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The next morning Brad rose early, showered, shaved, bandaged his many scrapes and scuffs, and dressed smartly. Then he called in sick to work, and drove right back out to the King farm.
He pulled the truck up into the driveway, got out, walked stubbornly across the lawn to the front door, and rapped on it like a fearless man.
The sly-faced girl opened the door. She goggled at him for an instant, then drawled: “Well, you’re brave – I’ll say that for you.”
“Where’s Jemima?”
“Upstairs.”
“Go tell her I’m here.”
The girl shook her head and disappeared. Brad looked back over his shoulder, toward the workshop. The sound of vigorous hammering wafted through the open door.
There was a soft rushing sound inside, and Brad turned just in time to receive Jemima on his chest. She threw herself into his arms and covered his face with kisses.
“Oh my darling!” she cried, “Are you hurt?” She ran her small fingers over his face, and her mouth crumpled at the sight of a scrape across his jaw.
“Oh, Brad,” she mourned, “I’m so sorry!”
Brad took Jemima by the shoulders. “Go get your things,” he told her. “You’re coming with me. I’m taking you back to my apartment until we get married.”
But Jemima looked down at the floor and made no reply. Instead, the blonde woman that he assumed to be her mother appeared out of the kitchen, and invited him in.
“Why don’t you come inside, Brad, and sit down?”
Brad shook his head. “I’m not here for a social visit,” he told her, and turned back to Jemima. “Listen, Jemima, you’re eighteen now, you don’t need your parent’s consent to be legally married. They can’t hold you here against your will.”
Jemima looked up at him pleadingly. “Come and sit down, Brad,” she asked, “please.”
The older woman beckoned, and after a long hesitation, he allowed himself to be led into the living room.
“I’m sorry for what happened last night, Brad,” she told him. “My husband will be, too, when he’s had time to cool down. Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll get something for you.”
Brad sat down next to Jemima on the couch and turned to her, frowning, but she kissed the question right off his lips.
Mrs. King came back and set two cups of coffee down on the table before them, and a plate of peanut butter cookies. Brad glanced up at her with a look that communicated his sense of deep irony, but her manner remained placid and unruffled. She took a seat in a rocking chair across from the couch.
“You’ll have to forgive us,” she said quietly, “but last night was the first time that my husband and I even knew that you were courting with our daughter. It was quite a surprise to us. We assumed that Jemima would marry an Amish boy.”
Her eyes moved to Jemima, and Jemima dropped her glance instantly. Then her eyes moved to Brad’s.
“That’s because, if Jemima marries a non-Amish boy, like you, it means that she will not be able to join the Amish church.”
Brad turned to Jemima. She looked up at him pleadingly, and he read the truth of it in her eyes.
“It means that she will lose her place in this community, and her decision will be seen by others as a sign that she has turned her back on her faith. She will, in fact, be burning the only bridge that connects her to her faith, and to her God,” Rachel explained.
Brad stirred and looked up at her. “I understand that’s what you and your husband believe,” he told her, with some heat, “but I don’t share your views and I don’t see why Jemima has to, either. If her family and friends think they should be able to pick who she marries, then maybe she’s better off without them!”
Jemima turned toward him. “Brad, please,” she murmured.
The older woman regarded him calmly. “Brad, when you ask Jemima to marry you, it isn’t at all the same as asking an Englisch girl. You’re asking Jemima to make a complete break with her past life. To abandon everything”—her voice cracked slightly, and she paused for an instant before going on—“and everyone she ever knew in her past. You might not have understood that, but we feel it very much. That’s why her father was so – upset – last night.”
Brad fell silent. He couldn’t honestly say that he had understood that part. Jemima’s eyes held unshed tears, and anger died out of his heart as he looked down at her. He hadn’t really understood, until now, just how much he’d been asking her to give up. He felt his face going warm, and was struck with a sudden sense of his ignorance of Jemima’s culture.
The sound of the front door opening made them all look up. Jacob King stepped inside and looked around for his family. When he caught sight of them all in the living room, he froze, wide-eyed.
Rachel was on her feet in an instant. “Jacob, Jemima’s fiancé has come to pay us a call.”
Jacob’s voice seemed to rise up like a geyser, from deep underground. “What is he doing here?” he demanded, and began walking toward them.
A dark blur rushed past Brad’s right shoulder. In an instant Jemima had moved between him and her huge father, and was staring up at him like a kitten challenging a bear.
“Daed, this is the man I’ve chosen,” she quavered, “and I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but Brad is my fiancé, and, and if you lay a hand on him again, I-I’ll leave with him now and never come back!”
It was the only threat Jemima had uttered in her short life, but it froze Jacob in his tracks. He looked down at her, and then over at his wife.
“Come and sit down, Jacob,” Rachel said softly, and touched his shoulder fleetingly with her hand. “I’ve been telling Brad about what it will mean to Jemima – and to us – if Jemima marries with him.”
Jemima returned to her place beside Brad on the couch, and reached for his hand. Jacob sat down in a big overstuffed chair, and regarded the two of them grimly.
“The only way I could ever approve of such a marriage,” Jacob rumbled, “would be if the Englischer converted to the church. Then he and Jemima could both join, and be married. Only then.”
Rachel nodded, and they both turned to look at him. To his horror, Brad felt Jemima’s shy gaze on him as well. Surely she didn’t expect him to convert, too?
Brad felt his mouth dropping open, and closed it. He sputtered incredulously, but the elder couple’s grim expressions told him that no one in the room was joking.
Brad clawed at his collar, because suddenly it felt as if the room was closing in on him. He turned to Jemima.
“Jemima, this is crazy. I love you, and I’ll marry you tomorrow if you get in the truck and come with me. But if you’re expecting me to join your family’s religion”—he threw out his hands—“I just – I can’t do it. I don’t believe in any God, and I could never live like this”—he gestured to the room around him—“like it was a hundred years ago!”
He reached for her hand and took it. “Let’s get out of here,” he urged softly. “Don’t even worry about your stuff, I’ll buy you new things. Just come with me. I love you, Jemima. Come with me, now.”
Jemima looked up at him with anguished doe eyes, and then looked at her parents.
“Think about what you would be doing, Jemima,” her mother urged softly, “what you would be giving up forever!”
Jemima’s eyes moved to her father’s face. He looked at her with deep sadness. Tears shone in his weary blue eyes, and he rubbed them away with a big hand.
To Brad’s dismay, Jemima put her hand over her mouth and burst into tears.
He leaned back into the sofa, stunned.
Once again, when it came to a choice between him and Jemima’s religion – he’d lost.
