I left the next day, and it took me thirteen hours to get from where I was to where I wanted to be. I used the same route Priscilla had, going from Lancaster to Elkhart with just one change of trains, in Pittsburgh. For most of those hours, except for when I was sleeping, I was praying that God would be with me and favor me, and that He would prepare Priscilla for my impromptu arrival.
I also prayed I wasn’t too late.
I knew I could have called—should have called—instead. But if there was even the slightest chance that she planned to tell this guy yes, then I had to do this in person. I had to force her to look me in the eye and tell me she didn’t love me as much as I loved her.
And I did love her, I knew that now. I was no longer the person who hadn’t been able to feel for so many years, who never loved before, who wasn’t even sure true love existed. Instead, I was now hands down, head-over-heels in love with Priscilla Kinsinger, and I wanted her for my wife.
My biggest concern was what it might take to talk her into coming back with me. She sounded so happy in Indiana, so pleased with her work and her life there. Even if she loved me in return, how was I going to convince her that she belonged with me in Lancaster County, a place that for her had mostly been one of pain and loss?
I had asked this of my parents the night before, when I sat down and told them what I was going to do.
“When two people love each other, Jake,” my mother had replied, “and I mean, really love each other, they cease to think of only themselves. Their natural inclination, if true love exists between them, is to make the other person happy.”
“Love gives, not pulls,” my father had added, “which is why it sometimes aches. But that doesn’t mean it is not the grandest of all virtues, son.”
I repeated their words of wisdom back to myself now as the train rumbled along. One thing I did know was that I was not to pull Priscilla back to Lancaster County, I was to woo her back. And maybe that wouldn’t be so hard after all. With every passing hour I was increasingly more and more in love with her. She was my soul mate, I was sure of it. I had never felt for anyone else the way I did about her.
I thought of her words that day at Blue Rock Creek when she pleaded with me to open my heart.
Christ loved the church with ardor and an aching longing to see her redeemed. You are to have that same love for your beloved.
Now, these many weeks later, I finally understood what she’d meant, and I agreed with every word.
Priscilla’s great-aunt, Cora Kurtz, lived about halfway between Elkhart and Goshen, so when I arrived at the train station, I switched to a local bus that would take me within a two-mile walk of my destination. Seated on that bus for the last leg of my journey, I couldn’t help but compare the terrain of Indiana to that of Lancaster County. It was much flatter here, and there were fewer trees, but for some reason the sky seemed bigger. I began to see Amish buggies as soon as the bus eased out of the city center, and my eyes were wide as I took in the differences between those here and the buggies back home. Having been a buggy-maker myself prior to farrier school, I saw things others might miss or not even care about. I kept wishing my daed or Tyler were here so we could point out to each other the various differences—in color, shape, accessories, and more—between these vehicles and the ones I’d grown up making in my family’s buggy shop back home.
The bus dropped me off at a gas station, and a man working inside told me where I could find the road I was looking for. I hiked my small traveling bag over my shoulder and set out. Despite having had only four hours of sleep on the train, I was nervously energized at the thought that I was now less than a half hour’s walk from Priscilla.
I came upon the driveway for her grandparents’ house first, recognizing it by the handmade sign for the fresh, organic honey I could buy there. I knew the next place up the road, which I could see through the tops of the rows and rows of apple trees, was where I would find Priscilla.
Lord, this is it. Please be with me now. Please don’t let this be for nothing. Please help me convince her to come back to Lancaster County where she belongs.
The Kurtz home was a white two-story house with gabled upper-floor windows and red shutters. A tidy lawn bore two apple trees on either side of a paved walkway. The two trees stood like sentinels, calling attention to the orchard of their brethren all around them. The leaves on the trees were just starting to turn, and nearly every branch was heavy with fruit. Cast iron pots of summer geraniums were situated on the wooden porch, still vibrant but not quite as full as perhaps they had been a few months earlier. Clematis vines twirled about the porch posts, and forsythia bushes lined one side of the house, while a colorful squash garden sprawled across the other side. I could also see a sizeable vegetable garden, recently harvested of most of its wares. Dresses hung on a line between the house and a big barn, some of them large and matronly looking, and others dainty and trim in shades of lavender, rose, cornflower, and celery-green. A gray-striped cat sunning himself on the porch studied me as I approached, flicking his tail in apparent greeting.
The entire aspect was welcoming, the home worn but pleasant looking, the orchard vast and sweet smelling. For a second I wondered what I was even doing. This was a beautiful place, and Priscilla was surely content here, but I shook off the momentary troublesome thought. Love could make a home anywhere. What mattered was who a person spent her life with, not where she lived. If she loved me, Priscilla would come back to Lancaster County with me.
I walked up the pathway to the porch. The front door was open halfway, and a screen door allowed for the aroma of something sweet and creamy to reach me. As I stepped onto the porch and breathed in the tantalizing fragrance of baked apples, the cat stood, stretched, and meowed.
“Hey, fella,” I whispered back. Then I knocked on the screen door, waited, and prayed.
“Come on in, Eunice,” a voice called from within.
“Um, I’m not Eunice,” I replied. There was a slight pause and then an older, heavy-set woman with a cane appeared at the doorway. She smiled at me. “Well, hello, Not-Eunice. What can I do for you?”
“I… I was hoping I might speak with Priscilla if she’s home.” I answered, a bit nervously.
The woman, surely Cora, cocked her head in curiosity. “Is she expecting you?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, she’s not.”
Cora’s smiled deepened. “Are you a friend of hers?”
“Ya. She’s… Yes. A good friend.”
“Well, she’s not here right now. Would you want to wait for her or come back later?”
“Do you know where she went? Maybe I could find her.”
“Is it that important?” Cora said with a laugh.
“Ya. It’s pretty important. I’ve come from out of town.”
“Oh?” she asked, moving a step closer.
“I’m from Lancaster County.” As if to prove it, I held up my bag to show her.
Her eyes widened, and her smile seemed to take on a different curve. “Ah. So you’re him, Mr. Jake Miller from Lancaster County. The man of letters, so to speak. Come on in. I’m Priscilla’s great-aunt, Cora Kurtz.”
“Danke.”
She opened the door for me, and as I stepped inside, I felt a ridiculously deep surge of joy, not only that this woman knew of me but that she knew my name. That meant Priscilla had talked with her about me, had told her I was a part of her life.
I set my bag on the floor near the door. Cora gestured toward the kitchen table, and we moved there together. I held her elbow as she sat, and then I took the chair across from her.
When I met her eyes, I realized she wore an expression of concern. “You are here to tell her something she will want to hear?”
“I sure hope so.”
“You came a long way to say it.”
“It didn’t seem long.”
We shared a smile.
“Okay, well, I hope you came in time.”
“I do too,” I managed. “Do you know… ”
She peered at me for a long moment, as if she were trying to see inside me to my very soul. Then she said, “I’ve been single my whole life, Jake, which was God’s will for me. And though I wouldn’t have chosen this for myself, I know that a life alone is still better than a life with the wrong man.”
I swallowed hard. “She’s with him now? With her suitor, Noah?”
Cora shook her head. “She did that earlier. They went off in his buggy right after breakfast and then showed back up here an hour later. She never said a word as to how it went or what she ended up telling him. I’ve been itching to hear, but she’s stayed out in the orchard all day.”
“So where is she now? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Like I just said. She’s out in the orchard.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Here? She’s in the orchard here?”
Seeing my eagerness, her mouth spread into a slow smile. “Yes, sir. She is. Last time I spotted her, she was in the Reds. Behind the house.”
“Do you mind if I—”
“I think maybe you’d better.”
“Danke,” I whispered.
And she beamed.
Once outside, I set off for the trees directly behind the house. As I passed the large barn to my left, I could see a coffee-brown Morgan munching on hay just inside it—no doubt the loaner from Priscilla’s grandparents, and I noted that the building needed some repairs. A hinge on the door was half on and half off, and the entire structure could use a fresh coat of paint. I wished I were staying longer so I could fix a few things.
I began my search for Priscilla by looking up every row directly behind the house, searching for a flash of pastel amid the rusty greens, brown, and red. Then I heard a voice, the sound of someone humming. It was a tune I didn’t know, but it sounded happy. My heart began to thud in my chest as I scanned the rows. And then I saw her, about halfway up the last row. She was bent over with a shovel in her hands, her back to me.
I prayed a silent prayer and started up the path between the rows. I hoped that when I drew closer, she would hear my approaching footsteps and turn around. I didn’t want to frighten her. But her humming and the scrape of the shovel masked the sounds of my steps. When I was just a few feet away, I could see that she was working in between two mature trees that were laden with fruit, and she was digging up a volunteer tree that would not be able to continue where its life had started. Near her feet was a five-gallon container partially filled with soil. Priscilla was not cutting down the little tree that didn’t belong there. She was carefully removing it so that she could transplant it to a place where it could grow.
In that same instant, I was nearly knocked over by an echo of an earlier bit of advice that now seemed to slam into my chest.
When two people love each other, Jake—and I mean, really love each other—they cease to think of only themselves. Their natural inclination, if true love exists between them, is to make the other one happy. My mother’s gentle words to me just last night now shouted their truth. It didn’t matter where I lived my life; it mattered whom I lived it with.
Here was an Amish community that was not so very different than my own back in Lancaster County.
Here was a house and land and orchards that needed tending.
Here was a barn that needed a man’s muscle, and which was plenty big enough for a blacksmith shop.
Here was where Priscilla was.
I knew in an instant I could be at home here. I could be a blacksmith here. I could be who I already was here. I could be anywhere with the person I loved most beside me. If she wanted to stay, we could stay.
“Priscilla,” I said gently, almost in a whisper.
She bolted upright and spun around. The shovel slipped out of her hands and landed on the little mound of dirt she had made.
“Jake!” she exclaimed, her hand going to her heart.
I took a step closer to steady her. My hands on her waist seemed the most natural feeling in the world.
For a second neither one of us said anything. I could not trust myself to speak, and yet I had so much to tell her. I pulled her close to me because no words seemed adequate in that moment.
“Jake.” She said my name again, this time not in amazement, but in the most tender of tones, seeing in person that what she had wanted most for me, I had been given. Just as she was not the broken girl who had left Lancaster County all those years ago, I was no longer the broken man I’d been the last time she saw me.
“Am I too late?”
“Too late?”
I inhaled the sweet scent of her skin, her hair. “The guy. Noah. Did you—”
“You did?”
“Ya.”
“Why?”
A slow smile crept across her lips. “You know why. How could I marry one man when I’m in love with another?”
And then, because no words would suffice, I cupped her chin in my hand, tipped it toward me, and kissed her, her lips on mine like the soft petals of the freshest rose.
When we parted, her eyes were rimmed with tears. As were mine. My kiss had not surprised her as much as it had overjoyed her. I knew she had dreamed of that kiss, just as I had.
“But wait… How… how did you get here?” she asked, her hand now on my cheek.
I tipped my head into her palm. “Don’t you know?” I whispered, smiling as I gazed into her beautiful violet eyes. “I followed my heart.”