Saving Gideon

by Amy Lillard

  Ruth and Abram had welcomed her into their home. Avery had the feeling that it would have been the same had she showed up in a frack or the cocktail dress she’d been wearing when she crashed her car.

  She sighed and turned over. And Samuel. He would understand none of what had been announced tonight. Probably for the best. By now, Ruth and Abram had told John Paul. Avery wondered how he took the news. And Lizzie. Gabe was supposed to tell her. Avery couldn’t imagine the iron-faced Gabe understanding a young girl’s worries about her grandmother. Hopefully, Lizzie would come by tomorrow afternoon after her German lesson, and they would have the chance to talk.

  Gideon had promised Avery that they would talk as well, but she suspected he had only said that to get her to go to bed.

  Like that did her any good. She was just too keyed up to sleep.

  Avery sat up and turned on the lamp. Maybe she would read a little. Surely that would help.

  She threw back the covers, ignoring Louie’s whine of protest, and went in search of something to read. She still had a couple library books, and the books that were in the house when she got here—and the Bible.

  It drew her in, called her name. She picked it up, ignoring the pen and paper she normally kept close whenever she read the Bible, and instead tucked her feet up under her and started to read.

  Der Herr ist mein Hirte; mir wird nichts mangeln.

  The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack.

  Er weidet mich auf grüner Aue und führet mich zum frischen Wasser.

  He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.

  Er erquicket meine Seele; er führet mich auf rechter Straße um seines Namens willen.

  He renews my life; He leads me along the right paths for His name’s sake.

  Und ob ich schon wanderte im finstern Tal, fürchte ich kein Unglück; denn du bist bei mir, dein Stecken und dein Stab trösten mich.

  Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger; for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me.

  Du bereitest vor mir einen Tisch im Angesicht meiner Feinde. Du salbest mein Haupt mit Öl und schenkest mir voll ein.

  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

  Gutes und Barmherzigkeit werden mir folgen mein Leben lang, und werde bleiben im Hause des Herrn immerdar.

  Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

  A peace like she had never known washed over Avery. God was with her. Always. God was her protector, her champion, her light.

  Avery had first heard those words in Sunday school, before her mother had died, when they had gone to church as a family. How many times had she heard them since?

  Now they held a special significance. She read them as if seeing them for the first time, their meaning suddenly clear.

  Her eyes filled with tears as her heart expanded in her chest.

  She’d been saying all night that God would take care of Ruth, but now . . . now she knew He would take care of her.

  She didn’t think twice. She jumped up from the couch and headed out the door, barely taking the time to let Louie out with her. Emotion burst within her and she needed to share her joy with Gideon.

  The well-worn path to the barn was soaked in moonlight. Avery didn’t hesitate. She flew across the yard to the barn doors and found Gideon sitting outside. Not smoking his pipe like she suspected he would when he could not sleep.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  He sat in the shadows, his voice thick and hoarse. Avery couldn’t see his face. She didn’t need to in order to know that tears slid down his cheeks and into his newly-grown beard. He stood when she approached.

  “I-I . . .” The elation from moments ago stilled in her chest. “Talk to me.”

  “There’s nothin’ to talk about.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “Nothin’s wrong. Nothin’ at all.” But his voice was filled with derision.

  She had found her way to God, and Gideon was struggling.

  “She’s going to be okay, Gideon.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But I do.”

  “No—”

  “The Lord will take care of this.”

  He almost laughed, the sound heart wrenching. “You sound like my mother.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. She’s a very smart lady.”

  They stood there, she in the moonlight, he in the shadows, and listened to the crickets and frogs call to one another.

  “I haven’t asked God for a lot in my life,” Gideon said quietly. “And the things I’ve asked for have been taken away or unanswered. I don’t know if I can believe that God takes care of His people anymore.”

  “That’s part of faith.”

  “Then I’m all out.” His clothing rustled as he shifted.

  “You’re not. It just feels that way.”

  “Nay.”

  “Oh, Gideon, I felt the same way when my mother died. I was ten, the time in a girl’s life when she needs her mother the most. I felt hurt. Hopeless. It’s hard. And you ask why to anyone who’ll listen, but no one has those answers. You can drive yourself crazy with questions like that.”

  “I want to help her.”

  “You want to save her.”

  “Is that so wrong?”

  “No.” She gave her head a slight shake. “It’s not wrong. I would have saved my mother if I could have.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Suddenly. In a car wreck.”

  “So there was nothing you could do?”

  “No.”

  She could hear him breathe and wished again to be closer, close enough to lay a hand on his cheek, intertwine her fingers with his, anything to let him know that he wasn’t alone.

  “Gideon, your mother has agreed to go to treatments. That’s a lot. Some people would just throw their hands up and let the cancer do what it would. But Ruth, she’s a fighter.”

  “There’s got to be more.”

  “You can pray.”

  “How can that be enough?”

  Avery smiled. “Because God’s involved.”

  They sat in silence for several heartbeats. Inside the barn, animals shifted on the hay as they rested in their stalls.

  “It’s more than that,” he said finally.

  “Then tell me.”

  She heard his deep, shuddering sigh, but she couldn’t determine if he was pulling himself together or coming apart at the seams.

  “I killed her. Miriam’s dead because of me.”

  11

  Any sane woman would have been terrified to hear a man say those words. Especially a man she was alone with . . . way out in the country . . . with no phone or car or means to get help.

  But she wasn’t fearful at all.

  “Gideon, that’s not true.” Tears welled in her eyes at his heartbreak. What burden he carried to feel he was responsible for the death of someone he loved—no matter how untrue the self-accusation.

  “It is.” He heaved a great breath as if gathering himself to continue. “But that’s not the worst of it. I killed Jamie too.”

  “Jamie?” she whispered, afraid to ask.

  “My son.”

  Avery’s heart plummeted, her breath caught, and she could barely whisper the words. “You had a child?”

  “Jah.”

  She longed to rush to him, to wrap her arms around him, to take some of that unbearable hurt away. But she knew it was better to give him the privacy he’d found in the dim corners of the barn to tell her his story. She dropped down in
the hay, ignoring how it pricked the back of her legs, and moved as close to him as she dared. “Tell me.”

  He drew in a breath.

  She held her own and waited for him to begin his story.

  “It was about this time last year,” he started slowly. “There was a big storm comin’. Everyone was sayin’ it was gonna flood. You could smell it in the air. Miriam didn’t believe it was goin’ to be that bad. Her family had already planned a sisters’ day. They were goin’ to make baby stuff for Sarah, the oldest. I told her not to go, but she did.

  “When she got home it was rainin’ so hard. I was tryin’ to get the sheep to higher ground. I yelled at her. I yelled at her in anger.” He paused, his voice jagged, raw. “There were just so many of them. The rain was comin’ down so hard I could barely see two feet from my nose.”

  Tears caught in Avery’s lashes, then fell to her cheeks, sliding down, down, down until they dropped off the edge of her chin. From the darkness, she heard him move again. He resumed his story, his voice rusty and worn.

  “I sent Jamie after the new lamb that had been born that mornin’. There was somethin’ wrong with it, and it couldn’t keep up with the others.”

  Avery bit her lips to keep from crying out. She was afraid that if she interrupted, he would stop and recede once again into the shell he had created for himself.

  “That’s when I told Miriam that she shouldn’t have gone to her sister’s. She should have been there to help me, and this wouldn’t be happenin’. She didn’t get mad back. She just lifted her soggy skirts and ran after Jamie.” He shifted again. “That was the last time I saw them alive.”

  Avery’s breath caught in her throat, a stifled sob blocking her air.

  “Jamie managed to catch the lamb, but he fell into the creek. Miriam jumped in to save him. They found them downstream, the poor animal a few feet away.”

  A long silence followed Gideon’s revelation. In the quiet, Avery froze between her desire to reach out and comfort the grieving man and his quest to be left alone with his pain.

  “So you see—I killed her. I killed them both. Just as surely as if I had laid hands on them.”

  Avery shook her head. Hard. “Oh, Gideon, you don’t really believe that.” She couldn’t imagine the pain he suffered at the loss of both his wife and child, but to believe that he had been responsible?

  “Jah,” he said from the darkness. “I do.”

  “But it’s not your fault. It was an accident. It was—”

  “God’s will?” His voice, still thick with emotion, had taken on a hard edge.

  Avery thought about that. “I can’t say that God wills bad things to happen to us or to anyone. To a child. But you can’t go around your entire life wondering why things happen like they do. It’ll eat you up inside. Sometimes it’s better to deal with what happened the best way you can and move on. If you want to call that God’s will, then yes. It was God’s will.”

  He sat in silence, and Avery hoped he was thinking about what she had said.

  He sighed. “I could have done more . . . somethin’, anything to help them. I should have gone after the lamb myself.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I should have,” he repeated.

  Avery drew in a deep breath and steadied her nerves. “Some things are left up to God. And the ‘hows’ and the ‘whys’, well, maybe someday we’ll understand. Until then, the sun still rises in the morning and sets each night. Frankly, I think Miriam would be disappointed to know that you’ve stopped living all those times in between.”

  She heard his sharp intake of breath, but he didn’t say anything.

  She continued. “I came out here tonight to tell you that I understand now. I understand how much God loves me and what He wants me to do. I discovered this all because I wrecked my car and you were gracious enough to let me stay.” She pushed herself to her feet. “I’ve finally found my way, Gideon, to something I’ve been searching for my whole life, even though I just realized it tonight.

  “If you want to stay wallowing in whatever self-guilt you’ve concocted for yourself, I can’t stop you. But I’ll not let you drag me down there too.”

  Without waiting for him to respond, she turned on her heel and headed back to the house.

  By the time he made his way into the kitchen the next morning, Gideon’s eyes felt raw and scratchy, like they were filled with ground glass. He’d spent half the night thinking about Annie’s words—and the other wondering if they were true.

  And he knew. It was all true. He did feel helpless. He’d wanted to save Jamie and Miriam, and now he wanted to save his mother.

  But all that happened in the past, and the present was beyond his earthly power.

  He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot sitting on the stove and took a tentative sip. It was still hot, which meant she hadn’t gone far, and she hadn’t been gone long. Like it mattered. She probably wasn’t speaking to him today anyway. An Amish woman would be over her snit by now. Nay, an Amish woman wouldn’t have started such a ruckus in the first place—but the Englisch. Ach, they were a different lot altogether.

  “Good morning.”

  He turned. She stood there, looking nearly as she had the night before at his parents’ haus. She had donned the purple frack with matching cape and a white everyday apron. She had forgone the shiny black shoes for the green flip-flops, but she had done that pinned-up thing with her hair and managed to place it all under the kapp.

  He couldn’t help it—his eyes riveted on that symbol of obedience.

  She raised a hand to the kapp. “Lizzie told me that Amish women wear a prayer cap out of respect for God, and that they wear them all the time because they don’t know when they might be moved to pray.”

  “Jah.”

  She gave a quick, jerky nod, then Annie moved past him to the stove and poured her own cup of coffee. “I’m not going to apologize for what I said last night.”

  “I didn’t ask you to.”

  “Would you like for me to make us some breakfast?”

  “I . . . I’m goin’ over to talk to my elders.”

  “Your mom and dad?”

  “Jah.” The idea had been forming all through his sleepless night. Everything Annie had said knocked around in his head mixing up with his fears and worries. The only way to put those concerns to rest was to talk with his parents, especially his mamm. Last night didn’t leave much time for questions and answers what with the whole family there. But today, with everyone going about their daily routine, he should have plenty of time to visit with his mudder.

  Annie nodded. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  She stood on the porch with Louie at her feet while he readied the buggy for travel. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw her smile before he turned to the front and urged Molly and Kate down the driveway.

  Ruth heard the buggy before she saw it. She propped the hoe to one side and waited, wondering who was coming for a visit at this time of day.

  She wasn’t at all surprised to see Gideon’s buggy ambling down the lane toward the house. Of all of her children, Gideon was the one she worried most about these days. She could barely look at his face the night before when she had told them the news about her cancer. Gabriel had been stony-faced as usual, John Paul in his unwavering faith had been hopeful, and Katie Rose had been naturally upset. But it was Gideon whom the news would most affect. She was glad to see him coming to her today, better than her showing up at his house.

  As he drew closer, she saw that he was alone. That in itself was a blessing. She’d been glad last night that he’d brought his Englischer, but she needed this time alone with him. She needed a chance to make him understand that God was good, and that everything happened for a reason. That there was a purpose and a solution to everything she now faced.r />
  Abram walked out of the barn just as Gideon set the hand brake and jumped down. With only a clap on the shoulder in greeting, Abram took the reins and led the horses toward the watering trough.

  Abram turned and looked at her, and her heart tightened. She smiled at her husband of so many years, hoping the one little motion conveyed all the promise and love she felt. But Abram just nodded and turned away. He was having a tough time dealing with the news they now faced, but she had made her peace and prayed that her family would be able to see that only through faith could she truly be healed.

  “Mamm.” Gideon’s quiet voice carried to her on the soft breeze.

  “My sohn.” She touched his face where his beard was growing back in quite nicely. God is good.

  He gathered her up in a bone-crushing hug, and Ruth fought back the tears that threatened. Now more than ever she had to be strong.

  “There’ll be none of that,” she scolded, wiping tears from Gideon’s face as she spoke. She had wanted to go on holding him for as long as possible, like she had done when he was little. But he was a grown man, and as much as it pained her, she had to let him heal the hurts for himself.

  He swallowed hard, seemingly unable to speak.

  “Come inside.” She lead him toward the porch, propping the hoe in the corner and waiting for him to catch up.

  He moved ahead and opened the screen door, ushering her inside.

  “Let’s have some pie,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  She cut two big slices of last night’s shoofly anyway and carried them to the table. Before he could protest again, she poured them both glasses of milk and set them next to the plates.

  Reluctantly, he pulled out a chair and sat down across from her.

  “Now, tell me what concerns you, sohn.”

  “Cancer?” he asked, his voice as weak as his faith these days.

  She covered his hand with her own, drawing strength from him whether he knew it or not. “The Lord will provide.”