Return to Paradise. Barbara Cameron
Coincidence.
Suddenly something Lavina used to say came to him: “There’s no such thing as coincidence.” Everything was from God, she always maintained.
He wondered if he would have stopped at the house tonight if he hadn’t seen Lavina and she’d seen him.
Oh, well, what did it matter? He was here now and what did it change.
Now he just had to decide what his next step was.
He felt his mother’s hand on his. “Danki for coming.”
“You thanked me already.”
She sighed. “Your dat isn’t an easy man but he’s a gut one.”
They heard a thump upstairs. Startled, she looked up and got to her feet. “I need to go check on him.”
She started for the stairs, then turned and looked at him. “You’re staying, right? I haven’t changed it since you left.”
“Daed hasn’t moved his favorite horse in there?”
She chuckled. “Nee. I’ll be right back.”
David helped himself to another cup of coffee and a couple more cookies and sat down. He hadn’t planned on staying the night. He hadn’t planned on anything. They needed to talk some more, he and his mudder.
She came into the kitchen a few minutes later looking tired and worn. “He’ll be down for the night now.”
When had they gotten so old? he wondered. They’d been old—well, older than the parents of his friends. God hadn’t sent them kinner until they were nearly forty and then, as if to make up for their faith in believing in Him, had sent David and his two bruders all within six years.
He got up to pour her a cup of coffee. “We didn’t get to talk earlier with Lavina and her schweschder here. And Daed was in no mood to talk to me.”
“I’m sorry, sohn. He’ll come around.”
David reached for her hand and studied how fragile it looked with blue veins showing beneath the thin white skin. “He’s not going to change. I came to see if I can help you. I’ll do my best to stay, but if he insists I get out, you know I’ll have to leave.”
She lifted her chin. “I have something to say about that. I won’t let him order you from the house.”
He lifted his eyebrows.
“But —”
“I mean it,” she said firmly. “I should have said more to him. It wasn’t right for him to treat his sohns the way he did.”
“Or his fraa.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care about that. I care about losing my three sohns. I care about whether they’ll walk away from their Amish faith, their community. I care about whether they have kinner of their own, whether I’ll see them.” She stopped, struggling for composure.
David didn’t like to upset her more, but he needed to know more about his dat.
“Tell me about Daed. How bad is it?”
“It’s bad. He has stage three colon cancer.”
“How bad is that?”
“There’s only one stage more. One worse, I mean. Then—” She couldn’t go on.
“You said he’s going for chemotherapy?”
She nodded. “He didn’t want to at first. The doctor talked to him. I talked to him. He finally agreed. He’s got a lot of treatments ahead of him.”
“You’re worn out.”
“It hasn’t been easy.” She rubbed at her temple tiredly. “They’re doing some tests next week to see how he’s doing.”
“Go on up to bed. I’ll do the dishes.” When she stared at him, he grinned. “I know how to do dishes, remember?”
“Ya, I remember you doing them two or three times.”
“I did them more often than that.”
She shook her head. “You broke too many.”
“I think your memory’s getting faulty.”
She smacked his arm, but she was smiling. She hadn’t smiled much that night.
“I’ll be careful,” he promised.
“Allrecht. I’m going to put the leftover stew in the refrigerator if you don’t want any more. You didn’t eat much at supper. That’s not like you.”
“Well, I might have a little more now that Daed’s in bed.”
She nodded. “Gut nacht. See you in the morning.”
“Gut nacht.” David helped himself to another bowl of stew and another slice of buttered bread. It felt better than he’d thought to be back in the kitchen of the home he’d grown up in. The room was a simple room, dominated by the big wooden table his father had carved after he’d built the house for himself and his new fraa when they were married. There was a dawdi haus on the back, like there was on so many Amish houses, for the two of them to retire to when a sohn took over the farm.
But Amos had argued that he wasn’t ready to retire yet, even though his health had begun failing before the diagnosis of cancer had been made. Sometimes the oldest sohn didn’t get the farm—sometimes a younger sohn did, and David honestly didn’t mind if one of his bruders got it —but Amos had flatly refused to retire and simply drove his sohns harder and talked to them even harsher than before.
David finished the stew and bread, made quick work of the dishes and chose an apple from a bowl on the counter. He pulled on his jacket and walked out to the barn. When he slid the barn door open a chestnut mare stuck her head over her stall and neighed a welcome.
“Nellie,” he crooned to her. “I’ve missed you, girl. Did you miss me?”
She nuzzled his neck and pushed her nose at his arm, pulling his hand out of his pocket. “Yeah, I think you miss me bringing you an apple more than you miss me.”
He gave her the apple and then found himself wrapping his arms around her. “Oh, Nellie I missed you so. I’m back, Nellie. I don’t know for how long, but I’m back.”
She made a snuffling noise as if trying to comfort him. They stood like that for a long time until he finally went back into the house and climbed into the bed in his old room.
Sleep came hours later.
***
“Well, that was tense,” Lavina said as they walked back home.
“David’s dat sure hasn’t changed. He’s always been such a grump.” She glanced over at Lavina. “I know, I shouldn’t talk like that. But he is.”
“He’s not well.”
“He’s always been that way.”
Mary Elizabeth was right, but still, they shouldn’t talk about him like that. So she changed the subject as they walked and was grateful when they reached their house.
Everyone was gathered around the table. Lavina and Mary Elizabeth quickly shed their jackets and bonnets and joined their family for their own supper.
As she listened to Rose Anna chatter, glanced around the table and saw her parents and her siblings enjoying being with each other, Lavina couldn’t help wondering what was happening at the Stoltzfus house. She didn’t envy David sitting at their table with his dat. What if his dat had thrown him out of the house? What if David had left—after all, he’d done so voluntarily last time.
“Gut stew,” her dat said. “Warms the belly on a cold day.” He tore a piece of bread in half and used it to dip into the gravy.
“Lavina