Annie's Truth (Touch of Grace) (4 page)

“The Lord spared you, Annie. And He gave you to us. Let’s be joyful and rest in that.” Mamm’s words were kind, but her eyes strained to get her point across.

Amos’s eyes flashed as Annie glanced at him. All the words reeling through her mind would have to cease. The words led to questions that only led to strife. They had never planned for her to find out. “Were you ever going to tell me?” It slipped out before she could stop. They had to know she was confused and needed to put the pieces together, didn’t they?

Her mother’s warning eyes told her she’d gone too far, asked questions when she should be satisfied to have been taken in, loved, and accepted. Couldn’t they see it wasn’t lack of appreciation on her part but curiosity?

Daed rose to his full six-foot height. He’d never been this upset with her, and the look in his eyes broke Annie’s heart. “I will hear no more from this child.” He said the words looking at Annie but meant them for her mamm. He was done dealing with her, and her mamm had no choice but to do the same.

Annie turned toward the window, looking into the dark night. She would ask no more questions here, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t out there.

 
Chapter Three
 

H
ANNA SAT DOWN
on a hay bale across from Annie in the barn as the dusty sunlight shone through the planks of wood. “It’s difficult to believe.” A cat ran by, and Hanna shooed it away.

Annie thought on that for a moment. It hadn’t been hard for her. She’d believed it right away. Did that mean there was something innate in her that knew she wasn’t where she belonged? She paused in her thoughts. That was it. That was what bothered her about all of this. She didn’t feel she belonged. She was different in a community made for all to be the same.

“It’s not hard for me.”

Hanna leaned forward. “You don’t think it’s difficult to believe that you weren’t born into our family?” Hanna turned her head to the side, studying her sister.

“Nee, I don’t.” Annie flicked away a piece of hay off her white apron. She watched it flutter to the ground and become one with the other golden shafts, unrecognizable from the rest. “I don’t feel like the same person.”

“It’s not like you to be so dramatic. I know that much is not the same, but—”

“Maybe I
am
being dramatic, but this place has stifled it from me. Maybe the person I would have been out there would have been in theater.” Annie tossed out a hand for effect.

“Ach, don’t say such things. You know the celebrity status is vain and selfish.”

“Only because I was taught to think that way.”

Hanna fell quiet, taking Annie in bit by bit before speaking again. “Okay, let’s say you would have been different ‘out there,’ but Gott put you here with us, with me.”

It seemed that Hanna always knew how to go along with her rants to get her back on track. “I’m curious about what my life might have been like if my natural mamm had raised me, but I’m not unhappy that I was raised here.” Annie watched the yellow sun rising behind the barley field, glad to be here at this moment with Hanna, searching for answers.

Hanna crossed her arms. “We all wonder about life outside the community, but we weren’t called to be there. Plain and simple.”

Annie had always felt this way too, until now. “I don’t feel curious so much as I do set apart from everything I’ve always known.”

“You aren’t apart from us any more than you were yesterday or the day before.”

Annie gazed at the sun. It rose quietly and slowly for such a huge and vital part of everyday life. “Then why do I feel so alone?”

Hanna moved closer and put her arm around Annie. She didn’t always seem like Annie’s younger sister; age-wise she really wasn’t, with only eighteen months between them. But Annie had always been the mature one with sound advice and a good heart. Why did she feel this time that the tables had turned?

As they left the barn, Annie saw John through the colorful foliage. He climbed the small hill to their home, pumping his arms as he stepped. When he saw Annie, a grin spread across his face. “Good morning, Beiler ladies.”

Annie ignored the unusual sensation in her chest and kept walking with her sister. John didn’t miss a beat and slowed his step to walk with them.

“Good morning to you, John.” Hanna nudged Annie.

She looked up at him with a tight smile, squinting in the sun. “You’re late getting around this morning.”

“That’s only because you’re assuming I just walked out the door for the first time today.” He touched the tip of her nose, a familiar gesture.

“Then the question is, What were you doing up so early?”

“Milking so we can help move crop.” He glanced at the northern sky. “At the moment it’s a whitish gray, but come early morning tomorrow there’ll be a storm coming.”

“How do you always know the weather?” Hanna followed his gaze as Annie watched the two talk.

Annie wasn’t alone in thinking him a know-it-all, an unwanted characteristic in their community, but because this ability was desired and helpful to the farmers, it was overlooked, among other traits. As she considered him, she felt subtle feelings of appreciation instead of the usual irritation for his capacity to help. “How do you know when it will come?” She studied the clouds with them.

She felt his stare as they stood in uncommon silence. “Umm, the color of the clouds, distance, temperature change, wind chill factor. A lot of different things are taken into account.”

She nodded in admiration, another feeling forbidden and not one of her normal struggles, but there it was all the same. “Looks like you’ll have plenty of help.” She pointed to the large black-and-white cluster of men coming down the main dirt road. The closer the men came, the more joined, one after another, until all the able-bodied men in the community were together. Harvest was near, and their livelihoods were at stake if the storm was strong enough to ruin a man’s crop. It could not be replaced, only supplemented by his neighbor, and that farmer would have to wait for another year’s crop to gain a profit.

John stepped away from Annie and Hanna and into the mass of quiet movement heading to the first field. She watched him go with rapt attention. He slapped his friend David on the back as he entered the group, then looked over as if sensing her gaze upon him.

His smile made a pulse pound in her ears, causing her to let out a small breath of air. Unsure of the reason for her reaction, she began her walk to the house. There would be sandwiches to make and potato salad to prepare, drinks and equipment to bring to the men.

Her mamm was already in the kitchen bringing out the necessary items to make the men their lunch. She would continue to make food, not just for her own but for as many as she could feed, until her supplies were gone. Many others would do the same.

The older boys were already with Amos and the others. Thomas and Samuel would go with Mamm and the girls to take food and then stay with the men until the job was done.

“Annie!” A mother and her young daughter walked up quickly behind her. “Can you watch her for me?” She bent forward and whispered to Annie. “Her brothers and sisters are with my mamm, but she asked to stay with you. She’s a bit worried about the storm.”

Annie reached out for the girl’s hand. “Don’t be fearful. Gott will be with us through the storm, just as he told Isaiah not to fear because Gott was with him.”

“Annie, danke for watching her.” Her mother turned to walk away. “I’ll be by later to fetch her.”

Annie noticed her grandparents’ buggy tethered to the front post as she walked into the house.

Although Dawdi Vernon was too old to be of much help, he came over with Mammi Rebecca to see what was taking place. Mammi sat in Mamm’s large kitchen stuffing the sandwiches in bags when they entered the room.

“Sit at the table and hand us the bags.” Annie asked the little girl, and she complied.

“Puh! You have enough here to feed the entire community.” Mammi frowned.

Mamm let the words wash over her as she took Mammi another plate stacked with sandwiches. “Better too many than not enough.”

Mammi shook her head and continued her chore. Annie sat with her and helped make more sandwiches. “Where is Dawdi?”

Mammi answered with a curt tone. “
Ach, bin ins feld glaafe.
He went into the field to see what’s happening.”

“He probably misses being there with them.” Her mammi’s hard face relaxed, and she sighed.

“The wagon’s here.” Little Samuel bounced into the room, cheerful as usual. He stood in front of Annie and snapped his suspenders. “Guess who does this?” He grinned.

Annie’s heart warmed. “John, you silly bird.” She reached for him, but he turned and hopped away.

“Don’t do that, Samuel. You’ll stretch out your suspenders,” their mamm called after him.

“Stop your yelling,” Mammi ordered. “I may be old, but I’m not deaf.” Which was contrary to the truth. Samuel approached his mammi. “
Ich bin anschaffe
,” she said, without looking up.

“What did she say, Mamm?” Samuel frowned his confusion.

“She’s busy, Samuel. Come help me find more bags.” She gently guided him in the right direction with a hand at his back.

“These young ones should still be expected to learn our sacred tongue, or it will soon be lost.”

“I think it already is with the upcoming generation.” Mamm went to the sink and placed her palms on the counter. Annie saw her take in a deep breath.

Amos’s parents were good people but didn’t approve of the new ways. They were fearful that Annie’s generation would become more like the New Order than what Annie’s parents and grandparents were raised with, and this hardened them as they got on in their years.

“Soon we’ll live as the Mennonites do,” Mammi bellowed.

Many of the Amish men were forced to find employment in the nearby town as land became scarce. Churned butter was rare, and milking by hand was also a thing of the past. Although they still didn’t use electricity or plumbing, finances and survival made it necessary to give up some of the old rules.

“We’ll always stay Amish, Rebecca. All of us.” Mamm lifted her eyes to Annie briefly.

Annie knew her mamm felt her struggling with the information she’d learned. There were many questions she wanted to ask. Did her mammi and dawdi know? But the conversation was over in her daed’s mind.

“Jah, it may be so. Let’s go. We don’t want to keep them waiting.” Mammi rose from her chair and went to the door. Before leaving she pinched off the dead buds of pansies in a flowerpot that showed signs of the upcoming fall weather. Then she whispered a prayer for the men before they set out.

Annie fetched their large draft horse while Hanna readied the wagon. They hitched up Otto, and the women and small children rode out to the men. They brought baskets of food and a hay sled to move the haystacks and piles of crop. Other families did the same, and by the time the men stopped for lunch, most of the community had gathered.

After she finished passing out the food, Annie went back to the wagon to consider the whirl of thoughts and emotions that would not leave her be. She moved her gaze over the red, gold, and orange forested slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, swinging her feet.

The thud of her left foot on the wheel must have caught John’s attention. Before she knew it, he’d swung up to sit beside her, holding a half-eaten sandwich.

“I was wondering where you were.” He met her eyes. “So, what is it?”

Annie almost frowned at him, not wanting the intrusion, especially from him. He could read her like a book, and she didn’t want to be read right now. “Are you going to be finished with this before sundown?”

He gave her a questioning gaze and took his time to respond. “Nee, we’ve been to half a dozen farms but finally decided to split up to do double the work. If we had done that from the start, we might be close by now.”

Annie stilled her foot. “Whose idea was that?”

His smile gave her the answer she already knew.

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” He stopped chewing. “Or do I have to drag it out of you, like an old mule?”