Grounded Read online

  Still, Jeremiah embodies everything sweet and good in this world. Of that I am sure.

  “You could’ve let a man be a man, Lydia. What if we were courting? What about demut?”

  Demut means “submissiveness” in the old language, Pennsylvania German. We still go to German School on Saturdays, although the realities of Hemlock Hollow dictate speaking like an Englisher. When Jeremiah says demut, he’s referring to a wife’s role with her husband. It’s a way for him to tug at my heartstrings.

  “I was protecting you from hochmut, Jeremiah.” Hochmut means arrogance, about the worst trait an Amish can have. “And besides, by the time you choose to court me, you will have years of experience with my disposition and trust that I can leap just as far and as fast as you.” As long as he’s known me, I’ve been this way, a girl who likes to plow just as well as quilt and who has to win the race, every time. A risk-taker. Maybe being raised without a mother has cost me my femininity. I don’t miss it.

  He laughs in the deep baritone that reminds me of his father. Jeremiah is seventeen like me, but I can tell he will be a great man. He’s already an accomplished carpenter.

  “I brought something for you,” he says.

  “You did?”

  From his hat he pulls a shiny piece of folded paper. My heart skips a beat.

  “Eli brought it back with him.”

  Unfolding the slippery page, I examine a picture of a woman on a runway. If her skirt were any shorter it would be a belt, and the way her blouse sags off her shoulder makes me blush. In our Ordnung, our church law, we are taught to value simplicity. We strive to be plain. The woman’s dress is sinful and contrary to everything I believe. Still, as a seamstress, I am fascinated. I trace my finger along the perfect stitching, the sheath of lace that falls just below the hem. Orange. Bold and unapologetic. What would it be like to wear orange?

  “Do you think they all dress like this?” I ask. “Her shoes look painful.”

  “I don’t know. But we could find out. When will you ask your dad about rumspringa?”

  “Not this again. I’ve told you, there’s no way he’ll allow it.”

  “Come on, Lydia. Almost everyone in Hemlock Hollow lives outside the community as an Englisher before they commit to the Ordnung. They say it’s better in the long run, in case you have to go someday. What they teach us in school is barely enough to get by in their world. Even the bishop encourages the tradition.”

  “I hardly think living as an Englisher is necessary to a happy Amish life. Besides, everything I need is here.”

  Jeremiah rolls his eyes. “Everything you need is here because other folks bring it back for you from the English world. I don’t recall you spinning and weaving the cloth for that dress.”

  I shake my head. “You know my father. He lives the most modest life, and he hates the English world. There is no way he’ll agree.”

  “Did you ask? Did you speak to him about it?”

  “Not exactly. I know how he feels by hearing him talk about the others. Remember when Jacob left?”

  “Yes.”

  “My father said, ‘Such a waste of a good upbringing. It’s like dipping a lily-white lamb in a tar bath.’”

  “He did not!”

  “He did. Every chance he gets, he reminds me of how he lost my mother and brother in an automobile accident in the English world. ‘The world outside ain’t safe, Lydia,’ he says. ‘It’s the devil’s playground.’”

  Jeremiah lets out a deep sigh that blows strands of hay over my shoulder. “I’m not goin’ without you.”

  “Don’t be silly. If you want the experience, go. I’ll still be here when you get back.”

  His fingers hook into mine, and I stare up into his unbelievably bright eyes and clean-shaven face. What will he look like with the traditional beard of married Amish? Will his chin be as blond as his curls?

  “There are more important things than rumspringa, Lydia. But I hoped we could experience the English world together. An adventure to talk about later when we’re…”

  “When we’re what?” I flutter my lashes at him innocently, knowing full well what he means. We’ve been two peas in a pod since we could walk, and it’s long been accepted that we would court. I can’t help myself. I want him to say it. I want to hear the words.

  Jeremiah lifts a corner of his mouth and then opens it to respond.

  “Lydia? Lydia Troyer!” Katie Kauffman, the bishop’s wife, calls from outside the barn.

  Jeremiah rolls onto his back and flattens himself against the hay. Strictly speaking, we aren’t supposed to be alone together unchaperoned.

  I swing my head over the side. “Yeah?”

  “What are you doing in there, child? I thought you were milking?”

  “I finished. Having a rest.”

  “You must come. I’m sorry. It’s your father.”

  I toss my legs over and jump to the barn floor, a good six-foot drop. “What about my dad?”

  “He collapsed. Isaac Bender found him in the field. Rode all the way to the English neighbor on his fastest horse to call a doctor. They took him back to the house—”

  I do not wait for the details. Without concern for social formalities, I dash for home, only yelling my thank you to the bishop’s wife as an afterthought. As much as I complain about my father, he’s all I have. I love him deeply and he’s my only kin. Unlike most Amish, I have no brothers or sisters. When my mother was killed, she took with her any hope of more siblings. My father never remarried, and my grandparents, aunts, and uncles are dead. I have cousins, the Benders and the Kauffmans, but our house is rarely full.

  I scale the wooden steps of our porch in one leap and grapple with the uncooperative doorknob. It turns much too slowly. Inside, a circle of Amish friends pray around my father. He’s propped up with pillows on our sofa, eyes closed. The Benders, the Samuels, the Kauffmans—familiar faces pale against the dark wool of their clothing—whisper solemn appeals for health and healing. Thankful for the prayers and for the company, I place my hand over my heart.

  Amish prayers are strong. God is listening.

  The door slams behind me, and my father’s eyes open at the sound. One of his hands twitches when he sees me; his mouth tugs unevenly to the left. I run to his side, pressing the twitching hand between mine.

  “What happened?”

  He mumbles an unintelligible response. Something is very wrong. Only half of his body moves and my usually quick-witted father barely acknowledges me. His eyes drift away from my face every few seconds.

  The thunder of a car engine turns my head toward the front of the house; the English doctor has arrived. His name is Doc Nelson—he’s treated members of Hemlock Hollow before in extreme circumstances. Isaac Bender opens the door before the doctor has a chance to knock and I move out of the elderly man’s way without being asked.

  After a thorough examination, Doc Nelson addresses the bishop. “I believe Frank has had a stroke. I need to take him with me to the hospital to confirm and to give him proper treatment.”

  My eyes meet Bishop Kauffman’s, leader of our Ordnung and my oldest male relative, my father’s cousin. For anyone to leave our community is against English law. In fact, most Englishers don’t know we can leave. But with permission from a bishop, we still do. English law isn’t our law. Amish understand that breaking the English law is a necessary part of living in a sinful world.

  Even without speaking, the exchange between the Bishop and myself is clear to me. My father wouldn’t want to be treated with English medicine, but he might die without it. The bishop must decide. He knows my father as well as I do, but the way he searches my face tells me he’s waiting to see if I will voice my father’s wishes. More importantly, I think he wonders if it’s God’s will that I become an orphan.

  I’ve always had faith. Moments ago, I’d told Jeremiah that I would live and die in Hemlock Hollow. But now that it’s my father who needs the English medicine, I’m not so willing to dismiss the v
alue of the English world. The difference between Dad and me is this: he trusts that prayers will heal him, while I understand that God sent the doctor.

  I remain silent and lower my eyes. It’s what Amish women do when they submit to male authority. But by not speaking, I’m sending the bishop a message, my desire for my father to be treated by the English.

  “Take him, Doctor Nelson,” Bishop Kauffman says. “Please.”

  I raise my eyes and breathe a sigh of relief.

  With surprising speed, the men load my father into the doctor’s black automobile. How is the world still turning? I can’t lose him. I can’t. Practiced prayers rattle through my brain as the only family I’ve ever known races away from me. All I can think is my father would find the car he’s riding in as sinful as the hospital that, God willing, will save his life.

  2

  “You shouldn’t be alone,” Mary says to me. My dearest friend pulls me into a hug and rubs my back.

  Martha, Mary’s mother, nods. “You’re welcome to stay.”

  After my father was taken to the English hospital, Mary insisted I come home with her. Her mother took me under her wing, fed me until I thought I might burst, and kept me busy the rest of the day at her shop, where I am an apprentice seamstress. I finished six dresses and two pairs of pants she’d started earlier. She worked me harder than usual to be kind, so I didn’t have time to think about what happened. I am grateful for their charity but loathe to overstay my welcome.

  “I want to sleep in my own bed and pray from my own Bible,” I say.

  “Well, you know best what you’ve gotta do. Door’s always open,” Mary’s father says. “Benjamin and Samuel will help with your farm while your father is away.”

  Mary’s two brothers nod in my direction.

  “Thank you. I could never manage on my own.”

  With warm hugs all around, I leave, knowing a strong dose of reality is in store for me without their distraction. Freed by the quiet of the walk home, my mind swims in a sea of insecurities, trying to make sense of my father’s infirmity. He’s always been my rock, my anchor. What will happen if they can’t save him? Can I survive tossed about on the waves of my own independence?

  I have a place, a secret place I go to think. My sacred space.

  To get there, I cross through a field of summer wheat, caressing the soft bristles with my fingertips as the grassy stalks tug against my skirt. My hickory tree is at the edge of the wood. Struck by lightning, half the tree is dead and rotting, but the other half defies the odds, covered in lush green leaves. I run to its trunk and throw my arms around its bark as if the green branches could hug me, pat my back, and say everything will be okay.

  The rotting side has a hollow heart that keeps my secrets. I plunge my hand into the hole, retrieving the treebox Jeremiah carved for me. It’s made from hickory wood and the lid is carved in the likeness of my tree. Inside, there is a hodgepodge of mysteries. A flexible transparent rectangle Eli says is a phone. A piece of rubbery fabric Anna told me adjusts to size when made into a garment. There’s a disintegrating paper cup with a picture of a kidney bean on it and the words Ready Bell Express. I add the photo Jeremiah gave me this morning, taking one more look at the woman in orange with her tall shoes. I sift through the box until my brain buzzes with thoughts of the outside world.

  “Why do you keep that thing if you don’t ever plan to go on rumspringa?”

  I flip the box closed and turn to face Jeremiah, whose teasing tone does not match the grim tilt of his lips. He’s as worried about my father as I am. I shrug. “I’m curious, I guess.” It’s a simple answer, although my feelings are far from simple.

  “Come on, Lydia. Tell me the truth.”

  I stare at the box in my hands for a moment before answering. “Remember a few years ago, Benders had that dog with something wrong in its head?”

  “Yeah, the biter.”

  I nod. “The Benders had to keep it chained so it wouldn’t kill their sheep. That old dog would tug against that chain until his neck was bloody.” I rub my neck. “Fur worn away by rubbing leather.”

  He nods.

  “One day, the rain made the yard soft, and when the dog tugged against the chain, he pulled the spike from the ground, yanked it free from the mud.”

  “I hadn’t heard. Did it kill a sheep?”

  “You would have thought after all the tugging. But no. Instead he lay down at the edge of the yard with his head between his paws. The Benders found him like that, crying and shaking.”

  “What has that to do with rumspringa?” he asks through a smile.

  I sigh. “Maybe I’m a bit like that dog. I want to know about the outside world, but I can’t bring myself to leave home to do it. The English world is a novelty and a temptation. It calls to me, promising excitement and adventure.” I shake my head. “But I’m thankful for the life I have. My father always says the dream of a thing is often better than the reality. The English world could never live up to my expectations.”

  He hangs his head. “Or maybe you’re afraid it will.”

  I purse my lips. “Anyway, Dad will be back soon, I’m sure, and everything will return to normal.”

  “I’m sure it will, Lydia,” Jeremiah says.

  I hide the box again inside the hollow of my tree and then pull myself up into the lowest green branch. Jeremiah follows my lead and positions himself next to me. We sit in the shared silence of old friends. No words are necessary.

  The red-molasses sun drips behind the twelve-foot wall that surrounds Hemlock Hollow. From here, the nuclear reactor in the Outlands is clearly visible. The towering concrete hunkers in the distance, both our blessing and our curse. There are guard towers on the wall, where my father says there used to be soldiers years ago, but the radiation made them sick and eventually the Green Republic couldn’t get anyone to work there. By that time, the government thought all my ancestors were dead or dying. Some did, but the ones who lived learned to adapt. And because the Green Republic is afraid to come here, they haven’t a clue about us. The reactor preserves our way of life.

  “He’s made of tough stuff, Lydia,” Jeremiah says. “This is why we have the lessons. This is why we prepare. Your dad will blend in, get healed, and come home. Don’t you worry.” His hand comes to rest on the branch next to mine. Our little fingers touch. My cheeks warm and I have to look away.

  “It’s you who should be worried about what your mother will do if she catches you here after dark,” I say to him.

  He grins and jumps down from the branch. Tipping his hat, he says, “Good night, Lydia.”

  He disappears into the wheat. A few minutes later, I follow, arriving home by the light of the moon. I let myself into my house, hyperaware of the whine of the door hinges and the creak of the floorboards underfoot.

  I fall into bed exhausted, but there’s no rest for me. Nightmares fill my head. Nightmares of dark wolves chasing me.

  It’s two days more before I hear anything. Two days I spend in prayer and fasting, even though Martha Samuels and others try their best to feed and comfort me. I don’t want to be a burden. I do my chores and help with my father’s. I stay in my own house.

  When the knock comes, I approach the door, the weakest I’ve been since the time I fell into the river at nine years old. My limbs are just as shaky, and my heart pounds as it did when I had to tread water for hours to stay alive. I’ve never been sick, not even a cold, but maybe this is my first flu. I’m overdue.

  On the other side of the door waits a slight man with minimal gray hair and a kind smile. He holds his hat at his waist.

  “Bradford. Do you bring news of my father?”

  “I do.” His mouth pulls into a tight line. For a moment, I’m afraid to hear what he has to say.

  Bradford Adams and his wife, Hillary, have been friends of Hemlock Hollow for some thirty years. The Adamses live a mile west of the wall, and it was their phone Isaac used to call the doctor. Bradford and Hillary are the only Englishers
besides Doc Nelson I know and trust.

  I remember my manners. A bicycle leans against the porch and there is no car in front of the house. “You rode your bike all this way.” I motion for him to come in and sit down.

  Bradford nods. “Out of respect for your traditions.” The man limps into the house and takes a seat on the sofa.

  By way of the kitchen, I return with some lemonade, pouring him a tall glass before plopping down ungracefully in the chair across from the sofa. “Please, tell me what you’ve learned.”

  “Doc Nelson called today. First, let me relieve your fears. Your father is alive. The doctor says he’s progressing normally.”

  “Praise the Lord.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When can he come home?”

  “That’s the trouble. See, your father had what they call a stroke. He can’t speak or walk. The doctors on the outside can fix it. They have ways.”

  “I can take care of him while he recovers.”

  “Once they fix him you won’t have to, honey. The only thing is, the treatment will take several weeks.”

  I shake my head. “No. Dad can’t stay for that long. He wouldn’t want to.”

  “It’s too late to bring him back. As far as the Englishers are concerned, he’s a plumber from Willow’s Province. You have to understand, in the outside world, no one leaves the hospital before they’re treated. If he leaves early, they might trace him back here. You and I both know that would be disastrous.” He takes a sip of his lemonade. “They’re moving him to a rehabilitation center in Crater City.”

  “Crater City? But that’s so far away!”

  “He’s in good hands, but he will not be back for quite some time.”

  I press the heels of my palms over my eyes. I can’t do this. I can’t pretend anymore. As strong as I want to be, tears seep down my cheeks. I come apart tear by tear.

  An arthritic hand pats my shoulder. “Don’t cry, darling. If you want me to, I can take you in my car to visit.”