Naomi's Hope

by Jan Drexler

  Naomi’s wooden heart clenched, then melted into a hot puddle that burned in the pit of her stomach. She rose, grabbing the plates within her reach. Cap stood and picked up more plates from the end of the table. He followed her into the house and put his pile of dishes on the shelf just in time to catch hers as her strength left her. He set her plates down and pulled her toward him. She buried her face in his solid chest and let the hot tears flow. Cap’s arms held her close. He bent his head to hers and let her cry.

  Cap led her out of the kitchen and into the sitting room at the other end of the house, away from the open kitchen door and the events unfolding in the yard. Henry came down the ladder with Davey’s chest and glanced at her, but continued out the door.

  “Why, Cap? Why are they doing this?”

  Cap kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know. But if you had lost Davey and suddenly found him, wouldn’t you want to take him from whoever had been caring for him?”

  “I haven’t . . . just been caring for him.” Naomi took a deep, ragged breath. “He’s my son. I’ve raised him and loved him for the last three years. They have no reason to take him from me.”

  “Unless they are his family. His birth family.”

  Naomi buried her face in his chest again, as if she could escape his words. “He doesn’t know them. They don’t know him. How can he think he wants to go with them?”

  Cap rubbed a gentle circle on her back. “Davey has told me how he longs for a family. For his ma and pa. I can understand why he wants to be with the Hinklemanns, but that doesn’t make his rejection of us any easier to take.”

  Another sob escaped Naomi’s throat and Cap rubbed her back again. “He’s only a little boy. How can he make a decision like this on his own? Shouldn’t we talk to him, try to make him stay?”

  “Naomi, it isn’t his decision to make. If the Hinklemanns are his family, he belongs to them. There is nothing we can do to keep them from taking Davey with them, even if he didn’t want to be with them.” He lifted her chin with one finger until she looked into his face. “Isn’t it easier to let him go knowing that it is what he wants?”

  She shook her head and stepped away from him. “Nothing about this is easy.” Her hands fisted as if she could fight for her son. “Yesterday he was my son, happy and growing. We . . . I had a future.” The realization of her own words hit her and she sank onto a chair. “Without Davey, what do I have?”

  Cap knelt in front of her, holding her cold hands in his strong ones. “You have me. I will never leave you.”

  “You want me to give him up.”

  He bowed his head. “With all my heart, I want him to stay here. But this thing is beyond our control. We must submit—”

  “Submit to God? His will?”

  When Cap looked at her, she saw her pain mirrored in his face. He was suffering as much as she was.

  “Remember Mary.”

  “The mother of Jesus?”

  He nodded. “From the very beginning, she knew her son wasn’t hers, but she treasured everything about him in her heart. When the time came, she let him go, even though she knew where his steps would lead him.”

  “Davey probably won’t be facing death.”

  He smiled a little at her words. “Ne. He’s facing a future with a loving family, with brothers and sisters. A life in a new place, with an aunt and uncle who will educate him and help him get started in life.”

  “A life in the world, not as an Amish man.” She gripped his hands, even though he was holding her tight. “I’m not only thinking of my own loss, but of his. He’ll never know a life like ours again, living for others, living for God.”

  Tears ran down Cap’s cheeks. “That is in God’s hands. Perhaps one day, when he is older, he will come back to us.”

  Naomi sighed, resigned. She spoke the words she needed to say, even though she hated each syllable. “I will surrender to God’s will, and to the law of the land. May our Lord keep Davey ever close to his heart.”

  Cap lifted her hands and kissed them. “He will. He will.”

  When Lydia came inside the house with another load of dishes, Cap went back out to the yard. Wilhelm was sitting at the table, sorting through the papers from Davey’s box. Cap had intended to go to the barn for a talk with Eli, but the expression on Wilhelm’s face stopped him. The other man wasn’t casually scanning the documents, he was reading them, holding each one close to his face as he read the fine print. Davey’s treasures, his mother’s shawl and the other items, were flung onto the table as if Wilhelm couldn’t bother with them. Cap took a seat on the bench with Davey’s chest between them.

  “You must be finding some interesting information.” Cap picked up the lacy shawl and folded it carefully.

  “Hmm?” Wilhelm looked at him over a pair of spectacles. “Ja, of course. The papers are very detailed, with the names of Davey’s parents and grandparents, along with other information he will need when he grows older.”

  As he shuffled the papers, one left his grasp. Cap caught it before it fell to the ground. A land deed. Wilhelm snatched it from him before he could read any further.

  “When you showed up at the Yoders’ yesterday, you said you had met Shem Fischer near Fort Wayne.”

  Wilhelm’s grin seemed genuine, but the man wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Ja, ja, ja. We met Herr Fischer just outside of Ligonier.”

  “What made you think he knew your nephew?”

  The man ran a fat finger between his throat and the collar of his shirt. “I . . . I’m not sure how it came about.” Wilhelm stuffed the papers back into the chest. “Now I remember. He commented that our Karl looked exactly like a boy he knew.”

  “And that is when you thought he might know your nephew?”

  “Nein, not then.” A drop of sweat trickled down his cheek. “It was not until later, after supper.”

  Cap leaned forward, trying to put the chain of events together. “So Shem approached you? Or did you come to him after he made that comment?”

  “He . . . he saw that we were interested, and then arranged to talk to me.” Wilhelm reached into the chest to straighten the pile of papers. “Why does this concern you?”

  “Davey is—” Cap shrugged. He had no claim on Davey, or Naomi. “Davey is a fine boy, and we’ve become good friends. I only want to make certain that he isn’t hurt.”

  “He won’t be.” Wilhelm grinned again, his glance darting toward the wagon where Greta was busy washing laundry in a tub. “Greta and I decided to make him part of our family as soon as we learned of him . . . of his circumstances.”

  “How long have you been looking for Davey?”

  “Not long. We arrived in New Jersey only two months ago. Our plans were to visit my wife’s sister on the way to Milwaukee.” Wilhelm rubbed at his sandy-colored mustache.

  “Your wife’s sister? Davey’s mother?”

  “Ja, ja, ja. Greta had letters from her sister, telling where they lived and about the boy.”

  Wilhelm pulled a note from his pocket and handed it to Cap. The letter was short, from a sister asking the family to stop by their farm on their journey west and giving some general directions. He strained to read the signature, but it was smeared.

  Plucking the note from Cap’s grasp, Wilhelm stuffed it into his pocket again. He had only looked at Cap’s face once, when he spoke of the family arriving in New Jersey. A growing suspicion that the man might be lying rose. Cap tapped one finger on the edge of the table while Wilhelm gathered the rest of Davey’s things and put them in the chest.

  “I’m trying to remember what Davey’s mother’s name was. She was your sister-in-law, ja?”

  “Ja, but I only met her when she was a young girl. Just married. Before they left Germany.” Wilhelm’s Adam’s apple bounced as he swallowed. “When we reached their farm, that’s when we found that the boy was missing.”

  Cap had tried to picture the farm in his mind from Naomi’s descriptions. “What did you find?”

  Wilhe
lm shrugged. “A barn. A cabin. Both in ruins. We also found the graves of Davey’s mother and father, but no grave for the boy.”

  Sitting back, Cap ran his fingers through his beard. From what Naomi had told him, both the cabin and barn had been destroyed by the storm that had killed Davey’s family. That part of his story rang true. But what did Shem have to do with all of this?

  Wilhelm’s gaze darted to the chest he had just closed. “We need to pack the wagons and be off. We want to make as much progress as we can this afternoon.”

  Cap stood as Wilhelm did. “On your way to Wisconsin.”

  “Ja.” Wilhelm nodded. “Ja, on the way to Wisconsin.”

  As Wilhelm took the chest to his wagon, Cap went to Davey. He and the other boys were sitting on the grass in the shade of an elm tree, talking about the Hinklemanns’ journey.

  “Everybody on the ship got sick,” Karl was saying, “except me. I didn’t get sick once.”

  “You were as sick as a dog,” one of the older brothers said.

  “That was before we left England. I didn’t get sick after that.”

  “I wish I had been there,” Davey said. “I wouldn’t have been sick.”

  “You might have died.” That was the fourteen-year-old boy, Frederick. His voice was changing and it warbled up and down. “One of the Dutch girls died. They sewed her into a piece of canvas and dropped her in the water.”

  Davey’s eyes grew wide. “Why?”

  Frederick grinned. “So the sharks could eat her, dummkopf.”

  Cap’s knees trembled. This was the family Davey would grow up with. He would become as coarse and as worldly as Naomi had feared. “Davey, come with me.”

  “I want to play with the boys.”

  “You need to spend some time with your memmi before you leave.”

  The other brother, Johan, cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yoo hoo, Davey. Memmi wants you!”

  All three of the younger Hinklemann boys collapsed with laughter, but Franz, the oldest, stopped them. “Let Davey go and stop teasing him. He needs to say goodbye to these people.”

  Cap nodded his thanks to Franz as he grasped Davey’s hand.

  As they started toward the house, Davey skipped next to Cap. “Is Memmi glad I’m leaving?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Karl said that since I didn’t really belong to her, that she will be happy to see me go.”

  Cap took Davey to the far side of the house, out of the sight of the Hinklemann boys. He knelt and took Davey’s hands in his own. “Your memmi has never, ever thought that you didn’t belong to her. You are her son, and she loves you. She doesn’t want you to go, but right now she doesn’t have a choice.”

  Davey’s eyes grew wet. “Can she come with us? And you? Can you come with us? I’ll miss both of you.”

  “I know you will, but we can’t come. We have to stay home.” Cap reached up one hand and smoothed a tangle in Davey’s straight blond hair. He took a deep breath. “I will miss you more than you will ever know.”

  Davey threw his arms around Cap’s neck and Cap returned the hug with his own for a long minute. Then he set Davey away from him. He looked into the boy’s eyes, memorizing the bright blue depths.

  “You need to go in and see your memmi.”

  “I’ll never forget you, Cap.”

  Cap smiled, though his heart was turning to stone in his chest. “I’ll never forget you, either, Davey. You’re a wonderful boy.”

  Davey stepped back, then turned and ran to the house. Cap let his tears flow.

  Naomi watched the group of boys and girls from the loft window next to Davey’s bed. They seemed to get along well, even though she caught sight of one of the middle brothers punching the other one in the arm. The oldest boy, Franz, was old enough to be a man, but he spent his time with his younger brothers and sisters. Perhaps he was watching over them to make sure they didn’t cause trouble.

  This rowdy group would be her Davey’s brothers and sisters. Before Cap had taken Davey around the house, her son had looked and acted like one of them. It was as if he was a different boy than the Davey she loved and had watched grow up.

  “Memmi?”

  Naomi’s heart flipped as Davey called. She dashed away the tears that were running down her cheeks. “I’m in the loft.”

  The ladder swayed as he ran up the rungs, just like he did every day. She made sure he would see her smiling when he saw her. She sat on his bed and patted the spot next to her as an invitation to join her.

  “I saw you playing with the Hinklemann children. They seem to like you.”

  “I like them too. Karl is funny. He tells jokes all the time.” His ruddy cheeks stood out like apples and his eyes were shining. “The other boys can be mean, but Karl says that they won’t pick on two of us.”

  “Maybe you can teach them to treat each other with kindness.”

  Davey rubbed his finger along the stitching of his quilt. “Maybe.” He looked at her. “Cap said I should talk to you before we go.”

  Naomi’s nose prickled. She didn’t want Davey to remember her tears. “I would like that.”

  “He said you don’t want me to go with the Hinklemanns.”

  She couldn’t stop the tears that trickled down her cheeks at his words. She combed her fingers through his hair, then cupped his chin. “What I want is for you to be happy.”

  His brow puckered. “Do you think I’ll be happy with them?”

  Naomi put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. “You can choose to be happy. You will have a new life, but I hope you don’t forget your old one.”

  He leaned against her and she held him closer, as if she could keep him with her always. As if he could always be her little boy. If Cap was right, and he did come back to find them one day, he might be a grown man. She would never hold him like this again.

  “Cap said that Karl was wrong.”

  “What did Karl say?”

  Davey pulled away far enough that he could look into her face. “He said that you aren’t my real memmi, and that you will be glad to see me go so you won’t have to take care of me anymore.”

  Naomi forced a smile as she straightened his shirt collar. “Do you think that could be true when I love you so much? Have I ever made you think you were a bother?”

  He shook his head and leaned against her again. “You love me?”

  She took a deep breath to squelch the sob that rose in her throat. She wouldn’t cry, not until he was gone. “I have always loved you and I always will.”

  He looked toward the window. “Do you think Aunt Greta will love me?”

  “How could she not love you?”

  “I want her to love me like Ma loved me. Like you love me.”

  Naomi laid her cheek on his head. “It might take some time. She has to learn to know you. But if you are helpful and kind, she will find out what a wonderful boy you are.”

  Davey sat up, pointing at the shelf above his bed. “There’s my memory stone. I want to take that with me.”

  “Of course. I have a bag here to put your things in. We’ll put your extra clothes in first.”

  As Naomi folded his new Sunday shirt, trousers, and jacket, Davey picked up the stone. “When Crow Flies comes back, I won’t be here.”

  “We’ll tell him where you are. You know he won’t forget you.”

  “I don’t have anything to remember you.” Davey turned to her, his brow puckered once more. “I have Ma’s lacy shawl, and I have Crow Flies’ memory stone, but what can I take to remember you?”

  She pulled him close and kissed his cheek. “You have my love for a memory.”

  “I know, but . . .” He turned the stone over in his hand. “If I had something to hold, that would be better.”

  Naomi held his hands in hers, the stone still cupped in his grasp. “If you had something to hold, then you might make that into an idol. And that thing would never be me.”

  “Then how will I remember you?
”

  “When you say your prayers, always remember to pray for me. I will always be praying for you.”

  “Will God hear me pray, even when I’m in Wisconsin?”

  A door opened in Naomi’s mind, and beyond was a future with Davey always a part of her life through her prayers for him. “Ja, for sure. God always hears our prayers.”

  Why hadn’t she seen that before? She hadn’t seen God’s presence because it had always been a constant in her life, just like her love for Davey had always been such a constant in his life that he doubted its existence.

  She gave his hands a squeeze. “He will hear your prayers whether you say them aloud or only in your head, and he will hear them whether you are here with us or in Milwaukee with the Hinklemanns.”

  New noises came drifting into the house from the yard below. The sound of horses being harnessed. Davey ran to the window to watch while Naomi put the last of his things in the bag. She wouldn’t think past this moment. Thoughts of the future, even as close as this afternoon, were too painful to bear.

  Davey ran to the ladder and started down it.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to help with the wagon. They’re counting on me.”

  And that quickly, he was gone.

  22

  Every day that week, Cap woke with his head in a fog. Every morning he had to face the loss of Davey again. And again. Each morning his heart broke anew.

  On Sunday, he sat at the edge of his bed, rubbing the sleep from his gritty eyes. He knew this loss was different from what Mattie and Jacob were experiencing. He felt their loss echo in his memories. But this . . . knowing Davey was somewhere, but beyond reach . . . This loss was an agony of uncertainty.

  He stood at his washbasin and splashed his face with the tepid water. The cabin hadn’t cooled down overnight, and today promised to be another hot, sultry day. Church was to be at Jonas Plank’s. Would the Clinton Township group follow through with their threat to split the church between the two counties? He rubbed the towel over his face and hair. If they did, the worship today would be doubly solemn.