The Devoted

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “I do. I always have. From the moment I first met you. And I always will.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the tips of his shoes. “Is there any chance . . . any at all . . . that you might love me? Even a little?”

  Did she love him?

  She felt safe with Matt. He was a man she could trust. A man she could lean on. So different from the way she felt with Ed. It felt solid, real. Good. It felt good. She felt happy when he was around. Whenever he stopped by her practice, they talked about her work, they talked about his work. They were both intent on building something in their lives that was going to last. With Ed, she had felt as if she was trying to build a house of cards in the wind. She looked into Matt’s coffee-brown eyes. Steadfast, calm, trusting. Ed’s eyes, she realized just now, were the color of Earl Grey tea. Not a solid color, uncommitted, a little bitter.

  She had always preferred coffee over tea.

  She was pretty sure her heart just flipped over.

  Did she love him? Could love be that simple?

  “You know what?” Dok said. “I believe I just might.”

  The sun had set and a blanket of darkness had settled over the countryside. Ruthie emerged from the barn after checking on Moomoo’s sore hoof, her gaze on the ground, nearly missing the allure of the night sky. The low-lying gray clouds of the day had been blown away by a late-day dramatic thunder and lightning storm. What was left was equally dramatic: a velvet-black sky studded with sparkling diamonds.

  Awed, she stopped and leaned against the white fence railing, feeling small. Swallowed up by the vastness. She was struck speechless by the stars. The Milky Way galaxy had never looked so bright. Jupiter was out, or maybe Saturn, she wasn’t good with planets. She needed to learn more from Patrick about planets, stars. About everything.

  She cupped her hand in the sky and identified the Big Dipper, then the Little Dipper, and there it was: Polaris. The North Star.

  Fixed. Established. Anchored. Unmoving.

  This summer, she had found her North Star. It was within her, not outside her.

  Another light caught her eye, this one bobbing up the steep driveway. It was Patrick! Searching the dark with his flashlight. Watching him regain his strength was like watching a flower bloom, like watching a miracle unfold. Just a week ago, he was on the brink of death . . . and here he was climbing the driveway to her house. To her.

  His almost handsome, overwhelmingly dear face stood before her, and she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him.

  “Hello there, Ruthie.” In one hand was a flashlight, in another hand was the birdcage with the mynah she’d given him.

  She felt oddly breathless. “Have you picked out a name for your bird yet?”

  “Yes. I’m going to call her Nyna Two.” Nyna Two squawked, then whistled. “So far, she’s stolen my dad’s hairpiece right off his head and told my mother to chill out.” He hastened to add, “I didn’t teach her to say ‘chill out.’ Someone else did.”

  “We can’t blame Luke Schrock for that one.” Her dad was planning to go see Luke in the next few days, his first visitor at the facility.

  “Actually, I think my dad might have taught her.” He set the cage down on the ground and turned off the flashlight. “I wanted you to be the first to know. My parents are leaving tomorrow. My parents have to get back to work.”

  The smile left her face. “Thirty days are up.”

  “Yes. It’s been thirty days. Thirty amazing, wonderful, unforgettable, and highly dramatic days.”

  She knew this moment would be coming; she’d been expecting it every day since his parents had arrived. She had tried to prepare herself for it, continually reminding herself how glad she was Patrick had a future at all. But she would miss him terribly. This wonderful, selfless young man had woken up her world, helped her to discover what was right in front of her.

  “So,” Patrick said, reaching out to take her hands in his, “you know what this means.”

  “Yes,” she said, struggling to be cheerful. She looked down at their hands, joined together. They fit so perfectly together. She’d always felt her hands were swallowed up by Luke’s big hands. A metaphor, she just realized now, for how she always felt with Luke. Swallowed up by his . . . stuff. There was no room left for her. “I’ll miss you.” Her voice wobbled a little, and she felt weirdly teary.

  “Ruthie, look me in the eye,” he said, giving her hands a gentle squeeze.

  After a moment, she lifted her head. “I’m looking.” Tears loomed in her eyes.

  “What it means,” he said, “is that we’re going to need to double up on the Penn Dutch lessons. To make up for lost time.”

  She stilled. “Wait. Aren’t you leaving with your parents?”

  He grinned. “No. They agreed to let me stay on.”

  “What?” She was genuinely confused. “But . . . what about your mother?” His mother didn’t seem to appreciate anything about being in Amish country. Not a thing. When Jesse took her on a buggy ride, she complained that it smelled of horses.

  “I’m giving Dok full credit. She put my mom’s mind at ease by promising to personally give me the vitamin B-12 shot every week. And she promised to give my parents regular updates.” He squeezed her hands again. “Pretty special aunt you’ve got there. It was no accident you were named for her. You’re so much alike.”

  Ruthie’s mind was still reeling. Patrick wasn’t leaving? He was staying in Stoney Ridge? They looked at each other for a long moment, neither breathing, neither saying anything.

  Patrick tilted his head. “Ruthie, say something. Anything.”

  Something welled up inside of her and burst out with “I love you!” But the moment the words left her mouth, she wished them back. She had always prided herself on being composed, filtered, tight-lipped. What had she just blurted out?

  The truth.

  Her feelings for Patrick were very genuine. She was in love with him.

  Patrick Kelly wasted no time. He never did. He said, very softly, “Oh boy.” And then he gently cupped her chin with his hand, and he kissed her.

  David had been looking forward to an evening of preparing for next Sunday’s sermon, but just as he was digging into Exodus 23, a knock came at the door. It was Eli Smucker, wanting him to come and pray for his mother-in-law, who was ill and refused to see a doctor.

  Birdy was asleep when he finally crawled into bed, long after midnight. She stirred and gave him a drowsy kiss before turning away from him, onto her side. He heard rain start on the roof, gently at first, then changing to a steady patter as it came down hard. He liked hearing rain drum on the roof, liked it especially when he was home in his own bed.

  He didn’t know when he dropped off to sleep, but he and Birdy startled awake at the same time as a clap of thunder broke directly over the house. She raised her head and propped it on her elbow to face him. “Did you convince Eli’s mother-in-law to see Dok?”

  “I think so. But not until the morning, she said. She’s as stubborn as Eli.”

  They lay in bed, listening to the rain tapping overhead. “David, I had a brilliant idea today. Positively brilliant.”

  “You’ve got my full attention.”

  “What would you think about asking Patrick Kelly to teach school?”

  He turned toward her. “He’s staying?”

  “He is. He told Ruthie tonight. Patrick’s been gaining strength every day. Hour by hour. It’s the most miraculous thing I’ve ever seen in all my life. His parents have agreed to let him stay. His mother says he’s crazy to go Amish, but she’d rather have a crazy son than a sick one.”

  David let Birdy’s news sink in. It was the best news he’d heard in a long time. “Interesting. Patrick Kelly as a schoolteacher. A teacher doesn’t have to be baptized.” He gave her a nudge. “Let me give that a little thought and prayer.” He kissed her cheek. “Thank you for being such a wonderful bishop’s wife. For taking on my problems as your own.”

  “Absolutely. We’re in this tog
ether.” She gave a laugh. “Though I’m glad you’re the one who has the frightful work schedule.” She took in a deep breath. “David, there’s something else I have to tell you.”

  “Nothing bad, I hope. I’m wrung out.” He settled a little deeper into the bed.

  “Just the opposite. Good news.”

  David stilled. He turned to her.

  “Dok heard the baby’s heartbeat today, loud and strong. She said I should tell you. She said that when you get a heartbeat like this one, the chance of miscarriage is small.”

  “Ohhhh,” he said, with genuine awe. A slow smile began in David, starting from his heart. He reached for his wife, to show her, in the best way he knew, how much he loved her.

  Later that night, David tried to let his own breathing fall in with Birdy’s, imagining his wife’s rhythm could help him sleep and they would be synchronized through the night. It was love, he thought, to lie like this, listening to his wife so near.

  But he couldn’t sleep. Finally, he went downstairs to read. He lit the lantern on his desk. It cast a golden glow in the room as he reached for his Bible and opened it to Exodus 23. His eyes landed on verse 30: “By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.”

  By little and little. God was referring to the enemies that the Israelites would have to face and defeat in Canaan—a land rampant with paganism and idolatry. Every age would encounter worldly enemies to face and defeat. What was God driving out from the Amish of Stoney Ridge? Greed, selfishness, materialism. And yes, he thought, for Luke Schrock, substance addictions.

  By little and little.

  Like the Israelites wandering in the desert, David realized, the journey toward developing a moral, godly life is a long and difficult one. It wasn’t going to take place overnight, but “by little and little.” It was the work not of a Sabbath Sunday, but of a lifetime. God was reminding the Israelites that this was a life of patient endurance, and those words were meant for today’s believers too. Lifelong obedience.

  David turned off the light and went upstairs to bed. There he fell asleep musing on the many blessings of this life of his, where he felt simply, and easily, at peace with the world.

  1

  APRIL 15TH, 1737

  It’s a hard crossing, they’d been warned. Eight weeks in a wooden tub with no guarantee they’d ever get there. Anna König crouched beside a bed of roses, breathing deeply of the freshly turned loam. She had done all she could to avoid this treacherous sea journey, and yet here she was, digging up her rose to take along with her. She jabbed her shovel in the ground, mulling all the reasons this voyage was fraught with ill.

  It meant leaving behind her grandparents, her home, her church in Ixheim, Germany. Her people. It would be the end of everything she’d ever known and loved.

  “Some endings are really beginnings,” her grandfather had said when she told him that Christian Müller, the minister, asked—no, insisted—she join the departing families. “If you don’t remember anything I’ve ever tried to teach you, remember that.”

  Despite misgivings and forebodings, Anna relented. How do you say no to a minister? She was the only one who could speak and understand English. And that’s why she was stabbing the earth with her shovel, digging up her most precious rose to take on the journey, hoping that the hard winter and late-to-come spring meant its roots would still be dormant. If she was going to go to this strange New World, she was going to bring this rose. And she was going. Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow! The crack of doom in that one word.

  Anna had begged her grandparents to join the emigrating group, but they wouldn’t budge. “It’s a young man’s sport, that sea journey,” her grandfather said, shaking his head, ending the discussion. She couldn’t argue that point. The voyage was filled with risks and dangers and uncertainties, especially for the very young and very old.

  Anna sat back on her heels and looked around. In a few years, who would be left in Ixheim? Who would care for her grandparents in their final days? Who would bury them and tend their graves? Tears welled, and she tried to will them away, squeezing her eyes shut.

  This little valley that hugged the Rhine River was supposed to be their home, for good, for always. Here, they had tried to live in peace, keeping to themselves in secluded hills and valleys, where they could farm the land and their sheep could graze and they could go about their daily life of work and worship without worry or hassle. This valley was dear to her, peaceful and pastoral.

  Yet beneath the surface, life had started to change. A new baron held the Amish in disdain; much of the old conviviality of the village was disappearing. It was time to leave, the bishop had decided, before tensions escalated as they had in Switzerland, years ago.

  Carefully, Anna wrapped the root ball of the dug-up rose in burlap. She glanced around the garden filled with her grandmother’s roses. Their survival was a testament to her people’s story: roots that adapted to whatever soil they were transplanted into, thorns that bespoke of the pain they bore, blossoms each spring that declared God’s power to bring new life from death. As long as the roses survived, her grandmother said, so would our people. Her grandfather would scoff and call her a superstitious old woman, but Anna understood what she meant. The roses were a living witness to survival.

  The sounds of hooting and hollering boys stormed into her thoughtful moment. She caught sight first of eight-year-old Felix, galloping toward her, followed by his older brother Johann. Felix frightened the chickens that scratched at the dirt in the garden, scattering them in a squawking cloud of flapping wings and molting feathers.

  “A letter from Papa!” Felix shouted.

  Behind him came Johann, holding his father’s letter in the air, red faced and breathing hard from the exertion of climbing the hill. His eyes, bright from anticipation, fastened on Anna’s face. “My father wrote there are twice as many immigrants leaving for Port Philadelphia this year as last. And last year was three times as many as the year before. He said we must make haste to join him in Penn’s Woods and settle the land.” He skidded to a stop behind Felix.

  “Just think, Anna. Deer, turkey, rabbits, all easy to obtain. And with a little more effort—” Johann pretended to aim and shoot a rifle at an imaginary beast—“elk and wild boar to put up for winter provisions.” Naturally, Johann, at age thirteen, knew everything.

  But Anna, practical and skeptical and older than Johann by six years, held a different point of view. “I hear that the New World is a land of poisonous snakes, lions, tigers. And black bears and mountain lions. Gray wolves sweep down from the mountains in packs.” A wolf pack frightened her most of all. When the wolves here grew desperate for food, they would attack her woollies.

  Johann wasn’t listening. He never listened to her objections about America. “Good water springs, lumber for building cabins.”

  “I’ve heard stories that settlers have seen red men. Many times.”

  Johann shook his head as he came up to Anna in the rose garden. “Friendly Indians. Curious ones. Fascinated with shiny brass kitchen kettles and knickknacks. Papa said he has found a place for us to settle.” His eyes took on a faraway look and she knew he was off in his head to America to join his father. Jacob Bauer, the bishop of their church, had gone ahead to the New World last spring, to claim land and purchase warrants for those who intended to join him this year.

  Anna turned to Felix and couldn’t hold back a grin. A riot of curly hair peeped from beneath a tattered black felt hat, blue eyes sparkled with excitement, and a big smile showed more spaces than teeth.

  The Bauer boys were like brothers to her. Felix was round and sturdy, with carrot red hair that matched his temperament. Johann, blond and thin, had never been hale and was afflicted with severe asthma. His heart and body might not be strong, that Johann, but his mind made up for it. What he carried around in that head of his was what mattered.

  Now Felix was another story. Two black crows cackled fro
m a nearby tree and he stared at them with a distant look in his eyes. “There’s a crow’s nest on the ship that’s so high, you can see the curve of the earth.”

  Smiling inside, Anna said to him, “It’s really that high?”

  “Even higher.” With a sweep of his hand Felix showed the curve of the earth. “Johann told me so.”

  Anna didn’t know where Johann got his information. He’d had no schooling and owned no books except the Bible, but he knew all sorts of things. Solid-gold facts, he called them. She delighted in each nugget, whether true or not.

  Then the twinkle in Felix’s eyes faded. “It’s a great pity I won’t be able to find out for myself.”

  “The Bakers changed their mind and aren’t going, so Felix wants to stay behind too,” Johann explained. “That means that Catrina Müller is the only one aboard close to Felix’s age.”

  Felix’s scowl deepened. “I’m not going if I have to be stuck on a ship with her. I’ll stay here and live with the Bakers.”

  “I don’t think you have much of a choice, Felix.” Nor do I. Anna would never voice it aloud, but she dreaded the thought of spending the next few months in confined quarters with Catrina and her mother, Maria. Those two had a way of draining the very oxygen from the air. She set down her shovel. “Is your mother ready to go?”

  Felix shrugged. “She’s packing dishes into barrels.”

  “She must be eager to see your father.”

  He tilted his head. “She’s humming. That’s good. She wants to see Papa.” Then he took off running along the narrow sheep’s trail that led up the hill.

  “I wish I could find a reason to go. Better yet, to stay.”

  “Change is coming, Anna,” Johann said with annoying professorial patience. “It’s in the air. We can’t stay here and live like sheep in a pasture.”

  Anna looked up at the hillside. “I like sheep.”

  He crossed his arms in a stubborn pose. “I mean there is a whole new world out there. Just think of the mountains and valleys and unknown places we’ll see.”