Lydia's Hope (2 page)

G
LOSSARY
OF
P
ENNSYLVANIA
D
UTCH
W
ORDS AND
P
HRASES

ach.
oh; used as an exclamation

agasinish.
stubborn; self-willed

ain’t so.
A phrase commonly used at the end of a sentence to invite agreement.

alter.
old man

anymore.
Used as a substitute for “nowadays.”

Ausbund.
Amish hymnal. Used in the worship services, it contains traditional hymns, words only,
to be sung without accompaniment. Many of the hymns date from the sixteenth century.

befuddled.
mixed up

blabbermaul.
talkative one

blaid.
bashful

boppli.
baby

bruder.
brother

bu.
boy

buwe.
boys

daadi.
daddy

Da Herr sei mit du.
The Lord be with you.

denke.
thanks (or
danki
)

Englischer.
one who is not Plain

ferhoodled.
upset; distracted

ferleicht.
perhaps

frau.
wife

fress.
eat

gross.
big

grossdaadi.
grandfather

grossdaadi haus.
An addition to the farmhouse, built for the grandparents to live in once they’ve “retired”
from actively running the farm.

grossmutter.
grandmother

gut.
good

hatt.
hard; difficult

haus.
house

hinnersich.
backward

ich.
I

ja.
yes

kapp.
Prayer covering, worn in obedience to the Biblical injunction that women should pray
with their heads covered. Kapps are made of Swiss organdy and are white. (In some
Amish communities, unmarried girls thirteen and older wear black kapps during worship
service.)

kinder.
kids (or
kinner
)

komm.
come

komm schnell.
come quick

Leit.
the people; the Amish

lippy.
sassy

maidal.
old maid; spinster

mamm.
mother

middaagesse.
lunch

mind.
remember

onkel.
uncle

Ordnung.
The agreed-upon rules by which the Amish community lives. When new practices become
an issue, they are discussed at length among the leadership. The decision for or against
innovation is generally made on the basis of maintaining the home and family as separate
from the world. For instance, a telephone might be necessary in a shop in order to
conduct business but would be banned from the home because it would intrude on family
time.

Pennsylvania Dutch.
The language is actually German in origin and is primarily a spoken language. Most
Amish write in English, which results in many variations in spelling when the dialect
is put into writing! The language probably originated in the south of Germany but
is common also among the Swiss Mennonite and French Huguenot immigrants to Pennsylvania.
The language was brought to America prior to the Revolution and is still in use today.
High German is used for Scripture and church documents, while English is the language
of commerce.

rumspringa.
Running-around time. The late teen years when Amish youth taste some aspects of the
outside world before deciding to be baptized into the church.

schnickelfritz.
mischievous child

ser gut.
very good

tastes like more.
delicious

Was ist letz?
What’s the matter?

Wie bist du heit.
how are you; said in greeting

wilkom.
welcome

Wo bist du?
Where are you?

C
HAPTER
O
NE

L
ydia
Beachy continued to tuck the log cabin quilt over her
great-aunt, hands moving gently but automatically as she struggled to make sense of
what the elderly woman had just said. Great-aunt Sara’s mind must be wandering, for
sure.

I still remember your mammi playing with you and your two little sisters in the apple
orchard.

The apple orchard part made sense. The orchard was still there, still producing apples
for Lydia and her husband and little boys. But she didn’t have any sisters.

“You must be thinking of someone else, Aunt Sara.” She patted her shoulder, just as
she’d have patted Daniel or David when they lay down for a nap. “Rest now. A nap every
afternoon, that’s what the doctor said, ain’t so?”

Aunt Sara flapped her hand as if to chase away the doctor’s words. “I’ll just close
my eyes for a minute or two. You and your sisters, ja, and the apple trees with blossoms
like clouds. Three sweet girls Diane had, that’s certain-sure.” She smiled, veined
lids drooping over her china blue eyes, and in an instant her even breathing told
Lydia that she was asleep.

Sharp as a tack, she is.
Mamm’s voice seemed to echo in Lydia’s ears. She and Daad had brought Great-aunt
Sara to stay with them after she’d been hospitalized with pneumonia, even though she
continued to insist that she’d be fine in her own little place.

Stubborn
, that was the word for her great-aunt. She was always wanting to be the one who helped
out, not the one who received help.

Great-aunt Sara had another role as well . . . that of family historian. She could
tell the children family stories going back many generations and never miss a name
or a date. But why would she say something so obviously wrong about Lydia’s own family?

Lydia’s forehead furrowed as she slipped quietly across the wide wooden floorboards
of the house where she had grown up. Her great-aunt was confused, surely. Illness
and age could do that to the sharpest mind.

But she’d said Diane. Lydia’s birth mother was Diane, and she’d always known the name
even though she didn’t remember her. Diane had been married to Daad’s brother, Eli,
and Daad and Mamm had adopted Lydia when Diane and Eli had both died in an accident.

Those birth parents had always been misty figures in her mind, like a pair of Amish
dolls with features she couldn’t see. She saw them as young and happy one minute and
gone the next in the accident Lydia didn’t remember, even though she’d been involved
as well and five at the time.

When she’d fretted at not remembering, Mamm had always soothed the worry away.
It is God’s way of making it easier for you,
Mamm would say.
The accident was a terrible thing, and it’s better for you not to remember.

The memory kept Lydia company down the bare, narrow stairs of the old farmhouse where
she’d grown up. Coming back here was like returning to her childhood, but home was
where her husband and children were now. She turned left at the bottom as she always
did, her steps taking her into the kitchen, the heart of any Amish home.

The square farmhouse kitchen was as spotless as it always was, the long wooden table
maybe a bit empty-looking now that all of them were grown and mostly out of the house.
April sunshine streamed through the window, laying a path across linoleum faded from
so many scrubbings.

Mamm always had a calendar on the wall over the table for decoration as well as use,
and this year’s had pictures of frolicking kittens. A few violets had been tucked
into a water glass on the windowsill, a reminder that spring had come to Pleasant
Valley at last.

Mamm was bending over the oven door of the gas range, pulling out a cookie sheet.
The aroma of snickerdoodles mixed with that of the beef pot roast that was stewing
in the Dutch oven on top of the stove. Mamm looked up, her cheeks red from the warmth
of the oven, and slid the tray onto a waiting cooling rack.

“Cookies for you to take to Daniel and David,” she said, probably needlessly. The
boys would be dumbfounded if Lydia came home from Grossmammi’s house without some
treat she’d made for them. It was a thing that never happened.

“Denke, Mamm. That will be their snack after they get home from school.”

Lydia hesitated, wondering if she should speak. Her great-aunt’s words kept going
round and round in her mind. They made no sense. And yet, Aunt Sara had sounded perfectly
rational.

Mamm glanced at her, face questioning, and closed the oven door. She dropped a crocheted
pot holder on the counter.

“Was ist letz? Is something wrong with Aunt Sara?” She took a step toward the stairs,
as if ready to fly up and deal with any emergency in her usual capable manner.

“No, no, she’s fine,” Lydia said quickly. “She’s sleeping already.”

“Ach, that’s gut. Rest is what she needs most now, even though she doesn’t want to
admit it.” Mamm reached for the coffeepot. “Do you have time for a cup before the
boys get home from school?”

Lydia shook her head. The words seemed to press against her lips, demanding to be
let out, even though she felt a reluctance that was surely odd. She could talk to
her mamm about anything.

“Aunt Sara said something I didn’t understand.”

“Ja? Was she fretting about the hospital bill again?”

Mamm’s brown eyes, magnified by her glasses, showed concern. Hospital bills were nothing
to take lightly when, like the Amish, a person didn’t have insurance. Still, the church
would provide what was needed when the family couldn’t manage. That was the Amish
way.

“It wasn’t that.” Lydia’s throat was suddenly tight with apprehension, as if some
unknown fear clutched her.
Just say it,
she scolded herself. She’d always been able to take any problem to Mamm, and Mamm
always had an answer.

“Aunt Sara was talking about my mother. My birth mother, I mean. Diane.”

“Ja?” The word sounded casual, but the lines around her mother’s eyes seemed to deepen,
and she set the coffeepot down with a clatter, not even noticing it was on the countertop
and not the stove.

“She was . . . She must have been confused.” The kitchen was quiet, so quiet it seemed
to be waiting for something. “She said that Diane had three kinder. Three little girls.
I thought certain-sure she . . .”

The words trickled off to silence. She couldn’t say again that Aunt Sara was confused.
Not when she could read the truth in Mamm’s face.

“It’s true?” The question came out in a whisper, because something that might have
been grief or panic had a hard grip on her throat. “It is true.”

Mamm’s face seemed to crumple like a blossom torn from a branch. “Lydia, I’m sorry.”

“But . . .” The familiar kitchen was suddenly as strange as if she’d never seen it
before. She grasped the top of the closest ladder-back chair. “I had sisters? Two
little sisters?”

Mamm nodded, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “You didn’t
remember, and so we thought it best not to say anything. We didn’t want you to be
hurt any more than you already were.”

Hurt.
Lydia grasped the word. She’d been hurt in the accident that killed her parents.
She knew that. She’d always known it. Her earliest memories were of the hospital . . .
blurry images of Mamm and Daad always there, one on either side of the bed each time
she woke up.

“Sisters.” Having had three younger brothers, she’d always wished for a sister. “What
were their names?”

Mamm moved around the table toward her, as cautious as if she were approaching a spooked
buggy horse. “Susanna. She was not quite three at the time of the accident. And Chloe,
the baby, just a year old.”

Lydia pressed her palm against her chest. Her heart seemed to be beating very normally,
in spite of the pummeling it had taken in the past few minutes. She had to hear the
rest of it. “They died in the accident, too?”

Silence. She saw in her mother’s face the longing to agree. Then Mamm shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, as if she couldn’t find any other words. “They were injured,
but they healed. Like you.”

“But . . .” Lydia’s mind kept tumbling, her thoughts rearranging themselves and breaking
apart again. “I don’t understand. What happened to them?”

Mamm pressed her fingers to her lips for a moment, as if to hold back the words. “They
went with different families. I’m sorry. We didn’t want to split you up, but . . .”
Her voice broke, and it was a moment before she went on. “Since you didn’t remember,
it seemed best not to tell you.”

“Best not to tell me?” Lydia’s voice rose as she echoed the words. A wave of anger
swept away the pain for a brief moment. “How could it be best for me not to know that
I had two little sisters? Why were we split up? Why didn’t you take all of us? Why?”

“Lydia, hush.” Mamm tried to take her arm. “It’s going to be all right.”

Lydia pulled away. This was not something Mamm could make better with hugs and soft
words.

“You have to understand how difficult it was.” Mamm’s voice was pleading. “There were
your parents dying out there in Ohio, and the three of you kinder in different hospitals,
and the rest of the family frantic to get there—” Tears spilled over onto her cheeks,
choking off her words.

Ohio, yes. That rang a bell in Lydia’s mind. The accident had taken place when her
family was in a van on the way to a wedding in Ohio. Mamm had told her that once,
when Lydia was of an age to ask questions and wanted to know more about the accident.

“I
don’t
understand. You should have told me.”

“Just sit down and calm yourself. Your daad will be home soon. He can explain.” Mamm
reached for her, her face and voice pleading.

Lydia wanted to step into her mamm’s loving arms. She wanted to feel the comfort that
had always been there. She wanted to hear Daad’s deep, soothing voice chasing her
fears away, as he’d done when she was a child having nightmares.

Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. She had relied on them always, just as Daniel
and David relied on her and Adam. Now it seemed she couldn’t trust them at all.

The urge to flee nearly overwhelmed her. She had to get out of this house that had
always been her sanctuary.

“I can’t.” Tears threatened to clog her voice, but she wouldn’t let them flow, not
yet. “The boys will be home from school soon. I must be there for them. We’ll have
to talk later.”

Tears nearly blinded her, but her feet knew the way to the back door without the need
to look. She was vaguely aware of Mamm’s voice, protesting, urging her to stay, but
she couldn’t. She had to think this through. She had to talk to someone she knew she
could trust.

She had to go home to Adam. He was her rock. He would know what to do.

* * *

Adam
climbed out of the van at the end of the lane, raising a hand in acknowledgment as
the driver pulled away. Strange to think that his time of riding in the van that carried
Amish workers to the camping trailer factory in Fisherdale would soon end.

Usually the half-hour ride home from work was a time to exchange a few stories, air
a complaint or two, chaff each other the way men did in their tight-knit community.
Today the van had been as still as the farmhouse in the darkest hour of night. With
good reason. They’d learned today that most of them would be unemployed come Friday.

Adam straightened his shoulders as he headed up the lane. No matter how shocked he
felt, it wouldn’t do to let Lydia and the boys see him looking down or uncertain.
They relied on him to take care of them.

Maybe he should have seen this coming and been better prepared for the news. Times
were rough for a lot of folks, and it seemed fewer of them were willing to spend the
money on a new camping trailer. The factory in Fisherdale was a small one. It was
certain-sure the owners couldn’t afford to keep a full staff on when the orders weren’t
coming in.

Jobs were scarce all around, it seemed. It had been bad enough traveling to Fisherdale
every day. If he had to go even farther to find work . . .

The farm seemed to unroll ahead of him as he walked, and the sight of it eased the
knots of worry in his shoulders with its peaceful familiarity. The pastures on either
side of the lane provided for the buggy horses and the two milk cows they kept, and
the white frame farmhouse settled into the sheltering trees like a hen sitting on
a nest, the outbuildings her chicks around her.

Beyond the house the orchard spread clear to the property line with the Miller place.
As old as many of those apple trees were, they still produced fine fruit, bringing
in extra money in the fall.

The farm was a productive place, with a good orchard. He should be counting his blessings
that Lydia had inherited it from her birth parents, instead of fretting over the fact
that it wasn’t big enough to support a family of four with farming alone.

He spied the boys. Daniel and David were chasing each other among the apple trees,
looking like twins from this distance in their black pants, blue shirts, and straw
hats. Daniel was in front as always, with six-year-old David trying to keep up. He
and Lydia joked that David might as well have been born saying, “Me, too, me, too.”

Spotting his daad, Daniel veered from his course and raced toward Adam, David scurrying
behind.

“Daadi, Daadi, you’re home!” They always greeted him as lavishly as if he’d been gone
a month.

Adam scooped them into a quick hug, feeling a pang as he realized all over again how
tall the two of them were getting. The boys were not babies anymore, and no others
had come along to fill the cradle. He wished for more children just as Lydia did,
and he had to keep reminding himself that it would be as God willed.

Daniel took Adam’s lunchbox, always proud to carry it to the house. David tugged at
his sleeve, his face tilted up with a serious expression.