Redeeming Grace and the Prodigal Son Returns

by Emma Miller

  Chapter Two

  “I’m Grace Yoder,” Grace repeated, gazing around the room expectantly. “And I’ve come a long way...from Nebraska.” Standing here in this fairytale kitchen, her clothes dripping on the beautiful wood floor, all these strangers staring at her, Grace was so nervous that she could hardly get the words out. “We went to Pennsylvania where he grew up, but people said he moved here. I hope this is the right house. We’re looking for Jonas Yoder.” She paused for a long moment. “Please tell him his daughter and grandson are here to see him.”

  “Was in der welt?” the older woman in the rocking chair, Aunt Jezebel, exclaimed. “Lecherich!”

  “Ne,” the oldest sister said to Grace. Her expression hardened. “You’ve made a mistake. Jonas Yoder isn’t your father. He’s ours.”

  The younger girl, Rebecca, looked at her mother. She was holding a blanket she’d just fetched. “Tell her, Mam! Tell her that she’s wrong! It’s a different Jonas Yoder she’s looking for. She can’t be...” She took the hand of her younger sister, the one who looked as if she had Down syndrome, and squeezed it tightly.

  “Absatz,” Hannah said. “Stop it, all of you.” She moved closer to Grace and touched her chin with two fingertips, tilting her face up to the light. She looked into her eyes, and when she spoke again, her voice was kind. “What is your mother’s name?”

  “Trudie,” Grace answered. “Trudie Schrock. She was Trudie from Belleville, Pennsylvania, and she was born one of you—Amish.”

  “Trudie Schrock?” the older woman said loudly from her chair. “I know that name. Trudie’s aunt was a friend of Lavina. Trudie was the third daughter in the family, tenth or eleventh child. The Schrocks had a lot of children.”

  “And her name was Trudie? You’re sure of it, Aunt Jezzy?” Johanna—the one with the attitude—asked.

  “Ya. For sure, Johanna. That Trudie’s the only one who didn’t join the church. It hurt her family haremlich...terrible bad. Her father was a preacher, which made things worse. But there was never any talk of the girl being in the family way. Trudie left home and they never heard from her again. Must be some other Jonas this girl’s looking for.”

  Grace didn’t know what to say, but she knew she’d come to the right house.

  Hannah shook her head. “Ne, Aunt Jezzy. Jonas told me, before we married that...he and Trudie Schrock...that I wasn’t his first serious girlfriend.”

  “But not...” Johanna twisted her fingers in the hem of her apron looking from her mother to Grace and back to her mother again. “Dat would never... To make a baby with a girl not his wife. He couldn’t have...”

  “Hush,” Hannah said. “Don’t be a child.” She waved toward the table. “Come and sit, Grace. Was your mother certain? That Jonas...” She sighed, was quiet for a moment, and then went on. “I should have seen it the moment you walked into my kitchen. You have my Jonas’s red hair...his blue eyes. And you have the look of your sisters.”

  Grace swallowed, feeling a little dizzy. This was even harder than she thought it would be. She felt as if she was going to cry and she had no idea why. Her gaze moved from person to person. “I have sisters?”

  Hannah nodded. “I’m Jonas’s wife, and that makes my daughters—our daughters—your sisters.” She waved toward the stunned girls. “These three are your sisters, and there are four more. Ruth, Anna, Miriam and Leah. Leah is in Brazil with her husband, but the other girls live close by.”

  Grace’s knees felt weak. Her stomach felt as if a powerful hand was tightening around it, but at the same time, the feeling of relief was so intense that she thought she might lift off the floor and float to the ceiling. This good woman, this Hannah believed her! They didn’t think she was a con artist. Giddy and light-headed, she took the chair that Hannah offered. “Could you tell him I’m here?” she asked again in a breathless voice. “My father?”

  “Did your mother send you to find him?” Hannah asked, a little bit like the way the police asked questions. Grace had never been questioned by the police, but her Joe had. Many times.

  Grace shook her head. “She died when I was eleven. She never told me anything about her past. A friend of hers, Marg, told me what little bit I know. She and my mother danced...worked together in Reno. Trudie and me moved around a lot, but she and Marg shared a trailer once when I was little.”

  “Your mother?” Hannah asked. “You called her Trudie?” Lines of disapproval crinkled at the corners of her brown eyes.

  Grace nodded. “Trudie was nineteen when I was born, but she looked younger. She never wanted me to call her Mom. She said we were girlfriends, more like sisters. I think it was so guys—other people—wouldn’t guess her real age. She was pretty, not like me. She had the most beautiful blond hair and a good figure.”

  “Verhuddelt.” The older woman muttered as she retrieved the ball of yarn that had fallen out of her lap and rolled across the floor. “Such a mother.”

  “No,” Grace protested. “She took good care of me. I never went hungry or anything.” Well, not really hungry, she thought. Memories of sour milk and stale pizza washed over her, and she banished them to the dark corners in her mind. Trudie had always done her best, and she hadn’t run out on her like some other moms. Grace had heard lots of horror stories from the kids she’d met in the Nevada foster homes where the state had stashed her after her mother died. Raising a child alone was hard—Grace had learned that lesson well enough. She wasn’t going to let anybody bad-mouth Trudie.

  “She did the best she could,” Grace said. “She was smart, too, even if she didn’t have much education. She could speak German,” she added. “When she was mad, she always used to...” She trailed off, remembering that the angry shouts had probably not been nice words.

  “I’m sorry that your mother passed.” Hannah sat down and reached out to Dakota. “Here, let me hold him. Rebecca, could you get that cocoa? And hand that blanket to Grace.”

  The sister named Susanna offered a big cookie. Dakota shyly accepted it, but bit off a big bite.

  “Remember your manners,” Grace chided, accepting the blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders. She was so cold, she was shivering. “Don’t gobble like a turkey. You’ll choke.”

  Susanna giggled. “Like a turkey,” she repeated.

  Dakota nestled down in Hannah’s lap, almost as if he knew her. His eyelids were heavy. Grace was surprised he’d been able to stay awake so late.

  Hannah ran her fingers through Dakota’s thick dark hair. “How old is he?”

  “Three. He was three in January.”

  “His father?”

  “Dead.”

  “He’s little for three,” Aunt Jezzy observed.

  “But he’s strong. He was always a good baby, and he’s hardly ever sick. His father wasn’t a big man.” Grace looked into Hannah’s eyes and tried to keep from trembling. “Could you tell Jonas I’m here? Please. I’ve come a long way to find him.”

  “How did you get all the way from Nebraska to Pennsylvania? Do you have a car?” Hannah asked.

  Grace sighed. Her father’s wife was stalling, but she didn’t want to be rude. After all, Hannah had let her into the house and hadn’t kicked her out when Grace told her who she was. “We had a car, but the transmission went out on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It wasn’t worth fixing, so we left it.” She looked down at the floor. No use in telling them that the insurance had run out two weeks ago and that she had barely enough money for food and gas to get them to Belleville, let alone repair a 1996 Plymouth with a leaking radiator and 191,000 miles on it.

  “So you went on to Belleville and then came here looking for Jonas?” Hannah looked thoughtful.

  “I’m not asking for money. I don’t want anything from him or from any of you. I just want to meet him.” Grace chewed on her lower lip. “Since Trudie died, I haven’t had
any family.” She hung her head. “Not really.” She looked up again. “So, I thought that if I found my father...maybe...” Her throat tightened and she could feel a prickling sensation behind her eyelids. Grace took a deep breath. She didn’t need to tell her father’s wife the whole story. She’d save it for him. She looked right at Hannah. “I need to talk to my father. Please,” she added firmly.

  Hannah clasped a hand over her mouth and made a small sound of distress. “Oh, child.” She closed her eyes for a second and hugged Dakota. “Oh, my poor Grace. It pains me to tell you that your father...Jonas...he died four years ago of a heart attack.”

  Grace stared at her in disbelief. Thank goodness she was sitting down; her legs felt a little weak. Dead? After she’d come so far to find him? How was that possible? Bad things come in threes, and if you don’t expect much out of life, you won’t be disappointed. Her mother always said that. But the awful words Hannah had just spoken were almost more than she could bear.

  Her father was dead, too?

  Dear God, Grace thought, how could You let this happen? First my mother, then Joe and now my father. Now she was glad they hadn’t eaten since her breakfast of Tastykakes. If she had anything in her stomach, it would be coming up.

  “I’m so sorry,” Hannah said. “It must be a terrible shock to you. We’ve all had time to get used to Jonas’s passing. We miss him terribly. He was a good man, your father, the best husband in the world.”

  “Not so good as we thought, that nephew of mine,” Aunt Jezzy observed, more to herself than the others. “Not if he fathered a child and didn’t take responsibility for her.”

  “Hush, now, Aunt Jezzy,” Hannah softly chided. “We shouldn’t judge him. Jonas was a good man, but he was human, as we all are.” She kept her gaze fixed on Dakota’s sweet face. “He told me that he and Trudie Schrock had made a mistake, and that he’d repented of what he’d done. She left, suddenly, without telling him. No one knew where she went. She just left a note, telling her father that she didn’t want to be Plain anymore. Jonas never knew about you,” she told Grace, lifting her gaze. “You have my word on it.”

  Grace nodded, trying to get her bearings again. Trying hard not to cry. What was she going to do now? Her whole plan had been based on getting to her father. She was going to come to him, tell him the mistakes she’d made and beg him to let her into his life. She was going to promise to make only good choices from now on, to find a good man who wouldn’t lie to her and deceive her. She was going to tell him she wanted to become—

  “So.” Hannah smiled at her with tears in her eyes. “What do we do now, you and me? Where do we start, Grace Yoder?”

  Grace felt shaky, her mind racing. What did she want the Yoders to do with her? What was her plan B? Joe always said you had to have a plan B. “Maybe I could have that cup of coffee?”

  Hannah chuckled. “You have your father’s good sense, Grace. Of course you shall have your coffee, and the soup I promised. Then we’ll all take ourselves off to bed. You’ll stay here tonight, and I won’t hear any arguments. I’ll put you and Dakota in the guest bedroom.”

  “You’ll just let me stay?” Grace asked, truly surprised by Hannah’s kindness. Especially after the news Grace had just dumped in her lap about her husband. “You don’t know me. I could be a thief or an ax murderer.”

  Hannah smiled at her. “I doubt that, not if you’re Jonas’s girl. A straighter, more God-fearing man never lived. He might have stumbled once, but he never faltered. I’m sure you’re as trustworthy as any of your sisters.”

  Susanna giggled. “A sister.”

  “Thank you,” Grace managed. “Thank you all.” She looked at the women and the boy, all looking at her.

  Exactly what she was going to do now?

  * * *

  Grace hadn’t thought she’d be able to sleep a wink, but she’d drifted off to the sound of rain falling against the windowpanes and the soft hum of Dakota’s breathing. And when she’d opened her eyes, it was full morning, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.

  My father is dead, she thought. She’d come all this way, only to find out that he was as lost to her as Trudie. She felt numb. What was plan B? Where did she go now? What did she do?

  “I’m hungry,” Dakota said, interrupting her thoughts. “Can I have more cookies?” He popped his thumb in his mouth.

  “No cookies this morning,” she said.

  No one had said a thing about Dakota’s dark skin the night before, but she’d be ready for their questions. When Hannah and her sisters asked, and Grace was sure they would, she’d tell the truth—that Dakota’s father had been Native American. Marg had said that the Amish were backward, old-fashioned and set in their ways. Grace hoped that didn’t include judging people by the color of their skin, because if they couldn’t accept Dakota, then she wanted no part of them.

  But they hadn’t seemed to care.

  Grace looked down at Dakota’s little face as her mind raced. Plan B. She had to have a plan B. But maybe...maybe plan B should be the same as plan A. Or close. Why couldn’t it be? Hannah had been so nice to her. So welcoming.

  “Cookies aren’t for breakfast,” she told her son as she got out of bed and put her arms out to him. “But I’m sure Miss Hannah will be able to find something for you in her kitchen.”

  Just thinking of that kitchen made a lump rise in Grace’s throat. It was exactly the kind of kitchen she’d expected to find in her father’s house, only better. It was big and warm and homey, all the things that the kitchens she’d known in her life weren’t. And the Amish she’d met last night, even suspicious Aunt Jezzy and tough Johanna, were right for Hannah’s kitchen.

  What would it have been like to grow up here? she wondered. To belong to a world as safe as this one? To be part of a family who could welcome total strangers into their home and feed them and give them a place to sleep without asking for anything in return?

  It all seemed too much. She’d just do what she’d always done when things got scary or uncertain. She’d do what was most important first and worry about the rest later. And now, finding something to feed her hungry child was what mattered. Plan B could wait.

  She tidied the two of them up in the bathroom, took Dakota by the hand and, heart in her throat, led him back to the spacious kitchen.

  Grace could smell coffee, bacon and other delicious odors coming from the kitchen as she walked down the hall. “Now, you be a good boy,” she whispered to Dakota as she led him by the hand. Nervously, she slicked his cowlick back and tried to pat it down. “Show all these nice people just how sweet you are.”

  Hannah, two of the sisters that she’d met the night before and Aunt Jezzy were gathered at the kitchen table.

  “Miriam’s taking my place at the school this morning,” Hannah explained. “You’ll meet her, Ruth and Anna later. And this...” She waved toward a thirtyish brown-haired man in a blue chambray shirt and jeans sitting at the head of the table. “This is our friend John Hartman. John, this is Grace.”

  Grace nodded. He didn’t look Amish to her. His hair was cropped short, almost in a military cut, and he had no beard. Definitely not a cowboy type; he was nice-looking in an old-fashioned, country way.

  John rose to his feet, nodded and smiled at her. “Pleased to meet you, Grace.”

  “He’s having breakfast,” Susanna explained as John sat down again. “He eats breakfast here a lot. He likes our breakfast.” She picked up Dakota and sat him next to her on an old wooden booster seat in a chair.

  “I stopped by to check on one of Johanna’s ewes that got caught in a fence and Susanna caught me and...forced me to the table.”

  Grace wanted to ask if he was a farmer; it sounded as if he knew something about animals. She liked animals, especially dogs, and she’d always felt more at ease around them than people. The best job she’d ever had
was working at a kennel where she cleaned cages and took care of dogs boarded there while their families were on vacation. Trying not to say the wrong thing in front of her new family, though, she decided that the less she said to a strange man, the better.

  Susanna laughed. “You’re silly, John. You said you were sooo hungry and Mam’s biscuits smelled sooo good.”

  “I did and they do,” he agreed.

  “He wanted to get married with Miriam,” Susanna happily explained, offering Dakota a cup of milk. “But she got married with Charley.”

  John’s face flushed, but he shrugged, and looked right at Grace. “What can I say?” He grinned. “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”

  The others were laughing, so Grace forced a polite smile. John seemed like a stand-up guy, a real gentleman. As she accepted the cup of coffee Hannah handed her, Grace couldn’t help wondering why her half sister had turned John down. If a man as good-looking as John, who had a job he could work when it rained, asked her, she’d marry him in a second.

  Chapter Three

  John finished off two slices of scrapple, two biscuits and a mound of scrambled eggs, but as much as he normally enjoyed Hannah’s cooking, he may as well have been eating his uncle’s frozen-in-a-box sausage bagels. He couldn’t take his eyes off the attractive, almost-model-thin redhead, wearing the strangest Plain clothing he’d ever seen on a woman.

  Her name was Grace. A pretty name for a pretty girl. He knew he would have remembered her if he’d ever seen her before. She was obviously related to the Yoders; she looked like Hannah’s girls. From the attention she was giving the boy, she was probably his mother or at least his aunt. He didn’t look like the Yoders, though. And the two of them sure didn’t look Amish. So why had they spent the night here?

  John was Mennonite, and among his people, staying in the homes of total strangers who shared the same faith was commonplace. Mennonites could travel all over the world and always be certain of a warm welcome from friendly hosts, whether it was for a weekend or a month. But the Amish were a people apart and rarely mingled socially with outsiders, who they called Englishers.