The Lesson (38 page)

“None of us do,” Fern answered, understanding.

On Monday afternoon, the pupils stayed late to finish up an art project. It was Uncle Hank’s idea: he had a few way-past-their-prime rainbow trout in the freezer that Fern insisted he toss out, and M.K. had extra paint, so the pupils made fish prints. The schoolhouse smelled horrible but the pictures were wonderful. She thought about Eugene Miller, missing whatever his creative mind would have conjured up for a fish print. His empty desk grieved her today. It grieved everyone. Where was he? Was he going to be all right? She knew she would worry about him for the rest of her life. All she could do was to pray for him.

Mary Kate hung the last picture on the wall and stood back to look at the room. It was surprisingly cheerful. Everything about her life surprised her. Not only that she was a teacher, but that she liked it. In fact, there were moments, like today, when she was starting to love it.

She heard a knock at the door and Chris popped his head in. A big smile creased his handsome face. “Can you come outside for a minute?”

She hurried out to meet him. Chris stood beside a pitch-black stallion. “Samson!” She crossed the porch and put her
hand out to Samson’s velvet nose. “How in the world did you get him back?”

“I didn’t,” Chris said, grinning. “Your dad and Fern went to an auction this morning and bought him back from Domino Joe. Cost a pretty penny. I told your dad that I wanted to pay him back, but he said no, that it was a down payment.”

“Down payment on what?” M.K. stroked his long neck.

“He said something odd—something like ‘refreshing the sponge.’ Fern explained that was bread baker’s code for a fresh start.” Samson dipped his big head up and down, making Chris take a step back. “I finished up minor repairs on the bishop’s buggy today. The bishop was happy about that. He seems pretty determined that I should help your uncle in the buggy shop. But I don’t want to step on your uncle’s toes.”

“Don’t worry about that. Uncle Hank wants to retire from buggy repair. Just last night he said he’s going full time into finding water. Much more lucrative, he thinks, especially after Edith Fisher corrected him about the puppies’ mother. Turns out she isn’t a poodle at all. She’s a Portuguese water dog. So now he has a theory that he can train the puppies to find the water for him. All four.”

Chris laughed.

“I knew he would never give those puppies up.”

“Mary Kate, there’s something else I want you to think about. Your father and Fern offered to have Jenny and me stay at the honey cabin.” The air had gone quiet, falling into the purple hush of dusk as the winter sun slipped behind the trees. He glanced down at his shoes, suddenly shy. She understood that he was every bit as nervous as she was. “I wondered how you might feel about that, seeing as how it’s your workplace for your bees.”

But where would she keep her honey equipment? she thought, and then, Chris would stay in Stoney Ridge! Swirling in the back of her mind had been a nagging worry that he might return to Ohio since he no longer had a home to live in. Suddenly, she was filled with a wild sense of happiness. It seemed incredible. Miraculous, even. She wouldn’t mind moving her honey equipment out of the honey cabin. Not one little bit! A smile uncurled. She didn’t quite trust her voice. “I think it sounds just fine. Better than fine.”

He watched her, a small smile turning up the corners of his lips. “We’re alike, Hank and I.”

“How’s that?” M.K. said. She’d just noticed he had a large envelope behind his back and she craned her neck to see whose name was on the address label—better still, who had sent it—but he kept it away from her and slipped his other arm around her, pulling her close to him.

“Hank and I both know a good thing when we see it.”

M.K. hid a smile.

He leaned closer to her. “And we won’t let go of that good thing.”

“Really?” The word came out as a soft gasp. “Not ever? Not even when your mother reappears and makes you feel like you’re worthless? You won’t believe her and retreat into your turtle shell?”

He looked at her as if he thought she had spoken in another language. Then his face slipped into a smile. “Not even then,” he said, and just like that, she couldn’t breathe.

Their eyes met—those familiar blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled. She stood without moving as he bent over to kiss her. Then she slipped her arms around his neck and he kissed her until she was too breathless to think straight.

He let her go and waved the large white envelope. “Fern wanted me to hand deliver this to you.”

M.K. grabbed it from him and opened it up. In it was her passport. It had finally arrived in the mail. She looked up at Chris and smiled. She could go anywhere in the world.

But she didn’t want to be anywhere else.

Questions for Discussion

1. Mary Kate started this story with an immature perspective on her life. She didn’t appreciate what she had or what she might be giving up if she left her family and church. Which relationship had the most effect to help her turn the corner toward adulthood: Erma Yutzy? Chris Yoder? Fern Lapp? Eugene Miller?
   
2. Chris and Jenny’s mother is aggravating. I even felt it as I wrote her character! It would have been nice to have a happy ending for Grace Mitchell, but it just doesn’t always happen that way in life. Whether Grace chose addiction or it chose her, she was stuck. Do you have someone in your life who seems stuck in a cycle of selfish sin?
   
3. Loving someone who continues a pattern of harmful sin is very complicated. Here’s an example of how Jenny struggled with hope and reality over her mother: “Despite everything, despite how confused she felt, it was her mother whom Jenny couldn’t stop thinking about. Her mother needed her. She should be there when her mother was released from rehab.” Have you ever been betrayed by a person you trusted? How did you react? How does it affect you today?
   
4. Jenny wondered why Chris didn’t argue back to their mother. Old Deborah explained, “Years ago, your brother read something from the Bible that spoke to him and settled deep. Jesus said we should be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.” What a puzzling phrase! Yet filled with practical wisdom. How would you explain Jesus’s words to someone?
   
5. Old Deborah explained that Chris was wise enough to know that words were like tools. “Your mother uses her tools to tear down. Chris uses his tools to repair and fix up.” Have you ever thought of your words like that?
   
6. Trace the effects of love in this story on Chris and Jenny: Old Deborah’s, Fern’s, Mary Kate’s. What do you think this story tells you about the impact of love?
   

Acknowledgments

L
ast year, I read a short comment at the end of a scribe’s letter in
The
Budget
. It was written from an Amish woman who participated in an informal program with a women’s prison. This woman fostered a prisoner’s child and took her to visit her mother once a month. I started to do a little digging and found a similar program with the Mennonite Caregivers Program. This program’s aim isn’t to recruit children for the Mennonite Church or to be adopted. “And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me” (Matt. 18:5) is the only motivation for these thirty Mennonite families who live in Southeast Pennsylvania. Studies have shown that incarcerated women who mother their babies have a lower recidivism rate. How remarkable! I felt so impressed by these quiet heroes, trying to strengthen family ties.

So that’s how the story of Chris and Jenny Yoder began, with Old Deborah—another quiet hero. Remember, though, it is a work of fiction. Chris and Jenny’s mother, Grace Mitchell, was caught in a cycle of drug addiction. It would have
been nice and tidy to have Grace “see the light,” but that just doesn’t always happen in life.

There are many types of addiction—some that are obvious, like drugs, and some that are more sinister. Fern’s comments to Jenny toward the end of the book had so much wisdom in them: “Remember, though, that sometimes you can love and forgive somebody, but you might still want to keep your distance.” Sadly, some problems are just not going to be solved in this lifetime.

A special thank-you to my first draft readers, Lindsey Ciraulo and Wendrea How. You’re the best!

A big shout-out to my insightful editor, Andrea Doering, named Editor of the Year at ACFW in 2011. And to my agent, Joyce Hart, who is always my Agent of the Year. Thank you to the support team at Revell: Michele Misiak, Janelle Mahlmann, Robin Barnett, Deonne Lindsey, Twila Bennett Brothers, Claudia Marsh, Donna Hausler, and so many others who help get my books from the warehouse to the shelves and into readers’ hands.

As always, my gratitude goes to my dear family. And finally, I would like to give a heartfelt thank-you to the Lord who has been blessing this endeavor of mine. I hope I’m doing him proud.

Suzanne Woods Fisher
is the author of
The Choice
,
The Waiting
, and
The
Search
—the bestselling Lancaster County Secrets series.
The Waiting
was a finalist for the 2011 Christy Award. Suzanne’s grandfather was raised in the Old Order German Baptist Brethren Church in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Her interest in living a simple, faith-filled life began with her Dunkard cousins. Suzanne is also the author of the bestselling
Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom
for a Complicated World
and
Amish Proverbs: Words of Wisdom
from the Simple Life
, both finalists for the ECPA Book of the Year award, and
Amish Values for Your Family: What We Can Learn from the Simple Life
. She is the host of
Amish Wisdom
, a weekly radio program on
toginet.com
. She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Books by Suzanne Woods Fisher

Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World

Amish Proverbs: Words of Wisdom from the Simple Life

Amish Values for Your Family: What We Can Learn from the Simple Life

A Lancaster County Christmas

L
ANCASTER
C
OUNTY
S
ECRETS

The Choice

The Waiting

The Search

S
TONEY
R
IDGE
S
EASONS

The Keeper

The Haven

The Lesson

T
HE
A
DVENTURES
OF
L
ILY
L
APP

(Coauthor with Mary Ann Kinsinger)

Life with Lily

A New Home for Lily