Love Redeemed (23 page)

“There's nothing to sort out.” His gruff voice held no sympathy, but still, it was kind. “You are God's child. You must claim your place at His feet. Make sure you are ready, should your time come.”

Her daed's mouth tightened and his eyes reddened, but still he didn't speak.

“I don't mean to cause you more pain,” Luke added. “Nor you, Silas, but you know I speak the truth. No one knows better how suddenly these things can come to pass. God gives and He takes away on His time.” Luke rocked for a second. “So it's important to be ready. Your rumspringa has been lengthy.”

“Jah.”

“And that is your choice. I wouldn't interfere except for there is something you should know.”

What? What was it? Had something happened to Michael? Was that what Luke was taking his sweet time telling her?

“You should know that Deborah has asked to be replaced as teacher.”

“Now?”

“Not now, but soon.” Luke wouldn't tell her more. He couldn't until the banns were announced. “We have spoken with the other parents and we all agree. We'd like to offer you the position of teacher at New Hope Parochial School.”

“Me?”

The word came out in a screech. She tried to bring her voice down to a reasonable level. “Me? How could you even think of letting me—”

“You are good with children. Deborah says they obey you and they like you. You did well in school yourself.”

“But I'm irresponsible. You know I am.” She couldn't keep from looking at Daed. He gave her a tiny fraction of a nod, but his eyes were bleak and sad. That hadn't changed. “There are others who would be better suited.”

“Nee, you aren't irresponsible and there aren't any others. You're the only one judging and finding yourself wanting. You have asked for forgiveness and received it. Your parents agree with this choice. Deborah recommended you. The one barrier is that you haven't been baptized. We will not have a teacher in charge of our scholars who hasn't committed her life to the church and to this community. Will you finish the classes and take this job, knowing it is an honor to be asked?”

She wavered, looking first at Daed and then at Thomas before returning to Luke. Their faces said she didn't have a choice. “I will,” she whispered. “I'll do better. I'll be good.”

“Fine.” He stood. “You need to make up the classes. Thomas will sit with you. You must catch up. The service is coming.”

“Jah.” She swallowed. “I'll be there.”

“
Gut
. See you there.”

“See you there.”

After he left, the screen door slamming behind him, Thomas turned to her. “The lessons you missed concerned the state of matrimony.”

Of course they did.

Chapter 20

M
ichael's legs and back ached from eight hours of standing in the diner kitchen, loading dirty dishes into a steaming dishwasher under fluorescent lights that blinked and buzzed. Shoving aside a newspaper and an empty Styrofoam coffee cup someone had left at the bus stop, he plopped onto the hard wooden bench to wait for his bus. His muscles groaned their approval. He'd worked hard in the fields at home and never had he felt this tired. The skin on his fingertips had started to peel from the detergent and a rash on his arms itched. He didn't care. He had his first paycheck in his pocket. Lana, who turned out to be another one of Oscar's nieces, and Crystal had urged him to get a checking account ASAP. That's the way Lana said it. ASAP. It seemed his boss had a soft heart for down-on-their luck relatives who needed jobs. And refugees from small Amish communities.

The two girls got an obvious kick out of educating Michael about all sorts of things. How to use the TV remote to change the channels when Oscar wanted to watch the football game on Saturday afternoon. How to find Oscar's favorite country music station on the radio when his team lost and he didn't want to have the TV on anymore. How to eat standing up along the back wall of the kitchen so Oscar wouldn't dock their pay for taking time for lunch or supper.

They were funny, those two. Always cracking jokes. Mostly he didn't
understand them, except to realize they weren't very nice. Not jokes he could repeat to his little sisters. He struck that thought. Rule number one of his new existence: No thinking about his sisters or his brothers or Mudder or Daed. Or Phoebe. Especially not Phoebe. No thinking about home period. He worked hard enough that he fell into bed at night and slept a deep dreamless sleep. That was fine with him.

He'd go to the bank tomorrow so he could pay for the next week at the motel. Crystal and Lana might think he needed a checking account, but he'd just as soon pay cash. He'd buy a few groceries to stock the kitchenette. It would be cheaper than eating out when he didn't eat at the diner, even if eating out consisted of soggy hot dogs from a vendor in the park across from the diner. And then there wouldn't be much left. No need for a bank.

He had about twenty minutes to wait for the bus. He could've walked home in that time. Most days he did to save the bus fare, but today dark clouds hung low in the sky, glowering at him, promising a deluge any minute. Then the sun broke through a crack in the clouds and mixed heat with the dampness. He bent over and planted his elbows on his knees, head down. His new sneakers had turned a dirty gray by the end of the first week at the diner. Next time maybe he should get black.

Today would be a good day for a hat. Hat. No. No thinking about hats. No thinking about anything that would remind him of home. With a stubborn ferocity, he leaned back and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, the rough material dragging on his red, raw skin.

“Hey.”

A soft twang of a voice. He didn't look up. He didn't know anyone here so the greeting—if that's what it was—couldn't be directed at him.

“Hey, you.”

Curious at the hint of insistence in the soft voice, he hazarded a look. A girl wearing a white kapp and a long dress covered in tiny yellow and pale pink flowers gave him a diffident smile from the other side of a screaming pink motor scooter. She jingled a set of keys in one hand and studied him. “You need a ride somewhere?”

He surveyed the area. No one else waited for a bus. Just him. He
hadn't lived in the city long, but he knew enough to know what she was doing wasn't smart. “Do you always talk to men you don't know?”

“No, sometimes I talk to women I don't know.”

“You shouldn't talk to strange men.”

“Are you strange?” She had a sweet smile that reminded him of Phoebe. He gritted his teeth and looked beyond the girl to the street. He should've walked to the motel. “'Cause you look more like a boy than a man.”

He bristled in spite of himself. After everything that had happened, after what he'd done, he was a man. Or maybe not. Maybe a man would've stayed and faced the community. “Why are you talking to me?”

“How long you been in town? Are you from Jamesport or LaPlata? You don't look like you're from Seymour.”

“New Hope.” He rubbed his hands over his jeans and contemplated his dirty sneakers. “How did you know?”

“We see a lot of you B on B guys up this way. Our neighborhood's not so far from the bus station.” She strolled around the motor scooter, revealing a pair of blue Converse sneakers. “Besides, I recognize the haircut and you don't look like you feel quite right in your clothes.”

He'd bought the T-shirt and jeans, along with two other pair, at the Kmart. He had to go to the coin-operated laundry mat every three days. Next paycheck he would get more so he didn't have to go so often. “B on B?”

“Bailed on baptism.”

“I didn't bail.” He stopped. It was none of her business.

“It's gonna pour any minute.”

“You're not Plain, are you?”

“Mennonite. You're gonna get wet.”

“So?”

“So these things are dicey on wet roads.” She gestured to the motor scooter. “Where are you going?”

“Landry Motel over on Olive.”

Her eyes widened.

“I live there.”

“'Course you do.” She sank onto the seat of her scooter. “You coming or what?”

Michael considered the black clouds overhead and the prospect of sitting there another fifteen minutes. He'd never been on a motor scooter, let alone one driven by a girl who barely looked old enough to be driving. A fat drop of rain splattered on his nose and dripped onto his upper lip. “How old are you?”

“Older than I look. How old are you?”

“Old enough.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“You don't look old enough to be driving that thing.”

“You're not a very good judge of age.” She grinned. “I'll show you. Slide in behind me. There's plenty of room.”

Plenty of room, but what did he do with his hands? She gunned the motor and took off with a jolt. Michael grabbed her waist and held on from sheer necessity. After a few minutes of mind-numbing fear as she hugged the curb, then weaved in and out of slower-moving traffic, he managed to relax his grip. The wind whistled around him and his eyes teared, but it was fun. The first thing he'd done in Springfield that qualified as fun.

He leaned in close to her ear. “I don't know your name.”

“Sophie,” she called over the sputtering chug-chug of the engine.

“Michael.”

“Pleased to meet you, Michael.”

After that he kept his mouth shut in order to make sure he didn't eat bugs for supper. A few minutes later she jerked to a halt in the parking lot of the motel.

“Safe and sound.”

He didn't know about sound. “Thanks.”

“You should come by and see us on Sunday at the prayer service. We got a bunch of your kind who attend.”

“My kind?”

“B on B, I told you.”

“Thank you for the ride.”

“I mean it for real. This can be a weird town.” The engine on her scooter sputtered as if it would die. She revved it. “Lots of people, but nobody to talk to.”

A sudden lump appeared in his throat.

“Thanks, but I don't do services anymore.” He didn't do anything that might bring him within spitting distance of a God who let little girls fall into lakes and drown.

“You don't do services anymore or you're not into God anymore.”

For a girl he'd just met, she saw an awful lot.

“Thanks anyway.”

“Then we'll see you, Michael.”

Probably not. Yet he found himself standing at his door, key card in his hand, watching her drive away. A few wisps of black exhaust fumes followed the pink motor scooter that stood out against the darkening sky and drab gray of the motel. Life seemed more interesting than it had the hour before.

Stop it.
He turned and opened the door and went into his new home.

Chapter 21

P
hoebe almost missed the nod from Thomas. She had her attention fixed on her daed, who delivered the second of two sermons with an aplomb he'd gained after more than a year as the district's minister. His bass boomed loud enough in the Shirack barn to keep them all awake. The gist of the sermon escaped her, such were the fluttering of the butterflies in her stomach and the caterwauling of questions in her head, demanding to know if she really thought this was the right thing to do. She'd longed to be baptized. She'd studied and worked hard for this. But sitting here on this cool October day, she could admit to herself—to no one else—that it wasn't the day she'd imagined. Daniel sat alone on the front bench across the aisle from where she, Molly, and Rachel sat.

No Michael. No future as a fraa and mother.

So be it. She had God and family. There was no turning back. She'd agreed to finish the classes and be baptized so she could take Deborah's place as teacher. She would make up for her sinful past with a future wedded to the church, community, and Ordnung.

Catching Molly's gaze, she jerked her head. The four of them rose together and followed Thomas from the barn. Her heart beating in her throat, Phoebe fell in line behind her friends. This was it. The first step toward the point of no return. She stumbled as they approached the
porch of Luke's house. Molly glanced back, her plain face rigid with nerves. “You okay?”

“Jah.” Her voice quivered. She shut her mouth and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. “Okay.”

Calm. Be calm.

Thomas climbed the steps and held the door open. “Phoebe, you first.” Why her first? His eyes were kind and his tone firm. If he had any concerns about her decision to be baptized they didn't show in his face. “Go on. Luke is waiting.”

Her hands wrapped in the fabric of the new blue dress she'd finished stitching the night before, Phoebe moved past Thomas and into the front room. It took a second for her vision to adjust after the bright sunlight of the October morning. The beating had moved from her heart to her ears. She couldn't hear anymore, but she saw Luke's mouth moving and his hand gesturing toward a wooden chair placed across from where he sat.

She sank into the chair, grateful for its sturdiness, like an island in the middle of raging waters.
Calm the waters. Gott, please calm the waters. Soothe my soul.

“Do you understand why you're here?”

Luke's voice sounded muffled and far, far away. As if he were talking underwater.

No, not the water. Gott, please not the water.

She nodded, afraid her head would simply fall off with the effort it took to remember how to make it move up and down.

“You need to speak up. This is, in fact, your last chance to speak up.” His tone matched Thomas's. Kind, but firm. “Is there anything about your rumspringa you'd like to tell me? Anything you feel the need to share before committing your life to the Ordnung and your God and Savior.”