The Amish Bride (48 page)

D. said a funny thing last night, that 1+1+1=1. I laughed, but then I realized he was referring to the three-strand cord mentioned in Ecclesiastes.

I thought of the card in the game. It finally made sense. I imagined her explaining it to Mom and her sisters. I think Aunt Klara in her relationship with Uncle Alexander must have been the only one to really experience it—and not fully until just a few years ago.

Sarah included the verse from Isaiah 40:31, about waiting upon the Lord and mounting up with wings as eagles. On December 10, 1944, she wrote,
D. is ill. The doctor thinks it is cancer. I’m doing all I can. The doctor said there is no cure. All I can do is love him.

May 10, 1945—D. died today. I am a widow again.

The war in Europe has ended, or so they say. Too late for Enoch. And David. Only God, now.

“Isn’t it sad?” I whispered. Luke agreed.

I thumbed through the book. There were still several pages of code.

“I should get dinner ready,” I said, even though I was desperate to find out if Sarah wrote more about what she thought Alvin had died from, and if she thought it was what Paul died from too.

“We could finish it tomorrow. I’m sure Rosalee would be fine if we took an hour after lunch,” Luke said.

I nodded. I wouldn’t go through the rest of it tonight. I’d wait for Luke.

It was harder than I thought it would be not to keep reading. Both at bedtime and when I awoke, I was tempted. Then all morning as I made pies and waited on customers I thought about Sarah’s story. After lunch, I got the book and mirror, and Luke followed me down to the bakery. As soon as we settled down at a table we started decoding again.

Sarah wrote about Frannie bringing Malachi Lantz home.
He seems to be a nice young man. I was afraid she might decide on someone outside our faith. I’m relieved she’s choosing wisely.

The next entry was written normally. Frannie had married Malachi. The next one was back in code. I wasn’t sure, at this point, why she still felt it necessary. There was only a year, 1953, but no date.
It’s been five years now and still no baby for Frannie. They are living at his parents’ place,
farming. Frannie spends time with me when she can. Sometimes we paint and draw. Gerry and his wife, Sharon, have the Home Place now and I’m in the daadi haus.

Ah, that was probably the reason for the code—she was afraid Gerry or Sharon might stumble across her book.
They’ve blessed me with a granddaughter, Rosalee. Such a sweet thing. Quiet and compliant. I have to say she takes after her mother’s side of the family.

Luke and I both smiled. We continued reading.
Gerry doesn’t approve of my artwork. He says D. put up with it when he shouldn’t have. One son lost to Lancaster County. One son lost to war. The last lost to legalism. At least I have Frannie.

Sometime in 1956 she wrote,
I’m trusting God with a family for Frannie. I was so sure Malachi was a good match for her, but with time he has grown harsh. Maybe God is waiting to bless them with children until Malachi learns to be the husband—and father—God wants him to be.

The next entries were in her tiny script, but normal, announcing the arrival of Aunt Klara in 1958, Aunt Giselle in 1961, and Mom in 1966. The next was in code, explaining that Malachi had purchased the dairy on the other side of the woods and how nice it was to have Frannie and her girls close. The next one, also in code, read,
1970—Frannie is with child again after several miscarriages. She’s been staying with me the last couple of months, as are the girls. Gerry tells me I’m meddling. I do not care. I’m delighted to have all of them here. We play the matching game
.
I added a card of a baby—the only human I’ve ever drawn. I know God doesn’t mind.

She wrote she had been building Frannie’s strength with her remedies.
I’ve told her I think their well is bad from all the chemicals Malachi uses, but she doesn’t believe me.

Luke’s head and my head popped up at the same time.

“Oh, my goodness,” I said. “Do you think…” His mom had had multiple miscarriages too.

Luke shook his head. “We have our well tested every year. It’s fine.”

“Whew,” I said. We went back to reading. Sarah also wrote that she’d been painting with Giselle and hadn’t been so happy in years.

I moved the mirror down through the next entries.
February 21, 1971—Frannie delivered a boy and named him Paul. He is perfect in every way. I’m
disappointed that the birth of a boy is what it took for Malachi to be the husband and father he was meant to be, but it seems that is the case. He even drilled a new well
.

I met Luke’s eyes. I could tell he was just as relieved as I was.

Next was the Home Place “Recipe” page with symbols already used in the book drawn among the words “hope,” “trust,” “love,” “cherish,” “believe,” and “forgive.”

Then on June 10, 1971, she wrote,
Paul has died. Crib death is what the doctor suspects, but I didn’t tell Frannie that. She feels as if she’s done something wrong. If she knew about the possibility of crib death, I think she’d assume it was her fault and heap even more guilt on herself. However, I’m not convinced Paul died from that. I keep thinking about the neighbor taking care of Alvin when he was a baby. And how I suspected all along the well water might be causing Frannie’s miscarriages. It feels as if all the grief in the world has fallen on our little family.

June 13, 1971—I’m afraid I’ve had a stroke, though not a bad one. I must stay strong for Frannie and the girls. Malachi is beside himself, and Gerry is of little help. He seems to think people “get what they deserve.”

June 19, 1971—Malachi was dragged to death by his team two days ago. He failed to hitch them properly. Poor Frannie is our own Job, I’m afraid. I don’t know what more she can bear.

August 1, 1971—I’ve not been feeling right, and the doctor says it’s probably only a matter of time. The dairy has sold, and I think I’ve convinced Frannie to go to Caleb’s in Lancaster. He needs a housekeeper because his wife passed on last year. He would be good to Frannie and the girls, I know. He is the most like his father.

I talked with the new owners of the dairy yesterday and told them about my concerns about the old well water. They said the new well had been drilled but never hooked up. I’m flabbergasted Malachi didn’t do it. I told the new people to do it right away.

I came home and cried. Frannie asked me what was wrong, and I simply told her I was tired.

And I am. But I was crying because I’m sure I know what injured Alvin’s brain and killed Paul. I went into town to the library this morning and looked up nitrate poisoning. Blue baby syndrome. The blood is unable to carry
enough oxygen throughout the body. Alvin’s brain and his kidneys were damaged. Paul’s oxygen was completely shut off. Frannie thought she was doing the right thing by boiling the water for the bottles but now I see that only made the nitrate more concentrated!

The older couple who took care of Alvin wouldn’t have been impacted. Neither would Frannie, Malachi, and the girls. Nitrate poisoning only affects babies six months and younger.

The old well was surely shallow and full of nitrates. I hadn’t seen Paul for a couple of weeks before he died because I was trying to stay out of Malachi’s way. But afterward, Frannie said his complexion hadn’t been good. That she’d planned to bring him over that afternoon to have me look at him.

I will never tell Frannie what I suspect. It would break her heart—for good. Her husband’s actions—or lack of action, as the case may be—killed her son.

I looked up at Luke again but he’d continued reading. I couldn’t help but wonder about the two wells at the dairy. But if theirs was tested every year, surely there wasn’t a correlation. I focused on the book again.

August 29, 1971—I’ll tell my precious swallow and her baby birds goodbye tomorrow. It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I am trusting God completely with them. I have known the love of three good men, but God’s love has outlasted all of them. In the end, I am His bride alone.

I just wish I could have shown His love fully to others—to Alvin, to David, especially to Malachi. I know he’s at peace in heaven, all that was broken in him finally mended. Soon it will be the same for me…

I am thankful I can send the deed to Amielbach with Frannie. When the time comes, she will be able to sell it. That’s what my Grandfather Abraham would have wanted. If none of us ever return to Switzerland, so be it.

I turned the page to the maze, eyeing the route again. The edelweiss, the alpine horn, the crow, the hen, the hawk, the city, the owl, the nurse’s cap, the eagle, the swallow, and finally, the Home Place. Underneath she’d written
Haymet.
And then
Himmel.

“Heaven,” Luke whispered.

The very last entry was also written in code, in block letters.
I SING IN THE SHADOW OF YOUR WINGS. PSALM 63:7

I wiped a tear from my eye and leaned back against the chair.

“Did you find what you wanted?” Luke’s voice was quiet, as always, but the most tender I’d ever heard it.

“
Ya
.” I wiped away another tear. “I did.” I just didn’t know how I was going to tell
Mammi
.

“Your great-grandmother was some kind of lady.” He smiled at me, his dimples flashing.

“
Ya
. She was, wasn’t she?” I wasn’t sure why my face grew warm as I spoke. It was a beautiful Indian summer day, but I knew my response was more than that.

“I like the geese the best,” Luke said.

“Why?” I asked.

He looked at me and smiled again. “They fly together.”

T
hat night I called Mom from the bakery and told her what I’d learned, with Luke’s help. Unlike Sarah, she felt
Mammi
had a right to know the truth. Mom assured me she would talk with her, that it wasn’t my responsibility.

“But I’m afraid it will make her so sad.”

“
Ya
,” Mom answered. “I’m sure it will. But she wants the truth, Ella. And, in a way, I actually think this is a blessing. She spent her whole life feeling guilty, wondering if Paul died because of something
she
did. As heartbreaking as the truth is, I think knowing it was the well and not her actions will bring her tremendous relief.”

I agreed.

After I hung up I went to my room and wrote a long letter to Aunt Giselle, copying many of the entries of the Recipes for Life book and explaining all I had learned. I mailed it the next day, asking God to use my words to bless the aunt I’d never met. I hoped someday she would come to visit because chances of me ever making it to Switzerland were pretty slim.

I thought about Sarah and her granddaughters—Rosalee, the baker; Klara, the cook; Giselle, the artist; and Marta, the midwife. Each one of
them had followed in her footsteps in an area in which she excelled. She really was a remarkable woman.

The next day, as I was fixing lunch, I thought of Sarah and her husbands, and then of Alvin and Malachi, and now my father, too, all in heaven. And then I had the strangest sense of them all together, having lunch, telling stories. All healed. All whole. The brokenness a distant memory. All with baby Paul.

What I didn’t expect was that Sarah’s book would also bring healing to Luke’s family. His suspicions matching mine, he began snooping around the two wells at the dairy. The new one was above the dairy barns. It was the one that was tested every year, by law. The old one was hooked up to the windmill behind the house, downhill from the barn. He asked his father about the history of the wells because Luke thought, when the new well broke, that his
daed
had hooked up the old one for a short time. Darryl explained that what he did was have the old one redrilled, for the house, while using the new one solely for the dairy—the one that was tested every year by law.

Luke didn’t challenge his father. He rode into town and bought a ten-dollar kit to check the well. It was no surprise that it was high in nitrates.