A Time for Peace

by Barbara Cameron

  Joy squeezed her waist. "It was just overwhelming for a time. And David's your friend, too. I didn't want you to feel put in the middle."

  She sighed. "And one day I started to call and I just couldn't do it. You've been through enough bad stuff. It's time you had some peace in your life."

  If only, thought Jenny. If only. "I wish I'd known. I wish I could have helped."

  "I know. But it was okay. David's a good man. I felt if I could really get his attention it would be okay."

  Joy was silent for a long moment. "Jenny, Matthew's a good man, too. Are you talking about whatever it is that's wrong?"

  "It won't do any good," Jenny said.

  Just then she heard a noise, a sound like an indrawn breath.Matthew stood in the doorway.

  Then he turned and was gone.

  Matthew nearly ran David down as he hurried down the stairs.

  "Hey, where are you going in such a hurry?" David asked, stopping him by laying a hand on his arm. "Did they ask you to change a diaper or something?"

  "Don't go up there," Matthew said tersely. "They're talking about something personal."

  David's grin faded and his hand fell to his side. "I guess Joy's sharing with Jenny some problems we've had this past year."

  He had Matthew's attention. "Problems?" Maybe listening to what this Englisch friend was experiencing might help him to understand what was happening in his own marriage.

  Then he shook his head. David might not like to talk about it.

  He thought wrong.

  "I made the biggest mistake of my life," David blurted out."I almost lost everything that was important to me."

  Phoebe glanced up when they entered the kitchen. "Want to join us for a game of Dutch Blitz?"

  Matthew turned to David. "I need to go out to the barn for a minute. Want to join me?"

  "Sure." David tousled his son's hair. "You having fun?"

  "I'm winning," Sam told him, giving him a gap-toothed grin. "And we're about to have whoops."

  "Whoops?"

  Phoebe laughed. "Whoopie pies. I made some for Sam when I heard you were coming. Don't worry, I'll save you one."

  David grinned at her. "You know me so well."

  Matthew grabbed his jacket and handed David his."Ready?"

  They walked outside and hunched their shoulders against the chill.

  "Did you lose the television job?"

  David shook his head and his laugh sounded rueful. "No.If anything I was getting more work and opportunities from them. I was working too much, enjoying the money too much.Joy let me know our marriage was in trouble."

  Matthew opened the barn door and they stepped inside."Are you saying she wanted a divorce?"

  "No one wants one," David said, pulling his collar up to protect his ears from the cold. "But she thought we might be headed that way."

  Matthew listened as David described how he'd spent more hours at the office, caught up in the pursuit of success, something called ratings, and accumulation of a bigger house, a better car.

  It sounded nothing like the kind of problems he and Jenny had been experiencing. Jenny had walked away from the Englisch life and didn't seem to mind not having the things that were important to it.

  But trust. That was important to her and he didn't know how to get past how she felt he'd betrayed her trust in him.

  "You okay?"

  Matthew glanced up from unwrapping the bandage around Pilot's foreleg. "Ya, fine."

  "You and Jenny okay?"

  Taken aback, Matthew stared at him. "Why would you ask that?"

  David shrugged and looked uncomfortable. "I dunno.Seemed like there was this . . . tension between the two of you that reminded me of how Joy and I were getting along for a while there."

  "Did you ask Joy's father for permission to marry her?"

  "Whoa, what?"

  "You know, before you asked her to marry you, did you talk to her father?"

  David shook his head. "We don't do that so much anymore.Kind of old-fashioned. Not that I'm saying it's bad, you understand," he said quickly, as if afraid he would offend. "It's Joy's life. She's the one who makes the decisions."

  Matthew pulled out the kit filled with first-aid items for the horses and rummaged for what he needed. They were silent for several minutes as he cleaned the wound on the foreleg, applied some medicine, then wrapped a bandage around it.

  David watched from a safe distance, looking skittish every time Pilot moved or tossed his mane.

  "He likes to play games with people who act afraid of him," Matthew told David. "Don't let him intimidate you."

  "It's okay," David said. "I can watch from over here." He glanced around. "I swear, this barn's as neat as some people's houses."

  "This time of year it's a little easier to keep it this way."

  "It's been this way every time we've visited." David picked up a level from a tool bench and examined it. "So why'd you want to know about asking a father for permission to marry his daughter?"

  Matthew hesitated.

  "I understand you don't share personal information as easily as we do," David said quietly. "But sometimes it helps to talk."

  Before Jenny returned from being injured overseas, Matthew hadn't had any Englisch friends and to be honest, David was Jenny's friend first. Matthew wasn't sure how to talk to him about this. And it wouldn't be fair for him to say anything about Phoebe.

  Silence stretched between them, the only sounds the shifting of horses in the stalls, the wind blowing around the barn.

  "Jenny's upset that she just found out her father came to get her early back when she was here that last summer," Matthew said finally. "He didn't approve of me being interested in his daughter and so he took her away."

  "I see."

  But David was frowning as he took it all in. "Why would she be upset if you got together in the end?"

  The barn door opened and their children spilled inside, a noisy jumble of movement and voices.

  "Sam wants to see the kittens," Annie said. "Phoebe says we can show him then we have to come right back for whoopie pies and hot choc-lit."

  "Don't get any ideas," David told Sam. "We're not taking any kittens home."

  Sam nodded but he glanced at Annie and grinned.

  Annie led the way to a stall and opened it. "Look, they're awake! Here, you can hold this one, just be careful."

  David looked at Matthew who was watching the interaction of their children with the mama cat and her litter. "You're together now but Jenny's regretting those lost years, isn't she?"

  "How is it you understood that when I didn't?" Matthew asked him. "At least, I didn't until we talked."

  "I know the way Jenny thinks," David told him. "I've known her longer. That's all."

  He sighed. "She loves children—especially yours. But I'd imagine she'd keep thinking these children could have been hers."

  "They are hers," Matthew told him and he heard the passion in his voice. "It wasn't God's will for us to be together then. But it is now."

  "Tough concept for someone not raised in your faith."

  Matthew stared at the man before him who moved in such a different world than he did. But David had put his finger so neatly on the crux of the problem.

  "Sometimes it seems like Jenny's so much a part of this place that she's been here forever. I forget she hasn't grown up here."

  "It doesn't seem strange seeing her dressed in Plain clothes anymore," David mused as they watched the children play with the kittens.

  Then he held up his hands. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like it's strange the way you're dressed here."

  Matthew grinned. "It's allrecht. I know what you mean. It's not what you're used to."

  Sam walked over and held a kitten up to show to his father."Please, Daddy, can we take this one home? She's so soft and she likes me. See, she's kissing me," he said when the kitten licked his cheek.

  David held up his hands. "No, no, we can't have a kitten!"

  Sam ti
lted his head and studied his father. "Maybe I should ask Mommy."

  Kneeling, David patted the kitten on the head. "Son, I know the kitten is special. But Mommy has a lot on her hands right now taking care of you and the new baby."

  "Maybe we could have the kitten instead of the baby if it's too much trouble for her to do both," Sam said slyly.

  David tickled Sam on the stomach. "Now you know you don't mean that. You love the baby. You're her big brother and you're going to look out for her."

  "Like Joshua does for us," Mary said. "Right, Annie?"

  "Right," she said, wrapping her arms around her brother's waist. "He's a good bruder."

  Joshua rolled his eyes but when he looked over at him, Matthew could tell his sisters' words meant a lot.

  14

  Jenny breathed in the scent of baby Emily's hair and thought about how rich someone was going to be one day when they bottled clean baby smell.

  "I can take her now," Joy whispered.

  "I don't mind holding her."

  Joy smiled. "I can see that." Her smile faded and she studied Jenny. "Have you thought about adopting?"

  "Yes." She traced a finger over Emily's rose-petal-soft cheek."I haven't talked to Matthew about it much. I so wanted—" she stopped. "They talk a lot about God's will here."

  "Couldn't it be God's will to adopt if you haven't conceived? I mean, if you apply and you get a baby, that's what was supposed to happen, right?"

  "I guess," Jenny said slowly, thinking it over.

  "So maybe if you want a baby as badly as you do then you should think about it. Talk to Matthew about applying."

  Looking up, Jenny nodded. "Maybe I will. If he'll talk to me. Everything is such a mess."

  They jumped when they heard a girl scream and brakes squeal.

  Joy and Jenny stared at each other, eyes filled with horror.Then they jumped to their feet and ran.

  "Sam!" Joy screamed as she ran for the stairs, forgetting that Jenny still held the baby.

  Jenny would have screamed a name but she didn't know which to choose. Annie? Mary? Joshua? Annie was the youngest and impulsive but she knew to stay away from the road, just as Mary and Joshua did.

  Like Joy, she could only think it could be Sam.

  Phoebe was already running out the door ahead of them.Mary stood beside the road, holding Annie's hand. A car sat sideways in front of them, as if it had swerved and slid.

  A boy's body lay on the pavement, dressed in Plain clothing.

  "Joshua!" Jenny screamed.

  He lay in the road, blood pooling around his head, as a man bent over him, talking on a cell phone.

  "I'll get Matthew," Phoebe said and she took off for the barn.

  Jenny felt her knees weaken and she sagged against the porch railing. Her hands tightened on the baby and then she turned and pushed her into Joy's arms before running to kneel beside Joshua.

  She forced herself to touch her fingers to the pulse in his neck and felt it—faint but there, thank God.

  "Sam!" Joy cried when she reached them. "Where's Sam?"

  "In the barn with his daedi," Mary said.

  "I didn't hit the boy," the driver rushed to say. "Yes, we need an ambulance," he yelled into his cell phone. "A child's lying in the road."

  He glanced at the address on the home and read it to the 9-1-1 dispatcher. "Hurry, he's hurt his head and he's unconscious."

  "I always drive slow through here because of the buggies," the man told Jenny. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. "Here, press this on his head to help stop the bleeding."

  "He ran after the kitty," Annie was sobbing. "He told me to stay out of the road and he'd get it. Then he tripped and fell and hurt his head right in front of the car. The man just—just—"

  "The man stopped the car in time," Mary finished for her.

  Matthew and David came running, Sam tucked securely in David's arms.

  Jenny watched the color drain from Matthew's face."Joshua?"

  He joined her on the pavement while the man stood and walked down the road a little to look out for the emergency vehicles.

  "Joshua, wake up, sohn," he said urgently.

  "Don't move him," Jenny warned. "An ambulance is coming."

  "Sohn, please, wake up," Matthew pleaded as he knelt beside Jenny.

  Joshua's lashes fluttered and he muttered something that had his parents exchanging a look of puzzlement.

  "What language is that?" Matthew asked her.

  "I don't understand it, either."

  And then, to Jenny's amazement, Joshua opened his eyes and looked at them. "Mamm? Daed?"

  Nearly speechless with joy, Jenny nodded. "We're right here," she said. "No, don't sit up," she said when he tried.

  But Joshua pushed against her hands and did so anyway.He said something she couldn't understand.

  "What is it, sohn?" Matthew asked him, wiping at the blood on Joshua's forehead.

  Joshua repeated what he'd said and it still didn't make sense.It wasn't Pennsylvania Deitsch or German . . . no, it sounded more like gobbledygook.

  And then he turned his head and threw up.

  They were so occupied with soothing him and wiping his face they almost didn't notice when the police car pulled up and the officer got out.

  Joshua stiffened and then his body began jerking, convulsing, and he fell against Matthew.

  The officer hurried up and knelt beside Joshua. "He's having a seizure," he said tersely. "It happens a lot after head injuries.Here, let's carefully lay him down on his side. We don't want to move him too much since we don't know if he has any other injuries. But we don't want him to choke, either."

  "Now what do we do?" Matthew asked him after Joshua was carefully laid on his side.

  Jenny could hear the fear in his voice. She felt it, too.

  "We just keep a watch on him and make sure he doesn't hurt himself," the officer told him. "The ambulance is right behind me."

  Jenny's heart caught in her throat as she helplessly watched Joshua convulse. When the ambulance pulled up and the paramedics came running toward them, she thought she'd never been so grateful for them.

  The first responders asked Jenny and Matthew to move a few feet away so they could work. They complied reluctantly and stood with their arms around each other, watching as the medics spent several minutes examining Joshua, conveying his condition to the hospital, and administering some medication in an IV. The seizure stopped but Joshua didn't open his eyes again.

  That frightened Jenny more than the seizure. Maybe Matthew as well. She couldn't tell who trembled more.

  Finally, Joshua was carried into the ambulance and one of the paramedics turned to Matthew and Jenny.

  "We've got room for one of you," they were told. "Which will it be?"

  There was no choice as far as Jenny was concerned. Joshua was the child of her heart but he'd been Matthew's son since birth.

  "You go," she told Matthew.

  He gave her a quick hug and then he rushed to climb inside the ambulance.

  The doors were closed, the police officer banged on them to signal all was clear, and the vehicle began racing down the road, siren wailing.

  The driver of the car walked over and started talking. Jenny could barely understand him. She couldn't focus.

  "It wasn't your fault," she said. "Mary said so." She tried not to think of what might have happened if his reflexes hadn't been good and he'd avoided hitting Joshua as he lay in the road.

  He handed her a business card. "If there's anything you need, let me know."

  She managed to thank him and shoved the card into her pocket, forgetting him as soon as he drove off.

  "Joshua's hurt?"

  Sam's clear childish voice carried over to Jenny. David murmured something to him that she couldn't hear.

  Joy came over to pull Jenny out of the road. She slipped her arm around Jenny's waist. "Come on, let's get the children inside. David'll drive you to the hospital and I'll stay
with the children."

  Numb, Jenny nodded.

  Joy rubbed her arm and guided her into the house. "I know it's scary but I've heard that people sometimes have seizures after they hurt their heads. But they do just fine."

  "The police officer said something like that," Jenny admitted.

  "Joshua's going to be okay. It was a good thing that he woke up so quickly. You have to remember that."

  But he hadn't woken up again. Jenny tried telling herself that it was probably the medication that had done that. Still, she couldn't help thinking that he might not wake up again.He might have permanent brain damage. Even if he didn't, he might have sustained the kind of brain injury she had from the car bombing overseas.

  She shuddered when she remembered how she'd been so frustrated trying to talk and the wrong word had popped out, how she'd had to work with therapists for months on her speech. Would he have more seizures? What if he had other injuries that were serious?

  Phoebe ushered a sobbing Annie and Mary into the house and spoke with them quietly. David followed them, with the baby in one arm, Sam in the other. The baby was crying and Sam was crying. Everyone in the room was crying.

  Jenny pressed her hands to her temples, then wiped at the tears running down her cheeks. She turned to her grandmother."I think we should say a prayer for Joshua before I go."

  Phoebe nodded and then she moved to wrap Jenny in her arms. "Joshua will be allrecht, dear one. You must believe that."

  Jenny nodded and then she stepped back. Annie stood there with her thumb in her mouth—something she'd done in the past when she was stressed. Sitting down on the sofa, she held out her arms to the girls and gathered them onto her lap.

  "He told me not to go into the road," Annie said, repeating what she'd said earlier. "He said he'd get her. But he got hurt.It's my fault."

  "No, it's not," Jenny assured.

  Mary was silent, too silent.

  Joy and David sat, too, comforting their children. But they clasped each other's hands and made a prayer chain with Jenny and the girls and Phoebe led them in praying for Joshua.

  When it was over, David stood and set Sam down on the sofa beside Joy. "Jenny, get your jacket and purse and I'll take you to the hospital now."