by Anna Schmidt
“You and your mom are pretty extraordinary people,” he’d told Justin. “I mean, picking up and leaving behind everything you’ve ever known and starting fresh here? That’s pretty unusual.”
“Starting fresh” was the phrase his mom had used when she was explaining about taking the job in Florida. She hadn’t exactly told him that she’d not only have to work but also would have to go to school to get some kind of license. She hadn’t exactly mentioned the late nights when she had to return to the hospital.
“It’s kind of lonely,” Justin had admitted to Ben.
“I’ll bet. You making any friends?”
“A couple.” Justin didn’t really want to talk about Derek Piper. Ever since the thing with Mr. Mortimer and taking Sally’s baseball glove, Justin had his doubts about whether or not Derek was really even interested in being his friend. It seemed these days he was only interested in how Sally was doing and when she might get home. And when Justin had asked Derek why he wanted the glove all he would say was that he needed it for a surprise for Sally.
“Sally mentioned a boy called Derek?”
“Yeah.” Justin turned away, looking for his mom. “Hey Mom. Are we gonna eat?”
After that Ben had stopped trying to make conversation. Together they cleaned and put away the garden tools and finished adding the clippings to the compost bin. Then they walked back to the guesthouse to wash up and sit down in the little kitchen for supper.
Justin’s mom was the best cook he knew, and it looked like Ben thought so too, the way he went back for seconds on almost everything. “You’d better save room for pie,” Justin warned him with a shy grin.
“There’s pie?”
“There’s always pie, right, Mom?”
“Your favorite—banana cream.”
“See?” Justin said, nudging Ben’s elbow. “Told you.”
It was nice having three people at the table, like it used to be when they lived on the farm. He wished they could go back to those times, but all that had changed.
“You should have told me sooner,” Ben teased. “I wouldn’t have stuffed myself.”
Justin got up and helped clear the table while his mom cut pieces of pie for the three of them. To his surprise Ben helped as well. His dad had never done that. In fact, none of the men in his family had done that. Justin had kind of assumed that once he was married with his own place he would no longer help with those kinds of chores either. He glanced at his mom, who looked like she was as surprised as he was to see Ben scraping the food remains off plates into the garbage.
“I’ll take care of that, Ben. You come have your pie and some coffee.”
She refilled Justin’s milk glass before pouring coffee for Ben and herself.
Ben sat down and put his napkin on his lap then waited.
“We only pray at the start of the meal,” Justin advised in a low tone, remembering how Ben had started to pass the rolls to him before the blessing had been said earlier.
“Got it,” Ben whispered back. “I was waiting for your mom to sit down.”
Justin set his glass of milk aside and waited as well. Ben winked at him.
“Don’t you like it—the pie?” Mom said. It seemed pretty important to his mom that Ben like her pie.
“Haven’t tried it yet,” he replied. “Justin and I were waiting for you.”
It had been a long time since Justin had seen his mom smile the way she did just then. It was the kind of smile she used to have whenever his dad teased her about something or paid her a compliment. It was a smile that made her look really pretty, and Justin realized that he wasn’t the only one who liked having the doctor around.
After supper, Rachel washed the dishes while Ben helped Justin with a science assignment he’d been struggling to understand. Watching the two of them, their heads bent low over the work, Rachel felt the pangs of the loneliness that had become her constant companion ever since James’s death.
In the two years that had passed there had been some healing of the gaping wound his absence had left in her life. After the first anniversary, she had finally begun to accept that her life—and Justin’s—must go forward. James would want that for both of them. And she found that she could see a clear path for Justin. In time—God willing—he would find his true calling; he would meet a girl who would turn his thoughts to marriage and family, and the cycle of life would continue.
For Rachel, finding her way into a future that would not include James had been far more difficult. Lately Hester had implied that there were one or two men in Pinecraft that Rachel might enjoy meeting. Rachel had not been fooled by her friend’s transparent hints at matchmaking. But she had protested that between work and school and Justin she had as much as she could handle. “Perhaps once I get my certificate and know that the job is secure,” she’d told her friend.
She folded the dish towel and wandered out to the screened porch where she stared up at a sky filled with stars. Sometimes at night after Justin was asleep she would stand at the windows and wonder what God’s plan might be for her. In taking James so suddenly there had to have been a lesson. She had thought that God’s plan had led her here to Florida, but things did not seem to be falling into place the way she had hoped. Not for Justin—and not for her.
Earlier that week she had received her second warning from Darcy via Mark Boynton. Mark had called her to his office in Human Resources and closed the door. When he took his seat behind his desk, he did not look at her but focused instead on a file—her file.
“Is there a problem, Mark?”
He cleared his throat. “Earlier this week you were working with a family, a boy about your son’s age whose father had just died.”
“The Wilson family. Yes, such a sad case.”
“You were speaking with the boy in the hallway outside his father’s room, and you were overheard to tell him that with the passing of his father he was now the man of the family.” All of this Mark delivered in a flat, impersonal tone without once looking up from the file.
“That was not …” Rachel bit her lip to stop herself from saying more. In her faith, a person did not try to argue or defend when accused. Doing so was seen as arrogant, as putting one’s self before the good of the community. But surely this was different. These were outsiders who did not practice such things.
“Did you say this to that boy, Rachel?” Mark had looked at her then, his eyes pleading with her to deny the charge.
“What I said was that when my son’s father died, several well-meaning people had said such words to him, but they were not true. Justin was not the man of the family, and neither is the Wilson boy. They are both still children, to be protected and comforted and—”
“I thought it must be something like that, but it may be too late. It’s already part of your file. There’s really nothing I can do about it. You can appeal it to the powers that be, but frankly I would just leave it alone.” Mark had stood and offered her a handshake then, indicating that the meeting was over. “Look, you didn’t hear this from me, but be careful, okay? Darcy seems to be trying to build a case for letting you go at the end of your probation.”
“Why would anyone go to such lengths to …”
Mark shrugged. “Welcome to the ways of corporate America, honey. I’ll try explaining things, but don’t hold your breath. Now, I really have said too much already. Just be careful, okay?”
Later that day when Rachel had offered to drop off some mail for Eileen on her way home for the night, she had passed by Mark’s office. Inside Darcy Meekins was standing, her hands braced on Mark’s desk as she leaned toward him and made her point. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Mark had glanced up and seen Rachel. Their eyes had locked for an instant, and she was positive that his look held pity.
Strike two, she thought with a sigh.
She was so lost in her thoughts and worries that she was unaware that Ben had come out onto the porch, leaving Justin to finish his homework at the kitchen table.
“You’re very quiet,” he said.
“A little tired,” she admitted. “You must be exhausted. Seeing patients all day long and worrying about Sally.”
Ben shrugged.
“I will pray for her.”
A silence stretched between them. “You really believe that prayer can make a difference, don’t you?” Ben asked.
“Ja.”
“Even though your husband …”
“God did not kill my husband, Ben.” The two of them were standing side by side, neither looking at the other, and yet she felt a connection that could not be ignored. “Your father was a minister?”
“He was.”
“And yet you question the very idea of faith in things unseen, in a higher power?”
Ben sighed. “When I was growing up, my father painted a picture of God as angry and vengeful. His sermons dwelled on the punishment awaiting those who did not follow the precise teachings of the scriptures. I remember one time I had read a news article about children starving in Africa because of a terrible famine.”
“Did you ask him about that?”
“I did. He told me that clearly the people in that land had sinned and turned away from God. To him this was another version of the plague God had sent to the firstborn of every household in the time of Moses.”
Rachel had no words to respond to such an idea.
“Once I decided to be a doctor, my plan was to go wherever children were suffering and do what I could to make their lives better.”
“And you have done that.”
Ben laughed. “Not so much. It’s true that I treat sick and injured children, but I do it right here in the safety of America, in the luxury of a medical center where I have everything I need to succeed at my fingertips. I go home at night in my fancy sports car to my high-rise condo overlooking a bay filled with yachts. I open a bottle of wine that costs more than some of those people in Africa make in a year. I am—in short—a fraud, Rachel.”
“It’s not too late for you to follow your dream, Ben. Perhaps God …”
“What about your dreams, Rachel?”
She knew that she should take a step away from him, and yet she stayed where she was. “We are a simple people, Ben. We accept the path God has chosen for us. I went to nursing school, I married James, we had Justin, and then James was killed, and I brought Justin here.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed to provide for our son. I needed to find a place where he could find his way without his father. And my husband’s brother took over as head of household and made it clear that if we left, we would not be welcomed back.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe you are running from the memories of the life you thought you would have with your husband?”
Was she?
“No. I know people sometimes think that moving away will make a difference, but grief dwells inside you. It cannot be healed by something as simple as a change of location.”
“Then how is it healed?”
“Time. Prayer. Watching Justin grow. Making sure he is safe and well.” The conversation was disturbing on a number of levels. They were standing too close. His voice was too soft. It was too dark, and far too intimate. Finally, she stepped away. “Perhaps you should think about going to church again …,” she said, grasping at anything that might break the mood that held them in its web. Then she covered her mouth with her fingers. “I’m sorry. That was …”
“I do pray sometimes,” he said and smiled. “Most times it surprises me to realize that’s what I’m doing, but it comes mostly when I’ve run out of solutions. See. Maybe we aren’t as different as you think.”
Gently, he tugged her hand away from her lips and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Good night, Rachel. Thank you—for everything you’ve done today.”
Darcy and Zeke had been sitting across from each other in the worn vinyl booth of the diner for nearly two hours. They had talked about everything from the fact that the current owners of the diner were ready to retire to whether or not Darcy’s downing three cups of coffee in less than an hour could be labeled an addiction.
She had no idea how it had happened. She certainly had had no intention of inviting Zeke to join her or of spending the time she should have been concentrating on her work trying to follow his casual leap from one subject to another. But here she was—all thoughts of Ben Booker gone—as she tried not to give in to her growing attraction to this impossibly charming man.
Only when she heard the definitive roar of Ben’s sports car speeding out of the hospital parking garage and on down the street did she glance out the window.
“He’s a good guy—Ben Booker, but he’s not for you,” Zeke said as he too watched the flash of the blue convertible pass by.
“And you are the authority on this because …?” Darcy challenged.
Zeke shrugged. “You’re both wound too tight. You both think you’ve climbed the mountain, but now that you’re at the top, you’re not all that thrilled with the view.”
“Interesting theory coming from a man who has pretty much laid down at the bottom of the mountain. How’s that plan to get back into life coming along?” Darcy meant for her sarcasm to sting him, but Zeke simply grinned.
“No worries. Got the haircut, updated the wardrobe….” He pointed to the freshly pressed cotton shirt he was wearing. “I’d say I’m on a roll.”
“Job? Career? Future?”
“Got a job at the packinghouse that gives me enough to live on while I do what I really love—play guitar and write my songs. And as for the future? Who knows? The one thing I know for sure is that anybody thinking she has the least bit of control is fooling herself.”
His dark eyes met hers and held them.
“You don’t want a family?” she challenged.
“I do indeed but first I have to find me a wife.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You’ve got everything mapped out, don’t you?”
“That would be the way you operate. You like to have a step-by-step plan, and that’s probably a good thing in business, but in life … in love? Not so much.”
“For a man who—”
“You’re tired, Darcy. Tired of the fight. That’s something I know about. When I got back from my first tour of duty it seemed like everything had changed. I wasn’t the same person. I’d seen too much of the way things really were over there. I came back and went to work for Malcolm, but more than a couple of months before, I had signed on for another tour.”
“And the second time you came back?” Darcy was fascinated in spite of her determination not to be.
“I didn’t. I took some time off and hung out in Europe, then signed up for number three.”
The expression that crossed his face in that moment was so filled with pain and sadness that Darcy found she could not look away. Instead she reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “It must have been …” Her words trailed off.
“Nothing had changed,” he said, as his dark eyes clouded over with memories. “Nothing. In all that time. I had joined up after 9/11 because I thought I could make a difference. But it was the wrong fight, Darcy, for all the wrong reasons, and in that situation all you can do is tread water until you can pull yourself out.”
“So you came home and surrendered?”
His smile was one of pity. “You might think that. I prefer to think of these last years as a kind of strategic retreat, a time to regroup. As the Paul Simon song goes, ‘Make a new plan, Stan.’ ”
“And that plan is …?”
He glanced around the café. “I’m thinking of buying this place.”
She couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing. “With what?” An image of the loose change accumulating in his guitar case at the farmers’ market flashed through her mind.
He grinned. “I’m a Shepherd, remember? There’s this little trust fund my dad left me. Wanna come be the chef when I get this place up and running?”
“
Yeah. Right.”
“Think about it.” He got up then and laid some bills on the table to cover the cost of her coffee.
“You don’t have to—”
“Ah Darcy, let a guy do the right thing, okay?” He cupped her cheek gently, waved to Millie, and sauntered out.
Darcy watched out the window, and as he passed by, he grinned and blew her a kiss. She put a hand to her cheek and realized she was blushing.
Chapter 22
Justin had begun to dread school. He’d made a huge mistake taking up with Derek and his group. Now that Derek had turned on him, he had no friends and whenever he approached Derek and the others they would turn around and walk away. He’d begun to live for Fridays when he knew he would have at least the weekend to stop trying to figure out what Derek planned to do with Sally’s baseball glove.
He never should have taken it. If his mom knew—if she ever found out … Every night he prayed hard for a miracle, for some way that he could get the glove and return it to Sally’s room before she got home from the hospital. He’d seen it hanging in Derek’s locker where Derek had put it when Justin delivered it to him. If he could just get it back.
Oh, how he wished his mom had never taken this job, had never decided to move onto the Shepherds’ property, had never left their little community in Ohio. No, that part wasn’t true. He didn’t miss Ohio all that much, especially living with his uncle. The truth was that there was lots about Florida that he liked—the weather and the beach and the fishing with John and Zeke. The weekends were great when he and his mom spent their time in Pinecraft shopping and visiting and going to church. A couple of times they’d attended programs at the bigger church on the edge of Pinecraft, and he’d even met some kids his age there—Mennonite kids like him. Being in Pinecraft was like being in a whole other world. He wished they could live there all the time.
Whatever came of this business with Derek and the baseball glove, it was up to him to fix it. He decided to talk to Derek and try to convince him once again that Sally had had nothing to do with Mortimer catching them cheating. What he knew for sure was that the conversation needed to take place when Max and Connor weren’t around. With Derek it was all about looking good in front of the others.