The Prodigal Son Returns

by Jan Drexler

  “Annie said they would move him into their house after he’s released from the hospital. We’ll have to be sure to get the women together to can her garden, since she certainly won’t have time.” Mam paused, looking carefully at Ellie’s face in the growing darkness. “It will be all right, daughter. Bram will come back to us.”

  “It doesn’t matter, though, does it?” The words came before Ellie could stop them, strident in the night air. “He’s never been one of us. He’s Englisch, and he’ll be going back to his Englisch world now that he’s caught those two criminals.” She ended with a choked sob.

  Mam glanced at Dat and then turned around to face the front again. Ellie’s face burned. Her words and her tone had both been hateful.

  “I’m sorry Mam, Dat. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “We don’t know Bram well.” Dat’s voice was soft, tender, almost sad. The things he had seen today had shaken him, too. “But I do know this, Ellie. He’s an honorable man, but his past followed him here. We’ll have to wait and see how today’s events will affect him.”

  “Ja, you’re right.”

  Mam and Dat lapsed into silence, and Ellie let the swaying motion of the buggy calm her. Could Bram ever come back and be one of them? His words as he had spoken to that man in the barn had been as cold as death, and the determined look on his face as he had fired his gun haunted her memory. She saw no reluctance to use violence in his actions, only the same set look she had seen on Dat’s face when he killed a snake. But this Kavanaugh wasn’t a snake; he was a man, and violence against another man was against the Ordnung. Against the Bible. How could Bishop accept him into the church after this?

  * * *

  Bram woke with every temperature and pulse check through the night. If these nurses were so concerned about him sleeping, why didn’t they leave him alone so he could do it?

  Dawn brought a shift change with a visitor. Elwood Peters walked into his room as soon as the nurse had finished with the temperature check.

  “I’m glad to see you’re still with us.” The older man’s clothes were rumpled, his face gray and unshaven.

  “You look worse than I feel.” As he tried to smile, Bram concentrated on keeping his body still. Every movement sent a shot of pain through his chest.

  Peters pulled a chair over to Bram’s bedside and sat heavily on it, tossing his hat onto the blanket covering Bram’s legs.

  “Yeah, sleeping on a train will do that to you.”

  He reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, tossed one out into his waiting hand and then stopped with a mild curse.

  “I forgot. No cigarettes in here.” He gestured his hand toward the oxygen tank sitting next to Bram’s bed.

  Bram found himself cringing at Peters’s language. When had cursing become offensive? It hadn’t been that long since he had talked the same way.

  “What about Kavanaugh?” Bram had to know.

  “Kavanaugh is still here, just a couple doors down the hall. He’s in worse shape than you are. His goon—”

  “Charlie Harris.”

  “Yeah, Charlie. He had a flesh wound in his shoulder, and he’s in the city jail this morning.”

  Bram’s muscles released their tension with Peters’s words. He sank into the softness of the hospital bed. Ellie was safe. How soon would he see her again?

  “With those two in custody, Kavanaugh’s gang is finished.” Peters leaned back in his chair, tapping his cigarette against his knee. “It’s a good feeling, Dutch, and we couldn’t have done it without you and your work.”

  “Yeah, well, just keep that part to yourself.”

  “Are you sure? There’s a reward. It would set you up for life.”

  “I don’t want money for this. Give it to the policemen’s fund or something.”

  Peters tapped his cigarette against his knee and stared out the window. He had something on his mind.

  “Now that this business is over, we could use you back. The gangs are all moving out west. California, Nevada. We made Chicago too hot for them. You could work for us out there. Become an agent, not just an informant.” He shifted his eyes to Bram’s. “You show real promise. You have a gift for this kind of work.”

  Bram couldn’t look at Peters. He moved his gaze toward the window. No clouds. They sure could use some rain.

  What Peters was offering...wasn’t that what he had always wanted? He knew he would be a good agent. It would be a hard life and probably a short one—agents didn’t have a very long life expectancy. But the thrill of getting his man! He had felt something like it when he had faced Kavanaugh in the barn. How many crooks could he get off the streets? How many innocent lives could he protect in that kind of work?

  The hollow clip-clop of an Amish buggy on the street outside drifted up to his open window. The measured beats of the horse’s hooves slowed his thoughts, brought them back to Ellie, the children, his farm, the church. He felt that fluid, silken movement again, caressing his mind.

  That unseen presence had never left him since he’d first felt it—since he’d first come back. Would it be with him if he took Peters up on his offer? Even if it was, his heart would be here.

  The sounds of the buggy faded off into the distance. He knew where he belonged.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After three weeks of lying in a hospital bed, Bram was anxious to get out of there, although he’d hate giving up the electric fan that cooled the ward. The end of July could be stiflingly hot in northern Indiana, but this year the temperatures felt like a blast furnace, and still no rain in sight.

  He leafed through a copy of Look magazine. The headlines spoke of the coming Olympic Games in Berlin, a civil war in Spain, the heat wave two weeks ago that had claimed nearly five thousand lives across the nation. And Adolph Hitler’s picture was everywhere.

  Bram let the magazine fall closed and pushed it away, along with the news. He was so weary of the world and its problems. Was John right when he said believers were to keep themselves separate from the world? John was confident in his belief in Gott and the brotherhood of the believers—but where did his confidence come from? The older man centered his world on his church and his family, not the cares of the world.

  Not that he wasn’t concerned about the people in the world—Bram had heard the killing heat and the violence in Spain mentioned in his prayers—but they weren’t his utmost concern. John’s greatest desire, he had said, was to see his children and grandchildren close around the family table, in fellowship and love.

  A fitful breeze fluttered in the leaves of the maple tree outside the window, catching Bram’s eye, and he watched them turn one way and then the other, limp and ragged in the dry heat. “Blown by the cares of the world,” John had said once.

  John’s words described Bram perfectly. Tossed and turned by events and ideas that had no place in the Amish life, but where did they fit into his life? What was his greatest desire?

  Memories of the day he and Ellie had taken the children to LaGrange came to his mind. Family. Home. The bright laughter in Johnny’s eyes, Susan’s shy smile, Danny’s downy-soft hair. And Ellie.

  Could he be to them what John was to his family? Could he be the one to pray for them, discipline them, lead them to a life of obedience and joy?

  The window disappeared as his eyes grew wet. Could this be why Gott had brought him home to Indiana?

  The large ward was quiet in the afternoon heat, with most of the men dozing or reading. Sitting up slowly, Bram waited for the gray fog in his head to clear. He had been given bathroom privileges just yesterday, but he was still too weak to walk down the hall alone. The young, pretty nurse who worked the day shift glanced up from her charts and walked toward his bed.

  “Now, Mr. Lapp, you aren’t going to try anything dangerous on your own, are you?” Her
voice was light, but the set of her mouth told him she still wouldn’t put up with his efforts to take care of himself.

  “I just wanted to go down the hall for a bit.” The gray was clearing, and he tried a smile. It worked.

  The pretty nurse smiled back at him and felt his forehead in a way that was half professional check, half a caress. “I’ll get a wheelchair and take you myself.”

  He eased into the chair she brought, glad he had the use of one hand to help steady himself. As soon as he was settled, the nurse wheeled him toward the hallway.

  “I hear you’re going home today,” she said as the cumbersome chair rolled along the narrow hall. Bram searched through his mind for her name but came up empty.

  “That’s right. The doctor’s letting me go to my sister’s house. She’ll take good care of me.”

  “We’ll certainly miss you here.” She gave him another smile as she opened the door of the bathroom for him and helped him to his feet. “You’ll be all right on your own?”

  Bram steadied his shaking knees. He hated being so weak, but there was no chance he was letting the nurse help him in the bathroom. “Sure, I’ll be fine.”

  Once he finished, he was glad to sink into the wheelchair again. Who knew a man could lose his strength so quickly?

  As the nurse started wheeling him back to the ward, he kept his gaze on the door at the far end of the hall. He’d be going through that door soon, free to get his life started again. Free to see Ellie again. As if his thoughts had beckoned her, the door opened and Ellie walked into the hallway, followed by her father.

  At the sight of her slim form with her black bonnet and a lightweight black shawl covering the blue dress, Bram’s eyes grew moist again. He leaned toward her. Couldn’t this chair go any faster?

  “It looks like you have visitors,” the nurse said.

  John stepped forward. “We’re here to take Bram home, if he’s ready to go.”

  Home. Bram sought Ellie’s eyes. She glanced at him once with a tentative smile and then looked at the floor.

  “The forms still need to be signed by the doctor,” the nurse said. “But you can wait on the sunporch until they’re ready.”

  “I’ll wait with them,” Bram said, watching Ellie. He hadn’t seen her since he had woken up after his

  surgery—he hadn’t seen anyone except John. The older man had stopped in to visit a couple times a week, taking the time to talk with Bram about nothing in particular, and always giving Bram guidance, sharing his faith and answering his questions.

  After the nurse wheeled Bram to the screened-in porch that overlooked the street outside, she disappeared to find his doctor. Ellie sat in a chair near Bram, still silent, while John walked to the screened window and looked out.

  “Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “I think I’ll go find a drink of water.”

  The wink he gave Bram as he left the room made Bram smile, in spite of Ellie’s silence. John would be gone for a while, giving them a chance to talk.

  Ellie sat with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the trees outside the window. Bram reached his left hand out to touch her, brushing her arm with his fingers. At his touch, she turned to him.

  “I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

  Her gaze pierced him. “Are you all right?” she asked and then caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “Ja, I’m feeling better every day.”

  “Dat said you were on the mend.”

  “Ja.” He had to ask her. “Ellie, your dat came to see me often. Why didn’t you come with him?”

  She looked away. “I wasn’t sure you wanted me to.”

  Didn’t want her to?

  “Why would you think that?” His voice rose louder than he meant, and Ellie jumped at the sound.

  “I’m sorry.” Bram dropped his voice. “I only meant that I wanted to see you. You could have come. I...I need you.”

  * * *

  Ellie scooted her chair closer to his and laid her hand on his arm as it rested on the wheelchair. He pulled her hand into his lap and held it.

  “Now that you’ve found that man, you’ll be leaving, won’t you?”

  Bram’s hand stroked her fingers one by one. “Ne, I won’t be going back. I have a few loose ends to tie up in Chicago, but then I’ll be here to stay.”

  Ellie turned her head away, pulling her hand from his. Chicago? Once he left, he would never come back.

  “You believe me, don’t you, Ellie?”

  She hesitated. She had trusted him once, but now? Before she could answer, the nurse swept into the room, followed by an orderly.

  “Here we are, Mr. Lapp. The forms are all signed. Mr. Stoltzfus has paid your bill, so everything is taken care of.”

  * * *

  A week later, Bram couldn’t wait any longer. He was going to see Ellie if it killed him, and if Matthew hadn’t helped him harness Partner and hitch up the buggy, it just might have. He drove slowly, easing the horse around the rougher sections of the road, and made it to the Stoltzfus farm without too much pain.

  As he drove up the lane, Ellie waved to him from the middle of the garden. He pulled Partner to a halt by the trough and eased down from the buggy. Ellie met him at the edge of the grass, lugging a bushel basket full of tomatoes. He started to reach out to take the basket from her, but the pain in his shoulder reminded him he was still too weak.

  Ellie set the basket in the grass and gave him a smile.

  “You must be feeling better, to make the trip over here.” She shaded her eyes with her hand, her tanned face and sun-bleached hair telling him how many days she had worked out here in the garden.

  “Ja, I am.” Bram stepped closer to her and wiped a smudge of dirt from her cheek. “Why don’t you have any help today?”

  Ellie shrugged. “Benjamin is working in the fields, and Mam and Dat took the children to Lovina’s. These tomatoes need to be picked, whether I do them alone or with help. It isn’t hard work, but I’m ready for a rest. Would you like some tea?”

  “Ja, that sounds good.”

  Bram walked with her to the Dawdi Haus, listening to her talk about the children, the garden, the weather... It all went over his head as he watched her expression change with each new subject. She was more beautiful than he had remembered.

  He let himself down into the seat of the glider with careful movements while Ellie went into the house to fetch the tea. The walk had exhausted him. He leaned his head back and started the glider moving with his foot. Insects hummed in the sultry air, and a slight breeze played with the leaves above his head. How many nights had he lain awake in the hospital thinking about sitting on this glider with Ellie?

  By the time she brought his tea to him, Bram had gotten his breath back and took the glass from her with a smile.

  “Denki.” The first swallow was as delicious as the feeling that went through him when she sat next to him.

  Silence hung between them. There were so many things he wanted to say to her. He had practiced them in the buggy all the way here, but now his tongue clung to the roof of his mouth. He took another swallow of tea.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk.” He stopped as he felt Ellie stiffen next to him. She moved slightly so that their arms no longer touched.

  “You’re going to Chicago.”

  “Ja. I have to, or else Kavanaugh will go free.”

  “I understand that, but...” She stopped.

  He turned to look at her, shifting his weight as he moved to ease the pain in his shoulder. Her eyes were wet as she steadily looked toward the barley field, the barn, the fence. Anywhere but at him.

  “Ellie, what’s wrong?”

  “I know you miss your life in Chicago. You were only here to do your job, and you never wanted to come back to the Amish l
ife. Once you’re gone, I’ll never see you again.”

  How could she think that?

  “After I give my deposition, I’ll be back.”

  “Your deposition? Do you mean a court trial?”

  “Ne, not quite. The lawyers wanted me to testify against Kavanaugh for his attack on Hezekiah and for shooting me, but the Amish don’t bring lawsuits against people. John helped me understand that.”

  Ellie looked at him. “Dat?”

  “Ja. He helped me sort through how I can keep my commitments to my job and still stay faithful to the church. Bishop approved the deposition, since I wouldn’t be appearing in court to do it.”

  “And since you haven’t taken the vows of baptism.” She turned her head away from him again.

  “Ne, not yet, but I will when I get back. Once all the ties to my past life are cut, I’ll be free to commit to the church and to you.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t lie to me again, Bram.”

  “I’m not lying. I never did lie to you, Ellie.”

  Then she looked at him, the pain in her eyes unbearable. When had she stopped trusting him?

  “How can I believe you? I want to, but I can’t.”

  Bram rubbed his forehead. This wasn’t the way he wanted this conversation to go.

  “What can I do to make you believe me?”

  Ellie’s voice was soft, strained through tears. “I don’t know.”

  Bram reached out his hand to touch her cheek, feeling its soft warmth. He ran his finger along her jawline and caught the stray hair in his fingers. That stubborn lock of hair that never stayed in its place. Stubborn like her. He twisted it softly around one finger and then moved his hand to the back of her neck, drawing her to him. He held his lips on her cheek, breathing in her scent, and then released her.

  “When I get home from Chicago, then you’ll know I’m here to stay. I’ll never leave you, Ellie.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Memmi, look! Look!”

  Ellie turned from the sink full of dishes to see Susan holding Danny’s hands as he walked from the front room into the kitchen.