Between Two Worlds Read online

  Samuel threw his head back and laughed. His grizzled beard, speckled with food crumbs, jiggled. “So the Englisher’s government wanted to get rid of tobacco and only succeeded putting it into the hands of the Amish? Ha! That’s goot!”

  The rest of the family giggled also, even the younger children, although Aiden suspected they did not quite understand the story and found amusement only in their father’s mirth.

  “Sell is en goodi!” Samuel dabbed at his eyes with his paper napkin. “That’s the best story I heard in a long time. Sweet justice. I don’t remember reading about that in The Budget. We should all know about that.”

  “I got a kick out of it myself,” Aiden said, beaming from Samuel’s reaction to his story.

  “We don’t believe in government.” The amusement evaporated from Samuel’s eyes. “It’s not the source or the center of our lives.”

  “Yes, well, I’m with you on that.” Aiden lifted his glass of whole milk, mimicking a toast. “I wish more people thought like that.”

  “God is the center of our lives,” Samuel said, returning to his chicken and biscuits.

  Aiden reddened. Whenever people talked about God, he always grew ill at ease. Visiting among the Amish, he knew he would have to adjust to religious references being liberally expressed, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. Their denomination, after all, dictated their entire existence.

  Staving off his discomfort, he looked to Daniel to gauge his reaction to his tobacco story. Just as before, he sat erect on the bench, his ebony eyes peering at the food on his plate, as if thinking deeply about the story… or some other matter on his mind.

  Chapter 3

  Daniel was grateful when supper finally ended. What a relief when the last morsels were eaten and everyone could go about their after-supper chores. He didn’t think he could get through another moment listening to that Englisher…. But he liked listening to him. That was the problem. He liked it too much.

  He carried his plate to the kitchen sink, grabbed for his straw hat in the utility room, and bee-lined for the barn to tend to the animals. Moriah followed him.

  “Why are you going to the barn?” she asked.

  “I got to care for the animals.” Daniel stomped ahead.

  “But you always say caring for the animals is for kinner. I was going to do it, like I always do after supper.”

  “I changed my mind and decided to do it tonight.” He stopped at the barn’s swing door and turned to his little sister. “But just for tonight. Now go back inside and help your mom with the kitchen scrubbing.”

  Confusion etched all over her face, Moriah shrugged and turned back for the house. Alone in the barn, Daniel relaxed. A little. He nudged away the straw layering the floor with his booted feet, irritated. Two wayward chickens scurried from him. He was never that fond of barn work, even when he was a kinner. But he needed some excuse to get away. To occupy his mind and try to straighten his thoughts. He liked caring for the horses, especially the standardbreds. They always seemed to appreciate the attention. The rest was a thankless, dirty undertaking.

  He put fresh hay in the miniature horse stall. Frieda and her new foal, Magpie, lay on their sides, sleeping. The stallion, Jake, stood in a corner, as if he were a stranger. Daniel could relate. He was feeling pushed out of his home too.

  As he fed the animals, his stomach growled. With that Englishman sitting across the table, he hadn’t eaten as much as he usually would have. His appetite had lacked its usual bite, even after such a trying day, and he never got around to his usual seconds. His mother always said he ate like a horse with a bottomless stomach. Tonight he had nibbled on his mother’s tasty cooking like a hen pecking the ground for worms. He barely was able to enjoy Elisabeth’s chocolate cream pie. His mind had been on one thing: getting away from the table and Aiden Cermak.

  After feeding the mule, their two goats, and the three draft horses, he spent extra care tending to the needs of the three standardbreds. These were his animal friends. They were the horses that led him wherever he needed to go. He mourned the loss of Dexter. He was a good friend in a horse. He understood the need for euthanizing him. He did not blame the Englisher for Dexter’s death. Aiden did save his family. He only wished poor Dexter could’ve been spared somehow. Enough death in his world already.

  He supposed it was all God’s will.

  Peppermint stirred in her stall. She needed milking. He chuckled, thinking of little Leah’s naming their one dairy cow after her favorite candy. He felt silly calling her Peppermint. Animals probably shouldn’t have names. Grace usually did the milking. Of all the barn chores, hand milking was the most taxing. But the job would chisel away some time. Time he wanted to avoid spending with the Englisher inside the house.

  Daniel led Peppermint from her stall, but she seemed less than willing to follow, as if she didn’t trust Daniel. She balked, shook her head, and mooed. Daniel pulled on the lead, and eventually the cow, giving in to Daniel’s authority, followed him. He tied her to a post and filled a trough full of oats to keep her occupied.

  He pushed his straw hat higher up on his head and wiped down the udder with an old rag lying in some opaque water. Clean enough, he placed the stainless steel milk bucket under her udder. The last time he’d milked was three years ago, and that was to show some English tourists, who his mother had allowed on the farm, the art of hand milking. Lots of the local Amish let the English tour their farms for a small fee. He’d felt like a showman then, disgusted almost. He was glad to be away from the latest tourist inside their house.

  Daniel took hold of the teats. Peppermint pulled her snout from the oats and shuffled back and forth, yanking on her lead.

  “Steady, girl, steady.”

  The cow, finally relaxing with her teats in Daniel’s hands, resumed eating the oats. A steady zip-zap of the warm shots hit the bucket. The air in the barn seemed to fall heavy over his head. The late afternoon sun sparkled like miniscule fireworks as it pierced through the slits in the barn. Perspiration dribbled from his armpits and trickled down his sides, but he did not mind. It felt good to be breaking a sweat doing something productive rather than wasting time with that stranger. Above on the gambrel roof, he heard the powerless ventilation system switch on, humming rhythmically.

  Each time Aiden entered his thoughts, he shook his head, like a dog shaking itself after a swim in a pond. No point pondering about the man. The moment he’d grasped his hand, no matter how clumsy it had been, he’d felt a strange twinge of discomfort. Aiden’s hand had been so soft, almost like dough, like so many other Englishers’ hands he’d shaken.

  Why did he resent his being there so much? After everything he had done for his family, he should probably be a bit more receptive. Squaring his shoulders to get a better grip on Peppermint’s teats, he didn’t want to dwell on the question. The Englishman would be gone in a few short days. At least Daniel had his woodwork and the farm chores and the furniture shop in town to keep himself busy until then. He was sure he could steer clear of him most of the time.

  He picked up his rhythm and thick milk soon filled halfway up the bucket. The smell of the raw milk reached his nostrils. He never did like the smell. It was mildly acrid, like chicken fat.

  Peppermint snorted, stomped a hind foot, and with her tail swatted a horsefly that landed on her rump, all the while keeping her snout in the feed trough. Milk flowing in thin streams from the teats shot sideways onto Daniel’s broadfall pants. He jumped back from the unexpected squirting.

  “Boogered cow.” Daniel grabbed for a new set of teats and readjusted his pinching to slow down the heavy stream. From the corner of his eye he saw Grace strolling into the barn.

  “What you doing?” she asked, waddling up to him.

  “You never seen a person milk a cow?”

  “I know what you’re doing, just not why.” She cupped her hands over her bent knees as she leaned in closer. The strings of her kapp dangled near Daniel’s shoulders. “I was coming out to do it
, like I always do.”

  “You were slacking off with that Englisher.” Before Grace could protest, Daniel handed her the full bucket. “Fill the jugs and get them in the refrigerator, will you?”

  “Goodness, you’re in a mood tonight.” Grace sighed and slumped off to the kitchen with the heavy bucket.

  Grace was right. Daniel was in a mood. So much so he didn’t want to go back inside the house. Too much commotion with that Englishman there. His mood would only worsen. He looked around, wondering what to do next, and decided to take refuge in his woodshop. He still had work to do on his mother’s corner kitchen cabinet. Her old one was coated in grease and she had a tough time keeping it clean. He planned on giving it to her as a birthday gift. On the way, he caught sight of his little brother David and the Englishman coming out of the hen house. Averting his eyes from them, he took two large steps into the woodshop and quickly shut the door.

  Watching Daniel scurry into his woodshop as he walked back to the house with David, Aiden again wondered if Daniel resented him. He had been avoiding him from the moment they’d sat down to supper, and afterward he’d rushed out of the kitchen faster than a man on fire. What reason would he have to loathe him?

  Attracted once again to his tight beard that anchored such full lips and fierce dark eyes, he thought about Daniel’s wife. He knew he had to be married. Amish moustacheless beards were not meant to be fashion statements.

  He wanted to ask about the mysterious wife, but the words lodged heavy in his throat. Setting the basket of eggs on the dining table while Rachel and her girls scrubbed the kitchen, he decided it best to keep quiet. No one in the family had mentioned his wife or any children thus far. He sensed he should follow along. At least for now.

  “You’ll be sleeping in Daniel’s bedroom,” David said once they settled in the sitting room. Aiden had followed him while the others finished their after-supper chores. He watched from an armchair as David retrieved a coloring book and a twelve-pack crayon set from a pine chest and tucked his scrawny legs under the coffee table. David seemed only half-interested in his coloring. But in a home without video games, computers, or television, what other activity was an eleven-year-old boy to do?

  “He’s sleeping with Mark and me while you’re here, so you can have your own room,” David said, his upper lip curled as he colored.

  “I hope I’m not putting anyone out.”

  David shrugged. “We’re used to room hopping. Mark got the room after Daniel got married, then when Daniel moved back home a few months ago, Mark had to move back in with me. We’re like toads, hopping all over. I don’t mind because I get to sleep in Daniel’s sleeping bag while you’re here.”

  Aiden gazed out the window where a male cardinal fluttered past his view. Daniel had moved back home a few months ago? But why? Did his wife move with him? Impossible that Daniel had divorced and moved back home like any American male might—no divorce existed in Amish culture for any reason, he was certain. Did they allow separation?

  So much he wanted to know, yet he feared by asking he would cross an unmarked Amish barrier. He knew personal information from the Amish must come voluntarily. And with Rachel within earshot just around the corner in the kitchen, he did not want to step into anything too intimate with young David.

  His inquisitiveness might have made him into a good journalist, but he also knew it could break apart good friendships. He learned that the hard way when he had inadvertently outed his best friend in an article he wrote for his college newspaper about gays in fraternities. His friend never forgave him. The last thing he wanted was to alienate the Schrocks after they had been so kind as to invite him into their home.

  “You had a long day, for sure, my friend,” Samuel said, lumbering into the sitting room. With a sigh, he sat in a well-worn recliner and fully extended it. “Surely days like this come once in a blue moon.”

  Aiden flushed from across the room. “Yes, sir.”

  “We won’t forget it for as long as we live.” Samuel shook open a newspaper he carried under his arm. He put on his bifocals and peered at the front page. “I figure God throws us days like this to keep us on our toes.”

  He offered Aiden a section of his newspaper and Aiden gladly accepted. Sitting back on his chair, he glanced over The Budget and learned it was published by and for the Amish and Mennonite communities. One item made him giggle: a Mrs. Miller from New Hope, Ohio had sprained her ankle while chasing the family goat out of the house. She was unsure how it had gotten in, but was certain to make sure that it never happened again.

  Rachel entered the sitting room, her clogs tapping against the hardwood floor, and sat in an armchair next to her husband. A lit Coleman gas lantern swung evenly from her fingertips. Nearing eight o’clock in the early part of June, enough natural light streamed through the curtainless windows that they did not yet need the use of lanterns, but Aiden guessed once darkness came, it would descend rapidly and she would want to be prepared.

  Samuel peeked at his wife over his bifocals and scrunched his bulbous nose. “It’s not yet dark out.”

  “It’ll be dark soon,” she said, setting the hissing lantern on an end table beside her. She reached into a drawer for a wooden crochet box and took her crocheting into her lap.

  Samuel returned his eyes to his newspaper. “With the price of gas, I think you’d want to wait some.”

  “I waited long enough,” Rachel said, her fingers already churning out eggshell-colored love knots.

  Before long, everyone—everyone but Daniel—had gathered in the sitting room. Two more gas lanterns were lit as the daylight faded. Soon the hiss of lanterns, with patches of orange glow throwing pulsating shadows against the furniture and white walls, filled the room.

  Though the house held onto the day’s heat, Aiden did not mind. He was feeling rather serene now that the initial awkwardness of meeting the family had passed. No surprise he enjoyed such a setting. He always dreamed of a life like the Schrocks’, with all its simplicity, devoid of the blare of televisions, video games, and air conditioners.

  He noted how the family seemed unfazed by the day’s events. Even the children, contentedly going about their diversions, appeared to have forgotten the grim scene of the accident. Mark stretched prone on top of a rag rug reading what looked to be a car magazine. Grace sat on the sofa hemming an apron by light thrown from her mother’s lantern. Moriah held a skein of wool looped over her arms while Elisabeth

  wound the yarn into a ball. And little Leah, concentration etched across her crinkled little face, pink and golden from the glow of lanterns, lay prone on the bare floor by her mother’s feet, lost in her drawing tablet.

  Aiden’s guilt over Bobby Jonesboro lessened too. Perhaps Samuel had been right when he’d said that Aiden had saved Bobby from the legacy of killing nine people. Surely Bobby would’ve been killed too, whether Aiden had swerved his car in front of him or not. Although he feared visions of the man’s panicky face might forever haunt him, he garnered strength from the Schrock children’s stoicism. Mark’s mentioning his rumspringa plans to the Texas shore brought a soft smile to his face.

  “Me and some cousins and friends are going to drive a car down to Mustang Island after Thanksgiving,” he told Aiden. A small battery-powered Coleman sat on the bare floor by his head. As far as Aiden could tell, he was the only family member using a lantern powered by batteries. The lantern’s light stroked the side of his face, highlighting the soft stubble that would be allowed to grow into a beard once he married. “It’s going to be some trip. Want to see the car I want to get to drive down in?” He held up his magazine for Aiden to see a full-page photograph of a black Corvette.

  “That’s pretty nice,” Aiden said, mindful of Samuel and Rachel’s disapproving expressions.

  Mark’s revelation of wanting a car did not shock Aiden. He knew that during rumspringa, the infamous rite of passage for Amish teens just before they are baptized into the church, many boys and girls will buy and drive cars.


  “It’s a 1977, L-forty-eight, one-eighty horsepower,” Mark said, “with a four inch bore, thirty-six hundred rpm, four-speed, automatic transmission, and aluminum wheels.”

  “Wow! Sounds like you know a lot about cars. You learned that just from magazines?”

  “I talk a lot with my English friends. They even let me drive their cars.”

  “You have a license?” Aiden asked.

  “Ya, I got it in February. Daniel has one too. He keeps his current, even though Mom and Dad don’t like it. He uses it when he goes on backpacking trips so he can rent cars.”

  “Backpacking trips?”Aiden’s eyes widened, his section of the newspaper now limp across his lap. An Amish man who liked to backpack? Backpacking was one of Aiden’s most ardent pleasures. He missed the many backpacking trips he used to take when in college with his ex-boyfriend, Conrad. “Daniel likes to backpack?”