"You will honor your father and mother!" she raged for a brief second before the mask was quickly put back in place. I stood staring at her fighting the urge to raise my hand to my cheek. She hissed through gritted teeth, "I won't tolerate this disrespect from my own son. You either toe the line and come back to the family, or you go your own way, but don't expect any sympathy or assistance from me if you choose the latter."
"Wow, you really are an ice queen, aren't you?" I said aiming at her wall of defense, and firing off what weak rounds I had.
"You have no idea," she said as a cruel smile lifted the edges of her lips as I felt a shiver run down my spine.
"Fine," I nodded accepting the terms of the deal. I would not grovel before my parents, not this time and not for any amount of money. I looked my mother straight in the eye and said, "Take care of yourself, Mother."
"I always do," she said smiling coolly. Then she turned and clicked her way across the lobby to the front door of the spa and disappeared inside without so much as a backward glance.
I was truly on my own.
Chapter Five
Grace
The phone rang as I was cleaning up the kitchen and deciding what to pack. Mike's voice on the other end of the line made me tear up. I quickly explained what had happened and that I needed to go home to help my family.
"Of course, of course," he said, "If you need anything, anything at all, just ask."
"Thanks, Mike," I said swallowing the lump in my throat. "I'll call as soon as I have an idea of when I'll be back. I just don't know what I'll need to do."
"Hey, don't worry about a thing," he said reassuringly. "But do you think you'll be able to get back in time for the Miter meeting?"
"Mike..." I trailed off unable to conjure a response.
"Too soon?" he asked before answering his own question. "Yeah, of course, don't be worried, Grace. We'll figure out a way to make it work. Just take care of yourself and your family."
"I will, thanks," I said as the tears welled up and I swallowed another sob. I disconnected and slid down the wall until I was sitting on the kitchen floor with my forehead resting on my knees and let the tears flow freely.
I cried as I remembered the seasons I'd spent in the big, white house helping Mamm make meals for our growing family and helping Dat in the fields or at the store. I remembered the way it felt to sit on the hard bench during Sunday services trying not to wiggle or fall asleep, and the way that Dat would encourage good behavior with a smile or a wink. I remembered the way I would boss my younger sisters around, mimicking the way the Mamm ran the household. I remembered the day that Mamm brought Daniel home and introduced him to all of us by explaining that he was a special gift from God and would need all of us girls to watch over him. I remembered the way that Mamm and Dat had encouraged me to make my own decisions after my rumspringa, and then had stood in the doorway smiling and waving as I made the jump from Amish to English the day I left for college.
Daniel. I cried harder when I thought about how we would explain this immense loss to him. Without Mamm and Dat as the center of his universe, how would he adjust? I took a deep breath and willed myself to stop crying. I needed to pack and get down to the farm as quickly as possible so I could help Verity and Honor prepare for the funeral. I knew the lion's share of the work would fall to Verity and me since Faith and Hope had families of their own to take care of, and Honor was a wild card—or at least that was what Mamm had written in her most recent letters.
"Pull it together, Grace," I muttered as I stood up and moved to the bedroom to pack my things. The good part about visiting my family was that I didn't need to pack much clothing. The only stipulation my parents had ever made about my returning from the English world was that when I was with them, I had to wear plain Amish clothing and a kapp covering my hair. It seemed like a small sacrifice, so I gladly adhered to their rules when I visited.
After having grown accustomed to a wide variety of soft fabrics in the clothes I bought off the rack at department stores and boutiques, I hated the plain, brown dress and the way the scratchy, cotton fabric felt against my skin, and I especially disliked the fact that the only fasteners I could use were straight pins. The Amish didn't believe in adornment, and buttons were considered a gateway to vanity. On the outside, I adhered to every convention, but underneath my dresses, I wore beautiful lingerie that I'd bought at La Perla or one of the many high-end stores on the Magnificent Mile. I loved the feeling of lace and silk against my skin, and when I was home, my lingerie reminded me that I had a life outside of the Amish.
Once I'd packed everything I thought I'd need for a week or two, I stopped in the front office to let them know I'd be out of town. Frank, the doorman, expressed his sympathies as he took my suitcase and loaded it in the trunk of the car I'd hired to drive me to Corner Grove, and I went back upstairs and did a final sweep of the apartment to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. Once I was satisfied, I took the elevator back downstairs. Frank put a protective arm around my shoulder as he walked me to the curb telling me, "You take care of yourself, Gracie, you hear?"
I nodded, gave him a quick hug and the climbed into the back seat to begin the dreadful drive south.
I hadn't visited the farm since Christmas, and it was now early June and the scenery along the drive had changed dramatically. We drove down Lake Shore until we hit the highway heading out of the city and away from the concrete and asphalt. As the landscape slowly began to unfurl, small subdivisions with immaculately kept lawns on neat, little blocks near the plants and factories quickly gave way to large fields carpeted with newly sprouted soybeans and short corn stalks. The fields were lush and green and stretched as far as the eye could see on either side of the highway interrupted by an occasional, white farmhouse and big barn where the farmers kept the sowing and threshing machines.
I smiled as I remembered how Dat would shepherd Faith, Hope, and me out into the fields to pick and detassel corn in late July. We'd always complain that the English used machines and not children to do the hard work of reaping the corn, and Dat would calmly reply, "Machines do not bring us closer to God, my daughters." He'd calmly ask us to feel the warmth of the ground beneath our bare feet, sun on our faces, and the satisfaction of knowing we were contributing to our family's well-being by providing food and sustenance. We'd grumble a little, but mostly we'd work together, feeling the pride that Dat had instilled in us.
Thankfully the car's driver remained silent as we made the trek, and when a small sob escaped from my lips as I tried to imagine what home would be like when I arrived, he handed me a box of tissues before turning the radio up a little louder. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I looked up and caught his eye in the rearview mirror and offered a weak, but grateful, smile.
Chapter Six
Adam
"Jeez, that's hard core," Bugsy said as I recounted my parents' reaction to the news that we'd be running the Agape Resources wind turbine project on our own. "An arranged marriage in this day and age? That's some kind of serious fucked up!"
Jeffrey "Bugsy" Wiseman had been my best friend since the first day in fourth grade when we'd punched it out on the playground to prove who was a more loyal Chicago Bears fan. Bugsy had won the fight by landing a punch that had broken my nose, but afterwards he'd led me to the nurse's office and asked her to call his father, a world-renowned plastic surgeon, then solemnly waited until his father had shown up to assess the damage. Once Dr. Wiseman had declared that there would be no lasting damage, but that I needed to avoid sneezing for a few days, Bugsy held out his hand and declared a truce. I solemnly shook it and from that day on we were best friends.
I quickly learned that Bugsy had been nicknamed for his ability to emulate the famous Jewish mobster, Bugsy Siegel. Like his namesake, my blond-haired, blue-eyed friend with the jaw that, even as a child, looked like it was made of chiseled marble, was exceptionally handsome and had a charismatic personality that could charm even the most reticent. My friend was also adept at wheeling and dealing on the playground, and often wound up with a pocket full of lunch money after running a card or dice game somewhere out of view of the adult who monitored the playground. No one ever reported him because Bugsy had a way of making your loss feel like the biggest win of your life.
We'd gone to the same college prep school and had both been admitted to MIT the same year. We'd roomed together and earned a reputation on campus as the mobster and his sidekick, which was mostly attributed to Bugsy's penchant for dressing like a modern version of a character out of a 1930s gangster movie. Not many could have pulled it off, but, for Bugsy, it worked. Girls fell for him with such regularity that I often had to run interference and deliver the news that he had moved on and they should, too. Sometimes the girls would cry, and then it would be my job to comfort them. Often, the girls would turn their attention from Bugsy to me, but those infatuations had more to do with the girls wanting to stay inside Bugsy's orbit than wanting to date me, so I shrugged it off and spent a lot of time in the engineering lab. I watched Bugsy work his magic, though, and over time I cultivated my own methods of impressing girls. But despite my efforts, I often struck out. Soon I gave up chasing girls and focused my attention on the engineering lab where I could work on one of the many projects that Bugsy and I conjured up during our late night drin