Lydia's Hope Read online

  Lydia cleared her throat. She had to be strong, remember? “So I had two little sisters, and you never told me.” If that sounded accusing, she couldn’t seem to help it.

  Daad nodded gravely. “Ja, but that’s not where the story starts. If you are to understand, you must know first that your mother, Diane, was Englisch.”

  “Englisch!” The exclamation came from Adam. Lydia didn’t think she could have spoken at all.

  “Ja. Diane Wentworth, that was her name before they were married.” Daad paused, shaking his head. “It’s been so long since I heard it, I’d nearly forgotten the name.”

  “But I don’t understand. My birth father was your own brother. Amish. How did he come to marry an Englischer? Was her family from around here?” Her mind scrambled for a connection with the name he’d said and came up empty.

  “Not from around here, no. They met when Eli was working out west.” Daad clasped his hands on the table and looked at them, but she didn’t suppose he was seeing them. “My big brother always wanted to explore a bit of the world, so when he was in his twenties, he went off to work construction in Ohio. That’s where he met Diane.”

  “She was lost.” Mamm spoke unexpectedly, her voice soft.

  “Lost?” Adam’s face showed his lack of understanding.

  “Not really lost, I guess,” Mamm said. “But later, when we knew each other better, that’s what she told me. She and her parents didn’t get along at all. She’d left home, and she didn’t have anyone else. She was lost. But when she met Eli, she said it was like she’d found her home.”

  Lydia struggled to swallow the lump in her throat. “So she became Amish for him.”

  That was a thing that almost never happened. The other way around was more common, yes, when an Amish person jumped the fence, but it was so difficult for someone raised Englisch to adjust to Amish life.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Daad said, echoing her thought. “But Eli and Diane were determined. They married, and they stayed in Ohio for a time, where they had friends who understood and helped Diane adjust. They moved back and took over this place when you were about two, I think, and by then Diane had been Amish long enough that most people didn’t even think about her being raised Englisch. Susanna and Chloe were born here.”

  Adam looked around the house as if he was seeing it with fresh eyes. “They were happy here,” he said, as if he knew it for a certainty, and his perception startled Lydia.

  “Ja.” A smile trembled on Mamm’s lips. “Diane said she’d never known she could be so happy. She wanted to forget all about her life before, and we honored that wish.”

  Lydia stored up the words, knowing she’d want to bring those images of her parents out and relive them later, when she was alone. But now she had to know more about how their story had ended.

  “The accident,” she prompted. And the little girls, Susanna and Chloe. She said the names over and over in her mind, trying to draw up an image, but nothing came.

  Daad sighed. “There were a couple of Amish families on their way to the wedding of a friend in Ohio, out in Holmes County. They’d hired a van and driver for the trip. The police said it looked like the van driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. He crashed into a tractor trailer and overturned, rolling down a hill.”

  Mamm made a small sound of grief or pain. Daad put his hand to his head, as if he were reliving it too clearly. It was a terrible picture, but it seemed so remote to Lydia, as if it had happened to someone else.

  “We got word from the state police about the accident and hired someone to take us out to Ohio,” he went on. “The van driver had died instantly. The rest of you weren’t even in the same hospital. The kinder didn’t have identification on them, of course, so no one knew who was where. We were frantic, trying to find all of you and make sure you were taken care of.”

  Lydia nodded, trying to picture the situation. The Amish community took care of its own, but it would have been difficult with the accident happening so far away.

  “Bishop Mose had gone with us,” Daad went on. “We were so thankful to have him there. He said each of you kinder must have someone with you to care for you and make decisions, so your mamm and I went with you.”

  “Why?” The word came out before she realized she intended to speak, but it was the question of her heart. Why had Mamm and Daad been the ones to end up with her?

  Daad looked confused at the question, but Mamm seemed to understand right away.

  “We thought you felt the closest to us. We’d just gotten married ourselves a few weeks earlier, and you’d been so excited about the wedding. You’d wanted to help me, and I let you put some stitches in the hem of my dress, I remember.” Her face softened with a smile. “It just seemed right.”

  “Ja,” Daad said. “One of the Ohio Amish friends, a distant cousin, had been close with Diane when they lived there. She and her husband stayed with Susanna, your grossdaadi was sitting with your daadi, and your grossmammi with Diane, with Bishop Mose helping them. Another cousin and his wife went to the hospital where they’d taken baby Chloe, but when they got there, she was gone.”

  “Gone,” Lydia echoed the word. “But Mamm said both of them lived.”

  “Ach, ja, she lived.” Daad reached across to give her hand a squeeze. “I shouldn’t have said it that way. I mean, she wasn’t there. We learned that Diane’s mother had come and taken Chloe from the hospital.”

  “The Englisch woman,” she said.

  Daad sighed and shook his head. “You have to try and understand, Lydia. There we were in a strange city, trying to tend to everyone. At least we knew the baby would be safe with her grandmother, even if it was not what Diane might have wanted.”

  “No, she wouldn’t have,” Mamm said. “But what could we do? Your parents died, one after the other. You had to have surgery, and we nearly lost you, too. Susanna was injured and had to have surgery as well. For weeks all we could do was concentrate on you.”

  The gaze she turned on Lydia was pleading. Please understand. That’s what it was saying.

  Lydia nodded, her head seeming to jerk like a puppet’s. Her throat was so dry and raw that if she tried to speak, she knew it would come out in a croak.

  “After all was said and done, it seemed natural to say we would adopt you.” Daad pressed her hand. “You felt like our daughter already. And we would have taken Susanna, as well, but Jonah and Elizabeth felt just as strongly about her. As for Chloe, she had disappeared into the Englisch world, and we didn’t think an Englisch court would take her away from a wealthy Englisch grandmother to give her back to us.”

  Daad leaned back in his chair and blew out a long breath. “We should have told you before, I guess, but when you didn’t remember, it seemed better not to give you more grief. But it’s over now. I hope you can forgive us for keeping it from you.”

  Lydia sat for a moment, trying to digest the whole story. Then she realized that Mamm and Daad were waiting for something. She held out a hand to each of them.

  “I forgive you.” She said the words suspecting that this would be one of those times when forgiveness had to be repeated again and again before it truly took possession of her heart. “But how can you say it is over? It is just beginning. Now I have to find my sisters.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Adam could see the shock he felt at Lydia’s words reflected in her parents’ faces, as well.

  “No, Lydia, you can’t mean such a thing.” Lydia’s daad echoed Adam’s thoughts. “You are still trying to get used to the idea, ain’t so? When you’ve reflected on this situation a bit, you’ll see that you can’t do anything about it after all this time.”

  “You don’t understand what that news might do to them,” her mother said.

  Lydia pushed her chair back, as if she couldn’t be still for another minute. She took a couple of steps to the counter and then turned, crossing her arms.

  “I understand better than anyone, because it is happening to me.” She pressed her lip
s together, maybe to keep them from trembling.

  Her parents exchanged a swift glance, communicating without the need for speech. “We were wrong to let it go so long,” Joseph said. “You could have handled knowing any time since you’ve been grown, just as your mamm and I could deal with it. But the situation is different for your sisters. For Susanna, at least.”

  “Why?” The word burst out of Lydia, and Adam could feel her frustration. “What makes hearing the truth easier or worse for Susanna? What do you know about her?”

  “It’s not just Susanna. It’s her mother, as well.” Joseph stared down at his clasped hands. “Telling you about her means breaking a promise we’ve kept for twenty-five years, but I don’t see that we have a choice. Maybe it is a promise we never should have made, but we did.” He glanced at his wife, as if hoping she would take over the story.

  Anna sighed. “Jonah and Elizabeth Bitler had been close to your mamm and daad when they lived in Ohio. Elizabeth . . .” She hesitated, a little color coming up in her pale cheeks. “Well, Elizabeth had lost one babe before birth after another, grieving so after each miscarriage that the family feared for her health. The doctors said she must stop trying.”

  Adam tried to imagine what it must be like for a married couple to have no children in the Amish community, where big families were taken for granted. It was hard enough on him and Lydia, with just the two boys when they longed for more children. To have none at all . . .

  “When she and Jonah were there at Susanna’s bedside during those terrible days, it was as if Elizabeth poured herself into keeping that poor child alive,” Anna said. “It seemed sometimes that Elizabeth’s love kept little Susanna breathing.”

  Lydia blinked, and Adam could see that the image of her young sister fighting for life had broken through her absorption in the idea of finding them. “Susanna was badly hurt?”

  “You both were,” Joseph corrected. “You with a head injury so bad the doctors couldn’t predict whether you would make a recovery, and little Susanna’s leg was mangled so bad that they feared she’d lose it.”

  Lydia’s fingers flew to her lips in an instinctive gesture of compassion. “Did she?”

  “No, thank the gut Lord. But from what we heard, the leg was never quite right, either. Still, she survived, maybe because of Elizabeth’s love and care. When Jonah and Elizabeth wanted to adopt her, who could say no? The one thing Elizabeth asked was that Susanna should never know she wasn’t their child.”

  “But wouldn’t she remember?” He could see in Lydia’s face the pain she felt that she didn’t remember.

  “Susanna was only three,” Anna said. “At first she asked, ja, but soon she seemed to forget. When she first called Elizabeth ‘Mammi,’ I thought I’d never seen such love in a woman’s face.”

  “Elizabeth asked for our promise, and we gave it.” Joseph shook his head heavily. “If we could have seen this day coming—ach, there’s no point in regretting the past.”

  Lydia moved, so slightly it was little more than a twitch, but Adam saw it, so closely was he watching her.

  “You said they were from Ohio. Is that where Susanna lives still?”

  Joseph hesitated, as if not wanting to answer that question. “No,” he said finally. “They moved to Oyersburg a few years back. We haven’t seen them,” he said quickly, as if anticipating the next question Lydia would ask.

  A natural one, since Oyersburg wasn’t thirty miles away. Even Adam had been there, and he wasn’t much of one for traveling.

  “So close to me,” Lydia murmured, tears sparkling in her eyes.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” her father said. “Susanna has always believed Jonah and Elizabeth Bitler are her parents. Jonah died only a year ago, and from what we hear, Elizabeth is very ill. We’ve tried to keep track of them, even though they didn’t want to get together with us.”

  “The poor child,” Anna murmured. “Cancer, her mamm has, and the doctors say there’s little hope.”

  Joseph rose, hands braced on the table. “We understand your wanting to know your sister, Lydia. That’s only natural. But it would be unkind to both Elizabeth and Susanna to tell them now, when Elizabeth is so sick, and I know that our Lydia is never unkind.”

  Adam saw those words had left Lydia with nothing to say. Whether she was convinced or not, he couldn’t be sure.

  Joseph nodded to Anna, and she got to her feet, clutching the table as if for support. “We will go now,” Joseph said, his voice heavy. “If there is anything else you want to know, we’ll talk again, ja?”

  Lydia didn’t speak, and Adam felt compelled to fill the gap. “Denke. This was hard for you, for sure.”

  He glanced at Lydia, willing her to make some loving gesture toward her parents.

  Lydia nodded, understanding him without words. She went slowly to her parents. She stopped, and it seemed everyone in the room forgot to breathe. Then she put her arms around her mamm.

  Gut. Some of the tension in Adam eased at the sight. He couldn’t blame Lydia for being upset at this discovery, but if she held on to resentment toward her mamm over it, she’d hurt herself as much as she hurt Anna.

  “I’ll walk out with you,” he said, opening the back door and stepping out onto the porch with Joseph. Dusk gathered in, and the breeze that blew down the valley from the west was chilly.

  Joseph nodded toward the orchard. “You’ll have trees in blossom soon, ja?” He was making an effort to sound natural, Adam guessed. “Hope we don’t get another hard frost.”

  “Hope not,” Adam echoed, going to unfasten the horse from the hitching rail. “I’d like to get the garden in early this year.”

  He wanted to say something comforting to Joseph, but he felt pretty sure Joseph would be as embarrassed hearing it as he would be saying it.

  The door creaked as the women started to come out, and Joseph leaned toward him. “You will help her understand, ja?” he said quietly.

  Adam stiffened. He wouldn’t ally himself against his Lydia, that was certain-sure; they were all caught in this difficult place because of the decisions Joseph and Anna had made. But there was one thing he could say from his heart.

  “I’ll try to keep her from getting hurt.”

  Joseph nodded, seeming satisfied. He helped Anna into the buggy, and in a moment they drove off down the lane. Adam stood watching until the buggy disappeared into the dusk. Now he must return to the house and try to help Lydia. He just wished he knew how. With a wordless prayer for wisdom, he mounted the porch steps.

  Lydia was standing at the sink when he reached the kitchen. She wasn’t doing anything, just staring at the faucet as if she’d forgotten what it was for. She turned at the sound of his footsteps, her features drawn tight.

  “What were you and Daad talking about? Was he asking you to make me see sense?”

  “Not exactly.” Some questions were probably safer for a husband not to answer, he’d think. “I was just telling him that I’d do anything to keep you from being hurt.”

  His answer seemed to calm the waters. He could see the tension slip away from her expression.

  “Denke, Adam. But I think the hurt is already done.” Her voice was still tart, so they weren’t out of the woods yet.

  “I know you’re angry with your parents,” he said cautiously. “But whatever mistakes they made in the past, I think they’re trying to do what’s best now.”

  “I know what’s best for me, and that’s finding my sisters.” Lydia threw the dishcloth she was holding into the sink. Then, apparently unable to leave it there, she rinsed it out and hung it on the rack.

  He waited until she’d finished before speaking. “Do you think that your telling them is best for your sisters, too?”

  He saw the question hit home, saw uncertainty creep in. She hesitated for a long moment.

  “I think so,” she said, seeming to try for a sureness she might not feel. “I think they should have a chance to know me and each other. I’m the oldest. It’
s my job to do it.”

  Lydia was a nurturer—that was certain-sure. She cared for her plants and her orchard just as she cared for Daniel and David. Sometimes he almost thought there was no comforting left over for him, but that was foolish. He was a grown man, not a child.

  And now she wanted to nurture these two unknown younger sisters.

  “I know,” he said, his tone careful. “But from what your mamm said, it might do more harm than good for Susanna just now, ain’t so?”

  He was still trying to get used to the idea of these unknown sisters. If things had been different, if Lydia’s parents hadn’t been killed, he might have known Susanna for most of her life and be thinking of her now as his own little sister.

  Lydia’s eyes clouded. “Maybe so, at least for now. But the little one . . .”

  “Not so little now,” he said quickly, hoping to veer her away from that direction. “Chloe would be a grown woman. An Englisch woman. You couldn’t possibly find her.” His heart shuddered at the thought of his Lydia going off into the Englisch world in search of an unknown person.

  Lydia pressed her fingers to her forehead. “It’s just so hard.”

  “I know.” He did. He had experienced the loss of a much-loved younger brother and the sense of guilt that went with it. But he could see that Lydia wasn’t thinking of his loss.

  “You know what’s worst of all?” The words burst out of her. “That I don’t remember them. How could I forget my little sisters? It makes me feel so guilty.”

  Her voice broke on a sob. His heart breaking for her, Adam put his arms around her. Guilt, ja, that he knew.

  “Hush, now, that’s ferhoodled, it is, and even the bishop would tell you so. Your head was hurt in the accident, and you couldn’t remember, no matter how much you might want to.”

  His poor sweetheart. He pressed his lips against the softness of her hair in a gentle kiss. He would do anything to take this pain from her. But he feared more pain was inevitable if she tried to piece her birth family back together again.