Love’s Journey Home (5 page)
Read Love’s Journey Home Online
Authors: Kelly Irvin
A wail sounded from above. Loud and clear. Noah. Already. Annie despaired of him ever
sleeping through the night.
Annie rose. Catherine stood too.
“I have to go up.”
“I know.” Catherine touched Annie’s sleeve. “I’m sorry I was gone so long.”
“Me too. I’m sorry you won’t be staying.”
“I can’t.”
“No, you can’t.”
The sound of a horse whinnying mingled with the pounding of the rain. Annie turned
to look toward the door. A sharp intake of air from Catherine told Annie her sister
knew. She’d stayed too long.
“I could still go.” Catherine’s voice quivered. “I could wave at them on my way out.”
“No. Greet them. Don’t run away like you did before.”
Catherine walked toward the door, as if drawn there by her dread and her fascination
with the painful moments that would surely follow.
Luke held the door open. Leah dashed in, a sleeping baby in her arms, the twins and
their older boys, William and Joseph, trotting along behind her. They were all sopping
wet. “Run upstairs, boys, get out of those wet clothes and into bed. Annie, whose
car is that…?”
She stopped, her gaze fixed on Catherine.
“Look who’s come for a visit.” Annie tried to keep her voice light.
“I was just leaving.” Catherine’s gaze flitted over the children. “Where’s Mark? I
wondered…how tall he must be now.”
“William, Joseph, take the twins upstairs.” Luke’s deep voice reverberated around
them. “Now.”
Their eyes wide with curiosity at this stranger in their house, the boys herded little
Esther and Ruth up the stairs, their wet feet making squelching sounds on the wood.
Luke tromped past Leah and halted in front of Annie. He didn’t offer any words of
welcome to their sister.
“You know better.” Finally, he spoke. He didn’t look at Catherine, directing the words
squarely at Annie. “Why would you let her in the house?”
“I wanted to talk—”
“You shouldn’t be talking to her. You should’ve turned her away.”
“She’s my sister. Your sister.”
Luke’s stony façade cracked a little, and Annie saw the misery in his eyes. His Adam’s
apple bobbed. “Not anymore.”
“Luke!”
“It’s all right. I’ll go.” Catherine’s voice held steady. “I don’t want to cause any
trouble.”
“If that were the case, she would never have left Bliss Creek.” His gaze swung to
Catherine, then dropped to the floor. “But what’s done is done.”
“I’ll go now.”
“She can’t.” Luke spoke to Annie as if she’d been the one to utter the words. “Not
now.”
“What?”
“It’s raining so hard, the creek is up over its banks. We barely made it over the
bridge.” He wiped rain from his face with the back of his sleeve. Water dripped from
his hat brim, making the motion useless. “No one can get into town tonight—not unless
it stops raining for a spell. The ground’s packed so hard from the drought that the
water is running off as fast as the rain falls.”
Annie couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand by and let Catherine think her return
had no import to Luke. She knew it did. She knew from the tight line around his mouth
and the way his pulse pounded in his temple.
“Luke, Catherine is—”
“Catherine best stay in the
dawdi haus
for the night.” Leah handed Jebediah to Luke. “She can get back to town in the morning.
I’ll make sure there are fresh sheets on the bed. Annie, you best check on Noah; I
hear him squalling. I’ll fill the lamps out there.”
Surprised at her sister-in-law’s deft handling of the situation, Annie blew out a
sigh of relief. The dawdi haus would be permissible. The bishop would not object to
having a wayward member of the flock stay there. “Leah will get you settled.” She
took Catherine’s cold hand in hers and squeezed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning.” Catherine squeezed back. Her gaze went to Luke’s stony face.
“Unless the rain stops.”
As if in response hail began to ping against the roof, the porch railings, and the
ground around the house. Hard, white balls bounced and ricocheted against the windows.
“I’d better go help Mark. He’s putting up the horse and wagon and checking on the
livestock.” Luke held out Jebediah. Annie took him. Her brother started toward the
door without a backward glance. “Annie, get your sister an umbrella and then see to
the babies. It’s time everyone was in bed.”
“I brought my own umbrella.” Catherine continued to address Luke even though he’d
turned his back on her. As she had done to him four years earlier. “Don’t worry about
me.”
“I stopped worrying about her long ago.”
Annie couldn’t imagine how Luke could be so cold. It wasn’t like him. Not one for
showing much affection, true, but he’d never been mean.
“I’d like to see Mark, since I’m here.” Catherine didn’t seem to notice or she chose
to ignore his tone. “I’m spending the night anyway.”
Luke pushed through the screen door, letting his words flow back toward them. “Dawn
comes early for those who work the land and have jobs in town.”
Annie had never heard Luke acknowledge that Mark worked hard, harder than most. That
was something, even if it was a jab at Catherine in her Englisch clothes and her fancy
car. “See you in the morning,” she said to Catherine again. “I’ll bring you some of
my biscuits and jam.”
Catherine lifted her umbrella and slipped out the door. Like Luke, she didn’t look
back.
Catherine’s journal
July 4
I’m here. In Bliss Creek. At the farm. Once my home. What a way to celebrate Independence
Day. A homecoming to a place that is no longer home. A renewal of the sense that I
am totally and completely independent. I have no family anymore. I suppose Dean counts
as family now, although that could change if things don’t work out between us. He
insists they will, but nothing’s certain. Family shouldn’t change. I chose this, yet
I somehow didn’t feel it because I was somewhere else, in another world where I could
just be a girl on a trip away from home. I could tell people my family was back home
in Bliss Creek. They wouldn’t know. Had no way of knowing that the family back home
would no longer call me family
.
Rain and hail are pounding on the roof of this small dawdi haus that hasn’t been used
in years. Sleep is unthinkable. So here I sit wondering how long before the battery
gives out on my laptop. Every fiber of my being is humming with the sense that I’ve
stepped back in time to a place that no longer exists for me. If I were at my apartment
in Wichita, I’d put on an old movie on the movie channel, pop some popcorn, and enjoy
the storm. Here, I’m vitally aware of every second as it ticks by, ticking away the
moments until I get another glimpse of Annie and Luke and Mark, a glimpse of Emma
and her new family, Josiah and his family. My not family, my un-family, my estranged
family. It’s surreal, being back here with them, but not really back. I knew it would
be. I prepared myself for it, but still it hurts
.
Luke acted as if I were a stranger. It’s to be expected, of course. I keep telling
myself that, but somehow it remains unexpected. He couldn’t even look at me. That’s
how strongly the shunning is ingrained in them. They must keep themselves apart from
the world and I am the world now
.
Luke looked older—older than the four years that have passed. He has lines around
his eyes and mouth and less hair sticking out from under his hat. He’s a little stouter.
He reminds me of our father. In a few years, he will be a replica of him. Leah, on
the other hand, looks no different. The same thin line that passes for a mouth. The
same mousy brown hair peeking from under her kapp. The same efficient stride. She
couldn’t look me in the eye, either, but that doesn’t bother me. I can freely admit
I didn’t like her when she married Luke and I don’t expect that to change. Not a Christian
attitude by any means, but the truth is the truth. One thing I haven’t done in my
time in the world is become a liar
.
Only Annie hasn’t changed toward me. As much as she believes in the Ordnung, she finds
it impossible to harden her heart. She shimmers with light and sweetness. I see it
in her face, and looking at her fills me with a sense of light all my own. Goodness
flows out of her and on to me. It was painful to see her torn like that. Torn between
them and me. The look of puzzlement on her face when I talked about the memoir would
be almost comical if it weren’t so painful. She can’t understand my world, nor I hers.
I can’t understand the rejection of learning and knowledge. I can’t understand living
in a world so small and colorless
.
I do envy her a bit though, despite David’s death and the terrible loss it is for
her. She actively seeks contentment with her lot and she’s determined to find it because
that is what her faith demands. She is determined to be, if not happy, at least content.
And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. She will be content. Her contentment
seems like happiness to her. A simple life with her bakery and her son and her family
near her is all she needs to be happy. I envy that kind of faith. I doubt I will ever
be content. It’s my fate to remember the day of my parents’ death as the day I stopped
having faith that everything will be all right
.
The rain is letting up. Time to sleep. They’ll be at my door before light. I don’t
want them to catch me sleeping in. Silly as that sounds
.
T
he Bliss Creek jail contained only four cells. Helen took a quick, curious look around.
She’d never been in a jail before, hoped never to be again. Chief Parker had been
kind enough to let her and Thomas have a peek at her son. Edmond had his own cell,
away from the Englisch boys who lounged at the other end. One looked asleep. A second
lay supine, staring at the ceiling, while the third chewed his fingernails. His hat
missing and his blond hair a tousled mess, Edmond sat on his bunk, looking everywhere
but at her.
The cells smelled of ripe teenage boy and worse, the
schtinck
of tobacco and beer and an odor that surely came from the bare commode in the corner.
Helen put one hand to her mouth and with the other grasped the bars that separated
her from Edmond. He hung his bare head. His thick blond curls put her in mind of his
daed. George would have been so disappointed at this turn of events. More likely,
things wouldn’t have turned out this way if he were still here.
At least they hadn’t made Edmond wear one of those orange jumpsuits. Chief Parker
knew better. No bright colors for his Plain prisoner.
Prisoner.
Edmond a prisoner.
Helen’s stomach rocked and she let go of the bar in fear that she would have to flee
to the nearest sink or trash can.
“Where’s your hat?” Why on earth she asked that question at a time like this she couldn’t
imagine. “You didn’t lose it, did you?”
“We have his hat,” Chief Parker broke in. “With his other things. He’ll get it back.”
“Edmond! How…why?” She managed to ask the important question without losing what was
left of her supper. “What were you doing?”
Edmond slunk lower onto the bare mattress.
“He’s still feeling the effects, I reckon.” Chief Parker shook the ring of keys he
held in one hand. “He hasn’t said a word since I hauled him in here, but you can see
he’s fine.”
“He doesn’t look fine.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.” Edmond’s words slurred. He sounded surly.
Neither fact did anything to endear him to Helen. He hunched his skinny shoulders.
“My hearing’s fine.”
“Maybe so, but the rest of you is under the influence.” Chief Parker tapped the bars
with a key. “I suggest you show some respect to your mother and this man here who
have come to try to help you. What ails you that you would put your mother through
this, embarrassing her in front of your family and the entire Amish community, not
to mention the rest of the town?”
Chief Parker had a good understanding of the Plain community, having grown up here
in Bliss Creek. Having this understanding stated so baldly didn’t help settle Helen’s
stomach. Which was worse? The Plain community, of course, because she would answer
to the bishop and the deacons, as would Edmond. The Englischers had more experience
with teenagers and alcohol. She had none at all.
“Why, Edmond, tell me that?”
He lifted his gaze, then ducked his head. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Didn’t mean to do it? You picked up the alcohol, put it to your lips, and drank,
didn’t you? Or do you mean to say someone forced it down your throat?” Her voice rose
of its own accord, sounding like a shriek in her ears. Thomas shifted next to her.
She glanced at his face. She brought her voice down. “Did they tie you up and wrench
your mouth open so they could pour it in?”
“Nee.”
“Nee.”
“Then you meant to do it.” Thomas spoke in a calm tone that settled like a comfortable
shawl on Helen’s tense shoulders. “Done is done. I suspect you’ll learn a lesson or
two in the days ahead.”