Sister's Forgiveness

by Anna Schmidt

  “It’s not my burden, Emma. It’s yours, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get you to set it aside so we can focus on what’s really important around here.”

  “Which is?”

  “Right now I’d have to say that keeping our daughter safely at home rather than back in some detention facility is a whole lot more important than whether our son is staying out playing basketball fifteen minutes longer than you think he should be.”

  It was the second time in just a matter of weeks that they had lost their tempers with each other. After years of marriage with little more than skirmishes, this felt like open warfare.

  “I wasn’t aware that you found my worrying such a problem,” Emma chided, hating the way she sounded—like Sadie when she was at her worst.

  Lars gently took hold of her shoulders. “Come on, Emmie. Let’s not argue. We’ve been through so much together. We’ll get through this as well.”

  She fingered the soft fabric of his shirt. “You’re right. It’s just… well, there has been so much attention focused on Sadie these last weeks, and—”

  “Matt understands,” Lars assured her.

  She wished she could be as certain as he seemed to be. She looked up at him and wondered if in fact she had misread him. “You’re as worried about Matt as I am,” she said, stroking back his hair.

  “Ja, but we must have faith, Emma—faith in how we have raised these children—Matt and Sadie.”

  He had a point. They were good children. Still, Sadie’s situation had shaken Emma’s faith in their ability to distinguish between right and wrong, especially when they felt backed into a corner. That was how Sadie must have felt that morning when Dan had practically dared her to get behind the wheel of his car. What kinds of pressures were being brought to bear on Matt? If she and Lars were having to deal with the gossip and speculation of others—no matter how well-meaning their friends and neighbors might be—then what was Matt having to endure at school? Children could be much crueler than adults. They often operated without the filter of commonly accepted standards of etiquette.

  “Hey,” Lars said as he pulled her closer, “Sadie’s home, and for however long we have her, let’s take this time to be a real family once again.”

  Emma nestled her cheek against his chest. “Yes,” she said softly, but how could they be a real family again when a part of their larger family circle would still be missing?

  Chapter 36

  Sadie

  She was home. For the first time in weeks, she stood before the small dresser mirror in her bedroom. The last time she’d stood in this spot had been that first day of school. August 28th. It was October now. Same year, and yet it seemed as if she had been away for a very long time.

  She sat on the side of her bed and looked around at things that should give her a sense of relief and comfort. The stuffed manatee that her uncle Geoff had won for her at a church function. The shelf her dad had built to hold her collection of rag dolls made for her by her grandmother. The closet that held her clothes—skirts and tops in solid colors and small prints that looked foreign to her after weeks of wearing nothing but the required blue jumpsuit.

  “Sadie?” Her mother pushed the door open with her toe and entered her small room. She was carrying a tray. “I brought you some tea and a slice of pie.” She set the tray on Sadie’s dresser, cleared now of the things she had left spread around that day when she was getting ready for school.

  “Thanks.” But she made no move to sit at her dresser and taste the tea or pie.

  Her mother hovered near the door. “If you feel up to it later, I could use some help in the kitchen. I’m making marmalade for the co-op.”

  Sadie glanced up. The marmalade for the co-op was usually made at the kitchen on the co-op’s property—the big house where Hester and John Steiner lived. “Why here?”

  Her mother looked confused and then understood her question. “I just thought—sometimes it’s easier just to do it here where I have everything I need.”

  “We’re not under house detention, Mom,” Sadie said softly. “Just go on doing what you’d normally do.”

  “Matt’s in school, and your father is out in his workshop, and I—well, like I said, even if you weren’t here, I would probably just…” Her voice trailed off, and Sadie looked at her, really seeing her for the first time since she’d gotten home.

  She had aged. Her skin was sallow. Her eyes darted around as if looking for something she needed to do. Her hands seemed to be in constant motion even though she was just sitting there on the bed with Sadie. She gave off a kind of nervous energy that didn’t feel right.

  “I’ll come down now, Mama,” Sadie said.

  “No, have your tea.” Her mother stood up and glanced around the room. “And rest,” she added.

  “Mom? I’m not sick. I don’t need to rest or have tea brought to soothe my stomach or whatever.”

  To her shock, her mother’s eyes welled with tears. “I know… I just… It’s just so wonderful to have you home.” She closed the door behind her, and a moment later Sadie heard the clatter of pans in the kitchen.

  Sadie pushed herself off the bed and picked up the mug of tea. Her hand started to shake, and she couldn’t seem to stop it, so she set the mug down again without drinking. She turned around and considered her room—the single bed, the dresser, a small desk and chair under the window that looked out onto the backyard and her father’s workshop.

  She went to the window and pressed close to the screen, breathing in the fresh air. It was one of the things she had missed most about being locked up—the inability to be outside whenever she chose. She saw her bike leaning against the side of the shed and remembered that the last time she’d seen it had been that morning. She’d left it at Tessa’s the day of the picnic. When she’d turned too fast into Tessa’s driveway, she’d caught sight of rain glistening off the bike’s black bumper even as the car spun out of control.

  How she wished that she had never gotten into Dan’s car. How she wished that she had agreed to have her dad drive her and Tessa or drop her at Tessa’s on his way to take Matt to his school so that she and Tessa could catch a ride with Uncle Geoff.

  Tessa, she thought and closed her eyes against the memory that came every time she thought of her cousin and best friend. The memory of Tessa’s face, her eyes wide with surprise, her hands out as if to somehow stop the car from hitting her as she scrambled directly into the path of the car’s rear bumper.

  She opened her eyes and wondered if she would ever again be able to think of Tessa as she’d been before that moment. Laughing shyly at Sadie’s teasing, listening intently as Sadie poured out her dreams and disappointments to her, and most of all, loving Sadie like a sister—the way their moms loved each other—or had before that day.

  She pressed the palms of her hands hard against the window sill. She had ruined everything for everyone. And she could not imagine how it would be possible to fix any part of it. She bowed her head.

  Please help me, God. I don’t know what to do, and I’ve hurt so many people. I don’t care what happens to me, but please, please, please help them, especially my mom and Aunt Jeannie, find their way back to something that can make them happy again. Make them laugh again and love again. It was all my fault that Tessa died. Please, please, please don’t make them suffer, too.

  She saw Matt pedaling his bike up the street. It had been weeks since she’d seen him. As a juvenile himself, he had not been permitted to come for visits or to court. Sadie had been glad of that, not wanting to expose him to those places. She had tried to talk to him on the telephone, but their brief conversations had been pretty much one-sided.

  “How’s school?”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you still going to Uncle Geoff’s football practices?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “How’s the team?”

  A grunt and then Matt would say something like, “Dad wants to talk to you,” and pass the phone
to him without so much as a “Good-bye” or “Hang in there.”

  Of course, in those early phone calls, she had really wanted him to tell her about Dan. How he was doing? Had his injuries from the accident healed? Had he asked about her?

  That had been before she’d realized that it was not only Dan’s parents who were preventing him from being in touch—it was Dan. He was certainly capable of reaching out to her if he wanted to. He couldn’t visit her, but he could send a message through her parents. Maybe they were the ones preventing him from having any contact. Still, that day in court he hadn’t even looked at her. And she could no longer deny that he had lied about how she’d come to be driving that day.

  She fought against the anger that rose up in her like vomit every time she thought about what a fool she’d been. She’d known it was wrong to let him talk her into driving. It was raining, and he wasn’t old enough. She should have said no. She shouldn’t have worried about what he would think of her. What did that really matter anyway? He was going off to college in a few months and would forget all about her. That wasn’t exactly news. In fact, she’d been thinking about that as she’d fallen asleep the night before the accident. She’d been awake a long time after the rest of the house was quiet, thinking how this was going to be her last year with Dan and how she wanted so much to make it the best year of her life.

  Instead it had turned out to be the worst. She never could have imagined that she could mess things up so thoroughly for people she truly cared about and loved.

  She waited for Matt to put his bike away and then head into the workshop. His after-school chores were to sweep up the shop and make sure the tools were put away properly. Sometimes he was allowed to work on a piece of furniture their father was making.

  Sadie watched her brother trudge across the yard. He looked as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it occurred to her that the trio of boys he usually rode home from school with had not been with him today. Then she realized that the one thing everyone she loved seemed to have in common with her was that they were moving through their day alone.

  She thought about Uncle Geoff in court. After he testified, he’d walked out alone without so much as a glance at her or her parents—or Jeannie. Sadie had turned around in her chair to watch him, wanting to make eye contact to let him know that she wasn’t mad about him testifying for the prosecution.

  And then when she was testifying, her aunt Jeannie had been sitting apart from her parents—isolated in the back of the rows of chairs where spectators sat during court proceedings. She, too, had left alone. And now here was Matt, shuffling across the yard, his head bowed, his shoulders hunched as if walking against a stiff, cold wind.

  If only she could have that one day back…

  From the kitchen, she heard the sound of conversation. Drawn to anything that hinted at a break in the solitude that hung over their house, she opened the door to her bedroom and followed the sound.

  A woman she didn’t know was sitting at the kitchen table peeling oranges as she talked to Sadie’s mom. She was dressed in the simple style that her family followed, and yet Sadie had never seen her before.

  “Hello,” she said as she entered the kitchen.

  Her mom swung around and smiled. “Oh Sadie, did you get some rest?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.” Sadie focused her attention on the stranger. “I’m Sadie.”

  “It’s good to meet you, Sadie. My name is Rachel Kaufmann.”

  “Rachel was Hester’s roommate in college,” Sadie’s mom explained. She seemed nervous, and yet the woman—Rachel—seemed really nice. Quiet and watchful, but nice.

  “Are you a nurse like Hester?”

  “I was.”

  “Rachel and her son, Justin, have recently moved here. She’s going to be working as a chaplain at the new hospital that just opened out on Cattleman Road,” her mom said. But she said it in a way that sounded like she was afraid Hester’s friend might say something that would upset Sadie.

  “That’s nice,” Sadie replied. “Kind of like nursing, I guess, except in your case, you’ll be working on healing the spirit not the body.”

  She saw a flicker of surprise cross Rachel’s features as she smiled. “That’s a wonderful way to look at it, Sadie. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way. Thank you,” she said as if Sadie had just given her a present.

  Suddenly shy, Sadie looked away.

  “What do you plan to do after you finish school?” Rachel asked.

  She had to be kidding, right? Life as she had dreamed it was pretty much over for her, but she really didn’t feel like explaining that to this stranger. She shrugged and turned to her mother. “I saw Matt come home. It’s okay that I go out to the workshop, right?”

  Her mother shook her head. “You know what Dad and I said. In the house unless you’re going to school or church. It’s for your own good. There have been some photographers and reporters asking questions in the neighborhood, and I don’t want you to risk running into one of them. I’m sorry, honey. Let me call him and tell him to come in here.”

  “That’s okay. He’s got chores.” She turned to head back toward her room. “Nice to meet you,” she murmured as she passed Rachel.

  To her surprise, Rachel put down the orange she was peeling and stood. She glanced at Sadie’s mom, who was twisting a dish towel around her fingers, and nodded. “Sadie, do you have a few minutes? I’d like to talk to you about something.”

  Sadie’s suspicion meter went all the way to panic. “Who are you really?” she whispered.

  “I’m Rachel Kaufmann, a friend of Hester and John, and I’d like the chance to become your friend as well, Sadie. If you have some time now, I’d like to tell you about something that might help you to see some light at the end of this dark tunnel that I suspect you find yourself in these days.”

  All of this she delivered in a voice that was soothing and somehow comforting. But over the time that she’d spent in detention, Sadie had learned one thing for sure—never take anything at face value. The fact was that nobody could change what had happened or how that had permanently damaged everything that Sadie had taken for granted over her short life.

  “Just hear her out,” her mother was saying. She had put down the towel. Sadie heard the pleading in her voice.

  “Sure,” she said flippantly. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”

  “Sadie!” her mother said, but Rachel seemed unperturbed.

  “How about we talk in your room, or would you be more comfortable—”

  “My room works,” Sadie said and started down the hall. It was true. Ever since she’d gotten home, she’d found that she was most comfortable in her room. Somehow she felt safe there. Outside her door were too many reminders of how much everything had changed. Inside she could still pretend that life was normal—whatever that was.

  She stood by her dresser until Rachel sat down on the desk chair. “What I want to talk to you about, Sadie, is a program called VORP.”

  Sadie curled up on her bed and clutched the stuffed manatee to her chest. “That’s a weird name,” she noted.

  Rachel smiled. “It is, isn’t it? Especially for a program that’s so intense.” She rested her elbows on her knees and explained how the program worked. “It’s not just a matter of saying you’re sorry, Sadie,” she said after going through the process.

  “Yeah, well that’s going to be a little hard anyway.”

  “How’s that?”

  Sadie stared at Rachel as if she had just arrived from another universe then very slowly she spelled it out for her. “In case you haven’t heard, my victim is dead.”

  She announced this without so much as a hitch in her voice. Her tears were all spent. Crying was no longer an option. Tessa was dead, and it was her fault. Crying, as one of the uniforms had commented one night, was just an exercise in self-pity.

  “You’d best spend your time figuring out how you’re going to go on, girl,” the female uniform had counse
led. “You might be doing some time when this all shakes out, but that’ll be short-term. You got to be thinking about the long term. How are you going to live the rest of your life? How is this thing going to make you better—stronger?”

  Sadie had not answered her, seeing her lecture for the I’m-not-asking-you-for-an-answer speech that it was. But after that she had spent a lot of time thinking about what the uniform had told her. Every night she had prayed for guidance. But so far—nothing.

  She looked at Rachel Kaufmann now and wondered if just maybe God had sent her a message in the form of this kind stranger. “What do I have to do?” she asked.

  “In simplest terms, you have to find a way to forgive yourself.”

  Sadie laughed. If the woman was making a joke, she was making a really lousy one. “And just how do I go about doing that?”

  “By first seeking the forgiveness of those you have hurt,” Rachel said softly—“every one of them. And from what little I know of this, Sadie, it’s a long list.”

  Part Three

  …bearing with one another and… forgiving each other,

  as the Lord has forgiven you.

  COLOSSIANS 3:13

  Chapter 37

  Jeannie

  The mail had begun to pile up on the table in the front hall. Every day Geoff collected it on his way in after school and dropped it there. Neither of them had done more than glance through the envelopes. In the first couple of weeks after Tessa’s death, they had received dozens of cards and notes expressing the sympathy and shock of friends and extended family as the news traveled across the country.

  At first they had opened those envelopes and read them silently. Jeannie would open the envelope, making some comment about how this person or that must have heard about Tessa. She would scan the verse printed on the card by the manufacturer and sometimes run her thumb over the embossed illustration. Then she would gird herself to read the handwritten message that always accompanied the commercial message.

  “That’s nice,” she would murmur as she passed the card to Geoff and began the process all over again. At first Geoff read the cards as carefully as she did, but after the first three or four, he began taking the card from her, glancing at the illustration, and then without reading them, adding the card to the others they had already opened.