Seasons of Tomorrow (33 page)

Steven eyed a vending machine. “Where’re the children?”

They weren’t allowed on this floor, so various people took turns walking
them around the grounds, to a nearby playground, or to the cafeteria. Everyone simply shrugged.

“The cafeteria.”

Leah’s heart jolted at the quiet voice.
Landon!

She searched for him and peered around a small group of Amish standing nearby.

Landon sat in a chair, his fingers interlaced in his lap, looking as peaceful as ever. His eyes met hers, and her knees trembled. He then looked to Steven. “Iva has the children.”

Steven moved forward, and Landon stood. Tears pricked Leah’s eyes as they embraced. “Steven, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear about Phoebe.”

Steven backed away. “Thank you.”

“Your driver’s van was full, so Rhoda called, asking if I was in the area and if I could help drive folks as needed. I hope you don’t mind after everything …”

“No.” Steven clutched Landon’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

When Landon’s eyes met Leah’s again, she suddenly found herself biting back tears, rage, and laughter. She wanted to hug him as much as she wanted to scream at him for abandoning her. But most of all she wanted the truth of where they stood.

Landon’s attention returned to Steven. “You may not be interested, but with the wedding coming up and all, if you need someone to stay here with Phoebe, I’d be more than happy to do that.”

What a shame that after years of friendship, Rhoda couldn’t invite Landon to her wedding without causing a ripple of anger through the community. If Leah hadn’t been seeing Landon, Rhoda could invite him, and no one would mind.

“I appreciate that, Landon. We’re keeping people she loves talking, singing, or reading to her round the clock, and it would ease my anxiety a good bit if you were here doing that during the wedding.”

“I’ll be here then.”

Steven took a step toward the door. “Would you mind showing me where that cafeteria is?” Steven nodded to the hallway. “After I arrived with
the transport team, I followed the aides to this floor as they got Phoebe situated, and I haven’t left it since.”

“Yeah, sure.” Landon glanced at Leah, and she saw the same questions and doubts in his eyes that weighed down her heart.

Leah’s heart sank as they left the room, but every Amish eye was watching her, so she stayed put.

Steven turned back. “Leah, didn’t you say you were hungry too?”

Leah glanced at the disapproving faces, but Steven, her preacher and a man under the stress of possibly losing his wife, had invited her to go with Landon and him. The others made way for her as she walked toward the hallway. Once she was within steps of them, Steven and Landon went ahead, leading the way down another hall of endless fluorescent lights.

Why would Steven ask her to go with them? Was it absent-mindedness, or did he intend to let them speak for a few minutes?

After an elevator ride and more hallways, she saw Iva coming toward them, holding the children’s hands. Isaac and Arie spotted their Daed, and their little faces lit up as they pulled free from Iva’s grip. Isaac appeared to have orange juice pulp on his chin, and Arie’s green lips indicated she’d had a Popsicle. They rushed down the hall, and Steven scooped them up in one swift motion, asking them what they had been up to.

How could Steven change from mourning husband to heroic dad in the short distance between walking down a hall and seeing his children?

Iva welcomed Landon and then turned to Steven. “They’ve eaten really well and been very good … until they spotted you.”

Steven hugged the children again, kissing them, and then he balanced one child on each hip. “Landon, do you mind making sure Leah eats? I’d like to take my children outside for a bit.”

“Uh.” Landon’s hesitancy was far from the hopeful, leaping-at-the-opportunity reaction Leah would’ve liked.

“I need this,” Steven assured him. “I’ll let Leah’s Daed know it was my request.”

Without another word Steven went down the hall, his children in his
arms, Iva following. She turned, shooing them and mouthing the word
go
.

Landon watched the retreating family.

His lips formed a smile, but his eyes reflected sadness. “It’s good to see you.”

Her heart pounded. “I … I don’t understand, Landon. How could you turn in your phone and just leave me like that? Why would you agree to Daed’s demands and choose to leave in a way that didn’t even include us getting some sort of final conversation?”

His hands remained in his pockets as he stared at the floor. “I regret that.” He looked up. “I’m truly sorry for it.”

Despite his words the apology felt empty, as if he didn’t really get what he’d done.

Leah hoped they were able to finish this conversation before someone pulled them apart. “I didn’t even realize what I’d said until after you’d left, and I shouldn’t have said it. I was upset, and I overreacted, but, Landon, you abandoned me.”

The elevator bell sounded, and he looked that way as strangers left it. “If any part of you believed that I cared more about my loyalties to Rhoda or keeping that job, I had to prove to you that you were wrong.”

“Had to prove me wrong?” Was he serious? “That’s why you left without any way for me to contact you?”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be the outsider, to know that most of your community and relatives look at me as if I’m some sort of lowlife drug dealer.”

“I don’t get what it’s like for you? How can you say that? I’m the outsider, Landon. I sit in church and wonder what the pastor just said. Was it a reference to a sitcom or a sports team? Everyone laughs, and I’m completely lost!”

Landon slumped, looking weary. “Regardless of where we are, your world or mine, we can’t fix the issues the other one is having.”

What was wrong with them? Why weren’t they making plans to survive the next year rather than arguing like children?

He lifted his ball cap, scratched his head, and put his cap on again. “The pressure on us is ridiculous.” Landon rested his palm on his chest. “I love you, Leah …” His eyes misted.

He didn’t need to say the word
but
. She’d heard it loud and clear. There were too many people against them. If she left her family, Landon would carry the weight of that responsibility. He’d always wonder if her Englisch life was worth the sacrifice of severing all ties and enduring the continual disapproval and wrath of her Daed and her community.

He brushed his fingers along her jaw line. “Our love is good and strong, but it just isn’t enough to win the war, not without leaving us too injured to pick up the pieces.”

Her heart broke. Was she still standing here? It felt as if she’d melted into the floor, as detached from her surroundings as Phoebe was.

Leah longed to say all the great speeches she’d imagined, explaining how they could make the relationship work. But she couldn’t find any words.
This
was the talk she’d been waiting for?

She choked back tears. Her Daed had won. “This isn’t at all how I thought a conversation with you would go.”

“Me either. But seeing your family and understanding all that is against us …” He fidgeted with a string to her prayer Kapp. “I never imagined we’d land here.”

She brushed a tear from her face. “So this is it, then?”

Landon cleared his throat, apparently fighting with his own overwhelmed emotions. “I will love you all my life.”

She sobbed, and he drew her into his arms. “Me too.” He backed up and lifted her chin, gazing into her eyes. “You stay at Orchard Bend Farms. I know how much you wanted to get out of Pennsylvania. Maine is freedom for you.”

“But—”

He covered her lips with his fingers. “Let me do this.”

She nodded. “Okay.” Her heart broke, not just for today or tomorrow, but for all the years ahead.

She knew she’d never love or be loved like this again.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Jacob stretched in the carriage seat, trying to relieve the stiffness in his back. Days in the orchard working. Then twelve hours traveling by train, car, and bus. And now sitting in a carriage that rode like flattened cardboard being pulled across a gravel driveway. All to reach Virginia. And on top of that was the nagging sentiment that he could really regret coming here.

No wonder his whole body ached.

How would Esther react to the U-turn he’d made concerning their relationship? He wished he knew.

He’d gone by Bailey’s ironwork shop first, but it was locked up tight. Now as Jacob pulled the carriage onto Esther’s driveway, he frowned. Which of the two houses did she live in—the main house with her brother or the Daadi Haus with the unmarried, expectant girls? How could he not know this about her? She’d volunteered no information, but, then, he’d never asked her anything, either. It had made their friendship seem easy and uncomplicated at the time, but evidently easy and uncomplicated also meant without roots and easily withered.

A young woman opened the front door of the Daadi Haus, laughing as she waited for a cat to scoot outdoors. The woman, maybe twenty-two, spotted Jacob and stared for a moment before walking toward him. She appeared possibly nine months pregnant.
“Kann Ich helfe?”

“Esther Beachy?”

“You want Esther Mae.” She gestured. “In the big house.”

“Nee. Essie.”

She narrowed her eyes as if she didn’t believe he was asking for the right Esther Beachy.

“Shark Bait.”

The term seemed to make her even more leery. “Why?”

“To talk.”

“What’s your name?”

Had Esther taught the women to question all strangers like this? Seemed to him this woman could be a little warmer. “Jacob King.”

She eyed him. “No guys allowed beyond the doorway. Standing rule.” With that, she motioned for him to follow her.

He got down, tied the horse to a hitching post, and went inside, stopping just inside the door. The home seemed to be brimming with young women. A delicious aroma of food—some spicy concoction and freshly baked bread—filled the air. Despite the scant furniture he realized his assumptions about what a place for unwed mothers would feel like didn’t match reality. He’d imagined it would be cold and oppressive with guilt and shame. But the girls here were talkative and cheery.

He spotted Esther, and hope of patching things up mingled with raw nerves. She sat at a beat-up old kitchen table. She had one bare foot resting in the chair and her chin on her knee. She looked utterly content. But was he about to embarrass himself in front of her and the roomful of women?

Esther and a girl were playing checkers, and several other girls were watching and talking while eating popcorn. He hoped the girl who sat across from Esther was one of her sisters and not someone expecting a child, because she couldn’t be more than sixteen.

“Eens. Zwee. Drei.”
Esther hopped three pieces, counting each time and taking each piece.

The girl broke into laughter, scooped up popcorn, and tossed it on Esther, who laughed in response. Her laugh was contagious, and the girls broke into loud chatter.

“Bad sportsmanship.” Esther giggled, picking up a couple of kernels and leaving the rest of the popcorn on her wherever it lay. “But good game.” She ate the popcorn she’d plucked from her dress. When she spotted Jacob in the doorway, she paused for barely a moment before gathering the checker pieces. “We have a guest.”

The women turned.

Esther swooped her hand through the air. “This is Jacob King.” Seemed odd she didn’t clarify that he was a friend, an acquaintance, or a one-time coworker on projects. “Jacob, this is Fanny, Dorothy, Annie, Malinda, Florence,
and Ruth.” She pointed to each one as she said their names. Florence seemed to be the oldest of the young women, probably five years younger than Esther, and she was the one who’d led him inside.

He removed his hat. “Hallo.”

Esther studied him, tapping one of the game pieces on the table. Then she glanced at Florence and barely nodded.

Florence blinked and turned back to Jacob, staring at him as if he had two heads. “Apparently you’re an exception.” She held out her hand. “Give me your coat.”

Jacob did so but held on to his hat as he walked toward the table, mostly so he’d have something to do with his hands. Every eye was on him.

Except Esther’s.

She dusted at her dress, picking popcorn off it. Without getting up she dumped the handful into a nearby trash can and then stacked checker pieces in her hand. She seemed rather unenthusiastic that he was here. “Do you play checkers, Jacob?”

That seemed like a good start to this visit. “It’s been a while.” He felt as if every woman in this room was judging him for all they’d suffered from men—fathers, brothers, classmates, and lovers. Was that his imagination?

Esther put the pieces in place, and Jacob hung his hat on the spindle of a chair before he sat across from her. Florence whispered to one of the girls, and she whispered to the next one. After a few tugs on sleeves, one after another left the kitchen, until the last one eased out, closing the door, giving them a bit of privacy.

Esther skimmed her index finger from the base of her neck to her chin. “Guests first.”