Amish Homecoming

“Five kinder and another on the way.” Leah smiled. “I am going to have fun getting to know them.”

“I’m glad they will have a chance to know you.” Martha glanced down at them. “They are shy.”

Reaching out to her sister, Leah put her hand on Martha’s. She had missed her family dreadfully while away, and she was thankful for this chance to reconnect with them. “We have plenty of time to get to know one another.”

“It is lovely for my kinder to have another cousin.” Tears rolled up into Martha’s eyes. “And for us to have something of Johnny in our family. To think we had no idea she even existed...” She shook her head and looked away as her tears glistened at the corner of her eyes.

“I wrote home often, though I know you didn’t see any of my letters.” She wondered if she should have said that. She didn’t want to ruin the warmth of this moment with her sister and Mamm.

“Why not?” asked Martha, her eyes wide.

Mamm said quietly, “Your daed sent back the letters unread, Martha. He felt, Leah, that, if you truly wanted to ease our worries about you and Johnny, you’d come back to Paradise Springs and tell us yourself.”

“But Johnny wasn’t able to travel.” Leah sighed, wishing her daed and her brother hadn’t been so stubborn.

Mamm’s eyes shone with the tears that appeared whenever Johnny’s accident was mentioned. Even though it had happened over nine years ago, Mamm hadn’t learned about it until Leah returned home.

“I know that now,” Mamm said.

“Will Daed understand?” She couldn’t keep anxiety from her voice.

“You need to ask him yourself.”

“I will when he gets home.”

Martha and Mamm exchanged a glance she wasn’t able to decipher before Martha said, “He will forgive you, Leah. That is our way, but you can’t expect him to forget how you and Johnny left without even telling us where you were going. Just sneaking away.”

Leah opened her mouth to protest she hadn’t intended to leave, but saying that wouldn’t change anything. She had gone with Johnny, and she had chosen not to come back while he needed her. Shutting her mouth, she wondered if her family felt as Ezra did, and they were waiting for her to disappear again. How could she convince them otherwise? She had no idea.

* * *

Ezra stopped in midstep when he came out of the upper level of the barn. What was a kid doing standing on the lower rail of the fence around the cow pasture and hanging over it? He should know better than to stand there. Surely even an Englisch boy knew better.

He realized it wasn’t a boy. It was a girl, dressed in jeans and a bright green T-shirt. Leah’s niece, Mandy. She wore Englisch clothing, unlike what she’d had on when he saw her before. Her hair, the exact same shade of gold as Leah’s, was plaited in an uneven braid, and he suspected she’d done it herself. Her sneakered feet balanced on the lower rail on the fence, and she was stretching out her hand to pet the nose of his prized pregnant Brown Swiss cow.

“Don’t do that!” he called as he leaned his hoe against the barn door.

She jumped down and whirled to face him, staring at him with those eyes so like Leah’s. “I wasn’t doing anything.” She clasped her hands behind her back as if she feared something on them would contradict her.

He went to where she stood. When she didn’t turn and run away as some kids would have, he was reminded again of her aunt. Leah never had backed down when she believed she was right.

The thought took the annoyed edge off his voice. “You shouldn’t bother her.”

“Ezra is right,” said Leah as she walked toward them with the grace of a cloud skimming the sky.

He couldn’t look away. So many times he had imagined seeing her walk up the lane again, but he’d doubted it ever would happen. Now it had, and it seemed as unreal as those dreams.

“She needs peace and quiet,” Leah went on, “because she’s going to have a calf soon.”

“Calf?” The little girl’s face crinkled in puzzlement. “I thought they were called fawns.”

“No.” She tried not to smile. “Deer have fawns. Cows have calves.”

“But that’s not a cow.”

“She definitely is,” he said, resting his elbow on the topmost rail.

Mandy put her hands at the waist of her jeans and gave them both a look that suggested they were trying to tease her and she’d have none of it. “That isn’t a cow. Everyone knows cows are black and white. That is light brown. Like a deer.”

Now it was his turn to struggle not to smile. “Some cows are black and white.” He pointed to the ones grazing in the Beilers’ field. “But others are brown or plain black or even red.”

“Red?”

“More of a reddish-brown,” Leah said.

“Then why are all the cows in my books black and white?” Mandy asked, not ready to relent completely.

Leah shrugged, her smile finally appearing. “Maybe those Englisch artists had seen only black-and-white cows.”

Ezra didn’t hear what else she said, because his gaze focused on the dimple on her left cheek. How he used to tease her about it! Had she known he was halfway serious even then when he said God had put it in her cheek to keep her face from being perfect? He hadn’t been much older than Mandy the first time he said that.

“Does she have a name?” Mandy asked.

He replied, “I call her Bessie.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Everyone calls their cows Bessie.” She glanced at her aunt, then added, “At least in books. She’s pretty and nice. She should have a special name of her own.”

“What would you suggest?” he asked, wanting to prolong the conversation but knowing he was being foolish.

He saw his surprise reflected on Leah’s face when Mandy said, “I think you should call her Mamm Millich. That’s Deitsch, you know, for Mommy Milk. Grandma Beiler has been teaching me some words.” She giggled. “They feel funny on my tongue when I say them.”

“I think it’s a wunderbaar name,” he said. “Mamm Millich she is.”

“I named a cow!” Mandy bounced from one foot to the other in her excitement. “I can’t wait to tell Isabella! She’ll never believe this.” She faltered. “But there’s no phone. How can I tell her?”

“Why don’t you write her a letter about Mamm Millich?” Leah asked. “Think how excited she’ll be.”

“But I won’t be able to hear her being excited. I miss Isabella. I want to tell her about Mamm Millich.”

He watched as Leah bent so her eyes were level with her niece’s. Compassion filled her voice as she said, “I know, Mandy, but we must abide by the Ordnung’s rules here in Paradise Springs.”

“They’re stupid rules!” She spun on her heel and ran several steps before turning and shouting, “Stupid rules! I hate them, and I hate being here. I want to go home! To Philadelphia! Why didn’t you let me stay with Isabella? She loves me and wants me to be happy. If you really loved me like you say you do, you wouldn’t have made me come to this weird place with these weird rules.”

“Mandy, you know I love you. I...” Leah’s voice faded into a soft sob as her niece sped away.

When Leah’s shoulders sagged as if she carried a burden too heavy for her to bear any longer, Ezra’s first thought was to find a way to ease it. But what could he do? It was Leah’s choice—hers and her family’s—what Mandy’s future would be. He was only a neighbor.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Leah said as she stared at the now empty lane. “The change has been harder on her than I expected it to be. I tried to live plain in the city, but Johnny consented to letting her have a cell phone, which he allowed her to use whenever she wanted.”