A Plain Love Song (24 page)
“I will not.” He heard the plunk of the platter on the table. A second later, Adah scurried next to him, arms and tongue flapping. “Last night you wanted to help me, like you cared. Now you’re acting like I have the plague.”
She whispered the words, but still, he looked around. No one seemed to notice her tagging along at his side. “This isn’t the time or the place. Go away.”
“Nee.”
“You would make a terrible fraa.”
“That’s a mean, awful thing to say.” She lifted her chin and veered away from his path. “Fine.”
He ducked his head and stomped down to the road where the buggies were parked. The horses raised their heads and went back to munching on the grass. He smoothed a hand over the sorrel, Daed’s favorite horse. The most calm of their horses. The most likely to get his family safely to and from the service. The horse snorted and kept eating.
Running his hand through the horse’s thick mane and along the haunches, Matthew breathed in and out, trying to stifle the anger that ran rampant through him. He’d been mean to Adah. Such behavior was no better than what she’d demonstrated to him. He needed to act like a good Plain man, even if she didn’t know her place. He needed to try to help her as one Christian to another, one Plain person to another. Mortified to the very marrow of his bones, he whirled and marched back along the road.
Adah came at him from the other direction. Her face glowed scarlet and her arms swung as she kept a pace even he would be hard pressed to match. “I may be a harlot or some such thing, but at least I’m not mean.” She slammed to a halt in the middle of the road. “I would never be mean to you.”
“That depends on how you define mean,” he fired back, advancing on her. He had twelve inches and thirty pounds on her. He had the advantage. The thought made him feel even meaner. “Letting someone believe you have feelings for them when you’re really courting someone else, that’s mean. It’s not just mean, it’s wrong.”
She stumbled over loose rocks in the road and nearly fell. He reached for her. She recoiled from his touch and regained her balance on her own. “What are you talking about?”
He did an about-face and together they kept walking, side by side, a space the size of a wagon gaping between them.
“A man called you on the phone last night.”
She gasped and her hand went to her mouth. He waited for her to explain. To apologize. To do something. The sun beat down on them and sweat slid from his hair and tickled his ears.
“What did he say?”
That’s what she wanted to ask him? “What do you think he said?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, he said he was sorry.”
“I mean, I’m sorry, not him.”
Sorry didn’t begin to cover it. The image of Adah’s face close to another man’s…it made his stomach rock and his fists clench. He didn’t know whether to vomit or punch a wall. Neither would be acceptable.
Forgive. He should forgive. How? What she had done was unforgivable.
Nothing is unforgivable.
The argument raged in his head as it had done ever since he heard those words.
I’m sorry I kissed you.
“Too late.”
“It was Jackson Hart. He gave me the phone.”
Jackson gave her the phone and something much, much more important. Her first kiss. He assumed it was her first kiss. Maybe Daed was right. Maybe Molly was right. He should never have given Adah his heart or his trust. He’d been blinded by his feelings for her. How could he have been so stupid? “He kissed you.”
“How do you know that?”
“He called to say he was sorry for kissing you.”
Adah’s face blanched. Her hand went to her mouth and she swallowed as if she felt the same upheaval in her stomach he’d experienced when he heard those words. “You had a conversation with him?”
How could she sound so mad? As if he’d done something terribly wrong. Not her. “Nee. Not exactly.”
“What did you say?”
“Are you afraid I upset him? So sorry. Too late.”
“Nee, I mean, not like that, I mean—”
“You have to make your choice.” He slowed his pace. “I told you before I wouldn’t wait for you to be ready. Now I know you aren’t waiting for me.”
She stared up at him, her blue eyes huge and wet. “Yes, I am. I want us…I mean…I’m so sorry. I want things to be the way they used to be between us. The walks and the rides and the singings.”
He wished it could be too. He wanted to somehow erase the voice in his head.
I’m sorry I kissed you.
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I’m not sure of anything.”
“You should be sure by now, but you’re not. What does that say?”
“It says I’m still finding my way.”
“It’s not like I haven’t wanted to kiss you.” Why tell her that? Why let her know how much her actions hurt him? The words tumbled out of their own accord, out of the onslaught of hurt. “Many times.”
“Me too.” Her voice was so small he could hardly be sure she’d said those words. “I mean, I’ve wanted it too.”
But he hadn’t kissed her. If he had, would things be different now? “You know why I didn’t kiss you?”
She nodded. “You were waiting.”
“Waiting for the right time.” Silly him. “To do things the right way.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
After everything that had happened, after everything she’d done, he still wanted to kiss her now, to make her forget Jackson Hart and music and guitars and iPods. It seemed incomprehensible, but it was true. He still wanted to kiss Adah. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t stoop
to that level. He wouldn’t become another Jackson Hart. An Englisch man who thought nothing of taking that special first kiss from a girl he barely knew. “You know what the worst thing is?”
“Another man kissed me.”
Matthew kept his gaze on the road ahead of them, watching the swirls of dust kicked up by the breeze. “If I do kiss you…someday…” He forced himself to look at her, trying to gauge her reaction. “I won’t be the first. I always thought I would be the first to kiss the woman who became my fraa.”
“Me too. I wanted you to be the first.” She swiped at her face with her sleeve. “I know. I don’t know how this happened. I’m sorry.”
Jackson Hart lured her, but she had gone willingly. Of that, there seemed little doubt. And Matthew had been cruel because her actions hurt him. That didn’t make it right. “I’m sorry I was mean.”
“You were provoked.”
“That’s no excuse.”
She sighed. “But it’s human.”
“That it is.”
Together they turned and began the trek back to the house. He drew a long breath, trying to ease an ache in his throat so profound he tried not to swallow for fear it would worsen. “You will make someone a good fraa.” His voice sounded dry and brittle. “Someday.”
“But not you?” Her voice quivered. “This can’t be fixed?”
“I’ll forgive you, but I don’t know if I’ll trust you again.” It sounded
gesflitch
, said aloud, but it was the truth. His pride ached. “There’s no way to get it back.”
“If I could take it back, I would.”
He wanted to lash out at her. What was it like? Did she enjoy it? Had they kissed more than once? He batted the questions down. No sense in creating more wounds that had to heal before they could begin again. “What was on the iPod?”
“Music. Just music.”
“He plays music?”
“Jah.”
A kindred spirit. “I don’t.”
“I don’t expect you to play music.”
Their chances—his and Adah’s—of fixing this dwindled as he thought of the things she shared with this other man. A man who loved what she loved. Music. “So now you have to choose.”
“There’s no choosing.”
“You have to choose. This life or a life with an Englisch man. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about your faith and your community. As for us, if you choose me, I have to figure out if I can trust you again.” He jerked his head toward the buggies. “I need to get home and do my chores.”
“Matthew, please.” She scurried along beside him. “Wait.”
“Go home and pray. You have your own work to do.”
She stopped in the road, her hands pressed together as if already praying.
He hoped she did, but he feared instead she would go home and hide in her room with her pencil and paper and write a silly love song about how she’d hurt a man who loved her. A love-gone-wrong song. Because that was what Adah did.
He would need a woman he could rely on. That would be the sensible way to go, but it had never been his way. Adah’s waywardness drew him to her. Her untamed spirit lifted his. He could admit that to himself, if not the world.
None of that could matter. What mattered was Adah’s walk in faith.
He looked back at her, still standing in the road, her expression stricken. “Talk to Thomas. Come to class. Please.”
“I’ll try.”
If it was the best she could do, he would have to accept that. He would ask God to forgive him for being so selfish. He wanted her to choose her faith because he wanted her to choose him.
Who needed greater forgiveness?
A
dah set a quart jar of bread and butter pickles on the shelf next to three more just like it. She adjusted each one so the hand-drawn labels were even. Emma had done a nice job with the labels, but it was the contents of the jars that drew the customers to the New Hope Combination Store. They seemed to love those pickles. Just as they loved Edna’s peach jam and Mudder’s chow-chow. The canned goods sold the best. That and the hand-sewn goods.
Humming, she picked up a feather duster and began to dust the row of wooden toys and handmade dolls. Funny the things the Englisch folks in New Hope would buy. It was a good thing too, a good source of income for the Plain families, still struggling to make ends meet on their farms, even after three years in their new home.
A tune worked its way into her brain. She flipped the feather duster in time to the melody. Words floated along on the notes.
Nee. Nee. No songs. Please, Gott, no songs.
Songs only caused her trouble. Great trouble. Trouble with Matthew. Trouble with the deacon. Trouble with God.
The work was easy. Too easy. It didn’t occupy her mind or wear her out. It gave her too much time to think about things. Like Matthew, who hadn’t spoken to her since that day after the prayer service. Or Jackson, whom she hadn’t seen since she quit cleaning houses. One, then the other. Which one? She knew what was right. Why did
she have such a hard time doing it? Trying to stifle the thoughts, she hummed louder.
“What song is that?”
Adah jumped. She’d forgotten Emma sat at the table working on the ledgers. She shut her mouth. The song didn’t have a name. It didn’t have words. It kept flitting around her head, waiting for her to write it, waiting for her to sing it and play it.
Not happening. She was through with all that. The tune reminded her of Clayton Star’s music. A lot of country, a little bit of rock and roll. A touch of something else with the fiddle and the electric guitar playing a twosome that seemed mournful, yet playful.
She sighed and turned to Emma, who sat at the window, sun spilling in on her, making her fair skin fairer and her blond hair peeking from her prayer kapp blonder. “I don’t know. It’s just some notes to pass the time.”
“You can hum. I don’t mind.” Emma dropped her pencil, leaned back in her chair, and stretched her arms over her head. “I didn’t recognize the tune.”
Emma wasn’t much for music. Her job consisted of keeping track of every sale so that the families who had money coming to them received their fair share. Turned out the former schoolteacher had a penchant for addition and subtraction. Adah’s worst subject.
If Emma only knew how different they were. “It’s nothing. Just noise.”
“You’re bored, aren’t you?” Emma picked up the pencil again and twirled it in her fingers. “It’s pretty quiet around here sometimes, but things will pick up when it gets close to payday.”
“Nee, not bored.” Adah turned her back to the older woman. Emma saw and knew way too much. How much she shared with Thomas, Adah had no way of knowing. “There’s plenty of work to do. I hum so it’s not so quiet.”
“I imagine the Englisch folks you worked for had radios and TVs playing and such.”
Emma had no idea. “Sometimes.”
“I never worked in an Englisch home or store. It must be kind of interesting.”
“I liked it all right.”
“But you decided to quit doing it.”
“Yah, it was time.”
A perplexed look on her face, Emma scratched her nose and then scribbled something on the ledger. “You like this better?”
“I’m used to working at my own speed and time.” Cleaning houses, she set her own schedule and worked until she was done. Then she was free. Here at the store, she had regular hours. Sometimes they had lots of customers, some days, like today, only a few. “It was harder work, though, and it’s not much fun cleaning the toilets of other folks.”
Emma chuckled. “Nee, I imagine not.”
