Love Redeemed (36 page)
Authors: Kelly Irvin
“I don't know. Maybe.”
Michael slid from the booth and removed his apron. “Crystal!”
She stuck her head through the double doors that led to the kitchen. “Yep?”
“Tell Oscar I'm sorry. I can't give two weeks' notice. He can keep my last paycheck.”
“No way. I'll tell him to mail it to you.” She snapped her gum. “Good luck.”
He didn't believe in luck. “Thanks.”
He didn't look back at Sophie as he strode to the front door. He didn't want to see the face of another friend left behind, but he heard her words just the same.
“Godspeed, Michael.”
As always, the good friend. The words of her father sang in his ears.
God sets people in your path for a reason.
He'd needed a friend and God had given him Sophie. God gave Sophie a calling. Michael couldn't abuse her calling. Sophie was a smart girl. His heart was already taken. He couldn't get it back so he'd have to figure out how to go forward.
From her lips to God's ears.
M
ichael climbed down from the truck cab, pulled his duffel bag from the bed, and waved at the farmer. The old man touched a finger to his dirty sweat-stained cowboy hat and put the rusted gray Ford in gear. Michael slammed the door and waited for the billowing dust to settle before beginning his trek up the dirt road leading to his parents' home. It had taken him three days to get up the nerve to buy the bus ticket. Three days sitting in his room while his head and his heart wrestled. He didn't know which one overcame, but here he stood.
Hitching a ride to the farm had been easy. Now came the hard part. Talking to his daed. Michael took his time walking the winding dirt road past fields of winter wheat and rye, rolling around the words in his head. How could he explain to his daed that washing dishes and talking to a Mennonite girl had given him a certain bit of peace? Life did go on. He couldn't undo what he'd done, but he could make peace with it and try to learn from it. He could stop blaming God for what he had done and start taking responsibility for it.
A brisk breeze drifted over him, bringing with it the smell of hay. A flock of birds flying south in formation passed overhead, slivers of gray against the fall sky. Quiet reigned, but if he listened hard enough he could hear his way of life approaching. No buses grinding gears. No taxi drivers honking horns. No brakes squealing. No men on street
corners shaking their cups at him and demanding a dollar. No vendors luring him to their trailers with the aroma of roasting hotdogs. He had missed the quiet of the countryside. Even more, he'd missed his room and the smell of
kaffi
brewing on the stove and biscuits in the oven in the morning. He missed the sound of his mudder chattering with his sisters as she slapped a plate full of eggs and bacon on the table in front of his daed, who nodded and smiled at her, giving her that same look every day as if he couldn't imagine how he'd managed to marry her.
“Son.”
He looked up from the rutted road to see his daed pulling up in the wagon. “Daed.”
“You're back.”
“Jah.”
“Get in, then.”
They rode in silence for several minutes. Michael could see his daed taking his measure with a series of sideways glances. He waited.
“They don't have food yonder?”
“They have plenty of food in Springfield, just none of it worth eating.” That wasn't true. Oscar's chicken fried steak and gravy with mashed potatoes had been good grub. Mrs. Weaver's brownies had been good too. “Leastways not like Mudder's.”
“You look like a scarecrow.”
When he'd pulled his pants and blue shirt on that morning, he'd noticed they were more ample than before, but he hadn't given it much thought. “No one to cook and it cost too much to eat out.”
“You can't cook?”
Mostly he hadn't had the desire or the appetite. “Not much.”
“Me neither.” His daed snapped the reins, his expression thoughtful. “So you decided to come home to your Mudder's cooking before you starved to death.”
“Nee.”
“You got everything figured out then?”
“Nee.”
Daed snorted. He drove on a while, the silence between them full of unspoken words milling around all tangled up like fishing wire.
“I'm sorry for everything.”
“Your apology is accepted, but it's your mudder you need to be talking to.” Daed's voice, always low, sounded even more husky. He cleared his throat. “She missed you something fierce. Womenfolk, you know how they are, they worry.”
“I know.”
“I heard your friends paid you a visit.”
“You heard?”
“Thomas, Silas, and Luke came by. They felt we ought to know they'd given Phoebe permission to go with Daniel to the city. I didn't abide much by the idea of sending the girl, but Silas is her daed. It was up to him.”
“Silas came here?”
“He did.”
“How is he?”
“Fair to middling, I'd say.” Daed brought the buggy to a halt in front of the house. “His fraa needs some doctoring for her heart. Even when you put such things in God's hands, they can take a toll.”
“There's something wrong with her heart?”
“Don't got nothing to do with what happened. Katie's parents both died of heart attacks.”
“I didn't know that.”
“You were young. People with bad tickers go earlier than most, but they have more treatments for it than they used to.”
So now Phoebe's family would walk that road on top of everything else.
“You need to stay away from the girl.”
His daed had always been good at reading his face.
“She came to see me.”
“The way Silas and Luke explained it, Daniel and Phoebe were sent to remind you of what the cost would be if you didn't come home. They came for your sake, not theirs. That's the only reason a bishop would let such a thing happen. A girl and a boy traveling to the city like that. You need to get yourself baptized. You need to get right with God.”
“I know.”
“Phoebe got baptized. She's helping out at the school and fixing to be the new teacher.”
“I know.”
“So let it be. Let her be.”
He couldn't do that. As much as his head said his daed was right, his heart couldn't let her go. “The day thatâthe day everything happenedâI was thinking of courting her, serious like. Serious.”
“I know.”
“You know? How could you know?”
“I'm not blind, son.”
“I kept thinking if I stayed away long enough, the feeling would go away.”
“It doesn't work that way,” Daed grunted. “'Course, what I know about such foolishness would fit on the end of a straight pin.”
“I know that now. I just don't know what to do about it.”
“Stay away from her until you get yourself right with the Lord.”
“How do I do that?”
“Spend some time with Thomas. He'll counsel you.” Daed climbed down and tied the reins to the hitching post. “In the meantime, leave her alone. She's making her own way. Let her be.”
“I needâ”
“Michael! Michael, you're home!” His mudder burst out the front door, both hands in the air as if hugging him from afar. “You're here!”
“I'm here.”
“Well, get out of that wagon, then, and get over here and give your mudder a hug.” She flapped her arms as if she would fly. “Tobias, food is on the table. Get the boys. I have to set another place.”
Michael hopped from the wagon and strode toward her. She enveloped him in a hug, smelling of vanilla and sugar and cinnamon. Smelling of home.
“It's good you're here.” She smiled, but tears brightened her faded blue eyes. “Things haven't been the same without you.”
Nothing had changed here. He reveled in that thought for a moment. Then another thought reared up. They hadn't changed, but he had. He wasn't the same person who had courted Phoebe at the lake. He wasn't the same person who ran away.
So who was he now?
T
he wedding season should be a time of great joy. Phoebe knew that. Her heart needed to get with the program. Another thing she hoped God wouldn't hold against her. Today, Abel and Deborah would start their married life together. It was a day of great celebration and it meant Phoebe would start her new job as teacher at the school. She shoved the thought away and focused on Luke, standing at the front of the Daugherty barn. The space was crowded with family, friends, and visitors. He was an old hand at it now, conducting these wedding ceremonies. Tomorrow, in deference to all the families who had traveled from Bliss Creek, he would lead the service for Rachel and Daniel. That way everyone could attend both services. Many would stay on for Thanksgiving the following week. The thought should cheer Phoebe. It did cheer her. It did. Didn't it? All the company and the cooking and the chatting. The blessings of family together during the holidays. She had so much for which to be thankful.
How many more times would she sit through this service and watch a man and a woman join hands and have their union blessed by God? How many times, knowing it would never be her? It couldn't be. The man she loved didn't love her back. It had been four days and Michael hadn't returned. A woman named Sophie surely kept him in Springfield.
Somehow, she'd convinced herself that Michael would come home. Not for her, but for his family and his community. He'd never been a selfish person and he knew what his absence did to his family. He knew what it meant not to be baptized. Still, with each day, she became less sure that he would do the right thing. The love of another woman was that strong.
She had to move on. Her mudder said so. Rachel said so. Only her heart refused to do it.
She wiggled. Mudder elbowed her and gave her the usual look.
Sit still.
Some things, at least, didn't change. Hannah sat on the other side, mollifying a grumpy Sarah with a cookie. Mudder had charged her with taking care of Sarah today. She'd been doing that a lot. Phoebe couldn't decide if it was to help Hannah get over her fears of losing another child in her charge, or if it was because Mudder seemed to be worn out all the time. She did look better today. Less drawn and pale. Like all the other New Hope women, she'd been baking and cooking for two days for the wedding feast that would follow today's service. A good wedding feast always perked her up.
Finally, Luke called Abel and Deborah's names. Deborah, her face flushed, eyes shining, almost ran to the front of the barn. Her friend Joanna Glick, serving as her second, scurried to keep up with her. Abel, looking as nervous as a chicken on a chopping block, followed more slowly. Deborah answered the questions so fast, she talked over Luke. She'd waited a long time for this moment; she obviously didn't want to wait any longer. Tears crowded Phoebe. She pushed them away.
Thank You, Gott, for blessing these two people. They are faithful followers.
Why can't I have this?
The selfish questions shamed her.
I'm sorry. Please forgive me.
That was all she did lately. Ask for forgiveness. God must be tired of it. She bowed her head and prayed He would forgive her weakness and make her stronger.
The two clasped hands. Luke's hand covered theirs. He spoke the final words.
Each word felt like a stab to Phoebe's heart.
“So then I may say with Raguel, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with you and help you together and fulfill His blessing abundantly upon you, through Jesus Christ. Amen.”
She wanted those words. She wanted everything that came with them. Husband. Kinner. Home. A family of her own.
Smiling, hands clasped, people began to stand. Sniffing hinted at happy tears shed. Handkerchiefs appeared. A swell of talking broke around her in a wave. Still, Phoebe couldn't move, she was so caught in the agony of wanting something she couldn't have, might never have.
Another elbow to the ribs. “It's time,” Mudder whispered. “We'd best get to the kitchen and help with the serving.”
Silas and Thomas shoved open the barn doors and the crowd poured into the yard. Phoebe forced herself to stand on legs that felt a hundred years old. She needed a minute. She couldn't walk into the sunlight. Mudder would see her selfishness written all over her face. “I'm right behind you. I want to congratulate Deborah.”
Her mudder was already carried away in the crush of people wanting to say hello and ask her how she was doing. She would be stopped a dozen times or more between the barn and the house, by all the friends and family happy to be here for a joyful occasion. Their last trip to New Hope had been for a funeral.
Phoebe braced herself and tried to squeeze her way toward the cluster of people who stood around Deborah and Abel. No use. She couldn't get close. Better she should wait in the yard. She might be able to walk with them into the house.
She put her head down and made her own path toward the yard.
“Hey. Long time no see.”
She looked up. Richard Bontrager loomed over her. “Good service, eh?”
“Jah.” She'd been rude to Richard the last time he offered to take her for a ride. Why did he bother with her? Because he was a nice man who liked her. She could at least be nice back. “Deborah and Abel make a good couple.”
“Smells like there will be some good food too.” He jerked his head toward the house. “You have to help with the serving?”
Of course she did.
Be nice.
“Jah. I'll take a shift in a few minutes.” She struggled for something to say. Anything. “A lot of work right now?”
“Plenty to keep a man busy.” He snapped his fingers as if eager to get to it. “Plenty.”
This was awful.