Chapter 25

Geesje’s Story

Holland, Michigan
49 years earlier

When we first settled in western Michigan, the canopy of trees overhead was so thick I could barely glimpse the sky through the tangled leaves. The silence of that vast wilderness terrified me, especially at night or when I was alone with the children. At first we shared the forest with the native Ottawa Indians, our closest neighbors. They taught us to make a sweet, honey-like syrup and crumbly blocks of crude sugar by collecting sap from certain local trees each spring and boiling it down. But as more and more settlers arrived in the coming years, we squeezed the natives out as we slowly tamed the forest they depended on for their livelihood. They eventually migrated north to a less-settled part of the state. Reverend Smith and his family, who had worked with the Indians at the Old Wing Mission, moved along with them.

Gradually, the silence of the wilderness yielded to the constant noise of construction: the thunk of axes as we chopped down the great forest of trees; the groan of splintering wood as trees toppled; the whistles and whips of the teamsters as they worked their oxen to move logs and uproot tree trunks; the pounding of hammers and rasp of saws as our community slowly rose up from the forest.

In the spring months after Jakob was born, the town elders decided to start a Dutch-language newspaper. Maarten went to a meeting at Dominie Van Raalte’s house to discuss the details. I was excited for him. The newspaper would require a printer, and Maarten would finally be able to return to the work he loved and was skilled at doing. I couldn’t stop peering out of the cabin door as I waited, watching for him to return. When I finally saw him walking up the path, his shoulders were slumped and his head hung so low I couldn’t glimpse his face. I stood on our doorstep, waiting, fearing bad news.

“What happened?” I asked when he finally looked up at me.

“Geesje . . . Hendrik is back.”

“He’s here? In Holland?”

Maarten nodded. “He arrived just as our meeting was about to end. He wanted to talk to Dominie Van Raalte about purchasing farmland. Hendrik asked me to stay while they discussed it because I could vouch for him. Dominie suggested that he look at some parcels in Zeeland where a lot of newcomers are farming.”

I swallowed and tried to speak. “Is that what he decided to do then? Settle in Zeeland?”

Maarten exhaled as he nodded again. Then he added, “I thought you should also know that Hendrik is married now.”

“Yes . . . Well. So am I.”

I spoke matter-of-factly, but the news hit me very hard. I had watched Maarten and the other men chopping down the forest, and I always felt such a devastating loss at the moment when a towering tree started to fall over. A beautiful living thing had been killed, falling with a crash. It would never live again. That’s how I felt when Maarten told me the news about Hendrik’s marriage. All hope for Hendrik and me was gone and would never live again.

Maarten followed me as I turned and went inside the cabin. As if sensing my sorrow, he scooped up our two older boys and took them outside, leaving me alone with the sleeping baby. I don’t know how long I sat near the hearth, gazing into the empty fireplace, feeling sorry for myself. Eventually, the sound of Maarten splitting logs outside broke through my grief. I stood and watched him through the window, chopping wood as if he was furious with the logs. It was selfish of me to ignore my husband’s feelings while I wallowed in my own. I thought back to all the ways I had seen my parents show their love for each other, and I walked outside, took the axe from his hands, and held him tightly in my arms.

“You never told me what Dominie Van Raalte said about the newspaper. Have they decided to go ahead with it?”

He sighed, like a locomotive releasing steam, and hugged me in return. “Yes. And they asked me to print it. They’re going to help me secure a loan so I can purchase the equipment I’ll need and set up a shop where the town center will be one day.”

I lifted my head from his chest and looked up at him. I could see how quietly happy he was, and I was sorry that the news about Hendrik had diluted his joy. “Will the equipment be hard to find?”

“I don’t think so. I may have to travel to Kalamazoo to see about ordering a press. And it will have to be shipped here from Chicago, somehow. I suppose by freighter across Lake Michigan, then dragged over the sandbar and put on a flatboat for the trip up Black Lake to Holland. The leaders are still trying to figure out how to open a deeper channel between the two lakes.”

“We’ll need to build a shop where we can set up the printing press, won’t we?” I added. “I don’t think it will fit in our cabin.”

“No, it won’t. But we can start small and simple, at first.”

I felt pleased that he had included me. “I’d like to help you with the business,” I said. “I watched you and Papa all those years, and I helped out now and then when Papa had a large order to fill. And I can help with the bookkeeping the way Mama sometimes did. We’ll do it together, Maarten.”

“Maybe our three sons will join us, too, someday. I’ll hang a big sign in front—‘de Jonge and Sons, Printers.’”

He rested his hands on my waist. They were so huge he could nearly encircle it with his fingers, especially now that I was getting my figure back after Jakob’s birth. I knew Maarten was acting cheerful to disguise his own pain, pretending to be brave as he pushed his fear and sorrow away. We both were. I laid my head on his chest as I tried to erase the picture of Hendrik with another woman—his wife. Holding her. Kissing her.

“I remember the first time you held me in your arms, Maarten. It was on the night in Arnhem when that gang of ruffians smashed all our windows with bricks and stones. You came up to my bedroom to see if I was all right. Remember?”

“I do. You felt so tiny and helpless. And you were so scared. I could feel your entire body trembling when I held you. That’s when I knew I wanted to protect you and take care of you for the rest of my life. And I always will, Geesje. For as long as I live.”

I was sorry that Hendrik had returned, and yet at the same time I was glad. I wouldn’t have to wonder what had become of him. I would know where he was and maybe hear about him from time to time. Maybe see him. I was vain enough to wonder if he’d returned to this area to be close to me.

I looked up at Maarten again and said, “You’ve given the children and me a very happy life here. I’m so grateful for that.” I could tell by the tender way he held me, the soft way he looked at me, that he loved me. I didn’t ever want him to feel unloved in return. I had never spent a single day of my life feeling unloved, and I vowed that if it was within my power, Maarten wouldn’t either. “The life we have is a very good one,” I told him.

“I know. I thank God every day for it.”

I heard Jakob fussing in his cradle inside the cabin, ready to be nursed. Maarten and I released each other and I went back inside. My love for him would grow one day at a time, I told myself. One loving act at a time.