The Amish Nanny (42 page)

Even Giselle
, a small voice said inside of me.

Giselle? Perhaps it was true. She hadn't planned to conceive me, but once she did, she'd willingly carried me to the end—even though she knew once I was born that she would be giving me up. Taking a deep breath, I decided to try to change my attitude. Now that we'd met, it seemed as though it didn't matter to Giselle whether I existed or not. But perhaps I could take comfort in the thought that, at least, years ago she had risked death simply to give me life.

We stopped to buy bread and cheese for a snack halfway back to Amielbach, and afterward Morgan climbed in the back of the van with Christy, leaving me to sit by Daniel. He opened up his packet from the university and was studying it. I asked if I could look at something he wasn't, and he handed me a brochure on the history of the university. There were photos of the stately buildings and drawingsof men from long ago. In a minute, Daniel was looking at the brochure too.

“What would your parents think of you going to school here?” I handed the brochure back to him.

“They would be thrilled,” he said. “It would be a dream come true.”

“But what if you stay and never live near them again?”

Daniel shrugged. “They would come visit. We'd email. Talk. I'd visit them.” He looked at me sheepishly. “They want me to be independent. That's how they raised me.” We rode on in silence for a few minutes and then he said, his voice low, “How about your parents? What if you decided to stay here?”

“It would be hard for them,” I answered, not being completely honest about just how difficult it would be. And there was the matter of my church. I hadn't joined yet, but I'd always intended to. I knew I would have a relationship with God no matter what church I belonged to, but
for me my faith and my community were woven together. I couldn't quite fathom leaving the community part behind.

But I definitely felt a draw to Daniel's future life. Studies. Traveling around Europe. Researching. Teaching travelers what he'd learned. There was a strong appeal to it, especially considering that I could never have anything of the sort back home. Now that Leah had stolen my teaching job, I didn't even have that. “Have you thought of gearing any of your tours toward kids?” I asked.

Daniel turned toward me. “What age group?”

“Not Plain kids…well, Mennonite, maybe, but teenagers.” I told him about the tours of children that came through Lancaster County, oftentimes eighth grade classes from
Englisch
schools. “What if you did something like that? Do you think the schools would be interested in a European trip?”

“Maybe not for middle schoolers, but they might for high school kids. A graduation trip, that sort of thing. They'd have to be pretty wealthy…”

“Or the kids would have to earn the money,” Morgan chimed in. “There are plenty of fund-raisers for that sort of thing.”

I could imagine Amielbach filled with teenagers. That would have made Abraham Sommers very happy.

Daniel was staring at me with an impish smile on his face. “Ada Rupp,” he said, “I think you've just created the perfect job for yourself. That would make our plan that much easier.”

“How so?” I wrapped my finger around one of the ties to my
kapp
.

“It would give you the perfect reason to stay in Switzerland. Authentic tour guide. Who would be better than you dressed in your cape and apron, talking about your ancestor Abraham Sommers, the history of Amielbach, your own family's journey to America and back to Switzerland. And you're a born teacher.” He grinned broadly.

I blushed. “Daniel…” I whispered. Surely he was joking. Such a thing would turn my clothing into a costume. My teaching into living history. My modesty into pride.

“It's brilliant, isn't it?” His voice was louder now.

I hesitated, not sure I could correct him without unleashing my inner teacher. I didn't want to embarrass him in front of the others, but he needed to understand that I could never serve as some caricature of an Amish woman. Later, when we were alone, I would explain the fallacy of his reasoning in full. For now, I held my tongue.

“You could live with Giselle at first,” he continued, his voice low again, “and I could stay at Amielbach until I start my studies. We should know within a year if we have a future together.”

He made it sound so doable. I glanced toward the backseat. Christy's head was leaning toward the window and her eyes were closed. Morgan was looking out her side of the van, seemingly intent on the countryside.

“I really would like to get to know you better,” he said. “I really do want to court you.”

I nodded but didn't speak. Just last night I was still pining away for Will Gundy, and now I was sitting here with Daniel, listening to him say he wanted to court me. Maybe Daniel
was
the one who would heal my broken
heart and make me forget how I'd ever felt about Will. I just didn't know how I could know for sure.

Overwhelmed with exhaustion, I told Daniel I would think it over and pray about it, and let him know.

Then I closed my eyes and slept the rest of the way to Langnau.

It was early evening by the time we arrived back at the hospital. After visiting with Alice for a while, some of us were getting hungry for dinner. Morgan offered to take us on a grocery run, so George said he would stay there with Will for now and give him a ride up to Amielbach for the night later.

We were just about to go when the telephone beside Alice's bed rang. Will was closest to it, so he answered.

“Hello,” he said tentatively, but then he smiled. “Oh, hi there, Leah. I see you tracked us down.”

Inwardly, I groaned.

“Let's go,” Daniel said to Morgan. Christy gave her
daed
a quick hug and then kissed her
grossmammi
. I told Alice I would see her later, and she waved to me. Will was listening intently to Leah as we left the room.

While Morgan, Christy, and I shopped for groceries, Daniel found a pay phone and called Herr Lauten. Once we were all back in the car and on the road again, I asked Daniel how the conversation had gone, certain that the old man must be feeling as disheartened as we were about the fact that our search today had been fruitless.

“Actually,” Daniel said with a smile, “Herr Lauten had a good idea about the letters he gave to Giselle. As you know, she can't remember what she did with them. We've all been assuming she just threw them away, but if not, there is a logical place where she might have stashed them. For all we know, they're still there.”

“Where?”

“In the shed near her cottage. He lets her use part of it for storage.”

“Wouldn't it be locked?” I asked. “What if she's not home to give us the key?”

“She isn't home, but he said we can use his key instead.”

When we reached Amielbach, Morgan and Christy headed down to the cottage to start dinner, while Daniel and I went up the steps to the main house to find Herr Lauten. We arrived at the door just as he was coming out, one hand on his cane, the other gripping a small metal key.

He greeted us eagerly and began moving toward the steps. Watching him, I realized he intended to go down to the shed with us. I wanted to tell him not to bother, that Daniel and I could take care of it, but I could tell by the determined gleam in the man's eye that he wanted to come along no matter how precarious for him the walk might be.

Standing close, hands at the ready to catch him if he fell, I held my breath as he made his way downward, one step at a time. Daniel, apparently oblivious to the whole situation, waited at the bottom, talking about the journals of Abraham's we had read in the car. He asked Herr Lauten about one particular entry, wondering if he knew what Abraham's big sin—his
Überschreitung
—had been. Herr Lauten said no, that he'd been hoping one of us might know.

We finally reached the bottom steps and moved onto the pathway. As we walked slowly along the uneven ground, I asked Herr Lauten if he was sure we wouldn't be violating Giselle's privacy by going through her things in the shed.

“Nah,” he said, dismissing the thought with a wave of his hand. “She and I share the space. I haven't been in there in a long time, but she's never minded me going in before.”

I wondered if she would feel the same way about
me
specifically. Of all the people in the world, I was probably the last one she'd want rooting through her stuff.

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“Out shopping with Oskar,” Herr Lauten replied. “They went into Bern this afternoon to find some special hardware to hang her weavings in the gift shop.”

“Oh.” That surprised me. For all her aloofness with me, here she was interacting with yet another person.

Daniel walked ahead of us, and soon he was waiting by the shed. When we caught up to him, he stepped aside so that Herr Lauten could unlock the door. As it swung open, my nostrils were greeted with the smell of dust and must.

We stepped inside. Looking around, I spotted a collection of old furniture against one wall—a bed and dresser, a camelback couch, a table with rickety chairs, and a bookcase. Shelves lined the other walls and were filled with large plastic boxes. By my rough count, there were almost a dozen of them.

Herr Lauten clucked his tongue. “Giselle's added more things since the last time I was down here. Isn't she organized?” He lifted his cane. “Just look at this.”

We scanned the pile of furniture and then the shelves, looking between each plastic container, but there was no sign of the box. I peered through the plastic walls of one of the containers, but I saw nothing inside that resembled an old wooden box or a pile of letters.

Daniel started to pull off the lid.

“I don't think we should do that,” I said.

He hesitated, looking to Herr Lauten. I looked as well, only to see that the man was already digging through a different box himself and was even pulling things out of it. He held up a weaving, and even though this felt wrong, I couldn't help but gape at it. The colors were Plain: blue, forest green, maroon, brown, and black. It featured two stars, side by side, with three larger stars above them. That larger star in the middle seemed fractured somehow, as if it were about to implode. The image was similar to one I'd seen in the gift shop but far more disturbing.

Putting that one back, he pulled out another. It showed a flower garden, almost my garden, with petals flying up in the air as if the flowers had all exploded. Silver pieces of a windmill soared above the flowers into a dark sky.

“I really don't think we should go through her things without her permission,” I said, stepping toward the door. I knew it was our windmill. And I was pretty sure the three stars represented Giselle and her sisters, and the smaller ones, Lexie and me. And the garden was definitely from home. I felt as if we were stealing something from her.

“All right,” Herr Lauten said, returning the wall hangings to the box and sliding it back onto the shelf.

I pushed opened the door quickly, and nearly knocked it into Giselle. She bounded backward. “I saw the light and wondered who was in here.”

We all must have had guilty expressions on our faces because then she said, “What's going on?”

“We were looking for the letters,” I said.

She shook her head. “Well, I know they are not in here. I reorganized this whole shed a few months ago.”

I nodded.

“Did you look at my weavings?” She was staring at me.

I must have blushed because she put her hands on her hips and said, “Well?”

“Two of them.”

“That's all? There are close to thirty.” She stepped around me.

“I didn't think we should go through your things.”

She must have been able to tell that the plastic box Herr Lauten had gone through wasn't pushed back all the way because she opened the box next to it and held up a wall hanging of abstract dahlias, again three and then two. She held up hanging after hanging, and over and over there were similar sets of objects. Stars. Suns. Moons. Flowers. Trees. Finally she held up a hanging in the colors of a traditional Amish quilt with small squares, but each square had been woven as a separate jagged piece that looked as if it had been torn. “This is the last of my early work,” she said, looking directly at me again. She glanced at the plastic boxes. “The other weavings are early versions of commissioned work.”

I thanked her for showing us, realizing how far from Plain she was. A member of my community would never draw so much attention to themselves over something they had created. I also was surprised, when she wouldn't talk to me about the past, that she would so willingly bare her emotions through her art. That's what I thought about as Daniel and Herr Lauten headed up to Amielbach and I followed Giselle back toward the cottage.

After dinner Giselle retreated to her studio, while Morgan, Christy, and I cleaned the kitchen. I told Morgan about Giselle's artwork in the shed. She was appalled.