Chapter 16
A Visit to the Past
Daniel tightened the reins slightly as the buggy turned onto the narrow dirt lane leading toward the old Hostetler farm. For a long moment he stared ahead in silence.
It had been six years since he had last traveled this road.
The fields stretched wide beneath the late summer sun, corn swaying gently in the breeze while distant fence lines cut across the rolling land he had once known as intimately as his own hands.
And yet somehow everything already felt unfamiliar.
Daniel swallowed hard. The farmhouse finally came into view beyond the trees. It looked much smaller now. That was the first thing he noticed. As a boy, the white farmhouse had seemed sturdy and endless, filled with warmth and safety; now it looked older somehow.
Overall it seemed different and quieter. The shutters had been painted dark green instead of the blue they used to be. The porch rail his father built by hand had been replaced entirely. Even the maple tree near the well looked thinner than he remembered.
Daniel guided the horse slowly into the yard before climbing down from the buggy.
Silence greeted him immediately, not the peaceful silence of a farm, but the empty silence of a home that no longer held familiarity and family.
The kind that settles over places after too much time and too many people have left.
He stood still for several long moments, his boots pressing into familiar dirt while memories rose around him whether he wanted them to or not.
His father laughing while repairing harnesses in the barn.
Summer evenings spent sitting on the porch steps watching lightning bugs drift through the fields.
For years he had convinced himself reclaiming this farm would somehow restore the pieces of himself he had lost after his father died. But standing here now… it didn’t feel like returning home. It felt like visiting a memory, a temporary visit as if this was no longer where he belonged.
The current owners had left the property unlocked for him to inspect before making a decision. Slowly, Daniel crossed the yard toward the barn first. The old doors creaked open beneath his hands.
The familiar scent of hay and aged wood lingered faintly inside, though different tools now lined the walls. Different harnesses hung neatly from pegs his father once used. Daniel stepped farther inside.
Sunlight streamed through cracks in the barn walls while dust drifted lazily through the warm air. For one painful moment he could almost see his father standing beside the workbench again. The barn suddenly felt unbearably hollow.
Because the truth settled heavily inside his chest all at once. The building remained. The land remained. But the life that once filled it was gone, and living here again wouldn’t bring back his father.
Daniel leaned both hands against the workbench slowly, bowing his head. He had spent years believing this farm represented belonging; now he realized belonging had never truly been about the land itself. It had been about the people waiting for him at the end of each day.
His father’s steady presence.
Shared meals.
Shared burdens.
Shared life.
Without that… this was only a house and fields.
Nothing more.
The realization left him strangely breathless. Daniel left the barn moments later before walking toward the farmhouse porch.
The screen door creaked softly as he stepped inside. The kitchen no longer looked familiar at all. There were different curtains by the window, a different table, and even the floors looked different somehow.
His memories rushed back from his childhood sitting at a table in this very kitchen, but they quickly vanished because they belonged to the past.
And Daniel finally understood something he should have realized long ago.
He had never truly grieved the loss of the land; he had grieved his father. Standing in the kitchen now, a grown man, he realized he didn’t need to be on the Hostetler farm to remember his father; those memories would always be guarded safely in his heart.
He didn’t need to go further into the house to confirm it, so he stepped back outside. A breeze stirred through the trees surrounding the yard while distant birdsong drifted across the fields. Daniel looked out over the property one final time.
It was beautiful land.
Good land.
But standing there no longer filled him with peace and contentment.
He closed his eyes, and another image came to mind. An image of Hannah, barefoot on the farmhouse porch. Lydia’s constant complaints, Miriam’s incessant teasing.
The Peachy farmhouse glowing warmly at dusk while conversation and laughter drifted through the open windows. Daniel’s chest tightened painfully. Because suddenly the difference between the two farms felt painfully obvious.
One held memories. The other held a future and Hannah…
Hannah had quietly become part of every future he wanted now. The realization settled over him with startling clarity. He didn’t belong here anymore. Home was no longer the place where his past remained buried. Home was the place where his heart had finally begun living again.
By the time Daniel guided the buggy back onto the road leading toward the Peachy farm, the weight inside his chest had shifted entirely. Not grief now. But certainty.
The sun had begun dipping low across the fields when the Peachy farmhouse finally came into view again.
Warm lantern light glowed softly from the kitchen windows.
His heart swelled as he understood that this was where the Lord had guided him.
Not home to the Hostetler farm, but to Hannah and the Peachy farm.