SO, WHAT DID you say to Tabitha to make her light out in the buggy before I even had a chance to thank her for lunch?” John asked his bruder as they bounced around, legs sprawled, in the back of the van that evening, headed for the hospital.
Matt shrugged. “Nothing. Just told her she could make you stay.”
John shot him a dark look. “Lay off her, Matt.”
“But I’m right, aren’t I, big bruder? She could make you stay—”
“Nee.”
Matt stretched his long arms above his head and yawned. “All right, then she’s the reason you’re leaving, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.”
“Just never mind. We’re here. Let’s focus on Daed.”
“Okay—don’t be so touchy.”
John didn’t reply as they went through the sliding glass doors and navigated their way through a maze of corridors and several elevators until they got to their daed’s room.
John was disconcerted by the barrage of machinery and tubes that seemed to protrude from his fater’s chest and arms, but his daed’s bright eyes were open and he looked alert.
“Ach, John . . . Matthew . . . I’m so glad you’re here.” Their mamm rose from a bedside chair to hug each bruder, and Esther did the same.
“How are you, Daed?” John asked, feeling his throat tighten. His daed had been strong for as long as John could remember—never ill in bed and had even been able to avoid colds and the influenza. To see him in the hospital bed beneath the white sheets, he somehow looked smaller and more vulnerable, and the sight made John’s heart ache.
“I am as Gott wills, sohn, but these English doctors say I’m ‘stable,’ so that’s a gut thing.”
John nodded and his fater cleared his throat. “I wonder if you all might wander down to the cafeteria—I’d like to talk with John alone for a few minutes.”
Everyone hastened to comply, and John was soon seated where his mamm had been and reached to pat the back of his fater’s tanned hand. His daed caught his fingers, and John’s lashes felt damp with tears.
“John, I must speak to you in all seriousness for a few minutes.”
“Ya, Daed?”
“John, you are a dear sohn to me, perhaps too strong at times for your own gut, but honorable—a fater couldn’t want for more.”
“Danki, Daed.” John was deeply moved by the words of praise.
“But now I must speak of what would happen should I not leave this place.”
“Daed—”
“Now, John, we must talk of this. It upsets me more to think that things would not be arranged right, and one thing that’s on my mind in particular is your sudden wanting to leave to work in the mountains.”
“You know I’d never leave the family, Daed, if you—”
“I know that. But what of your own family one day, sohn?”
John shook his head. “You needn’t worry.”
“Ach, but I do . . . because it comes to mind that you’ve been spending quite a bit of time at Tabby Beiler’s haus and there’s only so much carpentry that can be done in one location.”
John shrugged. “Everything is fine, Daed.” He drew a deep breath. “Nee, it’s really not fine. I’ve been keeping things from the family, from you, and I don’t like how it feels.”
“So, there’ll be a wedding kumme this fall, John?”
“Nee—at least, not a wedding for me.”
“Sohn, when a man has time to lie in a bed all day, he thinks, especially when his heart has not been working the way it should. I know you were going to Samuel’s in the mountains to run, and that’s not like you, John. Don’t run away from love, sohn, because it tends to pursue you, no matter where you go.”
“I won’t leave, Daed,” John said after a long pause. I won’t leave, but I’ll be trapped forever. . . tortured in body and spirit by seeing Rob and Tabitha together.
His fater smiled wryly. “That’s not what I’m asking of you, buwe. I’m asking you to remember that Gott is love and is the One who places us in families and the One who gives us love. Forget when you were nineteen, John, and live for this time, the moments Derr Herr has given you.”
“That’s not always easy to do, though I see the sense of what you say.” John smiled ruefully. “And I’m afraid Bishop Esch might not agree with your advice.”
“Hiram Esch is a gut leader, but he is a man, John, and can be wrong the same as you and me.”
John looked up as a nurse came in. He rose then bent to kiss his fater’s head. “I’ll remember your words, Daed. I promise.”
Then he walked softly from the room, his heart full as he tried to process what his fater had told him in love.
Tabitha chose to walk in the twilight that evening after both Aenti Elizabeth and Fram were abed. She had first sat at her bedroom window though as she often did, thinking and praying. But tonight she was restless, wondering how things were going for John at the hospital and if his fater was improving. But then she realized that if his daed was better, then John would leave Paradise. She sighed at her own realized selfishness and said a quick prayer of repentance.
She toyed in her mind with the words Matthew had spoken at the end of lunch that day. Could I make John stay somehow, bind him to me? But how? Surely not by being a “gut-lookin’” Amish girl. She giggled aloud a bit at the thought, then put Rough down on the ground to see to his small needs. She watched the puppy nose around a bit, then smiled as he began to chase his tail.
She knelt to the ground as the puppy circled her and thought back on the kiss she’d shared with Rob. At the time his smooth peck on her cheek had seemed like the most wonderful thing in the world. But the thought of kissing John, his firm mouth on hers, his thick, dark lashes hiding the intense blue of his eyes, made her shiver with delight.
Then her thoughts focused on what she might prepare for him the next day; she’d need to search Aenti Elizabeth’s recipe box. Rough nosed her hand and she scooped the puppy up, hugging its tender warmth close. She stared up at the star-filled sky and knew a momentary peace in her heart that resounded with the command to “be still and know that I am God.”
Elizabeth was dreaming. She was walking across an open meadow where deer lay in the shadows and flowers bloomed with vibrant color. Her hair was loose, but instead of being gray, it was the brown of her youth, honey-stranded with natural highlights as if kissed by the sun. She could feel the grass beneath her bare toes and the brush of the blue skirt of her dress against her knees. She spread her arms wide and twirled in the sunshine, feeling more content than she could ever remember. And then there was a striking pain in her head, one that slashed through the dream and made her gasp aloud as she came awake, clutching her head. She gazed around the darkened room and knew a brief fear in her heart. Waiting for the headache to recede, she drifted back to praying, as was her habit, before falling back into a fitful sleep.