A Simple Hope

  A Simple Hope is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by Rosalind Lauer

  Excerpt from A Simple Charity by Rosalind Lauer copyright © 2014 by Rosalind Lauer

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  All scripture taken from The Zondervan KJV Study Bible. Copyright © 2002 by Zondervan. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book A Simple Charity by Rosalind Lauer. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  ISBN 978-0-345-54328-8

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-54329-5

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi

  Cover image: Melody Cassen

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One: Greener Pastures

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part Two: The Long Road to Paradise

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Part Three: Echoes Through Eternity

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Excerpt from A Simple Charity

  PART ONE

  Greener Pastures

  Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord,

  and whose hope the Lord is.

  For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and

  that spreadeth out her roots by the river …

  —JEREMIAH 17: 7-8

  APRIL

  The gentle spring breeze sent cherry blossoms floating through the air, pink petals settling over Rachel and James as they walked hand in hand through the orchard.

  Rachel King stepped away from him and held her arms out, wanting to breathe in the beauty of the petal shower. “It’s like falling snow!”

  James Lapp planted his legs apart and tipped back his hat. A slight smile appeared as he watched her reach out to catch falling petals. “That’s the difference between us, Rachel. You see a shower of flower petals. I see early blooms that’ll wither if we get a late frost.”

  “So practical.”

  “That’s the good in living off the land. It keeps a man down-to-earth.”

  “I know you’re used to this wonderful sight, working in the orchard every day, but there’s something about blossoming trees that makes the heart burst with joy.”

  “Ya, if you don’t have to prune them.” The warmth in his dark eyes told her he was teasing.

  “Is it a chore when you love what you do? You’ve told me yourself that your dat used to call you a tree monkey. When it was time to pick peaches, he couldn’t get you to stay on the ladder.”

  James chuckled. “That was me.” He leaped up, grabbed on to an overhead branch, and hung there a moment before doing an easy chin-up.

  “You’re still a tree monkey!” she said, glorying in the cascade of petals loosened by the jolt to the tree limb.

  “Ya, but I’ve learned that a ladder is the easiest way up a tree.” With dark hair that framed his handsome face and smoky eyes that warmed for Rachel, James was solid and grounded. His steady calm was one of the things that had won Rachel over a year ago when he’d started driving her home from singings and youth gatherings. At a time when other Amish fellas were putting boom boxes in their buggies and tossing back beers, James followed a simple path, choosing baptism and the management of the Lapp family orchards. Rachel liked to picture him as the root system that anchored her to the earth.

  James dropped to the ground and leaned down to pick up a fallen bud. “Here’s one for you.”

  Rachel held her breath as he came close, brushing back the edge of her prayer Kapp to tuck the pale pink bud over her left ear. His touch sent shimmers rippling down her spine even as the gesture warmed her from head to toe. Ya, he kept her feet on the ground, but he let her heart soar.

  “There.” His dark eyes held her as his broad hands dropped to her shoulders. “You are the finest blossom in the Lapp orchard.” His arms encircled her, and she melted in his embrace. Rachel loved the way he made her feel small and delicate against his strong, solid body. His lips touched hers gently, quick as a butterfly’s glance, but she felt the spark of love in that kiss.

  “We should go to the sugar shack,” she murmured. “Out here in the orchard … people can see. Your parents might be watching.”

  “With these trees so thick with blossoms? I think we’re well hidden.” He caught her in his dark gaze. The flicker in his eyes let her know that he was feeling the same love that stirred her heart. Could he feel the quiet tremble of her limbs? Or the wooziness that overtook her when his lips nuzzled her jaw, leaving a trail of tingling sensation that became heated by his warm breath?

  “Besides,” he whispered, “I don’t care if they see us. I don’t care if they know that I love you, Rachel.”

  I love you, Rachel.

  His words swelled and blossomed inside her, filling her heart with goodness and light. But just when they were about to kiss, the sweet moment faded, slipping away like sugar sifting between her fingers.

  A dream … it was all a dream.

  In the pink light of early morning, Rachel opened her eyes to blots of color that made up the large bedroom shared by the King girls.

  All a dream.

  Rachel closed her eyes and clung to the sweetness, holding tight to the scent of cherry blossoms and the sureness of love. James loved her! And James was strong, standing and walking and swinging from a tree, healthy and hearty as ever!

  She tried to hold in the goodness of the dream, but reality tapped on her mind like fat raindrops. James would not be grabbing on to a tree in the orchard today, or anytime soon.

  Before she could ease herself away, she was back in that terrible moment, hearing the sickening screech of tires on the road, the grind of metal. The accident. Although Rachel had been able to walk away from the wrecked van, James had not. He was still recovering from spinal injuries, confined to a wheelchair for now. Maybe forever.

  Sighing, she rolled over
to see her younger sisters asleep in the double bed. Twelve-year-old Bethany’s bare foot hung out from under the quilt, and nine-year-old Molly’s sweet lips were pursed like a rosebud. Sleep was the only time Molly’s lips were still, but Rachel didn’t mind her chatterbox little sister. In fact, her sister’s gabbing was just the sort of reassuring company Rachel had sought when she gave up her room in the attic to move down here with the younger girls. Rachel had hoped to spend more time with sister Rose, too, but Rose, now sixteen, had other notions. Eager to leap into Rumspringa, Rose had missed the point of companionship and moved up to Rachel’s room, sure that a young man would soon come courting at her window. Oh, Rose, so full of dreams!

  Still, Rachel was grateful for the chance to talk more with her other sisters, whose steady breathing in the bed across from her was reassuring. Let Rose have the room upstairs; no young man would be calling for Rachel anytime soon, not with James still unable to walk.

  Rachel closed her eyes in the hopes of recapturing the sweet dream—reliving the time when James had moved freely and managed the family orchard without fail. With a deep breath, she tried to bring back the scent of blossoms and the warm strength of James’s arms around her.

  But the dream was gone, and so was the James she had fallen in love with. The accident had pulled him away from her … so far away. Many things changed when a vehicle had hit the van Rachel and James had been riding in back in January. The other driver, a young Englisher girl, had been killed, and James’s uncle Tom Lapp had died later in the hospital. So much heartbreak for two families, Englisher and Amish alike. The accident had sent old Jacob Fisher into a terrible fit of breathing, but he seemed to be recovering, thank the good Lord. And James, her James had hurt his back, really bad.

  The golden wash of light told Rachel that it would be time to start the day soon, a fine Monday morning. Time to wake her sisters and roust them from bed. There were chores to be done, a breakfast to prepare. Cows to milk, and a house and barns to redd up. All tasks that went against Rachel’s grain. But now, she would do the stinkiest chores gladly if it meant that James could get better.

  She slid out of bed, pulled the quilt over her shoulders, and padded barefoot to the window seat Dat had built. Outside, sunshine shot over the green and purple hills in the distance. The morning air was cold, but the sun promised warmth to the day—Gott’s promise of springtime and light and hope. Rachel thought of the colors in the paint kit her Englisher friend Haley had given her and wished she had time to paint right now. How she would enjoy mixing colors to come up with spring-field green, daffodil yellow, crocus purple, and the rich blots of pink and purple and orange and red that made up a sunrise. Upstairs in her old room, among the many unfinished canvases, was a new painting she had just finished for James. It was different from her usual style, but she thought it might spark some joy in his heart.

  And James was so very much in need of joy.

  She kneeled beside the window seat and clasped her hands together for a silent prayer. Dear Gott, please heal James. Teach him to walk again. Please, don’t let my selfish dreams get in his way.

  Long before the terrible accident, Rachel had thought of marrying James, and their relationship had been moving in that direction. But Rachel had secretly dreamed of a life away from the work of a farm or orchard. Her paintings sold well at the Country Store in Halfway, so well that she had been invited to sell them in a gallery in Philadelphia. In the back of her mind, she had always wanted to leave farm life behind and live in a small house in town. With her love of peace and quiet and her yearning to paint all day and all night, Rachel longed to break free of the bonds of milking cows twice a day, tending the chickens, and weeding the family vegetable garden.

  Plenty of Amish had moved away from tending the land. Her cousin Market Joe traveled to Philadelphia six days a week to run the family cheese shop in the city’s market. James’s cousin Elsie Lapp ran their family’s store in Halfway. Why couldn’t she be among those who left the farm behind for a job or craft? She knew the bishop would allow it. The only fly in the ointment had been James. He loved working the orchard, a life of sunshine, he said. Before the accident, he would not have considered living in town.

  And now? She wasn’t sure what James was planning for the future. The James she loved, the man in her dream, was so hard to reach these days. And how she missed him! Without his sure, steady footing, she felt unsure and scared, like a seed blowing in the wind with no say in its direction, no idea where she might land.

  Dear Gott, please bring James back to me.

  “Rachel?” Molly’s voice chirped from the bed. “Are you praying for James?”

  “Ya, always.”

  “Me, too. Every morning and every night, and sometimes in between, I pray for Gott to heal his legs so that he can walk again. Bethany says I shouldn’t tell Gott what to do, but Bishop Sam says we can pray for anything. Bishop says that Gott always listens, but He doesn’t always give us the answer we want.”

  “I’ve heard Bishop Samuel say that, too.” Rachel turned back toward the bed, where her little sister was sitting up, twisting one of her long braids around one hand. Sprigs of Molly’s golden hair had worked loose along her hairline, and the fluffy hair and shiny eyes made her resemble a baby chick.

  “Thank you for praying, Molly,” Rachel said. “Right now, I think James needs every prayer he can get.”

  “Do his legs hurt him really bad?” the younger girl asked.

  “I don’t think it’s pain that’s the problem.” Although James had not offered to discuss his medical condition with Rachel, from what she’d overheard during her visits, it was the lack of sensation in James’s legs that left him unable to walk. A few times a week, therapists visited the Lapp house to help James through exercises so that his muscles wouldn’t weaken and atrophy. The doctors were still not sure about his future—whether or not he would walk again. No, pain wasn’t what was bothering James. It was fear that he wouldn’t recover.

  Pulling the blanket up on her shoulders, Rachel went over to the double bed and sat down facing Molly. “You have a big heart, Liebe.” Too big to take on worries about James.

  “I pray for everyone who was in that van,” Molly said. “It must have been a terrible thing, being in a crash. Ben says two cars can crack each other in half, just like eggshells.”

  “Don’t let Ben scare you. He’s full of stories these days, and he wasn’t there.” At eighteen, their brother Ben was feeling his oats, as Dat said. Although rumspringa was meant to be a time for parents to look the other way while their teenaged son or daughter found a mate in the Amish community, some young people pushed the walls out way too far. Rachel had heard talk of Ben learning to drive a car and racing motorbikes. But mostly, he seemed to collect tidbits of Englisher culture, gobbling up stories about the Englisher world as if they were candy.

  “Are you still scared to ride in a car?” Molly asked.

  “A little,” Rachel admitted. “But I don’t get that tight feeling inside anymore. The meetings with Dylan have helped me a lot.”

  Dylan Monroe was an Englisher counselor who had offered free sessions to help the passengers deal with the aftermath of their accident. Post-traumatic stress, he called it.

  “You’re so brave.”

  “Not really.” As Rachel smoothed back her sister’s hair, she thought of the story shared by Ruben Zook, one of the other passengers. The notion of angels had come up when the group members were questioning why they were spared while Tom Lapp was taken by Gott, and James was seriously injured. “Ruben says that we had angels with us that afternoon. Gott’s angels, watching over us.”

  Molly flung her arms around Rachel and hugged her close. “I love that story. Sometimes when I can’t sleep at night, I pretend that an angel just slipped into bed beside me. And that helps me sleep.”

  “That’s a wonderful good way to doze off.” Looking down at Molly’s honey-blond head, Rachel thanked Gott for her sisters. She closed her eye
s, surrendering to a yawn.

  “Tired?” Molly asked.

  “Ya, but now it’s time to get up.”

  “Time to greet the day!” Molly pushed back the covers and popped out of bed with her usual enthusiasm, bright as a daisy. “Bethany?” She leaned over her sleeping sister. “Don’t you want to check the stand before school? I wonder if anyone bought any flowers.”

  “Mmm.” Bethany rolled over onto her belly.

  “Most likely, you didn’t get a lot of customers overnight,” Rachel said, amused by her younger sister’s interest in the roadside stand the girls managed. “But you can check.”

  “I’m so glad you moved back down with us.” Molly’s eyes shone brightly as she looked up at Rachel. “I missed you.”

  Rachel smiled. “I’m glad, too.”

  Molly prodded Bethany, whose face was pressed into her pillow. “Now it’s really time to get up, sleepyhead.”

  “I’m up,” Bethany groaned. “How could I sleep with you two yakking?”

  “Rise and shine,” Rachel said as she began to pin her long blond hair back. “It’s the early bird that gets the worm.”

  “I want to sleep.” Bethany rolled over and groaned again. “I don’t need any worms.”

  Chuckling softly, Rachel was glad to be back down here sharing a room with her sisters. Gott did work in wondrous ways.

  Morning was a good time for James Lapp. Actually, it was the last hour of darkness that he enjoyed, when sleep held the rest of the house, still and silent but for the creaking of floorboards under his chair. Waking fresh from sleep, moving quietly from bed to chair, he thanked Gott for the promise of another day and wheeled himself into the bathroom. There was a certain satisfaction in ticking off the grooming chores he’d been taught to manage in occupational therapy. This was something he could do completely on his own.

  Because he could no longer reach the bathroom shelves, the Englisher medical folk had given him a vinyl bag that attached to his wheelchair to hold his razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, and toothpaste. With the bars that Dat and brother Peter had installed in the washroom, James could use the toilet and maneuver himself onto the shower seat in the tub. These things took longer now that his legs would not bear the weight of his body, but still, James could manage, and without help from anyone.