by Anna Schmidt
She continued to study Matt’s reactions as Rachel led them through the rest of the process. She was barely listening to the terms and conditions that Sadie had agreed to follow—even if the judge sent her away. Geoff would know what to do about Matt’s change of behavior, so as soon as they were finished here, she intended to find her husband and ask for his help.
“I want to add one more condition,” Sadie said when it seemed that they had formed the required contract.
“Be very careful, Sadie,” Rachel warned. “You have agreed to quite a list of things here. You have to keep in mind that right now you want very much to do everything you can to repair and heal what happened as a result of your decision to drive that day, but this contract is a long-term agreement. It will take years for you to fulfill all of the pieces—in some cases, like caring for Tessa’s grave, you are agreeing to continue this for the rest of your life.”
“I know, but Uncle Geoff isn’t here to… I haven’t heard from him about all the horrible ways I’ve hurt him, and well, if he can’t ever forgive me, then what’s the point?”
“We’re forgiving you, Sadie,” Emma said.
“You love me,” Sadie shot back.
Jeannie was stunned. “Geoff loves you, Sadie.”
If doubt had a face, Jeannie knew that she was looking at it when Sadie glanced up at her and then back at Rachel. “I just need to leave a place for Uncle Geoff to be able to have his say,” she said.
“That could take a long time,” Rachel warned. “And it might come at a time when you are finally beginning to feel as if you’ve achieved reconciliation.”
“I don’t care. I don’t even understand how Aunt Jeannie can be in the same room with me.” She turned to face Jeannie. “I killed Tessa,” she whispered.
Without a second’s hesitation, Jeannie opened her arms to this girl whom she had loved as her own. “Come here,” she said, relieved when Sadie willingly came to her, laying her head on Jeannie’s shoulder as the two of them stood rocking gently from side to side. “You didn’t kill anyone, Sadie. Your reckless behavior caused an accident—a horrific accident that none of us ever could have imagined. And yet it did. We can all find some blame in others—and in our own actions—but none of that will change what happened. We can only move forward, sweetie.”
“But Uncle Geoff…”
“Shhh, he’ll come around.” As she looked over Sadie’s shoulder, she saw Matt watching her closely. And she realized how very much he wanted to believe what she was saying. But then in an instant, his young hopeful face changed to that of a boy who had seen his world turned inside out by something he had no part in and could not have prevented even if he’d known.
Gently she pushed Sadie back toward Emma. “I have an errand,” she said as she turned to Rachel. “Can we get back to this maybe tomorrow? There’s something I really need to do.”
“Ja. Danke, Jeannie. I am so very aware of the courage it took for you to come here today.”
Jeannie stared at her new friend for a moment, thinking about all that Rachel had had to endure over these last months since her husband’s sudden death. “I may need to lean on you from time to time, Rachel. You’re a lot further down this dark road than I am, than Geoff is.”
“I’m here,” Rachel promised.
“Me, too,” Emma assured Jeannie. Lars nodded.
Jeannie looked at Matt, but the boy just looked down at his shoes and said nothing.
Outside, she mounted Tessa’s bike and headed for Geoff’s school. She had gotten too used to driving wherever she needed to go and had forgotten the feeling of freedom that came with riding a bike. The ties on her prayer covering playfully tickled her cheeks as she rode, and inside she felt the stirrings of the kind of lightheartedness that had always been her trademark. She knew she had a long and difficult journey ahead of her. She could summon the pain of Tessa’s death by simply remembering that moment when she had sat with Geoff on the driveway in the rain holding their child as her very life seeped out of her. But for the first time since that morning, she understood that somehow she would go on.
Geoff was running the football team through a scrimmage when she braked the bike, jumped off, and leaned it against the new storage shed. She couldn’t resist fingering the shiny lock—the one they had been searching for keys for that morning. What if they had not found the keys? What if instead of being in the driveway waiting for Sadie and Dan, Tessa had just that moment run to their garden shed to get the keys that Jeannie had hidden there?
And what then? Would the car have struck Geoff? And would her loss have been any less?
She heard Geoff call out a play and knew that whatever happened between them, she loved this man. He was a gifted teacher, a good coach, a loving father, and a tender and devoted husband. Watching him now as he ran onto the field when one of his players went down hard, she understood for the very first time the source of Geoff’s anger. He had not been able to save Tessa—he had tried and failed. And just as he took very seriously the fact that the parents of every player on his team had trusted their child to his care, how much more seriously would a man like Geoff take the responsibility of fatherhood?
As the hurt player limped off the field with the help of a manager and another player, Geoff dismissed the team for the day. He checked on the injured boy and was apparently assured by the team doctor—a parent of one of his players who had volunteered to be present whenever possible—that the kid would be okay. Indeed, the boy was almost walking normally by the time he headed for the locker room. Jeannie heard Geoff tease him about faking an injury so they could go home early.
The boy laughed.
And so did Geoff.
She stood on the sideline, savoring the sound of his laughter and relishing the way he took off his battered baseball cap and brushed back his hair.
Then he looked up and spotted her. At first he looked confused. He actually nodded politely and then started across the field, following the others. But suddenly he stopped and turned back, and this time he stared open-mouthed.
Jeannie waved and walked toward him. “It’s me,” she said, self-consciously fingering the ties on her prayer covering.
He met her halfway, his eyebrows raised in question.
She had come to plead with him to reconsider being a part of the program to reconcile with Sadie. She had come to plead with him to go and find Matt, have a long talk with the boy, and take him for ice cream. She had come hoping that he might see her and beg her to take him back.
But that was before she had seen him run onto the field to tend the injured player. That was before God had shown her what Geoff must have felt when all she could manage to consider was her own pain.
“Why are you… is something wrong… has something…”
She shushed him with a finger to his lips. “I just came to tell you that I’m sorry. Through all of this, I have thought only of my pain, my needs.”
He started to protest, but she again silenced him, this time with words.
“Oh, I convinced myself that I was taking care of you, defending you and your pain to those who didn’t understand. But the truth is that I didn’t understand—not until today. When that boy went down, I saw such fear in your face.”
“Can I talk now?” he asked, his voice the husky whisper of a man fighting to keep his emotions in check.
Jeannie nodded.
“What was different about today?”
“I told you—when I saw you with that boy,” she said and then shrugged. “Oh Geoff, maybe it wasn’t just today. I’ve had a lot of time to think and pray.”
He glanced at the white prayer covering. “You’re going back to your family’s church?”
“I don’t know, maybe. Clothes are just clothes, aren’t they? But right now dressing this way reminds me of how I was raised, what I believe, what we taught Tessa to believe. And I just began to think that the best way for me to honor who she was would be to find my way to forgiveness and to accept the kin
dness of others.”
Geoff frowned. “You mean the money for the bills?”
“That and other things. Think of it, Geoff. If this had happened to someone else we know—even if it had happened to a family you knew only because their child was in your class, we would be there. We would make food and take care of chores, and yes, we would give money if that was what was needed. Why? Because that’s what we do—that’s who we are—that’s who we taught Tessa to be.”
Geoff looked out toward the setting sun for a minute, his eyes damp. “I miss her so much.”
“Me, too.” She took his hand and brought it to her lips. “I love you, Geoff, and I’m so very sorry for—”
This time he quieted her. He pulled her into his arms. “Let’s go home, Jeannie.”
Jeannie had prayed to hear those words, and here they were. She looked up at him, her smile feeling as if it must rival the sun. She wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him.
“Hey, Coach,” one of his players shouted amid a background of whistles and cheers, “get a room.”
Chapter 44
Sadie
It’s over, Sadie. You’re free.”
That’s what her father had murmured after the judge accepted the recommendation of the probation team for sentencing.
Earlier that morning, Joseph had explained the procedure. “The probation team has interviewed people and studied the trial transcript. It’s up to them to give the judge their recommendation. The judge really has to accept this unless he can make a good argument for doing something else. There’s still the matter of him passing sentence, but given this report, that’s most likely to be probation and community service.”
But Sadie no longer trusted in such promises. So in spite of the relief that she could see on the faces of her parents—both looking suddenly younger and more themselves—and the twinge of relief she felt as well, she knew deep down that for her it would never truly be over. Tessa was dead, and however anybody explained it, the fact was that she was dead because Sadie had thought only in the moment and only of herself—her needs, her desire to impress Dan Kline, her certainty that nothing bad could possibly happen. It never had before, and she’d foolishly assumed that because they were all good people, nothing like this would ever happen to them. How wrong she had been.
She accepted the embrace of her parents and people from the community who were in the courtroom to support her. She looked around for her aunt Jeannie, but she had slipped out of the courtroom as soon as the judge adjourned the case.
“You’re free to go, Sadie,” Joseph Cotter told her. “Time to start living your life, building your future.”
And fulfilling the conditions of the contract I made with my folks, Matt, Aunt Jeannie—and hopefully one day, Uncle Geoff.
“Sadie?” Joseph was looking at her with a worried frown. The lawyer had become a good friend, someone she knew she could rely on to be there if she needed to talk.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know how to thank…”
Joseph waved off her gratitude with an embarrassed but pleased smile. “Just doing my job.”
Rachel Kaufmann was waiting at the back of the courtroom, and when Sadie saw her, Rachel gave her a wave. “Let’s go,” her mother said. “Matt will be home from school soon, and the four of us can have a nice supper and then maybe just…” Tears of relief leaked from the corners of her eyes as she stroked Sadie’s cheek. “It’s over,” she whispered.
But Sadie knew that it wasn’t over for her mom either. While Jeannie had willingly agreed to participate in the process to craft a reconciliation contract, the fact was that Uncle Geoff had moved back home. No one could say for sure how that would affect things. Once again Jeannie’s loyalties had to be split, and that meant that the truce between Jeannie and Sadie’s mom was not exactly solid.
Somehow Sadie understood that her aunt still blamed herself. How could that be? It wasn’t her fault. Sadie promised herself that now that she could come and go freely, she would go over to Jeannie’s house—when Uncle Geoff was at school or football practice, of course—and spend time with Jeannie talking about Tessa, remembering Tessa. Rachel had told her that it was important to remember.
But first she wanted to sit down with Matt. Her brother had remained indifferent to the process, commenting to her the night before that some stupid contract wasn’t going to fix anything. She was only now beginning to appreciate how much she had hurt him, how much he had had to pay for her actions by living day in and night out with their parents always worrying about her. He was the one who had seen his life put on hold, who must have sat at many meals where the silence of their parents’ worry and fear had made normal conversation impossible. And then when she learned that Uncle Geoff had basically abandoned Matt—all because of her…
“Matt, we’re home,” her mother called out as soon as they were inside the house. “Matt?”
By the time they had finally finished up at the courthouse, it was past time for Matt to be home from school. But the house was the kind of quiet that said nobody was home.
“He must be out in the workshop sweeping up,” her dad said and headed for the back door. “Matt?” he called, but Sadie could see that the workshop door was closed, the padlock undisturbed.
A now all too familiar sense of panic gripped her. Something was wrong—terribly wrong. Her dad stepped outside and walked around the yard. “His bike isn’t here,” he said when he came back inside.
Sadie ran down the hall to Matt’s room. She opened his closet and checked on the top shelf. Matt had a special T-shirt that he wore only when he attended one of Uncle Geoff’s games.
It was gone. And she knew that there was no game scheduled for that night.
“Mom?”
“What is it?”
“I think Matt’s run away.”
“No. I’m sure not. Why would he do such a thing? Today of all days?”
Sadie showed her the box that Matt always hid the shirt in. It was the box of an old board game they had played when they were younger.
“Lars,” her mom called out. Then she took the box and headed back toward the kitchen. “He’s gone,” Sadie heard her say.
Her brother had run away, and it was all her fault. Sadie sat down on the side of Matt’s bed and wondered if the ripples of her foolish action would ever stop coming.
She heard the muffled sounds of her parents discussing what to do. But she was the one who needed to fix this. She glanced around Matt’s room, unsure of what she was looking for but certain that there must be something that would give her a clue. Neither of them was known for neatness, but there was a pattern to the way Matt stored his things. It might look haphazard to their parents. That was the whole idea. But to Matt—and hopefully to Sadie—the placement of his belongings made perfect sense.
Knowing that her brother did nothing without first making detailed plans, she began going through the papers on his small desk. She was mystified when she found several printed sheets from a computer about playing poker. The other side of the paper had material that showed it to have come from the Sarasota library. When had he gone to the library downtown, and how had he gotten this paper? He must be doing a report on the evils of gambling, she decided and put his schoolwork, including the notes on poker, back where she’d found them.
Next, she dumped out his wastebasket and started smoothing out the crumpled papers. On the third paper, she found a rough sketch that looked like a map.
“Dad?” she called out.
Both parents came at once. “What is it? A note?” her father asked hopefully.
“Better,” Sadie said. “It’s a map.”
The three of them gathered around as Sadie spread the wrinkled paper on the desktop then turned it sideways to see if that made more sense.
“It’s Payne Park,” her dad said. By the way he looked at Sadie’s mom, she knew there had to be a connection.
“What?” she asked.
Her
mom told her about the night that Matt had gotten lost and had been brought home by the police officers. “We didn’t want to worry you.”
Sadie glanced at the paper again, realizing it was drawn on the back of a page from the day calendar that Uncle Geoff had given Matt. She read the date aloud.
“It’s the same date,” her father said, taking the paper from her and studying the map more closely. “He must have sketched this out that night, and the only reason to do that would be so that he could find his way back there again.”
When her parents headed for the door, Sadie started to follow them and accidentally knocked Matt’s schoolwork to the floor. The papers about poker spilled out from his notebook. Sadie had an idea. “Dad? There was this kid in my class who got in trouble last summer for playing cards… for money. He was slipping out to meet some boys from town.” She picked up the papers and handed them to her father. “You said something about Matt going out to meet friends after supper, and I found these inside Matt’s school folder.”
Her father’s already ruddy cheeks turned even redder. He passed the papers to her mother and headed down the hall still clutching the map that Matt had drawn.
“Let me go with you, Dad,” she pleaded, and to her surprise, he gave her a curt nod.
“Emma, stay here in case the boy comes to his senses and comes home.”
Sadie knew that there was not even a question of alerting others and certainly not the authorities in Sarasota. This was a private matter that her parents would try to handle alone. If the time came when they needed help, they would turn first to other family—usually Jeannie and Geoff—and then to Pastor Detlef and other leaders of the congregation. Calling the police would be an absolute last resort.
When Sadie got in on the passenger side, the map was lying on the seat. She picked it up and prepared to navigate for her father. “It looks like you turn left at the corner,” she said.
“I know the way, Sadie,” her father said, and then he softened his rebuke by patting her hand. “Sorry. I’m just worried.”