Hidden Mercies (9 page)

The little white handmade signs at the end of Claire’s driveway took on a new meaning to him as he thought of the children behind them: Fresh Eggs. Homemade Fudge. Wild Sassafras Root. Greeting Cards. Honey. Pot Holders. How industrious Claire’s children were!

The little girl in the wheelchair was not outside on the porch when he arrived. It occurred to him that even though he’d been up for several hours, it was still quite early. She was probably still in bed.

He would have turned around and gone back, but the walk had been a little longer than he’d realized, and he needed to rest a bit before he attempted to go back.

At that moment, Claire walked around the corner of the house with an empty clothes basket on her hip. She stopped the moment she saw him.

“Well, hello,” she said. “It is good to see you up and about. How are you feeling today?”

She was so very lovely in her light green dress that looked like it had been made especially for spring. Her choring kerchief was a bright white against the early morning sky. Her feet were bare in spite of the dew-drenched grass. He wished he had a painting of her as she was right now—timeless.

She had no husband. The thought flooded back into his brain. Loving her was one of his earliest childhood memories. But even if it were at all possible for her ever to care for him, the weight of a five-hundred-year-old culture stood between them. He knew she would never leave it, and that he knew he could not endure it.

Should he tell her who he was and why he had come? He dreaded it. He dreaded finding out if she hated him.

Not yet, he told himself. Not yet.

“I’m much better, thanks,” he said. “I thought I’d give walking here and back a try, but I’m even more out of shape than I realized. I hope you don’t mind if I rest a few minutes before I go back.”

“Of course not. You look like you could use a drink of water, too.”

“I would appreciate that.”

“I will be right back.”

She returned with two glasses of water and sat down on the porch steps a few feet away from him.

“Thank you, Claire.”

Early morning. No children stirring yet. It was the perfect opportunity to tell her who he was and why he had come.

He had almost convinced himself to speak when the phone rang.

“Excuse me.” Claire ran to the end of the driveway where a phone shanty stood.

He could not hear the conversation, nor did he want to. Her life was none of his business.

“One of my mothers-to-be had to change her home checkup appointment,” Claire said as she came back. “I am so glad I was out here where I could hear the phone. Otherwise I might have driven all the way to her house just to find out she was gone.”

“It must be difficult to run a business without a phone in the house.”

“It is not so difficult.” She bristled a little at what she must have interpreted as pity. “I do have a phone now, and Levi installed an answering machine for me. That is a very big help.”

“I’m sure it is.”

He realized now that she was proud of having a phone at all—even if it was at the end of her driveway. She must have left the Swartzentrubers fairly recently. It was not difficult to figure out why. With Levi determined to marry Grace, his mother must have had a terrible time deciding what to do. Stay within the safety of the church where she’d grown up and be forced to shun her own son, or become Old Order Amish and be allowed to have contact with him.

He was impressed that she had chosen her son over the only church she had ever known. Not every Swartzentruber parent made that choice. He was painfully aware of that fact.

“Actually.” She was gazing pensively at the phone shanty. “Even with the phone shanty, it is difficult. Last Sunday I was in church when a mother went into labor, and the father had to send his
Englisch
neighbor to come get me. It was very disruptive. Grace suggested I ask the leaders of our church for permission to have a pager.”

“Have you done so?”

“I have.” Her forehead creased in worry. “I do not think the chances are good.”

Once again he tried to steel himself to tell her who he was—but he simply could not make himself say the words. He was enjoying the chance to talk to her. The minute he told her, he was fairly certain that their conversation would be over. Probably for good.

Instead he brought up the other subject that he couldn’t stop thinking about.

“I found out this morning that your husband passed away a couple years ago. I am sorry for your loss.”

“My husband did not ‘pass away,’ ” she said, evenly. “Abraham was murdered.”

He was startled. Violence was not unknown among the Amish, but it certainly was not common.

“How?”

“In the words of my children, a ‘bad’ man came into our home with a gun and killed their father and wounded me. I was carrying Daniel at the time. The man did not know us. He had nothing against us. He simply wanted money and was very unhappy that we did not have more.”

“
Unhappy
is not the word I would use.” Tom could feel his blood begin to boil. Someone had shot Claire? How
dare
they hurt this good woman! “
Crazy
is more like it.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes Annette, my
Englisch
driver, uses a phrase to describe things that she cannot control. Annette will say, ‘It is what it is.’ I prefer to believe that the God who created the universe will somehow bring triumph out of tragedy.”

“And has God created triumph out of tragedy for you?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “But what I do know is that when my brother, Eli, and his wife, Martha, became victims of a low-flying logging truck, I was able to take their two daughters in, even though the accident left Amy crippled.”

“How did your husband’s death have anything to do with them?”

“Abraham was a good farmer, and he was respected by our community for his steadiness, but he would not have been willing to take those girls into our home. Abraham would have counted the cost and would have thought it too great. He and I would have struggled over it and I would have had to give in because I needed to respect his authority.”

“You were able to make your own decision.”

“And it was a good decision,” she said. “Understand this, I would not have had such a terrible thing happen to my husband if I could have prevented it—but I would be lying if I said that I did not see the good of being able to offer a loving, safe home to two orphans.”

“Those girls are blessed to have you.”

“No. I am the one blessed.” She changed the subject. “Do you plan to stay long?”

He could not derive any meaning from that casual question. Was she hoping he would leave soon, or was she hoping he would stay?

“Long enough to get a little stronger.” He looked down at his fingers and flexed them. “Long enough to figure out what to do next with my life.”

“Will you go back to your war?”

“I doubt that I would be allowed to,” he said. “The helicopters I flew were expensive. The government would not risk assigning such a valuable asset to a pilot who is not in peak form.”

“Then perhaps you should look for a different job,” she said. “Sometimes the Lord closes one door and opens another that we did not expect.”

“Unfortunately, flying is the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

“Flying is the only thing you know how to do?”

She sounded incredulous. He realized that in an Amish woman’s eyes, a real man was a jack-of-all-trades.

“The Marines trained me in mechanics before I became a pilot.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means I can fix a broken helicopter as well as fly it.”

“Oh.” She nodded approval. “That is good, then. If your helicopter plane fell out of the sky, you could fix it!”

“Something like that.” He wondered if she realized that being around to fix it after it fell from the sky might not be an option. A woman who had never seen television or a news program would probably have no idea how quickly a helicopter could plummet to the ground.

“Claire!” Their conversation was cut off by a small voice from inside the house.

“What do you want, Amy?” Claire called.

“I’m up. Can you please come help me get dressed?”

“I’ll be right there.” Claire shot him an apologetic look. “Our Amy gets very impatient once she’s awake. I should go help her.”

“You don’t have an easy life, do you, Claire?”

“No,” she said. “But I am walking the path that God chose for me, and that is enough.”

•   •   •

As she helped Amy get ready for the day, she wished the child could have slept a few more minutes. She had been enjoying her conversation on the porch. She usually conversed only with her children, about children’s things, or with pregnant women about their needs. It was interesting to glimpse inside this soldier’s mind.

How would an
Englisch
man support himself if he could no longer do the only job for which he was trained?

He was nothing like she would have expected an
Englisch
soldier to be. There was no gruffness or impatience in his voice as they had spoken. In spite of their very different lives, he had listened to her with interest. Unlike the few other
Englisch
men with whom she had dealings, he did not seem to be uncomfortable around her because she was Amish.

Her guess was that there was a world of interesting things that he could tell her. She wished she could hear about the different countries he had been to and the people he had met. Under normal circumstances, she would never have allowed herself to chat so long with an
Englisch
man she barely knew, but he had not seemed anxious to leave, and she did not want him to think she was put off by his disfigurement. Actually, although the battle wounds he bore were unfortunate, she had found that the intelligence in his eyes and the kindness in his voice somehow made the scars less noticeable.

Of course, he would be leaving soon—which was just as well. She felt that there could be a friendship between them, but of course, under the circumstances, that would be highly inappropriate.

“I heard voices outside. Who were you talking to?” Amy asked, as Claire helped her remove her long nightgown.

“Tom Miller walked to our house from Levi’s. He is getting stronger but the walk tired him out and he needed a rest and a drink of water.”

“What did you talk about?”

Claire brought a fresh dress from the closet and handed it to her. “He is afraid he will not be allowed to fly his helicopters anymore.”

“I wonder what it would be like to go up so high.”

Claire busied herself tidying the top of Amy’s dresser. The child liked to do as much as possible for herself and did not like being watched while she struggled to get her dress on.

“I don’t know, but when I was little,” Claire said, “I climbed a very tall tree and I did not like it much.”

“What happened?”

“I was like a small kitten, climbing from one branch to the next until I ran out of branches. The ground was so far away it made me dizzy. Like a kitten who has climbed too far, I could not figure out how to get back down.”

“What did you do?”

“I clung to the tree, calling out for help. A friend of mine came to my rescue. A little boy named Tobias who had been playing in the barn with my younger brother. He heard me and came running. Our parents were inside the house, visiting. Instead of going for an adult, he climbed up and told me each step to take and each branch to grasp and encouraged me until I finally got my feet on firm ground.”

Amy began unplaiting her hair. “How old were you?”

“About seven.”

“Why did he not just go get your
daadi
?”

“Because he knew I would get in trouble.” Claire picked up a hairbrush from the bedside table and began to brush Amy’s hair. “Little girls in dresses were not supposed to climb trees when other people were around.”

“Why did you do it, then?”

“Because Rose had hurt my feelings.” Claire laughed, remembering. “She wanted to play with Tobias’s little sister, who was just a baby. Tobias and Matthew were off playing with my brothers. Since I was feeling left out, I decided to show them all by climbing that tree.”

“That makes no sense.”

Claire smiled. “Having sense was not a talent of mine back then.”

“Did you ever try to climb that tree again?”

“No. That experience left me with a fear of heights and a
lifelong gratitude that I would never be expected to climb the tall barn frames that men had to whenever our church had a barn raising. I was content to work alongside the women with my feet firmly on the ground.”

“Mommi?”
Sarah raised her head from her bed next to Amy’s.

“Good morning sleepyhead.” Claire handed the hairbrush to Amy and walked over to Sarah’s bed. “Did you have good dreams last night?”

Sarah was still half asleep and did not want to talk. She simply reached her arms up for a morning hug. Claire sat down cross-legged on the bed and gathered her littlest girl into her arms. Cuddling a sleepy child was the thing she loved most. She kissed Sarah’s forehead, where tendrils of nearly white-blond hair lay, mussed from bedcovers and sleep. Sarah closed her eyes and snuggled closer.

Claire leaned against the headboard. She breathed in the clean little-girl scent of this child for whom she would gladly give her life and watched Amy rebraid her hair. The sun had risen just high enough that a slice of sunshine divided the room.

She had three home visits to make today to check on women in various stages of pre- and postpregnancy. Maddy had asked if she could take Daniel with her so that she could have some freedom to replenish their supply of prayer
Kapps
. The little boy could not seem to keep from touching the pristine white fabric with fingers that might not be clean. There was a never-ending round of chores and responsibilities that would keep her busy until she fell into bed tonight. But the laundry was hung, there was a breakfast casserole cooling on the stove, her children were all healthy, and there was a little extra money in the bank.