The Choice (31 page)

“It
should
be my responsibility! All along, I’ve thought they belonged to me! To me and my brother!” She spun around to leave.

With his good hand, he grabbed her arm to make her face him. “I admit, I came here thinking I would sell the place. I figured you would want to live with your folks, and Yonnie would come back to Ohio with me. Steelhead and I had plans to start a business. But then, I met you, and I saw how you love this place. I see how your face lights up and how hard you work at it. I never
signed
those papers, Carrie. I could never do that to you.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Why shouldn’t you?”

“For a man who keeps spouting off that the truth will set us free, I don’t see you doing much truth telling. You had plenty of chances, Abel Miller.”

Stung, he dropped his hand to his side. In a quiet voice, he said, “I know. I kept looking for the right time to tell you, but it never seemed to come. And then it got harder to tell you. When the property tax bill came in the mail last week, with my name on it, and you put it in my workshop, I just went ahead and paid it. I thought I was helping, but the truth is, well, I just didn’t know how to tell you the truth. Not after all this time.” He rubbed his jaw. “Eli left this property to me because he was trying to set things right. For me. He wasn’t trying to hurt you. Neither was I.”

Just then, Andy came running to the workshop to show Abel a hummingbird’s nest he had found on the way home from school. Abel bent down to examine it.

“Wow, Andy, what a find!” he said with such fondness in his voice that it made Carrie’s heart hurt.

Carrie watched the two heads bent over the nest for a long moment, then as her eyelashes spiked with tears, she turned quickly to go to the house.

13

Sol drove to Central Market right about the time he thought Mattie would be done working for the day. Just this week, her family had opened up their stand to sell the first fruits of the year: asparagus and spring onions. He smiled at the pleased look on her face when she spotted him. He flashed her his most dashing grin, the one he used only when girls were around. “Hello there, Mathilda Zook.”

Mattie gave him a measured look in that way she had. “Sol, please wipe that dipped-in-honey grin off your face. I know you well enough to know when you’re trying to charm someone. Why don’t you stop playing games and just tell me what you need.”

Sol’s grin faded. “I could sure use a friend, Mattie.”

Mattie closed up the stand and locked it, put the money in her pocket, and turned to Sol. “Let’s go for a ride.”

Sol drove down to Blue Lake Pond. In the late afternoon sun, it was so cold they decided to stay in the car. With their eyes facing the silver shimmer of the pond, Sol found himself spilling out everything about the turmoil he felt over the last year. Mattie was easy for him to talk to, easier than Carrie, he realized. There was a little part of him that wasn’t entirely surprised Carrie wouldn’t forgive him. As if he always felt he might disappoint her, after she really got to know him. Maybe that was why he went ahead and disappointed her. He couldn’t deny a part of him felt relieved about trying to play baseball without worrying about a wife. But in the back of his mind he figured he and Carrie would eventually work things out, that they were meant to be together. He underestimated her stubborn streak.

He looked over at Mattie in the car. Her face was turned to the sky, like a flower, and she smiled softly as the sun washed over her. Things felt so comfortable with Mattie. In a way he didn’t understand, she knew him better than he knew himself.

“The thing is, I could always have any girl I ever wanted.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. Amish or English. Carrie knows that.”

Mattie nodded, shifting in the seat to look straight at him. “Until now.”

Sol frowned. He knew what she was probably thinking, just like his mother and sisters, that he was being punished for leaving the flock. “I don’t know how you can handle all of the rules, Mattie. I got so tired of bumping into rules every time I turned around.”

“I guess I don’t see the rules as taking something from me. I see them as giving to me.”

He glanced at her, surprised. How could he describe freedom to someone who was raised in a cage? “Do you mean to tell me that you honestly think God would label you a hopeless sinner if . . . ,” he tugged on a string of her prayer cap, “if you had one less pleat in your cap? Or one more? Will the wrong number of pleats in your cap send you to the devil?” He felt a twinge of guilt to say such things aloud, to cause doubt in Mattie the way it used to when he said such things to Carrie.

But Mattie didn’t look to be filled with doubts. In fact, she looked as if she was trying to suppress a smile. “Sol, you’re missing the point. My clothes and prayer cap, the way I look, they aren’t making me
suitable to
God. They’re reminding me, every day, that I
belong
to God.”

Sol looked at her, amazed, as if seeing her for the first time. Before him was a girl with steady gray eyes, wide cheekbones that narrowed to a dainty chin, giving her face a sweetheart shape. Her skin was like freshly skimmed cream, her hair the pale yellow of a winter sun. Mattie had a shy innocence common to Amish girls, yet he found that nothing he said shocked her. All those years he’d known her, yet he had hardly ever noticed her. He had to admit, the reason he was spending time with Mattie now was because she was Carrie’s best friend, and this was the closest he could come to Carrie.

He shook his head. “It’s amazing you and Carrie are such good friends. She’s always been tempted by worldly things. She wants more choices.” He stopped himself.
Or was that me?
He thought Carrie wanted more, but suddenly he realized he might have blurred her wants with his. He gave a quick shake of his head. “Wanted. She wanted more choices. I guess I don’t really know what she wants anymore.” He cast Mattie a sliding glance, hoping she might expand on Carrie.

Mattie’s eyes were fixed on the pond. “I do have one rule, Sol. I’m not going to talk to you about Carrie.”

There was no mincing words with
that
girl, he pondered after he dropped Mattie off at the end of her lane, far enough away from her house that her folks wouldn’t see his car. Mattie surprised him with her forthrightness. His sisters had catered to him the same way his mother catered to his father. Wasn’t that the way things worked in the Amish world? He wasn’t sure he liked the change.

A few weeks later, as Carrie was setting the table for supper, Esther’s buggy rolled into the driveway of Cider Mill Farm. She had been visiting Ada Stoltzfus, she said, who kept her longer than she should have. On her way home, she felt a wheel on the buggy come loose. Abel took out his tools to fix the wheel, while Emma invited her mother inside and encouraged her to stay for supper. Esther seemed to be in a rare pleasant mood and agreed to stay. She even asked to see Yonnie’s quilts. Still, a feeling of dread rose in Carrie, the same feeling she got before a storm was due in. Well, this was going to be interesting, she thought, setting an extra place at the table for Esther. Because like it or not, chances were that Esther was going to meet Steelhead.

On the afternoon that Yonnie had her stroke, Carrie had returned to the house thinking Emma would have run Steelhead out hours earlier. Instead, she found the two of them playing Scrabble at the kitchen table and laughing over made-up words. Andy said they’d been playing for hours. Since then, Steelhead dropped by every day to see Abel, he said, but he spent his time at the kitchen table, talking to Emma while she cooked or ironed. Today, Andy had talked Steelhead into a motorcycle trip to Blue Lake Pond to see a heron.

When the two came roaring in from their adventure, it was suppertime. Carrie bit her lip. There was no opportunity to flag off Steelhead. He and Andy came bursting into the kitchen, Andy talking a mile a minute until he saw Esther sitting at the table, and his mouth clamped shut. But Steelhead, oblivious as usual, plowed through the sudden silence and walked right over to give Esther a warm welcome. As Esther shook his big hand, her pleasant mood evaporated, the way a wisp of steam vanishes above a cup of hot tea.

It was so quiet during the meal that Carrie could hear Esther’s chewing and swallowing echo through the kitchen. Finally, Steelhead broke the silence.

“Would you pass me more of that shepherd’s pie, Miss Emma? It’s mighty fine.”

Carrie noticed that it was getting so that Emma couldn’t pass him a serving dish without blushing the color of a plum.

Steelhead turned to Esther. “Emma is a good cook. Really good. I’ve never known as fine a cook as Emma.”

Esther didn’t respond. She just fixed her eyes on Steelhead, and he was looking like a bird caught in her lair. Carrie almost laughed out loud at the look of mild panic in his eyes.

“She might be the best cook in the state of Pennsylvania,” he started to blather, “certainly better than that whack job who called himself a cook that we had in prison. Ain’t that right, little buddy?”

He nudged Abel to help, but Abel knew enough to not step into that particular landmine. He tried to look off into the distant corners of the room as Steelhead, unstoppable, carried on.

“Hooboy!” Steelhead continued, his head turning shiny. “I never want to eat another morsel of prison grub. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Know what I’m saying?”

Esther’s eyes went wide with shock and her lips puckered as if she’d just eaten a pickle. Emma covered her face with her hands. Carrie tried to kick Steelhead under the table but missed. Abel cleared his throat, trying to get Steelhead to stop talking, but Steelhead was cornered. His mind was whirring along, and his mouth dragged along behind it, spilling out any thought that passed through his head. Finally, after he had described prison life in its entirety, he ran clean out of words.

Esther slowly stood. “I must go.”

As Carrie closed the kitchen door behind her, it was all she could do to lean against it, her forehead against the doorjamb. Esther didn’t even wait for the silent prayer at the end of the meal, she was
that
perturbed.

“Too bad Esther Weaver didn’t stay for my snickerdoodles,” Yonnie said, still seated at the table. “She could use a little sugar.”

Steelhead snorted a laugh, then another. Andy’s eyes went round at the sound. A slow smile spread over Abel’s face. Emma’s eyes darted between the two men, as laughter started to rise up and carry them away. Then, to Carrie’s astonishment, Emma started to giggle.

Carrie leaned her back against the kitchen door, studying them. Emma looked positively . . . happy.

One afternoon, Sol had just dropped Mattie off near her home and decided to take the long way back, a route that went past Carrie’s farm. To his delight, he spotted Carrie getting the mail at her mailbox. He pulled up to her and rolled down his window. “Please, Carrie?” he asked. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

She hesitated, but got in the car. “I’m surprised this old rust heap still drives.”

“My baseball contract was cancelled. It’s over.”

“I’m sorry,” she said faintly. “I know that means the world to you.”

He was trying to hold her eyes, but she looked away. “No,” he said firmly. “You mean the world to me.” He reached over to take her hand and slowly brought it up to his jaw. She curved her palm against his cheek; he turned into the caress. He felt encouraged as he saw the anger in her eyes dissolve. “Carrie, what is it going to take for us to find our way back to each other? Do you want me to join the church? I will, if that’s what you want. I’ll do anything you want.”

Carrie shook her head. “I don’t want you to join the church for me. If you join the church, you do it for you.” But even as she said it, sounding so sure, he saw her face soften, then her stiff shoulders, then, finally, her resolve.

Softly he said, “We could pick up from where we left off last summer.”

“I’m not the same person I was last summer.”

“Come on, Carrie,” he said, his voice gentle and kind. “I know. I know all about you and Daniel.”