by Linda Byler
He was, indeed, very tall, his hair blond and windswept, cut in the Amish style. His cheeks and jaw were clean-shaven, the symbol of an unmarried man. His eyes were not blue, neither were they green or brown. The color was indiscernible, but they were wide and flat and twinkling with happiness.
“There you are.”
That was how he greeted her. As if he had found a long-awaited treasure, and it was even more delightful than he’d anticipated. He came up those steps till he towered above her, dwarfed the deck they stood on, and didn’t say a word. He looked at her until he was finished, and she looked back at him observing all that in a moment.
He smiled, a genuine warmth reflected in his eyes.
“You didn’t know I knew you were here, did you?”
She was so muddled, so taken aback, she couldn’t piece that sentence into something she could comprehend, so she nodded, her eyes never leaving the height and breadth and wonder of him.
He extended a hand. She looked down at it as if she was not quite sure what she should do, then held up the Windex and paper towels, before setting them on the patio table.
She took the proffered hand. He held it far too long. It was ridiculous. When he released it, she wanted to be united again, the handshake so comforting and promising, so secure and warm.
“You thought you were safe from other Amish here, I bet.”
She smiled. The sun shone on her auburn hair and shot it through with light and waves. Her teeth were very white and a bit crooked in front where one tooth overlapped the other, her skin was gold with flecks of freckles like crumpled copper, and her eyes so green it was like the ocean in winter, except she didn’t know any of this.
She was wearing a pale pink dress and nothing on her feet. Her white head covering framed her lovely hair like the angelic halo he imagined she should be wearing.
“Roger and Kathy Forsythe. They told me about you.”
She smiled.
“Did they call me their nanny?”
“They did. An honorable title, a nanny.”
“Thank you. I taught school before acquiring the title.”
“Who are you? As in family lineage?”
“I’m Emma. Abe Beiler’s Dan.”
He shook his head. “Lancaster?”
“No. Crawford County.”
“But originally from there?”
“Aren’t we all? The motherland.”
He laughed, clearly delighted with her wit.
“I can only stay a minute. And it looks as if your work just woke up.”
Emma turned to find Brent and Annalise standing directly inside, Charlie Brown draped unbecomingly over one arm.
“Oh.”
Emma turned, ushered them out, and made the proper introductions, including the sagging elephant, her eyes telling him to be serious.
And he was, shaking the elephant’s leg just as he had shook the children’s hands.
“He is a very nice elephant.”
“Thank you,” Annalise said, before sharing the information about his frequent washings in the washer, plus being dried to make him fluffy.
“I have to go, guys. I’ll see you around, surely. It will be hot today, so maybe I’ll see you on the beach.”
With that, he was gone, clomping down the steps and hurrying across the sand.
On the beach? Mercy days, as her mother would say.
But she found herself with a spring in her step, felt as if she could take the stairs two at a time, or three. She cleaned both bathrooms after making perfect eggs in a nest for Annalise, with orange juice in a sippy cup for her and a small plastic tumbler for Brent. There was bacon, so she fried a few slices for each child and was rewarded with exaggerated eye rolls and tummy rubbings, as the children informed her this was not always allowed.
“Today it is. Today is a great day for bacon,” Emma announced, twirling across the kitchen with her skirt billowing.
“Yay! Bacon day!” Brent shouted and Annalise clapped her little hands before reaching for her plate.
She told them the story of the gingerbread man while they ate, and promised to bake gingerbread men some rainy day, which was met with more cheers.
The day on the beach was like the one before, except she was dressed quite properly in her dress, with a black dichly (bandana) attached to her head. She would never allow him to meet her on the beach in that green swimsuit. Never. She was raised in a home that practiced modesty, and modest she would be. She sat primly in the boiling hot sun, drank cold water from her water bottle, and tried to stay sitting instead of getting up to rearrange her chair, telling herself it was not to check on the construction worker’s whereabouts.
The children were taken to the edge of the water, sandcastles were built, futile attempts at capturing hermit crabs established again, sandpipers chased, dolphins sighted.
The dolphins were seen after a group of children began to hop up and down, wave their arms and point out to sea. Emma got out of her chair, shaded her eyes with her hand and strained to see these beautiful creatures. In spite of herself, she gasped audibly when the graceful arc of a leaping dolphin came into view. Then another, and another. They seemed to leap slowly, without any effort, rising from the water and reemerging with a fluid motion. The sight was beyond anything Emma had ever seen and from that day on, she kept a keen eye out for the frolicking dolphins.
She remembered the sunscreen this time, applying it to her own burning face. She’d be as brown and as wrinkled as an old lady if she wasn’t careful in this sun.
For a moment, she felt a keen sense of homesickness, for the days in the fields. She missed Dena. If she were home, she and Dena would be getting up early to help her mother with breakfast, which was no small feat with the ten children, the table spread across the middle of the kitchen, which was the largest room in the house. Then they would wash dishes and tidy the kitchen, followed by hours of working side-by-side with Dena under the same sun that lent its intense rays now. By July, they were tanned, fit, so used to the heat and the hard work, the days flew by with crate after crate of zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, red beets, all of it harvested, cleaned, and packed to send to the produce auction or sold at the roadside stand at the end of the driveway.
She was surprised how much she missed all that action. It was the days of purpose, of knowing there was so much work that sixteen hours of daylight were barely enough. There was the farm mortgage to pay, and Emma knew her father was putting down double monthly payments during the summer. That was when the children were taken to the optometrist in town to have their vision checked. Benjamin had a serious dental problem with overlapping growth, so he was taken to the orthodontist in summer, when the cash flow was available.
It was all a challenge, a goal, the reason for getting out of bed in the morning. She missed it more than she was willing to admit.
She felt the sun’s warmth weakening, saw the spread of gray obliterate the blue, then watched the children playing in the sand, unaware of a change in the weather. She’d let them play. She’d not planned supper, since Kathy would be in town and she wasn’t sure about Roger. She and the kids could just grab something easy.
Suddenly, there was no more light or heat from the sun. The clouds hung like a blanket of gray and the ocean looked cold, ominous, frothing white caps of the waves taking on a sinister appearance. Currents came and went, the temperature of the ocean water unpredictable with all the tides and underlying ebb and flow. They had talked about the unusually warm water for the end of May, the sun’s heat strong, like July, but now perhaps this was about to change.
Already a breeze was tugging at umbrellas, beachgoers struggling to fold them into a more manageable position, calling children away from their play. Emma got up, folded her beach chair and called to the children.
“Brent!”
He looked up from his digging.
“Come. Let’s go back. I think it will rain soon, okay?”
As usual, he dumped the water in his sma
ll pail, picked up the shovel and plastic colander, then turned to his sister. Emma watched him say something, then more forcefully, spreading both arms and waving to make a point.
Annalise put both feet on the sand and refused to budge.
Oh boy, here we go again, Emma thought, but walked to their play spot, hunkered down and began negotiations. This was why she had been hired, and her she was, failing miserably.
If Annalise were her own child, Emma would have picked her up and carried her firmly to the house where discipline would have been measured out. Children needed boundaries, needed to know what was expected of them, and when. But this stubborn child was being raised by the terms of modernity, the new gentle way that would not harm the child’s self-esteem.
The old fashioned way was to break the will of the child, to teach obedience from the time they were old enough to understand, but all the senseless abuse in the world created a new way, with child welfare services ready to pounce on any form of physical discipline.
The gray clouds were churning now. Emma heard the distant rumble of thunder.
“Annalise, come. It will rain soon, okay? Charlie Brown will get wet.”
A baleful glance.
“He likes rain.”
“Anna, come on.” An impatient Brent stamped a foot.
“I want to play in the sand,” Annalise said, beginning to dig with her shovel.
“Emma sighed, looked on helplessly as groups were hustled to the walkway, casting covert glances in their direction.
“Anna honey, listen. When we get back to the house, we can make cupcakes.”
“I don’t like them.”
“Charlie Brown does.”
“I love cupcakes. Come on, Anna!” Brent shouted.
When she began to cry, Emma decided if she was going to do that, she may as well pick her up and get going, which is what she did. Brent carried the lunch basket, Emma hanging on to the screaming, wriggling Annalise while carrying the chair.
She made it to the boarded walkway before she dropped the chair and lost her grip on Annalise who chose to stiffen her body for a desperate try at freedom. She slid down Emma’s side and plunked to the sand, her eyes squeezed shut as the back of her head made contact.
After that, it was all a blur of howls and screams that were completely embarrassing, people arriving with blankets and umbrellas rolled under their arms, casting annoyed or sympathetic glances her way. Emma sank to her knees, tried to cradle her in her arms, soothe and comfort, do anything.
Brent picked up the lunch basket, set it down, and looked toward the house.
What if the parents arrived to find this disaster?
Emma sank to the sand, pleaded with Annalise, to no avail. It seemed as if her very presence only made matters worse.
Then he was there.
Tall, strong, sympathetic, he hunkered down beside her and she looked into his eyes with her own filling up with genuine tears of distress.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, soft and low.
“What’s her name again?”
His eyes were looking into hers with so much kindness, she grappled with an emotion she could not name. It was a combination of failure at being an honorable nanny and shame that he had found her like this.
“Annalise.”
She choked on the word, turned away.
“Annalise. Look. I have something for you.” He said, reaching for her. But the child was beyond reasoning, giving herself over to a wild fear of being controlled, and when Brent’s face crumpled and he began a soft crying of his own, Emma knew her fate was sealed.
She’d be taken home, replaced with a more competent person. The wind picked up, sending the tall grass into a disheveled dance, the sky darkening overhead as they sat helplessly with the shrieking child.
He shook his head.
Emma turned to Brent.
“Come here,” she said gently, and when he did, she pulled him on her lap and held him close, murmured words of comfort.
“I’ll carry her,” he said decisively, picking her up in his sturdy arms.
He carried her, kicking and sobbing, as Emma followed with Brent, swallowing her distress. When they reached the house, he kept going up the stairs, through the glass door, strode through the kitchen to deposit Annalise on the sofa, before turning to Emma.
“Good luck,” he said quietly, and briefly touched her shoulder.
She nodded, watched him leave as another rumble of thunder was heard in the distance.
And she still did not know his name.
That evening she had an honest talk with both parents, knowing there was no alternative.
She laid out her expectations.
Roger listened, wide-eyed, nodding. Kathy’s face showed an impassive block, the setting of her mouth as impenetrable as cement.
“Look, this isn’t good for anyone,” she said. “Especially Annalise. To give in to her every whim is only worsening the situation. She’s too young to have such control over her own environment. And it’s not fair to Brent, either. He got stuck in the pouring rain today because I couldn’t get Annalise to come when I asked her to.”
Roger looked at his wife with something akin to pleading.
Kathy sighed.
“We should have known better than to hire an Amish schoolteacher.”
Her words were clipped, emphatic.
“I’m sorry.” Emma said quietly. “But these are my terms. If I am allowed to deal with her tantrums, I’ll stay. If not, I’ll go back home.”
“There will be no physical punishment in my home,” Kathy said tersely.
“I don’t expect to do that,” Emma answered, facing Kathy’s belligerence with the remaining courage she could gather.
“How will you go about getting her to give in to you?” Kathy asked, with the beginning of a sneer on her lips.
“Time out? Ignoring the screaming? There are ways.”
“Well, you will not leave my child out on the beach by herself,” Kathy said.
“Yes. I will, if this happens again. I’ll watch from a distance to make sure she’s safe, but she needs to learn I mean business.”
Emma felt her anger rising, felt it in her eyes as she faced Kathy. That it had come to this so soon was incomprehensible, but she knew there was no turning back. She refused to grovel, to stay here, no matter how beautiful it was, with all the impossibility of dealing with mother and daughter.
Roger spoke up.
“Kathy, you know it’s been a rough ride with Annalise. Why not give Emma a chance? She promised not to lay a hand on her.”
He was met with a stony silence.
“On one condition,” Kathy said finally.
Emma lifted an eyebrow. When she met her employer’s eyes, she knew she had the upper hand, the indecision flickering in Kathy’s.
“I have a book for you to read. The contents are the protocol I want you to follow. If you are unwilling, then we’ll terminate your contract.”
Short-lived upper hand, Emma thought.
But she agreed to read the book, wondering if it would prolong what had turned into a skirmish.
And so she was handed a hardcover book with a glossy jacket. She read the description on the flaps, and sighed. Clearly whatever methods were outlined in the book hadn’t worked so far, so she had no reason to believe they’d work now.
But she was willing to give it a try. She laid the book aside and went to the window to absorb the sight of a rainstorm, complete with thunder and lightning across a dark sea that was a seething mass of dark waves, the lighter froth appearing as a wave crested, then disappearing to be replaced by another.
Jagged lightning illuminated the turbulence of the water, followed by deep claps of thunder that shook the house. Rain pelted against the doors and windows and wind lashed the sides of the house until Emma thought the whole structure would surely be blown off the piles.
Kathy sat in the living room, holding her daughter who had fallen asleep after
wearing herself out earlier. She was stroking her hair, gazing into her small face with so much love, for a moment Emma wished away the whole nasty business that had cropped up on the beach. She knew she had no children of her own, so who was she to judge the bond between a mother and her tiny daughter?
She turned back to the thunderstorm, the wind and the roiling water, the streaks of rain like a veil of water that obscured the horizon.
She had never experienced such dark and terrible beauty. The grasses were whipped into a frenzy, bowed by the weight of the water that clung to each stem. Lighting struck out like forked tongues, so fast and so brilliant it was blinding.
The glow of lamps and recessed lighting was comforting, along with the hum of the refrigerator and the flickering blue light from the televisions, the sturdy windows and doors built into the walls that separated them from the elements. She thought of Jesus and His disciples in the boat on stormy waters, the lifting of His hand when He said, “Be still,” and everything, the wind, the waves, obeyed Him. How could anyone truly know this had actually occurred? No one could. That’s where faith came in.
And faith seemed precious, real. She could hold it in her heart here on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where a narrow strip of land jutted out into the Atlantic Ocean for miles, with a road and sturdy beach houses dotting the landscape like houses on a Monopoly board.
CHAPTER 7
THE FOLLOWING DAY, KATHY AND EMMA REACHED AN UNEASY TRUCE, with Annalise displaying her best behavior, dressed in a simple white sundress that made her appear angelic, a poster child depicting sweetness and light.
Roger spent most of the day with the contractors while Kathy was on her computer, telling Emma to keep the children entertained so she could get her work done.
No small feat, she thought, but nodded agreeably.
“Oh, and we’re having the contractors in tonight. Roger will buy the seafood and prepare it, but we’ll need something for dessert. And sides.”
With that, she disappeared up the steps.
Emma swallowed. Her mouth went dry. She had to entertain the unruly Annalise, plus conjure up a few miraculous dishes in an afternoon, plus, he was coming to dinner. She groaned silently.