One of the things I liked best about Amanda was that she didn’t get all bent out of shape if I said I’d be over at six and it was closer to seven when I got there. She was laid-back and understanding and uncomplicated.
This time, however, was different. This time, I hadn’t been held up for a short while by a belligerent horse or too many appointments packed into my schedule or a late-arriving customer. I’d been delayed extensively by a big celebration she’d known nothing about and to which she had not been invited. Sometimes I missed the convenience of having a cell phone, an indulgence I’d surrendered near the end of my rumspringa. Had I been able to pull it out and call her, I would have been able to give her a better idea of my timing.
As it was, when I finally got to her home, it was nearly dark outside and I was a good two and a half hours late. Usually, a quick rap at the door brought her right out, ready to go. But this time when I knocked, she simply appeared at the other side of the screen and stood there looking at me.
“Do you have a good reason?” she asked, her voice neutral.
“For being this late? Yes. Amos wanted me to—”
“I don’t need to know the details,” she said, cutting me off with a wave of her hand. “I just need to know if I should be mad or not.”
I exhaled slowly. “No, you shouldn’t be mad. But I feel bad about it just the same.”
“That’s enough for me,” she said, and then she swung open the door.
As I stepped into the mudroom, she actually gave me a smile. I was surprised—and for a moment I assumed she was faking it—but then I recognized the warmth and welcome in her eyes. Her smile was genuine. Even though she required no explanation, I would fill her in later. For now, I was captivated by her demeanor.
“Do you know how rare and refreshing you are?” I whispered as I hung up my hat on a nearby peg.
“Do you know how disarming and charming you are?” she whispered in return, giving me a wink as she turned to go into the kitchen.
I followed her inside, where I was enveloped by the aroma of something fresh baked and delicious. Glancing around, I spotted Amanda’s nine-year-old twin sisters, Nettie and Naomi, at the counter, grinning at me over several trays of what looked like chocolate chip cookies.
“Baking at this hour?” I asked, surprised not to find the kitchen tidied up and closed down for the night.
“I had to do something to pass the time.” Amanda rejoined her sisters at the counter.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, looking around at the otherwise empty space. At this time of night, her family was usually settled into the living room, reading or chatting or playing games.
“One of the horses is foaling,” Nettie replied solemnly, “so they’re all out in the barn.”
“Ah, I see.” Some things on a farm couldn’t be set by a clock.
“Just let me finish here and then we can go,” Amanda said, reaching for a spatula.
“It’s okay, we can do it,” Nettie told her.
“I don’t mind,” Amanda replied, giving her little sister a smile. “I appreciate you guys keeping me company. I’m sure things in the barn would have been a lot more exciting than hanging around in here and helping me bake.”
With movements deft and efficient, she began to scoop up the cookies one by one from the tray and slide them onto a cooling rack nearby. The twins’ eyes were on the cookies as she worked, but I couldn’t see anything but Amanda. Under her black apron, tonight’s dress was maroon, my favorite color on her and the perfect contrast to the curling wisps of her blond hair that had escaped the twisted locks framing her face. Beautiful.
“Do you like them with nuts or without?” Naomi asked, and I glanced her way when I realized she was speaking to me.
“Yes,” I replied, giving her a wink, which made her giggle.
“Which is it?” Nettie, the more forceful of the two, insisted. “With or without?”
“Either way,” I said, stepping closer. “What matters most is the chocolate. Everything else is secondary.”
“Ah, then you want one of these,” Amanda said, turning around and scooping up a cookie from a different cooling rack behind her, and then turning back to hold it out to me. “It’s double-double chocolate.”
Though I was nearly full to bursting from Roseanna’s big supper, I tried to accept Amanda’s offering with enthusiasm. I couldn’t imagine eating another thing, but I brought it to my lips just the same and took a quick bite—and then immediately took another.
Watching me, the twins grinned.
“Gut, ya?” Naomi said. “Amanda makes the best cookies in the district.”
“Naomi,” Amanda scolded. “Hush. That’s prideful.”
“But it’s true,” the other twin piped in.
I couldn’t agree more. Full or not, this was the best cookie I had ever tasted. Soon I had polished the whole thing off despite myself and was debating whether to have another.
I decided to test the different kinds, which I did while Amanda and her sisters made short work of cleaning the kitchen. Then she grabbed a light sweater, I retrieved my hat, and we all headed outside to the driveway. As the twins ran off to join their parents in the barn, Amanda and I veered toward the buggy. Even on a night like this when the two of us had nowhere to go, a ride would still be nice, simply because it gave us a chance to be alone. Of course, my courting buggy was an open-air vehicle, which didn’t exactly afford us much privacy. But at least over the past few months of going out, we’d found some ways to steal a kiss now and then without being seen.
“How are you tonight?” I asked her once we were both settled in and ready to go. At my command, Willow pulled the buggy to the end of the driveway and out onto the road, where she began clip-clopping her way into a trot.
“I’m fine,” Amanda replied, letting out a small sigh of satisfaction as our speed picked up and the wind played with the curls around her face.
After that, I was quiet for a moment as I contemplated how to launch into what I needed to say.
“So, apparently word has spread that we’re a couple,” I began.
I shrugged, the reins loose in my hand as Willow led the way.
“Amos said something.”
With a laugh, Amanda placed her sweater between us, and then she clasped my hand in hers underneath, where it wouldn’t be seen. “It’s been almost four months. Of course word has spread.”
“I know. It just… I wasn’t sure how you felt about that.”
“About what? That people know we’re courting?”
I nodded.
“Are you kidding? You’re such a catch, Jake. I’d shout it from the rooftops if I could.”
I laughed and gave her hand a squeeze. “Yeah? You really think I’m a catch?”
“I’m just glad you caught me,” she whispered, and it took all the strength I had not to kiss her right there.
Back in my rumspringa days, I’d been much more cavalier about my dating habits, usually leaving it to the girl to set the limits of propriety. But once I became a church member, I took that sort of thing much more seriously, and I was always careful not to overstep the bounds of my commitment.
Because Amanda wasn’t yet a church member, she lived by far fewer rules than I, and it had made for some awkward situations—like the time she wanted to go to a secret beer bash, or when she surprised me halfway through a dinner date by returning from the restroom wearing Englisch clothes. As she came to understand that I wasn’t willing to compromise, we managed to work things out, and eventually she began to keep her more rumspringa-like activities to herself, for those times when she was with her girlfriends. I wasn’t crazy about it, but I certainly understood. She was four years younger than I, after all, and she still had some growing up to do. I felt sure that the longer we courted, the greater an influence I would have over her behaviors. On the other hand, as a church member myself, I knew that our relationship could not advance beyond a certain point until she put all of these ways behind her, made a decision to join the church, and committed to the Amish faith for life.
I sure hoped that was how things would play out anyway, especially on nights like this, when the wind lifted the tendrils that hung loose from her kapp and her eyes sparkled brighter than the stars. There was a sense of freedom about Amanda, an ease I hadn’t had with many girls in my life, and it wasn’t hard to imagine her as a helpmate and a wife.
As we rode along, she shifted under the sweater so that she could lace our fingers together. I was immediately aware of how rough my hands were compared to hers. She spent her days as a nanny for a wealthy Englisch couple—both doctors—who lived in Strasburg. The dirtiest thing she had done that day was probably change a diaper. I, on the other hand, had been pretty much ankle deep in horse manure since morning.
I knew I needed to finish telling her about Priscilla’s return—and about Amos’s request—but I hesitated to break the spell of this night. It was just so beautiful out, the temperature perfect, the sky quickly becoming a starry delight, and our favorite road was just ahead on the right.
“Here we are,” I said as we took the turn onto a dark and winding lane, and she squeezed my hand in response.
The street was Smuckers Lane, but we called it Smoochers Lane instead, thanks to a small stretch about halfway up that had thick trees lining both sides and no streetlights in sight. On quiet nights when traffic was light, Smoochers Lane gave us about a quarter mile’s worth of total privacy, an opportunity we both appreciated.
Tonight was no exception. I couldn’t get there quickly enough, and even Willow knew the drill. She picked up speed as we clattered along, but then as soon as we entered the canopy of trees, she slowed from a fast trot down to her most leisurely gait. I looked ahead and behind, and then I slipped an arm around my girlfriend, pulled her close, and lowered my mouth to hers to share a long, lingering kiss.
“Headlights,” she whispered as we came up for air, so we pulled apart and faced forward again, staring straight ahead until the car had overtaken us and moved on past, out of sight.
Amanda leaned in for another kiss. “You taste like chocolate,” she murmured as she teased my lips with hers.
“Mmm, you taste like… ”
“Like what?”
I kissed her again, stalling as I tried to think of something special to say, something that a girl would find pleasing. “I don’t know,” I finally whispered. “Like rainbows? Sunshine?”
At that she burst out laughing—and couldn’t stop until we were out from under the trees and back in the open again.
“Oh, come on, don’t pout,” she said once she’d calmed down, reaching out a finger and touching it to my lips. “It was funny, that’s all.”
I hefted the reins and chucked for Willow to pick up the speed. “I was trying to be romantic.”
“Is that what that was?” she asked, bursting into new peals of laughter.
I wanted to be mad at her, but considering how much grace she had shown with my tardiness tonight, I didn’t feel that I had the right. I decided to change the subject.
“Seriously,” she interjected before I could do so, “I don’t like hearts and flowers, and I don’t need, um, sunshine and rainbows.” Her voice nearly broke into another chuckle, but she managed to hold it in until the urge passed. Then she again took my hand and squeezed it tight. “What I need is a guy like you, Jake. Someone who’s chill, you know?”
“Chill?”
She shrugged. “It’s Englisch slang. Means easy to be with. Even-tempered. Uncomplicated.”
I nodded, for those were the very things I liked best about her.
We rode along, chatting softly, enjoying the night and each other’s company as we took our usual route, one that would make a big square and eventually bring us back to where we began. At first, we talked of nothing important, but by the time we made the final turn that would lead us to her house, I knew I had to get to the topic of Priscilla.
I started by explaining the reason for my delay tonight, the dinner for the returning Kinsinger cousin. I had thought Amanda would be surprised to learn that her old classmate had come back to Lancaster County at last, but as it turned out, she already knew. Of course she knew, I realized. The Amish grapevine prevailed.
“Has she come to stay?” Amanda asked, eager for details.
She’s come to get married, have kids, and remake her life is what I wanted to say. According to Amos, that was the truth—even if Priscilla didn’t know it yet.
“I’m not sure,” I said instead. “It’s complicated.”
“She’s been away a long time. Like, what? Five years? Six?”
“Six, according to Owen.”
“I wonder if she wanted to come back or if they made her, for some reason.”
“Made her? She’s a grown woman, Amanda.”
“She’s a strange woman, Jake. Unless she’s changed. Has she?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. The only time I ever came in contact with her back then was when I was hanging out with Owen or pestering Amos.”
“Well, trust me. She was a strange one.”
Amanda’s family lived in the same district as the Kinsingers, which meant she and Priscilla had attended the same school, the same worship gatherings, the same social events, and more. Considering they had practically grown up together, they would have known each other quite well back then.
“So what was she really like?” I asked. “I always just thought of her as Owen’s odd little tomboy cousin.”
Amanda let out a laugh. “What was she like?”
“Yeah. I’m curious.”
Amanda thought for a moment. “Antisocial. Anti-fun.”
“That bad?”
“Oh, yeah. You didn’t live in this district, so you don’t know. If a person wasn’t a horse or a dog or some other kind of animal, they might as well have been invisible.”
“So you two weren’t close?”
“Are you kidding? Nobody was close to her—not before her daed died, not after her daed died, and certainly not after her mamm died. It was all so sad, of course. I’m not saying it wasn’t. But she wouldn’t let any of us get near her. She wouldn’t connect, and she refused to accept our help.”
A pang of empathy rose up within me. It was rare indeed for a member of an Amish community to be isolated, especially in times of grief. Even if it was by choice, I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for Priscilla.
“How old was she when her father died?”
“We were ten.”
“Ten,” I echoed, wondering why the other kids—Amanda included—hadn’t worked harder to push through those walls.
“Honestly, Jake, I tried to be her friend.” Amanda’s voice was defensive, as if she’d read my mind. “She didn’t seem to need friends before that, so I hadn’t bothered. But once that happened, I really did make an effort to get close to her.”
“Okay. I believe you.”
She was quiet for a moment, the defensiveness gone when she finally spoke again. “It didn’t work, though. After his death, all she wanted was to be with her horse. His horse, actually.”
“His?”
Amanda looked off into the darkness, to a place in the past I couldn’t see.
“I’d sometimes spot her riding that horse after he died—and I don’t mean with a cart. She’d ride it as though she were a cowboy or something, one leg over each side, with her dress hiked up past her knees. Her mother finally made her stop. I, for one, was glad. She was embarrassing herself, you know?”
I didn’t remember this about Priscilla. I barely remembered anything very specific about her. Just that she was a cute but quiet little tomboy, hung around the blacksmith shop and the horses a lot, and had lost both her parents by the age of fourteen.
Up on the right loomed the entrance to Amanda’s driveway, but I wasn’t ready to end our conversation just yet. I asked her if she would mind my overshooting it a bit before I brought her home.
“Why?” she teased, squeezing my hand under the sweater. “So we can make another round on Smoochers Lane?”
The thought was tempting, but right now I was more focused on the issue at hand.
“No,” I replied with a smile, squeezing her back. “So we can finish our conversation. It shouldn’t take too much longer, and then we can make a U-turn.”
Amanda didn’t respond, so I kept going—past the driveway and past her silence—and on to my next questions.
“Can you tell me about her mother’s death? What happened? Owen and I were talking about it earlier, but we were interrupted and never had a chance to get back to it.”
Amanda exhaled loudly, letting go of my hand and crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I don’t exactly mind, but why do you care?”
“Ha. I’ll get to that in a minute.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Really. This conversation does have a point. Trust me.”
It didn’t take long. Amanda wasn’t the type to pitch fits or hold a grudge. With a final harrumph, she uncrossed her arms, retook my hand in hers again, and interlaced our fingers together.
“Fine. Whatever. If you say so.”
“I say so,” I replied, giving her a wink and leaning my shoulder into hers for a long moment.
Thus placated, she began her tale, some of which I already knew and some of which I didn’t. I’d always heard that Sharon Kinsinger died by falling down a flight of stairs, but the full story was more complicated than that. Amanda said she’d share with me what she’d been told, but that no one had all of the details, because by the time Sharon was found, she was nearly unconscious, and then she died soon after.
Still, the events preceding her death hadn’t been all that hard to piece together later by others. The best everyone could figure, Sharon had been alone in the kitchen late one afternoon, canning squash, when she accidentally cut herself with a knife. The injury was deep and angled across her hand and wrist in a way that caused it to bleed heavily. Unable to stop the flow of blood herself, Sharon went upstairs, probably to get help from Priscilla, whom she must have assumed was in her bedroom.
“What made them think that?” I asked, interrupting her.
“Can’t you guess?” Amanda replied, eyeing me sadly. “Blood. The trail of blood. From the kitchen to Priscilla’s bedroom door and then back again.”
“Oh. Right.” I swallowed hard. “Okay, keep going.”
She went on to explain that Priscilla hadn’t been in her bedroom after all, so at that point her mother headed back down the stairs, likely intending to run up to the main house and get help from Roseanna instead. Unfortunately, Sharon was already so weak from blood loss by then that she fell as she was coming down and ended up in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs. No one knew exactly how long she laid there, but it had to have been at least an hour, maybe more, before she was finally discovered.
“Was Priscilla the one who found her?” I asked, disturbed at the thought.
“No. Priscilla was out in the barn, as usual, her head all wrapped up in her animals. Roseanna was the one who came.”
According to Amanda, once darkness fell, Roseanna happened to notice that there weren’t any lights on at Sharon and Priscilla’s house. That seemed odd to her, so she went down the driveway to check on them and make sure everything was okay. Instead, when she got there, she discovered Sharon lying in a pool of her own blood at the bottom of the stairs, just barely conscious. Roseanna called for help immediately, of course, but Sharon died from a combination of blood loss and her other injuries not long after she got to the hospital.
“And Priscilla?” I asked, not wanting to hear any more of this sad, sad tale but needing to know.
“Priscilla heard all the ruckus and came running, but by then it was too late.”
I closed my eyes, my mind conjuring the image of a fourteen-year-old Priscilla Kinsinger kneeling at her mother’s crumpled form as her life slowly slipped away. No wonder she’d had trouble accepting it. Perhaps she even blamed herself. Opening my eyes, I peered out into the darkness ahead of us, fighting off a heaviness that was trying to settle around my heart.
“Of course, Priscilla was devastated,” Amanda continued, her voice somber as well. “Who wouldn’t be? But rumor had it she really went off the deep end.”
“That’s what Owen was telling me, that Priscilla had a hard time accepting her mother’s death.”
Amanda nodded. “You can say that again. Except for the funeral, I never saw her again. Rumor had it she never left the farm at all once her mother died, not even to go to worship meetings. A month or two later, she was sent off to live with relatives in Indiana.”
It was hard not to imagine how horrible the entire experience must have been for poor Priscilla. No wonder Amos was eager for her to start a new chapter in her life now that she had grown up and finally returned.
“Did you ever try to contact her after she left?” I asked.
Amanda shot me a glance. “I told you, Jake. I attempted to befriend her when she lived here lots of times, but she didn’t want my friendship, so once she was gone, there really didn’t seem to be any point.”
“How about the rest of your circle of friends? Did any of them write to her after she moved away?”
Amanda gave a grunt of frustration, clearly irritated at my line of questioning. “I doubt it. I mean, some of our parents probably did, simply as an encouragement, but we were just kids.”
“You were teenagers.”
“Yeah, young teenagers,” she snapped, her tone even more defensive. “I was all of fourteen when this stuff happened. I get it now, sure. I probably should have bothered to pick up a pen and dash off a note or two. But at that age, why would I have taken the time to write to someone who clearly had no desire to hear from me?”
Understanding that Amanda’s patience had reached its limit, I put on my left blinker, intending to make a U-turn in a parking lot on the other side of the street so I could get her home.
“Not a chance, buddy,” she said, reaching across to flip the blinker back off again. “We’re not finished talking yet.”
“Okay, okay.” I gave a shake to the reins and a cluck of the tongue to Willow, who pulled herself out of turn mode and continued on straight.
“Good.” Amanda took in a deep breath and let it out. “Now. Tell me. Why are you asking me these things? What’s all this about, Jake?”
Glad that she was once again calm, I launched in the only way I could think of, by telling her that it wasn’t just Priscilla’s party that had held me up this evening. “Amos stopped me as I was hitching up Willow, saying he needed a favor.”
“Okay.”
“He asked… ” my voice trailed off as I sat up straight, trying to collect my thoughts. “Like I said earlier, he asked me if you and I really are seeing each other, as he’d heard, and when I said yes, he told me that he wants us—me and you, I mean—to help Priscilla get back into the swing of things here. I’m sorry, but Amos and Roseanna want us to bring her along to the young people’s gatherings so that she can make friends here again. Meet people. Stuff like that.”
Amanda’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Why us?”
I shrugged. “I guess because the Kinsinger cousins are all married. Without any young singles in the family, I suppose I was the next logical choice. And you got roped into it because it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to do this by myself. Amos needs a young couple to take Priscilla under their wing. He wants us to be that couple.”
Amanda was quiet for a long moment. “So we’re going to bring her with us on all of our outings?”
“Well, the singings and Sunday afternoon games for sure. Friday night barbeques. That kind of stuff.” I flashed her grin. “Some outings, but not all.”
“Not Smoochers Lane.”
I laughed. “You got that right. Not on a night like this. With cookies. And moonlight. And the most beautiful girl in the world by my side.”
Amanda poked me and laughed. Up ahead loomed the right turn that would take us to our private kissing spot one more time, but it was getting late. Reluctantly, I put on the left blinker instead and then crossed over into the dark, empty parking lot of a bank.
“Did you tell him that we’d do it?” Amanda asked as we pulled back onto the road in the direction we’d come.
“Yeah, I hope that’s okay. Amos has done a lot for me, and I think I owe it to him. Besides, it’s really sad what’s happened to Priscilla. I figure we can do this for her.”
Amanda nodded somberly. “I guess. But I can’t imagine it’s going to be easy unless she came back a different kind of girl.”
I thought of Priscilla’s demeanor when she first arrived and then at the dinner table. “Like I said, I didn’t know her all that well before. She still seems a rather quiet person.”
“What does she look like now?”
“Uh… well, I suppose she looks okay.”
Amanda turned toward me with a smile. “Looks okay? Is that your way of saying she’s pretty?”
I shrugged and laughed, eager to get the focus off of me and back on our project. “I suppose so. You can decide for yourself when you see her this weekend. We’ll probably have to take her with us to the Chupps’ for the volleyball game on Sunday.”
“Ah,” she said, leaning back and bracing her feet on the slope of the floorboard. “And how long will we have to have Priscilla tagging along with us everywhere?”
As long as it takes, was probably how Amos saw it.
“I guess we’ll just have to see. It would definitely speed things up if someone took an interest in her and asked to court her.”
“Priscilla? Married?”
“Ya.” I didn’t bring up the older man who was waiting for her back in Indiana, the widower who needed a mother for his eight children. Not only was that fact not relevant here, it wasn’t anyone’s business—not even mine. I wished Amos hadn’t told me.
“Oh, my,” Amanda said after a moment. “Can you imagine?”
I could imagine a lot of things. “Imagine what?”
“Priscilla being in love? Or someone falling in love with her?”
Sure I could imagine it. Anyone can love another person. Or be loved. It really wasn’t that difficult. “Can’t you?”
“It would have to be the right guy to pull her out of her shell, that’s for certain. Let me think a minute.”
“Think a minute about what?”
“Who we can set her up with, of course.”
Whoa. That was not part of the assignment. I had no interest in involving myself in Priscilla’s love life, or in anyone else’s except my own. “Amos isn’t asking us to do anything beyond bring her with us to the gatherings and make sure she mingles. The rest is out of our hands.”
Amanda tossed her head. “Oh, come on. That will be the only fun thing about this situation. I might actually like it if I can set her up with someone. We can be matchmakers. This will be great, Jake!”
I didn’t think so. No, definitely not.
I told Amanda as much, but it was obvious she wasn’t really listening. Instead, she slipped her hand back in mine and scooted a little closer as the turn for her driveway came into view.
“So on Sunday, are you going to come get me first,” she asked, her tone light, “and then go back home and get your second date for the evening? Or are you going to bring her with you when you come to get me?”
As I put on the blinker, I glanced at Amanda, who was clearly enjoying herself.
I decided I would enjoy myself as well. “Actually, I’ll just send her over to fetch you. On a horse. Bareback. With her dress hiked up around her knees.”
Amanda tossed her head and laughed heartily. I pulled into the driveway of her home, glad to end our time together on that happy note.
My smile didn’t fade until I was driving back toward the Kinsinger farm and began to go over in my mind everything I’d learned tonight about Priscilla and her parents and her past. Thanks to Amanda, at least now I had a clearer picture of the challenge ahead of us in terms of helping the poor girl get reacquainted with the community.
The problem was, that picture seemed more daunting than ever.