Chapter 30
Adam wasn’t sure whether he should follow Joanna as she walked out the front door. Did she want to be alone?
Follow her.
He strode through the dining room and the foyer and out onto the portico. Joanna sat on the top step, her head against the pillar, staring at the afternoon light wafting through the trees on the other side of the road. “Mind if I join you?”
She turned her head and met his gaze. “I don’t mind.”
He sat beside her in silence, and then put his arm around her. To his surprise, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
He froze for a minute, fearing if he said anything or even moved he might scare her.
But she scooted closer to him and he tightened his grip on her shoulder, pulling her close.
She turned her head toward him, her faced raised.
Adam’s heart raced. He leaned toward her.
She lifted her face to his, and then his mouth met hers.
She kissed him back. When their mouths parted she smiled up at him, and a sense of calm came over him.
He kissed her again, this time more passionately.
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back again.
As they both pulled away, he gazed deep into her dark blue eyes. He wanted to tell her he loved her. Instead he asked, “Do you want to talk now?”
She shook her head, and then her eyes clouded. A sob tumbled out of her. She pulled away and jumped to her feet. Then she tripped down the stairs, catching herself at the bottom.
He stood and reached for her but she sped away. “Joanna! Wait!” He ran after her.
She turned and called out, her voice shaky, “I’m fine, really. I’m going home.”
“I’ll go with you.”
She shook her head and jogged toward the footbridge. By the time she reached the other side, she was running.
Adam stopped at the road. She’d asked him not to follow her. And yet she’d kissed him back. Twice. Had he been wrong to kiss her in the first place?
He’d promised to be content with being her friend, and yet he’d asked her for more.
At least he hadn’t said he loved her.
The next day Joanna wasn’t at the warehouse in the morning. As Adam gathered supplies, Dawdi Ike and Mammi Becky arrived together for the first time since Dawdi’s heart attack. They hadn’t said anything at breakfast about coming in.
Mammi Becky said, “We’ve had a change in assignments.” She motioned toward Dawdi and said, “Adam, Caleb, and Jacob, you’re going with Ike to the Pequea Creek house.” She glanced at Tim. “You’re coming with me to the Garden Lane property.”
Adam asked, “What about Joanna?”
“She’s going with me to do the finishing work.”
He exhaled. She was avoiding him. The last thing Adam wanted was to work with Jacob, but better for him to work with Jacob than for Joanna to have to.
It wasn’t until their lunch break, while Dawdi Ike waited on the front porch for Nick to arrive to take him home, that he explained to Adam what was going on.
“Joanna stopped by this morning after you left for work. She said she didn’t want to work with you or Jacob—just for a day or two. She said she needed a break.”
“So you accommodated her?” It hurt that she’d put him in the same category as Jacob.
“Jah, of course we did.” Dawdi Ike put a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Anything you need to tell me?”
Adam shook his head. Not now. Not here. “How was she?”
“Unsettled.”
Adam swallowed hard. “I’m not sure what happened.” He changed his mind. Of course he needed to tell Dawdi what happened. “We had a—a moment, yesterday. And then she ran off.”
Dawdi caught his beard and tugged on it. “So you upset her?”
“Jah.” For that moment, they had connected. Even more so than they had in the van on the way home from Spartansburg. Or when she’d visited Pinecraft. Or when they’d done dishes together that Thanksgiving he was home.
“Did you follow her? Try to find out what was the matter?”
“I started to, but she told me not to.” Adam leaned against the pillar. “I thought I’d only make things worse.”
The van turned down the drive and over the bridge spanning the creek. Nick waved as he stopped the vehicle. Dawdi walked toward him and, as Nick lowered the window, asked, “How are things going at the Garden Lane house?”
“Good. Becky and Joanna, with help from Tim, will have that place finished by the end of the day.”
Dawdi Ike laughed. “No doubt they will.” He turned back to Adam. “I’ll see you after a while. Get as much done as you can this afternoon. And take another look at the barn—we need to make a decision on it.”
Adam watched the van leave. He thought of sitting in the hospital waiting room with Joanna after Dawdi’s heart attack. And again after Mammi Becky’s panic attack. He’d had lots of moments of connection with Joanna over the years, especially over the last month.
When Adam arrived home, Dawdi was napping and Mammi Becky wasn’t around.
It was obvious Mammi Becky had left in a hurry because the breakfast dishes sat in the sink. He cleaned the kitchen and then looked in the refrigerator, finding half a ham and a bowl of broccoli salad from the night before. He was setting the table when Mammi Becky walked through the back door.
He looked out the kitchen window. Joanna was in the front seat of the van, looking directly at him. His heart skipped a beat. She gave him a nod and a hint of a smile, enough to make his heart skip another beat and then race.
“Adam!” Becky clapped her hands together. “You are a dear. How’s Ike?”
“Gut. Resting.” Adam turned toward her.
“I’m right here.” Dawdi stood in the doorway. “How did your day go?”
“Wunderbar.” Mammi Becky swept toward him and took his hand. “We finished everything. It’s all done. I did a walk-through with the owner, touched up a few places, and he signed off.”
Dawdi beamed and then turned to Adam. “What about at the Pequea Creek house? What are your thoughts on the barn?”
“I think we should raze it and start over.”
Mammi Becky groaned. “That’s going to take time and a lot of money. We need to be looking for our next project if we’re going to keep the team going.”
Dawdi rubbed his arm. “About that. With all the unbudgeted expenses we’re looking at, I don’t know if we can keep this business going.”
Adam’s stomach dropped. “Do you plan to sell?”
Mammi Becky squeezed Dawdi’s hand and then said to Adam, “We’re not making any long-term plans right now. We’ll talk later.”
After supper, Adam did the dishes and then slipped out the back door to go for a walk. He turned down the lane toward the barn so he wouldn’t be tempted to walk by Lu’s place and hope Joanna was working in her garden.
He stopped at the barn door. When his father fell all those years ago, Adam thought he was playing until his mother came into the barn, rushed to Dat’s side, and kneeled beside him. Then she stood and ran to the door, screaming, “Ike! Becky!”
Both of his grandparents came running. Mammi scooped Adam up into her arms as his mother said something to Dawdi Ike, who kneeled too and began pushing on his Dat’s chest. Mammi carried Adam out of the barn to the shed, where she made a phone call.
Then she took him to the swing set in the middle of the yard and explained that paramedics would come to care for his Dat. “He’s ill,” she said.
“When will he be better?” Adam had asked.
She choked a little as she said, “Very soon.”
Of course he was never better, not on earth anyway.
It took years for Adam to realize Mammi Becky probably already knew her only child was most likely dying.
But she’d stayed calm for Adam. And in the days and weeks and months ahead it was Mammi Becky who bathed him and dressed him and fed him as his mother mourned.
It was Dawdi Ike who pushed him in the swing and took Adam out to do the chores every afternoon and read him a story at bedtime.
That was what he’d thought about when Dawdi had his heart attack. And when he’d come into the house and Mammi was on the kitchen floor. And it had been Joanna, both times, who had seen him through.
Adam walked on the edge of the highway into town.
His grandparents needed his help now, but if they sold the business they wouldn’t—at least for a while.
He didn’t want to go back to Spartansburg.
And he didn’t want to stay in Lancaster County.
The first time Joanna rejected him was understandable.
He couldn’t even say she rejected him. She didn’t know him. He’d been ridiculous.
It wasn’t until he spoke with an older Mennonite woman who’d had training in counseling others that he realized he had abandonment issues from his father dying.
Moving to Spartansburg with his Mamm when she married Leroy added to them.
Adam was six by then and completely bonded with Dawdi Ike and Mammi Becky, as much as he was to his own mother.
He’d lost his father and then his grandparents.
Sure, he saw them periodically, but it wasn’t the same.
And his stepfather was never warm or encouraging. He competed with Adam for his mother’s attention, and after Adam’s younger brothers were born Leroy favored them. He was critical of Adam—nothing he did was ever good enough. Nee, Adam would never return to Spartansburg.
That left Pinecraft. He knew he could get his old job back. When his grandparents’ health deteriorated more—when they truly did need help—he could return to Lancaster County again.
By the time he reached his grandparents’ lane, the sun had set and twilight lingered for a few more minutes. He decided to keep walking. He stopped on the edge of the woods, wishing Joanna were with him. The lightning bugs were flitting about, but Joanna was nowhere to be seen.
He turned around and walked back home. Home? Probably not for long.
He didn’t see Joanna until the end of the next day. She was carrying a basket of linens down the rental apartment steps. He asked if he could help her, but she shook her head.
“Joanna,” he said as she brushed past him. “I’m really sorry I upset you.”
She met his eyes and smiled a little. “I upset myself.” That hurt. It would be easier if she were angry with him. She slipped past him into the warehouse.
He turned toward Dawdi and Mammi’s house. There was a boy in the yard. Neither Dawdi nor Mammi had worked today, and he guessed they’d had friends stop by.
He strode toward the house. The boy was swinging. It was his youngest brother, Phillip. Adam began to jog. A woman waved at him. His Mamm. Was Leroy with her? He didn’t see him.
Then an Amishman stepped around the corner of the house, but he didn’t have a beard. It wasn’t Leroy. Adam squinted. It was his other brother, Victor, all grown up.
Adam waved back to his Mamm. Mammi Becky stood beside her, and Dawdi Ike followed Victor. When Adam reached the yard, Phillip jumped out of the swing.
“Look at the two of you,” Adam said. “You’ve both grown so much.” Phillip rushed toward him, but Victor held back. “What are you doing here?”
His Mamm stepped forward. “Victor is going to work for Leroy’s cousin for a while.”
Adam’s eyebrows shot up.
“He’s seventeen,” Mamm said. “We thought it would be good for him to work for someone else for a change.”
“Come into the house,” Mammi said. “Supper is almost ready. We can talk more at the table.”
Adam waited while everyone else filed inside, and then paused a moment on the back porch to take off his work boots. As he did, Joanna scootered by the house. He waved, and she waved back, then sent him a questioning look.
“My Mamm is here,” he said. “With my brothers.”
“All the way from Spartansburg?”
He nodded.
“That’s nice.” She sounded happy for him.
Complicated was a more accurate word, but he didn’t say it out loud. “See you tomorrow.”
She nodded.
After a supper of a chicken pot pie, his mother said she’d do the dishes.
“Nee,” Mammi Becky said. “You and Adam need a chance to talk.”
“We can do the dishes together.” Adam turned to his brothers. “You can help Dawdi Ike with the chores. He can’t lift anything over fifteen pounds.”
They hurried out the door, probably afraid they might be forced to help with the dishes too.
Mammi Becky said, “I’ll go supervise.”
After they cleared the table, scraped the plates, and put the food away, Mamm started running the dishwater. “Why didn’t Leroy come?” Adam asked.
“There was no one else to do the chores, plus he needs to start harvest.”
It must have been an emergency for Mamm to take a trip with the boys the first week of August. Adam lowered his voice. “What happened?”
“Vic’s been running around, and he’s gotten into some trouble.
” Mamm paused a moment and added, “He and two friends—Englisch kids—were arrested for vandalism. They set a play structure at the city park on fire.” She exhaled.
“The sheriff said to get Vic out of the area for the next year or so and make sure we put the fear of God in him.”
“How did Leroy respond?”
“At first he blamed it on the Englischers’ influence, but Vic is responsible for his own behavior. Leroy has come to see that. It’s up to Vic what happens next.”
Adam took a plate from the rinse water. “I’m sorry.”
“Nee.” Mamm turned toward him. “I’m sorry.
You were such a good kid, yet Leroy was so hard on you while he treated Vic like a little prince.
I tried to talk with Leroy, but he discounted what I had to say.
I never stuck up for you like I should have.
” She wiped her hands on her apron and swiped at her eyes.
“Mamm, it’s all right.” He put his hand on her shoulder.
“Nee. It’s not all right. You’re my son.” She reached up and squeezed his hand and then pointed out the window toward the warehouse. “We were so happy here. It makes me sad to come back.” Mammi Becky and Phillip came out of the barn and headed toward the chicken coop. Both were laughing.
Mamm plunged her hands back into the dishwater. “Ike and Becky have always been good to me.”
“To me too,” Adam answered. “I don’t know where I would be without them.” For a minute he feared he’d hurt his mother’s feelings, but she nodded in agreement.
They both concentrated on their work for a few minutes. Mamm broke the silence by saying, “I was used to caring men, your Dat and Ike in particular.”
Adam wasn’t sure what to say.
In her quietest voice, she said, “You’re a lot like both of them.”
Adam turned to her. “Denki.” It was the nicest thing she could have said to him.