Rachel's Garden

by Marta Perry

  He stopped, his voice choking.

  Rachel’s throat was tight with unshed tears. She knew the rest of the story. The truck, speeding in the driving rain, hitting the buggy, smashing it to pieces. Naomi and the baby dead, Gideon so badly injured that most had thought he’d never recover.

  She put her hand tentatively on his shoulder. “Don’t, Gideon. It wasn’t your fault. You only did what Naomi wanted.”

  He turned, grabbing her hand in a fierce grip. “I knew it was a bad idea. I should have followed my instincts.”

  “Anyone in that situation would have done the same.”

  “Would they?” His eyes were dark with pain. “I don’t know that. I just know that they died, and I survived.”

  And then Ezra had died, and he had survived again. The pain in Gideon’s soul went so deep—what could Rachel possibly say that would be a balm for that?

  Straw rustled. Gideon seemed to choke back a sob as he let her go and turned to the goats. One of the babies was nuzzling at Dolly’s head, pushing her muzzle with an almost angry persistence.

  “Ach, let her be.” She reached toward the kid, but Gideon intercepted her, grasping her hand.

  “Wait.”

  She held her breath, watching. Waiting. The kid bumped Dolly’s muzzle again. The little doe opened her eyes. Wearily, slowly, she moved her head. Looked at her baby. And began to lick him.

  “They’re bonding,” she breathed.

  “Ja.” Gideon moved the other kid up close, and Dolly licked her, too, seeming to gain strength even as they watched. “I think they’re going to be all right.”

  He looked at Rachel then, and she realized that she wasn’t the only one blinking back tears. Gideon’s hand clasped hers again, warm and gentle. Emotion flooded through her.

  She cared for him, more than she’d dreamed possible. He meant so much to her.

  But the wound he’d revealed to her tonight—perhaps that would never heal. And if it didn’t, how would he ever be able to care again?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  You look half-asleep today,” her mother scolded gently the moment she walked in Rachel’s kitchen door the next day. “Were the kinder up sick last night and you all by yourself here?”

  Rachel hugged her. “No, nothing like that. Joseph’s goat kidded, and we feared for a time she might not make it. But it ended well, with twin kids to show for a long night.”

  “You never should have let Joseph know that pet of his was in danger. The poor boy must have been worried out of his mind.”

  Mamm hung her bonnet on the peg and set a container of what looked like whoopie pies on the table.

  “I don’t think he realized how bad she was,” Rachel assured her.

  Mamm’s eyebrows lifted in a question. “You said ‘we.’ I thought you meant you and Joseph.”

  “Gideon Zook was here.” She tucked her packet of pins and her grossmutter’s silver thimble into her bag for the quilting. “Thank the Lord he was. He knew just what to do.”

  The questioning look lingered in her mother’s eyes. “He’s a gut man, he is.”

  “Ja.” Rachel was afraid to say anything more, afraid of betraying feelings that she didn’t want to examine too closely in herself. “It’s kind of you to watch the little ones while Becky and I go to the quilting.”

  Her mother seemed to accept the change in subject. “Ach, you know it’s a pleasure.”

  “You’ll probably be chasing them away from the goats all day.”

  “Well, and I want to see these little twins, too, so that will be chust fine. Is that where they are now?”

  “Joseph and Mary are. Becky is supposed to be getting ready, but it’s taking her a long while.” She went to the hallway and peered up the stairwell, but there was no sign of her daughter. “Becky, come along now. It’s time we were leaving.”

  No response, but she heard a drawer close in the girls’ bedroom. Exasperated, she started up the stairs. “Becky, do you hear me?”

  She reached the bedroom door to find Becky sitting on the bed, one shoe in her hand, the other on the floor. She had obviously been changing, but she’d come to a standstill.

  “Becky, komm. I can’t be late.”

  Becky didn’t look up. “Maybe I should stay home today I could help Grossmammi with the little ones.”

  That was so out of character for Becky, who always wanted to be on the go, that Rachel could only stand and stare at her for a moment. What was going through the child’s mind?

  “I’m sure your grossmutter can manage without you. I thought you’d been looking forward to going. Maybe you can put some stitches in the quilt for Leah’s new baby.”

  Becky stared down at the log cabin design that covered her bed, picking at it with her fingers. “I don’t want to go, Mammi. Can’t I stay home?”

  “You can’t—”

  She caught herself, stopped, and went to sit down on the bed next to her daughter. Something was wrong, and she wouldn’t find out what by giving orders. She schooled herself to patience and tried not to think about being late.

  “Komm, tell me what is going on. You always like to go to Daniel and Leah’s.”

  Becky hunched her shoulders, not looking at her. “I just don’t feel like it today ”

  “Is it because you might be expected to sew? You don’t have to, you know. I just thought you might want to.”

  Becky didn’t respond, but her lower lip jutted out.

  Rachel caught her daughter’s chin and turned her face so that she could see the expression. Pouting, definitely pouting. Becky’s stubborn streak was making itself known.

  “Rebecca, I want an answer now.”

  The pout became more pronounced. “I don’t want to play with Elizabeth.”

  Rachel blinked. “Not play with Elizabeth? Why ever not? Did the two of you have a spat?”

  Becky shook her head, the mulish look intensifying.

  “What then?”

  For an instant Becky clung to her silence, pressing her lips together. Then she shrugged. “I don’t want to be her friend. She told on me.”

  Rachel’s mind produced nothing but a blank slate. Then she realized what the child was talking about. So much had happened since Becky’s misadventure in the barn that it had slid to the back of her mind.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re angry with Elizabeth because she ran for help when you were stuck up in the barn.”

  Becky flushed, as if she knew how ferhoodled that sounded but wouldn’t admit it. “Ja. She told. Friends shouldn’t tell on you.”

  “Becky, you needed help. You couldn’t get down by yourself. If Elizabeth hadn’t gone for help when she did, you might have fallen.”

  Rachel stared at her recalcitrant child with dismay. This had been preying on Becky’s mind, and she hadn’t known it.

  Father, I should have known. Forgive me, and please give me wisdom now. I must have answers for my children, and I can’t seem to find them on my own.

  She put her arm around Becky. Her daughter stiffened, not giving in to the embrace.

  “Sometimes it is right to tell. Sometimes that is what a true friend does.” She sucked in a breath, praying that wisdom came with it. “What if Elizabeth had done what you wanted, and you’d fallen? She would have had to live with that for the rest of her life.”

  Becky did react to that—a tiny, almost undetectable wince.

  “You are holding on to a grudge. You are not forgiving her, even though you know in your heart that she did the right thing.”

  The rigid little figure shook suddenly. “I can’t help it! I know I shouldn’t feel this way, Mammi. I don’t want to. Why do I?”

  Rachel hugged her, longing to make it better even while she knew there wasn’t an easy solution. Every problem with raising children seemed to come back, in the end, to the teaching of faith.

  “Forgiving can be hard. Maybe the hardest thing of all. That’s why it’s so important, and why we have to keep learning that lesson o
ver and over again. Jesus forgives us, and He expects us to forgive others.”

  “I want to.” Becky turned her face against Rachel’s sleeve, wetting it with her tears, her voice muffled. “How can I?”

  Rachel stroked her hair, knowing that she had the answer but hating to reveal so much of her own failure. But maybe that was part of the lesson God had to teach her.

  “You know, for a long time after your daadi died, I had trouble forgiving.” Her throat tightened, not wanting to let the words out. But she had to speak them. “I knew it wasn’t Gideon’s fault that he lived when Daadi died, but I was angry, and I blamed him for it.”

  Becky didn’t speak, but Rachel knew she was listening with all her heart.

  “It was wrong, that not forgiving, and it hurt me even more than it hurt Gideon. I had to find a way to forgive and let go of the hurt.”

  “How, Mammi? How did you do it?” Becky tilted her face back, looking up into Rachel’s eyes, her whole body seeming to yearn for an answer.

  “I talked to Bishop Mose. And you know what he told me? He said that I had to act as if I’d forgiven, no matter what I was feeling. He said I should think of what I would do if I had forgiven, and do that. He said the feelings would follow. And he was right.”

  Becky’s forehead knotted as she struggled to understand.

  Rachel stroked the wrinkles gently with her finger. She had to concentrate on teaching forgiveness now, and leave the difficult lesson of when it was right to tell on a friend for another day.

  “What would you do if you really had forgiven Elizabeth for telling on you?”

  “I would go to the quilting and play with her.” That answer was obvious.

  “Then that is what you must do.”

  Becky hesitated for a long moment. Then she gave a nod, slid off the bed, and fished for her shoe.

  Have I said the right things, Father? More important, have I shown her forgiveness by my actions?

  Forgiving others wasn’t easy. Gideon’s painful confession, never absent from her thoughts, demanded her attention. Gideon had to master an even more difficult task. He had to learn to forgive himself.

  The living room at Leah’s seemed about to burst from the sheer volume of conversation as the women gathered around the quilting frames. Leah’s mamm was there, of course, and one of her aunts. Two of her sisters-in-law, also—Barbara, plump and cheerful, had her six-month-old on a blanket at her feet, while Myra divided her attention between the quilting frame and the boppli who slept in a cradle near her chair.

  Leah had placed herself and Rachel at the second quilting frame with her other sister-in-law, Esther, newly returned from her wedding trip, and one of their running-around friends from school, Naomi Miller.

  Was Leah thinking about the person who wasn’t there as she handed round spools of white thread? Rachel knew how much Leah grieved over her baby sister, Anna, lost to the English world. How happy it would make her if Anna walked in the door right now, to take her proper place around the quilting frame. But it wouldn’t happen, not today

  Rachel thought of Johnny. Maybe never.

  She was not nearly as accomplished a quilter as some of the others were, so maybe she’d best focus on her work.

  Esther glanced toward the other frame. “They are going to have theirs done long before we do, that’s sure.”

  “The fastest quilters are all on one quilt.” Leah sent a teasing look at her mamm’s frame. “Maybe we should make them send one over to us.”

  “Or tie one of Barbara’s hands behind her back,” Naomi said.

  “Ach, I have one hand occupied with the boppli as it is.” Barbara chuckled, her good nature unimpaired by the teasing. “Wait until you all have babes to deal with.”

  Since both she and Naomi had children, that comment was obviously aimed at Leah and Esther. Leah ignored it, her hand swooping smoothly over the surface of the quilt, while Esther’s rosy cheeks grew even pinker. Had Esther come back from her wedding trip pregnant? If so, she didn’t seem inclined to announce it with her mother-in-law sitting at the other frame.

  The chatter proceeded as quickly, as the tiny, almost invisible stitches traced their pattern across the quilt. No one would admit it, but each one wanted her stitches to be as perfect as possible. Not a matter of pride, Rachel hoped. Probably the others felt, as she did, that this baby quilt was a precious gift for the child Leah had never expected to have.

  Rachel caught Leah’s gaze across the frame, the delicate pattern stretched between them. Leah smiled, her eyes glowing with a kind of inward light, and Rachel’s heart lifted. It wouldn’t be long until Leah held that babe in her arms instead of beneath her heart.

  By the time Rachel rose to follow Leah into the kitchen to set out the midmorning snack, the other group, for all their talking, had predictably made more progress than they had.

  “They’re showing us up,” she murmured to Leah as they reached the kitchen.

  “Let them.” Leah glanced back fondly at the women around the frame. “It will give Barbara something wonderful gut to brag about.”

  Anything that kept Barbara focused on her own business instead of everyone else’s was just fine. They both knew that, though they’d try not to say it. Leah exhibited endless patience with her tactless sister-in-law—far more than Rachel would be able to manage, she feared.

  Leah lifted the coffeepot from the stove. “I’m so glad to see Becky and Elizabeth playing happily together again.”

  Rachel’s fingers tightened, crumbling a piece of cinnamon-walnut streusel cake. “Leah, I am so sorry I didn’t even realize that Becky was holding a foolish grudge until today. I should have known. I should have seen.”

  “How could you if she didn’t want you to?” Leah was calmly reassuring. “Now, don’t start blaming yourself for that. Think of all the things we kept from our mamms when we were their age.”

  “I suppose so, but still.” She couldn’t dismiss her sense of guilt that easily. “Sometimes I think that Ezra was much better with the children than I am. I don’t remember having these kinds of problems when he was with us.”

  Leah set the coffeepot on a hot pad and snitched a corner of the coffee cake Rachel had broken, popping it in her mouth. “Of course not. They were smaller then, and their problems were smaller. The bigger they get, the bigger the problems. My mamm always says that, and I’m beginning to think she’s right about a lot of things.”

  “Maybe when we’re as old as our mothers, we’ll be as wise.”

  “You’re already a wise mother.” Leah patted her hand. “Never think that you’re not. You’re just not perfect yet, is all.”

  “That’s certain sure.” Rachel smiled, feeling some of the burden slip away just from sharing it. It was always that way with her and Leah. She hoped their girls would be as fortunate in their friendship. “Will I tell the others to come in now?”

  At Leah’s nod, Rachel went to the doorway to announce that the food was ready. The quilters flowed into the kitchen on a current of talk and laughter.

  Rachel found herself next to Naomi as she took a slice of rhubarb coffee cake.

  “How are the children doing?” she asked in an undertone. Two of Naomi’s three children had the Crigler-Najjar syndrome that affected too many of the Amish, and it was always possible that Naomi didn’t want to talk about it today.

  “Doing well, denke.” Naomi’s smile blossomed. “We are wonderful lucky to have the clinic where your brother works. They are saving lives, I know, and one day perhaps they will find a cure.”

  Rachel’s heart warmed to hear Johnny spoken of so naturally Before she could respond to Naomi, Barbara said her name.

  “Rachel, I hear you and Isaac are on the outs these days.” Barbara’s smile was as cheerful as if she were talking about the weather. “He can be a stubborn one, can’t he?”

  Several women sent sidelong glances toward Barbara and then looked studiously at their plates.

  Rachel shrugged, hoping Barbara
would take the hint.

  “Your raspberry cake is delicious, Barbara,” Naomi interrupted forcefully “You must let us have the recipe.”

  “Ja,” Leah’s mother said. “It’s wonderful gut.”

  Barbara flushed with pleasure. “I will. But I was talking to Rachel about Isaac.”

  “I don’t think Rachel wants to talk about that.” Leah’s mamm tried to rein in her daughter-in-law, and Rachel shot her a look of gratitude.

  “Ach, I’m just saying what everyone is thinking,” Barbara insisted. “Naturally Isaac feels he has a right to interfere as head of the family. But if Rachel were to marry again, then it would be none of his business.”

  She stopped, finally, smiling as if pleased that she’d come up with the solution to all of Rachel’s difficulties.

  Several people tried to say something, anything, to cover the moment. If she’d been dipped into a pot of boiling apple butter, Rachel couldn’t have felt hotter.

  The spatula Leah was holding clattered to the table, startling everyone to silence. “That’s enough.” Leah’s voice snapped in the tone she had used in the schoolroom on the rare occasions when her students had gotten out of line. “Barbara, whether it is Isaac’s business or not, it is certainly not yours!”

  Silence. Stillness. No one moved, no one spoke. Impossible to tell what they were thinking. Shocked, most probably. For Leah, calm, patient Leah, to lose her temper—Rachel could not have been more surprised if the table had cracked under the weight of all those dishes.

  Barbara laughed. An unconvincing sound, but at least she made the effort. “Ach, I’m sorry. I’m talking out of turn again, I guess. Levi’s always telling me to think before I speak, but I can’t get in the way of doing it.”

  “Just keep trying,” Naomi said, surprising them and reducing the tension in the kitchen by a few degrees. “Maybe it’ll take.”

  To give Barbara credit, tactless as she was, she took the rebukes gracefully “Forgive me, Rachel.” She looked as if she wanted to say more but firmly closed her mouth on the temptation.