“Where’s Jake? I have to apologize to him.”
“He took one of the trucks and left.”
Sarah pulled her hands away and her eyes grew wide and frightened. “He’s coming back, right?”
“I don’t know.” Charlie’s eyes were overflowing, but she didn’t wipe the tears away. “I drove him away, Sarah.”
“But you love him. We love him!” Sarah began to cry little-girl tears that screwed up her face until she looked five years old. “He can’t leave us the way Daddy did.”
Charlie wrapped her arms around Sarah. “I’m sorry, Sarah. Maybe I did drive your father away. I drive away all the people I care about.”
“No, Mom, that’s not how it was with Daddy. But this is Jake. He’s not like that. We have to go after him, make him come back.”
“If he does come back, it has to be his decision, his choice. Maybe if he loves us enough he will. All we can do is wait and pray.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HE’D DONE IT again, only this time he would not run from his responsibility.
Charlie had asked him what he wanted bad enough to fight for.
He hadn’t had the nerve to tell her the truth. He wanted Charlie. But only if and when he could offer her a whole man.
Only one way to do that. He couldn’t go back in time and change anything, but he could go back to the beginning and try to fix what he’d screwed up.
Charlie was right. He needed to give meaning to his life if he were to pay for his survival.
If he couldn’t do that, he would disappear so deep not even the colonel would find him.
He slammed on his brakes and slid into a gas station parking lot so suddenly that the truck behind honked and made a rude gesture.
He sat behind the wheel of the old farm truck—the stolen truck—and took deep breaths until he settled down. No more running. Even if this pilgrimage turned out badly, he would never go back to the streets. Time to fight himself to become the man she needed. Only then could he tell her how much he loved her.
* * *
THE COLONEL KNOCKED on Charlie’s door and came in without waiting for an answer. She lay facedown on her bed, arms wrapped around her pillow.
He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her back. “Jake’s gone?
“I ran him off.”
She rolled over and brushed the remains of the tears from beneath her eyes. “He thinks he makes bad decisions. Hah! I’m world-class.”
He put his arms around her, and she huddled against him.
“First, I fall in love with him almost at first sight, then when he says he loves me back, I yell at him and chase him away.”
“You could report the truck stolen.”
She sat up. “Daddy! I will not, and don’t you dare. He has to come back on his own or not at all.” She caught his small grin and rolled her eyes. “Don’t kid. I’m not in the mood.”
“Coming back is his decision solely. Is taking him back yours alone?”
She scooted back against the pillows at the head of the bed. “If he asks me to take him back, I will. After I apologize. How come I never get mad except at the people I love?”
“Because the people you love matter to you.” He stood up and said, “I bought a loft on South Main Street by the river this afternoon.”
“I beg your pardon?” She sat up straight. “What?”
He walked to the door. “I’ve been looking and negotiating for a while. I finally found a great place. I’m closing at the end of the month.”
“You didn’t think to mention that?”
“I apologize for the timing, but I’m doing what you asked. You’re right. You no longer need me looking over your shoulder.”
“Now? You can’t leave! I do need you. Sarah needs you.”
“Where is she? I expected the two of you to be commiserating or working out strategy.”
Charlie shook her head. “She shut herself in her room. I’ve talked to her through the door, but she told me she wants some time alone. I figured I’d give her some space.”
“You didn’t yell at her?”
“No, Daddy, I didn’t yell. Jake’s leaving put all that in perspective. I only got mad because I was so scared.” She felt more tears leak down her cheeks. “When I think of what could have happened to Sarah...”
“But nothing did.”
“Now you’re leaving, too. First Steve, then Sarah, then Jake, now you. Hey, want to learn how to drive the people you love away? Charlie Nicholson at your service. Group rates apply.”
“You’re not losing me. I’m as close as your phone, and I can drive out here from downtown Memphis in forty-five minutes. Now, wash your face and try to get some rest.”
“Rest?”
“I’m going to go talk to Sarah, if she’ll let me.” He pulled the comforter over her shoulders, opened the bedroom door and closed it softly behind him.
Sleep? In what century? What else could go wrong? Just when they were finally getting to know one another, the colonel—her father—bailed out? For her own good? She shouted after him, “I wish people would stop doing things for my own good!”
* * *
ACROSS THE HALL, the colonel tapped on Sarah’s door. “Sarah, it’s your grandfather. May I come in?”
No answer. He took that as a yes. The door wasn’t locked. Sarah slumped against the head of her bed, legs drawn up to her chest. Her eyes were red rimmed, and she gave a little hiccup. She refused to meet his eyes.
He sat down on the bed and wrapped his arms around her. He was prepared for her to shake him off, but she held on to him and sobbed. He whispered, “It’s okay.”
“It’s never going to be okay! I can’t show up at that school like nothing happened. Everybody’ll be laughing at me.”
“I doubt if he’ll talk about his experience, Sarah. But if he does, you’re the victim.”
“Granddaddy, I was so scared! And then I lied to Jake. It’s my fault he left, just like Daddy.”
“You’re not responsible for your father’s death.”
She wrenched away from him, slid off the bed and went to stare out the window. “The last time he came home he was really weird. All they did was fight. He hated me, too. He told her that one night when he came home drunk from the club. I heard him.” She turned to look at her grandfather, and now her eyes were dry. “I didn’t want them to get a divorce. My friends with divorced parents hardly ever see their dads. Who would I be if they got a divorce? I mean, until now I’ve never lived anywhere but on post.”
“Could that be why you trusted the Dillon boy? Because he could show you how to fit in?”
“Maybe...” She sat beside her grandfather on the bed and leaned against his shoulder. “I was so mad when Daddy left, I yelled at him and told him he didn’t have to go. He wanted to—anything to get away from Mom and me.”
The colonel had no idea what to say to that because it was undoubtedly true.
“Everybody in post housing knows what it means when that black staff car rolls up the street. Everybody stops breathing until it stops at somebody else’s house.”
“I know.”
“Since it was Saturday morning, Mom was vacuuming the living room. She couldn’t hear the doorbell, and it rang over and over until I got royally P.O.’d. I ran down the stairs and yanked the front door open.
“When I saw them—the two guys in dress blues—I remember they had on white gloves—I slammed the door in their faces, ran up to my room and locked myself in. Like if I didn’t see them or hear them, it wouldn’t be real, you know?”
The colonel nodded. “I know.”
“I wouldn’t let Mom tell me, either. I cranked up the music so high the windows shook. She finally had to yell it at me through the door.”
“Sooner or later you had to hear,” he said quietly.
“I couldn’t cry. I wanted to, but I felt like I had a fever and chills at the same time. And then I started screaming at her. I couldn’t let it be my fault. It had to be hers.”
“It was nobody’s fault, Sarah.”
“I said some awful things, Granddad. At the funeral...”
“I remember. I was there.”
“I wouldn’t go in the hearse with her or sit with her at the service. Then you two went off by yourselves, and when you came back, you said we were moving down here. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to stay there. His grave is there.”
“He’s not in his grave, Sarah.”
“That night after you left, I found her on her knees in the living room looking at our photo albums and really sobbing. That’s when I started to cry, too. I woke up at dawn in her lap. I know it’s not her fault. It’s not like we have anybody but each other.”
The colonel drew in a deep breath. Sarah did not include him in the equation. Not that he deserved to be there after his years of benign neglect—or what he’d thought was benign.
“Now Jake’s gone. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him, too.”
“He’s not going to a war zone, Sarah. If he loves you both, and I think he does, he’ll find his way back to you.” He stroked her lovely long hair. “You’re going to be fine. I promise you.” He stayed until Sarah stopped sniffling, then went downstairs to his study to see if he could figure out how to find Jake.
* * *
TEN MINUTES LATER, Sarah put her head around Charlie’s door and asked, “Mommy? Are you okay?”
Charlie opened her arms, and this time Sarah catapulted into them.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Me, too.” Charlie rocked her big child in her arms as she had when she was a baby. She was sorry about plenty in her life, but not about having Sarah. Charlie was getting the farm, the only thing she thought she wanted, but it didn’t matter any longer.
What mattered was Sarah snuggled against her. What mattered was having Jake come back. She’d thought how great it would be to be the sole boss, the decision maker.
In a lonely house with no one to share the burdens and the joys with, no one to love. How sad to grow old with only the horses.
Better to lose the place she’d longed for than to lose Jake. Somehow, she’d find him and tell him that.
She realized Sarah was asleep. Charlie eased her down and snuggled her under the comforter, then lay beside her until, finally, she too slept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE FIRST THING Jake noticed was how much bigger the oak trees were than he remembered. And how much smaller the cattle barn and house looked. The place was still immaculate, however. His father believed in buying enough white paint at one time to fill his buggy. His sister Helga was keeping up the tradition.
He didn’t know whether his mother lived with Helga or had her own place, but someone here had his mother’s green thumb. The blue hydrangea still threatened to bury the eastern corner of the house unless kept ruthlessly pruned, and the old Blaze roses wrapped the posts on the front porch so thickly the white paint was barely visible through the blooms. He never smelled a rose without remembering his mother cutting bouquets for the kitchen table.
He sat in his rental car with the air conditioner on high until he could quiet his breathing and slow his pulse. He felt as though he were looking into a parallel universe. Everything was familiar but slightly off.
He finally turned off the ignition, squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. He climbed out from behind the wheel and strode up the brick path before he lost his nerve.
The top porch step no longer creaked when he stepped on it. He’d promised his father to fix it, but he’d never gotten around to it. Somebody had.
He stood in front of the screen door to the house, breathing as though he’d run a marathon. Who would open it? Would they slam it in his face? Time to take his punishment. He rapped on the wood frame and waited.
Nothing happened. No footsteps from inside, no voice calling out to him. His friend from town said Helga and her husband Johann Yoder lived in the house and ran the farm—the farm that would have come to Jake if his father had not disinherited him.
On a late August afternoon Helga might well be in the fields with her husband baling the last of the timothy hay for winter, but he’d be surprised if she were. This time of day she and the other women should all be at home preparing dinner for their families. Amish women always seemed to be cooking or cleaning when they weren’t feeding stock or having babies. His mother had fitted in mending and quilting after the kitchen was clean and before the lanterns were turned off, but many women simply collapsed into bed after sixteen-hour days.
He’d prepared himself to be tossed out on his ear. He hadn’t anticipated no one being there. The wait was harder than he’d imagined any confrontation would be.
He rapped harder. He couldn’t call Helga and tell her he was coming because she had no telephone.
He’d climbed on the first plane to Columbia, Missouri, that had a seat free and left Charlie’s truck in short-term parking. Charlie had a second set of keys at the farm. Should he decide not to return, he could call Sean. He and Hank could pick up the truck.
Money was not a problem. He had credit cards and got cash from the ATM at the airport. He wondered whether he should buy presents. They’d probably refuse to accept them.
So he’d rented a car in Columbia, bought himself clothing, toiletries and a duffel to put them in, took a room in the mom-and-pop motel five miles away from the farm on which he had grown up and driven out here.
Again no response. He pulled the screen door open and let it close again softly. Unhooked. If he opened it, then let it go, it would bang like a rifle shot.
In the summer his mother would threaten not to feed any of them unless the children quit running in and out, banging the screen door. He smiled at the memory of her charging after them with that big wooden spoon she used to beat batter. She never connected, but they’d run and scream and giggle until they were far enough away to feel safe. Did Helga use that old spoon now or was it lost forever?
When he was growing up, no one in the community ever locked a door. Most didn’t know where their keys were and had to search for them if they were required. Now, he wouldn’t be surprised to find every door dead bolted when the family was away.
A sound. A light footstep inside. Someone was moving, coming closer. He fought a desire to run. Instead he rapped again and called out.
The footsteps stopped. A moment later the big front door swung open.
Behind the screen door stood a boy dressed in a white shirt and black pants. He was a tall eight or a short ten-year-old, blond, with wide blue eyes so like Jake’s mother’s that Jake caught his breath.
He cleared his throat. “Good afternoon. Might I speak to your mother?”
“She’s not here.” The boy stayed behind the screen door, a little wary now.
So Helga was out, but her son was too young to stay by himself. “Then may I speak to the person who is looking after you.”
The boy thought for a moment, then without turning his back on Jake yelled, “Nana, there’s an English wants to see you!”
“An English? Zebulon, you know better. That’s rude. Who is it?”
The woman who came out of the shadows couldn’t be Jake’s mother, though she looked exactly the way he remembered her from when he was seventeen.
She patted her hands together and sent a small cloud of flour into the air, then wiped her palms down her white apron to remove the last remnants of the dough she must be kneading. The scent of yeast and baking bread rolled out the door toward him and made his stomach rumble. He’d been too nervous to eat since he got
on the plane last night.
“Yes?” the woman said. Not his mother’s voice. Deeper. His mother would have been more likely to say Yah? English was her primary language, but she maintained remnants of the Amish dialect she’d learned as a toddler.
“Helga?” he asked.
“Can I help you, mister? You got car trouble?” Her forehead wrinkled as she leaned forward to scrutinize him more closely. “Do I know you?”
“You did, once.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I cannot think...oh.” She sank to the floor, her legs crumpling under her.
“Nana!” the child screeched.
Why did he spring it on her that way? Jake pulled the screen door open and dropped beside her, propping her up against his chest. “Helga, breathe. I’ve got you.”
He wasn’t certain she had enough breath left in her lungs to speak. She lifted one hand and stroked his jaw as tears rolled down her sun-damaged cheek. “You got so old!”
* * *
“A FOOLISH THING to say.” She flashed a smile at Jake. “We all got so old.”
He’d walked her into the kitchen and sat her down at the same kitchen table that had been there before he was born, then sat across from her. “Zebulon, bring the cookies and pour yourself a glass of milk. Jacob, in a minute when I can breathe we can have lemonade.”
“I can’t believe Zebulon is your grandson.”
“The eldest of three I have from my Marthe.”
“Where are they?”
“At day care. We have Amish day care now just like the English.”
“I’m too old for day care,” Zebulon said from his grandma’s shoulder. He hadn’t strayed more than a foot away from her since Jake helped her to her feet. “After school the bus drops me here.”
Helga had introduced him to Zebulon as Mr. Thompson, not Uncle Jake.
“Marthe’s boss drives her home from the village,” Helga said.
“He’s English, so he has a big car,” Zebulon added. “He picks me up and takes us both home. Mama must not drive the car herself, but we can both ride.”
“Where does your mother work?” Jake asked. When he left, Amish women almost never worked outside the home. Now that land taxes and farming were more expensive than ever, even the Plain People might require two incomes to survive.
Taking the Reins Page 21
