At first it was simply entertainment for Carl, to sit and listen to this preacher ruminate about what was going on in his church. And then, gradually, to his great surprise, Carl actually began to…care.
It was obvious to him that George genuinely loved the people he worked with. He talked about them with such sympathy and understanding that Carl found himself being drawn into their lives each time George came to visit, and he thought about them long after George left. It was almost like those television soap operas his mother had watched so long ago.
Carl began to care whether old Mrs. Smith’s milk cow got over its bad case of mastitis or if the boy with leukemia at George’s church survived. He listened to George tell about a couple who finally received the baby they had been praying for and how proud and happy they were the first time they brought that baby to church. It was an education to hear about someone who wanted a child that desperately. In his world, children had been a bother that brought in a small income from the government.
George told him about the trip where he and four other members of his church had gone to the orphanage in Haiti and how the church had spent time gathering school and medical supplies for the children. George told him about the street kids he’d seen there and how they had broken his heart. Carl did not tell him that he identified more with the street children than he did the adults who had traveled there to help.
Every time George visited, it was like looking through a window into a world that Carl had never experienced or knew existed.
He found himself wondering about these people he had never met and asked about specific ones when George came. He knew he would never meet any of them, of course, but in a small way, George’s church became a sort of surrogate family.
Then the unthinkable happened. After months of George’s visits, he brought a letter with him…from a person Carl had never heard of.
One of the Amish sisters of the man he’d killed had written to him. It turned out that she was a cousin of George’s, a woman named Bertha Troyer, and she was the “friend” who had asked George to come to the prison and see him.
Bertha said in the letter that it had been a long, hard struggle for her, requiring much prayer, but she had finally been able to forgive Carl for his part in her brother’s death and she wanted him to know.
It was a short letter, penned on old-fashioned stationery with pictures of strawberries across the top. There was no return address on it—which was wise in a prison where inmates liked to grasp hold of tenderhearted people on the outside and turn a situation to their advantage.
It was the first handwritten letter Carl had ever received. He took it back to the cell with him. It was not exactly scented, but it smelled differently than the institution where he lived. More…wholesome. He studied the pictures of strawberries. It was pretty stationery, and there wasn’t much in prison that was pretty. He laid the letter on the pillow of his bunk and liked the way it looked there, so bright and cheerful against all the grayness. Bertha’s handwriting was firm and flowing. He thought it was pretty also.
It took him a long time to absorb the fact that she had forgiven him. He wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly. Forgiveness. But it felt good to think about it.
It was another year before George brought him a second letter. It was then Carl realized that she had written him both times on the anniversary of her brother’s death.
The second letter was also on nice stationery. This time it was some kind of purple flower on a vine. George said it was called a morning glory. Carl liked the name, and he liked the flower. This letter included a story about her brother as a child. Her brother had gotten a beagle puppy when he was only six. He and that dog had grown up together and been inseparable. The dog had slept for years at the foot of his bed.
The letter wasn’t meant to harm Carl in any way. It sounded more like the musings of someone who had simply loved and grieved that little boy. She said she had been thinking a lot about her brother today and that story had come to mind. She ended the letter by telling him once again that she forgave him.
Carl wasn’t sure how he felt about the letter. Having the man he killed become real to him did not feel good, and yet he was intrigued by the story. He saved this letter too.
When he got back to his cell, he folded up the first letter with the strawberries and put it away. For the past year, it had lain open on the metal shelf where he kept his things, so he could see it. The letter with the pretty morning glories took its place. The only difference was that this time he put the last page on top so he could make out the words “I forgive you,” which were printed in large block letters at the bottom.
Every night before he went to sleep, Carl glanced at those words.
Over the years, in a place where one did not accumulate many material possessions, he religiously protected the small but growing stack of letters.
Although he was a quiet loner who kept to himself, the men with whom he was incarcerated learned that, if provoked, Carl could be a vicious and merciless fighter who gave no quarter. It earned him the reputation of being a little bit crazy. Crazy was not a bad thing to be in a prison. The other men tended to leave alone those who were unpredictable. And as Carl moved from cell to cell, his roommates soon learned that the small stack of envelopes he kept bundled together was something that could not be touched.
With nothing else to do or think about, there was some speculation among the men over who had sent the letters to Carl. A mother? A sweetheart? A sister? When asked, all Carl would tell them was that they were from a friend.
He learned from the continuing letters that the little girl in the pink party dress who had haunted his sleep for years had graduated from the police academy. He learned about the beating she had received the day she tried to break up a domestic dispute—and how Bertha and her sisters had nursed her back to health.
Carl burned with rage when he read that letter. How dare someone hurt that brave little girl! Even though Carl was aware that she was a grown woman now, the only image he had of her was the one where she had taken a wide-legged stance and pointed a gun straight at him. That tiny little thing was determined to protect her daddy. The thought of someone hurting her became an obsession with him.
After she sustained that beating, Carl asked about her every time George came to visit. He wanted to know if she was better, if her broken bones were mending. It wasn’t until George was able to tell him that she was healed and back to work that Carl began to calm down. The little girl wasn’t hurting anymore. That was good. He could relax.
The fact that he could worry so much about another person’s welfare would have been an impossibility years earlier—but Carl had changed. Helping heal so many broken dogs over the years had slowly given him the ability to care about people as well. At least he cared about George and the old Amish woman who wrote him those letters. He also cared about the courageous little girl who had tried to protect her daddy.
Carl had only been incarcerated for two years when a deputy warden at the Mansfield prison started the Tender Loving Care program. Carl thought the new program was a bad joke when he first heard the name. There was nothing tender or loving within the walls of that institution.
Then he found out it involved working with abandoned dogs and he suddenly knew what he wanted to do with his life—or at least for as long as the program lasted. Carl had never wanted to do anything as badly as be accepted into that program.
It wasn’t easy to get into it. A prisoner had to have a good record. This was difficult because Carl had an anger issue that could flare up at any moment, and the prison staff knew it. With the goal of the program in mind, Carl taught himself the skill of having enough self-discipline to keep from lashing out when he felt his rights or personal space had been violated.
He finally confessed to George about how badly he wanted to join the dog handlers and how hard he was trying to keep his anger under control. George said to keep working on his good behavior and he would see what h
e could do. It was the first time Carl had let his guard down with George and allowed him to see a heartfelt need. Carl was surprised when the first thing George did was bow his head and pray that God would cool Carl’s anger and help him make it into the program.
Carl had never heard anyone pray for him before, at least not like George prayed. George talked to God like they were friends. Carl didn’t know if it was the prayer or the memory of George praying for him that kept his temper in check—but a small miracle happened. He made it into the program and his life changed. Everything changed.
As he healed those abused dogs, he found something within himself healing as well. Every sentence of praise he gave his dogs, every affirming word, even the small rewards for good behavior, was as if he was giving something to himself. When those dogs responded by loving him with their whole hearts—that love washed over him like a warm, comforting bath.
As he learned dog-training skills, Carl began to have something of his own to contribute to his conversations with the preacher. George’s wife had gotten a cocker spaniel puppy and was having trouble knowing how to housebreak it. Now it was Carl, with several months of training and experience, who had valuable advice to give, and it was George who was grateful to get it.
It was a high-octane feeling, one Carl had never experienced. For the first time in his life, he had something of value to give to someone else.
At first, it was incredibly hard to give up his dogs when they were ready, but his position also involved instructing an individual or family on how to care for the dog. This brought him into contact with outsiders who wanted an animal to love but didn’t have the skills to train one. To be considered a dog-training expert by people outside the prison walls was mind-boggling. It almost made giving up his dogs worth it.
Besides, there was always the challenge of another hurt dog to heal. The cruelty of people against animals was something he had never understood. But the kindness of the families and volunteers he met balanced things out a little and helped him believe that there was some goodness in the world after all.
Many letters from Bertha later, George brought him a new one where the content was unthinkable. She said that since he had now served the requisite fifteen years after a felony murder, she and her sisters had begun to petition the parole board to release him.
Imagine. Such kindness. Who were these people, that they would even consider the possibility?
It was incredibly kind of her, but he had not allowed himself to hope, which was good because it had taken another five years of letters before he walked out of that prison and climbed into George’s car.
He had brushed off George’s apologies about having only the church’s janitor’s closet to give him. It was impossible to express his gratitude for all that George had done. It felt like an honor to keep the church clean and polished and bring his good friend that cup of fresh coffee every morning.
The only problem was wondering what to do with the rest of his time.
Chapter 20
Joe was trying to make a new list of ways he might be able to make a living. It was not going well. Nothing was coming to him. The area surrounding Sugarcreek was all well and good for those who owned shops or made cheese or raised cows. There was a flourishing brick company and some furniture manufacturing places too, but getting work of any kind was iffy in an area where there were always a half-dozen well-trained, hardworking Amish people willing to settle for modest wages.
Last night he’d suggested to Rachel that maybe he could go back to playing ball. He wasn’t at the top of his game and never would be again, but he could still play well enough to be on one of the farm teams. Maybe.
“Even with a bum shoulder?” Rachel had asked.
“Well, there is that,” he said. “But there’s also the possibility of getting a coaching job with them.”
“You’d be traveling or training how many months out of the year?”
“Nine.”
“And how could this possibly affect Bobby in a good way?”
“It couldn’t.”
He hadn’t really been serious, but the more Joe thought about what he could—or couldn’t— do, the more worried he became. He felt that he had run out of options.
Then he remembered being a child and hearing his father’s comforting voice as their family faced a much worse situation than what he and Rachel were experiencing.
“We have done all that we can,” his father had said. “Now we must wait upon the Lord.”
And his parents had waited and prayed. Eventually, the Lord had given them the answer.
Joe had tried everything he could think of—short of uprooting his son and wife—to find a job that could support his family.
He had done everything except the one thing his dad would have counseled. It was past time to rely on the faith that he claimed to have. It was time to wait upon the Lord.
“Your will be done, Father,” Joe prayed. “Just show me what it is you want me to do and I’ll do it.”
Chapter 21
Several weeks after Carl began working as the church’s janitor, on a Sunday afternoon, as he was taking out the trash after a church potluck, one of the older deacons stopped him in the hallway and told him he was doing a good job and that the church had never looked better or smelled so clean. Carl treasured that compliment. It was one of the few he had ever received.
The graveled parking lot behind the church held a Dumpster. The company that owned the Dumpster usually arrived on Tuesday morning to empty it. Normally there was plenty of room for what little garbage the church produced, but this week there had been a large wedding shower on Saturday afternoon along with a teen party on Friday. Once everyone left and Carl finished cleaning up after the potluck, the Dumpster had filled to overflowing.
As he tossed the last bags on top of the heap, he saw that one bag had fallen off to the side and was ripped open. Some of the paper plates had been chewed nearly in two by some animal trying to find food.
He backed away and waited quietly. His wait was rewarded by a glimpse of a medium-sized dog as it slunk out from behind the Dumpster to finish its pitiful meal.
Carl felt his anger rise when he saw that the dog was emaciated, its ribs showing through the dull brown coat. The animal attacked another paper plate that had bits of food sticking to it, and the plate scooted around on the gravel as the forlorn creature tried to lick up a few molecules of nourishment.
The sight of this hunger-ravaged dog made Carl want to hurt the person who had abandoned it, but that was not an option. Instead, he clicked into his training mode. Totally focused on the dog, he sank into a crouch to get a better look. It was a mixed breed. He guessed it to be part German shepherd and part mountain cur. It was hard to tell in the dark.
“You hungry, boy?” he said.
The dog flinched violently at the sound of Carl’s voice. It was a gesture of fear that was not warranted by the soft words he had spoken.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Carl promised.
The dog growled softly, unhappy about being interrupted from its meager meal. Fear of the stranger won out over hunger, and it fled behind the Dumpster.
“Wait right here,” Carl said. “I’ve got something better than melted ice cream and cake for you to eat.”
He went back into the church kitchen, where he knew there were hot dogs. The woman in charge of the youth group had a habit of storing leftovers from the kids’ get-togethers and then forgetting about them. He nearly always had to be the one who disposed of them. Now, he was grateful to her. There was an entire package of hot dogs, and as far as he was concerned, feeding that poor, starving animal was a great use for them.
He cut the package open, went outside, and closed the door quietly behind him. He had an abandoned dog’s trust to win, and he was good at it.
Chapter 22
“That’s a funny-looking car.” Bobby pointed to it from the backseat as he and Joe drove to the daadi haus that sat next door to Rachel
’s aunts’.
Joe’s father had made arrangements to rent the daadi haus as a home base between mission assignments. Joe never knew when his dad might show up to stay a few weeks, so he went and aired the place out from time to time when the weather was good to make sure the place didn’t get too musty between visits.
“It’s a DeLorean,” Joe answered. “They made those about the time I was born.”
“There are a lot of funny-looking cars today,” Bobby said.
“That’s because there’s an antique car show this weekend.”
“What’s ‘antique’ mean?”
“Anything that’s old.”
“Like you?”
At thirty-four, Joe didn’t feel particularly old, but he knew going down that path would only start a deluge of new questions.
“Yes…like me.”
“There’s another funny-looking car,” Bobby pointed.
“It’s a ’56 Chevy,” Joe said. “It’s the kind of car your grandpa owned when he was courting your grandmother.”
“What does ‘courting’ mean?” Bobby asked.
Joe loved his son. He would cheerfully die for his son. But sometimes Bobby’s constant stream of questions drove him nuts. He was attempting to form a definition of courting when he realized that his son had already lost interest.
“What are all these cars doing here?” Bobby asked.
“This is the weekend that Sugarcreek has their Fabulous Fifties Fling,” Joe said. “It’s where people bring their old, ‘funny-looking’ cars and show them off.”
“Can we go?”
“Sure,” Joe said. “Rachel will probably be working here anyway. She said there will be about five hundred different cars here for her and the other cops to watch over.”
“Will they have hot dogs there?”
“Of course.” His son’s infatuation with hot dogs was well-known. “They’ll probably have some vegetables too, and I’ll expect you to eat some.”
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