27. Chapter 22
Chapter 22
T hey both ordered chicken and bacon sandwiches, shoofly pie, and coffee. They found a table near a Christmas tree. Elijah found it peculiar that it was already set up even though it was Thanksgiving weekend. But he'd long ago stopped trying to figure out the English.
Ten minutes ago, food had been the last thing on his mind. Seeing his home again, seeing Dawdi, thinking of his brothers and sisters, his Ma and Da… that had hurt bad. That place was so, so familiar. How often had he walked that strip of road between his parents' house and Dawdi's? In the heat, in snow, in the pouring rain. How many times had he walked up that driveway? Being there, time had done funny things to his head, as if he could stroll right up that driveway, as he had a million times, and things would be just as they had been. Only it wasn't true. And his heart had taken the brunt of it.
At least he'd warned Dawdi. Writing that note about the four bad brauchers had taken a load off his mind. Now Dawdi could handle it. Couldn't he?
Despite all that, the first tentative bite of chicken and bacon awakened his belly, and he found he could eat after all. Far too quickly, in fact. He felt a little embarrassed at how fast the sandwich disappeared, but then he noticed Jon was picking crumbs off his plate. His sandwich had gone down just as ravenously.
Elijah smiled. "You're not vegetarian, like Samuel and Eddie?"
Jon gave a guilty grimace. "I love the pigs. And the cows. But you can't entirely take the Louisiana out of the man, I guess."
Elijah understood completely. They started on their pie in a more leisurely fashion.
"Do you have a lot of brothers and sisters?" Jon asked. "If you don't mind talkin' about it."
Despite the pang in his heart, Elijah didn't mind. He wanted Jon to know. And a chance to talk to Jon like this, be alone with him? That was one bright silver lining of what had been an otherwise hard day. "I'm thirteen of sixteen kids. I think Ma's gettin' a little old to have more, but I'm not sure. The youngest, Hershel, is six."
Jon whistled. "Wow. That's like a reality show."
Elijah had no idea what he meant.
"I'm guessing birth control is not a thing with the Amish?"
Elijah shook his head. "They say children are a gift from God."
"Right." Jon looked bemused. "What was it like growing up with so many siblings? I only have one, a brother. We get on fine, but one was enough for me."
Elijah took a bite of pie and contemplated the question. It was all he knew, so it was hard to imagine anything different. "It was fun sometimes. Especially in the summer, when we played outside. But we all had a lot of chores. And the older kids acted like they were in charge. They could be bossy."
"I bet."
Elijah thought some more, staring out the window. "Honestly, it's like you're just one pickle in a pickle jar. No one really sees you. Not you ." The memory made his heart heavy. "But then Dawdi chose me. I guess that made me different."
"Special," Jon said.
Elijah nodded, though it felt like vanity to admit it. "I was the one he picked. I was supposed to take over from him one day."
Jon's brow furrowed. "Take over? Do you mean makin' potions—what do you call 'em, remedies? Like that?"
"Sure," Elijah said, though Jon didn't know the half of it.
"What do you call it again? Amish folk magic?"
"Braucherei. It's not magic."
"Right. Spiritual practice. Sorry. I know my Aunt Jolie would tan my hide if I ever called what she does magic ." Jon sipped his coffee. "So I know about the remedies. And I know you can see things with that other eye. Did your grandfather see things like that too?"
Elijah reluctantly nodded. "Ja, he could see sickness. Spirits too. Better'n me."
"Spirits?" Jon looked impressed. "Cool. What else? Braucherei involves more than that, right?"
Elijah scraped the crumbs on the top of his pie with his fork. "Nothin' really."
"Hmm. I told you, I come from a long line of psychics and mediums, voodoo houngans and midwives… you name it. So you know I'm not gonna be shocked at anythin' you tell me. Right?"
Elijah glanced up, then back down at his pie. "What about you? Are you one of those… things you mentioned?"
"Me?" Jon sounded surprised. "Nah. I don't have the sight. I'm pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-get. I'm no dark pool of mystery like you."
Elijah smiled at the teasing. "What about…." Elijah second-guessed himself and stopped.
"What about what?" Jon prodded his foot under the table.
"I dunno. Voices? Anyone in your family say anythin' about that?" Elijah tried to sound like it was just a dumb question.
Jon thought about it. "Not that I heard them say specifically. But my mom does mediumship. That means she can talk to the dead. So I suppose she must hear somethin'. Why? Do you hear voices?"
"Nah." Elijah felt his face heat. He thought about telling Jon what he'd heard when they met— This one's for you . But he couldn't imagine how embarrassing that would be. He changed the subject. "There's a lot of praying in braucherei. Invokin' the Holy Spirit and God the Father to do the work. It's God's power, not yours."
"Yet your dawdi chose you. You must be gifted."
Elijah didn't say anything.
"Those four men seem to think so." Jon raised his eyebrows.
"I told you, I won't have nothin' to do with them. I figure they got the message by now."
Jon cleared his throat. "Okay. So you were your dawdi's successor, and he trained you for years—"
"Since I was five."
"Since you were five. But then you left. So what happened?"
Elijah frowned and poked at his pie. The pain the question brought up pierced his heart as if someone was stabbing it with a fork in the same way. His neck burned with shame.
"Never mind," Jon said. "You know what? You don't have to talk about it, ever. I just think it was really brave, is all." Jon stood up. "I'm gonna get more coffee. You want some?"
"Okay."
Elijah was about to get up, but Jon took his cup and walked away, apparently willing to serve him. That was nice. While he was gone, Elijah felt conflicted. He wanted to let Jon in. More than that, he wanted to be seen by Jon. Really seen. Not as some 'kid', some innocent, but as a man, as somebody who'd been someone. Or, at least, had been on the path to becoming someone. But that was vanity. And also, no matter what Jon said about braucherei being okay, if he knew all of it, he'd want nothing to do with him. Even Elijah's own brothers and sisters had been wary of him after he'd started working with Dawdi.
He remembered one summer day in the hay loft when he'd jokingly told his sister, Mary, that he was gonna hex her. She'd run screaming, terrified. She had avoided him after that, even though he kept telling her he hadn't meant it. She looked at him like he was a monster. Even Samuel looked at him different now.
Anyway, he'd sworn off braucherei, so what would be the point of telling Jon about it? But he longed to give him something, to connect somehow.
Jon came back with the coffees and sat down.
Elijah said, "Samuel left the Amish because he was gay."
Jon blinked and sat up straighter. "Yeah, I guess I figured as much." His eyes went wide. "Oh. Is that why you….?"
"Some stay, though. Some who are inclined that way. Stay and raise families even."
Jon nodded slowly. "I bet. If that's all you've ever known, you might feel you have to. That's a hard road, though."
"Ja, it is. You could feel sorry for someone like that. Want to make things better for 'im, even if it's wrong."
Elijah met Jon's gaze, and those light brown eyes stared back into his for a moment. Jon's jaw clenched. "Even if you didn't really… want to?"
"I didn't say that," Elijah said sharply. "I don't s'pose you'd do somethin' like that if you didn't want it in a selfish way, deep down. If you didn't… like it."
"Right." Jon turned his cup on the table, round and round, a little frown between his brow. "Do you… I dunno… still want to see him? This guy who was married?" His voice cracked a little.
Elijah shook his head fervently. "Nah. Not at all. That's water under the bridge."
Jacob was in the past. He'd made his choice, and Elijah would never meddle in that marriage again, even if he still felt love for the man, which he did not. He could see now that it was a childish thing, the way he'd felt for Jacob. A crush. There was a need to rebel and sheer curiosity rolled in there too. It was nothing like the way he felt, now, for Jon, for instance. The love he felt for Jon—and it had grown into love the way a flower bud blooms—felt more rooted in the bedrock of his soul.
"So… that's why you left?" Jon asked. "Someone found out about it? Or—"
"Dawdi." There was more to it, but Jon didn't need to know about the woodshed or any of the rest of it.
"Well, it was still brave. However it came about."
"It wasn't that brave," Elijah said quietly.
Jon leaned forward, his gaze questioning.
"I knew I'd be all right," Elijah explained.
"How could you possibly know that?"
Elijah debated with himself again. But it wasn't braucherei. Not really. He worded it carefully. "I had a dream. A kind of vision. When I was eight years old. In the dream, it was night, and there was a thunderstorm. I saw two men kneeling in front of an older man who was preachin' at 'em. Then I saw one of the young men leave the farm with a bundle of clothes. I saw him walk away down the road."
"And that man was you?"
Elijah nodded slowly. "I didn't know it at the time. When I saw it, it was like watching someone else, like I was a bird in a tree watchin' all this, like it had nothin' to do with me. But then…."
"Then it happened, in real life, just like you saw."
Elijah nodded. He felt a wave of relief that Jon seemed to understand and didn't think he was crazy—or lying.
Jon sipped his coffee. "What else happened in your dream?"
"I felt bad for that man, being cast out like that. I knew he'd been shunned. Even though I was only eight, I knew what that meant. It was somethin' you couldn't hardly even think about, it was so bad. Or I couldn't, back then. But in the dream, I saw the young man workin' at a farm after he'd left. And at the end, I saw him surrounded by big red roses and his face was so… so shinin' and happy, like he was lookin' at somethin' that was so wonderful he could hardly believe it. So I figured because the first part of the dream came true, the second part would too, and I was gonna be fine. That gave me the courage to leave when I did."
Jon thought about it. "Then I'm glad you had that dream. Aunt Jolie would probably say your angels sent it to prepare you."
Elijah poured some cream into his coffee and stirred it around. "Ja. It sure enough was a blessing."
Jon looked out the window. White teeth appeared to bite at that full lip. He hesitated. "I really appreciate your bein' honest with me, Elijah. I guess I should be honest with you."
"You don't have to."
But Jon went on. "When you read me that day in the meditation garden, you said somethin' bad had happened."
"Sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"No, you were right." Jon cleared his throat, still looking out the window. "Her name was Trish, and I loved her. A lot. She was such a gentle soul. Wouldn't hurt a fly. She, uh, was bullied by a couple of gonzos in town. They chased her car with theirs— a souped-up muscle car. She panicked, was drivin' too fast, and lost control. Hit a tree." Jon's jaw clenched, and even though his eyes were looking away, Elijah could see the anguish in them, saw the anger in the tight clench of Jon's body. "Judge called it involuntary manslaughter . They got thirty days and community service."
Elijah didn't understand all of what he'd said, but he got the picture, and he certainly felt Jon's grief and rage. Also: Jon was not gay. She. He'd loved a woman. That cut deep. Sitting here, in a little cafe, just the two of them, Elijah could almost taste what it would be like if Jon loved him back. If they were together the way Samuel and Eddie were. But Jon had just killed off that hope for good. Elijah tucked the hurt away for later. His selfish feelings were not what Jon needed right now.
"I wish that hadn't happened to you. Or Trish. I can tell it's hard to talk about."
"Yeah, it is. I haven't even told Samuel or Eddie."
Now Elijah felt honored. "How did you end up at Pig Bottom Farm? It's a long way from Louisiana."
Jon shrugged. "Always loved animals. And I figured workin' with them meant not working with people, and I was all for that. I sent resumes to about fifty animal sanctuaries. Eddie was the one who replied."
"Oh." It struck Elijah how strange that two such unlikely and round-about paths led them both to Pig Bottom Farm.
"I had to get the hell out of Louisiana," Jon said bluntly. "Or I mighta killed those idiots."
That made Elijah sad. "I don't think that woulda made you feel any better, Jon."
Jon huffed a laugh. "No. Probably not. But another piece of pie might. How about you?"