Adoring Addie (27 page)

When Jonathan didn't budge, Dirk stepped to the end of the bed and shook his finger at his son. “We'd best be going. Now.”

“Jah,” Daed said. “That's what we want too. For you to go.” He tugged on his beard. “We appreciate your forgiveness, but past that we're in complete agreement,” he said. “We don't want the two to marry either. Go along, Jonathan. All of us need to get back to how things were two weeks ago. Addie has a beau waiting for her answer.”

I groaned. “Daed.”

He looked at me, a befuddled look on his face.

In a pleading tone that surprised me, Mutter said, “Cap—”

But he interrupted her with “You've done quite enough as it is. Let me handle this.” He turned to Jonathan. “Go on.”

Jonathan didn't budge. “No,” he said. “I won't. We want to court.”

“I feel the same,” I interjected.

Jonathan continued. “We hope to marry.” He turned to me. “If you'll have me.”

“Jah, of course,” I whispered.

Both Daed and Dirk stepped toward him, but Mutter stood,
stopping them as she positioned herself in front of Jonathan. “You two, listen.” First she looked at Daed. “Don't think it's escaped me that you haven't offered your forgiveness. Nor should you yet. I know we have a lot to work out. But that doesn't mean we let all of that get in the way of our daughter's happiness. I already ruined Nell's life—I'm not going to ruin my daughter's too.”

My eyes grew wide.

“And you, Dirk Mosier. Maybe you want to see us hurt—maybe even see our daughter hurt—but don't hurt your son. He's kind and generous. Good to Addie and her Bruders. He's the one who has tried to mend things all along. He's a good friend—unlike all of us were to each other.” She planted her hands on her hips and widened her stance. “Treat me how you like, but don't ruin things for these young people.”

I couldn't see Jonathan's face, but I could see his father's, and it was without expression. Beyond him Aenti Nell smiled.

Daed hung his head but said, “Now, Laurel, we don't need to meddle in Dirk's family business.”

“No,” Jonathan said. “She does.” He stepped around Mutter and toward his father, stopping just an inch away. “I can't change whom I love.”

His father continued to glare.

Mutter spoke up again. “He's like Jonathan in the Bible—a good friend.”

At that Dirk's face softened a little. He exhaled and said, “That's who I had in mind when I named him. I wanted him to be a good friend—unlike I was to David.” He was looking at my father now. No one ever called him David anymore. Not even Mutter.

“I always wondered if you got tired of the name Cap after you were grown and married.” Dirk turned toward Daed.

“Nah,” my father answered. “It's suited me just fine. You named me well.”

“Why did you name him that?” I asked.

“We were four or five, I think. Somewhere he'd gotten an orange hunting cap that I wanted.”

“It was the brightest thing we'd ever seen.” Daed paused. “And the first time you pounded me.”

“But not the last.” Dirk sighed. “You never would let me borrow that cap. You lost it somewhere along the way, and I started calling you Cap in memory of it.” He chuckled a little. “Stupid, huh?”

“Jah,” Daed said. “But you were more like family to me than my own brother.”

“And then you bought me that hunting cap when we were in our teens. Do you remember?”

Daed nodded.

“It was as bright as could be.” He met my father's eyes then. “I still have it. Still wear it . . .” Dirk exhaled slowly. “That's why it hurt so much when you stuck by Laurel instead of me.”

“What else could I do?” Daed tugged on his beard. “I loved her.”

“I thought you knew me better.”

“I'm sorry,” Daed said as the nurse entered the room.

“What's going on?” she barked.

“We're leaving,” Onkel Bob answered. “How about a cup of coffee?” he asked Daed and Dirk.

The nurse smiled. “I was teasing. Actually the radiologist cleared her. There's no permanent neck issues—just whiplash. She can be released in about an hour to a dark room at home. No screen time though.” She laughed. “Which won't be a problem for you. You can read if it doesn't make your
head worse. Get lots of sleep. No outings or work for a week. Boring, I know,” she said. “But it's what's best.”

It didn't sound boring to me.

“But hire a driver,” the nurse said to Daed. “Or get one of those boys with a car to drive her home. A buggy ride's a little rough for a while.”

“Will do,” Daed said. “They're probably in the cafeteria.” He turned to Dirk. “How about that cup of coffee?”

Dirk didn't respond. Instead he turned to Aenti Nell and took her hand. She smiled at him but that was all. A moment later, he followed Daed out to the hall, without demanding Jonathan come along. As much as I felt sorry for Aenti Nell, I was relieved she hadn't married Dirk. If he hadn't ended up with Mary, Jonathan wouldn't exist. Still, I wished Aenti would have courted and married someone else and had a family of her own.

When Onkel Bob reached the door, he turned to Jonathan. “If you decide to stay in Lancaster County, come see me about a position. I'm pretty sure I have an opening now.”

“Denki,” Jonathan said. “I'll be out right away.” He moved around to the other side of the bed, slipping back into the chair and taking my hand, holding it without saying a word as Mutter and Aenti headed toward the door too.

“So you're staying?” I whispered, turning my head as best I could. I'd known him eleven days, a lifetime to be sure.

He smiled then, that light-up-the-sky smile I'd been missing. “Jah,” he said.

He leaned toward me, his lips brushing mine just as the nurse came back into the room. She clasped her hands together and said, “I so like happy endings.” But then her voice grew harsh again. “But none of that now. Wait until she's better.”

If Jonathan and I had starring Englisch roles in a Hollywood movie, perhaps we would have married immediately.

After all, we now both believed in love at first sight, or at least nearly so anyway.

But that wasn't the way our community did things. We had a plan to follow. One that had proven true over many centuries.

Within a week, I was back at my old tasks but with a new vigor. After Dirk and Daed patched things up, they gave Jonathan and me their blessing. Dirk and Mary decided they liked Big Valley better than Lancaster County and moved back for good, but Jonathan stayed on with his Dawdi, with Tabitha running the house. He worked for Onkel Bob during the day and kept up with his own carpentry during the evening, after he made me a new hope chest, this time with both of our names engraved on top.

On the weekends, he and I sold his hope chests and mantels, bookends and trivets at farmers' markets. I kept track of the inventory and pricing, expenses and profits, grilling Cate over and over on business practices. Both Jonathan and I lived out our gifting—his of dreaming and creating, mine of organizing and orchestrating. We saved everything we could, from both of Jonathan's jobs.

And of course we began to court, something even Phillip Eicher finally accepted when Jonathan and I showed up at our first singing together at Molly's parents' place. Phillip nodded at me from a distance and then followed Molly around for the rest of the evening.

Hannah came in late that evening with Mervin and Martin. She was definitely doing better, although I couldn't be sure that she was fine. Only time would tell.

Soon after that, Jonathan and I started classes to join the church.

My parents seemed too careful with each other for several weeks after the revelation in my hospital room—then not careful enough. I could hear them arguing long into the night—for them at least, meaning way past nine thirty—on several occasions.

And then, without telling us where they were going, they started disappearing one afternoon a week. They didn't even tell Aenti Nell what they were up to, but Hannah figured it out. She said Aenti Pauline had told Mutter about the counselor at the clinic and urged her to go.

I don't know what exactly my parents learned, but it seemed to help. They stopped arguing. They started sitting on the couch before dinner, holding hands and chatting. Mutter stopped talking about “fate” and seemed to become more thoughtful. A few times I found her at the table by herself, her head bowed in prayer. And at bedtime, she took over reading to Joe-Joe, starting with a book of Bible stories. Soon Billy was listening too.

And Daed put his foot down with the older boys, saying, when George asked to move back in, that he only could if he got rid of his truck. Then he started taking Timothy to see a counselor one afternoon a week too. I could only guess on that one. But it seemed Timothy suffered from the same melancholy as Mutter and Hannah, only in him it came out as anger instead of depression. Perhaps that was why he drank.

He cut back, with Daed's intervention, but he wasn't willing to stop altogether, not even with the prospect of courting Tabitha if he did. Nor was he willing to get rid of his Bronco, which he'd since gotten repaired. Timothy ended up moving in with Samuel when George came home.

But Timothy did seem to be changing, slowly, and I was certain it had started that night I fell, when it seemed he finally cared more about someone else—me—than himself. And then it continued when he realized that Mervin and Martin had been opposed to his drinking, not to him. I hoped in time he'd come all the way around and get lasting help for his problems.

As they addressed their own issues, my parents seemed to care less about what other people thought. Sure, they still held to the Ordnung and honored the church and all it stood for. But they relaxed. I overheard Mutter sharing her frustrations about the boys with Aenti Pauline instead of saying everything was fine. The flip side was, Mutter stopped gossiping about other people, and one time I overheard her ask Aenti Nell, kindly, not to share her opinions about Onkel Bob and his relationship with Nan.

Soon after that I began calling Mutter and Daed
Mamm
and
Dat
—the more familiar terms. They'd earned the endearments.

And around that time Aenti Nell took a job at a quilt shop out on the highway. She said she needed a life of her own. And she was right. She'd given far too much of her life to us already.

The week after Jonathan and I were baptized, we wandered down to the creek on the afternoon of my parents' annual barbecue. Mamm oversaw the food table while Aenti Nell stood ready to help with the cleanup, allowing me some time with my beau. We stopped, hand-in-hand, at the edge of the sycamore grove.

Betsy and Levi, who carried Robbie, rounded the corner of the trail from Onkel Bob's place, calling out a greeting. The little one was nearly a year old and as cute as could be. It looked as if perhaps Betsy was expecting again.

As far as I could tell, sadly, Cate wasn't.

But the family had other news. Nan was considering giving up her car—and her job. It wouldn't be long, it seemed, until she and Onkel Bob were officially courting.

We chatted with Betsy for a minute, and then Jonathan pulled me close and stood beside me until my cousin was out of sight, following Levi up the trail to our pasture.

In the distance we could hear the little boys splashing in the creek. Above us, the branches of the sycamore trees swayed in the breeze. A toad croaked on the far bank.

“Come on,” Jonathan said, taking my hand, pulling me along the path past the grove, toward Onkel Bob's.

He didn't say another word until he stopped at the rose garden. The sweetness of the flowers surrounded us. This time he didn't cut a bloom with his pocketknife. Instead he got down on one knee and took both my hands.

“I've waited an entire year for this day,” he said. “As much as I wanted to be rash back then, I wanted more to do things right.” He smiled as sweetly as the roses swaying in the breeze. “Will you marry me?”

I knelt beside him and simply answered, “Jah.”

And so we were married in my parents' house the next November.

Mammi Gladys was there and Dawdi Mosier, along with Tabitha, who would be returning to the other side of the county now that I would be moving into the old Mosier place. All my Bruders were there, of course; plus Aenti Pauline and Onkel Owen, their one-year-old son, and their daughters; and Mervin and Martin and their parents, who were now my Onkel Amos and Aenti Eliza.

Aenti Nell, Onkel Bob and Nan, Cate and Pete, Betsy, Levi, and Robbie, and Dirk and Mary were all there too.

Plus my Mamm and Dat, of course.

Even Phillip Eicher came, and not surprisingly with Molly. Although Hannah assured me, as she sat beside Mervin, that Phillip and Molly were only friends. Still, it did me good to see him with someone else.