A Hand to Hold
A Hand to Hold
Other Novels By Kathleen Fuller
A Man of His Word
An Honest Love
A Hand to Hold
A Hearts of Middlefield Novel
KATHLEEN FULLER
© 2010 by Kathleen Fuller
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fuller, Kathleen.
A hand to hold : A hearts of Middlefield novel / by Kathleen Fuller.
p. cm. — (Hearts of Middlefield ; 3)
ISBN 978-1-59554-814-6 (pbk.)
1. Middlefield (Ohio)—Fiction. 2. Amish Country (Ohio)—Fiction. 3. Amish—Social life and customs—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3606.U553H36 2010b
813’.6—dc22
2010025943
Printed in the United States of America
10 11 12 13 14 15 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Jimmy, for always
giving me a hand to hold.
Pennsylvania Dutch Glossary
ab im kopp:
crazy
appeditlich:
delicious
boppli:
baby
bruder:
brother
bu:
boy
buwe:
boys
daed:
father
danki:
thank you
Dietch:
Pennsylvania Dutch
dochder:
daughter
dumm:
dumb
dummkopf:
dummy
familye:
family
frau:
wife, Mrs.
fraulein:
unmarried woman, Miss
friend:
friend, friends
gaul:
horse
geh:
go
geh die nacht:
go tonight
glee:
little
grossdochder:
granddaughter
grosskinn:
grandchild
grosssohn:
grandson
grossvadder:
grandfather
gut:
good
gut nacht:
good night
haus:
house
hees:
hot
Herr:
Mr.
kapp:
an Amish woman’s prayer covering
keenich:
king
kinn:
child
kinner:
children
lieb:
love
maed:
girls
mann:
man
mami:
mother
mei:
my
mudder:
mother
nee:
no
nix:
nothing
obsenaat:
obstinate
onkel:
uncle
rumspringa:
the period between ages sixteen and twenty-four, loosely translated as “running around time.” For Amish young adults,
rumspringa
ends when they join the church.
schulhaus:
schoolhouse
schee:
pretty
schwester:
sister
schwoger:
brother-in-law
seltsam:
weird
sohn:
son
wunderbaar:
wonderful
ya:
yes
Yankee
:
a non-Amish person
yung:
young
Contents
R
uth Byler picked up a fresh piece of chalk and, with precise strokes, wrote her name on the blackboard in both cursive and print. She took a step back and smiled, admiring the letters, stark white against deepest black. This was her blackboard. Her classroom. Her dream.
She turned to look at the empty desks filling the room. All twenty of them were aligned in five rows, four to a row, with equal space between them. Tomorrow, the first day of school, they would be filled with her students, from first through eighth grade, for whom she had spent the last two hours finishing her preparations.
On each desk sat a pencil and a brand-new spiral notebook. She had purchased them with her own money, had sharpened each pencil, and had written her students’ names on the inside cover of each notebook in the upper left-hand corner. Her favorite time of year had been the day her mother purchased school supplies. She remembered the crispness of notebook paper, the snap of that first binder ring, and the thrill she felt when she looked at her unused colored pencils. She imagined her students’ eager expressions when they walked into the classroom tomorrow morning, how pleased they would be with their gifts.
Ruth walked to the back of the classroom to check the four posters on the wall—a map of the world, the alphabet in print and in cursive, a list of classroom rules, and a basic grammar guide. After ensuring they were well secured, she went back to her desk, slipped on her reading glasses, and opened her planning book. Every minute of the day was scheduled, and she’d prepared lessons for the first four months, all the way up to Christmas break. After reviewing tomorrow’s plans, she thought to rework a lesson but resisted. She was already pushing it by being here on the Lord’s day. She closed the book and put it in its designated spot in her desk.
She started for the door, then stopped. “Almost forgot,” she said and pulled a wooden apple out of her satchel. Her brother Lukas had made it in her family’s woodshop, Byler and Sons, as a congratulatory present for getting the teaching job. She rubbed her fingers against the slick, red-lacquered surface, admiring the smooth curves and the grain of the wood. She set it on the desk, her fingers lingering on it for a second longer.
As she lifted her hand, a loud roar sounded in her ears. She whirled around, her mouth gaping open, and saw the back wall of the classroom explode. Wood splintered and boards flew in the air. Instinctively she put her arms up to shield her face from a wood plank hurtling toward her. But she was too late. Darkness enveloped her.
Zachariah Bender moaned as he lifted his head from the steering wheel. He reached for his forehead, his right arm moving as if in slow motion. A bump had started to form. Pulling his hand away, he expected to see blood, but let out a long breath when he didn’t. He carefully released his white-knuckled grip from the steering wheel, then checked his arms and legs. Everything moved okay, and other than the bump on his head, he wasn’t in pain. Thank God he wasn’t seriously hurt. But he couldn’t say the same for the truck.
Through the windshield, he stared at the hazy sight of splintered wood and debris scattered around the gray four-by-four. He fought the urge to vomit. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin the interior too.
Zach put his hands on top of his head and shut his eyes. He had done plenty of stupid things in his life. Up until now, he’d considered the time he’d lit a stack of newspapers with a cigarette lighter in his
daed’s
repair shop as the dumbest. Twelve years old at the time, he had found the lighter on the side of the road and nearly burned down the shop. But driving a truck into the schoolhouse? This was definitely worse. Much, much worse.
Zach gingerly pushed open the door, wincing at the loud clacks of debris hitting the floor. The dust outside floated inside and filled his lungs, making him cough and increasing the ache in his head. When he stepped out of the vehicle, his foot hit something hard. A bookshelf lay facedown on the floor, and books and magazines were spilled everywhere. He turned and looked back at the truck, and his stomach turned 360 degrees.
Oh man
. Rick was going to kill him. And if Rick didn’t, Zach’s father would. He didn’t even have a driver’s license.
He’d told Rick he could handle driving a couple miles to the convenience store. The entire trip would take ten minutes tops. They had been rebuilding a four-wheeler in Rick’s parents’ garage, and they couldn’t find anything to drink in the house—at least nothing they wanted. He’d driven the truck just fine before, with Rick sitting in the passenger seat, but this time Rick had let him go by himself. Then halfway to the store, two deer ran out in front of the truck. He’d cut the steering wheel hard to the right, then tried to straighten out, but he overcorrected. The last thing he remembered was the schoolhouse coming up on him. He’d slammed on the brake pedal—a bit too late.
Zach shut the door, and several pieces of wood slid onto the hood. A hot breeze slammed into him, and he turned around to see a cavernous hole in the school wall, with the truck parked halfway through it. A huge board dangled above the bed, then dropped, causing the vehicle to bounce on its shocks. Among all the clatter, he thought he heard a soft moan. Was someone here? He jumped over two damaged desks, scanning the room as he made his way to the front. Near the teacher’s desk, a petite female lay on the floor, struggling to sit up. He knelt down beside her. “Are you all right?”
She put her hand on the floor and pushed herself into a seated position. Her round, silver-rimmed glasses sat askew on her face, and her dark blue eyes shone from behind the lenses. Strands of dark blonde hair had pulled loose from her white head covering, hanging limp against her cheeks. His stomach lurched at the blotch of blood on her forehead. A thick strip of jagged wood lay in her lap, probably the cause of her injury.
The blood began to trickle beneath the bridge of her glasses and over her nose. He patted his pockets for a rag, cloth, something to stop the bleeding. Nothing. He untucked his light blue shirt from his pants, ripped part of the bottom off, then wadded it up and put it against her head. “Don’t move.”
“What?” She turned her head and looked at him, her eyes unfocused.
“Be still. You might have a concussion.”
And it would be my fault
. Not only had he knocked out part of the schoolhouse, destroyed the furniture inside it, and crashed his friend’s truck, but now he might have seriously injured someone.
The young woman ignored his warning and straightened her glasses. Then she reached up and touched her head. Her finger slid against the blood. She jerked her hand away and stared at the red smudge on her skin.