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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.
“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.”
