Just Plain Sadie (12 page)

His
maam
took one of his hands into both of hers. “Why don't you go on upstairs and clean up. Then have a good piece of pie before bed.” She smiled, that same smile he'd seen his whole life through. It would be one of the main things he missed in Europe. Perhaps he should buy a camera and take a picture of his mother smiling like that so he would have it with him always.

“Okay,” he said. He moved past his family and started toward the stairs. He put his foot on the first step when his father spoke behind him.

“Easter. And that's it. No more stalling. No more procrastinating.”

Chris didn't bother to look at his father. He merely nodded and started up the stairs.

“Are you going somewhere?”

Sadie nearly jumped out of her skin and whirled around to face her sister. Melanie stood framed in the doorway of the bedroom that Sadie had once shared with Lorie. The room Melanie had shared with Cora Ann was down the hall, with another one on the other side reserved especially for Daniel.

“Melanie!” Sadie exclaimed, clutching one hand to her chest. “You scared me.”

“Obviously,” Melanie said, taking a couple of steps into the room.

“What are you doing here?” Sadie asked.

“I think I should ask you the same thing.” Melanie settled herself down on one of the twin beds in the room and tucked her feet underneath her. “Well . . . are you going to tell me?”

“I asked you first.” Sadie stalled.

“Fair enough. I came to see what you were up to tonight. You've been acting really strange lately, and I'm worried about my sister.”

“Worried about me?” What was it with everybody these days? Why couldn't a girl sneak around and meet a boy every so often without everyone thinking something was wrong?

“Word around the district is that you're still seeing that Mennonite boy.”

Sadie spun toward her sister. “What does it matter if I'm still seeing him?”

“Sadie, you're going to have to stop this. You can't go around with a Mennonite boy.”

“Why not? Everyone talks like he's some kind of
Englisch
ax murderer when he's just a guy.”

“A guy who happens to be Mennonite.”

“Is that so terrible? That he's Mennonite?” She had heard terrible stories about women whose husbands beat them and their children, of men who drank, smoked, and did all sorts of other sins that would make any normal person cringe.

“You're avoiding the question.”

“So what if I am?”

Melanie shot her a look. “Avoiding the question or seeing the Mennonite?”

Sadie grabbed up her scarf and her coat and started past Melanie. Maybe she could get her sister to leave before Ezra came.

The plan had been perfect. She was supposed to take the night off from the restaurant, say she was going out with friends, and come home to get ready. Then Ezra would pick her up, and no one would know.

Sadie made her way down the steps with Melanie close behind. Ezra would be there any minute, and Melanie showed no signs of going anywhere anytime soon.

“Where's Noah?” Sadie asked.

“He and his brothers are off doing something. They said they were going to a singing, but you know those boys.”

She did. All of Bishop Treger's sons acted as righteous as they could when eyes were watching, but took every chance they had to kick up their heels and have some fun. “I guess the wives weren't invited?”

“You know it.”

Sadie pushed her arms into her sleeves and started to button up her coat.

Maybe Melanie would take the hint. She hated to blatantly make her sister leave. But she also didn't want Melanie to know that she was going out with Ezra tonight. Everyone was making such a big deal out of it, and frankly she didn't want to hear it.

“Shouldn't you be getting back home?” She hadn't meant for her words to sound so hateful, but she really needed Melanie to leave. Soon.

“Fine, sister.” Melanie shook her head. “I'll let you keep your secrets. But I'll tell you one thing. If you're going out to see Ezra, you need to really think about it. If you're having to sneak off to meet a boy . . .” She frowned. “Just like Lorie.”

Without another word, Melanie let herself out of the house. Sadie stood in the living room, stock-still with shock, hardly believing the words her sister had said to her.

Then she heard the tractor start up outside and Melanie chug away on the big green machine.

Everyone was so worried about Sadie and what she was doing with Ezra, but no one was worried that Melanie was out driving tractors after dark all by herself.

She was deflecting the situation, but Melanie's words made her heart hurt. Lorie had left last year to go live with Zach Calhoun. Well, to get ready to marry Zach this summer. Sadie was so very happy for her sister, but that didn't mean she didn't miss her. Especially when Lorie had to leave because their mother kicked her out of the house, telling her to choose between the
Englisch
world and the Amish world. When Lorie had refused to choose,
Mamm
had made her leave anyway. Sadie had been so very sad to see her sister go, not knowing if she would ever talk to her again. Was that what
Mamm
would do? Make her choose between Ezra and her family?

The choice was clear. How could Sadie do anything but choose her family? But it wasn't a choice she wanted to make. Why couldn't she have both? It didn't make sense.

A few moments later she heard Ezra's truck pull up outside. At least, she thought it was a few minutes. She really didn't know how long she'd been standing there in the living room with her scarf in one hand and her gloves in the other, her coat all buttoned up as she waited for him.

His knock on the door startled her out of her trance and she raced to open it, so happy to see him.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked, looking at her gloves, scarf, and coat. “I thought . . .”

“You thought what?” Sadie grabbed her bag and nudged Ezra back onto the porch. She shut the door behind her, quickly wrapping the scarf around her head and pulling her gloves on.

“I thought maybe I would talk to your mother tonight.” A small frown burrowed its way across his brow.

“Maybe another night.” She nudged Ezra down the steps and out into the yard.

“Sadie, did you tell her that we are going out tonight?”

She shook her head as he walked with her over to the passenger side of the truck and opened the door. Without another word, she slid inside and waited for him to come around to the driver side and slide in beside her.

“Why not? I thought you said she would be okay with this.”

Sadie shrugged. “I don't really know how she would feel and . . . I don't know. I just don't know. I didn't tell her, that's all.” And now that Melanie had said what she had about Lorie, Sadie was doubly grateful that she hadn't mentioned going out with Ezra to her mother. She wasn't sure how
Mamm
would have handled the revelation.

Ezra started the engine and backed up into the side yard, then pulled the truck out onto the road.

“So volleyball, huh?”

Ezra rolled his head over toward her and then turned back to face front. “Changing the subject?”

“Yes,” Sadie said. “I don't really know what to do.”

“Is this a good idea? I mean, I don't want to cause problems between you and your family.”

“And this isn't causing problems with your family?” Sadie would forever remember the stern look of consternation on Ezra's mother's face when she saw her sitting at the table eating cookies and drinking coffee. She didn't know why his mother didn't approve, and but it was evident that she didn't. And that was all that mattered.

Ezra turned down the next side farm road that they came to and parked the truck. He left the engine running and the lights on. Sadie could see the little bugs dancing in the beams, a sure sign that spring was coming early this year.

“I guess we should figure this out now, before it goes any further.”

Sadie nodded. “I guess so.”

Ezra turned to face her, one knee braced on the bench seat between them, and flung his arm across the back. “I'm not sure I care what people think.”

“You're not?” Sadie looked at him, her eyes wide as she searched in the dim light of the truck to read his expression.

“I don't know.” He tapped his fingers against the back of the seat as if somehow that would make his thoughts clearer. “It's all so dumb.”

Sadie sighed in relief. “I know. I feel the same way. Don't date him, he's a Mennonite.” She lowered her voice as if mimicking the bishop. So Bishop Ebersol had never really said those words to her, but she could sure hear them come out of his mouth. He was a good man, fair and honest, but it was his duty as the bishop to make sure that the church's rules were followed. Amish married Amish, and that's the way it had been for a long time, hundreds of years. If a person was Amish and didn't marry Amish, then they had to leave. If they had joined the church, they were shunned. If they hadn't joined, then technically they weren't shunned, but it was hard to come back. Look at Lorie. She had only come back a handful of times in the four months since she had left. Sadie knew that she was busy working and planning her wedding, but she had a feeling that it was more than that.

You can never go home again
. She'd seen that quote somewhere, maybe at the library on one of the posters they had hanging up in the foyer. She passed those every time she had to fetch Cora Ann from the small brick building. Now she understood what it meant.

Ezra shook his head. “Maybe we should forget the whole thing.” He reached for the gearshift, and Sadie scooted across toward him and grabbed his hand.

“Don't do that. I mean, I don't want to forget it all.” Her heart thumped in her chest. This was about more than getting married and having a family. This was about her and Ezra and the potential that she felt between them. There was something there, something extraordinary God had given to them, and she felt as if she would be doing a disservice to the both of them if she didn't try to find out what it was.

Ezra looked at her hand to her face and then back again. “You mean that?” The air around them turned thick, tense and heavy, but not in a bad way. It was full of expectancy and hope. Sadie nodded. Swallowing hard, she looked up and met Ezra's gaze. The moment held, suspended between them. Or maybe it was an hour. She really couldn't tell. It was the two of them, all alone, in a moment so special it almost brought tears to her eyes.

He turned toward her. Reaching out a hand, he ran the back of his fingers across one cheek.

Sadie's eyes drifted shut, then opened again. Something exceptional was happening, and she didn't want to miss a second of it.

As if in slow motion, he moved toward her. Sadie felt herself leaning toward him as well as if they were pulled together by some invisible force she couldn't name. Closer and closer still, until their lips were almost touching. She could feel his breath across her cheeks and the expectancy that hummed around him, anticipation and a bit of longing.

Then he raised both hands to cup her cheeks and pressed his lips to hers.

It was the sweetest thing she'd ever known, being kissed by Ezra. She felt cherished, precious, as if in that moment in time no one in the world existed except for the two of them. It was sweet and soft and forbidden all at the same time, and she never wanted it to end. She'd waited her whole lifetime for a kiss like this, and she nearly cried out when he moved away from her.

Ezra turned back to face front, and Sadie wondered if perhaps she had done something wrong. She touched her fingers to her lips as she watched him, just staring out the windshield, his hands fisted on either side of the steering wheel. She knew in that moment why her father had said to never date a man she wouldn't want to marry. Because if guys went around kissing girls like that all the time . . .

Ezra's kiss had awakened something in her that she had never known existed. And it had less to do with all the dreams she had thought she had about raising a family and getting married and more to do with the man sitting beside her.

“Ezra?” She didn't want to speak his name and risk breaking the moment that was lingering between them. “I'm sorry.” She'd never kissed anybody before. And she hadn't been expecting this. Not really. He hadn't warned her like he had the night in the park. But he hadn't kissed her then. Just tonight. She'd probably done it all wrong.

The Mennonites were as conservative as the Amish when it came to relationships. But she didn't know if Ezra had a girlfriend before. He might have kissed a dozen girls. The thought made her stomach hurt.

“You're sorry?” Ezra turned to look at her, though his hands were still white-knuckled, wrapped around the steering wheel.

“I mean, I'm not a good kisser. I've never done that before.”

She hadn't realized how tense he was until his shoulders slumped and a small laugh escaped him. “You think you're a bad kisser?”

Sadie nodded. “But it's something I can learn, right?”

Ezra pulled her close once again, but this time he planted a smacking kiss in the middle of her forehead. He pulled away, laughing. “Sadie Kauffman,” he said, still chuckling, “you are most assuredly not a bad kisser.”

“You mean that?” Sadie couldn't believe she was having this conversation now, in the middle of a field in Ezra's truck with darkness all around. But the thought made her a teeny-weeny bit happy. It was good to know she wasn't a bad kisser and that she hadn't disappointed him.

“I mean that.” He chuckled again, then refastened his seat belt. He waited until she had fastened hers as well, then he pulled the truck back to the highway.

* * *

She thought she was a bad kisser. Ezra tried not to chuckle all the way to Taylor Creek. Of course, laughing about it was surely better than melting into a puddle at her feet. He had only kissed a couple girls in his lifetime. It was no big secret why.
Rumspringa
for the Mennonites started at age seventeen, the exact year his father left. Ezra hadn't had too much running-around time before he had to buckle down and start deciding a direction for the ranch. Seventeen years old and he didn't have time for girls. Or maybe God was saving him for Sadie.