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Jacob took a step through the glass door, leading to the insurance office his mother had established in Hope Crossing, and he hoped that, after this meeting, she would take down her sign and be gone from his life for good. The door swung open, screeching as it did, and he closed his eyes as his body registered the change between blistering cold to soft, comfortable heat. He tried his best not to take it as an omen of things to come.
She wasn't what he expected, his mother. She was young, perhaps younger than Thomas Mast. She wore form fitting clothes, something that Jacob had come to believe was wrong in the past two years, but he wasn't here to judge. Like most women in her age bracket, which he still assumed to be fairly young, she wore a low cut blouse, business casual, and a pair of plain black slacks. She wasn't trying to be flashy in the slightest, and that was good at least. He tried, however, to put the positive out of his mind. The most positive thinking he employed toward her, the higher the chance he'd make a decision he'd regret immediately after leaving. He was here to make a snap decision and then leave her forever.
“Hello, mother,” Jacob said as he walked into the insurance office. It wasn't furnished, the office. It was simply an open space with a hardwood floor, and a simple, steel desk sitting in the center. A phone line ran from the wall to the desk, plugged into advice that Jacob guessed was some sort of modem. It would definitely explain the laptop computer. This was certainly a throwback; Jacob hadn't seen technology like this for some time. The most advanced thing he'd seen in the past two years was the cash register at the grocery store.
“Jacob,” She said, turning toward him. “I didn't know if you'd come.”
“You're a little late,” Jacob said stepping forward into the room. “I waited for you for...I don't know how long. However, it was a long time. Do you know what it was like?”
“No, I don't,” She said. “I'm sorry...you can't know how sorry I am.”
“Not sorry, enough to get me out of that hellhole.” “I'm sorry, Jacob, I tried to find you, I really did.”
“Couldn't have been that hard,” Jacob pointed out. “All you had to do was follow the smell. So tell me, why did you put me out with the trash?”
“I was fourteen, Jacob,” she said. “Fourteen, can you imagine that? The boy I was with...he didn't want a baby. He tried to get me to abort you. I said no; he got violent. I had to run away. I had you in a hotel room. A cheap hotel room a hundred miles from home. I couldn't take you home; he was dangerous.”
“There a solution for that,” Jacob said. “You go to the police, or get help from an adult.”
“How has that worked out for you?” Jacob was stumped, for once. She was right. She may have been a victim of circumstance, just like him, but he couldn't bring himself past the anger he felt.
“What have you been doing all these years?” He asked. “How long have you been looking for me?”
“Well after high school I went to college, I finished an accounting degree, then I got my insurance certifications, and I've been self-employed since then. I have been doing pretty well...I have money, if that's what you're worried about. I can take care of you.”
“I could care less about money,” Jacob said. “I'm happy here. Happier than I've been in a long, long time. I have family here. I've never had family before.”
“I am your family,” she said, and Jacob couldn't tell whether she was making a statement or pleading. “I've been trying to find you for so long. I really have, you can't imagine what I've been through.”
“What you've been through,” Jacob repeated. “That sounds interesting, tell me more.”
“You're not the only victim here,” she said. “I...my parents found out what I'd done. I ended up in the hospital with an infection. They knew. They had me shipped off to a boarding school where I never saw the light of day until I graduated. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that my son was out there somewhere, and one day he'd need me.”
“I needed you,” Jacob said. “I needed you when I was sitting in that group home, in the police station, when I was beaten into shit on the sidewalk. I needed you all along, but you never came, did you? Other kids at the home, they were taken from their parents. At least they had parents. Word gets around in those homes, and they called me the trash can baby. Told me I was unwanted.”
“But it wasn't true!” Gretchen sobbed. “It wasn't true! I wanted you, and I'm back now to give you the life you should have had!”
“Do you think it's that easy?” Jacob suddenly screamed. “Do you think I can just forgive you for dumping me like that? Yeah, you had problems, boo freaking hoo, but I had it harder than you ever will because you made a stupid choice! Because you couldn't be a damn adult the one time, you needed to be!”
The room fell silent, and Jacob was certain he saw a few passersby on the street stop dead in their tracks, wondering what the commotion was about. He turned toward the glass storefront and saw that he was correct. A man and a woman were standing on the sidewalk gawking into the store.
“What the hell do you want?!” he screamed at them through the glass. “Get out of here!”
Instead of moving on, the woman pulled out a cellphone and began to dial. Jacob growled and turned around.
“You're right,” she said, tears streaming down her face, “You're absolutely right. I made mistakes – mistakes I should never have made. I should have thought it through; I should have done so many things but I didn't! I didn't, and I'm going to have to live with that for the REST of my life! You're not the only one suffering here! But we don't have to suffer anymore, we've found each other. We can be happy if you'd just forgive me. Can you do that? Can you forgive me?”
The room fell silent, save for the rumble of the heater, somewhere beyond the wall paneling. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, or perhaps even longer. He turned and faced the glass wall at the front of the store, taking in the scene outside for a moment as a distraction from the present situation. If he had been thinking clearly, he might have seen the glass partition as a metaphor of himself and Hope Crossing. It was a world that he desperately wanted to be a part of, but a world denied to him no matter how hard he tried to get past the partition that separated him from Amish norms. One way or another, he would have to leave the Crossing, and when he did, he had a feeling that all of this would simply fade away. Considering what had just happened with the Weavers, which may not be a bad thing.
What could be really say to her question? Could he really forgive her? Forgiving her would mean dismissing everything she had done, or rather, what she hadn't done. Then again, he'd done some pretty terrible things himself, hadn't he? He took a deep breath and turned to face her. Her countenance was poised, ready to accept the good news so that the two of them could start their new life together, free of this place, and free of any human factors that might keep them apart. It seemed like such a wonderful prospect...almost too good to be true.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “But I can't.”
***
“I heard,” Sarah Mast said, “that you made quite the stink today.”
He had been sitting on a log situated somewhere along the edge of the property line. It was an old log, but not so old that it had rotted. Before them, the landscape of Hope Crossing sprawled out into a field, dead for the winter, but soon to be alive for the summer crops. Beyond that, more empty fields, and eventually a wide forest, home to wildlife one could scarcely imagine, and scarcely find even if they were tough enough to brave it.
Jacob had spent a good chunk of his time exploring the forests, and no one seemed to mind his long absences, which had been a welcome change from the group home. In his days there, it seemed as if his every move had been accounted for, even if he'd simply gone to the bathroom. It could be argued, he supposed, that his affection for this place was tied closely to the level of freedom and responsibility he'd been given.
“I guess I did,” Jacob agreed. “I think I may have been a bit too hard on her.”
“Maybe,” Sarah said, shrugging. “But Daed says we're entitled to be monsters once in a while, as long as we know how to find our way back when we've done what we need to do.”
“Daed,” Jacob said, “is a pretty smart guy.” “Yeah,” Sarah smiled, “he is.”
“I've learned a lot of things out here, but the biggest lesson so far, is that bad things wouldn't happen without the human factor. “
“What do you mean?” Sarah asked curiously.
“I mean...my mother dumped me at a fire station, and without her doing that, I wouldn't have ended up in the group home. However, she did it, because her boyfriend was threatening her, and because her parents wouldn't have approved. Before that there was probably someone else pressuring them, making them the people that they are. It's the human factor, creating a never ending cycle. If people could stop being so mean to one another, just for a moment, then I guess the world really would be a better place. That's what I like about Hope Crossing. People aren't mean to each other here.”
“What about your broken nose?” Sarah giggled. He gave her a semi-serious look and then smiled.
“Even then...I get the feeling that Mr. Weaver is just trying to protect Deborah, even if I'm having a hard time accepting it. The human factor is usually a terrible thing, but sometimes it does good things, even while it's doing something bad.”
“What about being dropped at the fire station then? If her parents did not approve, and her boyfriend was angry, didn't she do a good thing? Maybe she saved your life by dumping you.”
“That's possible,” Jacob agreed. “But I'm just having trouble moving past it.”
As they talked, the weather began to change. For a few moments, the sky had been a bright, shiny blue, but now it was taking on a darker appearance, clouded and gray. It would be mere minutes before the snow was upon them once again, but neither of them minded. Jacob was prepared with his Carhart jacket, and Sarah was wearing a black insulated jacket without a hood. That could be a potential hazard, but she was always fond of her wool cap.
He liked to think that no matter what happened, he would have Sarah and the rest of the Mast family to turn to, but the outside world, and the human factor was trying its best to make that impossible. With Sherry pressuring him to move in with her, and his birthdate being pushed back, the world was becoming a very real thing. Soon enough there would be no law holding him back, and he could be who he wanted to be – who he was born to be.
The question however, was whether he was born to be Jacob Marshall the Amish man, or Jacob Marshall the city dweller. He often wondered what kind of opportunities awaited him, though in the back of his mind, he hoped desperately that he would find a good reason to stay here, in Hope Crossing. Perhaps.
“So I'm curious,” Sarah said, staring off into the horizon, trying to find whatever it was Jacob had gotten himself lost in. “If you denied her for no good reason other than your personal hate, aren't you just continuing the cycle? Aren't you just adding to the human factor?”
“We're all entitled to be monsters once in a while,” Jacob smirked as he continued to stare off into space. “As long as we know how to find our way back when we've done what we need to do.”
THE END.
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