I may not have contemplated how I would dry off after a shower in my new apartment, but I had been packing with meticulous precision for the last week.
All of my desk items had been sorted and boxed, as well as my sewing machine, fabric, and notions. My sketches were carefully tucked away into a plastic accordion file. The sketchbooks were packed along with my books.
My clothes were carefully folded and boxed. Knowing others would assist with the move, I’d packed my underthings between my knit tops and jeans.
Earlier in the morning, Jayne had helped me roll up my comforter and stuff it with my pillows and sheets into an oversized garbage sack. In an uncharacteristic move, Jayne insisted on making sure each box and bag was marked and labeled with a fat sharpie pen.
Now that everyone was here—and frankly, making it difficult to move around—the time had come to get everything out. I felt bad I didn’t have more stuff to move.
Meg, Kim, and Joely handled the boxes of books. Gemma and Sonnet carried the clothes boxes while Jayne wrestled the bedding bag to the door. Britta took my bath things out, including the towels Jayne let me keep. I moved my sewing things.
Once the smaller things were out, Levi, William, and Zach began the truly heavy lifting, dismantling my bed and loading each piece into the moving van Jayne had picked up. Next came the small bookcase, and finally the desk.
Looking around, it seemed as if my world had collided and emptied, all at the same time. Jayne’s apartment no longer contained any of my belongings or any other sign of my presence other than the overall lack of dust. However, my friends through Jayne, my brother, my friends from school, my coworkers—everyone mingled in the living room in one large, odd mix.
Levi clapped his hands together. “So, we’re all loaded and ready to go. If you’d like to follow us over, we can unload. Gemma’s got lunch for everybody.”
Zach gave a cheer at the announcement of food. The fact that it was Gemma’s food probably added to his excitement.
Levi announced that he and Jayne would be going in his pickup. Zach and William spent the next ten minutes arguing over who would drive the moving van. William won.
“Why don’t you go with them?” Levi suggested, nodding to me. “You know the way, and you can help tell them where things go when you get there. You have your apartment key?”
“I do.”
As everyone else negotiated their own rides, I followed William and Zach out to the van. I tensed as I realized that the van only had one bench seat across for the three of us. The drive would be very, very close.
“Why don’t you take the middle?” Zach said, holding the door open. “You’re the smallest.”
I opened and closed my mouth. “Oh…um, okay.”
“Sure you don’t want me to drive?” Zach asked William, his eyes hopeful.
“I’m sure. Stop whining and get in.”
“I’m waiting for Sara.”
I climbed in quickly so he would wouldn’t have that excuse anymore. Zach hopped in after me, complicating things as I tried to buckle the middle seat belt without touching anyone else.
William slid in on my left a moment later. “Sure you got everything?” he asked. I found myself distracted by William’s attempt to buckle his seatbelt, his hands close to my hip.
“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli,” Zach said when I didn’t respond.
“What?” My head shot up. “I don’t own a gun.”
“No, it’s a quote…” Zach corrected.
William shook his head, closed the van door, and started the ignition. “You know, Zach, not everyone knows The Godfather the way you do.”
“I’ve never seen The Godfather,” I pointed out as we pulled out of the complex driveway. “I’d never even heard of it until I started working at the bookstore.”
Zach frowned in disbelief. “Come on, never?”
“Never,” I repeated, folding my arms for a lack of a better idea of where to put them. William smelled good, like pine needles and spice. How had I never noticed before?
“I can’t believe that.” By now, Zach was nearly bouncing in his seat, unable to contain himself. “The Godfather is an American icon. It’s like Star Wars, with less merchandising. And you’d never heard of it? What are you, Amish?”
“Well…” I couldn’t lie, and keeping up the pretense was getting to be exhausting. “Yes, actually.”
“Huh?” Zach looked at me blankly.
William didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I thought so.”
“How—really?” I turned to him, my expression quizzical.
“I just put the pieces together,” he said.
“You’re serious?” Zach’s voice, if possible, had gotten louder in the last three minutes. “Like, Amish Amish? Amish with the buggies and the funny beards Amish?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t have a funny beard.”
“No, I mean the men have funny beards. I’m confused.”
“I thought so,” I retorted. Coming clean may have given me an attitude.
William smiled.
“But don’t Amish people speak a different language?” Zach asked.
“You hear me speaking English, don’t you? We speak both English and Pennsylvania Dutch. And High German too, actually, but only at some church functions.”
“Pennsylvania Dutch? Wait—I think I’ve heard about this. They migrated to the U.S., and everyone thought they were Dutch when they were saying, like, Deutsch for Germany, right?”
“Pretty much.” I leaned back as far as I could, wedged between the two of them. “The Amish were actually mostly Swiss. The Pennsylvania Dutch as a people—not just language—included several groups. The Amish were just one of them.”
Zach wasn’t through asking questions. “How’d you wind up here? In Portland, I mean.”
“You know, directions at some point wouldn’t be a bad thing,” William interrupted. “Or I could just drive in circles. Whatever you want, we’ve got a full tank of gas in this thing.”
“Make a right on MacAdam.” I turned back to Zach. “I’m in Portland because I ran away from home.”
“I thought you were over eighteen.”
“I am.”
“So…you’re legal. You’re not a runaway.”
William rolled his eyes. “Zach, get a clue. In families like Sara’s, you don’t get a nice send-off party. It’s not like moving out for college—your parents are not going to drive you there.”
“No,” I agreed. “Jayne did. She just didn’t know it.”
William chuckled. “This I might have to hear.”
“Jayne was staying with my family while working on a story. Right before she left, I snuck into the trunk of her car.” Enough time had passed that I now understood why Jayne had been so horrified. I had experienced what happened when things went wrong on the road. I made a mental note to apologize to Jayne for scaring her so badly. The English were crazy for car safety, and now I knew why.
“I’m guessing,” William said, “that not a lot of people know about your background.”
I sighed. “No.”
“Hear that, Zach?” William raised his voice to be heard over the rumble of traffic noise. “Are you going to be able to keep your mouth shut?”
“I’m Amish, guys,” I said, as realization sunk in. “I’m not running from the law. There’s no reason people shouldn’t know.”
“But there’s a reason you didn’t want people knowing,” William shifted down as he got ready to turn. “Something held you back. Whether you decide to tell everyone else is up to you, not Zach’s oversized mouth. Right Zach?”
“Huh? I wasn’t going to say anything.” Zach protested.
The truth was, though, that everyone helping with the move deserved to know. Sure, Jayne, Gemma, Kim, and Joely knew, but it was time for Sonnet, Britta, and Meg to know too. They were my friends. And Livy, when I saw her next. I knew she’d moved her things in already but was at a missions conference.
“I’ll tell them,” I said softly. “I’ll tell them myself.”
We sat in silence the rest of the drive except when I gave William directions.
I pulled my jacket hood over my head when we turned into the driveway of the new complex parking area. The rain had slowed but hadn’t ceased. We would all be damp at the end of the day.
I climbed the stairs and unlocked the door while Zach and William opened the back of the van.
Inside it was just as I remembered, though a bit less sparse. Livy’s things were inside, and I was glad to see she had brought a table with three chairs, a couch, a recliner, and two end tables. A TV on a small stand had been placed in the corner of the living room. In the kitchen I saw a microwave and some cookware, and when I opened the cupboard I nearly wept in relief.
Drinking glasses. Eight of them.
In anticipation of Gemma’s arrival, I turned the oven on to 350 degrees, figuring whatever Gemma had brought would require at least that temperature to warm.
The knock on the door interrupted my preparations. I opened it to find Zach and William with a piece of my bed in their arms. “Hold the door, maybe?” William asked, voice tight.
“Sorry!” I held the door open for them before they dropped the heavy wood frame back down the stairs. From the corner of my eye I saw Levi and Jayne pull up in Levi’s truck. I waved, making sure I kept the door open wide enough.
Everyone else arrived in the next ten minutes, including Gemma with something that could only be wonderful.
“It’s rosemary chicken lasagna with spring vegetables—it may not be spring yet, but everything’s in season in the freezer section. If anyone has a question about the veggies, I’ll just tell them about the béchamel. It’s that good. I also brought a tossed salad and two loaves of bread—rosemary focaccia and crusty sourdough,” Gemma explained as she busied herself in my kitchen. “I brought enough for twenty so you’d have leftovers. If you want, you can freeze any leftover lasagna. The rosemary focaccia makes great breadcrumbs, and the crusty sourdough could be used with a bread pudding so nothing goes to waste.”
I doubted there would be enough food left over that I’d worry about waste, but I let Gemma plan anyway.
While Gemma got the food ready, the rest of us moved my things from the van into the apartment. William proved to be handy with a screwdriver as he and Levi reassembled my bed. Sonnet and Britta argued in the bathroom over how my toiletries should be stored best. Meg and Joely arranged my clothes and closet in a complicated scheme involving sleeve length and color while Jayne made up my bed. I set up my sewing station before moving my books into the new bookcase Levi had brought for me.
I used to have books stacked on top of each other, two deep, but now I had room to spare in my new shelves. On my old shelf I organized my fabrics and scraps.
When Gemma called that the food was ready, I half expected people to get wedged in the hallway in their haste to reach the kitchen. For the past thirty minutes, the scent of warm bread and cheesy rosemary had filled the air with a perfume that was especially intoxicating because we were all hungry.
“Before we eat, I have something special for Sara,” Gemma announced.
I watched in amazement as she presented me a cupcake with a lit candle in the center. “Happy first apartment!”
My brows knit together in confusion. “But…I’m sharing it with Livy.”
“That’s okay,” Levi said with a chuckle. “It’s a housewarming…an apartment-warming…whatever. We’re all for a reason to celebrate anyway.”
Not knowing what else to do, I blew out the candle. “I’ll eat the cupcake after lunch,” I promised.
Gemma waved a hand. “I figured you would, don’t worry about it. Would you rather start with some lasagna?”
I let her serve me lasagna—she wouldn’t let me help serve anyone else. I had nothing to do but go to the living room with my food. Eating on Livy’s furniture made me nervous, so I sat against the sliding door to the deck, the glass cool against my back.
William joined me a moment later, setting his food down before sitting next to me. “I think Zach wants to marry your friend Gemma, eat her food, and father her children.”
I looked up to see Gemma serving Zach lunch. The expression on Zach’s face could only be described as cow eyes. “Oh dear.”
“Oh dear is right.” He took a bite of the lasagna. “This is really good.” He took another bite before lowering his plate. “Are you…you know, doing okay? With the move and everything? It’s got to be a lot of change for you.”
I shrugged. “I guess so.” In truth, nothing had sunk in yet, but a small piece of me had begun to panic. I wasn’t going to tell him that though.
“If you need anything, you can always, you know, call me,” he said, not quite looking me in the eye. “I know you’ve got your brother and Jayne and everybody, but sometimes people are busy or they don’t hear their phones. The store’s not that far away.”
“Thanks. And, um, thanks again for the books. I don’t know if I said thank you properly after you gave them to me. And your socks are around here somewhere, clean.”
“You can look for them some other time. It’s your birthday party. Early.” He smiled one of his rare, crooked smiles.
“I really will give them back to you.”
He smiled again. “I believe you.”
How did he do that? How did he make the fact that it was nearly my birthday and I was nowhere near home—how did he make everything seem like it would be okay?