The idea just wouldn’t let her go.
At that very moment, Ivan drove by and waved. She waved back, as he went by with one elbow hanging rakishly out of the open window. He still wore a summer straw hat like he had when he was Amish, and he had never given up the suspenders. He was a godly man in every way, and she simply could not see where having exchanged horse and buggy for a truck had made that big a difference in his service to God.
Ivan had been like a surrogate parent to her most of her life. His sons were like brothers to her and his daughters like sisters. She knew the family’s integrity and admired their faith.
They attended worship much more frequently than her Old Order Amish church. Ivan and his family even attended what they called “Bible study” every Wednesday night.
Her father and mother had disapproved of Ivan and Mary’s choice to leave the Old Order church, but they had more compassion than most about the reasons behind that decision. Henry and Rose, themselves, had chosen to leave the more conservative Swartzentruber church and had endured being shunned by both their church and their families for a while because of that change.
Of the two men who had helped raise her, it was her poor father who had gotten caught up in the sin of gambling—in spite of appearing to obey the Ordnung.
“Do you mind if I don’t take supper with you tonight?” Simon asked, as they finished up the day’s work.
“Not at all.” Hope was a little surprised. It wasn’t as though Simon had an active social schedule or didn’t have an appetite. “Where are you going?”
“Agatha invited me to take supper with her folks.” Simon blushed scarlet.
So, those two were still in contact. That was interesting.
“You go ahead,” Hope said. “Have a nice time and tell Agatha I said hi.”
If Agatha was in her own home when Simon came to call, then she was her family’s problem and not Hope’s. Agatha was a sweet girl and a hard worker—even if she was a poor cook. Simon could do a lot worse.
chapter TWENTY-FIVE
“Is there anything you want from New York?” Logan asked.
“Why?” She was on her knees planting cabbage.
“Because I’m planning to drive there tomorrow morning.”
It bothered her when he went to New York. It always hurt to think of what might be going on between him and Marla when he was there.
“There’s nothing I need, thanks. I hope you have a nice time.”
“I’m not going there to have a nice time,” he said. “I need to sign some papers. My Realtor called yesterday and said he has a solid buyer for my apartment.”
Except for discussing expenses, they had seldom been alone together since the day he’d come to her home with his astonishing offer. She had no idea he had put his apartment up for sale.
“Have you and Marla purchased another apartment?”
“No.”
“Then why are you selling?” She gently patted the earth around the last tiny seedling. She loved the act of planting.
“Because I’m going to live here full-time.”
She glanced up at him. “I don’t understand.”
He helped her to her feet as she struggled to stand. The baby was due in about three more weeks. It was getting harder and harder to get up unassisted.
“Marla and I broke up the last time I went back.”
She gasped. “You’re serious?”
“I’m serious.”
“What on earth happened?”
“Among other things,” he said, “she has a new boyfriend.”
“How do you know?” She brushed the loose dirt off her hands.
“Well, for one thing, a man was there at my apartment wearing my bathrobe last time I showed up.”
She cared nothing for Marla, but her heart broke for him. “That must have been very hard for you.”
“To tell you the truth, Hope, when I had time to think it over, I realized that I was relieved.”
“Are you sure?” She studied his face. “I thought you loved her.”
“I do love her . . . in a way. She was a good friend to my wife and a good friend to me when I needed her. I guess we finally figured out that we didn’t love each other enough to build a life together.”
“You said nothing to me about it all this time?”
“I’ve been on deadline, Hope, working practically day and night. You’ve been on deadline, too, trying to get things in place here before the baby arrives. Plus, I needed time to process everything that had happened before I told you.”
“So, you’ve processed it all now?”
“To an extent. Even better, I’ve finished the book.”
“What happens now?”
“I leave it alone for a few days and then go back and edit it.”
“I didn’t mean the book. I meant about Marla.”
“Like I said . . . I’m going over tomorrow to see if she’s moved all her things out. Then I’ll get rid of whatever else is left and sign the papers. I’ll be home soon. This time to stay.”
• • •
“Daughter,” Bishop Schrock said. “People are talking.”
Hope paused in the act of tacking chicken wire onto the frame Simon had built. “And what are people saying?”
She placed her hand on the small of her back and stretched, relieving the deep ache that had settled there this week. The baby was growing heavier every day.
“At least three of our women at church have come to me saying that you are giving the impression to the world that you are living with this Logan Parker.”
“But I’m not,” Hope said. “I rarely see him. I’m working outside most of the time.”
The bishop removed his straw summer hat and fingered the brim, obviously uncomfortable with the conversation. “There are some who say that it is unseemly for a pregnant woman wearing Plain clothes to be seen working in an Englisch man’s fields like a hired hand.”
“Unseemly? Doing honest work?” Hope felt her dander rise. “I’ve seen pregnant Amish women work like mules in their husband’s fields and no one took offense.”
The bishop ignored the comment. “I have found you appropriate part-time employment at Mrs. Yoder’s restaurant. You can greet people and seat them. It is an easy job. Thelma and I will care for the children while you are there.”
Hope felt a sense of desperation settle over her. “I am bringing this farm to life,” she pleaded. “Logan has invested much money in seed, livestock, and equipment. Simon now has a job helping me that puts money in his father’s pocket to use for the rest of the family. I cannot walk away from all I’ve begun here.”
“From the beginning, I was not pleased with you working here,” the bishop said, “but you assured me that it would only be for two hours a day. Now the job has grown until you are working here full-time. People driving by see your buggy here many hours a day. I would never have advised you to begin this work had you asked.”
Which is why I could not ask, Hope thought.
“I have an opportunity to provide a good living for my children here,” she said. “To give them a future.”
The bishop cleared his throat. “The Scripture says that we must give no appearance of evil.”
“Scripture also says that women should be keepers at home, caring for their own families, not running around gossiping—like those women have apparently been doing,” Hope said. “Perhaps you should talk to them about tending to their own business instead of mine.”
“If only my son were alive.” A look of grief passed over the bishop’s face. “Then we would not be having this conversation.”
Everything within Hope warned her to be careful with what she said next, but her back hurt, her feet hurt, and she was very tired. She should have been holding the reins on her tongue more tightly, but was so angry she could not hold it back.
“If only your son had listened to me and gotten rid of that bull,” Hope snapped, “then we would not be having this conversation. I w
ould be at home with my feet up knitting a baby’s cap instead of building chicken coops trying to make a living for my family.”
“There are alms . . .”
“I have a job and a skill,” she retorted. “I don’t need alms.”
“Don’t do this,” the bishop pleaded. “I have loved you like a daughter from the moment our son brought you into our lives, but I’m a bishop first and a father-in-law second. Don’t put me in the position of having to put you under the ban.”
“For what?” Hope felt a chill go through her body. “For trying to make a living for my family?”
“We must avoid the appearance of evil. You know that, Hope. If you continue spending so much time here, you risk bringing shame upon our religious community.”
“I have done nothing wrong,” she repeated. “Nothing! Raising chickens and planting crops does not bring dishonor to the name of Christ.”
She felt a gust of wind whip at the hem of her dress.
The bishop glanced worriedly at the sky. “I think there is a bad storm brewing. You should take the children home. We will discuss this later.”
• • •
Logan was sitting on the back porch talking by cell phone with his Realtor when he felt the fine spring weather they had been having start to change. At first it was nearly imperceptible. Then a strange stillness and an unnatural light settled over the place. Gusts of wind made the weather vane on the barn spin. He probably would barely have noticed had he still been in his New York apartment—but he was much more tuned in to the weather since moving here.
Concerned, he went in, turned on the weather radio, and heard that they were under a tornado warning. He started to go check on Hope, and saw that her buggy was already gone. She must have decided to go home early.
Simon came in from the fields, unhitched the horses, and let them out to graze, all the while glancing nervously up at the sky.
“What do you think?” Logan called. “Are we in for a storm?”
“I think there might be funnel clouds before long,” Simon said. “Maybe not here, but close.”
Logan grew more worried.
Ivan went by in his truck, and he was going fast. He put on the brakes in front of the house. “You and Simon better get down to the cellar, son,” Ivan shouted. “This weather isn’t looking good.”
Then suddenly, Ivan pointed. “Dear God, look at that!”
Logan turned to look just as Simon came running. He could see the black funnel cloud far off in the distance, and it was a big one.
“Get to the cellar!” Ivan yelled and spun gravel as he took off toward his own home.
Simon practically shoved him through the front door. “We’ve got to take shelter.”
• • •
Hope had never really liked the little house in which they lived, but it was what they could afford, and so she made the best of it. The thing that bothered her most about it was not how small it was, but that there was no good place to shelter during storms.
A phone rang in her phone shanty as she drove up to her house and she ran to answer it.
“Your Daed says for you to take cover right now,” her mother said. “He says there is a tornado coming. He has seen this kind of weather before.”
“Where am I to take cover?” Hope looked around in a panic. There was nothing except the small barn and their house. Not even a root cellar stood between her and her children and whatever might be coming.
“Henry is yelling for me to come to the cellar now, I have to go,” her mother said. Hope hurriedly unhitched her horse while frantically looking around for a place to shelter.
“Over here!”
She whirled and saw Mr. Lemon gesturing at her to come toward his house.
“Bring the children!” he yelled. “Hurry!”
Without wasting another moment, she grabbed her children out of the buggy and they all scrambled up the small rise toward Mr. Lemon’s house—their nosy Englisch neighbor.
Mr. Lemon had the sort of old-fashioned root cellar built separately into the side of a hill. It was the kind that people used to dig back when they had only shovels and no heavy equipment. The door to it was flush with the ground, and he stood there holding it open for them as the wind whipped at his clothes and sparse white hair.
He held it while she and the children clambered in, and then he closed the door tightly above them and secured it with a long pole threaded through clamps attached to the inside of the door.
She crouched on the ground with the children huddled around her. A lamp had already been lit and hung from the low ceiling.
“I saw you coming and waited,” Mr. Lemon said. “I helped build the house you live in and I knew it had no basement or cellar.”
“Thank you,” she panted, nearly breathless from the exertion. “Thank you so much for waiting for us.”
At that moment, she heard the sound of a freight train where no train should be. The door rattled above their heads. Dirt sifted down from the low ceiling and the lantern shifted and swayed with the force of the wind that roared over them.
“I’m scared!” Carrie clutched at her.
Adam’s lower lip began to tremble.
“We will be fine,” Hope soothed, gathering them close. “Close your eyes. It will be over soon.”
Then the hail came, sounding as though baseballs were being thrown upon the cellar door.
Every second seemed like an hour. Beside her, the children sobbed from fear. Mr. Lemon clung to the door above them, as though he could somehow manage, with human strength, to keep it from being torn out of his grasp. A moment later, something heavy crashed into the door, knocking Mr. Lemon to the ground.
• • •
Simon closed the basement door behind them as Logan flicked on the cellar light. It was nothing but a bare bulb in the middle of the bare floor joists, but it was better than nothing.
The cellar smelled of earth, and was large and empty. All the walls were lined with shelves that Hope’s mother and grandmother had probably once filled with canned goods. He was grateful there were no glass jars there now.
As the wind increased, the old house began to creak and complain. It was sturdy, but even a well-built house was no match for wind like this.
Then he heard what sounded like a large aircraft overhead, and there was pounding on the outside, as though a giant were trying to get in. The light went out, and he and Simon sat on the bottom cellar step in total darkness. The scared teenager instinctively grasped his hand and Logan did not pull away. Instead, he wrapped a protective arm around Simon and they clung together while waiting out the tornado with hammering hearts.
The one thing thrumming through his head, stronger than even his concern for his own safety, was his worry over whether Hope had made it home all right, but there was nothing he could do for her now. He could feel the house above him rising and settling, like a giant accordion.
Beside him, Simon was muttering something in German. He could not understand all the words, but it was no trick to understand that the boy was praying and praying hard when every other word was Gott.
Falling back upon his years as a small boy kneeling beside his mother in St. Patrick’s, Logan also began to pray. It was awkward and halting, but he prayed.
• • •
A giant tree limb had broken through the cellar door, sending Mr. Lemon sprawling, and tearing open a hole through which torrential rains now poured, churning the packed earth floor of the small cellar into mud.
Carrie whimpered against her shoulder, and Adam buried his face in her skirt, his little body trembling with fear.
“Mr. Lemon is hurt.” She pulled their clinging arms away from her. “Sit here against this wall. I must help him.”
In the pouring rain, ducking beneath the wet branches intruding on their tiny shelter, she crawled on her hands and knees toward the valiant older man. He was unconscious and his head was bleeding. She was strong from all her hard work, and he was not a large man. S
he was able to tug him out of the rain, to the area of the cellar that was still intact, where she and the children had been when the limb came crashing through.
As she wiped the blood off his face with her apron, she gave thanks for the light the lantern still managed to throw off. At least she could see what she was doing, and the worst of the storm was over. Soon she would try to force a way out through the debris of the broken door.
It was then that a nagging stitch she had been ignoring in her side went away and a wave of pain washed through her abdomen. This pain was familiar. To her horror, she realized that the trauma of the tornado had thrown her into labor.
• • •
After the wind and torrential rain died down, Logan and Simon crawled up out of the cellar to a changed landscape. They walked around the yard, stunned and silent, assessing the damage. His home was fairly intact, with the exception of some roof damage, but all the pots of flowers Hope had so lovingly planted were blown away, and the chicken coops she and Simon had built had disappeared. A few bewildered and bedraggled half-grown chickens huddling on the ground near the house were the only evidence left of Hope’s dream for an organic chicken business.
Several trees in the small peach and apple orchard behind the house were twisted and torn. The promising blossoms that Hope had said indicated a good harvest now lay on the ground, blown in all directions. Carrie’s pink tricycle was twisted around one of the top limbs of the giant oak tree. Adam’s blue one was nowhere in sight.
It had happened so quickly—in a matter of a few minutes.
He glanced next door, and saw that Ivan’s house was basically intact as well, but as he stood on the hill beside the oak tree and looked out over the countryside, he could see the path the tornado had taken. It had skipped all over the land, knocking down a tree or building as its tail flipped this way and that, destroying wherever it landed.
On one hillside of trees near his home, a circular bare spot had been dug out by the twister’s tail where it had apparently settled for an instant before coiling into itself and moving on.
The thing that worried him most was that it looked like it had come from the general direction of Hope’s house.
Fearless Hope: A Novel Page 22