Brush of Angel's Wings

by Ruth Reid

  “I don’t obey your orders. You know as well as I that some seed shall be plucked before it takes root.” Tangus snarled. “I will lure him into dark places where your voice shall not prevail.” Surging with boldness, Tangus propelled himself forward. “Even those ancient words tell of some who will accept but be overtaken—devoured.”

  Nathaniel reached for his baldric and removed the sword from the sheath. “I shall stand guard before Jordan.”

  Tangus raucously squawked. “Free will—I know what’s been written as well as you, Nathaniel. The subject must choose to follow.” He crept closer. “The power you speak of must be sought, but the mind is pliable, wicked, and can be tempted.”

  Nathaniel expanded his chest. “He shall be like Paul and renew his mind daily.”

  Tangus frowned. Paul’s renewed mind inspired other unwavering followers of Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God advanced daily with Paul’s teachings—he couldn’t be stopped even when imprisoned.

  “That’s the power I speak of. The power God gives those who abide in Him.” Nathaniel spoke to Jordan. “You contain the power in the name of Jesus to demand the accuser to flee. You are equipped with the armor of God—speak to this stronghold and you shall be freed.”

  “There are other ways to bore into his soul.” Tangus vaporized into the vent system.

  The room phone rang multiple times before Jordan leaned over and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

  On the other end of the line, Clint yelled over background sirens. “Get down here. I hit!”

  “Hit what?” Jordan scrambled to his feet.

  “Payday. Don’t you hear these sirens screaming? Just get down here.”

  Before Clint’s words registered, the phone went dead.

  Jordan left the Bible on the bed and hurried out of the room to catch the elevator. Once he entered the casino, he could hear Clint’s voice shouting over the wailing siren.

  Jordan eased into the gathered crowd. One casino worker disabled the siren on the slot machine while another filled out a claim sheet and handed it to Clint.

  A parade of people followed Clint to the collection booth, cheering him on. Less enthused with the commotion, Jordan hung back and waited. Soon Clint emerged from the crowd and waved at Jordan.

  “Twenty-five thousand,” he called out. Then he held up some tickets. “And vouchers for the buffet and show.” He moved in an unsteady gait to Jordan. “You hungry?” His breath was weighted with the smell of alcohol.

  Whether or not he was hungry didn’t really matter. He was more concerned that eating would help soak up some of the alcohol Clint had imbibed.

  “I wish you had been here to see the lights and siren,” Clint said, his words slurred together.

  “I was.” Jordan guided him away from the casino and toward the hotel lobby. “Let’s find that buffet.”

  “I’m not hungry. I’d rather double this money. Come on, I’ll teach you how to play craps.” He elbowed Jordan hard in the ribs. “It’ll make a nice down payment on a second rig. We could be hauling loads cross-country together.”

  “Let’s eat and talk about it later.” This fancy place wouldn’t be in the business of giving out free rooms and free meal tickets if it didn’t expect to win its money back plus more. He hoped Clint sobered before he lost his shirt.

  Jordan followed the signs to the buffet, the scent of sautéed garlic and onions guiding him as well. His mouth watered for something besides the greasy diner food he’d eaten for over a month. He sampled a few dishes that resembled Chinese food, then stood in line at the end of the buffet where a chef carved prime rib.

  With a thick slab of meat on his plate, Jordan looked around for Clint. Ten o’clock at night and the room was full. Most patrons didn’t wear the same wide smile as Clint.

  Jordan weaved around the tables and sat across from Clint. He said a quick prayer, then picked up his fork. “How is it?”

  “Best food I’ve had in months,” Clint replied. “Now do you see why I drive a truck?” He cracked open the lobster tail and jabbed the meat with a tiny fork. “Wait till you see the entertainment.” He winked and butter dribbled out of the corner of his mouth.

  Entertainment? Jordan had seen enough billboard advertisements of feathered showgirls; he didn’t need to see them perform in front of him. He took a bite of prime rib and closed his eyes. He wanted Clint to believe he was savoring the meat’s flavor when truly he lacked strength to stand on his own and was silently asking for God’s help.

  I need wisdom. I don’t want to be persuaded by Clint. Drinking and gambling—he’s not the person I hoped he was. And this isn’t the life I want. Show me what to do.

  Jordan opened his eyes. He cut the meat and took another bite.

  Clint squinted and his head bobbed. “Why did you change into that Amish shirt? I bought you other clothes.”

  Jordan fingered the hand stitching on the sleeve. “A friend made it for me.”

  Clint pointed his fork at Jordan. “The girl you keep buying postcards for?”

  Jordan paused a moment before deciding to answer. “Her name’s Rachel.”

  Clint set the lobster pliers next to his plate and wedged his fork into the claw. “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  Jordan tossed his napkin on the table and stood, rage flowing through his veins.

  Clint looked confused. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve waited this entire trip to have a conversation with you about my mother. But I never dreamed when we did you would call her a mistake.” He headed for the door.

  “Jordan, wait,” Clint called.

  Anger drove him forward.

  “I loved your mother.”

  Jordan stopped and pivoted to face Clint. “Why haven’t you asked about her?”

  Clint closed his eyes.

  Jordan wasn’t sure if the alcohol had caused his father to feel dizzy and close his eyes, or if he was truly searching for an explanation. “I’m going back to the room.”

  “Please, wait.” Clint reached for Jordan. “I didn’t think you wanted to talk about her. I was waiting for you to bring it up.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I know Grace died and I’m sorry.”

  “How did you find out?”

  Clint’s bloodshot eyes watered. “Usually she returned my checks with a note.” He inhaled. “She always wrote the same thing. ‘God provides our needs. Jordan and I are doing fine.’” He blinked back tears, then swept his hand through his hair. “Your landlord in Farmington Hills returned the damage deposit and said you’d moved out.”

  “Why didn’t you come see for yourself if we were fine? We barely had food on the table.”

  “I’m not the one who returned the checks, Jordan.”

  “We wanted you, not your money.” Jordan crossed his arms.

  “While Mom was dying, everything we had of value was repossessed . . . and you didn’t care.”

  Clint gulped. “If I’d known—”

  “You would have known if you’d come by once in a while.” Pain and fury infused Jordan’s voice. “You ran an extra load for that trucker to go home to his family, but you didn’t go home to yours.”

  “We all live with regrets,” Clint said under his breath. “Even your mother. She regretted leaving her family, her way of life.” Clint combed his fingers through his hair. “I wanted a family. I wanted my son to know me . . . but not like this.” He waved his arm over the table laden with food and drink. “I never wanted you to see me drunk or gambling.”

  Jordan’s throat tightened.

  “I’m sorry if I insinuated your mother or you were a mistake.” He put his head in his hands. “I regret not being the husband and father I should’ve been. I regret those years I missed with you.”

  “You could have come back. You could have made a little effort.”

  “Regrets pile up until you feel it’s too late to go back and fix the things you broke.” He shrugged. “I guess I thought I had been too stupid too many times
. I am . . . I’ve always been . . . ashamed.” He looked Jordan straight in the eyes, a profound sadness in them. “I don’t know if you can, and I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t. But . . . could you . . .” His voice trembled. “Would you consider forgiving me?”

  Jordan never expected to hear those words from his father. He didn’t know what to do with them. He turned them over, like they did the ground before planting, the fresh soil ready to take something and make it grow. “Yes. I forgive you.”

  Clint dropped his head into his open palms and cried.

  Jordan waited, letting the feeling of newness flow through him. Forgiving his father released the heaviness of bitterness and resentment that he had clung to for far too long. His spirit felt lighter.

  Clint took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face, then blew his nose. He pulled some bills from his wallet and handed them to Jordan.

  “What’s this for?”

  “You might need some money.”

  Jordan looked down at the money, fanning the bills, stunned by the amount. He tried to formulate his thoughts as he stared at the hundred-dollar bills in his hand. “I’m not going to the casino. I’m going back to the room. I don’t need—” He looked up. Clint was gone, easily disappearing in the crowd.

  Jordan folded the bills and stuffed them into his pocket. Thinking Clint had ducked into the men’s room, Jordan entered the first one he could find. “Clint?”

  No answer.

  Jordan turned and nearly trampled an elderly man. “I’m sorry.” He hadn’t heard him come in.

  “Do you know where you’re headed, son?”

  “I apologize. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  The man’s eyes flickered. The wrinkles around the corners of his mouth deepened as his smile widened.

  Caught up in the man’s unique eyes, Jordan barely noticed the man had thrust a pamphlet into his hand.

  “Don’t lose your way home, son,” he said.

  Jordan glanced at the cover of the leaflet. Roman’s Road. When he looked up to thank the man, he was gone. Jordan left the men’s room and looked both ways down the hallway but didn’t see the man. He passed pillars and statues of Roman gods on his way to the elevator. After pushing the seventh-floor button, he started reading. “The wages of sin is death . . .”

  Chapter Thirty

  Rachel leaned over the kitchen sink to peer out the window at Timothy’s shop. If she’d known the bishop planned a visit, she would’ve waited to prepare supper. The two of them hadn’t come out of the workshop in over an hour. She suspected Timothy was asking for guidance to deal with his grief. Bishop Lapp had spent time visiting with Mamm and Daed a few nights ago. Initially Rachel thought his visit had something to do with the teacher’s position. He wouldn’t offer her the position if it placed a hardship on the family.

  She moved away from the window, found a fork, and opened the oven to probe the corned beef. The meat had cooked too long. The mushy cabbage resembled sludge. Rachel hauled the roasting pan out of the stove and plunked it on top of a cooling rack. She had better make some biscuits; it might be the only food they ate. At least Timothy would have the option of eating a peanut butter sandwich.

  Using a memorized recipe, she quickly gathered the ingredients and prepared the dough. She floured the table and rolled out a layer of dough.

  “Rachel,” Timothy said.

  She jumped and pressed her hand against her chest. Flour dust fell like snow.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t hear you.” She swept her dress, but her floured hands created more of a powdery mess on the forest green fabric.

  “This is a bad time.” Timothy turned around, his shoulders sagging and his footsteps shuffing.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He stopped. His shoulders lifted with a deep breath, then fell. His face paled and he broke eye contact with her to clear his throat.

  Rachel rubbed her hands on her apron and opened the cupboard. “Let me get you a glass of water. You don’t look gut.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  Her breath caught in her chest. The glass slipped through her grasp, hit the counter, and shattered on the floor. For a frozen instant, she stared at the shards of glass.

  “I know this is . . . unexpected. Probably too soon.”

  “I’ll get the broom.” She backed away from the mess, grabbed the straw broom from the corner of the kitchen, and quickly swept the glass pieces into a pile. Extending the broom under the table and dragging it over the floor, she swept the slivered pieces that had strayed. Timothy hadn’t moved.

  His hand clasped the broom handle.

  “You’re standing in the glass,” she said.

  He was close enough that she felt his warm breath on her cheek. He slid his hand down the broom handle, grazing hers. “I know it’s abrupt to marry again so soon after—”

  “Why?”

  “Ella needs a mother,” he said, his voice as stiff as an iron rod. Timothy dropped his hand from hers and backed up a few steps. After Rachel didn’t—couldn’t—answer, he scratched his bearded jaw. “I don’t know of another solution.”

  Solution? She inhaled so sharply her lungs hurt. He thinks marriage is a solution?

  “Ella responds to you. And—”

  “Timothy,” she said harshly. His mouth opened and she interrupted him by raising her hand. “It hasn’t even been two months since Sadie passed on,” she blurted.

  “I know, Rachel. I count the days. The hours.” His voice broke and he stopped to clear his throat. “I constantly relive the sight of her prayer kapp dangling from the surgeon’s hand.”

  Rachel’s eyes brimmed with tears. “It is hard. I think of her nearly every moment of every day too.”

  Timothy’s eyes closed. After a moment, he opened them and said, “Rachel, I will always love Sadie. But in time . . .” He cupped his hand on her shoulder. “I know Jordan broke your heart.”

  She lowered her head. Shards of glass she’d missed sparkled in the afternoon sun beaming through the window.

  “Here you are marrying age with nay bu. You don’t attend the singings.” He tipped her chin upward and gazed into her eyes. “Instead of being two lonely people, we can learn to love each other.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Before you say anything, look at Matthew and Leah Stolzfus. They are getting along gut.”

  “Jah, but after their spouses died, neither one could run a household alone with so many offspring. Combined they had sixteen children.”

  “They’re now having one of their own. Matthew’s Leah told mei Sadie nett long ago.”

  “Jah, I heard.”

  “Rachel, I will take care of you. You won’t be alone and Ella will have a mother.”

  This was too much to think about.

  “We’ve been friends these years, ain’t so?”

  Rachel nodded.

  “And I believe you respect me.”

  Rachel nodded again. All those times she’d told God she wanted a husband like Timothy came back to her. All the ways he loved her sister. His kindness. His integrity.

  “Bishop Lapp gave his permission. I had a gut talk with him.”

  She recalled Naomi’s excitement after she and William met together with the bishop. She couldn’t visualize the same excitement for herself. As much as she loved Timothy and respected him . . . But he was right. A number of couples in the community began out of practicality, not out of love.

  Rachel cleared her throat. “Did the bishop mention the schul?”

  “That job is for a maydel, nett a fraa.”

  This was so unexpected. She didn’t know how to sort her thoughts. “I need to pray about such important matters . . . and talk with Mamm and Daed.” She had promised Sadie she would help with the baby, never thinking it might include becoming Ella’s mother.

  “Okay. How long? I’d like to tell Bishop Lapp.”

  Why was he rushing this lifelong co
mmitment? “This is all so sudden.”

  “We’ve known each other forever.” He released a long sigh. “Besides, Sadie had mentioned multiple times how she wished you could find a husband. I know she would’ve approved of you raising Ella.”

  “I need to sweep again before your mamm arrives.” Rachel grabbed the broom leaning against the counter and swept under the table.

  She ran it through her head again. Timothy certainly was a fine man. Someone she greatly admired. A gut husband to Sadie. Someone she always upheld as the kind of husband she would want. Still, the idea seemed drastic, too soon after Sadie’s passing. Besides, could she marry someone she didn’t love? Who didn’t love her?

  Timothy cleared his throat. “So you will consider the proposal?”

  “You were right about Jordan. Mei heart is still mending.

  And there’s bound to be talk.”

  “Let the blabbermauls say what they wish. We have the bishop’s blessing.”

  “This is . . . unexpected.” She stopped, unable to say more.

  “We can make this work. Do you believe that?”

  “We could.” The question was, did they want to? She squatted next to the pile, dustpan in hand, and gathered the glass particles.

  The door opened and Timothy’s mother entered the kitchen. She glanced at her son, then at Rachel. “Everything okay?”

  “Jah,” Rachel said. “I dropped a glass, is all.” She emptied the contents into the trash can. “Ella should wake up sometime in the next hour. I made corned beef.” She glanced at the pan. “It will need reheating.” She took a few steps to the door before she spun to face them. “Maybe you shouldn’t eat the meat. Some glass might have dropped in it.” She crinkled her nose. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll put something together,” Anna said.

  Timothy looked at her pointedly. Was he asking her permission to share the proposal news with his mamm? She wouldn’t give that permission. There was no need to involve anyone. She had to pray first.

  Rachel grasped the door handle to her house and paused to inhale deeply. On the ride home she had rehearsed what she would say to her parents about Timothy’s proposal. Now, standing on the porch, she felt foolish. If she were in love, the words would spill easily. Instead a dread cloaked her. Timothy might not care what people thought, but she would. Certainly her parents would also have concerns.