Lost Are Found (A Prairie Heritage, Book 6)

by Vikki Kestell

  “No; I’m not married. Never have been. Max is my nephew, Søren’s son.”

  “Really?” Kari didn’t know why she’d said “really” as though it weren’t possible.

  “Yup,” Max answered, staring raptly. “My mom up and left when I was four. I’m eight now.”

  He grinned up at Kari, but his revelation earned Max another light rap on the head. “Don’t be telling family business to new friends,” Ilsa scolded.

  “Yes’m. Sorry,” he muttered again. Then he brightened. “How long’re you going to stay? Wanna see my pig? I got a goat and a horse, too.”

  “You do? I, um, I’d love to see all of them,” Kari answered politely.

  “Why don’t we get Kari settled, first,” Ilsa injected. “Kari, you will have the bedroom off the living room, just through here.”

  Ilsa led the way toward a swinging door, and Kari glanced around the large kitchen before following. Along two walls that met in the near corner of the room she saw a wealth of cupboards and counters and a huge stove. To the side of the back door was a large kitchen table and well-worn benches under a picture window that looked out on the lawn.

  This room is so homey and lived-in, she decided. It feels like the heart of this house.

  Someone had built a screened-in porch off the end of the house. It, too, overlooked the lawn and the orchard. The door into the porch was on the wall on the other side of the table and benches.

  As Kari followed Ilsa, her eyes fastened on the carved shelves that ran across the wall’s entire length: The shelves were covered in ornate painting—colorful flowers, vines, and patterns—and crowned with beautiful crockery.

  She stopped to admire the painted shelves. “Extraordinary,” she said aloud.

  “Rosemaaling,” Ilsa called over her shoulder. “This house was originally built by Jan Thoresen and his brother Karl ’bout a hundred and twenty-five years ago. Most of the house has been added onto or completely redone. At one point, our folks had the whole thing jacked up so they could pour a proper foundation and redo the plumbing.”

  Her voice echoed from beyond the doorway and its swinging door. “But those shelves? Jan carved those himself. And the rosemaaling? The painting was done by Elli Thoresen, Jan’s first wife. That there is real history. No one touches that.”

  Elli! Jan’s first wife!

  Kari, whose mouth was hanging open, was grateful for the bits of Thoresen family history Alannah, Quan, and Shan-Rose had recited to her. And now this! She followed Ilsa’s voice through the swinging door into a long living room. She spied an open door near the middle of the living room and peeked inside.

  “This will be your room,” Ilsa said. She plopped Kari’s suitcase on a chair. “It has a bathroom just through there. Part of this room was once Jan and Elli’s, but it’s been expanded, rebuilt, and remodeled a couple times. Hard to know anymore what’s original and what’s not.”

  She stood in the doorway and waved at the living room. “And this room is about three times the size as it was when first built, but it’s still nice to think of how our ancestors lived here when the prairie was completely wild and untamed.”

  Ilsa suddenly smiled at Kari and her eyes crinkled with pleasure. “We’re so happy you’ve come to spend a little time with us, Kari. And we’re excited to see the journal you found. We know it is in good hands with you. Now, feel free to unpack into this dresser here and the closet. I imagine you’d like a shower, too. When you’re done, why don’t you join me in the kitchen? We can talk while I fix dinner.”

  “Thank you,” Kari breathed. Ilsa’s sudden warm welcome was a relief, even more so her words, “We know it is in good hands with you.”

  Maybe I’ll be all right here for a few days . . . since I’m stuck anyway until I get my car back. She frowned, momentarily smarting again over the vision of the Caddy’s cracked windshield and the scratched and dented hood.

  Nope, she warned herself. You first, Lord. Everything else comes after you.

  An hour and a half later, showered, her long hair washed and dried, Kari pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a soft, well-loved t-shirt. She tugged on her ropers last.

  At least I’m going to be dressed comfortably here, she smiled.

  She started to pass through the living room on her way to the kitchen but stopped, struck dumb by what she saw. One entire wall was devoted to family photographs. From left to right, across the wall, she observed what could only be a pictorial history of the Thoresen family.

  She started at the beginning with a family portrait: A huge blonde man, a tall woman with sweet eyes and a crown of braids, a young tow-headed boy, and his younger sister.

  The next family group was comprised of a second mountain of a man (who could have been the fraternal twin of the blonde man in the first portrait!) along with his wife, a daughter, and three small boys.

  A few single photographs and tintypes were mounted near them. Kari inched slowly down the wall and came to a faded photograph of the same blonde man in the first family grouping—only many years later by the looks of it. His face had aged and was permanently creased by the sun and wind.

  Next to him sat a slender woman with the steadiest eyes Kari thought she’d ever seen. Something calming and at the same time strengthening seemed to glow in the woman’s expression. Beside her stood a young girl whose blonde hair hung free to below her waist. Her clear eyes held the same strength as the woman’s.

  “Jan and Rose and Joy,” Kari breathed. “It must be!” She felt she had stumbled upon untold treasure. “Oh, Rose! Oh, I . . . I am so happy to see your dear face.”

  She touched the glass over the faded photograph and could not stop the tears that dropped from her eyes onto the hardwood floor.

  “Rose,” she murmured again, sniffing. “Now I’m so very glad I came here after all.”

  A polite cough brought her back to herself. She quickly wiped her eyes as Søren joined her.

  “Jan and Rose Thoresen,” he said softly. “And their daughter Joy.”

  “I had just figured that out,” Kari sniffed. “I-I feel so blessed to see what they actually looked like.”

  Søren nodded, his expression solemn. “After reading her journal, you must feel that you know her.”

  “Yes.” It was all Kari could manage.

  Søren pointed to a small portrait down the wall. “Joy and her husband, Grant Michaels, on their wedding day.” He cut his eyes toward her, watching her response.

  Kari examined their likenesses closely. “They are both so . . . beautiful. Is there a portrait of them with their baby?”

  Søren coughed. “Um, sadly, no.” He dithered a moment. “Grant passed away before they were able to take a family portrait.”

  Before Kari could ask further questions, Søren stepped to the left and stopped before the second portrait on the wall. “This is Jan’s brother Karl and his family, a few years after they homesteaded this land. Their last daughter, Uli, wasn’t born yet when this was taken.”

  He took another step left. “And this is Jan and his first wife, Elli. This is their daughter Kristen and their son Søren.”

  He cleared his throat. “Søren was my great-grandfather. I am named for him. He lived here, in this house, until he died at a ripe old age—ninety-five, in fact. I was eight when he passed away, but I spent those eight years listening to him recount their first years on this land when he was just a boy.”

  He looked at Kari. “I don’t know how they survived the work and pain and grief they endured. If it weren’t for The Lord, I am convinced they could not have.” He shook his head. “I have never known faith like my great-grandfather’s. His life inspires me . . . even today.”

  “Tell me? I want to know everything.”

  Søren smiled, that one-side-tipped-up half smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Later? Perhaps after we eat? Ilsa sent me to fetch you. Dinner is ready.”

  Kari nodded. “All right.”

  “And beware and be warned, Kari Hillye
r: Ilsa kept Max away from you these last two hours, but once we cross the line into that kitchen, all bets are off. You are on your own.”

  “Oh?” Kari looked confused.

  This time Søren laughed and his eyes meant it. “Max has already said you’re the prettiest woman he’s ever seen and he’s going to ask you if anyone is courting you yet.”

  “Oh, that.”

  Kari laughed and they entered the kitchen together.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 22

  Dinner that evening proved to be everything Kari had imagined about farm life—and a lot she had never imagined. Yes, Ilsa served pan-fried chicken from their own flock; home-grown potatoes, mashed and buttery; from-scratch biscuits and creamy pan gravy; and green beans from their garden—but she used a microwave to heat the green beans and served a frozen key lime pie for dessert.

  “Hard to grow limes on a Nebraska farm,” Ilsa observed with a straight face. Then she cracked up.

  Kari had stuffed herself with dinner and replied through a mouthful of pie, “You won’t hear any complaints from me!”

  And Max, despite Søren’s warnings, was quiet during dinner. Instead of chattering, he leaned on his elbow and stared dreamily in Kari’s direction. Søren had to smother his laughter in a napkin.

  Kari thought that with the day’s work near an end, Søren seemed to relax a bit. The worry and weight she noticed him carrying earlier lifted, in particular, as he drew out an old Bible at the end of the meal.

  “We read the Scriptures together after breakfast and dinner, Kari,” he explained. “You are welcome to join us.” Ilsa and Max had brought their personal copies to the table. “We take turns reading aloud and follow along in our own Bibles.”

  “I would love that, really,” Kari was quick to respond, “but I don’t have my own Bible yet. I was using the Bible I found in my hotel room and I haven’t been anywhere I could buy one for myself.”

  “You don’t have a Bible?” Max’s eyes were as big as saucers. Those were the first words he had addressed to her since they sat down to eat.

  “Well, I never thought I needed one until I became a Christian.” Kari shrugged her shoulders, feeling a mite sheepish.

  “When did you become a Christian?” he demanded.

  “Max, don’t badger Kari,” Ilsa chided.

  “But she’s the one who said—”

  “Max.” It was one word, spoken softly by Søren, but it was enough.

  “Yessir. Sorry.”

  “If it’s all right, I’d like to tell him,” Kari requested. “I’ll keep it simple and short.” She looked to Søren and he nodded.

  “You see, Max, I wasn’t raised in a Christian family. In fact, I don’t have a family at all. I’ve maybe been inside a church three or four times in my life, like for weddings. So I really didn’t know anything about Jesus until recently. And I just answered the door two days ago.”

  “You did what?” Max’s face took on a confused expression and, as Kari looked around the table, she realized Ilsa and Søren wore the same bemused faces.

  “Um, we’d love to hear about this ‘answering the door,’ too, Kari,” Ilsa added carefully.

  Kari glanced from Ilsa to Søren and back and saw they were sincere. “Well . . . I was upstairs in Palmer House, you see.”

  More confused expressions.

  She sighed. “I was touring the house with Alannah Carmichael. You know Alannah, don’t you?”

  They nodded. “Of course,” Ilsa murmured.

  “Well, I figured out from Rose’s journal which bedroom had been hers, but all the other bedrooms were so . . . changed from what she had described when she had lived there. You know. All modernized, but dated and ruined at the same time because of it. And, frankly, smelly with disuse.”

  She made a face and Max giggled. “Well, I didn’t want to see how changed Rose’s bedroom was. I didn’t want what I had imagined ruined, soooo . . . because the door to her room was already shut, I decided I’d just leave it that way.”

  Their expressions hadn’t changed much although Søren was beginning to look intrigued. Kari took a deep breath and pushed on.

  “I was standing there, you see, in the hall outside Rose’s bedroom. And I just, sort of leaned on the door and talked to her. To Rose.”

  She saw concerned looks cross between Ilsa and Søren and hastened to say, “Oh, I’m not being weird—I knew she wasn’t there and couldn’t answer me or anything. I just wanted to think of her, as though she were on the other side . . .” Waiting for me. Waiting to hold me as though I were one of her lost girls!

  “I-I told her . . . that I wished I could have known her and that she could have told me about . . . Jesus.”

  Kari had to blink hard several times to keep the moisture forming in her eyes from pooling and spilling down her cheeks. She hadn’t foreseen how retelling her encounter with Jesus would stir up those same emotions.

  “I was just leaning against the door when . . . Jesus spoke to me.”

  “Really?” Max was in awe.

  Kari nodded slowly. “He said, You were wishing for Rose to be here and speak of me, but I am already here. I have always been . . . here . . . where you are . . . waiting for you.”

  “And then he said just I Am.” She looked at Søren, whose eyes had widened. “Does that mean anything? I Am?”

  Søren nodded and whispered, “Oh, yes. Yes, it does.”

  Ilsa leaned toward Kari, as captured as Max. “Did he say anything else, Kari?”

  Kari blinked again. “Yes. I remember everything and I think on bits and pieces of it all the time. One of the most beautiful things he said was, In a manner of speaking, I am on the other side of this door—and more, Kari. I am on the other side of the vast gulf that separates us. And I am knocking..”

  Kari wet her lips. “And I wasn’t sure . . . so I asked him: Are you Jesus? I wanted to be certain, you see.”

  She was nodding as she remembered. “I will never, ever forget his reply. He said, I am the One who is called Faithful and True, the One who reigns and rules as The Lion of the Tribe of Judah. I sit forever upon the throne of David. And I am here: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Only you can open the door. Open and find me.”

  Kari’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He asked me to surrender my life to him. That was when I opened the door.”

  The kitchen was silent. Kari was locked away in the memory of her encounter with Jesus. A stunned Søren and Ilsa were absorbing what she had told them. Max was staring in wonder.

  Until he broke the silence. “Wow. That is so cool!”

  Kari stirred and let out a long breath. She caught Søren’s eye and was surprised when he started to smile.

  “I have to agree with Max.”

  “Me, too,” Ilsa added. “Coolest thing I’ve heard in years.”

  “But there’s still one thing wrong,” Søren mused after a moment.

  “Wh-what’s that?” Kari looked concerned.

  “You not having a Bible, that’s what.” He was already striding toward the stairs that led to the upstairs. He took them two at a time and Kari turned to Ilsa.

  “Just wait.” Ilsa flipped her copper-colored braid over her shoulder and grinned.

  A few minutes later Søren pounded down the stairs. In his hand he held a black volume. “I hope you don’t mind that it’s a little used,” he apologized. “But until you pick one out at a Bible bookstore, please feel that this is your very own.”

  Kari took the book from him and caressed it. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “So,” Søren said as he took his seat. “Shall we have our Bible time now?”

  “Yup!” Max opened his Bible and Ilsa did the same.

  Kari followed suit.

  The next morning set the pattern for Kari’s stay with Søren, Ilsa, and Max. The family rose early, and Kari forced herself to do the same. Half asleep, coffee in hand, she followed Max around the barnyard as he demonstrated how to feed the chickens, colle
ct the eggs, milk their four goats, and “muck out the barn,” as he put it.

  Afterwards, she joined the three of them for breakfast—and had a hearty appetite to show for it. Just as with dinner, they took half an hour after breakfast to read from the Bible and pray. Kari brought her Bible to the table and tried not to flounder too much when Søren called out the passages they would read. Max helped her with that, too, showing her how to find the right book and chapter.

  That morning, Søren led them to Philippians chapter 4. He read aloud,

  Not that I speak

  in regard to need,

  for I have learned

  in whatever state I am,

  to be content:

  I know how to be abased,

  and I know how to abound.

  Everywhere and in all things

  I have learned both to be

  full and to be hungry,

  both to abound

  and to suffer need.

  I can do all things

  through Christ

  who strengthens me.

  Content! I’m learning to be content, Kari decided. I have had nothing and now I have quite a bit. Still, contentment has always eluded me. Now I’m learning that with Jesus, no matter what I have, I can do whatever I need to do—and be content while doing it.

  After breakfast when Max went out into the fields with Søren, Kari stayed with Ilsa and helped her clean, cook, work in the garden, and can the produce they picked together.

  “It’s July, so we have tomatoes coming out our ears. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Kari racked her brain for the answer. “Um, no.”

  “What it means is all the BLTs we want! Breakfast, lunch, and dinner!”

  Kari’s stomach rumbled its appreciation and they both laughed.

  “I must say it is so nice to have someone to keep me company and work with me,” Ilsa commented. “You are a huge help! Why, we’ve gotten so much done, I think we should bake some pies this afternoon—what do you say to cherry and apple?”

  At the end of that first day, Kari was exhausted but elated. She went to her bed early and discovered that getting up before dawn was a bit easier than it had been the day before.