A Stranger's Wish (26 page)

Such well-ordered rigidity was not for me. The exhilarating freedom of being a Christian woman with a future limited only by the will of God was something I’d never change for temporal security. I liked asking questions, trying new things, exploring my options. I was a modern Christian, not one caught in a pleasant, restrictive, and loving time warp. God and I—together we would make the many choices in my life.

It wasn’t until after church that it dawned on me that the Zooks should be allowed to celebrate Ruth’s engagement without an interloper hanging over their shoulders. But what would I do if I didn’t go home? Clarke was away today, speaking at a friend’s church, and doing anything with Todd was out of the question. I thought for a minute and decided to drive over to Honey Brook where Ruth and Isaiah would be living. Not that I expected to find their farm, but I could see the area.

I took Route 23 east to Route 10 and went south. When I got close to Honey Brook, I began taking side roads. I thought once again how beautiful this whole area was, whether back in Lancaster County or just across the line into Chester County, where I now was. I loved the patchwork-quilt farms and rolling vistas, the wandering streams, and the rich black soil. Even with the end of the color and richness of the growing season, the countryside filled my artist’s eye with light and shadow, harmony and contrast.

Everywhere I drove, I saw signs of the growing cottage industries among the Amish—greenhouses, woodworking shops, and signs announcing the selling of quilts, preserves and baked goods, picnic benches, puppies, and rabbits. All the signs also read Closed Sundays. These businesses were the practical way the Amish dealt with the twin concerns of dwindling farmland and increasing population. I was struck again with what a marvelous mixture of accommodation and isolation the Amish were.

Eventually I came to the steep hills south of Honey Brook where Jake had had his accident. I looked again at the side of the road for the cross marking that intersection as a death spot. I wanted to stop and examine the cross, to see if there was a name written on it, to wonder what had happened to this person. The line of traffic behind me precluded that.

Instead I drove through the intersection and came almost immediately to a business drive on the left. I pulled in and turned, stopping just before I drove back onto the road. I looked the area over carefully, and my eye was drawn to the house nearest the intersection. Maybe those people knew something about the accident the cross commemorated. Maybe they knew something about Jake’s accident too.

I noted the name on the mailbox as I pulled up to the house: Martin. A good Lancaster County name relocated here in Chester County.

I rang the bell and a woman about my mother’s age answered. I introduced myself.

“I’m interested in information about the cross at the intersection. Do you know anything about it?”

“I should say I do,” the woman said. “My daughter Rose put it up and takes care of it. Come on in and you can talk to her.”

Mrs. Martin led me to her living room and left me in a navy overstuffed chair with a Wedgwood blue-and-rose afghan lying over its back. She was back in the briefest of moments with a young woman with curly brown hair and glasses worn over brown eyes. She wore jeans and a red sweater over a white turtleneck.

“I’m Rose,” she said, extending her hand. “Mom says you want to know about the cross.”

I nodded. “I have a friend who was hurt at this intersection too, so I was wondering what the story is.”

Rose walked to the bow window and looked out across the lawn to the cross.

“I’m a nurse,” she said. “I should have been able to help save him.”

Her voice and face were full of pain.

“When did it happen?” I asked.

“Last October. October twenty, to be exact. The worst day of my life. My fiancé and I had a horrible fight. I broke up with him and he got furious, even nasty. I’d never seen him like that before. ‘Who’s the other man? You’d better just tell me because I’m going to find out and kill him!’ ”

She was still having trouble with the memory a whole year later.

“When I handed him his ring,” she continued, “he rushed outside into the rain, ran across the yard, and threw the ring into the field across the street. ‘If you won’t wear this, no one wears it!’ ”

“He threw away a diamond ring?”

“A bit melodramatic, wouldn’t you say?” Rose put her hand to her forehead and rubbed.

“A bit idiotic, I’d say,” Mrs. Martin chimed in.

“Mom.” Rose made it a gentle warning.

Mrs. Martin ignored Rose and turned to me. “We never did like him, her father and I,” she said. “We thought he was two-faced, a hypocrite. But Rose couldn’t see it.”

“I couldn’t,” Rose agreed.

“We thank God every day that she broke up with him.”

“Are you sure he didn’t just fake throwing the ring to make you feel worse?” I asked.

“I’ve thought of that, especially since Mom and I have searched for the thing over and over all year with no luck.” She shrugged. “I really don’t care.”

“I do,” Mrs. Martin said. “I want to get some value out of the mess he made!”

Rose shook her head. “Mom, not now. Kristie doesn’t want to hear your opinion of Ben.”

“She already did.” Mrs. Martin put her hand up quickly to silence Rose, who was becoming quite agitated. “But I know I’ve said too much already.” She got to her feet. “I’ll try to redeem myself by leaving you two alone.”

Rose watched her mother leave the room. “She’s still mad at him for all that he put me through,” she explained.

“Moms are like that,” I said knowingly.

Rose went on with her story. “After he threw the ring and yelled a few other lovely things at me, Ben got into his car and roared out of the drive. I had turned to go back inside the house, trying to decide whether I was relieved or devastated. That’s when I heard a screech of metal and saw sparks sliding along the road. I heard a thud and a terrible scream. There are no street lights out here, and the night was dark because of the clouds. I ran to see what had happened, and there was a man pinned under a motorcycle.”

“A man pinned under a motorcycle?”
Wait a minute!

She nodded and shivered. “I knelt beside him and felt for his pulse. He was still alive. I had to leave him to rush back and call for the ambulance. Then I went back and sat with him until the ambulance and EMTs came. They finally ended up medevacing him. They put the helicopter down in the field over there.” She pointed directly across the road from her house.

In my mind I could see the flashing lights, hear the crackle of static from car radios, feel the cold wash of the rain, smell the leaking gasoline and fear. And I could see Rose sitting by the road, holding the hand of the injured man, talking, talking to help fight shock, both his and hers.

“I sat in the rain with him for twenty minutes or more,” she said. “He was in and out of consciousness, but he didn’t seem to be in pain, which worried me a lot. As the medics worked on him, I saw them look at each other and I could tell their thoughts. No hope. No hope. That’s how I knew he was going to die. ‘Hold on,’ I yelled at him as they carried him to the helicopter. But he was unconscious. Then suddenly the helicopter was gone, and so were the emergency vehicles. It was just us Martins again, and we never heard another word about anything. But I made him the cross.”

“Oh, Rose!” I was so excited I was bouncing. “He didn’t die. I think that was my friend Jake.”

“What?” She looked at me as though she was afraid to believe me.

“It was Jake! It had to be Jake. How many motorcycle accidents can you have out here? He’s a paraplegic, but he’s very much alive!”

Her hands clutched each other in her lap and her face was tense. “How can I find out if it’s really him?”

“I know Jake’s accident was last October, but I don’t remember the date. I do know that it was at this intersection. I’ll talk to him and then call you.”

“Could you call him now?”

“I think this deserves a face-to-face conversation because the accident is such a painful subject for him,” I said. “But I’ll talk to him as soon as I can and let you know what he says.”

Rose stared at me, tears in her eyes. “I’ve always thought the accident happened because Ben ran the stop sign when he left here in such a temper. I don’t
know
that because I didn’t see it, but he lives in that direction. I’ve always blamed myself. If it weren’t for me, Ben wouldn’t have been mad. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have run that sign. If it weren’t for me, that man wouldn’t have died. It would be such a relief if he wasn’t dead after all!”

I bet it would, after living with all that guilt for a year.

And of course he wasn’t dead. He was alive and grumpy right up in Bird-in-Hand. Rose cried when I called her and told her that her cross could be taken down. No one had died that evening at that intersection, though I wasn’t convinced Jake was completely living yet, either. But time and God could deal with that.

“You ought to meet her, Jake,” I said to him one evening. “She’s a very nice person and cute too. I think she’d feel so much better seeing you.”

“Did she suggest this meeting?” he asked in an icy voice.

“No. It’s my idea. It would set her mind at rest.”

“Absolutely not!” he said, surprising me. “I do not want to meet this woman.”

“She sat with you in the rain,” I said, trying to shame him into it. “She made a cross in your honor.”

“Kristie, don’t push me. I do not want to meet her! Let me have some dignity, would you?” With that he stormed off to his rooms.

I sat in the front room and tried to understand why he was so angry with what I still thought was a great idea. The closest I could figure was that he was embarrassed that Rose had seen him as he’d been that night, injured, diminished, and in a situation beyond his control.

That was when I realized that Jake, for all his passivity, was a control freak. In fact, I now understood, his passivity was his control mechanism for a life that was largely beyond him right now.

The first Sunday in November, the week after Ruth and Isaiah’s banns were published, proved to be another rainy, cold day. As I drove to church, I hoped Thursday would be better for the wedding. After all the cleaning around the farm, it would be a shame if the mud and mess of a rainy day dimmed the gleam and shine of everyone’s hard work. And where would they put well over a hundred people if some couldn’t stand around talking outside while others sat eating inside? The barn?

I spent the morning in kindergarten church due to an emergency call last night from the November teacher who had a sick child. I was more than willing to help her out. There were fewer kids present than usual, probably due to the weather.

My paper bag pumpkins were a big success, though some of the drawn-on faces required loving, parental imagination to discern the features. But the kids were proud of their work, and that was what counted.

I waved goodbye to my last charge and gathered my supplies, hoping I’d see Clarke and we could go get something to eat. I could tell him Rose’s story. Maybe we could talk about Ruth’s wedding. With his knowledge of the Plain culture, he could probably tell me what to expect with the actual wedding ceremony itself.

I smiled to myself. One topic was as good as another. It was the man across the table who was important.

I hadn’t seen Clarke since the Hurlbert rally, and I missed him. I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t even know him that well yet, and already I felt closer to him than I ever had to Todd. When we were together, it seemed he felt the same way, but he hadn’t called.

I was belting my raincoat, humming to myself about being in love with a wonderful guy, when I glanced out the window. There was Clarke hurrying to his car. Without waiting to see me. And he wasn’t alone!

He had his arm around the waist of a slim young woman who was trying to hold her umbrella over the two of them with somewhat limited success. Clarke was laughing as the rain slid off the umbrella and down his collar.

I was both surprised and appalled at the ferocity of my thoughts. For all I knew, Clarke was merely helping someone to her car. He was, after all, a nice guy and a gentleman.