The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (39 page)

“Brady!”

He spun around, eyes blazing. “What?”

“Talk to me!”

“Fine.” He stepped forward, his neck suddenly bulging and red with rage. “You want to know the truth? You want to know what I’m so mad about?”

“Yes. Please.”

His eyes narrowed, and as I peered into them I realized that there was something else behind the anger. Pain. Hurt.

“All these years,” he said in a voice low but strained, “my whole life, I thought Dad abandoned you in Pennsylvania, that he just went off and left you with your grandparents. For years I’ve blamed him that I never had a brother growing up because I thought it was his fault.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, hoping the calm in my voice would calm him down as well. I bore my father no ill will for what had happened. I wanted him to sense that.

“Don’t you get it, man? I’ve been blaming
Dad
. For years. Until I learned the truth.”

“The truth?”

“That
you
were the one, not him.
You
decided to stay. He asked you to come with him and Mom, but you said no. It’s
your
fault I grew up without a big brother around,
your
fault I’m practically an only child.”

With that, he turned and left the room. I just stood there, the full force of his words falling onto me like a crushing weight.

I had done to my dad—and by default to my brother—what my dad had done to me. I had relinquished him. Walked away from him.

I wanted to call after Brady now, to say something, but no words would come.

Clarity pummeled me. It all made sense. All of it.

In all of these years, I’d never once considered how the choice I’d made at the age of eleven affected my family—my father and my brother and even my stepmother. But I realized now that the hurt had gone both ways.

They hadn’t just abandoned me. I had rejected them.

T
WENTY
-E
IGHT

O
h, Tyler, I’m so sorry,” Liz whispered from the couch.

I turned to her, still stunned and nearly speechless

My mind raced as I tried to decide what to do next. Go after my brother? Give him a chance to cool off first?

“Why don’t you just sit down here for a minute,” she said, as if reading my mind. I met her eyes and saw that they were shimmering with tears for her son and maybe for me too.

After a moment’s hesitation, I did as she asked, taking a seat beside her on the couch.

“I’m sure Brady hasn’t stopped to realize you were just a child back then.”

I shook my head. “No, Liz, in a way he’s right. I did make a choice. And that choice affected him. I just never realized it until now.”

Fresh tears filled her eyes, and she dug a tissue from her pocket, dabbed at her cheeks, and blew her nose. We were both quiet for a moment.

“I think I know where all of this is coming from,” she said finally, her expression growing distant. “A few weeks ago, the day after your dad called you and asked you to come, he and Brady had a big fight. Brady accused Duke of having abandoned you with your grandparents all those years and robbing him of having a brother to grow up with. And your dad, he lost his temper and…” Liz stopped as another tear slid down her cheek. She dabbed at her face. “He told Brady it was
you
who decided to stay. When you were eleven and we finally came for you, you didn’t want to come with us.”

I pictured the impact his words must have had. The moment Dad told him I’d chosen not to come, Brady’s hurt and anger must have jumped from our father to me.

“Duke wasn’t trying to throw you under the bus, Tyler, please don’t think that,” Liz said. “He didn’t mean to deflect the blame or to drive a wedge between you and your brother. He was just trying to get Brady to understand that the situation back then hadn’t been so cut and dried. It was more…complicated than that. For all of us.”

I swallowed hard, feeling in the midst of my dismay a strong sense of relief as well. At least I knew now what was wrong, what had happened to make Brady’s behavior toward me change so drastically.

Which meant I could set things to right at last.

“Should I go up there and apologize?” I asked. “That’s what I’d like to do, but I’m not sure if this is the best time.”

She shook her head. “Give him some space. Now that he’s gotten that off his chest, I think he might need to settle down. Catch his breath. Maybe understand that what he’s feeling isn’t so much anger as it is hurt.”

I nodded. “I can’t believe I never thought about this before. Of course he’s hurt. I would be too if I were him.”

Then I realized that at the very least I could apologize to her. After all, I had unknowingly rejected her as my stepmother as well. I had not meant to communicate rejection—the Lord knows I was only eleven years old—but I had. I was too young to see it then and apparently had been blinded to it as I grew. I might have picked up on it later, except Dad never mentioned that day again. And neither had Liz. I grew up thinking I was the only one who had something to gain or lose that day.

“I’m sorry, Liz, if my decision hurt you too.”

She held up a hand, palm out, as if to deflect my words. “Like I said, you were just a child. I would never hold you accountable for that choice. No way. I’ll try talking to him first.” Liz dug in her pocket for another tissue.

“Thanks,” I said. Then I told her I’d be back later, that I needed to clear my head as well.

Still in a daze, I went to the garage, took the bike and helmet from the rack, and headed off into the hazy afternoon sunshine for a long ride, hoping it might help me to sort things out.

It didn’t. By the time I returned, Brady was gone, off to spend the night at a friend’s house. Liz told me she’d tried talking to him a bit, tried to explain more about the situation and why he shouldn’t blame me for all that had happened back then.

“But to be honest,” she added, “I don’t think I got through to him. Maybe he’ll think on it some more while he’s gone. You never know.”

I thanked her and headed upstairs. In my room, I took out pen and paper and wrote a long letter to Rachel, finally shedding a few tears of my own. It seemed that in a single day I had managed to alienate two of the most important people in my life. For now, all that was left to do was attempt to mend these fences and to pray.

And so pray I did, on my knees at the side of the bed, for more than an hour. During that time, I slowly came to understand something important, that the Lord was not nearly as concerned with where I lived my life, but how I lived it. I had chosen once before, as a child. And I was choosing again now, as an adult. I told God I wanted to spend my life in Lancaster County as a member of the Amish church, married to Rachel, and living in simplicity, surrender, and service to my community and Him. This was my decision to make, but I also felt strongly that it was God’s will for my life.

When my prayer time was done, I grabbed pen and paper, climbed onto the bed, and wrote out three very important letters.

The first one was for the bishop, telling him I had heard my answer from God and that I was ready for the membership class and to take my vows.

The second was for
Daadi
and
Mammi
, telling them the same thing but in more detail, explaining the highlights of the spiritual journey I had been on. At the end, I also thanked them for raising me, and for being so wonderful and loving and wise.

The third was for Rachel, and it was by far the hardest one to write. After several false starts and crumpled pages, I finally ended up penning just a few quick sentences, telling her I would be getting home a little earlier than expected and would like the opportunity to see her and talk with her as soon as possible after that. I didn’t know if she would even give me the time of day once I showed up at her door, but my hope was that if I asked her via letter, in advance, she might at least be willing to consider it.

After that, I felt much more at peace. In fact, despite the tension I was now experiencing in virtually all my human relationships, I had never been so connected to God. It was as if I’d been in a darkened room, trying to find my way, and with this decision finally made, a door had been thrown open, spilling light into every corner at last.

Brady didn’t come back from his friend’s house until late Sunday night, acting distant and aloof. Before he disappeared into his room for the night, I asked if we could talk.

“I have homework,” he replied, and then he closed the door in my face.

The next few days were the most difficult I had ever known. I busied myself with little details on my dad’s car, buffing out rust on the chrome, finishing the repairs to the upholstery inside, and cleaning out the trunk. But not since I was six, alone in an unfamiliar place and missing my mother so bad I could barely breathe, had I felt so disconnected from the people I loved. Rachel, Jake, and my grandparents seemed a million miles away; Dad was still in the Middle East; and Brady outdistanced them all. Liz, the one person who had always kept me at arm’s length, was now my closest human connection. She offered me sympathetic nods and a kind word here and there, but she and I were both painfully aware that the long-buried emotions from the day they asked if I wanted to come live with them, and I’d said no, were out in the open.

She also felt bad for how Brady continued to treat me.

Liz had received an email with Dad’s flight information, and he would be arriving at LAX early Wednesday afternoon, so I freely gave Brady the space he seemed to need all the way until Tuesday evening. I really didn’t want Dad walking into this powder keg of a relationship, especially because it had been his words that had kicked things off in the first place. Liz had spoken to him at length on the phone after the fight, and I felt sure he was already beating himself up about it enough as it was.

I managed to corner Brady that night, just as he was turning off the TV to head upstairs to bed. Liz had turned in early, and I’d been in Dad’s office for a while, reading through the rest of my mother’s book on Germany. The moment I heard the TV go silent, I set the book aside and leapt up from my chair, heading straight for the living room. Fortunately for me, Brady had paused at the kitchen table to gather up the papers and books from where he’d been studying earlier. I seized the moment and went to the stairs, standing in place at the bottom. As soon as he zipped up his backpack, set it by the door, and headed my way, I spoke.

“Dad gets home tomorrow, and I think we need to settle this tonight. As men. As brothers.” Startled, he hesitated. Then he crossed his arms over his chest, mouth shut tight, as he waited for me to say what I wanted to say.

Speaking softly so as not to wake Liz, I told my little brother how very sorry I was for not understanding the impact my decision from twelve years ago had had on him. I tried to describe that whole situation from my point of view, reminding him that I’d only been eleven years old at the time. But I didn’t want to sound like I was making excuses, so I ended my plea by telling him, “Young or not, confused or not, the bottom line is that I rejected a life with my little brother. No wonder you’ve been feeling hurt and angry with me. I promise you, the greater loss was mine.”

He nodded, his arms relaxing a bit but his expression still distant.

“Okay,” he said finally, but from the tone of his voice I realized that it wasn’t an apology he wanted. What he wanted, I felt sure, was to understand how I could have chosen the Amish life over a life with him and our father and his mother. He just really needed to get it—especially as I was about to make that same decision again, this time for good. But before I could help him, I realized with a start, I needed a few answers myself from our father.

I stepped aside and wished him a good night. He took the stairs two at a time.

This wasn’t over.

On Wednesday morning I got up well before dawn to pray and ask God’s favor on my remaining few days in Newport Beach. I didn’t want to return to Lancaster County with unfinished business between my dad and my brother and me. It was clear to me now that this was the prime reason God had orchestrated that I come here. My decision to join the Amish church would affect my
Englisch
family, but it didn’t have to affect them negatively. I had already come up with a few ideas on how to ensure that it didn’t, but I had to deal with the unresolved issues of the past before charting a plan for the future.