The Forgiven Read online

  There was a time when Matt would have responded to those words by seizing Simon by the scruff of the neck and tossing him out the door. Those days were gone. They had to be if he expected to stay in this community.

  “Is that all?” Let Simon try to figure out whether that was sarcasm or not. “Because if so, I need to get back to work.”

  He turned to the workbench again, reaching for the spindle.

  He felt Simon behind him and imagined he sensed a certain bafflement in the air. Simon, he suspected, didn’t know quite what to make of his reaction. The question was, how far did Simon want to push him?

  Heavy shoes scraped on the floor. Simon’s body blocked the light from the door again for a moment, and then he was gone.

  Matt unclenched his fists, one finger at a time. He’d been so intent on getting Rebecca’s approval for his plan that he hadn’t stopped to consider how anyone else might react to his presence on her property. Maybe he should have.

  And maybe he should reassess the likelihood that he was going to keep the promises he’d made when he returned to the Amish, especially here in Brook Hill. He’d thought this would be a good place to test his resolve, back where he had started. Maybe he’d underestimated the power of people here to set his rebellious temper flaring all over again.

  • • •

  Sometimes Rebecca thought that the more they sorted in her grandmother’s attic, the more things they discovered. That was impossible, of course, but certainly the job was taking longer than they’d anticipated, and today only she and Barbie were working, since Judith’s youngest was down with a fever.

  Rebecca couldn’t help murmuring a quick, motherly prayer that her own kinder would be spared. Spring colds seemed to go on and on, just at a time when the young ones most wanted to be outside.

  Rebecca lifted a box filled with old sheets, revealing yet another dower chest beneath it. She bent, looking more closely at the front, and traced the faded paint with her fingertip.

  “Barbie, komm see this.”

  “Another chest?” Barbie frowned, her arms filled with a quilt she’d just unearthed. “What’s so special about that? The attic is full of them.”

  “But look at the date on this one.” She knelt to get a better angle, peering at the inscription on the front. Two birds faced each other from matching apple trees, and between them she could just make out the lettering.

  “Martha Esch, June 1856,” she read. “Can you imagine? I wonder if it’s been here in the attic that long?”

  “It couldn’t be.” Barbie, her attention apparently caught, came and knelt beside her. “The Leit haven’t been here in Brook Hill that long.”

  “No, of course not.” Rebecca was forgetting her history. “This must have been made when the family was still in Lancaster County. Amazing, that it’s in such fine shape.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Barbie ran her hand over the smooth grain of the top, blue eyes sparkling. “You know what? This is a genuine antique. I’ll bet we could get a lot of money for it from one of those dealers in town.”

  “Money?” Rebecca let her outrage show in her face. “Barbie, that’s a terrible thing to say. This is a piece of your family’s history.”

  Rebellion flared in those blue eyes. “Family history. Is that all you can think of—stuff that’s old and dead? I’d rather concentrate on the here and now. And on the future.”

  Rebecca sat back on her heels, looking at her cousin. Barbie’s pert face, with its fresh color and rosy lips, was filled with a mix of impatience and eagerness, and Rebecca had a sense that there was more going on in her cousin’s busy mind than sorting her grandmother’s attic.

  “Your future?” she asked, not sure she really wanted to encourage Barbie’s confidences. It seemed an eternity since she’d been so young and eager.

  “Maybe.”

  For a moment Rebecca thought Barbie wouldn’t say any more, and then the words seemed to burst out of her as if she couldn’t hold them back.

  “Don’t you know what it is to be bored to death with the same old thing?” Barbie’s hands fluttered, as if trying to express something she wasn’t sure how to say. “Sometimes I feel so restless I think I’m going to burst right out of my skin. I want to go places, do things. I want to see what’s on the other side of the ridge. Didn’t you ever feel that way?”

  Rebecca wanted to empathize, but she couldn’t lie to her cousin. “No, I never did. I always knew that what I wanted was right here—marrying Paul, having his children, being together always.”

  “I can’t imagine feeling like that about anyone.” Barbie’s gaze rested on her face, questioning. “But your dream didn’t work out the way you thought it would.”

  Rebecca winced. “No.”

  “I’m sorry.” Barbie’s expression changed, quick as a hummingbird darting from one flower to another. “I didn’t mean to be unkind. I just feel so trapped sometimes.”

  Feeling inadequate was becoming a habit with her, Rebecca decided. But what on earth was she to say to Barbie? Presumably she’d confided in Rebecca because she wanted understanding or advice. Rebecca felt ill-equipped to offer either.

  “Maybe you need to get away for a bit,” she suggested. “Take a trip to Ohio, for instance, to visit the relatives out there.”

  Barbie’s snub nose wrinkled at that idea. “Are you kidding? The church is even stricter out there than it is here.”

  “There are good reasons for all the church’s decisions, Barbie. They’re meant to keep us separate and humble, the way the Bible teaches, ain’t so?”

  Barbie didn’t look in any mood to appreciate the reasons behind the church’s rulings. “I know, I know. Be humble, be patient, accept what happens as God’s will. Honestly, sometimes I just want to smash something when people say that. Don’t you?”

  How could Rebecca deny it, with the realization of her anger against God for Paul’s death still fresh in her mind? But she could hardly tell her young cousin so. What if Barbara cut loose and did something drastic, and it was her fault?

  “Barbie, don’t.” She touched her cousin’s hand. “You don’t really mean that.”

  Barbie gave her a pitying look. “I suppose you’re past feeling the way I do.” She made it sound as if Rebecca were a hundred and two, with all her passion burned to ashes.

  Well, maybe that was true. Certainly she felt that way sometimes. But what was she going to say to Barbie?

  Fortunately for her, since she couldn’t think of a thing, Grossmammi called up the stairs.

  “It’s time you girls had a break. I have lemonade and cookies on the table for you.”

  Barbie stood with her characteristic quick grace. Rebecca got up as well, shaking out her skirt, wrinkled from kneeling. Relief was her predominant emotion, but she couldn’t let Barbie’s comments go so easily.

  “Why don’t you talk to Grossmammi about how you feel? She wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  But Barbie dismissed that with a quick shrug of her shoulders. “It’s nothing. Forget it.” She darted down the steep, narrow stairs before Rebecca could urge her.

  Rebecca followed more slowly, her own concerns temporarily eclipsed by her apprehension over her cousin. Barbie was so impulsive—quick to act and quick to anger—but she had a warm heart. Rebecca felt sure of it. Still, that might not keep her from making a mistake she couldn’t easily mend.

  By the time Rebecca reached the kitchen, Grossmammi and Barbie were already sitting at the table, a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of oatmeal cookies between them.

  “You must have dropped this when you came in.” Her grandmother pushed an envelope across the table to Rebecca.

  Rebecca looked at it blankly for an instant before remembering. “Ach, I took yesterday’s mail from the box when I came past and then forgot all about it.”

  “Go ahead and open it.” Grossmammi
poured a glass of lemonade for her, and Barbie pushed the cookie plate closer.

  Barbie bit into a cookie. “Yum.” She seemed to have recovered her equilibrium already. There was no hint in her face of the girl who’d spoken so passionately of being trapped. Clearly she had no intention of speaking to their grandmother about her feelings.

  Trying to dismiss the sense that she ought to have been of more help, Rebecca turned the envelope over in her hand. Usually she walked out to get the mail before going to meet Katie when she came home from school, but she’d completely forgotten it yesterday.

  She stared at the return address sticker. Mr. and Mrs. Roy Strickland. Memory struggled back to the days before her life had crashed into rubble. Mr. and Mrs. Strickland had been among their first guests when they’d opened the house to visitors. A retired couple from Baltimore, they’d been enchanted with their taste of farm life, following Paul around like lambs. But why were they writing to her now?

  She tore open the envelope and spread out the single sheet of paper, vaguely aware of Grossmammi telling Barbie something about her herb garden.

  The letter was written in Mrs. Strickland’s flowing hand. Rebecca stared at the words, her forehead furrowed.

  “Rebecca?” Grossmammi reached across the table to pat her arm the way she’d done when Rebecca was a child. “Is something wrong?”

  She roused herself, managing a smile. “No, not wrong. It just took me by surprise, that’s all.” She glanced up to find both her grandmother and her cousin looking at her expectantly. There were no secrets when you were part of a big, caring family, not that this was exactly a secret.

  “It’s from a lady who stayed with us the summer we opened the house to visitors. She and her husband want to come back again.”

  “Well, that’s great, ain’t so?” Barbie said. “When you open for the summer, you’ll already have guests lined up.”

  When? Her thoughts echoed the word. “If,” she said. “I’m not sure I can do it.”

  “But why not?” Barbie’s face was bright with enthusiasm. “I’d do it in a minute. It’s a great way to earn money.”

  “It’s . . . It’s not that easy. Without Paul . . .” She let the words die away. Even with Paul there to carry the load, she had found it difficult to open their home to strangers, and Englischers at that. How could she possibly do it alone?

  “It is up to you,” Grossmammi said quietly. “You’ll make the right decision.”

  Rebecca shook her head slowly, but she wasn’t at all sure whether she was denying the possibility of opening or her ability to make the choice.

  Lancaster County, November 1941

  Anna closed the lid of her dower chest on the dish towels she’d finished hemming last night. She ran her fingers over the fading paint on the front of the chest. It had come down to her from her great-grandmother Martha Esch, and it gave her a little spurt of happiness each time she put something away in it for the day when she and Jacob would move into a home of their own. She and Mammi would start work on a log cabin quilt soon. She’d already decided on the colors. No Amish girl would think of marrying without having five or six quilts tucked away for her future home.

  “Anna?” Her mother’s voice echoed up the stairs. “Where are you?”

  Giving the chest a little pat, Anna hurried to the steps and down to the warm kitchen. “Here I am. What is it, Mammi?”

  “This will be a gut day for you to take those bushels of extra apples around to the neighbors, ain’t so? It’s getting colder, and they won’t keep in the shed much longer without freezing.” Mamm drew a black wool sweater more snugly against her body, as if she was cold even when standing next to the wood stove. “Tell Seth he must go with you.”

  Each year she took the last of the apples around to the neighbors. Since none of them had the big apple crop that Daad did, they were usually happy to buy a last bushel for applesauce or drying.

  “I don’t need Seth along just to drive down the lane.” Sometimes Mammi treated her as if she were eight instead of eighteen.

  “Do as I say, Anna.” Mammi’s voice was sharp, and she rubbed her arms as if she couldn’t get warm. “You’re not to go without your brother along.”

  Knowing an argument wouldn’t get her anywhere, Anna nodded and took her black jacket from the hook by the door. Even though Mammi hadn’t seen the book burning, she seemed far more affected by it than Anna, who had.

  For sure it was upsetting, but that was no reason to go around acting scared to death. Anna hurried toward the barn, eager to find Seth and get going before Mamm found an excuse to call her back. After all, nothing else had happened. School went on as usual for the young ones, while the rest of the community prepared for winter.

  It would soon be time for long evenings in the warm house, reading or sewing or playing board games with her younger siblings. Jacob would come over as often as he could, and they’d find some moments to talk and make plans for their future. Everything would be fine.

  When she reached the barn and found her brother, Seth made a face at the idea of doing anything so tame as selling apples with his sister. But at a look from Daad, he helped her hitch the mare to the wagon, and together they loaded the baskets. In a few minutes they were rolling down the dirt lane to the gravel road that connected a string of houses and farms.

  “It’s gut to get out of the house.” Anna lifted her face to the thin November sunshine. “Ain’t so?”

  Seth just grunted, snapping the lines against the mare’s back.

  Anna poked him with her elbow. “What are you in such a bad mood about? Did someone else take Susie King home from the singing?”

  Seth glared at her. “It’s nothing to me what Susie does. Anyway, there’s no point in sweethearting when the world’s turning upside down.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?”

  Seth hunched a shoulder. “You should know. You were there, weren’t you?”

  “Are you still fussing about the book burning? You’re getting as bad as Mammi. So what if some people we don’t even know decided to do a mean act? It’s nothing to do with us.”

  Seth’s young face hardened. “Yesterday it was the German books. Next time maybe it’ll be the people who speak German, like us. And maybe it will be coming from people we think are our friends.”

  “That’s nonsense.” She had to make her voice sharp, because her heart was thudding in a very unpleasant manner. “Everybody around here knows we don’t have anything to do with what’s going on clear across the ocean in Germany. Our family has lived here in Lancaster County for almost two hundred years already.”

  Seth just shook his head. He turned the mare into the next driveway, the one that led to the Cochrans’ house. Mary Cochran could usually be counted on to buy a bushel of apples or two. Anna glanced back at the eight bushels they’d loaded into the wagon. Maybe they’d be able to move all of them today. That would please Daad and Mammi.

  Seth pulled the mare up when they reached the back door, and Anna slid down. As grumpy as Seth was today, she’d better be the one to do the talking.

  No sooner had she knocked than Mrs. Cochran was coming to the door, wiping her hands on her flowered housedress, clearly visible through the glass panel. She paused for a moment when she saw who it was, and then she opened the door a few inches.

  “What is it?”

  Anna’s confident smile slipped at the curt tone. “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Cochran. We have some late cooking apples from the orchard, and we thought—”

  “No.” Mrs. Cochran cast a quick look behind her and then leaned toward Anna. “I’m sorry, Anna,” she whispered. She started to close the door, but Mr. Cochran appeared behind her, grabbing the door with a beefy hand.

  “You heard what she said. We don’t want anything the likes of you are peddling. Go home and don’t come back.” The door closed with a res
ounding slam.

  Anna stood where she was, too startled to move.

  “Get in the wagon, Anna.” Seth’s voice was urgent. “Hurry up.”

  She scurried back to the wagon and climbed up to the seat, suddenly awkward and clumsy, and realized her hands were shaking. Seth slapped the lines. The mare moved off quickly, as if infected by their emotion.

  They’d reached the end of the lane before Anna found her voice. “I don’t understand. We’ve always been gut neighbors, ain’t so? Why did they act that way?”

  “We talk German. We dress funny. We think fighting is wrong.” Seth’s voice was tight.

  “I know some people think that way. But not the Cochrans. How could they? When Mr. Cochran was laid up with a broken leg, Daad cut his hay for him. Mrs. Cochran always asked us in and gave us gingerbread cookies. Remember how she always gave us gingerbread cookies?” She felt as if she were holding up a tiny match in a windstorm.

  “Forget it. They have.” Seth’s face twisted. “You’d better get used to it. How are we going to get along if nobody will buy what we grow? And don’t talk to me about living separate. Nobody’s going to be able to live separate, not anymore.”

  Anna wanted to deny the words. More than that, she wanted to take the pain out of her brother’s heart. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t find a thing to say.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rebecca had returned home from her grandmother’s with her head a jumble of thoughts—the letter, Barbie’s confidences, her own uncertainties about the future. Emptying a jar of beef stew into a casserole dish, she tried to empty her mind at the same time.

  The kinder would be hungry for their supper before long. Concentrate on that, nothing else, she told herself. Seizing an onion from the bin, she cut it into thin slices to put atop the stew. With homemade drop biscuits over the onions, twenty minutes in the oven would turn it into a dish Katie and Joshua loved.