Redeeming Grace and the Prodigal Son Returns

by Emma Miller

  With a squeal of happiness, Dakota ran to Grace and jumped into her arms. She would have liked nothing more than to take him to her peaceful room, close the door and spend the evening reading to him. She didn’t want to answer questions in front of strangers about the bowling and pizza, and she didn’t want to talk to anyone about John Hartman bringing her home in his wagon. But Grace knew that an evening of solitude with her son was impossible.

  This was a visiting Sunday, and Hannah had company: Lemuel Bontrager and five of his eight children. The Bontragers had been invited to take a light supper, and Grace’s sisters were busy bringing salads, bread, vegetable soup and all manner of side dishes, cakes and pies to the table. Lemuel, a bearded bear of a man with shaggy salt-and-pepper hair ringing a shiny bald spot on the crown of his head, was seated at the head of the table. His four oversize teenage sons—Clarence, Dieter, Claas and Ernst—lined up on the back bench beside Irwin. The fifth Bontrager offspring, a thin, pinch-faced young woman that Grace judged to be somewhere between seventeen and twenty, sat between Sadie and Aunt Jezzy. Violet Bontrager noisily slurped coffee and complained of what she perceived as loose behavior of the boys and girls who’d attended last night’s husking frolic at the Beachy farm. She talked nonstop in a nasally whine, all the while staring at Grace with a disapproving glare. She paid no heed to the dribbles of coffee dripping from the corners of her mouth onto the table.

  Grace gave Dakota another hug and seated him on a booster seat beside Jonah. After washing her hands at the sink and greeting the visitors, she began to help Johanna and Rebecca serve the food. Someone had set up a second table so that the Yoders, Bontragers and Kings could all sit together for their meal.

  As she placed a bowl of chicken corn chowder in front of Violet, Grace smiled, murmured her own name and said that she was glad to meet her.

  Violet sniffed and turned a cold shoulder before continuing her gripe to Sadie on the subject of worldly barn frolics in a respectable Amish community, most especially those including Englishers. “When we lived in Kentucky, we had no truck with the English, and our bishop forbade all clapping games as inappropriate. Would you believe I saw a young woman wearing a fancy dress with flowers on it? She’s the one who went off with the Englisher.”

  Johanna plunked down a yellow crockery bowl of pickled eggs and red beets with such force that it rattled Violet’s silverware. “That would be our Grace, and Grace is family,” she said, “not an outsider. My sister Grace is rumspringa. She may dress as she pleases and she did not go alone with the Englisher. Our sister was with her.”

  Violet’s long face flushed and she uttered, “Hmmph. Rumspringa? Long in the tooth for rumspringa, if you ask me.”

  Grace knew “long in the tooth” was a reference to an aging horse. What a charming person. Grace’s fingers itched to splash the next bowl of soup over Violet’s wrinkled Kapp. Charity, Grace reminded herself. As rude as Violet was, she was a guest in Hannah’s home, and Grace would have to be polite. Maybe she could just drop a bowl of baked beans in her lap.

  But Violet wasn’t finished sharing her opinion. “I suppose if Grace is rumspringa, she’s the one who brought the radio to the bonfire and played cowboy music.”

  “Radio?” Lemuel tugged at his scraggly beard. “Bishop Atlee allows radios?” One thick brow arched in shocked disapproval.

  “Ne!” Susanna popped out of her chair and waved her soup spoon at him. “Not Grace. Erb! Erb Stutzman bringed it. Charley took the radio away.”

  Hannah motioned Susanna back into her seat, and David whispered something to Susanna.

  “Erb was mean to King David, too!” Susanna added. “He laughed.” Her eyes narrowed. “Not a good laugh. Mean.”

  “Mean,” David echoed.

  “I’m glad you would never be mean to anyone, David,” his mother soothed. “Erb Stutzman should know better.”

  “You see, Lemuel?” Hannah passed a plate of corn muffins. “Our Charley confiscated the radio. We are not so loose as to allow our young people to listen to music.”

  Lemuel grunted and reached for a muffin. He waded through two bowls of soup, several chicken quarters and a mountain of German potato salad before asking Hannah how many quarts of honey Johanna harvested from her beehives the previous spring, the number of quilts she had completed in the past year and how much livestock she owned.

  Rebecca rolled her eyes, gathered Katie, Jonah and Dakota and shepherded them off to bed. The rest of the visit passed much as Grace feared it would. After the Yoder women cleared the meal away, they all retired to the parlor where Violet continued her recitation of complaints; the four Bontrager boys stared at the floor, and Lemuel’s conversation was confined to inquiring as to the state of Johanna’s and Rebecca’s health, their ages and how many acres Hannah intended to deed to them when they married.

  It was quarter past nine when the Bontrager buggy pulled away from the barn. Grace went to kiss Dakota good-night again, and finding her room empty, went upstairs where she met Rebecca in the hallway.

  “The three little ones are all sleeping soundly in Jonah’s bed,” Rebecca said. “Let him stay there. He’ll be fine.” She glanced down the wide steps. “Are they gone?” And when Grace assured her that they were, Rebecca grabbed her hand and pulled her into the room she and Johanna shared.

  “The martyrs preserve us,” Johanna said, waving Grace to one of the double beds. “Sit, sit.” She pushed the door shut. “I thought Lemuel was going to ask to see my teeth.”

  Rebecca giggled.

  “What awful people,” Grace said. “Who would want to marry one of Lemuel’s sons? They never said a word all night. David had more to contribute to the conversation.”

  “Not the sons,” Rebecca said between bursts of amusement. “Lemuel is considering Johanna for his wife, his third.”

  “He has two more?” Grace asked, confused.

  This time it was Johanna who began to chuckle. “Ne. He is a widower, twice over, poor man. And he isn’t awful. He’s a perfectly respectable suitor, if I was looking to marry again.”

  “Aren’t you?” Grace asked. This laughing side of Johanna was one she’d rarely seen. She remembered that Johanna had defended her to Violet, and that she’d been pleasant to her the past few days. But she’d never been in Johanna’s room before, and she still felt a little uncomfortable.

  Trying not to be obvious, Grace glanced around the kerosene lamp-lit room, taking in the serene white walls, the simple white muslin window covering and the bare hardwood floor. There were two beds, two identical dressers and a wash stand with an antique bowl and pitcher. Between the windows stood a blanket chest, and in one corner rested an old quilt stand with an unfinished quilt hanging on it. “That’s lovely,” she said.

  “Star of Bethlehem,” Johanna said, clearly pleased. “An English woman ordered it for her daughter’s wedding in July.”

  “All hand work,” Rebecca explained. “No machine stitches.”

  “Your quilts are beautiful,” Grace said. “You’re a real artist. I don’t know how you find the time to make them.”

  “It’s hard some days,” Johanna admitted. “And I’m still learning. I just do the old patterns.” She kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed, curling her legs under her. “You should know, Grace, that Lemuel and his sons are not bad. They are very respectable people. Good catches, especially Lemuel.”

  “Lemuel?” Grace grimaced, trying hard not to imagine facing that beard across the breakfast table every morning. “You aren’t considering him, are you?”

  Johanna shook her head. “Ne. I had one husband, and I have no wish to have another.” She sighed. “Lemuel has a fine farm and a good herd of milk cows, but Lemuel and I would not suit each other.” She smiled. “Either of the oldest sons would make a decent match for Rebecca, though.”

  “Not me,” Rebecca protested,
holding up both hands. “I’m too young to get married. I want to have fun for a few more years. No husband and babies until I’m at least twenty-five.”

  Grace looked from one to the other. “How could your mother let Lemuel ask such personal questions? It was rude. The Bontragers were all rude, especially Violet.”

  Johanna nodded. “She was, wasn’t she? But marrying Lemuel or one of the sons would not be marrying Violet. She will marry and move to her own home. Maybe you should consider Lemuel, Grace. You want to marry Amish, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but not...not someone as...” She struggled to find a way to put it that wouldn’t sound insulting. “As old as he is.”

  “You’re certainly too old for any of the Bontrager sons,” Rebecca put in. “The oldest is Clarence.” She pursed her lips. “Or is it Claas? I don’t know, I can’t keep them straight. Anyway, the eldest is only twenty. He still owes his father another year of work on the farm.”

  Grace grimaced as she remembered Clarence’s long face and the uneven sprigs of sprouting whiskers on his clean-shaven chin. “Definitely too young for me. I need someone who can provide well for my son and be a good father.”

  “Lemuel could, but he won’t consider you,” Johanna pronounced. “Not until you join the church and remain faithful for years.”

  “And learn proper Pennsylvania Dutch,” Rebecca said.

  “That, too,” Johanna agreed. “You are older than me and English.”

  “I’m not English,” Grace protested. “I was only raised among them. And Bishop Atlee said he would be pleased to accept me into the faith.” He hadn’t said that in so many words, Grace thought, but it was certainly what he’d meant. “There’s no rule to keep me from joining the church.”

  “Few, if any, outsiders succeed,” Johanna reminded her. “Our rules are strict. Had your mother remained with her family, she and Dat would have married, made confession, repented of their mistake and been accepted back into the fold.”

  “People would have forgiven them?” It was a question Grace had asked herself many times.

  “We must,” Johanna assured her. “If we can’t forgive those who repent, how can we expect the Lord to forgive us?”

  “Can He forgive anything?” Grace asked. “Could you?”

  Johanna sighed. “For me, forgiving comes hard. My Wilmer...he took his own life. I know that I should forgive him. It’s something I pray about every day. I can pray for his soul, for him as my children’s father, but forgiving him is difficult.”

  “Your mother told me what happened.” Grace traced the pattern of a blue heart on the quilt beneath them. “I’m sorry. It must have been terrible for you and the children.”

  “My Wilmer was a troubled man. Sick in spirit. In some ways, it will be easier for Jonah and Katie without him. Me...” A shadow passed across Johanna’s face. “Sometimes, I go for hours now without thinking of him.”

  Grace’s insides clenched. It was the same with Joe, except sometimes it was days before she thought of him. How strange it was that she and Johanna’s lives were so similar.

  Johanna smoothed wrinkles from her apron and looked up. “But if you do stay with us, Grace, you will have to find a husband. And having men come to the house and ask about you is how it’s done.” She sighed. “And the truth is, it will only be an older widower who would consider you. Maybe even a man much older than Lemuel.”

  Rebecca nodded. “Or one with nine or ten children to cook and sew for. Could you do that?”

  An uneasy feeling curled in the pit of Grace’s stomach. “Anna did. Not nine children, but five. Look how happy she and Samuel are.”

  “Samuel and Anna.” Johanna chuckled. “Who would have thought it?”

  “She’s still the talk of three states,” Rebecca said. “Don’t expect another Samuel Mast to drop out of an apple tree.”

  Johanna pressed warm fingers against Grace’s wrist. “And you aren’t Anna, Grace. Even for her, it’s hard to manage so large a household, especially with the new baby coming.”

  “But having a man look me over like that, like tonight...” Grace said. “I don’t know. Don’t you find it insulting?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “It’s the way it’s done.”

  “For Rebecca, who is young and attractive and never married, it will be easier to find a husband,” Johanna explained. “While you and I, should I ever want to marry again, must be content to wait for some middle-aged widower to come knocking at Mam’s door.”

  “Are you telling me that the women don’t get to choose?” Grace asked.

  Johanna considered the question before answering. “We do choose, but we depend on family and community to help in that choice. And we must find a husband from who’s available. First, you would want a devout man, a faithful member of the church. And then, as you say, one who would be a good provider.”

  “Kind,” Rebecca put in. “Hopefully, even-tempered.”

  “Which is why Lemuel Bontrager would not be a bad match for you, Grace. If he would have you—which he won’t. By the time you are ready to marry Amish, some other woman will have snapped him up.”

  “Even with Violet to contend with?” Grace teased.

  “Ya,” Johanna replied. “Even with Violet and the seven boys.” She chuckled. “So, big sister...” Her eyes twinkled. “Don’t be so quick to turn away John Hartman.”

  “John?” Grace felt her throat and face grow warm. “He isn’t Amish.”

  “Neither are you,” Rebecca pointed out.

  “You don’t understand,” Grace argued. “I can’t consider John. Marrying Amish is something I have to do. I couldn’t stand to lose all of you now that I’ve come to love you.”

  Johanna stood up. “I suppose you know your own mind better than we do. But...” She hesitated. “As our father always told me, ‘Open your eyes, Johanna. Sometimes the thing that will make you happiest is right in front of your face and you’re just too stubborn to see it.’”

  * * *

  On Thursday evening, John arrived home in time to share a hot meal with his grandfather and uncle. He’d had another crazy week, and the only time he’d been able to speak to Grace had been a few minutes two days earlier when she had finished work and was waiting for the van to pick her up. He’d offered to drive her home, but she’d refused. Shamelessly, he’d reminded her of the Christmas bazaar on Saturday and had invited her to a potluck supper his church was having afterward. Grace hadn’t refused, but she hadn’t accepted, either, and he couldn’t help wondering if she was still put out with him over the whole hay wagon episode.

  “You’re just in time,” Gramps said as John entered the kitchen. “You’re in for a real treat.”

  John glanced at Uncle Albert and groaned. “What is it? Fish sticks and canned peas again? Or that frozen lasagna that tastes like cardboard with ketchup poured over it?”

  “You’ll be laughing out of the other side of your face once you taste my one-dish wonder,” Gramps said. Uncle Albert made a show of trying to lift the lid off the Crock-Pot and peek inside. “No, you don’t,” Gramps said, smacking Uncle Albert’s fingers with a long-handled wooden spoon. “And it’s your turn to wash dishes, Albert.”

  “It’s not,” John’s uncle protested. “It’s John’s turn. I washed last night.”

  John laughed as he retrieved napkins from the counter. “No, you didn’t. If you recall, you had that emergency. You had to check the IV pump on Bruce Taylor’s poodle. At eight o’clock at night.” The animal hospital was right next door, but it was amazing how long it could take his uncle to check on a patient when there were dishes to be washed.

  “Never can tell,” Uncle Albert replied. “That pump might not have been running properly and then Elvis would have been in dire straits.”

  “Convenient timing,” Gramps grumbled. “Getting you t
o load the dishwasher is like trying to get a cat to clean its own litter box. Mighty rare occurrence.”

  Everyone laughed and then the three gathered around the table, sat and held hands while Gramps asked the blessing. He then carried the Crock-Pot to the table. “Behold,” he said, whipping off the glass lid. “My masterpiece.”

  “It’s Hamburger Helper with that funny-shaped rice, isn’t it?” John teased.

  “Be thankful for what you receive,” Gramps said. “People in third-world countries would consider this a feast.” He scooped out a congealed lump of mystery supper and dropped it onto John’s plate.

  “I was right,” John said, reaching for the hot sauce. “Burger and a box of dried mystery ingredients.”

  “With peas and canned corn added,” Gramps said proudly. “Smells delicious, doesn’t it?”

  “Smells like a barn that needs to be cleaned,” Uncle Albert observed. “Are you sure you didn’t add hoof trimmings to this?” He stuck a fork into his portion and left it standing upright. “How many hours did you leave this in the Crock-Pot, Dad?”

  “Nine, ten tops.”

  Gramps sat down in front of his portion, took a forkful and chewed slowly. John and his uncle watched as Gramps washed the first bite down with water, liberally salted the meat, rice and vegetable mix and took another bite. Then, he dropped the fork and began to laugh deep belly laughs. Uncle Albert and John joined in, laughing until tears rolled down their cheeks.

  “A masterpiece,” Uncle Albert proclaimed between guffaws.

  Gramps shook his head, then looked at John. “Well, boy, are you going to call for pizza delivery or am I?” And then they all laughed again.

  Uncle Albert pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and hit the speed dial. “Albert Hartman,” he said. “Yes, the usual. Thanks a lot.” He closed the phone. “Twenty minutes.” He looked down at the plates. “I suppose we could save this for—”