Hope Deferred, page 29
There was a light of God’s love, the warm rays of His mercy and understanding. His understanding was so brilliant. Dave closed his eyes momentarily.
He felt blinded. Dazzled.
He had not known he was stumbling in darkness, or felt rejected by life. He’d merely found a job in which he could lose all thought, drive himself to the limit, and set God handily on the back shelf. But here He was, in the form of this quiet, brooding dark-haired girl who was very clearly somehow meant for him.
He was awed by the power of His direction.
All this went through Dave’s thoughts in a moment. The beauty of God’s knowledge was the still small voice of His Spirit, come to visit him in the middle of a very noisy, overflowing restaurant in Ephrata.
When Dave looked at her, his heart shone from his eyes, his smile so genuine it took away the stony reserve Rose had built around herself.
“That’s a relief.”
“Why do you care?”
“Look. Rose. We need to talk sometime, okay?”
“Not now.”
“Where do you live?”
She inclined her head. “Over toward Lititz.”
“Can I call you?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“May I have your number?”
She nodded, but did not move away immediately. Instead, she paused and looked into his eyes for the first time. There was mystery in those dark eyes, but there was also the beginning of access into the story of her life.
He called her that evening. Their conversation lasted approximately one hour and forty-five minutes. In the remaining time between the forty-five and fifty minutes he asked her for a date.
A real drive clear over to her house with his Amish horse and buggy kind of date.
She said yes, and he cried, later.
He wallowed in tears and sobs, releasing the pent-up hurts and frustrations, the rebellion and inability to conform to Elias and Barbie and Anna. He cried because he walked away from his vehicle in the arid Outback and very nearly lost his life while he was saddled with hatred and unforgiveness. Because he still hadn’t made things right with Ammie, hadn’t ever contacted her after he left.
He realized he was among those who stood at the foot of the cross and was sorry for all his past sins and that there was enough blood shed to save him, same as everyone else.
And he cried even more.
The night was mild, scented with roses that needed trimming, the arborvitae bushes hosting the unwieldy growth that straggled across them. Their fragrance reached his bedroom window along with the smell of mown hay and an essence of the clear, dark pond surrounded by bulrushes and dotted with lily pads. The chugging of the frogs was in harmony with the incessant monotone of the pronounced fact that Katy-did, whatever it was that she actually did.
Sleep completely left him. He could hardly believe the warm beauty of the summer night, the week that stretched before him like a path so bright and beckoning with the promise of a life changed for the better. There was purpose and understanding, victory over the bitterness that repeatedly dragged him under, leaving him confused and disoriented.
To comprehend forgiveness was a gift in itself. That was the one ingredient that had been missing half his life. Forgive himself for being unable to accept the rules that had been set for Anna. Forgive himself for not being there for his father. Forgive all his past sins, the parties, the fast pace, the blindness that drove him to substance abuse.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His Son.” The verse went on, but it had never meant anything until now. It pulsed in his veins and brought discovery and understanding. He truly believed God sent His only begotten Son, and all you had to do was believe and all the missing pieces of life’s puzzle would fall into place.
Joining the church was no longer the heavy weight he had always imagined. This was what he wanted to do now, to be baptized into a body of believers, to be a joy and a balm to his grieving mother. He wanted to embrace his brothers, tell his sister MaryAnn, shout out to the whole world that God loved everyone, that Jesus was on the cross. He really had been there. And he rose victorious, and so could everyone who believed.
For the first time in his life, it was all right that Anna had married Leon. God loved them too. This was his path, and this was what God had intended way back when he stood on the threshold of damnation.
He shivered, but was comforted by his first real attempt at a prayer that was saturated with love and acceptance.
Their first date was a time of overcoming his own fear and awkwardness, a time of practicing the newfound confidence in God and his leading.
Rose was not Anna. This he discovered the first hour. She was quiet, content to maintain a conversation, not lead it, so before he realized it, he was talking incessantly, saying things that weren’t proper for a first date.
Her home was a small brick ranch house set beneath a few pines, with a growth of shrubs, the usual Amish housewife’s profusion of summer flowers, a clothesline that ran on a wheel attached to the small barn, a large well-kept garden, a few outbuildings all set beside a sleepy country road.
“My parents are retired,” she said.
He nodded, followed her into the house to greet them, and was rewarded with a firm handshake from a tall, dark-complected, white-haired old man with a genuine grin of acceptance. His wife was small, a bit round, with the same dark eyes and graying hair.
She looked up at Dave and said, “Well, hello, young man. So this is who you are.”
He asked Rose what she meant by that, and Rose shook her head, laughed, and said she couldn’t take responsibility for everything her mother said.
He fell in love with her dry sense of humor, her endless knowledge of books and places and things. Her brooding eyes came alive with interest when they discovered they’d read many of the same books.
“So why do you read so much?” he asked.
They were seated on the back patio in the soft waning light, with tall glasses of mint tea. The air was warm but not uncomfortably so. Crickets of late summer chirped beneath the patio, grasshoppers whirred in the garden, and small moths and mosquitoes circled the birdbath set in the begonias.
The home was so ordinary, so comfortable and unassuming.
Dave felt a sense of home, of belonging that he had never experienced at Elias Fisher’s. There was no need to be pretentious, to watch your manners or your words, to sit properly and smile widely and aim to impress the hovering authority.
These people were common, middle-class Amish who had always worked at menial jobs, never owned a farm, never “got ahead,” but who carried the aura of contentment, satisfied to let others build palatial homes or buy that second or third farm. They had raised a small family, lived on a modest income, and that was fine with them.
Dave had noticed the magazines strewn around the recliners. Not the normal publications other Amish families received in the mail, he thought, which explained Rose and her insatiable appetite for books. He looked forward to long conversations with her father.
She leaned back, clasped her long slender fingers around her knee, looked at him to answer his question.
“I just love to read. It’s simple, really.”
“Don’t you run around much?”
“You mean on the weekends with the group I belong to?”
“Yeah.”
“I do. But . . . it’s boring. I have a few good girlfriends, but their endless chatter about stupid things really gets to me. The books they read, their view of the world goes no further than their dress fabric and what’s new at Kohl’s.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry. That sounds grosfeelich.”
“No, no. I know exactly how you feel.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. It’s easy to become bored.”
“I’ve often thought about being born Amish. It really hems you in. If I was English, I’d further my education. Go to college, probably go to graduate school.”
“What would you study?”
“I have no idea. Something. Actually, I’m just saying all this to impress you.”
He laughed, enjoying the playful challenge in her eyes.
There was no curfew. The parents retired about ten o’clock, the lights blinked out, and they were left on their own. They lit a fire in the firepit, made chocolate and peanut butter s’mores, drank strong coffee, and talked about every single thing they had ever lived through. Or so it felt.
Midnight came and went. Reluctant to end the evening, Dave kept making excuses, saying he didn’t have church, and she didn’t either. Church services among the Amish were held every two weeks, and this was an “off” Sunday.
She was fascinated by his Australia stories. She loved hearing about the hard work, the weather pattern, the Kels. But she became unsettled when he spoke of Ammie.
“You need to call her. That’s not right to leave her without hearing from you. I don’t care if she is an English girl that ran after you.”
He blushed to the roots of his hair, felt terribly chastised and deeply ashamed. The following week he did what she told him and made that phone call, hearing the voice of the past, his energetic, sunny Ammie.
He apologized, said he got tangled in his Amish culture, could see it would never work to go back to Australia.
“Then why didn’t you call?”
Her voice carried thousands of miles and stung him efficiently.
“I’m sorry. I was being a coward.”
“Worse than a coward. You’re just like all the other blokes. They come and go, don’t give two hoots about girls like me. You better never come back or my dad will beat your boots off.”
Click. The whirring of dead reception.
He felt really rotten the following day, chiding himself mentally. It was Ammie, but it wasn’t just her. How many hearts had he trampled on, too selfish or too scared to treat them with any kind of meaningful care? When it came down to it, hadn’t it been the same way with Anna, with his parents, with pretty much anyone who had ever cared about him? He wrote Ammie a long letter of apology and told Rose that he’d done so. He had half hoped that she would praise him for doing the right thing finally, but she made no comment, just searched his eyes with her own, as if trying to gauge whether she could trust him. It made his heart sting, knowing she had every reason to second-guess their own blooming friendship.
A new problem arose in the form of Rose laughing and talking to the customers at work, having woken from her self-inflicted brooding.
The truth was, Dave was everything she had dreamed he would be. She was crazy about him. She loved his grin, his eyes that danced with the fervor of life, his hands that were so calloused they did not feel human. She loved the way he dressed, his trousers low on his hips, the expensive shirts, and the way he cut his hair. To be so in love was an awakening, a blessing from the God she had learned about at her mother’s knee, the Jesus and his disciples in the Bible storybooks. She had never experienced any major event where God was concerned, but He had always been there, received her prayers and concerns, and now, her praise.
So her eyes shone with a new light, her smile flashed, and the men at the diner responded with long looks that Dave found unacceptable.
He told her about it, when they were driving the twelve miles to his sister MaryAnn’s house one evening in late summer.
“Oh, come on, Dave. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m just happy.”
“Well, some of those men are too happy, and you know it.”
“Well, maybe so. But no one is serious.”
“I am.”
She stared straight ahead, watched the easy, light-footed trot of this beautiful black Friesian. His Ferrari. She grinned. She loved Dave’s sense of humor, his knowledgeable way of talking. And now he was jealous, and she could not hide her pleasure at his self-imposed misery.
“You’re serious about what?”
“You. I don’t want you flirting with those men.”
“I’m not flirting, Dave.”
“Yes, you are.”
That was unfair. Her temper flared.
“Think what you want, but I am not a flirt. I don’t want those men’s admiration or any other attention. You’re just sitting there with your childish jealousy. I didn’t think you were that stupid.”
Dave bristled, his retort sounding harsher than he intended. “You didn’t used to be that kind of girl.”
“You want to know why I am now? Because I’m happy I found you.”
That statement turned the tide immediately and threw a whole new light on the reason for her dancing eyes and wide smile. His heart pounded, wondering if he should try to kiss her. That had been quite a statement, almost as if she’d told him she loved him.
Wow.
He glanced at her. He drove with one hand, slowly drew his arm up over her head to rest on her shoulders, his hand drawing her close to his side. His heart beat so loudly his eyes clouded over and he could barely see to drive. The close proximity of the buggy was a perfect haven for young love.
They had held hands sometimes, but he had never ventured further into the world of physical closeness. Thoroughly burned by his past relationship with the dear love of his life, forced to accept convictions that were not his own, and then having ventured too far with Ammie, in what he now recognized as lust, he floated in indecision, hesitant to talk about it with Rose.
She did nothing to make it easier, the way she sat on her side of the buggy without leaning in. He had a hard time driving this way, felt awkward and foolish, so he slid his arm along the back of the seat and placed it in the normal position, holding the reins.
There was an uncomfortable silence, which neither one knew how to alleviate, so the moment passed, and normal conversation resumed.
The truth for her was that she had never been in a close embrace with a man and certainly had never been kissed. She desperately did not want Dave to suspect this, so she had no intention of leading him on, before they discussed it, at least.
What if he found her repulsive? What if the English girl still held a piece of his heart? No, it wasn’t worth the risk.
MaryAnn noticed a stiffness, a sense of unease between them. It ruined her evening, being receptive to all manners of moods and feelings, always thinking the worst about any given situation. So when they called it a night before eleven o’clock, she was hugely relieved, fussed up a storm to her laconic husband, and went to bed without sleeping, got up and flounced on the recliner to spend a miserable night.
Dave was simply a constant cause of worry. If he wasn’t whacking around in unfit terrain with that piece of equipment he called a skidder, he was dating girls who looked like models and didn’t really want him all that much.
Rose was gorgeous, like her name. A dark rose. So reserved and elegant. Willowy, like an exotic princess. Likely she could have anyone she set eyes on. Not that Dave wasn’t a catch, but still.
He seemed red faced and downright bumbling when he was with her. Rose made him feel that way, she guaranteed.
Why couldn’t he be normal like his brothers? Content to marry a normal girl and settle down to a normal life? It was exhausting, always worrying about what would happen to him next.
CHAPTER 26
LEON QUICKLY MOVED UP THE RANKS OF THE CONSERVATIVE CHURCH THEY attended, his zeal to be a true servant of God taking him to the poorest neighborhoods in the surrounding cities in Pennsylvania. As he had always done, he gave most of their income to the poor, the suffering, the addicted, which left Anna to get a job or be evicted.
She never spoke of this to her parents, who were supportive now, after the initial hurt of having a daughter leave the fold. They still had a deep-seated respect for Leon, and as the months wore on and they heard Anna’s stories of his work in the church, they felt justified, secure in the choice they had made for their daughter.
Anna went online, received her GED, found a job at Mission for Jesus Elder Care Center and secured a reliable babysitter for her children. She found solace in caring for the aging people who were left to live their lives in the keeping of strangers. Her soft heart was warmed by the menial tasks of being responsible for their comfort and well-being.
They called her Angel, and she deserved every ounce of praise she received, moving in and out of rooms with her pastel-colored dresses that reached to the floor.
It was only after the shift was over, and she drove the battered little Subaru home, her children dirty and disheveled after the babysitter’s lack of care, as her hands gripped the steering wheel till her knuckles turned white and her nails bit into the palms of her hands, that she allowed tears of frustration and weariness to course down her wan cheeks.
Hidden from her parents and Leon, maneuvering through the traffic on 283, she was truly in touch with who she really was, which was becoming harder and harder to decipher.
She was tired, that was all.
Her love for Leon was still there, but it was only her teaching that supported it. “Wives, love your husbands in the Lord.” It was burned into the soul of her existence, and she remained obedient to every admonition.
She never spoke ill of him, even if the financial responsibility was sometimes overwhelming. She learned to cook with even less, to buy all her clothes at Goodwill, praised God for yard sales and the kindness of well-to-do people who allowed her to fill a grocery bag with items for a dollar. The old house was cold in winter and hot in summer, but she still kept it neat and tidy, the garden weeded, and the lawn mowed. She canned and froze vegetables late at night, smiled at her husband as he sat peeling peaches after the children were in bed. Her thoughts were not always in the same kitchen, but in her past, when life had been joyous and, if not carefree, at least easier to handle.
The conclusion that God wanted her to be here with Leon was restful, and she grew in grace and servitude. When he asked her to go to the city of Lancaster to minister to the poor, she agreed readily enough, found someone to keep the children for one Saturday, packed a cooler with food and drinks, looked over the pamphlets Leon had printed and slid a bundle into her own purse in order to stand beside her husband to distribute them.
