The Choice (28 page)

“Think you could eat something?”

He inhaled deeply. “That coffee smells awfully good.”

“I’ll get you some.”

“Carrie, wait . . .”

She put a hand on the doorjamb and turned back to him. “I’d better get you that coffee. No doubt your throat is sore from singing last night like a lovesick coyote.” When she saw the look of alarm cross his face, she added, “Silly English songs. Out of key too. They were terrible.”

Downstairs, Yonnie and Emma were washing dishes.

“How’s our Abel doing?” Yonnie asked.

“He’s going to survive, I think,” Carrie said. “He’d like some coffee if there’s any left.”

“That’s a good sign,” Emma said. “Think he’s hungry? There’s leftover hotcake batter.”

For reasons Carrie couldn’t explain, she suddenly felt shy around Abel. She handed the mug of steaming coffee to Emma. “Why don’t you take this to him and ask him yourself?”

As soon as her chores were done, Carrie threw on her shawl and headed out to the orchards, walking up and down the rows of trees through the slushy snow and mud. Still unsettled from seeing Sol, she knew she needed to fix her mind on something else. She examined the spindly arms of the apple trees and decided the time for pruning had come. Winter was halfway over. Ready or not, spring was right around the corner.

She went into the barn and started collecting the saw blades she would need to start pruning the trees. She tried to remember which saws Daniel and Eli had used. She was grateful they had pruned the trees so well a year ago so she would only need to follow the footprint they’d left behind.

She had never sharpened a blade before, but she had watched her father do plenty of them. She lit a gas lamp and sat at the grindstone, starting to tread the pedals to make the wheel spin.

Suddenly, the barn door slid open. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Abel asked Carrie as he approached the grindstone. She stopped pedaling. “You should be in bed.”

“I’m not sick. I just hurt my arm.”

“I’ll say.” She turned her attention back to the blade.

“Carrie, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m sharpening the blades so that I can prune the apple trees.”

His jaw dropped. “By yourself?”

“If I don’t, it won’t get done.”

“I’ll do it for you. Just give me a little time to get back on my feet.”

“Not with that broken arm, Abel. Can’t wait that long.”

Abel’s frown deepened to genuine displeasure. “Carrie, a few more days won’t make any difference.”

She stopped again and looked straight at him. “Abel, these orchards are my responsibility. I need to do this. I need to take care of my farm.”

He got that funny look on his face again, like there was something he was hiding. “I can cut the lower branches.”

She thought he was crazy to even offer, with an arm in a big cast. “Suit yourself. But I’m starting tomorrow morning.”

“Well, you’re sharpening those blades on the wrong side, so you’re going to have an awful hard time with it if you don’t let me help you, now.”

She jumped off the seat and swept her hand in a be-my-guest gesture.

At breakfast the next morning, Carrie explained to Emma that she and Abel were going to be starting the pruning. Emma’s lips pursed tightly together, then she listed off all of the reasons why this was a foolish idea. Abel sat in his chair, eating his scrambled eggs, a smug look on his face.

Emma pointed a finger at Abel. “And what makes you think he’ll be any good to you? He’s a one-winged bird.”

Abel’s dark eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t say a word.

Carrie sighed. “Emma, I need your help with chores while I prune those trees.” She stood up and took her dishes to the sink.

“If Mother knew—”

Carrie whirled around. “She doesn’t know and she doesn’t need to know. This is my home, Emma, not Esther’s.”

Emma clamped her lips shut.

Carrie threw on a cape. After hitching the wagon to Old-Timer, she hurried into the barn and lugged the hayloft ramp out to the wagon. Abel lifted the back end of the ramp, helping her scoot it onto the wagon bed. He remembered the tool box and shoved it next to the ramp. She climbed up as he hoisted himself into the seat. She stopped the horse at the farthest grove of trees and didn’t even bother to tie his reins to a tree. Old-Timer was too old to think about running off.

From the wagon bench, Abel was studying the endless rows of trees. “These trees are shaped well. Room for lots of light to get in. We just have to trim back the new growth.”

She climbed off of the wagon and yanked the ramp down, then started dragging it to the nearest tree.

Abel climbed down carefully, moving as slow and cautious as an old man. “Listen, Carrie . . .”

She knew by his tone of voice that he was about to tell her how she didn’t know what she was getting herself into. She crossed her arms and flung her head back to stare at him. “What, Abel?”

He looked at Carrie for a long moment, then gave a little nudge to the brim of his hat. “I found some clippers too. You use the clippers and I’ll use the saws.”

Carrie had always loved working outdoors, much more than she did the cleaning and cooking and keeping up of the house. Emma preferred doing woman’s work. The menial work, Carrie thought, and then, out of habit, whispered an apology to the Lord for her prideful heart. All work was sacred in God’s eyes.

But after an hour Carrie had barely pruned the upper branches of one tree. A blister had formed on the palm of her hand and her toes were numb with cold. It was harder work than she could have ever imagined. Already, the muscles in her shoulders and arms ached as she leaned on the ramp to clip the branch. She paused and looked down the long, even row of trees. Last night she had done the math: about one hundred trees per acre, and there were twenty acres. She sighed. This job was unending.

It was slow going for Abel too. He had been trying to saw the lower branches, but with his arm in a sling he was weak and off balance. Though the morning was cold, she saw beads of sweat on his brow. He even looked pale. She was sure his broken arm was aching, but he was too stubborn to admit it.

“Let’s take a rest,” she said, after he had stopped to wipe his face with a handkerchief.

She climbed down from the ramp and sat on a blanket against the tree trunk, drawing her knees up to stay warm. She rested her forehead on her knees. “I can’t do it,” she said aloud. “I can’t do it alone.”

Abel leaned against the wagon. “Well, thank you very much.” She lifted her head at him. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She sighed and bent her head down again.

“It’s hard work to manage orchards, Carrie,” he said.

She snapped her head up. “So you want me to just give up?” “No, that’s not what I . . .”

When she finally risked a glance at Abel, he was staring at her with that guilty look on his face. She saw his eyes lift quickly to the trees down the row, as if he didn’t want to be caught looking at her.

She stood up and stretched. “Could I ask you something?”

“Ask away,” he said, grabbing a rag from the back of the wagon.

“What happened to your folks? How is it you ended up with Eli?”

He looked at her, startled, as if that was the last thing he expected her to ask. Then he took the rag and started to wipe down the tree saw. “Eli was my mother’s older brother. My mother left the church to run off with my father, who was English. He never did marry her, so that’s why I have my mother’s last name.” He put the saw down and picked up Carrie’s clippers. “She died in a car accident when I was five.”

“What about your father?”

He shrugged. “Well, the police didn’t see the potential in selling drugs that my father did. So they hauled him off to prison and I was deposited in foster care.”

It was hard for Carrie to believe there were parents like that, people who could drop their responsibilities to their children like they were changing clothes. To the Amish, family is the very center of life. To have a child is a great blessing, given by God.

Abel picked up the water jug and offered it to Carrie. She shook her head so he took a drink.

“Then what happened to you?” she asked.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “I got into a few scrapes while I was in the system, ended up in juvey a couple of times.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Juvey? Juvenile Hall. It’s like, well, sort of like jail for kids.”

His eyes were laughing at her, at the shocked look on her face. Her cheeks flamed, aware of how naïve she seemed.

“So, when I got out of juvenile hall the last time, I was told that a relative was willing to take me in. An Amish uncle.” He smiled. “At that point, all I knew about the Amish were buggies and beards.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.” He rubbed the part of his neck that his sling rubbed against. “Daniel was two years older. He and I hit it off, right from the beginning.” He grinned. “Not such a good thing. I talked Daniel into a lot of mischief making. A lot.”

She gazed down the long row of apple trees before looking up at him. “So even back then, you weren’t thinking you’d be baptized into the church?”

He gave her a sharp look. “Back then, I did everything I could to try and prove I didn’t need anything or anybody.” He picked up a dried, withered apple left on the ground from last year and threw it as far as he could. “Like I said, I was a bad apple.”

It must be terrible to never belong to anyone,
Carrie thought. Being Amish meant a certainty of always belonging, always being a part of a whole. She wondered if Abel could sustain being alone forever. She wasn’t like that. She needed others, she needed that place at the table. It occurred to her that if she had left with Sol, she might never have felt again like she belonged somewhere. She was quiet for a long moment, mulling that over. Slowly she lifted her eyes to meet Abel’s. “If you were such a bad apple, why did you go to jail for Daniel?”

“Carrie, you knew Daniel. You knew how sensitive he was. Do you really think he could have survived prison?”

Startled, Carrie realized Abel was right. Daniel wasn’t . . . sturdy.

Abel lifted his eyebrows. “Now don’t go thinking I was a saint. Daniel was the closest thing to a brother I would ever have.” He kicked the ground with his foot. “I would have done anything for him.”

Carrie looked at his profile, silhouetted against the canopy of a deep and endless blue sky overhead. “Abel Miller, sometimes I think you’re more Amish than the rest of us.”

Early the next morning, Carrie dressed to head out to the orchards, wondering how many days and weeks it would take to get those trees pruned. Her entire body ached, muscles she never knew she had felt stiff. Since it was Saturday, at least Andy would be joining them.

Just as she was pouring coffee into a thermos to take out to the orchards, she heard buggy wheels roll into the driveway. It was still too dark to see anything but a lantern, but then she saw another lantern, then another. Then another. She threw on her cape and went outside. Abel heard them too, and came out of the barn holding a bucket, brimming with Hope’s steamy milk, fragrant and fresh, in his one good hand.

Abraham greeted them as he hopped off the first buggy. “Wie geht’s!”
Good day!

Abel and Carrie walked up to meet him, puzzled.

“With Abel’s arm broke, did you think we’d forget you needed help with those apple trees?” Abraham laughed. “How is that broke arm, Abel?”

As Abel answered the deacon, Emma came up behind them. Carrie gave her a suspicious look. “Did you go telling Esther I was trying to cut those trees myself?”

“No! I promise.” She looked as surprised as Carrie did.

Somehow, Carrie realized, they just knew she needed help. “Well, Emma, we’d better get more coffee brewing, then,” she said, barely able to contain her relief.

In one day, working together, the neighbors finished pruning every apple tree and stacked the limbs and kindling to dry in the shed, ready to use next winter. As Carrie waved goodbye to the last buggy, her heart brimmed with gratitude. It was the Plain way for neighbor to help neighbor, she
knew
that. But for the first time, she
felt
it. This is what it means to be Plain, she thought. This security, this sense of belonging. She never should have worried. She had neighbors.

She walked down to the first row of trees in the orchard. She tilted her head back to look at the deep blue of the evening sky. As darkness descended, the stars began to pop out, clear as a map of the skies. The long, even rows of trees would soon finish their winter’s nap, waiting for the call of spring. She couldn’t wait for those first pink blossoms. Spring had always been her favorite time of year, when the earth warmed and erupted into dazzling colors. She was as excited as she could remember being about anything. Cider Mill Farm was the first home she’d ever really had to call her own. She had grown to love it, every rock and tree. She felt as if she was just starting her life again.

Later that week, Carrie took a letter for Abel that arrived in the day’s mail and a stack of his freshly ironed clothes down to the workshop. She pulled open one drawer to put away his shirts and closed it again, but something jammed. The drawer wouldn’t shut. She pulled it open and reached her hand in the back to see what was jammed. It was a large yellow envelope addressed to Abel Miller, with a return address of Veronica McCall’s company. She smoothed out the envelope and placed it flat in the drawer, then closed it tight.