Something fluttered inside her heart. A memory of Jeremiah and Jacob laughing and playing in the body of water centered in their community. Jeremiah loved to swim since the day his daed had begun teaching him. He’d glide through the water like a fish. Jacob hadn’t been quite as strong but he tried to keep up. She’d watch them from the covered bridge, her fear of water too pronounced to allow her to join them. Jeremiah coaxed her to join even though girls didn’t swim with boys.
“I’ll teach you how to swim, Ava Jane,” he’d said.
She’d never learned. And she’d never told him that she was terrified of the water.
Why had she remembered that now, when the man she watched was deep in rich dirt and misty dust?
“He’s going to plant our spring garden even though it’s late in the season,” Beth said from behind, causing Ava Jane to come out of her stupor. “He’s trying so hard, Ava Jane.”
“I can see that,” she said to Beth, meaning it. “I’m glad for him. You need him home, ja?”
“Ja,” Beth replied. “God brought him home. Our prayers have been answered.”
Thinking of the Biblical story of the prodigal and how his father had welcomed him with open arms, Ava Jane touched Beth’s hand but didn’t speak. Then she turned to her mother and sister. “I need to go now please.”
She almost ran out of the room, her heart betraying her every step. She had to stay away from Jeremiah Weaver. He’d broken her heart once...and she was still mourning the loss of her husband. But she was still mourning the loss of Jeremiah, too. It was wrong to think of another man when she ached for Jacob every day.
Jacob had drowned down in the creek, trying to save a hurt calf. He’d slipped on some rocks and old limbs, fallen and hit his head. A neighbor had heard the little calf crying out and had found Jacob.
The prodigal might be home but her husband was gone forever. That didn’t seem fair to Ava Jane. Not at all.
She would try her best to forgive Jeremiah for leaving her but she couldn’t forget how badly he’d hurt her. The guilt of loving him haunted her. Even now.
* * *
Jeremiah stayed away from the house long after he was sure Ava Jane and her mother and sister were gone. He couldn’t be around her right now. It hurt too much to see the disappointment in her eyes, to read the judgment in her expression.
Coming back here had been hard. He’d been prepared for the curious stares and the condemning whispers. He’d also been prepared to work hard toward forgiveness and baptism. But he’d blocked out everything else. Or he’d tried. He thought he could get on with things if he avoided Ava Jane. Campton Creek was a small community and the Amish community within the tiny hamlet was even smaller. People knew he was back and, while most had been kind if not standoffish, everyone was watching him as if he were a deadly bug.
Shunned but not really shunned.
Alone in the middle of the world he’d loved and left.
Longing for a woman he’d loved and left.
Dear Father, I don’t think I can do this.
“Jeremiah?”
He whirled, hoping.
But it wasn’t Ava Jane walking toward him with a tall glass of lemonade. His sister, Beth, came up to the fence he’d been working on. “I reckoned you’d be thirsty.”
“Ja.” He took a long swig of the cool tart liquid. “Denke.” His little sister gave him the curious expression he remembered so well. “Is there something else you need to say, Beth?”
Beth watched as the big Belgian geldings munched on their evening hay. “You stayed out here all day. You must be exhausted.”
“I’m used to hard work.” He glanced back toward the house.
“They have left, Jeremiah. You can come inside now.”
“I’m used to being outside, too,” he replied. “It’s nice to be back on the land.”
Again, that curious stare. “What was it like, Jeremiah? Out there, I mean.”
His gut clenched. He didn’t talk about such things. None of them ever did. For one thing, his team members were trained to stay quiet about their missions. But then, how could he explain it to innocent, pure Beth? Or anyone for that matter. The brutality of being in such a secretive, demanding career changed some men in ways that could never be explained. But he had refused to let it change him.
He did not want to talk about it either.
Instead, he did a scan of the landscape, his gaze hitting the big creek where he’d frolicked and played with Jacob, with Ava Jane sometimes watching from the shore or the bridge. “What happened to Jacob?” he asked.
Beth shot him a disappointed frown. “Did you not hear? I thought I told you in one of my letters.”
“No. I didn’t even know she...Ava Jane...was a widow. You never mentioned that in your letters.”
“I did try to contact you, but later I tried not to mention her in my letters,” Beth replied, guilt coloring her pretty eyes. “I didn’t want you to think of a married woman, and then I only wrote about our family, since I didn’t want to gossip or hurt you.”
“I thought of her every day,” he admitted. “Now, tell me what happened to Jacob.”
Beth swallowed and held on to the weathered fence post. “He drowned down in the creek.”
Jeremiah flinched and closed his eyes. “How? He was a fair swimmer.”
“He went in after a trapped calf and, from what the sheriff could put together, he must have fallen and hit his head. They found a deep gash over his left temple. He was knocked out and went underwater. Just a foot or so of water.”
Jeremiah hit a hand against the fence, causing the old wood to crack. Beth stepped back, shock in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a gravelly whisper, his heart rate accelerating. “I...I had to learn to swim one thousand yards in twenty minutes and to hold my breath for at least two minutes underwater. I mastered scuba diving, underwater demolition and swimming for miles at a time. I could have... I could have saved him.”
Beth’s expression filled with shock at what he’d blurted out, but she shook her head, a hand on his arm. “You weren’t here, Jeremiah. And even if you had been, the fall caused him to go underwater. No amount of training or ability can change that.”
“I should have been here,” Jeremiah said, the rage at what he’d done bubbling up inside of him. “I should have been here.”
He tried to move away but Beth held him still. “If you had been here, you would have been married to Ava Jane, and Jacob would have been somewhere else that day.”
“Ja,” he said, nodding in a rapid-fire gesture of anger. “Exactly.”
Then he did pull away, leaving his confused, frightened sister to stare after him.
If he’d been here, everything would have been different.
But now that he was back, so many things had changed forever.
A week later, Jeremiah stood in the hardware aisle at Hartford’s General Store when Ava Jane came in, carrying a basket of muffins. Everyone praised her muffins and pastries, and he noticed Mr. Hartford kept a supply in stock at the store, which meant she was earning money by selling them there. Jeremiah had bought a couple. Good, sturdy muffins full of oatmeal, nuts and fruits.