The future? With those two words, Sadie’s disappointment over the crampons was entirely forgotten. As Levi took a long pull of tea, she drew her spine up and clasped her hands on her lap, bracing herself for what she knew—this time she was sure—he’d say next. He was going to ask her to stay in Serenity Ridge.
“Since you seem to like our little community here, and since the twins are so fond of you, I was wondering if—if you’d, er, be willing to return to Serenity Ridge after Grischtdaag to continue as their nanny. Indefinitely, I mean. That way, we wouldn’t have to return to Indiana. You do such a wunderbaar job I can’t imagine anyone, even my in-laws, taking such gut care of Elizabeth and David.”
“Denki,” Sadie mumbled even though she didn’t feel especially complimented. Was that really all she was to Levi—a superior babysitter? He’d said the twins were fond of her, but he hadn’t uttered a single word about how he felt about her. Not even that he thought of her as a friend. She’d been hoping and praying for so long that he would ask her to stay, she thought once he finally did, she’d be ecstatic, but she just felt numb.
“I realize it’s a big decision,” Levi acknowledged when Sadie didn’t say anything else. “I haven’t told the twins or anyone else I was going to ask you, so you can take your time to decide. Maybe let me know before January 1?”
“You’re right. I do need time to consider it. January 1 is fine,” she replied. “For now, it’s getting late. I’d better turn in so I can go sledding in the morning like I promised the twins.”
When she got home she snuggled into bed a final time, pulled out her diary and wrote.
Tonight Levi asked me to return to Maine permanently—as a nanny. After wanting it for so long, I really thought I would have leaped at the opportunity to stay here indefinitely. I thought it was exactly what I wanted—or at least, it was the next best thing. And maybe it is. Maybe if I stay, Levi will develop the same kind of feelings for me that I have for him, and he’ll work up the courage to ask to be my suitor...
Or am I just repeating my mistake of holding on to false hope, of seeing what I want to see? If I return to Serenity Ridge to become the twins’ permanent nanny, a year from now will I look back and regret all the time I spent loving someone who doesn’t love me back and never will?
Chapter Eleven
“What’s all this?” Sadie asked as she entered Levi’s kitchen a little before seven o’clock the next morning.
“We wanted you to enjoy a hearty breakfast that you didn’t have to prepare yourself,” Levi said. The French toast had actually been Elizabeth’s idea—she’d helped Sadie prepare it several times before and was delighted to walk Levi through the steps. Otto had made eggs and perfectly crisp bacon and David had peeled oranges and placed the sections into a bowl for everyone to share.
Sadie’s smile, always effulgent, was especially dazzling today. Not even the purpling of the skin beneath her eye and along her cheek detracted from her mirthful expression as she thanked them.
“Daed didn’t even burn the French toast.”
“Not yet I didn’t, but we’d better sit down and say grace before I do,” Levi suggested. After everyone was seated, they bowed their heads and Levi prayed, “Gott, denki for this food. We ask You to bless our bodies with it. Denki for Sadie’s presence here and her willingness to help us and to serve You. Please give her a safe trip back to Pennsylvania. We ask these things in Jesus’s name—amen.”
As he was serving breakfast, Levi was struck by the realization that today might be the last time he ever saw Sadie and the lump in his throat kept him from enjoying the thick, sweet, golden French toast and fluffy scrambled eggs. The children, however, devoured their food in no time flat, clearly in a rush to go sledding.
“I’ll wash the dishes later,” Levi suggested when Otto and Sadie finished eating. He wanted the twins to be able to spend as much time with Sadie as they could before she left. Since Otto was on his way to Maria’s house to weatherize a couple more windows, before they went outdoors Sadie brought in a gift bag from the mudroom for him. In turn, Otto presented her with a box tied with red ribbon to open on Grischtdaag.
“So, I guess this is goodbye. It’s been schpass getting to know you. Denki, Sadie, for...you know, for everything,” Otto said and Levi assumed his comment was in reference to the matchmaking she did between him and Maria.
“Denki for teaching me how to snowshoe. I’m so glad we were here at the same time,” she replied, giving him a quick hug from the side.
I wonder if I’ll get a hug goodbye, too. The unbidden thought quickened Levi’s pulse before he could dispel it from his mind. He was going to have to do better at banishing those thoughts if Sadie accepted his offer of employment.
“Have a gut time sledding,” Otto said. He was out the door and on his way to Maria’s before Sadie and Levi could get themselves and the twins bundled into their coats.
“Be careful not to trip over my suitcase—I left it on the porch so I could go sledding up until the time the van comes,” Sadie warned as they stepped outside. Right as she was speaking, a vehicle turned into the driveway.
“Oh, neh! Is that your driver already?” Elizabeth whimpered.
“I don’t think so...”
The minivan parked near the workshop and an elderly couple slowly got out and came toward them. Levi was tempted to tell them the tree lot was closed—it was after all—but when they apologized profusely, saying they hadn’t bought a tree earlier because they didn’t think their grandson would be discharged from the hospital in time for Christmas, Levi couldn’t turn them away. He reluctantly told Sadie and the children they should start sledding without him. Then he fetched a handsaw and led the couple to the balsam firs, knowing they wouldn’t have enough strength to cut and transport the tree back to their vehicle themselves.
After they finally selected a tree and Levi baled it and loaded it into the back seat of their large van, he feared it was close to eight o’clock. He figured Sadie and the twins would have been sledding on the hill in between his house and the daadi haus, but since they weren’t in sight he wondered if they’d already gone back inside.
“Aaaaaah!” In the distance Elizabeth released a bloodcurdling scream.
“Aaaaaah!” David echoed.
Their cries were coming from behind the stand of pine trees on the other side of the barn, where the larger hill was located—the hill with the pond at its base! Terrified, Levi tore off in that direction, nearly losing his footing twice on the slippery snow. His heart walloped his ribs as the icy air ripped his breath from his lungs, but he didn’t slow his pace until he pushed aside the pine branches and burst through to the clearing.
His momentum carried him forward several steps even after he spotted Sadie, David and Elizabeth slowly picking their way back up the hill, chatting and laughing, pulling their sleds behind them. It took a moment for his mind to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. They’re okay. They’re all okay. They’re fine. They’d been screaming because they were euphoric, not because they’d crashed through the ice or something else tragic happened.
No sooner was his panic allayed than anger overtook him. What was Sadie thinking to bring them here? Fully stopped, Levi bent over, his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath and temper himself from yelling something to Sadie in front of the children he might regret.
“Look, there’s Daed!” David hollered. “Daed, we’re going to have a race. Buwe against meed. You get to ride on my sled with me.”
“Neh, it’s almost eight o’clock,” Levis shouted back. “We have to go back to the haus so Sadie doesn’t miss the driver.”
“Just one more time?”
“I said neh!” Levi barked. Sadie, David and Elizabeth simultaneously snapped their heads upward to look at him, obviously taken aback by his tone. No matter how peeved he was that he’d suffered such an unnecessary fright, Levi di
dn’t want to ruin the children’s last day with Sadie, or their own Christmas Eve, either. In a softer voice he added, “Sadie and I can pull you back to the house on your sleds. We’ll race—buwe against meed.”
Levi was already spent from sprinting across the acreage, so Sadie easily could have beaten him, but he sensed she allowed him to catch up in order to avoid an argument between the children. They reached the porch at the same time. After proclaiming the race a tie, Levi instructed David and Elizabeth to say goodbye to Sadie and then go inside and put on drier clothes so he could talk to her in private.
* * *
“Goodbye, Sadie.” Elizabeth hugged Sadie’s waist.
“I love you,” David said, enveloping her from the opposite direction.
“I love you more than he does,” Elizabeth tipped her face upward; tears dribbling over the mounds of her cheeks.
David tightened his grip. “No, she doesn’t.”
Sadie wiggled free so she could crouch down and encircle them snugly into her arms. “I think you both love me the same amount. And I love you both the same amount. Which is a whole bunch.”
After they’d embraced a few moments, Levi said, “Okay, kinner, that’s enough. Let Sadie go and I’ll be in to make hot chocolate in a minute.”
As she watched Elizabeth and David enter the house with their chins tucked to their chests, it took every ounce of Sadie’s willpower to refrain from saying, “Don’t cry. I’ll be back soon.”
But the truth was, after a long, sleepless night of prayer and contemplation, she wasn’t sure she would be back; she still needed more time to think it over. As bad as she felt to see the twins so forlorn, she’d feel even worse if she told Elizabeth and David she’d come back and then changed her mind.
The door had barely clicked shut behind the twins when Levi cupped her elbow and briskly led her toward the other end of the porch.
“Why on earth were you sledding behind the barn?”
“What do you mean?” Sadie couldn’t comprehend why his eyes—his kind, beautiful green eyes—blazed with hostility. “You said we should go on without you.”
He pointed to the small hill between his house and the daadi haus. “That’s where I thought you’d take the kinner sledding. Not down the big hill on the other side of the barn.”
Ah, their old, familiar dissension. Sadie thought Levi had come to trust her judgment regarding the children’s care, but clearly he still had his reservations. As indignant as she felt, Sadie kept her voice low and her tone neutral. “First of all, Levi, you didn’t specify any areas that were off-limits. Second, the reason I took them to the big hill is it’s actually safer there because there’s nothing at the bottom to crash into—unlike here, where they could run into the fence. Or the house.”
Levi’s nostrils flared like a horse with colic’s. “There’s a pond at the bottom of the big hill!”
“A pond?” It took Sadie a moment to remember. “Oh, jah. I forgot about that because it’s covered in snow.”
“You forgot? How could you forget you were sledding over a pond?”
Sadie’s tolerance was wearing thin. “If the weather had been warmer, I would have been more conscientious about what we were sledding over. But considering how many days we’ve had in a row of temperatures in the single digits, any water in this area has to be frozen solid. Besides, didn’t you tell me the so-called pond is only four or five feet deep?”
“If someone broke through the ice, they could get hypothermia as easily in four feet of water as in twelve.”
Sadie snickered. “Your milk cow wouldn’t break through that ice, much less one of us.”
“You’re missing the point! It’s one thing if you want to take risks like that when you’re around Otto or your brieder, but it’s another thing to behave so irresponsibly when you’re caring for small kinner like Elizabeth and David!”
That was the last straw. Sadie suddenly had all the clarity she needed to make her decision. Contrary to her rash decision to quit her job at Harrison’s family’s store, this time walking away from the employment opportunity was completely rational. It was inevitable, even. But that didn’t make it any less painful.
The van came rumbling up the driveway; Sadie would have to be quick. She could hardly look in Levi’s direction and her chin quivered as she spoke. “No matter how fond I am of the kinner, I won’t be coming back to Maine. I’ve tried but I can’t continue to have the same disagreement with you again and again and again. I understand you think you’re being responsible or protective or whatever, Levi. But the way I see it, you’re trying so hard to keep the people you care about from being injured or dying that you’re preventing them from living. I respect that you have to do what you think is necessary for Elizabeth and David, but your fears are too prohibitive for me.”
Levi spit out his response. “Only a tomboy would think I’m too prohibitive!”
“I’d rather be a tomboy like me than a scaredy-cat like you!” Sadie hissed back at him.
* * *
She sounded like an eight-year-old even to her own ears, but Sadie didn’t care. All that mattered to her was getting away from Levi Swarey as fast as she could. Her vision blurred by tears, she nearly stumbled over her suitcase as she moved toward the stairs. Without glancing toward the window to see if David and Elizabeth were waving to her, she picked up her bag and hurried toward the van.
* * *
Levi and the children couldn’t have had an unhappier Christmas Eve if they tried—and from the twins’ constant squabbling, he suspected they were trying. Not that they needed any help making Levi miserable; his confrontation with Sadie perturbed him enough to last a lifetime. If she really respected his concerns about the twins’ safety she wouldn’t have taken them sledding over the pond in the first place. Nor would she have called him a scaredy-cat when he pointed out she’d potentially put the three of them in jeopardy. Yet she’d somehow had the nerve to say she couldn’t continue having the same argument with him! Levi couldn’t stop replaying their altercation in his mind and his brooding resulted in a daylong headache, followed by several hours of insomnia once he went to bed. If Sadie still thinks my guidelines for the kinner’s safety are so objectionable, we’re all better-off without her, he concluded as he finally dropped off to sleep.
After such a gloomy Christmas Eve, he figured Christmas Day would have to be a more festive occasion, but he woke to the children bickering in the hallway. They managed to behave themselves during their Christmas worship time as a family, which Levi imagined was because they knew they’d receive gifts afterward, but the presents only temporarily perked them up. By lunchtime, they were glum and listless again.
“I don’t want noodles for Grischtdaag,” Elizabeth complained. “That’s what we had for Thanksgiving.”
Levi figured his daughter wasn’t truly upset about the food—she was upset because the food reminded her of Sadie. But that couldn’t be helped. They’d already eaten the leftovers from the last meal they shared with Sadie, as well as the casserole Maria had sent home with Otto yesterday. Why didn’t I prepare better? Levi asked himself, already knowing the answer: for several months after his mother died, either his church district regularly brought him meals, or he and the children ate frozen foods and sandwiches. Once Sadie arrived, the meals from his neighbors had stopped coming and he’d gotten so used to relying on her to cook he hadn’t given much thought to taking over the task again.
“What do you want instead? Cereal? Eggs?” Levi asked.
“Neh. I want to take a nap.” It wasn’t like Elizabeth to forgo a meal or volunteer to go to bed.
“Okay. David, you should take a nap, too.” Levi assumed they were out of sorts because they missed Sadie, but maybe they hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest. “When you wake up, we can have hot chocolate and sing Grischtdaag carols.”
“I’ll play charades,” Otto vo
lunteered from the sofa, where he was reading a book Maria had given him about recreational activities on nearby Mount Katahdin. “We can light the candles.”
“Neh, we’re only allowed to light them on special occasions,” David refuted.
“It is a special occasion. It’s Grischtdaag,” Levi reminded him. A time when wunderbaar things happen.
David was too busy gathering the pretend wooden logs for his tractor’s wagon to respond, so Levi led Elizabeth to her room first.
“What are you going to name your bobbel?” Levi asked when he tucked her in.
“Sadie,” Elizabeth said without a moment’s hesitation. She clutched the doll in her arm and rolled over, but not before Levi noticed the tear dripping down her cheek.
When Levi went into David’s room, he discovered his son had brought his sled inside without Levi knowing it. David was stretched out on the floor in it with a pillow beneath his head and a blanket pulled up to his chin. His eyes were squeezed shut; clearly he was only pretending to be asleep, but Levi decided to wait until later to tell him he’d have to take the sled back outside onto the porch.
This is going to be harder than I thought. If it was this difficult for the twins to adjust to Sadie leaving, Levi didn’t know how he’d ever help them transition to living with his in-laws, especially since they could be rather austere. Preoccupied with thoughts of contacting the Realtor after Christmas, Levi was descending the stairs when he stepped down on something hard and round that rolled beneath his heel. As his right leg flew out straight in front of him, he grabbed for the railing to break his fall. Although he managed to avoid landing on his backside, he came down at an odd angle on his left foot.
“Argh!” he hollered as he was gripped with excruciating pain.
Courting the Amish Nanny Page 17