The Amish Nanny (18 page)

“To be honest,” Alice continued, “if she comes with us, I believe you'll end up bearing the brunt of the burden, acting as a nanny of sorts. Keeping an eye on her. Helping her with her lessons. That kind of thing.”

“What about her missing so much school?”

Peering off, Alice shook her head. “Even when she's there, she's not really there, if you know what I mean. If you'd be willing to help with her lessons during the trip, that would be wonderful. I think she might even do better one-on-one than she has in the classroom.”

Emotion rising up in my chest, I felt my mind move into prayer without even closing my eyes.
This is how You work, isn't it, Lord? This is You, opening yet another door
. I swallowed hard, trying not to weep with sudden gratitude for His grace. I realized that the loss of the teaching job at Willowcrest had made this moment even sweeter still. God
did
want me teaching after all—not to thirty shining little faces, as I had thought, but just one. Just Christy, a very troubled, very special young woman who likely needed a friend as much as she needed a tutor or a nanny.

“What about her passport?” I asked, afraid now that she might not be able to come after all.

“She has it already. When you were out in Oregon and Will and I were first learning of the situation in Switzerland, we thought he and Christy and I would be the ones to make the trip. We applied for our passports and made some tentative travel plans, but we both soon realized it wasn't going to work. Will can't be gone that long from either the twins or the business. Christy was devastated when we told her she and her
daed
wouldn't be coming. But then once you agreed to go with me, an idea was planted in my mind. That idea began to grow, that maybe, if you were willing to serve as her nanny, so to speak, Christy could come along after all.”

She looked at me, eyes shining, and repeated her original question. “So what do you think, Ada? Would you be willing to help out our family in this way?”

Reaching out, I put a hand on Alice's arm and gave her a squeeze, saying yes, that she had no idea how very much I wanted to do this.

“Thank you,” she whispered, patting the top of my hand before I let go.

Out in the yard, Will had raked a pile of leaves together and was motioning for the girls to jump into it. They ran toward it and then abruptly stopped. He leaned the rake up against the tree trunk and showed them how, jumping dramatically into the leaves and then rolling around on the ground. Both girls jumped on top of him, squealing and giggling all the while.

I kept my eyes on the father and his daughters as I asked, “What does Will think of Christy joining us?”

“He's getting desperate about her, to tell you the truth. He thinks it's a wonderful idea, but he doesn't want to overburden you.”

That was just like him—thoughtful and giving to the core, except for when it came to the one thing I wanted most from him, his heart.

Mel rolled onto the grass and picked up a large acorn, holding it daintily like a tea cup. She picked up another and handed it to her father. He took it from her gently and lifted it to his mouth, mimicking a sip as Mat plopped down into his lap.

“Ada?”

Startled, I turned my attention back to Alice.

“I was talking about Christy's medical problem.”

“Sorry,” I said. “The twins are just so cute. It's hard not to watch them.” My eyes wandered again. The little girls were up and running now, toward the side of the house, with Will in pursuit. In a moment they were all out of view.

Alice laughed. “I know, I know. And thank goodness they are so cute—otherwise, sometimes, I don't know…” She sighed, shaking her head. “As for Christy, like I said, medication seems to be controlling her irregular heartbeat. But she's still frail. It's almost as if she thinks she can do less than she actually can.”

I understood. Having grown up with a chronic medical condition, I didn't want Christy to be sidelined the way I had all those years, to have people hovering around her, always asking how she felt, never letting her go anywhere or do anything. I could help her with her studies
and
her attitude about her health, teaching her how to navigate this difficult time in her life.

“So this is really okay with you, Ada? You're certain you want to do this?” Alice's voice was soft.

“Oh, yes,” I said. Sighing deeply, I didn't add that it wasn't just a
want
but a
need
. In some way, I needed Christy every bit as much as she needed me.

E
arly the next morning, I paid a visit to Leah to collect copies of Christy's books and find out about the curriculum that would be covered while we were away. I purposefully arrived a half hour before the children so I would not disrupt the lessons, but Leah wasn't in the school and the door to the building was locked. The early September morning was crisp and dry. I sat in a swing on the playground and twirled around a little, my shoes dragging over the dirt where the grass had worn away.

When I was younger, our family and the Gundys had belonged to the same church district. Amish families grew quickly, and because our districts were based as much on population as geography, they always had to split when they reached the maximum number of members. Such had happened a few years ago when our one district had become two. But as a child, I had not only worshipped with the Gundys but had gone to school with them as well.

The year I started kindergarten, Will Gundy had been in the seventh grade. His brother John was in the fifth grade, and his sister Hannah was just a year ahead of me. Ezra was a one-year-old, but I would see him often at church, or when their mother, Nancy, came to the school to help. I used to daydream about their family, wondering what it would be like to have three redheaded brothers and a big sister with auburn hair. They were all outgoing and confident. And kind to me. Soon I had a crush on Will, even though it was obvious that he and Lydia Miller were sweet on each other.

Lydia was beautiful, with blond, blond hair and blue eyes. She was always kind to me, too, sitting with me under the oak tree when the older kids played baseball or helping me with my letters by drawing them in the dirt with a stick. She didn't play sports, either. She knew I had a crush on Will but didn't seem to mind. In fact, when I would scurry ahead and take his hand after recess, Lydia would smile. I'm sure she just liked that Will was so kind and gentle with a little girl who always gazed up at him so adoringly.

At home I would play school with my dolls under the pine trees, drawing the letters of the alphabet in the dirt for them as Lydia had done for me. From my first day of school I told my parents and
Mammi
I would be a teacher someday. They smiled and said, “Good for you, Ada. That's a fine thing for a girl to do until she gets married.” Because I couldn't imagine myself marrying anyone else but Will, I decided then that if he married Lydia, I would just teach forever.

Even when I was most ill, the dream of teaching did not fade. But then, when I was sick year after year, I began to question my plan to teach at all. How could I take care of thirty students when I was so unwell all the time? At age twenty, when the doctors finally diagnosed my blood disorder, I thought I'd never teach or marry. It wasn't until last spring that my dreams truly began to live again.

Breathing in the dry air, I turned toward the highway. Leah's buggy was almost at the school. I stood, holding onto the chain of the swing, until she'd fed and watered her horse and put him away.

She knew I was there, but it wasn't until she started toward the school that she acknowledged me with a quick hello.

“I wanted to get some of Christy's lessons for our trip,” I explained.

I followed her into the schoolroom. Scraps of green and yellow paper were all over the floor. “We did an art project yesterday,” she said. Construction-paper sunflowers were stapled above the chalkboard. “I told them to clean up, but—” she spread her arms out “—you can see how well that went over.” She sighed.

I felt for her. She was new and trying, but looking around at the chaos, I was sure I would never be so disorganized. Her desk was stacked high with papers. Her face contorted a little, and then she asked me to give her a minute.

I walked around the room, picking up trash and looking at each sunflower. I found Christy's. It was perfect. Every petal in place. The stem centered exactly. Her name written in perfect penmanship in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper.

“Here are a few things,” Leah said, approaching me. She handed me a math workbook, a grammar book, and a reading book. “I marked where we are in each.”

I thanked her.

“Good luck,” she said, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her apron.

I gave her a questioning look.

“It's just that I hope she responds better to you than she has me,” Leah said. “I've tried and tried, but she's hard to engage. I asked the older teacher at the school down the road what I should do.”

That caught me off guard—Leah Fisher asking anyone for help. “What did she say?”

“To give Christy time. She's been traumatized, and I need to be patient with her.”

That sounded like good advice for her teacher, but as her nanny I was going to be in a completely different position. I was pretty sure I could win Christy's trust just as soon as we had a little time together. I said goodbye and slipped out before the first students arrived.

The day before we left on the trip, I went over to Will's to meet with my young charge. When I arrived, Christy was sitting under the oak tree, her skirt and apron perfectly arranged, a thick book open on her lap.

I hitched Rikki to the post and joined her.

“What are you reading?” I asked, though by the size of the volume I knew.

“
Martyrs Mirror
,” she answered. Nearly every Amish home had a copy of the massive book, an account of our ancestors who perished for their faith. Christy sighed. “My
grossmammi
told me to read as much as I could.”

“What do you think of it?” I kneeled beside her.

She began to yawn and covered her mouth. Then she said, none too quietly, which surprised me, “
Bo
-ring.” Maybe Christy Gundy wasn't as shy as I thought, nor as compliant. Maybe that's what Leah had been alluding to.

“History is stupid,” she added, quite an unusual statement for a person of our faith to make. From the day we were born, our history was practically drilled into us. It was a huge part of who we were as a people. I couldn't imagine, for example, that she found the story of Dirk Willems boring, the man who rescued his pursuer who had fallen through ice, only to then be arrested. I said as much, and she merely yawned in response.

“So many were martyred, Christy. They were hanged, drowned…”

She put her hands over her ears.

“…burned at the stake. It's in the book on your lap.” It registered that she couldn't hear me, so I stopped talking but kept my face straight without a hint of frustration.

She removed her hands.

“You'll see,” I said to her, “history won't be boring on this trip. Not the way I'm going to teach it. It will all be very much alive.”

She didn't answer as she closed the book and placed it on the grass.

“What do you like to read?” I scooted to a sitting position beside her.

“I don't.”

I couldn't imagine not liking to read and couldn't quite believe her. “What's your favorite book so far?” I prodded.

“My
mamm
read me the Little House books when I was young. I liked those.”

I agreed. Those were wonderful stories, but she hadn't actually read them—they had been read to her. I decided to change the subject. “How are you feeling about the trip?”

“Fine.”

“Have you been away from home before?”

She shook her head.

I remembered spending the night at Aunt Marta's when I was ten, when Ella was two. It was the first time I had ever spent the night away from home, and by midnight I'd worked myself into a full-fledged bout of insomnia. That was when Uncle Freddy was still around because he stayed with Ella while Aunt Marta drove me home. There would be no getting Christy home in the middle of the night when we were in Europe. I told her my story and she rolled her eyes. I added that the next time I stayed at Aunt Marta's I was fine.