“Okay. I won’t let him change it.” Liz moved a little closer to the empty containers.
“I suppose you’ll have to wait until March to really use them to their fullest, although I’ve been reading that you can grow lots of herbs here year-round. You’ll have to watch out for frost. And the angle of the sun will be different in the winter months than it is in the spring, so you might need to stick an old umbrella in the dirt from time to time.”
Liz turned to me. “Thanks, Tyler. This is such a nice surprise. Really. It was so sweet of you.”
“You’re welcome. It was my pleasure.”
She continued to look at me as though there was more she wanted to say. It was a little awkward. I finally had to look away.
“Do you ever think about…about being not-Amish?” she finally said.
I turned back around to face her. She definitely had my attention again. “That’s an interesting way of stating it.” A nervous laugh escaped me.
“You know what I mean, though. Do you?”
“You mean do I think about leaving home?”
“I mean do you think about living your life where it began. Outside Lancaster County.”
“Uh…” I cleared my throat for no reason other than to collect my thoughts. “I do think about it. In fact, the time has come for me to make a decision.”
“And?”
“And it’s not that easy. There’s a lot to consider.”
“You mean Rachel?”
“Ya. She’s part of it.”
Liz breathed in deeply, filled her lungs, and then let the air out. She looked past the container, past the fence, to the sky above us. “I would imagine you probably have to decide pretty soon.”
“I need to figure out where I truly belong, yes.”
“I don’t think your dad knows you haven’t already decided, Tyler.”
“Sure he does. He knows I haven’t been baptized into the church yet.”
She continued staring into the distance. “I don’t mean literally. I mean…” Her voice trailed off. I waited. “He believes he made that decision for you, essentially, a long time ago, before you had any choice in the matter. And I think there are days when he wishes he hadn’t.”
I didn’t know what to say to this.
Liz turned to me. Her gaze was intent. “Will you promise me something?”
“If I can.”
“Will you promise to talk with your dad about this when he gets home?”
“I had already planned to.”
“Good. I’m glad. I think he might like to weigh in. Even though you’re an adult now and it’s obviously your life, I think he would appreciate getting the chance to share his thoughts on the matter before you do anything…permanent, you know?”
Again we were quiet. Again it felt awkward, so gently I took her by the elbow and began leading her off of the pebbles and back toward the patio.
“When you told me earlier that you needed to know if your mother was happy, it was because of this, wasn’t it? You wanted to know if she was happy she left her Amish life because you want to know if you would be too.”
“Yes, that’s part of it.”
Once more she breathed in deeply, as if the oxygen in her lungs carried the weight of heavy thoughts. I expected her to come out with some grand revelation then, but instead she just changed the subject. “Thanks again for building the boxes, Tyler. They really are just what I wanted.”
I gave her a nod. “You’re welcome.”
I helped her inside and then went to the garden shed to retrieve Frisco’s bucket of rubber balls. I spent the next twenty minutes tossing them across the lawn and watching him pursue each one like a hunting dog after a rabbit. As I did, I reviewed the conversation my stepmother and I had just shared. I wasn’t sure if it was the injury or the pain pills, but she had been less guarded than usual, less “on,” since the moment she’d arrived home. I couldn’t help but hope she would stay this down-to-earth and approachable for the remainder of my visit.
Later that evening, after I’d made a burrito run and Liz had shared with Brady and me photographs and stories of the two weeks she had been in Honduras—including the harrowing minutes when the house caved in—I realized with a horrible jab to my gut that I had forgotten to write Rachel the letter I’d promised her.
For hours, in fact, I hadn’t thought about Rachel at all.
TWENTY-FIVE
Things were definitely going to be different with Liz in the house, I could tell. With his mother there, my role toward Brady instantly downgraded to visiting older brother, although he was less cynical around me now that Liz was a spectator to practically every conversation we had.