Accidentally Amish (10 page)

Verona did not have to think to answer. She had counted every day on the sea, too. “Eighty-three.”

“That’s a lot, isn’t it?”

Verona nodded. “We’re almost there. Try some letters now.”

Maria put the nail down and poised her finger over the coating of dirt on the floor. “Sing,
Mamm.
”

Verona began to hum a quiet hymn, adjusting first her
kapp
, then Maria’s. The little girl made four tedious strokes until she formed an
M
. The truth was Verona recognized only the most basic words and could barely spell her own name. She would have to depend on the schooling of the older children to help Maria.

“I’m hungry,
Mamm.
”

Verona had little food to offer. She unwrapped a napkin and handed Maria the last piece of salted pork. The ship’s rations had been far from adequate, and Verona early had formed the habit of saving some of her own meals for the inevitable request from one of her children.

“Let’s go find
Daed.
” The distraction might keep Maria from saying she was hungry again. Verona took her warmest wrap, and the three of them stepped over the baggage and personal belongings of other passengers to get to the ladder.

Maria had learned to do well on the ladder, but for Verona climbing with Lisbetli was always challenging. On deck, Verona squinted as her eyes adjusted to the growing light. She settled Lisbetli on one hip and took Maria’s hand as they walked the deck scouting for the rest of the family. Even after eighty-three days on ship, Verona’s legs were unsteady. This should be the last day, Jakob had told her. Verona hoped he was right.

Lisbetli seemed to perk up in the daylight, lifting her head off her mother’s shoulder. Verona dared to hope that the baby would find her cheerful disposition once again.

Verona supposed she was one of the last to come above. It was not hard to decide where to go stand. The Mennonites were portside, and the Amish had gathered starboard. Her son would be on the bow. If Captain Stedman would let him, Christian would steer the boat.

When Jakob saw her, he opened one arm wide, and she stepped into its arc.

“I knew Christian would be at the front of the boat,” Verona said.

“That is because he is looking forward and not back,” Jakob said. “He is a wise little boy.”

“Like his
daed.
” Verona leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder for a fraction of a second.

“How is the baby?” Jakob asked.

Lisbetli squirmed and reached for her father. Jakob took her in his arms.

“Does that answer your question?” Verona asked.

“This little one won’t remember Europe,” Jakob said. “She has only hope to look forward to.”

They stood a long time on the deck. As the channel narrowed even further, Verona tried to remember the map Jakob once showed her and the slender, crooked finger of water that led from the Atlantic Ocean, through the Delaware Bay and to Philadelphia. Parents stood more erect, their countenances brightening. Children took their cues from the adults and began to point and squirm with increasing frequency.

“Is that it?” they asked again and again. “Is that Philadelphia? Is that where we’re going?”

Christian kept his face forward, his features raised in determination to the breeze. His feet were planted squarely, shoulder width apart. He had no need of the rail. His body adjusted immediately to every shift in the ship’s motion. Jakob took delight in his four daughters, but Christian, his only son, lit his face with a color that he did not reproduce for any other occasion.

We are humble people,
Verona thought,
but surely it is not a sin to feel this way about your own child. Surely God knows the joy of an only son.
Her son was well. Her baby was well. In a few hours they would be in a city with markets and merchants and an October harvest of vegetables. Her tongue salivated at the thought of food not dried in salt, food that came directly from the ground and not through a barrel.

No one in the crowd wanted to surrender a position with a view of the approaching city. There would be plenty of time to go down and collect belongings later. After almost three months on the ocean, the families on board had eyes only for their new home, their new future.

Verona sighed and put a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun. Looking after five children and keeping their living area from becoming squalor, Verona had spent much of the journey below deck.

She turned her head and coughed once, a motion that sliced through her head. Determined not to pass out, she gripped the rail.
I’m just not used to the light,
she told herself when the throbbing behind her eyes made her want to empty her stomach.
The important thing is we’re almost there.

N
o more lollygagging,” Annie said to the empty room. She was stiff, sore, and slow moving, but she pulled on her jeans and T-shirt and sat up at a small table in the room, rather than on the bed.

She needed a phone—her own phone, preferably. It had been turned off for most of two days, but in the middle of her haze, Annie’s systematic brain determined that if she disabled the global positioning feature on her phone, anyone trying to track it would face frustration. Triangulation with wi-fi alone would be a lot harder. She turned the phone on, tapped her way through several screens, and turned off the GPS. Annie let out a slow, controlled breath. At least she could use her phone freely.

Two days of dozing in concussive haze carried consequences. E-mails stacked up to the point it could take Annie hours to sort out the technical issues and respond to her regular clients. Jamie forwarded several inquiries from potential clients. Jamie also reported that Barrett was not spending much time at the office, and the marketing assistant was floundering for direction. The bank was calling with questions the bookkeeper could not answer. Three software writers who worked for the company were nervous.

Where are you?
was the clear message.
What’s going on?

But Annie could not lose time dealing with the details when the entire company was at stake.

What would Barrett and Rick be trying to do now? That was the question. Jamie’s report that the bank was calling the office suggested they were trying to move funds. Calmly, she logged onto the company’s primary bank account and inspected recent transactions. So far everything looked routine. Her personal accounts seemed secure as well. So what were the questions?

Barrett and Rick couldn’t turn back now. They were in too deep not to win.

The attorneys. Annie brought the list up on her laptop and dialed the first number on her phone. While she listened to the ring, she checked the charge indicators on both devices. Within a few hours, she would need a place to plug in, and she was pretty sure it was not going to be at Rufus’s house.

An answering service responded for the first lawyer on her list and she left a message with basic information. She dialed the second number, and then the third. She got live voices on the line, but the attorneys themselves were unavailable. More messages.

Annie stared at the phone in her hand. Once the lawyers got her voice mails, they could play phone tag for days. She had to leave the phone powered on.

Other than the bathroom across the hall, Annie had not been out of Ruth’s bedroom since she arrived. Her head turned toward the footsteps she heard in the hall now and saw the girl who had gone out to milk the cow.

She dug in her bruised brain for the name of Rufus’s sister. Sally? Linda?

“I’m Sophie,” the girl said softly.

That’s right. Sophie and Lydia.
“Thank you for all the help you’ve been the last few days.”

“You’re welcome. Rufus made me promise to check on you.”

“I’m much better.” Annie tugged her shirt straight and wondered what her hair looked like compared to Sophie’s careful braids and pins. Wincing, she stood and began to pull the bedding into a semblance of order.

“I can do that.” Sophie stepped swiftly to the bed and took control of the sheets.

Annie’s hands rested on the quilt, pieces of blue and purple and green forming cubes that seemed to tumble over each other. The pattern made her slightly dizzy. She supposed it had a name. Later, when she had sufficient power, she would do an Internet search on “Amish quilts.”

“
Mamm
will want to know you’re up.” Sophie smoothed the quilt into place. “I will walk downstairs with you.”

Annie nodded. She stuffed her phone into her back pocket and hung her bag over one shoulder. Every step was pain. She couldn’t drive a car even if she had one. But electricity was out there, just beyond the Beiler property.

Franey Beiler met her at the bottom of the stairs. “Annalise! I didn’t know you were up. Would you like something to eat?”

“I don’t want to be any trouble for you.” Annie swallowed the urge to add that she needed electricity more than food right now.

“Go out on the porch,” Franey said. “It’s a beautiful day. I’ll bring you a sandwich and a glass of tea.”

“Thank you.”

Sophie held open the screen door. “Please excuse me. I need to weed in the garden.”

Sophie’s soft words drifted with her gaze as she stepped outside. Annie watched Sophie join another girl—it must be Lydia, Annie realized—squatting in the garden. Standing still, Annie thought of her own sister, Penny, and a fragment of memory about digging in the backyard. For a few minutes, Penny had persuaded Annie that they could dig to China.

On the porch, Annie found a two-seater swing, its pine slats sanded smooth along the perfect curve of the back and seat. She had to admit it was still difficult to move around. If her mind were not on an impending need for battery power, she could have surrendered to the unobstructed view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and her own recuperation. Instead, the mountains reminded her of her remote location. The late-afternoon sun layered the view with shifting shadows, and Annie wondered anew what she had gotten herself into. Yes, the setting was bucolic. Yes, the mountains were stunning. Yes, the air was unsullied and the land animated in ways the city could never match.

But she had no place to plug in a power cord. And without a place to plug in, the rest of it did not matter.

Annie put the swing into tentative, gentle motion.

Sangre de Cristo. Spanish for the “Blood of Christ.” It struck her as interesting that a religious group like the Amish would choose to settle in the shadow of such a religious-sounding name. Was that on purpose or just coincidence?

Was anything on purpose, she wondered, or was everything just coincidence?

Coincidence that Tom’s truck was in the parking lot that night.

Coincidence that she got in it.

Coincidence that she ended up here. On Amish land.

Coincidence that Barrett was stabbing her in the back.

Coincidence that Rick chose Barrett and not Annie.

Coincidence that a fall cost her two days of fighting back.

Coincidence that her great-great-grandmother’s name was

Byler.

Annie typed “Jakob Byler” into the search screen on her phone.

Cemetery listings, genealogy forums, Amish settlements. Annie could not waste battery power clicking through the links right now. She could not even be sure this was the Jakob Byler she was descended from, but she was curious. She put the phone in her pocket, but the Amish settlement link lurked in her mind. What if this were the right Jakob Byler from her family line? Had he been Amish? Was he related to Christian Byler, Rufus’s ancestor?

Franey came through the door just then with a plate and a glass. She set them down on a small table next to the swing. Annie had to admit the sandwich—ham and cheese stacked on whole-wheat bread she was sure Franey had baked herself—enticed her. For that matter, Franey had probably made the cheese and smoked the ham.

“Thank you.” Annie reached for half of the sandwich.

“I hope you’ll eat more than you have the last few days.” Franey sat in the swing next to Annie. “I was beginning to worry about you.”

“I feel much better,” Annie said.

“
Gut.
Now you can discover God’s purpose in bringing you to our home.”

Had Franey been reading her mind? Annie glanced at the view again, almost ready to believe she was here for a reason. But the reason would have to wait. She could not afford to be Rick’s doormat.

“I have my own business, but I can work anywhere if I have a computer and a phone.” Annie bit into the sandwich and discovered how hungry she was.

“Then no doubt you’ll need electricity soon.”

“Yes I will.” Annie watched the girls in the garden. “You have lovely daughters. Do they always work so hard?”

“They are good daughters.” Franey leaned back in the swing and smiled. “Your
mudder
must be worried about you.”

“I spoke to my mother.” Technically this was true, though Annie had spared her mother the details of her dilemma and had not mentioned her injury.

“Here comes Rufus.”

Rufus turned into the long driveway from the main road. Annie watched as Dolly pulled the buggy to the habitual spot outside the barn and stopped. Rufus lowered himself from the bench and walked toward the front porch.

Annie flushed when she saw him looking at her.

“I’m glad to see you up.” Rufus did not smile, but he caught her eyes with an ease she did not expect.

“What’s that in your hand?” Franey asked.

“It used to be my favorite saw.” Rufus sank onto a porch step below the swing and stared out at the mountains. “Someone snapped it in half today.”

“Oh Rufus, I’m sorry,” Franey said. “I hate that these things keep happening to you.”

“I just left it for a few minutes.” He examined the broken pieces. “I guess it doesn’t take long for someone to step on the end and yank the handle up.”

“Someone is watching you,” Annie said. “Someone saw an opportunity and took it. It’s a message.”

Rufus sighed. “I try to be mindful about who is around when I’m working, but I cannot see everyone.”