The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (5 page)

Now, as the minister began the main sermon, I looked again at Rachel and it struck me that she was walking the path she’d been set on since the day she was born. From a young age, she’d been able to see herself living the life her parents lived and their parents before them and their parents before them. She’d been given an unbroken heritage that surely felt as solid as the earth beneath her feet.

My situation was more complicated than that. What I had was a mother who had left the Amish faith when she was just eighteen for reasons no one had ever been able to explain. I had an
Englisch
father who couldn’t get rid of me fast enough once she died, suddenly and unexpectedly, of a brain aneurism. I had a pair of loving Amish grandparents who had taken me in and raised me as one of their own, even though I’d known nothing at all prior to that about them or what they believed or what their lives were like.

My heritage was about as broken as they come. Sometimes, I felt broken too.

Yet there sat Rachel on her side of the room, her attention rapt as Anna and Tobias spoke their promises to the bishop, the congregation, and each other. As they did, Rachel never once looked away from what was happening in front of her. Watching her watch them, I felt a sudden surge of emotion—guilt, pain, grief—so intense I could barely breathe.

How could I do this to her? How could I keep putting her off, making her wait? I loved Rachel more than life itself, I knew that. But to love her for the rest of her life
as her husband
meant loving the church as well.

And that was something I just didn’t know if I could do.

What if, in the end, I simply couldn’t bring myself to join the Amish faith? What would happen to us then? As a baptized member of the church, Rachel didn’t have the freedom to walk away the way I did. If I left, my grandparents and other family members would be hurt and disappointed, of course, but we could always maintain a relationship. I would always be welcome in their home.

If Rachel left, she would probably be excommunicated. Not only would her loved ones be brokenhearted, but they would likely cut all ties with her, shunning her for the rest of her life—or at least until she repented and came back to the church. Bottom line, unless I joined the church too, she was caught in an either/or situation. She could have me, or she could have her Amish world, but she couldn’t have both.

What kind of person was I to force a choice like that on the woman I loved?

My heart pounded at the thought, but I tried to swallow back a feeling of despair and focus on the situation at hand. None of this had to be decided today, I told myself. There was still plenty of time to figure things out.

I somehow managed to make it through the rest of the service. Once it ended, I found a welcome distraction in helping Jake and the rest of the cousins move the benches to the barn, where the feasting tables had been set up. By the time we were finished, my mind was no longer on questions about the future but instead was tuned in to the heaping platters and bowls of food that graced the tables of the reception.

The abundant display revealed how much we had all missed the wedding feasts during the long summer months. Spread out before us were pickled beets, cucumbers, and eggs; giant bowls of salads; five kinds of bread and a dozen varieties of jams and preserves; ham and beef; four kinds of chow-chow; baked lima beans, baked cabbage, and baked corn casserole; mashed sweet potatoes, boiled new potatoes and green beans, and potato dumplings; spicy carrots; and four kinds of roasted squash.

Unlike at other communal feasts, at weddings the young, single adults were allowed to eat first. Long tables were set up in a
V
shape, with the bride and groom sitting at the point of that
V
—or the
Eck
, as we called it. Then the rest of us divided out, the men sitting along the table on one side and the women on the other. Once seated, Anna and Tobias’s aunts and uncles served as the
Ecktenders
, bringing the food to us while the other married adults stood and looked on from the fringes, chatting among themselves.

I sat beside Jake and proceeded to eat until I couldn’t fit another bite in my stomach. But that wasn’t the end of the celebration by any means. Once we were done eating, the adults took their turn eating as well, in shifts, and then finally the “going to the table” ritual began. Reserved for the younger, unmarried guests, it was a custom unique to our district and the part of the wedding day that those my age either dreaded or adored. The young single women filed out to wait in one of the larger upstairs bedrooms of Anna’s house while the young single men stayed in the barn, most standing around pretending they weren’t nervous as each one tried to get up the nerve to go to the room where the girls were waiting and ask one of them to “go to the table” with him. If the girl agreed, then the two of them would come downstairs together, sometimes holding hands, usually blushing, and make their way back to the tables in the barn, where this time the young men and women would sit together, rather than across from each other, and be served dessert and other special treats.

Next to Sunday evening singings, going to the table was the best way to see how you might fare with the young Amish girl who had caught your eye. It could also be the worst way, as there was nothing more awful than working up the courage to ask a girl to go to the table and then have her giggle to her friends in response and tell you no. Or so I had heard.

I hadn’t ever had to worry about it, as Rachel and I had always gone to the table together.

“You
are
going to come upstairs and ask for me, aren’t you?” she had said under her breath a cold November day nearly six years ago when Ruth Suderman and Wayne Yoder got married. Rachel had just turned sixteen and was allowed to participate. We were passing each other at the beverage table during the noon meal.

“You
are
going to say yes when I do, aren’t you?” I had whispered back with a grin.

After the third or fourth wedding that year, Jake started complaining that I had it easy, that I had no idea what it was like to have to prove yourself worthy to someone you were dying to get to know.

These days, Rachel didn’t really have to head upstairs with the other single girls because she had no need to find a suitable mate. She’d already found me, and I her, and it was a given that someday we would wed. But she went anyway to encourage her single friends, some of whom were from other districts.

Now, once the young women were gone, I realized I couldn’t wait to go to the table with Rachel and have her all to myself. During the meal, I had been able to steal a few glances, but other than our brief exchange in the driveway much earlier, she and I had barely interacted all day.

I was suddenly so eager to be with her, in fact, that I was the first to head out of the barn door, much to the laughter of my envious friends. When I reached the house, I went upstairs to get her, and then Rachel and I came back down together, hand in hand, and crossed back over to the barn. Though we were supposed to sit where designated, I led her to the far end of the table, nearest the door, so that when the singing started, we could still hear each other talk. We sat there together, holding hands under the table, watching and laughing as one by one the guys headed off and then returned, hopefully victorious, with the woman of his choice.

Once everyone was seated—including the small group of girls who had not been asked or had said no to the asker—plates of candies, fruit, and little pieces of wedding cake were placed before us.

“Nice wedding,” Rachel said, her dainty fingers reaching for a piece of fudge.

I looked over at Anna and Tobias at the
Eck
, enjoying their own plates of sweets. “They look happy.”

Rachel poked me in the shoulder. “That’s because they are.”

I smiled at her, but my gaze was drawn back to Anna’s new spouse. Tobias had been born in Lancaster County and lived here his whole life. He’d gone through the usual period of
rumspringa
, eventually even taking a month off to go and explore the outside on his own. That took him as far as Myrtle Beach on the coast, and then he’d come back home to the family furniture business, bowed his head in baptism, joined the church, and now had married an Amish girl. I doubted he’d ever spent a moment wondering who he was or where he belonged.

“Tyler.”

I swung my head back around to face Rachel.

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Her kind face was sweetly marked with concern.

“I ate too much,” I said, not wanting to mess with the festive mood around us.

“Nice try. What’s up?”

I shrugged, but her compassionate gaze wouldn’t allow me to say nothing at all. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

Fueled by excitement and chocolate, the noise level was beginning to rise. Soon the singing would start. It would be hard to have a deep conversation.

“Just…life in general.” I toyed with a candied walnut on the plate. But then out of nowhere I voiced what was somersaulting around in my head. “Sometimes it seems that something out there is calling to me. Like maybe I have missed doing something I am supposed to take care of. And then I come to an event like this, and that feeling grows so strong, it’s nearly overwhelming.”

I shut my mouth. I hadn’t wanted to say all of that aloud, especially not at that moment. Yet it had spilled out of me anyway.

Pained uncertainty flickered across Rachel’s eyes. “Something out
where
is calling to you?”

I shook my head. “We don’t need to talk about this now. I don’t know why I said anything.”

Rachel stared at me, unwilling to drop it. “What is calling to you?”

I squeezed her hand. “Forget I said anything.” Which was a dumb suggestion. She wasn’t going to forget.

Besides, she knew me better than anyone. Better than Jake. Maybe even better than
Daadi
and
Mammi
.

She also knew the timetable for when the next membership classes were to begin—and that I wasn’t sure yet if I was going to sign up for them. Membership preceded marriage. That’s how it had always been, which meant if I didn’t attend the next set of classes and take my vows of baptism and membership in the spring, I would not be able to marry her in the fall.

“Is this about God? About your faith?”

I shook my head. “No, of course not. I know what I believe. My faith is solid.”

She nodded, quiet for a moment. “But this
is
about joining the church.” Her voice sounded sad, and for good reason. We both knew that if my faith was solid and yet I was still reluctant to join the church, then my hesitation was about things other than theology. Things like living the Amish lifestyle. Things like being married to her.

“It’s about a lot of stuff,” I finally replied, though that wasn’t the whole truth. It
was
about the church. But it was also about me. And the world outside. And her, too, which I realized at that moment I didn’t want to add to the equation.

“Stuff,” she echoed. “You mean
things
? Like the watch your father gave you? Your driver’s license?”

My face grew warm. She was latching onto the few vestiges of the outside world I had yet to dispose of, but they had nothing to do with this. These days, except when I went out to visit my dad, the watch and the license remained tucked away in a drawer.

“No, it’s not about things. It’s about all of this,” I said, gesturing toward the people and activities that surrounded us on every side. “It’s about figuring out where I belong.”

Understanding seemed to bloom in her eyes. “Ty, this is where you belong,” she said emphatically. “With me. Everyone here loves you. I love you. This is your home.”

“I’m not like Tobias.” I looked at the happy new groom across the barn from us. He seemed a perfect fit in every way.

Rachel squeezed my hand. “Only Tobias is Tobias. You’re you. And whatever it is you think is out there calling to you, don’t you think you would have found it already? You’ve been outside, Tyler, more than most. You’ve seen the
Englisch
world every single time you’ve visited your dad.”

“I know, but—”

“And every time you have visited your dad, you’ve always been ready to come home after just a few days. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

Her last comment took me by surprise. The world outside Lancaster County was a lot bigger than just California, where my father now lived. “This isn’t about him,” I muttered, releasing her hand.

Rachel’s gaze wouldn’t let me go. “How do you know it’s not?”

I thought again of our schoolyard friendship so many years ago and how, not long after we’d made our peace on the swings, Rachel had responded when she learned my father was in the military. She’d been shocked, but not because of what my dad did for a living and how it conflicted with the Amish stance of nonresistance. She was upset because he’d handed me off to be raised by others once my mother was gone.