the strange sensation of sitting across from his former fiancée. Only a handful of months had lapsed since he’d called off their wedding. In an odd way, he felt as if they still courted.

Their past dates had gone much like their lunch at Dairy Queen. Self-conscious attempts at conversation, desperate searches for any kind of common ground. Despite the awkwardness, there had always existed an air of amicability, mutual respect, and good nature. Neither disliked the other, no matter how few interests they shared.

They finished eating, and after saying their goodbyes by his truck, Daniel headed back to the farmhouse. Tara seemed to hold little grudge against him. He was glad. But had she been sincere? She always had a way about her. She shared his mother’s characteristics in some ways: stubborn, peppered with shrewd charm.

Driving along, he wondered what life would’ve been like if he had gone through with his marriage promise to her. How happy would they be today? Had he been selfish in calling off their engagement a mere week before the wedding day? What would his and Aiden’s lives be like if he hadn’t? Would Aiden still be in Montana, living alone? Would their lives have been any worse—or perhaps better?

And children? Nice to have kinner running about, he mused, barely noticing the windshield wipers brush aside the fluffy snow. His son, Zach, had been one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Would he ever have the chance to hold his own baby in his arms again?

Chapter Eleven

“V
O
IS
yeder?”

Rachel did not bother to look up when Daniel drifted into the kitchen and asked her where everyone was. Seated at the table, she held Gretchen firmly against her chest. She hoisted the baby higher and repositioned herself on the bench.

“Everybody’s out running about,” she answered almost mechanically. “Your dad and David went to meet off some of the relatives at the train depot. Mark and Heidi are making the rounds, thanking everyone for coming to their wedding. Elisabeth took Grace and Moriah to the schoolhouse to help ready things for the pageant her class is putting on for the community tomorrow. Her kinner are on Christmas break, but they been practicing all week.”

“And Leah and Aiden?”

“Sleeping in their rooms.”

“House should be nice and quiet for a change.” Daniel set the shoebox on the table. “I picked up those labels from Kevin Hassler, like you asked.”

“Danke. Something to eat?”

Thoughts of his mother’s tasty cooking set his stomach grumbling. He had been too nervous to eat much during lunch with Tara. One meager cheeseburger and batch of onion rings barely covered a lunch for Daniel. “Ya,” he said, “something to eat would be good, if no trouble.”

Only when Rachel took the straight pins from her kapp and refastened her blouse under her cape bib did Daniel realize she had been nursing Gretchen. Cheeks burning, he averted his eyes to his grimy boots.

Wrapping the dozing baby tightly in her swathing, Rachel laid her in the bassinet by the ovens, warm from baking apple pies, which Daniel could smell. “Everything’s trouble,” she said with a sigh. “But God gives us burdens to make us appreciate His Kingdom all the more, I figure.”

Daniel, unsure what to make of his mother’s somber mood, sat at the table. He supposed the newborn, the extra work, and being alone downstairs in a quiet house on a snowy winter day after nonstop commotion could make anyone gloomy.

“Leftovers from the reception?”

“That’s goot.” Daniel watched his mother prepare him a plate. Shuffling about the kitchen, she took the applesauce and creamed celery from the refrigerator and spooned what remained onto a plate. After slicing a few slabs of trail bologna, she added that to the plate and set it under Daniel’s beard.

She put everything back into the refrigerator and sat opposite him, where she began cutting peeled Granny Smith apples into a large bowl. He figured she’d been in the process of cutting them when Gretchen had demanded her feeding.

Without looking at him, Rachel said, “Do you think you’ll be staying in Montana long term?”

“What do you mean?” Daniel asked, swallowing hard.

“I was wondering.” Rachel focused on her task. “Is this Montana living going to last forever, or is it some kind of stint?”

The aroma of baking apple pies clashed with the bitter emotions nudging his insides. “I suppose I’m there for good,” he said, forking more food into his mouth. “Why do you need to know?”

“Only asking.” Rachel chopped the apples steadily, never once raising her eyes. “No need to get fresh.”

“Sorry, but you and Dad don’t need to worry over me so much.”

“Is it wrong for parents to worry over their kinner?”

Filled with a strange daring by his mother’s reflective expression, Daniel said with a pronounced grin, his cheeks bulging, “I would think you’d be happy I was getting past Esther and Zachariah, living a life in Montana, if that’s what it takes for me to get over things.”

“But you’re so far away. How are we to be of any help to you?”

“Your arms are full now.” He nodded sideways toward the bassinet where Gretchen napped. “You have the newborn. There’s enough for you to worry about, don’t you think? I’m a grown man now anyway, in my late twenties.”

Only the knife chopping into the cutting board and Daniel’s fork scraping against his plate broke the long stretch of silence.

“What of this promise Aiden Cermak said you had made for him?” Rachel said. “The one I heard him mention to you during the wedding reception.” Her hand momentarily froze, the knife poised over an apple half. Going back to chopping, she said, “You know I don’t like secrets and whispers in my house.”

Lowering his eyes, Daniel realized his mother must have overheard his and Aiden’s discussion after he’d come downstairs from convening with the ministers and Mark and Heidi. How much had she pieced together? He carefully plotted out what to tell her. He did not wish to lie, but the lies flowed easier each day.

She wanted to get to the truth, but how much? Was she willing to hear it to the rotten core? His mother had a tendency to scratch for facts without wanting to find any. Everyone in the household knew that. Deciding to hold back his words, he chomped into a bite of trail bologna and chewed like a cow while his mother chopped the apples with extra vigor.

“A lot of promises being made around here,” Rachel said, her gaze fixed on the apple slices falling from her busy knife. “I heard Elisabeth and Aiden making promises to each other a little while ago.”

Daniel scrunched his forehead. What secrets could Aiden and Elisabeth need to share with each other? He studied Rachel’s downturned face, awash with worry and dread. Anger rose inside him. But not at his mother. At himself. He should never have allowed Aiden to talk him into bringing him back to Illinois. If only he had practiced more restraint.

Rachel shook her head. The strings of her kapp swept across her bib. “Maybe your dad’s right. Outsiders bring too much distraction. Maybe he was right to ask Aiden to leave when he did last year. Maybe he shoulda not come back.”

It was as if Rachel had read Daniel’s mind. Despite agreeing with his mother’s concerns, he wanted to defend Aiden. “He saved us from tragedy. You can’t forget, Mom,” he said.

Rachel quickly stood and began to shake brown sugar and cinnamon on top of the apple slices. After mixing the spices and the apples with her bare hands, she filled two pie shells. Next she moved to the sink and rinsed her hands. From experience, Daniel understood that his mother, in her special way, had terminated their conversation. As always, she had no desire to know the bare bones of the truth.

Observing his mother’s back, he admitted they were being pulled apart, but by more than simple lies. Aiden’s presence confused and obscured their two worlds, but much more skulked between them. Regardless of circumstances, sons grew up and left their mothers. Simply by his mother’s indifference to her own search for answers, Daniel grasped there was some truth to the saying he had come across while skimming through one of Aiden’s paperbacks: “You can’t go home again.”

Digesting this profound yet disturbing realization, Daniel heard, above the rush of water splashing against the sink, the front door open and feet stomping out snow. A moment later, Samuel appeared under the kitchen archway. He clutched his black felt hat with both hands, his fingers flexing over the brim. Above his grizzled beard, he tightened his lips. His gray eyes, wide and full of apprehension, fixed on Daniel.