Hope deferred, p.10
Hope Deferred, page 10
“You can slide in here,” little Manny Zook quipped, directly across the aisle.
Anna kept her eyes on her book, but her heart thumped unexpectedly. Oh, good grief. Now what? She felt the color drain from her face.
She’d just keep her eyes on her book, concentrating on the words and thinking of Dave, far away and working faithfully on one of his many roofing jobs. She wondered if he thought of her, if he wished he was here, with her.
“What are you reading?”
She jumped, gave a small laugh.
“Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t.”
She handed over the book. He took it, examined the cover, turned it over, and read the back.
“You read biographies?”
“Sometimes. This one is intriguing, the doctors in Africa. They go anywhere, do anything, put their life on the line over and over.”
“Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you read what other girls read?”
“You mean fiction?”
“Romantic fiction.”
“Sometimes.”
He handed the book back and gave a small laugh.
“I’ll let you go now. Read away.”
He adjusted his seat and slid out of view. She turned slightly to view his profile. She felt disloyal to Dave and returned to her book.
When darkness fell, he said very quietly, “What’s your name?”
“Anna.”
“Just Anna?”
“Anna Fisher.”
“I’m Leon Beiler.”
He wanted to ask her more questions, and she wanted to hear more of his deep, confident voice. But neither one felt free to say so. She returned her book to its backpack, then adjusted her own seat, finding the reclining position much too close to him. She turned her back as best she could to shut him away, closed her eyes, and tried to relax and get some sleep.
But her eyes were still open when she heard, “Anna.”
She turned her head. “Yes?”
“Who are you?”
“Elias and Barbie Fisher. Sam’s Elias from Kinzer.”
“Don’t know them.” Then, “I’m from Millerstown. My dad is Amos Belier. Sim’s Amos from Holbrook.”
“Don’t know them.”
They both laughed.
He whispered, “Tell me about you.”
“There’s not a lot to say. I live and work at home. My parents don’t approve of me working away from home, so I help wherever I’m needed. Four sisters, ordinary life. Dating a guy named Dave Stoltzfus.”
“I figured.”
“What?”
“Beautiful girls always date.”
Nothing had ever pleased her more. She felt a profound sense of wonder, a warm and comfortable gladness that he found her attractive.
Attractive boys always date, too.
Should she say it? She felt a sense of daring, a leap into the unknown. She knew not to say it. She knew too, that she would.
“Attractive men do, too.”
How could she know the husky whisper stirred his senses, made his heart beat stronger? He swallowed, felt strangled by the tightening in his throat.
“I’m not dating, so go figure.”
She was strangely exuberant. A rush of gladness.
Beneath them, the motor on the bus throbbed, the sound of air moving in the tires, creating a sense of intimacy neither one had experienced before.
“Why? How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-four. Twenty-five in December.”
“That’s old.”
“Not too old. I’m needed at home. My father is mentally ill.”
“You mean . . . ?”
Anna turned her head when he turned his. Was the aisle of a bus no wider than this? It was almost as if they shared a bed. They both reached for the lever to adjust seats, ill at ease and self-conscious now.
“He’s very hard to understand or control, so he keeps being sent to retreats, places where trained counselors work with them. They try and keep him on medication. I’ve struggled over the years but have learned to accept what I can’t change.
“I’m taking a course in Christian counseling. You know, the world is full of hurting people, and I don’t mean just the worldly ones who don’t know any better. It’s among our people as well. I’m just getting started.”
He seemed shy then, reluctant to talk about his life’s work. “I’m not a counselor.”
“But you will be.”
“Yes. Eventually.”
After a stretch of silence, the only sound the soft snoring behind them, along with the gentle hum of the motor, she gave a small laugh.
“Perhaps you should try your skills on my story.”
“Go right ahead.”
“You’re serious.”
“Of course.”
So she spoke, haltingly at first, then with more ease, describing Dave at a very young age, the love they had felt for so long, the difference in their families’ lifestyles.
Here he stopped her.
“Anna, that should not make a difference in your relationship. No two families are alike.”
“But it does.”
She could hear him shake his head.
All night they talked. Sometimes Anna cried. Once, he held her hand.
A man had never held her hand, and the sensation of large, calloused fingers cradling her own smaller ones sent chills up her spine. He meant to comfort, that was all, she told herself repeatedly, but the touch was so much more.
They were both surprised to see jagged streaks of silver light emerge in the east, as if the night’s cover had been torn to reveal the brand-new breaking of another day. And for them, it was.
The light brought stirrings from the rest of the passengers, snorts and sneezes, loud stretching and yawning. Cries for a restroom.
Martha stirred, opened one eye, and said, “Whatever, Anna. Guarantee you talked all night.”
“You were sleeping. How would you know?”
“I heard more than you think.”
Suddenly she didn’t care. She found it freeing, this knowing that anything could happen.
They were inseparable, no matter how they fought against it. He stood behind her when they came to the first work center and was there when they toured the devastation, the homes crumbling with mold, rotting in brown slime. The smell was worse than anything Anna could have imagined, but she grew accustomed to it as the week wore on.
The land was flat, the sun baking them like an oven. The residents of the town were grateful as they worked together to rid the houses of the effects of rising brown floodwaters.
Rubber gloves and masks, a men’s handkerchief tied on her head, her nose sunburned and her blonde hair turning pale in the heat of the Texas sun, Anna worked with Leon, surrounded by groups of youth from home as well as other states. He did the heavy lifting while she swept, scraped, and scoured.
Talk circulated. Martha told her Becca had a hard time with her trailing that guy from Millerstown. Deeply ashamed, Anna switched to a different site, away from Leon.
She called Dave.
He was cool, aloof. When was she coming home? It was about time. She tried to stretch the conversation out longer, still smarting with embarrassment from being labeled as someone who chased men.
She talked to her mother and spoke to her father without mentioning Leon at all. She felt as if she was on the opposite side of the globe.
And she wanted to stay there.
What was home? Keeping face, holding up her pride, dating, Dave, twisting her parents’ arms to keep them from freaking out about him.
She prayed alone at night seeking the face of God and the meaning of right from wrong. Dave was right for her, so she must do the right thing, and would, when she returned home.
She dressed in old dark-colored dresses, went out with a group of girls, working on houses, determined to stay with them. But she watched for him every morning. As the morning turned into forenoon and the sun rose in the sky, he still had not appeared. She tried to hide her deep disappointment, putting aside the fact that this was one of the last days before they began the journey home.
Martha had regained her strength, although she was assigned lighter work. She cleaned light fixtures or doorknobs, things she could lay on a table and sit to restore them to their former glow. She said little but watched Anna repeatedly return to a door or window, her face turning steadily more unhappy.
“He’s not going to show up, you know.”
Anna’s face was suffused by a painful blush. She scrubbed vigorously at a wall, hid her face, and mumbled something about not caring.
Martha gave a short laugh.
“You can’t fool me, Anna. You two are goners. What’s wrong with you? You have a boyfriend at home. What is going on in your head? The minute you’re away from him, it’s like whoopee!”
Anna stood, scrub brush in hand, covered in dried slime and mildew, her eyes round above the blue mask.
“Martha! I cannot believe you.”
“Well, it’s true.”
And then, very unlike Anna, she became unhinged. At the table where Martha was seated, she propped herself up by the palms of her hands and lowered her face to Martha’s surprised one.
“You know, Martha, you have no right to judge. Dave is a different guy than the Dave I knew in school. He can’t stand my parents, the Cardinals, and the rules. He resents all authority, in any form, because he never had any at home. Our dating is a constant battle of trying to keep it afloat. So stop it.”
Martha lifted one eyebrow and stared back.
CHAPTER 10
AT HOME, DAVE THREW HIMSELF INTO HIS WORK, WITH A RENEWED AND nervous energy that amazed even the coworkers who knew he was one of the best. Spring was a time of meeting demands, and he thrived under pressure.
But beneath his energy was the unsettling awareness that something was not quite right with Anna. When she called, her voice sounded too high, her words hurried, as if she was nervous about something.
With her good looks, probably every loser on that bus wanted to date her. But those Cardinal guys didn’t stand a chance, so it couldn’t be that. He never saw such a bunch of childish young men, and clearly, Anna was far above any one of them. So he figured his fears were ungrounded.
But he could not sit still in the evening, even when exhausted. He paced the perimeter of his room, helped with the spring planting and harrowing, almost persuaded himself to become a farmer someday, the way he loved bouncing around on a horse-drawn piece of equipment.
Not that he liked the horses or anything, he just liked to be in wide-open spaces with buildings in the distance, neighboring farms, patches of woods, fencerows, and him in the middle. He tried to imagine every distant farm or house flattened, the land rolling in the distance the way it would have been before everybody and his aunt and uncle, cousin, or brother moved in to plant and harvest, build and carry on. This whole tourist thing was out of control, but if he wanted to marry Anna, which he certainly did, then he’d have to stay in Lancaster.
Women didn’t do well leaving their families.
He’d heard his mother talk about her niece, Ida Sue, who had to move to Wisconsin to her husband’s family. She was terribly depressed during the long, cold winters, so that her husband hardly knew what to do with her.
But that would be one solution, getting Anna way from those parents, although he knew it was not best, any way you looked at it.
She was coming home from Texas in five days.
It was time. He didn’t know why he felt so uneasy, but he did. He tried reading, he played games on his cell phone, and he went to see his friend Wayne, anything he could think of to stay occupied.
On the last evening of their stay in Texas, Anna was clearing the table, preparing to wash dishes in the large kitchen and dining area that had been set up for volunteers. She turned to find Leon directly beside her.
“Meet me down at the corner after dishes. Where there’s a taco shop.”
She didn’t dare lift her eyes. She merely nodded and slipped away. Her heart pounded. She washed dishes, dried them, then went to the bathroom, watched for her chance, and fled. No one observed her disappearance as far as she could tell, and if they had, it was too bad, she wasn’t turning back.
Breathless, she arrived at the designated shop, looked around, then decided to go inside so no one would notice her. He was beside her immediately, appearing out of nowhere.
“Anna. Glad you could make it.”
She was overtaken with a wild impulse to throw herself into his arms. She knew he would take her there with gratitude, and this was almost her undoing. Instead, her mother formed in her conscience, listing the benefits of total hands-off courtship.
It was very godly. The Christian thing to do. To abstain from all fleshly contact would only sweeten the touch after marriage.
Self-will was always of the devil, devised and orchestrated by him. Better to use restraint, obeying the will of God.
She clasped her hands behind her back. He stepped closer, looked into her eyes.
“Let’s walk.”
The night was magical, the water on one side, the blinking lights of apartment buildings on the other, the walkway along the river like a silver road dotted with overhead lamps glowing along each side. Pedestrians, joggers, a few skateboarders, couples seated on park benches. It was all like a scene from some book she had read, but she never imagined she would be in such a place.
The night was warm, the heavy air permeated with blossoming trees and the stale, musty odor of receded water.
Suddenly he took her hand.
“Oh, I hardly know where to begin or where to stop.”
She suffered agonies. She should not be allowing this holding of her hand but could not summon the courage to tell him so.
“Look. I know you have a boyfriend, okay? And I have no right to ask you to accompany me on this walk. But I can’t go home without a phone number or an address. I noticed you don’t have a cell phone. A home number, something.”
He squeezed her hand. He stopped, the light of the streetlamp illuminated his face. He reached for her other hand, held them both. Anna drew a sharp breath. Before she could begin the required gentle withdrawing of her hands, he lifted them to his lips and softly kissed the back of both, then released them.
“I’ll never forget you,” he murmured, brokenly.
There were no words to describe any of her fractured cries and outpouring of doubts, fears, words of the heart. So she stood, her hands dangling newly blessed, consecrated by the touch of his lips.
This kind, caring man who had suffered at the hands of a father who was often rendered incapable by the workings of his tortured mind. Who seemed so eager to help people, English people with no religion to speak of, even though his own family depended on him so much already. Anna had to look away.
Leon was not perfect, not in the way her own parents were. Not in the quietly rigid way.
Oh God, she breathed. So much confusion. She had to tell him what was on her mind.
“Can we find a place to sit?” she asked in a voice so strangled he could not be certain of her question.
When he didn’t answer, she led him to a bench, a shadowed alcove of blossoming bushes and pine trees.
“Here.”
“What?”
“I just need to talk.” A pause. “Dave, my boyfriend, was my childhood hero, the one and only person I loved with a deep, possessive love that never went away. He was all I ever truly cared about. We grew up, and our lives turned out to be directed in very different ways. Our parents are simply polar opposites. Mine are strict, expecting teenagers to be, well, obedient young people with Christian virtues. Strict ones.”
She sighed.
“Curfews. No . . . well, you know, the hands-off thing. No touching.”
“I’m sorry. I never thought.”
She shook her head. “We’re in Texas.”
“I am sorry. I know there are groups of youth who believe this to be the only way. Very meaningful.”
“Yes.”
“Continue.”
Oh, the kindness of him. The sincerity of wanting to hear what she had to say.
So she went on, describing Dave in detail, his upbringing, his brilliant, passionate mind, his nervous energy that bordered on wildness, his expressive conversations that always led to wanderlust, showing pictures, images of faraway places on his cell phone, reading anything he could find about people, places, and things.
Then, the most painful, his thorough dislike of her parents, and the ease with which he spoke of it.
“I want to say it doesn’t bother me, but it troubles me more than I care to admit. You know how parents matter.”
She gave a small laugh.
“They may be too strict, and well . . . especially my mother is a bit controlling, but they mean well. They are merely concerned about our souls, even if they have a narrow view of God’s expectations. They are just so rigid, so set in what is right, and expect everyone else to come up to their standards.”
“I gather they don’t approve of Dave.”
“They are barely tolerant of our dating.”
Leon shook his head. “That’s a tough one.”
A man ran past, his arms held to his waist, his feet pounding the pavement, obviously having come a long way. They could hear the puffs of breath, the exertion evident in the way his head was held low.
An elderly couple stepped aside to make room for him, their heads swiveling in unison to watch him jog past. The man made a remark to the old woman beside him, she lifted her face to the night sky and cackled a dry laugh.
When Leon spoke he said only a few words.
“So it comes down to how much you really do love him. Love beats all the odds if it’s the real thing, you know.”
