Plain Paradise (3 page)

Mary Ellen pressed her hands against her chest, still standing and staring at the door, only half hearing Linda’s queries, and wondering how the years had gotten away from her without them ever telling Linda that she was adopted.

2

J
OSIE SAT ACROSS FROM HER HUSBAND, PICKING AT HER
stuffed pork chop and pushing her peas around her plate. Mary Ellen’s fearful expression kept flashing through her mind. The last thing she wanted to do was cause Linda and her family any pain, but there just had to be some way for her to share in at least a small part of Linda’s life.

“Honey, you’re barely touching your food.” Robert gazed at her speculatively from his chair on the other side of the dining room table. “Are you feeling all right?”

She scooped some peas onto her fork and forced the bite into her mouth. “I’m eating,” she said and began to chew. Maybe her response would convince Robert that her condition hadn’t worsened— at least not today. She swallowed, then glanced around the kitchen in their new house, at all the boxes still left to unpack.

“I’m going to hire someone to come unpack these boxes. I don’t want you to have to do that.” He paused. “Or I can unpack some of them tonight.”

“No. I want to do it.” She smiled at her husband of twelve years. “But tonight, I just want to cuddle with you on the couch, watch television, and relax. I have all day to unpack these boxes, and I know you’re tired from work.”

Josie recalled her first trip to Paradise nearly six months earlier, just to verify that Linda still lived with her parents in the Amish community. A woman at the Bird-In-Hand market confirmed that she did. Then when Robert agreed to relocate to Paradise, Pennsylvania, so that Josie could be near Linda, he’d attained husband-of-the-year status in Josie’s eyes. Robert uprooted his law practice, after ten years working to establish a healthy clientele at the firm he founded. They didn’t know anyone in the small town of Paradise, and while geography wasn’t an issue for some of his clients, he still lost more than half. Robert had insisted that he was ready to downsize and not work as much, but Josie also knew that he wanted to spend more time with her. Especially now.

“I’m not that tired. Amanda and I finished setting up a filing system today.” Robert ate the last of his pork chop, then placed his fork across his plate. “She’s a sweet kid. I think she’ll work out just fine.”

Amanda had answered an ad Robert ran in the local paper for a secretary. He had hired her on the spot, and he was paying her big city wages as opposed to what would be the norm here in Paradise. And Josie knew why. She suspected that Amanda probably had a hard time finding a job, and Robert was always out to help those in need. He took more pro bono cases than he did paying ones.

Robert’s new secretary was a petite nineteen-year-old girl who lived nearby in the city of Lancaster, about twenty miles from Paradise. Josie met her on her first day of work over a month ago. Robert had prepared Josie in advance, so she wouldn’t be shocked when she saw the girl. Amanda’s lips were unnaturally enlarged, almost exuding a duck-like appearance. She’d been born with a cleft palate, which she’d had surgically corrected when she was a young child. However, according to Amanda, it left her lips unusually thin with a scar in the middle of her top lip, and impaired her speech. When she turned eighteen, she used the money she’d saved working summer jobs to have her lips enlarged with injections, a new procedure the plastic surgeon promised would enhance her physical appearance and possibly improve her speech.

It didn’t work, perhaps because Amanda also had scar tissue on her lip from a childhood bicycle accident. The swelling in Amanda’s lips hadn’t gone down for the past year, and she didn’t have the money to sue the plastic surgeon or get any help for herself. Robert filed suit against the plastic surgeon almost immediately, in an effort to compensate Amanda for her past year of suffering, and offered his services to her for free. There was no guarantee that the plastic surgeon would be held accountable, but Robert met with a local doctor, Dr. Noah Stoltzfus, who was helping him arrange for Amanda to have corrective surgery, regardless of the legal outcome.

When Robert met Noah, who ran a clinic in the heart of Amish Country, he liked the doctor right away. The two had been developing a friendship ever since. Josie wasn’t surprised. Everyone loved Robert. No one more so than his wife though.

“Well, I’m a little tired.” Josie settled back against her chair and yawned. “But I’m thankful not to have a headache today. That last one I had stayed with me for almost four days.”

Josie watched him clear their plates from the table. He was eight years older than her, having just celebrated his forty-second birthday. Josie thought he’d only gotten more handsome with each passing year. He was thirty when they’d married and had a full head of dark hair. Now, his thick mane was a salt-and-pepper mixture that lent him an air of sophistication. His eyes were shades of amber and green that changed in different lighting, but they always brimmed with tenderness and passion. Robert wasn’t nearly as polished as his two partners had been in Chicago, but it was her husband’s ruggedness mixed with a sense of humble power that attracted her to him in the first place.

She stood up, followed him into the kitchen, then joined him at the sink. He rinsed, and she loaded the dishwasher.

“Do you think she’ll call you?” Robert handed her two spoons.

“I hope so.” Josie sighed. “Mary Ellen was having a routine night with her family until I showed up.” She tucked her chin as her eyes filled with water. “I should have sent a letter first, giving them all some sort of warning that I was coming. I just thought that if I spoke to Mary Ellen and Abe in person, it would be harder for them to say no about me seeing Linda.”

Robert turned off the faucet, wiped his hands on a towel, and turned to her. He clutched her forearms in his strong but gentle hands. “Josie, I know you don’t want to hurt anyone. But I also know how much you’ve been looking forward to meeting your daughter. And I’m afraid you can’t have it both ways. I mean, this will be hard for everyone concerned.” He sighed, then gently lifted her chin. “It’s going to take some time for this to soak in for Mary Ellen and Abe. They’ll need time to talk to Linda, and I’m not sure I’d be expecting a call from them right away. Josie, you’re a good person. I’ve never known you to intentionally hurt anyone. Over the years, when we’ve talked about your daughter, you always said that someday you wanted to meet her.” He shrugged. “Maybe
someday
came before you were ready.”

“I gave birth to her, Robert. Does that really make her my daughter? She has a family. A family that I am about to disrupt.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I feel obsessed with knowing her, but I worry about the price of my happiness. Is it really fair to Linda that just because my circumstances have changed, now it’s okay to seek her out? Plus, Mary Ellen’s expression is etched in my mind, Robert.” She looked up at him. “She’s so scared. I’m sure she’s afraid of losing her daughter and thinks I will try to be a mother to Linda. You and I know that won’t happen, but I just need . . .” Robert wiped a tear from her cheek. “I need to know her.”

Robert tilted his head slightly and gazed lovingly into her eyes. “Honey, we talked about all this before we made this move. I love you with all my heart, and I know how important this is to you, but you can change your mind at any time.”

She ran her finger under her eyes and cleared runny mascara. “I love you so much. And I’m so sorry, Robert. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you children. I’m sorry that I’m so obsessed about meeting Linda. You moved your practice for me to be near her. I’m just so—”

Robert gently put a finger to her lip. “Josie, you’re my world. I want you to have a peaceful feeling in your heart, and I’ve loved you since the day I met you. But there’s always been something amiss for you. Maybe meeting Linda will fill that void.” He smiled. “You certainly can’t go on following her around town.”

“I know.” She shook her head, twisted her mouth to one side. “I’ve been a stalker.”

Robert handed her a bowl. “Okay, my little stalker, let’s finish these dishes, and then you can go take a hot bath.”

Josie turned toward him again. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“Yeah, you’re a lucky gal,” he teased.

She poked him in the ribs, and he chuckled.

But he was right. She was incredibly lucky to have him in her life. Especially now.

Mary Ellen clutched the sides of her white nightgown and paced the wooden floors in her bedroom, dimly lit by one lantern on her nightstand.
Help me, Dear Lord in heaven, to handle this situation the right
way. I need your guidance. Please help me to do Your will without letting my
own fears hinder me
.

Abe walked barefoot into their bedroom, his dark hair still wet from his shower and wearing only his black pants. He stroked his beard, which reached the top of a muscular chest covered with wavy brown hair.

“We’ve made a terrible mistake.” His eyes drew together in an agonized expression as he faced Mary Ellen. “We should have known this might happen someday, that the girl’s mother—”

“Abe,
I’m
her mother! She’s
my
daughter.” She walked over to him and fell into his arms. “What does she want after all this time? Why is she doing this to our family?”

“Now, Mary Ellen . . .” He ran his hand the length of her hair. “We must be faithful and trust God to see us through this. Linda is a strong girl, and she—”

“What if she doesn’t forgive us for not telling her?” She leaned her head upward and searched his eyes. “Abe, what if she leaves us?”

Abe pushed her gently away and kissed her on the cheek. “She
is
going to leave us soon, Mary Ellen. She’s almost eighteen. I reckon she’ll marry Stephen and start her own life within the next year or two.”

“You know what I mean. What if that Josephine woman has come to claim her, after all these years?”

“
Mei lieb
, it will be up to Linda to decide if she wants to know this woman. You are her
mudder
. You will always be her
mudder
.” He sighed, pulled away, and then walked to the other side of the room. In the moonlight, his profile was somber. “But this will be hard for our
maedel
.” He shook his head again. “We should have told her.”

“Why didn’t we?” Mary Ellen walked to the small mirror hung from a silver chain on the wall next to her chest of drawers. She reached up and touched her cheek. “She looks like me. Everyone says so.” But then she recalled how much more Linda looked like Josephine, and her heart landed in the pit of her stomach.

“After we asked the community members not to tell her until we felt she was old enough to understand, I reckon the years just got away from us.” Abe sat down on the bed. “And now she is a young woman.”

Mary Ellen spun around and faced her husband. “I could just not call her back. Maybe she will go away, leave here.”

“Mary Ellen, you can’t do that.” Abe raked a hand through his hair.

“Why not? I don’t have to call her.” She responded in a tone she’d often scolded her children for using.

Abe patted the side of the bed.

“I can’t call her, Abe. I’m afraid,” she said while sinking down next to him. She swiped at her eyes and laid her head on his chest. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

“I will call her first thing tomorrow morning,” he said with authority. “All this guessing about her intentions will do us no
gut
.”

Linda sat down on her bed, reached over and flipped on the switch of her battery-operated fan, then leaned her head in front of it to dry her hair a bit. In the evenings, she tried to be the first one in the upstairs bathroom, but tonight both Matt and Luke managed to get their baths before her. Now she’d end up going to sleep with wet hair.

She pulled the comb through tangled strands that ran to her waist and thought about her mother’s reaction to the
Englisch
woman who’d shown up earlier. She’d never seen her mother react in such a manner, and Linda couldn’t stop speculating about who the woman might be. Although, she had a hunch.