The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (45 page)

Hearing now that the two of you are to be wed, I am finally at peace about my decision to go. If it spared my beloved sister such heartache, and it led you to love her at last and to make a life with her as your wife, then it has been worth all of the sacrifice in the end.

That is why I am writing now, to say that I forgive you and that I am so happy to hear the news. May your life together be blessed!

I am not even sure if I will be able to send you this letter. I do not have an address for you where it would be assured to escape the notice of others. I shall end it here and try to figure out how to get it to you. If you are reading these words, it means that I succeeded.

Please know that I wish the two of you all the best and I hope you find love as deep and true and everlasting as I have with Duke.

All the best,

Sadie

I sat back, realizing that I held in my hand the final answer I sought.

My mother left Lancaster County out of love for her sister. But because of the circumstances, she could never tell that to another living soul.

I reached for the final envelope, expecting it to be dated around the same time as the other. Instead, what I saw in the date line made me gasp aloud. It hadn’t been written then. It had been written eight years later.

On the day before she died.

It, too, was a letter, but to Sarah this time. Far less formal than the one she’d written years before to Jonah, this seemed to be an olive branch of sorts, a reaching out from sister to sister. I held it up and began to read.

My dear sister Sarah,

I don’t know how many times I have tried to write this letter to you. And here I am trying again. I only have a few minutes before Tyler gets home from kindergarten, so I’ll make it quick.

This time of year, my heart always grows so heavy as I think of you celebrating your birthday without me there at your side. It has been eight and a half years since I left, and every year I have thought of you on this day and missed you more than words can say.

We are back in the States now, as Mamm may have told you, and I am eager to finally, finally come home for a visit. I spoke to Mamm on the shop phone just a few days ago about coming to visit. Her heart was still as hardened to me as ever, but I plan to persist. If I do make it home, perhaps you will bring yourself to speak to me this time? That is my most fervent prayer!

You should know that I believe God gifted me Duke in a way I don’t think I could explain to anyone, least of all Mamm and Daed. I am aware of how very much I have grieved them, but I will honor my commitment to my marriage vows. And though I miss Lancaster County with every breath in my body, I know I cannot return, at least not for more than a visit. I will be forever torn, but it helps to know that you are happy, as Mamm said. On the phone, she spoke of your sweet little ones, your beautiful girls. And I am so grateful to God that Jonah has found his soul mate in you.

I know you have forgiven me for leaving because that is your way, as it is mine. All I can say is that I had my reasons, and I am at peace with them. Regardless, you still are and will always be my best friend. Even as time and distance separate us, I hope

The letter ended there, midsentence. I could almost picture it, the sight of my mother scribbling away until I came home from school, then being interrupted before she was done. She must have tucked the letter away and planned to finish writing it the next day.

But the next day she died. She died with the key in her hand.

I folded the letter and placed it back inside the envelope, knowing without question I would give it to my aunt Sarah. It wasn’t quite complete, but it said enough. It said what my mother had longed to say for years. That she loved her sister. That she had held on to hope. That she thought of Sarah as her best friend to the end.

Her other letter, the one to Jonah, I would not deliver. I knew it would serve no purpose. Nor was there any reason to keep any of the notes he had written to her either. After setting the one for Sarah aside, I took all of the others and stuffed them into my pocket. Downstairs, I grabbed some twine from the mudroom, pulled on my jacket and boots, and headed outside to the pond, thankful that it was not yet frozen solid.

I looked about for the right-sized rock, and then I withdrew the pages from my pocket. With the twine I secured to the rock the pages that revealed the truth of why my mother left, making sure the knots were taut. Then I flung the rock with its cargo to the center of the pond my mother loved and missed so very much, where it sank out of view.

The paper would become fragments, the fragments would become nothing. Even the twine would eventually disintegrate. In time, there would be only a rock at the bottom of a lovely pond.

I waited until the water’s surface was calm again and then I turned back toward the house. I would save the delivery of Sarah’s letter for another day, as God would lead.

Right now, there was someone vitally important I needed to see.

I made it to Rachel’s a little after five, though it felt later. Thanks to the early-setting sun, it was already dark. The moment she opened the door, the blue of her eyes was the only spot of color I saw in the whole room.

“Rachel,” I said, removing my hat.

“You’re back,” she said softly.

“
Ya
. I’m home.”

I wanted her to drop the pan and towel she was holding in her hands and run into my arms. Instead, she simply turned and led the way back to the kitchen.

“Can you come out for a walk?” I asked, now gripping the hat brim nervously in my hands.

She shared a look with her mother, who was busy dropping dumplings into a large vat of bubbling broth.

“
Ya
,” Rachel said finally, and then she went to pull on her winter coverings.

Outside, we ambled down the driveway in the crisp evening air toward a small grove of walnut trees that flanked the nearest pasture. We were silent as we moved from the shoveled pavement of the drive to the crunchy snow of the lawn and then continued on, side by side, our boots breaking twin paths in the snow as we went. I wanted so much to hold her hand, but I knew I didn’t dare try. Not yet, anyway.

For the first time that I could ever remember, I felt nervous around her. If only I could know what was going through her mind. She seemed deep in thought. Far, far away. Before I began what I had come there to say, I asked if she’d had a chance to think things over herself since we talked.

“That’s all I’ve been doing since we last spoke. Thinking. And praying.”

She didn’t offer up more than that, so I began to share my heart with her.

“I have so much to tell you, Rachel. It’s amazing, really, everything that God showed me while I was in California.”

Praying for the right words as we continued to stroll, I launched into a summary of all that I had questioned and explored and come to understand during my time away. I knew she’d heard much of it before, in our phone calls and my letters. But this time I needed to make sure she understood fully the path I’d been on and how it had led me directly back home, back to the Amish life and back to her—for good.

Once we were standing in the midst of the grove, I took her elbow and slowed to stop, giving her arm a gentle tug so that she would turn to face me. Even there in the darkness, her eyes were sapphire against the white.

“I’m sorry it has taken me so long to reach this point,” I told her, releasing my hold on her arm. “You deserved better.”

She looked down, so I reached out and put a finger to her chin, tilting her face up toward mine.

“You did, Rach, but the point is, I’m here now. I’m finally where you’ve been wanting me to be all along.”

She nodded and then glanced away.

“Now that I am here, there’s just one question left to ask,” I whispered.

To my dismay, she took a step back, away from me.

“I think I know what that question is,” she said. Again, I sensed fear from her.

“Rachel, I—”

“And it’s not that I don’t want to marry you, Tyler, because I do. I always have. I just…I…” Her voice trailed away.

“You’re afraid.”

She turned to me. “
Ya!
” she exclaimed, obviously relieved she didn’t have to say those words herself. “I am afraid! I hear what you are saying, but how am I to believe you? How am I to know you will still feel this way ten, twenty, fifty years from now?”

I stepped forward, taking both of her hands in mine, wishing she could see straight into my heart. “I know you’re afraid I might regret joining the church, that I’ll find out some day down the road that I don’t want to be Amish anymore, and that my other life is calling to me. And I’ll be stuck.”

“
Ya
,” she whispered.

“But I’m not my mother, Rachel. That is not going to happen.”

Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. “How do you know that? You can’t know that.”

I didn’t tell her what I had learned from the hidden part of my mother’s box, the true reason she had run away all those years ago. Perhaps someday I might share that knowledge with Rachel, but for now, she would just have to trust me. Love had been the thing that sent my mother away from Lancaster County, but love—not just for Rachel but for God and for the entirety of my Amish life—had been the thing that brought me home.

“I don’t want any other life. This is who I am. This is who I choose to be.”

“But what if someday you wish you had chosen differently?” The tears that rimmed her eyelids spilled down her cheeks.

I squeezed her hands and pulled her close to me. “I have faith. I am being sure of what I cannot see. I can’t know the future, Rachel. And neither can you. But this spring when I am baptized I will promise to serve God, to be a member of this district with all of its rights and responsibilities and blessings. I will promise those things on faith, trusting that God will empower me to keep those promises. And I know He will. God was with me when I came here at six, and He’s led me back here again at twenty-three because this is His will for my life. This is where I belong. And now I am asking you to have faith in me. I love you, Rachel. I am asking you to trust the man I have become, the man I will be for the rest of my life. Will you? Will you trust me?”

She paused for a long moment, searching my eyes for some truth she might find there. Then finally, slowly, she brought my hands to her lips and kissed them, brushing my folded fingers across her moist cheek.

“
Ya
,” she whispered. “I will.”

I bent to touch my forehead to hers, the brim of my hat covering the top of her winter bonnet as joy swept over me.

Our hands were still clasped together, our foreheads still touching, as I began to whisper, “Thank you, thank you,” over and over, in gratitude to God and to Rachel. She was crying softly, but her tears were sweetly happy.

“Will you marry me, Rachel?” I murmured.

She laughed through her tears. “I would love to marry you, Tyler.”

I bent down to steal a kiss from her, but she let me have it willingly.

An eager breeze, bitter cold in the darkness, spun around us, lifting the strings of Rachel’s bonnet and tickling my nose.

With a grunt, I broke off our kiss, brushed the strings away. Then I pulled her closer and kissed her again, already counting the days until I could call her my wife.

E
PILOGUE

T
he morning of my baptism, I walked out to my mother’s pond, knowing it was still partially frozen and I wouldn’t be able to see my reflection in the murky mid-March water. But I didn’t care. It almost seemed appropriate that the man who had stared back at me all those years was hidden from my view now. There on the bank, I sank to my knees on the wet ground, Timber nosing me worriedly. I coaxed his face away and patted his head. Then I whispered a prayer of gratitude to God for protecting me from the moment I arrived in Lancaster County as a six-year-old—alone and afraid—and for surrounding me with people who loved me. I thanked Him for my family, for Rachel, and for the new life we would forge together, starting this fall. Since returning from my father’s in November and making things right with her, I had seen our relationship grow by leaps and bounds as she slowly came to see for herself that she really did have nothing to fear.