Lorie's Heart (5 page)

“Jonah's already joined the church. If you don't join, then the two of you can't get married. He's not going to turn his back on the church now and risk a shunning.”

“I guess I hadn't thought about it like that.” Jonah was close to his family and wanted to carry on with his father's farm. Like any Amish boy in
rumspringa
he'd gone out and tasted the world. But that was all he wanted, just the experience before he settled down. He hadn't understood her reluctance to join up when he had. But she hadn't been ready at the time. Didn't know if she was ready yet. But she was twenty-three years old and the decision was at hand.

“He loves you,” Luke said, bringing Lorie out of her thoughts.

“I know.” She pushed her plate away and tried to make sense of it all. But it seemed as if one decision and one decision alone had to be made. “I guess I should just go back home and forget all of this ever happened.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“Does it matter?”

“I think so. Just because you're in baptism classes doesn't mean that you can't come to Tulsa from time to time and visit your grandmother.”

Hearing him say those words was weird beyond anything she had ever heard. Her grandmother.

“What if
Mamm
finds out?” she asked. And it would surely matter to the bishop if he happened to find out she was coming to Tulsa. Later, maybe that would be okay, but this summer? Secretive trips to visit
Englisch
relations could ruin joining the church for her.

“Not to sound harsh, but she can either accept it or not. You said she knew about your father's tattoo, right?”

“
Jah.
”

“Then what's to say she doesn't already know about this?”

Lorie sat back, her thoughts spinning. Could
Mamm
know about her grandmother in Tulsa? The thought was too bizarre to comprehend. “But what about
Dat?
If everyone knows that his mother is
Englisch . . .
”

“That doesn't mean that she wasn't Amish before. Maybe that was why she acted so strongly toward your prayer
kapp.
”

“Maybe,” she murmured.

“And with her memory problems how are any of us to know the truth?”

He was right about that as well. The only other person who could definitely tell the story was her father, and he was gone.

 

 

“Are you kidding me?” Luke walked around the car, his aluminum cane clicking with each step. “This is your father's car?”

“That's what the police said.” She looked at the faded orange car and shook her head. It was the kind where the top would come off. A convertible, she thought they called them, but she wasn't sure.

Her father had kept it in a storage building. She had found the papers for the place in his wallet, and the key on the chain the police had given
Mamm.
It wasn't hard to find, and now there it was, another reminder that her
dat
wasn't at all who she thought.

“This is a '62 Karmann Ghia.”

“It is?” she asked. “What does that mean?”

“It's a neat car.” Luke smiled. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Sell it, I guess.” Too many decisions. “I don't know. I guess I should talk to
Mamm
about it.” Like that conversation would go well.

“You can leave it at my place until you decide.”

“Thanks, Luke.” What would she do without her friends?

“I'll get one of my buddies to come over here with me and drive it back.”

Lorie nodded and handed him the keys to the funny little car. She had never seen anything like it. There certainly wasn't one in Wells Landing, but it seemed to fit her father. It was different and edgy, just like him. Only she hadn't realized it while he was alive. He had just been her father. She hadn't thought about the way he talked and the little things he did that weren't big enough to catch the attention of the bishop but not traditionally Amish either. Had the answer been right under her nose all along, but she had been too close to see?

“So are you going to tell me about this guy from the assisted living home?”

“There's nothing to tell.” Lorie got into Luke's car and waited patiently for him to join her.

“Didn't look that way to me.” He slid into the driver's seat and started the engine. “That man had his eyes all over you.”

Lorie scoffed. There was no way she had captured the attention of the handsome
Englischer.
He could probably have any girl he wanted. It was downright crazy to think he wanted anything more than friendship with her. “Maybe he needs a friend.”

Luke shot her a look.

“Look at me.” She ran a hand down the black apron. “If
Englisch
men thought dressing like this was attractive, then the
Englisch
women would be dressed Plain.”

“You don't think
Englisch
guys can see past all of that?”

“I . . .” She sputtered to a stop. She hadn't really thought about it before. She had just assumed that
Englisch
men were into looks and the way women were dressed. And she was ashamed of herself. It was unfair to put that shallow label on all
Englisch
men. “Whatever,” she finally managed. “Just because he said hi to me doesn't mean he's anything more than polite.”

A small chuckle escaped Luke. “You just keep telling yourself that.”

 

 

This was the last thing she should be doing. She knew how the church felt about paintings and such. It was a sin to be prideful of one's creativity.

But she had to. Last night she had lain in bed and tried to bring her father's face into mind. And she had failed. He had only been gone a few weeks and already his memory was starting to fade. She had to do something to keep that from happening. She just had to. So she had snuck away to the storage room above the restaurant and dragged out her paints.

Lorie stared at the blank canvas. That was the thing about art. It just
was
. She had no other way to describe it. The painting was already on the canvas. It might look blank to others, but she could see the picture there, already painted in the vivid colors she preferred. Her father's dark hair flopped across his forehead, black hat like a halo around his head. Twinkling blue eyes. His favorite blue shirt, black suspenders, yellow background as if the sun shone just for him.

She had too many feelings, too much emotion filling her to keep it all in. She had to paint. She just had to. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and her hands, then she dipped her brush into the paint and touched it to the white.

“You seem miles away, Lorie. Are you
allrecht?
” Jonah asked.

“Huh?” Lorie visibly started, then turned her focus toward him.

“I knew you weren't listening to me.” He tried not to sound hurt, but it had been this way far too long. Lorie seemed to walk around in a daze lately, staring off into nothing as if she had too many thoughts inside her head to pay attention to anything else.

“I'm sorry.” She placed one hand on his arm where it lay atop the rocking chair's armrest. “What did you say?”

They had been sitting on the porch of his house enjoying the beautiful afternoon. Soon summer would hit and the heat and humidity would make lounging around outside uncomfortable at best.

“I asked how the classes were going.”

“Baptism . . .
Jah . . . gut
. I mean, for baptism classes.” She smiled at her own little joke. She was so pretty when she smiled, like the sun came directly from her heart. But these days, the gesture didn't reach her eyes. And as the weeks passed he got more and more worried about her. Sure, she had lost her father, but it seemed like more than that was bothering her.

“Is this about the tattoo?” He had tried to be supportive, but it was near impossible to know what to do or say in such a situation. Things like this didn't happen often and surely not in little districts like Wells Landing.

“No,” she said. “Well, sort of . . .” She pleated her fingers in the black folds of her apron and sighed as she stared off toward the cornfield. “There's a lot of things. I went to Tulsa the other day. To the address on his driver's license.”

He hid his shock as best he could. She had gone to Tulsa without him, without telling him. That wasn't like her at all.

“I thought we agreed to let this go.”

Her head whipped around, and her gaze sought his. A deep frown burrowed its way into her smooth brow. “I never agreed to anything.”

Her mood change was confusing, but he was here to be supportive and that was exactly what he planned to be. “I thought we said it would be better if you gave yourself some time.”

“I did,” she cried. “And all I got was more questions.”

“What was at the address?” he asked, though he was a little afraid of the answer. He'd heard once about an
Englisch
man who had two families, two houses, two everything, though neither wife knew they were sharing him with the other. It seemed too bizarre to be the truth, but now, he was starting to wonder....

“It was a home for older people. His mother lives there.”

“Wow.” The word was so much less than he wanted to say. No wonder she had been walking around like her mind was filled to the brim.

She went on to explain her visit with her grandmother and how Betty Mathis couldn't remember the smallest things and was confused by Lorie's Amish dress.

“That settles it then.” He sat back in his seat as his breathing returned to normal. Everything was going to be
allrecht.
“If she can't remember you and you upset her by visiting, then you shouldn't go back.”

She bit her lip as tears filled her eyes. “You're right, I suppose.”

He patted her hand reassuringly. “I know I am. You need to just concentrate on your articles for baptism and joining the church. Everything else will fall into place.”

“You think so?”

He flashed her his best smile. “I know so.”

 

 

Zach let his gaze wander around the rec room searching for that one sweet face. He shook his head at his unlikely thoughts. What did he think? She was just going to show up out of the blue?

Well, yeah, that was exactly what he thought. It was kismet or fate or something that brought her here to begin with. Surely it would bring her back.

“Hey, Dream Boy.” Tori Ann snapped her fingers in front of his face to bring his attention around. “Table eight needs your help.” Unlike Zach, Tori Ann volunteered at the Sundale Retirement and Assisted Living Center. The residents loved her sassy ways and bright smile, though today her brassy attitude grated his nerves. “They asked for you specifically.”

“Right. Sorry.” Time to quit spacing out over a girl he would never see again and get back to work. He turned toward the table, making note that Betty Mathis was among the seniors seated there. He smiled. She was one of his favorites. There was just something about her smile and the innocent light in her eyes. She had memory problems and was easily confused, but she didn't let that stop her. He admired her spunk.

“Johnathan,” she said as he approached the table.

“Zach,” he gently corrected.

“Oh, yes, of course.” She patted her hair and smiled as if she had meant to call him Zach all along. “Will you help us with these airplane kits? We have the instructions, but I still can't tell where the wings are supposed to go.”

“Of course.” He pulled out a chair and studied the instructions. Then he showed Betty and the rest of table eight how to attach the wings.

“We're sending these over to the children's hospital,” Betty said, examining her plane from all angles. Normally she preferred knitting to the craft of the day, but the thought of making a balsa wood airplane must have appealed to her.

“The VA hospital,” Stan Marley corrected. Stan was a retired shoe salesman from back in the days where the reps took the shoes around to the stores. Zach loved hearing him talk about traveling and carrying a sample case. It seemed everyone had lost the human touch these days. Maybe that was why so many people were angry all the time.

“Of course,” Betty said, her brow puckering, then smoothing itself out as if she had gotten it right from the beginning.

“That's a great idea.” As Zach spoke his gaze drifted toward the entrance to the rec room.

“That's the fifth time you've looked at the door,” Eugene Horton boomed. His voice was huge, but his body didn't match. He was a short man, barely five foot, with a thin build and long, slender fingers. The odd combination of his small frame and his over-loud voice was enough to bring a smile to Zach's face, though he hid it so the man wouldn't think he was laughing at him. “You waiting on someone?”

Zach shook his head. “No,” he lied.

“Is it a girl?” Linda, Eugene's sister, asked. She was the opposite of Eugene in every way—tall, rounded, and quiet-spoken. Zach had heard the rumor that the two of them were twins, but he'd not found an opportunity to ask them.

“No.” A heat rose in his face to belie his words.

“I saw a girl leaving your room the other day, Betty.” Fern, Betty's next-door “neighbor,” grabbed the page of stickers and started to place them on her plane.

“If you do the stickers first, you'll ruin them when you start to paint,” Eugene said.

“Hush.” Linda smacked his hand. “It's her plane, and she can decorate it in any order she wants.”

Betty handed the red paint to Zach for him to uncap. He removed the lid and handed the small tub back to her. “I don't recall a girl,” Betty said.

“Thursday,” Fern explained as she carefully removed one sticker to reposition it on the unpainted wing.

“She must have been visiting someone else,” Betty continued, not looking up as she carefully painted the underside of her plane's wings. “I never have visitors.”

“What about your son?” Eugene asked.

Betty looked up, her eyes squinted in confusion. “No,” she said slowly. “That must be someone else too. I never have visitors.”

“She was a pretty thing, even in that heavy black dress she was wearing,” Fern said. “I think she was Amish.”

They were talking about Lorie! Excitement rose inside him. She had been there visiting Betty Mathis. Maybe he should ask Carol and Amber up front if she had said anything to them. As a matter of fact, he wondered why he hadn't asked them already. Surely Lorie stopped at the circulation desk before heading to Betty's room.

“There!” Stan said triumphantly. “You looked at the door again.”

Zach smiled and shook his head. “Sorry.”

He had two more finals to take and then it was on to the real world. Hopefully Lorie would come back to the living center again before he found his “real” job. After all, he loved the residents at the home, but there were only so many balsa wood airplanes a guy could make.

Lorie eased up the staircase and into the second-floor storeroom. It seemed these days she spent every spare minute she had there. Painting.

She had almost talked herself out of ever painting again, but that was before her father's death and all the secrets she'd uncovered. Too many emotions filled her up and spilled out onto the canvases. It wasn't like she was any good, not like the artists who filled museums and galleries. This was just her way of expressing herself and dealing with her swirling emotions.

She let herself into the stuffy room and turned on the fan she had snuck up there the week before. She wished she could open a couple of windows and let the breeze come through, but she was afraid it might alert someone to her presence. Then
Mamm
would find out and that would never do.

She covered herself in the overlarge shirt she used to protect her clothes and opened the box where she'd stashed her paints. It was hard and messy painting in secret, but right now she had no choice. She was going through baptism instruction and one slipup could keep her out of the church. She should shut the box, put away the canvas, and head back down the stairs, but she couldn't stop painting any easier than she could stop breathing. The time she took away from painting only stored up the feelings. She found they were there waiting for her when she returned.

It wasn't like she was showing them to people. They were just for her. She gave a quick nod at her justification. She wasn't going to sell the paintings, or try to put them in a show. They were simply her way of coping. Surely Bishop Ebersol couldn't find fault with that.

She had finished the painting of her father. She wasn't the kind of painter who painted exact replicas of the subject. Nor could she be called abstract like the paintings of Jackson Pollock she had looked at in that big library reference book. No, her efforts fell somewhere in between. Anyone looking at the painting could tell what it was of, but she tried to capture the spirit of the person, the glow that seemed to come from within.

She set up her easel and uncovered the half-finished painting she had started a couple of days before. She had started off with the inspiration to paint a picture of the car that she had left with Luke. It was the biggest thing she had from her father and represented the dual life he'd been living. But somehow when she started painting it wasn't the cute little orange car but the handsome face of the
Englischer
Zach. She studied it now with critical eyes. She should have never started the painting. It was wrong of her to paint a portrait of another man when she was practically engaged to Jonah. Not that he would ever know about it unless she made the point to tell him. Still, it seemed wrong somehow.

With a shake of her head she put it aside and took out her last blank canvas. She set it up on the easel and stared at it for a moment. Then she closed her eyes and imagined what needed to be painted there.

Over the years she had painted almost everyone she knew and the people who had come into her life—Caroline, Andrew, and Emma. She had even painted one of Caroline's parents who had moved to Wells Landing from the very conservative Swartzentruber district in Ethridge, Tennessee. With the exception of Caroline and Emily, none of these people knew she had painted their picture. And it was a secret she would forever keep.

She opened her eyes and the purple paint beckoned. She answered by squeezing a large dollop on the cutting board she had turned into a paint station. She dipped her brush into the oil paint and ran it across the canvas.

 

 

“Come walk with me.” Caroline Fitch ran her arm through Lorie's and didn't give her much choice in the matter as she led her out of the house and into the yard.

They had all gathered at Caroline and Andrew's for a summertime get-together. She and Jonah. Emily and Elam. Even Andrew's cousin Danny and his wife, Julie. Lorie was glad for the diversion, but still she felt as if her every step was weighted by secrets and lies.

“What's wrong?” Lorie asked as they tromped across the yard. The others had settled in to playing a rousing game of Scrabble. She was glad for Caroline's demand to walk with her. Lorie couldn't concentrate long enough to form more than a three-letter word.