Fearless Hope: A Novel by Serena B. Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

mother.
    “Take time off,” she had said. “Like Harry advised. Then knock ’em dead with this next book.”
    The problem, he was finding out, was he didn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t writing.
    He had thrown himself into his career so totally and obsessively for so long that he had no hobbies and, although in possession of many acquaintances, he had virtually no close friends.
    Logan cast about in his mind, trying to come up with something to occupy his time, and chose something so uncharacteristic that Marla would have been shocked. He decided his house needed to look more like a home and spent several more daysdoing little except roaming around the area shopping for things that were not at all necessary, but that he just liked .
    He bought bright-colored hand-loomed throw rugs in craft stores in Berlin, and several huge, Amish-made baskets from a roadside stand, which he used as side tables. He bought peaceful landscape prints from a local photographer by the name of Doyle Yoder for his walls. At the pottery place he and Marla had visited, he bought a dozen hand-thrown pots. He stopped at a house advertising homemade quilts and looked through dozens sewn by an elderly Amish woman whose fingers, he noted, were knotted with arthritis. He wondered, as he purchased five of the finely made quilts, what it had cost her to make the tiny stitches.
    Each item gave him a sense of satisfaction as he placed it in his house. He was no decorator, but he cherished the feeling of humanity with which he filled his home by purchasing things that local artisans had lovingly created.
    The final touch involved combing antiques stores and rescuing dusty, forgotten books. Harry had suggested he read other people’s books, old books. He liked that idea. Old books, instead of trying to keep up with the latest bestseller, the latest copy of Publishers Weekly , or yet another research book.
    The windows he left bare, except for piling stacks and stacks of old books upon the sills. It seemed odd not to have Marla, with her interior design expertise, here to help him, but in a way he was grateful that he was getting to create an environment that was all his own. The things he purchased felt right for this old house, and right for him.
    In this way, he acquainted himself more intimately with the countryside and its people. Even though it was a constant battle, he kept his promise to Marla and did not drink or keep any alcohol in his home. Instead, he discovered overgrown paths on his land and took long walks whenever the desire to drink threatenedto overcome him. As he climbed the hills and explored the paths, he was astonished at how out of shape he had become. He also marveled that the very land itself seemed to welcome him—just as the old house had.
    Today he was discovering that nearly all of Holmes County closed down on Sundays. The Amish restaurants, upon which he depended heavily for sustenance, were closed. Pretty much everything was closed. There was little to do on a Sunday in Amish country except to go to church, or visit with family and friends.
    He had neither family nor friends living here, and he most certainly did not have a church.
    Today he felt like a complete alien driving through the streets of Berlin, Ohio, with its shuttered windows and Closed signs on all the small businesses.
    As he drove past one farm, he saw about forty black buggies parked outside in a pasture. Streaming from those buggies was a line of black-clad Amish men and women, along with many children. They were in family-type clusters, talking with one another as they walked together. He thought how close the friendships must be within this group of people who had probably gone to church together all their lives.
    As he watched this, it hit him how terribly lonely he felt, and he suspected he had been lonely for a long time. As an only child, he had learned to keep the loneliness at bay by making up stories with which he kept himself