by Lynn Austin
“They were written before I married your father—”
“You’re so against Jack and me, yet according to these, you know exactly how I feel! You were in love with this man—a man who wasn’t a Christian!”
“Hendrik became a believer. Your father is the one who taught him about God and—”
“You know perfectly well what it’s like to love someone so much you feel like you might die if you can’t be together!”
Oh, yes. I knew.
She waved the incriminating letter in the air. “It says here that you would have left your home and family in the Netherlands to run away with him.”
“But I didn’t run away, Christina. I came to America with my parents. Hendrik decided to come, too. If you’ve read the letters, then you know he wanted to become a Christian.”
“What happened to him? Did he die?”
“No. . . . But when his ship sank, I thought he had. By the time I learned that he was still alive, I couldn’t marry him.”
“Why not?”
“I was already married to your father.”
She jumped to her feet, dumping the tin box and the letters onto the ash-covered ground. “So you gave up the man you really loved to settle for a man from your church, the man your parents wanted you to marry.”
“It wasn’t like that. You don’t know the whole story—”
“You’re such a hypocrite! You told me to forget Jack and marry someone from church, someone I could never love as much as him, when all along—”
“That isn’t what happened—”
“You couldn’t possibly have loved my papa if you kept another man’s love letters all these years!”
I grabbed her shoulders, shaking her slightly. “Christina, listen to me. I never should have kept them. I love your father a hundred times more than I ever loved Hendrik. A thousand times more. The attraction Hendrik and I felt for each other never could have survived all the fires and storms I’ve been through since then. His faith wasn’t strong enough, and neither was mine. But the love your father and I share is the real thing. Nothing can ever quench it.” I tried to hold her, but she twisted away from me.
“Leave me alone!” She marched off by herself, heading toward the Black River.
“Christina, wait!” Before I could follow her, someone grabbed my arm from behind to stop me. It was Maarten.
“Let her go, Geesje,” he said gently. He took me into his arms and held me tightly. I felt his body shake with sobs, and I knew they weren’t for his daughter or even because we’d lost everything we’d labored so hard for all these years. Maarten had heard what I’d said to Christina. He’d heard how much I loved him.
“A hundred times more,” I whispered as I clung to him, weeping. “A thousand times more . . .”
Geesje
Holland, Michigan
1897
The summer afternoon is warm as Arie drives me up the hill to Pilgrim Home Cemetery in his carriage. We halt, and he climbs down from the seat first, handling his crutches expertly after all these years of practice, then he helps me down as well. Together, we place the containers of flowers from my garden on each of the graves, beginning with Mama and Papa’s. I bend to arrange the flowers on their plot and when I straighten up, I look down at the rebuilt city, risen from the ashes and flourishing once again beneath the summer sky, twenty-six years later. “My parents left their families and their home in the Netherlands to build this town,” I tell Arie. “I wish they had lived to see what it looks like today. Papa would be so proud of you and your print shop. It was his dream.”
I have also brought flowers for Arie’s birth parents, the Van Dijks, and we walk the short distance beneath the trees to place a bouquet there. “I don’t remember them at all,” he says, shaking his head. “I feel so bad about that.”
“You were very young, Arie. I’m sorry they died, but I’m forever grateful that God gave you and Gerrit to us to raise.”
We turn to Gerrit’s grave next. He would still be buried in Virginia if the other members of our church hadn’t helped pay to have him shipped home to us. I’m so grateful to them. There is talk of erecting a memorial in this cemetery to honor all of the brave area men who died in the war. I hope I live to see it.
Next to Gerrit’s grave is Christina’s. Arie’s sorrow deepens, as does mine, as we place the flowers on it. Maarten helped me find meaning in Gerrit’s death, but there was no explanation for Christina’s.
Two days after the fire, we awoke from where we’d been staying at a friend’s house to find that Christina was gone. The note she left behind said she had run away with Jack Newell. He had no job now that the tannery had burned to the ground, so he was going to Chicago to look for work. They didn’t know then, that much of Chicago had also been destroyed. He’d asked Christina to go with him. I love him, she’d written. I don’t want to lose him.
The way I had lost Hendrik. Christina didn’t say those words, but I ached with guilt, wondering if reading Hendrik’s letters had given her the courage to do it. She knew what the outcome for Hendrik and me had been.
“We need to go after her,” I told Maarten.
“No, Geesje. We can’t. Even if we managed to find her in Chicago and bring her back, we couldn’t keep her here against her will.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to pray and trust God to bring her back. Jesus said that He knows who all of His sheep are, and no one can snatch them out of His hand.”
Now, as I stand gazing at Christina’s grave, I think about the difference between a mother’s viewpoint and a father’s. A mother often sees her children’s failures as her own. A father sees them as the result of their God-given free choice to defy Him.
“She was coming home to us, Arie,” I say, wiping a tear. “She said she had something important to tell us, something she feared we wouldn’t be able to forgive. But I’m still waiting after all these years for God to answer one final prayer for me.”
“Which prayer is that, Moeder?”
“I asked Him for the assurance that Christina had returned to her faith before she died. I just wish I knew for certain that she had.”
Arie wraps his arm around my shoulder. “I wish I did, too, Mama.”
When he was alive, Maarten used to quote Jesus’ promise to me in my moments of grief and doubt: “‘My sheep hear my voice . . . I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.’” He used to assure me that Jesus still held Christina firmly in His hand, wherever she was, and He would never let the evil one snatch her away for eternity.
We saved Maarten’s grave for last. Arie and Jakob had helped me choose his grave marker, which reads, Safely home with his Savior. “You know what your father would say if he was here, don’t you?” I ask Arie.
He smiles slightly. “‘Don’t grieve for me. I’m in a much better place.’”
“That’s right.” I’m smiling, too. “He used to say that our short, troublesome years on earth serve only to prepare us for an eternity that is far, far greater.” I kneel down on the grass to arrange the flowers and silently tell Maarten how much I love him, how much I look forward to spending an eternity together. Arie helps me up again.
“Let’s go home,” I say. “Dinner is waiting.”
Chapter 33
Anna
Hotel Ottawa
1897
I’m a mess of nerves as I prepare for bed. I don’t want to go rowing with William tomorrow. I don’t want to take the steamship home to Chicago. I feel like I can’t breathe when I think about the long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean for our wedding trip. Praying is still very new to me, but I climb into bed and curl into a ball and plead with God to help me. I ask Him to calm the churning waves in my soul the way Jesus calmed the Sea of Galilee for His frightened disciples. I ask Him to show me who I really am and what He wants me to do with my life. I pray and pray until I run out of words—and then someth
ing remarkable happens. I feel His blessing of peace on me as if a gentle hand rests on my head in benediction. It’s just like the dream I had when Mama knelt in front of the altar in the castle church and the minister rested his hand on her head. I drift off peacefully to sleep.
The sound of running feet and voices in the hallway awakens me. I sit up in bed, my heart racing. It’s still very dark in my room, but a dull orange glow flickers outside my window around the edges of the curtains. I have left the window open and the air that drifts inside smells like a campfire. The agitation in the hallway grows louder. I hear someone say the word fire.
I scramble out of bed and yank the curtains open. A short distance away on the opposite shore of Black Lake an enormous fire is raging. Flames leap and dance as they consume one of the big resort hotels across the lake. The reflection of the flames on the water makes it seem as if the lake is burning, too. Thick black smoke billows into the sky, snuffing out the stars above the burning building. Showers of sparks ascend into the air along with the smoke like a flock of flaming birds. Black Lake isn’t very wide at this point. Might the sparks fly across the glowing water and set our hotel on fire, too?
I hurry to the connecting door to Mother’s room and knock on it to awaken her. “There’s a huge fire across the lake from us,” I tell her. “I think we should get dressed and gather up our things in case we need to evacuate.” All my life I’ve heard stories about the Great Chicago Fire that destroyed the city in 1871, just three years before I was born. People say it spread out of control faster than the firemen could battle it. For a while, they’d hoped the Chicago River would halt the fire’s spread, but flaming debris blew across the water on the wind, incinerating the city. If the wind is just right tonight, might debris cross Black Lake just as easily?
I’m all dressed except for my shoes when someone knocks on my hallway door. I open it to find William standing there. He has pulled on his trousers without a belt or suspenders and he’s wearing shoes without any socks. He’s wearing a linen blazer over his striped pajama top. “Anna, thank God you’re all right!” he says as he lunges to embrace me. “When I first woke up and smelled the smoke, I thought our hotel was on fire.”
“I did, too, for a minute.”
“They say it’s the Jenison Park Hotel that’s burning, but I still wanted to find you and make sure you’re fine. I was so panicked at the thought of you trapped in the flames that I threw on my clothes and came to see you.”
“I’m fine. I got dressed, too, just in case . . .”
He holds me close, stroking my sleep-tousled hair. “I’m so glad I was here to take care of you. If anything happened to you, I don’t know what I would do.” His words touch me, and I hug him tightly in return. A moment later he releases me, and Mother opens the door we share.
“Oh, William, thank goodness you’re here to take charge. I’m so relieved.” I suddenly understand why women like my mother and Honoria Stevens choose to look the other way when their husbands have brief affairs. Mother would be lost without the security of a man in her life. My father makes her feel safe and gives her an identity. He makes her who she is—Mrs. Arthur Nicholson. Now that William is here to take care of us, she feels secure. And so do I. It’s the same sense of safety I always feel in my nightmare when Father’s strong hands hold me above the waves to keep me from drowning.
“I don’t believe we’re in any danger at the moment,” William says. “But I think we’d be wise to stay vigilant until the fire is under control. The wind seems to be blowing very briskly.”
“I would like to go outside and watch,” I say, putting on my shoes. “Do you want to come with us, Mother?”
“I’ll watch from the window. I’m not presentable.” She says this even though she is fully dressed. But her hair is still in a long braid for the night.
“I’ll come back for you if there is any danger,” William promises.
We head downstairs toward the main door holding hands. With so many windows open on this warm, summer night, smoke has drifted into the hallways and stairwells. Outside, we join dozens of other guests from our hotel as we stand near the shore in a mishmash of clothing and watch the inferno across the glowing lake. The opposite shoreline is lined with people who have fled the burning building. I can only imagine their terror. The Jenison Park Hotel resembles a flaming skeleton as fire engulfs the roof and licks through the windows.
“I feel so sorry for all those people over there, watching their hotel burn,” I say. “I hope everyone made it out safely.”
“Yes . . . It’s going to be a total loss from the looks of it.”
“How horrifying fire is! I’ve seen photographs of Chicago after the Great Fire. And to think, it happened only a few years before I was born.” To parents who then abandoned me. The thought brings tears to my eyes, which already sting from the smoke. William slips his arm around my waist as we stand together, and I wrap mine around him, as well. The uncertainty and fear on this strange night have broken down our reserves with each other. After a while, I notice that William is looking at me, not the fire.
“You’re so beautiful, Anna,” he says, brushing a blowing strand of hair from my face. “The glow of the firelight has turned your hair to pure gold.”
My hair. It’s another reminder that I don’t know who I am or where I came from. I remember how Derk mistook me for someone else the first day we met—for a Dutch woman—and I feel prompted to say, “William, there’s something I’m not sure you know about me. . . . I was adopted. My father and mother aren’t really my . . . I mean, they’ve raised me since I was a baby, but . . . but I’m not really their daughter.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Does it matter to you that I don’t know anything about my background?”
“Not in the least.” He pulls me closer. “It’s the woman you are now that I care about.” We watch as a section of the building’s wall crumbles like a child’s tower of blocks. We hear the distant rumble a few seconds later. “Anna, when I woke up tonight and thought our hotel was on fire . . . when I imagined losing you . . . I guess we don’t realize how important the people in our lives really are until we fear we may lose them. I don’t want to lose you, Anna. I’m so sorry we quarreled.”
I look up at him and smile. His face is sprinkled with bristles of dark whiskers that need to be shaved. I’ve never seen him without his beard well trimmed, and I reach up to brush my fingertips across his cheek. “I’m sorry, too.”
“I know I’m probably at fault for over-reacting, but I’ve heard stories about people who’ve been swindled out of all their money by unscrupulous clergymen and so-called religious groups. I admit I don’t know much about that particular church except that they’re not really our sort of people.”
“You mean not wealthy?”
“I suppose.”
“The pastor of that church isn’t unscrupulous. And many working-class people do attend there. But I’ve been reading the Bible this summer, and I’ve learned a lot of things. It’s hard for rich people like us not to rely on our wealth, and Jesus warns us not to put our trust in money instead of in Him. I don’t intend to foolishly give away my money to anyone, but I do want to grow in faith and learn to trust God more. I want to keep reading my Bible and learning for myself what Jesus taught. I hope you’ll allow me to do that after we’re married.”
William lets out his breath in a rush. “I admit that your sudden religious fervor isn’t something I understand. Other people in our social circle seem content with the role that religion has always played in our lives.” He pauses and we both gaze at the shocking scene across the lake as the flames rage out of control, devouring the once-grand building. William’s arm tightens around my waist, drawing me closer. “I suppose I’d be willing to listen more closely to what you’re saying from now on. I don’t want your pursuit of God or faith or religion or whatever you might call it to come between us again.”
I feel a prickle of hope. I recall the
sense of peace that had overwhelmed me earlier tonight. “One of the reasons I kept going back to that church was because I needed to find answers to all my questions. But during my time alone here, I’ve learned that God will lead me to the answers if I seek Him. I can honor your wishes, William, and not return to that church again.”
He turns away from the fire and looks down at me. “I’m glad. And I want to make you happy, too, Anna.”
His words bring tears to my eyes, a smile to my face. He truly means it. I wish our marriage would be like this, like tonight. That we’d always feel this close to each other. That we would be able to talk this freely and really listen to each other. I know that marriages in our social circle aren’t usually close, but why couldn’t William’s and mine be different? Perhaps it’s a goal I could aim for.
We watch the fire until there is little more for it to consume. Thankfully, the wind has died down and the risk of the fire spreading from blowing sparks seems to have lessened. By the time we go back inside, I feel closer to William than ever before.
“Let’s choose a date for our wedding when we get back to Chicago,” he says. “So we can begin our life together.”
“I would like that.” It’s the truth. He gives me a long, lingering kiss that leaves me feeling dizzy before we part.
I lay down on my bed without bothering to change into my nightgown again, unsure if I’ll be able to fall asleep, even though it’s still dark outside. Things seem different between William and me now. He seems different. I want to share my life with him and be a good wife to him. Demanding that I be allowed to visit the LaSalle Street church seems silly to me now, and very childish. As Derk has assured me, I can talk with God in prayer anyplace, anytime. I fall asleep with the same sense of peace that I had after praying earlier tonight.
It’s still very early in the morning when I do wake up. I practically leap off the bed with an overwhelming urge to go outside and find Derk. I want to talk to him one last time before I return home to Chicago and tell him about the changes I saw in William last night. I want to thank him for his friendship and for the Bible he gave me. And I want to find out what he decided to do about his girlfriend, Caroline.
