Lydia's Hope Read Online Free Page B

the name he’d said and came up empty.
    “Not from around here, no. They met when Eli was working out west.” Daad clasped his
     hands on the table and looked at them, but she didn’t suppose he was seeing them.
     “My big brother always wanted to explore a bit of the world, so when he was in his
     twenties, he went off to work construction in Ohio. That’s where he met Diane.”
    “She was lost.” Mamm spoke unexpectedly, her voice soft.
    “Lost?” Adam’s face showed his lack of understanding.
    “Not really lost, I guess,” Mamm said. “But later, when we knew each other better,
     that’s what she told me. She and her parents didn’t get along at all. She’d left home,
     and she didn’t have anyone else. She was lost. But when she met Eli, she said it was
     like she’d found her home.”
    Lydia struggled to swallow the lump in her throat. “So she became Amish for him.”
    That was a thing that almost never happened. The other way around was more common,
     yes, when an Amish person jumped the fence, but it was so difficult for someone raised
     Englisch to adjust to Amish life.
    “It wasn’t easy,” Daad said, echoing her thought. “But Eli and Diane were determined.
     They married, and they stayed in Ohio for a time, where they had friends who understood
     and helped Diane adjust. They moved back and took over this place when you were about
     two, I think, and by then Diane had been Amish long enough that most people didn’t
     even think about her being raised Englisch. Susanna and Chloe were born here.”
    Adam looked around the house as if he was seeing it with fresh eyes. “They were happy
     here,” he said, as if he knew it for a certainty, and his perception startled Lydia.
    “Ja.” A smile trembled on Mamm’s lips. “Diane said she’d never known she could be
     so happy. She wanted to forget all about her life before, and we honored that wish.”
    Lydia stored up the words, knowing she’d want to bring those images of her parents
     out and relive them later, when she was alone. But now she had to know more about
     how their story had ended.
    “The accident,” she prompted. And the little girls, Susanna and Chloe. She said the
     names over and over in her mind, trying to draw up an image, but nothing came.
    Daad sighed. “There were a couple of Amish families on their way to the wedding of
     a friend in Ohio, out in Holmes County. They’d hired a van and driver for the trip.
     The police said it looked like the van driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. He crashed
     into a tractor trailer and overturned, rolling down a hill.”
    Mamm made a small sound of grief or pain. Daad put his hand to his head, as if he
     were reliving it too clearly. It was a terrible picture, but it seemed so remote to
     Lydia, as if it had happened to someone else.
    “We got word from the state police about the accident and hired someone to take us
     out to Ohio,” he went on. “The van driver had died instantly. The rest of you weren’t
     even in the same hospital. The kinder didn’t have identification on them, of course,
     so no one knew who was where. We were frantic, trying to find all of you and make
     sure you were taken care of.”
    Lydia nodded, trying to picture the situation. The Amish community took care of its
     own, but it would have been difficult with the accident happening so far away.
    “Bishop Mose had gone with us,” Daad went on. “We were so thankful to have him there.
     He said each of you kinder must have someone with you to care for you and make decisions,
     so your mamm and I went with you.”
    “Why?” The word came out before she realized she intended to speak, but it was the
     question of her heart. Why had Mamm and Daad been the ones to end up with her?
    Daad looked confused at the question, but Mamm seemed to understand right away.
    “We thought you felt the closest to us. We’d just gotten married ourselves a few weeks
     earlier, and you’d been so excited about