by Marta Perry
The children’s shouts from outside recalled Lydia to the present. They would be running in the door soon. She’d best put these things away to look through more carefully later.
She leafed quickly through the book, curious to see how much of her mamm’s life it covered. The earliest entry was, it seemed, the date of Diane’s marriage. Today I leave the old life with all its pain behind to start a new life with the man I love, she’d written.
A lump in her throat, Lydia leafed through toward the back. The date of an entry caught her eye, and she stopped for a closer look. That must have been written sometime not long after Chloe was born, judging by the date.
Smiling, she bent over the book, prepared to read about Diane’s joy over her new baby daughter.
Maybe I’ve made a terrible mistake in coming here. The letters were jagged, as if they’d been written in a hurry. What was I thinking? How could I imagine I was suited to this life? I should give up. Take the children and go back to Philadelphia. I don’t belong here.
A shudder of revulsion went through Lydia, as physical as if she’d reached into a flower bed and pulled out a snake. No. She slammed the book shut and thrust it back into the box.
But getting it out of sight didn’t help. She could still see those words, imprinted on her brain. I should give up. I don’t belong here.
Lydia pressed her fingers to her lips. How could this be? Everyone talked of how happy Diane was. Lydia had never even considered anything else. How could she accept the fact that her mother might have planned to leave?
* * *
“I am the snowy owl, hunting two little field mice that are out in the corn too late.” Adam chased the boys into their room. He swooped David’s nightgown-clad figure high in the air and plopped him into bed. “Now for the second mouse.” In a few steps he’d captured a giggling Daniel and deposited him in bed, too.
He glanced at Lydia, who was tidying the room as she always did before the boys went to sleep. Usually at this point she warned him not to get them too excited to sleep.
But she looked distracted, her gaze fixed on something off in the distance. She’d been that way since he got home, it seemed. Maybe the little dower chest her mamm had brought made her feel sadness for the father who’d made it for her.
“Now, then.” He pulled the quilt up over Daniel. “Are you ready for prayers?”
Surprisingly, Daniel’s lips trembled. He shot a glance toward his brother. “I . . . We . . . have to tell you something.”
“Ja?” Adam sat down on the bed, wondering what mischief they’d been up to.
“We were naughty when Grossmammi was here.” Daniel said the words so quickly that Adam felt sure he’d been practicing them. “We were fighting, and Grossmammi said we must remember that Amish don’t turn to hitting to solve problems. And she made us sit in our room for an hour.”
That made it sound as if Lydia’s mamm had been here to babysit. He’d assumed she’d just stopped by to visit and drop off the dower chest. He sent an inquiring look toward Lydia, but she was turned away, her face hidden from him.
“Grossmammi was right. Violence toward another person is never the answer.” He looked from Daniel to David and back again, hoping he was impressing the importance of this on each of them. “This is part of what being Amish means. We obey Christ’s command to turn the other cheek. You know that, ain’t so?”
“Ja, Daadi,” Daniel whispered, a tear slipping down his cheek.
“Ja, Daadi,” David echoed, maybe not quite so upset as his older brother.
“Did you tell Grossmammi you were sorry?”
They nodded. “She forgives us,” Daniel added.
“Ja, I know she would forgive you, but that doesn’t mean it’s not serious, what you did.” He could feel the frustration rising in him, and he fought to keep his voice even. “This fighting muscht stop.”
“We won’t fight anymore,” Daniel whispered, and David nodded.
Adam could only wish he felt more reassured by their promises. His family life seemed to be spinning out of control, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
Well, he knew one thing. When the boys were in bed, he and Lydia had to talk.
Adam waited until he felt sure Daniel and David were settled. He followed Lydia into the kitchen.
“Your mamm was babysitting the boys after school? Where were you?”
Lydia’s gaze slid away from his. “I . . . I went to Oyersburg.”
“You went to see Susanna? Why?” Had she forgotten already that she’d agreed Susanna shouldn’t be told?
“The last time I was there, I told her about your clocks. She was interested. She wanted to see one, saying maybe she could sell it in the shop.”
“You took one of my clocks to her to sell?” He was repeating her, he realized, but he was having trouble wrapping his mind around the idea. Lydia had kept a secret from him. They didn’t have secrets. At least, they hadn’t used to. Several questions crowded his mind, and he picked the most important one. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to be disappointed, in case Susanna said it wouldn’t sell.” She was looking at him now, the embarrassing part apparently over. “I just thought . . .”
“I don’t want you deciding things for me.” That came out harshly, but that was how he felt. “I’m not one of the kinder.”
“But you might have said no, just because of Susanna being my sister. So I thought I’d ask her first.” Her eyes sparkled suddenly. “And she loved the clock. She said the workmanship was very fine, and she wanted to put it in her shop. Adam, she put a price on it of five hundred dollars.”
“Five hundred? That’s foolishness. No one would pay that for a clock.”
“Susanna says they would. Some of her Englisch customers would pay that and more. It might take a while, she said, but when the tourist trade picks up, she’s sure it will sell.” Lydia put her hand on his arm coaxingly. “Don’t be angry. I know you’ve been worried about the job and not having money coming in, and this could make that easier, ain’t so?”
“Ja.” He had to admit the money would be a help, if it really came to pass. If. “But no more secrets, ja?”
Except that he was as guilty as she was. He hadn’t talked to her about how worried he was about his lack of a job, although she seemed to know it without his telling her. He’d wanted to protect her, he rationalized, knowing it was an excuse.
Lydia nodded, sobering. “No more secrets.” She touched the miniature dower chest that still sat on the kitchen counter. “So I must tell you what I found in the box.”
“You said it held some things of your mamm’s. And that your daad made the box for you when you were little.” He could understand that making her feel sorrow for the parents she didn’t remember, but Lydia looked more upset than sad.
“Ja.” Lydia pressed her palm against her cheek, something she only did when she was feeling distressed. “There were some letters inside, and an Englisch Bible. And a book. A journal that my mother wrote her thoughts in, sort of like a diary.”
“Many people write in diaries. Amish, especially, maybe.” Just like they wrote letters, which nobody else seemed to do anymore. “Did you look at what she wrote?”
“I didn’t intend to read it then. I just looked through it.” Lydia seemed to be circling around and around the thing that troubled her.
“I know a journal is private, but your mamm has been gone a long time. She wouldn’t mind if you looked at it.”
“That’s not what upset me.” Lydia’s eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “One page caught my eye. It must have been written when Chloe was very small.” Her voice seemed to choke on the words. “Oh, Adam, she said that maybe her becoming Amish was a mistake. That she didn’t belong. That she should take the kinder and go back to Philadelphia.” The tears spilled over, and Lydia covered her face with her hands.
“Ach, Lydia, don’t cry.” He put his arms around her, trying to find the words that would
comfort her.
But he couldn’t. He’d known from the beginning that it was a mistake for Lydia to get in touch with the Englisch side of her family. It could only cause trouble.
And now this—learning that her mother might have regretted her decision and wanted to go back to the Englisch world.
Lydia was hurting. But all he could think was what if it made Lydia start thinking that she had made a mistake, too.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Seth reached for the cell phone on the corner of the motel room desk, automatically checking the incoming call before answering. It was Chloe. Two calls in a few days—he could almost think she liked to talk to him.
“Hi, Chloe. How are you?” He leaned back in the desk chair, staring at an uninspiring beige wall of the motel near Pleasant Valley that passed for home at the moment.
“Fine, thanks. I received a package from Lydia this morning.” She sounded a little surprised. “Three jars of apple butter. It . . . It was lovely of her.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her tone. “But you’re wondering what to do with all that apple butter.”
“Not at all,” she began stiffly, and then her voice relaxed into laughter. “I guess I was.”
“Like most Amish women, Lydia gives food as a sign of affection. Put it on cottage cheese for a lunch salad.”
“Apple butter on cottage cheese? You’re kidding, right?”
“Not kidding. You call yourself Pennsylvania Dutch and you don’t eat one of their favorite things?”
“Actually, it never occurred to me to call myself Pennsylvania Dutch until quite recently.” Her voice was warm in his ear, almost as if she were sitting next to him. “Anyway, I thought maybe you’d tell Lydia I received the package and how much I appreciate it.”
“I’ll be glad to, but you could actually write her a letter, you know.”
“I did, but I guess I’m too used to instant communication. I didn’t want to wait.”
“You’d never make an Amish woman with that attitude,” he teased.
“No computer, no phone, no electricity . . . nothing that makes a connection to the outside world? No, thanks.” There was more laughter in her voice.
“It sounds to me as if you’ve been reading up on the Amish. You’re better informed than you were the last time we spoke.”
“Yes, I guess it was time I educated myself. A friend pointed out that as a researcher, I was being very inconsistent not to look into my parents’ lifestyle.”
So she had confided in someone about the situation. “Man friend or woman friend?” He couldn’t seem to help asking.
“Woman friend. Kendra. We work together. There’s not really anyone else I’d trust with something as sensitive as this is.”
His feelings were mixed—glad she didn’t have a boyfriend lurking in the background, sorry she didn’t have more people she could rely on.
“Have you ever wondered why you avoided learning anything about the Amish?”
“I don’t . . .” She stopped, seeming to change course in midsentence. “I guess it was just how I was raised.”
She was holding something back—something she wasn’t ready to tell him, he supposed.
“There’s something I want to know,” she said, and he could hear determination in her voice. “Why did my mother decide to become Amish?”
The question surprised him. He’d think she’d be more focused on her sisters. “I don’t really know. I guess I assumed it was because she fell in love with Eli.”
“There must have been more,” she protested. “You can’t change your whole life for love.”
“Can’t you?” It seemed to him that plenty of people did just that. Or tried to, anyway.
“If you don’t want to help me . . .”
“I’ll ask around,” he said quickly. “See what I can find out. I’ll call you back, all right?”
“That’s great. Thanks, Seth. I . . . I appreciate it.”
“Anytime,” he said, and meant it.
After he’d disconnected, Seth got up, his mind churning with possibilities.
Lydia was the obvious place to start. He could drive over there now and catch her before the boys came home from school.
On country roads with little traffic, it took him less than twenty minutes from the motel by the highway to Lydia’s place. He pulled into the lane and spotted Lydia almost immediately. She was in the backyard taking sheets off the clothesline.
He pulled up beside the house and got out to cross the lawn toward her.
“Seth, wilkom.” Lydia’s smile slipped into a more concerned expression. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing.” At least, he didn’t think so, although his initial desire to help Lydia had produced some unintended results. “I had a call from Chloe. She received the package of apple butter, and she wanted me to tell you how much she appreciated it.”
“Ach, that was thoughtful of her.” Lydia smiled, her hands continuing to fold the sheet she held. “I hope she enjoys it. I could send her more.”
“Three jars is probably plenty for now,” he said, mindful of Chloe’s perplexed reaction. “She’s only one person, after all.”
“Ja, that’s true.” She put the sheet in the basket at her feet, her movements almost jerky. Her face, when she wasn’t looking at him, seemed drawn and tired.
“Now it’s my turn to ask,” he said, keeping his voice casual. “Is something wrong?”
“Ach, no, I—” She stopped, the mask draining away to show the worry underneath. “I learned something I didn’t expect, is all.”
“About what?” He caught the end of the sheet as she snapped it, straightening his end.
Lydia accepted his help without objection, bringing her ends to his, snapping and folding. It was as if they were engaged in an intricate dance.
“Mamm gave me some things that had belonged to my birth mother, Diane,” she said finally. “Some letters. A journal.”
He nodded, encouraging her to go on. At a guess, she’d learned something she didn’t like from those items.
“I didn’t read everything. I just happened to spot one page in her journal.” Lydia stopped, holding the folded sheet against her breast. “She said that maybe she had made a mistake in choosing this life. That maybe she should take the kinder and go back to Philadelphia.” She looked down, her mouth trembling.
Seth’s heart ached for her. Poor Lydia. Every promising step forward seemed to end in disappointment of one kind or another.
“Did you read the entire journal? Maybe that was just a momentary whim. A reaction to a bad day.”
“No, I didn’t.” She pressed her lips together. “I should, I know. I will. I have to find out if she intended to leave. I’m just afraid I’m going to learn that she didn’t want to be Amish at all.”
All he could think was how ironic it was. Chloe was desperate to learn why her mother had given up her life to become Amish, while Lydia was terrified she’d discover her mother wanted to be Englisch again.
* * *
“You boys go and play with your cousins, but remember that you’re the biggest,” Lydia cautioned the boys as they jumped down from the buggy at her brother’s house the next afternoon.
“Daniel and David, you be wonderful gentle to the little ones,” Adam added.
“We will,” Daniel answered for both of them, and they raced across the lawn.
Lydia climbed down, and Adam handed her the basket containing the pies she’d brought. “I’ll take care of the horse,” he said.
“You mean you’ll find my daad and brothers and avoid the woman-talk,” she teased.
Adam nodded, smiling but looking a bit cautious. As nervy as she’d been lately, poor Adam probably didn’t know what to expect next.
But she was feeling surprisingly better today. The talk with Seth seemed to have cleared her mind. It had been stupid to react so emotionally to those lines in her mother’s journal. She needed to read the rest of the journal for any
hints her mother had left, and then she needed to talk to Mamm about the whole thing. If Diane had intended to leave, surely someone would have guessed.
She started across the backyard of the farmhouse where she’d grown up. Her next younger brother, Andrew, worked the farm with Daad now, since Daad claimed he wasn’t ready to retire to the grossdaadi haus yet. Andrew and his wife, Carol, lived in the frame house right across the lane from Mamm and Daad’s, and they all seemed to get on fine that way. Well, it would surely be a poor daughter-in-law who couldn’t get along with someone as kind as Mamm.
Lydia headed for the picnic table under the trees, where Mamm and Great-aunt Sara sat watching the kinder. Mamm held Andy and Carol’s youngest, three-month-old Sara Jane, in her arms.
“Ach, look at that precious girl.” Lydia bent over, hand on Mamm’s shoulder, to peer into the tiny face. Sara Jane slept with the intensity only a boppli could manage, her little rosebud mouth working as if feeding. A pang touched Lydia’s heart and was gone again. Someday, maybe. When God willed.
“She is a precious lamb, ain’t so?” Aunt Sara beamed at the baby who shared her name.
“For sure.” Lydia clasped Aunt Sara’s hand. “You are feeling better every day, ain’t so?”
“Ach, what else, the way everyone is spoiling me, like you with that pot of chicken soup Adam dropped off,” Aunt Sara said.
Mamm reached up to pat Lydia’s cheek. “And you—how are you?”
“I’m fine, Mamm. But I’d best get these pies to the kitchen, or Carol will think I’m avoiding work.”
“Carol will think no such thing, and you know it,” Mamm said. “But go along with you. Aunt Sara and I will keep an eye on the kinder.”
Lydia nodded, carting the basket to the house. Today they were celebrating Andy’s birthday, and no doubt Carol had made a cake, but she’d asked Lydia to bring her dried-apple pies, knowing they were Andy’s favorites. A generous gesture, Lydia thought, to let someone else make your husband’s favorite.
