The Nanny's Amish Family

by Patricia Johns

  And what would Rue do as an only child in an Amish community? She’d be different in two ways then—born English, and having no siblings at home. She needed stability, and it was very difficult to achieve that when Thomas couldn’t give her what all the other Amish kinner would have. When she got to be a teen, she’d do what her own daet had done—she’d launch herself out into the unknown, away from the community, away from her daet. He’d lose her, and he couldn’t take that chance.

  “It won’t work,” he breathed.

  “No, it won’t.” Patience’s chin quivered.

  How much heartbreak had this woman gone through already? He hated being the cause of more pain for her, but sometimes love wasn’t about a feeling. Sometimes love had to be broader and deeper. It had to persevere and sacrifice, and it had to do the right thing, even when it didn’t want to. He had to be a daet first. He’d brought Rue into this world, and Gott had brought her home to him. He could no longer follow his own heart when it came to the woman he longed to be with, not when being with her would jeopardize his daughter.

  A child was a gift from Gott, and she was lent to him for only a little while. He’d never forgive himself if he let his daughter go in order to satisfy his own romantic longings. Whatever his daughter chose when she grew up, he had to know that he’d done his very best by her and have no regrets to haunt him in his old age.

  “I’m still going to love you, even if we can’t make this work,” he said huskily.

  “Yah, me, too...” Her voice was thick was tears.

  “So what do we do?” he asked.

  “We carry on,” she said hollowly. “We put one foot in front of the other, and we put our backs into our work. That’s what we do. We can’t be the first couple to realize they loved each other but there was no hope. And we won’t be the last.”

  Maybe not, but it felt like the universe began and ended in their feelings for each other, as foolish as that might be.

  Thomas looked toward the Kauffmans’ house with the lights shining from the windows in the distance. A car swept down the rural road, headlights cutting through the darkness, and then a pickup truck came thundering afterward, Englisher teenagers whooping out the windows.

  That was the foolish life he was trying to keep his daughter away from, but more immediately, whooping, half-drunk Englishers were also the kind of danger he needed to protect Patience from this evening. The sky was almost fully dark now, and he couldn’t let Patience walk to the Kauffman house alone—for safety’s sake.

  “Let me get you home,” he said, and he caught her hand in his.

  She squeezed his hand in return.

  “We shouldn’t—” she started.

  “Let me get you home,” he repeated, his voice low. “And then I won’t touch you again, or ask you to love me. I’ll let you focus on your work. I won’t make this harder on you. But just for now... Let me hold your hand.”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  And they walked through that long, lush grass together as the moon started to rise and the first pricks of stars materialized overhead. Her hand was warm and soft in his grasp, and he wished that this walk, and these stars and that crescent of a moon could last forever. Because while his heart was breaking, at least he had her at his side and his goodbye could be postponed.

  When they got to the gate, he stopped, and she opened it, hovering for a breathless moment as if she might come back into his arms.

  “Good night,” she said, her voice broken.

  “Good night,” he replied.

  The front door opened and Samuel appeared, light from indoors spilling out onto the porch. Patience picked up her pace, and Thomas waved at Samuel, trying to act like this was nothing more than a friendly walk—like no hearts had been shattered this evening.

  Patience got to the door, and he held his breath.

  Look back... Look at me...

  But she didn’t. She disappeared inside, and the door shut behind them, leaving Thomas alone in the darkness.

  He couldn’t ask her to continue loving him. If he cared for her at all, he’d pray for Gott to rinse him out of her heart completely. But he couldn’t pray for that for himself. He wanted to remember... Because in all his life, he’d never loved a woman like this.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Patience stood at the window in the laundry room and watched as Thomas disappeared into the darkness. The older folks wouldn’t look for her here—not at this time of night—and all she wanted right now was a moment or two to try to collect herself. She’d cry upstairs alone, but she’d have to pass the Kauffmans to get up there. She wrapped her arms around her waist, tears welling up inside her. She loved him... And it wouldn’t work. She’d never felt this way before. She’d had a few crushes, and had even accepted a proposal based on profound respect, but what she felt for Thomas was deeper and broader and cut much more sharply at the realization that it could never happen.

  She realized now that falling in love with Thomas hadn’t been a choice—hadn’t even been avoidable. Whatever they felt for each other was something outside their ability to wisely sidestep. How was this fair? Gott asked them to walk the narrow path—to do right when the rest of the world took the easy way. And she was doing her best to do right—to put Rue and Rachel ahead of her own deepest desire. There should be some comfort in knowing she’d done the right thing, and yet all she could feel right now were the cracks in her heart.

  “Patience, dear?”

  Patience wiped her eyes and turned to see Hannah in the doorway. Hannah held a kerosene lamp, lighting up the laundry room in a cheery glow. Her plump figure was illuminated—an impeccably white apron against a gray dress. She squinted through her glasses.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah, I’m just a little emotional,” Patience said. She turned away again, blinking back her tears.

  “I’m sure that some pie would help,” Hannah said.

  “Not this time,” Patience said, and she wiped at her cheeks again. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Is that the Wiebe boy?” Hannah asked.

  “Uh... He walked me home. It got dark faster than I thought, and—” She couldn’t lie, so she stopped. There was so much more to the story, but it was private.

  “And you’ve had some sort of lover’s spat?” Hannah pressed.

  How obvious had their relationship been? They’d done their best to hide it—especially at Sunday service.

  “I was helping with Rue,” she said.

  “And falling in love, I dare say,” Hannah replied.

  “It’s not that—” It was so much more than that. “We’re not engaged. There’s no agreement between us...”

  “Ah, but so much happens before those understandings, doesn’t it?” Hannah asked. “A heart gets entangled before any proposals come along. Come now. I know you want to go upstairs and have a cry, but I’m going to suggest something else that works much better. Come to my table and have a cry there. I’ll bring you some pie and we’ll talk it all out. It might not fix what’s gone wrong with your young man, but it will start the healing that much faster, I can tell you that.”

  Patience paused to consider. Hannah seemed to understand a whole lot more than Patience even realized, and if she were at home with her own mamm right now, she’d likely do the same. Except, she and her mamm liked to take walks together—walking and talking, and sorting out all the things that seemed so impossible on her own.

  Tears spilled down Patience’s cheeks, and Hannah reached out, took her hand and led her down the hallway and into the kitchen. Hannah left the lamp on the table, then passed a handkerchief to Patience.

  “Let it out, dear,” Hannah said softly. “I’m going to whip you some cream to go on top of your pie. I think you could use a little treat...”

  Patience felt the tears rise again, and this time she didn’t stop them. She lowered her head onto he
r arms and cried.

  * * *

  Tuesday morning, school was set to open and Samuel waited patiently by the door, the buggy hitched and ready. When Patience brought her last bag of school supplies to the door, Samuel took it from her and put it up on his shoulder.

  “All ready, Mamm!” Samuel called. “I’ll be back in a short while.”

  “Drive safe, Daet. And you have a good day with those kinner, Patience,” Hannah said.

  Samuel carried her bag out to the buggy and Patience got settled in her seat while Samuel put the bag in the back and came around to hoist himself up.

  “It’s a beautiful morning,” Samuel said, flicking the reins.

  And it was—warm, bright and a cloudless sky. But it was hard to feel cheery this morning. A good cry last night, and another one upstairs in her bed, had drained her of tears, but her heart still felt heavy in her chest.

  “How many kinner do you have, Samuel?” Patience asked, more by way of making conversation than by any real interest.

  “Oh...” Samuel’s cheeks pinked. “None, I’m afraid.”

  Patience looked over at him, surprised. “But you called her Mamm.”

  “And she called me Daet. I know...” He sighed. “You see, we wanted kinner—a whole house filled with them—but Gott never gave us any. We were heartbroken about it for years, and then we remembered that Gott doesn’t make mistakes. He brought us together, gave us a love like no other and didn’t choose to give us kinner to love. So we decided to look at it differently.”

  A love like no other, and an inability to bring children into the marriage. She could identify with that a little too keenly.

  “How?” Patience asked.

  “We decided to be the mamm and daet that young people needed when their own parents were far from them,” Samuel replied. “We’ve had traveling students stay with us. A few Englisher college students came to see how we Amish live and we gave them room and board. We also opened our home to the teachers.” Samuel cast her a shy smile. “In hopes that we could be a little piece of home when you are far from yours.”

  “That’s...beautiful,” she said.

  A life of meaning, even without kinner of their own. She’d been wanting to create something like that for her own life—a loving teacher to help guide these kinner toward Gott, even if she never did have any babies of her own.

  “Can I ask you something, Samuel?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Yah, you can ask,” Samuel replied.

  “Did you ever...lose your faith in Gott’s leading? Gott led you to Hannah—and I believe that—but did you ever, in a moment of weakness, regret your marriage? Did you ever think that if you’d married someone else, you might have had that houseful of kinner after all?”

  Samuel looked over at her, his eyebrows raised, and she felt a flood of shame at even asking him such a thing.

  “I know it’s a terrible question,” she said quickly. “I don’t mean to disrespect your marriage, or your wife.”

  “Not once,” he said quietly. “And that is not just the answer of a loyal husband. That is the honest truth. My wife is a wonderful woman, as you probably already know. And being her husband—that was Gott moving. I have never questioned that. And what Gott has joined—”

  “—let no man put asunder,” she finished for him.

  “Yah, that, too,” he said. “But I was going to say, what Gott has joined, He joins for good reason. No one can love me just like my Hannah. And no one can love her just like me. And I’m grateful every day for the woman Gott gave me. Yah, I missed out on being a daet to my own little ones, but we remind each other that we’re still able to love the ones Gott puts in our paths. When we were younger, we focused on the kinner. And as we aged, so did the ones we reached out to. It happened naturally, I suppose. So she calls me Daet and I call her Mamm. Because we still have a job to do—it’s just a little harder.”

  The horses clopped along, early morning dew shining like diamonds on the tall grasses in the ditches on either side of the road. Samuel hummed a little song to himself, and Patience’s heart pounded in her chest.

  Here was a couple that had never had kinner, had never resented each other for the loss, and had made life so meaningful and rich that she’d never have guessed their childless state if he hadn’t told her himself.

  She’d been so certain that Thomas would regret giving up that houseful of kinner of his own... But was it possible that he might not? Could this love that had blossomed between them be something wonderful enough that he’d never regret the day he chose her?

  But as soon as the hope started to rise up inside her, she remembered that this wasn’t just about Thomas and a desire for children. This was about the daughter he already had—the little girl who needed her roots, her stability and a family that could anchor her to an Amish life.

  Even if Patience could take the leap for a love like theirs, she knew what Rue needed, and she still couldn’t provide it.

  Samuel pulled the buggy to a stop in front of the schoolhouse, and Patience took out the key. She was here, ready to teach her very first day of school—and she’d have to find a way to fill that aching hole in her heart alone.

  “Let me get that bag for you,” Samuel said.

  “Oh, I can get it,” she said, forcing a smile.

  “Now, now,” Samuel said gently. “Let an old man treat you right, my dear. It does me good.”

  And she realized that it did. By showing kindness to a new teacher who was very near the age his own kinner would have been, she was letting him be the daet he’d so longed to be. So she let Samuel pull the bag out of the back of the buggy and carry it into the schoolhouse for her. Then he headed back out to his waiting buggy and was on his way again.

  Patience stood in the center of the schoolroom, the air cool and quiet, and lifted her heart to Gott.

  Give me purpose, she pleaded. I have so much love to give, and no one to take it. I might not ever have a family of my own, if that is Your will, but give me purpose and people to love, anyway.

  This was her classroom—may Gott bless the kinner who passed through these doors, and may Gott fill her aching, lonely heart.

  * * *

  Thomas left Rue with Mary that day, with some solemn promises on Rue’s part to obey the older woman without question.

  “All right?” he’d asked her. “You do as Mammi says. If I come home and find out that you haven’t...”

  “Then what?” Rue whispered.

  And he really didn’t have an answer to that, so instead he shook his finger meaningfully, bent down to kiss the top of her head and headed out to work.

  His mind wasn’t on the bedroom set he was building, though. He knew the work well enough that he didn’t need to think too much about it as his hands went through the motions. He was sanding and getting the wood ready for the first layer of stain.

  Thomas rubbed the sandpaper over the headboard, back and forth, a fragrant powder of wood falling to the ground and clinging to his pants and the hairs on his forearms. He normally felt calmed and soothed in his work, but today his heart seemed to beat with the weight of all his grief.

  He loved her... Oh, how he loved her...

  But he needed a mamm for his daughter and a family of his own, and yet his heart couldn’t let go of the woman he’d so recklessly fallen in love with.

  The day crawled by, and Amos and Noah took care of customers and let him stay in the back workroom, avoiding people for the rest of the day.

  But then in the afternoon, Noah came into the workshop.

  “Thomas, Ben Smoker wanted to talk to you,” he said.

  Ben Smoker—the family that didn’t want his daughter to play with their girls. Susan had made herself clear enough to Patience, and Ben had stood behind his wife. Rue was too much of a danger for their kinner, it seemed, and the last week had left Tho
mas with a tender spot in his heart when it came to the way his daughter had been treated.

  Thomas stopped the sanding and shook the wood powder off his arms. “What does he want?”

  “He just—” Noah started, but then fell silent when Ben appeared at his side.

  “Thomas, how are you?” Ben asked with a friendly smile, but when he saw Thomas’s face, the smile faltered. Thomas hadn’t even bothered to try to look friendly. He didn’t have the energy today.

  “I’m fine. You?” Thomas asked, forcing the pleasantries out.

  “Look,” Ben said, coming closer and glancing over his shoulder as Noah left the shop once more. “I feel badly for how things went when you last came to help me out with that gate.”

  “It’s fine,” Thomas said with a sigh. He had no intention of fighting over it. They’d made themselves clear.

  “Susan put together some winter clothes for your daughter,” Ben said. “She dug them out early. She wanted to make sure Rue had what she needed.”

  “She needs friends, Ben,” Thomas said curtly.

  “Yah.” Ben nodded a couple of times. “Maybe we can sort something out in that respect, too.”

  Rue didn’t need friends who had been guilted into spending time with her, either. Rue needed real, honest love—like the kind she’d been getting from Mary and Patience.

  “I dropped the bag of clothes by your place before I came to town,” Ben said. “Rue was very polite and well mannered. I thought you might like to know that.”

  “Yah, that’s good to hear,” Thomas agreed.

  “Your rooster attacked me, though,” Ben said with a low laugh. “I thought you were going to eat that bird. He’ll be tough as rubber by the time you get him in a pot.”

  “I can’t cook him,” Thomas replied. “Rue’s attached to him.”

  “She named him, I think?” Ben asked.

  “Toby. That’s Toby the rooster.” Thomas met the other man’s gaze, and for the first time, he realized, he was having banter with another daet. It felt good—better than he imagined it would.