Redeeming Grace

“Sure,” Grace said. “I’ll be glad to help. Tell me what to do.”

“I’m just glad we’ve got sun and a good breeze,” Hannah said. “We’re expecting company this afternoon, and I’ve washed all the sheets. If it had kept raining, they would have been a mess to get dry.”

“Right,” Grace mused. “No electric dryer.” Then she considered what Hannah had just said and started to get nervous. About her new plan: plan B. “You’re getting company? I guess I picked a bad time to show up here.”

“Ne,” Hannah said. “It’s a big house. Friends of ours, the Roman Bylers, have relatives moving here from Indiana. Sadie and Ebben King bought the little farm down the road from us. They’ll be part of our church. Two of their sons and a daughter, all married, live here in Kent County, so they decided it was time to move east. They’ll be staying with us until the repairs are done and they get a new roof on.”

Grace wanted to ask why the Kings were staying with the Yoders instead of their own relatives, but she thought it better to keep her questions to herself. She didn’t want to be rude.

“They have one boy left at home,” Hannah continued. “David. He’s their youngest. He’s like our Susanna. Special.”

It took Grace a second to realize what Hannah meant. The son must have Down syndrome like Susanna. She nodded in understanding.

“Get those wet sheets, Johanna?” Hannah asked.

Minutes later, Dakota and Katie were happily playing together under Hannah’s watchful eye in the kitchen, while Grace, Susanna and Johanna hung laundry on the clothesline in the backyard.

As Grace hung a wet sheet on the line running between two poles, she took in her surroundings. It seemed almost too good to be true to Grace. The white house, the wide green lawn with carefully tended flower beds, and not a car or TV antenna in sight. The only sounds she heard were the breeze rustling through the tree branches, the creak of the windmill blades and the joyous song of a mockingbird.

Johanna, her mouth full of clothespins, was intent on attaching a row of dresses—blue, lavender and green dresses—while Susanna and Grace hung items from an overflowing basket of towels and sheets. Grace eyed the dresses and aprons wistfully. Today she’d put on a clean blouse from her bag, but she didn’t have another long skirt or apron so she’d had to put the same ones on again. Susanna and Johanna both wore modest Amish dresses in different shades of blue with white aprons and stiff white caps. Grace felt foolish with her men’s handkerchief tied over her hair, but no one had mentioned it, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought.

Susanna hummed as she worked, but her older sister was clearly out of sorts. After a while, Grace took a deep breath and peered over the clothesline at Johanna. “I don’t blame you,” she said in a low voice.

Silence.

“I can see how it would be upsetting,” Grace went on. “Me coming here.”

Johanna reached down for a boy’s pair of blue trousers. “If you must know, I’m not sure I believe you. I don’t want to see my mother hurt.”

Grace felt her cheeks burning. She’d expected her stepmother to be the one who would try to deny her, not a sister. Not that Grace had even expected a sister. She’d never allowed herself to think any further than finding her father and hoping he’d claim her. Oh, there had been a family in the background in her daydreams, sort of a shadowy idea of younger brothers, but never in a million years had she considered that she’d find seven sisters.

And Johanna had been a surprise. She and Johanna looked so much alike, almost like twins, although Grace was shorter and skinnier. It was weird to Grace, seeing a stranger who looked so much like the face she saw in the mirror every time she brushed her teeth. And their light auburn hair, a shade you didn’t often see, was exactly the same color that Marg had said that Grace’s father’s had been.

“Trudie’s man was a ginger-haired, blue-eyed Amish hottie,” Marg had told her.

Grace was so sorry she’d never get the chance to meet Jonas. It wasn’t fair. But when had life ever been fair to her?

“Think what you want about me,” Grace said stubbornly to Johanna. “I’m here, and I’m just as much Jonas’s daughter as you are.”

“Maybe,” Johanna said. “That remains to be seen.”

“What are you arguing about?” Susanna demanded, pulling the clothesline down so she could see them over a row of towels. “Don’t be mean, Johanna.”

“I’m not being mean.”

“Are, too.” Susanna planted her chubby hand on one hip and stuck out her chin. “Mam said be nice to Grace. She’s our sister.”

“She might be our sister, but she might not, Susanna Banana. She might be a stranger just pretending to be our sister.”

Susanna shook her head. “I like her, and I like Dakota.”

“But what if she’s trying to trick us, just saying she’s our sister?” Johanna argued.

“Doesn’t matter,” Susanna said firmly. “Maybe God wanted her to come here. She needs us.” Her head bobbed. “Ya, and maybe we need her. It doesn’t matter if she’s a real sister. She can be one, if we want her to, can’t she?”

Grace turned toward Susanna as tears gathered in her eyes. “Thank you,” she managed, before dashing across the grass and back into the house. She wanted to go into her room, to fling herself on the bed, shut the door and try to reason this all out. She didn’t trust herself to talk to Hannah or anyone else until she’d regained her composure.

“What’s wrong?” Hannah asked as Grace came in the back door.

Grace rubbed at her eyes and sniffed. “Nothing. Must be allergic to something.”

“Ya,” Hannah agreed. “Must be.”

“This is hard,” Grace admitted, folding her arms over her chest and looking down at the floor. “I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

“It is going to be hard for all of us. Maybe Johanna most of all.” She glanced at the two children who were busily sorting wooden animals in a toy ark in the center of the floor. “Come with me.” She motioned, and Grace followed her into what appeared to be a big pantry off the kitchen. “So the children won’t hear,” she said quietly. “Don’t be too quick to judge Johanna. She has a good heart, but she’s had a hard time these last few years. She is a widow, too. Did you know?”

Grace shook her head. “No.” So Johanna had lost her man, too? It was creepy how much alike they were. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“He was sick...in his mind,” Hannah explained. “Wilmer took his own life. Johanna couldn’t manage their farm on her own, so she came home to live with us. For a long time, things were not good with her and Wilmer, and she finds it hard to trust people.”

Grace nodded. “I can understand that.”

“The two of you have common ground,” Hannah said. “You both have small children that you love. It’s a place to start, ne?”

“Maybe.” Grace sighed. “But why can’t she be like Susanna and just accept me for who I am?”

Hannah smiled. “We should all be like our Susanna. She is one of God’s special people. She was born with a heart overflowing with joy.”

“You believe me, don’t you? That I’m Jonas’s daughter?”

The older woman hesitated only a second. “Ya, I do.”

“Then...” She peered into Hannah’s eyes, thinking about plan B. This was it. This was her opportunity to speak up. “Can we stay—at least for a little while? I won’t be a burden, I promise. I’ll get a job and pay room and board, and I’ll pitch in like everyone else.” She glanced at her feet, then raised her head, her eyes wet with tears. “But I need to be here.”

“You can stay as long as you like.”

Grace looked into Hannah’s eyes. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth last night. About coming here.”

The older woman’s face didn’t change.

“I did come here to find my father. To meet him. But also...” She thought of Dakota and the life she’d led, the life she didn’t want for her son. That was what gave her the strength to spit it out. “I came to Seven Poplars to tell my father that I want to be Amish. Like him.”

Hannah looked away. “Oh my, Grace.” She sighed.

“It’s not impossible, is it?” Grace went on. “Especially because my father—and technically Trudie— were Amish?”

Hannah turned back to her and smiled wryly. “It’s not so easy. Sometimes Englishers say they want to be like us, but the world calls to them, too loudly.”