“So you bailed on her. Instead of telling her the truth, you just took off with your tail between your legs and didn’t look back.”
Tully sat on the sofa in Arnie’s small one-bedroom apartment in downtown Caribou. He had told his friend the entire story of his relationship with Becca and how he had no choice but to leave. He expected a little sympathy, but that was not what Arnie was dishing out. “You didn’t see her face. You didn’t see how upset she was.”
“I knew you were a drunk, but I never knew you were a coward.”
“I thought the two went hand in hand.” That was exactly how he was feeling. Failure one and failure two.
“So you left the woman you love behind and you stopped for a drink or six on your way here.”
Tully looked up. “No. I promise you, I haven’t touched a drop.”
“Why not? Sounds like you had a pretty good reason to me.”
Tully rubbed his hands on his jeans. Even if he never saw her again, Becca would always be his lodestone. The compass he used to guide the course of his life. He would never do anything to dishonor her memory. “Do I want a drink? Of course I do. Will I take a drink? No.”
“Then I guess we have established that you are not a drunk.”
“Just a coward. I knew what I would see in her eyes when I told her I was an alcoholic. I couldn’t bear to see her turn away from me.” Leaving was less painful than having her tell him to get out of her life.
“So what now?”
“I was hoping I could bunk with you for a while until I can get a job.”
“That’s a little bit of a plan. What kind of job?”
“I don’t care. I don’t care about much of anything anymore.”
“You are lying to yourself, man. You do care. Not about what job to get, but about the people you ran out on. That little girl is going to be heartbroken if you don’t go to her Christmas program.”
Becca and Gideon would accept his leaving and understand that he didn’t belong in their world, but how was a seven-year-old girl going to understand that he didn’t want to stay with her anymore? “She’ll get over it.”
“Like you got over not having a mother and I got over a father that walked out on me when I was ten. Sure, she’ll get over it, on the outside, just like we have, but what about on the inside? Do you think she’s gonna feel that she wasn’t good enough for you?”
Tully got to his feet. “I think coming here was a mistake.”
Arnie held up one hand. “Don’t go. I’m sorry. It’s just that when I talked to you last week, you were certain you had found what was missing in your life. You had found a woman who made you feel complete. A child who wanted you as her father. Even a community of people who made you feel welcome and valued. You found your way back to God. Do you know how many people never find half of what you had in your hands and tossed away?”
Tully raked his hands through his hair. He wasn’t a good enough man for Becca. She would see that. “I can’t change what I am.”
“Really? Because you used to be a stumbling drunk living out of his car in a run-down neighborhood where even the rats thought twice about taking up residence. I think you’ve changed a lot.”
“On the outside.”
“No, Cowboy, you’ve changed on the inside. What is the one thing you wanted when you got out of rehab?”
“A drink.”
“Oh, funny, ha-ha. What did you tell me when I asked if you were looking for a job?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You said you just needed to find one person to have faith in you and believe you would stay sober.”
“Okay, I may have said that.”
Arnie rose to his feet and put a hand on Tully’s shoulder. “How can you ask others to have faith in you when you refuse to have faith in them? Let me rephrase that. When you refuse to have faith in her.”
Tully had no answer for him.
“You couldn’t take a chance that she would reject you. You would’ve been crushed, I get that. You would’ve been miserable. You know what I see?”
“Don’t hold back, tell me what you really think.”
“You’re still crushed and miserable. How is this any better? It’s late. I’m going to bed. The couch is yours. I would say sleep well, but I suspect you won’t. And just so you know, if you don’t go back to her, you’re a whopping fool.”
Tully sat down on the sofa after Arnie left the room. What did Arnie know? He didn’t have a drinking problem. He didn’t know what it was like to have people look down their noses at him. To know they were judging him and finding him less of a man.
He pulled his boots off and stretched out with his arms behind his head. Sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. He kept seeing the tears that had glistened in Becca’s beautiful eyes when he told her he was leaving.
He wanted to believe that she could accept the flawed man that he was, but what if she couldn’t? What if she turned away from him? What if he saw disgust in her eyes instead of tears? How could he bear it if every time she looked at him, she saw the man that killed her husband?
If he didn’t have faith in her, how could he expect her to have faith in him? He did have faith in her. It was himself he doubted.
What’s the plan, God? I’m lost. I’m tired. I thought I knew what I wanted, but what do You want from me?
Through the thin walls of Arnie’s apartment, he heard Christmas music playing, or maybe it was coming from outside. He got up, went to the window and pulled the curtain aside. The streets of the city were decorated with lights and giant ornaments. There was a Christmas tree in the courtyard below. A group of carolers stood around it singing “Silent Night.”
Tomorrow night Annabeth and her classmates would be singing the same song for their family and friends, and he wouldn’t be there to hear it.
The song ended, and a man’s voice began a new hymn. “Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine, love was born at Christmas, star and angels gave the sign.”
Tully let the curtain fall back and returned to the couch. He sat with his elbows propped on his knees and his head in his hands.
If you don’t go back to her, you’re a whopping fool.
Arnie’s words echoed through Tully’s mind. How is this any better?
It wasn’t. It never would be. Life without Becca, Annabeth, Gideon and all the people of New Covenant would only be half a life. Hadn’t he already lost enough of himself to his alcoholism? Did he have to lose the rest to his fears? There was no place left to run and hide unless he went back into a bottle, and he would not do that.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he would always wonder what Becca would have said if he had told her the truth. Knowing had to be better than never knowing. His hands grew icy as he faced what he had to do.
Tomorrow he would go back. If he was going to lose Becca, it would have to be her choice. If he hadn’t lost her already.
“Mamm, where is my shepherd’s crook?” Annabeth hollered from her room.
“It’s here in the kitchen by the front door where you put it so you wouldn’t forget it.”
Annabeth came running into the room. She grabbed up the crook Gideon had made for her. “I’m ready. Is it time to go yet?”
“Not yet. We have an hour before you’re supposed to be there.”
“Do you think Tully will change his mind and come see me?”
Becca’s chest contracted with pain. Why couldn’t he have waited until after Christmas? It would’ve been easier for Annabeth, but not for her. She had tried to prepare herself for the inevitable, but it hadn’t done any good. After thinking she would never love another, Tully—an Englischer and beyond her reach unless she was willing to forsake her faith—had proven her wrong. Her heart was in tatters.
“I hear a car! It’s Tully, I know it is.” Annabeth raced to look out the window.
Becca felt her heart leap and then drop. She couldn’t get her hopes up.
Annabeth turned away from the window with tears glistening in her eyes. Her lower lip quivered. “It’s not his car.” She ran down the hall to her room and closed the door.
Becca forced herself to go see who it was. She opened the door and looked out. It was a small white pickup. She didn’t recognize the man behind the steering wheel, but she saw an Amish fellow get out of the passenger seat. He leaned down and spoke to the driver, who then pulled away, leaving the man standing a few paces beyond her gate. In the same spot where she had first seen Tully holding an injured newborn calf. The memory brought tears to her eyes.
The man walked closer. She blinked back her tears when she realized it was Tully. She held on to the door to keep upright. Or maybe so she wouldn’t race down the steps and throw herself into his arms. Why was he here? Why was he dressed like an Amish fellow instead of like a cowboy? Where did he get the clothes?
She heard Gideon and Annabeth talking as they came down the hall. She grabbed her coat and turned to them as they entered the kitchen. “I’m going to check on Diamond before we leave.”
She stepped out, closed the door behind her and pointed to the barn. She marched past him without speaking. Whatever his reason was for being here, she didn’t want him to upset Annabeth and Gideon if they happened to look out and catch sight of him. She hardened her resolve against the turmoil seeing him again caused. He had vanished with barely a word of goodbye, leaving her and her child brokenhearted. If he could do it once, he could do it again. Only this time she would be prepared.
Inside the barn she lit a lamp and braced herself as she turned to face him with her arms clasped tightly across her chest. She looked his clothing up and down. “What is this? Some new show like your rope tricks?”
“Hello, Becca.” He took off his hat and started turning it in his hands. “Michael supplied me with a proper outfit.”
Tears sprang to her eyes at the tenderness in his voice. She turned away and braced her arms on the gate of Diamond’s stall. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m taking the biggest risk of my life.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Her voice broke on the last word, and she struggled to breathe against the tightness in her throat.
He stepped up beside her, leaning on the gate, too. Diamond hobbled over to nuzzle his knee through the wooden slats. He scratched her head. “It means I have something to tell you, but I am scared to death to open my mouth.”
Her hands were shaking, but she managed to clasp them tightly together. Her fingers were like ice. “Do you think coming dressed as one of us will make what you have to say more acceptable to me? Clothing has nothing to do with belonging here. You said it yourself. You couldn’t give up your English ways.”
“I was lying about that.”
Shocked, she turned to face him. “Why would you lie to me?”
“Because I thought that lie would be less painful than the truth about me. I know that I hurt you, and I’m deeply sorry. You may not believe it, but I was trying to protect you. No, that isn’t the whole truth. I was trying to protect myself.”
She still couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. “What is this terrible truth that made you leave and now makes you come back?” Did he know he was breaking her heart all over again?
“Becca... I am an alcoholic. Just like the man who ran a stop sign and killed your husband, your brother-in-law and Gideon’s wife. Just like the man we saw staggering away from the wreckage of Gabe’s sled.”
“I can’t believe that.” Of all the things she had expected to hear, this was not one of them.
“I should’ve told you before you let me stay with you and your family. You had a right to know the kind of man that was living in your home.”
This was the secret she had seen in his eyes. The thing he’d kept from her. She tried to hold down the anger rising inside her. What did knowing this change? He’d found it easier to walk away from her love than to trust her.
He cleared his throat. “I hope you can forgive me.”
Part of her wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him it was okay. The other part of her wanted to scream, why? What hold did alcohol have over him that was more powerful than a family’s love or the value of a human life?
As she looked at his tense, pale features, her anger drained away. Her heart filled with pity. “I’m sorry you have this burden to bear. You have told me. Is that all?”
“Except to say that I’m sorry for the hurt that I have caused you and that people like me have caused you. I was plastered when I let a friend drive drunk. He killed himself and two other people.”
“You are not responsible for the sins of others. You are not the man who took my husband’s life.”
“Thank you.” He put his hat on his head. “I guess that’s it.” He started to walk away.
She couldn’t let him go with so much unsaid. “What do you plan to do now?”
“I turned in my Stetson for a flat-topped black Amish hat, and I sold my car. I will find an Amish community and live as they do. In time I hope to bury my Englisch past completely. I want to thank you for showing me the way to a place where I think God wants me to belong.”
She swallowed hard against the faint hope that started to rise from the depths of her pain. “Why can’t you stay among us? Did the bishop disapprove?”
His smile was sad. “No, but it would be too hard to live near you and not be a part of your life. I know I would be a constant reminder of your husband’s untimely death. I care about you too much to subject you to that.”
He cared enough to leave, but did he care enough to stay? “When you were here with us, were you drinking?”
“No. I had been out of rehab for only a few months when I bumped into Diamond on the road. I have not had a drink since I went into rehab. I have been sober for five months. I know that doesn’t sound like much to you, but for me it’s huge. I had planned to tell you that night, but after learning how your husband died, I got scared. I didn’t want you to look at me the way you looked at that man, so I left.”
“You have given up drinking?”
“Yup. I know it will be a lifelong struggle, but I can’t go back to what I was. You helped me see that—among other things.”
She took a step toward him. Something in his voice told her she hadn’t heard the whole truth yet. “What other things?”
A tiny smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “That kindness exists. That a house can be a real home if the people in it care about each other. That a community can love and nurture all its members. That God loves me and has a plan for me.” He looked into her eyes. “I had stopped believing before I met you.”
He was in love with her, and he was about to walk away again. She saw it in the depths of despair in his eyes. Why couldn’t he tell her? Was he afraid she would cast his love aside? Had she given him a reason to think otherwise? “You have shown me something important, too, Tully Lange.”
He looked away. “How to spin a rope?”
“Nee, you will not distract me with your humor. You will listen to what I have to tell you. The rules of my faith control every part of my life, from what I wear on my head to what prayers I say at night. Despite knowing it was wrong and trying very hard not to do so...I still fell in love with you.”
Tully’s gaze flew to her face—he wasn’t sure that he had heard correctly. His heart began hammering in his chest. He was afraid he was dreaming. “What did you say?”
“I think you heard me.”
“Maybe I did, but I would sure like to hear you say that again.”
“I said I’m in love with you. Even if it doesn’t make a difference, I wanted you to know.”
He took a step toward her. “That is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard in my life. Spoken by the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. The dairy barn setting isn’t so spectacular, but I can live with it. As long as you mean it.”
A smile curved her lips. “We have spent so much time together in this barn that it seemed like the perfect setting.”
He had never known such joy. “Becca, I love you. If you don’t mind, I’d like to spend the next sixty or seventy years working beside you in this barn.” He held out his arms. When she stepped into his embrace, he knew he had found his own paradise.
He held her close as tears of happiness slipped down his cheeks. “I thought I had lost you. I thought you’d never be able to look at me again when you knew what I was.”
She gazed up at him and cupped his cheeks with her hands. “I always knew you were a cowboy, and I love you in spite of it.”
“I’m the one that makes the jokes.”
“I am not joking. Why couldn’t you tell me that you loved me just now?”
“Because I didn’t believe that I deserved to have something so wonderful in my life.” He pulled her into a fierce hug. “I still don’t deserve you, but I’m never going to let you go.”
“Oh, Tully, I love you so much. I can’t believe how happy I am, but if you are going to kiss me you had better do it now, because we have to get Annabeth to her Christmas program.”
“I love the way you boss me around.” He bent toward her upturned face and tenderly pressed his lips to hers.
The outside door banged open, and Annabeth came in. “Mamm, we are going to be late! Tully!” She threw herself into his arms. “I knew you would come. I knew it.”
“I wouldn’t miss your play for anything.” He held out his hand to Becca. “Shall we go?”
“With you? Everywhere and for always.”
“It will be a year before I can be baptized.”
“Then the wedding will be in one year and one day.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Did you just propose to me?”
“I did. You were dragging your feet.”
“I accept.”
“Goot.” She made shooing motions with her hands. “Let’s go. We have to celebrate Christmas with our friends and family.”
Tully lifted Annabeth up and set her on his shoulder. “And some little shepherd girl has to find the Christ child.”
“We are blessed, Tully Lange,” Becca said stepping to his side.
He dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “Don’t I know it.”
Annabeth squeaked. “Did you just kiss my mother?”
“Yup. Want to see me do it again?”
She grinned. “Yup.”
If you enjoyed this story,
look for these other books
by Patricia Davids:
An Amish Wife for Christmas
Shelter from the Storm
The Amish Teacher’s Dilemma
Keep reading for an excerpt from An Amish Holiday Family by Jo Ann Brown.