A Love Undone

by Cindy Woodsmall

  Was Andy seeing someone in Apple Ridge and didn’t want to tell her? That was an awful thought, but surely he would have asked her out by now if he was interested. However, a man like him—so respectful of proper boundaries—would have made it clear if he was seeing someone in Apple Ridge. Every evening as the group sat around the table after dinner, her heart pounded, thinking, Maybe tonight he’ll say, “Jolene, how about a stroll, just the two of us?”

  “Goodness, Jolene, grow some patience, girl.”

  But she didn’t want patience. She wanted a date. She wanted him to trust her enough to tell her about his late wife and his hopes for the future. But he never mentioned her, which probably was a sign that he carried her in his heart, unwilling to share the preciousness of the memories with Jolene. But he was interested in her, wasn’t he? It was subtle, but it did seem so at times.

  She shoved the towels deeper into the rinse water and pulled them out again, dipping them up and down to free them of the soap. By the time she ran the rinsed towels through the wringer, her fingertips looked like pale prunes. While the first load of laundry had been in the washer, she’d scrubbed a week’s worth of Ray’s dirty dishes. Today was her day to get caught up. She’d chosen to stay home for two reasons: it was Saturday, so Ray was home, and Van would be at the farm most of the day, shoeing the last of the horses.

  After dumping the wrung-out items into a basket, she grabbed a clean, dry dishtowel and blew out the kerosene lanterns before leaving the room. Since her bedroom was now on the main floor, she had yet to go upstairs to gather dirty clothes. Gloomy daylight lit her way as she climbed the steps of the old homestead. Once on the landing, she faced dirty, scattered laundry. When had Ray done that? She’d left a note in his room yesterday telling him to gather his dirty laundry and set it outside his room or she’d have to wake him this morning to get it. But his clothes were strewn as if he’d slung them out of his room.

  Open the eyes of his heart, Father. Help him to see You more fully. Unless You build the house, the laborers labor in vain. And I trust that You, who began a good work in Ray, will complete it. The Scripture-based prayers flowed easily, as they did at the beginning and ending of each day.

  Was he awake?

  She barely tapped on his bedroom door, expecting at least to hear the dogs’ feet hit the floor as they jumped off his bed. Their toenails should be tapping against the wooden floor as they waited expectantly to be petted. They were sweet dogs that seemed to love Ray, but she didn’t hear them stirring. She eased open the door.

  The bed was empty. And made.

  He wasn’t one to make his bed unless she insisted, and he liked to sleep until at least nine on Saturdays, so what was going on? She looked at the closet, thinking maybe he’d gotten up early. That’s when she saw him sitting in a chair on the widow’s walk, completely motionless. The dogs hurried her way, wagging their tails as she reached down to pet them.

  “Ray?” She crept just past the doorway of his room, unsure whether she was trying to avoid startling him or angering him. He’d been so hostile since coming home late Tuesday night. It had been almost ten when he’d arrived. Occasionally he came home that late from work, but this time he entered the house without talking to her or stopping by the kitchen to eat. That had never happened before. As he’d hurried up the stairs, she’d rushed out of her main-floor bedroom, the dogs on her heels. She had paused at the foot of the steps and asked if he was okay.

  “Fine,” he’d snapped, but he didn’t turn to look at her or reach to pet the dogs that’d been wriggling around him excitedly. “Just don’t ask! I’m not a baby, Jolene!”

  Despite his words his voice cracked as if he were on the verge of tears. Still, his rudeness had stung. Fresh doubts and questions had assaulted her. Should she charge up the stairs and confront him, quoting Scripture about respect and self-control? Or should she ignore her hurt feelings, reminding herself that love was patient and kind? How many times while raising her siblings had she cried out to God, asking those kinds of questions? Usually her heart seemed to say that she needed to remain gentle and let God do His work. She remembered relying on her fail-safe entry into her three younger brothers’ worlds over the years—food. “I made your favorite dinner at Lester’s and brought home a small casserole for you. Have you eaten?”

  He’d shaken his head, his back still to her. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You sure? I made it especially for you.”

  He hadn’t responded to her question. Instead, he and the dogs had disappeared into his bedroom. A moment later she heard the lock turn. Since that night he’d left the house before she got up in the morning, and he was in bed asleep, or pretending to be, when she returned from Lester’s around eight.

  She’d asked Josiah about it, and he’d said it was growing pains that involved reconnecting with that Teena girl he’d met a couple of years ago and having to pay the price for some mistakes at work.

  Okay. That was a lot for Ray to process, and she wanted to give him space to do so without her hovering, but was that all that was going on? It didn’t add up. If those were the issues, why was he particularly determined to shut her out? Is that what he needed to do to become the man God intended?

  “Ray?” She went to the widow’s walk.

  He stared into the distance, not even blinking.

  Needing to see his face, she moved to the railing and turned toward him. The redness of his eyes and the circles under them indicated he hadn’t gone to bed at all.

  She put the dishtowel on her shoulder and leaned back, trying to look relaxed. “I’m off all day today. Would you like to do something? Maybe walk into town and buy ice cream for breakfast or hitch a buggy and search for yard sales?”

  He said nothing. His eyes looked so empty. She’d seen every imaginable mood reflected before, but she’d never seen hollowness staring back at her. When angered, he might need a few hours to calm down, but then his thoughts became adultlike again. And since he’d turned sixteen, he’d had times of avoiding her. Severing the apron strings is what she called it. That emotional need also made sense. And she’d seen him in the aftermath of having done something impulsive and unwise, but what had triggered such despair?

  Panic started to rise in her. What if she couldn’t figure it out and help him? God, help me draw him out of himself. Show me, please.

  She sat on the weathered old chest he used for a coffee table and waited. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the wind kicked up, stirring the green leaves and swooshing the fallen dogwood petals across the ground. She waited.

  And waited. Praying. Hoping. Feeling desperate. The emotions she felt right now were so familiar. After his accident she’d feared he would die or be crippled physically and mentally. A therapist worked with her so she could work with Ray between visits. But none of the progress had come easily. Then the trauma of their parents’ deaths set him back for years, and she’d been warned that he could at some point suffer posttraumatic stress disorder from it. Is that what was going on?

  Finally he blinked. “I wish I could fade into nothing.”

  “I would miss you so much I couldn’t breathe if you did that. You just don’t know.”

  He barely shook his head, as if unable to shake free of a reality she knew nothing about. “It’s gone.”

  “Is it?” She didn’t know what was missing, but the health-care providers said that when he seemed folded up inside himself, she should use less direct questions, ones that showed interest without pressing for new information. Her goal was to draw out the problem, like drawing water from a well.

  He stared at the horizon. “I don’t have the two pennies I need. Everything is gone, all but Mamm’s whispers. Even after being dead all these years, she won’t get out of my head.”

  Two pennies? What was that about? Jolene wanted to kneel in front of him and engulf him in a hug, but she stayed seated instead, playing the relaxed sister. They were so much more than siblings, and it was hard to pretend she didn�
��t have an overwrought mother’s heart toward him. “What does Mamm say?”

  He shook his head, tears forming in his eyes. They remained silent.

  Had he done something impulsive that he didn’t want to tell her about? Two years ago he’d overreacted when Hope returned home from school upset that the teacher had embarrassed her in front of the class. Jolene knew his emotions were raw from his own years of being teased and embarrassed in school. After learning that the teacher had hurt Hope’s feelings, Ray had quietly slipped out of the house and on an impulse had vandalized the school, spray-painting a message to the teacher on the blackboards and oversize maps. That was on a Friday, and by Saturday, when he was calm and before anyone knew the damage had been done, he went to the bishop and confessed his actions. He had to use most of his savings to replace the damaged items.

  Thunder rumbled quietly, and it began to sprinkle, the tiny raindrops hitting the lush spring leaves of the dogwood and pattering an odd rhythm. The smell of rain surrounded them—not the springtime fresh aroma, but the scent of asphalt and rotten eggs. How could a gentle rain sometimes carry the aroma of flowers and promises and at other times reek of sulfur and decay?

  Ray’s lips parted, and he whispered. Chills ran over her. He couldn’t have said what she thought she heard. Moving from the chest to kneel on the floor in front of him, she looked into his teary eyes. Had he said that Mamm called him useless?

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “She’s right, and you’re the liar. I think I’ve known that my whole life, but until this week I kept trusting in all the hope talk you do so much of. I wanted to believe you over her.”

  Dear God, no. Memories rushed back to her. She never dreamed that Ray knew what Mamm had said the day their aunt was here and Mamm fell apart outside Ray’s room. What was Jolene supposed to have done? Ask him if he overheard their Mamm saying she wished he’d died when the lightning struck?

  She reached for his hand, but he pulled away.

  “No, Jolene. I can’t run from the truth anymore, not after Tuesday.”

  Guilt seemed to be eating at him. “Did something happen this week, Ray?”

  He fidgeted with his thumbs, staring at them. “Can’t tell you. But it’s all gone, and I don’t have the two pennies I need.”

  What two pennies? She clutched his hand in hers. “Mamm didn’t mean it, Ray. She wanted you to be free for your sake. She was at her breaking point emotionally, so weary from watching you suffer, so afraid what would happen to you as an adult if the worst of the doctors’ reports were true.”

  He stood, pulling free of her. “You are a liar, Jolene Keim!”

  “I’m not lying. I promise. You were barely able to move, and she lost all hope for just one night. That’s all. She ran from the house crying, but before dawn she felt God whispered to her soul, assuring her that you were far from useless regardless of whether you ever walked or talked again. She saw you as He did.”

  “You’re just saying that!”

  “I’m not. Do you remember being called anything other than Ray?”

  He shook his head.

  She stood, grabbing his shoulders. “I have something to show you. Will you wait right here?”

  He wiped his eyes and gave a half nod. Jolene ran downstairs and pulled out a metal box from under her bed. The dishtowel still hung from her shoulder, and she ignored it while fumbling to find the document. Hugging it to her chest, she ran upstairs. “Look.” She unfolded the birth certificate. “Your given name is Roy, but when you were a toddler, Mamm started calling you Ray, her ray of sunshine that was straight from God. I fully agreed, and before long we had everyone calling you Ray. After she spent that night in the field crying out to God, she discovered a new truth: that whether you could walk or talk or attend school or work when you grew up, you”—Jolene patted his chest—“were still a gift of warmth and light. Your spirit was still alive and well. It was hampered by the physical, and she said you were a different kind of ray of sunshine, like one that breaks through the stormy clouds rather than one that sparkles off the morning dew. But God had assured her that you were our Ray.”

  His eyes softened for a moment before regret and pain registered on his face. He moved to his bed and plunked down.

  Again she knelt in front of him, gazing into his eyes. “ ‘Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, shall be able to separate you from my love.’ That’s what Mamm used to say to you every day after that day. Remember?”

  When Mamm died, Jolene took up saying it as she tucked him in bed every night.

  A couple of years ago he’d insisted she stop saying it, because it made him feel like a little child when he was trying so hard to grow up and be a man.

  “I remember you saying it, but I don’t recall Mamm saying it.”

  “She did. Everything I just said is true. I wouldn’t lie to you. Can you trust me on that?”

  He seemed to mull over her words. Then he went to his dresser and pulled out a small rectangular strip of paper and handed it to her. It looked like a receipt from a bank.

  She studied the faint print, unable to make out the date stamped on it. “What is it?”

  “I did something really bad, and I had to empty my savings.”

  Not again. Her heart seemed to stop, and taking a breath was impossible. No matter how awful his week at work was, the money he was able to save consoled him. And now, for all his days, months, and years of faithful sacrifice, he had no savings? “Why?”

  She listened as he poured out his heart, telling her how Old Man Yoder treated him whenever Uncle Calvin wasn’t there. He told about stealing the man’s dogs and later breaking his windows. Then he explained about the cash he had to give Yoder.

  “You had to give him everything you’ve saved for the past two years?” He earned seventeen thousand dollars a year before taxes were taken out. He gave half of what he brought home to help with the bills, and he saved almost every penny of the other half.

  He nodded. “But for that I get to keep the dogs.”

  As with the schoolhouse incident, Ray needed to pay restitution, and he once again needed to grasp the full weight of the crime. The dogs were old mutts that would live only a few more years. Ray had given Yoder two years of savings—around fifteen thousand dollars? That sounded more like extortion to her. “Those must’ve been some really expensive windows.”

  “I guess so because Van had to match the money I gave Yoder.”

  “What! Van?”

  “He showed up and stopped me from breaking any more of the man’s windows, and then we went to see Yoder together to make a deal so he wouldn’t call the police … or you.”

  Her blood ran hot. She didn’t care if Van’s motives were good. He had no right to keep Ray’s vandalism from her. If she’d known that Ray broke the windows or stole the man’s dogs, she would’ve searched for a solution with consequences that didn’t involve paying extortion money to Old Man Yoder. Was there a way to get some of that money back?

  “That happened on Tuesday?”

  He nodded.

  That explained a lot about Ray’s recent behavior. “Just you and Van?”

  “And his brother James. He’s one of guys I’ve been hanging out with, and he helped me free the dogs.”

  Why would James, who was a good three years older than Ray, help her brother break the law to acquire two old mutts? Great … this was just great. She also didn’t like Ray’s use of the phrase free the dogs. “You mean James helped you steal them, right? Because you took what didn’t belong to you.”

  Ray shrugged, but he seemed to have little remorse concerning the man’s dogs. One thing was for sure—he looked miserable with guilt for the rest of what he’d done and its consequences.

  Jolene couldn’t process her anger at Van right now. She took a breath, trying to focus on the most important thing—her brother. “I don’t understand about the two pennies.”

  Ray stared at the bank receipt while he told
her about his recurring dream. His dream made sense to her. He didn’t believe he had what it took to meet the demands of life. He came up short, and no one around him could fix it even if they had the resources to do so. “Ray, none of us has all it takes to meet the demands of life. We do our best, and then we borrow pennies and give pennies as needed. Not only is there no rule against it; God asks us to carry one another’s burdens.”

  “I can’t do my job, Jolene. I’m horrible at it, and no one can carry my burden enough to make up for that.”

  Guilt squeezed in on every side. She should’ve seen the extent of his hatred for the job and how it made him feel like a complete failure. It’d been easy to brush off how much he struggled to do cabinetry work. During supper he would share interesting aspects of his job. When they rode past houses he’d been in because of the work he did, he’d sounded pleased and talked about how he’d helped. “If you’re that unhappy in your job, then we should’ve begun a search for something else a long time ago.”

  “That wouldn’t help. I’m not good at anything.”

  “I know you believe that, but I don’t.”

  “You live on hope, Jolene, and you believe that love is enough. But the world doesn’t operate like that. Work is based on skills and being smart, and I come up short every day.”

  “There have to be answers, Ray. We just don’t know what they are. But we’ll search for them, and even if we have to leave the state to continue that search, we won’t stop looking until we find a job that fits who you are.”

  “You would do that for me?”

  “Absolutely. I wish I’d realized much sooner that you needed us to do that.” She wished he could see past his debilitating self-hatred. “Besides, I’m not doing it just for you. When you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  He stared at her, and she imagined he was trying to put together what she meant. Slowly, like watching pastries turn a golden brown, she saw his hurt and confusion give way to hope and gratitude. He stood and swooped her into his arms as he sobbed. “I’m sorry, Jolene.”