I felt both strange and comforted, reading through a trail of my life history while we sipped mint tea. In my waffling back and forth between denial and mental preparation for my days soon to be altered and possibly cut short, I thought of how going through these captured images of my past was similar to “my life flashed before my eyes,” as the saying goes. Only this wasn’t a flash. It was a stroll in the company of a close friend while holding a cup of tea. Was this part of God’s tender care for me?
My conclusion at the end of the day was that I had lived a blessed life. I went to bed with that thought pressed to the forefront of my mind. I had lived a fairly typical life, with its share of ups and downs, but I couldn’t deny that God had been good to me.
Once the light was turned off and I was under the comforter, my thoughts weren’t on the fear of the unknown future but on the unfolded past. I felt grateful.
Closing my eyes, I tried to pull up a mental image of the endless field of tulips. I don’t usually dream in color, but that night I’m pretty sure I did.
The next morning Noelle tapped on my guest room door at four o’clock. I already was awake and sitting up in bed, propped against the pillows, reading from the devotion book.
“Can you be ready in half an hour or less?”
“No problem.”
The night before, she had prepared me for the surprise trip by saying I should wear layers and not the nicest clothing I had brought but to lean toward comfort over fashion. Those hints didn’t help me a bit in trying to decode what adventure lay ahead. Nor did the wardrobe suggestions help much in deciding what to wear. I had packed a few pairs of pants, one skirt, several shirts, and two sweaters. I went for the dark brown pants, white button-up blouse, and brown pullover sweater.
At the dinner table the night before, while Noelle spoke to Jelle in code, I figured out a few clues. He knew where we were going and what we were doing, but Noelle wanted to make sure she didn’t give away any hints to me.
She could have conversed with Jelle in Dutch; that would have been the easy route. But Noelle had mentioned my first evening there that since everyone in the family spoke English and Dutch, she had established a rule long ago that whenever guests in their home didn’t speak Dutch, everyone would speak English. She said she still had memories of how isolated she felt in her early years of marriage when she was trying so hard to learn Dutch but couldn’t keep up with conversations around the family dinner table at Jelle’s parents’ home.
Just before four-thirty, in the predawn chill, Noelle and I climbed into Bluebell as quietly as we could, since the neighborhood still was sleeping. She handed me the bottle of drinkable yogurt and smiled. “You wanted this for backup, right?”
“That depends. Will I need it as a backup, or are we going to eat breakfast?”
“We’ll get some breakfast. Don’t worry. I haven’t allowed a single houseguest to starve yet.” She started the engine and bit her lower lip as if the sudden noise of the car could have somehow been muffled.
“I think I know where we’re going.” I buckled my seat belt. “I figured it out.”
“Oh, you did, did you? Where do you think we’re going?”
“To the harbor to see where Jelle works.” I thought my conclusion was quite clever.
Noelle scrunched up her nose. “That would not be my idea of a surprise. Don’t get me wrong. I admire my husband greatly for what he does, but I could never do it.”
At our dinner the previous night, over plates of steamed carrots and broccoli, I had found out more about Jelle’s job. He worked for a large company that outfitted huge ships that came into Rotterdam Harbor. Some of the fishing vessels were the size of small villages and came from around the world, each arriving in need of provisions.
Jelle and his division of the company supplied the ships. He had told stories at dinner of how some captains would hand Jelle’s employees a list in Japanese or Sudanese, and they would have to translate the list and hunt down the supplies. Needs on board could be as simple as one hundred kilos of ground coffee or as complex as a random part for a broken computer that was discontinued in 1993 or a chain saw with a certain type of blade.
Jelle and his staff managed to fulfill the requests, sometimes at the last minute, and off the ship would sail. He made his job sound so interesting that I said something along the lines of how fascinating it would be to visit one of the ships.
Noelle had cast a wary glance at me across the table. “It’s a lot rougher than he is making it sound. Jelle spends most of his time in the office on the phone or on the computer. He doesn’t go on board that often. But I can tell you, salty crews man the ships that come into harbor. I’ve only gone on board with him once. I never let the girls go with him.”
“You make it sound like Tortuga from The Pirates of the Caribbean?
Jelle laughed at my comparison. Noelle didn’t laugh. She had pressed forward in the conversation, saying we only had a few days to spend together. She listed our schedule as a day in Amsterdam, a visit to Haarlem, and a possible jaunt to Delft.
“Delft is not far from here. We could go for half a day, if you like. But if we do all that, it doesn’t leave a day for going to the harbor.”
With her adamant disdain at going to the harbor still lingering from last night’s conversation, I leaned back in the passenger seat of little Bluebell as she hummed along the nearly vacant road. “So you’re not driving to the harbor, I take it.”
“No.”
“I thought maybe all your disagreeable comments about the harbor last night were made to throw me off track.”
She shook her head. “What we’re doing today is exactly what we need to do today, and that’s all I’m going to tell you. Relax. This is going to be a good day. You’ll like my surprise. I just know it.”
I had to tease her. “Will I love it as much as I loved your surprise CD yesterday?”
“More.” She didn’t say much else until we arrived at what looked like a car repair shop. After pulling up in front of the closed garage, she turned off the engine. “Here we are.”
“A garage? We’re spending the day at a garage?”
“You oenie, come on.”
Dramatically I gripped the door handle. “I refuse to go until you assure me that this surprise of yours has nothing to do with car parts, brake fluid, or anything else auto related.”
Noelle laughed. “You really are more paranoid than I realized.”
“You think I’m joking? Going to a car parts store is my husband’s idea of an afternoon out together. Oh, and he usually throws in a stop at the giant hardware store so we can look at drill bits and PVC pipe.”
“Fear not, Summer. No motor oil or drill bits will be used in our upcoming adventure. And since I have no idea what a PVC pipe is, I’m pretty sure that can be taken off the list as well.”
“So, exactly what are we doing?”
“You don’t like surprises much, do you?” Noelle looked astonished to discover this truth about me.
“What was your first clue?”
“You are so afraid. Don’t be frightened.” She studied my expression as if she still couldn’t understand where my strong hesitancy was coming from. “If it will give you peace, I will tell you that we are leaving Bluebell here in capable hands, and you and I are walking a little ways to a…” She hesitated.
I reached over and gripped the door handle again, indicating she would have a hard time making me budge unless she provided full disclosure.
“We’re walking to a train station. All right? Is that helpful enough for you? The station is not far. Wait here a minute. I have to fill out a paper and put the key in the overnight box.”
Soon Noelle returned and opened my door, letting all the cold morning air into the car. “Are you ready, Summer Breeze?”
“We could use a summer breeze right now. A warm summer breeze!” I eased out of the car and buttoned up my coat. “It’s so cold!”
“Yes, but it’s not snowing. O
r raining. Our short walk will warm us up.”
I suspected her idea of short was going to be different from my idea of short.
I followed her down a narrow alleyway with the buildings on either side shadowing our path and making it feel as if we were sneaking about in the middle of the night rather than being extremely early birds. We turned left and trekked passed a number of shops on a street that had fourteen letters in its name.
As I kept up with Noelle, I realized her quick stride seemed to come from more than the slightly longer length of her legs. I suspected she walked a lot. The street we were traversing had narrow concrete walkways in front of the shops, but the street itself was cobblestone. We crossed to the other side on the uneven cobblestones, and Noelle seemed an equally brisk walker, no matter what the terrain.
We entered a small shop that was the only one on the block with lights on inside. As soon as Noelle opened the door, I knew where we were. We were in a bakery. Oh, the fragrance of fresh-baked bread on a crisp morning! What a universally welcoming scent.
Noelle ordered a lot. She bought four round loaves of bread, a variety of pastries, and two dozen small, round butter cookies.
She turned to me and asked something, but she still was speaking in Dutch, so I had no idea what she said.
After realizing the language blip, she shook her head. “Would you like anything to eat now?”
“One of those.” I pointed at a flaky-looking round pastry that had half of an apricot baked into it.
Noelle ordered two of them along with two koffies. I figured out she was ordering mine with lots of hot milk. We took our early-morning bounty with us and ventured back into the new day’s chill.
“Are we going to eat these on the train?” I caught a whiff of the dark coffee I held in a takeout cup.
“Yes. We need to walk fast enough to get on this next train. Otherwise we’ll have to wait forty minutes for the next one. The train stop is just down that way. We should be able to make it.”
We did. Noelle and I stood on the platform with armfuls of white paper parcels that wrapped up her generous bread purchases. Obviously she had bought more than she and I could eat, but I still didn’t know to whom she would deliver this daily bread.
The train station was more of a stop than a station because all it consisted of was a platform and a machine where Noelle purchased tickets for us. I’d never been on a real train, and I told her so.
“Trains are a lifesaver here. I prefer taking the train most of the time, if I can avoid driving in traffic. Or paying for parking. And don’t get me started on the skyrocketing price of petrol. We pay twice what you pay in the U.S. Sometimes more. So the next time you want to complain about your gas prices, just remember what I’m paying.”
The train rolled in on time. It felt good to enter the warm train car. I was surprised at how many early-morning passengers were already on board. We sat in fabric-covered seats facing each other and pulled out a small folding shelf to hold our coffee.
I swallowed my first bite of the apricot pastry. “Delicious. The coffee is good too.”
“This was a good choice.” Noelle held up her matching pastry.
“So how far are we going?”
“Not far.” Her smile was soon leveled when she took another bite of the pastry.
“You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“Yes, I am. My girls say it’s a sickness. I call it my hobby. I love planning surprises. I managed to pull off several quite-memorable birthday parties for the two of them, thank you very much. Tara’s sixteenth was the best.” She grinned as if savoring the memory’s sweetness as much as I was savoring the pastry’s sweetness.
That small confession helped me to understand why this surprise was so important to Noelle. It also made me realize that if I wasn’t particularly crazy about the surprise, whatever it was, I should still act appreciative since this was such a joyful hobby for her. Or a sickness, depending on whose side I ended up agreeing with once the day was over.
The train rolled past a lineup of brick homes, and then we came to the end of the uniform neighborhood houses. A marshy stretch beside a canal ran parallel with the train track. Light had tiptoed in while I was sipping the coffee and looking out the window. It was morning. A few people on bikes pedaled by on the smooth trail that ran like a plumb line along the narrow canal. They seemed to be heading into town, and we were heading out into the country.
I nodded off a little, lulled by the train’s movement and the satisfying sensation of a warmed and sugared-up belly.
The station where we disembarked had a sign with a name I didn’t even try to pronounce. We were definitely in the country. I felt as if I had awakened in a fairy tale. The houses near the train platform looked as if they had been there for two hundred years. Hansel and Gretel could have strolled out of any of the charming cottages, and I wouldn’t have been surprised. Or perhaps here it would be Hans and Greta.
The first cottage we walked past had an honest-to-goodness Dutch door. Both the top and bottom sections were closed that morning. I could imagine the maid of the house opening the top portion on a summer day and leaning halfway out in her apron-covered dress, conversing with passersby
“This is like an illustration in a book of fables,” I said.
“You like it?”
“Yes.”
Noelle’s eyes twinkled. “Good. I knew you would. We don’t have far to walk. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.” The air felt clean and crisp but didn’t give my lungs a shiver as the earlier chill in the air had.
Noelle picked up the pace, and I offered to carry some of her bread loaves. We split the bounty and continued our journey away from the town and toward a gathering of trees. A young woman in jeans and a long sweatshirt stood by the side of the road, softly singing a popular song in English. She held a rope tethered to a calf. Evidence of where the piped-in music came from rose from her sweatshirt pocket and connected in each of her ears.
Noelle gave her half a nod. I did the same. The young woman didn’t change her expression. She seemed to be going about what she did every day of her life in the country. I had heard my kids playing the same pop tune before, but I could never imagine any of my children singing it while standing by the side of the road with a calf on a rope.
“What sort of parallel universe have you taken me to?”
“You really are allergic to suspense, aren’t you?” Her tone was partially compassionate and partially ribbing.
“Yes, I am allergic to suspense. And if you don’t clue me in pretty quickly, I might have an allergic reaction right here. And I can’t guarantee that it will be attractive.”
“You’re so funny, Summer. Be patient. We’re almost there. Honest. I don’t want to spoil it for you. Just a bit farther.”
Noelle led the way down a tree-lined road and across a retractable sort of bridge. The bridge arched over the canal but appeared as if it could be pulled back to either side if a small boat needed the extra headroom to motor past it.
“My father-in-law once told me that he could take me anywhere I wanted to go in Holland by boat. I never took him up on the offer, but I wish I had. Water runs through this country like lifeblood through veins.”
At that moment my veins were feeling the pulse of Noelle’s brisk pace. We probably had walked only a mile, but she had made it a fast mile.
“Are we going to your father-in-law’s farm? Is that what’s at the end of this lane?”
Noelle stopped walking. She turned and looked at me with an expression of disappointment. “You guessed.”
As soon as I saw her shoulders slump, I wished I hadn’t figured it out. She was having so much fun keeping me going. I realized something important about myself in that moment. I like to be in control. Trying to manage a large family can have that effect on a person.
But that was more of a convenient excuse for my anxious need to have all the details up-front. At the foundation of my need for control w
as the thought that it was up to me to make things run smoothly or at least to make them go the way I wanted them to go. I’m sure that’s why I was so quick to put aside scheduling the biopsy. I wanted to be in control, even if the only control I had was when the results would be presented to me.
As is often the case when I’m suddenly confronted with an undeniable truth, I felt embarrassed. Not embarrassed so much for popping out the rather obvious summation that we were going to a farmhouse and therefore it must be her father-in-law’s. I was embarrassed by my need to be in control. If Noelle’s hobby was surprising people, my hobby was having everything organized and neatly controlled.
That embarrassed me because I knew that in many cases controlling could be the opposite of trusting. Why wasn’t I able to just go along with Noelle on this surprise? Did I have any reason not to trust her?
The same line of logic applied to why I had dodged the biopsy and delayed the testing. Did I have any reason not to trust God?
“Are you okay, Summer?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For spoiling your surprise.”
She brushed away my apology. “Actually, this farm used to belong to my father-in-law, but it’s been transformed quite a bit since he lived here. Come, you’ll see.”
I fell into step with Noelle but found it difficult to be as carefree about the path of denial that had brought me on a lark to the Netherlands. Now that I had figured out this small piece about my hobby of controlling, I felt bad.
Where was God in all this? What was He doing in my life? I really had no idea. I was pretty sure I didn’t trust Him as much as I had a short week ago when long life and comfort seemed to be the path stretched out before me.
We exited the tree-lined lane, and ahead of us sat a farmhouse built of brick with white-framed windows. The roof appeared to be equal in space and size to the house it topped. A single brick chimney rose at the back of the roof, and a large white bird perched on the roof near the chimney.