The Amish Heiress

Chapter Four - Painful Days

Chapter Four

Painful DaysThe grey-green sea rolled in long, choppy swells beneath the boat. The waves were endless, moving toward him out of the mist and disappearing away toward the unseen horizon. It was dark, so dark, and the strange smell of the salt water was overpowering and somehow terrifying. A stiff breeze drove the icy spray off the tops of the waves into Jonathan’s eyes. He raised his hand to wipe his face, but the mist and spray were continuous, blinding him. The chill of winter not yet dead...the gulls circling behind the boat...the plaintive cries whirling away on the wind. The sea, ominous and dead...

He stood in the gloom and the cold and the spray and the waves, the endless waves, rolling, rolling, rolling by, and where were they going? Suddenly, a great longing to see Jenny and Rachel swept over him like one of the swells rolling ceaselessly and vanishing away, beyond his sight. He was lost, gone, alone on the bridge of a ghost ship that cut through the waves like a sword. He looked through the window into the wheelhouse, but there was no one to pilot the boat. Where was the captain? Then he felt a hand touch him. He turned to see his dad standing there with him, but Dad was dead, dead as the grey-green waves. Or was he?

Jonathan felt his dad’s hand squeeze his shoulder and then Dad smiled. “Thank you, son.” And then Dad was gone, gone like a cool breeze that touches the face on a blistering day in the desert and then slips away leaving only regret behind.

But I’m not in the desert. I’m on this boat on the ocean and I’m alone and lost in the shadows and I’m freezing. Dad! Dad! Help me, please.

Then the boat lurched to the right as he heard the muffled explosion. The huge craft twisted like a snake, and the abrupt distortion of the boat’s course threw Jonathan to the deck. As he lay there, stunned, he saw his mother come out of her stateroom and try to make her way forward.

Mom! But she’s dead too! What’s happening?

Then there was fire. Fire and smoke blowing through the middle of the boat. And then he was deep in the water, and above him he saw the churning waves. It was cold, so cold, and he couldn’t breathe. And then he was swimming, swimming upward toward the light and the fire, the fire on the water. His head broke the surface and he gasped for air. Burning diesel fuel covered the waves. He was in the flames and he felt the fire burning his face, burning, melting, reaching for his eyes...

And then he saw his father again and his mother was with his father, not twenty feet away on the boat, and they were smiling. “Dad, Mom!”

Dad looked straight into Jonathan’s eyes. He reached his hand toward Jonathan but he wasn’t afraid. Jonathan couldn’t hear him over the wind, but he saw his father’s mouth forming words.

“Son, I believe!”

At that instant, the flames from the burning diesel fuel below deck ignited the propane tank in the galley, and the Mistral exploded with a roar. Jonathan struggled in the water. He was in the fire and the water, burning and drowning. He looked up as debris from the boat came flying toward him. He watched in terror as the grey-green waves rolled over the deck and Mistral sank. Within seconds, there was nothing left except some floating pieces of wreckage driving west before the howling wind.

Jenny! Jenny!

“JENNY!”

“Jonathan! Jonathan! Wake up!”

Jonathan groaned and rolled over. He opened his eyes and stared into the face of the lovely woman beside him in the bed. “What? Where am I? Who are you?”

“Jonathan, it’s me, it’s your Jenny. I’m here, beloved, right here. You were dreaming.”

Jonathan clutched at the woman’s arm. “I’ve got to find Jenny and Rachel. I’m lost and I can’t find them. Can you help me?”

The woman placed her hand over Jonathan’s eyes. Her skin was warm and alive, not dead like the horrible, killing sea. He heard her voice from a long way off.

“Close your eyes, Jonathan.”

Jonathan closed his eyes beneath her hand.

“Now see your Jenny in your mind’s eye. See her face, her red hair, the love for you in her eyes.”

A face drifted into his mind. It was beautiful, framed by unruly golden-red curls... A white kappe, the eyes filled with love and compassion.

Jenny, it’s you, my Jenny.

“Do you see her?”

“Yes, I see her. She’s coming to find me. She’s here to take me away from this darkness.”

“Now open your eyes, Jonathan.”

He opened his eyes. They were still covered by the woman’s hand. Slowly, she lifted it away, pausing to lightly caress his face. He looked at her. The beautiful face with some age lines showing but still her face, the curls with a little touch of white among them, but still Jenny’s curls...

It’s Jenny, my Jenny.

“Jenny, Jenny...”

“Yes, beloved, it’s me. I’m here with you. I’ll always be here.”

Peace flooded Jonathan’s soul. He was home. Home with his wife and daughter, safe in his house in Paradise. He reached for Jenny and pulled her tight against him. He breathed the fragrance of her against his cheek. There was life here; life and safety and home. He felt relief wash over him, then joy. They lay quietly together.

“Was it the dream, Jonathan?”

“Yes, the dream. I was back on the boat. My dad was there, and my mother. I watched them die but they were smiling. They weren’t afraid.”

“Yes, dearest, they were not afraid because you gave them Christ, and they went to be with Him. That was your gift to them, Jonathan. That was why God took you to see them one last time.”

“But it took me so long to get home, and now I get confused. Some days I wake up and I don’t even know you. I think I’m late for work and I look for my guitar and...oh, Jenny! Will I ever get well?”

“You were gone for eight years, Jonathan. I don’t know why God did that, but I know he worked everything for good while we were apart.”

“But what about your folks? They died while I was gone. I never got to see them again. I loved your daed and your mama.”

“I know, and you must know that they loved you also. My papa was so proud of you. He saw how du leiber Gott worked in your life, how much you loved me and cared for me, and how precious Rachel was to you. He never, ever regretted suggesting that you become Amish. You belonged to us. Never forget that.”

Jonathan released his wife and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He sat for a while slumped over, his head in his hands, quiet. Jenny reached out and softly began to rub his back.

Jonathan gave a deep sigh and straightened up. “I am sorry that Rachel and I are having so much trouble. I don’t want to be hard with her. It’s just that when she starts talking about going out in the world, I get frightened. I know what’s out there, and I fear for her.”

Jenny came and sat beside Jonathan on the edge of the bed. She slipped under his arm and laid her head on his chest. She was quiet for a few minutes. Then she spoke.

“When I was a little girl, I came to live with my mama and papa in Apple Creek. I did not know who I was or remember anything but a little bit about my real mama. But you know that because you helped me find out about my parents.”

“Yes, but what—?’

Jenny put her fingers on his lips. “Don’t you see, Jonathan? Gott sent me to Apple Creek to fill a terrible, empty place in my mama’s heart.”

“... After your sister, Jenna, died.”

“Yes, and that was a wonderful thing. But if I never came there, I wouldn’t have been walking across the street when you almost hit me. We never would have met, there would be no home in Paradise, there would be no Rachel.”

“I understand that, Jenny. But that doesn’t answer my questions about me, why I act this way, why I am so harsh when I want to be loving.”

“My papa struggled with the same things for many years. During World War II, he rejected his faith, left the church, and joined the Marines. He ended up in a terrible place in the Pacific called Guadalcanal. He had to kill Japanese soldiers, often in hand-to-hand combat. It did something to his heart and his mind. My mama told me that when he came home he was different. He rejoined the church, but he didn’t really know the Lord. He felt as though he had committed a terrible sin during the war, and he believed that if he just kept the rules of the church, somehow he would be allowed to go to heaven. It was because he was so strict that my sister, Jenna, died. It was a terrible thing, but Gott griff nach seinem Herzen. Gott was reaching for his heart.”

Jonathan turned to look at Jenny’s face. “Do you think the same thing has happened to me?”

Jenny paused. “In a way, yes. When you became a Christian, you understood that the church doesn’t save us. Only Jesus can do that. But there were other parts of your life that you found difficult to surrender to God—your love for music, your gifts as a songwriter. You never sold your guitar, and sometimes I would hear you out in the barn playing softly so no one would hear you.”

Jonathan grinned. “You heard me?”

“Yes, dearest. I never said anything because, truthfully, I love that part of you. I love your songs and your wonderful voice. It was your song that led me to you when I found you again in that nightclub. So I let you have your little secret.”

Jenny smiled with the memory. Then she went on. “I think that may have been what the Lord was reaching for in your life—to surrender everything to Him so that if you did play music it would only be for His glory, or even to set it down altogether so that there would be no idols in your life that were above Him.”

Jonathan’s brow furrowed as he thought about what Jenny said. “So you think He might have let me live as Richard Sandbridge for all those years so I could see what my life would be like if my dreams came true?”

“Were you happy then?”

“No, Jenny. Even when I had hit songs and lots of money, I was never happy. There was always something missing—something that, if I could have found it, I would have traded everything for it.”

“Like the pearl of great price that was found in the field?”

“Yes, Jenny, exactly. And when you came back to me at that nightclub, when all my dreams were coming true, I wanted nothing more than to put it all down and come home. This, this farm, this land, this is who I am. And you and Rachel are worth more to me than all the gold records in the world. But sometimes I get frightened.”

“When you have the dream?”

“Yes, the dream. I’m lost and floating on the sea. I’m clinging to a piece of wood and the waves are crashing on me, and all I want to do is come home, to sit by the fire with my wife beside me and my little girl on my lap.”

Jenny put her arms around Jonathan. “So maybe the Ordnung are like that piece of wood that you clung to all those days in the ocean. And perhaps that is why you are so strict—because the Ordnung are like a life preserver for you. They keep you centered in this life and hold the wicked world at bay.”

“Yes, Jenny, you are probably right.”

“So even if they are that way for you, maybe they are not that way for Rachel?”

Jonathan thought for a moment. “So I am forcing my fears on Rachel?”

“I cannot tell you that for sure, Jonathan, but from my own observation, it appears that way.”

Jonathan stood up and went to the window. Outside, the air was bursting with the clean, strong smell of the fields—his fields. All around the house, stretching off into the distance, the first growth of the spring planting was beginning to show green against the brown earth. Jonathan saw a small bird sitting in a tree. It had black feathers on its topknot but brilliant yellow underneath. It trilled a short song and then flitted away.

That was an Oriole. I’ve never seen one on the farm before.

A spring breeze shook the pink flowers on the plum trees and the soft petals drifted down in a magical shower. The clouds above were showing golden and pink as the day began to grow around them.

“I think I understand what you are saying. I will try to remember, but sometimes it is so hard, Jenny. I will be working at something around the farm, and then I’ll be staring at the tool in my hands, wondering how to use it. It’s as though I’m standing outside my body, observing me and wondering what I am doing. Thoughts come to me and I can’t unlock them, and I know that if I could just get back inside me, everything would be all right again.”

“I know you struggle, Jonathan. The doctors have told me that you still suffer from the effects of your amnesia and your injuries. They could not tell me if you would ever be well, but I am trusting the Lord for that. I know that one day you will be healed, and until then, I will care for you and love you always, looking for that day with joy and hope.”

Jonathan turned back to Jenny and pulled her up into his arms. The smell of her was like a beacon in a black night, the feel of her body pressed against him was like a breath of air to a drowning man.

“I am so grateful for you, my darling Jenny. I am also praying that I will be healed from this. I just hope I don’t drive Rachel away before I am.”