Jenny's Choice (Apple Creek Dreams #3) (10 page)
Read Jenny's Choice (Apple Creek Dreams #3) Online
Authors: Patrick E Craig
Jenny put down her pen and looked at the words in the journal. She gripped the edge of the page, ready to tear it out, but something held her back. Then she carefully closed her journal and stood it up in an alcove of the small desk that Reuben had built for her. Her journal—Jenny smiled at the notion and the amazing thing that had happened to her in the past few months. In the depths of her sorrow, Jenny had discovered a desire and possibly a gift for writing.
It had begun not long after the early spring morning her papa
helped her find joy again. As she walked in the fields on a clear May morning, taking lunch to her
daed
, time seemed to shift. For a moment it seemed she was back in Paradise, taking Jonathan his lunch and hearing his clear, beautiful voice drifting across the farm to her on the wings of a song. He sang as he walked the rows, top-seeding last fall’s oat field with legume seeds. The seeds flew out of the hand-cranked seeder as his strong hands turned the handle, keeping time with the words that floated out of his mouth.
“Lassen Sie ihn, der gelegen hat, seine Hand auf dem Pflug nicht sehen sich um! Presse zur Absicht! Presse Jesus Christus! Derjenige, der Christus gewinnt, wird sich mit ihm von den Toten am jüngsten Tag erheben.”
Jenny remembered the words and sang along in English.
“Let him who has laid his hand on the plow not look back! Press on to the goal! Press on to Jesus Christ! The one who gains Christ will rise with Him from the dead on the youngest day.”
Jenny was lost in her memory. Jonathan had been a wonderful singer, and she loved his voice…
Then the moment passed, and she paused and looked around. She wasn’t in Paradise; she was back in Apple Creek, taking lunch to her papa instead of her husband. For a moment the familiar sadness engulfed her, and then she had an inspiration. After she gave Reuben his lunch, she ran back to the house and found a scrap of paper and a pen. She sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a note to Jonathan.
Dearest Jonathan,
Today I heard you singing as I walked alone in the fields. I love your voice. I am glad you never became a successful musician when you lived in San Francisco, for if you had we
never would have met. Instead you sang your songs to the Lord, and I was blessed to hear your gift. By the way, I kept your guitar. I don’t know why, since you put it away when you joined the church, but for me it is part of who you are. I remember when you sang a song for me long ago, and the beautiful sound of the music and the words enthralled me. You said you wrote the song for me. I remember it so clearly.
Tonight, I whisper in your ear,
I always want you near.
Tonight, kiss me tenderly,
Come so easily,
Into my heart tonight.
Your songs—how I miss them.
Jenny
Jenny stared down at the note and realized that for just a moment, as she wrote, the weight had lifted from her heart.
Maybe if I write down my memories of Jonathan, it will help me to fend off this loneliness. If I can’t have him to hold, I can have him to remember.
The next time Jenny was at the General Store, she looked for something she could use to write in. She found a plain, lined notebook with a black-and-white speckled cover and a place to write on the front cover. She bought it and took it home. She sat at the kitchen table and wrote simply “Jenny Hershberger, Journal 1—1979” on the cover. And that is how she began. At first she wrote only about Jonathan, but as she emptied out the hurt and the pain on the pages, she found there was room in her heart to write about other things too. She wrote about Rachel and the funny or wonderful things she did and said.
Tonight we asked Rachel to say grace at dinner. She prayed, “Dear
Gott
, thank You for these pancakes.” When she
finished, Mama asked her why she thanked
Gott
for pancakes when we were having chicken. Rachel smiled and said, “I thought I’d see if He was paying attention.”
One day Jenny wrote a short poem about Reuben.
Safe in loving arms I rest
My cares away on spirit wings
And here my aching soul caressed
By loving words the angel brings
To whisper in my papa’s ear
His strength for me breaks all my fear
And love with gentle voice can sing
And tell me how my life is blessed
My papa’s arms shall hold me fast
And bring me safely home at last
Her interest in the history of her people reawakened, and she started visiting the Wooster library once a week. Her old friend Mrs. Blake was still the librarian and welcomed Jenny back with open arms.
From then on there were many nights when Reuben came home to find Jenny lost in thought at the kitchen table, sucking on the end of her pen as she stared down at the words she had written. Jerusha cooked dinner around her and Rachel asked for her mama’s attention, but Jenny would be lost in thought. It was on one of these evenings that Reuben realized that Jenny was finding healing in the words she wrote. The next morning Jerusha found him in the woodshop, laying out some of the choice pieces of wood that he kept for his projects.
“What are you making, husband?”
“I’m going to make a desk for Jenny that she can put in her room. Her writing takes her mind off her sorrow, and after she writes she’s so much more with us. But she needs a quiet place away from all the hubbub.”
Jerusha smiled and laid her hand on Reuben’s arm. “You are a good papa.”
Reuben spent a month making the desk. It was crafted from birch and lightly sealed with a clear stain—a simple design but beautifully made, with two drawers in the front and a small set of shelves on the back edge to hold her journals. One day when Jenny was out, he moved it into her room. He stood it by the wall close to the window so she could look out on the world as she wrote. When she came home and went into her room, she came straight back out and gave her
daed
a long hug. No words were necessary.
After that, Jenny made a short time for herself each day to sit alone in her room and write. Soon she had filled five notebooks. As she wrote she sensed that perhaps God had a blessing for her in the writing, but it was not something that came to her easily. When she read her words back, she could see that she was still an awkward writer, and it bothered her, so one day when she was at the library, she shared her frustration with Mrs. Blake. Her friend smiled at her.
“Writing is like any creative craft,” the librarian said. “It takes time to develop your skills. You have a gift, Jenny. I remember the work you did for me when you were an intern and an assistant here. The research was always so complete, and your writing was clear and concise. The best way to improve on that is to just keep writing. There are also some excellent books I can recommend that will point you in the right direction.”
Mrs. Blake selected a few titles for her, and Jenny checked them out and took them home. As she read through them, she could see some of the common traps she had fallen into. Use the active voice. Get rid of the “hads” and write in the present. Show, don’t tell.
Then she went back to her entries and began reworking them. She labored over them and sometimes made corrections late into the night. After a while, she could smile as she read her first awkward attempts.
As her skill developed, she realized there was still much to learn. One day when she was at the library, Mrs. Blake directed her attention to a flyer posted on the bulletin board. It was for an adult-education creative writing class to be held at the library on Tuesday evenings, starting in two weeks. She thought about it, and when she got home she went to her
daed
.
“Papa, there’s an adult-education class at the library I’d like to take. It’s a creative writing class, and I think it could help me with my writing. I want to ask your permission since I am living under your roof and you’re caring for me.”
Reuben looked at his daughter. “You are old enough to make your own decisions,
dochter
. I’ve been watching you find joy in your writing, and I want to encourage you. I would only ask one question. Do you know where this is leading you?”
“I’m not sure, Papa. Mostly I write about Jonathan. But at some point I think I would also like to try my hand at chronicling the history of our family. I’ve been going through the old books at the library, and my interest in history seems to have been rekindled…but not for the same reasons.”
Jenny smiled at the memory of her obsessive search for her birth mother and the part her papa had played in it, although reluctantly at first.
“I want to be sure you can stay within the
Ordnung
, Jenny, and yet I know that times are changing. I don’t want to limit something that
Gott
may be doing in you.”
Jenny looked at her papa in surprise. “Why, Papa, I believe, as Jonathan might have said, you’re ‘loosening up’ a little.”
“Youth has a way of making a fool of a man. And old age can sometimes bring wisdom.”
“Is that from Proverbs, Papa?”
“No, that’s from a little book called
Reuben Figures It Out
.”
They both laughed. Their merriment brought Jerusha and Rachel into the room.
“What’s funny, Mama?” Rachel asked.
“Papa and I were just laughing about the things we learn as we grow older, Rachel.”
Reuben picked up Rachel. “We’re finding out somehow we don’t get smarter as we go along, little one. We just discover how foolish we always have been.”
“I don’t understand,
Grossdaadi
.”
“You will, Rachel. You will. Just give it time.”
With Reuben’s blessing, Jenny continued to write. She signed up for the class in Wooster and arranged a ride for herself every Tuesday evening. And that is how the Lord led her to the day that would forever change her life.
J
ENNY WALKED DOWN THE HALL
to the room where the writing class was being held. She stopped at the door and peeked cautiously around the doorjamb. Just as she feared, the room was filled with
Englischers
. Not a single Amish person in the room.
She took a deep breath and started to walk into the classroom. Just as she did, someone collided with her from behind, knocking her bag and her notebook from her hand.
“Oh, excuse me,” said a deep voice behind her.
Jenny turned. The perpetrator of the collision bent down to pick up her things. When he stood back up to hand them to her, Jenny saw that he was a tall, very handsome man with deep blue eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I saw you stop and I was going to step past you when you went again. I was in kind of a rush. Please forgive me.”
“No harm done,” Jenny said.
“Are you here for the class?”
“Yes, I am.”
“It’s interesting that you should come tonight.”
An old irritation rose up in her. “And why is that?”
“I’m speaking for a few minutes tonight about the number of books that are being published about the Amish.”
“Cookbooks, mostly, I assume?” Jenny said as she eyed the large satchel the man was carrying.
Why does he have to have blue eyes?
“The Amish aren’t just publishing cookbooks. I’m talking about novels and historical studies, devotionals and Bible studies. And several
Englischers
are writing about the Amish and getting their work published. It’s becoming a huge market.”
“So why are you speaking at our creative writing class?”
“Mrs. Blake thought I might encourage some fledgling writers to consider writing about the Amish community since it’s such a large part of our local culture. Is that why you’re here?”
“Well, it’s not to learn how to make a grocery list.”
Why is he getting me so agitated? And I’m not a fledgling.
The man looked at her in surprise and then laughed out loud. “Here I thought the Amish were all gentle, kind people. You’re the first one I’ve run into with a snappy comeback.”
