Fearless Hope: A Novel (36 page)

Once considered, it was as though a floodgate opened in her mind. If one of the children was to become ill, and she had a truck, she would be able to drive to the hospital so very quickly. If she were Mennonite she could have a telephone in her home or even carry a cell phone with her. Not for frivolous chatter, but for business and emergencies. If she were Mennonite, she would have a greater choice of fabrics with which to make her clothing and her children’s clothing. If she were Mennonite she could . . . oh my! . . . take classes in agriculture or animal husbandry!

Her thoughts were so radical, they scared her, and yet, having entertained these rebellious thoughts, she could not manage to shove them away.

Ivan’s church did not require one iota less moral accountability than her Amish church. In fact, the church Ivan’s family attended met together twice a week instead of twice a month, like her Amish church.

Changing churches was not something to be done lightly. Ivan and Mary had done so only after much prayer and consideration. She had been a child, playing with their children, and
had heard many of their heartfelt discussions as they wrestled with the decision.

If she ever did make that change, and right now it seemed too radical to seriously contemplate, she wanted to make certain it was for the right reasons, and not just because she thought it would be convenient . . . or might make it possible to be with Logan.

Still . . . the idea that she had the right to purchase a car with seat belts and air bags was a heady one. Isn’t that what a good mother did? Protect and teach her children?

Levi called her fearless. She was not fearless anymore. Except when it came to her children. Then, she would face anything and anyone, if it meant protecting them or giving them a better life.

Her mind was roiling so badly with these new thoughts that she sat down on Elizabeth’s porch swing for a moment to try to pull herself together. If Logan was willing to become Amish for her sake, then becoming part of the Troyers’ Mennonite church would not be all that much of a stretch for him—and he’d have the added advantage of his brothers and sisters and Ivan and Mary there to encourage and strengthen him. She believed that with all that behind him, he could go the distance as a Christian.

She straightened Esther Rose’s tiny
Kapp
as she lay sleeping in her arms. Then she arose and entered the clinic Grace and Claire had created. There was a lot she wanted to talk to Grace about, and not all of it was medical.

•  •  •

Becoming Amish had made perfect sense to him when he’d been lying on his bed daydreaming about how thrilled she would be with him for making such an extreme decision in order to be with her.

He had not factored in the possibility of angrily shouting a
proposal at her while still in pain from a horse’s kick . . . and covered in fresh manure.

Nope—it had not been his finest moment by a long shot.

Still, her negative reaction surprised him. It was like she thought he was stupid or foolish—and he wasn’t. He’d been reading up on the Amish, trying to learn everything he could. He’d already made an appointment with the bishop to start whatever sort of catechism thing they made people go through.

He wanted Hope, he wanted those children, and he wanted God in his life. He also wanted to belong to the community of people he saw around him.

Giving up was not an option. He would show Hope that he could do this. He could become Amish. Others had done it. It hadn’t been easy, but they had done it.

It was his custom to shower and shave before he went to bed each night. Tonight he followed the same routine, except for one thing. He put his razor away on the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet.

It was time to start growing a beard.

T
here were a lot of changes involved in becoming Mennonite, Hope thought. But there were also many similarities.

Like the Amish, the Mennonites were pacifists. Like the Amish, the Mennonites believed in adult baptism. Like the Amish, the Mennonites believed the Bible was the inspired word of God. That was pretty much where the similarities ended.

One of the spiritual differences that she found herself drawn to was that the Mennonite church the Troyers attended was much more grace-driven than the particular Old Order Amish church that her parents and the Schrocks attended.

The idea that Ivan and Mary introduced her to—that God’s grace was ever-present in a believer’s life—drew her like a spiritual magnet.

The other changes she would like to make were not spiritual ones, but they still involved a certain amount of thought on her part. She had seen Mennonite women wearing jeans, and wondered how that would feel. Her guess was that it would make working in the fields easier, but she didn’t know. Some women claimed that dresses were a lot cooler outdoors than pants.

She didn’t know how she would wear her hair, either.
Women who did not wear their hair beneath head coverings had to take care of it in a different way. She wasn’t sure she wanted to drop the idea of a head covering entirely. Perhaps a kerchief instead of a
Kapp
. At least a kerchief would be easier to wash and keep clean, not to mention a lot cheaper.

A big problem was that now that Logan had come home, she was having to live with her parents until she could make other arrangements. How was she to change when she was still beneath their roof? There were going to be some terrible fights when she told them what she had planned, and why.

Perhaps she was taking too much for granted. She should probably see if Logan was okay with this. Perhaps he actually
did
want to become Amish.

But she did not think so.

She tossed and turned for two nights after her conversation with Levi, trying to gather her courage to do this thing she realized she had been wanting to do for a long time. The problem was, she did not know how to be anything but her father and mother’s obedient daughter, and Titus’s obedient wife, not to mention Bishop Schrock’s not quite so obedient daughter-in-law.

Oh, it was going to cause such a stir! People would talk about her, and much of that talk would not be kind.

But was she doing anything wrong in God’s eyes? She did not think so. She wasn’t so shallow that she would give up her soul for a man. All Logan had done, with his proposal and ridiculous attempt to be Amish, was to precipitate a decision that had been simmering in her subconscious for a long time.

•  •  •

“Simon?”

“Ja?”

“I need to learn how to push a plow today.”

“Push a plow?”

“You heard me.”

Simon scratched his head. “The plowing time is over for now.”

“There must be
something
I can do.”

Simon began to sidle away.

“Stop that!” he said. “I need to learn how to do an Amish man’s work. Teach me how to pick corn or bale hay or
something
.”

“Corn’s not ready yet. Hay’s not ready, either.” Then Simon brightened. “There’s always manure to shovel.”

“No.” Logan shook his head. “I’ve had enough of manure. How about hoeing something?”

“Already done.” Simon looked up at the sky. “Already getting too hot to hoe today anyway. You need to get up really early to get that done while it’s still cool.”

“I could shear sheep, maybe.”

“Hope would throw a fit if you touched her ewes.”

“Feed cattle?”

“They’re pretty happy grazing where they are.”

“You really aren’t any help, Simon,” he said. “How am I supposed to become Amish if I can’t even hoe?”

“I have an Amish friend who works on a computer at Keim’s Lumber,” Simon said hopefully. “Maybe you could get a job there.”

“I don’t need a ‘job,’ I have a ‘job.’ I want to learn to do something . . . Amish.”

“We have some fences that need tightening, some posts that need straightening. You could help me work on the fences.”

“Great!” Logan was ecstatic. Building fences. Now
that
was something that sounded Amish!

“Did you forget to shave?” Simon asked.

“No. I’m growing a beard.”

Simon sighed.

By the time Hope arrived, he had smashed his thumb, ripped a hole in his pants, cut himself on barbed wire, and discovered that growing a beard was one itchy proposition.

“You look like you’ve had a hard morning,” she commented as she lifted Esther Rose out of the buggy.

He was happy to see her. “Me and Simon got nearly thirty feet of fencing fixed,” he boasted.

Something told him to turn around, and he did . . . just in time to catch Simon in the middle of an eye-roll.

“Simon is fully capable of putting up fencing without any help.”

“I told you.” He stood his ground. “I’m turning Amish.”

“Is that why you didn’t shave?”

“Yes. I’m growing a beard. All Amish men wear beards.”

“Not all of them. Did you notice that Simon doesn’t have one? Amish men grow beards
after
they get married, not before.”

He had not known that.

“You mean I can shave it off for now?” He hoped his relief didn’t show.

“You and I need to talk,” Hope said. “Do you care to babysit, Simon? This might take a while.”

“Sure thing.” Simon accepted Esther Rose into his arms. “Sure beats fixing fences.”

It wasn’t until they were inside the house that Hope spoke. “I’ve been giving some serious thought to the idea of leaving the Amish church.”

“Whoa!” He was floored. “Why?”

“I have many reasons, but what I want to know right now is . . . would you consider going to Ivan and Mary’s church with me if that is where I started going?”

“After what the Troyers did for my mom? I’d be happy to!”

“Good.”

“Are you really serious about this, Hope?”

“I talked with Levi. And with Grace. It won’t be easy. The bishop and my parents will want to talk to me. People will say I’m doing this just because I’m in love with you, but yes, I’m serious.”

He heard only five words.
I’m in love with you.
And suddenly, he felt ten feet tall. “Are you saying you’ll marry me?”

“Of course. Isn’t that what you were getting at the other day in the barn when you were trying to hitch that poor horse to the buggy?”

“Hope, I . . . I don’t know what to say.” He took a step toward her with his arms outstretched.

“Please don’t get mushy.” She held up a hand. “One of my childhood friends married an
Englisch
man and she said the worst thing about him was that he was always saying mushy things to her. Amish people don’t do that.”

“But you aren’t going to be Amish anymore. Right?” He took another step toward her. “Isn’t that what you’re saying?”

“Well, I’m not exactly going to be
Englisch,
either.” She put her hand on his chest.

“Do you suppose a not-Amish/not-
Englisch
woman might consider kissing the man she’s just agreed to marry?”

He took the hand she had placed flat against his chest and pulled her to him.

“Logan, I . . .”

He stopped her protestations with a kiss. Then he pulled back, checked to see how she was taking it, saw a sparkle in her eyes that told him that she was taking it
very
well, and then he bracketed her face with both of his hands and deepened the kiss.

When he pulled away, she was breathless and her cheeks were flushed.

“I believe we might have discovered something besides storytelling,” she said, “that you do extremely well.”

He laughed out loud and pulled her into his arms once
again. He was going to get to be a father to adorable Carrie and stalwart little Adam. He was going to get to carry tiny Esther Rose into church and seat himself among his brothers and sisters, his father, and maybe both of his mothers. He would get to visit with Esther after they shared Sunday dinners together and learn everything he could possibly learn from that woman.

It was apparently going to be okay if he didn’t know how to plant a field, or drive a buggy, or milk a cow. He was going to have a wife who was expert in all of that, and such a wife she would be!

“It isn’t going to be easy,” Hope warned. “Nothing about this is going to be easy.”

“Except that loving you and the children will be easy,” he said. “That has always been easy.”

“
Ja
,” she said. “It was the trying to pretend that we didn’t love each other that was so hard.”

H
e walked into the antiques store where it had all begun. Where he had found the ancient typewriter that had changed his life. That was where the chance meeting with the brave woman trying to find houses to clean had taken his life in a direction he never would have dreamed possible.

As he had hoped, Violet was seated behind the counter. As usual, she was wearing a high-necked collar, a long, dark skirt, and a cameo broach at her throat.

“Logan!” she exclaimed. “You are back from your honeymoon? Where did you go?”

“New York.”

“Did Hope like it?”

“Not a bit, but I wanted her to see where I’d lived. Then we flew to Sarasota, Florida.”

“What did you do there?”

“I rented a small beach house. A place my mother stayed a long time ago.”

Violet beamed. “How nice.”

“I thought so. I brought you a present.”

“A present?” Her face lit up. “For me?”

“I thought you might enjoy this.” He handed her a hardback copy of his latest book.

“What is this?” She looked at the title.
“To Ride the Dark Wind.”

Then she opened it and read the inscription. “To Violet. One of the courageous women pilots who helped save the world . . .”

“Is this . . . is this . . .”

“The book you and your friends helped me write.” He grinned. “Everything is fictionalized, but the essences of the stories I heard are there and woven into the story.”

“I can’t wait to read it!”

“Oh—and by the way. It came out while Hope and I were gone, so I just found this out. It’s getting excellent reviews—even though it was written by this unknown new author named . . . are you ready for this? Logan Parker.”