The Forgiven (Keepers of the Promise, Band 1) - Softcover

Perry, Marta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425271412 ISBN 13: 9780425271414

Verlag: Berkley, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

In the first novel in the Keepers of the Promise trilogy, three cousins sort through the treasures of their Amish family and discover stories from the past that provide inspiration for their own lives...
 
Central Pennsylvania, current day. Rebecca Fisher gladly accepted her husband Paul’s dreams as her own, but now that he has passed away, she’s struggling to raise two children and keep her home. Renting her stable to carpenter Matthew Byler offers a partial solution—even though Matthew has a troubled history, having sometimes failed to embrace Amish beliefs. As Matthew seeks to prove himself, Rebecca realizes how dependent she has become on others. Where can she find the courage to grow and change?
 
Lancaster County, 1941. As war threatens, Anna Esch pours her experiences into her diary. Her world seems to crumble as neighbors turn against the Amish and her love, Jacob, is sent to a camp far away for refusing to fight. She can’t know, as she grows from a girl into a woman during a time of trouble and grief, that one day another Amish woman will gain strength from the words she writes and will learn that she, too, can become a keeper of the promise.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A lifetime spent in rural Pennsylvania and her own Pennsylvania Dutch roots led Marta Perry to write about the Plain People who add to the rich heritage of her home state. She is the author of more than fifty inspirational romance novels, including the Pleasant Valley series and the Keepers of the Promise trilogy. She lives with her husband in a century-old farmhouse.

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PROLOGUE

Elizabeth Lapp made her way slowly and carefully up the steep attic stairs. It was nonsense, this insistence on the part of her children and grandchildren that she change the habits of a lifetime. Seventy-six wasn’t old, even if that young doctor acted as if she were teetering on the brink of the grave.

Pausing, she gripped the railing, grateful for its support as she caught her breath. Ach, maybe she was getting on in years, but that didn’t mean she had nothing to contribute. There was an important legacy to be passed on, and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t delay any longer.

Her three granddaughters would be arriving at the old farmhouse soon. Before they appeared, she needed to take one more look at the treasures collected in the attic.

Cautiously, conserving her strength, she made her way to the top and paused again, feeling a flash of annoyance at how shallow her breathing was. The straight chair she’d used on her last trip to the attic stood where she’d left it. Using her cane as a hook, she drew it toward her and sat.

Sunlight streamed through the window and played across the dozens of objects jammed into the space. Amazing, how quickly the attic of the old farmhouse had filled up. Her quest had begun with one small dower chest belonging to a great-aunt. She’d rescued it from being sent to auction at the annual spring mud sale, and it had lit a spark in her heart.

She’d known then what had to be done. Family memories, the whole history of one Amish family in America, were bound up in the items she’d collected in her attic. That history couldn’t be allowed to die. Someone must see that it lived on.

Advancing years had caught up with her, and before the farmhouse was sold to a distant cousin, before she moved into her son’s house, the memories must be passed on. That was why her granddaughters were coming today.

Getting to her feet, she made her way across the rough-hewn floorboards, touching a spinning wheel here, a hand-carved rocking horse there. Each of these things must find a new home. It was too much to expect that any one person would take all of them.

She’d hammered out her plan during the long, sleepless nights after the loss of her beloved William. The gifts must be made to the right person. Each object had a story to tell, and each story could influence the person who received it. She breathed a silent prayer, knowing she must rely on God to show her the way.

It all began with the girls. She smiled. None of the three would appreciate being called a girl; each considered herself a woman grown. And so they were, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have something to learn from the past.

Rebecca. Judith. Barbara. She pictured each one in her mind’s eye. Rebecca, so lost since the death of her young husband more than a year ago. Judith. She frowned a little. Something was wrong there, but self-contained, quiet Judith would not talk about it, making it more difficult to know what to do. And Barbara. Barbie always brought a smile to her grossmammi’s lips, with her pert, lively manner and her almost automatic rebellion against the restrictions of Amish life. Those three were the only ones of the right age to take on the task.

Elizabeth stood, resting her hand on a dower chest, and faced the truth. This was, most likely, the final challenge of her life. To find the object that would speak to each one of her granddaughters and, through that, to entrust to their generation the promise of their family story.

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

Rebecca Fisher hadn’t summoned her family to meals with the bell on the back porch since Paul died. Today wasn’t the day to start, she decided. Instead she stood at the railing and called.

“Katie! Joshua! Come to supper.”

She stayed on the porch until she saw her two kinder running toward the farmhouse. Katie came from the big barn, where she’d been “helping” Rebecca’s father and brother with the evening chores. Katie adored her grossdaadi and Onkel Simon, and Rebecca was grateful every day that Katie had them to turn to now that her own daadi was gone.

Joshua had clearly been up in the old apple tree by the stream, which was his favorite perch. Paul had talked about building a tree house there for Joshua’s sixth birthday. That birthday would come soon, but Paul wasn’t here to see it. Rebecca’s throat tightened, and she forced the thought away.

“Mammi, Mammi.” Joshua flung himself at her, grabbing her apron with grubby hands. “Guess who I saw?”

“I don’t know, Josh. Who?” She hugged him with one arm and gathered Katie against her with the other. Katie let herself be embraced for a moment and then wiggled free.

“I helped put the horses in,” she reported. “Onkel Simon said I’m a gut helper.”

“Mammi, I’m talking.” Joshua glared at his sister. “Guess who I saw?”

“Hush, now.” Rebecca hated it when they quarreled, even though she remembered only too well how she and her brothers and sisters had plagued one another. She shooed them into the kitchen. “Katie, I’m wonderful glad you’re helping. Joshua, who did you see?”

It had probably been an owl or a chipmunk—at five, Joshua considered every creature he encountered to be as real as a person.

“Daadi!” Joshua grinned, unaware of the hole that had just opened up in his mother’s stomach.

“Joshua—” She struggled to find the words.

“That’s stupid,” Katie declared from the superiority of her seven years. Her heart-shaped face, usually so lively and happy, tightened with anger, and her blue eyes sparkled with what might have been the tears she wouldn’t shed. “Daadi’s in heaven. He can’t come back, so you can’t see him, so don’t be stupid.”

“Katie, don’t call your brother stupid.” Rebecca managed the easier part of the correction first. She knelt in front of her son, feeling the worn linoleum under her knees as she prayed for the right words. “Joshua, you must understand that Daadi loves you always, but he can’t come back.”

“But I saw him, Mammi. I saw him right there in the new stable and—”

“No, Josh.” She had to stop this notion now, no matter how it pained both of them. “I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t Daadi.”

His small face clouded, his mouth drooping. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Her heart hurt as she spoke the words, but they had to be said. Paul was gone forever, and they must continue without him.

“Go and see, Mammi.” Josh pressed small hands on her cheeks, holding her face to ensure she paid attention. “Please go look in the stable.”

Obviously, it was the only thing that would satisfy him. “All right. I’ll go and look. While I do that, you two wash up for supper.”

Josh nodded solemnly. Rebecca rose, giving her daughter a warning look.

“No more talking about this until I come back. You understand?”

Katie looked as if she’d like to argue, but she nodded as well.

Pausing to see them headed for the sink without further squabbling, Rebecca slipped out the back door.

A quick glance told her there was no further activity at the main barn now. Probably her daad and brother had finished and headed home for their own supper.

It wasn’t far across the field to the farmhouse where she’d grown up. That field would be planted...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0425271412
• ISBN 13: 9780425271414
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar