Between Two Promises Read online

  Wanting to avoid a quarrel, he turned for the door. “Best get going, then,” he said.

  “Make sure you give Mr. Hassler something for his efforts,” Rachel called to him before he shut the door behind him.

  Flurries continued to fall when Daniel climbed into the driver’s seat of the Suburban. Like the large flakes that danced by his windshield, his thoughts came in directionless swirls.

  His mother clearly had questions for him, questions about why he had called off his wedding with Tara. The same nagging questions his father had had no trouble throwing at him the other day in Gertrude’s stall. Why should they care? He was man enough to make his own decisions. Yet why did the guilt press on him for evading their wondering eyes?

  Upstairs in the house, Aiden probably had questions for him too—like why Daniel hadn’t come to check on him while he rested from the flu. Daniel never did have the best bedside manner. The minute he’d spied Aiden getting sick from his woodshop window, he should’ve driven him back to the inn. For now, he figured it best to leave him be. He was in good hands with his mother and Elisabeth. Best to let things lie still rather than stir up suspicions.

  He was lucky—and surprised—none of the ministers had cornered him during the wedding reception yesterday. He supposed they had forgotten to speak to him, despite his father’s warning that they would. He hoped to make it back to Montana before the ministers seized an opportunity to grill him.

  In town, he drove past the family’s vacant furniture shop. Briefly, he wondered if it could be possible to move back to Henry and reopen it. He reflected on the times he’d spent there, manning the shop, usually in the company of his two younger brothers. Were those days gone forever?

  He stopped by the hardware store first, where he purchased boxes of fasteners, hinges, and magnetic catches. After making small talk with the store clerk, he left his purchases on the front seat of the truck and walked to The Henry Blade, two blocks down the street.

  “Hello, Kevin Hassler,” Daniel said, stepping inside the small office. The heater was working overtime. He concealed his cringe from the hot blast of the electric baseboards. Daniel never understood why the Englishers always needed to crank up everything full blast.

  “Why, Daniel Schrock.” Kevin stood from behind his desk. “How have you been? Aiden stopped by the other day. Back in town for Mark’s wedding too, I suppose?”

  “Ya, that’s the case.”

  “It was yesterday, wasn’t it? Hope it went well.”

  “Everyone had a good time.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Daniel glanced at the woman typing at a desk. She looked familiar. Some local English girl he recalled seeing hanging out with a few rumspringa youth when he was younger. When Kevin did not bother to introduce them to each other, Daniel wasted no time mentioning what had brought him. “Mom wanted me to pick up some labels she had you print for her.”

  “Ah, yes. Those labels. They’re right over…. Where are they, Carolyn?”

  The woman stopped typing only long enough to point a large finger at a foldout table by the window, close enough Daniel could lay a hand on it.

  “There they are.” Kevin smiled. “Carolyn printed them up.”

  “Awful nice of you both.” Daniel glanced over at the shoebox on the table. Either Kevin or the woman named Carolyn had written on the lid in clear block lettering, all capitals: LABELS FOR MRS. RACHEL SHROCK. Daniel inwardly chuckled at the misspelling of the family’s name.

  “I’m glad to see your mother selling enough of her canned goods she needs the extra labels,” Kevin said.

  “Things seem to be picking up everywhere, I figure.” Daniel reached into his coat pocket and took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Kevin. “Before I forget, for your efforts.”

  “No, Daniel, that’s not necessary.” Kevin waved his hand in front of his face. “I’m glad I could help.”

  Daniel stuffed the twenty back in his wallet. He wanted to leave. A sweat built inside his winter jacket, and he hated the effort needed to make small talk with Englishers he hardly knew. He picked up the shoebox. “I’ll tell Mom to drop off some of her baked goods for you, then.”

  “I’d love that.” Kevin grinned wider.

  “Have a good Christmas.” Daniel nodded to both Kevin and Carolyn as he edged backward toward the shussly cardboard Santa hanging on the door.

  “You too, Daniel,” Kevin said. “Say hello to your family for me.”

  Back outside, Daniel relished the cool air. Something repressive hovered in that office, more than the heat. He hated being indebted to anyone, particularly an Englisher. Kevin was gracious enough. But that woman. She had made him feel like an intruder.

  He wanted to take care of a few other things before returning to the farm. He welcomed the long, relaxing drive through Frederick County even while the flurries changed over to a steady snowfall. He stopped by his old farm. Only the slightest impression was left in the ground where the farmhouse had once stood, the same farmhouse where an emergency crew had found the bodies of his wife, Esther, and son, Zachariah. When he had decided not to rebuild after the destruction, the community had filled in the basement hole, along with everything in his past, it seemed.

  Staring through the windshield at the field he currently rented to an English farmer, he reflected on his past life. Much of that life was gone. His wife, his son, his farm. Hadn’t everything happened for a reason? Wasn’t it all God’s will?

  Aiden had once told him he would like to become Amish and live with Daniel on a farm. Daniel had snickered. The world’s first gay Amish couple. Both realized that was impossible, at least officially. The idea was absurd. Like the Amish, he and Aiden lived semi-subsistent, but they would never be welcomed into a strict ultraorthodox culture. The community simply had no capability to absorb such nonconformity. Even Aiden had said he understood how accepting gay couples into the community would invariably change the Amish way of life.

  Daniel mentally shrugged. What did any of it matter? Everything made less and less sense to him.

  Communities, lifestyles. He only wanted to be himself, to be his own man. Hidden away in the mountains, far from the many ordnungs wrapped around the infinite competing subcultures within the United States. Sometimes he tired of it all.

  The individual was the smallest minority on earth, he reflected, suddenly coming to an understanding of the passage he’d read in one of Aiden’s tattered paperbacks, scattered about the cabin.

  But as he gazed over his land, speckled with snow, where he had once lived with his wife and baby, where his barn had once housed his livestock, where he had once worked in his woodshop, before an F-3 tornado had disintegrated it, he wondered if he had the stomach to leave everything behind.

  He made a mental note to telephone the English farmer whom he rented his land to. Although no house stood on it, Mr. Sweeney used the land merely for extra acreage. Many English farmers owned or rented land scattered over a multicounty area to harvest larger yields. He decided he needed to speak with Mr. Sweeney about something urgent. He would call him after supper, when he was certain he’d be in for the night.

  Twenty minutes later, he found himself in the town of Unity. Why he had driven that far, fifteen miles from his family’s farm, when he had no business there, he did not know. He recognized the fabric shop where Tara Hostetler had worked while they were engaged. He wondered if she still worked there. Curious, he pulled the truck into the shop’s small parking lot and went inside.

  “Frehlicher Grishtdaag,” Tara said when she spotted him by the entrance, where he stood as still as a snowman.

  “Merry Christmas,” Daniel mumbled, taken aback by her pleasant greeting. He’d had no idea what to expect coming into the shop, but he’d thought she might be angry with him for how he had left everything in June.

  “What brings you to a fabric shop, Daniel Schrock?”

  “Thought I’d stop by, was in the neighborhood and remembe
red you work here.”

  “I’m surprised,” she said, one dark blonde eyebrow raised. “You never could remember where I worked while we were engaged.”

  Shame heated Daniel’s cheeks. “I could be forgetful at times.”

  “You were a distracted one, for sure,” Tara said, curling her naturally pink lips into a smile. “So, why after everything that’s happened, did you think of visiting me at work now?”

  “I’d feel kinda shussly if I was in town and didn’t say hi. After all, we were engaged once, Tara.”

  Tara fluttered a laugh. “We were more than engaged, Fickle Dan. We were practically kneeling before the bishop.”

  Daniel flushed again, recalling when he’d broken his engagement with Tara. The stress had mounted so high he feared he may chicken out, go along with the long-awaited ceremony anyway, and never see Aiden or Montana again. He never did reveal to Aiden how perilously close he came to letting him and their dream of living together in a rustic cabin drift away, like dandelion seeds in the wind.

  Once he took that fragile, terrifying step and faced Tara while they sat in his courting buggy in the driveway of her family’s farm, he realized there was no backing down. Tara merely responded to his rejecting her with “Fickle Dan.” Afterward, she climbed down from the carriage without even a glance back.

  “I never did get to fully apologize,” Daniel said. “I am sorry.”

  “No need to be,” she said. “In a way, I figure, I should thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be married to someone the rest of my life who was unsure of wanting me as his wife,” Tara said. “I figure in a way it took some courage to do what you did. Besides, I kinda saw it coming.”

  Daniel lowered his head. She spoke the truth. He had always supposed she’d expected him to back out of their engagement. It had been such a long one. Near six months. So much time to mull things over. Yet he’d never predicted he would back out a mere five days before their nuptials. But he never foresaw bumping into Aiden Cermak in the middle of the Montana backcountry six months after his father had banished Aiden from the community, either.

  Tara moved to a kiosk of buttons, ribbons, and zippers. She appeared to be sorting them, keeping herself busy while she spoke. “I’m courting someone new,” she said, with a hint of pride in her tone. “He’s very nice. He’s not from here, but he’s been for a visit a few times, and we write letters to each other often.”

  “That’s goot, I’m glad to hear it.” Daniel had learned about Tara’s new boyfriend through one of his mother’s letters. His father had also mentioned it a few days ago. Daniel had sensed Samuel had used the information as kindling to hasten him to “patch things up” with her.

  But he hadn’t wandered into the fabric shop to renew their courtship. That would be shussly.

  A chubby English woman stepped inside the shop. She headed straight for the back, where Daniel heard another woman, probably Tara’s boss, greet her. Daniel, still clutching his hat, wanted to leave. He must look like a fool to any woman finding him standing in the middle of a fabric shop.

  “Perhaps we should go get something to eat,” he blurted. He supposed offering lunch was the proper thing to do. He never had been good with goodbyes, and at least lunch would get him out of the shop.

  Tara gazed at him, her mouth puckered. “Let me tell Mrs. Harrington I’ll be taking my break.”

  AT THE Dairy Queen across the street, they ate cheeseburgers and onion rings at a booth. The lunch crowd had gone, and he and Tara had the place mostly to themselves. Daniel, both relieved and anxious, nibbled at his food.

  “How was Mark’s wedding?” Tara asked.

  Daniel, after swallowing to allow himself to speak, told her a few details of the wedding, leaving out the game of slap-a-pig. “You shoulda come,” he said. “I know Mom called on you with an invitation.”

  “My hands were busy. I couldn’t make it,” Tara said. “I’ll see everyone at Christmas services, anyway. Will you be there? You’re still in the church, aren’t you?”

  Tara’s needling question forced him to sit up. Why was answering that question so difficult each time someone had asked him? Perhaps because the answer eluded him.

  Tara probably sensed his unease and clarified her reason for asking. “I see you drove that big truck.” She nodded across the street toward the parking lot, where the Suburban slowly accumulated snow. “I don’t figure anyone still in the church would be permitted to drive such a beast.”

  “I’m still in the church,” Daniel said, his same pat response. Technically, he spoke the truth. But how long before the ministers came after him with more forceful words than Tara’s or his father’s? Unlikely he could evade their judgmental eyes the entire duration of his stay. Yes, he had been lucky to dodge the ministers at Mark’s wedding, but at some point, he would have to face them and supply them—and the entire community—with a firmer answer.

  An English couple entered the restaurant. They ogled Daniel and Tara on their way to the counter. Probably stopping off from the nearby Interstate for a late lunch, out-of-towners unused to running into the old-fashioned Amish eating in fast food establishments. Daniel eyeballed them. Grimacing, he turned back to his cheeseburger.

  “You probably wouldn’t be permitted to speak with me if I wasn’t in the church,” he said, chortling off his reference to the shunning. Tara’s mouth remained taut. Deciding it best to change the topic, he asked Tara how she and her new boyfriend had met.

  “My cousin encouraged him to write me,” Tara replied. “We been corresponding since September.”

  Daniel was happy for Tara’s enthusiasm. The guilt over breaking up with her dwindled, now that he knew she’d gotten on with her life. Yet a strange sensation pinched him. It was that same creeping feeling he’d had while watching Heidi’s beefy cousin swat Aiden’s behind during the game of slap-a-pig. A sensation he wanted to ignore.

  “I’m going to visit him after Christmas,” Tara said, “during the Epiphany, with him and his family.”

  Daniel remembered hearing a rumor the man she was courting lived in Maryland, and he asked her if this was the case. Tara nodded as she sipped her vanilla milkshake through the straw. How odd, Daniel thought with an internal chuckle, that they both should be courting men from Maryland.

  “And where are you living now?” Tara asked, gnawing on an onion ring.

  Daniel flushed. How much of his life could he reveal to Tara without stringing her along with lies like he had most everyone else? Perhaps asking her to lunch was not such a good idea. Putting down his root beer, he said, “I’m living in Montana.”

  “Ach, I did hear something about you living out west,” Tara said. “How do you like it?”

  “I like it fine. The mountains reach to the sky.”

  “I never seen the mountains,” Tara said. “Aaron, that’s the man I’m courting in Maryland, he says where he lives they got big mountains. I can’t wait to see them. Are you living in an Amish settlement in Montana?”

  “Well, I live near Rose Crossing. That’s a small settlement by Glacier National Park.”

  “Sounds like a wunderbar goot place to live.”

  They talked a bit about Montana, the region of western Maryland where Aaron lived as a dairy farmer, the mountains. Daniel, nibbling like a bird, was unable to let his hunger override the strange sensation of sitting across from his former fiancée. Only a handful of months had lapsed since he’d called off their wedding. In an odd way, he felt as if they still courted.

  Their past dates had gone much like their lunch at Dairy Queen. Self-conscious attempts at conversation, desperate searches for any kind of common ground. Despite the awkwardness, there had always existed an air of amicability, mutual respect, and good nature. Neither disliked the other, no matter how few interests they shared.

  They finished eating, and after saying their goodbyes by his truck, Daniel headed back to the farmhouse. Tara seemed to hold little grud
ge against him. He was glad. But had she been sincere? She always had a way about her. She shared his mother’s characteristics in some ways: stubborn, peppered with shrewd charm.

  Driving along, he wondered what life would’ve been like if he had gone through with his marriage promise to her. How happy would they be today? Had he been selfish in calling off their engagement a mere week before the wedding day? What would his and Aiden’s lives be like if he hadn’t? Would Aiden still be in Montana, living alone? Would their lives have been any worse—or perhaps better?

  And children? Nice to have kinner running about, he mused, barely noticing the windshield wipers brush aside the fluffy snow. His son, Zach, had been one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Would he ever have the chance to hold his own baby in his arms again?

  Chapter Eleven

  “VO IS yeder?”

  Rachel did not bother to look up when Daniel drifted into the kitchen and asked her where everyone was. Seated at the table, she held Gretchen firmly against her chest. She hoisted the baby higher and repositioned herself on the bench.

  “Everybody’s out running about,” she answered almost mechanically. “Your dad and David went to meet off some of the relatives at the train depot. Mark and Heidi are making the rounds, thanking everyone for coming to their wedding. Elisabeth took Grace and Moriah to the schoolhouse to help ready things for the pageant her class is putting on for the community tomorrow. Her kinner are on Christmas break, but they been practicing all week.”

  “And Leah and Aiden?”

  “Sleeping in their rooms.”

  “House should be nice and quiet for a change.” Daniel set the shoebox on the table. “I picked up those labels from Kevin Hassler, like you asked.”

  “Danke. Something to eat?”

  Thoughts of his mother’s tasty cooking set his stomach grumbling. He had been too nervous to eat much during lunch with Tara. One meager cheeseburger and batch of onion rings barely covered a lunch for Daniel. “Ya,” he said, “something to eat would be good, if no trouble.”