An Unexpected Match

by Gayle Roper

  Like he’d willingly switch places.

  Today was the first time he’d come since he got out of the Army. He’d put it off as long as he could, but his conscience finally got to him.

  Lord, I could do without such a tender spirit, You know? Then he could feel free to ignore his father. He could become just like his mother and brother.

  “So you’re finally going to do something worthwhile with your life,” Dad had said when Rob, searching for conversation material, mentioned that tonight was to be his first night of class.

  Something worthwhile. He’d stared at his father, amazed as always at the man’s gall. Here he was, sitting behind the walls of a prison, but he still had the nerve to demean his son and his accomplishments over the last twelve years. It was but one more indication of the scope of the man’s self-delusion. Even in his present, highly circumscribed circumstances Eugene Lanier saw himself as the exception to the rule, the brilliant one with the right to look down on all lesser beings including his son.

  Oh, Lord, please don’t let me take after my father! How many times through the years had he prayed that prayer?

  “It’s one of the last three classes I need for my degree,” he told his father.

  “Big deal. Second-rate Christian college.” The scorn scalded the air. “You should have gone to Williams as we planned.”

  And whose fault was it he hadn’t? Not that Dad would ever acknowledge his responsibility for the family finances going south, one of the many ramifications of his actions. Rob took deep breaths to tamp down his anger.

  “Whatever you think, serving my country was an honorable way of life, and I’m proud to have done so.” He looked around the lounge. “It’s certainly a better choice than those you made.” He let his contempt seep into his words and immediately felt petty. He was a better man than that.

  Though his father’s face flushed, he expressed no regret. Rob wasn’t surprised. Even before his arrest, the man made no apologies to anyone, not to his wife, his sons, his business associates, and since his arrest certainly not to the many people he’d bilked. That was the worst part for Rob, the least honorable part.

  Rob glanced in the rearview mirror again. Just looking at the prison through the rain-streaked back window gave him a creepy feeling. It irked him that his conscience drove him to visit a man who wasn’t the least bit pleased to see him.

  Slough it off, Lanier. The man’s not worth it.

  He shook himself much like Charlie, the big brown oaf of a dog he’d rescued from the shelter two weeks ago. Somehow the thought of Charlie cheered him.

  He glanced at his watch and depressed the accelerator. If he didn’t hurry, he wouldn’t have time to eat before class. He needed some good Mennonite cooking to replace the bitter aftertaste of the visit with Dad. Pork and sauerkraut, real mashed potatoes, creamed dried corn, shoofly pie, sweet tea. Rob smiled in anticipation.

  Of all the things he’d missed in the Army, home cooking was at the top of his list, especially on his deployments. While the other guys dreamed of hamburgers and steak, he yearned for ham loaf and whoopie pies.

  His phone rang, and he pushed the button on the steering wheel that activated it.

  “A very cool feature,” the salesman had said of the hands-free device.

  Very cool indeed. “Hello.”

  “Rob. Where are you?”

  Rob took a deep breath. His headache wound itself tighter, and he felt ashamed of his reaction to his mother’s voice. He tried to sound upbeat. “Mom. How are you?”

  “Fine.” But the abrupt tone said differently.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, aware that was the time-bomb question.

  “I am furious! Livid! Do you know no one will give me a loan so I can buy a car like yours?”

  No surprise there, either at her desire for a new car like his or at the lack of a loan. She was an if-you’ve-got-it-so-should-I person of the first magnitude whose credit rating was in the cellar. Loans didn’t magically appear, no matter how much your selfish nature knew you deserved your latest craving.

  “Two things, Mom.” Rob forced himself to talk in a mild tone. “One, you have a very nice car. You don’t need another one.” He knew this because he’d bought her the silver Cruze three years ago. He’d just finished paying it off.

  She made a sniffing sound. “It’s tiny.”

  “It’s more than adequate for one person.”

  “Then why did you buy yourself a big SUV?”

  It wasn’t that big, but she’d never grasp that fact in her current mood. She was distressed because it wasn’t the size of a Cruze. “I’ve got Charlie.”

  “You bought a car for a dog.” He heard the disbelief.

  “My money, my choice, Mom—which reminds me of reason number two you’re getting a no on the loan. You don’t have the money to pay for a new car.”

  “And whose fault is that?” she snapped.

  Rob rolled his eyes. He knew the answer as well as she did.

  “Your father—” she began.

  He cut her off. “I’m not going to talk about him with you, Mom. We’ve covered the topic like sweet on sugar. Enough.”

  “But you don’t understand me and my pain.”

  She was right; he didn’t. He’d tried, but he couldn’t understand remaining a victim for twelve years. If she’d get a job, it would pull her out of her self-pity and dependence, not that she wanted to hear that again any more than he wanted to hear a rant against his father. “Talking about Dad upsets both of us and doesn’t fix a thing.”

  He heard her sniff of disapproval. After a couple of beats of silence during which he suspected she was analyzing why he wasn’t going along with her wishes, she said in a wheedling voice, “Well, you could—”

  “No, I couldn’t. I have to pay for my own.”

  Her anger at his comment hummed down the line, but he didn’t apologize. Sometimes he almost missed the snapped commands and uncompromising orders from his superior officers the past twelve years. At least they hadn’t been loaded with attempted manipulation and hidden meanings.

  When she finally spoke again, her voice was ice. “I suppose you spent the afternoon laughing with the reason I don’t have any money.”

  He couldn’t remember the last time he laughed with his father. It certainly hadn’t been this afternoon.

  “Mom,” he warned, refusing to be drawn into a bash Eugene Aldrich Lanier conversation. Not that he blamed her for her anger. One morning she’d been rich and pampered, her every wish granted. The next her husband was in jail and everything she thought was hers was whisked away. Still, twelve years was more than enough time to move on.

  He looked at the green Pennsylvania countryside rushing by, so lush and lovely after the arid brown of Afghanistan and the debilitating heat of Iraq. Home. And he was in one piece. He smiled in spite of everything.

  “Rob? Rob, are you still there?”

  He rubbed at the tension behind his left eye. She represented home too. “I’m here, Mom. Just thinking.”

  “You shouldn’t think during a phone call. Dead air. You need to clear your mind of your bad thoughts.”

  He looked at the wonderful tall trees, deciduous and conifer, flashing light and shadows over him like a strobe. “Who said they’re bad thoughts?”

  “Of course they’re bad thoughts. You saw your father.”

  “I did. First time in a long time.”

  “I told you not to go. I told you he isn’t worth your time. I told you to forget him like he forgot us.”

  “Goodbye, Mom. Gotta go.” He reached for the off button.

  The car came out of nowhere.

  One minute he was driving along with no one in sight; the next a gray bullet disguised as a late model Jeep Wrangler rounded the curve in his lane, aimed right at him. Even as his heart went wild with the awareness of the coming crash, he saw the driver look up from fiddling with something—his CD player? his phone?—and watched the man’s eyes go wide.
The driver wrenched his wheel, trying to swerve back onto his side of the road. The car’s skidding action threw up a great gout of muddy water that covered Rob’s windshield and robbed him of his vision.

  Rob pulled his wheel to the right reflexively to get out of the car’s path even as he hit the brakes. The cinder and mud shoulder was narrow, edged with a metal guardrail that was supposed to keep cars out of the deep gully beside the road. As he crunched on the cinders, he tried to see through the muddy window.

  Help, Lord! The arrow prayer was as ardent as any uttered in the field.

  As he waited helplessly for the arc of the wipers to clear the windshield, he clutched the wheel with all the intensity he’d gripped his rifle as he walked through remote Afghan villages just waiting for a Taliban sniper or an IED to get him.

  Instead of a terrorist round in a rocky mountain stronghold, it was going to be a gray bullet on a Pennsylvania road in a rain storm.

  Come on, Lord! Not fair!

  In the excruciating seconds of blindness, Rob heard the scrape of metal as the car slid along the guardrail and the skid of his tires on cinders as his wheels sought for traction. He struggled to keep control of the bucking wheel. How long was the strip of guardrail? Was there time to stop before it ran out and he went over the side?

  The wipers cleared the window at the same time the brakes grabbed. He slowed and then stopped, still plastered against the guardrail. The silence was intense as he sat, head dropped back against the rest, heart thundering. He felt limp even as he felt he’d pop out of his skin.

  “Rob! Rob! What’s going on? Rob!”

  It was Mom. He’d never had time to push the off button.

  “Hey, Mom,” he managed.

  “What happened? Are you all right? I heard terrible noises.”

  “Car in the wrong lane, but I’m okay. Can’t say the same for my car, but I’m fine.”

  “Thank heavens! I don’t know what I’d do without you!”

  He smiled to himself. Maybe she cared after all.

  “Who’d take care of me if you got hurt? Or killed! How would I manage? How would I get along?”

  He gave a mental shrug because he was too weary to give a real one.

  “The whole time you were in the Army, I just knew you were going to get killed. I knew I’d be left on my own with no one to care. Certainly your brother would be no help. He never is. I knew—”

  He cut in. “I’ve got to check the car, Mom. See you soon.” And this time he definitely depressed the off button.

  He sat, watching a red-tailed hawk alight in the dead top of a nearby tree and stare down at him. He sketched a wave at the bird. “I’m fine. Really. Fine.”

  The hawk flew away.

  When he felt his legs would hold him, he pushed his door open and climbed out.

  The Jeep Wrangler was nowhere in sight. Surprise, surprise.

  Muttering under his breath, he climbed out into the rain. He walked around the back of the car to examine the damage to the passenger side. The whole length of the car was scraped and dented, the paint scoured off down to the metal. The guardrail wasn’t looking too good either, but it had done its job and kept him from going into the gully. He peeked over the side. Long way down.

  He sighed. “Okay, Lord. It’s not that I’m unappreciative, but the car’s only three weeks old! I haven’t even had to wash it yet.”

  Chapter 3

  All the people seemed to be funneling down one hall. Rachel followed, looking for the stairs, her closed umbrella dripping down her leg. She needed to find room 203. She would be going there for an hour and a half every Friday and Monday night at 6:30 for the next three months.

  She trailed three girls in shorts up a flight of stairs, her shoes squeaking on the tile floor. All those long legs ahead of her made her swallow. And the scoop necks of their tops. The one girl’s bra straps showed, but she didn’t seem to care. The three giggled as they walked down the hall and entered room 203. Her classmates.

  She was used to seeing and talking to Englisch people, especially at her parents’ produce stand where she worked all summer. Still, seeing the girls here, so confident, so blatantly immodest by her standards made her feel terribly out of place.

  She looked down at her denim skirt and white blouse. They’d felt so Englisch in Max’s bedroom, but now they looked so conservative compared to the shorts and tops of the others. She’d gotten it wrong in spite of her care.

  But her Amish clothing would have been wrong too. It would have attracted attention, something she did not want. In some strange way she would be a symbol if she was the lone Amish person present, and she didn’t want that. It didn’t seem right to expose herself and, by extension, her people to the searching eyes and prying questions an Amish woman in a college class would cause.

  So she’d just have to feel awkward in her Englisch clothes. She wasn’t here to impress anyone. Impressing people was so Englisch. Humility and blending with the community were the Amish way, her way. There was a lot to be said for everyone dressing alike. You always felt right. You always were right. You never worried about being wrong.

  She paused in the doorway, telling her heart to slow down and her skin to stop prickling. She wanted to feel brave but knew she was failing miserably.

  A lady she assumed was the teacher stood at the front of the class studying something on the lectern. The woman wore slacks and a silky red oversized shirt over a scoop-necked top, but the scoop wasn’t as low as the girls’. She wore trendy red glasses that made her look like she controlled her world. Lucky woman.

  “Excuse me.” A man had come up behind her, his tousled hair and wrinkled shirt showing clearly he’d gotten caught in the downpour. He didn’t look happy, but at least he wasn’t sixteen like most of the class. Not that they were really sixteen. More like eighteen. It was a basic comp class required of everyone.

  Rachel moved into the room to let the man pass. Without another glance at her, he took a seat in the back row. There was an empty chair in the row ahead of him next to the girl who’d driven that red Smart car. Rachel took a deep breath and forced herself to take one step, then another.

  She’d be okay. She would. She had to be okay. This was her dream come true. And Max was still waiting outside. She could still leave if her tiny dab of courage failed. She could go back to being who she’d been all her life. She knew her place there, knew what was expected of her. In this room she had no idea.

  She blinked. She had a choice. She could give up her dream. She could go back to feeling intellectually stifled. Half alive. Forced into a mold that didn’t fit.

  If only she wasn’t loved in that mold. If no one cared what she did, this would be so much easier. If no one cared, no one would be hurt if she was discovered. But they did care. They’d always cared, and when Aaron died, they’d been so wonderful to her. If they knew she was here, they would be so distressed.

  She took a seat by the Smart car girl. She pulled her AlphaSmart out of her backpack and put it on the desk. When she’d discovered the battery-operated little word processor, she’d almost cried. She didn’t have to feel sinful when she wrote on it. Granted it didn’t do anything but allow her to write, so she still had to go to Max’s to print her material or to access the Internet, but she loved the little machine for the clear conscience it allowed her.

  The Smart car girl looked at her and smiled. Perky was the word that came to Rachel’s mind. It was probably the short pixie hair, the button nose, and the small body.

  “Hi. I’m Amy Steiner.”

  Rachel’s return smile felt stiff. “I’m Rachel Beiler.”

  “My first college class.” Amy looked around the room. “I’m nervous. I don’t know anyone.”

  Somehow knowing someone else was unsure of herself made Rachel relax. “Me too. Nervous and first class. I don’t know anyone either.”

  “But now you do. You know me.” Amy beamed. “BFFs before you know it.”

  Uncertain what a BFF was, Ra
chel’s stomach turned. “Sounds good.” What else could she say?

  “It does, doesn’t it? I always wanted a best friend, but I wasn’t allowed one.”

  Okay, the BF was for best friend. The other F would become obvious eventually. At least she hadn’t committed herself to anything obscene or immoral. But Amy had no close friends? Rachel couldn’t fathom it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That must have been hard. Lonely.”

  Amy made a face. “Long story. Too long and depressing for just meeting someone.”

  “Okay.” Rachel became busy with her knapsack.

  “That sounded very impolite.” Amy frowned as she berated herself.

  “Not impolite at all,” Rachel assured her. “Sometimes you just don’t want to talk about things, especially with a stranger.”

  “Too true.” Amy flipped open her laptop and turned it on. “But we’re not strangers. We’re BFFs. What’s that thing?” She gestured at the AlphaSmart.

  Apparently being BFFs allowed you to ask anything you wanted. “It’s a word processor.”

  “Like a computer?”

  “A limited one. It works on three double A batteries.”

  “How long do the batteries last?”

  “Hundreds of hours.”

  “No kidding! How cool is that.”

  “Cool indeed.”

  Amy spun in her seat to face the row behind. “Hi. Did you ever see anything so cute in your life?”

  “What?” It was the unhappy wet guy.

  “Show him, Rachel.” She pointed to the AlphaSmart.

  Rachel turned and held up the machine.

  “Double A battery-operated computer,” Amy announced. “Lasts forever. Genius.”

  He grunted what could have been agreement or “leave me alone.” Amy apparently heard agreement.