Return to Paradise. Barbara Cameron

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      “Take your jacket,” Mary Elizabeth said. “It’s getting a little chilly.”

      “Yes, Mamm,” she said, making a face at her. But she took the jacket. And then, after only a moment’s hesitation, she put some of the oatmeal raisin cookies they’d baked earlier into a plastic baggie and took them with her. Mary Elizabeth gave her a knowing look. She knew where Lavina was headed.

      David’s home—his former home—was just a half-mile from hers so it was no wonder they’d been close as kinner. They’d walked to schul together, played together, gone to youth activities at church together. As the years had passed they’d become such good friends. More than friends. She had thought they were going to get married and then, after repeated arguments with their bishop, he’d suddenly moved away.

      She frowned as she neared the Stoltzfus home and saw Waneta, David’s mamm, sitting on the front porch looking miserable.

      “Waneta? Are you allrecht?”

      “Lavina, gut-n-owed.” She tried to smile. “I’m fine. Just getting some air.”

      “Chilly air.” Lavina climbed the steps and took a seat in the rocking chair next to her. “I thought I’d take a walk and bring you some cookies we baked earlier.”

      “Such a sweet maedel. Danki.”

      Lavina took one of the woman’s hands in hers and found it was cold. She chafed it. “Why don’t we go inside and have some with a cup of tea?”

      Suddenly there was the sound of breaking glass inside the house. Waneta jumped and glanced back fearfully.

      “What is it? What’s wrong?”

      “Just my mann being careless,” Waneta said. “You know men, so clumsy.”

      The front door opened, and he stuck his head out. “Where’s my supper?” he demanded. Then he saw Lavina. “You come around to ask about David? Well don’t! I don’t have a sohn!” The door slammed.

      Waneta jumped. “He doesn’t mean it.” But tears welled up in her eyes. “He’s not well.”

      “Not well?” David had told her once that his dat sometimes drank . . .

      Tears rolled down Waneta’s cheeks. “The doctor told us today that he has the cancer.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. Then she looked at Lavina, seemed to struggle with herself. “Lavina, do you ever hear from David?”

      She shook her head. “You know I would come tell you. We’ve talked about this. If either of us heard from him, we’d tell the other. It wouldn’t matter if we’re supposed to shun him. We’d tell each other.”

      “He needs to come home,” Waneta said, sobbing now. “He and Samuel and John. They need to come home or they may never see their dat again.”

      ***

      David sat in his new-to-him pickup truck in the driveway of his Englisch friend Bill’s house.

      It had taken him a year to save up enough for the five-year-old pickup truck, but he’d firmly resisted the temptation to get a flashy new truck because it meant buying on credit. He wasn’t dead set against credit. Sometimes a person had to use it. Land was expensive in Lancaster County. Unless you inherited it you often had to arrange for a bank loan.

      The memory of the farm he’d grown up on flashed into his mind. He firmly pushed it away. He didn’t miss all the arguments with his dat and with the bishop.

      David missed Lavina, but there was no point in thinking about her. He couldn’t have her so he had to keep pushing her out of his mind. After being away from her for a whole year now, he was down to only having to do that a couple of times a day.

      He wondered what she would think of the truck. One of their favorite things had always been to go for a buggy ride.

      “Ready for your first ride?” Bill asked as he got into passenger seat.

      “Yeah.”

      “Where are we headed?”

      David shrugged. “I don’t know. Where shall we go?”

      “Let’s just do some country roads, get you used to the truck.”

      “And not scare you in Paradise traffic?”

      “You didn’t scare me when I was teaching you to drive.”

      “Right.”

      Bill chuckled. “Well, not much, anyway. Now, teaching my younger brother, that was scary. Kid has such a lead foot.”

      David went through the steps Bill had taught him to do prior to turning on the ignition. Fasten seat belt. Check. Position rearview mirrors. Check. Check gas gauge. Check. Release parking brake. Check. Turn on ignition. Check. Put car in gear. Check. Look for traffic.

      “You forgot a step.”

      David stopped the truck before he left the driveway and turned to his friend. “What?”

      “You forgot to check out your appearance, dude.” Bill pulled the visor down and checked his hair, smoothing it with one hand, then checked out his smile before he turned the visor back. “C’mon, don’t be shy. You want to look good for the ladies when you cruise.”

      With a laugh, David pulled down his visor and checked out his appearance. After months, he was still not used to seeing himself with an Englisch haircut. He hadn’t recognized himself in the glass store window he’d passed the day after the haircut. He’d had to take a second look, see that it was him, see the dark blue eyes and square jaw, the brown, almost black hair.

      “And don’t forget the shades,” Bill said, passing him the pair he’d urged David to buy. “They’re not just to look cool. You have to be careful about glare when you’re driving.”

      “So much to remember. It was easier to just hitch up a horse.”

      “But wait ’til you get this baby out on the road and feel the horsepower under the hood,” Bill said, stretching out his long legs. He tilted his own sunglasses down and looked at David over the top of them. “Not that I’m urging you to speed.”

      “Not going to do that,” David said firmly. “Speeding tickets are a waste of good money.”

      “Wise man. Too bad I didn’t think that way when I first started driving. ’Course, it’s part of growing up, I guess. In my culture, I mean.”

      “Guys in their rumschpringe race their buggies,” David said as he checked for traffic and eased out of the driveway. “You’d be surprised the speed some of them can get out of them. Sometimes the Amish buy horses that have been retired from racing.”

      They rode for a while in silence.

      “How’s the truck feel?”

      “Gut—good,” he corrected himself. “It will help me with work. Sometimes СКАЧАТЬ