A Simple Hope: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel (13 page)

“Good, because I just spotted Abe Zook, and I haven’t seen him for two weeks at least,” Dat said. “Let me ask him when he’s planning to step up the hours at Zook’s barn for the spring season.”

“There’s something we forgot today,” James said as Peter pushed him over toward a group of young men gathering by a fence. “When we get home, you and Luke need to hide those colored eggs out in the orchard. Just at the edge of the yard.”

“The Easter egg hunt. I can’t believe Mamm and Dat forgot.”

“They’ve had their hands full this year,” James said. “But I think Hannah, Lovina, and Mark will enjoy searching for eggs. Maybe even Verena. Thirteen isn’t too old to have a little fun.”

“You’re never too old to have fun,” Peter said.

Looking ahead at Peter’s friends, Amish youth still in their rumspringa, James knew his brother truly hoped to enjoy everlasting fun. Peter was still feeling his oats, enjoying the singings and youth events, driving different girls home on different nights. He had fitted his buggy with a boom box, and he’d even taken a job busing tables at a diner in Halfway to make more money for Englisher things, like movies and a cell phone.

By contrast, Peter’s twin, Luke, said he was aiming to be baptized in the fall. Luke had been keeping company with Deb Fisher since he’d started rumspringa, and though he enjoyed taking his buggy out, his heart was at home, caring for the team of horses, the chickens, and the milk cows.

By the time Peter and James were halfway down the lane, Peter’s group was hopping the fence, heading down to the pond, probably to skip rocks and maybe even dip their feet into the cold water before it was their turn to sit and eat church supper.

“Looks like your friends are off to the pond for a swim,” James teased.

“They’ll freeze if they do. We were just ice-skating on that pond last month.”

“Hold on there.” James stopped the wheelchair, knowing there was no way he’d be venturing down to the pond right now. He glanced over to the greenhouse, where Rachel stood talking with a few other young women.

“Go on and follow your friends and you’ll be off the hook for babysitting me.”

“I don’t mind,” Peter said earnestly as he came around the chair. He pointed to the far fence. “I can wheel you through the gate. Trust me, I’ll get you down to the water.”

“Nay. Go on. I’ll go talk to Rachel, and I can get there on my own steam. These arms know how to turn a wheel.”

Tipping his hat back, Peter smiled. “If you say so.”

The young women were chatting and giggling together, but when James approached, they went silent. Hannah Stoltzfus had to press her lips together to hold in the little peeps of laughter, and Becky Yoder stared down at the ground. That was normal—the self-conscious feeling that came over a group of girls or fellas around the opposite gender.

But as soon as Emma Lapp asked how he was feeling, the doleful looks and words of sympathy gushed out. The girls’ sad faces were enough to send James wheeling in the opposite direction. He didn’t need their pity; he was crippled, not dead. Besides that, he was determined not to stay this way.

The Amish community had given him financial and moral support. James was thankful for everything, but he had no use for their pity.

“Rachel,” James said, cutting right to the point, “will you walk with me up to the house?”

“Sure.”

She pushed his wheelchair over to the simple white farmhouse with black trim. James put the brakes on his chair, and Rachel sat on the edge of the wooden porch, a height that was better for conversation.

“I barely slept a wink last night, thinking about things,” Rachel admitted. “What I told you about living away from a farm or orchard … it’s true, James. I can think of nothing more wonderful good than painting all through the morning, afternoon, and night. But I didn’t mean that I’m happy you’re in that chair right now. You know I pray every day for Gott to heal you.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “When I lose patience, it’s with myself, not you.”

“I wish there was some way I could help you,” she said, her voice hoarse with tears. “But you keep closing the door on me, James. You’ve got to stop doing that. Please, let me in.”

Looking over at the flush of heat on her cheeks and the sparkle of tears in her sky-blue eyes, James felt his throat grow tight. He hated to see her cry over him. He had wanted to be with Rachel since the summer of long ago when she had been one of the Amish youths hired on to help harvest the fruit at the Lapp orchard. He remembered the way she had climbed the ladders, the graceful sweep of her slender arm as she reached for a ripe peach. The way sunshine bathed her golden hair and white kapp, her rose-colored dress and sun-bronzed skin.

She had stolen his heart back then. And now that he knew her well, he couldn’t picture his life without her. He would never love any other woman the way he loved Rachel King.

And it was because he loved her that he needed to do this.

For the first time, he could see what he would have to do. And the terrible truth took the breath from his body, like a stab in the chest.

He had to stop pressing his burden upon her shoulders. He would not saddle Rachel with the chores of tending to him. He would not be the leper who made her friends look uncomfortable when he came over. If Rachel got stuck with him, she might as well be crippled, too, and he would not—he
could not
—do that to her.

“Since the accident, I’ve had a lot of time to think.” Days and nights, endless hours. “I’ve been praying, too. And I think Gott is showing me what must be done.”

“That’s good,” she said encouragingly.

He turned away. He couldn’t bear to see the openness in her smile, the spark of interest in her eyes.

“Here’s the truth. You and me, we don’t belong together.”

“What?” Her head snapped toward him so fast, one of her kapp strings went flying. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re free to go court other fellas.”

“Are you verhuddelt?” She squinted at him. “Why would I do
that, when I want to be with you? See, this is what I mean. Every time I get close to you, you slam a door in my face.”

He hadn’t expected her to argue. He closed his eyes and took a breath as he remembered the many things they had in common. Their enjoyment of ice-skating and Wiffle ball, Jenga and ice cream. How they had worked side by side in the orchard, talking and humming as the baskets filled with peaches and pears. The way they could finish each other’s sentences and make each other laugh.

“You can’t say we don’t belong together, because you know it’s not true,” she finished.

“We’ve had some good times,” he admitted, keeping his voice low so that all of the congregation wouldn’t hear them. “But the past is long gone. Things have changed, and you need to accept that. I’ve changed. I’m not the man I used to be.” The words stuck in his mouth like peanut butter, but he had to say it. “I can’t be your beau, Rachel. You deserve a man who can stand on his own two feet, a man who can make a life with you. That’s not me. Not anymore.”

She swiped tears from her cheeks, then leaned forward from the edge of the porch. “I can accept a lot of things, but I’m not going to let you push me away. I’m just going to make like you never said those things.”

“Rachel, I’m doing this for your own good.”

“Who are you to say what’s good for me?” She lifted her chin toward the spring sky. “For that, I count on Gott in heaven.” She rose, smoothing down the skirt of her dress. “I’m going back to my friends. And I’m going to give you a chance to think about everything you said. You’ve got one strike, like in baseball.” She put her hands on her hips and leaned forward, her brows knit together in a stern expression. “But no more strikes. You don’t want to get an out.”

Dazed, James watched her walk away. Who would have thought Rachel had that spunk? He had expected the tears, but not the
struggle of a defiant horse. Confusion roiled inside him as he maneuvered his chair away from the house, away from Rachel and her friends, away from the prying eyes of Amish folk who had gathered to chat before the meal.

Suddenly, the chair listed to the side and sank down.

James braced himself as the wheelchair fell back and settled into a furrow. Ach! Just what he didn’t need! He pushed with all his might, but the wheel on the right side was clearly caught in a rut.

“James, are you stuck?” Dat emerged from a group of men, along with his friend Alvin Yoder. Together, the two men lifted that side of the chair and pushed until it had traction on the packed dirt again. James kept quiet the whole time, but it didn’t matter, as Dat and Alvin kept up their conversation about the high price of land in Lancaster County.

Without giving James a choice, they wheeled him over to sit beside Jacob Fisher’s wheelchair.

“Those are some fat tires you got on that chair,” Jacob said, squinting as he stared down at the wheels.

“It’s an all-terrain chair,” James explained. “It’s supposed to go anywhere. But it doesn’t. I still get stuck.”

“Ya. There’s always some sticky patches in life that pull us in from time to time,” Jacob said. “Wheelchair or not.”

In the past, James had steered clear of old Jacob, who was stern and brisk, nothing like Elmo Lapp, who prided himself on making folks smile. Yet despite Jacob’s prickly mood, many men came over to visit with him. Listening to the others talk, James felt abandoned, like a man lost in the woods.

As the men conversed and chuckled, he dreamed of escape. If he had his legs, he would jump in his buggy and leave. He snorted. Ya, but if he had his legs, he wouldn’t be wanting to leave. He would be helping the men move benches, or tossing stones into the pond,
or teasing Rachel about the gmay cookies she’d made for the children to have during church.

Instead, he was stuck here, waiting on others to wait on him. He sank into himself and prayed that Gott would not leave him to be half a man forever.

E
motion was a knot in Rachel’s throat from the time James had words with her, through the noon lunch at the Beilers’ place, a nice social affair with homemade bread, ham, two kinds of cheese, peanut butter spread, pickles, red beets, hot peppers, and large gmay and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. All that time, Rachel put on a good, social face, smiling at the little ones and helping to clear away plates. When friends talked about the singing that night, she smiled along, though she knew she wouldn’t be going. She had no desire to be there without James, and he had no desire to be with her.

As the King family left the gathering, she pushed back her own ache to talk with her sisters, who shared the backseat of the buggy driven by Jacob. Rose was concerned because she didn’t know how to tell if a boy liked her from the way he acted.

“He clams up when his friends are around,” Rose explained. “But when we were pouring lemonade, he was a chatterbox. He said he could come to our house for dinner sometime.”

“If he wants to come by for dinner, then I’d say Eli Esh fancies you,” Rachel said.

“That’s what I thought.” Rose folded her arms as she sat back in the buggy seat. “But Ben said he’s probably just coming around for Mamm’s pie.”

“Ben is pulling your leg. Such a joker.”

“Hmph.” Rose’s eyes narrowed. “I have half a mind to tell him that Hannah Stoltzfus is only spending time with him because of the music system in his buggy.”

“Now, don’t go tit for tat. Be happy that Eli wants to come to dinner. Maybe Mamm will make her fried chicken when he comes ’round.”

“Maybe.”

“Does Eli like fried chicken?” Molly piped in.

“Everybody likes Mamm’s fried chicken,” Rose assured her.

The smiles of Rachel’s sisters and the clip-clop patter of Pansy’s hooves helped to soothe that cold knot as they headed down the road to cousin Adam King’s farm, where they would be visiting this afternoon. This was a part of the family they were very close to, on account of working together in the cheese business and being just a few miles down the road from each other. A terrible sadness had swept through their family a couple years back when Rachel’s aunt and uncle, Esther and Levi King, had been killed so suddenly in the dead of winter. Those were long days of heartache, but Gott was there to give the family strength for every hill they had to climb.

Cousin Adam and his wife, Remy, were now the heads of the house, though they had plenty of help with the farm and the little ones from older cousins like twenty-three-year-old Jonah; Gabe, who was eighteen; and fifteen-year-old twins Leah and Susie.

As Pansy turned down the lane to the Kings’ farm, Rachel felt her worries ease a bit more at the prospect of seeing her cousin Sadie, her good friend who was back from Philadelphia for a visit.
Nineteen-year-old Sadie had left home last summer, and Rachel feared that Sadie might never come back from that different fork in the road.

Mamm and Dat’s buggy was ahead of theirs, and already cousin Simon was patting their horse, getting ready to unhitch and give Banjo a break. Off to the right, Mammi Nell, cousin Mary, and Remy sat at a picnic table, watching as a vigorous game of kickball was being played on the gently sloping green lawn. Rachel searched her cousins for the dear girl who was like a sister to her.