Return to Paradise. Barbara Cameron
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always been a robust woman, but she felt as if she’d lost weight. He finally set her from him. “We need to go inside, Mamm. It’s too cold out here for you.”
Nodding, she turned and stepped back into the house. Lavina and Mary Elizabeth had gone ahead into the kitchen and were setting the things they’d brought on the kitchen table.
“Stew and bread and some cookies,” Lavina said, looking at Waneta. “Enjoy.”
She and Mary Elizabeth started for the door.
“Wait!” Waneta cried. “Where are you going? You just got here.”
Lavina glanced at David. “The two of you will have a lot to talk about.”
“Ya, but no need to rush off,” Waneta said quickly. “Please, sit, have some coffee. If it hadn’t been for you, David wouldn’t have known to come.”
As if to add to his mother’s invitation, David pulled out a chair for her and Mary Elizabeth.
She cast a helpless look at Mary Elizabeth, but her schweschder was no help—she shrugged and sat, so Lavina sank into the chair. She watched David’s mamm bustling around the kitchen, and David sat silently looking ill at ease in the kitchen of the home he’d grown up in. Lavina wondered if Waneta wanted a sort of buffer since David had surprised her.
Only when everyone had shrugged off their jackets and had a mug of coffee in front of them did Waneta stop fluttering around the kitchen and sit at the table.
“Where’s Daed?” David asked her.
“Upstairs resting. He should be up soon for supper.” She traced a pattern on the top of the table. “He’s been having chemotherapy for colon cancer.”
“What does the doctor say?”
Waneta’s lips trembled. “He says your dat has a very aggressive form of cancer so he started him on chemo right away. I—you need to ask your bruders to come see him, David.”
He nodded. “I thought I would talk to you first before I went to them.”
“I’m glad you came.” She reached over and covered his hand with hers.
It was so quiet the clock ticking sounded like a loud heartbeat.
“I drove up and down the street and had trouble stopping,” he blurted out. “I’m not sure he’s going to want to see me.”
“David gave us a ride,” Mary Elizabeth spoke up.
“So you have a horse and buggy of your own now?”
“Not exactly. I have a truck.”
Waneta stared at him. “A truck? Does that mean you’ve become Englisch?”
“Nee, Mamm. I needed a way to get to work.”
Everyone glanced up as they heard feet land with a thump on the floor upstairs and then make their shuffling way toward the stair landing.
“We really need to go,” Lavina said, looking uneasy. “Mamm is expecting us for supper.”
“Danki for the food,” Waneta said. “You’re such kind, generous maedels.”
Lavina blushed at the praise and avoided David’s gaze. He wanted to talk to her, but this wasn’t the time or place.
“I’ll stop by to see you tomorrow,” David said quickly before his father could appear in the room.
She looked startled. “Um, allrecht.”
Amos Stoltzfus walked into the kitchen and stopped when he saw David.
“What are you doing here?” he bellowed, glaring at him.
David rose. “I came to see you,” he said, lifting his chin. “Mamm said you were sick.”
“So?”
He studied his dat. He’d lost weight since David had left, and his beard and hair were threaded with more gray. But his voice was as loud and abrasive as ever.
“We have nothing to say to each other,” Amos said bluntly.
He walked to the sink, filled a glass with water and drank it down. Although he turned his back, David saw that his father’s hand shook.
“Amos, kumm, sit,” Waneta said, her tone placating. “Lavina and Mary Elizabeth brought us supper. Beef stew. And the bread’s still warm from the oven.”
He hesitated, turning to glare balefully at David. “Great timing, got here for supper. Always did show up at mealtime, didn’t you? Well, if you’re looking for a welcome like the prodigal son, you’ve come to the wrong place.”
David felt the old anger rise to the surface. He eyed his jacket he’d hung on the peg by the kitchen door. Then he saw his mother follow the direction of his gaze, and she looked ready to cry.
So he took a deep breath and silently counted to ten. “Neither of us ever missed a meal, did we?” he told him easily and he smiled at his mother. “Do you need any help?”
“If you’ll get some bowls, I’ll slice the bread.”
She lifted the casserole dish from the insulated carrier and set it on the table in front of David, then set the carrier aside on the counter. Getting a knife from a drawer, she placed the bread on a wooden carving board and sliced it.
Amos sat in a chair and watched her. It was as if David wasn’t even in the room. When someone left the community the family often shunned them. He’d wondered if that was what his father would do if he came back . . . just sit at the table and ignore him.
He ladled a bowl of stew and handed it to his mother who turned and set it before her mann. Then he filled another bowl for her. Finally he served himself.
They bent their heads for prayer and then began eating.
It was a start, he thought as he dug his spoon into the bowl of stew. It could have been worse. His dat could have told him to leave and he hadn’t. He said a silent prayer of thanks to his heavenly Dat and began eating.
***
David’s head was pounding by the time he finished his bowl of stew.
He asked himself why he hadn’t waited until after he’d eaten his supper to stop at his house and see his mudder.
Then he reminded himself that he hadn’t intended to stop at all. He’d been driving up and down the road putting off stopping when he’d passed Lavina and Mary Elizabeth walking there and they’d seen him. Not wanting to appear the coward he really was, he’d felt he had to stop.
Now, here he was, trapped at the supper table between a disgruntled old man and his mudder trying desperately to act as if they were one happy family gathered again around her kitchen table.
David hadn’t expected for his dat to kill a fatted calf for him. He knew not to expect to be treated like the prodigal son of the Bible but . . . he was going to have a whopper of a headache and maybe a really gut case of indigestion.
“Another bowl of stew?” his mudder asked him. “There’s plenty for both of you to have seconds.”
“Not for me,” his dat said, pushing away his bowl half-eaten. “Don’t feel much like eating. I’m going back to lie down.”
Without saying another word he got up and shuffled back upstairs.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” David said.
His mother got to her feet and poured them both a mug of coffee. She returned to the table and set them down, then opened a plastic container of cookies.
“Lavina and Mary Elizabeth brought these,” she said, putting some of the cookies on a plate and setting it before David. “I haven’t had time to bake. I went with your dat to his chemotherapy session today.”
He