Daniel couldn’t sleep, and it was no wonder. Ever since he’d seen Lydia again, his mind twisted with longing, regret, and feelings that he’d suppressed for almost two decades. And yet, when he’d laid eyes on his first love a few days ago, it was as if no time had passed at all.
But the years had passed, and they weren’t the same people anymore. Lydia wouldn’t approve of the life he’d led in the outside world. Daniel himself didn’t approve of the choices he’d made.
He turned onto his side and buried his face in the white pillowcase, appreciating the fresh smell of line-dried linens. A small gas heater warmed his childhood bedroom, and the aroma of meat loaf and baked bread hung in the room like a reminder of all he’d missed. How different his life would have been had he not left this idyllic place.
Instead, he’d moved in with Lonnie, an Englisch buddy he’d met during his rumschpringe. Lonnie gave Daniel a place to stay until he could get his own apartment, but Lonnie also introduced him to a world he hadn’t known anything about prior to him leaving the Old Order district—a world filled with alcohol, drugs, parties, and women. Even though he’d never felt comfortable there, Daniel had allowed himself to live that life for much too long. Almost six years. He took odd jobs to get by, mostly carpentry work since that was all he really knew. But with each step he took further into the Englisch world, he felt more and more detached from all he’d never known. Most important, from God.
Then he’d met Jenny, a beautiful woman who’d been raised Catholic. Jenny had a strong faith, and his friendship with her was a turning point for Daniel. He said good-bye to a way of life in which he’d merely been existing. He dated Jenny and ultimately reestablished a relationship with God. He thought about Lydia often during that time, comparing the two women. Perhaps that’s why he’d never asked Jenny to marry him. For almost two years he found a sampling of what he remembered from his youth, a certain calm that settles over a man when he is living the way the Lord wants him to live. He went to work every day, spent time with Jenny in the evenings and on weekends, and even attended church with her.
But when Jenny was killed by a drunk driver, Daniel in his grief wasted no time returning to his old ways. His relationship with God suffered, and accepting anything as his will became a challenge. How could his Father have put him on this path of self-destruction, when all Daniel had ever wanted was to do the right thing by God and by others? For the next seven years he moved from place to place, working at jobs that barely afforded him enough to live on. With each year that had passed, it was harder and harder to remember the peace he’d known when he was young.
But then Daniel met Margaret. When he was as down on his luck as a man could be, seventy-year-old Margaret took him in and showed him another way to live. Daniel felt a connection to this wise woman that he could only explain as divine intervention.
He started out doing handyman work in exchange for room and board, but eventually he became to Margaret like the son she’d never had. They’d often drink hot tea late in the evening, and Daniel would tell her all about his childhood. Margaret listened intently, never pushing Daniel to confide more than he was ready to share. But eventually he told her everything, even what had happened that fateful Christmas Eve. When Margaret passed peacefully in her sleep four years later, Daniel was in a new spiritual place, and it was time. Time to go home.
He tossed and turned again. He closed his eyes to pray, but his communication was interrupted when he heard horse hooves, faint at first, then louder.
He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. A quarter to midnight. He threw the covers back, stepped onto the cool wooden planks, and then crept across the floor, purposely stretching his legs wide to avoid two slats in the floor that creaked loudly enough to wake his parents—something he’d found out in his youth.
His pants were thrown across the bed instead of hung on the rack or stowed in the dirty clothes bin. His mother would be appalled by his sloppy housekeeping. He pulled on the dark trousers, then grabbed a crisp white shirt from the rack and buttoned it on his way down the stairs.
By the time he reached the door, the visitor was already on the porch. Lydia. And she was frantic.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, opening the screen for her.
She just stood there.
“I need your daed. He’s the only person Anna Marie listens to these days.” Lydia cupped her cheeks with both hands. “I hate to wake him and Lena. I should just go myself.” She turned to leave, then swung back around. “But I’m so afraid . . . and if anyone can get through to her, it’s Gideon.”
Daniel wasn’t sure what to do. Lydia couldn’t even stand still, twisting about, shaking her head. He felt guilty for thinking how beautiful she was even in her desperate state and with her daughter in some sort of trouble.
“What are you afraid of? Do you know where she went?” Daniel glanced down and realized his appearance. Shirttail hanging, barefoot, slept-on hair.
Lydia finally brushed past him and into the den, shivering. Her black cape and bonnet were not enough protection from the night air. “I’m going to go wake him,” she said, stepping around Daniel.
“Wait.” He gently grabbed her arm. “Don’t wake Pop. I’ll go with you to look for Anna Marie.”
Lydia pulled out of his hold. Anger swept across her face, and her hands landed on her hips. “I don’t need to look for her. I know where she is.” Then her face softened a tad. “I—I just don’t know what to do when I get there. It will be awkward, and I—”
“Where is she?”
Lydia looked down for moment. When her eyes finally lifted to meet his, a blush engulfed her cheeks, and she gazed into Daniel’s eyes. “She’s at the old oak tree—with a boy.”
Daniel stifled a grin. “Kids still go there?”
“Ya.” She pried her eyes from his. “And you know what they do there.”
Daniel didn’t know Lydia as a mother, only as a young woman with dreams—dreams she had fulfilled with someone else. He didn’t recognize this maternal Lydia, whose eyes shone with worry. “They kiss,” he said softly as his eyes homed in on Lydia’s lips.
Then her eyes met with his in such a way that Daniel knew Lydia, too, was recalling the tenderness they’d shared, innocent kisses beneath moonlit nights, stars twinkling overhead. It was no surprise that young love still flourished underneath the protective limbs of the old oak tree.
“Times are different now,” she whispered. “Elam and I . . .”
She paused, and now it was Daniel who couldn’t look her in the eye. They’d had a life together, Elam and Lydia. Three children. To hear her refer to them as a couple was difficult.
“Elam and I,” she went on, “tried our best to protect the children from outside influences, but with Anna Marie in her rumschpringe and all—I’m just worried. Times aren’t the same as when we were . . . ”
“Under the old oak tree?”
“Ya,” she said softly.
Daniel stepped forward and reached for the words. “Lydia, I’m sure that you and Elam raised Anna Marie properly, and given that, I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. Why don’t you let me go with you to get her?”
“No,” she said, straightening to attention.
“Pop sure looked tired when he went to bed. Sure you want to wake him?” It was a stretch. His father hadn’t looked all that tired, but suddenly Daniel was desperate to go with her, to be a part of her life.
Lydia took a deep breath. “No, I really don’t want to wake him, but he has been so gut with Anna Marie since Elam died. She listens to her grandfather, and mostly she just gets angry with me. Besides, what would I say to her and Amos?” She scrunched her face into a scowl, then rapidly shook her head back and forth. “Anna Marie shouldn’t be in such a place.”
“The old oak is a beautiful place.” But Daniel could see in Lydia’s face that somehow what seemed fine for her so many years ago did not seem okay for her daughter. “I’m sure Anna Marie is using good judgment, Lydia. Let me put my shoes on and grab a jacket. I’ll go with you.”
Her forehead creased, and she pressed her lips firmly together. “All right,” she finally said.
Daniel hurried up the stairs, quietly as he could. In his room, he fished around in the dark for his shoes and then remembered the flashlight on his nightstand. He shined the light around the room until he located his black tennis shoes in the far corner, then pulled a pair of black socks from the chest of drawers. He sat down on the bed, stretched the socks over his cold feet, and slipped his shoes on, his stomach rolling with anticipation.
He tiptoed to the bathroom, swooshed mouthwash, and spit, wishing he had more time to groom himself properly. But she was waiting.
Daniel walked briskly down the stairs, shining the light as he walked. When he hit the floor in the den, he stopped abruptly, his heart thudding against his chest. Where is she?
Her scent tarried in the room, but he knew before he even reached the window that she was gone. He gazed out into the night just in time to hear a faint whistle, the pounding of hooves against the dirt, and to see her buggy begin its descent down the dirt driveway.
Daniel flung open the door and hurried onto the porch. He opened his mouth to yell out to her, but remembered his parents asleep upstairs.
“Lydia,” he whispered instead, as he watched her disappear into the darkness.