by Anna Schmidt
“My father and the Mennonite Disaster Relief teams have done most of the work,” Hester said.
“You know, ever since I joined the Homeland Security committee, I’ve been hearing more and more about the work people from the Mennonite community do whenever there’s a natural disaster. You certainly don’t get the credit you deserve, and I think it might be high time we did something about that. Why, you and your volunteers are every bit as much of a national treasure as any federal or state agency. They just have better marketing.”
Hester glanced pleadingly at Grady, hoping that he would intervene. To her relief, he nodded.
“The Mennonites don’t really believe in blowing their own horn,” he said. “They prefer to perform their good deeds without fanfare.”
“I’m not suggesting they hire a public relations firm,” Liz said. “But …”
“Our reward comes in having served others,” Hester said quietly. She could see that this was in many ways a foreign concept to the congresswoman, as it was to others in the outside world, where award ceremonies were common and highly anticipated.
“You remind me a great deal of my sister,” Liz said. “Rachel was always doing things for others, and never once did she receive the recognition she deserved.”
“Your sister lived in an Amish community. It was not their way to offer or accept praise either.”
“Tell me about it,” Liz said, and then she smiled. “I’m afraid my big sister struggled mightily with our family’s lack of understanding when it came to the lifestyle she chose. And yet,” she said almost wistfully, “I don’t think I have ever known a person more at peace with herself and her life.”
“Then she had her reward,” Hester said, fairly itching to pursue the topic of John’s mother now that Liz had brought it up. But this was neither the time nor the place.
“Oh my, if you’re not careful, I’ll sit here babbling on all afternoon—occupational habit.” Liz gathered her oversized leather purse and swung it onto her shoulder, then glanced at her watch. “I have a flight to catch in two hours. Can I give you a lift back to Pinecraft, Hester?”
“I have my bike, but I’ll walk out with you.”
They said their good-byes, cooed over the sleeping baby, and tiptoed from the room.
“Ah, babies,” Liz sighed as soon as the door closed behind them. “If ever I need a refresher on why I put up with all the political mumbo-jumbo it takes to get anything done in this job, I go visit a hospital nursery and right there is my answer. Harley’s generation will someday inherit the work I do now. Makes a person think.”
“You have no children of your own?” Hester asked as they stepped onto the elevator together.
“Nope. My sister, Rachel, was the earth mother in our family. She should have had a dozen kids.”
“But John has no siblings.”
“Unfortunately, no. Maybe if Rachel had remarried…She certainly had offers.”
The elevator doors slid open, and Hester found that her heart was hammering. It seemed as if God might be giving her the opening she needed to find out what John had meant in saying he had killed his mother.
“I’m over here in the parking structure,” Liz said as they exited the building.
“The bike rack is there as well,” Hester replied, and the two women continued walking together. “John told me his mother died shortly before he moved here. Was she ill?”
“Not a day in her life,” Liz said. “One January evening at dusk, she’d set out in the buggy for some church meeting. Something spooked the horse and it took off. Rachel was a fighter, and she was not about to let that horse have the upper hand, but she didn’t count on a patch of black ice. The horse slid, and she was thrown from the buggy, hit her head on a field rock, and died before the ambulance could get there.”
Okay, so now she had the circumstances, but for the life of her, Hester could not find anything in any of it that would even hint that John had had anything to do with his mother’s unfortunate accident.
Liz looked both ways and jaywalked across the street as Hester hurried to keep up with her. “Was John with her?”
Liz paused by the bike rack. “He found her, and that’s part of his grief. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven himself for not being the one driving that night.” She got the kind of faraway look a person had when lost in memories. Then she shook it off and offered Hester a handshake. “It’s been a real pleasure to meet you, Hester. I know you and your people don’t take to compliments, but know that on behalf of a government that is deeply overextended, you have our deepest gratitude.”
“You’re welcome,” Hester replied, still trying to reconcile what Liz had just told her with the conversation she’d had with John. John had lost his mother just a short time before her own mother had finally succumbed to her illness. In her case she had known death was coming. John had had no such warning.
“Be patient with that nephew of mine, Hester. Rachel’s death hit him pretty hard.”
“I can understand that. My mother died of Lou Gehrig’s disease a couple of years ago.”
Liz pressed Hester’s hand. “Then you know all too well. I’m so sorry for your loss. Still, it’s a blessing that John has landed here, where he can hopefully find the kind of peace and contentment Rachel would have wanted for him. Rachel would say it was no mistake, his being here. It’s God’s will.” Impulsively she bent and kissed Hester’s cheek. “Have to run. Stay in touch,” she added as she waved and headed off past a row of cars, her stiletto heels clicking on the pavement long after she was out of sight.
Hester unlocked her bike. She thought about going to Tucker’s Point. It wasn’t that much farther, but then, it was also close to suppertime, and her father would be wondering where she was. Besides, she had agreed not to seek John out. Mentally she checked the contents of the refrigerator and decided on a cold supper of chicken salad, fresh fruit, and whole grain bread. After all, it might be late September and the humidity had noticeably lessened, but it was still Florida, and it was still hot.
She pedaled fast, enjoying the wind cooling her face and whipping at the hem of her dress. The hurricane and its aftermath seemed light-years away, and yet each day they faced more work to be done. At the center they were still seeing a steady stream of people in need of clothing, bedding, and household goods. Food goods were still pouring in, although not nearly as strongly as they had right after the storm hit.
She thought about Rainbow House. Grady had told her that there was no way the agency would be able to start over. They’d need a building, a couple of them. Before the hurricane, the agency had offered shelter for the homeless, a food and clothing bank, and an educational center. There, people with no other options could come to learn job skills and hopefully find their way out of the ranks of the nameless, faceless men and women who gathered outside the library or along the bay front. Bundled all together, Rainbow House had offered hope to the hopeless. Without those services, where would these men and women—more and more of them in these hard times—go?
You’re a nurse and Mennonite, Hester. These outsiders have their government to care for them. That is their way, not ours, she could practically hear her father reminding her. But hurt was hurt, and these people were in pain. It sure didn’t seem like their government would come to their rescue anytime soon, so where better to focus her skills? Maybe she could organize a walk-in clinic to serve the homeless population. She would speak to Grady about it as soon as he came back to earth and got through his first week of sleepless nights. Maybe there were federal funds available. Maybe John could talk to Liz. Maybe …
Maybe her Dad was right. Her habit of running from one project to the next had escalated in the years since her mother’s death. Surely her grief should have begun to abate in all that time. But it hadn’t. Her work had become her life, her way of escaping things that confused her, like falling in love and marriage and raising a family. Like managing a household instead of a community center. Perhaps in her
zeal to save others she was really avoiding the obvious—the need to save herself.
“I was beginning to worry,” her father said when she wheeled her bike to a stop just outside the front gate. The fence had been repaired along with the house. Only the garden still showed signs of the flooding and wind damage that had accompanied the hurricane.
Arlen was sitting on the front porch, his wire-rimmed glasses pushed onto his forehead, a book in his lap. “How’s the Forrest family?”
“Still a bit dazed but fine. Amy has both her mother and Grady’s mom just chomping at the bit to help, and who can blame them? That baby is so precious.” She tucked a piece of hair that had worked its way free back under her prayer covering, and then cleared her throat. “I spoke with John’s aunt. She was there visiting as well, and we walked out together. She told me the circumstances of his mother’s death.”
“How did that subject come up?”
“We were talking about babies, and she mentioned that John’s mother, Rachel, should have had more than just John.”
“I see.”
“It was an accident, Dad. John was nowhere near her when it happened.” She repeated the details that Liz had told her. “So I think I was right about John feeling guilty that he wasn’t there and couldn’t save her.”
Arlen took several minutes to consider this. “Still, he is a troubled soul, Hester. Perhaps we need to respect his need to work this all out himself.”
“Are you still asking me to stay away from him?”
“I think it best if we let John come to us when he’s ready. Samuel tells me that he is a man of strong faith, and we have to trust that God will guide him through this dark period in his life, as He did you.” Arlen stroked her cheek. “As I recall, after Sarah died you needed your solitude.”
Solomon himself could not have found a more effective way to frame his decision. Arlen had found the one argument for letting John determine who he saw and when that Hester could not debate. For it was true that it had been months after her mother’s death before Hester had opened herself to others. “You’re right,” she said as she began taking ingredients for their meal out of the refrigerator. “I’ll have supper ready in just a few minutes. I thought we’d have cold chicken and—”
“I’m having supper at your grandmother’s,” Arlen said as he followed her into the kitchen. “But you go ahead and fix two plates. I invited Samuel to come by.”
Hester stopped.
“And you won’t be here?”
“No, I told you—”
“Why not have Grandma come here?”
“Because you and Samuel need some time.”
“Dad, I really don’t need you orchestrating my social life.”
“That’s a matter of opinion, liebchen,” he said and tweaked her cheek. “But Samuel’s purpose in coming here this evening is not …” He faltered, clearly trying to find the right words without giving too much away.
“Is not what?”
“Just keep an open mind, Hester.” He took his hat down from the hook next to the door and walked down the front walk. “You know where I’ll be should you need to talk,” he said.
Samuel is going to propose. Hester had never been more sure of anything in her life, nor had she ever been less prepared. She had thought she would have more time. But here it was. The moment of truth, as Jeannie would say. And why not? Perhaps this was the first step on the path to finding her true place in this community. She would still be able to volunteer. Samuel would never ask her to sacrifice that. And she had always dreamed of having children. Yes, perhaps the time had come.
Hester closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself standing next to Samuel as her father pronounced them man and wife. But the man she saw in her imagination was not Samuel Brubaker. It was John Steiner.
She shook off the image. Of course she would think of John. She’d been focused on him ever since he’d made his shocking confession to her that morning. Even the conversation she’d had with his aunt had done little to clear up the mystery, so naturally he would be the man on her mind, she reasoned. It meant nothing.
She set the table and prepared the food, then returned the serving dishes to the refrigerator as she waited for Samuel. The clock her grandfather had built chimed six. Maybe Samuel had gotten cold feet. Please, God, let him get cold feet.
The telephone jangled, startling her.
“Oh, Hester, hi,” Samuel said, his voice unsteady.
“Hi. Dad said you were coming for supper, but maybe he …”
“I’ll be there. I just…Six thirty, okay? We can go out if you’d rather.”
“No. It’s just cold chicken and such. It’ll keep. Samuel, are you all right?”
There was a pause. “I am. I’m out at John Steiner’s place. We got to talking, and I lost track of time. I’m really sorry, Hester.”
“It’s fine,” she assured him.
“John’s sending you some ferns for the garden,” he added. “See you soon.”
“Sure.” As she hung up the phone, she spotted the magazine she’d meant to return to the hospital waiting room. Now she’d have to make a special trip. It was lying on the table next to the phone where she’d placed it so she would remember to take it with her. She picked it up and went out to the porch to wait for Samuel.
Chapter 20
When Samuel stopped by, John was surprised that he was inordinately glad to see the man. He had come to a decision, and he respected Samuel as someone with a level head and as someone who was good at listening before he jumped in with an opinion of his own.
“I’ve decided to sell this place and go home to Indiana,” he said. When Samuel made no comment, he went on, laying out the facts that he’d already gone over dozens of times in the last hour. “The trees won’t come back, and the vegetable beds need to be completely rebuilt. It’ll take several truckloads of good dirt to fill them, and who knows what that’ll cost. I’m pretty close to being broke, and I’m going to need to find work. So even if I could afford to keep working on the place, when would I do it?”
Samuel tipped his hat back with his thumb and looked around. “You truly think of Indiana—the life you left behind—as your home?”
In his calm, quiet way Samuel had identified the one sticking point of John’s plan. For he did not think of Indiana as home. This was his home. This was the place where he had invested everything, where he had formed friendships that he hadn’t even recognized as such until now.
“In time,” he said, “I will. I grew up there, after all.” Wanting to change the direction of the conversation, he looked around. “Of course, before this place can be put on the market, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“You could let us help,” Samuel said. “Arlen and me and the others. Zeke and some of his friends. With so many hands, you would have things back together in no time, and you could stay here…if your mind isn’t made up, that is.”
“I was thinking about that….” John conceded. “Still, there’s the matter of money.”
“Ja. There is that.”
“And even if I get the place back in shape, it’ll still take time before any new crops start to come in.”
“Ja.”
“Selling solves my problem.”
Samuel frowned and set his hat back on his head as he looked directly at John. “Selling will be hard in this economy. Besides, I think you know as well as I do that your lack of income is not the source of your poverty, my friend.”
“I can’t eat or keep a roof over my head without money, Samuel.”
“True. But if you leave this place, give it up as you did your farm and the life you once knew, how will you feed your soul, John? Your spirit?” He climbed into the cab of his camper. “I’ll speak with Arlen about organizing a crew to help you.”
John had never before accepted charity on such a scale. It still went against all he’d set out to do. “No. Let me take care of it,” he said, his throat closing around the words.
&nb
sp; “Das ist gut.” Samuel turned the key. “I’m late for an appointment, but I’ll come back tomorrow, and we can speak about this some more if you’d like.”
John nodded. “I’d appreciate that.”
“Do you mind if I bring Rosalyn with me?”
The question surprised John. “Why?”
“Because she is someone like you who has been terribly wounded both physically and spiritually, and yet she has found her way through it. I just thought that perhaps she might be someone who could listen and understand.”
John moved away, stepping back from the camper, putting distance between himself and Samuel. “I’d really rather just…Could we just keep this between us for now?”