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Daybreak

These shall wake the yawning maid;

She the door shall open—

Finding dew on garden glade

And the morning broken.

FROM “NIGHT AND DAY,” BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

January

Berlin, OH

The moment Viola Keim entered the main parlor of the Mennonite retirement home where she worked, she heard her favorite resident calling her name.

“Viola, come here quick,” Mr. Swartz ordered. “I received another letter from Edward this mornin’.”

After straightening her black apron over her purple dress and smoothing a wayward strand of hair under her white kapp, Viola grabbed a carafe of coffee, and did as he bid. She tried to summon a smile. Atle Swartz adored his son. Nothing could make his day like a letter from Edward.

Unfortunately, Viola could think of a dozen other things she’d rather do than listen to more news from the wayward Ed Swartz. She privately thought Ed sounded like a jerk.

Mr. Swartz’s eyebrows clamped together as he glared at her. “What’s wrong with your feet? You’re walking so slow, you’d think they were cobbled together.”

“I’m holding a pot of coffee, Mr. Swartz,” she retorted. “I’ve no desire to spill it on the carpet or myself. Or you,” she said with a small smile as she filled his coffee cup. “It would be a real shame if I stained the carpet. Or burned someone,” she said with a wink.

“You haven’t burned me yet, Viola.”

“There’s still time. I’ve only been working here six months,” she teased.

“Feels longer.”

It did, indeed. Six short months ago, after a series of interviews, she’d gotten the job as an assistant at the Daybreak Retirement Home. Right from the start she’d hit it off with the seventy-four-year-old gentleman. He was a spry man, with lots of energy and a biting wit. Somehow, he’d taken to teasing her, and she’d learned to give as good as she got.

Now she looked forward to visiting with him every day.

Though, truth be told, she didn’t think he belonged there. He was too young to be in a retirement home. In her opinion, all Atle Swartz needed was someone to look out for him every once in a while. To do a little cleaning, and to make sure he had his coffee and supper.

Actually, what he really needed was his son. After all, it was a child’s duty to look after his parents in their declining years. Not be off gallivanting in South America.

Not that it was any of her business.

Taking a seat beside him, she poured herself a cup of coffee as well and pretended she was eager to hear every word the illustrious Ed Swartz wrote. “I can’t wait to hear what he has to say,” she lied. “What a wonderful-gut way to start my day.”

When Atle narrowed his eyes over the brim of his cup, she felt her cheeks heat. Perhaps she had laid things on a bit thick. “Is the coffee all right?”

“Jah. It is fine . . .” Carefully, he unfolded the letter smoothly on the table in front of him. “Viola, are you certain you want to hear the letter? I’m beginning to get the feeling you don’t enjoy my son’s letters all that much.”

Now she felt terrible. Sharing his only child’s letters were the highlight of Atle’s day, and she was ruining it by letting her personal feelings get in the way. “Of course I want to hear it, Mr. Swartz. You know I enjoy sitting with you.” Now that was the God’s honest truth.

Two men sitting on a nearby couch cackled.

“You’d best watch it, Viola,” one of them called out, his smile broad over a graying beard. “Atle’s going to read every single word of Ed’s letter. Might even read it twice, just to make sure you didn’t miss a single thing. You won’t be able to attend to anyone else for at least an hour.”

“I guess I’ll simply have to hope that you won’t need me anytime soon, Mr. Miller,” she said sweetly, smiling when the men chuckled again.

The camaraderie she’d found with the residents of the home brought joy to her heart. She loved working with the elderly Mennonite folks in the area, loved feeling like she was making a difference in their lives.

“Girly, you ready to listen?” Two raps on the table with his knuckles brought her back to the present.

“Of course,” she replied mildly. Truly, one day she was going to tell him that she was twenty-two years old. Too old to be called “Girly.” “Ah, what does Edward have to say this time?”

After casting a sideways glance her way, he cleared his throat and began. “Dear Daed, greetings from Nicaragua. It’s cold here, but my heart is warm from all the good works we’ve been doing with the children in the area. . . .”

As Mr. Swartz continued to read about Ed and his mission work, Viola tried to imagine what would possess a man to leave everything he knew and loved to attend to people so far away. Though, of course, he was doing many good things with the Christian Aid Ministries, there was much in Holmes County, Ohio, that he could focus on.

Most especially, his wonderful father.

As Atle continued to read, stopping every now and then to repeat what his son said—just to make sure Viola didn’t miss a single word—she felt her attention drift. Edward’s stories, while impressive and heartfelt, simply didn’t mean that much to her. Not when she had plenty of concerns right here in Berlin.

She couldn’t imagine walking away from her family, it was so tight-knit and demanding. Though her family was New Order Amish, not Mennonite like the residents here, she found that her traditions and values weren’t much different than the folks she helped.

That said, she was so grateful for the many blessings God had graced her with. She’d grown up in a beautiful white house, part of the newest addition to their already sprawling property that had first been built in the 1920’s. She was close to her grandparents, who lived in the Dawdi Haus behind them, and close to her parents, and to the few aunts and uncles who hadn’t moved far away.

She’d always gotten along fine with her brother, Roman, and her twin sister, Elsie, as well.

Of course, things would likely start changing soon. After all, she and her siblings were all of marriageable age. One day, she and Roman would get married and move on.

But no matter what happened, she intended to live close and continue to help Elsie. Her sister was surely always going to need a lot of help. Born with a degenerative eye disease, Elsie would likely need at least one of them to look out for her for the rest of her life.

Just imagining the idea of leaving Elsie in the care of strangers made her heart clench.

Thank goodness neither she nor Roman were like Ed Swartz!

“. . . and so, Daed, I must let you go. The children are about to open their shoe boxes and I don’t want to miss a minute.”

That caught her attention. “Shoe boxes?” she blurted. “Why in the world does he need to hurry to open a shoe box?”

“It was Christmas, Viola,” Atle said with more than a touch of exaggerated patience. “Weren’t you listening?”

Oh!

“There’s only one right answer, Viola!” Mr. Miller called out. “Otherwise, you’ll be hearing that there letter again, mark my words.”

After giving her heckler a disapproving frown, she got to her feet. “Of course I was listening, Mr. Swartz. Once again, your son, Edward, seems to be having a mighty fulfilling and charitable life. I was just caught off guard by the mention of the shoe boxes. That’s all.”

But Atle didn’t buy her words for even a minute. “It was Christmas, Girly. This was his Christmas letter. Those boxes were from us! Our shoe box ministry! Don’tcha remember?”

“Sorry. I had forgotten.”

“I didn’t.”

With more patience than her parents would have ever guessed she had, she smiled tightly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Swartz. It’s simply that, uh, I thought he would have been talking about something else by now. It is the end of January, you know.”

“He’s far away. All the way in Nicaragua,” he said slowly. Pulling out the country’s name like she had trouble understanding things. “The letters take a long time to get here.”

Feeling her cheeks heat all over again, she tucked her chin. “Oh. Jah. I mean, yes, of course. Thank you for reading it to me.”

“But don’t you want to talk about the letter? I’m sure you have questions . . .”

The only question she ever had was “why.” As in why did Ed never ask his father how he was doing? As in why didn’t he ever come back to visit? Why didn’t he care enough to stay close to home?

But, of course, it was best to keep those things to herself. She didn’t want to hurt Mr. Swartz’s feelings for the world. “The letter was so thoughtful, so detailed . . . I um, I don’t have a single question. And I had better deliver more of this coffee before it all runs cold. You know that Mrs. Decker expects me to visit with several people this morning. Have a good day, now.”

The spark in his blue eyes faded. “You’re certain you can’t stay for a bit longer? I have some more news to share.”

Oh, he was lonely. It broke her heart. “I’m so sorry, I can’t stay today.” She just wasn’t up to hearing one more story about his perfect child. “I’ve got quite a bit to do before I leave.”

“Well, all right, then. Have a good day, Viola.”

“You too, Mr. Swartz.”

After topping off his cup, and refilling the other two men’s mugs, she rushed out of the room and went to the kitchen, where she put coffee and snacks on a tray for the ladies in the craft room. Balancing too much on the white wooden tray, she hurried out of the kitchen, turned left, and then headed toward the back of the building.

When two cups started to wobble, she abruptly stopped and set them to rights. Then rushed forward, and promptly ran into a man leaving the head office.

When their bodies collided, the plastic bowls of snack mix fell to the ground. And the coffee carafe began to wobble.

“Watch out!” she said as she tried to gain control of the tray.

Two capable-looking hands reached out and pulled the tray from her. “Careful,” he murmured, his voice deep and steady and strong-sounding. Almost as steady and strong as his hands looked. “You almost ended up wearing that coffee.”

Feeling a true mixture of relief and embarrassment, she looked up into the speaker’s eyes.

And noticed that his dark blue eyes were tinged with gold. Much like a certain older gentleman’s. “Oh!” she gasped.

“What?”

“You . . . you look much like one of our residents.”

“Atle Swartz?”

“Yes. Are you a relation?”

“You could say that. I’m Edward Swartz.”

If his unusual eyes hadn’t given him away, his tan and square jaw would have. The man looked like a carbon copy of his father. Well, a younger, spryer, tanner version of him.

“You finally came back?” she blurted. Before she could stop herself.

“Finally?”

She bit her lip as Mrs. Decker came out of her office. “Is everything all right, Viola?”

“Oh, jah.”

Mrs. Decker stared at the tray the man was holding. “Any reason Ed here is holding the coffee tray?”

“Nee.” With a jerk, she pulled the tray from his hands. “Danke. Um. Excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Hey, I’ll be happy to help you,” he said after the administrator turned to the right and walked down the hall. Leaving the two of them alone again. “That tray is fairly heavy.”

“I can manage just fine.” Unable to stop herself, she raised a brow. “Besides, don’t you think it’s time you went to see your father?”

She turned without waiting for an answer.

But still, her cheeks burned with shame for her behavior. And for the fact that as much as she didn’t like him . . . she couldn’t help but notice he was as handsome as she’d imagined.

Ed Swartz stood in the middle of the black-and-white-tiled hallway, more than a little perturbed. First she almost spilled coffee on him, then acted like he was about to mug her when he helped her with the tray . . .

Then had reprimanded him. Like he was a wayward child.

What was her problem? Was she just in a bad mood, or had she really gotten upset that he’d knocked into her?

Hmm. Maybe he was simply used to the kindness of the people he worked with in Nicaragua. The people there had so little, they were thankful for the smallest amount of care.

“Can I help you, young man?”

An elderly lady wearing polyester tan slacks, white tennis shoes, and a bright blue sweater pointed to the sign-in sheet. “If you’re visiting, you’ve got to sign in. It’s the rules.”

“Sorry. I guess I got distracted.” After signing his name, he said, “Can you tell me where I might find Atle Swartz?”

A wave of emotion transformed her face. “Are you his son?”

“Yes, ma’am. Edward.”

“All the way from your mission trip? Praise God!”

She darted around the welcome desk, squeezed his arm, and practically dragged him to their left. “Your father is going to be so happy to see you!”

He doubted his father’s happiness would hold a candle to his own. He’d missed his father terribly during his two-year absence.

But his steps slowed when he caught sight of him, sitting in his wheelchair in front of the gas-lit fireplace. His father looked older, frailer.

“Daed?”

His father’s head popped up. Stared at him like he’d risen from the dead. “Edward? Edward!”

As Ed crossed the room and wrapped his father in a hug, he realized nothing else needed to be said. For now, they were together, and nothing else mattered. With effort, he pushed all thoughts of the woman with the pretty brown eyes from his mind.

In the grand scheme of things, she didn’t matter to him at all.

Peter Keim pulled another cardboard box off a shelf, looked at his mother, and groaned. “Mamm, every time I turn around, I’m finding another box of yours. Why do you have so much stuff?” And more to the point, how come he hadn’t seen any of it before?

It was like his mother had hidden a secret life up in the rafters of their home, and it had all gathered dust and begun to slowly rot. When a spider crept out from under the box’s top flap, he grimaced. “We should throw this all out.”

From the other side of the attic, his mother looked at the four boxes, two trunks, and six or seven large wicker baskets that were filled to overflowing. She looked a bit surprised to see everything, but even in the dim light of the attic, Peter noticed a faint gleam of anticipation too. “Oh, Peter, settle down. It’s not so much stuff. Not really so much for a woman’s whole life. I am fairly old, you know.”

Peter sighed. His mother had been talking like that for months now, which was exasperating, since she was only sixty-two and enjoying exceptionally good health. As far as the family was concerned, the matriarch of their family had decades to go before she went around and proclaimed she was old.

“Well, all this cleaning is making me feel old.” Opening up one of the five green plastic garbage bags he’d brought up to the attic, he crouched down next to one of the trunks. “This women’s work is wearing me out.”

As he knew she would, his daughter Elsie found fault with that. “Father, you mustn’t talk like that. Cleaning is most definitely not women’s work. Besides, you know Mamm with her asthma can’t be up here in all this dust.”

He did love how prim and proper his daughter was. “I’m just teasing, Elsie. I don’t mind helping with the attic. Besides, it’s a whole lot warmer up here in the attic than outside in the fields.”

She rubbed her arms. “I’m tired of winter and it’s only January.”

“Patience, Elsie,” his mother cautioned. “Everything comes in its own time. Even spring.”

Getting back on track, Peter brushed aside yet another traveling insect and pushed the box he’d just taken down a little more toward the center of the attic. “I can’t wait to see what you have in here. This doesn’t look like it’s been touched since you moved in.”

Before his eyes, his mother stiffened. “I had forgotten that box was in here.”

“Then it’s time we found out all your secrets,” Elsie teased from her chair near the window. “Mommi, you know what’s going to have to happen, don’t you? You’re going to have to tell us all the stories that go with the items in the box.”

For some reason, his mother looked even more perturbed. “I doubt you’d be interested, Elsie. There’s nothing out of the ordinary inside. Nothing that you haven’t heard about at least a dozen times. You know, dear, perhaps you should go downstairs with your father. I’ll finish up here on my own.”

“I’m not going to let you be up here by yourself, Mamm,” he said. “Stop worrying so much.”

“And I’m not going to leave you either, Mommi. There might be something inside that you’ve forgotten about. . . . A deep, dark secret . . .”

His mom laughed. “I think not. My life isn’t filled with secrets. That’s not what the Lord intended.”

Peter felt his smile falter as his mother’s pious remarks floated over him. For all his life, both of his parents had set themselves up as pillars of the community. And as models for their six children to follow.

But their markers were so high, their children never felt they could meet their parents’ high standards. It was one of the reasons his brothers Jacob and Aden moved to Indiana, and his little sister Sara had moved all the way to New York.

Even though he was the middle child, not the eldest son, he was the one who’d elected to live with them. But, of course, that made the most sense. He was used to keeping the peace—a quality that was definitely needed in his parents’ company.

But even he was finding it difficult to hear their criticisms day after day.

Well, at least that was the reason he gave for his own private behavior.

Pushing his dark thoughts away, he pulled open the flaps of the box and pulled an armful of the contents out. On top was an embroidered sampler.

“What does it say, Daed?” Elsie asked, reminding him that with her eye disease, it was getting harder and harder for her to see most anything.

“It says, ‘Start and End the Day with Prayer.’ ”

Elsie smiled. “That sounds like Mommi.”

Indeed it did. Lovina Keim was the epitome of a dutiful Amish wife. She’d borne six children, had organized charity events for the community, kept a bountiful garden, quilted well, and even had a lovely voice.

She was a handsome woman, with dark brown eyes that her children and grandchildren had all inherited. She was a hard worker and never asked anyone to do anything she wasn’t prepared to do herself.

However, she was also critical and judgmental. It was next to impossible to live up to such high standards.

Elsie moved closer, kneeling next to him. “What else is inside?”

Peter looked at his mother, who seemed frozen, her eyes fastened on the box.

Slowly, he pulled out a heavily embroidered linen tablecloth, a pair of crystal candlesticks. They were very fine. And while some Amish women did buy some pretty tableware every now and then, these items were a bit extravagant. “Mother, where did these come from?” He held up one of the heavy crystal candlesticks.

That seemed to set her back to motion. Busily smoothing out the rough fabric of a quilt, his mother glanced away. “I’m not sure where those came from. I’ve forgotten.”

Peter had never known his mother to forget a thing. “Come on, now. You must have an idea.”

“I do not. If I knew, I would tell you, Peter.” Standing up, his mother shook her head. “I’m getting tired. I no longer care to look in these boxes.” Her voice turning pinched, she continued, “Elsie, please walk with me back to my rooms?”

Obediently, Elsie moved to stand up, but Peter held her back with a hand on her arm. “Nee, stay, Elsie. Now that we’ve started digging in here, I’d like to see what else is inside.” Something was propelling him forward. Maybe it was his mother’s unfamiliar hesitancy.

Perhaps it was his own selfish wants—a part of him enjoyed seeing her discomfort. It gave her a taste of what he’d felt much of his life. With purposeful motions, he pulled out another sampler of a Psalm, the stitching uneven and childlike. A cloth doll. An old packet of flower seeds.

And then a framed photograph, wrapped in plastic bubble wrap. The Amish didn’t accept photographs, believing that copying their image was a graven sin. “Mamm, what in the world?”

“Peter, don’t unwrap that.”

His mother’s voice was like steel, but Peter ignored the command. He was forty-two years old, not fourteen. And now he was curious.

“Who is this, Mother?” he asked as pulled the plastic away, finding himself staring at a photograph of a beautiful young woman. Her hair was dark and smooth, her eyes the same brown, coffee-with-cream color that looked back at him in the mirror.

A vague thread of apprehension coursed through him.

“Who is it?” Elsie asked.

“It’s a woman, a woman of about your age,” he said patiently, ignoring the tension reverberating from his mother. “She’s mighty pretty, with brown, wide-set eyes and hair. Why, she could be your twin, Elsie.”

Elsie gazed at the photograph, but the three of them knew it was only for show. Her eyesight had gotten much worse over the last two years. “She is pretty,” she allowed. “Though we all know I already have a twin. I’m glad this girl isn’t one, too. I have no need for one more!”

“Since she’s an Englisher, she couldn’t be your twin. Ain’t so, Mamm?” He chuckled, raising his eyes to share a smile with his mother. Then stilled.

His mother looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. Her face was pale, twin splotches of color decorated her cheeks. And her eyes . . .

They were the exact ones in the photograph.

Suddenly, he knew. “Mother, this is you, isn’t it? This is you in a cap and gown. At your high school graduation.”

His mom averted her eyes.

Elsie gasped. “Mommi? What were you doing, dressed up like an Englischer?”

Though his mother said nothing, Peter realized he didn’t need an explanation. The item in his hands was clear enough. Slowly, he got to his feet, his knees creaking with the effort. “Your grandmother wasn’t dressed up as an Englischer, Elsie,” he said quietly. “For some reason, she wasn’t Amish here. She was English.”

Bitterness coursed through him as he thought of the many, many times she’d belittled all of them because they weren’t perfect enough. Weren’t devout enough. Didn’t obey the Ordnung to the letter.

In a flash, he recalled the stories she’d spun about growing up in a perfect Amish home in the fifties. The way her criticisms had driven his siblings Jacob and Aden and Sara away.

The way her perfection had made his other brother, Sam, try too hard, had made his youngest sister, Lorene, feel terrible about herself.

The way her iron will had even pulled apart his God-given, easy-going nature, even causing him to do things he shouldn’t.

And she’d done all of this on top of a heap of lies.

He thought of all the times she’d even been critical of his sweet wife, Marie. The way she’d criticized meals and housekeeping and sewing.

Appalled, he stared at his mother. Really looked at her, as if for the very first time. “Talk to me, Mamm. Were you raised English?”

“Jah.”

“Were you ever going to tell us the truth?”

For a few seconds, time seemed to stand still. The dust particles in the air froze. Then Lovina Keim’s face turned colder. “Nee.” Slowly, she walked to the narrow, steep steps and began descending.

Still holding the photograph in his hands, Peter let her walk down by herself.

“Daed, what does this mean?” Elsie asked.

It meant everything.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. But, of course, he could withhold the truth as well as his mother. “Let’s go downstairs, too, Elsie.”

Slipping the photograph under his arm, he helped guide Elsie down the stairs.

When she was in her room, and he was sure the rest of the house was silent, he strode to his bedroom, opened up the door to his bedside table, and pushed aside the neat stack of books.

Behind the well-worn hardbacks, he found what he was looking for.

And though it wouldn’t solve his problems, it would help him not care. Even if it was just for a little while.