The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (29 page)

In my mind, I added this new realization to the list.

Sometimes, technology really can bring people closer together instead of driving them apart.

We wrapped things up, shut down the game, and went into the kitchen. While I took out the brownies and grabbed some plates, he gathered ice cream, fudge sauce, and whipped topping. We each assembled our own dessert, creating two disgustingly decadent mountains of chocolate delight.

We sat and ate there at the kitchen table, chatting easily, as if there had been no contention between us lately. I found myself telling him about Lark’s upcoming trip to Thailand, and then I asked him if there was anywhere he had always wanted to go.

Brady slid a gooey piece of ice-cream slathered brownie into his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said after he swallowed. “Maybe backpacking in New Zealand.”

“I’ve seen pictures. That place is really something.”

He nodded. “Remote too. Be nice to just get away from everything. School. Teachers. Homework. Papers. Even other people.” Brady took another bite. “It will never happen, though. It’s too far away, too expensive.”

He had apparently thought about it before and had seen only obstacles. “Nice to think about, though.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

I waited to see if he would ask me where I would go. When he didn’t, I pretended that he had. “I’d like to go Germany to find the place where I lived when I was a kid.”

“But you don’t travel. You never go anywhere.” Brady slipped his spoon in his mouth.

My first response was to rise to my own defenses, but I held my tongue and tried to do what Lark had told me to do: Listen.

Brady was right in a way. My life in Lancaster County revolved around the life of my community. Traveling to faraway places did nothing to bolster that community and, in fact, could even serve to help break it down. And so we made that sacrifice, trading the freedom to travel far and wide for the peace and security of preserving our communities.

While I might envy Brady’s ability to go wherever he wanted, I realized that he might envy what I had too, the tight family bonds of my Amish life, if he understood what that was truly like. In fact, the longer I ruminated on it, the more it made sense. Whether he knew it or not, deep inside he probably longed for those kinds of bonds as well.

“I’d still like to do that, though,” I said. “I like thinking about going to Germany, even though it’s also far away and probably too expensive.”

He scraped the last of the dessert from his bowl. “Europe looks cool. I would go there.”

“Hey. That really would be fun. You and me. Backpacking or whatever.”

Brady tossed his spoon into his bowl and carried it to the sink. “Yeah. You’d have to do all the talking, though. The only German I know is
gesundheit
.”

I laughed as I rose to join him at the sink. “Deal,” I said, not telling him that I might not fare much better. I’d been taught High German in school, and we always read from a High German Bible as part of our worship services, but I wasn’t so hot at speaking the language myself. We said nothing more as we rinsed our dishes and put them in the dishwasher, a wordless and ordinary action shared by ordinary siblings everywhere.

It was late, but we were both still pretty wired from the video game, so before we headed off to bed for the night, I took a chance and asked Brady if he would mind helping me with something out in the garage.

He groaned, but not in a hurtful way, just in the way every fourteen-year-old who hated extra work might groan. “Not the container garden boxes again.”

“No, not those. It’s something else.”

I led the way to the garage, flipped on the light, and then picked up the skateboard from where I had propped it against the wall. I handed it to him.

“You know anything about these things?” I asked.

“About skateboards?”

“Yeah. You’re a California kid. Ever use one before?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“Perfect. Then maybe you can take a look at this one and tell me what’s wrong with it.”

He looked at me. “Is this a joke? Or a trick?”

“Not at all. I’m trying to fix it for someone…it’s a long story. But I’m so clueless that I don’t even know why it needs fixing. I was hoping you might tell me what’s wrong with it.”

I thought he would ask for more details than that, but instead he just hit the button to open the first garage door and set it down on the ground in front of him. “If you say so.”

With that, he placed one foot on the board and pushed off with the other, squatting to sail under the still-opening door and down the slope of the driveway beyond.

Smiling, I moved forward out into the driveway myself to watch. Brady had so awed me at the football game, I half expected him to take off down the street doing loops and flips and pipes or whatever they called those crazy stunts skateboarders did. Instead, he just took it up and down the sidewalk in front of the house a couple of times, shifting his weight and the placement of his feet here and there, hopping off and then back on, and weaving left and then right. Finally, he rolled back over to where I was standing, hopped off the board, and kicked down the tip of it with his foot. As he did, the other side flipped upward and he caught it.

“The problem is with the pivot cup,” he said, handing me the skateboard. “Did you see how it keeps veering to the side after I jump off? That can be bad news when you’re doing certain tricks, like a pop shove it or a kick flip.”

He tried to explain what each of those tricks involved, speaking animatedly and demonstrating with his hands.

“So you think the pivot cup is broken,” I reiterated when he was done.

“Probably not broken, more likely it’s just too tight and needs loosening up.”

As we walked back into the garage together, he went on to explain how I might go about doing that. It sounded simple enough, especially as it would require nothing more than sandpaper, a cloth, and some oil. I would have to take apart the whole front wheel assembly first, but that didn’t look too difficult. If I could dismantle and reassemble an entire buggy, piece by piece, then surely I could handle a couple of wheels and a single slab of wood covered in polyurethane.

“If you get in there and see that the pivot cup actually
is
broken,” he continued, “it’s not a hard fix, and a new one will only run you a couple of bucks. But let me know how it goes either way, because there’s always a chance I’m wrong and it’s a problem with the kingpin nut assembly instead, or maybe a bent hanger. Those get a little more expensive to replace, probably somewhere around twenty bucks.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep you posted.”

“No prob, bro.”

I stifled a smile as I the carried the skateboard over to its place against the wall. Even though I knew “bro” could be a slang term used with anyone, I chose to believe that in this case he really did mean
brother.

Brady pressed the button to close the garage door again, then together we went inside, shut things down, and headed upstairs.

“You know, Brady, if this NFL thing doesn’t pan out, it seems as if you’re pretty mechanical,” I joked as we reached the top. “I could always put in a good word for you at the buggy shop.”

“Or maybe we could ditch the buggies and the NFL. That backpacking Europe thing is sounding better all the time.”

We shared a smile, and our parting “Good night” was by far the most amiable of this entire trip. As I moved into my bedroom and closed the door behind me, I knew I had not fixed anything between us, but I had begun the careful work of regaining Brady’s trust. And I was sure I had stumbled on an insight I needed to pay attention to.

Brady was restless. Just like me.

The next day, Monday, right after morning devotions, I calculated the time difference back home and decided to call the buggy shop.

Daadi
answered. It was so good to hear his voice. I was overcome with how comfortable it felt to speak the everyday language of my childhood.

He asked me how I was, and I spent the first few minutes of our conversation telling him about the container gardens I was building for my stepmother, the sushi I had tried, and the worship service I had attended, leaving out spending the afternoon on Balboa Island with Lark and her camera. I did however, tell him about the trouble I was having with Brady. I knew
Daadi
would pray for me about this.

He then asked if God had revealed anything to me about what had brought me to Southern California in the first place. It felt good to tell him about the tender words I had sensed God speaking to me the day before, especially as I was now keenly aware that my motivations for coming had been centered too much on me alone. I didn’t tell him that I also believed I was in California to understand why my mother left Lancaster County. Whatever I discovered about that I would share with
Daadi
and
Mammi
in person, regardless of where my destiny lay.

As much as talking to my grandfather had comforted me, it had conversely troubled him. He sounded concerned for me, afraid perhaps that everything was about to change.

I didn’t want to think about that right now. “I missed Rachel’s call on Saturday,” I said quickly. “Do you know when you might see her again? I really did want to talk to her.”

“She told Thom she would try again Wednesday. In the late afternoon here. Will that work for you?”

I assured him I would make it work. Lark and I would be going out in the morning for another photography session, but I would be home before one o’clock. I told him Rachel could call the landline at the house at four their time, and I would be sure not to miss it.

Before I hung up, I said hello to a few of my cousins and uncles, which quickly reminded me how much I wished Jake was still at the buggy shop so that I could talk to him too.

I missed my family back home. Hearing their voices reminded me just how much.

T
WENTY
-T
WO

A
fter my phone call with
Daadi
, there was still some time left before Brady would go to school, so I headed into the garage in the hopes I could fix the skateboard and get him to test it out for me. Sure enough, it ended up being a simple repair, and my brother’s quick test run resulted in a solid thumbs-up.

Once he was gone, I took the board back inside and spent another fifteen minutes or so with a rag and some spray cleaner, just shining it up and making it look nice. I propped it back in the corner after I was finished, thinking it might be best to deliver it to the boy’s house in the afternoon, shortly before he got home from school. I would just leave it on the front porch with a note that it was all fixed.

During the rest of the morning and early afternoon, I worked diligently on the containers. Around one thirty I applied the last coat of sealant and then downed a quick ham and cheese sandwich. As the sealant dried, I took Frisco for a walk, skateboard in hand. We headed straight up the street to the little boy’s house and paused there, Frisco happily sniffing at a terra-cotta planter filled with succulents while I propped the gleaming board on the porch next to the front door. It really did look good now, and the Post-it Note I had stuck on the front seemed just right:

All fixed. I hope you enjoy it.

A neighbor.

When I returned to the house, I headed out to the south side to ready the ground for the placement of the containers.

I lost track of time as I scraped at the hard, unrelenting earth. Southern California’s blond, rock-hard dirt was nothing like Pennsylvania’s rich and giving soil. It took a long while to break down the groundcover and level it. I was hard at work when Brady appeared at my side. I hadn’t even heard him come into the backyard.

“Looks different back here,” he said.

I wiped my sweaty forehead. “In a good way, I hope.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

I stood and surveyed the newly prepared area. “I think I’m ready to bring out the boxes. Want to give me a hand?”