The Days of Redemption

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  “Elsie?” her mother asked, turning slowly toward her. “You made your decision?”

  “Jah.”

  “I see,” her mother said, then turned back to the stove.

  Feeling confused, Landon glanced at Viola and Roman. They were obviously as uninformed as he was because they were staring at him with the same expression.

  “I don’t see,” he finally said.

  “I, uh, decided not to have the corneal transplant surgery after all.”

  Viola spun toward her sister, her expression incredulous. “Why?” she asked.

  As Elsie took her time answering them, Landon felt his heart beating faster than normal. He was disappointed and confused. He even felt a little angry. He wanted her to be able to see.

  Even more than that, he wanted her to want to be able to see.

  As he waited, Elsie seemed to measure her words. He hoped she would offer some kind of reason that he could understand.

  If he could understand her thinking, he knew he would support her.

  But to his dismay, Elsie simply shrugged. “I just decided that I didn’t want to do it. That’s all.”

  His heartbeat slowed. There was his answer.

  “That’s no answer,” Roman blurted. “Mamm, do something.”

  “It’s not my place, Roman. Nor yours.”

  Elsie lifted her chin. “After a lot of thought and prayer, I decided that it would not be the best decision.”

  “Because?” Roman prodded.

  “Well, for one, a surgery like that is expensive. Thousands of dollars.”

  Viola shook her head in dismay. “Elsie, we’re talking about your eyesight!”

  “There’s more to it than just that,” Elsie said softly. “I didn’t want to have a part of someone else’s eyes in mine. It didn’t seem right. And, well, I also realized that I’m at peace with going blind.”

  Roman looked incredulous. “But, Elsie, the bishop said—”

  “I respect Bishop Coblentz,” she interrupted. “I do. But these are my eyes, not his, and I think that means my opinion weighs more than his.”

  Her brother scowled. “It’s not a matter of who is right and wrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I made my choice, and my decision is that I don’t want to have the surgery. I already called Dr. Palmer and told him.”

  “What did Dr. Palmer say?” Viola asked.

  “He thought I should get the surgery, but he also admitted that lots of things could go wrong in a transplant surgery. Lots of things.”

  “And you’re scared of that?” Landon asked softly.

  “Jah. It could make things worse,” Elsie said. “There’s a chance that I could find myself seeing nothing at all—not even shadows or light. That I would just be in complete and utter darkness.” She winced.

  Though his mind was still reeling, he tried to offer her some support. “I wouldn’t want to live like that, either.”

  “I know you wouldn’t,” she said.

  Then, to Landon’s dismay, Elsie smiled sweetly. “But that’s why it’s so gut that we’ve found each other, Landon. You made me realize that I don’t have to be perfect to have a perfect life.”

  Roman turned to him with a scowl. “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You must have told her something.” Roman glared.

  Landon knew Elsie was waiting for him to respond to her statement.

  But he didn’t think he had any words in his head. Not any that were coherent, at any rate.

  He was so stunned, it took everything he had to keep his expression blank. To keep his mouth shut.

  Because inside, he was yelling and cajoling. And wanting to say that he’d only been so forward because he’d thought she was going to have the surgery.

  He’d thought they’d actually be able to do everything he’d wanted to do in life; that he could make good on his plans. If she could see, he could still have his job with Daniel. He would still be able to devote fifty to sixty hours a week on their business because Elsie would be home taking care of things, raising their children.

  If she couldn’t see, none of that could happen. He’d have to give up some of his dreams for success. He’d have to tell his brother that he couldn’t do his part in their company. Afraid to make a scene or to make the situation worse, he stood. “I need to go.”

  “But, Landon, don’t you want to stay and talk about things?” Elsie asked.

  “Not right now. I can’t. I, ah, just remembered some forms I told my brother I’d take care of.”

  “I’ll walk you out then.”

  He didn’t want her to. He didn’t want to have a private conversation with her until he had time to get his emotions better under control.

  She walked to his side, seemingly oblivious to the rest of her family’s stunned expressions.

  Once outside, she turned to him and rested a hand on his arm. “I’m so glad you were here when I told my family the news, Landon,” she said, her voice light. “You don’t know how I’ve been dreading the moment when I had to tell everyone that I wasn’t going to have the surgery. I needed there to be at least one person in the room who agreed with me. Who understood my feelings.”

  He hated what he was about to say. But this time, he knew he couldn’t hold back his thoughts. It would be cruel if he led her to believe he supported her decision. “Elsie, your news was a big surprise to me, too.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Really? At your brother’s house you didn’t seem to mind my disability. Actually, you acted like it didn’t bother you at all.”

  “Elsie, I thought you were going to get your operation.” As she stood there staring at him, he forced himself to continue. “I thought you were going to be able to see one day. I thought you were going to be normal.”

  The moment he said the words, he ached to take them back. Normal wasn’t the right word, and it wasn’t what he meant.

  But it was too late.

  She took a step back from him. “And right now, you do not think I’m ‘normal.’ ”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I meant,” he said, scrambling. “Elsie, I only meant that if you could see, it would be much easier for you. Everything would be much easier. And better.”

  “And for you, too, jah?” Her voice turned accusing. “You don’t want to have a wife who can’t see, do you?”

  Though he felt guilty about it, he couldn’t lie. Not about something so important. Not about this.

  His mouth went dry. He ached to tell her something different. He ached to be the type of person who could look at problems in his life and shrug them off instead of dwelling on them.

  But he wasn’t that type of man.

  While he’d thought that he was getting used to courting a woman who was going blind, as soon as the possibility of surgery came up, he realized how much hope it had given him. How happy it had made him.

  So it was with regret but not surprise that he answered. “I don’t. I need a frau who can see. Who will be there for me, and for our kinner. Who can take care of a bopli. I need a woman who I can depend on.”

  Before she could interrupt, he held up a hand. He needed to tell her what he thought, even if it was painful to hear. And hard for him to say. “This . . . This is nothing personal, Elsie. It’s just that I have plans. I’ve worked a long time to prepare for them, worked a long time to put everything into place. It’s too late to change, you see. . . .”

  “Too late?”

  “I know I sound rigid. Maybe I am. But if I am, that’s even a better reason why we shouldn’t see each other anymore. I wouldn’t be the right man for you.” He felt almost justified. Perhaps that was the way to look at things—not that she was lacking, but that they weren’t suited. Feeling a bit better, he added smoothly, “I wouldn’t be able to be the husband you needed, and that would be wrong.”

  “Funny, even though I can’t see all that well, I had plans, too.”

  Her voice was bitter. He swallowe
d his shame and forced himself to think about the future, about the future he’d planned so hard to prepare for. “I realize that, Elsie.”

  “Nee. You realize nothing.” She turned her back on him. “Landon, I know you are friends with my bruder, but please, don’t come back here again. I don’t want to see you ever again.”

  “Elsie, I’d like us to still be friends.”

  “I don’t think that will be possible. I have no interest in being your ‘friend.’ ”

  “If you change your mind, you know where I am.”

  “I won’t.”

  Still staring at her back, he scrambled for something better to say. For some way to make himself feel better, and to make her understand. “With my job, I’m gone for hours at a time. Sometimes over twelve hours. How would you get along like that? Elsie, you could get hurt!” He yearned to mention what could happen to a baby, but stopped himself, knowing that reminder would be cruel.

  “I guess we’ll never know how I could get on, will we?” she said as she started forward. “And heaven forbid I get hurt,” she added, her voice thick with sarcasm.

  He flinched, hating that he was hurting her. But he knew his worries were justified. If he didn’t stand firm now, things would only get worse in the future.

  What he was doing was for the best for both of them. The last thing either of them needed was false hope. To hope for something that they couldn’t count on.

  With mixed feelings, Landon forced himself to stand still as she walked to the door. As she stumbled on the stairs. When he watched her struggle with the door handle that seemed to stick.

  He stood in the cool night air, watching through the window as she walked through the kitchen and bump into a chair before moving out of sight.

  Then he was alone, standing alone, in the dark. Exactly how he wanted to be.

  And that is when he knew he’d never felt lower or more alone. For a brief moment, he’d been so sure he was going to have everything he’d ever wanted.

  Giving up that dream was as hard as telling her the truth about how she wasn’t ever going to be the woman he needed.

  Elsie Keim was a lovely woman who possessed a very kind, very loving heart. She would make some man a wonderful wife, too.

  Just not him.

  Only later, when he was sitting in his empty house that needed too much work, did he realize what else he was feeling . . . a pinch of jealousy for the new man in her life.

  That new man was going to be a blessed man, indeed. Landon sincerely hoped he realized that.

  chapter twenty-seven

  After the difficult conversation with Landon, Elsie told her family that she was skipping dinner and had run upstairs to come to terms with what had just happened in private.

  She was hurt and weepy. For a few moments, she gave in to temptation, took off her glasses, and cried, but mostly she just lay on her bed and stared into nothing.

  She simply had no idea what to do next. She felt suspended, adrift. More alone than ever.

  She’d just fallen into an uneasy doze when their door creaked open and Viola joined her.

  “Elsie, you have to tell me what happened when you and Landon went outside to talk.”

  Knowing that it would do no good to ignore her, Elsie replied. “We talked.”

  “Come on. Please tell me what happened. All I could do during dinner was wonder what the two of you said. Don’t leave me in suspense!”

  “There’s not much to say.” She slipped back on her glasses and blinked.

  “Well, you got everything ironed out, right?”

  Viola’s voice was so eager, so happy for her, it only made Elsie feel worse. “Not exactly.”

  In the dark, Viola slipped off her apron and dress, then opened her top drawer and pulled out a nightgown. “Elsie, you can’t leave me like this.” She paused. “Oh my gosh . . . Did it not go well?”

  “It was more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean . . .” Her voice cracked. Unable to continue without bursting into tears, she said, “I need to go brush my teeth.” Quickly she padded down the hall, turned on the flashlight that they kept on a shelf, and quickly washed her face and brushed her teeth.

  And then stood in front of the mirror and wished for once that she could see herself as others saw her. Naïvely, she’d assumed that if she was able to handle her disability, then others would be able to as well.

  But now she realized that for Landon, at least, it hardly mattered how she felt about her body. It was his perception that counted.

  And unfortunately, that was something that she couldn’t change. No matter how upbeat or purposeful she tried to be, she would never be able to change Landon’s negative view of her.

  Perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was best that they’d ended things now. Before she’d grown to depend on him, or before she’d imagined that he could love her.

  When she returned to their room, Elsie could sense Viola watching her from her twin bed. She was tempted to merely crawl into her own bed and pretend to go to sleep, but she now knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep for hours.

  Instead, she walked to Viola’s bed and scooted in beside her. With a grunt, Viola moved over. It was a tight fit, but being next to her twin felt right.

  “We haven’t shared a bed in ages,” Viola whispered.

  “Soon, it will be impossible. You’ll be in Belize with Edward.”

  “And maybe one day you’ll be with Landon?”

  That was the tipping point. Realizing that no matter how much she might have wanted it, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Her eyes began to water, and at last she let the tears fall. “That’s not going to happen, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I . . . Landon told me that I’m not good enough for him. He . . . He wants a normal woman. One who can see.”

  “He wanted you to have the transplant operation. That doesn’t mean he didn’t think you were good enough. I felt sure that as soon as you two were alone he’d come to his senses.”

  “He has come to his senses, they just don’t include me. Viola, he—he said he couldn’t bear to have a wife who he couldn’t depend on,” she said, sputtering. “He didn’t want to be stuck with a woman who he would have to worry about while he was working.”

  “Oh, Elsie,” Viola murmured. “I am sorry.”

  She was sorry, too. Rolling over, Elsie turned her back to Viola. Only that way, lying on her side, could she share the worst.

  As the tears fell, sliding down her cheeks and staining the collar of her nightgown, she confessed all of it. “He didn’t even want to talk about how I could still do lots of things, or how I’ve realized I hear better than I used to. He wanted that operation. The operation and for me to be ‘normal.’ Otherwise, he doesn’t want me, Viola.”

  “You must be mistaken. I saw how he looked at you. I thought he was falling in love.”

  “He didn’t.” Elsie hadn’t misunderstood one thing. “And while I know I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, I’m so sad. I really thought he was the right man for me.”

  Worse, she’d truly thought she had been the right woman for him.

  She’d thought she’d mattered enough to him for him to make some sacrifices.

  Viola wrapped her arms around Elsie’s back. “Do you want to change your mind about the surgery?”

  “Nee.”

  “Sure? You maybe could have Landon then.”

  “Viola, I’ve wished I could see, I’ve wished that Landon saw more of me than my poor vision. But I haven’t once thought about getting that operation so he’d have me.”

  “You sound mighty sure.”

  “I am. It’s . . . It’s a tricky procedure. Sometimes the transplant doesn’t take. What would happen then? I don’t want to change myself to make him want me. What if something else happens to my body one day and I’m not ‘normal’? What if I have the operation, have someone else’s corneas, but I stil
l can’t see? Will Landon push me away then?”

  “You’re not being entirely fair to Landon,” Viola protested. “He’s a good man, Elsie.”

  “I agree. Landon is a good man. But he’s not being entirely fair to me, either. After all, isn’t love supposed to be blind? Isn’t love supposed to be stronger than our weaknesses? Or, at the very least, isn’t love supposed to mean that you love someone in spite of their faults?”

  After a moment’s pause, Viola nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid you are right. Edward loves me even though I’m far from being an ideal missionary wife. He loves me in spite of my imperfections.”

  “Exactly,” Elsie said, glad her twin understood. “I mean, aren’t we all more than our worst parts? Shouldn’t we be? I know that I can’t see too well, and that one day I’ll hardly be able to see at all. But to be perfectly honest, I really thought I was more than just a pair of bad eyes.” Lowering her voice to a whisper, she added, “I mean, at least, I wanted to be.”

  “You are. You are far more than that. You’ve always been more than that. It’s Landon’s loss if he doesn’t understand that. If he doesn’t want a relationship because of this, it proves that this problem isn’t only about you, Elsie. It’s about his problems, too.”

  “What do I do now? Should I try to forget about him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I feel like I shouldn’t be as sad as I am. I mean, I hardly knew him. But the idea that we could be more made me so happy.”

  “What you do now is what we all do. We pray for guidance. And we pray for strength so that we may make some good decisions and choices. And then we’re going to give thanks for the blessings we already have.”

  “And after that?” Elsie had no idea. At the moment, she couldn’t imagine meeting another man who would make her feel that way.

  “And then?” Viola shrugged. “And then we pray again and try to open our hearts to a hopeful future.”

  “And after that?” Elsie teased.

  “And after that?” Her eyes widened, as if she was finally stumped. “And then? Well, tomorrow morning, I think we’ll need to make a cake,” Viola said with a smile.

  “Cake? Does that make things better?”

  “Definitely, if it’s chocolate.”