Fearless Hope: A Novel (22 page)

Finally, some praise. “So what is the problem?”

“I admit, I am a little envious of your ability with words.” The bishop shook his head as though with wonder. “To throw them away on books that mean nothing . . . it seems like such a waste.”

Books that meant nothing? The Amish certainly didn’t pull any punches.

“Your book left me with a dark feeling in my heart for many days. It was not good for me to be inside a bad man’s head for so long. Through your words I saw things I should not have seen. I would like to forget them but now I cannot.”

Logan wished Hope had asked permission before she loaned the bishop one of his books.

“The Bible says that there is a great spiritual battle going on around us that we cannot see. It says that there are forces of evil to be fought with whatever weapons we are given. After I read your book, it felt like the forces of darkness had won a small battle in my heart.”

That hurt.

His mission accomplished, the bishop blithely walked away, leaving Logan to drum a pencil on his desk and seethe. When everything the bishop said was stripped down, he believed that he had just been accused of being a tool of Satan.

•  •  •

While they worked together, Hope enjoyed showing the other women the new appliances that Logan had purchased.

“You just put this little cup in, pull down on the handle, and . . . out comes a cup of coffee or tea!” She demonstrated the new Keurig coffeemaker Logan had purchased. Compared to
the labor involved in using the drip coffeemaker on the stove, the Keurig seemed magical to her.

She handed Rose the cup of coffee she had just made and watched as her mother took a sip.

Rose’s eyes widened. “This is really good!”

“I
know
!” Hope wiped off the counter and dropped the little spent Keurig cup into the new trash compactor.

“But very expensive, is my guess,” Rose said.

“I don’t know how much it cost,” Hope said. “Let me show you the washer and dryer now.”

Hope’s mother was suitably impressed with the new water-saving laundry appliances, but she seemed to grow more and more worried.

“You are enjoying these modern things a little too much, I think,” Rose cautioned. “And maybe the man who bought them?”

“I have done nothing wrong,” Hope said.

“Of course you haven’t,” her mother soothed. “But you are without a husband, and he is too much without a wife. There is danger here. You must protect yourself. It would be easy to have your head turned by so many expensive things. Before long you might not want to be Amish anymore.”

Hope hurried to reassure her.

“I am just doing my job,” she said. “You remember how Titus had to use electric tools when he worked in the furniture factory? It did not change him. He still used the old ways when he came home. So do I.”

There was a part of her that felt guilty saying this to her mother. The truth was, she had enjoyed getting to use modern things.

“I suppose you are right,” Rose said. “But watch yourself, Daughter. Satan is sneaky and he creeps into a person’s life so quietly.”

“I will be careful,
Maam
,” she promised.

“
Gut
,” her mother said. “Now I must go and see to the setting up of the tables on the porch.”

What she had said to her mother was true. She would be very careful. Even more careful now that she had discovered that Logan was not truly a married man. Thinking he had a wife had created an extra wall of protection around her heart. That wall of protection had crumbled with his confession. She had recently begun to feel his admiring eyes on her and sometimes it warmed her heart in spite of her best intentions. Most of the time she shoved that warmth out of her heart by reminding herself that he had been, and probably still was, living in sin with Marla whenever he went to New York. Still . . . her mind had begun to think of things that it should not.

Her conscience and training told her that she must flee temptation immediately, but her practical mind reminded her that she needed the income he provided. Where else could she work for such an easy boss, who paid so well and who welcomed the idea of her children being with her? What other employer would offer to allow her to bring the new baby with her after it was born?

And so, she did what she had been warned against doing her whole life. She pretended that there was no temptation, while deep down inside, her attraction to this
Englisch
man deepened every day.

Her
Daed
came into the kitchen at that moment and her sinful thoughts scattered like scurrying mice.

“Could you draw a glass of water for your old father?” he asked. “Cleaning the old barn is thirsty work.”

She grabbed a drinking glass from the cupboard. “But you are not yet fifty. You should not say you are old.”

“Being here makes me
feel
old.” He accepted the drink from her hand as he glanced around the kitchen. “It was a fine place we had here once. I hope the
Englischer
is enjoying it.”

She heard so many emotions in his voice. Bitterness, anger, shame.

“I know it hurts you to be here.”

“It hurts to see the good earth that I tilled and enriched my entire life growing into nothing but weeds!”

She saw tears come to her father’s eyes, but there was nothing she could do or say. The situation was what it was, and he had been the one to bring it about. He could blame no one except himself. She ached for him, but there was nothing she could do.

“What’s the
Englisch
man going to do with my land?” he asked. “Sell it to developers?”

“I don’t know for sure. I hope not.”

She deliberately changed the subject. “Did you talk with Moses Hochstetler?”

“I did.”

“Did he listen?”

“He listened, but . . .” Her father hesitated. “It was one of the few times in my life I wished I was not forbidden to raise my hand against another man. He does not deserve a son as fine as Simon.”

Hope was grateful for the restriction their faith put on violence. She hated to think of what might have happened had her
Daed
and Moses fought.
Daed
was powerfully built, with work-hardened muscles as strong as steel—but Moses was strong, too. Had the men actually fought, one or both would have ended up in the hospital and that would have devastated two families.

“I also spoke with Bishop Weaver, the Swartzentrubers’ bishop, about what Simon’s father had done,” he said. “He was not happy. He said not to worry, that he will deal with Moses.”

“I am certain he will, then. Thank you for taking care of this for me.”

He smiled. “That is what fathers are for.”

“And
Gott
gave our family a
gut
one in you.”

He caressed the surface of one of the fine cherry kitchen cabinets that his own father had built. “I am grateful that you still think so, Daughter.”

A look of deep regret crossed his face. She could only imagine how hard it was for him to remember all that he had lost.

“It is only wood,
Daed
.” Hope’s heart broke at seeing his grief and she gave him a rare hug. “It’s only wood.”

A
low, slow, humming sound rose through the floorboards of his upstairs bedroom. He paused in the act of tying his necktie and listened. The singing was made up predominately of male voices and reminded him of the otherworldly drone of a bagpipe he had once heard played at a funeral.

He had not worn a suit for months, but when he asked Hope if a white shirt and dark suit would be appropriate, she seemed relieved he’d brought the question up. Her enthusiastic approval made him wonder if she’d been fearful he would show up in jogging shorts and a T-shirt.

He slipped his suit coat on and checked outside the window. The assembly of buggies had grown in the past ten minutes. From his vantage point of the second story, it looked as though the field beside his house was carpeted with black buggy tops. And horses. Lots and lots of glistening, dark-brown horses.

Hope had suggested he wait until services were starting before coming downstairs. There was a prescribed way to enter the room, she explained, a matter of respect. The bishop walked in first, regardless of his age. Then the ministers filed in according to their age, with the oldest going first. The deacon followed. Then the rest of the men came in turn, from
the oldest down to the youngest, teenage boys bringing up the rear.

Working an
Englisch
man into the traditional entering and seating situation, she explained, was going to be a little awkward, especially since he deserved respect for his generosity in allowing them to assemble beneath his roof. Hope wasn’t sure quite what to do, and so they agreed that it would be best for him to simply come down a few seconds after he heard the strains of the first hymn.

He glanced at himself in the mirror and nervously straightened his tie. One thing he did not want to do was embarrass his housekeeper.

Unfortunately, he was also a little worried about staying awake. The writing on his thriller novel had been going unusually well last night, the story finally unraveling in his head, and he hated to stop, so he went on late into the night, afraid that if he did stop, he would never get back into the writer’s zone that was so hard to achieve. It was looking like he might have a book ready to turn in to his publisher by deadline after all. It might not be his best, but it was by far not his worst. The house, the people, Hope, his extracurricular writing at the antiques shop, had somehow, someway, rescued him.

What time had he gone to sleep, anyway, 5 a.m.? All he remembered for sure was that the last thing on his mind when he crawled into bed was that it was Sunday morning. The thought that on
this
Sunday morning there would be a houseful of guests had been a pleasant one. It occurred to him right before he closed his eyes that he did not enjoy being alone nearly as much as he had always tried to tell himself.

Hurriedly, he ran a brush through his hair, took a deep breath, and then headed downstairs.

Spread out before him when he got to the bottom was a scene that he would never forget. Black-bonneted, black-cloaked
women and children sat on one side of the room; bearded men on the other.

The singing stopped and he stood there, wondering how to go about finding a place to sit. It appeared that every available seat was already filled. He sought out Simon, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. So many eyes were turned on him.

He was about to sit on the stairs themselves, when several men scooted over and a spot opened up. The bishop waved him toward the seat. As he squeezed himself in between two Amish men about his own age, the bishop launched into what sounded like a sermon or a harangue—Logan wasn’t sure which. He just hoped that Bishop Schrock was not informing everyone that the owner of the house was a writer of dark novels and therefore the spawn of Satan.

The Amish were not an openly affectionate kind of people, from what he had seen, but their personal space when it came time to worship was far less than what he was comfortable with. He couldn’t so much as take a deep breath without the man sitting next to him feeling it.

Someone—he couldn’t tell who, but someone sitting close to him—had obviously missed their Saturday-night bath, or it could have been several Saturday-night baths. He found himself wondering if deodorant was against some obscure Amish rule.

The sermon, as Hope had warned him, was in German. He did not understand a word. Soon, the novelty of being in an Amish worship service began to pall, and he found himself wishing that he’d taken the time to use the bathroom before rushing down.

He also wished he had gone to bed at a reasonable hour last night, gotten up earlier, and had enough time to grab a cup of coffee. The lack of caffeine and lack of sleep made him feel like he might topple over if he wasn’t careful.

The next thing he knew, everyone—men and women—rose
as one, turned around, knelt in front of their benches, put their elbows on the bench, and bowed their heads. Once he saw what was happening, he scrambled to his knees as well.

Not a word was said. The praying was silent and it went on for a long time. At first, he was simply grateful for the chance to move into a different position. Backless benches tended to make a body ache. Then he grew uncomfortable with being on his knees. Finally he found himself rising with the rest of the group and he sat back on the bench with the other men.

That was how the next three hours went, alternately sitting in a half-daze while various men addressed the group in unintelligible German. Then sudden movement as they all kneeled in prayer. Then everyone would sing from a hymnal he could neither read nor understand, as his bladder grew more and more uncomfortable and his desire for a cup of coffee grew, and his back and bottom ached from the hard benches.

With all his heart, he wished he had never asked to take part in an Amish worship service. They didn’t even have so much as a band to break up the monotony—just that strange, in-unison singing where each song seemed to go on forever.

He had his elbows on his knees and was leaning with his chin resting on his steepled fingers, trying to give his back a break. His eyes were closed and he was far away in his mind when he realized that a few of the words had just made sense to him.

He sat up quickly and looked around. Had someone spoken in English?

No, the preacher was droning on and on in impenetrable German.

He leaned over again, closed his eyes, and let his mind wander.

There it was again! He sat upright and received sideways looks from his seatmates. He knew the meaning of that German word. It was not English being slipped in at all—it was his brain
processing the German into an image he knew and understood.

How had this happened? He closed his eyes again and concentrated. He could not understand a word, no matter how hard he tried. It was only when he allowed his mind to slip into neutral that he understood some words and phrases.