Huckleberry Summer (29 page)

Mrs. Deforest made a great effort of standing up. “You’ll write to me?”

“Of course.”

“That’s one thing I like about the Amish. Nobody writes an old-fashioned letter anymore. Barnard wants me to use email, but I don’t even know how to turn on the computer.”

“I will write you as often as you write me back,” Estee said. She nodded to Lily, who already had her coat and gloves on.

Another inch of new snow blanketed the sidewalk. Aden was nowhere to be seen. They walked carefully to the road where they could travel more easily by digging their boots into the snow.

With the wedding present tucked under her arm, Estee turned and looked at the house one last time. “Even though you don’t approve, I’m glad Aden is taking Blossom. I feared her son would send that poor horse to the glue factory.”

Lily stopped walking and stared at Estee. “What makes you think I don’t approve? I care about the animals too.”

“But you think he’s wicked for barging in on other people’s lives.”

Lily was at a complete loss for words. “I . . . I don’t think he’s wicked.”

Estee unleashed a laugh tinged with bitterness. “You could have fooled me. And everyone else in the district. You treat Aden like he is dirt under your fingernails.”

“No, I don’t. I shunned him like everybody else did.”

Estee shoved her hand in her pocket and sighed. “I apologize. I promised I’d never mention Aden again. You better go home and tell Dat I spoke Aden’s name. And while you’re at it, if you have the guts, be sure to tell Dat that we saw Aden today and that I was friendly. Tell Dat how you did your best to ignore Aden even when he helped us across the ice. He won’t be mad at you because nothing is ever your fault.”

A tear slipped down Lily’s cheek, and she hid it by wiping it away as if she were brushing an errant lock of hair from her face. “Estee, don’t be mad.”

Estee turned around. “I’m taking the long way home. Tell Mama I’ll finish washing the celery when I get back.”

Lily couldn’t move. She wanted to brush off Estee’s scolding but froze at the thought that she deserved every word Estee had thrown at her.

She remembered that horrible night, the look on Aden’s face, and she cried out in pain as the truth hit her. Her sobs floated into the air and were caught by the drifting snow.

She wanted to crawl into a deep, black hole and never resurface. She had been cruel to Aden because she had been unable to see past her own humiliation, and he had felt so guilty about what had happened that he welcomed the shunning. He thought he deserved it. Tyler had said as much. He wanted to punish himself because of her suffering.

He knew how the arrest had traumatized her, and he hated himself for it.

Ashamed and embarrassed, she had laid the blame on the one person who would not fight back. To preserve her wounded pride and her father’s affections, she had thrown Aden to the wolves.

What a fool she had been. Courage meant not knowing how things were going to turn out and taking the risk anyway, because the risk was worth the bad ending.

Aden thought she despised him, but who could dislike noble, brave, lovable Aden? He risked his life for dogs and didn’t mind getting arrested to save horses and puppies. He had braided her hair and chained himself to a tree. He hated steel traps and bore a beautiful scar on his eyebrow.

And she loved him.

The feeling grew in her heart like a sunrise on a clear wintery day. She loved Aden Helmuth to her very bones.

But Dat had talked her out of loving him. He’d set his back against Aden and convinced Lily to do the same. She had obeyed him because she always obeyed him.

Reeling from the realization, Lily put one foot in front of the other in the direction of home.

This wasn’t Dat’s fault. She had talked herself away from Aden because Dat had always been safe. She feared that if she didn’t have his approval, she wouldn’t have anything. Tears blurred her eyes until she could barely see where she stepped. She couldn’t begin to fix the mess she’d created.

She didn’t love Tyler, but since the day she’d talked to Anna, she’d been too terrified to admit that she couldn’t marry him. Well, now she said it out loud. “I can’t marry Tyler Yoder.”

The desire grew inside her until she felt like shouting.

She wanted to get breathless when her husband walked through the door in the evening. She wanted his kisses to make her feel like she was flying. She wanted her husband to rock her babies and pray with her family. She wanted to believe the man she married was perfection before learning to love him for all his faults.

She wanted to marry for love. No other reason was good enough.

God had been trying to send her a message, and she finally found the courage to listen. How else could she explain Anna’s strange quilting visit, Estee’s lectures, or Mrs. Deforest’s wedding stories? She had felt God tugging at her for weeks.

She must cancel the wedding.

The idea made her ill.

What would all the relatives say? Everyone would be shocked.
She should have sorted out her feelings weeks ago
, they would say. Or
how cruel of her to string Tyler Yoder along like that.

What about Tyler? His heart would be broken like glass against the pavement. She’d promised him things. He’d call her a liar.

Dat would invoke the memory of Onkel Zeke, ask her if she’d learned nothing from his mistakes. Then, when he saw he couldn’t dissuade her, he’d rant and yell and kick her out of the house, refusing to speak to her ever again, just as he had done with Aden.

Aden.

She didn’t care about anything else anymore.

Let Dat banish her from her own home. Let the people of the community, and especially Tyler, despise her forever. She would endure any embarrassment, any anger, any rejection for the chance of being with Aden.

If she didn’t have Aden, she didn’t have anything.

Even as fear paralyzed her, Lily knew what she must do. She closed her eyes, thought of the man she couldn’t live without, and mustered the courage for the most important undertaking of her life.

 

 

Aden ran as hard and as fast as he could through the unforgiving snow in no direction in particular. At first Pilot thought he was playing tag and loped merrily beside Aden with his tongue lolling to one side of his mouth.

But Aden soon outran even Pilot. He ran until his throat cried out in thirst and his legs burned with agonizing heat. He ran until he had no strength to stand. It didn’t work. He could not run far enough to escape his love for Lily.

It made no sense to love her. She despised him. She was about to marry a better man than Aden. But that did nothing to subdue the ache that filled his soul at the thought of losing her.

Dawdi said to let God do His job. Aden had been trying to let go of what he couldn’t control and go quietly about living a Christian life, trying to bless others but not to force them. He certainly couldn’t force Lily to love him, no matter how badly he longed for her.

So why had God abandoned him?

The answer came as he stumbled to an ancient tree standing in the middle of a stranger’s pasture. It wasn’t God’s job to see that Aden felt perfectly happy all the time. Everyone couldn’t be happy all the time. If Aden were happy right now, it was a good guess that Lily’s dat would be miserable.

Rather, it was God’s job to love His children. It was Aden’s job to let that love carry him through the hard times as well as the good times.

Well, he was certainly in the depths. Would God carry him through it?

Unable to support his legs any longer, he sat in the snow with his back against the trunk, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

Lily clutched her throat and swallowed hard. Since she’d left Mrs. Deforest’s house, her heart had kept up a relentless pace, pounding against her rib cage. But as she had set her face toward home, her love for Aden burned in her bones, lending her determination amidst her growing distress.

But now, when the time had actually come to face Fater, she was so deliriously frightened that she wasn’t altogether certain she wouldn’t pass out.

Estee had been understandably cold to her during supper. Lily had been too terrified to speak. Even Dat, in all his excitement about the weddings, had sensed something amiss. He asked both girls three times if they felt well.

Mama had made all of Estee and Lily’s favorites for supper, but Lily could barely force down two bites. Dat chuckled and said something about wedding-eve jitters. Lily could not give him a reply. He would find out soon enough.

She should have gone to Dat right after supper, but he had looked so ominous, lazily reading his paper in his brown recliner, that she stalled for time by helping Mama and Estee wash celery and bake pies. Even though she wasn’t planning on getting married tomorrow, it was still Estee’s big day. As desperate and terrified as she felt, Lily could not leave Estee celery-less.

Estee had gone off to bed while Mama put the finishing touches on the celery stuffing in the kitchen. Lily forced herself to walk into the living room. She loved Aden. She wasn’t going to marry Tyler. She must tell Fater now.

Her eyes never strayed from her dat’s face as she tiptoed into the living room and stood by his chair. She didn’t think her heart could pound any harder. Was this what a heart attack felt like?

“Dat?”

“Hmm?”

“May I speak with you?” Lily cringed. She sounded timid and unsure. Dat would never be convinced of her resolve.

Dat peered over the rims of his reading glasses. “What is it?” He furrowed his brow. “You look pale.”

Maybe she didn’t have to tell her dat. He would find out when she didn’t show up for her wedding in the morning.

Lily’s fear made her lose control of her limbs, and she trembled like a match flame in the wind. It was no use. She couldn’t speak without crying, and she
must
speak, so she let the tears flow. If she had to concentrate on keeping her emotions in check, she would lose her nerve. No matter what, she had to get this out.

Dat’s expression flooded with sympathy, and he stood and took her into his arms. “There, there,” he said gently, patting her on the back. “Don’t cry. Tomorrow is your wedding day.”

“Oh, Dat. You’re going to be very disappointed in me.”

He nudged her away from him and clicked his tongue. “How could you ever disappoint me when you try so hard to do right?”

His reassurance gave her hope. Maybe Dat would understand how sincerely she wanted to do the right thing.

He touched the tip of her nose. “You are fretting over nothing. Estee told me about what happened with that boy at Mrs. Deforest’s today. I’m proud of the way you behaved. Tomorrow we will be rid of him for good.”

Lily deflated slightly before thinking of Aden, squaring her shoulders, and wiping her eyes. “Dat, there is something I must tell you, and I have never been so certain of the rightness of any decision.”

“Of course. You could not ask for a better husband than Tyler.”

Her heart pounded in her throat, but she stood her ground. “I’m not going to get married tomorrow.”

“What?”

“I made a terrible mistake when I agreed to marry Tyler. I don’t love him. I can’t marry him.”

Dat snorted and sat down in his chair as if the discussion were over. “Every bride gets cold feet before her wedding. You will be fine.”

“I know it is almost too late, Dat. It was wrong of me to wait so long. But this is not the jitters. I can’t marry tomorrow. I just can’t.”

Dat leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat. “I worried this would happen. You get so nervous, and the thought of being married and sharing everything with a husband can be upsetting. Have you spoken to your mother about all the women things?”

Lily felt her face get hot. “It’s not about that, Dat. I don’t want to marry Tyler. Ever.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re serious.”

She almost wept with relief. “Yes. I am going to break off the engagement.”

Dat’s frown sank deeper into his face. “What will Tyler say?”

She looked at the floor. “I don’t know,” she whispered, not even wanting to think of the hurt she would cause.

Dat stood and paced purposefully around the room. “I’ve got to think. Let’s think for a minute. We could talk to Tyler. He loves you. It would certainly upset the apple cart, but he wouldn’t mind postponing the wedding until January so you feel comfortable.”

Lily raised her voice so Dat could hear her over his own thoughts. “Dat! I love someone else.”

He stopped pacing and glared at her, his eyes wide. She had never spoken to him like that. “Love someone else?”

“I’m sorry, Dat.”

A fire ignited in Dat’s eyes, and his lips twisted in disgust. “He doesn’t love you.”

His words stung more than he could have imagined. “You don’t know that.”

“A boy like Aden Helmuth only loves himself.”

Lily blinked back more tears. “I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t discard his love like an old shoe. He’s a part of me, Dat.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

Mama rushed into the room. “What is the matter?”

“Lily says she’s in love with Aden Helmuth.” Lily recognized the surprise in her dat’s voice. She had never defied him before.

“But what about the wedding?”

“It’s off,” Lily said.

Dat slapped his hand against the wall. Both Mama and Lily jumped. “No, it’s not. I expect better from you, Lily. Better than what I got from Zeke. And so I’m doing what my dat should have done the day Zeke took up with those new friends. If you walk away from Tyler Yoder, you will never be allowed in my home again.”

“David, you don’t mean that,” Mama said.

“Yes, I do. To keep her from making the worst decision of her life.” He pointed a finger at Lily. “You are blinded by this infatuation for that boy. I understand boys like him.”

Lily bawled in frustration and misery. “You know nothing about Aden. He is good and brave and would just as soon cut off his arm as hurt anyone.”

“Go back to that boy, and you’ll regret it. And my heart will break to see you live with that regret when I could have prevented it. And I
will
prevent it.”

Great sobs racked her body. She would lose her family if she called off the wedding.

But she would lose everything if she didn’t have Aden.

“So, Lily. What is it going to be? It’s mighty cold out there tonight.”

Mama gasped but didn’t speak.

Still whimpering, but with more determination than ever, Lily pulled her coat from the closet, put it on, and turned to face her parents. “I’m sorry, Dat, but I love Aden better than my own soul.”

“Then get out of my house.”

She shuffled out the door without closing it behind her. Was this courage? Her heart beat so wildly it felt more like fear. But she didn’t turn back.

“David,” she heard her mother say, “we can’t send her out into the night like that.”

Her dat’s voice sounded soft, comforting. “Give her some time to think about it. She’ll be back.”