The Amish Nanny (54 page)

“He wanted Ada to stay there and live with Giselle so he could court her,” she said. “But Ada told him no because she didn't think she could ever really learn to love him.”

She said this knowingly, with great authority, as if someday her poor old maid cousin just might come to know a love as deep as she herself had already found. Embarrassed and a little irritated, I glanced down the table, surprised to see a strange expression on Alice's face. Eyes wide, she was looking at something over my shoulder, and I turned to see Will, standing there, staring at me. Then the conversation shifted.

“Did you hear the news about my teacher?” Christy asked the group at large.

Whipping back around, my heart began to race.

“She's getting married,” Christy pronounced, answering her own question.

And there it was, the words I'd hoped I'd never have to hear. Leah's engagement was official. I turned and looked straight at Will. Tears filled my eyes and began spilling onto my cheeks, and for a moment, I couldn't even breathe, my grief was so strong.

I had to get out of there. Unable to stop myself, I stood, my chair clattering behind me, and ran from the room.

Everything was spinning as I made my way to the back door. I didn't even bother pulling on boots or coat. I simply ran through the door and down the steps as fast as I could, not coming to a stop until I reached the oak tree.

Standing there, trying not to scream, I realized that the first snowflakes had begun to fall.

I heard the back door open and close. I stepped further around the tree, mortified that everyone had seen my reaction. Now they all knew how I felt about Will—including Will himself! Closing my eyes, I heard footsteps coming in my direction, but I didn't even want to know who they had sent out to comfort me.
Mamm
, perhaps, or even Ella, who with all the good intentions in the world would still say the wrong things.

Instead, the voice that spoke into my ear was Will's.

“Ada,” he said softly, causing my sobs to start anew. “Shhh,” he whispered, wrapping a coat around my shoulders. Then he knelt at my feet, sliding my boots over them, dressing me as if I were completely helpless. “We already had to warm you up once this week. I don't think you want to have to go through that again, do you?”

I opened my eyes and watched through my tears as he stood and faced me again. Jokes? He was making jokes? At the moment of my deepest pain, did he really think I might laugh or at least smile? Surely he had to understand that I might never, ever smile again, much less now. Much less with him.

“I need to explain, Ada,” he told me. “I owe you that.”

“You owe me nothing,” I said, but a sob caught in my throat as I spoke. I pressed a hand to my mouth, wishing he would just get this over with.

“Remember last spring, when your sister was here and you fell beside her car and cut your head?”

I nodded. Though the whole event was a bit blurry to me, I remembered riding in the ambulance to the hospital.

“When I learned you'd been hurt and saw you soon after, that's when I realized how I felt about you. I…” He hesitated for a moment and then looked me in the eye and said, “I decided then that I wanted to court you.”

“Court me?” I couldn't help but cry. “Then why didn't you?”

He held out his hands, palms upward, saying, “It was premature. The girls and I needed more time first.”

I breathed in deeply, trying to get my emotions under control. I could understand what he was saying. Lydia's passing had still been too recent back then. But if that was how he felt about me, why had he ever allowed Leah to enter the picture later, once the timing was more appropriate? Unable to stop myself, I asked him that very thing.

“Leah was to be Christy's teacher.” He shrugged. “I know she came around a lot, but I thought her interest was purely in the children, in helping out. In being a friend.”

A friend. I closed my eyes. Leah Fisher had managed to insinuate herself into Will's life and then his heart without him even realizing what was happening.

“I was naive, I guess,” he continued, “or at the very least unobservant. I see that now.”

I opened my eyes, suddenly afraid that things had changed between them before he'd even come to Switzerland, that he'd been engaged to her the whole time. “When did this happen?” I asked, bracing myself for his answer, not wanting it to invalidate all that he and I had shared on the other side of the ocean.

“Leah came over yesterday as soon as we got back from the trip.”

I nodded, grateful for that much at least.

“And she and I sat down and had a very long conversation,” he added.

“She initiated it, then?” I whispered, not wanting to hear but needing to know just the same. He didn't reply, so I pressed him further. “Was it hard for her to convince you, Will? Or did she need only to profess her love for you to see what you'd been so blind to before?”

“She did make her intentions clear, yes, that's true. I was pretty surprised, to say the least.”

“And?”

“And it's hard to describe the rest of the conversation without sounding…well, unkind.” He peered off in the distance, seeming to search his mind for the right words.

Unkind? To rip out my heart and tear it to shreds, he was calling unkind? Before I could muster a response, he spoke.

“It's sort of like in that story you and Christy were reading.”

I squinted, my mind racing. “
Jane Eyre
?”

“Yes. Christy said there was another woman, the one who was determined to marry the hero.”

“Miss Ingram?”

“Right. Her. Do you remember what happened?”

“Of course. Miss Ingram changed her mind about wanting to marry Mr. Rochester once she found out that he wasn't nearly as wealthy as she'd assumed.”

“Exactly,” Will replied, leaning closer. “My conversation with Leah was kind of like that. While we were over in Europe, she heard about the financial issues the nursery's been having. She'd come here hoping it wasn't true.”

“Did you tell her about the money from Herr Lauten? About how you can use it to increase your profits and turn things around?”

He laughed. “Why would I do that? I had no intention of encouraging her in the matter. I didn't love
her
, Ada.”

Slowly, Will placed his hands on the sides of my upper arms, his touch radiating warmth clear through to my bones. I didn't understand. The way he was looking at me, holding me, the words he was saying—all were in direct contradiction to the facts.

“Can you imagine how odd that conversation was for me?” he continued. “It was rather like being told hello and goodbye in the same sentence. Not that it would have ended any other way, of course, but still.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Will?” I pleaded, my heart pounding furiously in my chest. “That you and Leah
aren't
getting married?”

He smiled, reaching up and gently brushing a snowflake from my cheek. “Oh, we're getting married.” He nodded, his words like a knife in my chest. Then he grinned, adding, “Just not to each other.”

The world stopped in that moment. Will looked as though he wanted to kiss me, but I couldn't even breathe, could barely even stand. Taking me into his arms and holding me securely there, he told me that Leah had decided to marry Silas Yoder. “I'd say that was the right decision, wouldn't you?”

Slowly, he leaned down, moving his lips toward mine. When he was almost there, I turned away, needing to hear the words I thought I'd never be able to hear from the man I thought I'd never be allowed to love.

“And you?” I whispered. “Who are you marrying?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” he said, chuckling, his breath sweet against my skin. Tilting my face back and looking deeply into my eyes, he said, “God willing, if you'll have me, Ada, more than anything in this world I'd like to marry you.”

“Oh, Will,” I whispered in return, “don't you know that's all I've ever wanted?”

Eyes glistening, he slowly leaned forward and then he kissed me, his lips warm and tender against mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him in return, knowing one thing for sure: We may have crossed an ocean, but our real journey had just begun.

W
ith Will's status as a widower, we could have obtained a special exception from the bishop and married right away. But for various reasons we decided to wait and have a regular fall wedding instead the following year. That would give my mother time to prepare, the children time to adjust, and me time to go though my classes and join the Amish church—a transition I found myself embracing with great joy.

As it turned out, Morgan and Daniel ended up beating us to the altar. They were married in the spring. She sent a detailed letter of the event, a letter I kept in my apron pocket and took out the week after, reading it over again. The pastor from the Langnau Mennonite Church, their place of worship, performed the service. She said God had done an amazing work in her and that her father, on occasion, even joined them for church. Daniel would start classes at the university in the fall, and she and Oskar were expanding the shop at Amielbach to represent even more area artists and to sell Amish quilts from Lancaster County. She was working with my
mamm
on that project.

Leah Fisher resigned from her teaching job right after her wedding, and Will and I decided it would be best for me to take it, at least until my own wedding—best for me and for Christy.

I made a point of talking with Will in detail about my blood disorder. I explained it was hereditary and any children we might have could be at risk. He looked at me intently and said, “Ada, you're having a good life, right, regardless of your disorder?”

I assured him I was.

“Then what's the problem?”

I decided there wasn't one.

Alice rallied, not enough to help Will with the kids, but she said she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon when life was so exciting. Between Will and me shuttling
Mammi
and Alice back and forth, the two friends saw each other more often than ever. Their joy about Will and me marrying was endless, and they marveled that after more than a century, the two families would be legally united. They were sure Elsbeth and Marie were rejoicing in heaven.

I joined the church in October, and our wedding was in November. We said our vows in
Mamm
and
Daed
's house in the living room and celebrated with three hundred guests, including Lexie and James, who came from Oregon. Of course, Ella and Lexie couldn't stand beside me as that wasn't our way, but they were in the second row with all of my family. Lexie had come out a week early, and in many ways it was the best week of my life, so far. I had a sister. I was marrying Will Gundy. I was going to be a mother to three beautiful children I already knew and loved. All of my dreams had come true.

I also had a place in a community that was truly home. I had a
mamm
and
daed
who, just as they had seen to the details of raising me, now saw to all the details of my wedding, ensuring that our guests would be well fed and taken care of. Ella actually helped with that by making the cakes and dozens and dozens of cookies. My Plain cake wasn't as fancy as Lexie's, but it tasted just as good.

We invited Giselle to join us, praying she would. She wrote back, sharing our joy, but said she wasn't ready to visit—yet. She hoped we'd understand.

During the ceremony, Will's three girls were in the first row, sitting beside Alice. When Bishop Fisher instructed Will and me to kneel and clasp hands, Mel and Matty managed to escape their chairs and join us. Everyone laughed, and I turned and motioned for Christy to come forward too.

Will and I each wrapped an arm around the girls as Bishop Fisher blessed our family. Then he said, “Go forth in the name of the Lord. You are now man and wife.”

Man and wife. Just hearing the words filled my heart with such joy I could barely contain it.

As the five of us stood, now united as one family, a saying of
Mammi
's came to mind:
Sometimes God calms the storm, but sometimes God lets the storm rage and calms His child
.