The Days of Redemption

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  As he knew she would, his daughter Elsie found fault with that. “Father, you mustn’t talk like that. Cleaning is most definitely not only women’s work. Besides, you know Mamm with her asthma can’t be up here in all this dust.”

  He did love how prim and proper his daughter was. “I’m just teasing, Elsie. I don’t mind helping with the attic. Besides, it’s a whole lot warmer up here in the attic than outside in the fields.”

  She rubbed her arms. “I’m tired of winter and it’s only January.”

  “Patience, Elsie,” his mother cautioned. “Everything comes in its own time. Even spring.”

  Getting back on track, Peter brushed aside yet another traveling insect and pushed the box he’d just taken down a little more toward the center of the attic. ”I can’t wait to see what you have in here. This doesn’t look like it’s been touched since you moved in.”

  Before his eyes, his mother stiffened. “I had forgotten that box was in here.”

  “Then it’s time we found out all your secrets,” Elsie teased from her chair near the window. “Mommi, you know what’s going to have to happen, don’t you? You’re going to have to tell us all the stories that go with the items in the box.”

  For some reason, his mother looked even more perturbed. “I doubt you’d be interested, Elsie. There’s nothing out of the ordinary inside. Nothing that you haven’t heard about at least a dozen times. You know, dear, perhaps you should go downstairs with your father. I’ll finish up here on my own.”

  “I’m not going to let you be up here by yourself, Mamm,” he said. “Stop worrying so much.”

  “And I’m not going to leave you, either, Mommi. There might be something inside that you’ve forgotten about. . . . A deep, dark secret . . .”

  His mother laughed. “I think not. My life isn’t filled with secrets. That’s not what the Lord intended.”

  Peter felt his smile falter as his mother’s pious remarks floated over him. For all his life, both of his parents had set themselves up as pillars of the community. And as models for their six children to follow.

  But their markers were so high, their children never felt they could meet their parents’ high standards. It was one of the reasons his brothers Jacob and Aden had moved to Indiana, and his little sister Sara had moved all the way to New York.

  Even though he was the middle child, not the eldest son, he was the one who’d elected to live with his parents and take over the running of the farm. It made the most sense. He was used to keeping the peace—a quality that was definitely needed in his parents’ company.

  But even he was finding it difficult to hear their criticisms day after day.

  Well, at least that was the reason he gave for his own private behavior.

  Pushing his dark thoughts away, he opened the flaps of the box and pulled an armful of the contents out. On top was an embroidered sampler.

  “What does it say, Daed?” Elsie asked, reminding him that with her eye disease, it was getting harder and harder for her to see most anything.

  “It says ‘Start and End the Day with Prayer.’ ”

  Elsie smiled. “That sounds like Mommi.”

  Indeed it did. Lovina Keim was the epitome of a dutiful Amish wife. She’d borne six children, had organized charity events for the community, kept a bountiful garden, quilted well, and could still outcook most women in the area.

  She was a handsome woman, with dark brown eyes, which her children and grandchildren had all inherited. She was a hard worker and never asked anyone to do anything she wasn’t prepared to do herself.

  However, she was also critical and judgmental. It was next to impossible to live up to her expectations.

  Elsie moved closer, kneeling next to him. “What else is inside?”

  Peter looked at his mother, who seemed frozen, her eyes fastened on the box.

  Slowly, he pulled out a heavily embroidered linen tablecloth, and a pair of crystal candlesticks. Peter shook his head. While some Amish women did buy some pretty tableware every now and then, these items were extravagant. Even more, he’d never seen them before. “Mother, where did these come from?” He held up one of the heavy candlesticks.

  That seemed to set her back into motion. Busily smoothing out the rough fabric of a quilt, his mother glanced away. “I’m not sure. I’ve forgotten.”

  Peter had never known his mother to forget a thing. “Come on, now. You must have an idea.”

  “I do not. If I knew, I would tell you, Peter.” Standing up, her mother shook her head. “I’m getting tired. I no longer care to look in these boxes.” Her voice turning pinched, she continued. “Elsie, please walk with me back to my rooms?”

  Obediently, Elsie moved to stand up, but Peter held her back with a hand on her arm. “Nee, stay, Elsie. Now that we’ve started digging in here, I’d like to see what else is inside.” Something was propelling him forward. Maybe it was his mother’s unfamiliar hesitancy.

  Perhaps it was his own selfish wants—a part of him enjoyed seeing her discomfort. It gave her a taste of what he’d felt much of his life. With purposeful motions, he pulled out another sampler of a Psalm, the stitching uneven and childlike. A cloth doll. An old packet of flower seeds.

  And then a framed photograph, wrapped in plastic bubble wrap. The Amish didn’t accept photographs, believing that copying their image was a graven sin. “Mamm, what in the world?”

  “Peter, don’t unwrap that.”

  His mother’s voice was like steel, but Peter ignored the command. He was forty-two years old, not fourteen. And now he was curious.

  “Who is this, Mother?” he asked as he pulled the plastic away, finding himself staring at a photograph of a beautiful young woman. Her hair was dark and smooth, her eyes the same coffee-with-cream brown color that looked back at him in the mirror.

  A vague thread of apprehension coursed through him.

  “Who is it?” Elsie asked.

  “It’s a woman, a woman of about your age,” he said patiently, ignoring the tension reverberating from his mother. “She’s mighty pretty, with brown wide-set eyes and hair. Why, she could be your twin, Elsie.”

  Elsie gazed at the photograph, but the three of them knew it was basically for show. Her eyesight had gotten much worse over the last two years. “She is pretty,” she allowed. “Though we all know I already have a twin. I’m glad this girl isn’t one, too. I have no need for one more!”

  “Since she’s an Englischer, she couldn’t be your twin. Ain’t so, Mamm?” He chuckled, raising his eyes to share a smile with his mother. Then stilled.

  His mother looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. Her face was pale, twin splotches of color decorating her cheeks. And her eyes . . .

  They were the exact ones in the photograph.

  Suddenly, he knew. “Mother, this is you, isn’t it? This is you in a cap and gown. At your high school graduation.”

  His mother averted her eyes.

  Elsie gasped. “Mommi? What were you doing, dressed up like an Englischer?”

  Though his mother said nothing, Peter realized he didn’t need an explanation. The item in his hands was clear enough. Slowly, he got to his feet, his knees creaking with the effort. “Your grandmother wasn’t dressed up as an Englischer, Elsie,” he said quietly. “For some reason, she wasn’t Amish here. She was English.”

  Bitterness coursed through him as he thought of the many, many times she’d belittled all of them because they weren’t perfect enough. Weren’t devout enough. Didn’t obey the Ordnung to the letter.

  The way her criticisms had driven his siblings Jacob and Aden and Sara away.

  The way her perfection had made his other brother, Sam, try too hard, had made his youngest sister, Lorene, feel terrible about herself.

  The way her iron will had even pulled apart his God-given easygoing nature, causing him to do things he shouldn’t.

  And she’d done all of this on top of a heap of lies.

  He thought of
all the times she’d even been critical of his sweet wife, Marie. The way she’d criticized meals and housekeeping and sewing.

  Appalled, he stared at his mother. Really looked at her, as if for the very first time. “Talk to me, Mamm. Were you raised English?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you ever going to tell us the truth?”

  For a few seconds, time seemed to stand still. The dust particles in the air froze. Then Lovina Keim’s face turned colder. “Nee.” Slowly, she walked to the narrow, steep steps and began descending.

  Still holding the photograph in his hands, Peter let her walk down by herself.

  “Daed, what does this mean?” Elsie asked.

  It meant everything. But of course, he could withhold the truth as well as his mother.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Let’s go downstairs, too, Elsie.”

  Slipping the photograph under his arm, he helped guide Elsie down the stairs.

  When she was in her room, and he was sure the rest of the house was silent, he strode to his bedroom, opened up the door to his bedside table, and pushed aside the neat stack of books.

  Behind the well-worn hardbacks, he found what he was looking for.

  And though it wouldn’t solve his problems, it would help him not care. Even if it was just for a little while.

  chapter two

  It seemed that two years could, in some ways, feel like a lifetime. After their lengthy hug, Ed stepped back and took a closer look at his father.

  When he was growing up, most folks said he was a carbon copy of his dad. They both were blessed with hair so dark it seemed inky black and deep blue and gold eyes. The unusual combination had been a source of pride for Ed growing up. More than one girl had commented on his looks.

  But he’d always been happier to know that he was following in his father’s footsteps. There was no better man in the world. Now, after two years’ absence, he realized that he was looking at his future.

  Yes, Atle Swartz still favored blue shirts, black trousers, and black suspenders. He still had his gray beard, too.

  Of course.

  But other things were different. His father looked smaller and frailer than Ed remembered. Whereas Ed used to have to struggle to carry as much hay as his father, now his daed looked like he wouldn’t even be able to push a wheelbarrow. His body looked half its former size. His father’s hands, once so strong and perpetually suntanned, now looked heavily blue-veined and pale. Especially here, under the fluorescent lights of the card room.

  “Seeing you does my heart good, Edward,” he said.

  Feeling tears prick his eyes, Ed grabbed a chair and sat across from him, so close their knees were touching. “It’s been too long, Daed.” He ached to say he was sorry for his absence, but he wasn’t sure if that was true. He’d missed his father, but his heart had been full of the joy he’d received from the people of Nicaragua. Doing mission work had changed him in many good ways. And because of that, he couldn’t ever think of his time in Central America as a mistake.

  “It has been too long,” he agreed, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I am verra pleased to see you. And shocked, too!”

  “But it’s a good surprise, yes?”

  “It’s good . . . but confusing, too.” His eyes narrowing, his daed looked him up and down. Just like he was checking for new flaws. “You must tell me what you are doing here.”

  “I’m seeing you, of course.”

  “Don’t tease.” Pointing to a sheet of notebook paper on the table, his father said, “I received your letter this morning. You gave no indication that you were on your way home. I think you could have done that, son.” He paused, looking him over yet again. “Unless . . . something bad happened?”

  “Nothing bad happened.” Eager to push off any more charges of misbehavior, Ed picked up the note, saw the date, and grinned. “This letter is dated three weeks ago. I’ve written you at least two more letters since then.”

  “But surely you could have remembered to let me know you’d soon be heading this way . . .”

  Knowing his father had no concept of how disorganized life at a mission post could be, Ed tried to explain things as well as possible. “Daed, when I wrote this, I didn’t know I would have to leave so soon.”

  “You had to leave quickly?” Worry flashed through his cloudy eyes. “What happened?”

  Aware that several other residents of the retirement home had crowded around, Ed took time to weigh his words before answering. “Nothing terribly exciting. The folks at the home office took another look at the staffing at all of their sites. Some locations needed more people, other sites had too many. They had to make some cuts, so a few people were sent to Africa, others home.”

  “That doesn’t sound like any way to run a company.”

  Knowing better than to try to explain the delicate balance CAMA—the Christian Aid Ministry Association— had to ensure was kept in each country, and the amount of work it took to provide for the many people they served, Ed shrugged and went for the simplest of explanations. “The people in charge were told that they had too many Americans in the compound. Next thing I knew, they were telling me I was on the list to leave.”

  “I hope you weren’t in trouble.” His father’s gaze searched his own, the same way he used to look him over when Ed would come home from school early.

  Luckily, he had a lot of practice deflecting his concern. “Daed, stop looking so worried! And why would you think I’d be in trouble? I was on the list because I’d been there the longest. Sending me home was their way of rewarding me for my hard work.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.”

  Ed didn’t know if it did or not—all he knew was that he hadn’t needed any kind of reward. Long ago, he’d learned to put his needs far behind the needs of the people he’d been serving. No matter how much he was inconvenienced or shuffled around, it wouldn’t hold a candle to the difficulties the people he was serving went through each day. The people he’d come to care for. He loved his mission work, but he had to admit, it was nice to be back in Ohio. At the moment, he was grateful for the cold air and was looking forward to a comfortable bed.

  And nothing was better than sitting with his father. “Daed, honestly, I was glad they asked me to leave. I’d been there almost two years. I was ready to come home for a spell.”

  “And I am glad you’re here, too. Now, how long will you be staying?”

  “At least six months.”

  Some of the light in his father’s eyes faded. “And then you’ll be off to somewhere else?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Ah.”

  That one word cut through him like a knife. And with that cut, Ed felt the guilt that sometimes threatened to swallow him whole in the middle of the night. Since his mamm had passed away almost three years ago, it had been only him and his daed. Now it was hardly even that. Though they’d had countless conversations about his calling to mission work, Ed hadn’t left the country without a certain amount of remorse.

  No matter what his daed said to the contrary, Ed couldn’t help but wonder if moving his father to the retirement home before he’d left was the right choice.

  But there would be time enough to go over plans in the next few days and weeks. And for sure, time enough to rehash his father’s living arrangements. “What’s new with you here?”

  “Oh, nothing much. I’ve been beating Jacob Showalter here in cards almost every day, and I heard from your cousins in Indiana—two of them have new babies. And we have a new worker here . . . Viola Keim.”

  Hearing her name was jarring, like a barrel of dishwater had just been tossed on his head. “I saw Viola when I arrived.”

  His father’s gaze softened. “She’s a right pretty thing, ain’t so?”

  He would have liked to say he hadn’t noticed. But he had. Few women could carry brown eyes and brown hair so well.

  It was a shame she was so full of herself. “She is pretty.” For what that
was worth. Pleasing looks were well and good, but if they didn’t match a sweet personality, he didn’t think they counted for much. “Who else have you been visiting with?”

  But his father wasn’t about to be sidetracked. “That Viola is a dear girl. I’ve been reading her your letters. Every one.”

  “Every one?”

  “Oh, jah. Sometimes, multiple times.”

  Ed felt his cheeks heat. He’d written some of those letters late at night, when he was so tired and exhausted that he’d given in to temptation and written more about his feelings of loneliness or frustration or difficulties than he usually would. He’d often treated the letters like journal entries—so much so that he’d often considered not sending them to his father for fear that it all would be too much for him to handle.

  Realizing that all of his private feelings had been read out loud was embarrassing. He recalled one letter where all he wrote about was how he wanted a truly hot shower!

  “Daed . . . I hadn’t intended for you to share the letters.”

  “But you had to know I would.”

  “I guess I did,” he said weakly. Now that he was sitting here with his father, he realized he’d naively assumed his father would feel as protective of the letters as Ed had.

  But most of all, he’d not imagined that he’d be sharing every bumbling word he’d written. And not to beautiful volunteers!

  “Oh, Viola enjoyed them. I know she did. Why, I think she could be interested in you. You should see if she wants to go walking or something.”

  Ed was pretty sure that the only place Viola would want to walk was away from him! “Daed, I don’t think so.”

  “But she’s your age. She’ll make someone a fine frau, mark my words.”

  It was time to nip this in the bud. “Daed, I didn’t come here to go courting. I want to spend time with you.”

  “Well, that should take up one or two hours a day. What are you going to do with the rest of your time?”

  He laughed, though it was uncomfortable. “I thought we could do some things together. Maybe go on a trip.” As his guilt crept forward he added, “Maybe you want to live at home while I’m back? I’d enjoy that.”