Second Chance Proposal

“Joy?”

“Jesus first, you last and others in between.” She actually ticked off each item on her fingers the same way she might if teaching one of her students the lesson. Embarrassed by her primness, she followed the last child into the house, leaving John standing on the porch.

She had not intended to engage in any true exchange of conversation with him, anything that might let him know more of her life after all this time. Her plan had been to remain polite but distant. Still, the realization that he had forgotten the old ways—the idea that community came first—was just one more bit of evidence that John Amman would struggle against the bonds that the people of Celery Fields lived by.

Why should she concern herself with his happiness? He had left her before and he would leave her again.

* * *

After Lydia moved the children into the house, John stayed on the porch staring out over the single street that ran from Luke and Greta’s house to the far end of town where the bakery and ice-cream shop sat. He found it hard to absorb how much the community had changed in eight years and yet so much was familiar and comforting about being back here. In the distance he heard a train whistle and he remembered how as a boy he had dreamed about where that train might one day take him, the adventures he might have. The adventures he and Liddy might have together. But the destinations of that train held no attraction for him now. He knew all too well what was out there.

“John?”

Greta stood on the other side of the screen door watching him with an uncertain smile. She was so very different from Lydia in both physical appearance and demeanor. Greta’s smile came readily while Lydia’s had to be coaxed. Greta’s vivacious personality drew people to her while Lydia’s reserve kept them at arm’s length.

“We are ready for supper,” Greta said.

John pulled open the screen door. “Gut,” he said with a grin intended to erase the lines of concern from Greta’s forehead. “It’s been three hours since I last ate.”

Greta glanced back at him and then she giggled. “Ah, John Amman, it is good to have you back. We have missed you.”

They were still talking and laughing when they entered the large front room where a table stretched into the hallway to accommodate all the adults and children. John paused for a moment to enjoy the scene. This was one of the things he had missed most about the life he’d left behind—this gathering of friends and family on any excuse to share in food and conversation and the special occasions of life. He recalled one time when he had attended a Thanksgiving dinner at the home of his business partner in the outside world. There the adults had sat at a dining-room table set with such obviously expensive crystal and china that John had spent the entire meal worrying that he might break something. The children had been shooed away to the kitchen and a separate table set for them with the more practical everyday crockery.

He liked the Amish way of having all generations in one room much better, he decided as he pulled out a vacant chair. He glanced around until he located Lydia taking a seat on the same side of the table but with the safety of his aunt and three small children separating them. Luke took his place at the head of the table and all conversation stopped as every head bowed in silent prayer.

John thanked God for the food and for the willingness of the townspeople to forgive him and take him back into the fold of the community—and for second chances. After a long moment he heard Luke clear his throat, signaling that the meal could begin. Instantly the room came alive with the clink of dishes being passed. Conversation buzzed as the adults talked crops and weather while the children whispered excitedly. No doubt they were all anticipating a piece of Samuel’s birthday cake—a treat Greta told them would not be forthcoming until every child had devoured all of his or her peas.

From farther down the table he picked out the low murmur of Lydia’s voice and found himself leaning forward, straining to catch whatever she was saying to Pleasant’s husband, Jeremiah. She was smiling as she cut small slices of the sausage and then placed the meat on Samuel’s plate.

It struck John that she performed this task so naturally that she might have been the boy’s mother. And for the rest of the meal, while he fielded the questions of those around him about his plans for the future, John found his thoughts going back to a time when he had first thought what a good mother Liddy would be. The time when he had imagined her as the mother of the children they would have together. And he could not help but wonder if she regretted never marrying.

She glanced up then, her gaze meeting his and she did not look away as she continued to speak to young Samuel, reassuring the boy that she had seen his birthday cake and it was his favorite—banana with chocolate frosting. John wondered if she was remembering that this was his favorite, as well. He wondered if she was remembering a day when the two of them had shared a single piece of cake, their fingers sticky with the frosting as they fed each other bites while sitting in the loft of her father’s barn.

How they had laughed together that day, and on so many other days. But now her expression was as serious as it had been each time he had seen her since his return. In her eyes he saw questions and could not help but wonder if her questions were the same as his.

Chapter Five

Lydia had managed to convince herself that once she settled into the daily routine of morning and evening chores separated by her duties as teacher, John Amman would be less of a problem for her. Surely, once everyone in Celery Fields returned to the regular business of living and working, John would cease to be the topic of discussion and speculation. He would be busy with his work at the hardware store all day every day except Sundays. The chores he had taken on for Luke in exchange for living above the livery would occupy him in the early mornings and after the store had closed for the day.

But when she returned home on Monday she found a basket filled with oranges next to her door. There were orange trees in Greta’s yard and her first thought was that the gift had come from her sister. But she and Greta had sat on the back porch after they’d finished cleaning up after the party on Sunday and Lydia had noticed that the fruit on her sister’s tree was not quite ripe enough to pick yet.

“The tree outside Luke’s shop is loaded with fruit,” Greta had said. “Every day he brings me a basket filled with the largest, sweetest oranges I’ve ever tasted.”

Lydia hesitated before reaching for the basket. She glanced down toward the livery where she could see the tree, its orange bounty reflected in the bright sunlight of late afternoon. The tree stood just outside the stables at the back of Luke’s shop and she was well aware it was a tree that John passed every time he descended or climbed the stairs to his living quarters.

A square of white paper tucked in with the fruit caught her eye.

“Remember the day we picked oranges?”

She folded the paper slowly as the memory he’d awakened overcame her. They could not have been much more than ten or eleven. It had been Christmastime and the children and their teacher had planned a special program to celebrate the season. Their teacher had sent the older children—Lydia and John among them—to pick oranges from a grove of trees at the Harnischer farm to be handed out as a treat at the end of the evening.