by Lynn Austin
“One week?” he asks with his usual grin. “I’ve been studying at the seminary for quite a while now, and I still haven’t found answers to all my questions. What’s the big hurry, Anna?”
I glance around, worried that Mother might see us together and misunderstand. “Would you mind if we walked toward the beach while we talk?” I ask.
“Not at all. Whatever you want.” We follow the shoreline of Black Lake, then take the path along the edge of the channel that connects that lake to Lake Michigan. I don’t take Derk’s arm, and I’m careful to keep a proper distance between us. I notice that a steady stream of sailboats is heading down the channel alongside us, one right after the other. The crews of each boat call good-naturedly to each other as they sail out to Lake Michigan.
“Goodness, I’ve never seen so many sailboats all at once,” I say.
“I believe there’s a race. The owners sometimes arrange a spontaneous event on a summer afternoon like this one when the weather is nice. They’ll head out to Lake Michigan and race around a course marked with buoys. In fact, if you look out there,” he says, pointing past the mouth of the channel, “you can see where they’ve set up the course.”
I stand still for a moment, watching, and I can’t help feeling a little thrill of excitement as I watch the billowing sails unfurl and catch the wind.
“I’ve agreed to marry William when I return home,” I finally say. “That means I won’t be able to go back to the castle church ever again. My family’s church doesn’t seem to encourage questions, especially the kind that I have.”
He looks at me with a puzzled expression. “It’s probably none of my business—and feel free to tell me so—but what made you decide to marry him? I thought you’d concluded that he was asking too much of you.”
I don’t reply right away as I begin walking again. I decide to trust Derk with the truth. “I learned that my father’s business is in financial trouble. He needs the family connections with William and his bank in order to survive the crisis. I love my father. I would do anything for him and Mother. They wouldn’t know how to survive if they lost all their money.”
“Do they know that’s why you’re making this sacrifice and marrying William?”
“No. But it’s hardly a sacrifice. William is a good man from a fine, churchgoing family. I’ll be a wealthy woman. I’m sure he’ll let me give generously to the poor. I can do a lot of good as his wife.”
“So your decision is made.” Derk makes it a statement, not a question.
“It is.”
I wait for a sailboat filled with laughing young people to pass us on the channel before continuing. The late afternoon sun is still warm, and I draw a deep breath as I prepare to launch my first question. I’m surprised yet grateful that Derk hasn’t tried to talk me out of marrying William. “I’ve been reading your Bible and—”
“It’s yours now. You may keep it.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t—”
“Consider it an early wedding gift.”
“Well . . . thank you.” The mention of my wedding is discomforting. It takes me a moment to gather my thoughts. “The other day I read where Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I’m going to be a very rich woman after I marry William, so I’m wondering what Jesus meant. Will I be excluded from the kingdom of heaven because I’m wealthy?”
Derk scratches his chin as he ponders his reply. “Well . . . Jesus had just told the rich young ruler to sell everything he had and give the money to the poor, right? The young ruler couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was too attached to his money to give it all away.”
“I can’t really blame him. I know how hard it would be for my parents or for William to lose everything, much less give it away voluntarily.”
“Jesus was making the point that to a lot of rich people, their wealth means more to them than following Him. That’s what He wanted the young ruler to see for himself. But then Jesus said, even though it may be hard for a rich man to stop trusting his wealth and trust in God, it wasn’t impossible. God can change anyone’s heart if he allows himself to be changed. Jesus said that all things are possible with God.”
“So there are good rich people who serve God?”
“Of course. And—”
“I could still enter the kingdom of heaven, even if I’m rich?”
“The young man in the story walked away from Jesus, not the other way around. But the point is that we have to be willing to obey Him and follow Him, even at a great cost to ourselves and to the things we love.”
“Is that why you gave up marrying the girl you loved instead of giving up being a minister?”
Derk gives me a funny look that I can’t quite interpret. I don’t know him well enough. He seems surprised that the conversation has shifted to him instead of about me and my problems. “Yes,” he finally says. “I suppose it is.” We hear a shout, and Derk turns and waves to someone aboard one of the passing boats. “Hey! Good luck in the race!” he shouts back.
“We could use you on our crew, Derk,” the fellow calls.
“Next time,” he says, laughing.
I have to admit there is a sense of excitement and energy and freedom among the racing teams that I envy. And joy. Then another thought occurs to me. “I hope I didn’t keep you from racing this afternoon.”
“Not at all. He’s a friend of mine from college. We used to sail together a lot before we graduated and our lives got busy. Most of my friends took jobs right away and many of them married and started families. I started my studies at the seminary.”
“Because you believed that’s what God wanted you to do?”
“Yes. God asked the prophet Isaiah, ‘Who will go for me? Who can I send?’ and Isaiah replied, ‘Here I am. Send me.’ I gave God the same answer.”
“So . . .” I say after exhaling deeply, “will I be turning away from Jesus if I marry William and stop going to the castle church? What does it mean that someone could gain the whole world but lose their soul?”
He looks out at the lake for a moment, as if deep in thought. I wonder if he is praying. “I think . . . I think that ‘losing your soul’ means walking away from God the way the rich young ruler walked away from Jesus. It means making other things more important than Him and worshiping those things. Living your life apart from Him. It’s hard for wealthy people to turn to God for all their needs because they’re used to relying on their money. God wants a relationship with us, one where we talk to Him in prayer, where we love Him and love our neighbor, and where we try to live the way Jesus taught us to.”
“If I do those things, will it compensate for giving up the castle church? Will I be able to still keep my soul?”
Derk sighs. “I can’t answer that question for you. Time and a hundred daily distractions can slowly turn us away from God before we even realize it’s happening. But I urge you to keep reading your Bible. Jesus said if you seek Him you will find Him, if you search for Him with all your heart. He’s with us everywhere we go, Anna. He’s not just in a church building.”
“Reverend Torrey said that in one of his sermons. He said, ‘Seek and ye shall find; knock and the door will be opened.’ He said we should always keep seeking God. But I’m not sure how to do that. God seems so near to me whenever I go to that church. That’s why I kept going back. But I promised William that I wouldn’t go anymore, and this time I need to keep my promise.”
“God is everywhere, Anna. Jesus said He’ll never leave or forsake us. My tante Geesje taught me that. I felt all alone after my mother died, but Geesje told me that Jesus was with me always.”
“And was He? . . . Is He, still?”
“Yes,” he says simply. “I don’t feel alone anymore.”
I want what Derk has, what Tante Geesje has. We have reached the end of the channel, and we stand on the sandy beach for a few minutes watching the sailboat race. When I glance up at Derk, he has his hand rais
ed to his forehead, shading his eyes. I notice that he’s smiling broadly.
“What do you enjoy about sailing?” I ask.
“The challenge of it, wrestling the wind and the waves, making the boat go where you want it to. And I like being part of a team, working together, having fun together.”
“I always feel so alone,” I tell him. “Abandoned.” That was the word Mother used when she told me that she and Father had found me all alone, without parents. Abandoned. But I had been a newborn. I couldn’t possibly remember being abandoned. And I had been lovingly cared for by my parents all my life, for as long as I can remember. I clear my throat to push away my inexplicable sorrow and tell Derk, “William never seems to listen when I try to talk about God or faith or things like that. He doesn’t understand what I mean when I tell him that I feel like something is missing, in here. . . .” I lay my hand over my heart.
Derk turns to look at me, leaning a little closer as he listens. I see so much compassion in his eyes that I want to weep. His eyes are the same color as the sky above us and the lake before us, his hair the same warm gold as the sand. “Isn’t there anyone back in Chicago you can talk with or who can answer your questions?” he asks.
“Not in my social circle. Those friendships are very superficial, the topics of conversation inconsequential. I’ve been longing for a true friend for a long time. That’s another reason why I felt so drawn to the castle church. It felt like home to me. I never feel as if I belong when I’m with all the other wealthy young people my age. I’ve always felt . . . different. As though a piece of me is missing.”
“I don’t mean to give glib answers, but why don’t you pray and ask God for a friend to walk beside you, someone you could talk with about these things? Someone your fiancé would approve of.”
“I’m not very good at praying. That’s something else I was trying to learn at the castle church.”
“There’s no mystery to it. Just talk to God the same way you’re talking to me. Tante Geesje taught me that, too. She told me that whenever I felt alone or afraid or angry, I should tell God all about it—and then I would feel better because I would know that He’d heard me.”
“Did it work?”
He nods and gives a crooked grin. “One time, I was thinking about the special pannenkoeken that my mother used to make—pancakes, in English. I told God I was mad at Him for taking my mother away because my father didn’t make them right. That very night, Tante Geesje brought us a meal, and guess what she had cooked.”
“Pancakes.”
He laughs and nods his head. “God did a lot of little things like that to let me know He was there and that He was listening to me. So don’t be afraid to pray, Anna. You can tell Him anything and everything.”
“Thank you. I’ll do that. . . . We should probably go back now.”
“Are you sure? The race isn’t over yet.”
“Yes, I believe so.” Derk has answered some of my questions and given me a sliver of hope. But as we walk back toward Black Lake I see the slowing activity all around me as the afternoon winds to an end, the rowboats returning to shore, the bathers walking toward the hotel from the beach, the porches and croquet lawn emptying, and the feeling that time is running out for me is so suffocating that I can hardly breathe. Once I return to Chicago, once I marry William, I will no longer be able to do whatever I wish. I will have to be circumspect in my actions and keep my thoughts and feelings to myself. I do believe everything Derk has told me about prayer, and I loved his charming little story about the pancakes. But the whirling social world that I’ll soon be part of again, with hundreds of parties and social calls and events, will leave little time in my life for God, apart from the hour-long church service on Sunday morning. It truly does seem hard for a rich man—or woman—to enter the kingdom of heaven. I worry that waves of duty and obligations and expectations will swallow me, just like the waves in my nightmare swallowed our lifeboat, and that I’ll lose my soul.
“Do you think I’m making a mistake by marrying William?” I ask. “I admit that I’m marrying him for his money. Is that a terrible sin?”
“Do you love him?”
“I once thought I did. But now I worry that it might have been a girlish infatuation. I was dazzled by him. And amazed that he’d chosen me. We have nothing of importance to say to each other, and I feel as though I barely know him. Is it a sin to marry him if I don’t love him?”
“I don’t believe it’s a sin. Breaking your marriage vows to him would be a sin.”
I think of Mother’s new friend, Honoria Stevens, and her sorrow over her husband’s affair. Mother said that such dalliances were more common than most people realized, yet why doesn’t our minister point out this wrongdoing or call the men who do it sinners?
“Tante Geesje married a man she didn’t love and—”
“Was it a terrible mistake? Was she unhappy all her life?”
“I don’t think so. I haven’t finished reading her story, yet. She married him after her true love died in a shipwreck, but I know they had children and grandchildren and a good life together. I believe she was happy with him. I wish you could meet her, Anna. She could answer your questions about marriage much better than I can. She hasn’t had an easy life, but she’s a godly woman who considers Jesus her best friend and constant companion.”
“She sounds amazing.”
“She is. And I find it interesting that her faith wasn’t always as strong as it is now. For a time she was very angry with God for causing so much sorrow and loss in her life.”
“I would love to meet her.” We’ve returned to the bench where our walk began.
“Maybe you can. Would you have time to make a trip into Holland before you go back to Chicago? I’m sure she’ll be willing to talk with you. You could take the steamship—”
“Or the train. There’s a train into Holland, isn’t there?”
“Yes. There’s also the train,” he says with a grin. “I forgot that you’ve vowed never to step foot onto a boat again. Let me talk with Tante Geesje and see if she would be willing to help answer your questions.”
“Thank you. And in the meantime, I’ll figure out a way to travel into Holland and back without my mother knowing about it. She would never approve.”
“I think you and Tante Geesje would get along great. Like you and I do, Anna.”
“You’re so easy to talk to. And very patient with all my questions.” I feel so comfortable with Derk.
Maybe too comfortable.
I see the intensity of his gaze as he gives me his complete attention and suddenly realize that our easy familiarity is wrong on so many levels. I’m engaged to marry William. Why am I confessing things to a hotel employee—a good-looking, unmarried one, at that? I shouldn’t be talking to any young man without a chaperone present.
I begin backing away. “I need to go. Thank you for your time. And for the Bible. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all your help.”
“It’s nothing. . . . You’re welcome.” He seems dazed by my abrupt departure. “Anna?”
I have already turned my back on him but I look over my shoulder to face him again. “Yes?”
“I’ll visit my aunt tonight and ask if she’ll meet with you.”
“Thank you. That would be good.” I keep walking away, forcing Derk to call after me in order to continue the conversation.
“I’ll let you know what she says. Should we meet here again tomorrow after work?”
“If it isn’t too much trouble.” Why is my heart racing at the thought of talking with Derk tomorrow? I stride toward the hotel as fast as my dainty shoes will allow, wondering why I am suddenly in such a hurry to flee from this kind, gracious man.
Chapter 19
Geesje’s Story
Holland, Michigan
49 years earlier
April of 1848 brought more changes than just melting snow and the rebirth of spring. Widow Van den Bosch married a widower from our kolonie, and she an
d her son moved to his cabin. More and more settlers were arriving from the Netherlands, causing our community to grow. And Maarten had good news for me one night as he sat at our table by lamplight, counting his earnings. “I think we have enough money for our passage back to the Netherlands,” he told me. He had been working as a laborer every day, helping one of our wealthier settlers clear his land, since there was no longer any reason to continue clearing our own. “Once we sell your father’s land and this cabin, we should have enough money to go home.”
Home. I was going home. I rose from my chair to hug him tightly. “That’s wonderful news, Maarten! Thank you, thank you!” I had news of a big change to tell him about, too, but I had been waiting for the right time. I sat down on his lap, the first time I had ever made such an affectionate gesture, and put my arms around his neck. “That means our child will be born in the Netherlands instead of here.”
“Our child? . . . You mean . . . ?”
“Yes.”
The joy on Maarten’s face brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him as happy as he was at that moment. But as he hugged me tightly, I knew I didn’t share the full measure of his joy. God forgive me, but I was still thinking of Hendrik, wishing they were his arms surrounding me, his child growing inside me.
After Maarten left for work the next morning, I decided that the mild, sunny day would be a perfect one to wash some of our clothing. I was bent over the outdoor fire pit, piling on wood to heat the water, when Arie ran up to me and said, “Mama, there’s a man coming.”
A man? Had Maarten forgotten something? I stood and watched a tall figure weave his way through the dusky woods following the narrow path. There was something familiar about the way he walked.
When he saw me, he began to run. His cap blew off his head, and a shaft of spring sunlight shone down through the trees onto his golden hair, his handsome face.
Hendrik.
Was I imagining things? Was he a ghost? A wave of dizziness washed over me, but there was nothing to grab on to. The trees twirled in circles around me, and I felt myself falling. Then everything went black.
