Chapter 7. Consolation With Confidants
"So this Ethan guy," Jay set some pancakes on Leah's plate in the morning. "You never told me his story. Was he a looker?"
"Are you kidding?" Leah drank a glass of milk and laughed. "He was handsome beyond all doubt. He has long hair, but it suited him, you know? And was he always so cordial. He wasn't one of those fellows that fed you a line as if they were fishing for any girl that might take the bait. He was sincere when he talked and I liked that about him."
"How did you land someone like him?" Jay put her dramatic front forward and dramatized being jealous. "And he went for a girl like you?"
"Jay…" Leah giggled. "Lucky for me that you're my friend. You could be nasty if you wanted to."
"I suppose," Jay examined her nails. "Well, it's been absolutely thrilling sitting here and chatting with you this morning. And I must say, our little tête-à-tête last night went rather well, even if it did begin on a low note, but us tough girls stick together and we've once again managed to start off another day ready to conquer the world."
"Thanks to the magic you perform on the world," Leah remarked, standing up. "God knows what you do to make everything seem okay with life when nothing feels worth it anymore, but you manage to pull it off, and now I feel as if I could walk around the world in high heels and I wouldn't feel the pain."
"I don't think I could do that," Jay laughed as she fumbled with shutting the front door. "We're like too drunk girls, Leah, yet neither one of us had even a sip of alcohol in the past twenty-four hours."
"Sober drunks," Leah shook her head. "If it were possible, we've certainly fulfilled it, I'm sure. I feel drunk…"
"Darling, you've never been drunk for a moment of your life." Jay told her as she started the car. "But that's alright because I make up for the both of us without a doubt."
"I'll second you on that one."
"I really did intend to cut down on the drinking at parties once," Jay put on her sunglasses and grinned in her rearview mirror. "But then I thought perhaps I had dreamt it and so I tossed that idea out the window."
"I wonder what Ethan is up to," Leah sighed in all the happiness that surrounded her. "Not to dampen up the mood."
"We're going to party with the world today," Jay said, turning on the radio and blasting a classic rock hit that she proceeded to sing along with. "And not let guys from the past, as cute and wonderful as they might seem and be, ruin our festivities and cause us more heartache."
"Life's one big party in the lives of Jay and Leah," Leah grumbled before settling back into the jollity that she had grown used to overnight. "Turn up the volume, Jay, I think the chorus for the song is coming up."
Ethan had taken a break from the humdrum of his house to go on a walk with his crutches. Going down the paved roads, he grew frustrated at the hair that continuously fell on his forehead. On the verge of cursing, he only kicked at the ground with his good foot, causing him to lose balance and almost topple over.
"What has you so lost in your anger?" Charity approached him, her son in her arms staring at Ethan with wide eyes. "Does being back in the English world make you so upset?"
"I saw her, Charity." Ethan took a deep breath, tossing back his head, he hoped, for the last time today. "She was there in the hospital when I left."
"Leah?" Charity shook her head with a smile. "What are the chances something like that should happen? It is quite a coincidence."
"Without a doubt," Ethan agreed. "But Charity, she was… gorgeous."
"Leah was always beautiful."
"More so than before," Ethan couldn't control himself as he proceeded on. "She's grown up and she's not at all the girl I remember, but she looks so familiar at the same time. I have never seen anyone more beautiful than she, Charity. I do not know how I can live like this, having people inquire me about other women that I might possibly marry, when I know she is out there, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
"And how is she?"
"Leah… I don't know," Ethan laughed in the irony of it all. "I've been waiting for this moment since I last saw her, Charity, and when we see each other, we say nothing. I had no idea what to say. If I should say anything. She was with another man, Charity. I do not think they were together, but I cannot blame her for seeing other people. I always thought… I don't know why… but I thought perhaps she was always the same girl, with only eyes for me. As it has been for me."
"So neither of you said anything?"
"I know nothing of her at all," Ethan laughed again. "She and I have not seen each other in years and we said nothing. Is it not ridiculous? Is it not maddening? I have been thinking it over all this time and I realize I will probably never see her again. I must find contentment in that moment, but how can I… when I see the most beautiful person in my life… the girl who is now the woman that I have thought about all this time… and realize I let her leave my life. She is probably fine without me. I do not blame her. I left her. She deserves to be fine without me. But Charity… if it must be… why am I so unsatisfied? Why am I not satisfied with this life? I left Leah for a life that leaves me incomplete. I have been spending this whole time… investing my life in the hopes I will be able to find that feeling I had with her somewhere here in this life that I have grown accustomed to all my life to realize nothing comes close to that feeling. And here I am, spending years upon years contemplating this to the point it has made a changed man of me… turning me bitter and cold as ice as I bask in the irony and sarcasm that has become my life, and I realize that I have spent this time trying to move on when I only want to go back and yet even if I did manage to go back, Leah has moved on. She is gorgeous and probably already has someone and a new life and knows me only as some memory of her young years. I have become the king of fools, sister."
"Ethan… is it possible Leah might want to go back as much as you?" Charity suggested. "Or that she misses you at all?"
"Why should she?" Ethan shook his head. "I am unworthy. I think of my life now and I fall short. Anything I was that she might have seen in me when we were young must be gone by now. All these years of thinking maybe, someday, I'll forget about her and move on only to be proven wrong has made me a stranger to even myself. How could she want someone like that? How could she want to share the life I am living when I don't even want to live the life I am living?"
"If that is how you feel about your life, brother, perhaps it is time you tried something new?" Charity reached out and skimmed her brother's cheek, tears in her eyes. "I would never banish you like our family, but maybe your fate lies in a life outside of this Amish life. A life like Eli's."
"I will never forget how lost he was, Charity. I could not give myself a life like that."
"You are not Eli, Ethan." Charity reminded. "And a life in the English world complete, since you say you are incomplete now, is far from lost. Right now, I believe you are lost."
"I do not want to be like Eli."
"Eli has his own story… his own road that he chose to travel upon." Charity looked at her brother and cried in her heart for the future he was bound to choose. "And yours is not the same."
"I just wish to hold her in my arms once more, Charity." Ethan felt the pain in his gut taking over as he confessed to his sister. "You must understand me…"
"I do," Charity said. "Which is why you must go to her, Ethan."
"It is so simple, but I have no reason to go anymore. I saw her and it is done with. She has moved on without me."
"If you had reason to go…" Charity looked at him sternly, knowing well she was sending her brother away for good this time. "…would you leave to find her?"
"In an instant."
"Then," Charity handed Ethan a small envelope, fighting tears of the farewell she knew was to come. "Here is your ticket to leave, brother."
Ethan did not even need to read the letter to know of its message. Seeing her handwriting, addressed to him on paper, and the stamp with her name on the return address, he knew only one thing might send him back to her. This was no letter of hellos or inquiries. This was a letter that required action.
I need you.
Leah Lewis-Hall
"What do you want me to tell our family?" Charity questioned while hugging her brother goodbye.
"Tell them the truth," Ethan could feel the old normality of his teen years return and the soul that he knew well as his own returning once more into his life. "I am not like Eli."
"No," Charity agreed. "I will miss you."
"I will return."
"But if you find Leah…"
"I will come back."
"You will uproot old quarrels," Charity reasoned. "Bringing her back if she agrees. You cannot leave her again if you do."
"I will do what is right," Ethan looked down at the letter and felt as if it were delivered by the Lord himself, so urgent and sacred was its message. "I just must pray that Leah will do the same."