PRISCILLA STARED UP AT THE CEILING AS ETHAN’S soft snores filled the room. She tried to sleep, but her thoughts roared through her mind like a cyclone. Laura and Kayla were so wrong, and she couldn’t live like this anymore. She had to leave. She had to give Mark his freedom. But how? Where would she go?
She had some money saved. If her mother loaned her more, she could find a place to live and a job. She could work as a waitress or a seamstress to support herself and Ethan, and then she could pay her mother back.
Anticipation buzzed like wings of hummingbirds. That might work. She just had to talk to her mother.
She turned toward Ethan. He was fast asleep. She could sneak out now and see if her mother was awake. Some nights her mother couldn’t sleep and sat in the family room to read for a while. She prayed that was the case tonight.
She grabbed the lantern off the nightstand and slowly cracked the door. When she found the sofa empty, she pushed the door open, slipped on her boots, pulled on her coat, and set out into the cold night air.
She spotted a light on in her mother’s kitchen and walked faster. She climbed the porch steps and knocked on the door.
When the door opened, her mother’s eyes widened as she pushed open the storm door. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you. May I come in?”
“Ya.” Mamm waved her in, and they sat down at the kitchen table together. “What’s going on?”
“I was wondering if I could borrow some money from you.”
“Why?” Mamm eyed her with suspicion.
“I can’t live a lie anymore. My marriage is a sham. There’s no love and no intimacy. Today I met Kayla’s new boppli, and I realized that this pretend marriage is slowly killing me.” When her eyes filled with tears, Priscilla grabbed a paper napkin from the holder in the center of the table. “I can’t stay with Mark without being his fraa for real. I know you have money saved up from your seamstress jobs. May I please borrow it so I can take Ethan somewhere and give him a stable home?”
“You want to take Ethan away from us and Mark?” Mamm’s eyes filled with tears.
“We can visit you.” Priscilla reached across the table and touched her mother’s arm. The pain in her eyes stabbed at her heart. “We won’t leave forever. I could never do that to you again. I just can’t stand to be here. It hurts me every day to live with Mark in a fake marriage.”
“You love him,” Mamm said.
“Ya.” Priscilla nodded as tears sprinkled down her cheeks. “I do, but he doesn’t love me, and it’s breaking me in two.”
“Why do you think leaving him will make it better?”
“If I leave, he can have the life he wants. He never wanted to marry, but he can have his haus and his business, and I won’t be in his way,” Priscilla said. “I don’t belong here. I have to go. Will you help me?”
“So that’s it, Priscilla?” Dat’s voice boomed from the doorway. “You’re just going to leave again?”
Mark heard the front door click shut, and he rolled over in bed. Was he dreaming, or had someone just walked into his house?
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He turned on the lantern on his nightstand and pulled on a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of trousers. He stepped out into the family room and stilled. Only the pop and crackle of the fire in the fireplace filled the little house. He walked to the second bedroom door and pushed it open. He held up the lantern. Only one person was lying in the bed.
Priscilla is gone!
Panic gripped him as he slipped his feet into a pair of boots and hurried out the door and up the path. Cold air smacked his cheeks. Lights on in Edna’s kitchen alerted him that someone was awake. He hoped Priscilla was there and that she hadn’t left him to go back to Trent.
There it was. The fear he’d tried to forget but never could.
Mark climbed the back steps and opened the door. Yonnie’s angry voice filled Mark’s ears as he stepped into the house.
“So that’s it, Priscilla?” Yonnie bellowed. “You’re going to just leave again? You’re going to walk out on your husband, and you’re going to break your mamm’s heart again, and be shunned again?”
Mark stepped through the mudroom to the kitchen doorway as his pulse pounded in his ears. All his nightmares were coming true. Priscilla was going to leave him. She didn’t love him. How could she even care about him at all if she was willing to leave him for a man who’d hurt her and endangered Ethan? Maybe he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought. His heart splintered into a million painful shards.
“You want to know what you are, Priscilla?” Yonnie continued, circling the kitchen table so his back was to Mark. “You’re nothing but a harlot.”
“Yonnie, stop! That’s not true!” Edna yelled. “You need to stop treating her this way! She’s our dochder. Don’t push her away. I can’t lose her again!”
Mark’s blood boiled as he walked up behind Yonnie.
“You’re going to lose the best thing that has ever happened to you,” Yonnie said. “You don’t deserve Mark. You’re blessed to be here with us. You’re fortunate that he even agreed to marry you after what you did.”
“I don’t deserve to be treated this way,” Priscilla said, seething as she stood. “You have no right to talk to me like this, and I won’t stand for it any longer. I came here looking for help, not more criticism.”
Then the truth hit Mark between the eyes. Priscilla had two abusers in her life—Trent and her father. This was why she left the community eight years ago. She’d gone to escape this verbal abuse, which was worse than he’d ever heard or imagined. She told him that day in the barn that she’d fallen for Trent because she was desperate for someone to love her. But he hadn’t realized that desperation came not just from a lack of love from her father, but from how horribly Yonnie had treated her.
Mark had to put a stop to this now! He had to be the one man who treated Priscilla with respect and cherished her. He had to save her from this endless cycle of abuse. He had to get her out of this toxic environment for good.
“Stop it!” Mark yelled as his red, burning hot anger erupted like a volcano.
Yonnie spun and faced him, his face twisted into a scowl. But he took a step back as Mark came into the kitchen.
Mark’s body quaked as he shook his finger at Yonnie. “You have no right to treat her that way. She’s not a harlot. She’s your dochder, Ethan’s mamm, and mei fraa. She’s not fortunate that I married her.” He jammed the finger into his own chest. “I’m fortunate that she agreed to marry me. I don’t deserve a woman as kind, sweet, and lovely as she is. And you don’t deserve to even call her your dochder.”
He pushed past Yonnie and made his way to Priscilla. She wiped tears from her face as she stared at him.
“Let’s go, Priscilla.” Mark motioned for her to follow him.
She hesitated. “Where are we going?”
“I’m getting you out of here for gut,” Mark said. “He’s never going to treat you this badly again.”
“Just wait a minute,” Yonnie said. “I was talking to her. You have no right—”
“Actually, Yonnie, I do have a right to take her from here.” Mark walked over to him. “I’m her husband, and I will not allow you to abuse her any longer.”
Priscilla went to Mark, and he threaded his fingers in hers. They started toward the mudroom, and then he stopped and turned toward Yonnie, who stared after them, wide-eyed.
“Oh, one more thing, Yonnie,” Mark said. “I do remember that you own this farm and you’re my employer. Consider this my resignation. We’re leaving tonight, and we’re not coming back.”
Priscilla felt as if her head was spinning as Mark held on to her hand and pulled her down her parents’ back porch steps.
“Wait.” She stopped and yanked him back to her. “Where are we going?”
“I was thinking of taking you to Jamie’s, but they have a new boppli. We’ll go to Laura’s. She has room for us.” He started down the path. “We’ll pack enough clothes for overnight and come back for more in the daylight.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but then she closed it again. When they arrived at the daadihaus, she quickly dressed and then filled a bag with clothes for all of them while Mark gathered Ethan in his arms and covered him with a quilt. Then they hurried through the cold to the stable.
Mark hitched up the horse and buggy, and they started on their journey to Laura’s house.
They rode in silence for several minutes as Priscilla stared out the window. Only Ethan’s breathing filled the buggy as her father’s cruel words echoed in her mind and tears filled her eyes once again.
“I’m sorry he did that to you.” Mark’s voice was compassionate. “He’s always talked to you that way?”
“Ya.” She swiped her hand over her eyes.
“Is that why you left years ago?”
“Ya.” She shivered as her memories turned to the night that had driven her away from her childhood home. “I had been out with the youth, and we stayed out past our usual ten o’clock. When I got home it was after eleven, and he was waiting for me at the door. He accused me of being out all night, drinking and being promiscuous, which wasn’t true. We had gone to spend the day at Cascade Lake and stopped at a restaurant on the way home. We were having so much fun talking and laughing that we lost track of time.”
“I remember that trip,” Mark said. “We all got home late that night.”
“Exactly.” She took a tissue from her coat pocket. “I tried to explain to him that we had just lost track of time, but he was convinced I was out misbehaving, and he said I would bring shame on him with my actions. I tried to explain that I’d done nothing but swim and spend time with mei freinden all day. He refused to believe me, and it was the last straw. I couldn’t take the accusations and the criticism anymore, and it pushed me over the edge. I packed up my things and left after my parents went to bed that night.”
“So for your whole life, he’s made you think you’re not worthy of his love. Or anyone’s.”
She nodded and tried to clear her throat past a swelling lump of anguish.
Mark halted the horse at a red light and turned toward her. “Were you really going to leave me?”
She nodded.
“Why?” The pain in his eyes was like a splinter in her heart.
“I can’t live a lie anymore.” Her voice was thin. “I can’t stay in a pretend marriage. It’s tearing me apart. You can have the haus and the business. I know besides not wanting to be shunned, they’re the reason you married me.”
After a moment he said, “Someone once told me there’s more to life than owning a haus.”
“Mark, I don’t want to ruin your life anymore.”
“You’d ruin my life if you and Ethan left me.”
She bit back a sob as she stared at him. He turned toward the windshield and guided the horse through the intersection. Then they turned on the road that led to Laura’s house.
When they reached the top of Laura’s driveway, Allen came outside.
“Is everything all right?” he asked as he jogged down the steps.
Mark climbed out of the buggy. “Could we stay here tonight? I’ll explain everything later, but we had to get out of the daadihaus.”
“Ya, of course.” Allen looked between them. “Let me help you with your horse and buggy.”
Laura appeared on the porch, hugging a shawl to her middle. “What’s going on?”
“They need a place to stay,” Allen explained.
Laura waved them in. “Come inside out of the cold.”
Priscilla leaned over the back of the buggy and nudged Ethan. “Ethan. Ethan, honey. I need you to wake up. You need to walk into Aenti Laura’s haus, okay?”
Ethan rubbed his eyes as he sat up.
Priscilla grabbed the bag of clothes, and then she and Ethan climbed the steps and into Laura’s house.
“I can’t stay there,” Mark said to his brother-in-law after telling him what Yonnie said to Priscilla. “It’s too toxic for Priscilla and Ethan.” He rubbed at the knots of tension in his neck. “I’ve never been so furious in my life.”
“I can’t believe how Yonnie talks to her.” Allen shook his head as they stood in the office of his carriage business. “I would never speak to mei dochder that way.”
“I know.” Mark held up his hands. “I’m sorry to impose on you like this, but Jamie has a new boppli, and mei dat doesn’t have room for us. Could we stay here until I find a haus to rent? I’ll start looking tomorrow, and I’ll see if I can work for mei dat. We’ll be out of here before your new boppli is born.”
“It’s no problem.” Allen shook his head. “You can stay here as long as you’d like.” He pointed toward his shop, where he repaired and rebuilt buggies. “You can even work for me if you want to. My business is booming, and I can hardly keep up anymore.”
“Danki.” Mark started pacing as Yonnie’s cruel tirade rang again in his mind. “I just can’t get over the words he used toward her. Priscilla is wunderbaar, and she doesn’t deserve to be spoken to like that.” He stopped pacing and looked at Allen. “She said she wanted to leave me because she’s ruining my life. I don’t understand it. Why would she think that?”
“Did you ask her why?” Allen sat down on a stool.
Mark began to pace again. He felt as if his insides were tied up in knots. He shook his head, and then it hit him like a bolt of lightning. “I’m in love with her. The idea of her leaving me makes me physically ill.”
Allen smiled. “It’s been obvious to all of us that you two are in love. In fact, Laura and I were just discussing that on our way home from Jamie’s haus tonight. I know the truth about why you married her. Laura told me.”
“She did?”
“Ya. She was really upset when we left Jamie’s haus earlier, and she needed someone to talk to. She told me everything during the ride home since Mollie was asleep in the back of the buggy. It really upset her when Priscilla cried while she held Alice. She said she hoped you and Priscilla would realize how much you love each other and work it out. I’m glad you finally realize you love Priscilla.” Allen pointed toward the house. “Now you need to go tell her how you feel, and she’ll realize that she doesn’t need to leave you. In fact, she’ll want to stay.”
“Danki for letting us stay here,” Priscilla said as she closed the door to the sewing room where Ethan was asleep on the sofa. “I appreciate it.”
“Of course.” Laura hugged her. “I’m so sorry your dat was cruel to you.”
“Danki.” Priscilla took a deep breath. “I thought leaving Mark was the best solution, but Mark was the one who saved me. He got me away from mei dat.”
“So that’s why you left when we were eighteen.” Laura shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell Savilla and me what you were going through at home?”
Priscilla shrugged. “I guess I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to know since you and Savilla both had loving and supportive fathers.”
Laura took Priscilla’s hand and steered her to the spare room. “I set this room up for Cindy. She borrows Roy’s horse and buggy to come visit me, and sometimes we talk late into the night. I ask her to stay instead of going home in the dark. This room will be perfect for you and Mark.”
“Danki.” Priscilla stared at the double bed, and her heart seemed to stutter before dropping to the pit of her stomach. There wasn’t room on Ethan’s sofa for her tonight. She and Mark would have to stay together for the first time since they were married.
Laura squeezed Priscilla’s arm. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay? You just get some rest.” She started for the door and then turned and faced her. “Mei bruder loves you. Just give him a chance to tell you how he feels, okay?”
“Okay,” Priscilla said, making a promise. She had to know if her friend was right.
Laura slipped out the door, and Priscilla sank onto the corner of the bed. She was confused but also relieved that Mark had taken her away from her father. Now she had to figure out what would happen next.
Soon after, she heard footsteps on the stairs and muffled voices in the hallway. Then a soft knock sounded on the door.
“Come in,” she said as she stood.
Mark stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He walked over to her, and his blue eyes glistened in the warm glow of the lantern on the dresser. “Can we talk?”
“Ya.” The muscles in her shoulders tensed.
“Where were you going to go tonight?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I went to see mei mamm to ask if I could borrow money from her. I wanted to find a little apartment to rent for Ethan and me. I thought I could get a job working as a waitress or seamstress and then I’d pay her back.”
“What did I do to push you away?”
“You didn’t push me away. You’ve been nothing but kind and supportive to Ethan and me.” Her voice thinned. “But you deserve so much better than me. I’m damaged.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am.” Fresh tears formed in her eyes. “And then when I held Alice tonight, I realized I can’t stand to live in a loveless marriage. If I can’t have a true marriage with you, then I’d rather be alone. It’s torture to be with you but not have all of you, not have your whole heart.”
“That’s just it, Priscilla.” He cupped her cheeks with his hands. “You do have my whole heart. I love you. I’ve loved you for months, but I didn’t realize it right away. I didn’t know what love was until I had a chance to get to know you.”
The tears escaped down her cheeks.
“I love you too,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what love could be like before you. When I met Trent, I was looking for someone to love me, but that wasn’t love. You make me feel strong and protected.”
“Please don’t leave me. I can’t stand the idea of losing you and Ethan after all we’ve been through.” His eyes searched hers. “I’ll make things right. We’ll find a haus to rent until I can build you one on mei dat’s farm. I’ll work for mei dat. We’ll make a life somehow. Give me a chance to show you.”
“But what about mei dat‘s land and his business?”
Mark shook his head. “None of that matters without you. I don’t care where we live. I just want to be with you and Ethan. I want to be a family. God chose you for me, and God never makes mistakes. You’re my life. You’re my future.”
He leaned down, and as his lips brushed hers, what felt like an electric current roared through her veins. She closed her eyes, and as she allowed his lips to explore hers, her entire body relaxed. He wrapped his arms around her, and she lost herself in the feel of his touch. This was what true love felt like.
When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against hers and looked into her eyes. “I’ve been dying to do that for months.”
“For months?” she asked.
“Ya.” He grinned. “Ever since you said I had eager maed who followed me around.”
They both laughed.
“Will you give me a chance to show you I can be a real husband?” he asked, his eyes pleading with hers.
“Ya,” she said. “I’m so grateful God sent me back here. I’ve been begging him to show me where I belonged, and he led me straight to you. I thought I had to leave this community to find happiness, but now I realize my heart has always been here. I’m supposed to be a member of the church, and I’m supposed to be your fraa. It doesn’t matter where we live. I just want to be with you.”
Mark wrapped his arms around her waist, and Priscilla’s breath hitched in her lungs as his lips met hers again. She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him in closer. He deepened the kiss, and it lit a fire inside her, turning her bones to ash. She closed her eyes and savored the feel of his mouth against hers.
Yes. This is where I belong—here with Mark. This is my true home.