The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (6 page)

“What difference does it make what his
job
is? He’s your
dad
. And he just
gave you away
.”

Now, as she sat here next to me in a crisp, newly sewn dress, one strand of hair falling loose from the bun under her
kapp
, it was clear to me what her long-standing opinion of my father had led her to conclude, given my restless state. And she couldn’t have been more wrong.

She glanced around and then leaned close as she whispered, “You know what I think, Tyler?”

I swallowed hard, wishing we’d never started this conversation in the first place.

“I think this has nothing to do with you and God
or
you and me. This is about you and your dad and the fact that you think he doesn’t want you and never has.”

She didn’t mean her words to be unkind, just honest, as she and I had always been with each other. But they struck in a place so deep that I was shocked to find my eyes instantly rimmed with tears. I blinked them away, trying to decide whether to walk out of there right then or just stay and pretend she hadn’t said that to me. To my dismay, however, she persisted, trying to be supportive but delivering a message that couldn’t have been crueler.

“I think you still feel as rejected by him as you did the day you first came here,” she said in an even softer whisper. “In a way, you’re still that same six-year-old little boy who, more than anything, just wants his father to want him.”

F
OUR

W
hen I look back now, it is no wonder that the part of me that held my earliest memories didn’t know what to make of the first year I came to live in Lancaster County. My entire universe shifted when I was six years old.

First, my mother died of a medical condition that meant nothing to me. It wasn’t as though she got sick or was hit by a car or fell off a high cliff. The word “aneurysm” had no context in my young world. She was simply alive one moment and gone the next.

Second, my father, who already had orders for a year-long remote assignment to Turkey, hadn’t sought a hardship reassignment after she died—though he could have. Military members could always ask to be reassigned if a death in the family or a terminal illness or some other serious circumstance meant the member needed to be somewhere other than where he or she was scheduled to go. Instead, Dad asked my grieving grandparents to take me to Pennsylvania to live with them while he was gone and simply kept his orders as they were.

Thus, in the span of just a few days, I essentially lost both my parents and was thrust into an Amish life, where I had to learn a new language, a new way of living, a new way of thinking. It was like going through a doorway to another world where everything I knew and loved was gone and I had no choice but to start over.

At least my grandparents were kind, and they had a son my age, who didn’t seem to mind at all that he would now have to share everything he had, including his bedroom, with the nephew he’d never even met before. For that matter, he hadn’t met my mother, either—his own sister—because she’d left home before he was born.

Once I was settled, I’d made do the best I could, secretly marking off the days till my father’s return on a calendar I kept hidden under my mattress, a free one that had come in the mail from a tractor company and my grandmother had thrown away.

When my dad’s year in Turkey was up, he came back to see me, bringing along presents for everyone from overseas as well as some of my favorite toys from home and the cigar box containing my most treasured possessions that I’d always kept tucked away under my bed. I had already outgrown most of the toys by then, but I had been thrilled to get back the cigar box, which I’d missed at first but nearly forgotten about by then.

I’d been so happy to see him, and to have him there—until it was time to go and I learned to my astonishment that he wasn’t taking me with him. Again. He told me he had accepted a follow-on assignment in Spain and would need me to stay right where I was until that was over too. I’d been devastated and spent many an hour once he was gone wondering what I’d done wrong to send him away.

Looking back now, of course, I realized that my father probably just couldn’t handle being a single parent of a seven-year-old boy, especially while living overseas and being in the military. I tried to be patient, but it was while he was in Spain that he met an army nurse named Liz Brinkman. By the end of that tour, he married her and then they moved to Japan. I didn’t even meet Liz—or see my dad again, for that matter—until a year after that, when she was pregnant with their son, Brady. That time, it was a quick visit, as they had only brief leave to come back to the States for her own mother’s funeral.

After that they returned to Japan, and I didn’t see my dad again for two more years.

All in all, I was eleven years old before my father was reassigned stateside, Liz got out of the military, and they came to Lancaster County to get me at last. Finally, he sat me down and asked me if I wanted to come live with him and his wife and their toddler in California.

It was the moment for which I’d been waiting for five years, yet all I could think about in that moment was that he was
asking
me. Not telling me. Asking me.

My father didn’t say, “I want you to come, Tyler.” He said, “Do you want to come?”

Even at eleven I could sense the difference. He and Liz and Brady and I had spent the afternoon with my grandparents at the farm. Then that night my dad took me to stay with the three of them at their hotel in Philadelphia, where he finally said those words.

Brady was almost two, and he was tired and cranky from the long day. Liz was busy entertaining him and didn’t say much, though I knew she was listening to every word. She kept glancing at me, her eyes filled with an anxiousness that angered me. After Dad asked his question, he sat there, looking from me to her, and then he did something that sealed my decision. He reached for Liz and patted her shoulder. Brady let out a little wail and they both gently hushed him before lifting their gaze back to me and the question that hung in the air between us.

I told them I would stay with my grandparents.

Now I sat with Rachel, all these years later, telling myself I’d never regretted that decision, even as her words pounded inside my head like a drum.
You’re still that same six-year-old little boy who, more than anything, just wants his father to want him.

How on earth was I to respond to that? I couldn’t. Instead, I excused myself and then simply rose and left, moving outside and around the corner of the barn to where it was quiet and empty and I could breathe. From there I could see the horses out in the field, lazily munching grass until they would be rounded up and reattached to the buggies they had brought here in the first place. My own horse seemed to sense my presence, and he sauntered in my direction. When he reached the fence, I walked over to greet him, absently patting his broad, muscular neck.

“I always miss your mother so much on special days like this one,” a woman’s voice said.

Startled, I turned to see my aunt Sarah, the mother of the bride, standing just a few feet behind me. I instantly thought she’d overheard what Rachel and I had been talking about and had come out here to see if I was okay. But when she stepped to the fence beside me and began cooing to my horse as well, I saw the sadness in her eyes, and I realized that she’d come out here for herself. Sarah didn’t often mention my mother, her only sister. Those rare times she did, it was only with me.

“I can’t imagine how hard it must be.” I returned my gaze to the animal in front of us.

“
Ya
. It still hurts, even after all these years. I don’t think most people know how much.”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t need to. We’d always had this bond, this loss, even though Sarah wasn’t one to bring it up often.

“She ran off the night before my birthday, did I ever tell you that?”

My eyes widened. “No.”

“It was my twentieth birthday. We were supposed to have a family party, of course. But she and I also had plans for a fun time later that night, off on our own with Jonah and some of our other friends. We were all still on our
rumspringa
, and she and I were sort of known as the two sisters who were always raising a ruckus.”

I smiled. “Somehow, I can’t picture you as the ruckus-raising type.”

Now it was her turn to smile. “
Ya
, well, you’re probably right about that. Sadie was far more outgoing than I, far more energetic and alive. After she left, I refused to celebrate my birthday that year—at home or with my friends. I just stayed in my room and cried all night. At the time, I wondered if I would ever be happy again. She was my best friend. And she left me without even telling me why.”

There was nothing I could say to that, so finally I just reached out, took her hand in mine, and gave it a squeeze. She squeezed back, her grip firm.

“Of course, time and forgiveness heal all wounds. And marrying Jonah two years later brought joy back to my life, but I have never been able to get over the fact that your mother isn’t here, sharing special days like this with me. I had always imagined she would.”

She released my hand to dab at her eyes, which had filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Tyler. Here you are enjoying Anna and Tobias’s special day, and I come along and start blubbering like an old fool.”

I shook my head, wishing I had more comfort to offer her. All I could do was give her a hug and tell her what I always told myself, that at least we had our memories.

When I returned to the barn and my place at the table, Rachel seemed to sense she had crossed a line. Except for reaching over to give my hand a loving squeeze, she let me alone for a while, remaining silent and simply watching the others around the table. When she finally spoke, it was to point out the various treats, saying who made what, and how. The earlier topic was dropped and all serious conversation avoided, though I sensed we would both spend the rest of the time at the wedding pondering our exchange.

Later that night, when Anna and Tobias’s long wedding day was over, the evening chores done, and I was alone in my bed, Rachel’s words kept replaying in my mind. Truth be told, I didn’t want to believe my current restlessness had anything to do with my dad’s long-ago decision to leave me behind. But once she brought it up, I couldn’t stop wondering if that was part of it, a leftover yearning from childhood.

I hadn’t regretted the decision I’d made in my father’s hotel room. I’d known where I stood with my
Englisch
family—as a distant fourth to their little group of three. There was no room for me in their world.

And I’d always been okay with the trajectory my life had taken after that—or at least I’d told myself I was. Certainly, I could see God’s hand in it. Here on the farm, I had learned what it meant to be Christlike, to be part of a community, to live among people who put their beliefs into practice, day after hardworking day.

On the other hand, I admitted to myself now, I had also sacrificed much by staying here: the presence of my father in my life on a daily basis, any sort of a real relationship with my stepmother, quality time with my little brother, Brady. Once they moved to California when I was eleven, I started going to stay with them for several weeks each summer. But those visits had always been difficult for me. So many elements came into play. My deep affection for Brady. My jealousy over the life he’d been given, one that should have been mine too. My relationship with Liz, who always seemed so uncomfortable when I was around. My resentment toward my father, who acted oblivious to the fact that he’d basically abandoned me after my mother’s death.

Worst of all, I would spend those times feeling like the odd man out, not just because I wasn’t a true part of their family, but because I wasn’t even a true part of the
Englisch
world. I was an Amish boy, and being at my dad’s house only accentuated that.

Yet once I came home, it always took a little while for me to reenter my Amish life. Both worlds were mine, yet in truth neither was. I didn’t really belong there. I didn’t really belong here. I was caught somewhere in the middle, a man without any place at all.