Lifted Up by Angels (13 page)

“Y
our brother?” Leah wasn’t sure she’d heard Ethan correctly. “You mean you have another brother besides Simeon and Nathan?”

Ethan turned away from her. “Yes.”

Leah stepped in front of him, refusing to let him walk away. “Tell me about Eli.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Please, tell me.”

“Eli is older than me. The firstborn.” Ethan’s words were halting, as if it hurt his throat to speak them.

“How much older?”

“Eight years.”

Leah was shocked. “Where is he?”

Ethan shrugged. “I am not sure. I think he still lives here in Indiana.”

“You’re not
sure?”
she repeated. “When did you last see him?”

“When I was ten.”

“You haven’t seen your own brother for seven years? But why?” Getting information from Ethan was like pulling teeth. Frustrated, Leah wanted him to tell her everything and get it over with. “You sound ashamed of Eli. Are you?”

“You do not understand, Leah.”

“I sure don’t,” she said, exasperated. “You have a brother no one talks about, or even mentions—I’ve known you since December and I’ve never once heard about him—and you won’t tell me why. Don’t you trust me, Ethan?”

“This has nothing to do with you.”

There was no moon, so Leah couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the sadness in his voice. She reached out and stroked his arm. “I care about you, Ethan. I don’t like to see you hurting. I’ve always wondered whether you—and even Charity—were keeping something from me.”

“How did you know?”

“Little things that were said. Embarrassed silences
when something would come up that you both didn’t want to talk about. I know now that I wasn’t imagining it. Was it Eli? Or is there some other secret?”

“I have no other secrets.” He sounded miserable.

“But all the Amish kids know about him, don’t they? At least Jonah knows.”

“Some know about Eli.”

“But not me. Is it because I’m English? An outsider?” Leah’s frustration turned into a feeling that she’d been rejected.

“Others know about him only if they are old enough to remember him.” Ethan bent so that his forehead was touching Leah’s. “We do not speak of him. Rebekah doesn’t even know about him.”

“Rebekah doesn’t know she has another brother?” Leah couldn’t believe what Ethan was saying. “Are you joking?”

“She was born after Eli left. And since we never speak of him …” Ethan let the sentence trail off.

“But—But—Why not?” Leah sputtered. “What’s he done that’s so horrible? Is he a criminal or something?”

“You are not Amish, Leah.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You’ve always known I wasn’t Amish!”

“It is hard to explain our ways to you.”

Leah folded her arms across her chest. “Why don’t you try? I promise to act human. Okay?”

Her sarcasm was seemingly lost on Ethan. He gently took her hand and led her to a patch of grassy ground, where he settled her beside him. Leah felt angry and hurt, but she forced herself to keep her temper and to wait in the darkness for him to finally speak.

“Eli was my big brother, and I followed him around like a puppy. He was different from me. Different from all of my family.”

“How was he so different?”

“He never loved the land the way Opa, Papa and I do. He didn’t like our simple ways. Eli was born smart. He loved books. And learning. When I was six, he was fourteen and in the eighth grade. He went to the English middle school—as we all did. He made straight As.”

Leah knew Amish kids left school after the eighth grade because, according to Charity, the Amish saw no need for advanced education. Eventually the Amish teen would take his or her place in the community and therefore had
no real need for more schooling. Farming, carpentry work and rearing families were not tasks that needed degrees. Preserving the Amish way of life superseded everything else. “Didn’t Eli drop out of school?” she asked.

“No. One of his teachers came out to the farm to talk to Papa. She showed Papa test scores and told him that Eli was very smart—too smart to drop out. She said it would be a sin to let such intelligence go to waste. She talked Papa into letting Eli continue his education.”

“That doesn’t seem so terrible,” Leah said. “Your parents must have been proud of Eli.”

“They were.”

Instantly Leah realized what Ethan was telling her. Mr. Longacre
had
been proud of Eli. But pride was not a virtue to the Amish. “What happened?”

“Eli was allowed to go to high school. He got on the school bus and rode away each day. He came home and did homework by lamplight. He read books, and more books. As he got older and made friends among the English, he would stay in town with them. It was very hard on Papa because he expected Eli to do his chores and help on the farm. They had harsh words.
Whenever Eli did come home, he brought friends Papa did not like. Finally he stopped coming home.

“It was difficult for me too,” Ethan confessed. “I loved them both, and I missed Eli in the family.”

Leah could well imagine the scenes. “Is that the reason you didn’t run around with your friends when you first turned sixteen? You didn’t want to upset your father?”

A low chuckle escaped from Ethan. “You know me well, Leah. Yes. I did not want to disappoint Papa as Eli did.”

“You didn’t mind quitting school, did you?”

“I am not smart like Eli. Leaving school was not hard for me. Harder for Charity, I think. But not for me.”

For Leah, school had never been an option. It was someplace she had to go whether she liked it or not. And for the most part, she liked school. She couldn’t imagine not going. “What happened after Eli graduated from high school?”

“It was like chocolate cake and grapefruit juice.”

“Fireworks, huh?”

Ethan nodded. “Eli was offered a college scholarship. All paid up.”

Leah understood what such an offer meant. “So he had to choose,” she stated. “His education or his family.”

“I was ten when he left home for good.” Ethan’s voice grew soft. “Papa wanted Eli to take over the farm. He wanted him to be baptized, and marry, and live as Amish. But Eli said that Amish ways were backward. He said that he did not want to be Amish, He and Papa had very angry words. In the end, Eli left. I still remember the day. Eli and I shared a room. That morning, he packed everything in bags and an old suitcase. He did not have much. I begged him not to go.”

Leah heard a catch in Ethan’s voice. She felt his pain. “But he went anyway, didn’t he?”

“That day Eli said to me, ‘Ethan, now you are the oldest son. Papa will not forgive me for this. I am sorry that you are caught in the middle. It will be as if I am dead. No one will speak my name or ever talk about me around here. But I cannot be Amish. I cannot.’ ”

Leah felt tears swimming in her own eyes as Ethan talked. She could see the scene vividly in
her mind’s eye. She could feel the immense weight dropped on Ethan’s shoulders the day his brother left. “I’m sorry, Ethan.”

“That afternoon one of Eli’s friends came for him. I stood at the window. I watched him put his things in the car. I watched the car drive away until it was a tiny speck. I’ve not seen my brother again.”

For Leah, many things about Ethan fell into place. Out of respect for his family, Ethan had chosen not to take his fling with the others. Jonah’s taunts about Ethan’s refusal to run with his friends must have been doubly hard on Ethan. And then Leah had come along. And Ethan had done what nothing else had made him do—he’d dressed English, played English, dated an English girl. He’d done it for her. “Do you know if Eli graduated from college?” she asked.

“I ran into his former teacher once. She told me that she was sorry about what had happened in our family over Eli, but that she had heard that he was getting a degree in education. That he planned to become a teacher—like her. She was proud of that. It made me very sad.”

Leah calculated the age difference between Eli and Ethan. “He must be twenty-five by
now. If he’s a teacher in Indiana, you could find him—”

Ethan sprang to his feet. “I do not want to find him. It is
verboten
—forbidden. I could not betray Papa’s wishes.”

Leah knew better than to argue. “It was just a thought.”

“You think this is foolish, don’t you?” Ethan’s question floated to her in the dark.

Leah didn’t answer right away because she didn’t want to upset or hurt him. Nor did she want to seem unsympathetic to the Amish mind-set. Still, it did help her understand Mr. Longacre’s coolness toward her. The English way of life had taken one son already.

“Ethan, I really do know what it’s like to lose someone you love.” Leah chose her words carefully. “I had a grandmother—my father’s mother—and for some reason she and my mom never got along with each other. It had something to do with my dad and his leaving us, but I was just a little girl and didn’t have a clue.

“Anyway, I loved Grandma Hall with all my heart. She used to sneak into my elementary school during recesses and visit with me on the playground. She brought me cookies and little presents. I still miss her.”

“What happened to her?”

“She got sick and died. My mother did let me visit her while she was in the hospital, but it was hard seeing her that way—hooked up to machines and suffering. It scared me.” She looked up at Ethan. “Like you, I was also only ten. Grandma died and I went to her funeral. I’ll never forget it.”

Ethan’s arm went around Leah’s shoulders. He pulled her close. “This is a sad story, Leah.”

“Please listen to what I’m saying. My grandmother’s dead, and I’ll never see her again on earth. Eli isn’t dead. You can see him.”

Ethan’s arms loosened their hold on her. “It is not that simple. My father would not approve. And so long as I live in my father’s house, I must honor and obey him. It is our way.”

“Yet it’s all right for you to drink and drive cars and sample wordly stuff. You just can’t ever speak to your brother again.” Leah knew she was testing Ethan’s loyalty, but she couldn’t help it. Couldn’t he see how contradictory, how hypocritical, his ways sounded to her?

Ethan sighed deeply. “I knew you would not understand. I should not have told you.”

She took his arm. “I’m glad you told me. Because
I want to understand, Ethan. I want to know everything I can about you.”

He held her face between the palms of his hands. “And I want to know all about you too, Leah. You are very special to me.”

She felt her knees going weak with emotion. She couldn’t challenge him again. His brother Eli was a closed subject. Still, Leah couldn’t help wondering if her existence too might someday be blotted out by Ethan’s family. The notion left her queasy. “Your secret is safe with me, Ethan,” she said. But she thought,
Eli does exist. And no amount of pretending will make him disappear.

She took Ethan’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to the party. Charity might be looking for us.”

W
hen Leah and Ethan returned to the campsite, the bonfire had died down to a pile of glowing embers. Sleeping bags stretched across blankets and quilts in clusters. Leah heard the soft whispers of conversation mixed with music from radios. She looked around for Charity. “Where do you suppose your sister is?”