Hidden Mercies (12 page)

“How did you know about the nightmares?”

“I heard you talking in your sleep the first night you came here.”

“Yes. I’ve been having nightmares again.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“About the nightmares? No. That wouldn’t help.”

“I’m not talking about nightmares. I’m talking about the other thing that is bothering you.”

“What other thing?”

“Whatever it is that you’re wrestling with.”

“It’s just nightmares and a little insomnia. Nothing to worry about.”

“I was an educator for many years, Tom. I know the look on a child’s face when they are keeping a secret that is eating them up. You have that same lost look. Do you think you might be able to sleep if you talked about it with someone?”

Could he trust her?

“And yes, in case you’re wondering, you can trust me.”

“What are you, Elizabeth?” He tried to laugh. “A mind reader?”

“If you live long enough, and pay close enough attention, after a while it gets pretty easy to read faces.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m sure it is. Neither of us is going to get any sleep tonight. Tell me what’s bothering you, son.”

He did not know whether or not he could trust her, but what he did know was that he desperately needed to talk to someone. She was right. His secret was eating him up. And even though he was a grown man in his forties, and she
looked nothing like his Amish mother, there was still something about Elizabeth that reminded him of her.

“My given name is not Tom Miller. That is my legal name.”

“Okay, that’s a good start. Who are you?”

“Tobias Troyer. I had my name changed the day after I turned eighteen.”

Elizabeth pulled her legs up under her on the cushioned porch chair, as though settling in for a long session. “One of our neighbors, Jeremiah Troyer, had a son with that name.”

“I know.”

There was a long silence as his and Elizabeth’s eyes locked, and she digested the impact of what he had revealed.

“That makes you Levi’s uncle. The one who left and never came back. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I intended to explain who I was the minute I introduced myself to Claire. Then I fell ill again, and the next thing I knew, Grace had stuck a thermometer in my mouth, read my dog tags, and drawn her own conclusions. I felt too bad at the time to go into a long explanation.”

“That’s understandable. You’ve even told the truth after a fashion. You legally are Tom Miller. But why on earth did you change your name?”

“I was hurt and angry at my father for a long time. It seemed like a good way to strike back at him—to deliberately get rid of even the name he gave me. Miller was a family name of my mother’s. I wanted to make a completely fresh start.”

“I know very little about you as Tobias Troyer,” Elizabeth said. “Except for the fact of your existence.”

“That’s probably just as well.”

“So what happened? Why did you leave?”

“I was the cause of my brother’s death.”

“That’s it? You ran away because you felt responsible?”

“No. It was something my father said to me at the funeral.”

“And what was that?”

“I tried to tell him how sorry I was.” Tom swallowed hard before he could get the words out. “But all
Daed
said was, ‘It should have been you.’ Then to make sure I understood exactly what he was saying, he said, “I wish it had been you.”

“What a horrible thing to say!” Elizabeth said.

“I agreed with him, though,” Tom said. “I still do.”

“Oh, honey. You shouldn’t feel that way.”

“Maybe not—but I still think it.”

“You weren’t formally banned, though, were you?” She said. “I mean, you were only seventeen. You hadn’t been baptized into the church yet.”

“Actually, I had been baptized. Before Matthew came home, I thought I might have a chance with Claire. She was one of those girls who felt so sure of her religion that she chose to be baptized the summer she turned sixteen. I followed right along and was baptized early, too. I thought it would help my chances with her, and she was the only girl I had ever wanted. So, yes, when I ran away, I was most definitely banned.”

“Now you wonder if your father will receive you?”

“I doubt he’ll even meet with me. You’ve lived here. You know how strict the Swartzentrubers can be. A stricter
Meidung
was the main reason they split from their Old Order church in the first place.”

“So why are you here?”

“It feels . . . I don’t know . . . like I’m stuck right now and I can’t get on with my life until I find out how he’ll react to me after all these years. Frankly, I’m wondering the same about Claire.”

“Are you still in love with her?”

“No. Of course not. That would be foolish. So much time has passed, I don’t really even know her. I just want to apologize
to her about what I did to her life. I also wanted to meet Matthew’s son.”

“Well, now that you have, what do you think of him?”

“I think Matthew would be proud of him,” Tom said. “I hate for him to think I have been deliberately lying to him. That was not my intent.”

“You know,” she said, “I think that the Lord has given you an opportunity many people never get.”

“What’s that?”

“I think you need to go see your father—as Tom Miller, the person you are today. You can tell him that you are a helicopter pilot. You are
Englisch
. You used to live around here. All of that is true. Tell him you were friends with his son Matthew—which is also true. Give your father a chance to get to know you as the man you are today. Give yourself a chance to get to know your father as the man he is today. Then, if you want, you can decide whether or not to tell him who you used to be.”

“The church will discipline him if he has anything to do with me.”

“You know, Tom?” she said. “I like Jeremiah. He’s been a good neighbor to me for many years. He accepts the fact that I’m
Englisch
and we get along fine. I think the two of you might enjoy spending a little time together, and after all the two of you have been through, you deserve that. I am not all that convinced that his bishop needs to know everything right now. I have had some dealings with Bishop Weaver, and he is not an open man. Let your father get to know you as Tom Miller. Then someday, when he finds out who you are, he will have those memories of talking with you, without having to feel guilty for having done so.”

“You don’t think this is underhanded?”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “I think it is being kind to an old man who has been through way too much.”

“Should I remain silent about who I am to Levi and Claire?”

“It might be wise for now. Let them get to know you as the person you are now without all that other baggage you’ll need to work through with them later. If they get upset, I’ll take the blame. I’ll tell them that I twisted your arm and forced you to be quiet. Frankly, Tom, I think you need to drive down and see your father tomorrow. That’s a meeting that is way overdue.”

•   •   •

One twenty-five-pound bag of chicken feed, $18.75.

Claire tapped her freshly sharpened pencil on the desk that Abraham had made. She’d done the math. Although her chickens scratched in the dirt for a living, their diet also had to be supplemented. She’d discovered that it cost more for her to raise her own eggs than it did to buy them at the grocery store.

The problem was, the bright orange-yoked eggs her own chickens laid were infinitely superior in taste and nutrition to the cheap, pale-yolked ones that came from the store. Good nutrition was important to growing children. She would keep her laying hens. The extra price was worth it. The chicken feed would stay.

Veterinarian bill and medicine, $150. That was for the case of mastitis her little Jersey cow had developed. It might be cheaper to buy store-bought milk, but at around three dollars a gallon, she doubted it. Hopefully, the cow would stay well now. Seven gallons a day that little cow gave. Plenty of butter and cream, too. The cow most definitely earned her keep.

Cloth for Amy’s new dress, $15.10. They’d gotten a good deal on that material.

Cough syrup for Sarah’s bad cough, $9.21. It had helped, but next time the little girl caught a cold, Claire was determined
to mix up a batch of her own elderberry cough and cold syrup. She could find elderberries along the roadside for free.

The expenses mounted up, even when it felt like she wasn’t buying anything at all.

Her biggest financial worry of all, however, was the age of her standardbred horse. At twenty, Flora was simply too old to pull the buggy much longer. Claire tried to keep the buggy as light as possible and to go only short ways with plenty of rests in between, but she needed a new horse badly.

If only she could become a certified midwife! Then she could work under the doctor who oversaw the midwives at the famous Mt. Eaton Care Center, the birthing center that Dr. Lehman had spearheaded when Barb, the saintly Amish woman who had taken laboring mothers into her home, couldn’t handle the hard physical work any longer.

Her church district would never allow her to become certified. She’d heard that a few New Order Amish church districts were beginning to allow some of their midwives to become certified—but even allowing her to have a pager was a stretch for hers.

Becoming New Order was, of course, out of the question. Leaving the Swartzentruber Amish for Old Order was a big enough leap for one lifetime.

In the meantime, as long as she didn’t charge any money, she could legally continue to function as a lay midwife. She could only take donations. The problem was, she was entirely on her own. There was no cozy birthing center available to her, no comfortable office for patient visits so that she didn’t have to pay an
Englisch
driver to take her to all these far-flung farms. Although she was grateful that she had work, the donations she received from her midwife jobs were barely enough to keep the wolf from the door. Her income depended
upon how many babies she delivered in a month, and there were occasional dry spells.

She had heard that
Englisch
midwives sometimes charged as much as three thousand dollars to see a mother through a pregnancy, but the norm among Amish midwives was not even close to that. Her fee, as she told clients, was whatever they could afford. Most knew that the standard donation for an Amish midwife was four to eight hundred dollars, and that included monthly checkups.

Her clients also knew that if they could not pay, she would still take care of them. So far, even the Swartzentrubers, who tended to have far less income than the other Amish sects, always paid her, even if it came in at a few dollars at a time. She could not imagine refusing help to a pregnant woman who needed her.

Still, unless there was a sudden rash of babies, the need for a new horse was a great worry.

Normally, Levi would have figured out a way to help her take care of this problem, but the boy was so preoccupied figuring out how to be married to his new
Englisch
wife, he was letting many things slide, and she hated to nag.

Maddy peeked over her shoulder. “Money problems?”

“Not so much money problems as spending problems,” Claire said.

“The church will help,” Maddy said. “You know they will.”

“And I will ask for and accept that help with gratitude if necessary. It does help me sleep at night knowing that I have a church willing to care for my family. But as long as I am able-bodied and possessed of some skill, we will continue doing the best we can.”

“I have been thinking of working more hours at Mrs. Yoder’s.” Maddy picked up the calculator and fiddled with it.
“Rose has not been able to come in much lately. They are offering to let me work more hours. That would help.”

Claire wanted to refuse, but the truth was that extra hours would be quite helpful. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

“I know,” Maddy said. “But I enjoy it and it’s close enough that I can walk to work until winter sets in.”

It was not unusual for a sixteen-year-old girl to clerk or work part-time in a restaurant, but Maddy was not just any sixteen-year-old. She was unusually beautiful—which was never, ever a good thing, especially not when the world put such a high value on beauty—but what Maddy was suggesting was reasonable. Most families expected a child to start working for a salary at some point after they got past the eighth grade. Even more, they expected that child to hand over their salary for the good of the family until they turned twenty-one, or got married. Whichever one came first.

“If that is what you want,” Claire said. “And, Maddy?”

“Yes, Claire.”

“I do appreciate your help.”

Maddy smiled. “I know. I’m happy to help. I live here, too, you know.”

Claire returned to her book work, grateful for her good children and her good life. It struck her that even though she had to be careful, at least she didn’t have to force herself to work a job she hated—like Rose.

I
t was time.

He’d waited a lifetime.

As Tom approached his old home, his pulse began to beat faster. He passed Claire’s home, topped a small rise, and saw the house where he had been raised. An older man was plowing in a side field.

Jeremiah Troyer had aged, but Tom would have recognized him anywhere.

He drove past, but his father did not look up. Everything within him screamed to keep driving and not risk rejection, but it was as though a magnet was attached to the new Impala he’d purchased at Moomaw’s that morning.

He stopped, turned around, and drove back.

It took all the courage he had to pull into his father’s dirt driveway, get out, close the door, and walk over to the fence. After all he had done. After all he had experienced as a pilot, it struck him as strange that he was having trouble catching his breath. There was certainly no physical danger in being here, and yet he was practically trembling with nerves.

Jeremiah Troyer was in his late sixties, but his appearance was that of a much older man. While Tom had been turning the car around, his father had decided to give the plow horse a
rest, and was now sitting in the shade of a maple tree, the very same tree that Tom had once fallen out of, breaking his arm.