A Simple Faith: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel (40 page)

But then … then came the rain. To hear Dylan’s heartbreak, to visualize his life with Kris and Angela, a young happy family living in the city, and to think that it all had ended with one random event.

Just like a fat SUV swerving into your lane.

So now Dylan was on the fringes of two highway collisions that had sent lives spinning out of control. Had God chosen him to be here for the Amish because of his own experience with sudden loss and trauma?

She had to believe that was true. The Amish talked about “Gott’s will” often, and she was beginning to understand the incredible grace that could be had in accepting the things beyond your reach.

Cupping her hands and blowing into them to warm up, she thought of the prayer her grandmother used to have hanging on the kitchen wall.

The serenity prayer.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference
.

Haley had always had the courage to bulldoze ahead with change, but she wasn’t so strong in the serenity and wisdom departments.

A motion at the corner of the parking lot caught her eye. Dylan was headed her way, carrying her coat.
Oh, great
.

“I’d say that you were going to get a cold being out here without this, but I know that’s not clinically true.” He held up her jacket. “But you will get sore muscles from bracing against the wind.” He climbed onto the table beside her and held her jacket so that she could slip her arms into the sleeves.

The brief touch of his hands sent a different kind of shiver through her body, and she winced, annoyed with herself for wanting him so much when he was obviously out of reach.

She had been wrong, thinking that she could simply win him over.

She couldn’t compete with the ghost of a beautiful marriage. She did not have the power to heal him, and he wasn’t going to move forward until he was whole again.

“So … what’s the deal?” he asked. “Are you feeling feverish, or was the session so intense that we drove you out into the cold?”

“I had an epiphany, I guess.” She leaned back so that she could zip her jacket up.

“That’s good.” He turned to look at her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I think …” She started to say she was sorry, so sorry for everything he had gone through, but before the words came her throat closed up and a tear slid down her cheek.

There was a pause. The flash of compassion in his eyes. And then he put an arm around her and rubbed her back, as if summoning warmth.

“We don’t have to talk about it right now.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry. You have a much better reason to cry than I do.”

“I’ve cried myself a river or two. I’m all dried out. And I hope that’s not pity I hear in your voice, because that’s why I stopped telling people what happened. I couldn’t stand to see that sad-sack look in their eyes.”

“No pity. Just compassion.”

“I’m okay with that. We can never have enough compassion in the world.”

Sitting in the cold, quietly crying with Dylan by her side, Haley vowed to be here for him as a friend. That was all he wanted, all he could handle right now, and she wanted to respect his limits.

But oh, how she wished she could wrap her arms around him and kiss away the pain, soothe away the scars, whisper away the past.

She wished she had the power to heal him, to make him whole again, but she didn’t. A tough lesson, but a valuable one.

True healing and grace came only from God.

It was time to harness the power of prayer.

44

R
uben unlatched the back of his horse cart and let his gaze sweep up to the top of the red barn that had been in his family for many generations. The building, now used to house an indoor farmer’s market and emporium, was showing some signs of wear, with paint blistering on the wood panels.

It was time to get the painters there, he thought, taking a moment to walk the length of the back of the building. From a distance, the barn looked like a quaint roadside stand, but once you took on a task like sweeping the floors or cleaning horse droppings from the parking lot, you got a sense of the length and breadth of the place.

Having been away from Zook’s barn, working at the Country Store, he now saw the place with a new eye. Just outside of town, right on the main road, the barn made a good stop for tourists looking for everything from a quick snack of a pretzel to a piece of furniture for their home.

He saw the value of Zook’s barn as a business.

But he missed the cozy, quieter surroundings of Elsie’s shop. The birdhouses with their tiled roofs. The scented soaps and lavender sachets. Rachel’s paintings, like windows to moments of Amish life. The candy aisle of homemade taffy, candy apples, and butterscotch fudge. The furniture made by an Amish craftsman, particularly the cradles.

He had imagined a child of theirs rocking in one of those cradles, a tiny, murmuring baby like little Tom. Why was it so hard for Elsie to see her way to having a little one like that? A brood of babies to love and nurture, the way she was looking after Tom?

He returned to the cart and hoisted a bale of hay, shifting it to a wheelbarrow. The bales were stored in a small shed at the back of the barn, kept dry and ready for visiting horses, which needed food and water while they waited out the day in the parking lot.

It was heavy work, keeping the hay stocked and the parking lot clean—just one of the many chores that had to be done to keep Zook’s barn running smoothly. Dry chaff and straw fluttered in the wind as he transferred a bale into the shed. The wind held the last gust of winter, raw and icy, but Ruben kept warm from the fire inside. He was bound and determined to find someone else in the family to take on these chores for him. Not that he minded the work, but every day away from Elsie was like a day without food and drink. The hunger was curling inside him and his throat was parched. He couldn’t go on this way, day after day.

From behind him came the clack of a horse’s hooves on pavement. It was his dat’s buggy, and someone else rode in front beside him. Ruben brushed straw from his coat as he took a closer look and recognized the broad, friendly face of his uncle.

“Dave.” He nodded, glad to see his uncle. While Joe Zook tended to be hard on his sons, never quite satisfied that their work was good enough, his brother Dave had a cheerful, easy manner that made room for people to be people.

“Ruben.” Dave stepped down from the gray buggy. “I’m glad to see you back to work here.”

“Not for long,” Ruben said, looking tentatively at his father. “I’m going back to the Country Store as soon as I can find someone to take over here. Elsie still needs the help.”

“Tell Elsie Lapp to bring Caleb in.” Dat’s voice was full of gravel and vinegar. “He can’t be looking to open a business of his own with his dat gone.”

“He’s right,” Dave said. “Why isn’t Caleb helping out with the store?”

“He’s better working with his hands. I’ve heard that his manner scared a few customers away.”

“A lesson to be learned there. If they need someone to help run the store, Caleb needs to learn how to handle the Englishers,” Dave said, folding his arms across his chest and tucking his hands in to keep warm.

Dat tied off his horse and headed into the barn. “I’ll just be a minute.”

As Dave stepped forward to help Ruben transfer the bales, Ruben remembered a message he was supposed to give one of the ministers. “Dylan and Haley are going to be attending church this Sunday. They were happy for the invitation.”

When Dylan had expressed an interest in observing their Sunday service, Jimmy and Edna Lapp, who were hosting this week, had cleared it with the ministers. At first Deacon Moses had asked if they were “secure in their faith,” as the Amish weren’t in the business of trying to convert Englishers. But the bishop, having met both Dylan and Haley, thought it was okay.

“Dylan offered to bring some food,” Ruben added, “but I told him the women would put out more than enough.”

“Good. Dr. Dylan has helped ease the mind of many Amish. So we’ll see them Sunday.”

“Ya.” Ruben bent his knees as he reached down to help Dave offload the last bale. “This is a task anyone could do. I’m thinking that Caleb Lapp should take my place here and I’ll go back to the Country Store.”

“You are bound and determined to get back there, aren’t you?” Dave rubbed his hands together, his eyes narrowed in thought. “I’ve never seen you with such ants in your pants. What’s got into you?”

Ruben was about to brush off the question, but he couldn’t lie, and Dave wasn’t one to judge a man. “Truth is, I want to work with Elsie Lapp.”

“Elsie?” Dave’s brows lifted in interest. “Ach, Elsie.” Dave rolled his eyes toward the heavens. “How could I not see the one thing right before my eyes? So Elsie is the girl you favor.”

“Ya.” Ruben rolled the wheelbarrow back into place and closed the door of the shed. “She’s the one.” He wasn’t ashamed of that.

“And she’s the girl who has said she’ll never marry?”

An image of Elsie popped into Ruben’s mind—Elsie sitting by the warm fire, cuddling the baby in her arms. It made his knees go weak at the thought that she refused to let herself have a family, that she would throw away so much happiness for the two of them. “Here’s the thing,” he said, and in the gentlest way possible, he explained about Elsie’s vow to remain chaste so that she would not bring a child with EVC into the world.

“Mmm.” Dave listened to the explanation, his eyes somber, his breath steaming in the cold. “What she’s thinking … what she’s planning, it’s not in keeping with the Ordnung.”

Ruben had suspected as much. “I’m working on changing her mind. She wants to have a family. She wants to do the right thing.”

“Ya, but it’s not really her choice. If she gets baptized, she’ll be making a promise to follow the Ordnung. There’s no picking and choosing which rule you want to follow.”

Dave’s words gave Ruben hope that Elsie would come around.
She was just seventeen. Maybe this was something that would pass. “I reckon she’ll come around then. She’s still in her rumspringa, and you know how that goes.”

“I do. Our Becky is not seventeen yet and by the time she gets baptized, I don’t know if I’ll have a single hair left on my head.”

Ruben grinned. Dave had a knack for lightening a man’s load.

“Elsie will come around,” Ruben said. With one matter resolved, he looked toward the barn, where his father had emerged from the door. Now … if he could just come up with a way to free himself from running Zook’s barn so that he could return to the Country Store.

Every day without Elsie was a day without sunshine.

As Dave and Dat headed down the road in the buggy, Ruben stamped his feet on the frozen ground and lifted his gaze to the pearl winter sky. He’d never realized how cold it got in the shadows.

45