Fearless Hope: A Novel (3 page)

“
Ja
, he was well liked,” she answered.

“I will care for your yard-mowing come summer,” he said. “Do not worry about that.”

She nodded her acceptance, unable to speak without choking up. These were her people. They did not ask what they
could do . . . they simply did it. She knew that Myron would be as good as his word once the grass began to grow.

“Your husband is in a—a better place.” Paul Troyer stumbled over the simple words. “He is . . . with Jesus now.”

Poor Paul. She felt sorry for him. Only a month ago he had nearly fainted when he’d opened the hymnal he had selected by lot and found the paper telling him that he had been chosen to be their next minister. Such a heavy burden on his shoulders for the rest of his life. Ah, well, the Lord knew best.

Hope tried to concentrate and take comfort from the words that were being said by the various people who spoke to her, giving condolences. Everyone in the church knew and cared about her circumstances. Her children would not go hungry. The church’s alms would give her some measure of cushion while she tried to figure out what to do.

From across the room, she saw one man eyeing her, and she wished he would stop. Abimelech Yoder was recently widowed and was openly searching for a new wife to finish raising his children. She would never be desperate enough to move into Abimelech’s house. He was at least fifteen years older than she was. Besides, she never cared for the man and always pitied his overworked wife.

Adam and her mother came back and the child sat more patiently now that he had gotten his trip to the bathroom. Carrie was being allowed to play dolls quietly in the corner with some older girls who were being kind to her.

“Where is Daddy?” Adam tugged on her sleeve and asked the heart-wrenching question in German, which at his age was the only language he knew.

“
Daed
got hurt,” Hope whispered back. “He will not be with us anymore.”

Adam looked at her with innocent blue eyes.

“Does Daddy need a Band-Aid?”

The question broke her heart anew. There was simply no way that this sweet child could understand what had happened, and he shouldn’t have to. Titus had been strong, young, and brave. He should be out mowing hay right now instead of lying in the ground.

Oh, she was so angry!

How were her children supposed to deal with such loss? Apparently, Adam intended to deal with it by resurrecting the thumb sucking he’d put away for nearly three years.

They were quite the bruised family, they were.

She was aware that the Lord did not promise anyone a trouble-free life. With a history of ancestors martyred for their beliefs, she did not come from people who expected an easy path.

So why was she bothering to question the pain she felt?

Once, she had overheard an older woman say that truly deep faith was forged on the anvil of misfortune and tragedy. Hope did not want to believe this. She did not want to possess a deep faith if this was the price one had to pay. Shallow was good. All she wanted was a happy life with her family intact.

In the back of her underwear drawer, in a jelly jar, she had accumulated fifty-three dollars and ninety-two cents. She knew the exact amount because she had counted it only last night. It was money she had been saving to purchase new work boots for Titus for Christmas.

How did a woman raise two children on fifty-three dollars and ninety-two cents? It wouldn’t last a week.

Bishop Schrock and Thelma would help all they could, but she did not want to live off them and the church indefinitely. In the past, her parents could have helped, but they had their own problems these days. Her father had lost the fine farm he had inherited, by developing a weakness for gambling.

Lord, you are going to have to take care of us. I cannot do it.

She waited for a feeling of security and faith to fill her heart, but it did not come. Instead, her mind ran around again like a small rodent searching for food. Fifty-three dollars and ninety-two cents. Adam needed shoes and so did she. How would she pay the five hundred dollars’ rent on their home? What if their horse needed the vet? Or her cow? How would she pay for propane to heat the house? How would she pay for kerosene to light their nights?

“You are young and a hard worker.” Missy Bylar smiled and patted Hope’s hand. “You will soon find someone else.”

Hope flushed at Missy’s words. Titus had been in the ground less than an hour and this woman was talking about finding someone else? As though Titus were some sort of pet dog she needed to replace? She bowed her head, unable to speak without making a sharp retort. Missy, her duty to speak to the grieving widow accomplished, excused herself and went to fill her plate with funeral food.

Hope didn’t care much for Missy. The woman always seemed so self-satisfied with her wealthy husband, huge, comfortable house, and her six children, whom she cared for with the frequent help of two hired girls from their church.

It was rumored that Missy and her husband even kept an
Englisch
driver on retainer to take them wherever they wanted to go whenever they wanted to go there. The only time she ever saw them in a buggy these days was when Hans drove the family to church.

Missy’s husband had inherited a thriving Amish furniture store and managed it well. With the massive influx of
Englisch
tourists into Holmes County in recent years, they had become quite prosperous.

Hope tried to be charitable, but she wondered if Missy would be quite as cheery if all she had in her underwear drawer was fifty-three dollars and ninety-two cents.

The table spread in the front room had a generous supply of casseroles, noodle dishes, and cooked meats and vegetables. The people carried on a low conversational buzz that to Hope’s anguished ears sounded a great deal like the buzz of flies. Every now and then, the buzz was punctuated with a laugh.

How could they laugh when her world had fallen apart?

An elderly
Englisch
woman took the empty seat that Missy had vacated. Hope knew her slightly. She was Elizabeth Conners, the grandmother of the
Englisch
nurse that Levi, her first cousin, had regrettably left the church in order to marry.

“It’s a lovely day for a funeral, don’t you think?” Elizabeth said.

A lovely day for a funeral? What an odd thing for the old woman to say, even if she was
Englisch
and probably didn’t know any better.

“The day we buried my husband was so rainy.” Elizabeth seemed to be completely at ease chatting with her. “It was lightning and thundering, which matched the climate of my heart, but it made it awfully hard on the people who went with me to the cemetery.” The old woman patted her hand. “You’ll have to forgive everyone for talking and eating and laughing as though they are at a picnic. It is not
their
hearts that are breaking. If you’ll notice, it’s only the younger ones, who haven’t yet experienced grief, who laugh. Those of us who have been in your shoes know better. How are you doing, dear?”

“I wanted him to return that crazy bull that killed him,” Hope exclaimed. “But he refused.”

Her words burst out so suddenly that even she was surprised. It was the first time she had said a disloyal word about Titus out loud. She glanced sideways at Elizabeth to see if she was shocked.

“Of course you were wiser about the danger than him,”
Elizabeth said. “Young women are almost always smarter about such things than young husbands.”

It was comforting to have someone agree with her.

“I’ve actually given the subject some thought,” Elizabeth continued. “I think perhaps healthy young men tend to feel immortal because they are so very physically strong. They do not know how quickly one can become helpless and vulnerable. It makes them act a little foolishly sometimes.”

This made a bit of sense to Hope—at least, it made more sense to her than some of the platitudes quoted to her so far.

“If I were you,” Elizabeth said, “I believe I might be wanting to give that young man of yours a good talking-to right about now, except for the inconvenient fact that he can no longer hear you. He has gone on to glory, leaving you to muck about here on earth without him. My guess is, you might be in need of a little help right now.” Elizabeth reached into the pocket of her dress and brought out two bills and pressed them into Hope’s hand. “For the children.”

“I cannot take this,” Hope said.

“It’s a gift, dear.” Elizabeth said. “From one widow to another. And if you ever feel like you need to have a good cry, come to my home and talk to me. I’m
Englisch
 . . . and I don’t count.”

“There you are, Grandma!” Grace, her cousin Levi’s
Englisch
wife, walked in. “Are you ready to leave?”

Grace had worn a simple, long dress to the funeral, and Hope appreciated her cousin-in-law’s small sacrifice. The gossips said that Levi’s wife was reputed to practically live in jeans and it was also reported that Levi strongly disapproved. Watching those two strong-headed people who came from such different lives try to keep a marriage together had provided a great deal of entertainment for the local Amish community. Many felt sorry for her aunt Claire, who was Levi’s mother. Daughters-in-law
were hard enough, but an Amish woman with an
Englisch
daughter-in-law was to be pitied.

“I’m ready.” Elizabeth stood. “I’ve said what I wanted to say.”

Grace held Lizzie, her baby girl, in her arms. Lizzie was about a year old. She had curly blond hair, and was sound asleep in the crook of Grace’s arm, dressed in a darling pink dress. Hope liked Grace, but most of her people were surprised that Levi’s marriage to the former
Englisch
military nurse had survived at all.

Grace bent over and whispered, “How far along are you?”

Hope was startled. Even her own mother did not yet know of her pregnancy. “Barely two months.”

“Claire and I will be opening our home birthing clinic in another week. You can be our first client if you want.”

“You and Aunt Claire are working together?”

“Yes, in Elizabeth’s old house.”

This information was so startling that it almost knocked all other thoughts out of her head. Grace smiled at her surprise. “You should come see us.”

As the two women left, Hope opened her hand and saw that she was holding two one-hundred-dollar bills. She doubted that Elizabeth could afford this gesture, but she was grateful as she stuffed the money deep into the pocket of her dress.

Her mother put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You must come and feed yourself.”

“I am not hungry,” Hope confessed. “I cannot swallow a bite.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Her mother’s voice, usually so kind, had a barb to it. “You are a mother. You will chew, swallow, and smile at your children while you do so. You must reassure them that even though they have lost a father, they have not lost a mother.”

The tone of her mother’s voice felt like a slap, but her words were wise, and Hope knew it. Her eyes filled with tears that she wiped away as she rose to try to find something she could keep down.

“You are right,
Maam
,” she said, with respect. “I will be strong for my children.”

“S
o, what do you think?” Marla laid her hand on a cunningly crafted computer desk.

What he thought was that it seemed strange to find Amish-built furniture designed for TVs and computer desks. From what he understood, the Amish did not allow televisions or computers in their homes. How could they justify creating so much well-designed furniture for items that were forbidden?

Since Marla was going to be making such a large purchase, the furniture store owner went out of his way to show them around. To prove that his furniture was, indeed, completely Amish-made, the owner took them to the workshop in the back where bearded Amish men created the lovely pieces he sold.

Logan watched these somber craftsmen concentrating on their work, and he felt a small kinship. He put that much thought and intensity into his craft as well, making sure that every plot point dovetailed perfectly into the next. He always polished each manuscript until it shone—except, perhaps, for those last two.

It had been a bad year.

Off in a corner, however, was a young Amish man working on something different than the others. In front of him was a
massive, old-fashioned chifforobe that he was polishing with a soft rag. Logan knew the instant Marla saw it because of her quick intake of breath.

“I have to have that!” she whispered.

The chifforobe was hand-polished cherry with carvings on the outside and multiple drawers of varying sizes within.

It was amusing to watch her try to talk to the creator of the piece. The young man mumbled monosyllabic answers and stared at the floor. Marla did not seem to realize that every man in that room was trying to avoid looking at her.

The short skirt, formfitting blouse, and four-inch heels were not the sort of outfit these men were used to. Marla was partial to bright red lipstick. With her pale skin and expertly made-up pale blue eyes, she would not soon be forgotten by these furniture makers.

The older men studiously stared at whatever piece they were working on. The younger men stole quick, surreptitious glances. One teenager stared openly at her, his mouth hanging slightly open. An older man quietly smacked the boy on the head, causing the boy to avert his eyes and reapply himself to his work. Logan could hear the collective sigh of relief when he and Marla left the workshop.

An hour later she had concluded her business with the owner and they drove around Holmes County to see the sights.

“Rolling farmland, lots of cows, horses and buggies,” she said. “It’s beautiful, and quaint, but I think I’d go nuts from sheer boredom after a while. I’m looking forward to going home.”

“What?” he pretended to be surprised. “You don’t like fresh air, rolling hills, and German cuisine?”

“I like the smell of New York,” she said. “I like concrete. What on earth do people
do
here? I’d go stark raving mad inside of a month.”