by Anna Schmidt
And Matt? What about Matt?
He was so very attached to Geoff. Lars was not athletic, and having been raised Amish, he had not learned the contact sports like basketball and football that Matt found fascinating. But Geoff had taken Matt under his wing the minute he recognized a gift in their son despite his small stature. Geoff had patiently worked with Matt after school and on weekends. He even allowed Matt to be on the sidelines during the games that Geoff coached. And she couldn’t begin to count the times that she had seen her son and her brother-in-law exchange a high five while seated in front of the small television in Geoff’s den watching a game together.
Tessa had usually been there as well, Emma thought now. Matt had grudgingly admired his cousin’s grasp of the finer points of the various sports.
“She’s not bad for a girl,” he had muttered.
Emma waited for the light and then pedaled across the nearly deserted highway to the hospital. She parked the bike near the valet parking station and ran inside. The lights had been dimmed in the lobby area—past visiting hours, Emma realized. She followed the maze of corridors to the bank of elevators that would take her to Sadie’s floor, and as soon as she arrived, she saw a uniformed woman chatting with staff at the nurse’s station. With relief she realized that the uniform was different from the one worn by Lieutenant Benson. The patches on the woman’s shirt identified her as part of the hospital’s security staff.
She hurried past, wanting nothing more than to have some time with Lars and the children without the presence of others. She felt such a need to gather them into her arms and hold on for a very long time. She wanted to lie next to Lars and pretend this day had never happened. She wanted to feel his strength and know as she had known from the day she met him that everything would be all right, that he would make it all right.
But she shook off such feelings as she passed the small waiting area and saw that it was filled with neighbors and fellow members of their congregation. The first person to come forward was Olive Crowder. Olive was not a hugger, but as she came to meet Emma, she stretched out her arms, and Emma gladly accepted the rare invitation to walk into their circle.
“How’s Sadie?” she asked.
“Sleeping,” Olive told her. “Lars got both of the children to lie down, and when I checked on them a few minutes ago, they were both sleeping.”
“Das ist gut,” Emma murmured. “Und Lars?”
Olive glanced back at Lars, who was surrounded by a cluster of men, including Hester’s father, Arlen Detlef, who was also their senior pastor. The men were all frowning as if someone had raised a weighty question that needed special consideration. Arlen was stroking his thick white beard.
As she worked her way through the crowded room to Lars, Emma paused to accept the condolences of the other women and thank them for coming. They had brought food—a beautiful cake, a fruit pie, and at least three perfectly formed loaves of bread. The thought of eating anything made her physically ill, so she turned her gaze back to Lars.
“Guten abend,” she murmured as she squeezed past several of the men to take her place beside her husband. She was unsure of her role here. Was she expected to play hostess and offer food as she had at Jeannie’s house? A foreign house to these people, in that it was not plain in its furnishings, and its other occupants were anything but plain in their dress.
Except Tessa.
It was true that Tessa had not exactly dressed in the conservative small green, blue, or gray prints that Emma had Sadie wear, and she certainly did not use a prayer covering of any sort. Her fiery red hair—so like her mother’s in color—was worn straight down, not pulled up in a bun. But even in her modern dress, she had preferred quieter styles than Jeannie did.
Emma suddenly thought of the outfit that Jeannie had brought downstairs to take to the funeral home and knew that it would not have been Tessa’s choice at all. Perhaps she should call Jeannie. No, she would go over there in the morning. By then Jeannie likely would have recognized on her own that Tessa would want to be dressed in something quieter.
“…officer said there would be a full investigation,” Lars was saying.
To her. He was telling her something important, and she was thinking about clothing.
“I don’t understand the need,” she said. “We know what happened. It was a horrible accident, and one child is dead while the other…”
“Still, the authorities have questions,” Arlen said. Emma realized that some of the people in this very room had already been questioned.
“But they are not our authorities,” Lars reminded him. “We are not of their ways.” He looked from the minister to Emma. “There will be questions, yes, but nothing so formal as an investigation. It was, as Emma has said, a terrible, terrible accident.”
As he spoke, Emma understood that he was looking for assurances. But the other men said nothing.
“Lars,” Pastor Detlef said after an uncomfortable silence had fallen over the gathering, “the circumstances here are… unusual. The General Assembly has long held that one of ours charged with a violation of the law and summoned to appear in court may indeed make use of the services of an attorney.”
“But…” Lars started to protest, but Arlen held up one hand and continued. “However, the person accused must not permit the attorney to try to build a case based on denial of what the accused knows to be true.”
A hush fell over the room. Several people bowed their heads. Everyone knew what the pastor was telling them. “The attorney’s role is only that of establishing the truth, pleading for clemency in the case of guilt, and arguing the supremacy of God’s higher law over that of the court.”
Emma turned to Lars. “Is Sadie going to jail?”
“Lieutenant Benson intends to take Sadie into custody as soon as the doctor discharges her, Emma. You heard him say that. We have to think about how we can best protect her.”
“There is basis in scripture to argue for alternative solutions.” Arlen turned the pages of his worn Bible until he found the passage he needed. “Right here in the book of Luke,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison.” He closed the Bible and faced Lars. “You must decide the path you will take. Meanwhile we will all pray for your Sadie.”
The others nodded.
As the full impact of what lay ahead for Sadie hit her, Emma staggered and reached for Lars’s arm to steady herself.
“Emmie”—Lars led her to one of a half dozen identical chairs—“you’re exhausted.”
“You both are,” Olive said. “We’ll be going now,” she added in that no-nonsense tone she had that made people do her bidding. Everyone moved slowly toward the door, assuring each other as they left that Emma was indeed all right, that it had been a terrible day for the entire family, and that once they had some rest…
The voices trailed off as they moved down the hall. Emma couldn’t help but wonder, Once we’ve had some rest, then what?
“Emma, can I get you something before I go?” Olive asked.
“I’m fine,” Emma assured the older woman. “I’m just suddenly so very tired, and tomorrow…”
And the day after that and the week after that…
“Get some rest even if you can’t sleep,” Olive advised. “I’ll stop by Jeannie’s first thing tomorrow. And you know that Zeke Shepherd will be there for Geoff. You and Lars just take care of Sadie and Matt and yourselves—you’ve all suffered a terrible loss today.”
Emma sat in the chair while Lars thanked Olive and Pastor Detlef and the others for coming. After what seemed a long time, he came back into the small room, and then he just stood there until Emma realized by the heaving of his chest that he was crying. She went to him. No words were necessary as they wrapped their arms around each other and hung on.
“Let’s go check on the child
ren,” Emma said. She took Lars’s hand and led him down the corridor. The security guard glanced at them but continued her conversation with the nurses.
“Mama?” Sadie was standing in the doorway to her room. Emma held out her arms, and Sadie ran to the safety of her mother’s embrace. She was wearing a hospital gown and robe that were far too big for her, and Emma could not help thinking about the clothes she’d worn earlier that morning. Clothes so carefully selected from the limited range of choices that any conservative Mennonite teen might have.
“You’re so lucky,” Sadie had moaned to Tessa two days earlier. “You can wear anything you like.”
“And you are so lucky that you’re the kind of person that others want to be friends with no matter how you look,” Tessa had replied without a touch of jealousy or malice. It was a truth they all recognized, for Sadie drew people to her like hummingbirds to sugar water.
“You’ll have lots of friends, too,” Sadie had told Tessa. “You’ll see. Smart is the in thing these days, and nobody is smarter than my genius cousin.”
Emma recalled how later, over glasses of iced tea, she and Jeannie had relived that conversation. “They’re like we were at their age,” Jeannie had said and then had gone on as only Jeannie could to lay out her plan for the girls’ future.
Now Sadie seemed incredibly small and fragile as she pressed close to her parents. How on earth were they going to see her through everything she had yet to face—the funeral, facing Jeannie and Geoff, the full pain of the realization that Tessa was gone? Emma refused even to think about her daughter being arrested.
“Can we all sleep here tonight?” Sadie asked, her voice muffled in the cloth of Emma’s dress.
“Oh honey, I’m not sure…”
“Matt’s already sleeping. The nurse gave him a blanket and everything.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Lars told her, stroking her hair.
“We’re not scared,” Sadie replied. “Well, maybe we are, but don’t we all just need to be close right now?”
Emma and Lars looked at each other. “Yes, that’s exactly what we need,” Lars said. “I’ll just let the nursing staff know that we’ll all be here for the night.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sadie said, following her dad down the hall to the nurse’s station.
On the one hand, Emma was thrilled to see her daughter acting more like her usual self. On the other, Dr. Booker had already warned them that he had little case for keeping Sadie in the hospital longer than overnight. And if he failed to keep her longer, she would be discharged and immediately taken into custody.
Emma walked into the semidarkness of Sadie’s hospital room. It was small but private, and that was something to be glad about. As Sadie had told them, Matt was curled up on a reclining chair, the hospital blanket cast off to one side. Even as a baby he had always curled in protectively as if there were some need to fend off danger. His expression now was not what she would describe as peaceful. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was drawn into a thin straight line.
She knelt next to him and touched his shoulder. “Matt?”
He rolled to his back and blinked up at her. “Mom?”
“Right here,” she said. “You okay?”
He pushed himself to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “It’s true?” His features lit by the hall light begged her to tell him it had all been a mistake.
“Ja,” she said.
“But…” The logic he was so fond of employing failed him, and his mouth worked though no sound came out of it.
Emma sat on the arm of the chair and put her arm around his thin shoulders. “But there’s nothing to be afraid of, Matt. It will take time to get through the sadness and the terrible, terrible loss. You will always miss Tessa, but…”
“Is it true that Sadie killed her?”
For an instant, Emma stopped breathing. “Where did you hear such a thing?” she gasped.
“That’s what Sadie told me. She said it was all her fault that Tessa died—that she killed her.”
“Tessa’s death was an accident, Matt. Do you hear me? A horrible accident.”
Matt’s head bobbed in the affirmative, and Emma realized that she had grasped his shoulders and shaken him. She hugged him to her. “Sorry,” she murmured against his hair tousled by sleep. “So sorry. We need to talk about this together—all of us as a family. There’s a lot we’re going to have to work our way through, okay?” Emma’s assurances that they would get through this somehow rang hollow even as she thought the words.
“Yes ma’am.” Matt pulled the blanket a little closer, and Emma instinctively gave him some time to collect himself.
“Mom?” He did not look at her, just sat fingering the blanket. “I never really thought about somebody dying so young before—I never really thought it could happen to one of us.”
“Me neither,” she admitted.
Chapter 15
Lars
How was a man supposed to protect his family? How could he turn back the clock to a time when his wife and daughter and son were happy and safe? When their house rang with laughter and was filled with extended family and friends sharing plans and dreams for the future?
Lars drew the blade of a handsaw across a thick board and began the rhythmic back-and-forth strokes that would change that board into something else—in this case something he sorely wished he were not called upon to craft. He was building a coffin. Tessa’s coffin. The large board would be changed by the cutting and sanding and finishing, much the way his family had been changed by the event that led to Tessa’s death.
It was Saturday, a day that Lars normally reserved for doing his paperwork and making trips to the lumberyard with Matt to choose the wood he would need for the coming week. But today was different. Today was the day that he would pour everything God had given him in the way of carpentry skill into making a coffin for Tessa.
Although Emma had awakened earlier with the same outward calm with which she had greeted every day of their lives together, she was not the same—none of them were. The morning before, she had tended to the housekeeping chores in Sadie’s hospital room, folding up the bedding the nurses had brought for them so the whole family could stay the night and wetting paper towels from the bathroom to wipe down all the surfaces in the room the same way she wiped the countertops and kitchen table and stove every morning at home.
The nursing and hospital housekeeping staff had tried to stop her, but Emma had continued her cleaning alongside them, using the time to get to know each one of them a little better. It occurred to Lars that she was nurturing those strangers the same way she nurtured their neighbors and friends. And when one large maintenance worker had pulled his wallet from his hip pocket and proudly showed Emma photographs of his grandchildren, Lars had thought that there might actually be a chance that Emma would see them all through this the same way she had shepherded their family and Jeannie’s through countless other lesser catastrophes in the past.
And yet there was something different about her. Something in her eyes. The kind of furtive wariness of an animal that fears it is about to be trapped. Before, her eyes had always been alive with curiosity in spite of her inclination toward worrying. Now they were clouded by dread and doubt.
Before…
All of time now seemed to be divided into before and since—before the accident, since Tessa’s death. No one spoke the actual words. Such sentences usually broke off abruptly, but the meaning was clear. Before the accident, his daughter had been a lively, outgoing girl who was enormously popular with her friends and classmates and much beloved by their large extended family. Before the accident, his son’s world had revolved around sports—games played, games watched, games analyzed at length usually with his uncle Geoff. Before the accident, there had not seemed to be enough hours in the day to do all that they needed or wanted to accomplish.
But since…
The accident had happened on Thursday—odd to beg
in a school year at the end of a week, but Geoff had explained that the school board had decided that the first three days of the week needed to be given to faculty and staff to do all the things necessary to assure a smooth start for the students. So Emma and Jeannie had set the family picnic for Wednesday afternoon, and on a rainy Thursday morning, their children had headed off to school.
Only one of them—Matt—had made it there.
By that evening, Tessa was dead and Sadie was confined to the hospital. On Friday Lars and Emma had split their time between the hospital and Jeannie and Geoff’s home, and they had been thankful when Dr. Booker had announced his intention to keep Sadie in the hospital for the weekend. But he had been overruled by hospital protocol, and late on Friday Sadie had been discharged, taken downtown to be charged and then taken—without them being allowed to go with her—to spend her first night in the juvenile detention center in Bradenton.
In this new and unfamiliar and frankly frightening realm of living, Sadie would be allowed limited visits and phone privileges. She would attend classes during the day and have chores to complete, just as she did at home. She would dress in the faded blue jumpsuit mandated by the county. She would not be allowed to wear the traditional prayer covering or keep her Bible close at hand. On Wednesday of the coming week, she was to appear in court for her arraignment, where she would plead guilty or not.
“Guilty of what?” Emma had protested. “It was an accident.”
How can today be only Saturday? Lars wondered as he continued to plane the wood that would form the curved lid to Tessa’s coffin. The funeral was scheduled for Monday afternoon. Would the judge hear their pleas and allow Sadie to be there? Lars was not so sure. He was not certain of anything when it came to the ways of the outside world, a world that now held the fate of his beloved daughter in its grasp.