A Promise of Hope

by Amy Clipston

  “No, no, no.” Her voice croaked with worry and hurt. This child couldn’t be Peter’s son. There was no way! Peter would’ve told her.

  Would he have?

  Could her husband have been so deceitful?

  Yes, he could have. He lied about his childhood.

  One by one Sarah pulled out the letters and read them; each was similar to the previous. This mysterious DeLana wrote short, one-page notes, telling Peter how Cody was doing in school, including that he excelled in math but abhorred reading and that he loved to play sports, especially soccer. She would always wish Peter and Sarah well and end with thanking him for the check.

  The checks.

  Money Peter and Sarah had earned for their own family.

  Sarah blinked back tears, and a lump swelled in her throat. How could Peter send their money to another family every month and not tell her?

  How could he have a child and not tell Sarah!

  The realization of the growing web of his deceit drowned her in a deluge, and she couldn’t fight the hurt anymore. Hugging the letters to her chest, Sarah dissolved into tears as sobs wracked her body and soul.

  As she succumbed to the emotion rioting within her, one question echoed through her mind:

  Had she known her husband at all?

  Luke’s boots scraped the porch steps to Peter’s home, a counterpoint to the conversation from the morning that replayed in his mind. He tried in vain to suppress the excitement coursing through his veins. It seemed too good to be true, but he had asked the farmer to repeat the offer to him twice, and the price for the house and twenty acres was only half of what the developer had offered Luke for his farm in Ohio seven months ago.

  If the offer still stood, he could sell his farm in Ohio and move to Bird-in-Hand with money in his pocket to start a cabinet-making business in town. The farm was about a mile up the road; therefore, Luke would be close to Sarah and the twins.

  Entering the living room, Luke tossed his hat onto the peg by the door and then shucked his coat and hung it next to the hat. He ambled toward the kitchen, but stopped dead in his tracks, thinking he’d heard a voice coming from upstairs. He listened, and again he heard the sound of a moan, or perhaps a sob.

  “Hello?” he called. He waited for an answer and then ascended the stairs, his boots clomping up the hardwood. The sound of the voice grew louder when he reached the hall. It was a woman crying.

  “Hello? Are you all right?” Luke called. “Who’s there?”

  He stepped into the master bedroom and sucked in a breath at the sight of Sarah slouched in a chair and crying while holding a stack of crumpled envelopes. A pile of men’s shirts littered the bed.

  He shook his head. Memories of Peter must have shattered her.

  “Sarah!” Crossing quickly, he crouched before her and took her hands in his. “Are you all right?”

  Meeting his gaze, she threw herself into his arms, sobbing on his shoulder. He leaned forward to balance his weight on the chair while he rubbed her back. The warm, sweet scent of her hair reminded him of vanilla mixed with hyacinth, and his pulse quickened. Holding her was almost too much for him; it felt like a sin. But she needed him. How could he push her away?

  “Sarah Rose,” he whispered. “It’s okay. The hurt will get better. I promise. I know he’s gone, but your heart will heal. You have to be strong for your zwillingbopplin. You can show them all of the love that Peter gave you.”

  Her body trembled against his, and his throat tightened. Despite the exhilaration of holding her close, he concentrated on consoling her.

  Suddenly, she pulled back, and fire flashed in her blue eyes. “He has a son. How could he not tell me?” Fresh tears pooled in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me, Luke? Why did you lie to me?” She smacked his arm, and he jumped back with a start. “You’re just as bad as he is!”

  Shaking his head with shock, he stood. “Cody,” he whispered.

  “Yes, Cody! I was going through Peter’s clothes, and I was going to offer you some of his shirts as a memory of him. I found a box hidden behind the clothes, and it contained these letters.” She shook the envelopes in front of his face for emphasis.

  Standing, she marched across the room, pacing. “I guess the Troyer family is full of liars! He was sending her money without telling me.”

  She threw the letters onto the bed. “I trusted you, Luke. I trusted you to tell me everything. I knew all along you were holding something back. But I thought you were my friend.” Her voice trembled. “I really trusted you.” The tears overtook her again, and she wilted against the wall, sobbing, her hand at her mouth.

  “Sarah Rose.” He gathered her into his arms, and she wrapped herself around him. “I’m so sorry. I thought it would hurt you if I told you, but finding out this way was much worse than I ever imagined.”

  “Oh, Luke,” she whispered, her voice quavering along with her body. “I don’t know who my husband was. I’m so confused. How could he keep this from me?”

  “I think he was afraid of losing you.” Stepping back, he placed his finger under her chin, lifting her eyes to meet his. He wiped a stray tear from her soft cheek and suppressed the urge to kiss the sadness away. “Why don’t I make you some tea and we’ll talk? I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  She nodded, her expression softening. “I’d like that.”

  Sarah sat across from Luke at the kitchen table and cradled the warm teacup in her hand. Biting her bottom lip, she tried to mentally sort through the letters she’d read, but she couldn’t grasp the idea that Peter had withheld from her the fact he had a son he was supporting in Ohio.

  Her eyes fell on the small wooden box full of letters and her mouth trembled. “I just don’t understand,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “Peter has a child?”

  Luke studied the wood grain on the table. Why was he avoiding her gaze? Was he filtering what to share?

  “Please, Luke. Tell me everything. I can handle it.” Reaching over, she touched his hand.

  “Peter met DeLana when he was seventeen,” Luke began. “We both were working in our uncle’s cabinet store, and her father owned the local wood supply shop. Peter made a supply run one day with the English driver, and DeLana was working in the office. From what he told me, it was love at first sight.”

  Sarah’s stomach tightened. As ridiculous as it seemed, the idea of Peter falling in love with another woman caused her stomach to sour. How silly was it to be jealous of a person from Peter’s past?

  She knew the answer—the woman meant so much to Peter that he’d never told Sarah about her. The thought made Sarah’s stomach churn with a mixture of jealousy, anger, and betrayal.

  “They courted in secret for a long time, probably close to a year.” Luke ran his fingers over the grain in the table, his mocha eyes lost in the past. “He would sneak out his window late at night and meet her in the barn behind her father’s house. Sometimes he would say he was at a singing but drive out to a field near her house instead.”

  Sarah sipped her tea, wondering if she was going to wake up from this nightmare of deceit. Peter meeting an English girl in a field or in a barn late at night…She gripped the mug.

  “Then one day—” Luke stopped and cleared his throat. “Then one day,” he began again, “his father found out and was furious.” He sighed, shaking his head. “They argued, and his father forbade Peter from seeing her. Peter stormed off, saying his father had no right to run his life.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair, a gesture she’d seen Peter do a thousand times when he was anxious. “From what my uncle told me, DeLana’s father found out and came to the shop one day, ranting about how the Amish had no right to mingle with the English girls. His father agreed, and they made a pact to keep the two of them apart. So he told Peter he would withhold all of the money Peter had made working in the shop for the past two years unless Peter joined the church and stopped seeing DeLana.”

  Sarah tilted her head in que
stion. “How could he do that?”

  “He had control of the money.” He slouched in the chair and folded his arms. “The accounts were in his name at the local bank. So Peter’s dad laid the law down, and Peter went crazy. And that’s when he revealed DeLana was pregnant.”

  Groaning, Sarah shook her head.

  “His dad muttered something about how disappointed his mamm would be, and Peter went to pieces. He left on foot and walked for miles.”

  Tears spilled from Sarah’s eyes. “He must’ve felt so alone.”

  Luke laid his hands on hers. “Before he ran off, I tried to talk to him, but he locked himself in his room. He told me he tried to see DeLana, but her parents kept her prisoner in her house. They took her car and drove her to and from school. She was in her senior year of high school. They had dreams of her going to college and marrying a rich Englisher, so they were determined to keep her away from any Amish man. They wanted her to give the boppli up for adoption.”

  Sarah swallowed, hoping to wet her dry throat. “What happened?”

  “Peter joined the church the following spring and he kept working at the shop. He and his father barely spoke. Then one day, months later, he ran into DeLana at the market. She was married to an Englisher and had kept the boppli, Peter’s son. The child’s name was Cody Alexander Maloney. Her husband adopted him without Peter’s consent.” Luke frowned. “When he looked into his child’s face, he crumbled. He came home that night and had it out with his father. It nearly came to blows. That was when he left and never came back.”

  Sarah shook her head with disbelief. “Why didn’t he tell me the truth?”

  Luke squeezed her hand. “He probably didn’t want to tell you because he was afraid you would think lowly of him.”

  Sarah stood, grabbed the two mugs, and walked to the sink. With tears streaming down her hot face, she washed the mugs and placed them on the counter. Questions surged through her. The story seemed so surreal.

  How could Peter keep this secret for so long? How could he walk away from his son in Ohio and act like it never happened? It just didn’t make sense.

  She obviously had never known her husband at all.

  Grief, anger, and betrayal drenched her soul. She felt as if he’d died all over again, the grief was so raw, so penetrating, so new.

  “Sarah Rose.” Luke’s voice was millimeters from her ear. “Talk to me. Don’t hold your feelings inside.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, she turned, finding his chest inches from her.

  “I feel so betrayed,” she whispered, her voice quavering again. Why couldn’t she stop crying? She wished she could rein in her emotions. “I don’t understand why he would keep something like this from me. I was his wife.”

  She pointed to her chest. “I shared everything with him—my heart, my soul, and my love. I lived our wedding vows, but he lied to me. He sent out our money every month to his son without telling me. How could he not tell me he had a son? I don’t understand. Why, Luke?” Her voice broke on the last words, and then she was sobbing again. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands.

  Strong arms pulled her to his hard chest, and his voice was comforting in her ear. “It’s okay to cry, Sarah,” he said gently. “But I’m sure he loved you. He was the luckiest man on earth to have you as his fraa.”

  “You’re so different from him,” she whispered with her head on his shoulder. She contemplated the story Luke told and wondered about a detail he’d missed. She stood and faced him. “What happened to Peter’s parents?”

  “They’re gone. Both have passed away.”

  “When?”

  “Mamm died when Peter was little.” He blew out a sigh and raked his hand through his hair. “Pop blamed himself after Peter left. He tried to find Peter, but couldn’t. The guilt was too much for him. He suffered a massive stroke and died about a year ago.”

  The story clicked together in Sarah’s mind. “Oh, my goodness.” She gasped, cupping her hand to her mouth.

  “What?” Luke’s eyes fill with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “You nursed him.” She pointed at him. “You nursed him because he was your father too.”

  Something resembling fear flashed in Luke’s eyes. “Wait. I can explain—” He reached for her, and she backed up.

  “Don’t touch me!” She held her hands out, blocking his. “You’re a liar, Luke Troyer! You’re not Peter’s cousin. You’re his brother!”

  “Sarah, give me a moment to explain. I never lied.” Luke stepped toward her. “I never said I was his cousin either. Everyone assumed it.”

  “But you never told me the truth.” She leaned back on the counter and shook her head. “It all makes sense now. How could I have been so stupid?”

  He frowned. “You’re not stupid.”

  “How could I have missed the obvious? It was right before my face just like Peter’s deception.” She gestured toward Luke. “You look like him. You sound like him. When I first saw you in the bakery that day, for a split second, I thought you were him.”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You did?”

  She ticked off a list of similarities in her mind. “You hold onto your suspenders and then smooth your hair when you’re trying to remember something, just like Peter. You run your hands through your hair when you’re nervous, just like Peter. And you separate your food on your plate so that it doesn’t touch, like Peter did.”

  She ignored his shocked expression and continued her rant. “And you know the intimate details of his life. A cousin wouldn’t know the details of every conversation that goes on in inside a home. You said you tried to talk to Peter, and he locked himself in his bedroom. A cousin wouldn’t know those things. My nieces and nephews don’t live with me.”

  “Sarah Rose,” he began, reaching for her. “I wanted to tell you, but every time I shared a story about his past, it seemed to hurt you. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you even more than Peter did.”

  “So you thought lying was the answer?” She gestured widely. “Don’t you realize you did exactly what Peter did to me? You omitted the truth, Luke. That’s the same as lying!”

  “But I wanted to tell you, Sarah Rose. I really did.” His eyes pleaded with her, tugging at her heartstrings.

  “You could’ve told me at any time,” she snapped. “We spent plenty of time talking and sharing.” She groaned, contemplating how much she’d shared with him. “I feel like such a fool for trusting you, Luke.”

  “No, no.” He placed his hands on her arms. “Don’t feel like a fool. You know me. You know the real me.” Taking her hand, he held it to his chest. “You know my heart.”

  She pulled her hand back to her side. “Don’t touch me! I don’t know you at all. You’re a liar just like your brother!”

  Stomping over to the table, she grabbed the box of letters and held it up. “See these letters? That’s what Peter did to me for years. He never told me he had another child, a son, in Ohio. That’s the same as not telling me who you really are. You’re my brother-in-law, the uncle of my zwillingbopplin. No wonder you gave me a surprised look in the hospital when I called you onkel. You were afraid you were caught.”

  Luke gave her a pained expression. “That’s not true, Sarah Rose. I was afraid of hurting you. Timothy warned me not to tell you who I was or share more about Peter’s past for fear it would break your spirit even more.”

  Her eyes widened. “Timothy knew too? My own brother kept the truth from me?”

  “He didn’t know about DeLana, but he knew about me.”

  Sarah sniffed, fighting tears at the realization she’d been betrayed by Peter, Luke, and Timothy. “You and Timothy have managed to break my heart once again.”

  She started for the door. Then she stopped short of it and faced him. “Tell me one thing, Luke, and I want to know the truth.”

  He nodded. “Anything. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, and I promise to tell the whole truth this time, not leaving o
ne detail out.”

  “How many siblings did Peter have?” She ignored the quaver in her voice and held her head high, giving the pretense that nothing more would hurt her.

  “Only one—me.” He pointed to his chest.

  “Danki.” She turned her back to him and started for the door.

  “Sarah Rose, please wait.”

  Ignoring his pleas, she slipped on her cloak and stalked out the front door, nearly walking into Mamm, who was coming toward the door.

  Coconut Chews

  1/2 cup butter

  2 cups brown sugar

  Melt butter in saucepan, then stir in sugar until dissolved. Cool.

  Slightly beat in:

  2 eggs

  1 tsp. vanilla

  1 cup flour

  1-1/2 tsp. baking powder

  1/2 tsp. salt

  1-1/2 cups coconut

  Pour batter into a greased 9x13 pan lined with wax paper. Cut in squares. Bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

  16

  Sarah Rose?” Mamm’s eyes filled with worry. “I was concerned when I got home from the market and the girls told me you’d been here for a couple of hours. Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not. Follow me home.” Sarah marched down the stairs.

  “Sarah Rose!” Luke rushed out onto the porch. “Wait!”

  Ignoring him and the pain surging through her soul, Sarah continued on, her head held high. The betrayal would not steal her confidence. She had to think of the twins and be strong for them.

  “What’s going on?” Mamm asked.

  “He’s a liar, just like his brother,” Sarah snapped through gritted teeth.

  “What?” Mamm yanked Sarah to a stop. “Like his brother?”

  “Ya, like his brother—Peter.” She sucked in a breath, willing her body to stop quaking.

  “His brother?” Mamm gasped, her hand at her mouth. “Oh, my word. I had no idea. Why didn’t he tell us?”

  “Because he didn’t want to hurt me. Instead he lied and hurt me even more.”