Taken for English (49 page)

Leah stepped through the front door of the Beiler home. Annie smiled as the girl crossed the room and then stood to kiss her cheek.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Annie said.

“You’re so kind to invite me. I only wish you could be at my wedding someday.”

“These are my new sisters.” Annie gestured to Sophie and Lydia. “I hope you will get to know them before you leave for Pennsylvania.”

Behind Leah came Ruth and Elijah in unadorned simple
English
clothing. Although the bishop had advised that they should refrain from coming to church in the wake of Elijah’s decision to forsake his baptismal vows and leave the congregation, they were welcome as wedding guests. Annie could not think what to say to Ruth in such a moment. When they met each other two summers ago, who could have known they would become such dear friends—and sisters-in-law? Elijah somberly shook her hand, and a wordless peace passed between them. Annie knew Elijah would lay down his life for Ruth. Whatever awaited them in the
English
world, they would face it together.

Annie hardly sat down again before her eyes listed to the next group to enter and filled with tears. She looked past Lydia and Joel to Rufus and saw that his eyes were fixed on the same sight.

“They came.” She swallowed her sob. “I wasn’t sure if they would.”

Rufus smiled, his violet-blue eyes sparkling.

Annie wanted to run to the front door, but she held her dignified position and waited for the guests to come to her.

Her parents. Her sister. The family who had been so confused last summer by her choice to join the Amish church but who had taken Rufus into their hearts. Her parents’ acceptance of the man she loved so deeply, evident by their presence on this occasion, made her knees go weak in gratitude. Annie embraced each one in turn, clasping their shoulders and feeling their heartbeats.

Ruth had walked Annie through every detail that would follow, and now she focused as much as she could through tear-brimmed eyes on the procedures.

The arrival of the bishop, who would preside at the ceremony.

The seating of her parents and Rufus’s parents, who loved her as their own daughter.

The entry of the young people, some of them looking at each other with yearning before they went their separate ways, the men to sit with the men and the women to sit with the women.

A hymn began, and Annie and Rufus followed the bishop to a room that had been prepared for them to hear his words of encouragement in Christian marriage. By the time they returned to the main rooms, the congregation was singing a second hymn. The wedding party took their seats in six matching chairs. Annie and the Beiler sisters faced Rufus and his side sitters.

A sermon.

A silent prayer.

A reading from the Bible.

And the bishop’s words, “What God hath joined together let not man put asunder.”

The main sermon.

And the bishop’s words, “If any here has objection, he now has opportunity to make it manifest.”

Annie smiled at Rufus as no one made manifest any objection, and the bishop said, “If you are still minded the same, you may now come forth in the name of the Lord.”

Rufus offered his hand and she took it, walking forward to stand before the bishop.

“Can you confess, brother,” the bishop intoned, “that you accept this our sister as your wife, and that you will not leave her until death separates you? And do you believe that this is from the Lord and that you have come thus far by your faith and prayers?”

Rufus left not an instant of hesitation. “Yes.”

The bishop turned to Annie and asked the same question. Softly, confidently, she answered, “Yes.”

The bishop spoke again to Rufus, and then to Annie with the same question to which Rufus had given a somber answer.

“Because you have confessed, sister, that you want to take this our brother for your husband, do you promise to be loyal to him and care for him if he may have adversity, affliction, sickness, weakness, or faintheartedness—which are many infirmities that are among poor mankind—as is appropriate for a Christian, God-fearing wife?”

Annie’s pulse pounded. “Yes.”

The bishop took Annie’s right hand and placed it in Rufus’s right hand. “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob be with you and give His rich blessing upon you and be merciful to you. May you have the blessing of God for a good beginning, a steadfast middle, and a blessed end, this all in and through Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Annie squeezed Rufus’s hand, free of doubt and full of certainty that she had indeed come to this moment by faith and prayer.

The Valley of Choice series began with imagining the lives of people who lived three centuries ago and discovering a personal connection to them. This third story in the set comes closer to me generationally. The historical thread is based on what happened to my grandfather’s grandfather, the first sheriff of Baxter County, surrounded by some embellished historical characters and a cast of people who never lived but might have. And now I’ve come to the end of the three stories feeling enriched by this foray into history and reflecting on the themes that follow us through the centuries and into our contemporary lives. Anger. Hurt. Grief. Vengeance. Forgiveness. Love.

I have again taken liberties with the region around Westcliffe, Colorado, in creating this confluence of what might have happened long ago and what might yet be waiting to greet us in our lives as we confront these same themes. May you name these experiences as they occur in the circumstances of your life—as they do for all of us—and find the blessing of stepping into a land of grace.

Olivia Newport’s
novels twist through time to find where faith and passions meet. Her husband and two twenty-something children provide welcome distraction from the people stomping through her head on their way into her books. She chases joy in stunning Colorado at the foot of the Rockies, where daylilies grow as tall as she is.

In a struggling Amish settlement on the harsh Colorado plain, Abbie Weaver refuses to concede defeat to hail, drought, and coyotes even as families begin to give up and return east.
When Abbie discovers the root of a spiritual divide that runs through the settlement, she faces her own decisions about what she believes. She must choose between a quiet love in her cherished church, passion with a man determined to leave the church, or learning to imagine her life with neither.