Love Finds You in Nazareth, Pennsylvania

by Melanie Dobson

  “Catharine was raised with a nursemaid.”

  “And now she expects you to be Juliana’s nursemaid for her.”

  Susanna looked down at the auburn curls of the baby, her rounded face so endearing as she slept. It wasn’t Juliana’s fault that her mother walked in the presence of the enemy known as despondency. Or sloth. Pregnancy had taxed Catharine, childbirth even more. And while the move to Nazareth had invigorated most of them, it seemed to sweep away the life and charm that once embodied Catharine.

  But was her mother taking advantage of the friendship that Susanna offered her? Surely, Catharine would do the same for her when…if Susanna ever had a child.

  Over the months, Susanna had begun to wonder if Catharine had embraced the Brethren’s faith after her parents joined their community, the faith that Susanna and so many others had clung to as children and now as adults…or if their faith had been forced upon Catharine back in London. Catharine seemed to love their Savior, but perhaps she was rethinking her service to Him.

  “One day you will have a child of your own to care for,” Rebecca said.

  “I—,” she stuttered. “I don’t know.”

  “You and Christian will be good parents, if you ever find time to be together.” Rebecca studied her face. “Are you glad you married him?”

  Susanna brushed her hand over Juliana’s hair, knowing she could be honest with Rebecca but not sure she wanted to be honest with herself. “Most of the time I don’t feel like I am married.”

  “You and Christian need to schedule a time in the chamber.”

  “Annabel has stopped scheduling couples.”

  “Not for those who request it.” Rebecca smiled. “He needs to be with you.”

  “He doesn’t need me.”

  Rebecca’s eyebrows arched. “Every man needs his wife to support him, especially after he’s failed.”

  “Christian said an entire clan decided to follow Christ.”

  “Yes, but hundreds upon hundreds of Indians refused to listen to him.”

  Susanna twisted the pot of syrup slowly with her free hand. “He didn’t speak of them.”

  “In all his travels and preaching the Gospel, only this small village decided to follow Christ. All that work and effort and prayer and yet so few listened.”

  Susanna pushed the pot away.

  “He needs you to love him, Susanna, in his triumphs and his failings.”

  Rebecca could say that, but she didn’t know everything about Christian’s failings. “Back at Marienborn…you didn’t want to marry Joseph, did you?”

  Rebecca brushed her hands across the table and then put them back in her lap. Her voice sounded sad when she spoke again. “My first marriage was very hard.”

  “Why was it hard?”

  “I tried to love my husband, but he was a—” She hesitated. “He was a difficult man.”

  Susanna rocked Juliana in her arms. She’d never heard Annabel or the others talk about the more complicated marriages. “And yet you agreed to marry again.”

  “Because God knows much better than I do of what I need, and Joseph…Joseph is a very good man for me.”

  The words settled between them. “Have you begun to love him?”

  “Very much, but our love didn’t begin to grow until we spent those together months at Gnadenhutten.” Rebecca glanced down at Juliana and then reached for the candle. “We’d better get that little girl into her cradle before she wakes again.”

  Before they slipped back into the dormitory, Rebecca turned to her one last time and whispered, “You and Christian make a good team, Susanna.”

  The words refreshed Susanna like a soft rain, and as they walked into the room, she wondered if perhaps they could work together as a team.

  Susanna glanced toward Lily’s bed when they walked into the dormitory, and it was still empty.

  “What time does Lily usually return?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “It depends.”

  Susanna tiptoed to Catharine’s bed and placed Juliana into the cradle her papa built for her. Catharine didn’t stir.

  She kissed Juliana’s forehead and tucked the blanket around her. “Rest, little one,” she whispered.

  She lay back down but she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she listened for Lily’s footsteps until dawn.

  After breakfast, George Keaton helped Christian haul two barrels of water from the wagon into the basement kitchen of the Disciple’s House. George was the strongest among them in body, but his spirit had been crippled with the Indian attack on his family. Still, he helped willingly whenever Christian asked, and Christian had begun to rely on the man’s assistance in almost every aspect of managing the refugee house.

  As the laborer of the refugee house, Christian’s tasks over the past months included everything from obtaining the necessary supplies for the refugees to helping them resolve the conflicts that arose frequently when so many different kinds of people tried to live in community together. Their refugee friends didn’t have the same respect for the Brethren’s authority or for their peculiarities, such as the lot.

  Not that the refugees were trying to wreak havoc on their community. In actuality, they were quite grateful for the safe haven the Brethren offered, but they didn’t understand the Brethren’s way of living, nor did they follow the necessary rules of Nazareth. Christian’s new role drained him of energy at times, while other days he was exhilarated by the tasks. Through everything, God provided both the physical and spiritual needs of the Brethren and their guests.

  George Keaton hadn’t spoken to Christian about the night the Indians burned his family’s house. In spite of his willingness to help, George hadn’t spoken much at all since his family arrived in Nazareth. This morning, though, as he sat beside Christian on the wagon’s bench, he began to speak.

  “Ruby and me—we want to rebuild our house.”

  Christian flicked the reins, and the horse moved forward. “Perhaps it will be safe for you to return to your homestead in the spring.”

  “It’s awfully hard on a man to lose his home.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Christian said, and he meant it—he didn’t know what it was like to have his own home or lose it.

  “I couldn’t even protect my own son.”

  Christian nodded, wishing Susanna were here. He didn’t know what to say to this man who had lived in silence for five months.

  The story, trapped inside George for so long, seemed to pour out. “We were out in the forest, gathering chestnuts to store, and when we looked back at the cabin—when we looked back, it was on fire. Ellie ran before the men saw her, but little Jacob—”

  “There was nothing you or Ellie could have done.”

  George didn’t seem to hear him. “I wanted to chase those Indians and kill them for what they’d done to our child, our house, but it was almost as if God stopped me and told me I needed to care for my family who remained.”

  The heat of his vengeance probably would have resulted in the end of his life as well as the lives of his wife and other children, but even so, Christian couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to watch the fire that consumed his son. “We can’t always protect the ones we love, can we?”

  “No, but we must do the best we can to care for our family.”

  “For our family and our community,” Christian said, but even with his correction, it didn’t sound right. Was it more important to care for his family than for the community around him?

  George glanced at him. “I appreciate all your community has done for our family, more than I can ever say, but I don’t understand how you can live apart from the people you love.”

  Christian paused for a moment. He rarely thought about the logistics of the way the Brethren lived, but he knew it seemed odd to the people outside their faith for the married sisters to live with other sisters and for the brothers to live among other brothers instead of with their wives and children.

  “It gives us an opportunity to serve the Lord witho
ut conflict,” he tried to explain.

  “But don’t we grow in our faith through conflict?” George asked, and in his question, he sounded genuinely confused. “The Bible says we are supposed to sharpen each other.”

  Christian’s mind wandered with the man’s words. During his hours in the manor, he had observed firsthand what George referred to as “sharpening,” though it sounded more to him like the sin of anger as husbands and wives barked at each other and their little ones. At the time, he’d been grateful for the Brethren’s structure of separation so its families didn’t fight with one another.

  But was it possible that God could use conflict in marriage and families to sharpen each other? Could God use his relationship with Susanna to strengthen him? As he mulled over the thought, he slowly realized that God had already begun to strengthen him as a result of their marriage.

  Now that some time had passed between them, perhaps she would meet with him again. Perhaps she would even forgive him. Either way, like Elias had done with Catharine, he needed to let Susanna know that he cared about her.

  He didn’t want them to be like the couples who were officially married but lived very separate lives with their choir houses. Somehow, even if they lived in different houses, the small hope remained inside him that he and Susanna could meld their hearts together as one.

  George hopped off the bench to join the dozens of men and women working in the orchards and field. Christian began to ride away, to return both the horse and wagon to the barn, when he saw a woman wave her hands and hurry toward him from the apple orchard. He pulled back on the reins, stopping the horse. His heart pumped even harder when he realized it was Susanna coming toward him.

  He smiled at her until he saw the redness in her eyes. Climbing down from the bench, he hesitated for only a moment before he reached for her hand. “What is it?”

  “Lily—she’s gone.”

  “Lily?” he asked, trying to remember which of the many sisters went by that name.

  “Lily,” she pressed. “The young Indian woman with a son.”

  He dropped her hand. “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. She often slips away at night, but she always returns…” Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. “This morning she didn’t return.”

  “This sister, is she a friend of yours?”

  She nodded. “A very good friend.”

  “Do you think she went back to her clan?”

  “I—I don’t know, but one time, weeks ago, she asked me if I would care for her son if something happened to her.”

  If only he had earned the right to touch his wife, to soothe her in his arms.

  “Where is her husband?”

  “She told me he is a great warrior and that one day he would come for her.”

  His voice was low. “Perhaps he finally came.”

  “Perhaps, but she would never leave her child.” She lifted her eyes, locking him in her gaze. “Do you think you could help to find her?”

  He swallowed hard. Even though he wanted to help her, he wasn’t certain that he could find a missing Indian girl if she wanted to disappear. “I will do everything I can to locate her.”

  “Thank you, Christian.” She stepped back toward the orchard. “Lily’s name is Wingan in the Delaware language. It means ‘sweet.’”

  Her eyes lingered on his face for a moment longer, like she wanted to say something else, but one of the refugee children wrapped herself around Susanna’s leg and escorted her back to the orchard.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Elias met Catharine on the top floor of the Sisters House like he’d promised her, and they stole away into the chamber together. The light in the room was dulled from the gray clouds, and she dreaded the grayness of the winter months. It was in the spring that she thrived, in the many colors of the flowers and the birds and the blossoms on branches.

  Elias situated the chair for Catharine to sit, but his gaze wasn’t on her. It was on their baby girl. Since Juliana’s birth, Elias had doted on both his baby and his wife, but things still weren’t the same between them, not like it had been before Gnadenhutten. When he visited them down in the hall, he seemed mesmerized by their daughter. While Catharine loved him for his affection for Juliana, she was also a bit jealous of it.

  She knew it was silly. His love for Juliana was different from his love for her, but Catharine couldn’t help feeling that his love for her had changed. He seemed to love her more as Juliana’s mother than as his bride. Even now, when they finally had time alone together after so long, it was to see Juliana, not her.

  But God was slowly healing the relationship between Elias and Catharine, restoring the trust between them. Their love for each other was still fragile, and she would do nothing to hurt what she’d worked so hard to strengthen.

  He sat on the bed, his arms outstretched. “Can I hold her?”

  She gave him their daughter, and Juliana laughed. Elias loved Juliana more than Catharine did, and in return, Juliana seemed to love her father more than her mother.

  He tickled her cheeks and grinned at her, babbling with her as the minutes passed. When he looked back up at Catharine, his smile faded. “Edward says you are neglecting her care during the night.”

  She bristled at the condemnation in his tone. “I feed her plenty.”

  “But Edward says—”

  “Brother Edward doesn’t know how to care for a baby. It’s none of his business how I care for mine.”

  “Our baby, Catharine,” Elias said. “She is my daughter as well as yours.”

  Catharine’s callused fingers balled into fists beside her skirt. He had helped create the baby, but he left her alone to care for what they’d created. She was so tired of the feedings and the crying and the demands the other sisters placed on her in her role as nursemaid. And now Annabel had her slaving in the field with the others every morning too, expecting her to care for the baby the rest of the day.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You have no idea how hard it is—she cries all day and all night.”

  He looked down into the eyes of a daughter who exuded nothing but sweetness in the arms of her father. And Catharine knew what Elias was thinking—that she was a liar.

  “Most of the day,” she reneged. “She cries whenever you’re not around.”

  “I wish I could be there to help you, Catharine.” He was looking at her now, his eyes wide with the sincerity and kindness that she loved in him.

  “We could move into one of the rooms in the Disciple’s House like the rest of the refugees,” she insisted. “We could live as a family.”

  He brushed his hands over Juliana’s cheek, and she smiled at him. “We aren’t refugees, Catharine. We belong with our choirs.”

  She stood and moved toward the gray light at the window. All she wanted was her privacy. Not to be by herself, but to be with her family. Didn’t God understand? Even as she fought with admitting her need for anyone, the truth was that she did need her husband, needed him desperately.

  Her gaze was still out the window when she spoke again. “I don’t think I can stay here any longer,” she said simply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everything is so plain here, everything as gray as the sky.”

  “It’s winter,” he replied. “It’s supposed to be gray.”

  “But not like this, Elias,” she tried to explain. “Not in my heart.”

  Elias set Juliana on the bed beside him and opened his arms. Catharine folded into them, like a lump of flour into the smoothness of gravy. She wanted to dissolve into him, to become one with him again, but his touch felt awkward instead.

  “If you don’t like it here—where is it that you want to go?”

  She hesitated, fearing he would think she was too rash with her words. She wanted him to think she was contemplating his question right now instead of the hours she’d spent planning the answer. “I think we should go to Philadelphia.”

  “Philadelphia?” he sai
d slowly. “But there are no Brethren living in Philadelphia.”

  “Perhaps not, but there are plenty of Lutherans. Even Count Zinzendorf speaks at the Lutheran Church when he is there.”

  Elias thought for a moment. “We would have to leave the Brethren.”

  “But you could manage or even open a business in the city. I could hire a nursemaid for Juliana and oversee the running of our home. It could be a simple but beautiful and warm place for the Brethren to stay when they traveled through Philadelphia…and we could live as a family.”

  He looked back at their baby, and she knew he wanted to be with them.

  “I must take it before the lot.”

  “No lot,” she insisted. “We should pray and ask God to guide us.”

  Elias thought for a moment, and then he bowed his head and began to pray right there for their Savior to guide them. He asked God to keep Catharine’s heart content if they were to stay in Nazareth or to open up a door if they were to go away.

  Juliana stirred on the bed and Elias rested his hand on her belly, but he kept praying.

  And Catharine loved him for it.

  Susanna hiked up to God’s Acre and sat on the flat rock that overlooked the cemetery and the valley. As she rested, she hummed one of Lily’s songs about God providing both the sun and the rain. The sun was out today, shedding light on the fields and forests below, but the storms seemed to pound inside her. Even as she sat, even as she sang, she prayed for her friend, that God would protect her and guide Christian and the elders to find her.

  Her gaze swept across the wooden markers of the Brethren, and she wondered again where Lily had gone. Her friend would never get lost in the wilderness, but something else could have happened. Perhaps Lily had already gone home like these brothers and sisters.

  Christian had said he would try to find Lily, but two days had passed and neither Christian nor Annabel had given her any more information about her friend. Annabel had lectured their entire choir about the free choice the Savior gave to them. They could choose to leave the community whenever they liked. They could even choose to sin. The Savior never forced a brother or sister to remain, though He continually tried to woo a wanderer back to Him.