Rebecca's Choice (13 page)

There were days when he wondered whether life would have turned out like this if things between him and Emma would have been different. Would his passions have been directed toward a more earthly goal—wife, family, children, and now grandchildren?

Outside the plane window, low banks of clouds hung on the horizon. The sun was about to set, and its last rays lit up the sky above and the clouds beneath with multiple layers of color. Gold, red, and orange set that side of the universe on fire. Manny took the sight in, the display soothing his spirits.

He saw others in front of him react too. A woman brought her child up to the glass. A man nudged his wife and nodded his head to direct her vision outside. God had once again displayed His glory, Manny thought. In unexpected and startling places, He reminded humans of who He was. They were all drawn to the vision almost by reflex, whether they worshipped Him or not.

“We are now descending,” the calm voice of the pilot said over the intercom. The plane creaked and groaned as if it heard his voice. Manny felt his ears sting and then pop. He rubbed them with his index fingers and felt better.
Old man,
he said to himself. But he knew his ears always popped on flights just as he knew his love for Emma had always been there.

Few knew of their long-ago relationship—at least that’s what Manny believed. He certainly never spoke of it. Others would, no doubt, consider the story a tragedy, a thing to shake their heads over and pity him for. Manny wanted no pity, and he didn’t want to think of the past at all.

Manny believed thinking of the past was an unhealthy exercise. It was always best to leave things alone, and that was how Manny had left them—very alone. The letter in his briefcase, addressed to him from a law firm he had never heard of, had brought the past home to him.

That summer, now so many years ago, he had attended an Amish social of some sort. Manny couldn’t remember exactly what sort because normally Mennonite youth didn’t go to such events. But this time his Amish cousin had persuaded Manny to accompany him. The cousin had been visiting from Pennsylvania and needed the company for courage, he said.

Manny didn’t believe in love at first sight even though he had been thoroughly smitten that night by the tall Amish girl dressed in a dark blue outfit. Her white apron only added to the charm. He caught her eye when she walked past him. He knew there were things in his eyes he wished weren’t there, and he knew they showed. He also knew she knew.

Apparently things were obvious enough to cause his cousin to whisper in his ear, “Don’t make a scene. Quit looking at her. You’re not Amish. I’ll ask her afterward.”

Later that night—late even for Manny, the Mennonite boy—after the social ended, the cousin discretely talked to the tall Amish girl and made arrangements.

She had planned to walk home, the cousin said, because she didn’t live far away. The cousin found a way home with someone else.

“Behave yourself,” Manny remembered his cousin whispering and made a face at the tease. “You’re a stinker,” the cousin told him. “By the way, her name is Emma. I already told her what yours is.”

Manny hung on to his wildly bucking emotions and wondered what in the world he was about to do. He knew enough about Amish ways to know that one didn’t pick up an Amish girl unaccompanied by family members, even if she walked home alone. It was highly forbidden.

At the social the girl had paid him no more attention, apparently lost in her own world, as she chatted with both boys and girls around him. When the social ended, she got her coat and walked out the back door without a backward glance. Manny waited a few minutes and went out with a group of boys, who split with him in the yard. They went to the barn for their horses, and he to the yard where his car was parked.

He kept the lights off, started the car, and eased forward. Two buggies came from the barnyard and made him reconsider the lights, so he compromised by turning on his fog lights. By their dim light, he waited until the boys drove the buggies to the house, picked up the girls, and drove away. Thankfully they all turned east at the road, their horses trotting into the night.

Manny had moved as quickly as he dared and before more buggies came along. At the blacktop he had turned west. Just over the crest of the hill, his headlights caught her blue dress. The white apron stood out in darkness like a shiny beacon of light. He slowed to a crawl and stuck his head out the window. She looked at him, and he expected the adventure to end right there, with a motion from her hand that he continue, a scowl on her face at his boldness.

Instead she said, “Good evening, stranger,” walked around the car when he stopped, and got in.

“I’m Manny,” he said. The darkness hid everything but the dim outline of her face.

“That’s what your cousin said. He’s visiting from Pennsylvania.”

“Yes.” Manny accelerated, afraid a buggy would appear behind them, and the driver raise the questions he didn’t want asked.

“My place is just up the road,” she said.

“Why do you walk?”

“I’m the youngest and have no brothers to drive,” she said. “I drive when it’s too far.”

“What will your parents say about this? Can I drop you off at the end of the lane?”

“You’re just giving me a ride home,” she said and laughed, the sound rippling through the car. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

Manny swallowed hard. The words wanted to stick in his throat, and he felt the precipice beneath him. “I had hoped it was more than that,” he said.

“Really,” she said and laughed again.

He didn’t think she was mocking him with her laugh. He thought she also hoped there was more. “Maybe I can see more of you. I know it’s kind of sudden. I’ve never seen you before tonight. But…”

“Maybe you ought to come around more often.”

“To see you? At your house?” Manny couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.

She laughed again, and he knew it was more beautiful each time he heard the sound. “Silly. The socials.”

“Oh…but I can’t really do that. I’m Mennonite.”

“I guess you are,” she said, as if she had actually forgotten for a moment. “That wouldn’t work too well. Oh, my driveway! Stop right here.”

Manny had brought the car to a stop, and she reached for the car latch to get out. The moment was here. It was now or never. Plunging off the precipice, he asked, “Can I see you again?”

“Well,” she said, and Manny couldn’t tell what that meant, but the car door was still not open.

“I would love to,” he said and found he meant it from the bottom of his heart.

“Really,” she said, and again Manny wasn’t certain of the tone.

Behind them the sound of horses hooves could be heard clearly, carried on the silence of the night. Something would have to be decided, he knew, and quickly.

“On Tuesday night I will go out for a walk.” Her words came out in a rush, tumbled over each other. “Just before dark. If you wait till then, no one will see us.”

The car door closed, and she was gone. He almost risked staying to watch her until she disappeared into the darkness, but the buggy behind him was too close.

He had followed her instructions and found her on Tuesday night. She was where she said she would be, on foot just a little below the house—her brother’s house she told him that night. Her parents had died recently.

They settled into the routine of meeting on Tuesday nights and then expanded their time together when he asked for more time, but always at her discretion. Moments they were, only snatches of time, caught when she would be alone or when her brother and family were away on a visit somewhere. On those nights he spent all evening with her, multiple evenings in a row, and left late. He hid his car, as best he could, down the road in a little dirt lane, and hoped no one would make the connection.

All that summer they continued until her brother discovered them. Perhaps they became too bold, were convinced of their own invincibility, and believed their relationship actually could work.

He had pulled his car up to the driveway on a Tuesday to drop her off but didn’t quite get it done. It turned out to be more of a take off than a drop off. Her brother waited there.

Mullet Miller was his name, or “M-Jay” as they called him in the Amish community, although she had never mentioned either. He had many things to say that night, after he had extracted his sister from the car and sent her into the house—things about duty and loyalty to one’s faith and Mennonites who messed with Amish girls. Manny hardly heard M-Jay’s words because his own agonizing thoughts talked too loudly.

They told him this was over, that she would never come back. He heard M-Jay’s voice in the distance, but he saw and remembered only her face. The next week he drove out on Tuesday night, the air still warm though fall was obviously on the way. She didn’t appear.

He checked again the week after that and then a week later. She was nowhere. He thought of a visit to her brother’s house, tried that twice, and then gave up when no one would answer the door. There was no bridge to provide a crossing between their lives. That much was obvious. With the years that passed, the sorrow and ache in his heart had lessened.

Manny heard the clunk in the belly of the plane as the wheels extended, the whine as the engines slowed, and the noise of the wheels touching the ground. He was pressed forward in his seat as the pilots brought the metal bird back to earth.

“We will be at gate eight in five minutes,” the crisp voice of the pilot said. “Please remain seated until then. Welcome to Columbus, Ohio, and Rickenbacker International. The temperature outside is forty-five degrees, and the sky is clear. Enjoy your stay and fly again with Continental.”

Manny unbuckled his seat belt and leaned back to wait. He wondered why Emma had never married. Was it for the same reason he hadn’t? Was there an explanation? Despite the letter he carried in his briefcase, it still made no sense.

He planned to stay two months in the States, but it could be extended as needed. The itinerary so far included two board meetings at the Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, a string of Sunday morning speaking engagements, and a meeting with a girl in southern Ohio. He wondered where that would all lead. Atlee had filled him in on some of the details, but even he seemed to know little.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

B
ishop Martin called the Sunday morning ministers’ council to order. Isaac sat beside the bishop on a straight-back chair. They were upstairs in the larger of the three bedrooms. Babies slept in each of the other bedrooms to either side of them. The bishop knew of this and kept his voice low.

Not that he was wont to raise it. Such a thing would be highly inappropriate—and not just for babies who might hear and object. The whole congregation sat downstairs, their songbooks in their laps, their singing loud enough to be heard even in the bedroom.

“Communion is next month,” the bishop said. “We all know that. Pre-communion church is two Sundays before that. It’s not too soon to start preparations.”

There were chuckles all around. The deacon ventured his opinion saying, “You must think things have gone badly.”

“Maybe he thinks you weren’t doing your job,” one of the ministers offered as an explanation. The chuckles deepened.

“If you’d preach better, maybe the people would behave,” the deacon retorted, in defense of his reputation.

“Now…now. We mustn’t squabble amongst ourselves. The world is hard enough on us,” Bishop Martin said and brought things back under control.

“That it is,” Isaac said. They all agreed with nods.

“Maybe we could start with our own problems—perhaps with Eli Mast’s tractor driving,” the bishop said. They all knew what he referred to. No matter how many trips the deacon made to Eli’s place on Saturday afternoon, Eli just didn’t seem to be able to help himself. Winters weren’t much of a problem, but each spring the reports came in again. Summers were even worse. Eli would be seen pulling a hay wagon back to the fields. Eli was out on the blacktop with his tractor. Eli even pulled his hay rake with the tractor in one summer’s report.