The Road Home (3 page)

“But, Mama…” Jenny said.

“Let me finish,
dochter
,” Jerusha said quietly. “I loved your father very much before we were married, and someday that may happen for you. You'll meet a man whom you will love so deeply that you will gladly surrender everything of yourself into his care and protection. I used to be so bound up in my quilting that I thought there was no room in my life for love or marriage. But the first time I looked into your father's eyes, I was lost forever.” Jerusha's face softened, and she smiled at a secret memory.

“Why, Mama! You're blushing,” Jenny laughed. “I can understand why you lost your heart to Papa. He's a handsome man.”

“Did I hear someone talking about me?” Reuben Springer came into the room. His face was stern, but there was a smile behind his eyes.

“Papa!” Jenny broke free from her mother and ran to her
daed
.

Reuben took the girl into his arms. “This is always the best part of my day, when I come home to my girls,” he said as he kissed his daughter on the forehead. “I used to have to bend down so far to reach you. Now you're all grown up.”

Jerusha smiled at him, a tinge of pink in her cheeks.

“I can still make you blush, eh, Mrs. Springer?” he asked.

Jerusha turned away with a reluctant smile.

A frown passed over Jenny's face like a small dark cloud, and her father noticed it.

“What is it,
dochter?
”

“Jenny was asking me about her birth parents,” Jerusha said. “Not knowing about her past troubles her.”

“Jenny, you mustn't concern yourself with things that can't be known,” Reuben said. “When your mother found you, there was no identification or any means to discover who you were. The police found a man's body in Jepson's pond the next spring, but he had been in the water far too long to make a clear identification. The car was stolen in New York, so there was no way to trace the man. You must be content with the wisdom of God. He sent you to us because He knew you needed us and we needed you. That's all we need to know.”

“But, Papa, sometimes I feel like a stranger, as if I don't really belong here.” Jenny saw the pain in her father's eyes and stopped. “I'm sorry, Papa. I didn't mean it exactly that way. I don't know why it's so important to me to find out these things, but it is. Sometimes I think I'll never be who I'm supposed to be until I find out who I really am. It doesn't help that I'm so stubborn.”

“Your Mama was just as stubborn when I first met her,” Reuben said. “Even twenty-four years later, I feel the sting on my face where she slapped me the first time I kissed her.”

“Husband!” Jerusha exclaimed as her cheeks once again turned rosy pink.

Reuben smiled at his wife and then looked at Jenny. His voice took a sterner tone. “Your mama has changed over the years, and you will change too. For the good of our family, you must put these things out of your mind.”

Jenny felt a small flash of anger at her father's words. She wanted to speak but wisely stayed silent. Then she decided to take a different approach.

“Papa, maybe if I did know, I could be more peaceful inside and not be so much trouble for you and Mama. Maybe if you helped me to find my birth parents I could be a better
dochter
to you and—”

Jenny's papa stiffened at her words. “Jenny, I love you very much, but I am still the head of our home, and until you're married and under the care of your husband, I will decide what's best for you. There's much in the world that you're too young to understand. God has entrusted me with your care and safety for a good reason. The man you were with may have been your father, or he may not, but judging by what the police found in the car, he was not a good man. There were drugs and alcohol—”

“But what if he wasn't my father and he just kidnapped me or—”

“
Dochter
! That's enough! I know what's best for you. Asking questions that can't be answered will only cause you heartache and sorrow. I want you to put these wild ideas behind you. We will not discuss this further!”

Jenny stared at her father, and he stared back at her. She started to speak, but her mother placed her hand on Jenny's arm and squeezed a warning. “Your father is right, Jenny. You must listen to him and obey. Now, is anyone hungry, or should we go on working on this quilt?”

Jenny took a deep breath, looked at her masterpiece, and smiled ruefully. The star design she had labored over for so many hours was crooked and wrinkled, and the colors she had chosen clashed.

“I think we'd better have dinner, Mama. I don't think there's anything I can do to fix this mess.”

“Well, let's go then,” Reuben said. “I need kindling for the stove, and Jenny can go out and close in the chickens.”

“All right, Papa,” Jenny said, still stinging from Reuben's rebuke. “Do I need to bring in any
milch
, Mama?”

“Yes, dear,” Jerusha said, “there's some fresh in the cooling house.”

When Jenny had banged out the back door, Jerusha turned to Reuben. “She's so impetuous. I worry there'll come a time when she crashes into a predicament we can't get her out of. But you must not be so hard on her. She's still young.”

“I know. But young or not, her curiosity worries me,” Reuben said. “She's headed for disappointment if she keeps searching for answers that don't exist. I want to keep her from that as long as I can.”

Jerusha nodded. “I want her to be happy, but in my heart I'm afraid that if she does somehow find her birth parents, she'll want to be with them more than with us. And their way would be so different from ours. The world out there is filled with danger, and I don't know if she would be able to understand it. I'm afraid for her, Reuben.”

“I'm afraid for her too, Jerusha,” he said quietly, taking his wife in his arms. “And that's why I want her to forget about her past. I'm trying hard not to crush her spirit, but the girl doesn't think things through. She thinks she's all grown up, but she still has many
kindisch
ways about her. There may soon come a day when she goes her own way, and the thought of what she might choose…”

Jerusha felt a momentary chill grip her heart, and she pulled herself deeper into the circle of Reuben's arms.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

Memories

J
ENNY HEARD THE SCREEN DOOR SLAM
behind her as she bolted out of the house. The noise brought her up short, and she deliberately slowed her pace and took a deep breath. She had read about rockets, and she thought they described her perfectly. She was always going full blast and leaving a trail of fire behind her. Her mama said that young ladies should be dignified and demure in their behavior, quiet and plain in all their ways, but somehow that was not for her. She tried her hardest, but she just seemed to go at life like an angry goat, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Jenny looked up at the sky as the red, purple, and pink of an Apple Creek sunset spread in glorious abandon across the deepening blue. As the sun dropped into the west, small clouds caught its last rays and reflected them downward to wash the trees with hints of golden glory. The sight made Jenny catch her breath. Across the sky to the east, the stars began to appear one by one, and as they did, they twinkled and sparkled in the indigo velvet like diamonds on display. A shooting star trailed low on the horizon and disappeared behind the trees.

Jenny felt the familiar tightness in her chest growing. She had felt
it often in recent days, and sometimes it was so strong that she could hardly breathe. She forced herself to inhale slowly and deeply. She thought about her papa's words and wondered if she should just forget about all the nonsense whirling around in her head. On the other hand, she didn't like being treated like a child. She was old enough to make her own decisions.

Why does he treat me that way? I'm just like that star shooting across the sky. I love Apple Creek and my home, but sometimes I feel like I'm standing back and watching everything from the outside. If I hadn't gotten lost, if Mama hadn't found me…if things had been different, what would my life have been?

Jenny walked slowly down the path to the cooling shed to fetch the milk. The Springer farm stretched out before her. She could smell the hay that Papa had just put up in the barn, and with the smell came a rush of memories—being carried up to the hayloft in her papa's strong arms, sliding down the big pile of hay and collapsing in a heap at the bottom, lying in the hay and watching the pigeons scrabbling along the highest beams. She sighed.

The cows mooed mournfully and the sheep bleated at her as she went by. The big Rhode Island rooster glared at her from his perch on the woodpile as his hens scratched for bugs in the dirt of the pathway. She grabbed up a stick lying by the path and began to herd the chickens back into their pen. The rooster jumped down and angrily defended his flock but eventually surrendered and meekly led the hens inside.

Summer in Apple Creek had come to an end, and the nip of fall was in the air. It was harvest time, and the men were working from dawn to dusk in the fields, bringing in the crops and putting them up for the winter. Soon Jenny would be spending her days with her mother and grandmother, canning the fruit and vegetables, cooking and salting the meat, and getting ready for the long, cold days ahead.

Once more the unwanted thoughts began to crowd into her head,
and she felt a sudden chill pass over her. What would her life be like if she weren't an Amish girl? Maybe she would be an
Englisch
girl getting ready for college or living in a big city. Since the car she was found in came from New York, maybe her birth mother still lived there. Maybe she was from a rich family, and they had been looking for her all these years and…She stopped short in the path and stilled her thoughts, wondering why she couldn't be content with the life she had right in front of her.

Life for the Amish was an endless cycle that was intimately connected to the land and the seasons. Planting in the spring, tending the fields through the long summer, harvesting when the air grew crisp, and then waiting out the days when the snow blanketed the ground—quilting, sewing, reading the Bible, or just sitting before a roaring fire. And of course there were the winter feasts and family get-togethers. These things had been the routine of Jenny's life, and in her younger days it had been enough.

She loved her home and especially her parents. They were so good to her, and she knew they loved her deeply. Her mama was a wonderful quilter, and her quilts were known throughout the Amish community and even out among the
Englisch
in the village and throughout Ohio. Once, when she was younger, she had asked her mama why she didn't sell her quilts in some of the big
Englisch
stores or offer them in catalogs.

“There was a time I thought I wanted to do that,” Jerusha answered. “I was angry at God because I blamed Him for taking Jenna away. I was going to use my quilts to get out of Apple Creek and leave God and this Amish life behind. I was running away, but He put me right in the middle of a terrible storm. Then He showed me how wrong I was, how prideful and arrogant and faithless. And when I surrendered to Him, He led me to you to show me how much He really did love me.”

“But, Mama, your quilts are so beautiful. You could be famous, and we would make lots of money.”

“Yes, but when I was in that cabin, struggling to keep both of us alive, I remembered what my grandmother taught me when I was first learning to quilt. She had told me, ‘You're too proud, Jerusha. This gift is not for you, but for those you can bless with your quilts. It is God working through you to touch others, and not to be held for yourself. You can't take this gift and use it to bring attention or recognition to yourself.'

“I realized that God has given me this gift to bless others and not myself. Now I make the quilts for people in our village who really need them. It's my way to thank
du lieber Gott
. So, Jenny, we won't worry about your mama being rich and famous. What need do we have for money? We have each other and your
daed
and the land and the Lord. That is enough.”