Thomas glanced down a familiar side road that led to a creek he and Noah used to play in as boys. It wasn’t deep enough to swim, but it had been wet enough to play in on a hot summer day after chores.
“I used to live down here,” Thomas said.
“Really?” Patience shot him a curious look.
“You see that house up ahead—the one with the trees in front?” It had been whitewashed when they lived there, but it was the same house. “That was ours.”
He and his brother helped their daet whitewash the house and the chicken coop every few years. The winter wind had a way of blasting the paint, and they liked to keep their home looking bright and fresh. Daet worked as a farmhand at a local dairy, and Mamm had kept house, like the other Amish women did.
“You really had no idea they weren’t born Amish?” Patience asked, switching to German.
Thomas shrugged. “I had no idea. You tend to think your home is normal... Looking back on it, I suppose there were a few signs. My parents spoke English when they were alone. I used to think it was their way of hiding what they were saying from us kids. And maybe it was. Sort of like we’re doing now to keep Rue from understanding us... But now, I realize, it was more than that, because the only time they could have talked freely in their first language would have been when they were alone together.”
How unsettling was this for Patience to hear about? He’d worked through a lot of his own anger about his parents’ secrets over the last few years, but there were still times when his feelings about it took him by surprise. When his father died and his mother left the community, he’d lost both parents and his sense of place within his own community all at once. He’d been bereft and adrift. He’d needed every ounce of charity that had been offered to him—including the home that Amos and his grandmother opened up for them to live in.
As they came closer to the drive that led up to his childhood home, Thomas noticed some signs of a new family living there—a truck in the driveway, the growl of a tractor coming from farther back on the property. There was a tree closer to the road with low, spreading branches, and a swing still hung from the straightest of them. The rope was new, though. There must be kids living here.
Thomas reined in the horses.
“I used to swing on that swing when I was a little kid like you, Rue,” Thomas said, pointing.
“Can I swing on it?” Rue asked.
“No, it isn’t ours anymore,” Thomas replied.
The door opened and a woman in shorts appeared on the step. She shaded her eyes to look at them, then waved. Rue waved exuberantly back.
“Hello!” Rue shouted.
“Rue, stop that,” Patience said briskly, and she exchanged a look with Thomas.
“Hya.” Thomas flicked the reins.
“We could ask if I can swing!” Rue said, leaning around Patience to get a better look at the Englisher woman. “She’d probably let me!”
There was no doubt that the woman would let Rue swing, but the price for that would be conversation, and Thomas knew better than to get chatty with the Englishers. Friendships were a two-way street, and for better or for worse, the Englishers in these parts were bent on developing friendships—sharing their experiences, asking too-personal questions.
“Rue, we are Amish,” Thomas said. “We keep to ourselves.”
“But I’m not,” Rue said.
“You’re my little girl, so yes, you are,” he countered.
Rue frowned at this and leaned back against the seat.
“Her people are Englishers,” Patience said in German.
“Not anymore,” Thomas replied. “I’m raising her Amish. And that’s that.”
“Of course, but she can’t deny her own mamm,” Patience replied. “Everything she knows and remembers...”
“So I should let her play with Englisher kinner, then?” he asked, shaking his head. “I should let her chat with Englisher neighbors? What would you have me do?”
There was a beat of silence, and then Patience said, “I don’t know. But her situation might be more complicated than a child born here. That’s all I’m saying.”
And maybe Patience was right, but what was he supposed to do? Tina had kept him away, and now that Rue was under his care, he had to do what he felt was right. And an Amish life was right. So maybe, in a way, he was doing the exact thing that Tina had done...
“What would you have me do?” Thomas asked, shaking his head. “Her mamm was Englisher. Well, so is mine. Am I less Amish because of my parents?”
“I didn’t mean that,” Patience replied.
“There has to be something said for the life you were raised to, whether or not your parents were raised in the same way,” he said. “I’m going to raise her Amish—and there will be no chatting with Englisher neighbors. She’ll be Amish through and through by the time she’s old enough for her Rumspringa.”
And if God blessed his efforts, then she’d stay Amish, too.
“You’re her daet,” Patience said simply.
“I know what it’s like to have connections...out there,” he said.
“Then you understand how she feels, I imagine,” Patience said.
“I understand what she needs,” he replied. “And she needs to find her place in our community. She needs the stability, the sense of who she is on the narrow path. She doesn’t need distraction or reminders of the life she came from. She needs a solid future.”
He was frustrated, and he attempted to relax his iron grip on
