The Postcard (35 page)

Gabe drove his horse and carriage right into Lavina’s yard the day Adele was scheduled to leave. He caught her just as she was loading up her car. “I wanted to come over to say good-bye,” he said, helping her lift several medium-sized boxes into the trunk.

She hardly knew what to say. Here was the man her heart had always longed for, and yet she had refused him, rejected his marriage proposal on a most romantic carriage ride.

“Will you pray for me, Adele? For the work God’s called me to do?” His eyes searched hers.

She found herself nodding. “Of course I will.”

“May I write to you from time to time?” he asked, reaching for her hand.

She thought about that. “Only if you write in Pennsylvania Dutch, okay?”

Gabe didn’t question her reasoning, just seemed glad that she would agree. “We’ll always be friends, jah?” he said, removing his hat. “Always?”

“In our fondest memories, yes,” she replied. “I’ll never forget you, Gabe Esh. Never as long as I live.”

Gabe moved toward her, his eyes shining. “I love you, Adele,” he said once more. “Always remember that.”

She longed for one last embrace but felt herself backing away. “I’m sorry, Gabe,” she said, reaching for the car door.

“I’m so very sorry. . . .”

His eyes were sympathetic and tender, yet the muscles in his jaw twitched repeatedly. “I’m mighty glad the Lord brought us together, even as friends, Adele dear. And I will miss you . . . for always.”

She tried to swallow the throbbing lump in her throat, escaping to the privacy of her car before tears spilled down her cheeks uncontrollably. Closing the door, she pushed the key into the ignition, blinking back tears, struggling with the shift. Then slowly, she pulled away, waving a tearful farewell to Lavina, who had just come out to sit on the porch.

But it was the vision of a dejected blond man, standing alone in the sun next to a chestnut-colored mare and an open courting buggy, holding his straw hat in both hands, that she was to remember for all her days.

Three long letters arrived from Gabe the first week after Adele returned home. She was thankful he’d remembered to write them in his native language. Her father’s indignation over what he perceived to be a continuing relationship had been the main reason for her strange request—that Gabe’s letters be written in Pennsylvania Dutch. Yet her response to her friend’s correspondence was utter silence.

For two more excruciating weeks, his letters came, but she did not answer them, though they were not filled with declarations of devotion. The young Amishman had honored her heartbreaking decision, filling his missives instead with the things of the Lord, page after page of testimonials of souls finding salvation and divine healing in some cases. Her wonderful Gabe, unfairly shunned, was following God’s call on his life, working with a Beachy Amish preacher outside Bird-in-Hand.

Adele began to look forward to hearing from him nearly every other day, though to reply might encourage him, she feared. So she refrained from answering his letters, though it tore at her heart to keep her silence.

In the early part of May, her mother, who had been ill for years, slipped away to heaven in her sleep. Her death was a blow to Adele, and it set her thinking about the brevity of one’s life and how each day was unquestionably a divine gift. Her mother’s passing also forced her to evaluate her own life in the light of eternity.

So the day after her mother’s funeral, Adele crept into her mother’s former sitting room and penned her first and only letter to Gabe. As she wrote, she felt as if a dam had broken loose within her, and she realized without a doubt that not only did she love Gabe enough to commit her affection to him, she was now willing to submit to the Plain lifestyle in order to share his life and ministry.

May 14, 1962

Dear Gabe,

Your precious letters, all of them, are gathered around me on my mother’s rickety old rolltop desk as I write. My heart can no longer bear not to respond to you.

Although I said before I left that it seemed impossible for us to be together, I know now that I do not want to live my life without you. I am willing to abandon my modern lifestyle for you, dear Gabe, if need be.

Since we’ve been apart, I have come to understand that in spite of our contrasting backgrounds, we do share life’s most important commonalities, you and I. We are similar in our zeal for God, our love for the spiritually lost, and, of course, we both enjoy nature—yes, I miss our many walks together. And we are drawn to children. . . .

If you still feel about us the way you did the night of our last buggy ride, then my answer is yes. I will wait intently for your reply.

With all my heart, I do love you!

Your “fancy” girl,
Adele

Lovingly, Adele assisted her father in sorting through her mother’s clothing, furnishings, and personal effects in the week that followed, donating much of it to charity, although the wobbly rolltop desk was put out in the shed, waiting for an antique dealer to haul it away.

Adele waited breathlessly each day for Gabe’s response, but none came. Days passed, and still there was no word from the smiling, blond Amishman. She thought that perhaps he hadn’t received her letter, though it was not returned stamped “Undeliverable” or any such thing. A thousand times she considered composing another in the event that the first had ended up in a dead-letter file somewhere. But she chose to wait instead, praying that all was well with her dear Gabe, hoping that his silence was not evidence of his waning affection or, worse, that he no longer cared at all.

Late in the afternoon, on Sunday, May thirtieth—two weeks and two days after she had written her letter to Gabe—Adele received a phone call from Lavina Troyer, telling her that Gabriel Esh’s life and ministry had been cut short in a car accident. “He was on his way to a preachin’ service . . . over near Gordonville,” the young woman stammered tearfully. She went on to say that his family would not be offering a funeral service or a burial site “due to the shunnin’.”

Stunned and heartbroken, Adele took to her bed with such grief as she’d never known. Lavina arranged to bury Gabe with some of her own money, which originally had been invested by an older brother and set aside for a possible dowry. With the help of a New Order Amish friend’s connection at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, Lavina purchased a grave plot and headstone in a Reading cemetery, giving her former school chum a proper burial.

Adele joined the young Amishwoman on the grassy slope, where the two stood just below the headstone, taking turns reading Gabe’s favorite Scripture passages at this, their private service. Lavina glanced toward the sky when she said, “Gabe was prob’ly just too gut for this old world, and the Lord God heavenly Father saw fit to take him home.” Adele was inconsolable and fell into Lavina’s arms, promising to keep in touch “no matter what.”

In the years that followed, Adele remained single, throwing herself into her instruction of children, filling up the empty years with teaching, as well as caring for her aging father. She never found the kind of love she had experienced with Gabriel Esh and could not forgive herself for having let him go.

Occasional letters were exchanged with Lavina, the unpretentious, simple-minded Amishwoman with a heart bursting with charity and goodness, who, in her own nai
ve way, had loved Gabe, too. Because of Lavina’s compassionate decision to bury Gabe in Reading, Adele was able to visit her beloved’s grave, just blocks from her father’s house.

Weeks later, Adele heard from Lavina that Adele’s letter had been found among Gabe’s personal effects, though it was little consolation.

Every January seventh, Adele ordered abundant flowers, which she placed on Gabe’s grave, commemorating the day of his birth. But after a time, a shadow fell over her spirit, and her faith faltered. She spent her remaining years pining for what might have been, disappointed with God, disappointed with herself.

A hush fell over Lily’s room as she spoke the final words of the heartbreaking story. Rachel brushed tears from her face, and Philip coughed softly, composing himself as well.

“Adele rarely spoke of Gabe after his death,” said Lily. “She saved each of his letters, memorizing them over the years. They were her only link to him.”

Philip stared up at the postcard tacked neatly to the bulletin board above Lily’s head. How ironic that something so small and seemingly insignificant at first had brought the three of them together on this autumn afternoon.

When Lily’s nurse came into the room with medication, Philip and Rachel quickly stood and said their quiet thankyous and good-byes. Philip gathered up his tape recorder, wishing they might’ve had time to discuss the remarkable tale with Lily. He also wished he’d thought to ask her how she knew Adele Herr but assumed, upon further reflection, that the women had probably met while at the Millersville college or had been close teacher friends. Philip felt, however, that he and Rachel had already presumed to take up a good portion of Lily’s afternoon, and it was apparent that the retelling had taken much out of the dear woman. No, it was time to go.

Philip and Rachel settled in for the drive back to Lancaster, with Rachel sitting in the front passenger seat this time. He’d helped her get situated there after their visit with Lily, and Rachel hadn’t refused, although he didn’t think she was sure at first exactly
where
he’d put her. It seemed a better choice than the backseat. This way, they could talk more readily about Adele and Gabe, if they chose to.

“We should’ve asked Lily when her friend passed away and where Adele was buried as well,” Philip mentioned when they got onto one of the main roads.

“Jah, and it’s a pity, really, that Adele died without knowin’ Gabe’s answer. Receivin’ that postcard would’ve changed her life, ain’t so?”

Philip glanced at the young woman sitting next to him. How shy she had seemed when he first met her, yet she was becoming more comfortable with him, he thought. “I have a feeling the postcard would have changed everything, for both Adele
and
Gabe.”

She nodded, remaining quiet for a bit. Then—“Why do you s’pose Gabe’s message never found its way to Adele?”

He’d pondered that question himself during Lily’s recounting of the story. “Well, I really don’t know, but it’s possible Adele’s father, angered by yet another message from the Amishman, impulsively shoved it deep into the old desk that was to be hauled away. But that’s only speculation—my spin on it. Who’s to know, except that the postcard
had
been jammed into one of the narrow desk drawers.”

Her jaw dropped momentarily. “Caught in a drawer, you say?”

“Yes, and remember Adele had sat to write her one and only letter to Gabe on a dilapidated old rolltop desk? Must be the same one.”

“Sounds to me like you missed your calling,
Detective
Bradley.”

He chuckled a little. “It’s what I do—gather all the facts for a story. So I guess you could say I
am
a detective of sorts. As for Adele’s mother’s desk—according to Emma at the antique store in Bird-in-Hand, it
did
come from Reading. She was able to trace it back to a Baptist minister’s old shed.”