Grounded

Chapter 2

 "You shouldn't be alone," Mary says to me. My dearest friend pulls me into a hug and rubs my back.

Martha, Mary's mother, nods. "You're welcome to stay."

After my fatherwas taken to the English hospital, Mary insisted I come home with her. Her mother took me under her wing, fed me until I thought I might burst, and kept me busy the rest of the day at her shop, where I am an apprentice seamstress. I finished six dresses and two pairs of pants she'd started earlier. She worked me harder than usual to be kind, so I didn't have time to think about what happened. I am grateful for their charity but loathe to overstay my welcome.

"I want to sleep in my own bed and pray from my own Bible," I say.

"Well, you know best what you've gotta do. Door's always open," Mary's father says. "Benjamin and Samuel will help with your farm while your father is away."

Mary's two brothers nod in my direction.

"Thank you. I could never manage on my own."

With warm hugs all around, I leave, knowing a strong dose of reality is in store for me without their distraction. Freed by the quiet of the walk home, my mind swims in a sea of insecurities, trying to make sense of my father's infirmity. He's always been my rock, my anchor. What will happen if they can't save him? Can I survive tossed about on the waves of my own independence?

I have a place, a secret place I go to think. My sacred space.

To get there, I cross through a field of summer wheat, caressing the soft bristles with my fingertips as the grassy stalks tug against my skirt. My hickory tree is at the edge of the wood. Struck by lightning, half the tree is dead and rotting, but the other half defies the odds, covered in lush green leaves. I run to its trunk and throw my arms around its bark as if the green branches could hug me, pat my back, and say everything will be okay.

The rotting side has a hollow heart that keeps my secrets. I plunge my hand into the hole, retrieving the treebox Jeremiah carved for me. It's made from hickory wood and the lid is carved in the likeness of my tree. Inside, there is a hodgepodge of mysteries. A flexible transparent rectangle Eli says is a phone. A piece of rubbery fabric Anna told me adjusts to size when made into a garment. There's a disintegrating paper cup with a picture of a kidney bean on it and the words Ready Bell Express. I add the photo Jeremiah gave me this morning, taking one more look at the woman in orange with her tall shoes. I sift through the box until my brain buzzes with thoughts of the outside world.

"Why do you keep that thing if you don't ever plan to go on rumspringa?"

I flip the box closed and turn to face Jeremiah, whose teasing tone does not match the grim tilt of his lips. He's as worried about my father as I am. I shrug. "I'm curious, I guess." It's a simple answer, although my feelings are far from simple.

"Come on, Lydia. Tell me the truth."

I stare at the box in my hands for a moment before answering. "Remember a few years ago, Benders had that dog with something wrong in its head?"

"Yeah, the biter."

I nod. "The Benders had to keep it chained so it wouldn't kill their sheep. That old dog would tug against that chain until his neck was bloody." I rub my neck. "Fur worn away by rubbing leather."

He nods.

"One day, the rain made the yard soft, and when the dog tugged against the chain, he pulled the spike from the ground, yanked it free from the mud."

"I hadn't heard. Did it kill a sheep?"

"You would have thought after all the tugging. But no. Instead he lay down at the edge of the yard with his head between his paws. The Benders found him like that, crying and shaking."