The Amish Nanny (11 page)

No wonder tourists flocked to Lancaster County. It wasn't mountainous, like Montana, or all lit up, like Chicago, but it had a beauty completely its own. Perhaps the next time I found myself clucking in disapproval at the cars lined up behind my buggy waiting to pass or the tour buses that drove slowly down our lane so their passengers could snap pictures through the windows, I would remind myself that God had blessed me greatly in allowing me to live here year-round, and that the least I could do was to show some grace to those who only wanted to share it for a while.

As we turned into our own driveway, I allowed my eyes to linger on the beauty here as well. The tall, abundant stalks of corn. The black and white cows grazing contentedly in the grass. The line of neat, white fencing that delineated the pastures. The driver pulled to a stop near the house, and my father was swinging open the door just as my mother came rushing out to greet us. As I stepped from the van, she reached out for a hug, and I realized I was seeing her through this traveler's perspective as well. The lines of her aging face. The widening of the part in her hair. The redness of her hardworking hands. Closing my eyes, I moved into her embrace, feeling an odd detachment from the moment even as I hugged her tightly in return.

While
Daed
settled up with the driver and Ezra started carrying my bags to the house,
Mamm
linked an arm in mine and walked me toward the front steps, peppering me with questions all the way. She seemed excited but also nervous, as if she were afraid something had fundamentally changed somehow. Perhaps she was more intuitive than I'd given her credit for.

When we reached the door, I hesitated, looking toward the
daadi haus
out back.

“I should run and speak to
Mammi
,” I said, detaching myself.

“She's not home.”

“Not home?”
Mammi
never went anywhere anymore, at least not without me or
Mamm
close by her side. For a moment, my mind conjured up the worst images imaginable: tubes, machines, a hospital bed. Then I realized what it must be instead.

“She's over at the Gundys'. Will and Alice came by this morning and picked her up.”

Will and Alice. Just as I'd thought. This was about Europe.

Keeping my voice casual, I said, “Really? What for?”

Mamm
shrugged, an odd expression on her face. “I have no idea. Something to do with the old family property back in Switzerland. I'm not real clear on the details.”

At the word Switzerland, my heart skipped a beat.

Giselle lived in Switzerland.

Did Alice and Will's legal issue over in Europe have something to do with Giselle?

I swallowed hard, knowing that the subject of my birth mother was a touchy one for
Mamm
. I usually accepted her attitude with varying degrees of irritation and compassion, depending on my mood and the situation. At the moment I chose to tread very carefully, lest my words mess up any sort of plans that might have been forming over at the Gundys' even as we spoke.

“I thought
Mammi
sold that property years ago,” I said evenly, taking
Mamm
's arm again and steering us into the house. She fell right into step beside me, pushing open the kitchen door and motioning for me to go through first.

“She did. Well, most of it anyway. Apparently, this has to do with an important historical site that's been discovered on the piece that's left, something related to the early Anabaptists.”

My eyebrows lifted. Of all the possibilities I'd been rolling around in my mind, that certainly wasn't one that had occurred to me.

The term “Anabaptist” referred to the Amish and other groups, such as the Mennonites and Hutterites, who believed in adult baptism. Early Anabaptists had been baptized in the state church as infants, so when they chose to be re-baptized as adults, they had become known as “again baptizers,” or Anabaptists. Though we all connected deeply to our Anabaptist heritage, I couldn't imagine what that had to do with
Mammi
and Alice going to Europe.

“I don't know much more than that,”
Mamm
continued. “I haven't really paid too much attention. But for the past week, she and Alice have been scheming and whispering right and left. It's actually kind of cute. It reminds me of when they were younger.”

I understood what she meant. When I was a little girl,
Mammi
and Alice were together often, usually for canning or quilting or some other task easier done with two pairs of hands than one.
Mammi
had no sisters, so in a way her good friend Alice had become that for her. But
Mammi
had a stroke, limiting her mobility, and then just last year Will's wife, Lydia, had died. These days Alice was so busy helping to care for the three children that visits from her here were rare.

“So what do the Gundys have to do with this?” I asked, still keeping my tone nonchalant as I kicked off my shoes under the coat rack.

“Truly, Ada, I have no idea. All they told me was that they wanted
Mammi
to come over to their house to meet some man who was visiting, a historical expert of some kind.”

She seemed so nonchalant about it that I decided she surely hadn't got wind of any connected travel plans, either for her or me or anyone else in the family. She wouldn't be acting so calmly if she had. I decided to keep quiet about it for now.

Without asking if I was hungry, my mother pointed toward the kitchen. I hesitated, eager to head upstairs instead. Then I looked toward the table and saw that a late lunch had been all laid out for me there. Unfortunately, eating was the last thing on my mind. At the moment all I wanted was a shower, a fresh set of clothes, and a horse and buggy at the ready. Now that I was back, I had places to go and people to see.

Ezra came clomping down the stairs at that moment, having delivered my bags up to my bedroom. My mother thanked him for his help, chatting warmly as she walked him back outside. As she did I walked over to look down at the meal she'd prepared, wondering how to get out of eating it without hurting her feelings. It wasn't lost on me that she'd made all of my favorites: sliced turkey on homemade bread, sweet pickles, and macaroni salad with fresh broccoli. Then I saw it, there at the center of the plate: a circle of cottage cheese, decorated to look like a person. Just as she'd done when I was a small child, she'd used carrot curls for hair, pineapple segments for ears, raisins for the eyes and nose, and an orange segment for the smile.

I sat, my mind swirling.
Mamm
hadn't made a cottage cheese lady for me in years. Whenever my condition would flare up, leaving me far too weak to eat, sometimes the only way she could coax food into my mouth at all was by being creative. Cottage cheese people. Raisin ants on peanut-buttered celery logs. Animal-shaped pancakes around syrup watering holes.

At the moment I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. A part of me felt a surge of love for this woman who had been so good to me, who had never done anything but care for me and protect me and guide me. Perhaps she'd dredged up this element of my youth simply as a fun way to say “welcome home.”

But another part of me suspected a darker motive here. Deep inside, I couldn't help but feel she was also sending me a message, whether she realized it or not. She wanted me to know that despite having been allowed to go across the country and back, I was home, where I would stay from now on, still very much her little girl.

Unable to stop myself, I reached out and moved around the orange slice smile, turning it into a frown.

My mother returned to the kitchen at that moment, her face lighting up expectantly when she saw me sitting there at my place. “Well?”

“You made all my favorites…” I said, gesturing toward the food, unsure of how else to react.

“Including an old friend,” she replied, grinning. “Remember how you always used to eat the mouth first, so she couldn't talk, and then you'd eat the ears so she couldn't hear?” Talking about the good old days, she poured me a glass of milk.

“Your father used to tease me that I was making a graven image,” she continued, “but we both decided that faces created from food wouldn't exactly trouble the bishop. Good thing, because it got you to eat, which most days was not an easy task at all.”

After setting it down in front of me,
Mamm
took a seat to my right and reached for her mending basket, which she'd placed on the floor nearby. She must have planned it all out, how I would sit there eating and she'd sit there mending, and together we could chat and laugh for an hour at least, gently reestablishing the bond that may have been strained because of my trip.

But then she noticed my expression and asked what was wrong. “You're not sick, are you, Ada? Feeling weak? Do you need to go lie down?”

Biting my lip I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. So many emotions were warring inside of me at that moment that I feared I might run screaming from the room. Instead, I forced myself to put a hand on her arm, thanked her for going to so much trouble, and told her it was just a shame that I had already eaten.

“I had a huge sandwich in the club car at noon,” I explained, adding that perhaps we could wrap up the plate and save it for my dinner.

A wave of hurt crossed her features, followed by something like resignation. She nodded, and so I rose, carrying my glass to the fridge and pouring the milk back into the carton. Afraid she might try to rope me into mending with her instead, as I washed my glass at the sink I talked about the tiny bathroom on the train and how I had been counting the minutes until I could get in the shower here at home. Grabbing plastic wrap from the cabinet, I covered the food, the little cottage cheese face staring up at me as I smothered it under the clear film.

“That's probably for the best,”
Mamm
said. “After your shower you can lie down for a nice, long nap,”

I didn't reply. Opening the refrigerator door, I set the plate inside and stood there staring at it for a moment. Then, on impulse, I lifted one corner of the plastic to grab the raisin eyes, popped them into my mouth, chewed, and quickly swallowed. Now she couldn't see.

Just like my mother.

A
half hour later I was showered, dressed, and in the buggy shed, harnessing Rikki to the carriage. Upon learning of my plans,
Mamm
had tried to stop me, insisting I needed my rest. I had politely but firmly informed her I wasn't tired and I had to talk to Levi Stolz to find out what was going on with the teaching position. After stewing on it for a bit, she must have run out to the barn and found my
daed
, because soon they both appeared in the doorway.

“Your father's going to drive you,”
Mamm
announced, marching him inside.

I shook my head, clenching my jaw.

“Thanks,
Daed
, but I'm fine driving myself.”

He hesitated, a lone man caught between two stubborn, determined women. Then he nodded, seeming to understand that the issue wasn't debatable as far as I was concerned. Stepping in to help with the straps, he told my mother he felt sure I'd be fine on my own.

Keeping my voice light, I said I would be happy to pick up
Mammi
while I was out. I didn't add that not only would that give me a chance to see Will—something I yearned for despite the pain I knew it would cause me—but a visit from me might also lead those gathered there to let me in on their big secret regarding Europe and this Anabaptist history matter.

“It's too much for you,”
Mamm
said. “Your father can do it later.”

I looked at
Daed
, wanting his answer, not hers.

“You've already lost two hours of work picking me up at the station,” I told him. “The least I can do is help you out by getting
Mammi
.”

Finishing with the last strap, he gave Rikki a firm pat on her haunches and stepped back, saying that sounded fine and he would appreciate it.

Moments later my horse and I were off. Rumbling up the drive toward the road, I glanced in the rearview mirror, not surprised to see them watching me go, deep concern clearly etched across both their faces.

The day grew hotter as I drove the buggy down the highway to the Stoltz farm. As much as I had been obsessing over this visit the last few days, I wasn't exactly looking forward to it. Once the rumor about the job had been confirmed, I had known there likely wasn't much I could do to change things. Mostly, I just wanted to know what had gone wrong, and why Levi had told me the job was mine when in reality it wasn't.