Hope Deferred, page 24
He loved old Bob Kel and his wife, Darcy. Their heads were full of family history, of the Kel folklore when their parents and the parents before them moved into the region.
Weather ruled their lives. To plan a day was one thing, but to actually do it was another. Along with Bob and Darcy’s predictions, the weather forecast from the large-screen TV was the most important information in the house.
And, finally, how much did the girl, Ammie, have to do with his staying?
Small, compact, with a riot of curly hair untamed in spite of the ever-present hairband she used to secure it, her skin browned and freckled, her large eyes alive with her love of Australia, and all the challenges each day presented, she was, before long, the light in his life.
At first, her worshipful gaze was a thing he automatically avoided. His teaching lived on in spite of the denial of it. She was an English girl, and Amish boys were strictly verboten to have anything to do with them. Friendships cropped up here and there, even a clandestine relationship occasionally, but they all knew it was not allowed by the parents or the church, which, really were the same thing.
And so he ran from her, at first.
He found himself comparing his relationship with the Kel family to his own family. He’d always gotten along well with his own brothers and sisters, and his parents as much as any rebellious teenager did, but there had always been restrictions on feelings, hidden love, hidden anger, the right answer given to the question thrown out. There was a code of respect, a proper decorum you didn’t cross. Much like the ordnung, there were things you did not say or do if you wanted to keep things running smoothly.
Here with the Kels, there was an open jumble of honesty. No matter if it was displeasure or praise, it was spoken in the voice of blatant truth. Dave found himself wincing on occasion, when fistfights broke out over trivial matters, such as whose fault it was that the gates had not been secured at a certain time, the forgotten shot of antibiotic to a sick horse, or the rolling of the best four-wheeler.
The climate was a never-ending source of wonder for him. The seasons varied with such tremendous variety, from a life-sucking desert climate during the dry season, to torrential downpours and earth-shaking floods accompanied by thunder and lightning the likes of which he had never seen. What he had experienced on his solo trek into the Outback was only a prelude to what he met in the following year.
The only difference was the safety of a home, of human beings who were seasoned Australians and knew the rules of life in the Outback.
Dave’s sense of adventure, that spontaneous passion for danger and excitement, was fulfilled beyond anything he could have imagined. He fit into the well-oiled wheel of Broghurst like an extra spoke that tightened its efficiency. He was smart and hugely energetic, and they elevated him to foreman before the year was out.
The Dry was his favorite season. The dust, the heat, and the flies. Riding endless miles with Ammie by his side, lithe, tanned, her hat hanging by the length of rawhide attached to the brim, her eyes surveying the scrubs, behind trees, beneath clumps of overhanging grasses, and often, those eyes were trained on him.
They were rounding up the cattle on one of the farthest reaches of this vast station, having enough supplies for a week, if need be. Ty and Matt had taken a fork in the road, planned on meeting up with them later, leaving them to spend the night alone.
Was it by design?
Dave was aware of the whole family’s approval of Ammie’s infatuation. He knew, too, he’d be welcomed into the family with open arms, an embrace that would bind him to this beloved family and all the days of excitement and danger he loved.
He’d lost his past, he told himself repeatedly. He never thought about Anna and all that mixture of stupidity and rebellion he’d gone through.
He supposed she was married now, which was okay with him. He was doing well on his own, but often wondered how things were going at home. He questioned his hesitation to place a call, leave a message.
Why didn’t he? For one reason, he didn’t want to stir up feelings of remorse in his parents, and didn’t want to hear the admonishment that was sure to come. He didn’t feel like being reminded of his many failures.
Failure to commit to the church, failure to bow to Anna’s parents in order to win her, failure to stay home and take on the farm, failure to marry a decent girl and keep the thread of tradition that moved among families like an invisible tie.
He thought long and hard about religion after he attended his first Mass. The church was magnificent, the priest resplendent, his voice rising and falling with the ancient sacred prayers, completely incomprehensible to Dave.
Candles flickered, old wood gleamed, gold shone from carved moldings and domed ceilings. Light shone through traditional stained glass that illuminated Jesus in Gethsemane, on the cross, with a sheep in the crook of his arm, dressed as a shepherd.
He watched babies being baptized, thought it quite useless, but was touched by the sincerity of those surrounding the infant. He thought about baptism after that, then got into old volumes of Catholic history he procured from Bob and Darcy’s library.
He immersed himself in this for weeks after, his inquisitive mind darting down one unknown alley, then another, doubled back, gleaned information from so many sources, all building up to the knowledge that this really wasn’t what those first Christians had in mind, was it?
So without realizing what was happening, he was always learning, exploring, justifying his own existence, trying to find a way that would be right for him to stay in Australia.
And he did fall in love with Ammie that night, if physical touch with abandon can be called love.
They rode out together in the morning, bound by a new closeness, their happiness complete, their life before them with all the sunshine of boundless possibilities.
Ammie was beyond being bound by earth, her spirits soaring like the eagle that rode the warm currents of air swirling above the vast, untrammeled land. She was free to love Dave, unhampered by rules or restrictions, her acquisition blessed by her parents and brothers.
As time went on, he considered marriage, a home of his own, but could never quite acquire a sense of happiness.
He spent his days without thinking of the future, spent all his time with Ammie, learned to know her as well as he had ever known Anna. Where Anna had been conventional, withdrawn, hiding true feelings of attraction, Ammie was a gift of free-flowing words and feelings. Her love was a benediction, her happiness infectious. She was always moving, laughing, talking, a whirlwind of tanned, freckled beauty with riotous curls that blew in the ever-present wind.
The family began to wonder when the announcement would be made, bringing up suggestive questions whenever they were together.
Late one evening, lingering over a large roaster of beef and potatoes, Ammie seated beside Dave, Ty watched both of them with a secretive smile playing around the corners of his mouth.
“So Dave, when is the big announcement coming?”
Dave looked up, a cautious look pinched his features.
“What?”
“You know.”
He felt the heat creep over his face, kept his features arranged in what he hoped was impassive.
“Ain’t it time you two was engaged?”
Once, when he was twelve, Dave had caught a bird, a small, round bird that hung around the perimeter of the vegetable patch. He built a spectacular home for it, made from chicken wire and two by fours with a rubber sheet for a roof. He fed the bird berries and grass, nuts and seeds and fat juicy grasshoppers, but he could never stop it from its relentless journey of going back and forth, back and forth, as it sought its freedom.
His father told him it was a bobwhite, and that he should release it, as it likely had a mate. He’d heard the distinctive call from beneath the wild raspberries at the edge of the garden. The bobwhite died in the end. He’d come out to find a small pile of brown feathers huddled in the corner, as if the bird had walked itself to its death.
This was how he felt. Trapped. Trapped in a vast expanse bigger than he could have imagined. His beloved Outback closed in on him until his throat constricted and the blood pulsed in his veins, producing the dark color in his face.
He found Ammie’s eyes on his, the light of worship, of ownership that brought him an intense longing to flee.
Like the brown bird.
The evening ended with light banter, a crema cake served with cups of strong tea, a loving look from Bob and Darcy, and one he could not understand from Sal.
She caught him in the kitchen, confronted him with all the ferocious squawking of a mother hen. “You know, sonny, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. You do right by this girl. She loves you and you’re not running from her. You hear?”
Dave nodded. Kept his eyes averted.
“Look at me.”
He did and his gaze was the first to drop.
He spent days, weeks, sorting through his feelings. He really thought he had been through with his past, but did anyone ever completely shake off the upbringing of his youth? How did one go about being English without dragging along the guilt of having been Amish?
What was the difference between guilt and traditional values that stuck like unwanted burrs to socks and pants legs?
He finally concluded that perhaps none of it made any difference. He simply had a feeling of wrongness that was like building a tower of wooden blocks that leaned slightly, and you knew the fall was inevitable.
He didn’t really love Ammie in the true sense of the word. It had been more of a giving in, of pitying her too much to say no. In any other circumstance, he might have avoided her advances, but he had been lonely, her devotion comfortably inflating his ego, coupled with the brothers’ avid approval.
But how to disengage himself?
Dave’s existence became complicated and peppered with indecision. Days on the farm when life was full of comfort and without the searing regret of hurting his parents seemed like a mirage, an oasis of the mind.
He thought of his excursions on the pony cart with Anna, their times of fishing on the Pequea Creek. He found himself heaving with sobs of what might have been, his pillow wet with tears.
He remained bound to Ammie during this time, working side by side, his body lean and muscular, his skin tanned a deep bronze, his face taking on the craggy handsomeness of a wealth of experience, having survived the heat and drought, the hailstorms and wind and floods of the Outback.
He had experienced love and loss, reveled in rebellion and the audacity to leave, to fly into the great blue expanse of sky to the ends of the earth. It showed in the set of his mouth, in the deep color of his eyes, the strength in his neck and jaw. He had always been a handsome young man, with the smooth good look of his youth. But now his face was arresting, a singular poignancy of expression that only served to enhance his well-proportioned features. His hair remained long and wavy, shot through with streaks of blond, the look most hairstylists endeavor to achieve, charging a hundred dollars or more, with far lesser results.
He found himself being distracted, no longer caring about the success of the station, or the turn of a good profit from year to year.
He knew each time Sal and Watson rolled home in the Land Rover, a cloud of dust billowing behind them, their faces wreathed in smiles, that they had been to town for a visit with the accountant. A large bonus would follow. His bank account was lined with these profits, for which he was grateful, but he knew, too, that it was just another reason for the parents to put more pressure on a commitment from him.
So where was God in all this? He wondered about the God he grew up with. The One he had cried to when his life hung in the balance. Did He care whether he stayed or if he went back home? Was it okay to turn Catholic? It wasn’t that much different, was it?
Well, he’d leave it to God, at any rate. He was not sure about anything, so he’d bide his time and see what happened.
He realized he was a fledgling doubter. His thoughts went one way, then the other like waves of the sea. A doubter is unstable in all his ways, the preachers used to say. He always visualized a bucking horse, bucking and kicking, unseating riders just to be, well . . . unstable.
As he felt most of the time.
When Sal told Dave there was a message on the phone for him, her voice was unusually soft. “You’ll want to listen to it right away,” she said, giving him a sympathetic look.
He picked up the phone, pressed the voice mail button. It was Mam and she was crying.
“I don’t know if you’re even there anymore,” she said between sobs. “But your father . . .” here there was a long pause, during which Dave could hear a sort of whimpering. “Dave, he died. He’s gone.” And that was it.
For a long moment, Dave stared off across the room, seeing nothing. It was only when the living room coffee table took on a life of its own that Dave realized the blurry movement of the wood was the tears awash in his squinted eyes.
Oh, Dat. Dat. My father.
There was a hand on his back.
“You okay?” Sal asked.
Dave nodded.
He had to go back. His mother. All his brothers.
Everyone. Anna and her parents. Uncles. Cousins. The whole lot.
He turned to go outside, to be alone.
Ammie followed him, put her arms around him and murmured endearments, held him as he heaved with sobs of remorse.
She told him he had to go.
“You’ll be back, Dave. You love it here. I’ll be waiting for you, waiting till you come back to me, okay?”
So great was her unselfish love, the confidence she placed in their union, that she helped him book a flight, pack his things, find suitable clothes to wear on the return trip home.
She kissed him, held him, spoke of her undying love, which was followed with many more hugs and words of comfort, hand clasping, and good-natured thumps on his back.
“See ya round.” From Ty.
“Git back soon’s you can.”
“Stay long enough to comfort your mother, okay Dave?” This from Darcy, her old eyes swimming in tender sympathy.
He left amid waves until the clouds of dust obscured them all and there was only the brown dirt and scraggly bushes surrounding them. He hadn’t called home to let his mother know he’d be coming. He told himself there wasn’t time, but he knew that was ridiculous. He knew he owed her an explanation for all the times he hadn’t returned her calls, for not coming home when he said he would before. It would be better just to show up, to make amends in person.
At the nearest town, they got into the small Cessna, a two-passenger lightweight plane that flew him into the afternoon sky and whisked him away.
He gazed down on the awesome distance of this still, dry land that stretched from one horizon to the other, dotted with gum trees and kangaroo grass, eucalyptus trees, endless dust and red ocher ranges, billabongs.
He marveled at his own suffering, his close proximity to death, his lack of experience, the stupidity of abandoning his vehicle. So easily, he could have succumbed to the heat and the drought, been washed away and drowned by the ironic rush of far too much water, when all he’d wanted was enough to quench the biting, clawing thing that was his thirst.
Involuntarily, he snorted.
The pilot, an old grizzled man of almost eighty years old, slanted him a derisive look of impatience, then went back to his control panel.
“You see that thar river?”
Dave’s eyes swept the area below, but couldn’t see a river at all.
“No.”
“Well, it’s dry now. But you can see where the water will go, when them storms hit. Looks like a worm. There, to your right.”
Dave shrugged, pretended to see what he should.
“You know, that’s what happens to blow-ins. They git caught.”
“I should know,” Dave answered, and set to the telling of his story, resulting in one delighted cackle after another, much thumping of his palm on his thighs, accompanied by head shaking and exclamations of wonder.
“You know, folks is green. They ain’t got no experience. They just full o’ themselves. This land is something to reckon with.”
Amen to that, Dave thought, but only smiled and nodded.
Darwin was much as he remembered, the same beautiful city with many buildings that never spoke of the realities that lay on the outskirts.
Dave still harbored a sense of regret about not viewing the ocean or the tropical regions, but he could not bring himself to the assurance that he would return. First, he had to face the demons that had driven him from Lancaster in the past.
His stomach lurched as the stark reality of his father’s passing hit him with the force of a blunt object. Oh God. It was a bad dream from which he could never wake up. His father was dead.
His quiet, easygoing father, who walked around the farm and accomplished a great deal with a minimal amount of effort, taking life as it rolled by, never losing his temper, or his good humor. And now he’d never be able to say goodbye, to tell him he shouldn’t have gone away.
His father would have told him not to worry. Everything was fine. He was forgiven. Some boys just have to experience stuff, learn the hard way it would all come out in the wash.
“It’s all right.”
Dave could hear his father’s voice. How often had he used this simple phrase? And how often had it done just that? Set everything right.
He walked the streets of the city in the dense night air thick with wheeling insects around the streetlamps and talked to his father, begged forgiveness, and cried. Over and over, remorse overtook his ability to return to normal thoughts, only to be bludgeoned by reality as unforgiving and cruel as any torture device.
On the plane he slept fitfully, jammed against the window, a large, rather brutish fellow wedged in the seat beside him, who snored openmouthed or ate a prodigious amount of broken pretzels from a bag with British logos. It was like being seated beside a horse with a never-ending supply of shelled corn.
