The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (26 page)

“And your dad?”

“He’s never been one to talk much about her. Plus, I didn’t see him for the first few years after she died.”

Lark shook her head. “I don’t get that at all.”

“What? That I lived with my grandparents?”

“That he just left you there.”

“My dad thought I would have a more stable life with them. Then, by the time he came back, I’d been there so long it just seemed more logical to stay.”

Lark tore off a piece of her cinnamon roll and tossed it into her mouth. “But really, Tyler, did you
want
to stay with your grandparents after your dad finally came back for you? Or did you stay because maybe you were scared of the unknown?”

I was about to say yes, I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t get the words to come out of my mouth. Instead, I asked, “Is that so odd? My Amish family was the only family I knew. And I had a really great life there. Surrounded by loved ones, animals, lots of fun work to do and plenty of hands to do it…” My voice trailed off when I realized I was protesting too much.

“So when did you and your dad ever see each other? Or did you?”

“Of course we saw each other. I flew out to visit every summer until I was sixteen. Sometimes Dad and Brady came out to Philly to see me. We made it work.”

Lark shrugged and tore off another piece of her roll. “If you say so.”

“We made it work,” I repeated, as much to convince her as to convince myself. We
had
made it work. It wasn’t the most conventional of arrangements, but what’s conventional about a child’s mother dying? Nothing.

“But you’re an adult now,” Lark said. “Do you still have to stay there? How old are you anyway?”

“I’m twenty-three. And no one raised Amish has to stay if they haven’t taken vows of church membership yet. I could leave if I wanted to without repercussions.”

Except that I would break the heart of my grandparents and lose the love of my life forever.

“Are you going to? Leave, I mean?”

The question that had brought me out to California in the first place now hung between us, and I found myself instantly defending the Amish life I’d known for the last seventeen years. “I have a place there, Lark. A job, a home, a family, and someone I care about.”

“A girl?”

“Yes, a girl!”

“Whoa. You don’t have to get all defensive about it. I was just asking.”

I hadn’t realized I’d been steadily raising my voice until I noticed a few people were looking our way. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just…I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“What’s her name?”

I was about to say “Rachel” when a thundering truth clobbered me. It was Saturday. Rachel was going to call me today. I looked down at my watch. It was already after four, which meant it was after seven back home. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to see if she had tried the number I’d given Thom. But clearly I wasn’t used to owning a cell phone. The battery was dead. In all likelihood Rachel had tried both my cell and the landline at the house—and I had missed them both.

“I should get you back,” I said quickly, rising to my feet.

“Just like that? You’re not even going to tell me her name?”

“It’s Rachel. Let’s go.”

Lark stood. “Fine. We’ll go. What’s the matter anyway?”

“Nothing. I just…I just forgot something important.”

We paid, Dutch treat this time, then we walked back to the car at a quick pace. Lark pumped me for information the whole way, asking what Rachel looked like, about her personality, how long we’d been dating. I finally had to change the subject. I asked her to tell me about her upcoming trip to Thailand, which she was only too eager to talk about.

I was in such a hurry that I actually told her to drive before she even asked if she could. After another nail-biting trip, we reached her house around four thirty. She was tied up with schoolwork tomorrow and classes on Monday and Tuesday, but she had Wednesdays off, so we made plans to get together then. With a quick thanks, I drove as fast I could manage all the way home.

It still took me fifteen minutes. When I got there, Frisco was ecstatic to see me and began running around the house looking for a ball or a toy for me to throw. Ignoring his antics, I came into the kitchen to check the answering machine and saw with a measure of relief that it wasn’t blinking. Maybe Rachel hadn’t called yet. But then I saw that Brady had left me a note. My heart sank as I read it.

Your girlfriend called from Pennsylvania. I told her you were out and I didn’t know when you were getting back. Don’t worry. I didn’t say you were with another woman.

N
INETEEN

T
he hardest part of knowing Rachel had called was the fact that I couldn’t call her back. She was not going to be hanging around the phone shanty waiting to hear from me. Plus, it was already dark in Lancaster County. It had been stupid of me not to arrange a time for us to talk. I had been home all morning.

Perhaps she had tried my cell and I’d missed it because the battery was already dead by then. I hooked up the phone to the charger and then put a leash on Frisco to walk off my frustration.

An hour later, twilight had fallen and Frisco and I returned to a dark and quiet house. The phone wasn’t fully charged yet, but it had enough power to show that a message was waiting for me, from the number of the Hoecks’ phone shanty. It had been left at 12:30, when I was still home. Oh, why hadn’t I thought to charge my stupid phone?

I pressed the button to listen to the messages, recognizing Rachel’s voice the minute she said my name.

“Hi, Tyler. It’s Rachel. It’s about three thirty here. I stopped over to visit with your grandmother, and Thom gave me this number for your cell phone. Hope it’s all right that I use it. I might try your dad’s regular phone line later if I don’t hear from you. Hope it’s going well. I miss you. Okay. Bye.”

It had only been five days since I’d seen her, but it seemed so much longer. Hearing her voice reminded me of how far away I was, not just from her but from everything that was familiar to me. I wanted so badly to speak with her!

I needed to tell her about Brady, to ask her advice about how to fix what was broken between us. I wanted to tell her I was learning photography, and how I hoped taking pictures might give me some insight into my mother. Mostly, I just wanted to have a conversation with someone who was the embodiment of the life that waited for me in Lancaster County, should I return to it to stay.

But all I could do was to plug the phone back in, feed Frisco his dinner, and open a can of soup for myself. As it heated, I went into my dad’s study to return one camera to the cabinet and find the charger for the other.

I found it easily. As I was leaving the room, charger in hand, I noticed the beautiful potted palms over by the French doors and wondered if they needed watering or if that was something the housecleaners did. Moving to the kitchen, I plugged the camera into the charger, checked on my soup, and then filled up a big glass of water and carried it back to the study, figuring I was better safe than sorry.

It wasn’t until I had already poured out half the glass that I realized the plants were fake. The water pooled at the base of the “trunk” then spilled over onto the floor. My face burning with embarrassment even though no one else had been here to see, I ran to get a towel and cleaned up the mess as best I could.

After that, I just sat in the kitchen and ate my soup in silence, feeling utterly homesick. I longed for the place where I was loved, where I was surrounded by family. Where potted plants were made of real leaves and grew in actual dirt.

When I was done, I still felt the need to do something active to work out my frustration, so I went into the garage and grabbed the skateboard that had been propped up against the wall since I’d pulled it from the neighbor’s trash yesterday morning. I didn’t know anything about skateboards, but I knew wheels and I knew movement, and I had a feeling I would be able to figure things out.

Fifteen minutes later, I gave up. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t fix the thing. It was that I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it in the first place. It seemed fine to me. I even climbed onto it myself, gave a little push off, and went rolling across the garage. Fearing I might slip and put a nick or a dent into one of my dad’s beloved cars, I finally stepped back off of the skateboard and put it away. Maybe Brady had some experience with these things and could take a look at it later and give me a little insight. It surely hadn’t ended up in the trash for no reason.

Back inside, I fiddled around with the camera, taking pictures of Frisco and trying to imagine those nine squares. The pictures looked terrible and his eyes were a demonic red in all of them. I read for a while, looked at all the images in the German pictorial where my mother had written something, and then scooped some ice cream into a dish. I turned on the TV for company but had a hard time finding something to watch that interested me, even among the hundreds of channels at my fingertips.

I settled on a documentary about sled dog racing. While I ate my ice cream, Lark texted me.

Hey. Wanna come to church with me tomorrow? It’s at 11.

Lark had said she was a Christian, but I had no idea what kind of church she attended, and that alone interested me. I decided to go, and if Brady didn’t sleep in on Sundays, I thought maybe he could come too. Dad and Liz had a church of their own but attended only sporadically, partly because of his travel schedule and her weekend hours as a nurse. But also because, as my dad stated some time ago, he’d outgrown the need for church attendance, preferring a quieter, more private approach to faith. When I tried to counter that, he had cut me off, saying he didn’t think he needed to discuss his decision with anyone, especially me.

Looking down at my phone, I tried to text Lark back to say that I would like to go and that I was going to ask Brady if he wanted to come, but I was making so many mistakes and getting so many words wrong that finally I just called her instead.

“Don’t like texting?” she answered.

“It takes too long. And it doesn’t seem necessary when I can just talk to you. I wanted to say yes, I’d like to go. Do you mind if I invite Brady along too?”

“Sure, though it’s mostly geared for twentysomethings. You know, people our age.”

People our age. I realized that was one for the list.

The generations are all so divided, even in church.

“Tyler?”

“
Ya
, I’m here. Your church sounds like our singings.”

“Your what?”

“We have singings every other Sunday night for young people. Our twentysomethings. And teensomethings.”

Lark laughed. “Well, we do more than just sing. The messages are relevant to our age and what matters to us. The people at this church care about orphans and poverty and the oppressed and the exploited. That’s why I like it. The leadership actually puts actions behind their words. You can’t just pray for the hungry when it’s in your power to do more. Know what I mean?”

I definitely knew what she meant. No one in my district back home went without food or shelter or medicine or clothing when the need arose. We also helped those outside of the faith—sorting canned goods for a local hunger-relief mission, rebuilding homes after disasters, things like that.

If I belonged in the non-Amish world, I would still need to be a part of a congregation of some kind. It made sense to attend Lark’s church and see what it was like to worship God without the
Ausbund
and the High German and the Pennsylvania Dutch.

“I’ll ask Brady anyway.”

“Do you want to drive? My mom will let me borrow her car if I must, but if you drive I won’t have to ask her.”

“Sure. What time should I come for you?”

“Around ten thirty. It’s not far but the parking lot fills up fast. And I want you to be able to get a good seat.”

Now that was a new concept. “A good seat?”

“So you can see the band and the worship leader and the pastor instead of having to watch them on the screens. It’s better when you can see the real people.”