Katie's Choice (12 page)

Now he was practically engaged. Marriage usually meant family, but he and Monica had never talked about it. He made a mental note to bring it up the next time he called her. Or better yet, face-to-face when he was back in Chicago.

The thought of starting a family, then shipping out on assignment didn’t seem fair. Her family had enough money to support them, but . . . well, that was out of the question. She said she understood his need to work. Would she understand this? She wasn’t exactly the maternal type.

Katie Rose drifted into his thoughts. Pretty as you please, the striking image of Monica was replaced by the honey-haired vision who lived next door. Now
she
was maternal. One look at how she cared for Samuel and any fool could see that. Katie Rose cared for her brother’s children as she would care her own, but according to her assessment, she would never have any. That’s not what she believed God had planned for her.

He tried not to laugh at the idea as he reached for the next shirt, another blue one, almost the same shade as the first.

Katie Rose would make a wonderful mother. He knew the school would be sad to lose her as the instructor, but she was destined to be a mom. He saw it in the gentle brush of her fingers across Samuel’s brow, the silence in her eyes as she mentally accounted for them at the school, her watchful gaze as she trailed them home. Still, she said she was too old for marriage.

“Tell me,” he said, reaching for the next article of clothing and stretching for a clothespin. “Do women get married young around here?”

“
Jah
,” Ruth said, nearly shouting over the roar of the machine engine. “Most girls join up when they’re about twenty. It is nothin’ unusual to have a marriage one year and a baby the next.”

A baby at twenty-one. That seemed on the young side, but then so did motherhood at twenty-five. He knew women in their forties who were just getting around to starting their families. So what made Katie Rose so certain that a family wasn’t part of God’s plan for her?

He looked down the row of clothes he had just hung. Either Ruth and Annie liked to wash in color sequence or blue was a prominent color in the Amish world. He dragged the basket around the end of the pole and started down the other side. Amazing what he remembered from his childhood days. Using a common clothespin for two items came back as naturally as walking. He smiled, pleased with himself.

Next shirt up was green, then blue, followed by dark blue. “Tell me, Ruth. Do the Amish have something against red?”

“It’s too flashy to practice humility.”

He gave that some thought. He supposed red could be considered showy. And just in his short time with the Amish he understood their need to blend, to be as one. “And yellow?”

Ruth gave him a quiet smile. “We reserve the showy colors to decorate our flower beds. We wear the colors of serenity.”

“So purple’s okay?” he asked, holding up an eggplant-colored dress.

“Only certain shades,” Ruth explained. “If the bishop finds it too bright or boastful, he’ll send one of the ministers to have a talk with the person in question.”

He blinked, trying to take that all in. It seemed controlling, almost cultish, but he hadn’t really seen anything to make him believe the Amish were more bent toward a cult than a normal run-of-the-mill religion.

Annie must have heard something in his tone, as she approached and said, “It’s important for the church members to stand united before God, show their trust in Him. Their obedience. It’s not about color as much as it’s about reverence. Being part of something bigger than oneself.”

Ruth smiled. “Well put, my dear.”

“
Danki
.”

“You understand now?” Ruth asked Zane.

“I’m going to have to think about that awhile.”

The cooperative was about serving the greater good of the community. What the people grew, they shared with their friends and neighbors. There was a community garden, a community everything. But what they wore was of no consequence. Maybe because they didn’t worship a god who expected anything from them in return. It was about living off the land and staying out from under “the man’s” thumb.

This, it seemed, was something entirely different.

He made a mental note to talk to Annie about it. What better way to find out about the differences between the Amish and the English than talking to a convert?

Once the clothes were hung, they went in to have breakfast. The sky had turned the most beautiful shade of lavender that faded to blue, promising a beautiful day.

“How will we know if we’ve won the laundry standoff?”

Annie smiled. “I haven’t seen Katie Rose drive by yet, so I’d say we did it.”

Zane couldn’t stop his smile. Maybe because the news brought one to Ruth’s face as well. Then he realized this had more to do with being capable than it did about being first. Ruth had to prove to herself, despite her treatments, despite her cancer, that she still had it. The woman had spunk, he had to hand it to her.

“Katie Rose drives by each day?”

“Only on Mondays when she goes to help Deacon Esh.”

“Right.” Zane snapped his fingers, in remembrance. “She helps him do his laundry, after she does her own, then she goes to teach school?” Amazing.

“After she cooks breakfast.”

“And in the evening?”

“She takes care of the family,” Ruth said with a shrug, but Zane could see the light of admiration in Annie’s eyes. That was a lot of work for one person, but such effort was looked upon favorably in the district. As it should be. Hard work like that should never go unnoticed. Surely a woman who worked that hard for others would be a prime catch for an Amish man. So maybe her fate was more a personal choice than anything else. But why was she so against marriage? It didn’t have anything to do with his story, but Zane made a mental note to find out the answer.

Zane was about to head down the stairs for afternoon chores when his cell phone rang. “Hello?”

“Tell me you have pictures to go with these notes.”

“Good afternoon to you too, Jo. Yes, as a matter of fact, it is a lovely day.”

“Don’t play with me, Carson. These notes you sent over are spectacular. But I need the visual angle.”

“About that . . .” Zane rubbed the back of his neck trying to ease the tension that had settled there. “They don’t allow their picture to be taken.”

“Of course they don’t. That’s why I sent you. If anyone can get the photos, it’s you.”

The image of the stern-faced Abram Fisher popped into his head. Abram was nothing if not fair. Pious and straight-walking. And Ruth who was so self-conscious of her post-chemo body, plus Annie, John Paul. Katie Rose. He had grown to care for them all since coming here, and Zane couldn’t find it in himself to betray their trust.

His silence must have said it all. Or at least enough. “Listen, Zane. Juarez is a big job. Big job. If you can’t handle the Amish . . .” She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t have to. If he couldn’t complete his assignment with the Amish, then he’d lose the Mexico assignment to another reporter.

He heaved a sigh, resigned to follow through with his instructions. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Zane could hear the triumphant smile in her voice. Jo always liked to get her way. Now all he had to do was figure out how to complete his assignment without alienating the people around him.

6

Z
ane heard the car approach and moved even farther to the side of the road.

“Wanna ride?”

He looked up at John Paul’s smiling face. Zane knew for a fact the young man had been out half the night, but he still looked as refreshed as if he’d slept plenty. He stopped and thought about asking where he’d been, but that surely wasn’t part of his story. Instead he shook his head. “Nah. It’s too pretty to be cooped up in a car.”

John Paul looked crushed. “You’ll get there faster.”

“That’s exactly the problem.”

“I’ll drive the speed limit.”

Zane shook his head. “No, thanks. Driving too fast isn’t your only problem. How did you get a license, by the way?”

John Paul just smiled. “Where are you headed?”

Zane nodded down the road. “The schoolhouse. Katie Rose said I could come by today and she would show me around, tell me about teaching all the grades in one room.”

“If I drive, you won’t miss the first bell.”

“I can live with that.”

John Paul laughed. “Suit yourself.”

“You dad was looking for you this morning.”

John Paul’s easy smile faltered. “Was he mad I was late?”

“Late is not quite the word for not showing up at all.” And
mad
was not quite the word he would have used to describe Abram Fisher’s mood. More like silent seething.

The young man shrugged, but his mossy-green eyes clouded over.

“I take it
rumspringa
isn’t a good enough excuse to miss milking the cows and feeding the chickens?”

John Paul shot him a look. “Have trouble this mornin’, city boy?”

“I didn’t try to milk the chickens, if that’s what you’re asking.”

John Paul laughed. “Well, I guess I will go work on the tractor engine in the barn.
Dat
said it was burnin’ oil. Let me know if you want a ride home.” He held up a shiny black cell phone.

Zane’s brows rose. “Where’d you get that?”

He smiled. “I have skills.”

“I hope that’s not why you’re late.”

“
Nay
.” But his smile held secrets. “See ya later, Zane Carson.”

He gunned the engine, leaving Zane standing in a cloud of dust and rattletrap exhaust.

Zane was rounding the last bend when he heard the bell—an old-timey metal one with a string tied to the dangly thing inside. School had begun.

He quickened his steps, his mind going back to his years racing for the bell. He was homeschooled—or rather taught by his parents during his years at the cooperative. His uncle had dumped him in public school the minute they landed in Chicago. Culture shock was too mild of a word to describe Zane’s reaction to the huge urban school. There were more people in his grade than lived in their entire settlement in Oregon. It was loud, noisy, and concrete. He hated it immediately. Only his budding love for girls had kept him coming back. The experience had been hard for him, but it made him stronger. He had learned to adapt, overcome, and find his niche. He credited the experience with allowing him to grow into the man he was today. A man who could jump on a plane at a moment’s notice and travel halfway across the world to cover the latest breakout of war. Compared to facing a sea of middle school faces as insecure as he had been, sleeping in war-torn countries and living off whatever he could find was a piece of cake.