Plain Paradise (6 page)

“When you get Jonas home, if there is anything you need, anything at all, please get word to me, Lizzie.” Stephen’s warm smile matched his tone of voice.

Lizzie nodded. “We will have lots of help from everyone, I’m sure.
Danki
, Stephen.” Lizzie stared at her husband in a way that caused Linda’s heart to ache.
Jonas is going to die
.

“You children should go and enjoy this beautiful weather.”

It seemed clear that Lizzie wanted to be alone with her husband, and Linda felt like tears were going to spill over at any minute, so she and Stephen excused themselves. Linda just wanted to get in the hallway before she completely broke down in front of Lizzie.

Once outside the hospital doors, that’s exactly what happened. She folded onto one of the benches in the courtyard on the east side of the hospital and buried her face in her hands. Stephen sat down beside her and draped an arm around her shoulder.

“Did you not realize how sick Jonas is?” His voice was comforting, but his words stung.

She pulled her hands away, swiped at tears, and then turned to face him. “I guess not. Jonas has been sick for years, and somehow he always seems to get better.” She paused, sniffled. “Remember three years ago, when the doctors told him that he couldn’t attend Kade and Sadie’s wedding? They said he was too sick and made out like he was going to die any minute.” She shook her head and grinned. “But Jonas said he wouldn’t miss the wedding for anything, and he insisted Sarah Jane and Lizzie take him. Remember?”

“
Ya
, I remember.” Stephen took a deep breath, and with his free hand, he reached for hers and held it tightly. “Jonas is a fighter, but Linda—”

“Don’t say it. Just don’t say it. Jonas is so special. To everyone.”

Stephen nodded, gave her hand a squeeze, and they sat quietly for a few moments.

“How’d you get here? Barbie?”

“
Ya
. She’ll probably be here any minute to pick me up. She was going to run some errands.”

“I guess I’ll catch a ride too. Anything special you want to do the rest of the afternoon?” Linda snuggled closer, but Stephen pulled his arm from around her shoulder and put a tiny bit of space between them when two doctors walked into the courtyard, though he kept hold of her hand. Most men in their community weren’t comfortable with much public affection, and Stephen was no exception.

Linda twisted slightly to face him and wished they could just go somewhere, anywhere, so Stephen could take her away from her worries about Jonas. She knew that to worry about such matters was a sin and that Jonas would have a special place in heaven when he arrived, but the thought of not seeing him anymore, playing chess, listening to his wise advice—she just couldn’t imagine. Poor Lillian. And Sarah Jane and Lizzie. There would be a huge void in so many lives when Jonas passed.

“Anything with you is fine,” Stephen said after the doctors passed by them. Linda could feel her cheeks blush and wondered if Stephen could read her mind, if he knew how much she longed for him to propose. She’d be eighteen in August, on the seventeenth. That wouldn’t leave much time to plan a wedding for November or December of this year. Weddings were always scheduled after the fall harvest. Besides, her parents would argue that she was too young to get married, even though
Mamm
and
Daed
were married at seventeen.

“There’s Barbie.” Stephen pointed to the white minivan, then turned back to Linda, arched one brow, and eased into a smile. “Wanna go to the old oak tree?”

Linda knew what that meant. The old oak tree was a place where couples went to be alone, a huge oak in the middle of a field off of Leaman Road, with arched branches that formed a globe around those who ventured beneath the protective limbs. She felt her face reddening even more, and she nodded.

“We’ll get Barbie to just take us to her bed and breakfast, and we can walk to the old oak from there.” Stephen stood up, offered Linda a hand, and she rose from the bench along with him, relieved their
Englisch
friend wouldn’t know their destination.

Mary Ellen paced the kitchen. She’d sent Matthew and Luke over to Samuel and Lillian’s house with two shoofly pies she’d baked that morning, along with a big container of high fiber balls. She knew how much her brother liked the fiber balls filled with peanut butter, honey, raisins, chocolate chips, and coconut. Truth was, she needed to keep busy to keep her mind occupied.

Abe’s conversation that morning with Josephine was brief, but they agreed that Linda’s birth mother would visit tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. That meant that Mary Ellen and Abe would have to tell Linda the truth this evening, and Mary Ellen’s stomach was rolling with anxiety. It was only fair to discuss the matter with Linda first, and privately, so sending Matthew and Luke to Samuel’s house worked out perfectly since Linda was due home any minute to help with supper preparation. Mary Ellen dreaded the conversation they would be having with Linda, but waiting could worsen the situation if Linda found out the news some other way. What if Josephine decided not to wait and went to Linda directly? She jumped when the screen door slammed.

“It’s just me, Mary Ellen.” Abe hung his hat on the rack near the door, then ran a hand through his hair. “It’s gonna be all right.” He walked to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of meadow tea, took a few gulps, and then took a seat at the kitchen table.

Mary Ellen brushed flour from her black apron and resumed her pacing.

“Sit down, Mary Ellen. Rest. I know you’re nervous, but we will have to trust the Lord to guide us to say the right things.”

“There is no
right
way to tell our daughter that we’ve lied to her for her entire life.” Mary Ellen bit down on her lower lip, then eased onto the bench across from Abe. “I’ve always been close to Linda, and I’m afraid that when she finds out this news, that— that we will lose that.”

“We didn’t lie, Mary Ellen.” Abe raised his shoulders, then dropped them in frustration. “It just didn’t come up.”

Mary Ellen slammed a hand on the table, something she would normally never do. “Abe! We didn’t tell our daughter that she is adopted. Don’t you think that should have
come up
at some point?” She regretted the tone she took with her husband, and she could see the anxiety in his expression, the fear in his eyes. But her own worries were overwhelming her as she wiped sweat from her brow. A knot was building in her throat, and the last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of Linda when she arrived. Mary Ellen wanted to calmly tell Linda that it didn’t matter one tiny bit who gave birth to her, that she loved Linda as if she’d carried her in her own womb, that she was her daughter, no matter what. And she’d prayed all night that Linda would somehow understand.

“Mary Ellen, where is your faith? It’s God’s will that things are working out this way. You know that, no?”

To question God’s will is a sin, but Mary Ellen had never questioned His will more than at this moment. “Things better work out, Abe.” She sat up a little straighter, raised her chin. “We will just explain this to her, and then things will resume the way they were.”

“I hope you’re right.” Abe’s tone was doubtful, and doubt was not what she needed from her husband right now. She always relied on Abe’s strength, and she needed him to stay strong for her, for them.

Mary Ellen stood from the table, twisted her apron strings, and paced some more, apprehension rippling through her body like a tidal wave that threatened to destroy her. Instead of focusing on her own failure to tell Linda the truth, she wanted to lash out at someone, and she knew Abe wasn’t any more at fault than she was.

“I just don’t know why she would want to ruin all these lives like this, that Josephine woman.” She shook her head, then stopped pacing and turned to Abe. “I reckon she’s not a
gut
Christian woman, or she wouldn’t be doing this.”

“Mary Ellen, you don’t know that. I’m sure this is hard on her too.”

She clenched her lips tight and bit back words that the Lord would surely not approve of.

Abe turned toward the door when he heard the clippety-clop of hooves, then stood up and walked to the threshold. Mary Ellen followed him and together they peered through the screen. They watched Linda walk up the driveway, then hop barefoot across the cobblestone steps that crossed the yard. When she reached the porch steps, she closed the distance between her and her parents and smiled. A smile that quickly faded. She stopped on the other side of the screen, facing them. No one moved or said anything for a few seconds.

“What’s wrong?” Linda’s brows narrowed, and she glanced back and forth between Mary Ellen and Abe.

Mary Ellen pushed the screen door open and motioned Linda inside. “Linda, we need to talk to you.”

4

L
INDA SCOOTED PAST HER PARENTS AND INTO THE
kitchen and wondered if she’d done something wrong. She was a little late to help prepare supper, but it didn’t even look like
Mamm
had started yet. Her time with Stephen at the old oak tree had helped to ease her worry about Jonas. It wasn’t just the few kisses they shared, although those would keep her up at night, but the deep conversation. Stephen’s faith seemed stronger than Linda’s, and he had a way of making her understand about God’s will, something that the
Ordnung
taught was not to be questioned. But when something bad happened, Linda tended to question the event just the same. She suspected that Stephen would follow in his grandfather’s footsteps someday and become the bishop. And hopefully, she’d be by his side as the bishop’s wife.

“What’s wrong?” she asked again when both her parents just stood off to one side of the kitchen, her mother’s face drawn into an expression of dread. Her father’s brows furrowed as he stroked his beard.

“Let’s go into the den.”
Daed
led the way, and Linda glanced at her mother as they followed him into the den, but
Mamm
just took a deep breath and kept her head down.

Linda sat down on the couch, and each of her parents took a seat in the rocking chairs across the coffee table from her. That was usually where they sat when they were reprimanding her or one of her brothers. Again, she tried to recall something she might have done to upset them.

“We have something to tell you,
mei maedel
, but first I want you to know how much your
mamm
and I love you. You are our daughter always.”
Daed
swallowed hard, and Linda’s chest tightened. Could something have happened to Jonas since she and Stephen left the hospital? She sat quietly and waited, but she noticed that her mother wouldn’t look at her.

“Your
mamm
and I tried to have
kinner
for almost two years before we—before you were born,” her father began. “We went to the natural doctor who sent us to an
Englisch
doctor in Lancaster. But I reckon no one could figure out why we couldn’t have a child.”

This seemed an inappropriate conversation, and Linda’s anxiety heightened as she wondered where her father was going with this. She sat up straight on the edge of the couch and folded her hands in her lap. Her mother had never talked with her about where babies came from; it just wasn’t a conversation that a mother would have with her daughter. These things were learned when a girl got married. But Linda’s
Englisch
girlfriends had educated her about the matter early on in her
rumschpringe
.

“We wanted a child so badly,” her mother chimed in. “A little one to love.”
Mamm’s
eyes filled with tears, and Linda tilted her head to one side and gazed at her forlorn expression. Then it hit her, and her embarrassment reddened her cheeks as she gasped.

“Do you think Stephen and I are—” She didn’t even know how to speak the words. “We would never. I kissed him, but that’s all.” Linda tucked her chin. “Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I know that won’t make a baby.” She looked up to see both her parents’ jaws simultaneously dropping.

“No, no,” her mother said as her cheeks took on their own rosy shade of red. “That’s not what we were thinking.”

“Then what is it? You’re scaring me.”

Her mother left the rocker and joined Linda on the couch. She grasped Linda’s hand tightly within hers, then looked intensely into Linda’s eyes as her own eyes clouded even more with tears.
Mamm
opened her mouth to speak, but sighed heavily instead and turned to
Daed
.

Her father leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, and rested his chin on his hands. Linda’s heart was thumping so hard it was making her chest hurt. “When we couldn’t have a baby of our own, we were given another woman’s baby to raise. We signed papers that a lawyer wrote up.”

She didn’t understand. “What woman gave you a baby?” She glanced around the room. “And where is this baby?”

Mamm
cupped Linda’s face with both hands. “
You
are that baby,
mei maedel
. I did not carry you in my womb. Another woman did. You’re adopted. The pretty woman that came to the house. She is your—your mother.”

Linda eased out of her mother’s grasp. “This can’t be so.” She turned to her father. “
Daed
, tell me this isn’t true.”