“Right now, I am.” He turned toward her. “Violet, I will always do my best to take care of you. But these are the things I think about. If you do as you’ve been threatening to do, and you leave the Amish life, I’ll grow old alone. I won’t have you here to help me when I need it.”
Violet’s eyes misted. “I’d come back and take care of you! I could come every morning and check on you when you’re old.”
“Not from town. It’s too far away.”
“Then I’ll live closer!”
“How?” He shook his head. “Violet, I understand you wanting your own life. That yearning you feel to get some space and to spread your wings is natural. Gott built us with that drive inside of us so that we’ll get married and have our own families. But leaving the faith... I’ve told you all this time what you’d be giving up in your own life. But I’m also thinking about what I’d lose if you went away.”
His voice caught in his throat, and he swallowed hard.
“Oh, Daet...” Violet’s eyes misted again. “I’d go before I was baptized, and they could never shun me then. I’d come back—I promise I’d come back!”
But Elias knew that if she left, it wouldn’t be so easy. She’d have a life, a job, a home...a family. And he’d be far away—a long drive in a car and nothing very conveniently close. Maybe her husband wouldn’t like coming out to Amish Country. Maybe if she came it would cause problems in her marriage. Life could be infinitely more complicated than youths imagined it would be. And he’d miss her more than she’d ever miss him—it was just a simple fact. And she’d only understand a parent’s love after she had a beautiful, bouncing little girl or boy of her own. But he didn’t want to give her a load of guilt, either. Maybe Delia was right and this would be a very long conversation yet.
“Let’s unhitch,” Elias said.
“I’ll help.”
He cast her a mildly surprised look. She didn’t often like helping unhitch the buggy, but he was glad for her company all the same. For the next few minutes, they worked on buckles and getting the horse freed from his burden. Then he led the horse to the pasture so he could graze a while.
Elias leaned against the fence and removed his straw hat, letting the air cool his neck and his sweat-dampened hair.
“You say you’ll be all alone without me,” Violet said, leaning against the fence next to him. “But if you marry Delia, you’d have her and her kinner and whatever other babies you had. You won’t miss me that much.”
“Would it be so terrible to have a family—you, me and others we could both love?” he asked.
“I know it’s selfish,” she said in a low voice, “but I just wanted it to be me and you. For a while more, at least. Mamm hasn’t been gone that long, and I miss her so much... A stepmother isn’t going to want to talk about Mamm, is she?”
Elias’s heart squeezed. “Your mamm was wonderful...”
“I know,” Violet said, and a tear leaked down her cheek. “Do you remember how she used to make those silly puns all the time?”
“Yah... They were terrible, weren’t they?”
They laughed sadly, and Violet tipped her head against his shoulder like she used to years ago. He planted a kiss against her head, and tears rose in his eyes.
“I understand if you want a new wife,” Violet said. “But it’s hard for me to move on to a new mamm. A wife and mamm are very different, aren’t they?”
So much insight in one young teenager. Maybe she was more grown-up than he’d given her credit for. He heaved out a slow sigh.
“I’m not courting Delia,” he said quietly.
“What?” Violet lifted her head.
“I’m not really courting Delia,” he said, and he cast his daughter an apologetic look. “The thing is, Delia and I do want to get married again one day—not to each other, but we want that. And her boys are standing guard over her. We thought if you kinner thought we were courting, that we could open up some conversations about remarriage and moving on from our grief.”
“So...you lied?” Violet whispered.
“We...didn’t really. We said we were getting to know each other. Which was true. And we let you believe it was more.”
“That’s a lie!” Violet said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was hoping that you’d see that there is romance possible here in the Amish world. I thought that you might like Delia, and that you might feel comfortable talking to her where you weren’t comfortable talking to me.”
“Except it wasn’t real,” she retorted. “So, Delia doesn’t really want to marry you?”
He shook his head. “No. She doesn’t.”
Violet heaved out a breath. “Well, good.”
“I’m sorry if I just made things worse,” he said. “My intentions were good. Do you know what I think?”
“What?” She cast him a wary look.
“I think you want to go English because an Amish life without your mamm feels unbearable and wrong.”
Violet’s chin trembled. “It does...”
“But there is still life and beauty here, Violet,” he said earnestly. “We can still be happy! Your mamm would have wanted you to be happy here, with your own people.”
“I don’t want to watch you loving someone else, Daet,” she said.
“Not even eventually?” he asked. “Not now, but...one day? It would be different, but we could still be happy!”
“You could still be happy.” Violet wiped a tear off her cheek.
She was still young, and maybe her ideas would change yet. They’d started talking, hadn’t they?
