Until Angels Close My Eyes (5 page)

Thoughtfully Leah folded the letter. What did he mean by “I do not know who I am”? This didn’t sound like Ethan at all. For her, Christmas couldn’t come and go fast enough.

On Christmas morning, Leah handed out presents to Neil and her mother from the mountain of gifts heaped beneath the ornately decorated tree in the living room. Leah’s favorite gift was a gold charm bracelet from Neil. “Oh my gosh!” she cried, trying it on. “This is so gorgeous! Thank you.”

Neil looked pleased. “I picked it out myself. I chose a few charms, but there’s plenty of room for more. I think the idea is to add one every time something significant happens in your life.”

“Like little milestones,” her mother said.
“Charm bracelets are very fashionable, you know.”

Leah examined each tiny charm. There was a silhouette of the state of Indiana, replicas of a vintage car and an Amish buggy, and a charm symbolizing Chicago—for the vacation they’d had there together. But the charm that made a lump rise in Leah’s throat was an angel. The angel’s face was a diamond chip. Leah locked eyes with Neil. He offered a knowing smile. “So you’ll always have an angel with you,” he said.

Leah jumped to her feet. “This one’s yours. We saved it for last.” She dragged a large, square object from behind the living room curtain and set it in front of Neil.

Neil tore off the paper to discover a framed photograph of his wife and Leah. “Beautiful,” he said. “Absolutely beautiful. Thank you.”

Leah’s mother bent down and pulled another box from beneath her chair. “This goes with it.”

The box held a photo album, and every page held pictures of them, some from the recent photo session. Leah looked over Neil’s shoulder as he thumbed through it.
“I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he said. “And I have two of the most beautiful women in the world to prove it.”

Leah fingered the charm bracelet and held it up. The diamond-faced angel caught the lights from the tree and winked at her. Leah wondered if Gabriella might be watching—and feeling pleased.

Leah was ready to go early the next afternoon for Nappanee. The day was cold, the skies cloudy, but there was no snow in the forecast. “You drive carefully,” her mother told her. “And call us the minute you get to Kathy’s house.”

“You and Neil have fun in Detroit,” Leah said. “See you on New Year’s Day.”

When Leah arrived in Nappanee at dusk, she drove down familiar streets. The front of the inn where she’d worked resembled a picture on a Victorian Christmas card. As she pulled into Kathy’s driveway, Kathy came out to meet her.

“Leah, you look great!” Kathy said. The dark-haired girl was bundled in jeans and a bright red sweater. Little Christmas tree earrings dangled from her ears.

“You do, too,” Leah said, hauling her duffel bag from the car.

Leah followed Kathy inside and up to her bedroom. She tossed her bag onto a cot cluttered with stuffed animals.

“Remember this?” Kathy held up a picture of Leah and herself. They were standing in front of the inn in their uniforms, holding up mops and brooms.

“I forgot these were taken. Boy, those were ugly uniforms.”

Kathy laughed. “I’m working there again this summer. How about you?”

“Who knows?” Leah said with a shrug.

“Only six more months of high school, then I’m off to college. I can’t wait.”

“I’m not sure what I’ll be doing yet. Where are you going?”

“Boston College. I want to study physical therapy.”

There was a knock on the bedroom door, and one of Kathy’s sisters stuck her head inside. “Leah, there’s someone at the front door for you. It’s a boy.”

“Go, girl!” Kathy said, giving Leah a shove.

Leah hurried down the stairs. The foyer was empty.

“He’s on the porch,” Kathy’s sister whispered. “He wouldn’t come in.”

Leah opened the door. A blast of cold air struck her face. Ethan was standing in a pool of light. “Hello, Leah,” he said. Leah flung herself into his open arms.

E
than cradled Leah’s face between his palms and said, “You are as beautiful to me as ever.”

Just looking up into his blue eyes made Leah’s knees go weak. “Oh, Ethan.… I’ve missed you so much.”

His lips found hers. The warmth of his mouth broke through the icy chill of the night air. His kiss lingered; then he hugged her hard against his chest. He was dressed English. Even through the layers of coat and sweaters he wore, she felt his heart thudding. He smelled clean like soap and tasted of cinnamon candy. She wrapped her arms around him tightly.

“I could not wait until the morning to see you,” he said. “I had to come tonight.”

“How did you get here?” Leah peered around him, half expecting to see his Amish buggy and his horse, Bud. What she saw was Jonah’s old beat-up green car.

“I have learned to drive,” Ethan said. “I have my license now.”

Leah was shocked. “You never told me that in your letters.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“What’s your father say about it?”

“He does not know.”

This wasn’t typical of the Ethan she knew. The old Ethan never would have gone against his father’s wishes or acted behind his father’s back. “Do you like driving?”

“Yes. And getting places takes less time. I like that too.”

“But you still live at home?”

“Only during the week. On weekends I stay in town at Jonah’s. He has a job in town now. And his own apartment. Many new friends, too. It is often like one big party.”

Leah realized that many changes had occurred
in the few months she and Ethan had been apart. “Jonah always told me he’d stay Amish, that English ways were for fling-taking only.”

“He is still Amish. We are all Amish.” Ethan sounded defensive. “Trying out English ways will not change who we are.”

“How does Charity feel about Jonah living on his own? Does she come to his parties?” Ethan’s sister had once confided to Leah that she expected one day to marry Jonah.

“She has come to a few parties, but before Christmas she told Jonah she would not see him again unless he changed his habits and came back to the Amish way.”

“I’ll bet he didn’t take that too well.”

“He got very drunk. And very sick.” Ethan smoothed Leah’s hair. “I do not want to talk about Jonah and Charity. I want to talk about us.”

“What about us?”

“You will be here only a week, and I want to spend all of my time with you.”

“What about your farm chores?”

“The heavy work is done until spring.
Simeon is expected to take on more of the easier work I have been doing. I have thought about getting a job in town for the winter.”

Leah stepped back. “Can you do that?”

“It is something we Amish often do during the wintertime to earn extra money.”

“What would you do? What can you do?”

Ethan’s eyes took on a mischievous sparkle. “Do you think I have no talents except pitching hay and mending fences?”

Leah felt her face redden. Ethan had gone to school only through the eighth grade, and she wasn’t sure what kind of job skills he possessed. “Of course not. I was just wondering, that’s all.”

“I am a good carpenter. And there are Amish farmers who have no sons or who do not stay with the old ways. They have machinery to make jobs easier. I can work at one of these farms.”

“Is this what you want?”

“What I want,” Ethan said quietly, “is to spend every minute of this week with you. I will be staying at Jonah’s here in town all week long so that we can be together.”

She tightened her arms around his waist again. “All right. But I want to see Charity, too. Is it okay if I go out to your farm?”

“Certainly it is all right.”

“Then I’ll go in the morning.”

“I will go with you,” he said. He gave her Jonah’s address. “Come and get me when you are ready.”

He kissed her goodnight. Leah watched him return to Jonah’s old car and drive away. She felt unsettled. She was so out of step with Ethan’s life. When she’d left in August, he had been testing the limits of his Amish upbringing—but just slightly. Now, only a few months later, he was driving and talking of taking a job. Ethan hadn’t been kidding when he’d written, “I do not know where I belong.”

Leah was up early the next morning and ate breakfast with Kathy and her sisters. Once their parents had headed off to work, Leah drove over to Jonah’s apartment. Kathy was very understanding. Leah was grateful that she could just go and be with Ethan.

Ethan opened the door at her first knock.
“Good morning, Leah!” His smile lit up his face.

Kissing him lightly, Leah stepped into a living room area littered with newspapers, magazines, videotapes and old pizza boxes. Pillows were scattered on the floor, and plastic cups, some half filled, dotted the tops of a coffee table and two lamp tables. “Boy,” she said. “Your livestock lives better than this.”

Ethan laughed. “We are not very tidy. The others are at work now. There will be a party tomorrow night. Come and meet them.”

Leah had gone to Amish parties before and had felt like an outsider. “Will I be the only English?”

“No. I have told you, Jonah has many new friends. Most are English.”

“But will any of your Amish friends be here?” Leah was thinking specifically about Jonah’s sister, Martha.

Ethan nodded. “We Amish still do many things together. We have been friends a long time. Jonah invites everyone, but not everyone comes.”

Leah felt sure that Martha would show
up, but she decided not to let the thought upset her. After all, Ethan had made it quite clear that it was Leah he wanted to be with all week.

The drive out to the farm along the flat, familiar country road brought memories of summer back to Leah. The fields had been green, a sea of cornstalks. Now the corn had been harvested and the stalks were brown, dry and broken. Patches of snow dotted the roadside, and puddles of water were iced over.

Leah came to the fence that marked the boundary of the Longacre farm and slowed down. She could hardly stand to look upon the place where a truck had plowed into the produce stand, flattening the fence behind it and killing Rebekah, who had been in its path. “The fence looks as if it was never hit,” Leah said.

“It does not take wood long to weather,” Ethan said.

Or for little girls to die,
Leah thought. The pain of Rebekah’s death struck her hard and deep. She could only imagine what it must feel like for Ethan to pass this place every day.

Ethan peered through the windshield at the gray sky. “We will have snow by mid-morning.”

“You can tell that just by looking at the sky?”

“I have been reading the signs of coming weather ail my life. The winter will be hard this year.”

“How do you know?”

“The woolly caterpillars grew extra-thick coats last fall. When they do, winter will be very cold.”

“Gee … and all this time I’ve been watching the Weather Channel.”

Ethan gave her a puzzled look, then slowly smiled. “You are making a joke. I understand because I’ve seen this Weather Channel on Jonah’s TV.”

Leah returned his smile. There had been a time when Ethan hadn’t caught on to her humor, because it was English. She said, “You really are different these days.”

“Only in some ways,” he told her.

Leah turned into the long, rutted driveway to the house. Except for the colors of winter, the old farmhouse was exactly as Leah had remembered it. The weathered
wooden roof and siding looked stark against the sky, much as she believed they had a hundred years before when first built. No electrical or telephone wires tethered them to the present. One shutter had come off its hinge.

“I must fix that,” Ethan said. “For Ma.” His expression looked brooding.

Leah parked and shut off the engine, half expecting Rebekah to come flying out the door to meet them. The door swung open and instead Charity stepped onto the porch. She wore a long black Amish dress and a prayer cap. A woolen shawl was tied around her shoulders. “Leah!” she cried, hurrying to the car.

Leah got out and embraced her friend. “Surprise! I couldn’t stay away.”

Charity glanced at her brother, and Leah could have sworn she saw a shadow of sadness flicker across Charity’s eyes. The look vanished as Charity grabbed Leah’s hand. “Come inside where it is warm. I have tea and fresh bread made.”