Hidden Mercies

by Serena B. Miller

  “Shhh.” He put his left arm around her. “You remind me of a combat soldier who has been on the front lines too long without any chance to rest and regroup. It’s time to regroup, Claire.”

  He pulled her close, drawing her head toward him until it rested against his chest.

  “Tom . . .” For the life of her she couldn’t stop crying, or make herself pull away from him.

  “Just for a few minutes, Claire. Let someone take care of you for a change.”

  It had been so very long since anyone had held her. She closed her eyes, absorbing the comfort of it. Then she remembered where she was.

  “The children . . . .” She began to pull away.

  “Are asleep. If they wake, we’ll hear them clattering down those wood stairs.”

  It felt so good to be held.

  “I can’t bear to see you beat up on yourself because your niece is acting like a normal teenager who doesn’t have a brain in her head.”

  In spite of her tears, she choked out a laugh. That described Maddy perfectly.

  “I’ve watched you, Claire. You take care of everyone and everything around you. Always. You’ve even taken on your sister’s problems.”

  Tom’s voice was gentle. It reminded her of the tone she always used to calm a panicked, laboring mother.

  What she was allowing to happen was most assuredly not wise, but a knot deep inside her was loosening, and they were doing nothing morally wrong.

  She gulped down a sob and allowed herself to relax within the circle of his arms. The rhythm of his great heart against her ear, his gentleness and healing words, the rawness of her own emotions—all worked together to draw her deeper into the comfort of his embrace.

  “No one on earth works as hard as you or cares about everyone else as much as you. I remember how even when you were a little girl you were always . . . .”

  He stopped abruptly, and she could feel him holding his breath.

  Suddenly the pieces began to fall into place.

  • • •

  Tom could have bit off his tongue. This was not the time nor the place, but seeing her cry had lowered all his defenses. He had been remembering when they were children, how she had quietly started bringing an extra sandwich in her dinner pail each day to share with a girl whose food was not as plentiful. He still believed that he began falling in love with her the minute he realized what she was doing. They had been in the third grade.

  Her tears stopped. She pulled away, placed one hand against the side of his face, and looked at him with wonder.

  “Tobias?”

  He let the breath he had been holding out on a sigh. There was no use trying to pretend. The barn cat was out of the bag, as his father would have said, and there was no use trying to put it back.

  He nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I meant to that first day. That was why I was there. To see you. To apologize for the damage I had done to your life. But then I got sick, and then Grace came and . . .”

  “What do you mean?” Claire put a finger against his lips to stop the flow of words. “What do you mean you came to apologize?”

  “For Matthew’s death and what it did to you.”

  “You have taken all the blame for that on yourself all these years?”

  “It was my fault. I am the one who killed my brother and subjected you to raising Levi alone and . . . .”

  “I never blamed you for Matthew’s death.”

  He could hardly believe his ears. “You should have. I was the one who ran off the road and rammed that electric pole.”

  “But Henry was the one who led the stallion out of the stable. My brother-in-law could be such a show-off when he was young. Henry even told me that he was the one who bet Matthew that he couldn’t ride Ebony Sky. We both know Matthew could not pass up a dare like that, not even if it killed him. Each of you was to blame, and yet none of you were. You were all just kids—high on testosterone, thinking you were invincible.”

  “You’re right,” Tom said. “I wish you could have seen Matthew that night before the accident, the way he looked flying down the road on that magnificent animal. Riding Ebony Sky without a saddle as though he was glued to that horse’s back. I was never so proud of anyone in my life.”

  “I knew that. I could envision every last detail—including the pride you felt watching your brother’s expertise. You were always so proud of him. How could I blame you for the freak set of circumstances that caused Matthew’s death?”

  Oh, this was better than anything he had ever imagined when he decided to come back. She had not blamed him for Matthew’s death or for ruining her life after all!

  “Thank you for forgiving me, Claire.” In his gratitude, he reached out to hug her. His heart was lighter than it had been in years.

  “You think I have forgiven you?” She put one hand on his chest and stopped him. “You are mistaken about that.”

  He dropped his arms. “I don’t understand.”

  “I saw your tattoo last night.”

  “Okay.” What did this have to do with anything?

  “ ‘For those I love, I will sacrifice,’ ” Claire quoted. “That’s what you have written there, right?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  She slowly shook her head. “That is an outright lie.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve never, ever blamed you for Matthew’s death—but do you realize how much pain you caused by leaving and never coming back?”

  “I couldn’t come back. I was under the ban.”

  “You were not banned the day you ran away. You were banned later, for leaving the church. Not for hitting the electric pole. Yes, you would have had to confess and asked forgiveness for driving that vehicle, but you could have lived the rest of your life here and no one in our church would ever have held that night against you.”

  “My father blamed me.”

  “You father’s grief was fathomless. He wasn’t entirely sane for a few days. I know exactly what he said to you to cause you to leave. He repeated that story to me over and over, always with such regret.”

  “I didn’t know he had regretted anything.”

  “How could we tell you? We did not know where you were. We did not know how to find you.”

  “As far as I could tell, no one ever tried.” This statement surprised even him. All these years, had he actually been expecting his father to try to hunt for him?

  “You have been too long among the Englisch,” Claire said. “You forget what being Swartentruber means. What did you expect him to do? Call the police? Hire a private detective? Our people do not do things like that. He protected you and watched over you the only way he knew how—he prayed for you. He sat a place at the table every day for you, and he prayed for you!”

  She was breaking his heart, and she knew it.

  “I didn’t think anyone would want me around.”

  “Really? Or were you just too proud to face us? You and I grew up together. We were friends. I was seventeen, Amish, and pregnant. I could have used a friend back then, Tom.”

  “I didn’t feel worthy of even being around you.”

  “So—you abandoned me?”

  “I thought it was the best thing for everyone if I just stayed out of your life.”

  She was so angry now that her face was flushed. “Did you know that Faye stood at the front window and watched for you? For weeks?”

  “No.”

  “She was only eight, Tom, and that little girl had already lost her mother and a brother. She cried for days. Jeremiah could not comfort her. No one could. She kept insisting that you would come back. A light went out of her when months passed and you never showed up.”

  “Oh, Claire.” He closed his eyes, sick at heart. To him, Faye had just been his little tattletale sister. Not once had he considered what this had done to her. “I am so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “So tell me—who did you love enough to sacrifice for, Tom?
Because it surely was not any of us.”

  He could not take one more word. He had expected her to be angry, but he had never expected her to completely break his heart.

  “What can I do?” He slid to his knees and gripped her hands, desperate for an answer. “How can I make this up to everyone?”

  “That is the thing.” Her voice was unbearably sad. “You never can make up for it. Those are like years that the locusts have eaten. Only God, Himself, could give them back to you.”

  She had never been a vindictive person. That had been one of the many things he loved about her. Claire could get angry, very angry, but it never lasted.

  That happened now. Compassion melted away her anger and she held out her arms.

  “Come here.”

  Suddenly, this gentle Amish woman was holding him—a tough, seasoned Marine—as scalding, toxic tears that had been locked away behind a lifetime of regret bled from his body.

  chapter TWENTY-FIVE

  They heard the sound of Daniel’s footsteps long before the child came down the wooden staircase. Tom had time to rise, wipe his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, and walk over to the door before the toddler poked his head around the corner of the living room.

  “Mommi!” Daniel raced across the floor in his little pajamas, and leaped onto her lap.

  “Are you hungry, little one?” Claire asked, in German.

  He nodded.

  “I will feed you soon.” She glanced up at Tom. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Eventually.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I have no idea. I need time to think through all that you’ve told me.”

  “I will pray for you.”

  “And I will need those prayers.”

  As he climbed the stairs to his apartment, a part of him noted that it was a beautiful, cloudless day. The other part of him felt as though he were flying blind through a hailstorm.

  Everything within him was shouting for him to leave. Right now. He hated this emotional stuff. He wanted to forget this whole mess. He could stuff that duffel bag in his car, drop a few hundred on the kitchen table in his apartment for Claire to find, head back to Washington, and accept whatever job the military wanted to give him. Even piloting a desk, no matter how much he hated the thought, would be less painful than one more minute of sticking around here where his heart seemed to get broken every time he turned around.

  He had a life apart from this place. It would be so easy to walk away. Just like he’d done before.

  Rocky had his nose pressed against the screen and was whining. His eagerness to shoot out the door made Tom feel even guiltier. He’d forgotten all about the dog while he was talking with Grace. He was good at that. Good at letting people down.

  By the time Rocky was finished, he had decided to take a walk to Elizabeth’s. She wouldn’t know what he should do, either, but he needed someone to talk to now—someone who would have no angst about it. That conversation with Claire had just about killed him.

  “Come on, Rocky,” he called as he headed up the road. “Come on, boy.”

  He found Elizabeth sitting on the bench in the front yard wearing a floral dress, her pearls, and her best white tennis shoes. Her Sunday outfit.

  She was not in a good mood and scowled when she saw him approaching. “Don’t you start in on my tennis shoes, too.”

  “Too?”

  “Last Sunday, Missy Perkins told me at church that they were having a nice sale on dress shoes at Payless this week.”

  “Why is that a problem?”

  “Missy was a clerk in the clothing department store over in Wooster for years and always thought she had to dress nice. She’s seventy-six years old and still wears high heels to church. Probably wears them to do her housecleaning in for all I know.”

  “I still don’t understand why that’s a problem.”

  “What’s wrong with you? It’s as clear as a bell to me. I’ve been thinking about it all week. She’s been trying to tell me that my tennis shoes aren’t good enough to come to church in!”

  “Isn’t she the one who picks you up for church sometimes? I thought she was your friend.”

  “She is my friend.”

  “But you’re mad at her.”

  “I am now!”

  “Why?”

  “She called me this morning to say that she’d be here to pick me up and she asked if I’d gotten a chance to go to that shoe sale.”

  “But don’t you have the right to wear anything you want?”

  “I certainly do! If Missy wants to break a leg falling off of those high heels she wears, that’s her business! It’s not like anyone’s going to mistake her for a fifty-year-old just because she dyes her hair red and wears her fancy shoes. My tennis shoes are comfortable, thank you very much. I have no intention of breaking a hip just because Missy doesn’t approve of what I wear on my feet.”

  He didn’t know whether to be amused or worried.

  “I’m about ready to take Grace’s car and drive myself. I still got a driver’s license. Just because I stopped driving for a while because I was sick doesn’t mean I can’t get around now.”

  “I thought Levi told me there were some vision issues, as well.” He said it as gently as he knew how.

  “Levi needs to keep his nose out of my beeswax.”

  “Would you like for me to take you today instead?”

  “Oh!” Elizabeth’s demeanor changed completely. “Would you?”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  “This is wonderful! You’ll like our preacher, and our singing is real good—as long as Missy don’t start screeching around on the high notes.”

  He’d just been offering her a ride to keep her from saying something she’d regret to her best friend. He had no intention of going inside with her.

  But she was already on the phone, telling Missy that she had another ride to church and would be bringing a visitor with her.

  He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to go with her. He would just be sitting around anyway. Unless he decided to take off for good. “I’ll go put Rocky inside the barn for now, and get the car.”

  “Better tuck in that shirttail while you’re at it!”

  “I will, Elizabeth.”

  As he walked back to the apartment, despite everything that had happened this morning, he smiled. Going to see Elizabeth had not turned out as he’d expected, but somehow he felt a little better anyway.

  Thirty minutes later, they were inside of the church where Elizabeth went three times a week like clockwork. Four if you counted her ladies’ class on Thursdays. Plenty of time for Missy to get on her nerves. Today was a good day for her, though. Elizabeth was as proud as punch about having him sitting beside of her.

  The singing was good, but the preacher, Darren Stephens, was so young, he reminded Tom of a new, raw recruit.

  “How old is that kid?” he whispered to Elizabeth.

  “Doctor Stephens?” Elizabeth whispered back. “He’s thirty-two.”

  “Oh.” Tom paid a little more attention after that.

  “I’ll be preaching from I Timothy 5:8.” Dr. Stephens said. “The King James Version is my favorite translation of this particular passage.”

  Elizabeth shared her Bible with him, opening it at the assigned place.

  Tom glanced down, found the passage, and read it. The preacher’s voice faded into the background as Tom read it again. And again.

  But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

  Tom had heard of things like this happening to other people—but it had never happened to him. And yet for the preacher to choose this particular passage today of all days when he was wrestling with the desire to pack up and leave . . . Well, it was uncanny.

  He didn’t hear another word the preacher said.

  • • •

  Claire was peeling potatoes for supper when he came back.
/>   “Can we talk for a second?” he asked.

  One look at his face, and she knew the potatoes could wait. “Maddy, would you keep an eye on Daniel and Sarah for me, please?”

  Maddy was sitting at the table reading her Bible. She closed it now and turned to the two littles ones. “Want me to read you a story, Daniel? You, too, Sarah. I’ll read any book you like.”

  She rinsed off her hands, dried them on her apron, and followed him out onto the porch.

  “I saw your car leave,” she said. “You were gone a long time. I was getting worried. Where did you go?”

  “I drove Elizabeth to church. Then I dropped her back off and just drove around for a long time, thinking.”

  He looked so straight and tall standing there on the porch. His scars had faded, but his eyes were troubled, and his hands were shoved deep into his pants pockets—a gesture she remembered from their childhood when he was upset about something. How could she not have recognized him all this time? The minute she knew he was Tobias, she could read the truth of it in every line of his body.

  “I’ll be honest with you. I seriously considered leaving and never coming back.”

  “I thought that might have been what happened, especially when I realized you’d put Rocky in the barn.”

  “I’ve served my country well, Claire, but you are right. I have sacrificed nothing for those I truly love. I made a decision today. Instead of asking for an extension of my sick leave, tomorrow I’m going to ask for a full retirement. When it comes through, I’ll look near here for a place to live permanently. I have no earthly idea how to make amends to you, or Faye, or Levi, or Daed. All I know is that I have to stay here and try.”

  “Won’t you miss your—what was it that Jesse called it—your Cobra?”

  “I’ll miss a lot of things, but right now, none of them seem very important to me.”

  She studied his face, his eyes, the set of his mouth. What she read there was that he was dead serious about this.

  He would be living here. Near her. Quite possibly forever.

  He had said he was willing to sacrifice for those he truly loved. It had not escaped her notice that her name was the first one on the list.

  Did her heart have to start racing at the mere thought?