A Simple Autumn: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel (43 page)

The hired driver had taken Jonah to Ira’s place after dropping Annie and her sisters,
Daniel, and Levi off at the Stoltzfus farm. They had waited at the hospital until
Aaron came out of recovery and was resting in a hospital bed, Lovina tucked into a
chair beside him. Although the nurses warned that he was still medicated and resting,
they had filed into the room for reassurance. Despite the tubes running down to his
arm, Aaron had looked like Aaron again,
his face pink and peaceful. Annie had touched his hand. Rebecca had told Levi to blow
his doddy a kiss. Daniel had reassured him that the morning milking would be taken
care of by their neighbor. Jonah had not spoken, but he had made his promise long
ago to keep the farm running, and Aaron knew he could count on him.

Now, as Jonah passed the Stoltzfus farm, he stretched as much as he could in the seat
of the carriage. He was weary to the bone, but rest would be impossible. The incident
with the Jeep pained him, a burr inside him.

He had to make it right.

He reined Jigsaw in at a stop sign and considered how to get to Bishop Samuel’s house
from here. Instead of taking a left toward home, he turned right.

At Samuel Mast’s farm, he found the bishop out behind the barn, mending the latch
on a fence.

Samuel straightened as Jonah approached. “I thought you’d be coming by to see me.”

“And I knew you would have heard what happened.” Word traveled fast in a tight-knit
community like theirs.

“I don’t listen to rumors. But I did hear the story of how you got Aaron to the hospital.
He’s going to be all right?”

Jonah nodded.

“Good.” Samuel closed the gate and removed his gloves. “So you drove an automobile.”
His eyes, cold as ice, were magnified by the lenses of his glasses.

“I did. All the way to Paradise. The Halfway Mill Covered Bridge was damaged by the
rising river, and a horse and buggy couldn’t make it across the pass.

“When we got to Doc Trueherz’s clinic, an ambulance came and took Aaron to the hospital
in Lancaster.”

“Why didn’t you call an ambulance in the first place?”

“There wasn’t time to wait for one. Aaron needed help.” He explained how the doctors
had warned them that Aaron needed to get medical help at the first sign of pain or
discomfort.

“So you broke a rule.” There was a raspy sound as the bishop let out a deep breath.
“We can’t have that, Jonah.”

“I know it was wrong, Bishop. But it was the only way I saw to get Aaron to the doctor.
His heart was in bad shape. He could have died.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful that you saved Aaron’s life. That was a courageous
thing to do, getting the Jeep to ford the river at the pass. But we need to deal with
the fact that you have broken a rule. You drove a car, and that can’t be tolerated.
No exceptions. If one person can drive without any consequence, soon everyone will
be driving a car now and again. I have to talk with the other ministers about this,
but I can tell you now, it must be dealt with. There will be a punishment.”

“I understand.” Jonah closed his eyes as a cold wave of dread slapped over him.

He was going to be shunned.

When the two familiar silos of the farmhouse came into view, Jonah gritted his teeth.
He had never thought he would return home a broken man like this. The bann was something
that happened to other people, not faithful, careful men like him.

He hung his head, wondering what Annie would think of all this. She loved living in
Halfway. She felt a sense of belonging in the
Amish community here. And now, she was courting a man who would be shunned. Even after
the bann ended, the memory of it would hang over Jonah like a dark shadow. Annie wouldn’t
want to be connected to such a person of disgrace.

As his horse clopped down the lane, he saw the children moving furniture from the
storehouse to the main house. The wedding cleanup … he had almost forgotten. The process
of tidying and moving everything back into place would take another day or so.

“Jonah!” Simon and Ruthie put the rocking chair they were carrying onto the ground
to run over to meet him.

“Jonah!” Katie and Sam, little copycats, scampered over behind their older siblings.

The sight of the four of them running to greet him melted the ice in his heart. They
loved him unconditionally, and no sin against the Ordnung or bann from the church
would change that. He stopped the carriage and jumped down. Joy was in the air as
Ruthie and Sam hugged him, Simon patted his back, and Katie grabbed his leg.

“You saved Annie’s dat!” Simon said. “You’re a hero, Jonah.”

“Not a hero,” Jonah said. “Gott saved Aaron.”

“But you helped,” Simon insisted.

“And you’re home at last,” Ruthie said, sounding like a grown-up girl. “We were all
so worried.”

“And now you can help in the cleanup,” Simon said.

“We’re helping!” Sam held up a sponge to prove it.

“It’s good to be home.” Jonah swallowed past the tight knot in his throat. After what
he’d been through in the past day, cleanup sounded like a picnic. “How’s it going?”

“The house is clean.” Simon motioned to the chair, and Ruthie picked up the other
end. “We’re just starting to put the furniture back.”

He looked up to see a line of people carrying furniture from the
storage shed to the house: Adam and Gabe on either end of the daybed; Mary and Five
carrying the sofa; Leah, Susie, and Sadie toting chairs and a small stool.

“You made it back!” Mary called to him.

“Just in time to help with the heavy lifting,” her husband added.

Jonah strode toward them, relieved to be home. “Looks like I should have stayed away
a bit longer, give you a chance to finish.”

“There’s always more work to be done around here,” Adam said.

“I’ll join in, just as soon as I take care of Jigsaw.”

Jonah unhitched the buggy and turned his horse out. Walking up the path to the house,
he was grateful for the sights and sounds of home. The fences that wound down the
hillside to outline the golden fields. Birds circling the pasture, landing, then circling
again. The murmur of cows in the distance and the smell of fresh-baked bread coming
from the kitchen.

Leah held the door for him as he brought a bench inside. Adam took the far end, and
together they lowered the bench to the ground. Remy was setting a platter on the kitchen
table.

“Are you hungry?” Remy asked. “Mary baked two loaves of bread, and I’m carving up
leftover chicken for sandwiches.”

He hadn’t eaten all day. “I think I could polish off a whole chicken by myself.”

She smiled. “Then you’d better get washed up, before your brothers beat you to it.”

Jonah was quiet during the simple meal. He knew there would be time to talk of Aaron
and the Jeep and his punishment in the coming days. Exhaustion pressed upon his warring
thoughts. Part of him craved more meals like this, with everyone gathered around the
table. The other part looked forward to the family branching out and growing … though
right now he couldn’t see how that might happen. Most of all, he was grateful to be
home, where he knew his family accepted him no matter what fate the ministers decided.

Home … where the family sat together for a good meal.

Where Ruthie worried that he looked tired, Simon talked about his horse, and Leah
shared her dream of becoming Emma’s teaching assistant. Where everyone pitched in
to make sure the cows were milked and the chickens tended.

And at the end of the day—a very long day—there was no comfort that could compare
with stretching out on his own bed.

Although Jonah awoke the next morning with a clear head, worry shadowed him throughout
the day as he did his chores at home. He had never been in trouble with the clergy
before. Even during his rumspringa, no one had needed to say a word to him about staying
in line.

But now trouble was brewing like storm clouds in the sky as he headed over to the
Stoltzfus farm. As the horse’s hooves clattered rhythmically on the road, the hammer
of judgment pounded on his back.

And I don’t deserve to be punished
.

He had always been careful to choose the right path. Careful and obedient. He had
a perfect record … a reputation any man could be proud of.

He tipped back his hat as realization dawned. Ya, he’d been proud of his good reputation
in the church. Proud to call himself a faithful Amish man.

And that was wrong. Pride in any form was wrong. Hochmut, they called it.

Maybe it was time to let go of the reputation he valued so dearly and begin to see
himself in a new light: a simple man who worked a simple land.

With the rest of the family working in town or still at the hospital
with Aaron, there was no avoiding Annie. She popped out the side door, her cherry
lips curled in a content smile.

“Good news!” she said. “Dat woke up and was talking last night. He even joked with
Mamm and the doctors.”

“Back to his old self.” Hearing the news about Aaron made his worries seem small.
It was time to step up and be a man, take the punishment handed out and move on. Time
spent worrying about what other people thought about him would be wasted time.

She tilted her head, studying him. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

She had come to know him well. He rubbed his jaw. “I talked with Bishop Samuel yesterday,
and there’s going to be a price to pay for me driving that Jeep. I might have to make
a public confession, and there’s a good chance I’ll be shunned.”

She shook her head. “That seems unfair.”

“It’s what happens when you go against the Ordnung. We both know that. So if you want
to distance yourself from me, I understand. You don’t deserve to be connected to the
kind of disgrace that’ll be coming down on my head.”

“That’s crazy talk.” Annie shook her head, her blue eyes flashing with indignation.
“Jonah King, there is no better man for me than you, and you know it.”

He tipped back his hat and rubbed his temple in weary frustration. “I’m a sinner now.”

“How could I hold that against you? I was there and … do you want to know what I think?
I think the Heavenly Father made sure you were with us, because you are the only Amish
man I know who could think so clearly in a crisis and put us in that Jeep and get
us across the river. You are the only one, Jonah. Gott sent us a miracle, and it’s
you.”

He shook his head. “It’s probably wrong to say those things. I went against the Ordnung,
Annie.”

“That’s right. And that you would be willing to pay that price of
repentance … to be shunned so that you could save my dat …” She frowned. “I’m sorry
for the shame you feel, but if you’ll stop beating yourself up and listen, you’ll
hear that I love you. No matter what the ministers decide. I will always love you.
In good times and bad.”

Her words stopped him in his tracks.

Annie loved him.

Unconditional love … like the love of his brothers and sisters. Like the love of the
Heavenly Father.