Leah's Choice (15 page)

It sounds like the most honest thing anyone has ever said to me,
she thought. “
No.
I’m honored that you’d share it with me.”

“So you admit that I’m not completely crazy?” He looked back at her. “So will you go out with me?”

“I said I’d think about it.” She shivered, but she wasn’t cold. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. “I don’t think I’m ready to take that step yet.”

“So, there’s no sense in my inviting you to help out at the school bazaar in Felton on Saturday? Since I’m not gainfully employed at the moment, Uncle Allan is working double-time finding volunteer jobs for me.” He hesitated. “Caroline and Leslie won’t be there. It would be just you and me and half the congregation of Oak Forest Mennonite Church.”

“You want me to go with you Saturday and work at the bazaar?”

“Not as colorful as a Moroccan
souk
, but fun, all the same. I was going to ask you, yes. And I do want you to come with me.”

“I don’t think that selling crafts and jellies in a room full of people qualifies as a date.”

“So you’ll go?” he pressed.

“Maybe.”

“No maybe, Leah. Be bold. Say yes. You’re not a wishy-washy woman. It’s what I admired about you from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

She hesitated, then spoke quickly before she chickened out. “All right. I’ll come—but…”

“But?”

She held up her finger in warning. “It’s not a date. I haven’t decided about that yet, and I won’t let you push me into anything.”

He beamed at her. “I’ll pick you up at eight Saturday morning. Is that too early?”

“No, but you don’t have to come to the house. I’ll walk over to the school where Mam teaches, Seven Poplars. It’s closer to your aunt’s. We can meet there.”

“You’re not going to tell your mother that you’re going with me?” he asked.

“It’s not our way. Not until…unless we were walking out. Until then, what I do and where I go—within reason—is up to me.”

“So, we still aren’t
dating
per se, but you will go out with me on Saturday?”

She nodded. “To help at the school bazaar.”

He laughed. “It’s a deal, Leah Yoder.” He pulled back onto the road. “Now, we’d better get that popcorn and get back to Aunt Joyce’s before we miss half the movie.”

Daniel switched on the radio and turned the dial to a contemporary Christian station. “Do you mind?” he asked. “I really like this song.”

“No, it’s nice,” she said. She wasn’t familiar with the singer, but the words were those of a popular hymn and they filled her heart with joy. It was all she could do to keep from tapping her foot to the music.

Among her people, no instrument was allowed except a harmonica, but Leah secretly loved to hear guitar and organ music. She liked the rhythm of some of the country music that Miriam enjoyed, and she appreciated the wholesome songs, but too often the lyrics told stories of drinking or violence or cheating husbands. This music made her feel good inside.

Leah sneaked a peek at Daniel. He was singing along and smiling. The music made him feel good, too.

Daniel glanced at her and caught her looking at him. “I think you’re special,” he said.

She looked away, feeling bold and shy at the same time. “You too.”

* * *

Leah arrived at the schoolhouse early Saturday morning, scared, excited, and anxious, all at the same time. All week, she kept replaying in her mind the conversation she and Daniel had had in the cab of his truck on the way to buy popcorn. She kept thinking of how much she loved being with him in the warm darkness, listening to the sweet notes and enthusiastic voices of the artists on the radio…wondering how praising the Lord and giving thanks in a modern tune could possibly be wrong.

Today, she hadn’t brought Susanna, and she hadn’t asked Mam’s permission to go with Daniel. She hadn’t even said where she was going, only that she might not be home in time for supper and not to worry.

Rebecca had thrown her a suspicious look, but if Mam had been curious, she hadn’t asked. She’d merely slipped her $10 and advised her to wear her bonnet over her
kapp
, because it looked like rain.

Tomorrow was church Sunday, and it would be held at Aunt Martha’s home. Mam and her sisters were all preparing food to share at the communal meal after services. Since no cooking could be done on a church Sunday, sandwiches, salads, meat dishes and desserts all had to be made today. Even Johanna would be joining them to help, and Miriam, Ruth and Rebecca would go over to Aunt Martha’s to help wash windows and do a final cleaning after the young men moved all the furniture out of the downstairs and brought in the church benches.

Leah had seen Johanna again on Thursday, and she felt a lot better about her sister’s situation. Wilmer’s sister had been afraid to travel alone with a driver, so Wilmer had gone out to escort her back to Delaware, leaving Johanna and the children at home. Leah had spent Thursday night and most of Friday at her house, and had been relieved to find that Johanna seemed much more like her old self.

“I’m sure that things will be better for us,” her sister had said. “With God’s help, Wilmer will get better.”

“I hope so,” Leah had answered. She loved Johanna and the children fiercely, and she wanted things to turn out right for her marriage and her family, but she still wasn’t ready to trust Wilmer. He’d promised to change before and had always slipped back to his old, sullen ways.

Without Johanna’s husband watching them, Johanna’s house had seemed as warm as ever. It was a simple home, but Johanna’s quilts and spotless housekeeping made the old house, with its leaky roof and splintered wood floors, seem larger and more welcoming. Her sister was a hard worker, and her curtains were always bleached white and her floors scrubbed and waxed. Leah knew that Johanna struggled to pay her bills and put away a small savings for doctor bills and the occasional medicine the children needed, but she never complained. Strong and vibrant—those were Leah’s most powerful memories of her eldest sister, and she had been that way on this visit.

Leah had almost told Johanna about what Daniel had said to her, about thinking she was
the one
and wanting to date her. If any one of her sisters would understand her attraction to Daniel, she thought it might be Johanna. But, in the end, she’d kept her secret. What need was there to discuss Daniel with Johanna if they were simply friends? There would be plenty of time later, if anything came of the relationship.

A truck horn honked and a smiling Daniel pulled into the schoolyard. He jumped out of the cab and came around to open the door for her, looking handsome in a green button-up shirt and brown corduroy trousers. He certainly wouldn’t have passed for Amish, but Leah approved. He looked exactly like Daniel, which was right for him…right for the Mennonite boy who had her keeping secrets from her sisters and lying awake at night wondering
what if.

Chapter Twelve

L
eah had been afraid that riding with Daniel to the school bazaar would be awkward and that there might be uncomfortable silences between them. She wasn’t a person who needed constant chatter, but this was all so new between her and Daniel. She didn’t know if he would feel as though they had to maintain a conversation.

But Leah had always believed that there were other ways to communicate, besides verbally. And sometimes, just being with a person you cared about was what mattered. Some of the best times she had had with her sisters or mother were when they worked side by side in the house or garden or rode in the buggy with only the squeak of the wheels and the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves to keep them company. There was a warm satisfaction that came from being so at ease with someone that you could simply enjoy being together without feeling compelled to speak. And to her surprise and delight, sitting beside Daniel as the truck rolled down the country roads was like that.

The day, with all its possibilities, stretched out before her like a table of fresh-baked pies. She was excited at the prospect of meeting new people, of seeing and hearing new things…of doing something different than she’d ever done before. Volunteering for workdays, school auctions, picnics and helping at frolics was familiar. She had taken part in those since she was a small child. But those experiences had always been for another Amish person or family, for someone who shared her faith.

At the food bank and then, later, when they’d packed the boxes for the children’s home, she’d felt, somehow, as if this was doing something more. The members of her church were her family. It was natural and right to help your family, but it thrilled her to think that something she could do, in some small way, would help strangers. It made her feel as though she was part of a much bigger family. And with that excitement came shivers of apprehension. What if this was the temptation that the world offered to lure young people away from God’s path?

“I’d feel better if I’d picked you up at your house,” Daniel said, breaking through her reverie. “It almost seems dishonest, this way…as if we were ashamed of being together, sneaking around.”

She smiled at him and shook her head. Daniel was such a good man to worry about her so. “No. It’s an Amish thing.” She chuckled. “Young people are allowed some freedom. Parents look the other way and pretend not to see what’s right in front of them. It isn’t really deception because if they told everything, and waited for their parents’ permission, how do they learn to make the right choices?”

His green eyes narrowed as he tried to follow her reasoning. “So your mother knows where you are?”

“No, but it’s all right with her that she doesn’t know.”

He exhaled slowly. “I’m still confused, but if you say so, I’ll believe you. I’m new to this.”

“Driving girls to school bazaars?” she teased. She sat up tall on the seat and looked around. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, and she was certain she was going to have fun. “It’s new for me, too, being driven in a pickup by a Mennonite boy…alone.”

She’d ridden in motor vehicles, of course. She didn’t live in an egg basket under a porch. Many times, it was safer and more convenient for Old Order Amish to travel by van. She’d visited relatives in Pennsylvania with her mother since she was eight, and she’d made several trips back and forth to
Grossmama
’s home in Ohio with a hired driver.

“It’s nice, though, riding with you,” he murmured quietly.

She smiled at him as a small tremor of excitement slid down the nape of her neck. She liked Daniel Brown, and the longer she knew him, the more she liked him. He was such a good man…such a gentle man. For her, he was trouble, and if she had the sense God gave a goose, she would ask him to stop the truck. She’d get out and walk home to her sisters and mother. Spending just one more hour with Daniel was a threat to everything she knew and believed and expected out of life. Instead, she smiled again, settled back against the cushioned seat and asked, “Did you drive cars in Marrakesh?”

He laughed. “Hardly. There don’t seem to be many rules of the road in Morocco. I drove in Barcelona, but not in Marrakesh.”

Leah looked out at the fields and farmland on either side of the blacktop and tried to imagine the foreign land of Morocco. “What were the people like?”

“Most are warm and friendly,” Daniel replied. “Really good people. With an interesting culture. I loved the food there, especially the yogurt and the olives. And the flat bread. There’s one called
khobz bishemar
that has onions and chili peppers in it. It’s wonderful.”

“My mother makes the best bread and biscuits,” Leah said, “but I’ve never tasted any bread with peppers in it.” She wondered what Susanna would say if Mam sprinkled her baking powder biscuits with black pepper or chili powder.

She could just picture Susanna wrinkling up her nose and making a face. She wouldn’t complain. She’d just slip the food under the table to Jeremiah. Irwin’s little terrier was like Irwin. He would eat anything and everything. Neither one ever got fat, and it was a family joke that if you cooked half a cow, Irwin could eat most of it by himself and Jeremiah would finish the rest.

“You’d love the bread. I promise,” Daniel went on with enthusiasm. “My mother learned to make it, and we used to have it every Sunday with roasted chicken and vegetables. I can’t make the bread, but I make a mean bread pudding with dates and raisins.”

“You cook?” She glanced at him in surprise. Mam had always joked that Dat couldn’t boil water, and that he’d starve to death without his mother, sisters or wife to cook for him. She didn’t know any Amish men who had much skill in the kitchen. Anna said Samuel’s children told her that their father always burned the oatmeal and they didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to be black and crunchy.

“Just eggs and French toast mostly, and sweet muffins and pudding. Stuff I like. Not pie, though. I love pie, especially raisin pie, but I can’t make a pie crust fit to eat.”

“Pie crust is hard,” she agreed. “Anna and Mam make the best. Aunt Jezzy makes hers with a little vinegar, and that’s good. Mine are okay.” She smiled up at him. “Not bad, but nothing like Anna’s.”

“Would you make me a raisin pie, if I asked nicely?”

“I might.”

On the right side of the road, two boys ran across an open meadow, followed by two puppies. To her left, an English farmer was plowing with a large green tractor. Seagulls swooped down to snatch up bugs and earthworms, and Leah could smell the rich, freshly turned earth. She thought it must be the sweetest scent on earth.

High overhead, she saw a plane headed toward Dover Air Force Base, and she wondered where on earth the people inside had traveled from. Lots of planes passed over her family farm, but most were so high that you never heard a sound. “I know you must have flown in a plane across the Atlantic Ocean to come home from Spain,” Leah said. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like, up in the clouds with the birds.”

“A little scary if you hit a rough patch, but most of the time, it’s good. It’s a long trip from Europe—seven hours, give or take, and sometimes longer, once you are waiting to land. When I came back this time, I flew into Cincinnati. That’s not a bad airport.”