A Simple Hope: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel (10 page)

N
ervous excitement fluttered in Rachel’s chest as she washed pots while her sisters Rose and Bethany dried and put away the last of the dinner dishes. It was Saturday night—courting night—and Rachel had been thinking about James all day.

“Here’s a stubborn patch,” Rachel said, putting some muscle into the scrubbing of a fat kettle that had been used for bean soup. She lifted the kettle for a look. “Still there.”

Rose wound her dish towel around the pitcher she was drying. “At this rate, you could be scouring all night.”

“And I’ve got somewhere to go.”

“Are you going to see James?” Bethany asked. “Did Dat say you could use a buggy?”

“Mamm and Dat trust Rachel with a horse and buggy,” Rose said, rising on tiptoe to put the pitcher on its shelf. “And we’d best help her get going, so she can start before dark. Why
don’t you finish that last pot, Bethy, while I hitch up Pansy for Rachel.”

Bethany shrugged. “Sure.”

Rachel squeezed the sponge, surprised by her sisters’ generosity. “Gott truly blessed me with loving sisters.”

Rose smiled. “Ya. Sisters who hope you’ll be helping us out when it’s our time to be courting.”

“I would help you in a heartbeat.” How she loved her sisters! She dried her hands as Bethany stepped to the sink. Rachel patted Bethany’s shoulder, placed a kiss on Rose’s cheek, then bounded up the steps. She wanted to wash the grime from her face and fetch the painting.

Out in the barn, she helped Rose harness Pansy. The girls brought the horse to the side of the barn, where they worked alongside brother Ben, who was hitching up his own buggy, obviously going off to see a girl—probably Hannah Stoltzfus. Rachel felt a little awkward, calling on her beau. By tradition, an Amish boy came to visit his girl on Saturday nights. But James hadn’t been able to drive a buggy since his accident.

“So you’re off to see James.” Ben held up the heavier part of the rig while Rachel fastened the lines. “I heard the Lapps might be looking to hire a few men, come the summer. Did James say anything about that?”

“He didn’t mention it,” Rachel said.

“I might want a job like that. It would sure beat working in the factory.”

“I thought you were going to take the job at the family stand in the city?” Rachel said.

“Maybe. Right now, nothing really grabs me.”

That was Ben … already eighteen but still waiting for the right star to twinkle in the sky for him. Meanwhile, the family was
counting on him to work the cheese stand at Reading Terminal Market. The Philadelphia hub was one of the oldest markets in the country, and sales in the city were a major source of income for the King family’s two dairy farms.

Rachel carefully tucked the painting into the buggy, then came up behind her brother and clamped her hands on his shoulders.

“That tickles.” Ben winced, chuckling. “What are you doing?”

“Just showing you that something’s grabbing you,” she teased. “And what is it? I think it’s the job at the market. A good job for a young man who needs work.” She squeezed his shoulders, causing him to squirm and laugh.

“Cut it out,” Ben exclaimed.

From the other side of the rig, Rose joined in their laughter. “Rachel? Did you hitch the wrong horse?”

“Looks that way. This one’s wild and untamed.” Rachel dropped her hands, and her brother scrambled away, still chuckling.

“You’re going to make me late.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Rachel said.

“Tell Hannah we didn’t mean to keep you,” Rose called. She was only guessing that Hannah was the girl their brother was courting; like most Amish young men, Ben kept his love life close to the cuff.

Ben just swatted her comment away, and then climbed into his buggy. He called to the horse, and was off riding into the pink and orange sunset on the horizon.

Pansy’s black tail swished back and forth contentedly, no doubt in anticipation of some attention from Lovina and Mark, James’s two younger siblings who enjoyed tending animals. As they passed the neat rows of trees leading to the Lapp house, Rachel searched the foliage for the lovely blossoms that had burst from the branches in
her dream. So far nothing was in bloom, but many of the trees were thick with buds.

She turned toward the farmhouse, where the porch had been rebuilt to include a wide ramp for James’s wheelchair. It was one of the ways the orchard house had changed in the months since the accident. These days, Englishers came twice a week—doctors and medical folk, checking on James’s health and updating his exercise program and such. James’s parents had also given him their bedroom on the ground floor and moved to the second story so that he didn’t have to be carried up the stairs. There were the wheelchairs, the bars suspended from the ceiling beams so that James could lift himself and make the transfers. The widened doorways. So many changes.

But the renovated house was just the outward shell. The changes that frightened her were the dark moods that James slipped into from time to time. Dylan had said that depression and post-traumatic stress were normal for a person with an injury like James’s. Rachel understood that. She had lapsed into her own bad moments of guilt and sorrow, a dark and sour time. Thanks be to Gott, those clouds had lifted from Rachel’s heart. But James still had his bad times.

His path will be different from yours
, Dylan had told her. Ya, James had gone through lots of physical therapy, lots of work learning how to do basic things from a wheelchair.

And then there was the fear … the terrible possibility that James would never walk again. Rachel had made her peace with this, trusting James’s future to the Almighty. She couldn’t change the past, and Mamm had hammered the reality of Gott’s will to Rachel and her siblings.
Gott doesn’t make mistakes
, Mamm told them every time tragedy struck. One day, Rachel and James would accept that the accident was not a mistake. But for now, they both had to trust Gott and keep moving on.

Eleven-year-old Lovina emerged from the barn and offered to tie Pansy up in a good spot. Rachel dropped down from the buggy and passed James’s father, who was splitting logs by the woodshed. Jimmy gave a curt nod, then kept going with his work. On the grass by the picnic table, Verena was tossing a Frisbee back and forth with sister Hannah and brother Mark, who were racing the dog for the plastic disk. Rachel wished that James was out here, teasing his siblings or giving the Frisbee a toss from his wheelchair. She always felt a twinge of sorrow when she saw life going on around him. Sometimes, when James was in despair, he let his injury hold him back.

Edna met her at the kitchen door and went about making tea for her, while Rachel pulled a wooden rocker up beside James, who was staring at an open book. The Bible.

He nodded in greeting, but there was no flare of warmth in his smoky, dark eyes, and he didn’t hold his hand out to touch her or pull her close. It didn’t bode well for her visit. Already she could tell that today he was a million miles away.

“I brought you a gift,” she said, holding the canvas board out for him to view. Bracing herself, Rachel watched as James took in the painting she had done for him.

He squinted. “A peach?”

“A peach hanging on a tree. It’s a bit different for me, so close up you can see the drops of dew on the peach fuzz. What do you think? Is it good enough to eat?” she asked, repeating something he once said about one of her paintings of a wedge of watermelon.

“I reckon. But no matter how tasty it looks, it’s just a painting. It’s not real life. Sometimes I think you hole up and paint a different world to get away from the one Gott gave you.”

She blinked, off-guard. “I’m not trying to get away.”

“Mmm.” His lips were tightly pressed together as he propped the small canvas board on the table. She could tell he didn’t care much
for it. Of course he didn’t. Men didn’t appreciate decorative things like crocheted potholders or the photos on calendars. It had been a mistake, thinking that she could cheer him up with a little picture. “I figured that if you couldn’t work the orchard, I’d bring the orchard inside to you.”

“But I don’t need a painting to see the orchards.” His words were drained of hope, as if someone had pulled the plug and all his enthusiasm had run out of the sink. “You know I work out there every day. Someone has to tell Peter and Luke and Matt what’s to be done.”

“And you’re the one who followed your doddy around since you were a little boy.” Rachel knew James was fond of his memories from when he was a toddler, traipsing through the orchard behind his grandfather, soaking up tidbits on which insects were helpful and which harmed trees, when to prune and when to let a tree be. “He taught you everything about the orchard, the gardener’s alphabet from A to Z.”

“Ya. All that so I could work in the office.”

“Is that what you’re going to do? I thought your dat managed the sales end of things.”

“He wants me to learn that side of the business.” He closed the Bible and put it on the table beside the painting. “He thinks I’m stuck in this chair for good.”

Sensing the venom in his words, Rachel changed the subject as Edna delivered her tea. “
Denke
. Hot tea is good on a night like this. Once the sun goes down, you forget it’s spring.”

James’s mother agreed, and they chatted a bit about how a late frost might hurt the trees. When Edna returned to the kitchen, Rachel went to the shelves to pick out a board game. She knew James wouldn’t open up for a serious talk when his family was still apt to wander through the living room. They played a round of Trouble, though Rachel felt sorry for James; his tokens were trapped inside
the starting spot because he just couldn’t roll a six for the longest time. It was too close to reality, with him being trapped in the wheelchair, unable to walk and climb wherever he wanted. After one round of the game, she put it away and dealt the cards for Go Fish.

They played on in a shadow of tension until James’s parents and young siblings headed up to bed.

Alone, sitting in the glow of the fire that James had just fed with logs, Rachel pulled her chair closer to him. “There’s a group counseling session on Monday,” she said. “Can you come to this one? Everyone would like to see you, and I think it would do you good to get out for a while.”

“I can’t.”

“James, talk to me, please. Tell me one of your good stories.”

“There’s none to tell. I had a visit from the bishop this week. It seems he and Dat have decided I should give up on walking and stay a cripple for the rest of my life.”

“What? James, that can’t be.”

“But it’s true.” He told her about the bishop’s advice to accept God’s will and how Dat was worried that James’s association with the world beyond their community was pulling him away from Amish life. “Dat won’t allow Englishers in the house anymore.”

“What about Dylan and Haley? Your counseling … your physical therapy.”

“No more, unless I can get myself into town to see them.”

Rachel gripped the worn armrests of the rocking chair. This was going to be a new challenge for James, who already had a full plate. “What about that study? Will they let you do it if you qualify?”

“Doc Trueherz told me I made it into the study. The treatment is free.”

“And you’re allowed to do it?”

“I don’t want to give Dat a choice on that. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, don’t you think?”

“Bishop Samuel has never stopped you from getting treatment,” she said. “When it comes to health, he knows that medicine can save people’s lives.”

“If it’s Gott’s will,” James reminded her.

“Ya. Gott is the only one who can really heal you.” The crackling fire was the only sound in the room as James fell back into his brooding. He got caught in that glum mood a lot these days, stuck in the muck of worry. Thinking back on how James had been so miserable, she realized the bishop’s idea was a good one. Samuel was trying to help James deal with the reality of today, here and now. If James could accept the way things were, he would be happier right now.

“Maybe it’s not such a bad thing, to accept what Gott has given us to work with today,” Rachel said. “My mamm always says that Gott makes no mistakes. You know it’s true. We have to accept the changes He sends us.”

“I’m sick of hearing that. Does it mean I have to accept this? That I can’t learn to walk again?”

“It’s not about learning, James. You can learn how to crack an egg. But you can’t learn how to walk again if it’s not Gott’s will. It’s about accepting Gott’s plan for you.”

“That’s enough.” He turned to her, but his expression was frosty. “If I wanted more advice, I’d be sitting here listening to my dat make plans for me. I thought you, at least, would be on my side.”

“But I am on your side.” Rachel took his hand, holding it tight when he tried to pull away. “I’ve been by your side through this whole thing, and I’m not going away, James. So you can turn the table over or tell me to leave, but I’ll always be nearby. I’ll never stop loving you.”

He snorted. “Not much of me left to love.”

“You know that’s not true.” She pressed his hand to her cheek, then placed a kiss on his knuckles.