Gay Amish 03 - A Way Home (9 page)

There was the rocking chair he’d made Mother, and the wood carrier he’d crafted by the stove. He’d known Mother and the girls lived with Eli now, and that Joseph Yoder had bought their old house. But knowing and seeing were different things. With a pang, David thought of the barn where he and Isaac had spent so many hours.

Sarah, his youngest sister, appeared from the kitchen, Elizabeth and Rebecca on her heels. They were all under eleven, and while Elizabeth and Rebecca had their father’s light hair, seven-year-old Sarah’s gentle curls were dark. David’s heart skipped as Sarah threw her arms about his waist.

“Where have you been?” she cried. “I thought the bad world swallowed you up.”

He squatted down and brushed her cheek. “Nope. I’m just fine.” Maybe not exactly true, but he would be.

“You look the same.” Sarah’s gaze roved over him. “I thought you might have horns now. But you’re still David.”

He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Still me. Same old brother. I’ve missed you all. Have you missed me?” Elizabeth and Rebecca rushed forward to hug him, their eyes darting to Mother before they hurriedly stepped back. He smiled at them. “It’s so good to see you again.”

“Girls, time for bed.” Eli helped Mother to her chair by the fire, and pulled out a stool so she could prop up her legs.

The little ones did as they were told and climbed the stairs. Mary tugged Anna’s arm, but Anna stood firm. Mother glared.

“All of you. Do as you are told.”

Anna huffed, her bare feet slapping the wood as she pounded up the stairs. Mary hesitated. “David?”

“Yes?” His pulse zoomed.

“I’m glad to see you again. Both of you.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but she was gone upstairs, hardly making a sound. Eli sat in his own rocker and motioned to another chair. David sat, running his fingers over the wood he’d sanded and molded. They’d all taken off their socks as was custom, and he wriggled his toes until he realized he was fidgeting. Folding his hands in this lap, he waited.

And waited. If there was one thing the Amish had in spades, it was patience.

A clock ticked loudly, and David wondered when they’d wound it last. How accustomed he’d become to digital readouts. He cleared his throat. “Does your leg still hurt?” He tried to push away the image of her bloody and broken in the snow.

“Yes. They are getting better, though.”

“Good.” His stomach churned. “Do you need more money for the bills? I—”

“It is no longer your concern. I’ve taken care of it.” Eli began packing tobacco into his pipe.

Another silence descended. Distantly he heard wood creak, and could imagine Anna at the top of the stairs, listening avidly. He smiled softly.

“It makes you happy, does it?” Mother asked, her voice wavering. “Turning your back on your family and the Lord? Being a sinner out in the world?”

“No. I mean…” David scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I do like it. Living in the world. Isaac and I…”
Careful.

Her lips pressed together. “I always thought Isaac Byler was a good boy. Look at what he’s done. You wouldn’t have left if he didn’t put ideas in your head. Him and that English woman. And after Isaac got Mary’s hopes up.”

David struggled to keep calm. “He didn’t get Mary’s hopes up. He never drove her home from the singings even once. And it was my choice to leave. It didn’t come out of nowhere, Mother.”

“No. That English woman helped too.”

Eli struck a match and lit his pipe with an expert puff. “David, you know there is only one way to heaven. You must turn away from worldly sin and rejoin your community. Confess your sins and make amends.”

David wanted to tell them that it was impossible. That while he could give up electricity and movies and the rest of the world if he really had to, he could never give up Isaac. Even without Isaac, how could he give up the freedom to finally be himself? To be accepted? Living in the English world was about so much more than cars and modern conveniences. Yet even if he could tell them the truth, they would just say he had to repent his sins. Their answer would always be to return to the plain life.

“Maybe it is the only way to heaven. But I can’t come back. That’s not why I’m here. I came to support Isaac and Aaron. And of course I wanted to see you all. I wanted that very badly. I miss you so much. But you have to know I’ll never live here again.”

Mother’s shoulders jerked with a sudden sob, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Sweet smoke wafted through the air, and Eli rocked in his chair steadily. Mother inhaled deeply. “You’ve broken my heart, David. So stubborn. Like your brother.”

David flinched. She’d hardly mentioned Joshua since his death. “I’m sorry I left the way I did, but I knew I’d never be happy here. I couldn’t make that commitment to the church—it would have been wrong. It would have been a lie. Please, can’t you understand?”

She gazed at him with wet eyes. “No. You have turned your back on your family. Run away into the arms of the devil. I will never understand. I will pray until my dying day that you will come to your senses and return to us.”

With that, she struggled out of her chair, Eli helping her while David jumped to his feet and hovered uselessly. He waited while Eli helped her upstairs, wishing he could run back to June’s. It was only a few miles. Or perhaps he could take Kaffi, but no—he wasn’t his anymore.

On tiptoes, Anna appeared, her cap askew. She reached for his hand, whispering, “Mother hasn’t let me out of her sight lately. I tried to get to June’s to call about Nathan. I’m so glad you came back.” She glanced up the stairs. “Not that it’ll be easy. Are you okay? I heard everything.”

He tucked a stray lock of golden hair behind her ear. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Duh. But are you okay?” She peered at him with brows drawn together. “You look like you haven’t slept in days. Is Isaac really staying with his family?”

He nodded. “It’s the only way they’ll let him see Ephraim and the others. They want to get him away from Aaron.”

Her eyes widened. “Did Aaron come back too? How did that go?”

“Just like you’d imagine.” He heard footsteps upstairs, and hugged Anna close. “Forget me. What about you?”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “Surviving. Each day I grow more sure. I’m leaving when the time is right.”

“I’ll help you. Just tell me when.”

Anna stepped back just as Eli appeared. She nodded to David and dashed back upstairs with an apologetic smile to Eli, who sighed.

“She reminds me of a horse I once had. Wouldn’t pull the plow no matter how much I coaxed or threatened.”

“What did you do with it in the end?”

Eli shrugged. “Let it run free. What else was there to do? Come now. I’ll take you where you want to go.”

They rode in silence to June’s farm. David winced as a car came up behind them, but it slowed and passed them easily. He cleared his throat. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for my mother and sisters.”

“It is I who should thank you.”

David blinked. “I don’t understand.”

Eli smiled softly. “Not that I thank you for your sin. That I must condemn with great sadness. But my life had grown empty. I was alone, and now my home is filled once more. A wife and children are a man’s greatest blessings on this earth. My own children are parents themselves now. I have grandchildren, but to have your sisters under my roof warms me even in the bitterest of winters. I wake with a smile. You never have to worry for their wellbeing. It is my burden now, and a glad one.”

“I…I don’t know what to say.” David took a deep breath, sure that part of the heaviness in his chest melted away, leaving him breathing more easily.

“Say you will pray for the Lord to bring you back to the right path. Think on it. Say you will do that.”

He thought of what June had said about
her
God loving people just as they were. Was his God out there? For the first time, David really imagined that maybe God really could be something other than Amish. The world was so vast, and the Amish were such a tiny part of it. There were so many Christian faiths, and maybe none of them were wrong. Surely there had to be more to it than what the Ordnung dictated?

“I will.” It wasn’t a lie—not exactly.

“Then I ask nothing else of you.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence, and David said a silent prayer indeed, thanking God for Eli Helmuth.

As Isaac opened his eyes, the faint light of the impending dawn brightened the small square window. His breath caught, and for a moment he was sure it had all been a dream—David, San Francisco, school, his new life. Because here he was in his old bed in Zebulon, waking to the same little square of glass and worn dresser against the wall.

Yet this time, the other side of the bed was cold, and the only sound that reached his ears was soft breathing from the far side of the room. No Nathan. No snoring. Not this time. Isaac braced against the surge of guilt.

And David wasn’t beside him either, sprawled on his stomach, not realizing how much room he took up in his sleep. Isaac hadn’t minded at all—he’d liked how David’s leg pressed against him, or his arm flopped over him, his breath tickling Isaac’s nose. He’d loved how some mornings David had woken blearily, and then his whole face had brightened like the sunrise as he focused on Isaac.

Longing burned through him, and Isaac squeezed his eyes shut. First he’d shared a bed with Aaron, and then Nathan, and then shared so much more with David. The loneliness was foolish, but it swelled in him. Here he was feeling sorry for himself when his brother could be dying.

“What’s wrong?” Ephraim whispered.

Isaac opened his eyes as he rolled to face the other bed. He could just make out Ephraim watching him in the gloom. Joseph slept on, tucked close to the wall beyond Ephraim. As Isaac had suspected, neither had wanted to take Nathan’s empty bed, even though Ephraim longed for a bed of his own. It hadn’t been slept in since Nathan collapsed, and now here was Isaac back in it alone. “I should have known. That he was sick.”

Ephraim huffed. “Shut up. No one knew. Not even Nathan.”

Isaac tried to smile. “True.”

Floorboards creaked in the hallway, and they listened to Father’s heavy footsteps descend the stairs. The rooster wouldn’t crow for some time, but the day had begun. Mother would bustle about shortly, and Isaac could almost smell the cooking grease from the bacon already. “I never get up this early anymore.”

“I bet.” Ephraim chuckled. “Even if I went into the world, I think my brain would wake me up anyway.”

“Do you want to? Go into the world?” Isaac wasn’t sure what answer he wanted to hear.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I think I want to leave Zebulon, but…”

“But what?”

“But…I like farming. I can see myself with a house of my own, and a wife and children. It’s fun to look at Anna’s magazines and sneak off to do English things, but now with Nathan, it just…it makes me think. You know? That maybe things aren’t so bad. I used to get so fed up with Mother and Father and all the rules. But isn’t it scary out there without them?”

“Sometimes.”

“Even if I go back to Red Hills, or to another settlement, I’d still be losing so much.” He was silent for a long moment, and his voice trembled. “I don’t think I can stand it if Nathan died. It’s bad enough without you. At least I know you’re out there somewhere with Aaron. That’s something, at least. As much as I understand why you left, I hate that you’re gone. I know, it’s not fair of me.”

“I don’t blame you. I’d feel the same.”

“Is it worth it? Leaving your family behind?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac whispered. “Yes. But sometimes no.” He ran his fingers over the squares of the quilt on his bed. As sunrise neared, pale gray light brightened the room, and Ephraim watched him intently. “But I’m not the one making it like this.”

“But you chose to run away.”

“Yes, but I
had
no real choice. I…” Isaac clenched his hands. He wanted to tell Ephraim the truth, but would it help? Or only make it worse? “That’s the problem. There’s only one way here. Amish or English, and no in-between. I still want to see you all. I don’t want to be cut off. I don’t want to leave my family behind. They make it this way. Our parents and the community. They think it’s the right thing, but it isn’t fair.”

“I know. If I go back to Red Hills, things will never be the same again with Mother and Father.”

“Exactly!” Isaac’s voice rose before he hushed himself, glancing at Joseph still sleeping. “I want to write letters and visit. It’s like with Aaron! All these years he’s wanted to see us again, and they wouldn’t allow it. That wasn’t his choice.”

Ephraim leaned in closer. “What’s he like? Does he have a good life?”

“He’s wonderful. He’s so generous, and he does have a good life. A very good life. His wife is a doctor, and they make each other laugh all the time. They have a nice house, and they made sure there was room for us if we needed it.”

Ephraim was quiet for a moment. “For me too?”

Isaac’s heart skipped. “Of course. If you ever want to leave, he’ll help you. I will too.”

“I don’t know what I want.” His brows drew together. “What’s so great about the world? Technology and stuff like that, sure, but we don’t really need it.”

“It’s more than that. It’s…freedom. Choice.”

Ephraim nodded, and looked about to say more when Joseph mumbled and groaned, pushing himself up on his hand. He would be nine this year, which Isaac could scarcely believe.

He rubbed his face blearily, and then a sweet smile brightened his face. “Isaac. You’re still here.” Then his smile faded as he took in the empty spot where Nathan should have slept.

Ephraim yanked back the quilt. “Better get to work. I’m late already.”

Isaac wished they could stay in bed talking, but Ephraim was already fastening the flap on his pants and flying out the door.

Somehow, Isaac had forgotten just how much work there was to do. Milking and milking and milking, and bottling, and cleaning, and a thousand little things—and those were only the pre-breakfast chores. By the time he dragged himself into the kitchen with a yawn, he wanted a shower desperately. He rolled up the sleeves of his gray shirt and washed his hands in the basin. He sure as heck hadn’t missed the outhouse, and the lack of running water even to wash up was something he’d quickly taken for granted in the city.