He had to stop this. He’d only been here for a week. She was right that he knew what breakups felt like. He’d had plenty of them. But Sarai was different, and he knew it.
Eventually, Dawdie came back, and Arden went out to help him unhitch. It was already late, and his grandfather had dropped Ellen off next door before coming home.
“You look really happy, Dawdie,” Arden said.
“You look miserable.” His grandfather squinted at him in the lantern light. “Are you all right? Is this about my engagement?”
“No, not at all.”
“Because we’ll figure it out, Arden. We will. I might be able to find a little bit of work and—”
“Dawdie, you’re almost eighty-three! You aren’t going to work,” Arden said.
“All I’m saying is we’ll figure it all out. And I know your father had plans to have me move to Ohio, but I’ll write him a letter to send back with you. He won’t hold this against you.”
“Of course he won’t,” Arden said.
Arden led the horse into his stall, and when he came back out of the stable, his grandfather was waiting for him with the lantern.
“Then why do you look like your heart has been torn out?” Dawdie asked.
“How tired are you?” Arden asked wryly.
“I’ll make us some tea,” Dawdie replied. “It looks like you could use a listening ear, and I’m here for you.”
They went inside together and made a pot of mint tea. Sitting at the table across from each other, Arden laid it out: how he’d fallen for Sarai, how he loved her, but how she was struggling to truly trust him, and he owed her father the amount of money it would take to buy a new buggy.
“What would help her trust you?” Dawdie asked.
“Dawdie, it’s more than that. I owe her father!”
“Yah, but that’s just money,” Dawdie replied. “This is more important, I think. What does she need to trust you?”
“She needs—” Arden shook his head. “I think that if I had her father’s respect and I paid him back properly to get it, she’d be more comfortable. I can’t just whisk her off and marry her. She comes with a family—the same family you’re marrying into!”
“Yah, yah...” His grandfather looked down thoughtfully at the table. “Have you talked to Job yet?”
“About this?” Arden laughed uncomfortably. “Until I can walk up and hand him the money and look him in the eye, I don’t dare.”
“You can look him in the eye without a cent in your hand,” his grandfather replied. “Respect does not come with money.”
“True,” Arden said. “But it also comes without debt.”
“It helps...” His grandfather rubbed a hand over his white beard. “But this is between men, and it isn’t really about Sarai yet, is it? I think you need to go to Job, confess what you did in your teenage years and ask his forgiveness.”
“I’ll be easier to forgive if I’m also making restitution,” Arden said.
“There is right, and there is wrong,” Dawdie said. “When you have done wrong, you have to ask for forgiveness. Perhaps that is the key to unlocking the rest of your life.”
“I know I was wrong. I was a foolish kind in a lot of ways, Dawdie. I hurt a lot of people, and I don’t need to be shown my error. I can see it plainly! I just... I have to be able to make it right. Don’t you understand that?”
“It’s pride,” his grandfather replied.
“No, it’s a need to fix it!”
“Which is pride.” The old man raised his bushy eyebrows. “True contrition is simply going to your Christian brother and asking that he forgive you. Repayment comes later.”
Arden rubbed his hands over his face. “Maybe it is pride, Dawdie. I’ve lost anything I might be able to feel proud of. In Ohio we struggle constantly. There’s nothing easy over there. I don’t want to come as the failing son of a failing farmer.”
“You won’t,” Dawdie Moe replied. “You’ll be going as the hardworking son of a hardworking farmer who is doing his best to start a new community to benefit new generations of Amish kinner. You are not failing because it isn’t easy. You’re simply working hard. You only fail if you quit.”
Arden looked at his grandfather tiredly. “And you think I should go as I am and ask Job to forgive me?”
“Yah.”
He sighed. “I hate when you’re right, Dawdie. I will certainly be going with no pride left at all.”
“We tend to be at our best when we leave the pride behind,” Dawdie said. “Now, go to bed. Everything looks better in the morning light.”
Arden stood up. “I’m sorry to drag you down on your celebration day.”
“Arden, this is what grandfathers are for,” Dawdie said. “Now, I mean it. Go to bed. We’ll wash our mugs in the morning.”
So Arden did as his grandfather said, and he went to bed. He didn’t think he’d sleep at all, but he fell asleep in an exhausted heap the moment his head hit the pillow. Heartbreak needed rest, too.
The next morning, Arden helped his grandfather with the chores, and then he hitched up the horse to the old buggy and headed out in the direction of the Peachy farm.
Job’s farm was large—the biggest Amish one in the district. It had five good-sized greenhouses, acres of crops and a decent-sized herd, too. It took a lot of work to run, which was why most Amish farms were smaller, but it also made a good income, and Job Peachy was known for being a solid Amish deacon, as well as a well-off farmer.
