Love Rekindled

by Serena B. Miller

  As he thought about the past five years, he realized that the more responsibility Cassie was being given at work the more ruthless she became about a clutter-free life.

  Apparently, her determination to live a minimalist lifestyle was part of why she was so willing to end their marriage. Having a husband had become inconvenient; superfluous.

  As he stared at the legal papers, he was surprised to discover that he would have preferred the wrangling and fighting in which other couples seemed to engage when they split up. At least it would have felt more… more what? Human? This felt so soulless. So bloodless.

  Laying down the pen, he took a swig of Pepto Bismol and grimaced as he swallowed the sweet, pink stuff. The document could wait until morning. He would sign it then. Maybe. On the other hand, perhaps he’d wait a few days. Make Cassie sweat a little before giving in to her demand. Force her to pay attention to what she was doing. Force her to pay attention to him!

  On the other hand, maybe she was just calling his bluff. Maybe she didn’t really want a divorce. Maybe she did still love him. Perhaps she even missed him. It would be just like her to do something like that. Ask for a divorce to shock him into coming back.

  Well, maybe he needed to call her bluff as well.

  The thought struck that perhaps they should have gone through the premarital counseling their minister had insisted on. There had been that short period of time while they were dating, when they had made a stab at going to church.

  The old preacher had an annoying policy of requiring six sessions of premarital counseling before he would perform a couple’s marriage ceremony. He wouldn’t budge on it. The counseling also involved reading certain books together, and filling out pages of questionnaires.

  The minister was in his seventies. His requirements had felt old-fashioned and irritating. They were young and in love and closing in on graduate degrees. The idea of spending that much time talking about their marriage felt like a waste of precious time—especially since they knew exactly what they were doing.

  Michael shook his head at their naivety. They were convinced that they were way too smart to make the same mistakes that other, lesser, couples made.

  They chose to forego a traditional wedding. Cassie had never really wanted one anyway. Instead of a wedding, they went to the courthouse. Fifteen minutes flat and they were husband and wife. Such a great saving of time!

  He remembered how they had gone to their after-wedding dinner at McDonalds and laughed about how surprised the old preacher would be when they showed up at church wearing their wedding bands.

  Except that never quite happened. Skipping church turned out to be a great saving of time as well.

  Unfortunately, practicing law on the professional level she had chosen to do had changed Cassie. It had made her harder and even more disciplined.

  He wandered around the house, hurt and angry and unable to settle down. Even so, he was grateful no farmer had called. It would be miserable to have to make a barn call tonight. The wind had begun to howl as it whipped around the corners of his home.

  While pacing the floor in his bare feet and pajamas, he heard hoof beats. Looking out the window, he could just make out two horses galloping past his house. One was about the shape and size of his next-door neighbor’s. He was fairly certain that was Ivan’s horse, and beside him… yes, that was definitely Noah on his new prize mare.

  He glanced at his watch. Two-thirty in the morning. What were those two doing out in this kind of weather? Ivan and Noah were careful with their animals. They did not run their horses like that for fun. Something must be bad wrong and, if so, he needed to be ready to help. That was the way it was between him and the Hochstetlers and it always had been. He ran upstairs to throw on some clothes.

  Chapter 7

  Ivan and Noah had barely gone a mile before they heard a car horn blaring in the distance. Ivan urged his horse to go even faster. When he and Noah rounded the curve, his heart nearly stopped as he saw the crooked headlights from a wrecked car. Keturah’s buggy was sitting nearby, wreathed in shadows, but apparently intact.

  The increasing rain made visibility difficult but, as they drew nearer, he could see a lantern burning, illuminating a woman’s figure huddled on the ground. She was bending low over something that he couldn’t see, but suddenly he heard the pitiful wailing of a newborn baby.

  “Keturah!” he shouted as he jumped off his horse and ran toward her. “Are you all right?”

  As long as he lived, he would never forget the face she turned toward him. He had never seen such intense grief on his beloved’s face.

  “I had to do it,” Keturah said. “I had to. I could not let the baby die, and there was no one here to help.”

  It was then that his stunned eyes took in the rest of the scene. A young woman was lying motionless in the rain, her t-shirt stained with blood. In Keturah’s arms was a newborn baby. She was bent over, trying to shield it from the rain.

  “I tried to keep her alive.” Keturah had wrapped the baby in the long, white, birthing apron she had still been wearing. She rocked back and forth now with the newborn in her arms. “I tried so hard to keep the mother alive, but the baby’s heartbeat was getting weaker.”

  Rain continued to soak her black bonnet, her hair, her coat. Rain had turned the area around her into a puddle of ugly mud. Rain dripped from the brim of his hat as he tried to wrap his mind around the horror his wife had just gone through. Had Keturah actually done life-and-death surgery in the dark of night, on this backcountry road, alone?

  “I’ll stay here and guard the woman’s body,” Noah said. He did something to the car to make the horn stop blaring. “You take Maam and the babe home. Then call someone to come.”

  Ivan thanked God for the gift of his son’s strength and good sense. Alone, he might have continued to stand there in the rain several more seconds, gaping at the terrible scene before him.

  “I will call the Sugarcreek police,” Ivan said, “once I get your mother and the baby safely home.”

  “Help me,” Keturah held out one hand. “I can’t get up. I’ve been kneeling here for too long. My knees have locked up.”

  Ivan took the baby from her hands and cradled it while Noah simply gathered his mother into his strong arms and carried her to the buggy. Ivan saw that her warm black shawl lay on the ground where it had fallen near her. He quickly wrapped the wet shawl around the cocoon Keturah had made around the baby with her apron. The precious little thing continued to cry with all her might, her tiny chin quivering.

  “Oh, little one,” Ivan soothed. “You are safe. We have you now. There is no reason to cry.”

  No reason to cry at all… except that they had to leave its mother lying in the mud. Sometimes, life could be unbearably sad.

  With Noah’s hand on his elbow steadying him, he mounted the step into the buggy with the baby in one arm.

  Once Ivan was seated, he naturally started to hand the baby to Keturah, then he realized she was shivering too badly to safely hang on to it. He pulled her against him, hoping the heat from his body might help. Then he cradled the small bundle firmly with one hand and grasped the reins in the other. With the apron and shawl wrapped tightly around it, with rain no longer hitting its little face, the baby’s cries began to subside.

  “Someone will come to you soon, son,” Ivan shouted over his shoulder as they hurried away. “And may God be with that poor dead mother and this child.”

  Chapter 8

  Keturah continued to shiver. If Ivan had done what he wished, he would have made Brownie run all the way back home, but he could not allow that. With this dirt road getting muddier and muddier, the best he could safely manage was a hard trot without the risk of sliding into a ditch. Still, it was hard to go slow when all he wanted to do was get his wife and this newborn infant home to their warm kitchen. Keturah had a tendency to catch colds and, when she did, they often settled in her chest for a long time. He did not want her to have to deal with pneumonia on top
of the trauma she had already been through tonight.

  “Did the woman wreck her car trying to avoid you?” He was fearful what the answer would be. If his mother had crashed trying to miss Keturah’s buggy, there could be repercussions from the Englisch community as well as the woman’s family.

  Keturah pressed closer against his side. He wished he could put his arm around her, but his hands were both already full. He glanced down at the baby and saw that the tiny thing was already sucking its little fist.

  “No,” she said, her teeth chattering. “Before.”

  Ah, Keturah had not caused the wreck. That was one blessed thing. There were locals who were greatly annoyed by the slow-moving Amish buggies and wanted them banned.

  “God’s will,” he said.

  “Yes.” She gripped the collar of her wet coat closer together and hunched against the cold. “God’s will.”

  If at all possible, it was Ivan’s habit to come see to the horse’s needs whenever Keturah came home. After a birthing, she would often be drained of energy and would need to go straight to bed. Ivan would unhitch the buggy and make certain that Brownie was rewarded with extra oats, an apple or two, and a good long drink. Even at night, Ivan had trained himself to come wide awake the second he heard the buggy’s wheels on their graveled driveway.

  This time, he left poor Brownie to stand in the rain as he took his wife and the infant into the house. He had momentarily considered stopping by the phone shanty at the end of the driveway first to make that emergency phone call but, with Keturah shivering beside him, he knew that would be unwise. His highest priority was to get her and the baby warm and out of the weather. The dead mother would not be helped by his haste, and Noah would not be harmed by a few extra minutes of standing watch.

  He thanked God for so many things as he helped Keturah down from the buggy. He gave thanks for a well-trained, gentle-spirited horse that would not run off if he left it a few minutes to get his wife settled. He gave thanks for this courageous woman who had just performed an operation that many strong men would not have had the stomach to do. He thanked God for his three good sons who would drop everything to come and help if he or their mother needed them, and he gave thanks for the warm kitchen and the soft rocking chair in front of the stove into which he quickly settled his wife who was trembling almost uncontrollably.

  “I must make that phone call,” he said. “I will be quick.”

  He was not sure Keturah was strong enough right now to safely hold the baby on her lap. He did not want to set it on the floor to wail at her feet until he got back. There was nothing he could think to do except continue to cradle it against his chest while he ran to the phone shanty.

  Halfway to the phone shanty, Ivan saw Michael, their good neighbor, running toward him through the rain.

  “What’s wrong,” Michael said. “What’s happened?”

  Ivan had seldom ever been happier to see anyone in his life.

  “Here.” Ivan handed Michael the baby. “She is less than an hour old, so take her inside. I must go call 911. Noah is out there alone.”

  “Something’s happened to Noah?”

  “Take the baby back into the house,” Ivan said. “I’ll explain…”

  He did not finish the sentence because Michael was already running toward the house. He breathed a sigh of relief. Keturah and the baby would be in excellent hands with Michael looking out for them.

  Ivan entered his phone shanty and dialed the number. As he waited to be connected to help, he gave thanks for one more thing, the great gift of having Michael as their neighbor again. It was no exaggeration to say that he and Keturah had practically raised the boy.

  They were so happy when Michael chose to come back, move into his grandfather’s house next door, and take over Doc Taylor’s practice. It was wonderful to have him so close, although it did seem odd that, after two months, his wife had not yet joined him. Nor, to Ivan’s knowledge, had Michael gone to Columbus to see her. He could not see how that could be good. He felt as helpless as any father who suspected one of his children might be silently suffering.

  The list of things to pray about was getting very long, Ivan thought, as the 911 operator answered.

  Chapter 9

  Rachel was not thrilled that she had to work the nightshift, but Kim Whitfield had a cold, and the other two officers wanted to celebrate Christmas with their families on Christmas Eve, leaving her to do patrol and Ed to take care of the office. She and her husband, Joe, preferred to open gifts on Christmas morning, so she volunteered. When she had left for work, Joe and her seven-year-old stepson, Bobby, were cozied up with cocoa and popcorn watching A Charlie Brown Christmas.

  With any luck, they would fall asleep after the movie and stay asleep until she got off work at seven in the morning. Joe had promised to keep him from tearing into his gifts before she got home. Bobby was a bit of a handful. She did not envy Joe having that job.

  It generally wasn’t too hard to keep Sugarcreek safe. To her knowledge, the worst thing that had ever happened in the town was when her father—also a cop—had been shot and killed while trying to stop a bank robbery. Apart from that, patrolling tended to be an occasional DUI. Sometimes, she would pull over a buggy if it was meandering a little too suspiciously down the road. Teenagers were still teenagers even if they were Amish.

  She was proud of the fact that, from a recent report that measured the livability of a town, Sugarcreek had received an A+ for their low crime rate. This was something for which she would like to take credit, but she knew it was much easier to be a cop if one worked in an area that was predominately made up of hard-working, family-focused, Amish and Mennonite people.

  Cleveland had been her home for a few years until she responded to a desperate domestic violence call that went bad and she ended up in the hospital. She knew exactly how lucky she was to have this job. Still, every so often, she longed for slightly grittier police work than what she was doing now. Something that would require a bit more of her training. After all, she had finished at the top of her class at the police academy.

  One of the many nice things about being a cop in Sugarcreek, however, was having the freedom to check on her three Amish aunts anytime she wanted to. They ran a small Bed and Breakfast only a mile outside of town called the Sugar Haus Inn, and were getting on in age. There was Bertha, the oldest, then Lydia, and sweet Anna, their younger sister who had Down Syndrome. All three were still quite viable, although Anna had to be careful about her heart condition.

  She could not imagine herself living without them in her life. They were the ones who had picked up the pieces after her father was killed. They had raised her with gentleness and compassion and she would be grateful to them forever—even if they were still upset she’d chosen to become a cop like her father instead of joining the church.

  Often, while on patrol, she drove past their inn just to reassure herself that all was well. Sometimes, she’d stop in for a few minutes for a cup of coffee and a piece of one of Lydia’s pies or cakes. All somehow felt well with the world when she visited her father’s Amish sisters.

  Tonight, she did not expect to see any lights on—it was well after midnight after all—but there was the glow of a propane lamp downstairs in the kitchen that was never left on unless someone was up. She pulled in to make certain everything was all right.

  When she entered the kitchen, not only was everything all right, she felt like she’d walked into cookie heaven. Aunt Lydia was outdoing herself again. There was every size, shape, and color of Christmas cookie imaginable spread out cooling on snowy-white dish towels lying on the kitchen table.

  “Hi, Aunt Lydia,” she said. “You’re up late.”

  Lydia smiled a welcome. “And you look like something the cat dragged in.”

  “It’s raining hard out there.” Rachel removed her hat and coat and shook them out before laying them on a kitchen chair. “What’s going on?”

  “We have guests,” Lydia said. “A family f
rom Miami with three little children. They are celebrating their Christmas here early in the morning before they drive back. I thought having some cookies to take with them would be a nice surprise.”

  “Why are they celebrating here?” Rachel said. “Why not their own home?”

  “The children wanted to see snow for Christmas, so the parents decided to bring them.”

  “There’s not a lot of time left for it to start snowing before Christmas morning. I’m afraid they’re going to leave disappointed.”

  Lydia used her favorite, old, green-handled spatula to remove small gingerbread men off the last cookie sheet.

  “Yes. They are already disappointed. It was an unwelcome surprise that we do not have a Christmas tree. They said they had no idea we didn’t decorate for Christmas. They complained that they had nowhere nice to place the children’s presents. They offered to go purchase a tree for us, but Bertha said no.”

  “Where did they put them?”

  “Stacked in a corner of the front room. The stack is very high. I think it cannot be good to teach children to expect so many gifts.”

  “I agree,” Rachel said, feeling a little guilty over the gifts waiting for Bobby to open in a few hours.

  Lydia rinsed the cooled cookie sheet in the sink, dried it with a dish towel, put it away, then folded the dishtowel and placed it neatly on the counter. The only thing left to show that Lydia had been baking was the cookies. The kitchen was always pristine when Lydia finished. It was a skill Rachel admired but had never managed to duplicate.

  “That family’s Christmas is not your responsibility, Lydia.”

  Lydia ignored that. Rachel could tell that there was something else bothering her.

  “Yesterday, after they arrived, the children kept talking about Santa Claus. It confused Anna. She did not know what they were talking about. She had never heard of Santa Claus. Instead, I heard her trying to explain that Christmas was about a baby in a manger named Jesus. The parents intervened. They were quite offended. They told her to please stop talking to their children about her religious beliefs.”