by Anna Schmidt
Sharon removed two large platters—one loaded with fresh vegetables and a container of dip and the other piled high with a variety of cheeses and deli meats—from the double-door refrigerator and handed one to her mother-in-law, Angie. “Come on, Mom, let’s go feed the animals. Sally, bring those crackers and napkins.”
Suddenly Rachel and Darcy were alone. The kitchen was so quiet that Rachel could hear the pan of water that Angie had set to boil for cooking the yams bubbling away. At the same moment she and Darcy reached to turn down the flame. Rachel smiled and stepped away. Darcy set the flame and turned back to chopping the herbs for her casserole.
“It seems you’ve become quite close to the Shepherds,” Darcy said after a moment. “Almost like family.”
“They have been very kind to Justin and me. Everyone has been so very kind, and patient.”
“Everyone meaning Ben?”
Rachel paused in mixing the apples with cinnamon, dried cherries, nuts, and brown sugar. “Ben is also our friend, yes.”
Darcy did not look at her, but Rachel could not miss the way her chopping knife seemed to come down on the bunch of chives with extra force. “Do you think this is a good idea, Rachel? I mean, your close association with the president of the hospital board and his family? Well, it could be seen as something of a conflict of interest in terms of your position at the hospital.”
She was as surprised as Darcy apparently was by the comment given the expression on her face. Rachel closed her eyes for a moment, sending up a prayer for guidance. Then Rachel’s next words were, “And yet you also work at the hospital and are also very close with the Shepherds—and with Dr. Booker.”
Blessedly that was the moment when Sharon, Angie, and Sally returned. They were laughing, bringing with them all the joy that had filled the house earlier. Rachel turned her attention back to Sally. “Shall we do plain pecan for the second pie or perhaps chocolate pecan?”
“Oh, definitely chocolate,” Sally said.
Darcy picked up a tray filled with chopped vegetables and turned to Sharon. “Did you say there was a grill outside? I have more than we’ll need for the casserole, so why don’t I grill the rest?”
“Lovely,” Sharon said. “Let me turn it on for you.”
“You know after we eat dinner and clean everything up,” Sally said, “then we make Christmas cookies, right, Grams?”
Rachel saw Angie frown slightly before changing her expression to a loving smile. “Well, perhaps tonight—since you’ve only been home …”
“Oh Grammie, I’ve been lying in bed for like an eon. We always make cookies. And I’ll bet Rachel has a bazillion recipes for cookies, don’t you?”
“Your grandmother is right to worry, Sally. You mustn’t overdo it,” Rachel said. “Perhaps you could come to the guesthouse on another day and we could bake some together.”
“One batch tonight,” Sally bartered.
Angie and Rachel exchanged a look. “One batch,” Angie agreed. “One batch of sugar cookie dough that we will freeze and decorate when you are stronger.”
Sally sighed. “Grams drives a hard bargain,” she admitted, and all three of them were laughing when Sharon and Darcy returned from grilling the vegetables.
“I’ll take these into the family room.” Darcy held up the tray of grilled vegetables.
Rachel had gotten so accustomed to Darcy’s disapproval that when the woman glanced at her with something that Rachel could only label as envy, she was stunned. Surely Darcy with all of her success and beauty could not possibly be jealous of Rachel. Her heart went out to Darcy. Seeing her here out of the hospital where she was so clearly in charge made Rachel realize that there was far more to Darcy Meekins than she had thought. Was there any reason why she and Darcy could not find something in common beyond their roles at the hospital?
Until now, Rachel had followed Eileen’s advice and simply ignored Darcy’s evident concerns when it came to whether or not Rachel was up to the job. That had been a mistake, she decided. Starting here and now she intended to take the first step toward changing that.
So when they were all at dinner and Angie raised the topic of the Keller and Messner families and how difficult the coming holidays would be for them, it was Justin who gave her the opening she’d been seeking.
“Mom’s counseling them,” Justin blurted, and Darcy’s head shot up, her eyes pinning Rachel. “It’s a program that Mom and I went through after Dad died. It helps,” he added, seemingly oblivious to the adult dynamics surrounding him.
Darcy was staring hard at Rachel while Malcolm’s eyebrows had lifted with interest. Everyone seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
“After my husband died, Justin and I were fortunate enough to take part in a counseling program that allowed us to face the man responsible for his death, work through our grief—and anger—and begin to move on.”
“I remember seeing something about that on your résumé,” Malcolm said. “You got some kind of license to counsel?”
Darcy was focusing all of her attention on her food, but Rachel was determined not to give up on finding some way to connect with this woman. “That’s right. I’ve been thinking about seeing if you and I might talk about possibly bringing some form of the VORP program to Gulf Coast, Darcy.” She could have just as easily made the statement to Malcolm as head of the board, but she focused on Darcy as she continued to explain the concept.
“It has some potential,” Malcolm jumped in.
“It would certainly be unique to Gulf Coast—Memorial has nothing like that,” Ben added, glancing at Darcy. “It could be a positive marketing tool.”
“You’ve been trained as a mediator for this program?” Darcy asked Rachel.
Rachel nodded, her heart hammering. Darcy actually seemed interested. “If you have some time on Monday, I could …”
The front doorbell chimed.
“Got it,” Malcolm said, placing his napkin on his chair as he went to answer the door. Conversation around the table turned to speculation about who the visitor might be. He returned a moment later with a large gift-wrapped package that he handed to Sally. “Seems you have a secret admirer, kiddo.”
“Dad,” she groaned, but she took the package and eagerly tore off the gold foil bow and ribbon.
“Who brought it?” Sharon asked.
Malcolm shrugged. “It was sitting there—nobody in sight.”
“No card?” Angie asked, examining the wrapping paper that Sally had now cast aside.
Sally pried open what looked like a large hatbox and fished through the layers of tissue paper.
Suddenly her face twisted into a grimace of such pain and shock that both her parents as well as Ben and Zeke were immediately on their feet.
“Give me that,” Ben ordered when Sally withdrew a shaking hand from the box.
He dumped the contents onto the floor, and there was a collective gasp as everyone saw Sally’s baseball glove, the leather scorched black from a fire and sliced into strips.
Sally was shaking as she stood and stared at her ruined glove. “How … who …? It was in my room. It’s always in my room.”
Justin made a noise as if he might be choking and squirmed uncomfortably in the chair next to Rachel. She glanced at him and so did Sally.
“It was you, wasn’t it? Uncle Zeke told me that you and your mom helped him clean the house. You took my glove.”
Justin seemed incapable of meeting her glare, and now everyone around the table was looking at him.
“Why?” Sally demanded, her fists clenched at her sides. “What did I ever do to you but try to be your friend?”
And then she ran from the room, Sharon and Malcolm and her grandmother following her up the stairs. Those left behind heard the slam of a door and then silence.
Part Three
But it is good for me to draw near to God …
PSALM 73:28
Chapter 23
All through the long hours that followed the dinner at
the Shepherds’ Justin tried to figure out some way—any way—that he might explain himself. He had not denied Sally’s accusation. How could he? It was the truth.
Instead while Sally and her parents and grandmother were upstairs, Zeke and Darcy began clearing the table and then stayed in the kitchen leaving him, his mom, and Ben at the table.
“Please give me a moment with my son,” his mom had said, her voice so soft it was not much more than a whisper.
Ben had folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. “I’m not going anywhere until you explain what’s going on here, Justin.”
That was when his mom stood up. “Then I think it’s best if we leave. Please thank Sharon and Malcolm for the dinner.”
“Don’t you want to know …”
“What I know is that Justin was sitting right here next to me when that box was delivered. If there is more to it, then I trust my son to tell me himself, but right now it is best for everyone if we leave.”
Justin had followed her through the kitchen where Zeke and Darcy were busy loading the dishwasher and covering leftovers. Neither of them had looked at him as his mom retrieved the basket she’d used to bring the pie ingredients and then left without a word through the back door.
The minute they were inside the guesthouse, she set down the basket and turned to him. “Did you steal that glove, Justin?”
“Not exactly,” he hedged.
“Did you take it with Sally’s permission?”
“No, but …”
“Then you stole it.” She sighed as if she needed to get rid of all the air inside her lungs and start fresh. “Why?”
Guilt welled up in him, but instead of feeling ashamed all he felt was angry. “It’s your fault,” he told her. “If you hadn’t gone to that meeting with Mr. Mortimer …”
“Do not speak to me in that way, Justin.” He had never seen his mother look at him the way she had in that moment. Her mouth had tightened so much that her lips had almost disappeared. “What does our meeting with your teacher have anything to do with—”
“Derek saw you, okay? He saw the way you dress and he put it together. He was already mad because he’d been caught cheating and then he was mad all over again because he’d been hanging around somebody like me without even knowing it.”
“What’s wrong with someone like you?”
“We’re different … weird.”
“We are different. And if living our lives according to centuries of the faith is weird, then so be it.” The heavy silence that fell between them was worse than if his mom had started to shout at him. All he could hear was the ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantel.
“Justin, I am trying to understand this. Tell me why you took Sally’s glove.”
“Derek threatened me.”
“How?”
The question stumped Justin completely. There had been nothing specific. “He said he would make my life miserable.”
“How?”
Justin’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s what he does. Everybody knows it. I was afraid.”
“Oh Justin, why did you not come to me?”
The full force of his anger and disappointment hit him like a fist. He stared at her. “Right. When exactly was I supposed to do that, Mom? You are always gone or busy or thinking about somebody else—Sally, the Keller girl, some kid at the hospital.” His voice was shaking and his fists were clenched. “You promised,” he shouted, and then stormed off to his room and slammed the door.
Almost immediately he regretted his actions. Never in his life had he spoken to either of his parents that way. If his dad had still been alive Justin had no doubt that he would be in for a paddling. He waited for the door to open, for his mom to confront him—to punish him as he deserved.
Instead after a long while he heard the murmur of her voice and realized she was talking to someone on the telephone. A few minutes later he saw her walking back up to the Shepherds’ house, her pace slow like it had been the day they buried his dad.
Ben had helped Zeke and Darcy finish clearing the table, and still there had been no sign of Sally or Sharon or Malcolm. Angie had come downstairs to report that Sally was resting and it was probably best if everyone else left. She had picked up Sally’s glove with two fingers and handed it to Zeke. “Get rid of this thing, son, and then please take me home. I’m suddenly too exhausted to drive myself.”
To Ben’s surprise Darcy had offered to follow Angie and Zeke in her car so that she could give Zeke a ride back. Once they all left, Ben was alone in the spacious downstairs of his sister’s house.
He wandered from room to room, window to window, pausing to look out toward the guesthouse. He wondered what Rachel was saying to her son. Would she punish the boy or, like so many parents that Ben had encountered in his practice, insist that her child had done no wrong? That he was in fact the victim of the bully Derek Piper. For Ben had no doubt that it was the Piper kid who was behind this whole business.
From the day that Sally had beaten him for the position of pitcher on the team, he had set out to get his revenge. He was a first-class bully. Of course, he had learned from the best. Ben recalled Malcolm’s tales of Derek’s father terrorizing weaker students—including Zeke—when the two of them had been in high school together.
He considered going over to the Piper house and confronting Derek. But what good would that do? He glanced out the window. It was dusk now, and he saw Rachel coming through the gardens on her way up to the house. He thought about how he’d wanted this day to go—how he had planned to find some time when the two of them could talk, how he had wanted to tell her that his feelings for her were complicated but undeniable.
Moving out to the lanai, he stood in the shadows and waited for her. The last rays of the sun cast her features in shadow, but he did not need to see her face to know that she was as filled with misery as he was. His anger had dissipated. Now in its place he felt only sadness and regret for what the day might have been.
He opened the side door for her. “Rachel,” he said.
“Is Darcy still here?” she asked.
It was the very last thing he had expected. “No. She went with Zeke to drive Angie home.”
Rachel nodded, her eyes downcast. “Then I would like to speak with Sharon and Malcolm if they are available.”
“They are with Sally. If you’ve come to apologize for what Justin—”
“My son will seek their forgiveness,” she said.
“Then what? You certainly have nothing to apologize for, and right now the last thing they need—”
“I have come to let your sister know that Justin and I will be moving out on Saturday, and I wanted to offer my resignation to Darcy and Malcolm.”
“You’re giving up and going back to Ohio?”
“If we need to, Justin and I can stay with Hester and John until I can determine what is best. In the meantime I will enroll Justin in the Mennonite school in Pinecraft.”
“You’ve decided all of this in the last hour?”
She looked at him then. A half smile played across her lips. “I have made many mistakes since coming here. Most of all I have placed my only child in a position where he was so afraid—and felt so alone—that he has lost his way. We both have.”
Suddenly the understanding that she planned to simply walk out of his life—out of all their lives—hit him. And as angry as he was with Justin for whatever part he’d played in the horrid prank, the idea that he might never have contact with Rachel again was unthinkable.
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting here?” He seemed incapable of keeping the anger from his voice.
Her eyes flashed, but she did not raise her voice in response. “I am doing what is best for my son.”
“And what about you? What about us? Rachel, I have feelings for you that go beyond … that could grow into …”
She placed her fingers on his lips, silencing him. “It has been an emotional
day for everyone, Ben. Please don’t speak of things that are impossible. It only makes this more difficult.” She turned then and started back down the path. “If you would please tell Sharon and Malcolm why I stopped by,” she said as she walked away. “Thank you, Ben.” She stopped and looked back at him. “For everything.”
It took him less than a second to realize that somehow he had to stop her. As she walked away he ran to catch up with her, caught her arm, and spun her so that she was close enough to kiss. “Don’t you realize that I am falling in love with you, Rachel?”
She did not try to pull away from him. Instead she pushed a lock of his hair back from his forehead. “I know that feeling as well, but we are the adults here, Ben. It is not our wants and needs that are at stake here. Justin …”
“Justin is twelve. He’ll get over this.”
“When I moved him from the only home he’s ever known to here, I made a promise to my son, and I will honor that promise. As for you and … as for us …” Her fingers lingered, curled around the lock of his hair. He pulled her closer.
“Tell me why this has to be impossible,” he said.
“You know why as well as I do, Ben. You place most of your faith in facts—what you can see and prove. I am a woman whose whole life is rooted in faith. Tell me how that can work?” She pulled away then. “The mistake I made in taking the position at the hospital was to put my need to escape a life that I hardly recognized anymore ahead of everything else. I thrust Justin into a world that was so very different from the one he knows. I only pray that I can remedy that so that in a couple of years when his time comes to be baptized and take his place as a member of the church, he will have found his way again.”
Ben was fresh out of arguments. The light from Sally’s bedroom window spilled across the lawn. Rachel was right of course. In fact, she had proven her case so well that he could find no fault with it. “For a woman who makes decisions on faith, you sure can come up with a convincing argument.”