I felt Arie tapping my arm, pressing his body close to mine. “You going away, Mama?” he asked.
I loosened my grip on Hendrik and faced my child. “No,” I whispered. “No, I’m not going anywhere, lieveling.”
Hendrik slowly stood, rising to his feet as if he were a hundred years old. He had no bags to pack, nothing to gather together for his trip. He had walked out from the woods two days ago with nothing, and his arms were empty now. I watched him walk away from me, following the narrow path through the woods until he disappeared from sight. He didn’t look back.
Holland, Michigan
1897
Derk reaches the end and slowly closes the notebook. He looks up at me. “You stayed with Maarten even though you loved Hendrik?”
“That was the only choice I could make and not walk away from God. The child I carried is our son Jakob. Our daughter Christina was born four years later. Maarten and I gave Arie and Gerrit our name and raised them as our own sons.”
“Do you know what happened to Hendrik after he left?”
I’ve been waiting for this question. I nod, swallowing hard, not sure I can speak. “He went off to work in Kalamazoo for about a year, and when he returned he brought his new bride with him.”
“He came back?”
“He had earned enough money to apply for a mortgage on fifty acres of land in Zeeland, six miles away. He turned it into a prosperous farm. He and his wife raised four children together.” I pause, steadying my voice, anticipating his reaction when I finally put all the pieces together for him. “Your mother was his only daughter.”
“My-my mother . . . ? Hendrik is my grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“But . . . but that can’t be! His name wasn’t Hendrik, it was . . .”
“Hank. He adopted the American name Henry, but people called him Hank.”
Derk has never been good at disguising his emotions, and they are all there on his face for me to see—shock, disbelief, then slow understanding. “I-I knew my grandfather had been shipwrecked. . . . I remember the scars on his neck and his hands. . . . But he never told me the details.”
“He never talked about it to anyone after the day he told me.”
“I can’t believe it! Hendrik . . . is my grandfather? I don’t understand why he stayed here under the circumstances.”
“He told me before we left the Netherlands that he wanted his own farm someday. It was his dream, and he accomplished it. He didn’t have to watch his family starve or die of illness the way his parents and siblings had back home. And he was sincere in wanting to live a life of Christian faith. What better place to do that than here?”
“His farm is still in our family. My uncle runs it now. I used to love visiting there when I was a boy.”
“Hendrik did very well for himself. And I think he was happy with his life.” I can see that Derk is still trying to digest the truth. He shifts on his chair, runs his hand through his hair, making it stick up, making me smile. “You look so much like him, Derk. And now you’re going to be Dominie Vander Veen. Who would have imagined such a thing when the Dutch government billeted four soldiers with a family of Separatists all those years ago?”
He lets his breath out with a whoosh, shaking his head. I can almost hear his mind spinning with more questions. “Did you ever regret your choice to stay married to Maarten?”
“Dozens of times, especially in the beginning. Until one day I realized that regret from the past was keeping me from living well in the present. And it was robbing me of a future. We had a good life together with our children.”
“I wish I had known Maarten.”
“I wish you had, too. You would have liked each other. I always thought he would have made an outstanding dominie. He had the heart of a shepherd, so compassionate and caring. But his family had been poor back in the Netherlands, so he became my father’s apprentice in our print shop instead.”
“I wish I had gotten to know my grandfather better, too.”
I suddenly picture Hendrik the way he looked the last time I’d seen him, still handsome after all the years, though his shoulders were a little more stooped and his fair hair had turned to silver. All the blue had faded from his eyes, but they still reminded me of the river in Leiden on a cloudy day. My eyes tear up at the memory of him.
“If Hendrik had turned into a bad man, a drunk, a wife-beater,” I tell Derk, “it would be easy for me to look back on the choice I made and say that God was trying to spare me from a terrible marriage. But it wasn’t true, of course. Your grandfather was a quiet, distant man—scarred, I think, by what he had endured on the Phoenix. He carried an enormous load of guilt for surviving when so many others died. It weighed on him for the rest of his life. It was almost as if he felt obligated to live well and fully here in America for the sake of all those people aboard the Phoenix who never had a chance to live.” I pause to swallow my tears, and when I speak again my voice catches. “I know that my betrayal wounded him deeply, although he never showed any ill will toward Maarten or me. Hendrik became a good husband and father, a good Christian man. He attended his church in Zeeland faithfully. He even became an elder.”
Derk sighs. “It broke his heart when my mother drowned. I remember I saw him leave our house after her funeral, and I ran outside to follow him. I found him leaning against the back fence, all alone, sobbing as if he would never be able to stop. The force of those sobs terrified me. I had never heard a grown man cry like that before. My father grieved for my mother in private, trying to remain strong for me, I suppose. I hid beneath our back porch that day so my grandfather wouldn’t see me, and I cried all by myself. Now I wish I had gone to him. Maybe we could have comforted each other.”
“When your mother’s ship sank, Hendrik knew better than anyone else the horror his daughter must have endured in those last moments. I think that’s what broke his heart. It was a cruel twist of fate that his daughter and mine both died in the same shipwreck.”
Derk is quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks again he has changed the subject. His heart shattered that day, too, and he doesn’t like to dwell on the memory of losing his mother. “Why didn’t you and Maarten go back to Leiden?” he asks. “You had saved up enough money, hadn’t you?”
“Because I felt it was a fitting punishment for me to stay here where life was so hard. Maarten had only agreed to go back in order to make me happy, but I knew that deep in his heart he wanted to stay. God had called him to come to America, and he had worked hard to build a new life here. So we stayed and built a life together.” I was telling Derk the truth, but not the complete truth. I had also chosen to stay because Hendrik was here in America. I wanted to be near him so I could find out how he was and maybe see him once in a while. “Maarten and I both lived with the guilt of our mistakes. He never forgave himself for letting Hendrik’s letter burn instead of giving it to me. He regretted it our entire married life, even though I assured him countless times that I had forgiven him. I lived with my guilt for manipulating Maarten into marrying me. If I hadn’t insisted on my own selfish desire to go back to the Netherlands, he might have married Johanna van Eyck, instead. That’s why I couldn’t blame Maarten or Widow Van den Bosch or God or anyone else for keeping Hendrik and me apart. I had done it to myself.”
“Was it hard for you and my grandfather when you saw each other?”
Oh, yes. I close my eyes, unable to choke out the words. I remember our conversation after Christina’s funeral as if it were yesterday. “We rarely saw each other,” I finally say.
“That’s sad.”
“If the Phoenix hadn’t sunk, if Widow Van den Bosch hadn’t burned the letter, if I hadn’t demanded my own way, Hendrik and I would have married. And then you would be my grandson.”
He looks up at me with a smile that warms my heart. “I call you tante, but you’ll always be so much more to me. You saved my life!”
I reach over to smooth his rumpled hair with my fingers. “Wel
l . . . anyway, now that you’ve read my story you know how unqualified I am to speak with your rich lady-friend or anyone else about love and marriage.”
“You aren’t unqualified. I admire you more than ever for making such a difficult decision. For following God’s Word instead of your heart.”
“Do you see now why I advised you to seek His guidance before you talk to Caroline? Make sure the choices you make are His will for you.”
“I wish my friend Anna could read your story. I believe more than ever that she’ll be making a mistake if she marries this man she doesn’t love. Her father’s financial problems aren’t her fault. Why should she sacrifice her future happiness for his mistakes?”
“Have you told her your opinion?”
“No . . . do you think I should? I hate to see her settle for a loveless marriage—although you didn’t love Maarten, and you still had a happy life together, didn’t you?”
“Yes, we did.”
Derk shifts in his chair again and picks up my notebook from the table. He hands it to me. “I think you should keep writing the story of your life, Tante Geesje. This doesn’t feel finished to me. I think there’s an even bigger story than what I’ve read so far.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say, shaking my head. “I’ve lived a very unremarkable life.”
“That’s not true. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been a woman of great strength and faith. But how did you get there? How did you keep on believing and growing and serving God after all the incomprehensible hardships in your life? How did you and your husband get past your guilt and your mistakes and build a life together?”
I shrug. “One day at a time.”
“I want to know more, Tante Geesje. You lost everything, but you didn’t give up on God. Tell me how you managed it.”
I hold the notebook close, then lay it down again as if it’s made of glass. The memories inside it are just as fragile. “I’ll think about it,” I tell him. I turn to the stove and my bowl of unfinished pancake batter. I lift the stove’s iron lid and nudge the coals back to life. “I have more than enough batter to make pannenkoeken for the two of us. Can you stay and eat with me, Derk?”
“I’d love to.” He stands and envelops me in his embrace. He’s still holding me tightly when he says, “You loved my grandfather very much, didn’t you?”
I can only nod in reply, unable to speak. Even after all these years.
Chapter 23
Anna
Hotel Ottawa
1897
The fight I had with Mother keeps replaying in my mind, circling around and around like a boat on a small lagoon. We retreat to our separate rooms, the air between us prickly with hurt and distrust. Unable to relax or nap, I pick up the Bible Derk gave me and go downstairs to read it on the wide front veranda. The view of Black Lake through the porch’s arched opening resembles a picture postcard, with blue sky and sparkling water and lazy sailboats drifting by. I watch other guests stroll past, laughing and at ease, men in their straw boaters and women in summer skirts and cotton shirtwaists. Most of the ladies carry parasols or wear wide-brimmed hats to protect their skin from the sun. I love the feeling of the warm summer sun on my face, but I don’t dare indulge in it. I can’t return to Chicago with my complexion as sun-browned as Derk’s is. I’m still thinking of him and the unhappy way we parted as I open the Bible to where I left off in the Gospel of Mark. Something inside me slowly uncoils as I read.
Mother finds me late that afternoon, still reading in my chair on the veranda. She looks rested from her nap. “What are you reading, Anna?” Her tone is friendly and offhand, and she cocks her head to try to see the book I’m holding.
I lift it to show her. “It’s the Bible.”
“Oh.”
She sounds annoyed, as if she has caught me reading a cheap dime romance novel or a sleazy murder mystery. I can’t resist saying, “Derk gave it to me.” All the anger I felt earlier after the infuriating incident near the dock comes roaring back, making my ears hum. Mother sits down on a chair beside me but remains perched on the edge.
“I don’t understand this sudden fascination of yours with the Bible or with that strange church on LaSalle Street,” she says.
“There’s nothing odd about wanting to learn more about God. Shouldn’t everyone know what the Bible says? Isn’t that why we go to church and listen to sermons—so we’ll know how we’re supposed to live?”
“Even so, I see no reason to become so . . . fanatical about it. And why would you allow religion to come between you and a very good man who loves you?”
“I don’t know how to explain it to you, Mother. . . . I just don’t. And I don’t want to argue with you anymore.”
“You can always come to me with your questions instead of going to a stranger. I’ve been a church member all my life.”
Without another word, I find the Bible passage I just read, the one that stopped me cold and gave me so much to think about. “Someone asked Jesus which commandment was the most important one,” I tell Mother. “Jesus replied with these words: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’”
I turn in my chair to face her. “That sounds so . . . fanatical, doesn’t it?” I ask, using Mother’s word. “Imagine loving God that much—with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. How do we do that? How do we show Him that much love? It seems as though there are so many other things that take precedence in our minds and hearts, like all the social events that are on our calendars, and which gown we should wear, and how to make certain our home is just as stylish as the next person’s.”
“Don’t diminish the importance of what we do, Anna. The women we know serve on the boards of some very important services and charities.”
I barely hear her. I’m not finished. “And how do I love my neighbor as much as I love myself? Myself! I’ve been spoiled and pampered all my life. Even if Jesus means only loving the people who live next door to us, we barely even know them, let alone love them!”
Mother reaches across my lap and closes the Bible, then takes my hands in hers. “Anna, dear. You’re getting all worked up over things you don’t understand. This is precisely why it’s a mistake to try to read the Good Book without proper training. We aren’t meant to understand it. We must leave it to our ordained ministers to interpret Jesus’ words for our current times and situations.”
“But that’s exactly why I asked Derk for help. He’s studying at a seminary to become a minister. Working here at the hotel is only his summer job.”
“But he isn’t a minister yet. Listen, we all do the best we can every day to live as we should. God knows none of us is perfect. Now,” she says, releasing my hands and rising to her feet. “I believe it’s nearly time to freshen up and dress for dinner. Shall we go upstairs?”
I stop at the desk for my room key and the clerk hands me a folded note. It’s from Derk. I quickly stuff it inside my Bible so Mother doesn’t see it. I wait until I’m alone in my room to read it.
Dear Miss Nicholson,
I apologize for any trouble I caused today between you and your mother. I feel terrible about the abrupt way we had to part. There is more I would like to say to you, and I know you still have questions for me that I never had a chance to answer. If it isn’t proper for us to meet again, I think you would find my Tante Geesje very helpful and easy to talk to. I’m sure she will meet with you if you are still interested—if that’s even possible now, under the circumstances.
I begin work tomorrow morning at 8:00 (unless I’ve been fired), but I will make a point to arrive an hour earlier if you would like to talk one last time—if you are able to or interested in talking, that is. If nothing else, I would like to say a proper good-bye and wish you all the best in your future. I’ll understand if you’re finished with me and don’t want to see me
again, but on the off-chance that you do want to talk, I’ll be waiting in our usual place at 7:00 am.
Sincerely,
Derk Vander Veen
I refold his note and tuck it inside my Bible again. I don’t understand why my heart is thumping along like a carriage with a broken wheel at the prospect of seeing him. I don’t need to stop and consider whether or not it is wise or proper to meet with him again. I already know that I’ll be awake early tomorrow morning, and that I will go out to speak with Derk. I tell myself it’s because I need to apologize for Mother’s rudeness and thank him for all his help. But it’s also because I want to see him one last time.
I arrive at the bench before he does the next morning. The wood is damp with dew so I remain standing, shivering a little in the cool morning air. The water on Black Lake is motionless, the hotel grounds nearly deserted, and I feel as if the new day is holding its breath, just like I am. The morning is so quiet I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. At last I see Derk approaching, his fair hair bright in the sunlight. When he sees me he breaks into an easy jog.
“Thanks for coming, Miss Nicholson.” He is grinning and breathless from the run.
“Derk, I need to apologize for Mother’s rudeness yesterday.”
He tries to brush it off. “No, that’s not necessary—”
“Yes. It is. She was very rude to you for no reason at all, and I want you to know how sorry I am. You didn’t deserve it. And I insist that you stop calling me Miss Nicholson and call me Anna like all my other friends do.”
His grin widens. “Thank you . . . Anna.”
I glance around nervously, as a few early morning fishermen and hotel workers begin to appear. “Listen, in light of yesterday’s unfortunate incident, I don’t believe it would be wise for us to speak here. If we were to go for a stroll somewhere, I would be able to tell my mother I have been out walking.”
“Are you sure? I mean, would it be proper for us to . . . ?”