Amish Homecoming

Ezra nodded and slapped the reins to get the horse moving. The rainy night seemed to close in around them while they drove down the straight farm lane. He flipped on the signal and looked both ways along the deserted country road. Not many people would be out on such a rainy night.

He racked his brain for something to say to break the smothering quiet in the front seat. Everything he could come up with seemed too silly or too personal. Listening to the girls talking easily in the back, he couldn’t help remembering how he and Leah used to chat like that. About everything and nothing. About important things and things that didn’t really matter.

“Leah—” he began.

“Ezra—” she said at the same time.

“Go ahead,” they both said at once.

Mandy leaned forward and giggled. “How do you do that? Can you keep talking together?”

“I doubt it,” he said at the same time Leah echoed him.

That sent the girls into peals of laughter.

“They are easily entertained,” Ezra said, risking a glance toward Leah.

“I’ve noticed. I hope they will become gut friends. It will help for Mandy to have someone she knows when she starts school next week.”

“You are sending her to school here?”

“Of course.” She looked at him and said, “You don’t believe we’re here to stay, do you?”

“I don’t know what to believe.” He wasn’t going to admit he was unsure if he was more bothered by the idea she might go away again or that she might stay. Either way, he needed to keep his feelings as under control and to himself as her daed did his. Ja, he needed to act as Abram would.

“Believe me,” she retorted. “You always did.”

“Before.”

She recoiled as if he had struck her. He wished he’d thought before he’d spoken. He didn’t want his frustration to lash out at her.

“Leah,” he began again, but was interrupted by the honk of a car horn.

He stiffened when he looked back and saw a car racing toward them. The driver leaned on the horn. He pulled the buggy toward the right, feeling the wheels jerk in the mud.

The girls cried out in alarm as the car cut close to them, sending water rising over the top of the carriage. He fought to keep the buggy from tipping as he twisted it farther off the road.

Gripping the reins in one hand, he wrapped his other arm around Leah as she slid into him. His breath erupted out of him when his shoulder struck the buggy’s side. Pain ricocheted down his arm and numbed his fingers, but he kept hold of both the reins and Leah.

The car careened past them. He steered the horse onto the road at an angle that wouldn’t send the buggy onto its side. The wheels burst out of the mud and spun on the wet road. He slowed the horse as the car’s taillights vanished over a hill and into the darkness. Warm breath brushed his neck, and he was abruptly aware of Leah sitting within the curve of his arm. She clutched one of his suspenders, and he could see her lips moving in what he was sure was a prayer.

She raised her face, and his breath caught as he realized how long it had been since the other time he had held her close. That night he had surrendered to his longing to kiss her. Tonight...

As if she could read his thoughts, Leah pushed herself away and moved to the far side of the seat. Her fingers quivered as she smoothed her kapp into place.

“Is everyone okay?” she asked, and her voice trembled, as well.

He doubted the girls noticed as they both began to talk about the car that had rushed past them. Shep’s yip announced the dog was all right, too.

As Deborah and Mandy began analyzing every aspect of the near accident, Ezra guided the buggy along the road. He kept an eye out for any other cars and noticed Leah doing the same, though most drivers were cautious around buggies and bicycles and pedestrians.

“I don’t think the driver even saw us,” she said, surprising him that she didn’t let them lapse into silence again. “Not until the car was right behind us.”

“He should have noticed the lights and the slow-moving vehicle sign on the back. When headlights hit it, the colors flare up as bright as a candle.”

“That was rude,” Mandy interjected. “Splashing us.” She looked down at the floor where water was gathering into puddles. “Shep is getting wet again.”

“We’ll dry him off when we get home,” Leah replied.

Ezra turned the buggy into the farm lane leading to the Beilers’ house, and he heard Leah’s sigh of relief. Even the girls in the back became silent as he drove toward the farmhouse set behind the barns.

It was almost the twin of his home, except there never were any lights on in the dawdi haus, which had been empty for as long as he could remember. He slowed the buggy and drew as close to the porch steps as he could, so Leah and her niece wouldn’t get too wet.

She climbed out and took Shep before Mandy bounced up onto the porch. With a wave, the girl rushed into the house with the dog following close behind.

Leah started to follow, then said, “Danki for the ride home, Ezra.” She shuddered so hard he could see it ripple along her. “When I think of that driver speeding past us while Mandy and I might have been walking along the road, it’s terrifying.”

“Don’t think about it.”

“But I must because I need to thank God for keeping us safe tonight when we could have been hurt.” She clasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles grew pale. “When I think of something happening to Mandy, I can’t stand it.”

“God was watching over us tonight.”

“I pray He watches over the driver in that car, too, so he or she gets home safely without endangering anyone else.”

“You still think of others before yourself, don’t you?”

“You make that sound as if it’s wrong.”

“It can be.”

Her eyes widened, and she followed her niece into the house without another word.

“Why is Leah upset?” asked Deborah from the back.

He had forgotten his niece was a witness to the brief conversation. Maybe it was for the best they hadn’t said more.

So why did it feel as if there were many things he should have said?

* * *

Within a few days, Leah could easily have felt as if she had never left home, but no one else seemed willing to let her forget it. Each person coming to the house began with questions about her time in Philadelphia and ended with how happy they were she had returned. She appreciated their gut wishes, but she was tired of relating the same story over and over and seeing no understanding in their eyes. Maybe it was something only a twin could comprehend. When one twin was in trouble, the other twin could not rest easily until she helped him out of trouble. That was the way it had always been for her and Johnny.

Her heart sang with joy when her sister Martha arrived for a visit with her five kinder. Her other sister had moved to Indiana with her husband within a year after Leah left, but Martha lived near the southern edge of Paradise Springs.

The two older kinder were a few years younger than Mandy, and they soon were outside teaching her how to gather eggs and feed the chickens. Their lighthearted voices followed the soft breeze through the open kitchen window.

Leah sat in a rocking chair by the table and bounced the youngest on her knee. She carefully removed her kapp strings from his eager fingers. Beside her sister, who sat where she always had at the table, two other small kinder watched Leah warily. The little boy stuck his thumb in his mouth while the girl had two fingers in hers. Leah remembered Mandy doing the same as a toddler. Joyous shouts from the yard announced her niece was having fun with her new cousins.