The Forgiven Read online

  “Katie, don’t call your brother stupid.” Rebecca managed the easier part of the correction first. She knelt in front of her son, feeling the worn linoleum under her knees as she prayed for the right words. “Joshua, you must understand that Daadi loves you always, but he can’t come back.”

  “But I saw him, Mammi. I saw him right there in the new stable and—”

  “No, Josh.” She had to stop this notion now, no matter how it pained both of them. “I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t Daadi.”

  His small face clouded, his mouth drooping. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Her heart hurt as she spoke the words, but they had to be said. Paul was gone forever, and they must continue without him.

  “Go and see, Mammi.” Josh pressed small hands on her cheeks, holding her face to ensure she paid attention. “Please go look in the stable.”

  Obviously, it was the only thing that would satisfy him. “All right. I’ll go and look. While I do that, you two wash up for supper.”

  Josh nodded solemnly. Rebecca rose, giving her daughter a warning look.

  “No more talking about this until I come back. You understand?”

  Katie looked as if she’d like to argue, but she nodded as well.

  Pausing to see them headed for the sink without further squabbling, Rebecca slipped out the back door.

  A quick glance told her there was no further activity at the main barn now. Probably her daad and brother had finished and headed home for their own supper.

  It wasn’t far across the field to the farmhouse where she’d grown up. That field would be planted with corn before too long. Daad had mentioned it only yesterday, and she’d thought how strange it seemed that Paul wasn’t here to make the decision.

  Turning in the opposite direction, Rebecca skirted the vegetable garden. Her early onions were already up. In a few weeks the danger of frost would be over, and she could finish the planting.

  Beyond the garden stood the posts from which the farm-stay welcome sign should hang. If she was going to open to visitors this summer, she’d have to put it up soon. If. She had to fight back panic at the thought of dealing with guests without Paul’s support.

  The farm-stay had been Paul’s dream. He’d enjoyed every minute of their first season—chatting with the guests, showing them how to milk the cows or enlisting their help in cutting hay. It had seemed strange to Rebecca that Englischers would actually pay for the privilege of working on the farm, but it had been so.

  She’d been content to stay in the background, cooking big breakfasts, keeping the bedrooms clean, doing all the things she’d be doing anyway if the strangers hadn’t been staying with them.

  Last summer she’d been too devastated by his death to think of opening, but now . . . Well, now what was she to do? Would Paul expect her to go on with having guests? She didn’t know, because she’d never imagined life without him.

  The stable loomed ahead of her, still seeming raw and new even though it had been up for more than a year. They’d gone ahead with the building even after Paul’s diagnosis, as a sign that they had faith he would be well again.

  But he hadn’t been. He’d grown weaker and weaker, and eventually she had learned to hate the sight of the stable that had been intended for the purebred draft horses Paul had wanted to breed. She never went near the structure if she could help it.

  Now she had to steel herself to swing open one side of the extra-large double doors. She stepped inside, taking a cautious look around. Dust motes danced in a shaft of sunlight, but otherwise it was silent and empty. The interior seemed to echo of broken dreams.

  Sucking in a breath, Rebecca forced herself to walk all the way to the back wall, her footsteps hollow on the solid wooden floorboards. No one was here. Joshua’s longing for his daadi had led him to imagine what he hoped for.

  A board creaked behind her and Rebecca whirled, heart leaping into her throat.

  A man stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light so that she couldn’t make out his face. But Amish, judging by his clothes and straw hat, so not a stranger. The man took a step forward, and she could see him.

  For a long moment they simply stared at each other. Her brain seemed to be moving sluggishly, taking note of him. Tall, broad-shouldered, with golden-brown hair and eyes. He didn’t have a beard, so she could see the cleft in his chin, and the sight stirred vague memories. She knew him, and yet she didn’t. It wasn’t—

  “Matt? Matthew Byler?”

  A flicker of a smile crossed his face. “Got it right. And you’re little Becky Lapp, ain’t so?”

  “Rebecca Fisher,” she corrected quickly. So Matt Byler had returned home to Brook Hill at last. Nothing had been seen of him among the central Pennsylvania Amish since his family migrated out west when he was a teenager.

  Matt came a step closer, making her aware of the height and breadth of him. He’d grown quite a lot from the gangling boy he’d been when he left. “You married Paul Fisher, then. You two were holding hands when you were eight or nine, the way I remember it.”

  “And you were . . .” She let that trail off. Matt had been a couple of years older than they were, and he’d been the kind of boy Amish parents held up as a bad example—always in trouble, always pushing the boundaries of what it meant to be Amish.

  Now Matt’s smile lit his eyes, and a vagrant shaft of sunlight made them look almost gold. “You remember me. The troublemaker.”

  “I . . . I wasn’t thinking that,” she said. But of course she had been. It was the first thing anyone thought in connection with Matt Byler. “Are you here for a visit?”

  Matt didn’t have a beard, so obviously he hadn’t married. That was more than unusual for an Amish male of thirty.

  Surely his unmarried state wasn’t for lack of chances. A prudent set of parents might look warily at Matt as a prospective son-in-law, but the girls had always been charmed by his teasing smile.

  “My uncle needs some help with the carpentry business, and he asked me to give him a hand.”

  Everyone knew that Silas Byler had been struggling to keep his business going since his eldest son had so unexpectedly left the community. How strange life was that Isaiah, who’d never caused his parents a moment’s worry, should be the one to leave the Amish while bad boy Matthew returned to take his place.

  “I’m sorry about Isaiah. It was a heavy blow to your aunt and uncle, ain’t so?”

  Matt nodded with a wry twist to his mouth. “Funny, isn’t it? Everyone was so sure I was the one headed over the fence.”

  It was an echo of what she’d been thinking. “You did a pretty good job of making folks think so, the way I remember it,” she said.

  “Ouch.” Matt’s teasing grin appeared. “You’ve developed a sharp tongue, I see.”

  “I’ve just grown up. I have two kinder of my own now.” Rebecca hesitated, but she couldn’t help but resent what he’d made Josh imagine, however inadvertently. “My little boy, Joshua, must have seen you here at the stable. He thought it was his daadi.”

  Matt’s face sobered in an instant. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. Truly sorry. My uncle told me about Paul. You have my sympathy.”

  “Denke.” Too abrupt, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “Was there something you wanted here, Matt?”

  He looked a little taken aback by the blunt question, but answered readily enough. “I’m looking for a building I can use for my furniture business. Onkel Silas told me about the stable and how Paul was going to . . .” He let that trail off. “Anyway, he said you weren’t using the stable and might be willing to lease it to me.”

  Everything in Rebecca recoiled at the thought of putting another person’s business in Paul’s stable. “No.” Her tone was sharper than she intended. “I’m sorry. It’s not available.”

  Matt’s eyebrows lifted. “It’s standing empty
. I can pay you five hundred a month for the space.”

  “It’s not available,” she said again, annoyed at him for putting her in this position and unable to keep from thinking about what she could do with an extra five hundred dollars a month.

  Matt studied her face, his eyes intent and questioning. “You don’t like the idea of turning Paul’s stable over to someone else. I can understand that. But you have two little ones to raise. Can you afford to have it sitting empty when it could be earning money for Paul’s kinder?”

  The fact that Matt was probably right didn’t make Rebecca feel any more kindly toward him. “I don’t think that’s your concern.”

  “Maybe not. But it is yours, Rebecca.” He held her gaze for a moment longer, and she felt as if he was looking right into all her grief and uncertainty. Then he took a step back. “I wouldn’t do any harm to the place, Rebecca. Think about it.”

  Matt turned and walked away. He was silhouetted in the doorway for a moment, and then he was gone, leaving Rebecca unsettled and upset.

  • • •

  Matthew’s somber mood stayed with him as he headed back to his uncle’s place. The road was obviously familiar to the buggy horse, probably more so than to him. It had been thirteen years since he’d left Brook Hill.

  Not all that much had changed, from what he could see—things didn’t, not in this quiet part of central Pennsylvania. The Amish of Lancaster County referred to this area as the valleys, and small groups had begun moving here as early as the sixties, propelled by the increasing cost of farmland back in the Lancaster community.

  Matt hadn’t expected it to be easy, coming back to the place where he was born, but he hadn’t expected a challenge from so unlikely a source as little Becky Lapp. Rebecca Fisher, he corrected himself, clucking to the mare when her pace slowed.

  It was hardly surprising that Becky had married Paul Fisher, was it? Matt found he was smiling to himself, remembering a small girl racing after a slightly taller boy, her apron fluttering.

  Rebecca wasn’t a child any longer. Her hair, once the color of corn silk, had become a light brown, but her sea-green eyes still surveyed a person with quiet gravity. Her oval face contained more than a hint of the loss she’d experienced. Her eyes were shadowed with remembered grief, and she’d held her shoulders stiffly, as if reminding herself to face up to whatever might be coming next.

  He frowned. Why hadn’t she accepted his offer? It would make things so simple, and Onkel Silas seemed convinced Rebecca needed the money.

  Had she refused because she couldn’t bear to see another use made of the stable than had been intended for Paul’s dreams? Or was it because the offer had come from Matthew Byler, the troublemaker, the unreliable person who shouldn’t be trusted?

  Self-pity wasn’t very admirable, he told himself with a flash of wry humor. No matter how enjoyable it might be.

  The fact that Rebecca had turned him down might mean nothing more than that his timing was bad. He’d give her a day or two to think it over before he started scouting around for another place. Luckily he’d managed to squirrel away a nice little nest egg while he’d been living in the Englisch world, no matter how many other mistakes he’d made. His stomach tightened at the memory of the worst of them, and he forced himself to shake off the unpleasant thought.

  The valley narrowed as he headed northeast, the parallel ridges rising more abruptly from the creek bed. Onkel Silas’s place backed up to the woods, with enough space for a bit of pasture for buggy horses and a couple of dairy cows, a large garden, and the carpentry shop that was his livelihood. The mare turned into the lane without prompting, her pace quickening as she sensed the barn ahead.

  Matt pulled her up and slid down from the buggy seat. As he began to unhitch the mare, his cousin Sadie stepped from the shadow of the barn into the sunlight, blue eyes narrowing in her now-familiar expression of dislike.

  “About time you were getting back here, Matthew. Where have you been?”

  Matt continued to move steadily, sliding the harness from the horse’s back. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that maybe his cousin’s sharp tongue had something to do with the fact that at nineteen, she still didn’t have a come-calling friend.

  “Well? I thought you were here to help Daad, not to give extra work to everyone.”

  Matt forced himself to count to ten before answering. “Had to help with the milking, did you, Sadie?” He kept his voice light. Doing the milking was hardly a big deal—Onkel Silas kept only two milk cows, not having the land or time for more.

  “That’s not what upsets me,” she snapped. “Daad is depending on you.”

  His cousin couldn’t know how that stung. He looked at her evenly. “Onkel Silas suggested I run over to Rebecca Fisher’s place to see about renting her stable for my furniture workshop.”

  He led the mare past Sadie into the barn, forcing her to take a step back. It was too much to hope his cousin would let go of her grievance, but he’d settle for ending this conversation.

  “You shouldn’t be thinking about that furniture-making of yours. Since Isaiah left . . .” Her voice trembled suddenly, and she let the words trail off.

  That betraying emotion wrenched Matt’s heart. “I’m sorry.” He took a breath, trying to come up with something that might make a difference to Sadie. “Onkel Silas asked me to fill in until Isaiah comes home. That’s all.”

  A good thing. He didn’t want anyone asking for a commitment he might not keep. That kind of promise went too close to the bone for him.

  “If he comes back.” She voiced what everyone feared. “And helping out is the least you can do after nearly killing Isaiah.”

  For a moment all Matt could do was stare at his cousin. So. That was what she was thinking—maybe what they were all thinking. He would never be free of that old mistake.

  “Sadie, you forget yourself.” Onkel Silas stood in the barn doorway. His face was shadowed by his straw hat, but no one could miss the disapproval in his voice. “You are unkind, and I am ashamed of you.”

  “I’m sorry, Daadi.” Sadie’s lips trembled, and she looked younger than her years.

  “It’s Matthew you must tell, not me. What happened to Isaiah all those years ago has been forgiven.”

  “Isaiah?” The female voice startled Matt. His aunt Lovina seldom came to the barn, and she sounded . . .

  He couldn’t finish the thought, because she was rushing toward him, her face alive with joy. “Isaiah. You’re home.”

  He took her hands in his, holding them firmly when she tried to embrace him. “No, Aunt Lovina. It’s Matthew. You remember me, don’t you?”

  The joy faded from her face, replaced by the lost look that seemed to be there too often these days.

  His throat tightened. He hadn’t been prepared for the changes in his uncle’s wife when he’d returned, and it still had the capacity to pain him. He managed to find his voice. “Komm. I’ll walk to the house with you.”

  “I’ll do it.” Sadie pushed past him to put her arm around her mother’s waist. “We’ll get supper on the table, ain’t so?” Her voice gentled when she spoke to her mother. “The pot roast is about done.”

  Aunt Lovina nodded, moving obediently with Sadie, as if she were the child and Sadie the mother.

  Matt watched them go, careful not to look at his uncle’s face. Poor Onkel Silas. Surely nobody who knew her had expected a woman like Lovina, still healthy and energetic, to have her memory slipping away day by day.

  Isaiah should be here. Matt felt a moment’s intense irritation at his missing cousin, despite the fact that Isaiah was only repeating the pattern that he himself had started.

  Matt didn’t suppose Onkel Silas blamed him for Isaiah’s defection, but judging by the look Sadie had given him as she walked away, she probably did.

  And for all he knew, maybe that blame was ju
stified.

  • • •

  “If you ask me, we should just get rid of everything.” Rebecca’s young cousin Barbie glanced around the crowded attic of Grossmammi Lapp’s old farmhouse.

  “Barbie Lapp, don’t you say such a thing.”

  Realizing how sharp her tone was, Rebecca took a deep breath and sought for calm. She’d been ridiculously tense since her encounter with Matt Byler the previous day, and she certainly shouldn’t take it out on other people. “We three promised Grossmammi we’d sort out the attic as she wants, and we will, ain’t so?”

  She looked for confirmation at her other cousin, Judith Wagler. Judith was thirty now, married and responsible. Barbie, on the other hand, showed no signs of wanting to settle down, even though she was in her early twenties already.

  Too busy having a good time? Or was she flirting with the idea of jumping the fence? Rebecca would hate to think so.

  “I’m sure Barbie didn’t mean it,” Judith said, with the air of one used to being the peacemaker. “We all love Grossmammi. Of course we’ll do as she wishes.”

  Barbie’s bright blue eyes flashed, and she planted her hands on her hips as if prepared to quarrel. Then, meeting Judith’s warning glance, she shrugged. “Ja, all right. But I still don’t understand why Grossmammi would think I’d be interested in our old family stories.”

  Since Rebecca didn’t understand it, either, she decided not to comment. She couldn’t help nursing a small feeling of disappointment. She was the one who’d always been fascinated by Grossmammi’s stories of the generations of Amish women who’d gone before them. She was the one who’d cherished the family treasures stored in Grossmammi’s attic. She was surely the logical one to become the keeper of their family’s story, now that Grossmammi was selling the family homestead and moving in with Rebecca’s parents.

  Judith, as if guessing her thoughts, clasped Rebecca’s hand briefly, brown eyes soft with sympathy. “Grossmammi knows how much you have to deal with now that your Paul is gone. Barbie and I are here to help. Just tell us what to do.”