The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (13 page)

It wasn’t until I stepped off the SEPTA train a few minutes after seven that the magnitude of what I was doing began to hit me. Thanks to a single phone call from my father and a gathering of my church elders, I was about to fly across the country in pursuit of some understanding, some truth, that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

I sure hope You really are in this, Lord,
I prayed as I fell in with the crowd walking inside.

The airport was busy, far busier than I remember it being the last time I flew, when I was seventeen. I made my way through airport security, past the staring and pointing people—it wasn’t terribly common to see an Amish man in an airport—and then to my gate to wait for my plane to board. I took a seat near the door to the jetway and picked up a newspaper that someone had left to give myself something to do while I waited.

A mom with two young girls, maybe eight and ten, sat down next to me, and the children proceeded to whisper to their mother, and she back to them. I heard the word “Amish,” though I pretended I didn’t.

I heard the mother murmur, “Girls! It’s not polite to stare.”

I raised my head to smile at them and wordlessly assure the mother I wasn’t offended. Sometimes when I was out in the big world, people stared. I was used to it.

“I’m so sorry!” the mother said when our eyes met.

“It’s quite all right.”

“They’ve just never seen an Amish person before. Well, except for on TV.”

I smiled and nodded. I had no ready comeback for that comment.

“Actually, I haven’t either,” the mother added. “We live in Los Angeles, so…”

“I see.”

“I didn’t think you could fly.”

“He can
fly
?” the younger of the girls asked, wide eyed.

The mother laughed. So did I.

“Where’s your buggy?” the older one said, quite serious.

“Back at the farm.”

“How about your horse?” said the other.

I sat up straight and feigned looking around. “I’m not sure. Last I saw, he was having a little trouble getting through security.”

She hesitated and then giggled, not quite sure if I was kidding or not.

The older one rolled her eyes at the naïveté of her little sister. “Do you want to see my iPad?”

“Uh, sure.”

While we waited to board, she showed me photos of her family and friends, a word game, an interactive map of Hershey Park, and a sketch pad where I could draw with my finger. The girl seemed intent on introducing me to every technologically wonderful thing the device could do, as if my spaceship had crash-landed here and she were welcoming me to her planet.

When we finally boarded, my row was way past that of the little girls, but they knelt on their seats, facing backward, to look at me and wave before it was time to buckle in.

Everyone on the plane seemed to be looking at me.

The man in the Amish clothes.

The Amish man.

N
INE

T
he moment I stepped off the plane at John Wayne International, all that was home to me seemed far more distant than the thousands of miles that now lay between us. I was keenly aware of how I stood out in my Amish clothes, even after I took off my hat and carried it under my arm. At least the pace of the hundreds of people all around me was harried and hurried, which meant that most of them were too busy getting somewhere or staring at their cell phones to actually pay me much notice.

The last time I had been to California, my dad was stationed at Camp Pendleton near San Diego, on loan to the Marines as a helicopter maintenance instructor. He and Liz and Brady were living on base, which in a way seemed as secluded and protective an environment as the community back home. The only people who lived on base or had any business being there were other military members and their families. And because the base was located in a sprawling stretch of wilderness between San Diego and Los Angeles, it had been easy to forget I was smack-dab in the middle of the metropolitan universe of Southern California—though day trips to Disneyland and SeaWorld and crowded beaches quickly reminded me of where I was. My dad had since retired a full colonel after twenty-five years and now worked for a Los Angeles-based defense contractor. Dad and Liz had bought a house in Newport Beach—a beach community in the suburbs south of Los Angeles—two years ago and, from what I could gather from our infrequent phone calls, he had slowly adjusted to his new life as a civilian.

I hadn’t had to check a bag, but because I was to meet my father at baggage claim, I followed the signs there, searching for him in the sea of faces as I made my way. I stood near the carousel to wait, where I met up again with the woman and her daughters. I helped them retrieve their heavy luggage as it came around, and when the mother thanked me, she asked if I needed a ride somewhere. I thanked her in return but assured her my father lived in Orange County and was coming to meet me. That seemed to take her by surprise. She probably assumed that an Amish man like me surely had an Amish father, so how was it that he lived in Orange County?

They said goodbye, the mother’s eyes still full of questions as they walked away, pulling their suitcases like wagons. I could tell she was worried for me. I smiled at her and then gave a confident wave to assure her I would be fine.

That’s when I spotted my father. Our eyes met through the milling throng, and he came toward me, looking almost annoyed.

“There you are!” He reached for my hand and pulled me toward him for a manly, one-armed embrace. “First thing we need to do is get you a cell phone, Tyler. That was crazy.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“So. Good flight, then?”

“Sure. It was fine.”

He sized me up and then smiled. “You look older.”

I laughed lightly. “Time passes at the same rate in Pennsylvania, Dad. You look older too.”

He laughed in return. Actually, he didn’t look older. But he did look different. He had always kept his hair at regulation length, which for the army was very nearly a buzz cut. His hair was now almost long enough to comb. He might have put on a few pounds since he got out of the military, but only a few. He was still fit and trim, a good weight for his six-foot-one-inch frame. He was also sporting a moustache for the first time that I could remember.

“No, I mean it,” he continued. “You’re taller. And you’ve filled out since I last saw you. How long has it been? A year? Two?

“Something like that.”

“Making buggies must be a more physical job than I thought. Either that, or you’ve joined a gym.”

“
Ya
, an Amish gym.” I cracked a smile.

He laughed and clapped me on the back. “Let’s get out of here.”

We began to walk, and as we made our way toward the exit for the parking lot, I was again aware how my broadcloth pants, white handmade cotton shirt, and suspenders were out of place. Even with my hat still tucked under my arm, I stood out like a stalk of corn in the middle of a hay field.

My father had said the airport was about a fifteen-minute drive from his new house, so I didn’t think he would mind if I asked to take a detour on the way to a used clothing store so that I could pick up a few things to help me blend in better. The last thing I needed was to draw attention to myself. I didn’t want to come off as an Amish man trying to fit into the non-Amish world. I just wanted to be a man, Amish or not.

“Say, Dad. Would you mind if we stopped somewhere so that I could get some jeans and a couple different shirts?”

“Sure, we can swing by the mall.” He smiled at me. “Liz already bought you a few new things, just like she used to when you were a kid. But we can still stop.”

“We don’t need to go to a mall. I’m fine with a used clothing—”

“No, no. New is better. And actually, now that I look at you, I’m thinking you and I are about the same size. You can probably wear most of my stuff too. I’ll pull out some things for you when we get home.”

We stepped outside the terminal and a brilliant sun greeted me. The icy Pennsylvania morning I had awakened to seemed ages ago under the seventy-two-degree sunshine here. Moments later we were in Dad’s car and pulling out into traffic.

While he drove, he filled me in on his civilian job, his life as an army retiree, Liz’s trip to Honduras, and her regular work as an RN at a local hospital.

I was interested in what he had to say but also intrigued with my surroundings, the sheer amount of cars on the roads, and how everyone drove with their windows closed even though the day was beautiful. When he began to talk about Brady, I forced myself to pay attention to everything he said. Brady was the reason I was here—or half the reason, at least.

“He’s been playing Pop Warner all these years, so we knew he was a shoe-in to play JV as a freshman. But we never dreamed he’d make regular varsity in ninth grade. He knocked the coach’s socks off when he tried out. He’s an amazing kicker. He can send that ball flying dead center through the uprights, on the worst snap ever, on the poorest placement ever, from practically midfield. I’m telling you, Ty, he’s headed for the Pac Twelve.”

“Pac Twelve?”

Dad seemed surprised I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Oh. That’s the conference name for all the great universities here in the West, you know, the Pacific side of the country. It’s all the big ones, Ty. The ones that matter. UCLA, USC, OSU, U of O. He has the talent to be picked up by one of them. That’s what I’m saying.”

He glanced at me as he drove to make sure I was getting all this.

“That’s why it’s so important that he not blow it right now. He’s on the varsity team, Ty,” he continued. “As a
freshman
.”

That part I got.

“I know what you’re saying, Dad. I just hadn’t heard of the Pac Twelve before.”

Dad seemed to need a moment to absorb this. Apparently, my lack of football expertise was something he hadn’t thought of when he called me with his desperate request. Now he was probably wondering if I realized how important this really was.

I did, of course. I knew what it meant to feel that something important to you was at stake. “You don’t want him to do something now that he will regret later, maybe for the rest of his life,” I said.

My father visibly relaxed as he returned his gaze to the road ahead. “Exactly. He has the talent. He could go all the way with it.”

“All the way?”

“The NFL, of course,” Dad laughed. Surely I knew that.

I was beginning to understand why, as my dad had said when he first called me, Brady was feeling the pressure of being in such a highly visible, high-stakes place as a freshman. Dad was probably doubling whatever pressure Brady was reacting to. No wonder there was tension between the two of them.

“But he’s fourteen. There are a lot of years between now and the NFL,” I said casually, as if it were something my dad could have said just as easily but feeling pretty sure he wouldn’t have.

“That’s my point, Tyler. These are the years that will decide how far he will go.”

“So how far does he
want
to go?”

“He loves playing football. He’s loved it since he was little. It’s always been what he’s wanted to do.” Dad tossed these sentences back to me a bit defensively, as if he’d said them before to someone else. I wondered if maybe he and Liz—or maybe even he and Brady—didn’t see eye to eye on Brady’s future as a football player.

I decided I would wait to see if my dad was right about that. Until I could talk to my brother, I wouldn’t know for sure, so for now I just said something I thought Dad would enjoy hearing but was still true.

“I’m looking forward to seeing him play.”

“He’s crazy good, Tyler. Phenomenal.”

The pride in my dad’s voice was almost painful for me to hear. Almost.

Our first stop was at an electronics store where Dad bought a pay-as-you-go cell phone. I was fine with him wanting me to have a phone while I was in California. It actually made sense. I knew Brady lived and breathed for his cell. When I’d called him from the shop on his last birthday, Brady told me how much he wished I had a cell phone so that he could talk to me whenever he wanted.