A Plain Love Song (22 page)

“Nee. Nee, that’s not what makes me happy. Besides, I don’t want to be apart from my family.”

Did she want to be apart from him? The question nearly burst from Matthew’s lips, but he wrestled it back. This wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about them, even. It was about Adah’s walk in faith.

“Stay away from it. Stop getting yourself so mixed up in all that muck.” He cleared his throat, knowing that what he asked her to do would be painful for her, even if he didn’t understand why. “Choose to do the right thing. That’s part of growing up. It’s not much fun, but it’s what we’re supposed to do.”

She kept her gaze on her hands, tucked together in her lap. “I need to talk to Mudder and Daed.”

“Jah, you do.”

“I need to find a different job.”

“You’ll stop cleaning houses?”

“The Harts’ house, for sure.” She hesitated. “I don’t know about the other two. But no more Harts.”

He wanted to ask why the Harts in particular, but he didn’t. It was enough that she had trusted him with this much. He would help her avoid the temptations—he could imagine what they were. He had seen the Harts in town. Jackson, Jeffery, and RaeAnne Hart were close to his age. Jeffery never spoke, but Jackson Hart sometimes said howdy as he passed by and once or twice their paths crossed at the harness and blacksmith shop Simon Christner had opened. Jackson seemed okay with his cowboy hats and boots. Flashy, though, driving around in that big diesel-guzzling silver truck spewing fumes in Matthew’s face as he swerved around the buggy and sped up. In all likelihood, his family were good folks, but they led a different life, a worldly life that somehow snared Adah into wanting something she shouldn’t.

Adah picked up the denim bag that lay on the seat between them. She rummaged in it for a second or two and then produced two flat rectangular objects which she held out to Matthew. He picked up the flashlight and turned it on. A telephone and an iPod. He snapped the light off. “I thought your daed got rid of your iPod.” He took her offering, not sure what she wanted him to do with either item. “I didn’t know you had a phone. When did you get it?”

“A friend gave them to me.”

He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. She couldn’t seem to look at him. “Why do you want me to have them?”

“Get rid of them for me. Please.” She took a breath and let it out. “You have so much going on right now and I’m sorry I’m making it worse for you. The last thing you need is a friend acting silly when you have all these people in your house and you have to finish the dawdi haus and finish the harvest.”

The word
friend
leaped up and bit him like a rattler. “You’re not just a friend.” He slapped his mouth shut. If she only wanted to be a friend, he should accept that. He should be her friend in her time of
need. “I mean, don’t apologize. I always have time to help. I want you to find your faith.”

She wrapped her arms around her middle as if she were cold on a hot, humid night in July. “I just need a little time to get myself in order. I’m a mess.” She made a sound that was half giggle, half sob, wet and unhappy. “As if you couldn’t see that. Just do this one thing for me.”

“I will.”

“Get rid of that stuff for me.”

Matthew tightened his grip until the edges of the phone bit into his skin. If these little boxes were coming between Adah and God, he would put as much space between her and them as he could. “See you at baptism class on Sunday?”

“I’ll be there.” She sounded certain of that. It gave Matthew hope. “See you then.”

He wanted to do something more. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to wipe that stricken look off her face. Something told him he didn’t have the power to do that. Not yet. He wouldn’t give up. “See you then.”

And as many times and as many places as it took to make her see what she had right in front of her nose.

He climbed down and went back to his buggy, her offerings tight in his hand. He contemplated throwing them in the ditch, but then someone might pick them up. Instead, he waved at her as he passed, then glanced back to make sure she turned her buggy around safely and headed home.

Despite an overwhelming weariness born not of any physical work, but more from upheaval in his head and his heart, Matthew headed down the dirt road that led to the pond where he liked to take Adah walking. The humid night air weighed heavy on him. He glanced at the phone and the iPod on the seat next to him. So small, yet so big to Adah. Why? Who had given her the phone? What was on the iPod? Songs. Just songs. Little snippets of a world they tried so hard to keep at arm’s length. Why was that so difficult for Ada? He had no desire to be immersed in the flash and strut of that world. But he wasn’t Adah. He
drew to a stop close to the pond’s edge and hopped down. He turned to pick up the phone.

It rang.

The sound halted him in his tracks.

The strident buzz broke the peaceful stillness of a country night. He breathed.

Answer it.

No.

Answer it.

Tell whoever it is not to call Adah anymore. Help her sever the connection. For himself? Or for her? Both.

Matthew pushed the button.

“Adah, Adah?” A hoarse, slurred voice filled his ear. “Don’t hang up! Honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you and I shouldn’t have teased you about it.”

His ripped heart hammering in his chest, the words ringing in his ears, Matthew held the phone out, looking at the display. Numbers, no names.

“Adah? Adah! Are you there? Answer me, Amish girl!”

Fury and hurt mingled, their razor-edged wings striking his face and head. Hand shaking, he put the phone to his ear. “Stay away from Adah.”

He slung the phone in a high arc that sent it spiraling over the pond’s water, glittering in the moonlight until it disappeared in a satisfyingly loud splash in the deepest, darkest center of it.

Without hesitation, he sent the iPod to the same watery grave.

He stood there for a long time, hoping for a peaceful silence restored. Instead, the man’s voice battered him in a continuous loop, stealing the serenity he’d always found in this place, Adah at his side.

I shouldn’t have kissed you. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I shouldn’t have kissed you.

Chapter 18

A
dah kept her gaze on the pie crust as she lifted it from the floured cutting board and laid it across a pie pan filled with fresh sliced peaches, sugar, and cinnamon. She cut away the excess crust and began to pinch the edges, bringing together the bottom crust and the top in a nice fluted pattern. The everyday task, one she’d done hundreds of times, steadied her shaking fingers. She sighed and glanced at her mudder, who stooped to take a pan of peanut butter pecan cookies from the propane oven.

“Whatever it is, girl, spit it out.” Mudder straightened and set the pan on potholders spread across the counter. “That’s about the tenth time you’ve sighed in the last five minutes. You look like a raccoon with those big circles around your eyes, and you didn’t touch your breakfast. Best get it over with, whatever it is. You’ll feel better.”

Adah picked up a knife and made small slits in the middle of the crust to allow steam to release. Her own steam needed release too. She cleared her throat. “I wanted to talk to you and Daed.”

“Yet you waited until he headed to town to bring up the subject, whatever it is.” Mudder scratched at her nose, leaving a smudge of flour on it. “That’s not like you. Sometimes I think you like getting him riled up.”

“Nee, I don’t. That’s why I thought maybe I’d talk to you first.”

“A woman could grow old and die in the time it takes you to spill
the beans.” Mudder chuckled and slipped another pan of cookies into the oven. “Have a cookie and tell me what’s on your mind.”

Adah picked up a cookie the size of Daed’s palm and laid it on the napkin, ignoring the heat on her fingertips. The aroma of warm peanut butter curled around her, calming her. “I can’t clean at the Harts anymore.”

Mudder stopped washing the mixing bowl. She laid it on the counter still coated in soapy bubbles and faced Adah. “Do you want to tell me why?”

“Nee.” Adah broke the cookie in half and crumbled up the bigger piece. The smell made her mouth water, but her stomach clenched at the thought of eating it or anything else. “I just think it’s better if I don’t.”

“But you’ll keep cleaning at the Stewarts and the Johnsons?”

“I could. I guess it depends. I’d need a new third house to clean.”

Mudder moved to the prep table and pulled out a chair. She pointed at it. Adah sat and Mudder took the chair across from her. “You’re my dochder. I’m your mudder. You can tell me the things that bother you.” Her frown deepened and an emotion like anger flitted across her angular features. “If something happened…if one of the Harts did something, you can tell me.”

“The things that happen during rumspringa aren’t something to share with parents.”

“If they’re things you want to do or you want to happen, that’s true. But rumspringa is not a time for someone to take advantage of a young girl not so familiar with the ways of the world.”

“It’s not like that.” Adah’s cheeks burned. She wanted to think it was from the heat of the oven and a July day already steaming with sultry humidity, but it wasn’t. She could still feel Jackson’s lips on hers. She could still feel his hands gripping her waist. Shame burned her face. “I’m not so innocent.”

“Maybe not innocent, but true of heart. You look as if someone hurt you.”

“It’s not that kind of hurt.” She struggled for words to explain something she didn’t understand herself. “It’s my fault. I did something I shouldn’t have done.”

Mudder sat back in her chair, one finger tapping restlessly on the table. Her frown deepened, creating grooved wrinkles across her forehead. “Maybe you should talk to Thomas.”

“I will.” She dreaded that conversation as much as she dreaded talking to Daed. Maybe more. “Tomorrow.”

“You’ve always been my little independent girl.” Mudder stopped tapping and began smoothing her red, dishwater-chapped hands across the rough varnished pine as if to remove the marks. “It will cause you pain in the life we choose to lead. You will suffer the consequences of your actions until you learn to control them and yourself. I understand that and I can’t fix it, much as I would like to. But nothing you do will stop me or your daed from loving you.”

The unadorned words cloaked Adah in a sense of security as surely as if Mudder had draped one of her handmade quilts over her shoulders. “I know.”

“That said, you also have to know there are things you might do that would force us to no longer have contact with you. We love you, but we love our Lord God more. The decision is yours. It will always be yours.”

“I know.” The harsh reality of her mudder’s frank statement chilled Adah to the bone in the midst of an oven-heated kitchen She mustered a whisper. “That’s why I can’t work at the Harts anymore.”

“You’re trying to do the right thing?” A bit of sweet relief crept into Mudder’s voice. “Is that it?”

“I am.”

“
Gut
. That’s
gut
. It’s best you let me talk to your daed about this first.”

“He’ll be angry.”

“Jah, but not at you. Your daed is a papa bear when it comes to his girls.”

“Because of Ruth.”

“Because he loves you and wants to raise you right. Losing Ruth makes it harder for him to let go of the rest of his kinner.” Mudder slid her hand across the table and patted Adah’s. “Remember that when he acts all stern and grumpy.”

“I will.”

Mudder pushed back the chair, the legs scraping against the linoleum. She stood and looked down at Adah. “It’s best you give up
cleaning in the Englisch houses altogether. That’s what Daed will say. He’ll say better to remove the temptation all together. Emma and Katie need help in the new combination store. You could work for them.”

Where Mudder’s two best friends could keep an eye on her day in and day out at the new store with its Amish goods. Quilts, jams, pickles, fresh eggs, produce, furniture—whatever the folks in the district wanted or needed to sell, all in one place. She would never be alone with an Englisch boy again. Mudder had reaped much from the few words Adah had carefully selected. “You think they’ll want me?”

“I’ll talk to them. You’d best get that pie into the other oven.” Mudder picked up the mixing bowl and doused it in the tub of rinse water. “Your daed will let the Englisch folks know. No need for you to go back to their houses.”

Adah dragged herself from the table. While her heart had ached with shame only seconds ago, now it throbbed like an open wound. She wouldn’t get one last chance to see Jackson or hear his voice or run her fingers down the ivory keys of the grand piano. Or pluck the guitar and sing, her voice mingling with his.

She would never hear the words of the next song he wrote.

“It’s for the best.”

Adah turned to see Mudder staring at her, a knowing look in her eyes. “It might not seem that way now, but it’s for the best.”

“How do you know?” The question burst from her mouth unbidden. “I mean—”