After Leah helps me get my sedated mom into the borrowed wheelchair at the dawdi house, she hands me a slip of paper with her phone number on it. “You call me and let me know when your mom needs to go in for her MRI. I’ll pick you up, or else I’ll find someone who can.”
“Thank you so much,” I tell her. “You have no idea what that means for us.”
“Well . . .” She glances over to the barn, then slowly shakes her head. “You might be surprised about that.”
“What?” I peer curiously at her as I set the shopping bag in Mom’s lap.
“I grew up in a settlement not so different than this one.” She holds her hands to shade her eyes, looking all around with a hard-to-read expression.
“And you left?” I say quietly. “Like my mom did?”
She nods. “I didn’t fit in. I never did . . . never would.”
“Oh.” I sigh.
“You better get your mom inside.” She pats my shoulder. “But you call me when you know about the appointment.”
I thank her again, then hurriedly wheel Mom up the graveled path to the house. I’ve never felt like I’ve seen an angel before, but today I feel like I’ve met three—Dr. Hoffman, Betty, and Leah—although I admit my dire and desperate situation might be influencing my deductive skills.
“You are home,” Mammi says as I struggle to wheel Mom into the house. I’m huffing and puffing from getting her up the porch steps, and now I discover her chair won’t fit through the bedroom door.
“Yes,” I say as I try to get Mom to stand.
“Let me help you.” Mammi comes over, and the two of us manage to get Mom out of the chair and into her bed. But because most of the bedding is still in Ezra’s buggy, I’m forced to roll up a blanket for a pillow. Fortunately, Mom is so out of it that she barely notices.
As I put Mom’s wallet back into her purse, I explain to Mammi that Ezra has the other bedding. “Hopefully he’ll bring it by before bedtime,” I say.
“Ja, or I will send Jacob to fetch it,” she assures me.
“Mom needs to rest for now,” I tell Mammi as we leave the room. “It’s been a long day for her.”
“Ja. I was afraid of that.” She frowns as we stand in the living room. “What did the doctor say?”
I explain about the possible brain tumor and that she’s to have an MRI, but Mammi doesn’t seem to absorb this. If she does, she is pretending that it’s not very serious. Or else she is in deep, dark denial. However, I’m too tired to figure it all out.
“I want to stay here again,” I tell her. “If you don’t mind. I think I can be more help to Mom here than at Uncle Ben’s house.”
“Ja. Maybe that is a good idea. The garden is coming on good now. I will start preserving cucumbers and tomatoes this week. You can help.”
I want to point out I’m coming here to aid Mom, not to make pickles, but decide not to go there right now.
“You can move back here tomorrow,” she tells me. “Dawdi will get you a bed by then.”
I remove Mom’s bottle of pills from the shopping bag. “She can have one of these every six hours or so, as she needs them.”
Mammi studies the bottle. “This is the same as before?”
“Yes. The doctor says she needs to keep taking them. Until she has the MRI.”
“MRI?”
“The test that tells us about the brain tumor.” I remove my cell phone from the shopping bag and hand her bag back to her.
She frowns and shakes her head.
“Make Mom eat food before she takes her medicine,” I remind her. “She’ll probably be ready for a pill around suppertime.”
“Ja, supper. Jacob will be here soon. I better get to work on that.”
Feeling slightly dismissed, I go outside and look around. I’m curious as to whether Ezra is back yet but suspect he still must have a fair amount of road time before him. I wonder if he is feeling any regrets for this morning—if he misses me at all—and then I tell myself not to think about it. I am over him. Okay, more honestly, I am getting over him.
As I walk back to my uncle’s house, I realize that Ezra was right: it is for the best. I was living in an Amish fantasyland to think that it could truly work—that I could really transform myself into Mammi or Aunt Katrina. Oh, I might get used to the work, in time, but I don’t think I could ever get used to all these restrictions. And I could never get used to shutting down my brain. I’ve always dreamed of going to college and having some independence and freedom. Why would I want to give up all that to become subservient to a bearded man wearing weird suspenders?
Still, as I notice what could be Ezra’s buggy going down the road, although it could easily be someone else’s since they all look very similar, I feel a sharp pang deep inside of me. I suspect that my broken heart has a ways to go before it catches up with my recovering brain. To distract myself, since my cell phone is still charged and can take a photo even if it can’t connect, I snap a shot of the horse and buggy. Then I take several of the barn and silos and other scenic shots before I slip the phone inside my bodice. I still don’t know why Amish clothes don’t have pockets. So inconvenient.
“You are just in time,” Aunt Katrina tells me when I go into the kitchen. “Rachel is not back from my sister’s house. She went to get me some fabric. But the cows need milking.”
I nod, realizing she’s not asking me to do this detested chore, she is telling me. She doesn’t know that Rachel already gave up on trying to transform me into a milkmaid. Instead, Rachel made sure I was stuck with even more mundane chores—the ones she was happy to pass down to me.
As I struggle to milk the first cow, I remind myself that this is my last night at Uncle Ben’s house. I will no longer be under Aunt Katrina’s rule. Besides, I decide as I finally move on to the next cow, I’ll have some good stories to tell Merenda.
For that purpose, I decide to snap some photos of myself milking a cow. Chuckling at the results, I know these shots could be priceless someday. Who would believe this when I’m in college or even next fall back at high school? Just as I’m taking a shot of me holding the bucket in one hand and posing by the cow, Uncle Ben walks in.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
Still holding the cell phone in the air, I give him a sheepish look.
“Is that a camera?” he demands.
“It’s my cell phone,” I confess.
“You know that the Ordnung forbids taking photos,” he tells me.
“I’ve heard that,” I admit. “But I don’t really know why.”
His expression softens some as he hangs a coiled rope on a peg by the door. “Exodus 20:4 states, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.’”
“But I’m an artist,” I tell him. “Does that mean it’s wrong for me to draw a picture of, say, a horse?”
“Ja. According to Scripture, that is true.”
“Oh.” I shake my head. “That’s why Aunt Katrina doesn’t like seeing me drawing on my sketch pad.”
“Ja.” He walks up to peer more closely at me. “I am pleased that you want to learn about becoming Amish, Shannon. It will not be easy for you. I hope you are ready to put English ways behind you.”
I bite my lip, wondering how best to put this. “Actually,” I begin slowly, “things have changed. I don’t think I’m going to become Amish after all.”
He frowns. “Why is that? What has changed?”
“I have realized that I don’t really belong here.”
“But you have been doing so good. We’ve seen you make progress. Why do you want to give up?”
“The truth is, I was interested in becoming Amish for the wrong reasons, Uncle Ben.”
“What reasons?”
I sigh. “I thought I was in love with a boy, an Amish boy. I imagined I could be happy living here . . . married to him. But now I know I was wrong.”
“Are you sure you were wrong?”
I nod.
“I will continue to pray for you, Shannon. I will pray that God will show you his right path and that you will learn to follow it.”
“Thanks. And thanks for all your help and encouragement,” I tell him. Then, not wanting to feel like I’ve ditched him with no notice, I explain my plan to move back to the dawdi house to help with my mom tomorrow. “She needs me, and Mammi has a lot to do with her summer chores.”
“Ja. That is good you can help her.” He seems a little disappointed but doesn’t attempt to talk me out of leaving.
“But I really enjoyed my visit and getting to know all of you,” I say.
He briskly nods. “I have more chores before supper.”
As he leaves I turn back to the milking. I’d like to say I have him all figured out, but the truth is I don’t. I like my uncle. I respect him. But I do not fully understand him. I suppose I don’t completely understand any of my Amish relatives. Not really.
During supper no mention is made of my intended departure tomorrow. I suppose I thought Uncle Ben might say something, but he doesn’t. I consider making an announcement myself, but there never seems to be an opportune moment. I decide I’ll break the news to the rest of them tomorrow. I doubt that any of them will care. In fact, I suspect they’ll be relieved.
It’s not until bedtime that I decide I should say something to Rachel. I’m not even sure why, but I feel a need to have a private conversation with her. “Ezra drove Mom and me to Hochstetler,” I tell her as we’re getting ready for bed.
“Ja, I know.” Without looking at me, she continues braiding her hair.
“But you don’t know everything,” I say in a somewhat mysterious tone. I have no idea where I’m going with this, but I feel compelled to say something.
“What do you mean?” She puts a band around the end of her long, dark braid, then turns to peer at me. Once again, I’m struck by how pretty she is. Even in a plain white nightgown, she is really lovely. Creamy skin, clear blue eyes, perfectly shaped mouth. No wonder Ezra loves her. Thinking of this creates a lump in my throat again, and I question why I even opened my mouth.
“Oh . . . nothing.” I focus my attention on hanging my dress on a peg.
“No, what do you mean I don’t know everything?” she asks. “I want to know.”
I realize I’ve opened this can of worms, and I need to either put a lid on it or get everything out in the open. Why not go for the latter? “Ezra has convinced me that it’s a mistake for me to stay here,” I blurt out.
She looks slightly confused. “What?”
“It’s just that I know I can never be Amish,” I say glumly. “You told me this some time ago.”
She barely nods. “Ja. Why are you telling me this, Shannon?”
“Because Ezra is in love with you.”
She turns away, picking up the lantern. “Do you need more light?”
“No.” I climb into my bed now, wondering why I even broached this topic. Really, what do I hope to accomplish? Why should I even care?
She blows out the lantern, and in the light from the dusky square of the window, I watch her getting into her own bed. “Shannon?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah?”
“Do you love him?”
I take in a long, slow breath. I know I should give her an honest answer. “I believed that I did,” I confess. “I suppose I actually did love him on many levels. But now I have some serious doubts. Do you know what a crush is?”
“Crush?”
“It’s when you feel like you love a guy, but maybe it’s more about the feeling than real love. Like you’re kind of in love with being in love. Do you know what I mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
Outside I can hear the sound of cows in the pasture and the faraway cry of a nighthawk. “Do you love Ezra?” I ask her.
Now it seems as if the room is draped in a heavy kind of quiet, and Rachel says nothing.
“I know you do,” I say.
“How do you know that?”
“I think I’ve known it right from the start,” I admit.
“You are right. Ja, I have always loved Ezra,” she says quietly. “For as long as I can remember, anyway. But he never seemed to notice me. Not truly. I was just the little sister.”
“Uh-huh?”
“But then a couple of years ago, the summer when I was fifteen and finished with school, Ezra noticed me.” She lets out a sigh. “It was wonderful. We spent time together. We both said we love each other.”
“Really?” I’m not sure why I feel surprised. Even though no one had said as much, I think somewhere inside of me, I knew this.
“Ja. Ezra said we would get married.”
“And you wanted to marry him?”
“Ja. I wanted nothing more. We were promised to each other.”
“What happened?”
“A year passed, then part of another. Ezra and his friends, they got more carried away with the parties and drinking and all that. I didn’t mind it so much at first. I know young men need the chance to test everything. Daed explained that to me. But trouble is easier to get into than out of. And that is where Ezra was headed. This last spring I believed it was time for the nonsense to stop. Time for us to grow up. I wanted to get baptized. And I wanted Ezra to get baptized too.” She gets quiet again. “Ezra said he was not ready. So I told him I would not marry him.”
“I feel terrible,” I tell her. “Like I came between you two. I had no idea your relationship had been that serious. Oh, I knew you’d been involved with him, but I didn’t understand that you’d spoken of marriage.”
“You should not feel bad.”
“But if I hadn’t been with Ezra, maybe you guys would’ve worked this out before it was too late.”
“Too late?”
“Ezra said he’s going to leave. He’s going to join his friends in Missouri.”
“Oh.”
“But he’s not leaving until after harvest time,” I say hopefully.
“It sounds as if Ezra knows what he wants, Shannon. He has made up his mind. That is the end of it.”
“But maybe you could—”
“I am tired, Shannon. Tomorrow is a busy day. Good night, cousin.” She sighs. “I am sorry to hear that you are leaving. I think we could have become friends. I will miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.” As weird as it seems, especially since we’ve been at such odds these past few weeks, I realize that I really will miss her. I wish I’d gotten to know her better while I had the chance. Instead I was running around trying to steal her boyfriend. Okay, that might be overstating it, but it sure could seem like that. After a while, I hear a quiet sniffling and I know Rachel is crying again. I’d like to think that she’s sad about my decision not to stay here, but I know better. She is crying over Ezra. And it is partially my fault.
Once again, it seems my only recourse is to pray. Since I’m determined to pray more, I decide that it’s time to pray for both Rachel and Ezra. I pray that somehow they will figure this thing out before Ezra runs off to Missouri. If they are truly meant for each other, if the best thing for them is to be together and be married, I pray that God will do the miracles required to help them reach this place.