Would he even recognize his little brothers and sisters if they were here? Joseph, his baby brother, had been six when Gideon left. He’d be a teenager now and ready to begin his rumspringa. He would be free to explore worldly ways in order to understand what he was giving up before he took the vows of the faithful.
Did Joseph long for the outside world that had taken his older brother? If so, Gideon prayed he would go before his baptism. That way he could be free to visit his parents and see his old friends without being shunned. Gideon wondered about them often, thought of driving out to see them, but having left under such a cloud, he believed a clean break was the best way. Was it? How could he ever be sure?
Gideon adjusted his aviator sunglasses and glanced around. He doubted anyone he knew would recognize him. He wore a knit cap pulled low on his forehead. His hair was shaggy and a bit unkempt, unlike the uniformly neat haircuts of the Amish men around him.
His eyes were sunken and red from his illness and the long road trip. Two days’ worth of beard stubble shadowed his cheeks. Glances in his rearview mirror on the way down showed a man who looked like death warmed over. No, no one was likely to recognize him. That was a good thing.
He was an English stranger, not the Amish youth who once asked Rebecca Beachy for her hand in marriage. Confusion swirled through his mind when he thought again of how she had deceived him.
He’d known her since their school days. They’d grown up on neighboring farms. They had courted for two full years and he proposed to her a week before her twenty-first birthday. Yet she’d just told him she learned she was going blind when she was twenty. Why hadn’t she told him back then?
She broke his heart when she said she’d been mistaken about her feelings for him. Was that the truth or had it been a lie? Her sudden change of heart hadn’t made sense back then any more than it did now.
Did she think he couldn’t handle the truth? Or had she known he would eventually leave the Amish and tried to protect herself from that heartache? Maybe she’d wanted to spare him a lifetime spent with a blind wife.
Shouldn’t that have been his choice to make?
His fingers curled into fists. Had he known the truth he would have stood by her.
Wouldn’t he? Gideon bit the corner of his lip. Would knowing her condition have changed him from a dissatisfied youth itching to leave the restrictive Amish life into one who welcomed the challenge God placed before him?
He knew Rebecca wouldn’t leave the faith. They’d had plenty of discussions about it in the months they were together. She knew of his discontent. When she broke off their courtship, he left home in a fit of sullen temper and cut himself off from everything and everyone he’d known. Because of her.
No, that wasn’t fair. He left because he wanted something only the outside world could offer. He wanted to fly. He’d wanted her more, but without her his choice had been clear.
Would he have married Rebecca knowing she wouldn’t be able to see his face or the faces of their children? He wanted to believe he would have, but he was far from sure.
He watched as several Amish women stopped to speak to her and the woman she sat with. One of them held a baby in her arms while a fussy toddler clung to her skirt. They were the same women he’d seen with her on television. The young mother handed her baby to Rebecca and picked up her older child, a little girl with dark hair and eyes.
Seeing a babe in Rebecca’s arms reminded him of all she had missed in her life. Was it her choice never to marry? How strong she must be to face her hardship alone.
What was the cause of her blindness? Was it some inherited disease she didn’t want to pass on to her children?
The Amish accepted handicapped children as special blessings from God. If she chose not to marry for that reason, then she wasn’t being true to her faith any more than he had been.
Gideon pulled his knit cap lower over his brow. Nothing about the past could be changed. It was pointless to wonder what would have happened if he’d stayed in their Amish community. He’d left that life long, long ago. It was closed to him now.
The past couldn’t be changed but he could help shape a better future for Rebecca. He was here to raise money for her, not to reminisce about unrequited love. As the bidding began on her quilt, he raised his hand knowing it didn’t matter what the quilt cost. He wasn’t going home without it.
Rebecca couldn’t believe her ears when a bidding war erupted over her quilt. With each jump in price shouted by the auctioneer she thought it couldn’t possibly go higher, but it did. Higher and higher still.
Who could possibly want to pay so much for a quilt stitched by a blind woman? She grasped her aunt’s arm. “Can you see the bidders?”
“Ja. It is between an Englisch fellow and Daniel Hershberger.”
“Daniel is bidding on my quilt?”
Her aunt chuckled. “I told you the man was sweet on you.”
The owner of a local mill that employed more than fifty people, Daniel was a well-respected Amish businessman. Although he was several years older than she was, he often stopped by to visit with her and her aunt. Rebecca shook her head at her aunt’s assumption. “I think you’re the one who caught his fancy.”
“He doesn’t make sheep eyes at me when he’s sitting on the porch swing.”
“I have only your word for that. I’m blind. What is the Englisch fellow like?”
“It’s hard to tell. He’s standing at the back. He’s wearing a knit cap and a short leather jacket. He has dark glasses on.”
“Is he young or old?” Rebecca wished her aunt had paid attention to the stranger sitting behind them earlier. Was he the one offering a ridiculously high price for her handiwork?
“Not too young. He has a scruffy short beard that so many Englisch boys seem to like. He looks pasty, like he’s been ill.”
It must be Booker. Rebecca smiled in satisfaction but her delight quickly faded. Was he bidding because of the quality of her work or because he felt sorry for her? It shouldn’t matter but it did. She didn’t want his pity.
But if he wasn’t doing it out of pity, then why?
A strange excitement settled in her midsection when she thought about his low, gravelly voice speaking quietly in her ear. There was something about him that made her want to know him better.
The auctioneer shouted, “Sold!”
As the room erupted in chatter and applause, Rebecca asked, “Who got it?”
“The Englisch.”
Rebecca stood up. “I must go and thank him. Can you take me to him?”
“Let the crowd thin out a little. Everyone is hurrying to get gone because the weather is getting worse. Ester Zook said it was already starting to sleet when she came in.”
Once Booker left the event Rebecca knew she’d never have the chance to speak with him again. “I don’t want to miss him. Please, it’s important to me.”
“Very well. I see him heading toward the front where people are paying for their purchases.”
Rebecca walked beside her aunt against the flow of people leaving the tent and wished Vera would move faster. What if he paid for her quilt and left before she had the chance to thank him? It was foolish, really, this pressing need to speak to him. She didn’t understand it, nor did she examine her feelings too closely. He was an outsider and thus forbidden to her.
Before they had gone more than a few feet, she heard Daniel Hershberger’s voice at her side. “I’m right sorry I couldn’t buy your quilt, Rebecca. It was uncommonly pretty.”