The words
see you tomorrow
wouldn’t roll off her tongue.
Don’t add lying to deceiving and running away.
“Don’t you want a ride?” Emma didn’t look up from her notations on the store inventory. “If you wait a few minutes, I can drop you by on my way home.”
“Nee, I want to get a couple of things from the bakery.” She swallowed against the lump in her throat. The voices grew louder, as if someone had turned up the amplifier for the electric guitars at the concerts she loved so much.
Liar. Liar. Liar.
“I’ll get a ride from Molly. She’s at the library today.”
Gott, forgive me.
One lie led to another. Daed’s famous slippery slope. It couldn’t be right if she had to lie about it. Thomas’s voice boomed inside her head.
It’s the only way.
Her voice, small and whinny, responded. Emma couldn’t know, not until Adah was safely out of town. Daed would try to stop her. He
would
stop her. She wouldn’t see him again. None of them. Not Mudder or Hiram or Abram or Melinda or Joanne or baby Jonathan. Or Daniel. Or Matthew.
Matthew. She’d left him standing in front of his house, dust blowing in his face. He didn’t deserve that. Or this. He deserved better than her. He deserved a good Plain woman. She would pray he found that woman. Her getting out of the way would help.
Adah paused, hand on the doorknob. To never see her family again. She whirled, strode across the floor, and gave Emma a quick, tight hug.
Emma’s eyes widened and her frown turned to a startled smile. “What was that for?”
“For being kind and for letting me work here.” Adah clamped down on the emotion threatening to seep into her voice. “I know you didn’t really need my help, but you let me work here because Mudder asked.”
“Jah, because she asked, but also because we like having company when we work. Makes the day go faster.” Emma tilted her head, her intent gaze inquiring. “Are you sure you don’t want a ride? You look a little peaked.”
“No, I’m fine. I’ll catch a ride in a bit.” She’d heard that lying got easier the more a person practiced. So far, she didn’t find that to be true. She hated lying to a good and kind person such as Emma. She hated lying period. Her insides felt coated with something putrid and rotting, something that belonged buried in the ground. “I just need some fresh air.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow—no, I’m off tomorrow. Your mudder has her very first shift.”
Adah didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Mudder had decided she was ready to leave Jonathan in Katie Christner’s care and work a shift or two in the store. Would Mudder come to work or would she be distraught after she discovered the note Adah had left in her room? She couldn’t go without leaving a note. It would be too cruel. It told Mudder not to worry, that she would be fine. She would write soon. But it didn’t say where she was going.
Mudder would worry. Daed would be angry. As well he should be.
She could still change her mind. She could still tell Jackson she couldn’t go. She couldn’t simply not show up. No, she couldn’t leave him sitting there, waiting for her. That would be as wrong as not leaving a note for Mudder.
Heart pounding, Adah scurried across the street and nearly ran the three blocks to the bakery. She slowed when Jackson’s monster silver truck came into view. It sat idling in front of the bakery, the engine throbbing gently. Suddenly, her feet felt as heavy as a twenty-pound sack of baking russets. The canvas bag seemed to weigh twice that, the straps biting into her shoulder.
The window rolled down. Jackson leaned out, his ball cap pushed back on his head, a tentative grin on his face. Captain squeezed through the window and barked. “Hush, mutt, you’ll scare her away.” Jackson grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled him back. The dog’s head disappeared and the barking turned to a soft
woof-woof
. “You came.”
Adah glanced around. Not a soul she knew traipsed on the sidewalk between the truck and bakery. No buggy passed by on the street. No one to take note or stop to ask what she was doing.
“I don’t know if I can do this.” The words came out a whisper, as if someone might hear and know how Adah had let everyone down. Matthew. Mudder. Daed. Now Jackson.
“Sure you can. Get in the truck and we’ll talk. Just talk. Okay?” He waved a hand toward her, his tone the same one he used to cajole the horse in the corral that first day they met. “Get in and we’ll talk pros and cons.”
“I don’t know.”
Jackson popped his door open and strode around to the other side. “Your chariot awaits.” He pulled the door open. “It’s only natural you’d feel a little jittery. This is a big step. It’s huge. The biggest. But it’s gonna be fine, you’ll see. Just get in and we’ll talk.”
She closed her eyes and drew a long breath. Now or never.
She crawled in and he shut the door behind her, the sound like one she’d never heard before. Capturing her or setting her free. She couldn’t be sure. She shivered, goose bumps prickling up and down her arms in the cold air blasting from the air conditioning vents. It smelled like pine tree, tobacco, and wet dog in the truck cab. Cup holders held a pile of multicolored picks and a tall cup beaded with condensation. Captain plopped his front paws on the back of the seat and panted in her ear. Add doggy breath to the smells.
A country song she’d always liked blared from the radio.
Jackson slid in on his side and slammed the door. “Let the adventure begin.” He leaned toward her, his right hand outstretched, fingers callused from the guitar strings. “Now that you’re here.”
“Jackson—”
“Hush.” He tugged her bag from her lap. “This is all you could bring,
I guess. Don’t worry, we’ll get you some new duds in Branson. You can’t dress like that for your auditions.”
Her heart did a two-step. Auditions.
She reached for the bag. He swung it beyond her reach and stuffed it into the extended cab beside Captain. On the other side set a small Styrofoam cooler, a duffel bag, and three guitar cases stacked on top of each other. Three guitars. What a wealth of music. Captain flopped down and laid his head on his paws. Adah settled against her seat, somehow comforted by the sight. Jackson meant what he said about playing music and Captain looked at peace.
“Look, I know this is hard.” Jackson leaned toward her again. She inhaled his scent, held captive by it. He smelled good. Like spicy cologne, but not overpowering like some of the Englisch men. “It’s hard for me too. I know my mom will be upset and Dad will yell. But sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
He squeezed her hand hard but let go before she could protest his touch. “So does a woman. I figure God gave us these gifts so no one should argue against us using them. Right?”
She opened her mouth and closed it. He had a point. Jackson had all his arguments lined up. He’d spent some time honing them. He wanted her to come with him that bad. Because of the music or because of the kiss. She couldn’t be sure and she couldn’t see her way to ask.
“Right.” Jackson grinned. “I knew you’d see it my way. It’ll be fine, I promise. You’re gonna love Branson and you’ll be way too busy to be homesick.”
Homesickness didn’t worry her. Abandoning her way of life and her family—that worried her. “God gave us family too.”
“Everyone grows up and leaves home sometime.”
Not where she came from. And not by sneaking out. Adah measured the distance to the door. She could slide out and run away. Music wafted from the radio. A beautiful song by Martina McBride.
Adah didn’t move.
“Put your seatbelt on.” Jackson must’ve seen something in her face. He put the truck in gear, backed away from the curb, and pointed the truck south. “We’re leaving this town in our rearview mirror.”
Doing as she was told, she gazed out the window, memorizing the view so she could hold it in her heart. Would she be homesick? She’d never gone anywhere without family. She’d only lived in New Hope three years, but it had become her home. Her home was wherever her family lived.
Mudder and Daed. Hiram, Daniel, Melinda, Abram, Joanna, and little Jonathan.
The knot in her throat grew. She heaved a breath, trying to calm the beating of her heart.
“Exciting, isn’t it?”
“Jah. I mean yes.” No more
Deutsch
. “It’s exciting, yes.”
Jackson turned on to the road that led to the edge of town and the highway. A buggy came toward them at a quick clip. Adah’s hand tightened around her seatbelt. She swallowed against bitter bile that burned the back of her throat.
The buggy came closer. She could see the driver now.
Matthew.
His head turned as the truck roared by. She couldn’t be sure if he saw her. She hazarded a glance back. The buggy had stopped.
He’d seen her.
Jackson didn’t slow down. He didn’t stop. He kept right on going, toward his dream.
And hers.
Leaving Matthew behind.
M
atthew snapped the reins and forced the buggy into a wide turn in the middle of the highway. Ignoring the belligerent honking of a minivan that roared past him after he made the turn, he snapped the reins harder and urged Cookie forward. He had to stop Adah from making whatever new mistake she seemed bent on making. Dust billowed in his face, coating his skin. He tasted dirt as his teeth ground the grit in his mouth. The smell of diesel fuel burned his nose. “Haw, haw, come on, Cookie, come on.”
Whinnying in protest, Cookie strained to do as instructed. Wheels creaking and groaning, the swaying buggy picked up pace. Still the silver truck drew away, leaving him farther and farther behind.
“Adah!”
The ridiculous futility of his shout only served to infuriate Matthew more. He drew back on the reins until the horse slowed. No sense in endangering the animal or his family’s buggy with a race he couldn’t win. His heart revved as if it hadn’t received the message or had received it and refused to heed. It galloped after Adah and Jackson Hart and that beast of a truck that would take her someplace a good Plain girl shouldn’t go.
“Adah.” He whispered her name this time. Visions of her at the pond with this man crowded him. “Come back.”
She wouldn’t. She’d climbed into that truck willingly, no doubt.
“Adah, what are you thinking?” Again aloud. Heat stained his face even though no one sat in the buggy with him to hear. “Stop blathering to yourself like an idiot.”
Make a plan, instead. Be a man.
Tonight he had to be at home for Grandma Frannie’s birthday. He would go to Adah’s house tomorrow night. Talk to her. Try to make her see the error of her ways. She couldn’t be riding around in a pickup truck in broad daylight with this Englisch boy. Her father would find out. The whole community would know. The truck didn’t only take her far from him, it took her far from her family and her faith. It might take her so far she couldn’t find her way back.
He practiced breathing at a normal, steady pace. His heart slowed. Calm stole over him. God willing, he’d talk to her tomorrow night. After Daed and Mudder went to bed. After the Gringriches followed. Especially Elizabeth. No more chatting with Elizabeth on the porch. No more leading her to believe something was possible. The look on her face the previous night had said it all. She had expectations. She’d heard his conversation with Adah. She knew that Adah had kissed another. Such private, personal information she had no right to know or repeat. Whether she would tell remained to be seen. She’d turned away and rushed up the stairs before he could ask her.
Matthew had no way to meet Elizabeth’s expectations. No way he could do what Daed wanted him to do. Land or no land, he couldn’t walk away from Adah. The feelings he had for her came with him. They had burrowed into his heart and sewn themselves into the fabric of his being. Daed hadn’t said anything more about Adah or the land, but Matthew had felt his stern gaze contemplating him at the supper table, in the fields, everywhere. Watching. Waiting to see what Matthew would do.
Enoch seemed to be doing the same thing. Watching and waiting.
As did Elizabeth.
It seemed the whole world watched and waited. Everyone but Adah.
He wiped sweat that burned his eyes from his face. The brilliant afternoon sun blinded him for a second as he turned onto the dirt road
that led to his home. The horse whinnied and the buggy jolted forward. He tightened his grip on the reins. “Easy, girl, easy.”
A second later he saw what Cookie had seen. “Groossdaadi?”
Headed away from home, his grandfather trotted alongside the road, his skinny legs pumping with the enthusiasm of a much younger man. He didn’t look up at the sound of Matthew’s voice.
“Groossdaadi!”
Nothing. Matthew halted the buggy in the middle of the road and climbed down. “Joseph! Wait. It’s me. Matthew.” Groossdaadi looked up, his expression startled. His stride slowed and finally, he stopped. Matthew edged closer, not sure how good his hearing was. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”
Groossdaadi shook his head, his long, thin, silver beard swaying a bit. “Nee. I’m fine, but thanks for the offer.”
“It’s me, Matthew, your grandson.”
Groossdaadi’s bushy eyebrows, darker than his beard, made like caterpillars above pale blue eyes clouded with confusion. His nose wrinkled and his full lips twisted as he studied Matthew’s face. Matthew had a sudden, clear vision of what Daed would look like in a few years. What he himself would look like in many years, Gott willing.