All the clothing that would be taken from her—every item that was most inappropriate for an Amish girl to wear. But it had meaning to Rue because it was connected to the mother she lost, and Patience could suddenly imagine the disapproving looks of every single Amish adult who had looked into her precious suitcase of memories.
“I think I understand,” Patience said quietly. “Should I explain it to your daet?”
Rue nodded quickly.
“Rue wants to keep her clothes,” Patience said, looking up at Thomas.
Thomas stood there for a moment, looming over them, and then he pulled up that kitchen chair next to where Patience sat on the floor with Rue on her lap, and he sat down in it.
“Yah, I heard that,” he said somberly.
“Her mother bought them, Thomas,” Patience said quietly, switching to German. “This is her last connection to the mother she’s lost, and I’m sure she knows that we’re planning on getting rid of every last stitch of her Englisher clothes.”
“Yah,” he replied in German. “Of course!”
“It will break her heart,” Patience said. “She isn’t ready for that.”
“No, she’s not...” He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m so eager to make her Amish that I forget she’s not.” Thomas looked up, his dark gaze meeting hers. “I will pray on it.”
“And in the meantime, can I tell her she keeps the clothes?” Patience asked hopefully.
“In the meantime, yes.”
“Your daet understands,” Patience said, turning to Rue and switching back to English. “And you can keep your clothes. He just wants to give you more clothes.”
“More?” she asked, and she looked up at her father with such hope in her eyes.
“More,” he said solemnly. “Proper Amish dresses for my little Amish girl.”
“Am I Amish, Daddy?” she asked.
“Yah,” he said. “And I would like it if you called me Daet.”
Rue frowned.
“It means daddy in German,” Patience said.
“I don’t like that...” Rue shook her head. “You talk funny.”
“Okay,” Thomas answered almost too quickly, and Patience had to smother a smile. He was afraid of another meltdown, and right now, she couldn’t blame him.
“You’re Daddy,” Rue said seriously, fixing Thomas with a no-nonsense look of her own. Thomas looked at his daughter for a moment, then sighed.
“For now,” he agreed. “I’ll be... Daddy.”
It was a painful concession, and Patience knew it. Daddies were of the Englisher world, but an Amish father was a daet. Tiny children learned to form the word, and it was a tender name, one attached to deep love and emotion. Thomas didn’t want to be Daddy, and Patience understood all too well why he wouldn’t.
Patience disentangled herself from the girl and boosted her to her feet. “Rue, have you had your breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“Have you washed your face and your hands? Did you brush your teeth?”
Mary Lapp dried her hands on a towel at the sink and cast Patience a grateful smile, then held out her hand.
“Come, Rue,” Mary said. “Let’s get clean so you can see the big rolls of fabric.”
It seemed to work, because Rue agreed to trot upstairs with the older woman. Thomas stood up, then held his hand out to Patience to help her to her feet. Patience took his hand, and his grip was warm and solid, calloused from the hard work he did every day. He was strong, and he pulled her easily to her feet.
“You’re good with her,” Thomas said, releasing her hand.
“I don’t know why,” Patience said, stepping back. “I don’t know anything about Englisher children.”
Thomas smiled sadly. “Me neither.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Patience said.
“Gott teaches patience with children. Isn’t that what they say?”
“It is.” She smiled. “And I’m about to have a whole schoolhouse full of them, so maybe you should feel grateful for just one.”
Thomas cracked a smile then, and he laughed softly. “Maybe I should.” He jutted his chin toward the door. “I’m going to go hitch up the buggy.”
Patience watched as he headed out the side door, and she put a hand over her pattering heart. She wasn’t blind to his broad shoulders and warm smile—it would be easier if she were, because it wasn’t that she didn’t want to marry... She did. But she was going to be a disappointment to whoever tried to court her.
Patience was a teacher and a helpful neighbor. Nothing else. She’d best remember it. Strong hands and broad shoulders didn’t change that she wasn’t the wife for Thomas.
Chapter Three
The horses trotted along the paved road, the scenery slowly easing past the buggy. Thomas flicked the reins and looked out past the ditch full of weeds and wildflowers, to the fields beyond. Cattle chewed their cud, lying in the long summer grass, and overhead a string of geese beat their wings heading south. These were the last weeks of warmth, and soon there would be frost in the mornings.
“It’s a carriage ride!” Rue said, seated between Thomas and Patience on the bench seat.
“A what?” Thomas asked, turning back toward his daughter.
“A princess rides in a carriage!” Rue said. “Like this.”
Thomas looked over Rue’s head and caught Patience’s eye. She shrugged subtly. Rue wasn’t raised with dreams of a gleaming kitchen or a neat new dress she’d stitched herself. She’d been raised with grander hopes, it would seem, the kind that elevated one person high above the rest. The Amish saw the danger in that.
Must this child be so foreign from everything he held dear?
Gott, I don’t know how to raise her, he prayed in his heart. She’s so...different.
And she was also his doing. He’d been the one to roam outside the community’s boundaries. He’d been the young man who needed to see if his mamm’s world might be better, after all. And back then, he’d deeply hoped that it would be, because he missed his mamm so much in between her visits, and her letters said very little that meant anything to him. Those who said that a teenager was
