Ephraim bowed his head in silence, trying to block out thoughts of Cara during the meal prayer.
When he opened his eyes, Lori smiled at him. “I got done praying first.”
Ephraim chuckled. “I don’t think that’s the point.”
At a table several feet away, Ada took a piece of fresh-baked bread and passed the basket to Cara. She rose from her table, walked over to his, and set the container near him.
Ephraim took a roll. “Denki.”
“Gan gern?” Cara asked.
He laughed. “Gern gschehne.”
“Yeah, Mom, gern gschehne.” Cara made a funny face at her daughter and returned to the other table. Lori giggled.
He studied Ada for a moment. Something weighed on her, something written in that letter he’d seen her read a hundred times. He didn’t know who it was from, but she kept it tucked inside her apron, and he’d seen her shed a few tears when she thought no one was looking.
From the moment Ada had left his home after spending the night helping Cara nearly two weeks ago, she hadn’t been allowed to talk to him. Between her writing to him and them sharing a conversation with each other through Cara, they talked fairly easily. He understood why the bishop had added unusual restrictions to his shunning, but the hardest part was a normal restriction—not being allowed to sit at a table with her. Cara came up with a plan that made the rules easier to live with. She and Lori took turns sitting at either his or Ada’s table during mealtimes.
Ada’s place in Hope Crossing was an hour from Dry Lake by horse and buggy, because the rigs couldn’t use the highway but it was only ten to fifteen minutes by car. So Robbie drove him here each morning and picked him up around ten or eleven each night.
In between those hours he and Cara worked to restore the home, then talked and kidded until the exhausting efforts felt like a game. Every morning they sat on the steps of the front porch and drank coffee. Each evening when it was too dark to work by kerosene or gas lamps and Lori was asleep, Ada stayed here, and he and Cara went for a long stroll. It’s what he’d longed for when they finished painting the Garretts’ place—more time with Cara.
He watched her as she ate, enjoying how quickly she’d begun to heal. The shock and grief of learning about her roots had quieted, but her heart hadn’t changed toward her family. Several had written letters to her, but she’d not opened even one of them. She’d accepted their past indifference, not forgiven it.
When she caught him staring at her, she frowned. “You got a problem, mister?”
He had one all right. And he was looking straight at it. Everything about her fascinated him. The way she ate bread by tearing off a small piece at a time. The way she tried to tuck her hair behind her ear now that it was growing a bit, but it was still too short to stay. The way she whispered in early mornings and spoke deep and soft in late evenings. And the thousand other movements she made throughout a day. All of it had captured his thoughts.
When he didn’t answer her, she stuck out her tongue and made a face. He didn’t allow the smile he felt to show on his face. Even though he wasn’t sure what he wanted from life anymore, he kept that confusion to himself. The shunning hadn’t convinced him of the things the church leaders had hoped.
Without going to any Amish person’s place, he and Lori had found homes for every puppy. After he paid to have the mama dog fixed, they even found a great family for her.
Even though living without modern conveniences seemed silly to Cara, she was clearly interested in trying to understand the whys of their religion. Each day she asked questions about living Amish. And despite her arguing against those ways, she grew to understand their culture a little more. Her insights were remarkable, but it was head knowledge to her. She seemed to accept none of it as a reasonable way of life.
Still, he was convinced she needed to see the good parts of the Amish way of life before she’d find peace and acceptance of her heritage. So he guarded his words and never spoke of his frustration with being shunned. According to the restrictions of the shunning, he probably shouldn’t be doing anything that helped Ada build her new business, but it seemed to him he could get away with doing things that helped Cara, who happened to share the same home.
He was four weeks into a shunning that the bishop hadn’t set an ending date to. It might last five more months or longer. Ada’s dilapidated place seemed like the perfect solution to his problem of having too much time on his hands. It wasn’t the painful situation the bishop had intended—not for him or Cara—and Ephraim figured he’d get a visit from the church leaders when they realized it.
“Hey, ’From.” Lori took a drink of milk and set the glass on the table. “Does Better Days miss me when you take him home at night?”
“Ya, he does. Just last night he was telling me all about it while I was trying to sleep.”
“Can he stay here tonight?”
“Lori—”
“Actually,” Ephraim interrupted Cara, hoping to stop her from issuing a firm no, “I’ve been wanting to talk to your mom about that.”
“Really?” Lori’s eyes grew big.
“Yeah, ‘From, really?” Cara raised an eyebrow. “Before or after you cause trouble for a busy single mom?”
He knew that each day took a lot of strength. Between painting and helping Ada bake, she worked long hours, and as the summer temps climbed, the lack of air conditioning and fans seemed to wear on her more than it did on him and Ada.
“I have a plan.”
“One that works? Or one where we work, but it doesn’t?” Cara teased.
His eyes defied his will and stayed focused on her as he soaked in who they’d become since meeting. Love was weird—and he no longer doubted that he loved her. No matter how much he gave or helped, he wanted to do more. He didn’t know how she felt about him other than seeing him as a good friend whose company she enjoyed. But he did know she was happier now that she was out of Dry Lake, had a stable place to live, and had lots of work to do.
“What’s the plan?” Lori asked around a mouthful of fresh-baked wheat bread.
I wish I knew.
He cleared his throat and looked to Lori. “I’m going to clean up the backyard so an adult doesn’t have to put a leash on Better Days and take him to a side yard every time he needs to go out.”
Lori looked pleased as she took another bite of her sandwich. Cara’s face was not readable.
Yesterday afternoon when she corrected Lori for nearly knocking over a can of paint, he heard it in Cara’s voice: she needed a safe place for her daughter to play outside.
With town shops close by and traffic as busy as it was, Cara didn’t let Lori go outdoors alone. Part of the reason was because Better Days had to be kept on a leash, and if he pulled free of Lori’s hand, she’d take off after him. But when Cara wouldn’t trust Lori to play on the wraparound porch, it dawned on him that her caution was magnified because her mother had died from being struck by a car. That’s when he decided to stop his repair work on the inside of the house and clean up the junkyard out back.
“Can I help?” Lori asked.
“Maybe later, after I’ve shoveled the broken glass into trash bags and mended the fence so little girls and puppies can’t walk right through it, okay?”
“Okay. Me and Better Days will be in my room playing when you’re ready.”
Cara rose and began stacking plates. “She thinks you’ll get that done before supper.”
He scuffed Lori’s hair. “I will, just not before today’s supper.”
He stood. “Guess I better get started.”
Ephraim put on work gloves and began loading lawn bags with broken bottles and trash. The mid-June heat bore down as he lifted a half-rotted log and carried it to the wagon. He’d picked up all the large pieces of glass he could, but he knew there were hidden shards. The worst of it was in two corners that’d been used as trash piles. He wasn’t yet sure what he could do about that.
While lifting another oversize log, he saw two men in a horse and buggy coming toward him. When the rig stopped near the carriage house, he recognized them. Two church leaders, the bishop and a preacher. He’d known this speech was coming, was surprised it’d taken a full week for them to make this visit. What he didn’t know was if his father realized how much time he was spending here. Normally, as a preacher, his Daed would be with the other two church leaders during this type of visit. But the bishop’s wisdom probably caused him to shield his Daed from the news.
Hoping to keep Cara or Lori from hearing what Sol and Alvin would have to say, he weaved around the trash and junk until only a wire fence separated them at the back part of the yard.
“Ephraim.” Sol shook his hand, effectively reminding Ephraim that brotherly fellowship was heartily waiting for him as soon as he took the right steps to bring an end to the shunning.
Alvin moved to stand next to the bishop. “We regret the need for this visit and that we had to travel so far in order to connect with one of our own.”
Robbie took him home each night, but that wouldn’t count for much.
The bishop studied him. “Because of the vows you’ve taken, this is like flirting with betrayal. You’ve promised to marry within our sect, and Cara is not a part of us.”
“She might be if everything had been handled right.”
“If she’d come to us at the age of eight, she might have joined the faith. Big difference. And is that why you’re spending so much time here, to set right a wrong? I think not. You are here because you let desire take root, and now it controls you.”
Alvin opened the gate and came inside the messy yard. He placed his hand on Ephraim’s shoulder. “You can’t get free of the ban living like this, and you have a duty to your family.”
“If that’s your argument, it’s a weak one. I’ve fulfilled more than my share of family obligations. I’ve worked for eight years to provide for my father’s family.”
The bishop came inside the fence too. “We’ve tried to give you a bit of flexibility, thinking you’d help Ada and then return to safer ground for your soul. But you haven’t. One is not Amish because their parents are or once were Amish. Cara’s an Englischer. Will you forsake God, family, and your business to follow this… this lustful path?”
“My being here has nothing to do with lust.” It had plenty to do with desire, but Ephraim knew himself well enough to recognize when lust tempted him.
The bishop placed a hand on his shoulder. “Anything that pulls you away from your walk with God, from the principles you believe in, or believed in before, is lust. If this was happening to someone else in our community, you’d be able to see it for what it is. Trust us, Ephraim. And come away.” He spoke softly. “Let us do our job in correcting you. Please, for the love of all God has done for you, don’t turn your back on Him.”
“I haven’t turned my back on God.”
“No, you haven’t,” the bishop said. “But one who’s been raised as you have doesn’t turn his back on God overnight. It will happen slowly, until one day you realize you’ve lost all faith and you don’t know when or how it happened. But I can tell you this: it began the day you took that woman into your home unsupervised. And it will continue as long as you come to Hope Crossing each day to work beside her.”
“She needs someone to tell her of our faith, to show her all the good parts of being Amish. Her mother wanted her raised with us. That opportunity was stolen from her. She’s been asking questions about our ways. Will you prevent me from sharing that with her?”
“Most Englischers will ask questions about our beliefs, given a chance. It doesn’t mean they’re remotely interested in doing what it takes to live as we do. And what happens if, after all her questions are answered, she’s uninterested in living Old Order? What then?”
Ephraim stared at the lush green hill, wishing he had answers. Cara had a few favorite spots she liked to walk to in the evenings. He was looking at one of them. They’d go through the pasture behind Ada’s house, across the footbridge, and up that steep hill to a dilapidated barn and outbuildings. He had no idea why she found the half-ruined structures so interesting, but that’s where they walked. They’d sit on a fallen tree or jutted rock or sometimes a blanket and watch the night sky. He could talk to Cara there, tell her about parts of himself that were hidden from everyone else. She shared things with him, and that only served to make him want her more. The only secret he kept from her was that he was no longer seeing Anna Mary. Surely, if she thought about it, she’d know that. But telling her would shift the relationship and add to all the confusion going on inside her.
“Ephraim,” the bishop called to him, “what if she’s uninterested in becoming Amish?”
The bishop stared at him, looking deeply concerned. “Will you leave the faith? Will you make the same mistake Malinda Riehl made? You’ve lived a solid Old Order Amish life since your father needed you nine years ago. You did that out of love, but love is not always enough to accomplish what we want it to.”
Ephraim held the man’s gaze, unashamed of what was happening within him. His heart belonged to Cara. At thirty-two he’d finally experienced the connection he’d always longed for. “And there are times when it is.”
The bishop drew a deep breath. “Ephraim, listen to me. Even if she chooses to join the faith and goes through all the right steps, if her decision isn’t based on the right reasons, she is likely to leave after some time.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“You care for her. That’s clear. Does she return those feelings?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“If she gets so caught up in her feelings that she goes through all the steps to marry you, then she might only stay because she’s married. But if you back off, she’ll have a chance to choose for herself, not based on a life with you, but based on our faith.”
Ephraim shoved his hands into his pockets and gazed at the sky. “You may be right about that.”
“Ya.” The bishop smiled. “I am right. I learned much of my wisdom from you over the years before you became all verhuddek.”
Was the bishop right? Had he become confused?
Alvin shifted. “We don’t want to lose you or add any more punishment. But as much as it grieves us to say it, this is your final warning. You have until Monday to decide. You must keep away from Cara at all times until we see progress in her. If she makes a decision to accept our ways and become Amish, that will change everything.”
The bishop removed his hat, looking peaceful and confident. “You can’t be the one to help her, not without jeopardizing your own soul. Let Ada do as she has permission to. Cara is out of your home now. If you’ll return as we ask, I’ll repeal the extreme restrictions of your shunning within a week. If you’ll show some willingness to follow our wisdom, it won’t be long before I’ll end the shunning altogether. Then you will be a member in good standing before you know it.”
Each man placed a hand on Ephraim’s shoulder and bowed for silent prayer. “Be wise, Ephraim. There is much more than just your soul at stake. Many within the younger generations of Dry Lake are now questioning the ways of our people.”
Feeling the weight of responsibility smothering him, he looked to Ada’s house. Inside was a woman who possessed more of him than he did.
“Did you know Mahlon has been gone all week?” the bishop asked.
“What? He said he’d wait until I returned to work before he took time off.”
“He left last Saturday and told Deborah he’d probably be back by Wednesday. Today is Saturday again, and she’s not heard a word from him. She doesn’t even know where he went. He’s supposed to be out of his place by tomorrow at midnight, and from what we can tell, he made no plans for where to live.”
The news quaked through him. His sister’s heart would break if Mahlon didn’t return. Was the letter Ada had been reading over and over again from Mahlon? He could think of a few reasons she wouldn’t say anything yet and felt fairly confident she’d only speak up if she was positive what her son was up to.
“Can I talk to my sister?”
The bishop shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve made enough exceptions already. I let you talk to your Daed when he was in the hospital and to Ada several times when Cara found out she had relatives in Dry Lake.”
Ephraim looked to the clear blue sky with its streaks of white clouds and golden sun, knowing that right where he looked there were the stars he couldn’t see—not until darkness fell. “What you’d really like to tell me is that if I keep seeing Cara, I’ll live under the weight of my choice for the rest of my life.” He took a step back and began putting on a work glove. “Well, that’s a price I just might be willing to pay.”