Ezra couldn’t forget the conversation he and Abram had the very day Leah and Johnny had disappeared. They’d spoken about Abram’s youngest daughter, who was torn between her love for her way of life and faith in Paradise Springs and her twin brother’s increasing rebellion against both, as well as his family.
Ezra had reminded Abram of Leah’s strong faith and her love for her family, but he understood her daed’s concern. She was always determined to rescue any creature needing help. It didn’t matter if it was a baby bird fallen from its nest or her wayward brother who kept extending his rumspringa rather than committing to his community and God. She would throw everything aside—even gut sense—if she thought she could help someone. It had been her most annoying quality, as well as her most endearing. He knew of her generous heart firsthand because Leah had been there for him during the months when he grieved after his beloved grossmammi died...and many other times for as long as he could remember.
That day, as they talked on the Beilers’ porch, Abram had been at his wit’s end with worry about his youngest kinder. Otherwise, he never would have admitted to his concerns. Abram Beiler was a man who kept his thoughts and feelings to himself.
Was that why Abram hadn’t said anything the other day? Ezra didn’t know how a man could keep such glad tidings to himself...unless the tidings weren’t gut. Could it be Leah and Johnny hadn’t really come home to stay?
Ezra looked around the parking lot in front of the Stoltzfus Market. He saw a few cars and a couple of buggies, but no sign of Johnny. Was he in the store, or was he still in the buggy? When Leah smiled again as she spoke to someone in the buggy, he wondered with whom she was chatting. Her brother? A husband? A kind?
His gut crunched as the last two questions shot through his mind. The whole time Leah had been gone, she’d remained, in his mind, that seventeen-year-old girl who was always laughing and who always had time to listen to his dreams of running his family’s farm and starting his own cheese-making business. Oddly enough, she was the only one who hadn’t laughed at his hopes for the future.
Now she was back in Paradise Springs and at the shops run by his brothers. Where had she been and why had she come back now?
Joshua set down his hammer as he turned to Ezra, his mouth straight above his dark brown beard. “I guess I don’t have to ask. The expression on your face says that it’s got to be Leah Beiler.”
“The woman does look like her, but she’s turned away so I can’t be completely sure.” He kept his voice indifferent as he walked from the window toward the table where Joshua kept paperwork for new buggies and repairs on used ones, but his older brother knew him too well to be fooled.
“Even so, you think that’s Leah Beiler out there.”
He nodded reluctantly. The last time he had been false with Joshua was when they both were in school and Ezra had switched their lunch pails so he could have the bigger piece of their grossmammi’s peach pie. His reward had been a stomachache and an angry brother and a grossmammi who was disappointed in him. At that point, he had decided honesty truly was the best way to live his life.
So why was he lying to himself now as he tried to convince himself the woman could not possibly be Leah?
“Are you going to talk to her?” Joshua asked as he glanced up at Ezra, who was four inches taller than he was. Joshua was the shortest of the Stoltzfus brothers, but stood almost six feet tall. A widower for the past four years, he had the responsibility for three kinder as well as the buggy shop.
“I wasn’t planning on it.” He stared at the neat arrangement of tools on the wall so he didn’t have to look at his brother...or give in to the temptation to glance out the window again.
“You’re not curious why they went away?”
He wanted to say he wasn’t any longer. Not after ten years. But that would be a lie. At first, after she and Johnny vanished, he had thought about Leah all the time. She’d been such an important part of his life, around every day because they’d grown up on farms next door to each other.
Then, as time went on, he found himself thinking of her less because he was busy taking over the farm from his daed. Chasing his dreams to become a cheese-maker consumed him, allowing him to push other thoughts aside. Yet, he’d never forgotten her. At night, when the only sounds were his brothers’ snoring and the crackle of wood falling apart in the stove, memories of her emerged like timid rabbits from under a bush. They scampered through his mind before vanishing again.
And always he was left with the questions of why she had left and where she had gone and why she’d never returned.
“Of course, I’m curious,” Ezra said before his brother noticed how he hesitated on his answer.
“Then go out and see if she’s really Leah Beiler.” Joshua gave him a sympathetic smile. “You’ll kick yourself if you don’t.”
His brother was right, and Ezra knew it. After spending too many years on “if only,” he could not add another to his long list of regrets. God had brought this unexpected opportunity into his life, and ten years of prayer for an explanation could be answered now.
“All right.” He took his straw hat off a peg by the door and put it on his head.
“Then let me know,” Joshua called to his back. “You’re not the only one who’s been wondering if we’ll ever know the truth of why she and Johnny left. And why they’re back.”
Ezra nodded again as he opened the door. Fresh spring air flavored with mud and the first greenery of the season filled the deep breath he took while he walked out of Joshua’s buggy shop and into the midmorning sunshine. It took every ounce of his willpower to propel his feet across the parking lot toward where Leah stood by the buggy.
The crunch of gravel beneath his work boots must have alerted her, because she glanced over her shoulder toward him. Surprise, mixed with both pleasure and uncertainty, widened her eyes. They were the same warm shade as her purple dress, and that color had fascinated him since they were young kinder. Like her dimple, they had not changed, but she seemed tinier and more fragile. An illusion, he knew, because he had grown taller since the last time they were together. In addition, Leah Beiler was one of the strongest people he had ever met, the first to raise her hand to volunteer.
“Gute mariye, Leah,” he said quietly as he stepped around the small dog who ran from her to him and back. So many times he had imagined their reunion and what he would say when he saw her again. He couldn’t recall any of it now when he paused an arm’s length from her. The memory of the girl she had been, which had become flat and dull through the years, dimmed further as he beheld the living, breathing woman in front of him.
“Good morning,” she replied in English, then repeated the words in Deitsch, the language spoken by the Amish. She acted unused to it now. “How are you, Ezra? You look well.”
“I am. You?”
“I am fine.” She glanced along the storefronts in the small plaza with the market in the middle. A simple sign by the road stated Stoltzfus Family Shops. “Are all these businesses owned by your family?”
“Ja.” He pointed to each shop as he added, “Joshua builds buggies. Amos owns the market. Jeremiah and Daniel are woodworkers, and Micah makes windmills. Since the bishop approved us using solar panels, he’s been installing them, too.”
“What about Isaiah?”
“He has become a blacksmith, and his smithy is around back.” He wondered how she could act as if everything were normal, as if she and Johnny had not disappeared abruptly.
“Leah?”