The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (23 page)

“I see.”

“Third, no Amish man starts growing a beard until the day he gets married.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Then he doesn’t shave it off, ever.”

Her eyes widened. “Get out of town.” She seemed delighted by that notion, though I wasn’t sure why until she continued. “If only a wedding ring were so hard to ditch! I mean, it’s not like a philandering Amish man can slip off his beard for a night out on the town and then put it back on before he goes home to his wife.”

We both laughed. “I guess not.”

“So I assume your mom is Amish?” she asked, popping another bean into her mouth.

“She was raised Amish, yes. She passed away when I was six.”

Lark froze for a moment, looking shocked. Mortified, even.

“My father was just about to ship off to Turkey when she died,” I explained, “so he sent me to live with my mother’s parents. My grandparents. I’ve been there ever since.”

Lark sat back in her chair, shaking her head thoughtfully. “I’m really sorry, Tyler. I shouldn’t have been so nosy.”

Her eyes were so genuinely repentant that for a moment she reminded me of Rachel.

Rachel. My girlfriend. The woman I hoped to marry.

Clearing my throat, I sat back as well, my face flushing with heat. What would Rachel think if she could get a look at me right now? Truly, I didn’t want to know.

To my relief, our number was called then and Lark left the table to get our food. I had managed to recover by the time she returned, bearing our plates and two iced teas. As she set the food down in front of me, I saw that my “roll” was six round slices of rice-wrapped clumps of pale pink, yellow green, and verdant emerald.

“So what is this exactly?” I said, poking one of the pieces with a chopstick.

“Crab, avocado, cucumber, and nori wrapped in rice and sesame seed.”

“What is a nori?” I plied the sticks to attempt to lift a piece to my mouth with no success.

“Nori is seaweed. And no yucky faces. It’s good for you. Lots of vitamins.”

I spun one of the slices around on my plate for a couple more seconds before I set the sticks down, picked up the piece of sushi in my fingers, and popped it into my mouth.

“Fingers? Really?” Lark exclaimed.

The piece was bigger than a normal bite, and I couldn’t immediately respond to her friendly indignation. I chewed and found the taste to be agreeable but not amazing.

“Well?” Her eyes sparkled with anticipation.

I swallowed and reached for the iced tea. “Pretty good.”

“Pretty good. That’s it?”

I took a drink and swished away the strange, lingering flavor of seaweed. “It’s a nice snack. I can’t see making a whole meal of it.”

She shook her head. “There’s more to life than meat and potatoes, Amish boy. Here. Try one of mine.” Lark wrangled a piece from her plate, where something brownish gray peeked out of her sushi roll.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Eat it and then I’ll tell you.”

I used my fingers to pick it up from where she’d placed it on my plate. I smelled a distinctly fishy fragrance. I took a small bite. It was rubbery, earthy, and mushroomy, as if I had eaten some of the reeds in my mother’s pond back home. A very strange taste.

“Like it?”

“What is it?”

“Raw eel.”

I reached for my drink again. “And you think lima beans are disgusting.”

Lark laughed in mock exasperation. “Fine! You can pick the next place.”

I didn’t know how to move on from that remark. Would there be a next time? Again, our impromptu stop for food suddenly felt a little too much like a date. Lark was just someone who knew something about photography and was willing to share it with me. We weren’t on a date. There would be no next time.

“So, what made you want to major in photography?” I said, as much to remind her as myself why we had met.

“I’ve always loved it. Always been drawn to it. You must like it too or you wouldn’t want to spend the month you’re here with your brother learning about it.”

I took another bite of my own roll. “Not exactly. I just found out a few days ago that my mother was into photography when I was younger. I want to learn so I can see what she saw in it, what she liked about it.”

“That’s sweet. What kind of photography did she do? Portraits? Landscapes? Architecture?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. My dad has a box of her pictures in a storage unit, but I won’t be able to see them until he gets back from his trip and he can go over there and get them for me.” As an afterthought, I added, “My memories of her with a camera are fleeting, but if I had to guess, I’d say landscapes. She was always drawn to the countryside.”

“How about you? What kind of photography interests you?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

Lark cocked her head in amusement. “You must have some general idea.”

“No, I really don’t. I have been reading up on the history of the subject, which is quite interesting. But I haven’t gotten to the part yet where it talks about different kinds of photography. How many are there?”

“Besides the ones I already said?” She held out a hand and began counting off on her fingers. “Gosh, there’s aerial, wildlife, sports, fashion, weddings—”

“Okay, well I think we can definitely rule out those last two.”

She stopped short, with a grin.

“Bottom line,” I told her, smiling in return, “I have no experience whatsoever with taking pictures. But I’d like to learn.”

She gazed at me for a long moment and then her eyes widened.

“Wait a minute. You people don’t believe in taking pictures,” she said, seeming to remember a peculiarity about the Amish faith she had perhaps heard once and forgotten about. “You think it will steal your soul or something…” Her voice drifted away, as if she knew that wasn’t the real reason, but what else was she to assume?

“That’s not it,” I said, shaking my head. “My soul belongs to God.”

“Well, why not, then?”

“A few reasons.” I recited the verse in Exodus 20 about not making graven images and then added, “Besides, posing for pictures doesn’t help us live lives of humility. Quite the opposite. We would think too much about ourselves. We’d rather be concerned with living in obedience than with worrying about our outward appearance.”

She grinned. “I bet they pay you to say that.”

I laughed and took another bite of my sushi.

“Are you going to get in trouble for taking photography lessons?”

“I told you, I’m not a member of the church yet. That’s why I want to do it before I go back.”

If I go back…

“How about your mom? Did she get in trouble when she took up photography?”

I shook my head. “She left home at eighteen, without ever joining the church. They weren’t happy about her leaving, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. Except pray.”

“Did she ever go back before she…”

I shook my head. “To visit—once—but not to stay.”

Lark tugged on the straw in her drink. “I’d go plum crazy living without cars and electricity and, heaven forbid, my camera. But that’s me. Do you think it’s possible your mom ever wished she had remained Amish instead of leaving?”

I was surprised by the question. More times than I could count, I had wondered why she left in the first place. But never once had it occurred to me to consider whether she’d ever regretted that decision and wanted to go back home again. Of course, if she had, the family and community would have taken her in with open arms, her sins forgiven and forgotten. But once she was married to my dad, returning to the Amish life and joining the church at last wouldn’t have been an option for her. Not unless he was willing to become Amish as well.

Which was about as likely as Timber walking on two legs and speaking Pennsylvania Dutch.

“That’s…I don’t know,” I said, meeting Lark’s eyes. “I never thought about it before. Up till now, my biggest questions have been about why she left.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could rein them in. I had known Lark Parrish for less than an hour, and I was already telling her my deepest, most secret ponderings.

But she seemed to understand perfectly what was weighing on me. “I’d want to know that too.”

We were quiet for a moment as we each ate a piece of our sushi. Then she asked more about my childhood, including how long I lived with my grandparents before my dad’s tour ended and he came back and got me. I explained how things progressed, one tour following another, until finally, by the time he was ready, he was remarried with a two-year-old child.

“I had seen him twice in three years. I didn’t know Liz at all, and they seemed pretty complete with Brady. So I decided to stay where I was, and he didn’t force me to leave.”

Lark was staring at me, wide eyed. “Wow. That’s crazy.”

“Is it?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Why do you think it’s crazy?”

“Because it totally is. Holy cow, no wonder.”

She mumbled the last two words, almost as if she hadn’t meant to say them out loud.

No wonder what?
I thought but did not say. I had a feeling I already knew.

No wonder you seem so lost.

S
EVENTEEN

W
hen I arrived at the house a little after ten, I found Brady in the family room watching TV with Frisco in his lap.

He swung his head around when I stepped into the open kitchen behind him. “Where were you?” He sounded perturbed.

“Lark needed a ride home, but she insisted on taking me out for sushi first.”

Brady’s eyes widened. “You went on a date with her?”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Sounds like a date.”

“Not a date.”

Brady turned back to his TV show. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and joined him on the L-shaped couch. “Hey. Great game tonight.”

“Thanks.”

A few seconds of silence. My eyes were drawn to the TV screen. A parade of humanoid monsters were stalking a man whose only weapon was a baseball bat. I turned from what promised to be a gruesome spectacle.

“Want to help me stain the wood for the container garden boxes in the morning?” I asked.

Brady shifted on the couch. “Uh, not really. That’s your deal, Ty. I’m glad you’re doing it, and I think my mom’s really going to like them. But tomorrow morning I’m sleeping in. And I have plans in the afternoon.”

A chorus of wails and screeches erupted from the TV, along with harried music and sounds I couldn’t even begin to describe. “Oh? What kind of plans?”

“Mom already said I could go.”

“You talked to your mother?”

“She called me this morning to say hi and I asked her. She said I could go.”

More crunching and wailings and screaming. I winced at the sound of it. “Go where?”

Brady picked up the remote and clicked off the TV.

“Wow. Um, you don’t have to turn it off because of me,” I said, but I was glad he did.

“I can tell zombies aren’t your thing. It’s streaming. I can watch it on my computer in my room.” He stood and so did I. Frisco jumped to the floor.

I had the distinct impression Brady was leaving the room because I was in it.

“You don’t have to go. I can find something else to do.”

“It’s cool. I’m tired anyway.” Brady tossed the remote onto the couch and started to walk away.

“Would you tell me where you’re going tomorrow? I’m sure Dad and your mom expect me to know.”

“Because you’re in charge?”

“Because we’re brothers. And yes, they did leave me in charge.”

He spun around to look at me. “Paintball. I’m going with some friends to play paintball.”

Our eyes locked. So many unspoken words lay hidden behind Brady’s stare.

“Need any money for it?” I asked.

He kept his eyes on mine. “Nope. Dad left me some.”