Plain Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page B

Josie realized that she was in way over her head. She’d kissed boys, but never anything beyond that.
    Chills ran up her spine as she struggled to push the event from her mind. But at the forefront of her thoughts stayed the hurt and disappointment that her parents wouldn’t stand up for her. He was an adult. A teacher .
    “You were alone with that man in his home, Josephine,” her father had said when Josie told her parents what happened three months later, when she was fairly certain she was pregnant. “I’m not sure what you want us to do about this. Larry just doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would force himself on someone.”
    Although her mother was more sympathetic, Josie knew that her parents, pillars of the community, didn’t want such a scandal. Their Catholic upbringing prevented them from considering anything but adoption. Mom had met Mary Ellen and Abraham through mutual friends, and Mom knew they’d been trying to have a baby but couldn’t conceive. Large families were important to the Amish, and Mom told Josie she was doing God’s work by giving her baby to Mary Ellen and Abraham.
    She’d hated her parents for a long time after that. Even though she returned to Chicago, her relationship with her aunt was also strained. She went to college during the day and worked nights for three months until she was able to get a small apartment near the campus. Two years later, she had an associate’s degree in business management and not much of a relationship with her family. And that was okay.
    Over the years, Josie was sure Mom and Dad had run into Linda from time to time before they’d moved to Florida, but Mom swore that she broke contact with Mary Ellen and Abe after the adoption, feeling it was best for everyone. In the beginning, Josie phoned her mother often from Chicago, and with each phone call, Mom had done her best to convince Josie that she would be ruining Linda’s life if she caused a ruckus by returning to Lancaster County and seeking claim to her daughter.
    Mom and Dad had visited her in Chicago a few times and attended her marriage to Robert, but nothing was ever the same between them. She’d never forgiven them for making a decision that should have been hers to make.
    But Linda was seventeen now. And Josie was back in Lancaster County. She didn’t care what her parents or anyone else thought about her moving here.
    She stared at the number one blinking red on the answering machine, took a deep breath, and then pushed the Play button. At the last second, she wondered if someone other than the Huyards had left a message. Her heart thumped as she waited and hoped to hear Mary Ellen’s voice, but instead, a deep, raspy voice came through.
    “Hello. This is Abraham Huyard calling for Josephine Dronberger.”

3
    L INDA TOOK SHALLOW BREATHS AS SHE WALKED DOWN the hallway at Lancaster General. She tried to avoid the odor, which smelled like something Mamm used when she cleaned the basement. With each tiny inhalation the stench found its way to her nostrils, igniting memories of the last time she had been in this hospital five years ago. Her Uncle Noah had given her cousin, David, one of his kidneys, but before David was transferred to Philadelphia for the transplant, the family had spent a lot of time here. Both Noah and David were healthy now, but it was a scary time for everyone then. And it made Linda even more fearful about seeing Jonas. She wished Stephen hadn’t been called into work at the last minute.
    She gently pushed open the door to Jonas’s room. Lizzie, Jonas’s wife, sat on one side of his bed, and his daughter, Sarah Jane, on the other. Jonas was lying flat on his back with lots of tubes and wires running everywhere, and Linda’s chest grew tight for a moment, until Jonas tilted his head toward her and smiled. His cheeks were sunken in and his complexion a grayish-white color—like his hair and beard—but when he smiled in her direction, he was still the same old