“You hear that, Klara? In more ways than one, this is a good thing that Ada and Alice are doing. You should send Ada on her way with your blessing. This was meant to be.”
Mamm never actually gave me her blessing, but she didn’t give me the silent treatment anymore, nor did I find her crying into her apron. Our ship to Europe would be leaving in three weeks, so I tried to do everything I could to help with the chores around the place until then. It felt good to work without tiring easily, as I used to. Staying so busy also helped me to not think about why Giselle hadn’t returned Zed’s email.
Perhaps it was prideful of me, but during the next few days I tried to work extra hard, just so my parents could see how very healthy I had become. I knew it registered, because Daed commented one night at dinner.
“I was looking around for the other ones today,” he said cryptically, reaching for the squash casserole. “Never found them, though.”
Mamm and I looked at each other and then at him.
“The other what?” she asked.
“The other Adas.” Glancing my way, he gave me a sly wink. “Considering that she does five times the work she used to, I figured the good Lord must have duplicated her somehow.”
I laughed heartily at his joke, though Mamm merely smiled and clicked her tongue. Prideful or not, I thought it showed great restraint on my part not to turn to her and say, “I told you so.”
The day after Lexie and James got home from their honeymoon, I called her to tell what was going on. By the time I finished, she was practically beside herself with excitement.
“What an adventure! Are you sure you won’t take a camera and send me pictures?”
“No, but I could mail you some postcards of the scenery, if you’d like.”
“How about the box with the image of Amielbach on top? I think you should take it with you. Maybe someone over there will know who carved it.”
“That box is awfully old, Lexie,” I said. “Mammi inherited it from her grandmother.”
“Yeah, but it must have come from over there. If you’re willing to give it a try, I’ll stick it in the mail to you first thing tomorrow. We still have enough time that I won’t even have to send it FedEx.”
I knew how Lexie treasured that box, and I was a little nervous about being responsible for it. But she did have a good point. It must have come from over there, and so back to over there it would go. Maybe Herr Lauten, the nice man who owned Amielbach, would know something of its origins.
There was much to do before our trip, and in all of the excitement and business I let one thing catch me by surprise a few days later. I was out in the pasture, tending to a calf, when I heard it: the sound of a clanging bell in the distance.
I gasped, jerking my head up. This was the first day of school.
The bell I could hear was coming from the local school, not Willowcrest, which was a bit farther away. But the pain of its clanging hurt just the same, each ding and dong bringing to mind Leah Fisher’s face, smiling as she welcomed her class full of students to a new year of school.
Five days before we sailed, I went to see Alice. We needed to discuss final plans, and I wanted to let her know that my passport had come in on time as expected.
Driving up the lane, I spotted Will halfway under his tractor, a toolbox at his feet. At the house I tended to Rikki and then hurried up the back steps to the kitchen door. Alice greeted me warmly, saying we had a few minutes of quiet before the twins woke up from their nap. We sat at Will’s long table with cups of tea and talked. We covered everything, including the lack of any return email from Giselle.
“Don’t take it personally,” Alice said. “She doesn’t seem to communicate well with anyone.”
I couldn’t help but be aware of the irony of the situation. By not cooperating with Herr Lauten’s request to represent Mammi in this matter, Giselle was bringing more of the family—and more of the past—into her life, not less.
Alice reached for my hand and squeezed it. “I’m so thankful you’re willing to make this trip. I’ll be honest, Will and I are hoping we can make enough money from selling the property to update the greenhouses—new compressed air fans, rollup sidewalls, things like that.” Glancing at me, she elaborated. “Better temperature controls could have a huge impact on productivity and thus profits. Goodness knows, we could do with some profits.”
I hadn’t realized that the Gundys’ nursery was having financial issues, but I supposed it wasn’t all that surprising. A lot of family businesses in our community had been hit hard by the economy and were, as the Englisch liked to say, land rich but cash poor.
“There’s something else I want to talk with you about,” Alice said. “How would you feel if we brought Christy with us?”
Her question caught me totally by surprise. Shifting my mind onto this new topic, I simply looked at her, speechless for a moment. Christy? If it were any other child, I’d say yes, of course, what a delightful idea. But not her, not Christy. At eleven, she was old enough, perhaps, but she was very troubled. Since her mother’s death she’d become sullen and withdrawn, barely speaking to anyone anymore—except perhaps her father. I couldn’t imagine how she’d bear being away from him for so long.
“This is what I’m thinking,” Alice continued, her hand flat on the table. “Will is clearly overwhelmed here, and Christy is still struggling mightily with her mother’s death. For those reasons alone I think it’s a good idea.”
A giggle erupted from the staircase, and my gaze darted across the room. Mat stood at the bottom. She giggled again when she realized I saw her. Mel was behind her, pushing against her sister. Together, the two came trotting toward us, reaching up for hugs from their grandmother and from me.
“Outside?” Mat asked, her eyes dark and beautiful.
“Sure,” Alice told her. “You don’t mind, do you, Ada?”
“Of course not.”
The little girls ran toward the back door and had it open before we got there. Out they rushed, laughing now, their bare feet slapping against the wooden slats of the porch.
“They’ll play on the lawn,” Alice said, gesturing toward two Adirondack chairs that sat against the house. “We can watch from here.”
Will was coming toward the yard now, a rake in his hand. The girls squealed in delight and took off running toward him.
“Where was I?” Alice asked as we settled into the chairs.
“Christy,” I reminded her. “You were talking about Christy.”
“Oh, yes.” She turned toward me. “Bringing her with us would be a burden, I know, perhaps more so for you than for me. I’m looking forward to this trip, immensely, but caring for Will’s girls these last months has nearly worn me out. I’m not as young as I used to be.” Her blue eyes seemed faded somehow. “I believe I have enough energy to make the trip, but I’m afraid that adding Christy to the mix might be too much without a lot of assistance from you.”
I nodded, realizing yet again how different Christy was than most young girls. Normally, bringing along someone of her age would be a huge help, not an extra burden. Whether because of her mother’s death or her own physical condition I wasn’t sure, but most of the time Christy seemed more like a nine-year-old than the eleven-year-old she really was.
“To be honest,” Alice continued, “if she comes with us, I believe you’ll end up bearing the brunt of the burden, acting as a nanny of sorts. Keeping an eye on her. Helping her with her lessons. That kind of thing.”
“What about her missing so much school?”
Peering off, Alice shook her head. “Even when she’s there, she’s not really there, if you know what I mean. If you’d be willing to help with her lessons during the trip, that would be wonderful. I think she might even do better one-on-one than she has in the classroom.”
Emotion rising up in my chest, I felt my mind move into prayer without even closing my eyes. This is how You work, isn’t it, Lord? This is You, opening yet another door. I swallowed hard, trying
not to weep with sudden gratitude for His grace. I realized that the loss of the teaching job at Willowcrest had made this moment even sweeter still. God did want me teaching after all—not to thirty shining little faces, as I had thought, but just one. Just Christy, a very troubled, very special young woman who likely needed a friend as much as she needed a tutor or a nanny.
“What about her passport?” I asked, afraid now that she might not be able to come after all.
“She has it already. When you were out in Oregon and Will and I were first learning of the situation in Switzerland, we thought he and Christy and I would be the ones to make the trip. We applied for our passports and made some tentative travel plans, but we both soon realized it wasn’t going to work. Will can’t be gone that long from either the twins or the business. Christy was devastated when we told her she and her daed wouldn’t be coming. But then once you agreed to go with me, an idea was planted in my mind. That idea began to grow, that maybe, if you were willing to serve as her nanny, so to speak, Christy could come along after all.”
She looked at me, eyes shining, and repeated her original question. “So what do you think, Ada? Would you be willing to help out our family in this way?”
Reaching out, I put a hand on Alice’s arm and gave her a squeeze, saying yes, that she had no idea how very much I wanted to do this.
“Thank you,” she whispered, patting the top of my hand before I let go.
Out in the yard, Will had raked a pile of leaves together and was motioning for the girls to jump into it. They ran toward it and then abruptly stopped. He leaned the rake up against the tree trunk and showed them how, jumping dramatically into the leaves and then rolling around on the ground. Both girls jumped on top of him, squealing and giggling all the while.
I kept my eyes on the father and his daughters as I asked, “What does Will think of Christy joining us?”
“He’s getting desperate about her, to tell you the truth. He thinks it’s a wonderful idea, but he doesn’t want to overburden you.”
That was just like him—thoughtful and giving to the core, except for when it came to the one thing I wanted most from him, his heart.
Mel rolled onto the grass and picked up a large acorn, holding it daintily like a tea cup. She picked up another and handed it to her father. He took it from her gently and lifted it to his mouth, mimicking a sip as Mat plopped down into his lap.
“Ada?”
Startled, I turned my attention back to Alice.
“I was talking about Christy’s medical problem.”
“Sorry,” I said. “The twins are just so cute. It’s hard not to watch them.” My eyes wandered again. The little girls were up and running now, toward the side of the house, with Will in pursuit. In a moment they were all out of view.
Alice laughed. “I know, I know. And thank goodness they are so cute—otherwise, sometimes, I don’t know…” She sighed, shaking her head. “As for Christy, like I said, medication seems to be controlling her irregular heartbeat. But she’s still frail. It’s almost as if she thinks she can do less than she actually can.”
I understood. Having grown up with a chronic medical condition, I didn’t want Christy to be sidelined the way I had all those years, to have people hovering around her, always asking how she felt, never letting her go anywhere or do anything. I could help her with her studies and her attitude about her health, teaching her how to navigate this difficult time in her life.
“So this is really okay with you, Ada? You’re certain you want to do this?” Alice’s voice was soft.
“Oh, yes,” I said. Sighing deeply, I didn’t add that it wasn’t just a want but a need. In some way, I needed Christy every bit as much as she needed me.
TWELVE
Early the next morning, I paid a visit to Leah to collect copies of Christy’s books and find out about the curriculum that would be covered while we were away. I purposefully arrived a half hour before the children so I would not disrupt the lessons, but Leah wasn’t in the school and the door to the building was locked. The early September morning was crisp and dry. I sat in a swing on the playground and twirled around a little, my shoes dragging over the dirt where the grass had worn away.
When I was younger, our family and the Gundys had belonged to the same church district. Amish families grew quickly, and because our districts were based as much on population as geography, they always had to split when they reached the maximum number of members. Such had happened a few years ago when our one district had become two. But as a child, I had not only worshipped with the Gundys but had gone to school with them as well.
The year I started kindergarten, Will Gundy had been in the seventh grade. His brother John was in the fifth grade, and his sister Hannah was just a year ahead of me. Ezra was a one-year-old, but I would see him often at church, or when their mother, Nancy, came to the school to help. I used to daydream about their family, wondering what it would be like to have three redheaded brothers and a big sister with auburn hair. They were all outgoing and confident. And kind to me. Soon I had a crush on Will, even though it was obvious that he and Lydia Miller were sweet on each other.
Lydia was beautiful, with blond, blond hair and blue eyes. She was always kind to me, too, sitting with me under the oak tree when the older kids played baseball or helping me with my letters by drawing them in the dirt with a stick. She didn’t play sports, either. She knew I had a crush on Will but didn’t seem to mind. In fact, when I would scurry ahead and take his hand after recess, Lydia would smile. I’m sure she just liked that Will was so kind and gentle with a little girl who always gazed up at him so adoringly.
At home I would play school with my dolls under the pine trees, drawing the letters of the alphabet in the dirt for them as Lydia had done for me. From my first day of school I told my parents and Mammi I would be a teacher someday. They smiled and said, “Good for you, Ada. That’s a fine thing for a girl to do until she gets married.” Because I couldn’t imagine myself marrying anyone else but Will, I decided then that if he married Lydia, I would just teach forever.
Even when I was most ill, the dream of teaching did not fade. But then, when I was sick year after year, I began to question my plan to teach at all. How could I take care of thirty students when I was so unwell all the time? At age twenty, when the doctors finally diagnosed my blood disorder, I thought I’d never teach or marry. It wasn’t until last spring that my dreams truly began to live again.
Breathing in the dry air, I turned toward the highway. Leah’s buggy was almost at the school. I stood, holding onto the chain of the swing, until she’d fed and watered her horse and put him away.
She knew I was there, but it wasn’t until she started toward the school that she acknowledged me with a quick hello.
“I wanted to get some of Christy’s lessons for our trip,” I explained.
I followed her into the schoolroom. Scraps of green and yellow paper were all over the floor. “We did an art project yesterday,” she said. Construction-paper sunflowers were stapled above the chalkboard. “I told them to clean up, but—” she spread her arms out “—you can see how well that went over.” She sighed.
I felt for her. She was new and trying, but looking around at the chaos, I was sure I would never be so disorganized. Her desk was stacked high with papers. Her face contorted a little, and then she asked me to give her a minute.
I walked around the room, picking up trash and looking at each sunflower. I found Christy’s. It was perfect. Every petal in place. The stem centered exactly. Her name written in perfect penmanship in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper.
“Here are a few things,” Leah said, approaching me. She handed me a math workbook, a grammar book, and a reading book. “I marked where we are in each.”
I thanked her.
“Good luck,” she said, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her apron.
I gave her a questioning look.
“It’s just that I hope she responds better to
you than she has me,” Leah said. “I’ve tried and tried, but she’s hard to engage. I asked the older teacher at the school down the road what I should do.”
That caught me off guard—Leah Fisher asking anyone for help. “What did she say?”
“To give Christy time. She’s been traumatized, and I need to be patient with her.”
That sounded like good advice for her teacher, but as her nanny I was going to be in a completely different position. I was pretty sure I could win Christy’s trust just as soon as we had a little time together. I said goodbye and slipped out before the first students arrived.
The day before we left on the trip, I went over to Will’s to meet with my young charge. When I arrived, Christy was sitting under the oak tree, her skirt and apron perfectly arranged, a thick book open on her lap.
I hitched Rikki to the post and joined her.
“What are you reading?” I asked, though by the size of the volume I knew.
“Martyrs Mirror,” she answered. Nearly every Amish home had a copy of the massive book, an account of our ancestors who perished for their faith. Christy sighed. “My grossmammi told me to read as much as I could.”
“What do you think of it?” I kneeled beside her.
She began to yawn and covered her mouth. Then she said, none too quietly, which surprised me, “Bo-ring.” Maybe Christy Gundy wasn’t as shy as I thought, nor as compliant. Maybe that’s what Leah had been alluding to.
“History is stupid,” she added, quite an unusual statement for a person of our faith to make. From the day we were born, our history was practically drilled into us. It was a huge part of who we were as a people. I couldn’t imagine, for example, that she found the story of Dirk Willems boring, the man who rescued his pursuer who had fallen through ice, only to then be arrested. I said as much, and she merely yawned in response.
The Amish Nanny Page 12
