"What?"
"You think that because I live on a farm and work at a grocery store, I have no idea about what kinds of stresses you face?" I shot back.
"Well, yeah, kind of," he said as he looked up at me again. Something in his eyes told me that the kinder thing to do right now was to back down, and simply try and help. "I mean, I guess there's lots of things I don't know about what you do, but it seems less relevant right now."
&n
bsp; "Fine," I said through clenched teeth holding back my urge to lecture him about what was relevant and what was not. "What do you need us to do to help you?"
"You've already done more than enough," he said shaking his head as he bent down and gathered the loose sheets of paper that were spread across the floor. For a long time, he was silent, but when he looked up at me, I was shocked to see that there were tears in his eyes. He quickly wiped them away and said, "Ever feel like the whole world is just crashing down around you and you're powerless to stop it?"
"I do," I said nodding as I held his gaze. "Just about every single day."
Chapter Eighteen
Adam
After lunch, while we were waiting for the tow truck to arrive, Honor walked with me as I limped down to the end of the road where a large, red phone booth sat on the edge of an English family's yard. She explained to me that while it was not okay for the Amish to have phones in their houses, it was okay to use the phone in the booth. I tried to wrap my mind around what it meant to be Amish in a world that was almost completely driven by technology.
"Do you like living here?" I asked after deciding that being blunt was better than digging around the edges.
"Eh, it's okay," Honor shrugged as she kicked a rock down the road. "I liked it better before."
"Before what?" I asked. I was trying to keep up with her, but my battered body rebelled forcing me to limp along behind her.
"Before Mamm and Dat died," she replied over her shoulder without elaborating.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," I said, assuming that the Miller children had been orphans for a while given the fact that none of them seemed particularly sad. "How long ago did it happen?"
"Let's see, what's today?" she asked as she looked out across the fields and did the math. "Two weeks."
"Wait, your parents died two weeks ago?" I repeated trying to grasp the enormity of it all.
"Yeah, about that," she shrugged.
"How did it happen?" I asked stopping to lift the straw hat and wipe my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. Grace had worried that the bright light would make my head feel worse, so she'd given me a spare hat from the rack by the door.
"Buggy accident," Honor said plainly. "They had to shoot Toby 'cause both his front legs were broken."
"I'm assuming Toby was a horse?" I said hoping I was right.
"Yeah," she said kicking the rock a little harder and sending it skittering out into the road. Honor followed it and kicked it back onto the shoulder where she rejoined me without saying anything more.
"You doing okay?" I asked feeling stupid for doing so, but not sure what else to say.
"What do you think?" she said looking up at me. Honor had the same blue eyes and blonde hair as her sisters, but there was a defiance in her face that none of the others seemed to have, and it made her seem tougher than the rest.
"Good point," I nodded. "Sorry for asking."
"Nah, it's fine," she said giving the rock a hard kick and watching it sail through the air landing a good distance in front of us. She looked sideways at me and asked, "What about you? Where are your parents?"
"They live in Chicago," I said, sidestepping the rest of the discussion about how I'd been disowned.
"You like it there?" she asked tugging at the neck of her dress and bending her neck to blow air down into it.
"It's a great city," I replied. "Are you hot?"
"What do you think?" she asked giving me the universal look teenagers reserve for adults who ask stupid questions.