Jan Drexler - The Amish Nanny's Sweetheart

Guy climbed onto the seat of the spreader and clicked his tongue as a signal to the horses. He didn’t have a view of the neighbor’s house from the back field, but his mind went off on its own thoughts, anyway. Keeping the team on track, he focused on the fence post at the far side.

David had taught him that if he picked a point and kept his eye on it, his path would always be straight and true. Almost everything David taught him had more than one meaning. He had made it clear that Guy needed to have a goal for his life and to keep his eyes on that. He was an eddy in a stream, David had complained. Always doing, but never going anywhere. But Guy just couldn’t find that centering point.

When the horses reached the fence post, he turned them around and lined up the next goal, the crooked tree by the farm pond, just beyond the fence.

At nineteen years old, he still had no idea what he wanted out of life.

No, that was wrong. He knew.

He had known ever since Pa had taken him to the Orphan’s Home on his fifth birthday. He still remembered the green suit Mama had made and how the wool had made his neck itch. He remembered the smell of the Home. The putrid odor that lingered in the dormitory rooms and drifted down the stairs. The crying that echoed in the hallways.

“I’ll come get you when I find work,” Pa had said as he crouched in front of him, smoothing the collar of the green suit. “It may be a while, but they’ll take good care of you here.” And then Pa had patted his shoulder and left, trotting down the sidewalk back to the old dusty black automobile.

Guy had waited for his return, and the years of aching emptiness had about killed him.

He knew what he wanted out of life. He wanted a father who never left his boy behind. He wanted a mother who didn’t die. He wanted his family.

But that was a dead-end dream.

The next time Pa had come back, on an early-spring day three years later, he had smelled of alcohol. A woman had been with him.

“Dressed in floozy clothes,” Mrs. Bender, the matron at the Home, had said with a sniff.

The fancy woman had taken one look at him and poked Pa in the shoulder. “That ain’t your kid. He looks nothing like you.”

Then she had leaned close to Guy, grabbing his chin and turning it one way and then the other. “Nothing like you.”

She had released his chin from her icy stick fingers and lit a cigarette, walking toward the shiny burgundy-colored car waiting by the road. “It’s him or me, Sugar Daddy,” she had called over her shoulder as she climbed into the front seat.

Pa had shrugged his shoulders, his eye on the woman and the car. “She won’t be around long, and then I’ll be back for you.” He had straightened his striped jacket and settled his hat more firmly on his head. “You see how it is, don’t you, Sport?”

Pa had come by to visit a few times after that, showing up every couple of years. Twice he’d had different fancy women with him. Another time he had shown up on foot, dressed in torn clothes and dusty shoes that were cracked and showing Pa’s bare feet through the peeling leather. Every time, he had left with the same promise of coming back to get him. Guy only needed to be patient until Pa’s ship came in.

But Guy had learned that Pa’s promise was nothing but straw. Easily made, easily broken.

The horses had stopped with their noses at the fence, and Brownie turned his head to look back at Guy.

“All right, all right. Hold your horses.” Guy shook off the memories and grinned as he turned the team around to start the next pass down the field. Horses holding their horses. If he’d still been at the Home, he’d have told that joke to the other boys as they shivered on their cots waiting for the lights-out call to drift up the long stairway. But he no longer belonged there. Too old for the Home, he was on his own.

He looked at the big white house at the edge of the barnyard. David and Verna’s place wasn’t home, either, no matter how welcome they tried to make him feel. He wasn’t theirs and never would be. He didn’t really belong anywhere.

The memory of Judith’s quiet glance sent a cool stream of peace through him. Maybe, just maybe, she could help him belong. The Penn Dutch lessons should help him become more comfortable in the community. Maybe he could put down roots here. Buy a farm. Raise a family. He let his thoughts flow to a home and family like Matthew Beachey’s, with a girl like Judith as his wife and children growing along with their love for each other. Guy shook his head with a laugh. That dream was far beyond the reach of an outcast like him.

* * *

Judith turned the ham frying in the cast-iron skillet then checked the potatoes with a fork. Dinner was nearly ready, and just in time. She could see Matthew heading toward the house for his noon meal.

“Ach, Judith, you’re a blessing!”

Annie stood in the kitchen doorway, rocking and bouncing as she held a fussy Viola in her arms. Or was it Rose? Judith couldn’t tell the two babies apart yet. They both looked like Annie, with wisps of red curls growing on their soft, pink heads. Meanwhile, Eli squirmed, trying to get down from his perch on her left hip.

As she set him on the floor, she waited until he had his balance before letting him go on a headlong dash toward his mother.

“You never told me what a job it is to try to cook with a toddler underfoot.” Judith opened the oven door to check on the green bean casserole. She had quickly learned that this dish was one of Matthew’s favorites.

Annie knelt to put her free arm around her son. “And soon enough there will be three of them running around the kitchen, all wanting to help.” She smiled as she pulled her son close and kissed his cheek.

Judith took four plates from the cupboard and set them on the table, watching Annie. Even though her sister hadn’t slept much last night, with the babies awake and crying at all hours, Annie still kept her good humor. Her face looked tired, though, and Judith was afraid she might fall asleep at the dinner table.

“When I put Eli down for his nap, I’ll take care of the girls so you can get some sleep this afternoon.”

Annie’s eyes widened. “Would you? I don’t remember when I last slept for more than a few minutes at a time.”

Matthew’s feet stamped in the porch outside the kitchen door, Judith’s signal to finish setting the table.

She smiled at Annie as she laid the silverware next to the plates. “I’d love to take care of them for a while. Tiny babies are so sweet.”

Annie cooed at Viola, who was still fussing. “They are sweet, but exhausting.” She kissed Eli’s brown curls as Judith lifted him into his tall stool at the table. “I don’t know what I would do without you here.”

Judith pulled out a chair so Annie could sit down next to her son. “If I wasn’t here, someone else would help you. There are plenty of girls in the church who would have been glad to come.”

“Did you get to know any of them at the Singing on Sunday evening? I didn’t have a chance to ask you about it yesterday.”

Judith drained the potatoes. She was serving them boiled, since she hadn’t had time to mash them. She added a lump of butter to the pot and shook salt and pepper over them.

“I had met Waneta Zook at the morning service, and she introduced me to Hannah Kaufman. There were others there, but I don’t remember all of their names.”

She set the green bean casserole on the table and put the ham on a serving plate. Just as Matthew came in, still damp from washing up on the porch, she dumped the potatoes into a dish and set it on the table. She sliced a loaf of bread while Matthew greeted his family, then she put it on the table and stepped back to evaluate her work.