Mother's Promise

by Anna Schmidt

  Ben stepped out onto the lanai that screened the large pool area. Across the yard at the end of the path that wound through Sharon’s lush gardens stood a cluster of people—his sister, Malcolm, Hester Steiner—who, he decided, must have driven the van over—and the new chaplain. It was little wonder they had not heard his calls. The four of them were standing outside the guesthouse, deep in conversation.

  “But that hardly seems fair,” he heard Rachel Kaufmann say as he followed the path toward them.

  Malcolm shrugged. “Take it or leave it,” he said. “It’s my final offer.”

  Hester Steiner sighed. “You may as well stop trying to bargain with him, Rachel. Once Malcolm makes up his mind, there’s no changing it.”

  “Besides,” Sharon added, “think of all we stand to gain by having you and your son living here. Justin, is it?”

  Rachel nodded. “Ja, aber… I mean …”

  “Hester’s right,” Ben said as he joined the group. “Might as well save yourself some time and give in to whatever they’re pushing. My sister and brother-in-law can be two of the most stubborn people I know when it comes to having their way.” He grinned at Sharon. “I should know. I grew up with this one and never could win a debate with her once she’d made up her mind.”

  “But for free? No rent?”

  “Just for your probationary period,” Malcolm said. “That way if you decide this isn’t working out, you and Justin can go back home without obligations tying you down here. And in the meantime, you can check out other possibilities perhaps over in Pinecraft if you think you would be more at home living there. Besides, rules in the neighborhood prohibit us taking in a tenant, so you’re saving me some hassle once the neighbors find out you’re staying here.”

  Ben saw Rachel glance back toward the main house where every room was lit up as if to emphasize its sprawling luxury. He thought he saw a hint of a smile play across her lips—a smile that she suppressed as she turned her attention back to Malcolm.

  “Very well,” she said. “But I insist that Justin and I will tend the gardens.”

  “Oh Rachel, we have help for that, and you’re going to have so much on your plate—work, classes, getting Justin settled.” Sharon looked to Hester for support. “You agree, right?”

  Now Rachel’s smile blossomed in full. “Those are my terms,” she said.

  Malcolm laughed and held out his hand for her to shake, sealing the bargain. “Welcome, Rachel,” he said.

  “Well, please understand that if things become too difficult, we’re right here to help,” Sharon added.

  “See what I mean?” Ben grinned and wrapped his arm around his sister. “She always has to have the final word.”

  “Stop that,” Sharon said when Ben rubbed her head with his knuckles. “Come on up to the house, Rachel. I have ice cream cake, and I want you to meet our daughter, Sally.”

  Ben frowned as he followed the others through the garden. He had assumed that his niece was outside with the others, but Sharon’s comment made him realize that Sally had been in the house all along. The fact that she had not come running at the sound of his call raised an alarm for him, and he had to wonder if any of them would ever get past that knee-jerk instinct to imagine the worst when it came to Sally’s health.

  He fell into step with Malcolm as the women went on ahead of them. “How’s Sally doing?”

  Malcolm glanced toward the house. “Better every day. She’s upstairs now—something about needing to get ready for school.” He paused for a moment and gazed across the yard at the inviting golden light spilling from the house onto the lawn streaked with the shadows of twilight. “Do you think it’s a good idea to send her back to school? I mean, maybe we should wait until second semester—give her a few more months.”

  Sally’s worst fear was that her parents would do exactly what Malcolm was suggesting. “I just want a little normal,” she’d moaned one day. “After everything I’ve been through, is that too much to ask?”

  “You can always take her out of school if necessary,” Ben reminded Malcolm. “Right now I think it’s really important to let her start the school year, be back with her friends and teachers, let others see how well she’s doing.”

  “I know you’re right.” Malcolm drew in a long breath, and Ben realized that his brother-in-law had been fighting his emotions. “We’ve operated so long in what Sally calls sick mode that it’s hard to believe things are better.”

  “Now that the new hospital is up and running, what are your plans for her medical needs?”

  “Well of course, she’ll continue to go back to Tampa for anything connected to her bone marrow transplant.”

  Ben nodded. “I can understand that, but I’ll be finishing up at Memorial by the end of the month and well, selfishly I’d like to keep an eye on things where Sally is concerned.”

  “You mean once you move over to Gulf Coast full-time? Let me talk to Sharon,” Malcolm said.

  “Ask Sally,” Ben added. “It should be her choice.”

  “We’ll go where she can get whatever it takes to keep her healthy, Ben.”

  “Of course.” They had reached the house. The women were already inside. Ben could hear Sharon conducting the grand tour. He noticed that his sister had not asked Rachel or Hester to remove their shoes.

  “Uncle Ben!”

  Ben turned toward the foyer and saw his niece coming quickly down the stairs. He couldn’t help remembering all the weeks and months when merely walking across her hospital room had been exhausting for the child. Now her blue eyes sparkled with delight as she effortlessly descended the curved staircase. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt with a baseball cap covering her short hair. After the chemo, her hair had grown back in brown tufts highlighted with red instead of the honey blond it had been before she got sick.

  “Is it true? Did that boy really get attacked by a shark? It’s all over the news. They interviewed Dr. Wilson on national television.”

  “First, a hug for your weary uncle, then we can talk shark attacks.” Ben held out his arms to her.

  She threw her arms around his neck and held on. As he released her he fingered the earplugs from her MP3 player dangling around her neck. “So this is why you didn’t hear me call out when I first got here. You are going to seriously damage your hearing, turning that stuff you think passes for music up so loud.”

  “I’ll have you know I was listening to a book,” she replied, with a quirk in her smile.

  Ben tousled her short hair. “Well …,” he said, “there may be hope for you yet.”

  The phone rang, and Malcolm went to answer it. Sally squeezed Ben’s hand and lowered her voice, her eyes darting toward the kitchen. “Did you hear? We’re taking in boarders,” she whispered.

  “I heard.”

  “They’re Amish,” Sally whispered.

  “Mennonite like Mr. and Mrs. Steiner,” Ben corrected. “Problem?”

  Sally looked doubtful. “I don’t know. Do you think Dad’s got money problems? I mean my friend down the block? They’re selling their house because her dad—”

  Ben gave her another hug. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s your mom and dad doing what they always do—helping others. Ms. Kaufmann started a job at the new hospital today. She needs a place to stay until she can get settled.” He released her and added, “She’s got a son—Justin. I think he’s around your age.”

  She smiled, her eyes dancing with excitement. “Does he play baseball?”

  “I don’t know. How about we check with his mom?”

  Chapter 6

  By the time Rachel returned to Hester’s house, she was bone weary. Justin was waiting for her, his blue eyes so like his father’s mirroring a dozen unspoken questions. And yet when Rachel had climbed into the paneled orange van after completing her first full day of work, Justin had not been in the backseat as she had expected.

  “John took him fishing,” Hester explained. Then she sighed. “It was pretty obvious that he didn’t want to
come see the cottage,” she admitted quietly, “and it seemed like maybe …”

  “It’s all right,” Rachel assured her. “I’ve asked a lot of him, and he’s still struggling with everything—and there’s more he has yet to face.”

  In two days he would start classes at the public middle school near the hospital, the same school that Sally Shepherd attended. And even though they had talked about all the reasons why this was the best choice at least for the time being, Rachel knew that Justin was extremely nervous. And why not? It was a large school with children he did not know. These children lived in ways that would be so very different for Justin.

  “What was it like?” Justin asked when the two of them were alone in the room they were sharing at the Steiners’. Rachel saw his curiosity as the opening she’d been looking for to begin to help him adjust to their new life.

  “I think you might like it, Justin,” she said as she busied herself turning down the twin beds while he got into his pajamas. “There’s a park nearby and the Shepherds have a swimming pool and—”

  “Why can’t we stay here? I could help John at the packinghouse.”

  He sat down by the window, his arms folded tightly across his thin chest. He was not looking at her.

  “I explained why.” She sat on the other bed, across from him. “Until I’ve had a chance to settle into my new job, this is the best plan. We’ll be living close to my work and your school.”

  Justin said nothing.

  “The Shepherds have a daughter about your age. She asked me tonight if you played baseball.” She saw a flicker of interest cross his features, but he continued looking out the window. “She goes to the same school you’ll be attending. I asked her to look for you.”

  This, at last, got his attention. “You didn’t,” he moaned. “Mom, it’s bad enough that I’m starting a school where nobody is—you know—like us.”

  “There will be lots of children who are different from you and from each other. They’ll come from all sorts of backgrounds like the people I’ll be working with at the hospital do. And besides, you won’t be the only new student there.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “No, I don’t, Justin.” She felt so inadequate to calm her son’s fears. “I know that tonight it all seems overwhelming,” she said. “That’s the way I felt last night knowing this morning I would be starting a new job where I knew no one. But I got there and right away someone welcomed me and made sure I got to the right place. And throughout the day I met other people—good, caring people. Some of them needed my help, and before I knew what was happening, all of that nervousness seemed to disappear.”

  “Kids aren’t like grown-ups,” he muttered.

  Rachel resisted the urge to put her arms around him. “It’s not forever, Justin,” she said.

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, now go brush your teeth.”

  Later after they’d said their prayers and Rachel had read a passage from the Bible, they lay in their separate beds in the dark. She was aware that Justin was not sleeping. Finally he flipped over onto his side facing her.

  “Mom?”

  “Ja?”

  “Will I have my own room?”

  “Ja.”

  “When are we moving?”

  “On Saturday. The cottage is furnished already, but Hester and John will help us move the boxes that Gramma sent from the farm. We’ll make the place our own, Justin—just like home.”

  Her son did not reply, and she thought perhaps he had finally dozed off. But after a moment he said, “Not just like home—we never had a swimming pool.” This was followed by a snort of laughter muffled by his pillow.

  “That’s true,” Rachel agreed. “Oh, and I forgot to tell you. In place of paying rent, you and I will be tending the garden.”

  There was a pause while he digested this news. “How big is this garden?”

  “Big.”

  Justin groaned, and this time it was Rachel who smothered a laugh.

  Rachel’s second day at work was every bit as busy as her first, and she began to accept that the pace for this job would be double what it had been back in Ohio in her role as school nurse. Thankfully there were no emergencies like the Olson boy’s encounter with the shark, but there was plenty to fill the hours, including visiting David and his parents as well as meeting the young mother she’d seen sitting by her child’s bedside that first day.

  In between she attended a training session on using the computer, accepted Eileen’s invitation to join her and other hospital staff members for lunch, and accompanied Pastor Paul on rounds. In the hours she spent at her desk she worked on the assignment that Paul had given her to develop a draft for a training manual for volunteers working in the children’s wing.

  When she returned to Hester’s that evening, she was relieved to see that Justin seemed resigned to the idea that they were in Florida to stay—at least for now. And the following morning—Justin’s first day of school—she was not surprised to open her eyes and see Justin already dressed and standing at the window.

  Sometime in the night it had started to rain, and it didn’t appear that it would let up any time soon. “Well, this rain should cool things off a bit,” she said, making conversation as the two of them sat at breakfast with Hester and some of the women who worked at the co-op. She could see by the slight tremor of his hands when he picked up his glass of juice and drained it without pausing for a breath that he was nervous.

  “I’d better go help John,” he said. “Danke,” he added with a nod to Hester as he wiped his mouth on his forearm and bolted out the back door. He was wearing jeans, a solid blue T-shirt, and a pair of running shoes that Hester had insisted on taking him to buy at the thrift store in Pinecraft. Earlier Justin had asked Hester if she thought he looked okay.

  “Like any other Sarasota seventh grader,” Hester had assured him. Justin had grinned with obvious relief.

  Now Rachel stood at the kitchen window of the farmhouse that served as both headquarters for the fruit co-op and home to the Steiner family. Behind her Hester was giving the women their assignments for the day before they too headed off to the packinghouse. Outside Justin ran through the steady rain to where John Steiner was directing a team of men as they unloaded a truckload of empty crates.

  “How’s Justin doing?” Hester asked, coming to stand next to her.

  “He’s nervous.”

  “About school?”

  Rachel thought about the way his hands had actually trembled. “About everything,” she admitted.

  “Well, that’s to be expected. He’ll be fine, Rachel.”

  Rachel turned her attention to washing the dishes. “He’s changed so much since James died. He’s so quiet and reserved when he used to be—”

  Hester laughed. “He’s twelve. Neither fish nor fowl in the world of boys—too young to count as a teenager but too old to be one of the kids. Give him some time.”

  “Ja.” But in her heart, Rachel wasn’t so certain that this was simply a phase. She had asked a lot of Justin since his father died. “Perhaps once we move on Saturday and he’s settled in one place, some of the old Justin will return. He’ll have his own room there and he seems excited about the swimming pool,” she added more to herself than to Hester.

  “Did he not have a room of his own in Ohio?”

  “He did until James’s brother and his family moved into the farmhouse. His uncle was hard on him, far stricter than James ever was. And then I lost my job, and now I’ve brought him here. Everything is so new for him.”

  “And for you,” Hester reminded her. “You can always go back home if things don’t work out here.”

  “Maybe.” But what Hester did not know was that Luke had made it plain that he thought she was making a huge mistake.

  “You only think of yourself, Rachel,” he had said. “What about my folks? James’s folks? Who is supposed to watch over them? Rosie has her hands full with the house and the little ones. I th
ought with all your nursing training and college at least we might be able to count on you for that. I’m telling you right now that James would be—”

  “Do not tell me what James would or would not do,” she had told her brother-in-law. Rachel had never come so close to losing her temper with him.

  “Suit yourself,” Luke had replied. “You always have, but know this—if things don’t work out we’ll take the boy in, but as for you …”

  Rachel shook off the unpleasant memory.

  “Hey,” Hester said as she glanced out the window at the rain now coming down in sheets, “you okay?”

  Rachel inhaled, glancing at her friend. “I’m fine,” she finally whispered.

  “Well, here’s a good thing.” She motioned toward the window. “At least you aren’t moving today in this rain.”

  Both women laughed, and Hester folded the dish towel and hung it over the edge of the sink. “Tonight we should make a list of things you’ll need, and tomorrow we can go shopping.”

  “Oh, I don’t think there’s anything,” Rachel replied. “I mean every cabinet that Sharon opened was filled—dishes, pots and pans, even the basic foodstuffs like flour and sugar and such. And did you see the refrigerator and freezer?”

  Hester nodded. “It’s the way she is. Generous almost to a fault.”

  Rachel accepted the refilled mug of coffee that Hester handed her. She had some time before Justin was due at school and she needed to be at the hospital. Today John would drive them each to their destinations. “Ja. Justin will like having his own room again,” she said as if they were still on that topic. “Sharing a room is hard. If James and I had been able to have more—to give him brothers and sisters …”