The Nanny's Amish Family Page 8

  “I could do it,” Noah said. “When does he want us to come?”

  “In the morning,” Amos replied.

  But the timing was just too perfect. Thomas needed to show Rue other kinner so that she could see that their way wasn’t some random, cruel list of rules to follow. She had to see that others were like them, too. And the Smokers had five girls, twelve and under.

  “What if I went?” Thomas said. “I could bring Patience and Rue with me, and Rue could play with some kinner. It would be good for her. She might see how another family runs.”

  Amos shrugged, and looked over at Noah.

  “Yah, I don’t mind that,” Noah replied. “I didn’t want to get behind on that bedroom set that’s due to be finished next week, anyway.”

  “Would you be willing to come along?” Thomas asked Patience.

  Patience nodded, and from the stairs, there was a small, shaky voice. “I’m hungry.”

  They’d all been speaking German up until now, and Thomas looked up to see Rue standing there, her eyes red from tears, and looking so small that his heart nearly broke.

  “Come have your dinner, then,” Thomas said, patting the stool next to him. “It’s chicken.”

  Rue froze, and he could almost see the cruel possibilities running through her little, tousled head.

  “It’s not Toby,” he clarified.

  “Oh, good...” Rue sighed, and she came up to the stool and stared at it.

  “Here—” Thomas lifted her onto her seat. When she was settled, Thomas and Patience both set to filling her plate.

  “Now, eat up,” Thomas said.

  And in those words, he meant so much more—he wanted to say that he loved her already, and that he wanted to keep her safe. He wanted to say that he was sorry that he had to punish her, and that he was only trying to teach her the right way.

  But he couldn’t say all that, so instead, he gave her a little extra gravy.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, Thomas flicked the reins as the horses got into their pace, trotting down the paved road, their hooves clopping cheerfully. Patience sat across from him, with Rue between them, scooted forward so her legs could hang normally. This would help—he was sure of it.

  He’d been praying last night about his predicament, and community was the answer to all of an Amish man’s troubles. He’d been reading Galatians, and he came across the verse that said, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” This was what the Amish strove to live—but going to a neighbor with a vulnerability wasn’t always easy. It took humility—a painful amount, he realized now. But Rue needed to belong to more than just him—she needed to belong here.

  The day was sunny, with some fluffy mounds of cloud sailing overhead. The bees seemed extra busy this morning, circling the wildflowers that grew in the ditches lining the road, and he got that old feeling of nostalgia. It had been a long time since Thomas had driven out this way. Two or three years, actually. He’d been avoiding it ever since he got back from his extended Rumspringa. It held memories that he no longer knew how to process.

  Thomas glanced down a familiar side road that led to a creek he and Noah used to play in as boys. It wasn’t deep enough to swim, but it had been wet enough to play in on a hot summer day after chores.

  “I used to live down here,” Thomas said.

  “Really?” Patience shot him a curious look.

  “You see that house up ahead—the one with the trees in front?” It had been whitewashed when they lived there, but it was the same house. “That was ours.”

  He and his brother helped their daet whitewash the house and the chicken coop every few years. The winter wind had a way of blasting the paint, and they liked to keep their home looking bright and fresh. Daet worked as a farmhand at a local dairy, and Mamm had kept house, like the other Amish women did.

  “You really had no idea they weren’t born Amish?” Patience asked, switching to German.

  Thomas shrugged. “I had no idea. You tend to think your home is normal... Looking back on it, I suppose there were a few signs. My parents spoke English when they were alone. I used to think it was their way of hiding what they were saying from us kids. And maybe it was. Sort of like we’re doing now to keep Rue from understanding us... But now, I realize, it was more than that, because the only time they could have talked freely in their first language would have been when they were alone together.”

  How unsettling was this for Patience to hear about? He’d worked through a lot of his own anger about his parents’ secrets over the last few years, but there were still times when his feelings about it took him by surprise. When his father died and his mother left the community, he’d lost both parents and his sense of place within his own community all at once. He’d been bereft and adrift. He’d needed every ounce of charity that had been offered to him—including the home that Amos and his grandmother opened up for them to live in.

  As they came closer to the drive that led up to his childhood home, Thomas noticed some signs of a new family living there—a truck in the driveway, the growl of a tractor coming from farther back on the property. There was a tree closer to the road with low, spreading branches, and a swing still hung from the straightest of them. The rope was new, though. There must be kids living here.

  Thomas reined in the horses.

  “I used to swing on that swing when I was a little kid like you, Rue,” Thomas said, pointing.

  “Can I swing on it?” Rue asked.

  “No, it isn’t ours anymore,” Thomas replied.

  The door opened and a woman in shorts appeared on the step. She shaded her eyes to look at them, then waved. Rue waved exuberantly back.

  “Hello!” Rue shouted.

  “Rue, stop that,” Patience said briskly, and she exchanged a look with Thomas.

  “Hya.” Thomas flicked the reins.

  “We could ask if I can swing!” Rue said, leaning around Patience to get a better look at the Englisher woman. “She’d probably let me!”

  There was no doubt that the woman would let Rue swing, but the price for that would be conversation, and Thomas knew better than to get chatty with the Englishers. Friendships were a two-way street, and for better or for worse, the Englishers in these parts were bent on developing friendships—sharing their experiences, asking too-personal questions.

  “Rue, we are Amish,” Thomas said. “We keep to ourselves.”

  “But I’m not,” Rue said.

  “You’re my little girl, so yes, you are,” he countered.

  Rue frowned at this and leaned back against the seat.

  “Her people are Englishers,” Patience said in German.

  “Not anymore,” Thomas replied. “I’m raising her Amish. And that’s that.”

  “Of course, but she can’t deny her own mamm,” Patience replied. “Everything she knows and remembers...”

  “So I should let her play with Englisher kinner, then?” he asked, shaking his head. “I should let her chat with Englisher neighbors? What would you have me do?”

  There was a beat of silence, and then Patience said, “I don’t know. But her situation might be more complicated than a child born here. That’s all I’m saying.”

  And maybe Patience was right, but what was he supposed to do? Tina had kept him away, and now that Rue was under his care, he had to do what he felt was right. And an Amish life was right. So maybe, in a way, he was doing the exact thing that Tina had done...

  “What would you have me do?” Thomas asked, shaking his head. “Her mamm was Englisher. Well, so is mine. Am I less Amish because of my parents?”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Patience replied.

  “There has to be something said for the life you were raised to, whether or not your parents were raised in the same way,” he said. “I’m going to raise her Amish�
��and there will be no chatting with Englisher neighbors. She’ll be Amish through and through by the time she’s old enough for her Rumspringa.”

  And if God blessed his efforts, then she’d stay Amish, too.

  “You’re her daet,” Patience said simply.

  “I know what it’s like to have connections...out there,” he said.

  “Then you understand how she feels, I imagine,” Patience said.

  “I understand what she needs,” he replied. “And she needs to find her place in our community. She needs the stability, the sense of who she is on the narrow path. She doesn’t need distraction or reminders of the life she came from. She needs a solid future.”

  He was frustrated, and he attempted to relax his iron grip on the reins. This child was so determined to cling to her Englisher upbringing, and while he couldn’t entirely blame her, he didn’t know what to do. There was no halfway with the Amish life.

  “Thomas...” Patience said.

  He looked over and she reached past Rue and put a hand on his upper arm. Her touch was warm and gentle, melting away the irritation rising up inside him.

  “Yah?” he said.

  “You’re a good daet.” She smiled then, and he sucked in a slow breath.

  Amish families were calm and collected. Already, he was feeling himself getting riled up at the thought of everything he could not control, but at a touch from her hand, he was reminded of everything he was supposed to be. It made him want to close his fingers around hers, tug her closer against him... But there was a child between them, and this new addition to his life had to have his focus.

  A man could make a good many mistakes in his life and manage to forgive himself, but the errors in judgment he made with his own kinner were the ones that haunted him. He couldn’t afford to mess this up with Rue.

  They carried on for another couple of miles, then turned down a gravel road that led to the Smoker farm. Patience was silent, and Rue, who hadn’t understood any of their German conversation, swung her legs and watched the scenery go by.

  As they turned into the Smoker drive, Rue leaned forward when she saw two little girls in the garden. They were barefoot, and they each had plastic ice cream pails that they were filling with weeds. The girls stood up when they saw the buggy and wiped their dirty hands on their dresses.

  “There are kids here!” Rue said with a smile.

  “Yah, you’ll have some girls to play with for a little while,” Thomas said, and he was glad to see that his daughter was simply happy to see other children, instead of judging whether they were Englisher or Amish.

  “This is better than a swing,” Rue announced.

  Thomas looked over and met Patience’s eye. She shot him a smile. Then the door opened and Susan Smoker came out with a wave and a smile. Thomas pulled up the horses.

  “Good morning, Susan,” Thomas called. “I’ve come to help Ben with the gate.”

  “Yah, yah,” Susan said. “He’ll be glad of that. I think he’s in the main barn right now.”

  “I’ve brought the new schoolteacher,” Thomas said. “Meet Patience Flaud. She’ll be teaching some of your girls this year.”

  “Pleasure to meet you.” Susan’s smile spread. “Well, come on down and let’s get some pie, then.”

  It was then that Susan’s gaze fell on Rue, and Thomas could see the question forming on her face before she said anything.

  “This is my daughter, Rue,” Thomas said, and he cleared his throat. “It’s a long story, but suffice it to say, she’s from my Rumspringa. I know I did wrong, and Gott has forgiven me, but... Her mamm passed, and she’s mine to raise now.”

  “Oh...” Susan nodded twice. “So she’s Englisher, is she?”

  “Yah,” he admitted.

  “She looks it,” Susan replied.

  Rue, not understanding the conversation, just stared, her blue eyes wide and uncertain. After Thomas hopped down from the buggy, he lifted his daughter down, and then held a hand out to help Patience to the ground, as well. It felt oddly comfortable to have a little girl and a woman in his care today.

  But when he turned back to Susan, her easy smile was gone and she was staring at Rue solemnly. The girls arrived from the garden just then, and an older girl opened the screen, a toddler on her hip. The girls were all in matching dresses—some dirtier than others—and he couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief. This was the kind of family that Rue needed to see—respectable, well behaved, pious. Except Susan looked a little less welcoming now.

  “I hope it’s a convenient time for us to get to know each other,” Patience said, seeming to read Susan’s altered expression at the same time.

  “Yah, of course,” Susan said. “Do you need clothes and shoes for her, Thomas? Because we have some dresses the girls have outgrown and a couple of pairs of shoes, too—”

  “Yah, thank you,” he replied. “That would be a great help. We’re starting from scratch, and this was a bit of a shock.”

  Rue looked up at Thomas uncertainly, and a part of him wished he could stay with her, help her feel more comfortable. But he was here to help Ben, and Patience could help her navigate. Patience seemed to sympathize with Rue’s plight, at the very least.

  “Go on inside with the women, Rue,” Thomas said. “You’ll have friends to play with.”

  It would be all right. This was where his daughter belonged—with Amish playmates and a community that would help her get a proper start...just as soon as they forgave her father for the mistakes that had brought her into the world.

  * * *

  Patience took Rue’s hand and followed Susan Smoker into the little farmhouse. Susan looked over her shoulder again at Thomas, who was leading the horses toward the stable, then she sighed. Patience looked in the same direction, watching Thomas’s form as he walked away. He was a strong man, but right now, Patience sensed he was at his most vulnerable. It was all coming back on him—his mistakes, his family’s problems... To simply look at him, a woman would never know. If Patience had met him under any other circumstances, he’d be just a handsome Amish man, laughter twinkling in his eyes and good looks that could sway just about any single woman.

  “It’s good to meet you... Patience, is it?” Susan said, drawing Patience’s attention back.

  “Yes,” she said with a smile. “Likewise.”

  The kitchen was neat, and the table had some basic school worksheets laid out—some printing, some counting... Someone was getting ready for school. The older girl stood by the door with the baby on her hip, looking at Patience shyly. Patience smiled at her, then turned to Susan.

  “How many of your girls will be in school this year?” Patience asked.

  Rue leaned against Patience’s side, and she smoothed a hand over the girl’s head.

  “Three,” Susan replied. “This here is Bethany—she’s in seventh grade this year. She’s got baby Leora. And Rose is in the fourth grade. Dinah is just starting grade one.”

  Dinah and Rose were the girls who had been weeding, and Dinah, the smaller of the two, wiped a stray tendril of auburn hair away from her face, leaving a streak of dirt behind.

  “And let me see...” Susan turned to spy her fifth daughter munching on a muffin by the counter. “That is our little Ellen. She’s only five, so she starts school next year.”

  Patience smiled at the girls. “I’m glad to meet you. This is Rue. She’s four.”

  “Bethany, let me take the baby,” Susan said. “And you take Rue upstairs. Get those dresses from the back of the closet—the ones Dinah outgrew...”

  Susan set about giving instructions to her girls, and Bethany took Rue’s hand and led her upstairs. The other girls followed, chattering away to Rue in German. Rue wouldn’t understand, but they’d figure that out eventually.

  “Could you hold the baby for me?” Susan asked. “I’m going to get us some pie
.”

  Patience took the chubby baby girl with a smile, and overhead was the sound of laughter and giggling.

  “Now that the kinner are out of the way, who is this little girl—Rue, you call her?” Susan asked.

  Patience pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down, settling the baby on her lap. “He’s Thomas’s daughter, as he said. You’d know Thomas’s family better than I do—”

  “His mamm—Rachel—she left us,” Susan said. “We know that, but she always was a little different. I’d heard that they’d converted in another community, then moved here. But you could tell—there was just something about them... They spoke English too well, for one. And their German was terrible. After Rachel left, Thomas left, too, for a while, then came back and got baptized. We had no idea there was an Englisher child.”

  “Yes, well...” It wasn’t Patience’s place to talk about anything that personal. “She’s a sweet little girl. Her mamm died in a car accident, and she’s doing her best. But she’s a fish out of water out here. She’s still adjusting to our ways.”

  Susan nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure she is. But she doesn’t speak German?”

  “No,” Patience replied. “Not a word. Yet, at least. I’m sure her daet will teach her.”

  “And she’s...wild and willful?” Susan pressed.

  Patience knew what Susan was getting at. It was how they all seemed to see the Englisher kinner. And while Rue was Patience’s first Englisher child to get to know, she could already see that their assumptions weren’t completely true, either.

  “She’s a little girl with a broken heart,” Patience said simply.

  “Yah, of course.” Susan came to the table with two plates of shoofly pie. “I’m just...surprised by all of it. It’s a lot to take in. So... What about you, then? Where do you come from?”

  “Beaufort,” Patience replied.

  “And single, it seems?” Susan raised her eyebrows.

  Patience laughed at that. “Yah. Very single.”

  “We’ll see what we can do about that...” She took her baby back into her lap, then pressed a kiss against her head.