Fearless Hope: A Novel

by Serena B. Miller

“Then, if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes,” Logan said, “I’ll go make a pizza run. Shall I get enough for all of us, Hope?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  It did sound like a good idea. She was tired. Running two households and raising two children while pregnant was not easy. Not having to cook for herself, Adam, and Carrie tonight sounded heavenly.

  • • •

  Logan thought for sure that he’d gotten enough pizza to feed the five of them twice over, but watching Simon pack it away made him wish he’d ordered more. He didn’t know if the boy was actually that hungry, or if he just thought he might never get to eat pizza again in his lifetime.

  Adam sat on his mother’s lap and ate one whole piece. Carrie ate one with dainty small bites. Hope managed three pieces. She seemed so grateful to get to sit down and not have to cook that he decided he needed to pick up take-out food more often for her and her little family . . . and him. He enjoyed having company while eating.

  “You can spend the night, if you want,” he told Simon. “I’ve got plenty of room.”

  The look of gratitude on the boy’s face was worth the small inconvenience it might be.

  “I’ll work for you,” Simon said. “I’m a gut worker.”

  Logan racked his brain trying to think up something for the boy to do. It was hard enough coming up with enough work to keep Hope busy a few hours each week.

  “What are you good at?” he asked.

  “Livestock,” Simon said. “And I could put in some crops for you if I had a team.” The boy grinned self-deprecatingly. “As long as one of the horses don’t get spooked, I do pretty good.”

  Livestock. Plowing. Crops. Subjects about which he knew nothing.

  “It would be nice to work away from home,” Simon continued. “Daed wouldn’t get so mad if I could work here for you.”

  “You might as well ask me to launch a rocket into space,” Logan said. “I know nothing about such things.”

  “I know what you need.” Hope’s voice was eager. “I know exactly how this farm should be run. I could easily find a couple of good plow horses and the equipment to go with them. Simon does know how to do this. He’s worked putting in crops and caring for livestock since he could walk . . . and so have I.”

  With two sets of hopeful eyes looking at him, Logan felt a little railroaded. “Can I talk to you out on the porch, Hope?”

  While Simon happily polished off the last piece of pizza and chatted in German with Carrie and Adam, Hope followed him out to the front porch.

  “I can’t hire that boy to farm this place,” Logan said. “I have no idea how to oversee him. I don’t know a plow horse from a racehorse.”

  “I disagree,” Hope said. “Simon is a terribly hard worker, and we both know what we’re doing, even if you do not. Give us land, and we know how to work it. If the crops do well, he’ll make his own wages come harvest. You have to do nothing except pay for two horses and some equipment and seed. We can do the rest. Simon will have a job that will keep him away from his father. Let him live here with you. It will keep him safer than telling the police like you wanted. Besides”—she waved a hand out toward the field—“this land will soon turn to scrub if you don’t do something with it.”

  Hope’s lovely face, framed by her white Kapp, was so earnest as she argued the subject. He was struck once again with how her eyes were an unusually deep shade of gold-flecked brown. It was becoming more and more difficult to ignore her beauty. A man could lose himself gazing into Hope’s eyes. Her reasoning made complete sense, but he knew that, sadly, if he kept his word to Marla to come back within the time they’d agreed upon, he would not be staying here long enough to even see the harvest.

  When had the thought of leaving created a permanent ache in his heart?

  “I’ll think about it.” He gave himself a mental shake and forced himself to look away. “That’s all I can agree to right now . . . I’ll think about it.”

  chapter NINETEEN

  Logan was having his morning coffee on the porch when an Amish man drove in, pulled his horse around, and stopped in front of the house. He was seated on the hard, wooden seat of what looked to be a homemade farm wagon. There was no red safety triangle on the back, which Logan knew probably meant the man was Swartzentruber.

  “I have come for my son.”

  So this was Simon’s father. He was a large man with big, raw-looking hands. It made Logan’s blood boil to think of what those hands had done to Simon.

  If there was one thing Logan had at ready command, it was words. There were hundreds of words he wanted to fling at the man. His fingers itched to call the police. Show them the bruises on the boy’s face and body. Have the man thrown in jail for domestic abuse.

  What he wanted most, what he craved, was to climb up onto that wagon and slam his own fist straight into the man’s face.

  Instead, he heard Hope’s voice in his head, cautioning him, reminding him that he was dealing with a different culture with different rules and different outcomes.

  Let my father and the other men deal with him.

  He had looked in on Simon earlier. The boy was curled into a ball in bed, sleeping off the trauma of the beating. With any luck, he would sleep through his father’s visit.

  “How did you know he was here?”

  “I did not,” the man said. “But now I do. I think . . . he runs to Englisch man’s house who gave him doughnuts. Where is my son? He has work at home.”

  Two things struck Logan. One was that English sounded more foreign on this man’s lips than in the mouths of Old Order Amish people he’d met. He spoke slowly, sounding as though he were having to stop to translate every word before he spoke. Hope had told him once that the Swartzentruber stayed much more isolated than the other Amish sects.

  The other thing that struck him was astonishment that, as badly beaten as Simon was last night, his father still expected him to work this morning.

  There was only one way he could think of to keep Simon safe.

  “I have work for him, too,” Logan said. “I want to hire him to . . . to help around the farm.”

  “This?” The man looked around him in contempt. “This is not a farm.”

  “Exactly.” Logan still wanted to smash the man’s face in, but for Simon’s sake, he kept his voice even and reasonable. “I’ll pay him a small wage, and give him room and board. You and your wife will have one less mouth to feed.”

  Simon’s father contemplated the offer. “Let me talk to my son.”

  “Sorry. He’s not well enough to get out of bed this morning.” The anger and contempt he felt for the man crept into his voice in spite of his best efforts. “I was going to take him to the hospital yesterday, but he said his father would not approve. I also considered calling the police, but my Amish housekeeper talked me out of it.”

  The man’s eyes did not quite meet Logan’s. “He must bring his pay home each week.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  After the man had left, Logan went back inside and found Simon trying to scramble eggs, in spite of the fact that now both eyes were nearly swollen shut.

  “You don’t have to do that, Simon,” Logan said.

  “I must earn my pay.”

  “Yes, you do.” Logan gently took the spatula out of the boy’s hand. “But not today. Not now. Sit down. I’ll fix your breakfast.”

  “Thank you.” Simon collapsed onto a kitchen chair, put his head down on his folded arms, and sobbed.

  • • •

  “Would it bother you if I had electricity brought into the house, Hope?” Logan approached the subject carefully after he’d filled her in on what had transpired between him and Simon’s father.

  Hope had arrived early with both Adam and Carrie and had immediately attacked the few dishes he and Simon had used for breakfast.

  “It is your house.” She placed a dish in the drainer.

  “I mean, would it . . . bother you?”

  “Because
I’m Amish?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t see why it should. We do not expect Englisch people to live as we do.”

  “So you wouldn’t feel offended if you had to use, say, an electric washer and dryer?”

  Hope shrugged. “It is not a matter of using electric devices. Many of us do that in our jobs. Some of our people are also beginning to use solar power on our farms. Many of us own gasoline-driven generators.”

  “You are aware that this doesn’t fit into most people’s views of Amish life, right?”

  “Then they do not understand. We are not ignorant of technology. It is our hooking into the electric grid that our bishops forbid. It is one of the many ways we try to be separate from the world.”

  “And you agree with their decision?”

  Hope paused to give this some thought, her soapy hands dripping into the sink. “I feel sorry for our bishops for all the hard decisions they are constantly being called on to make. A cell phone, for instance, can be a life-saving tool for an emergency or nothing more than a plaything tempting our young people to access things they should not.”

  The struggles of Amish church bishops were not his problem. His immediate need was to make a decision about his own house. He had held off having electricity put in for several reasons. He liked the glow of kerosene lamps and the quiet and peace of a house that didn’t constantly hum. This was Hope’s childhood home and built by her ancestors. Later, when Hope came, he held off because he didn’t want to create a situation that would make her feel she was compromising her faith.

  The problem was, as Hope continued to work for him, he kept thinking of how much easier it would be for her if she didn’t have to wrestle with a wringer washer and heavy, wet clothes in laundry baskets, and didn’t have to wash every dish by hand. Although he had gotten weaned away from needing the noise of television to work by, he did miss having classical music playing. He also missed having a really good light to read by. Besides that, it was getting old having to recharge his laptop and cell phone from his car battery. One thing was for sure, Marla would certainly love it if he brought the house into the twenty-first century.

  “I wonder who to get to wire the place,” he mused.

  “Oh, that is no problem,” Hope said. “You should call my cousin. He will bring in his crew and have it done in a very short time.”

  “You have a cousin who is Englisch?”

  “No. He is Amish.”

  “He is Amish but he knows how to rewire a house for electricity?”

  “Oh, yes.” Hope was matter-of-fact. “Do not worry, he does not have electricity in his house.”

  “Give me his number and I’ll give him a call.” He walked away, amazed at the inconsistencies among the Amish people.

  • • •

  Over the next few days, his house experienced quite a few changes as electricity was brought in. Hope’s cousin Silas was indeed very good. He seemed to understand exactly what the old house needed. Simon was entranced with the changes and followed the Amish electrician around, soaking up everything. As the days passed, the bruises on the teenager’s face and body began to heal.

  Once the work was complete, and the outlets installed, Logan enjoyed purchasing and bringing in new, labor-saving devices and explaining to Hope how each one worked. She was quick to learn and it took only one or two demonstrations for her to have it down.

  “With all these things, you will no longer need a housekeeper,” she said, after he’d introduced her to the joys of the dishwasher and an electric iron. “You will be able to do everything for yourself so easily.”

  “Of course I’ll need a housekeeper,” he quickly reassured her. “I just thought a few new things might make your work a little easier.”

  “Do I have to learn how to use a computer?” she asked.

  “Of course not,” he said. “That’s one thing I can handle all on my own.”

  To his surprise, she seemed disappointed.

  “That is too bad,” Hope said. “I think I would have enjoyed learning how to use the computer.”

  “I’ll be happy to teach you . . .”

  “How is your wife?” Hope abruptly changed the subject. “Will she move here now that you have electricity?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “I ran into Verla Grayson again yesterday. I told her that the three children and the pregnancy were a joke Marla had played on her.”

  “How did Verla take it?”

  “She was surprised, but relieved. She said she had been worried about those children being raised without a father.”

  “I’m sorry we worried her.”

  “That’s okay, she’s not worried anymore.”

  Hope appeared to lose interest in the conversation as she inspected the new coffeemaker.

  He was wrong. Hope had not lost interest in the conversation at all.

  “So, will Marla be moving in now that you have electricity? Perhaps if she does, you could give her some real children instead of your wife having to make up joke-children.”

  She smiled to let him know she was teasing him, but he had been around her enough to know she wasn’t really joking. If there was one thing she was passionate about, it was children.

  It was one thing for Marla to tease him in front of a stranger. It was entirely another thing to live a lie to a woman whom he saw almost on a daily basis. “Seriously”—Hope was unpacking small containers of coffee from the box the coffeemaker had come in—“do you plan to have children anytime soon? You are very good with them.”

  Really? It surprised him that Hope felt that way. He knew the Amish had high standards for fatherhood.

  “No. Marla and I won’t be having any children.”

  Hope blinked. “What did you say?”

  “Marla doesn’t want children.”

  “Your wife does not want children?” Hope was genuinely astonished.

  He decided it was time to come clean with Hope about his and Marla’s relationship, even if it would offend her religious sensibilities. The better he got to know Hope, the more he felt it was wrong to keep this from her. He was sick of pretending.

  “Marla’s not exactly my wife.”

  “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

  “We are planning on getting married in a few months. Marla is making the wedding arrangements . . . and we’ve shared an apartment for a while.”

  “You two have been living together?” Hope’s voice rose in shock. “Without being married?”

  “Yes.”

  “But that is a sin!”

  “Well, we aren’t very religious,” he explained.

  “I do not understand. You do not want children together. You do not have a problem with living in sin together. You are not religious.” Hope crossed her arms over her chest. “Why bother to get married at all?”

  He’d been wondering that himself recently, only for different reasons. The longer he spent in Holmes County around Hope, the less attractive he found the idea of marrying Marla.

  “I will be more careful to keep the children out of your way from now on!” Hope said. “I did not realize you did not like them.”

  “I never said that I don’t like children, I said that Marla doesn’t want any.”

  “Then you do want children?” Hope shook her head as though to clear it.

  “Yes, I do, but it isn’t fair to ask her to bear children that she doesn’t want.”

  “Oh—it is a very good idea for her not to have children she does not want,” Hope said. “A very good idea indeed! Children should be wanted and loved.”

  “You wouldn’t understand, Hope. Marla and her friends . . . they are different from you.”

  “You are right. I do not understand. When we can’t have children, we adopt. There are many children who need good homes. Or we take in a relative’s child if that child needs a good home. To us, children are our hope for the future and a gift from God.”

  He knew these were not just words to h
er.

  “You’re a good mom, Hope,” he said. “Your kids are lucky to have you. I don’t think Marla would make a very good mother.”

  The look Hope gave him was an interesting mix of pity and scorn.

  “A visiting bishop spoke with Titus and me before we were married,” Hope said.

  “And what did this visiting bishop have to say?”

  “The bishop said, ‘Do you know the best time to get a divorce?’ Titus and I were surprised by his question. We said that we didn’t. The bishop told us that the best time to get a divorce was before we got married. He warned us to be very careful in choosing our spouse.”

  “Are you suggesting I should not marry Marla?”

  “You do not act like a man who is happy about the woman he is supposed to love.”

  That stung. Of course he was happy. “You don’t like her.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I do or not. All I know is, if I were married to a man like you . . . I would never value my job over my husband.” Hope gasped and put her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean . . .” A miserable look swept over her face. “Really, I didn’t mean anything by that. I—I just miss my husband very much.”

  “Of course you didn’t mean . . .” His mind was whirling. What exactly had she meant? Was it merely an unfortunate slip of the tongue, or had she begun to care for him?

  The possible ramifications that someone like Hope was possibly falling for him were mind-boggling.

  “Marla’s okay.” He backed away from the emotional precipice they were teetering on. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Of course you will.” Hope scrambled to hide her embarrassment. “And if you are not . . . well, that is none of my business. I need to go finish my chores now.”

  As she walked away, he wondered if this honesty thing was all it was cracked up to be. He’d told her the truth, and he didn’t feel a bit better for having done so. All he’d managed to do was upset both of them, find out her negative feelings about Marla, and maybe even caused the girl to trip up and accidentally confess that she had feelings for him. He had no idea what to think about that. The ramifications for both of them if he ever allowed himself to return those feelings were staggering.