ADAM TOOK A BITE OF HIS MEAT LOAF AND WONDERED IF HIS mother had prepared a pot roast for supper. He loved Hannah’s cooking, and the meat loaf was wonderful, but there was nothing quite like his mother’s pot roast. He pictured Rosemary, Jonathan, Freda, and Tillie sitting around his parents’ kitchen table, with their spouses and children, and regret pierced his heart. Then he envisioned his father sitting at the head of the table, and he scowled.
“Is something wrong with the meat loaf?” Hannah wiped mashed potatoes from Anna Mae’s chin.
“No. It’s gut. Like always.” Adam smiled, then glanced around at his own family. Seven-year-old Ben and six-year-old Abner sat side by side, and four-year-old Katherine was in a booster chair across from them. Two-year-old Anna Mae was in a high chair next to Hannah. I have a beautiful family. I would never leave them.
“Can we be excused?” Ben set his fork on his plate, then rubbed his eyes.
Adam knew he’d worked his young boys hard today. While Adam plowed the fields, he’d left a long list of chores for Ben and Abner—clean the horse stalls, wash the buggy, and ready up the barn in preparation for worship service this Sunday. It was a tall order for such young lads, but Adam believed in hard work—something instilled in him by his own father. He grimaced again.
“Ya. You can both be excused following prayer.”
They all bowed their heads, except for Anna Mae. When they were done, Adam took a bite of mashed potatoes and watched his boys get up from the table and head toward the den. “Boys?”
Ben and Abner turned around.
“Ya, Daed?” Ben said.
“You are hatt workers. You did a gut job today.”
Both boys’ faces lit up before they scooted off to take baths.
“That was nice, Adam. I’m glad you recognize the boys’ hard work.” Hannah helped Katherine from the booster chair and gently wiped her chin. Then she lifted Anna Mae from the high chair after also dabbing her face with a napkin. “Katherine, take Anna Mae’s hand, and the two of you go into the den and look at your picture books while I clean the kitchen.”
Adam wiped his own mouth and watched Hannah start to clear the dishes. He thought about his mother, and again he pictured the scene unfolding at his childhood home. Everyone there but him, he supposed. He wondered if his father headed to the barn after the meal, the way he’d always done. Did Jonathan and his brothers-in-law go? Did they tell jokes or talk about the day’s events? Was everything back to normal, as if their father hadn’t forsaken his family for almost a year?
“Your head is full with thoughts,” Hannah said as she reached in front of him to take his plate. “Do you wish that we had gone to your father’s homecoming supper?”
“No.” Adam leaned back in his chair and looped his thumbs beneath his suspenders. “I don’t have a father anymore.”
Hannah let out a heavy sigh. “You don’t mean that, Adam.” She turned to put the plate in the sink.
“Ya. I do. What kind of a man leaves his family like that?”
Hannah turned around as the sink filled with water. “Why don’t you ask him and find out?”
Adam stared long and hard at his wife of ten years. When did she start using such a tone with him? “I will not.”
Hannah shrugged. “I reckon it will be your loss. Your daed is a gut man, and without talking to him, you don’t know why he left.” She spun around and began washing the dishes.
“Why are you defending him?” Adam heard the anger in his voice as he spoke. “What if it had been me? What if I had left you and the kinner and just taken off?”
Hannah spun around, clamped her jaw tight, and stared him down with brown eyes flecked with gold in the light of the propane lamp nearby. As the sun descended, a hazy orange glow filled the room. But even in the dim light, Adam saw the distinct hardening of his wife’s eyes.
“I hope that will never happen,” she finally said.
“Of course it will never happen.” Adam looked away from her, shoved his chair back from the table, and stood up. “I’m going to go close up the barn for the night.”
Hannah shrugged, then turned back around and started washing dishes again.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” She didn’t turn around.
“Shrug. You always do that. You shrug your shoulders at me when you don’t agree with something.” Adam folded his arms across his chest and waited for her to answer, but instead . . . she shrugged. He could feel his face turning red as he turned and headed out the door.
Lucky Daed. He got a break from all this.
LEVINA AND NAAMAN SAID GOOD-BYE TO THEIR CHILDREN and grandchildren, then sat down in the rocking chairs on the front porch.
“I missed these sunsets.” Naaman didn’t look at her, but instead seemed far away as they watched gray clouds pushing the sun toward freshly planted fields in the distance—crops planted by her sons and sons-in-law only a few weeks earlier.
Levina kicked her rocker into motion. “There’s a storm coming. We’ll need to close all the windows soon.”
Naaman didn’t say anything but continued to stare into the twilight.
“I’m sorry about Rosemary, Naaman. She will need time to make room in her heart for you again.” Levina decided not to mention anything about Adam.
“Don’t apologize for Rosemary, Levina. I reckon all the kin-ner have a right to be angry with me.” He shifted his weight to face her, then stirred uneasily in his chair. “Have you made room in your heart for me, Levina?”
They’d been avoiding the conversation that Levina knew they had to have. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I reckon you’ve always been in my heart, Naaman. But . . .”
Naaman’s blue eyes searched her face. “But what?”
“I–I don’t understand.” Levina swallowed hard and sat up taller, determined to stay strong as she asked the next question. “Was there someone else? Another woman in Middlefield?”
Naaman’s mouth dropped open briefly, then he clamped it shut as his eyes darkened with emotion. He twisted in his chair to face her. “Levina . . .” He spoke in a broken whisper. “Never.
There has never been anyone but you.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry you have to ask that.”
“Then why? Why, Naaman?” Levina’s voice rose an octave as she spoke, and she suddenly wished she could take back the question. Fear and anxiety knotted inside her, and she wasn’t sure she was prepared to hear his answer. She tucked her chin and held her breath.
“I guess I needed to find—”
“Don’t you dare say that you needed to find yourself!” She interrupted him with reckless anger. “You can give that answer to your children, but I am your frau, Naaman. What did I do to cause you to leave our home, our life?” She covered her face with her hands and prayed she wouldn’t cry, but even though she bit her lip until it throbbed like her pulse, a tear still spilled.
When she pulled her hands away, Naaman was in front of her on one knee, just as he had been when he proposed to her thirty-one years ago. He reached for her hand, pulled it to his mouth, and kissed it gently. His touch was more tender than Levina could recall. “I’m sorry, Levina.”
She eased her hand from his. “Then explain to me, Naaman. I need to understand if we are going to move forward, because right now I–I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t blame you for not trusting me, Levina.” He spoke softly, but his voice was filled with steadfast determination. “But I promise you that I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
Levina drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Then tell me why you left.”
He gazed into her eyes. “I think you know why I left, and to be honest—I’m not sure it pained you as much as you are letting on.”
“How can you say that?” Levina bolted from the chair and scooted around him to stand on the edge of the porch. She stared into the gray skies. The crescent moon was suspended in the sky— off balance, the way Naaman’s comment had left her feeling. She turned to face him and asked again, “How can you say that?”
Naaman opened his mouth to speak, but Levina held up one finger, something she often did with her children when she didn’t want to hear what they had to say. “While you were away, do you have any idea what I went through? Not just the chores and hardships of running this farm, but the people . . .” She paused. “Even in our community, the people still talk. I was humiliated.”
Naaman walked closer to her, his eyes filled with sorrow. “I will not deny that what I did was wrong.” He tilted his head to one side and stared at her in a way she didn’t recognize, a far-off, burning gaze that seemed to drill a hole all the way to her soul. “But let me ask you something . . .” He stroked his dark beard, not taking his eyes from her. “Didn’t you ever think about it? Just once? Didn’t you ever wonder what else was out there? Weren’t you ever tempted to get away, to get to know the woman you are, to experience more than we’ve ever known here?” He latched onto her shoulders. “Levina, be honest. Tell me that you have never fantasized about just going out on your own to—”
She jerked from his grasp. “Never! Not once, Naaman. I would never dream of leaving our children or grandchildren. I’d have never left you to experience some late-in-life rumschpringe!”
“Really?” His doubtful blue eyes bored into hers.
Levina stepped away from him. “Don’t do this, Naaman. Don’t you try to justify your selfish actions by accusing me of having the same deceitful thoughts.”
He held his palms up. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t even know you!”
The truth filled the space around them, and Levina felt suffocated by the honesty that hung in the air. Such things shouldn’t be discussed, and yet she knew that she and Naaman were crossing over into undiscovered territory—foreign terrain that left her unsteady on her feet.
Naaman eased closer, his eyes probing hers as if his intensity could unlock the secret place in her heart where all thoughts— good and bad—were stored. Slowly he reached up and brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen from beneath her kapp. His eyes never left hers as he leaned closer and brushed his lips to hers, sending a wave of emotion and excitement pulsing through her body as if she were a teenage girl once more.
“Then let’s get to know each other again,” he said softly before he kissed her again.
Levina couldn’t remember the last time his kiss had left her weak in the knees.