by Mary Davis
“Who among you will come forward to join?”
Dori’s insides leaped up, but she forced her body to remain seated. She wanted to stand but didn’t feel worthy. She hadn’t understood what it meant to be Amish or to join church, but now she did. She wished she could go back and retake the classes to view everything her grossvater had said in light of her revelation that Gott should be the center of everything. Everything she did, thought or became. He was the reason for life.
For the first time that morning, Dori focused on Grossvater. He stared at her with a sad expression. He’d hoped she would join and wore his disappointment clearly on his face. She would wait until next year, when she could take the joining classes again to really understand and learn about Gott.
Instead, she obeyed the still-quiet voice in her heart and rose to her feet. This was why she’d twisted her hair up and put it under a kapp. The reason she’d removed all of her earrings. She’d obeyed that little voice inside her that had told her to do those things. It hadn’t been her rebellious side as she had thought, telling her to fool everyone into thinking she’d decided to stay when she hadn’t. It had been Gott preparing her, making her ready.
Mutter sucked in a soft breath.
Giving a nod, Dori walked to the front and knelt with the others.
Grossvater had never worn such a huge smile.
She sought out Eli. When she found him, his scowl told her all she needed to know. He didn’t approve of her being up there. He didn’t think she was gut enough. He didn’t think she was Amish enough.
Gott didn’t ask her to be gut enough or Amish enough. He wanted her to be obedient to Him. He wanted her to join church, so she would do it for Him.
She prayed Eli would come around.
When the service ended, Dori stood and turned around, anxious to talk to Eli. But he was gone.
Mutter bounced a fussy Tabitha in her arms. “I think she’s hungry.”
Dori took her daughter and held her close. “I’ll find a room to feed her in.” Eli would have to wait.
While Dori fed her little one, Mutter brought in a plate of food.
Once Tabitha had a full tummy and a clean diaper, Dori headed outside. She searched the crowd for Eli but couldn’t spot him, so she crossed to her vater and oldest brother. “Have you seen Eli? I can’t spot him.”
“I haven’t seen him.” Her vater gave her a big smile. “But while I have you here, I wanted to tell you how happy you’ve made me today. When you left, you broke meine heart, but today you have made everything right.”
Matthew grunted.
Vater faced him. “Do you have something to say, sohn?”
With a scowl, he shook his head.
“Your sister was lost and now is found. We must rejoice in her return.”
Her brother straightened and poked his finger in her direction. “She doesn’t belong here and should leave.” He stormed off.
“Matthew, come back here and apologize to your sister.”
He took off in a run.
Her leaving and behavior had hurt him more than Dori could have imagined. She’d hurt many people when she left. Hadn’t a clue so many people had cared.
Vater swung his gaze to her. “He will come around. Give him time.”
She wasn’t as sure. “I understand. I made bad choices. There will be consequences. Even so, I wouldn’t want to be anyplace else.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I need to speak to Eli. I’m going to go find him.” As she walked off, she hoped he wasn’t as hurt as her brother, but it didn’t matter. She would earn back his trust if it took the rest of her life.
* * *
After church, Eli had escaped the crowd and now paced in the limited space of his forge. He grasped a foot-long iron rod. He couldn’t work on a Sunday, and that frustrated him, but at least holding the cold metal helped calm him.
His heart had soared when Rainbow— Dori— She had gone up front to join. But why if she planned to leave? Had she done so for him, to prove he could trust her?
That wasn’t necessary. He’d decided last night that it would hurt too much if she left again, and he would try his best to talk her into staying. But now that she’d joined, he feared it was for the wrong reasons. That would be worse than her leaving. He would never be certain she would stay. Each morning when he woke, he would wonder if she’d be gone.
He’d been selfish. Gott should be the reason she joined. Not him.
How could he be certain of her motives? If he asked her, that would be the same as accusing her of tainted motives. If he didn’t, he would never know.
“Eli?”
He jumped at the sound of her voice and spun around. “Rain— Dor— Um.” He frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“We came to see what you were up to. You aren’t working on a Sunday, are you?”
She hadn’t understood his question.
“Ne. I’m not working.” He tapped the hunk of metal on his anvil. “I didn’t mean what are you doing in meine forge. What are you doing here in the community? Here at church? Why bother coming?” He tossed the rod into the pile of scraps.
The clattering it made startled Tabitha, and she let out a whimper, then a cry.
He hurried over. “I’m sorry, liebling. I didn’t think. Shh, little one. It’s all right.” He put his large calloused hand on her head.
Tabitha calmed right down and turned toward his voice.
Rainbow Girl gazed up at him. “You have a way with her.”
He kept his gaze focused on the babe. “I didn’t do anything special.”
“You didn’t have to. She likes you being around.” She shifted Tabitha in her arms. “You’re missing out on the food. Are you coming back to the gathering?”
He removed his hand from the baby’s head and shook his own. “I’m not...” He couldn’t say he wasn’t hungry, because that would be a lie. “I’ll be out in a little bit.” He stepped away.
Tabitha’s head cocked in his direction.
“She always tries to find you when she hears you. Always responds to your voice. Somehow she’s known from the start that you are a man to be trusted.”
“Really?” He liked the idea and hoped her mutter trusted him, as well. He came forward again and held out his arms. “May I hold her?”
Rainbow Girl tilted her head. “You’re asking?”
“Of course.”
She smiled at him, and his insides went fuzzy. “Do you realize this is the first time you’ve asked to hold her?”
“I’ve held her many times.” The more he spoke, the more Tabitha craned her head toward him.
“Each one of those times, I’ve either asked you, handed her to you or you’ve simply taken her out of meine arms.”
“I have? I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Tabitha really likes you, and you are very comfortable holding her. Not all men are.” She stepped closer and transferred the precious, little bundle into his arms.
Tabitha gazed up at him and one corner of her mouth pulled up into a smile, and a dimple showed on her right cheek. “She looks like you.”
“Shall we go out and eat?”
He handed Tabitha back. “I have stuff to do in here.” He spread his hands to indicate his workshop and forge.
“On Sunday?”
“Ne.” He couldn’t go on like this, not knowing her motive. Gut or bad, he needed to ask. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “I was confused when you went up front and joined church. If you plan to leave, why join church? Why make everyone believe you’re going to stay? Why get everyone’s hopes up?” Why get his hopes up?
“I joined because I wanted to. I didn’t know I wanted to until today. I am going to stay. I didn’t want to when I came. Not from the beginning. I alway
s planned to leave.”
“So what are you saying? Are you keeping your options open?”
“Ne. I realized that this is where I belong. This, our community, is where I want to be. Here, standing in your forge with you, is where I want to be.”
“So you’re not going to leave?”
When she shook her head, his shoulders relaxed.
“I will be honest with you. Last night, I was. If I’d had someplace to go to, I would have. Since I didn’t, I came to church one last time.”
“So what made you decide to join if you were practically out the door?”
“I went back and forth on that decision. I realized Gott is the reason for everything. I kept thinking meine decision was between Craig or you. That whichever one of you wanted me, that’s where I would be happy, but I realized it wasn’t a choice between the two of you. Not even a choice between worlds, English or Amish, with or without either of you. It was to choose Gott or not. Gott is the reason for everything. I’m staying.”
His hope soared. She’d chosen for the right reason.
“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”
“I know I’ve hurt you, but I want to prove to you that you can trust me. No matter how long that takes.”
He didn’t need any time. He trusted Gott, and that was what mattered. “From the start, I felt as though Gott brought you back for me. I didn’t know if I could handle you leaving again. It was hard enough the first time when...”
“When what?”
He gazed straight into her eyes. “When I didn’t care as much for you. But now...”
She took a step closer and tilted her head to look up at him. “But now what?”
“But now I care for you both. I want to be Tabitha’s vater. Will you allow that?”
She gifted him with a smile. “What are you asking?”
Hadn’t he been clear? “I love her as meine own. I will take gut care of her. What do you say?”
“And what about me?”
“You? You’re her mutter.”
Her smile didn’t waver, as though she knew something he didn’t. “But you want me to give meine daughter to you?”
“Ne— Ja— Ne.” Now he understood. He hadn’t asked her to be his wife, only asked if he could have her daughter. “Let me start over. Rain— Dor— I don’t know what to call you anymore. You don’t like Dorcas. You’re no longer Rainbow Girl. Are you going to expect everyone to call you by your Englisher name, Dori?”
“Dori was meine Englisher name, but it doesn’t suit me now that I’m Amish.”
He liked the sound of that. She was Amish. “You could go by Dorcas again.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Dorcas doesn’t suit me either. I need something different for this new phase of meine life.”
He smiled. “How about Dee Dee? Dorcas, Dori, Dee Dee.”
“I like that.”
He put one hand on her shoulder and the other on Tabitha’s head. “I don’t want to lose either one of you. Dee Dee Bontrager, would you and your daughter become meine family—meine wife and daughter?”
“Ja. I— We would love to.”
He cupped her face in his hands, leaned over his Rainbow Baby in her arms and kissed her.
For all her protests to the contrary, she—Dee Dee Bontrager, soon to be Hochstetler—had become Amish after all.
Epilogue
Early August,
Five Years Later
Dee Dee Hochstetler stood in her kitchen with her sister, Ruth Burkholder. She set empty glasses on a wooden serving tray along with the heaping plate of oatmeal cookies. Having been hunched over the table, Dee Dee jerked straight up and sucked in a breath. She placed a hand on her protruding belly. “Hey in there, settle down.”
Ruth rushed to her side. “You aren’t going into labor, are you?”
Dee Dee shook her head. “Ne. This one’s just overactive. Doesn’t give me a moment’s peace.”
“Gut. Because it’s meine turn.” Ruth picked up the pitchers of lemonade and iced tea. “You already have three little ones. I want to have meine baby before you have another one.”
Like herself, Ruth was very pregnant.
Dee Dee lifted the tray. “You’re welcome to have yours first. I want a chance to meet meine niece or nephew before this active one keeps me too busy.” She exited out her kitchen door and held the screen open with her elbow for Ruth.
Eli hurried over in spite of having five-year-old Tabitha clinging to his back, three-and-a-half-year-old Sarah seated on one foot, holding on to his leg, and nearly two-year-old Evie sitting on the other. “Let me take that.” He snatched the tray from her, and the glasses clinked.
“You’re a bit occupied.” Dee Dee loved seeing Eli playing with their daughters.
He glanced over his shoulder at one giggly girl, then at the two others on his feet. “Ne. They’re no problem.”
Dee Dee caressed her stomach. She hoped this one was a son for Eli. He never complained about having all girls so far, but she knew he longed for a son. Most men did. She’d worried when Sarah was born that he might favor his own daughter over Tabitha, but he showed no hint of that. Craig had eagerly signed away his parental rights, and Eli had officially adopted her.
With the girls still on each of his feet, Eli lumbered along toward the quilt stretched over a frame in the yard with the other three women around it, two as pregnant as Dee Dee and her sister.
Daniel Burkholder came over and relieved his wife of the beverage pitchers.
Dee Dee loved her life with Eli on their little farm. It had no crop fields, just a livestock pasture and a kitchen garden. Eli’s ironwork business was thriving better than they’d ever dreamed of. Dee Dee took care of the business end of things so Eli could freely work in his blacksmith shop, creating beautiful and useful things.
Dr. Kathleen’s and Deborah’s husbands played in the yard with their three children.
Eli and Daniel made sure each of the four pregnant women as well as the bride-to-be had something to drink and a cookie before feeding the children and themselves.
Lowering her very pregnant body onto the chair in the circle, Dee Dee let out a huge sigh.
“You all right?” Dr. Kathleen asked.
“I’m fine. A part of me can’t wait for this baby to be born so I can breathe and move around again.”
“And the other part?” Deborah Burkholder asked.
“Wants it to stay in there forever. Once I have this little one in meine arms, I’m going to be too busy to do anything else, including sleep.”
Deborah put her hand on her large belly. “I can’t wait for mine to be born. I hope it’s a girl this time.”
It was going to be a race to see which of four out of five women around the quilt would give birth first. Dee Dee was pregnant with her fourth child, Dr. Kathleen Lambright with her third, Deborah Burkholder with number two and Dee Dee’s sister, Ruth, pregnant with number one. All due imminently. It was anyone’s guess who would go into labor first. Everyone secretly hoped Dr. Kathleen would be the last so she could deliver all their babies before she was unavailable.
Dee Dee gazed at the four ladies around the circle and felt a kindred spirit with them. Each had stepped sideways out of the traditional Amish mold. Dee Dee’s sister, Ruth, had started an Amish blog to give the outside world an accurate view of the Amish people. Deborah Burkholder had been a model and earned a higher education degree in nutrition and homeopathic remedies. Kathleen Lambright had become a doctor, and her sister, Jessica, had earned her degree in business. Together, Jessica and Dee Dee helped other Amish make their businesses more effective. No more need to go outside their community for computer help.
Today, it was Jessica’s quilt that had brought this group of rogue Amish women to Dee Dee’s home. They were stitching the layers of her star quilt t
ogether for her upcoming wedding this fall.
Ruth gasped and dropped her lemonade in the grass.
Dee Dee reached for the toppled glass. “Don’t worry. It didn’t break.” She patted her sister’s arm.
Ruth’s face had lost all its color.
“What’s wrong?”
“How do I know if meine water broke?”
“Trust me, you’ll know.”
“Then I think it just did.”
Dee Dee shifted her gaze across the circle. “Dr. Kathleen, it’s time.”
The doctor stood. “Let’s get you inside the house.”
“Not me. Ruth. Her water broke.”
“Daniel!” the doctor called.
He rushed over.
“Help your wife into the house. Your child is on the way.”
Dee Dee was relieved to turn her sister over to others. She put a hand on her aching back.
Eli with the three girls came up to her. “Are you all right? You’re not in labor, are you?”
“I’m fine.” But if the pain lanced across her back and wrapping around to her stomach was any indication, she was. Right now, she needed to focus on her sister.
By the end of the day, four baby boys had been born.
Dee Dee had managed to wait until after Ruth gave birth to have hers. The work and excitement had put Dr. Kathleen into labor with Deborah close on her heels. An influx of other women from the community left none of them without plenty of help. Each new mutter had been taken to her own house. Dee Dee’s home sat quiet at one in the morning. She would cherish this rare moment of silence. She had nestled herself in the living room recliner to feed baby Abel, who now slept in her arms.