The Wonder of Your Love

Five




LUCY THANKED HER HOSTESS AT THE MANSION BED-and-Breakfast after a meal that should have been more than satisfying. Eggs Benedict were her favorite, and the fruit bowl and homemade granola also topped the list of her preferred breakfast items. But this morning her stomach roiled with anxiety, and she wondered if coming all this way to see Katie Ann was a mistake. Ivan’s wife might be Amish, but she was still human, and Lucy had seen the loathing in Katie Ann’s eyes on Saturday. She wished this trip hadn’t been necessary, but after much deliberation, she didn’t see any way around it.

She carted her red suitcase to her rental car, popped the trunk, and stored the luggage inside. It was only ten miles from the B&B in Monte Vista to Katie Ann’s house, and she planned to drive as slowly as possible. She’d hoped to get this dreaded visit over with on Saturday and be back in Lancaster County by now, but she was certainly willing to work around Katie Ann’s schedule. That was the least she could do.

As she pulled off the main highway, she touched her hand to her stomach and felt the baby kick. In the darkness of the other night, and with a heavy coat on, her pregnancy hadn’t been noticeable to Katie Ann. The last thing she wanted to do was cause the woman more pain. But she didn’t have a choice. Ivan was gone, and he’d been the only person who could explain the contents of the box he’d left behind. Lucy’s future depended on Katie Ann being able to identify the picture.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm her rapid heartbeat. So many times she’d wanted to defend herself to Katie Ann and the members of her community. She knew that everyone in the Old Order district thought she’d seduced Ivan away from his wife, that surely no good Amish man would pursue an Englisch woman. If they only knew.

She thought back on Ivan’s many advances and wished more than anything that she could go back in time, wished she had never agreed to have lunch with the handsome Amish man who was clearly unhappy at home. One lunch led to another, until eventually Ivan had kissed her. She ended it after that, but Ivan only tried harder. Every day he would wander into the café where she worked. He’d also call her from a cell phone he was hiding from Katie Ann. And when he said he never loved anyone the way he loved her, she had melted. All she’d ever wanted was to be loved, and she’d managed to go thirty-two years without true love. Until Ivan.

She pulled into the driveway that led up to Katie Ann’s house. She glanced to her left at the house she knew to be Samuel and Lillian’s. She hoped that neither of them would be at Katie Ann’s when she arrived. Or the scary woman who had been there on Saturday night. It would be hard enough to talk to Katie Ann without an audience.


KATIE ANN PULLED the last of the clothes through the wringer washer, then began to hang the wet items in the mudroom. Temperatures had dropped during the night, and a blanket of frost still covered everything at nine o’clock this morning. She’d tried to stay busy for the past four hours, since she’d gotten up to nurse Jonas. After feeding her little one, he’d drifted back to sleep, and Katie Ann had busied herself cleaning and washing clothes. Anything to keep her mind off Lucy’s impending visit.

She didn’t know the woman well at all. She had worked at a café back in Lancaster County, and they’d only spoken a handful of times before Katie Ann caught Ivan kissing her one day. After that, her husband had promised her that he’d stopped seeing Lucy, that there’d never been more than a shared kiss and a few phone calls. Katie Ann knew now that Ivan had lied to her, and she couldn’t help but wonder if there were other untruths built around his relationship with Lucy. Maybe he had tried to end it with Lucy, but Katie Ann could still remember the way she begged Ivan not to leave their marriage. She and Ivan had relocated to Colorado for a new beginning, but Ivan’s heart had remained in Lancaster County. And even though Katie Ann had adjusted nicely to her life in Colorado, Lancaster County was where her own roots were. She wondered if she would ever move back there.

As she clipped a towel to a hanger, she recalled Ivan’s funeral a few months ago. Lucy had been racked with grief, and Katie Ann almost felt sorry for the woman. Almost. But there was always enough bitterness in Katie Ann’s heart to drown out any sympathy for Lucy. Perhaps she shouldn’t have even agreed to this meeting. An urgent matter?

She thought about what Martha said. Could Lucy be coming to ask for money? When she heard a car pulling in, she left the rest of the wet clothes in the laundry basket. Her stomach clenched tight as she smoothed the wrinkles from her black apron and moved through the house. Her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest as she stood on the other side of the closed door, waiting for Lucy to knock. She listened to her heels click up the porch steps, then a soft tap against the door.

Katie Ann opened the front door, took one look at Lucy, and almost gasped. A knot formed in her throat, and she couldn’t speak.

“Hello, Katie Ann.” Lucy tried to pull her long beige coat tighter around her, but it didn’t hide her enlarged belly.

Katie Ann managed to open the door and motion for Lucy to enter.

“Come in,” she finally said after Lucy was already inside the living room and Katie Ann was shutting the door. She could hear the tremble in her voice, and she wondered if Lucy was half as nervous as she was.

“I guess you must have noticed . . .” Lucy’s voice trailed off as she placed both hands on her stomach. “I’m six months pregnant.”

“Ivan’s?” Katie Ann asked.

Lucy looked down at her brown boots. “Yes.”

Katie Ann moved as if she were a character in someone else’s nightmare, unable to believe that this adulteress was in her home. Any earlier thoughts of polite small talk or an offer of coffee slipped from her mind. Still standing, she asked, “What do you want, Lucy?”

Lucy’s bottom lip trembled as she avoided eye contact with Katie Ann. “First of all, I want to say how very sorry I am. For everything.”

She looked up at Katie Ann as a tear rolled down her cheek, and Katie Ann stared at her, knowing she didn’t have one ounce of forgiveness for the woman, despite what she’d said, thought, or prayed about in the past. And she had no plans to make this visit easy on her.

“What do you want?” she asked again.

Katie Ann was surprised at how plain Lucy looked. She didn’t have on the heavy makeup she’d seen her wear before, and her clothes were conservative, not as if she’d selected them that morning with the intention of seducing someone’s husband. Perhaps being pregnant had humbled the woman.

Still standing, Lucy reached into her oversized brown purse and pulled out a wooden box. “I found this after Ivan died.” She held out a small cedar container for Katie Ann to see.

Katie Ann recognized the box right away. It was half the size of a shoe box, and Ivan’s father had made it for him when he was a boy. He’d always kept it on their dresser.

“What about it?” Katie Ann couldn’t imagine why Ivan’s old keepsake would have brought Lucy all the way to Colorado.

Lucy leaned forward slightly and grimaced.

Instinctively, Katie Ann took a step toward her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, just a hard kick from the little one.”

Lucy smiled a bit, and Katie Ann stiffened. But despite her resentment of Lucy, she asked her if she would like to sit down.

“Thank you.” Lucy kept her coat on, thankfully, and sat down on the couch.

Katie Ann sat in the rocking chair across from her. “Lucy, I’m sure you didn’t come here to show me Ivan’s box.” She folded her hands in her lap, bit her bottom lip, and waited.

“Actually, it’s what I found in the box.” Lucy unlatched the tiny clasp and pulled out a photograph. She reached across the coffee table and handed it to Katie Ann, who took it hesitantly. It was a picture of a house, a beautiful white house with black shutters and a white picket fence.

Katie Ann handed the picture back to her. “Why are you showing me this?”

Lucy’s voice wavered as she spoke, her eyes watering. “I was hoping you might know where this house is.” She reached back into the box and pulled out two keys. “These keys were in the box also. I think Ivan bought us a house somewhere, and—”

Katie Ann blinked her eyes a few times. “What?”

“I’m sorry, Katie Ann. I’m so sorry. But our bank account is wiped out, and I think Ivan used the money that was in there to purchase this house. But I have no idea where it is. I know that sounds crazy, but I can’t afford to keep making the mortgage on our current house. They’ve cut my hours at the café, and I’ll need to stop working when the baby comes.”

Katie Ann rubbed her forehead and tried to picture Ivan cleaning out their bank account. “That doesn’t sound like Ivan.”

“The money was his. I mean, I had very little when we moved in together. So it isn’t like he stole my money or anything.” Lucy stood up. “I think he was planning to surprise me with a new home.”

Katie Ann thought about all the ways Ivan used to surprise her in the past, whether just a bouquet of flowers, or even once a new buggy. She thought for a moment. “That doesn’t make any sense. Ivan would have put your house on the market to sell before he invested money to build a new one.” Katie Ann shook her head. “I can’t believe this is what you came here to talk to me about.”

She wondered how much money Ivan had put in Lucy’s bank account. He’d told her he left with very little, but Katie Ann had never been familiar with their finances . . . until she’d started to run out of money several months after Ivan left her. Then the mysterious box of money showed up on her doorstep.

“After Ivan was killed, I went to check our bank account,” Lucy said. “His landscaping company had been doing very well, and the money he’d been saving was gone. I haven’t made a mortgage payment since he died. We bought the house I’m in together, and I can’t afford it on my own. I’m going to lose my home, and I’m pregnant. So if I don’t find out if this is our house, I’m going to be homeless.”

Katie Ann tried to absorb what Lucy was saying, but it still didn’t make sense. “If Ivan bought a house, there would be some paperwork or something. How could you not know about it?”

Lucy raised her palms in the air. “Exactly. I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”

“Why would I know? Ivan left me a year ago.” Katie Ann reached down, picked up the picture from the box on the coffee table again, and stared at it, resentment filling every pore.

Lucy sat down and put her head in her hands. “I don’t know. It was a long shot coming here. But I have no paperwork, nothing. Just money missing, a picture of a house, and two keys. It was the only thing I could think of, that Ivan used the money to buy us another house, then died before he had a chance to tell me about it.” Lucy started to sob. “I’m going to have a baby, and I’m going to lose my house. I never even wanted . . .” She stopped and looked up at Katie Ann, and her face reddened.

“You didn’t want a baby?” Katie Ann felt like this surreal conversation was choking her.

Lucy sniffled. “I don’t see myself as a very good mother. I don’t know the first thing about babies.”

Katie Ann eased back into the rocking chair, feeling nauseous. All she’d ever wanted was a baby, and for her and Ivan to have a family together. Now his mistress was sitting on the couch crying. “Being a mother will come naturally to you.”

Lucy swiped at a tear. “Do you think? Did it come naturally to you?”

Katie Ann didn’t like being compared to Lucy, and she didn’t want to share such an intimate detail with her. “It came naturally. And it will for you too.”

Lucy lowered her head again. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I took an advance from work to be able to make this trip.” She stared up at Katie Ann. “Do you think Ivan bought this house for us? To surprise me?”

Katie Ann studied the woman’s expression. “I don’t know.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She put a finger to her lips for a moment, then asked, “You haven’t gotten any mail regarding this, have you?”

Katie Ann recalled a letter she received from Ivan’s attorney awhile back, but there was no mention of any house. “No. I haven’t.”

Lucy started crying again.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Maybe just a glass of water.” Lucy pulled a tissue from her coat pocket and blew her nose.

Katie Ann left her in the living room and returned a moment later. She handed the glass of water to her, then folded her arms across her chest. “How much do you need?”

Lucy swallowed a gulp of water. “What?”

“How much money do you need to keep your house from going into foreclosure?”

Lucy stood up and faced Katie Ann. “I didn’t come here to ask you for money. I just came here to see if you recognized that house, or knew where it might be located.”

Katie Ann gazed into Lucy’s eyes, and for some reason . . . she believed her. She left the room, and a minute later she returned with her checkbook.

“Katie Ann, I will not take any money from you.”

Katie Ann scribbled out what she thought would be enough to carry Lucy for several months. She tore the check out and handed it to Lucy. “Take it. You are going to give birth to Jonas’s brother or sister.”

Lucy stiffened her arms at her sides and shook her head. “I can’t.” Then she covered her face with her hands. “How could you even make this offer, after what I did to you?”

Tears poured down Lucy’s face, and Katie Ann dabbed at her own eyes.

“I’m the most horrible person on the planet, and if I could go back, I would have never, never . . .” She sobbed harder. “Please forgive me, Katie Ann.” She looked up at her. “Please. I need to be forgiven.”

Katie Ann swallowed back a lump in her throat. She knew that she could ease Lucy’s pain by telling her that she was forgiven, but the words just wouldn’t come. The image of Ivan walking out the door, abandoning their life together, kept flashing before her.

She pushed the check toward Lucy. “Take the money, Lucy. If not for you, for the child.”

Lucy slowly reached for the check. “Ivan should have stayed with you. You’re a much better person than I am.”

Katie Ann wanted to say, “Yes, he should have.” Instead she moved toward the door, hoping Lucy would follow.

She did.

Lucy stepped out on the porch and then peered at Katie Ann through the screen, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “I loved him. And I miss him very much.”

Katie Ann took a deep breath, rubbed her forehead, and thought about how much she missed Ivan too.

“Ivan and I had a fight the night he was killed.” Lucy closed her eyes tightly for a moment before she looked back at Katie Ann. “We said ugly things to each other, then he left.” She locked eyes with Katie Ann and tipped her head to one side. “I always wondered if he was going back to you.”

A tear rolled down Katie Ann’s cheek, and with Lucy’s eyes still locked with hers, she closed the door. Katie Ann knew that she would spend the rest of her life wondering too now.


MARTHA SAT DOWN in her recliner, bumping the small table next to her chair for the thousandth time. Katie Ann asked her why she didn’t move the table over, but once she was settled in her chair, the table was close enough to reach her hand lotion, the remote for the television, and the phone without even having to stretch a muscle.

She stared at the empty space a few feet away where Elvis’s cage used to be. It had been almost a year, but she sure missed that bird. Sometimes she could still hear him saying her name. She tapped her fingernail on the hard surface of the table next to her. That parrot should have outlived Martha, but the Lord had seen fit to call her beloved Elvis home. She’d thought about getting another parrot, but it just didn’t feel right.

Closing her eyes, she thought about Arnold. Why did you take him too, Lord? Her close friend and companion didn’t go home to see the Lord, but instead went to Georgia to be with his dying son. How could Martha fault the man for that? But she sure missed him. They exchanged the occasional letter, and Martha had sent flowers when his son passed, but Arnold had decided to stay on in Georgia instead of returning to Canaan. He had kinfolk there, and he’d reestablished those relationships. Martha was glad for Arnold. He deserved to be happy.

She thought back a couple of months to when Arnold had asked if he could come for a visit. As much as she’d missed him, she made up an excuse for him not to come. She just wasn’t sure her heart could take another good-bye. Easier to just leave the past in the past without stirring up old feelings. But after her appointment with the doctor today, she had the strongest urge to call Arnold. Part of her wanted to share her news with him, but she feared Arnold would feel obligated to hop a plane to see her. She didn’t need his pity.

Laying her head back against the recliner, she thought about Katie Ann. She sure hoped that Eli Detweiler would fall madly in love with Katie Ann. Her friend needed someone to take care of her and Jonas, and clearly Martha wouldn’t be around forever. She opened her eyes, placed her hand on the telephone, then tapped her finger on the table again.

She picked up the phone, and this time she managed to dial nine out of the ten numbers before she placed the telephone back in the carrier.

“Oh, why not,” she said aloud as she picked up the phone again. She dialed the numbers quickly, knowing that once the phone rang once, there was no turning back. Arnold was a nonprogressive man—as anyone would know by looking at his outdated clothes and truck—but even he had caller ID.

Her heart raced as the phone rang a third time, then a fourth, and she was about to hang up when she heard the soft, gentle voice of a man she still loved.

“Hello, Martha.”

“Hi, Arnold. How are you?”

“Still missing you.”

Martha put a hand to her chest and closed her eyes as she pictured Arnold’s kind face. The man made her want to be a better person, and he’d introduced her to the Lord, something she’d always be grateful for. “How’s the weather there?”

“Chilly. But not as cold as in Colorado, I reckon.”

There was silence for a moment, and Martha struggled to keep her voice in check as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Temperatures dropped last night. They say it will be mighty cold by Thanksgiving.”

“What are your plans for the holiday?”

“Oh, I’ll be with Katie Ann and Jonas. Probably at Lillian and Samuel’s house. What about you?”

“My son’s wife invited me to Thanksgiving at her folks’ house, and a cousin of mine invited me, but . . .” He sighed. “I think I’ll probably just stay home.”

“Now, Arnold Becker, I’ve never known a man to love turkey as much as you do. It’s not right for you not to have any on Thanksgiving.” Martha realized that she was hinting toward an invitation and quickly backtracked. “But I guess it’s your choice.”

“How’s your back?”

Arnold always asked about Martha’s back, even though most of the time it was fine.

“Feeling pretty good.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I have to go. I was just checking on you.”

A long silence ensued, but Martha was choking back tears and afraid to speak. Finally Arnold did.

“I’m fine, Martha. As I said, I’m just missing you.”

Well, if you cared about me half as much as I care about you, you wouldn’t have stayed in Georgia. She’d wanted to say it a dozen times, but for reasons she wasn’t sure of, she never did. “You take care, Arnold.”

“You, too, Martha.”

She hung up the phone as another tear rolled down her cheek. She clicked on the lamp on the table. Nightfall was settling in, and normally she would have been at Katie Ann’s by now. She hated to miss a day with Katie Ann and Jonas, but Katie Ann would know something was wrong, and that girl had enough on her plate. She didn’t need to be worrying about Martha.

And curiosity was nipping at her, making her wonder how Katie Ann’s visit with that hussy Lucy had gone. Martha was still sure that Lucy had come calling for money.


KATIE ANN WATCHED Jonas sleep, her own eyelids growing heavy. She tucked his small quilt around him and made sure he was warm enough, then forced herself to leave his bedroom. She wondered if there would ever come a time when she wouldn’t worry so much about him. God had taken Ivan away, and the thought of losing Jonas, too, was more than she could bear. All this fear and worry went against everything she’d been taught. She knew the only way to bring peace and calm was to believe in God’s will, to pray about it. She was sure she couldn’t trust another man the way she’d trusted Ivan, but had she stopped trusting the Lord as well?

In the living room, she lifted the lantern until a reflection lit the clock on the wall. Surely if there had been a problem at the doctor, Martha would have been at her house in an instant. Katie Ann would have showered her with sympathy, even though she suspected that Martha simply had a bad cold. Probably best that she didn’t come over and expose Jonas. Martha went to bed early, so it was too late to call her, but Katie Ann decided to go out to the barn to see if she had left a message on the answering machine.

A light snow dusted her black coat as she walked across the yard. She pushed the barn door open, waking some of the residents. One of the pigs snorted as a chicken flapped across the space in front of her. But nestled in the corner on the quilt, Dash slept peacefully.

Katie Ann tiptoed to the workbench and shone the light from the lantern onto the answering machine. No messages. She leaned down, hoping to pet the sleek black cat. But as her hand drew near, the animal hissed, and within seconds he resembled a porcupine, every hair on his body standing straight up.

“It’s okay, fellow. You can trust me.” But the cat hissed again, cowered for a moment, then leapt underneath the workbench and around the corner where he’d retreated before. She reached into her pocket and pulled out some leftover scrapple she’d put in a plastic container, unsure if the cat would be interested in the cornmeal mush.

After giving each of the four horses a quick scratch on the nose, she made her way back to the house. She checked on Jonas, who was sleeping soundly. He was still having bouts with a gassy tummy, but Katie Ann had been practicing Eli’s technique, which continued to work well. She carried the lantern back into the living room and placed it on the coffee table in front of her, then sat down on the couch with a book. It was so quiet, except for a coyote howling in the distance. After only a few minutes of reading, she felt fidgety, so she got up and put another log on the fire.

It was bizarre. Ivan always had a good business sense about him, and buying a new house before he sold the old one just didn’t make any sense. She knew Martha would scold her for giving Lucy money, but someone had given Katie Ann money when she needed it the most, so it seemed the right thing to do. Or had she done it to ease her own conscience because she couldn’t forgive Lucy, or Ivan? Was it her way of trying to get right with God? She wasn’t sure, but she hoped that it was enough money to keep Lucy far away from Canaan.


LUCY SAT AT the airport, waiting for her flight to board. She kept thinking about Katie Ann’s generosity, and she wondered whatever had made Ivan choose her over his wife. The woman seemed so unselfish and filled with goodness. Lucy, on the other hand, didn’t think life could get any worse. She’d sunken lower than a snake by accepting Katie Ann’s money, and the only man she’d ever loved was gone. Along with his money. It hadn’t been a ton of money that he’d brought to the relationship, but it was substantially more than Lucy had ever had, and his contribution to their bank account had always given her a sense of security.

But Ivan had always loved to surprise her, like with the new car he’d bought her a few months ago. He had adapted well to his job in the outside world doing landscaping projects, saying it allowed him to keep a small part of his past, his love of the land. And the money had been good, but old habits die hard, and Lucy was always on edge about money.

She recalled the fight they’d had the night Ivan was killed in the accident. Lucy was concerned about their finances, and Ivan said that was all she cared about—money. The last thing he did when he left was to mumble something in Pennsylvania Deitsch, and Lucy had no idea what he’d said in his native dialect.

She rubbed her tired eyes for a moment as she wondered once again what Ivan’s final words had been. She’d pushed him to get a divorce, but Ivan said he didn’t believe in divorce, which Lucy found ironic since the man was sharing her bed.

Sometimes Ivan said one thing but did another. She knew he felt bad about their living arrangements, but he still insisted divorce from Katie Ann wasn’t an option. He also said that he knew he’d failed in the eyes of God, that he missed his relationship with the Lord. Most of the time Lucy didn’t understand his reasoning. She just knew she loved him.

Lucy stood up when people started to board the plane. She picked up her carry-on bag and edged toward them. A woman in front of her moved to the front of the line, since she was boarding with a small baby. Lucy touched her stomach with her free hand and wondered for the thousandth time what in the world she was going to do with a child.