MEN OF LANCASTER COUNTY 01: The Amish Groom Read online

  I didn’t know what an HDMI cable was, but I supposed it didn’t matter. “Great. Thanks.”

  “You’re only here for a month, though,” Brady said. “How much can one person learn in that amount of time anyway?”

  “I don’t know, but time is the one thing I do have. From what I can tell, there’s not one unfinished project to complete or broken appliance to fix or even flower bed to weed around here. You’re gone all day. I might as well put those hours to use somehow.”

  “Uh-huh. Like with photography?” My brother over-enunciated the last word just in case I hadn’t recognized the sarcasm.

  I ignored it. “That’s right. You know of a place where I could take a few classes while I’m here?”

  Brady still seemed to be waiting for the punch line. An Amish man learning to use a camera? I supposed that made me the punch line.

  “Well, my mom took a community ed class on tai chi last year in Irvine. It only lasted six weeks. You could maybe look into something like that if you’re serious. But I don’t think you’re going to find a class that only lasts a month and that starts, like, this week. Maybe you could hire a professional to tutor you.”

  “Great idea.”

  “Though that could get pretty expensive.”

  I thought for a moment. “What about, instead of a professional, a gifted amateur? Aren’t there people like that who will just teach me one-on-one for a few lessons?”

  “Well, you could look on Craigslist or the classifieds, but…” He made a face.

  “But what?”

  “You just need to be careful, Tyler. You’re not in Amishland here. Not everybody who says they have something to offer can be trusted. Know what I mean?”

  I did. His concern for me trumped his Amishland comment. He may have been mad for some reason, but he still cared about my welfare.

  “Here’s a thought,” he continued. “My friend Aaron has a sister who goes to Orange Coast College. I think she’s majoring in photography. Maybe she can recommend someone. I’ll ask him at school today.”

  “Orange Coast College? Is that local?”

  “Yeah. She lives at home and commutes to school.”

  “Okay. Thanks. That would be great.”

  “So, you won’t go contacting people you don’t know, right?”

  I laughed. “I promise I won’t contact people I don’t know.”

  “Good. And if you need something to do while I’m gone, here’s a suggestion. Find out everything you can about the Vikings. And I don’t mean the football team. I have a paper about them due on Friday, and I haven’t even begun thinking about it.”

  Brady rose from the couch and headed toward the kitchen, so I clicked off the TV and followed him there, telling him I’d be happy to round up some resource materials if he thought that would help get him started.

  “Where’s the public library?”

  Brady set his plate in the sink. “I don’t know. Except for in school, I haven’t been to a library since I was a kid. Why?”

  “To help with your research?”

  “Dude, just use the computer in Dad’s office.”

  I felt my face grow warm. Since when had my little brother become so mean spirited? “I know that,” I said, trying to recover from my embarrassment. “I just thought it would be good to get out of the house at some point today.”

  Brady rinsed out his coffee cup and set it next to the plate. “So get out of the house. Walk the dog. Go to Starbucks. Relax a little. Life isn’t just making buggies, you know.”

  On that note he left the kitchen to finish getting ready for school. Good grief. This kid was too much. Dad had been right about one thing. Brady had definitely changed.

  Putting him out of my mind for now, I made a plan for my day as I rinsed my own plate.

  I would walk the dog.

  Then I would call the buggy shop to let Daadi know I had arrived safely.

  Then I would write a letter to Rachel.

  Then I would head to the nearest library.

  Then I just might stop in at a barbershop. It was time to make my temporary transformation complete.

  THIRTEEN

  By twenty after seven, Brady was gone and the house again became very quiet. I washed our breakfast dishes, fed Frisco, and checked the fridge and pantry for what I would need for our hamburger dinner. After making my bed and resisting the urge to make Brady’s as well, I programmed the number for the buggy shop into my cell phone and then called.

  Thom answered.

  When I said hello, my uncle began speaking to me in Pennsylvania Dutch, and I realized I hadn’t heard one word of my everyday language in more than twenty-four hours. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

  “Daed is out making a delivery,” Thom said. “But Mamm is here. Hold on.”

  A second later I heard my grandmother’s gentle voice. “Tyler. Wie bischt?”

  “I’m fine. My dad left for the Middle East this morning. It’s just me and Brady at the house now.”

  “Your little brother must be very happy you are there.”

  I laughed uneasily. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell. He’s changed a lot since the last time I saw him.”

  “It has been a while. At that age, change comes more quickly.”

  “That’s true, I suppose.”

  “So are you glad you decided to go?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I had barely even begun the quest that had brought me here. It wasn’t a matter of being glad, but of listening to God. “I think I’m supposed to be here right now, Mammi,” I finally said.

  “All right. Then we shall pray all the more that God shows you why.”

  “Danke. If you see Rachel, tell her to call me on Saturday. She can use this number. It’s a cell phone Dad bought me to use. Or the landline. She has that number already.”

  “Oh. All right.”

  “Say hi to Daadi for me. I love you.”

  “We love you too, Tyler. Farrywell.”

  With that call taken care of, I wrote a letter to Rachel telling her about the airplane flight, this new house that seemed to do everything itself, my dad’s opening up to me about my mother, and Brady’s strange attitude toward me.

  After that, I put the letter in the mailbox and took Frisco for a walk. Dad had said to bring along a plastic bag, as it was considered littering to leave your dog’s mess on the sidewalk or in someone else’s yard. Two more for the list.

  Dog mess must be picked up.

  There are special plastic bags manufactured just for that purpose.

  Out on the sidewalk, I noticed I was not the only one walking a dog and clutching a little plastic bag. I said “Good morning” to several others who also came prepared to take their dogs’ waste home with them. Most responded with just a nod, polite but cool.

  Back at the house, I made a lunch to take with me for the day, dug around for a phone book to look up libraries, and then headed out in Liz’s Honda to go to the nearest one. I got lost twice but finally made it. By eleven, I was inside the Newport Beach Public Library, roaming the shelves. It had been a while since I had immersed myself in researching something that didn’t have to do with buggies.

  I consulted many books on Viking history, getting my fill of the seafaring warriors’ knack for raiding and piracy and taking things that didn’t belong to them. I read as much as I could stomach for Brady’s sake and then decided to move on to something else more benign, just to clear my head.

  After stacking to one side the books I would check out for Brady, I returned to the shelves in search of the photography section. Once I found it, I was surprised to see how big it was. I perused the offerings, and though some of the books looked too dry and technical and boring to slog through, others seemed quite intriguing. I gathered together the most promising ones, carried them back to my table, and dug in.

  My intention was to familiarize myself with the basic mechanics of picture-taking, but I was soon immersed in the history of p
hotography instead. Except for the problem of nosy, camera-snapping tourists, the topic never came up much in the Amish community, so my knowledge base was pretty much nil. Now I realized how fascinating photography was, especially when I saw how long it had been around. The first photographic image was captured in 1825, but the story of pictures on film actually began in ancient times, with the creation of a primitive device known as a “camera obscura.” Variations on that device persisted for centuries and were eventually coupled with photo-sensitive compounds, which allowed the images seen through the camera obscura to be captured not just with the eye but on paper. I followed along the timeline step by step and was up to 1837 and the invention of the daguerreotype when I realized my stomach was growling. Glancing up at the clock, I was surprised to see that between my Viking research and these photography books, I had been reading for four hours straight. Time to go. There was a bagged lunch waiting in the car, calling my name.

  I stacked my top choices, both Viking- and photography-related, and carried them up to the counter. I asked the librarian for a card, intending to use my father’s address. She said they couldn’t do that without proof I lived there and suggested I get a temporary, out-of-state card instead. Thanking her for her help, I handed over my driver’s license so she could take care of it.

  “Pennsylvania, huh?” she said as she typed in my information.

  “Ya. Have you ever been there?”

  “No, but I understand it’s beautiful.”

  I smiled, assuring her that it definitely was.

  Our conversation continued as she kept typing, and soon she was urging me to visit the ocean while I was here.

  “You can’t come this far west and not see it at least once,” she said, softly but enthusiastically.

  I agreed, asking how to get there and saying that I knew it wasn’t far, not just because I’d checked on a map, but because I could smell the salt in the air.

  She handed back my license and my new card, and then she gave me directions to the “beach” of Newport Beach. I thanked her for the help and headed out, deciding I would go there now.

  Despite my growling stomach, I managed to wait on eating my bag lunch until I had driven all the way, parked, and taken a seat at a picnic table at the edge of a wide expanse of sand. Beyond that was the glistening expanse of the Pacific Ocean. People in workout clothes were running on the beach and a few surfers were clad in black wet suits. The sound of the waves was rhythmic and soothing, like an oscillating fan on a hot summer day.

  I needed to get back to the house, but for some reason it was hard to tear myself away from the beautiful scenery. At least I knew Frisco would be okay, as my father had assured me the little dog could spend a whole day inside, if need be, without any backyard breaks.

  Thus, feeling just a little indulgent, once I’d finished my lunch, I kicked off my shoes and locked them in the car, and then I allowed myself the pleasure of a walk along the hardpacked sand of the surf. As I did, I found myself moving into a state of quiet prayer. How could I not? All of the magnificence that surrounded me had been created by God. To not praise Him for that would be like dining on the most amazing meal ever and not thanking the chef who cooked it.

  Finally, I managed to tear myself away, though I got lost trying to get back home. Dad had told me there was a GPS unit in Liz’s car, but I had convinced myself I didn’t need it as long as I had a map or verbal directions. I pulled into a gas station, asked God to please help me figure out how to use it, and gave it a shot. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I’d feared. It helped too that Liz already had the home address programmed in.

  Once I was oriented, I made two stops on the way, first at a hair salon with a sign out front that said, “Men’s Cuts a Specialty.” Inside, the place was subdued and elegant, with a trickling fountain, slate floors, and at least a dozen hairdressers. I would rather have gone to a plain old barbershop, but I hadn’t seen one along the way.

  I asked for something stylish but neat, and the woman who took on the challenge was very young, with a rather bizarre hairdo herself—a mix of long and short and even shaved portions, dyed in various colors of the rainbow. Her own appearance made me nervous at first, but as she snipped away at the bowl-shaped cut I’d worn my whole life, or at least my whole Amish life, I could tell she knew what she was doing. Sure enough, once she was finished with me and I saw my own image in the mirror, I felt utterly transformed. I no longer looked Amish at all.

  Whether I was still Amish or not on the inside was the more important question—and one I hoped I would find the answer to soon.

  Stop number two was at a grocery store for hamburger patties, buns, a carton of potato salad, and a yellow onion. It was a good thing Brady hadn’t taken me up on my offer to pick him up from school. It was after six by the time I pulled into the garage, and he was already home.

  I entered the kitchen carrying the grocery bags and the books. Brady was sitting at the table, drinking a protein shake and looking at a magazine.

  “Where have you been?” he said, almost the way a parent would.

  “I don’t know. Errands.”

  “Errands,” he repeated. Irritation shone clearly on his face, but when our eyes met, he did a sort of double take. “What did you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look…different.”

  “Different bad or different good?”

  He shrugged. “Different better, I guess. Not so Amish anymore.”

  “Ah,” I said, moving further into the room. “Haircut.” Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I set the books down next to him on the table and changed the subject. “I also found the library.”

  The pile spilled over. Brady picked up one of the books, shaking his head. “Seriously, Tyler? You think a history of photography is going to teach you how to take pictures?”

  I took the grocery bags over to the counter by the fridge. “Of course not. I just needed to clear my mind with something interesting and uplifting after reading about the Vikings. They weren’t very admirable people. At least not the ones I read about.”

  Brady pulled the two Viking-related books from the pile. “Hey, thanks.” He flipped through them both, pausing at several of the goriest pictures. “These look cool.” Finally, he set them aside in their own pile. “Are you really going to read all these others?”

  I opened the fridge and set the potato salad inside. “Maybe. The history of photography really is fascinating, all the inventions and discoveries and developments and things. Do you know that the first photo-sensitive compound was created by accident? If the guy hadn’t realized what he’d done, who knows how much longer it would’ve taken to come up with the chemistry for preserving images on film?”

  “Captivating,” Brady said dryly.

  Ignoring his sarcasm, I continued. “I guess I’d just forgotten how much I liked learning new things. I didn’t get to go to college, so—”

  “Or high school.”

  He said it in an almost condescending way.

  “Learning the family trade was my high school.” I pulled out the package of hamburger and set it on the counter. “It’s no different than a vocational high school. I know about those. And it’s never seemed to bother you before that I finished school at eighth grade.”

  “I just think it’s weird, that’s all. I’ve always thought it was weird.”

  My patience with his attitude was reaching its limit. I needed to know what was up with him. “So why the attitude with me?”

  “Why your attitude with me?” Again, the disrespectful tone.

  “You know, Brady, when Dad first called me, he said you wanted me to come.”

  “So?”

  I had the onion in my hand and I tossed it on the counter. It rolled into the sink.

  “So why are you acting like you wish I weren’t here? Is it because you think the reason is for me to keep you from quitting the team?”

  He didn’t answer, so I continued. “Beca
use I have news for you, little brother. I’m not Dad. I don’t care what you do about football.”

  Brady’s eyes flashed anger and then went steely cool. “You told Dad you’d do your best to make sure I didn’t quit.”

  “No. I told him I would do my best to make sure you didn’t make a decision you would later regret. That happens, you know. If you want to be on the team, then I want you on the team. If you don’t want to be on the team, then that’s fine too. All I ask is that you think it over carefully before you make a decision that big.”

  He narrowed his eyes and glared at me with suspicion. We were getting nowhere. If anything, the vibe between us now was worse than it had been the day before.

  “Believe it or not,” I continued, “I want whatever you want. I want you to be happy and to make of your life what will bring you the most joy and to God the most honor.”

  I could almost hear Daadi’s voice through my words, though when he spoke this way it felt comforting and wise. Out of my mouth, it just seemed to agitate Brady even further. He wouldn’t respond or even look at me.

  “Do you think I’m lying to you?”

  He shrugged, his lips pinched tightly together.

  “You do. Why? When have I ever lied to you before?”

  Brady picked up one of the library books. “Apparently, never.”

  I blinked. “What does that mean, ‘Apparently, never’? You think I’ve been less than honest with you in the past?”

  He opened the book and began to thumb through the pages. It took supreme effort not to pull it from his hands and send him to bed without dinner. That’s what Daadi would have done. And maybe even our own father. But I wasn’t Brady’s grandfather or his father. I was his brother.

  Half brother.

  I prayed silently for wisdom to know what was eating away at him and how to draw it out so we could settle this once and for all.

  “First of all,” I said, trying to keep the anger and frustration from my voice, “I have never, nor will I ever, lie to you. Second, if you want to quit the team, that’s fine. I’ll stand with you. It’s your life and your future.”