An Uncommon Grace

by Serena B. Miller

  “Two little Bruders and a sister. They are hiding in the barn. I cannot leave them alone.”

  “It would be best if I went with her anyway. Some EMTs are great, some . . . not so great.”

  “Please, then.” His voice broke. “Go with her.”

  The ambulance was now so close that he wondered if the noise would make Angel Dancer bolt and run. He had not taken the time to secure her reins.

  “Does your mother have any allergies?” Grace shouted.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Forty-one.” It gave him a small bit of comfort to have one correct answer to give. Nothing else in his life seemed to have an answer right now.

  The siren stopped abruptly. He heard voices down below, and Grace answering them. He heard footsteps on the stairwell and then he watched as two men expertly loaded his mother onto a stretcher, rejecting his attempt to help.

  He grasped the porch railing as the ambulance bumped across the yard, its lights flashing. It was nearly impossible to believe that this terrible thing was happening. Not on a brilliant day like today when the sun was shining so brightly. Not on a day like today while a yellow warbler sat singing his cheerful song from the top of the wild cherry tree.

  The driver flipped the siren on as they drove away. Levi watched until the ambulance was no longer visible, wondering if he would ever see his mother alive again.

  Levi knew that his yard would soon fill with police cars. He knew that a second ambulance and crew would probably be sent for his stepfather’s body. But before he spoke to anyone else, before he dealt with one more thing, he needed to get to the children huddled in the barn and try to comfort them.

  As he strode to the barn, he wondered—just how did one go about telling a four-, eight-, and ten-year-old that their father had been murdered? How did one also break it to them that their mother’s life was hanging by a thread?

  He passed Angel Dancer cropping grass in their front yard, grabbed her reins, and took her with him into the barn. He secured her to an inner post and then climbed the ladder to the huge hayloft.

  The children were not there.

  For a moment, he panicked. Had the man who had killed his stepfather done something with the children while he was riding for help? Had the evil that had entered his home been lurking in the barn while he watched the lights of the ambulance recede?

  Then he noticed a small pile of hay in the farthest corner shift slightly.

  “Is the bad man gone, Bruder?” Ten-year-old Albert popped out from beneath the hay. His face was sticky with tears. Bits of chaff clung to his skin.

  The children had been hiding by burrowing into the hay like little field mice.

  “I think so,” Levi answered. “Did you see him?”

  “No.” Jesse’s head emerged beside Albert’s. “We only heard him. He was shouting at Daed. Maam told us to go hide in the hayloft until she came for us.”

  “Where is Sarah?” Levi looked around, but the little girl was nowhere to be seen.

  “She cried herself to sleep.” Albert lifted some hay, revealing his little sister. She was hiccuping in her sleep from having cried so long. “I tried, but I could not get her to stop.”

  Levi thought his heart would break as he lifted the little girl into his arms. Her precious face—usually wreathed in sunny smiles—was puffy and red.

  How terrifying it must have been for these children to be up here, listening to gunshots, not knowing whether to try to run for help or to stay hidden.

  “You did well, little brother—keeping our sister safe. No one could have stopped her tears.”

  “Did the bad man run away?” Jesse asked.

  “I think so.”

  Albert frowned. “Where are Daed and Maam? Why did they not come out here, also?”

  “Maam was hurt. She is on her way to the hospital.”

  “Did Daed go with her?”

  Levi tried to answer, but his throat closed up. He coughed to clear the tightness, and it took every bit of willpower he had to say the brutal words.

  “No. Daed’s dead. The bad man shot him.”

  They were little boys. Nothing in their lives had prepared them to absorb this kind of information. They sat in stunned silence.

  “Who will take care of us?” Jesse’s freckled face was creased, already trying to puzzle things out.

  That was one question Levi had no trouble answering. “With God’s help, I will take care of you.”

  Sarah awoke at that moment, disoriented, and called out for her mother. When Levi told her she could not come for her—that Maam was in the hospital—it took a long time to calm her down. He wished he could take all three of the children into the house, feed them, and then rock each one of them in Maam’s rocking chair. But he could not take them into the house without them seeing their murdered father, and that was definitely not a picture he wanted emblazoned upon their innocent minds.

  “There you are.” A middle-aged man in a sheriff’s uniform climbed off the hayloft ladder. He was a large man, and his hair was cut flat on top.

  The two younger boys shrank away from him. A wide-eyed Sarah buried her face in Levi’s shirt.

  “I’m Gerald Newsome—the county sheriff.” He squatted beside Levi. “I got a 911 call from the dispatcher. Then I got a call from your neighbor, Elizabeth Connor, telling me all about the trouble you people were having. I’ve already been inside the house, Levi. I’ve seen your stepfather. Another ambulance is on the way. Are all of you okay?”

  Little Sarah pulled away from Levi and took a good look at the strange man. Her chin began to quiver. None of them had ever been this close to a lawman.

  “No,” Levi said. “We are not okay.”

  Sheriff Newsome shifted his weight to the other knee, picked up a piece of hay, and stuck it in his mouth. “You got a place you can go stay for a while? Get the children away from here?”

  “We have many within our church who would welcome us.”

  “Good.” Sheriff Newsome chewed the piece of hay for a few more seconds. “I hate to ask right now, but I have to. Did you or the children see anything?”

  “No. I was gone. The children heard the man’s voice, but they did not see him.”

  “Was he Englisch?” The sheriff glanced at the two little boys.

  Both Jesse and Albert nodded vigorously.

  “What did he say?”

  “He wanted Daed’s money from the auction,” Albert explained.

  The sheriff looked a question at Levi.

  “My stepfather had a two-year-old foal that brought a good price at the Mt. Hope auction yesterday,” Levi explained. “Many would have known.”

  “That would explain a robbery, but not a . . .”

  In his mind, Levi heard the word that the sheriff was kind enough not to say in front of the children.

  In his world, raised among people so pacifist that they did not believe in so much as putting up a hand in one’s own defense, absolutely nothing could explain a murder.

  The ambulance had barely stopped beneath the portico of the Pomerene Emergency Room before Grace was out the back door, helping release the undercarriage of the gurney upon which Claire lay. She steadied the IV pole that held the lifesaving liquid they had started flowing into Claire’s veins moments after they had lifted her into the ambulance.

  As she helped maneuver the gurney through the door, she heard her name being called.

  “Grace? Is that you?” It was Karen, an ER nurse she had bumped into in the cafeteria while her grandmother was in the hospital. Karen, a vibrant redhead, was a beautiful woman, but she had served in Iraq and had the bearing and no-nonsense attitude of a staff sergeant. After Grace had helped her clean up the lunch tray she had accidentally knocked out of Karen’s hands, they ended up bonding over war stories.

  “What’s going on?” Karen asked.

  “My neighbor, Claire Shetler. Age forty-one.” Grace gave the information in short, cl
ipped sentences. “Gunshot wound to the upper right thigh and lower abdomen. According to her son, she has no allergies. Is there a surgeon on call?”

  “Yes. Dr. Allen.” Karen rounded the desk. “I’ll page him. Follow me. Room two is open.”

  As Karen and other staff members crowded around and took over Claire’s care, Grace found herself backed up against a wall. It felt strange not to be in the thick of the battle for Claire’s life, but this wasn’t her turf.

  “We’ve got this, honey,” Karen said over her shoulder. “Go help yourself to some coffee.”

  Grace watched for a few more minutes. They seemed competent and there really wasn’t much space. Reluctantly, she left the room as the familiar adrenaline rush began to drain away, leaving her limp and shaky. She leaned her forehead against the coolness of the hallway wall for a moment and then found her way to the waiting room.

  As she passed the coffeepot that Karen had mentioned, the smell of scorched coffee made her stomach churn. She had practically lived on the stuff during her first year in Afghanistan and had permanently lost her taste for it.

  Instead of coffee, she chose an empty chair in the far corner of the waiting room and closed her eyes, still trying to quiet her spirit and the pounding of her pulse. This was not what she had planned for the day—but this is what God had apparently planned for her.

  She prayed for Claire, for the unborn baby, and for those now working to save their lives. Prayer came easily for her, but leaving things in God’s hands did not.

  That was her grandmother’s strength.

  Speaking of which . . .

  She pulled out her cell phone and dialed, breathing a sigh of relief when she heard her grandma’s voice.

  “Are you okay, Grandma?”

  “Right as rain, sweetheart. I’ve just been sitting here in the living room on the couch behaving myself and waiting for your call. Is Claire all right?”

  “So far.”

  “Do you think the baby will make it?”

  “Possibly, but that family could really use your prayers right now.”

  “Oh, honey. I haven’t stopped since the moment Levi rode into our yard.”

  After their brief conversation, Grace picked up a magazine and flipped through it. Someone had thoughtfully dropped off their private stash of People—but only after carefully cutting off the address. She wondered what, exactly, they expected someone to do with those addresses—drive up to their homes and stare? Knock on their front doors and complain that they had not donated a higher-quality magazine?

  The country she had fought for was getting more paranoid every day. After what had just happened to her neighbor, she couldn’t say she blamed Americans for their fear. There was a lot of crazy floating around.

  She tossed the magazine back onto the table. Movie stars’ divorces and personal dramas felt unimportant in the cold light of an emergency room. Besides, she had been out of the country so long, she didn’t even know who most of the people in the magazine were—and furthermore, she didn’t care. Her efforts to watch TV since coming home had been met with little success. It was just too hard to concentrate on the silliness of a sitcom after all she had seen.

  She closed her eyes again and leaned her head back. The disconnect between the reality of an Afghanistan battlefield and the culture to which she had returned was not something she had been able to bridge in the two short weeks she had been home. Outside of her grandma’s farm, she felt like an alien in her own country. She couldn’t help but wonder if that feeling of alienation would ever go away.

  “Does my mother live?”

  Her eyes flew open. The sudden sound of Levi Troyer’s voice startled her so badly that she almost dove for cover. Struggling for equilibrium, she took a deep breath and studied the small family group standing before her. Levi, in his dark blue pants and sweat-stained blue shirt, towered over her. In his arms, he held a towheaded little girl wearing a dark gray dress and a black bonnet. The child’s eyes were as blue as the sky but also red from weeping. A piece of straw clung to a wayward curl in the process of escaping the bonnet. Standing solemnly beside Levi were two small boys who were near-replicas of their older brother. Both had the same gold-streaked brown hair and dark eyes. She judged them to be somewhere between eight and ten years old. They wore identical straw hats, with brims so wide, the hats looked too big.

  “Your mother is with the surgeon right now, but I haven’t heard anything.” Because of the worried-looking children, she forced a cheerful note into her voice. “Who do we have here?”

  Levi laid his free hand on the smaller boy’s hat. “This is Jesse.” Then he rested his hand on the older boy’s shoulder. “And this is Albert—my Bruders.”

  “Hello, Albert and Jesse.” She solemnly shook the boys’ hands.

  Levi noticed the straw in the little girl’s hair and plucked it out. “This is Sarah, our sister. She spent too much time in the hayloft this morning.”

  “Hello, Sarah,” Grace said. “You have pretty eyes.”

  The little girl gave her a shy grin before laying her head against her big brother’s shoulder.

  “Sarah does not have many Englisch words yet,” Albert informed her.

  “I do,” Jesse volunteered. “I have many Englisch words.”

  She had no idea what they were talking about.

  “Our children usually speak only German when they are small,” Levi explained. “They don’t learn Englisch until they go to school.” He gently tweaked the little girl’s nose. “I think Sarah understands some of what you said, but she is being bashful.”

  “Oh.” She absorbed that information. That would explain why the few small Amish children she had spoken to on the street since moving here had given her sweet smiles but not answered.

  “How did you get here?” she asked.

  “The sheriff came after you left. He called a driver for us after he finished asking questions.” Levi looked worried. “I—I did not refuse. It would have been hard on our horse to come so far and it would have taken a long time.”

  At that moment Dr. Allen entered the room. He was an older man and his face was gray with fatigue. He did not look happy.

  “Are you Claire Shetler’s family?” he asked.

  “We are.” Levi swallowed hard. “Does my mother live?”

  “Yes.” Dr. Allen glanced at the children clustered around Levi and forced a smile. “She’s . . . fine.”

  “And the babe?” Levi’s voice sounded strained.

  “We are airlifting him to Children’s Hospital in Columbus.”

  “My mother had a boy?”

  “She awoke long enough to name him Daniel. We had to do a C-section because of . . . complications, but he does have a fighting chance.”

  “Did the bullet—?”

  “If I were you”—Dr. Allen threw a glance at the children— “I would concentrate on caring for these little ones for now.”

  “Can we see our Maam?” Jesse asked.

  Karen approached them with a clipboard in her hand. “Mrs. Shetler is asking to see”—she gave Grace a strange glance—“you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. She specifically asked for you, even though I told her I thought her family had arrived.”

  “Then I’ll go see what she wants.”

  As Grace got to her feet, Karen handed Levi the clipboard and a pen.

  “While he fills these papers out, I’ll take you to her,” Karen said.

  After they had walked far enough away for Levi and the children not to hear, Karen filled her in.

  “The bullet managed to miss the uterus,” Karen said. “But all the trauma compromised the pregnancy. Dr. Allen had no choice than to take the child by C-section. We had to use three units of blood to stabilize the mother. It was very close. If you hadn’t been there to help . . .” Karen shook her head. “I’ve lived here my whole life and I admire the Amish for so many things—but those ultraconservative sects that don’t allow any type of telephone
at all . . .” Again Karen shook her head. “None of my business, of course. It’s a free country.”

  “None of my business, either,” Grace said. “Except that today it suddenly became my business.”

  When Grace arrived in the recovery room, Claire was so pale that she nearly blended in with the white sheets. Even her blond hair, still pinned closely to her head, seemed colorless, harshly illuminated by the hospital lights.

  “How are you feeling?” Grace took hold of Claire’s hand lying limply on the sheets. It was ice cold.

  “The babe . . .”

  “Dr. Allen says he has a chance.”

  “A chance.” Claire gave a great sigh.

  “Children’s Hospital is one of the best in the world. He should be there soon. They will take good care of him.”

  “My Abraham is gone?”

  “Yes.” Grace’s heart broke for the woman. “I am so sorry.”

  “I thought that is what I heard you say in the ambulance.”

  “We thought you were unconscious.”

  “The words got into my mind anyway.” Tears silently crept down Claire’s cheeks and neck, dampening the front of her hospital gown.

  “Was there something you wanted me to do?” Grace grabbed a tissue and handed it to her. “Is there some way I can help?”

  “I wanted you to come because I cannot yet be strong for my children.” Claire took the tissue and wiped her eyes. “I need more time before they see me.”

  “I don’t think anyone is expecting you to be strong. You have been through a terrible ordeal today.”

  “A mother must be strong for her children, and I—I cannot be strong. Not yet.”

  “Do you want Levi to come in to see you? I can stay with the children.”

  “No,” Claire said. “My Levi does not need to see me like this.”

  Grace was at a loss. “Then what do you want me to do?”

  “You own a vehicle?”

  “I do.”

  “Could you take my children to my sister’s home? Levi will tell you how to get there. They will be well cared for if they are with Rose. And then, please take Levi to my little Daniel. The babe will need someone beside him as he fights for his life. He should not be alone.”