by Anna Schmidt
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see.
Only Jeannie didn’t see. She didn’t understand this at all.
She looked sideways at Geoff. His lips were now so tightly pressed together that they had all but disappeared. His cheeks burned a bright red. He was sitting tall and straight, and his gaze was fixed on the wooden coffin that Lars had built especially for Tessa.
For Tessa. A box for Tessa.
Suddenly she imagined the coffin being placed in the ground, covered over with dirt, planted with grass and flowers. Tessa was in that box.
No. That was only the shell of her child. Tessa was in heaven. Tessa was with God. Tessa was not in pain or afraid or sick or frail. Tessa was safe and could never, ever be harmed again.
Jeannie clenched her fists and fought off the wave of nausea that threatened to send her stumbling up the aisle of the church to find a restroom.
The singing went on and on.
Please let this end, she prayed. But she knew in her heart that it was not going to end for them anytime soon. This was only the beginning. Tessa was gone. Sadie was under arrest. She heard a little cry of despair and realized it had come from her.
She felt Emma place a comforting hand on her shoulder. Emma and her family were seated in the pew immediately behind Geoff and Jeannie. Jeannie wondered why they weren’t there beside them in the front pew. Tessa had been like another daughter to Emma, as Sadie was to Jeannie. But the grandparents were sitting with them in that front pew—three gray-haired people who had adored this child as Jeannie had. Her parents next to her and Geoff’s mother next to him.
She glanced at Geoff. He returned her look with unseeing eyes then turned back to stare at the coffin. He would keep his vigil over Tessa until they lowered her into the ground. The night before, Jeannie had wakened to find Geoff gone. A note on the kitchen table read, Someone should be with her.
The words had hit her as an accusation. And as she had failed to keep her daughter safe, she had failed to be there to comfort her husband as he sat alone with their child—their only child.
Chapter 19
Geoff
At the cemetery, Geoff found himself fixated on Sadie. She looked different—more like Emma. Odd, when she had always reminded everyone so much of Jeannie. Tessa was the one who favored Emma. That was Tessa’s role—not Sadie’s. The thought irritated him, as did the way Sadie was dressed.
She wore the traditional garb of a conservative Mennonite—her skirt down to her ankles, her sleeves to her wrists, her hair wound into a tight, smooth bun under her prayer covering. Sadie had never worn the traditional white prayer cap before that Geoff could recall. She always opted for the black lace doilylike covering because it was less obvious, especially against her dark hair.
He shifted slightly, determined to see Sadie’s shoes. Shoes were Sadie’s passion—as they were Jeannie’s. How many times had they laughed about Sadie in her somber Mennonite garb parading around in Jeannie’s high heels? But not today. Today she wore plain black shoes.
Geoff looked at his niece again. From head to toe she was the picture of a devout conservative Mennonite. Was this contrition? Atonement? A ploy to fool others into having sympathy for her? Had Emma and Lars insisted? Or maybe the lawyer they’d hired? And to what end?
Sadie reverting to the traditions of her conservative faith would not bring Tessa back—would not undo what Sadie in her reckless, carefree way had caused. Suddenly Geoff saw the future clearly. He and Jeannie alone—their beloved child ripped from them without any chance to know her potential, to give to the world the gifts she had given them from the day she was born. And Emma and Lars shepherding Sadie through this, sharing the pain and agony of whatever sentence the court might impose, until one day they could wake up and think of Tessa only in passing while they went on with their lives.
He saw his nephew Matt watching him, his puppy-dog eyes large and soulful. Matt had always turned to Geoff whenever life became too much of a challenge. The boy loved his parents but he had built a bond with Geoff that went beyond games won and lost. More than once Geoff had taken Matt’s side when Emma worried that playing team sports was too much of a physical danger for the boy. More than once he had listened as the boy agonized over his slim build and small size. “You’ll grow,” Geoff had assured him. “Just take a look at your mom and dad—both tall and athletic in build. Genes don’t lie.”
“And then there’s Auntie Jeannie,” Matt had said with a roll of his eyes. “What if I got those genes?”
It was true. Jeannie was petite and small-boned, almost fragile-looking. It was another of the things that had attracted Geoff to her when they first met. She looked like a porcelain doll with her fair complexion and unreal crown of curly red hair. But he had soon learned that she was anything but petite in personality and anything but fragile in the way she took on the challenges that came her way.
Until now…
He had never seen Jeannie so lost. For the last five days while they waited for family and friends from out of town to gather, while they endured day after day of people occupying their house and filling it with their whispered conversations and too much food, she had wandered through her days in a kind of stupor, her facial expression either one of permanent disbelief or unrelenting grief. In spite of the fact that his mom and hers showed up every morning ready to take over the day’s mundane chores, Jeannie went through the motions of her routine at home—making beds, preparing meals from the endless parade of covered dishes. She’d even done the laundry. He had found her slumped to the floor of their room next to the bed, her fingers clutching a red sweater of Tessa’s that had gotten mixed in with the whites and turned everything pink. He’d known she wasn’t crying over the stained laundry, but it had shocked him when she had looked up at him, tears running down both cheeks, as she held up the sweater and said, “It shrunk. It’s ruined, and it’s her favorite.”
Now, after a ride that he could barely remember from the church to the cemetery, he instinctively reached for Jeannie’s hand. They were standing next to their child’s open grave and waiting for the inevitable conclusion to the service, and for the first time he realized that it was raining, a light misting rain—gentle like Tessa. The sun was out, and somewhere he knew there would be a rainbow. Someone was shielding them with a large black umbrella, and all around them people had opened umbrellas of their own or taken cover under the umbrella-like foliage of an oversized saw palmetto tree.
He had a memory of the umbrella he’d been trying to open to shelter Tessa that morning. He saw her face, her smile, her eyes so alive and mischievous. Inside it felt as if his heart were cracking open.
Their minister had finally come to the end of his part of the service. The casket was lowered into the muddy hole, rivulets of water staining the wood. Tessa’s classmates and friends from church filed slowly past the open hole. Several of them carried flowers that they tossed into the grave. Then Zeke, who had been one of the pallbearers, took Geoff’s arm and led him to the mound of dirt next to the grave.
He handed Geoff a long-handled shovel. Geoff knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to place the first shovelful into the hole—the first step toward filling it—a step that the others would take as part of the ritual before the cemetery staff completed the work. He looked up and saw Sadie, her face buried in her father’s shoulder, her thin body shaking.
Geoff fought against the temptation to go to her, drag her over to the grave, place the shovel in her hands, and insist that she—not he—be the first to bury Tessa. He wanted her to see what she had caused.
“You can do it,” Zeke said softly, and for one incredible moment, Geoff thought that his friend might be giving him permission to play out his fantasy. But then he glanced around, saw all the expectant faces—some of them perhaps wondering if he would fail in this last duty to his child as h
e had failed to protect her that day when he stood by and watched helplessly as the car rammed into her and crushed her internally without so much as a scratch on her.
He thrust the tip of the shovel into the pile of damp earth and pushed it to its full depth with one foot. Then he swung around and dropped the load into the hole, closing his ears and mind to the plop of packed clods of gritty dirt onto the wooden box.
Zeke reached for the shovel, but Geoff held on. He loaded it a second time and then a third and then twice more before Zeke wrestled it from him and passed it to Lars. Then Zeke wrapped his arms around Geoff and held him upright as the two of them staggered back to where Jeannie was waiting.
She held her arms out to him, and he realized that he was sobbing uncontrollably—the first time he had cried since that terrible moment when the doctor had walked into the waiting room and the truth of what he was about to tell them had struck them all like a punch to the stomach.
“Somebody is going to pay for this,” he gasped as Jeannie and Zeke walked him back to the chairs under the tent provided for the grieving family.
“Shhh,” Jeannie whispered, and he could not help wondering if she meant to soothe him or to protect her sister and niece from overhearing.
Chapter 20
Emma
Emma was beginning to accept the fact that Jeannie was avoiding her. Over all of the time that had led up to the funeral, the sisters had been in the same place—the hospital, Jeannie’s house, the church, the cemetery. They had often sat or stood within inches of each other. And yet there had been an emotional distance between them brought on by Emma’s worry over Sadie and no doubt Jeannie’s own dilemma of whether she should pity Sadie or blame her.
So as the days after the funeral passed with no call or contact, she tried on one level to understand her sister’s reluctance to spend time with her. But on another it made no sense. The two of them had always been each other’s rock when it came to getting through tough times. They were certainly no strangers to tragedy.
Their eldest brother had drowned when the girls were only six and eight. Their mother had battled cancer, and while she had won that fight in the end, for years it had fallen to the sisters to care for their father and siblings while their mother went through operations and rounds of chemotherapy that left her weak and unable to manage the routine of a large family. Through it all, Emma and Jeannie had turned to each other, sharing in the chores even as they shared their grief and worry.
So how was this different? They were both hurting. She thought of how terrified they had been at the arraignment when Joseph Cotter had told them that the state’s attorney had actually considered moving the case to adult court. Under other circumstances, Jeannie would understand how frightened Emma had been. She would listen and console and reassure. That was what the two of them had always done for each other.
But as the days following the funeral passed without any contact with Jeannie, Emma began to worry. She moved through the regimen of household chores, getting back to the volunteer work that came as regular as the turning of the calendar—and through it all she sorted through the possibilities. How to make things right again? She came up empty every time.
With the funeral behind them and the counsel of Pastor Detlef as well as Jeannie’s minister to try and return to some semblance of a normal routine, Emma had made the first move. She had decided to call Jeannie as she had always done first thing every morning. But she had gotten no answer. Seriously worried, she had ridden the family’s three-wheel bike to Jeannie’s house and found Geoff painting the garage door. He was dressed in a shirt and tie, and she assumed he was on his way to work. It seemed odd that he had stopped to paint the garage door, but then Emma had come to understand all too well that a person had to find his own way through the pain of grief.
“Is Jeannie inside?”
Geoff’s hand had paused midstroke, but he had not turned to look at her. “Go home, Emma. She needs some time—we both do.” He started painting again, drawing wide strokes across the surface of the garage door.
“But it’s just me. I mean, I know there have been a lot of people…”
“Go home and leave us in peace,” Geoff said, and although she could not see his face, the tightness of his voice told her that the words had been uttered through clenched teeth.
Emma stared at the kitchen window, trying to decide what to do. If their situations were reversed and Lars told Jeannie to leave, her sister would ignore him and march herself right up to the house. But Emma wasn’t Jeannie, and as much as she wanted to go to her sister, she could not help but respect Geoff’s pain. She understood how difficult it must be for him especially to distinguish between Emma, the sister of his wife, and Emma, the mother of the girl who had caused the death of his only child.
She got back on the tricycle. “Tell Jeannie that I’ll keep calling, and when she’s…”
Geoff laid the paintbrush carefully on the open can of paint and walked into the house, closing the door behind him with a finality that made Emma’s heart thunder with fear for what the future might hold for all of them.
She turned the tricycle around and started slowly back toward Pinecraft, hoping with every push of the pedals that she would hear footsteps running behind her and that Jeannie would call out to her.
“I should have just gone inside,” she had told Lars. “Jeannie would have. You know she would.”
“Perhaps,” Lars said. “Perhaps Geoff is speaking for her. Give her a few days at least, Emmie. This is uncharted territory—for all of us.”
Emma had to agree. “Is Matt coming straight home?” Ever since Sadie’s arrest, Emma had noticed a need to have her son close, to know that he was in his room or out in the workshop—not out in the world where he might get into a situation he couldn’t handle—as Sadie had.
“He said he was going over to the academy to watch football practice.” Lars cleaned some wood stain off his fingers. “Geoff’s gone back to work then?”
Emma shrugged. “Looked that way. He was dressed for it.”
“It might be the best thing for him. Get his mind onto other things at least for part of the day.”
“And Jeannie? She’ll be totally alone.”
Lars frowned.
“What is it?”
“Look, I know how worried you are about Jeannie and Geoff, but, Em, our focus has to be on Sadie—on how we’re going to help her find her way through this.”
Emma felt a wave of irritation. Didn’t Lars think she was as worried about Sadie as she was about Jeannie? Didn’t he know that she lay awake at night trying not to imagine how confused and frightened their daughter must be—alone in a strange place with girls who, by some reports, were capable of violent attacks for no reason?
Everything was spinning out of control, and she felt so helpless. Her role had always been the strong one—the one everyone could turn to in times of crisis. Well, she was failing miserably now.
“I’m doing my best,” she whispered, ignoring that Lars had reached out to her as she walked quickly back to the house.
Supper that night was a strained affair. Only Matt behaved as if nothing were amiss.
“How did the team look?” Lars asked after a prolonged silence had engulfed the family.
Matt shrugged. “With Dan Kline not playing, they’ve got problems.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Emma snapped irritably, annoyed that Dan’s name should ever be heard again under their roof. She glanced at Lars, who was looking at her with concern.
No, I am not all right, she wanted to say in response to his unasked question. I have this horrible feeling that somehow we are waiting for another shoe to fall.
“Excuse me,” Emma murmured instead as she stood up and fled down the hall to the bedroom.
It took Lars less than a minute to follow her. He closed the door and sat down on the side of their bed next to where she had curled onto her side facing the wall. “I don’t know what to do,” she
said. “I don’t know how to help—either of them—Jeannie or Sadie.” She gulped back the lump that seemed to have permanently taken up residence in her throat. “I have prayed and prayed for guidance, but I am so lost, Lars, and my greatest fear is that we are all lost.”
She felt the mattress give as he lay down next to her, spooning himself to her back and wrapping his arms around her. He started to say something and then swallowed back the words. This was his way. He would not speak until he was certain that what he had to offer would make a difference.
“I spoke with Joseph today,” he said after a moment. “I wanted to have a better understanding of what may come of this.”
“And?” Every muscle in Emma’s body went still and stiff.
“There’s a strong likelihood that she will receive detention.”
“She’s in detention now,” Emma argued.
“We’re talking months—perhaps even a year or more,” Lars said after a long silence in which she knew he was struggling to find the words that would cause her the least pain.
She pulled free of his grasp and turned to face him. “No. It was an accident. She didn’t mean…”
“There are laws…”
“Their laws, not ours. Their justice, not ours.”
“You’ve said it yourself, Em. We live in their world at times like these. And we need to prepare Sadie for what she may have to endure.”
“Maybe we should consider some of those counseling services the intake worker from the probation department suggested.”
Lars shook his head. “Joseph advises against that at least for now. Accepting such services could be viewed as an admission of guilt.”
They stared at each other. She is guilty, Emma almost said. But they had already had that conversation. When Lars had hired Joseph, he insisted that Sadie must tell the truth about what had happened. “That is our way,” he’d told the young lawyer.