Free Leah's Choice by Emma Miller Page A

praying for the strength to be a good mother.”
    “But you are,” Leah said. “No one could have a better one.”
    “That’s sweet of you to say, but—“
    “It’s how I feel, Mam—how we all feel.”
    “Thank you for telling me. But now, I need you to listen.”
    “I am.”
    Mam nodded. “When I married your father and joined the Amish church, it broke my father’s heart. My grandmother closed the door in my face, and my father forbade me to come home. He returned the letters I wrote to my sisters and mother, unopened.”
    “Oh, Mam.” Leah hugged her. “It must have been awful for you. Why didn’t you tell us?”
    “I never wanted you children to feel that I was sorry for the decision I made. I’ve never regretted it, not for a moment. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t miss my old family, that I didn’t want to see you in my mother’s arms. You look like her, you know. She was fair of face and beautiful in spirit.”
    Leah felt her cheeks flame. All her life, she’d known that other people considered her pretty, but it wasn’t something that the Plain folk were supposed to remark on, or that she was supposed to take pride in. Pride was Hochmut . Forbidden. It was against the Ordnung , the laws that governed every aspect of Amish life.
    “Your mother turned her back on you after you married Dat?” Leah looked at Mam. “How could she?”
    “She had no choice. In our home, my father’s word was final. He was ordained, a leader in our church. By leaving our faith for Jonas’s church, my father felt that I had rejected him and shamed him before the members of his community. My mother was raised among the Old Order Mennonite, and it would have been unthinkable for her to go against her husband.”
    “Did you know…before? That they would disown you if you married Dat?”
    “ Ya. My oldest brother enlisted in the military. His name was Timothy. He was funny and kind, and he always had time to listen to my chatter. He taught me to bait a fishhook and to ride a horse bareback. I adored Tim. I was twelve the last time I saw him.”
    “I have an uncle who’s a soldier?”
    Her mother made a small sound that was almost a sob. “Tim came home once, after he graduated from basic training. My father wouldn’t let him see my mother—see any of us. Tim hitched a ride with another serviceman back to their duty station. There was an accident on the interstate.”
    “He was killed?” Leah asked.
    Her mother nodded. “Both of them were. They told us that that they found alcohol in the wreck—that the boys had been drinking. My father refused to allow Tim to be buried in our cemetery. He told the soldiers who came to notify us of Tim’s passing that he had no son.”
    “Dat would never do that,” Leah protested. Tears clouded her vision. “No matter what we did, he’d never have denied one of us.”
    “Ne,” her mother said. “I don’t believe that he would. But you’re of an age when you’ll make decisions that will affect the rest of your life. You have to realize that you are Amish, blood and bone. Nothing will ever change that.”
    “But I’m free to choose, am I not?” She laid her hand on the porch rail and looked into the darkness. “Isn’t that part of our faith?”
    “It is. Joining the church, making the commitment to live a Plain life is a decision we must each make for ourselves. You’re past the age most girls have already been baptized, and I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t tell you I was concerned that you have doubts.”
    “Not doubts, not really. I just…” Leah searched for the right words to explain her restlessness to her mother…to tell her in a way that wouldn’t involve Daniel. “I want to be sure,” she said, and that much was true. She’d felt this way all her life, as though she belonged…but didn’t.
    “And so you should be. Just remember, if you chose not to be one of us, you give up everything you’ve ever known.”
    “Not my family. You