Hidden Mercies (36 page)

Claire had to laugh because Flora gave her such a look when she saw Copycat cavorting around, as if to say, “You brought that into
my
pasture?”

Dear Tom,

(Shall I continue calling you Tom? Or would you prefer Tobias? Frankly, I think Tom better suits who you are now, don’t you agree?)

A father of a baby I delivered brought me a new standardbred horse as payment. His name is Copycat and he is way too smart to be a horse. He has his own mind, and his own way of doing things, and I think he would happily run the family if I let him.

He does not particularly enjoy pulling the buggy, and hides behind anything he can find when he knows I’m coming out to get him. He has no idea he is too big to hide
behind a tree, and is always quite disappointed when I find him. His head droops, and his body slumps as though to say, “No! You found me? How can that be? I was hiding behind the tree!”

He does have plenty of pep and enjoys prancing down the road . . . for a while. When he gets tired, or bored—I’m never quite sure which—he will develop a limp. I was concerned until I kept coming home, checking all four hooves, finding nothing at all wrong, and then would see the limp magically disappear once Copycat got unhitched and could romp in the pasture. Flora just puts up with him like the tired old woman she is, but Rocky adores him, and will give him kisses when Copycat puts his head down close. They are great friends.

Copycat is also a scamp, and a seasoned escape artist, and it takes a bit of surveillance to keep him from paying visits to Jeremiah’s vegetable garden. The slightest weakness in the fence or the smallest crack in the gate, and Copycat is out exploring new worlds.

Keeping an eye on him is Amy’s job, and one she thoroughly enjoys. I think, however, that Copycat has figured out that she is the culprit who is tattling on him. He seems to be eying her with suspicion. We are all enjoying him immensely. I never saw a horse with so much personality.

And so, as you see, I will
not
be needing your check and I am enclosing it.

Your friend,

Claire.

P.S. Elizabeth moved into your old apartment. She says Levi and Grace are giving her hives.

P.P.S. Albert says that Jeremiah says he hopes you’re still carrying the knife he gave you.

Tom glanced at the check, tore it up, and threw it into the trash can. Sending it back to him was such a Claire thing to do. He was glad that he had sent his address back to them so they would be able to get in touch with him if they needed him, and he had to admit, indeed, it felt sweet, hearing the news from home. He appreciated Claire taking the time to tell him all about her new horse.

There was another envelope that had come with the mail. He recognized Amy’s writing. Claire must have mailed it when she mailed her own letter. When he opened it, there was a hand-drawn picture of what was unmistakably Claire’s house. Morning glories climbed up one side and a little girl sat in a wheelchair on the porch with a big dog lying beside her.

Inside was another Amy poem. It was the longest one he had ever known her to write.

Come Back Home

We long to see your face again,

To hear your voice and hold your hand.

Memories of you we hold so dear,

So come back home. We love you here!

I’m proud at the courage you have

To risk your life for another man

But please come home now, we need you here

Where friends and family love you so dear.

I’m sorry to see the path you chose.

Just know, the doors of home will never close.

Won’t you please turn around and come back home?

Here with God, family, and friends—

Where you’ll never be alone.

It took several deep breaths before he could steel himself to put that one away in a drawer. He sincerely doubted that anyone in Washington cared enough to write him a poem
like that. Or send him a letter telling him about the antics of a crazy-smart horse they were enjoying. Or if he got sick, or disappeared, would anyone even particularly care one way or another? Not when there were at least a two hundred other excellent, well-trained pilots on a waiting list hoping to take his slot.

He considered writing Claire and Amy back immediately but couldn’t face it. Not right now. He would have to wait for a moment when he could make himself match the tone of Claire’s cheerful note, and Amy’s poem sounded so forlorn, he had no idea how to respond. That picture of a little girl in a wheelchair—that child surely did know how to tug on his heartstrings.

He microwaved a TV dinner and did something he despised himself for: he watched a sitcom just for the company. He had never been so homesick in his life.

C
laire was sitting on the porch gripping a bucket of freshly picked green beans between her knees. There was a bucket for discards on one side of her and a large cooking pot on the other. Before the end of the day, she would have another shelf of beans to feed her family. In the past, this sort of activity had always given her enjoyment. Today, she was feeling hurt and mad. She snapped handful after handful of beans in half, discarding any diseased ones, taking her anger at herself out on them.

It had been several days and Tom had not responded to her letter. She should never have sent it. She had worked entirely too hard to hit just the right note of cheerfulness, and he’d probably seen right through her pitiful attempt to pretend she did not miss him.

She had no idea what Amy had written him. That card was the first she had ever made that she had not shown her. It had already been sealed, addressed, and stamped before she handed it to her to mail.

Sarah sat on the floor in front of her with her own small pile of green beans, and Claire noticed that her actions exactly matched hers as the little girl snapped the beans and then threw them on the floor.

“Here.” Claire moved the pot closer to her daughter and tried to stop her own jerky movements. “Toss them in here. You are a good helper.”

She was angry at herself for another reason, as well. What had she expected to happen between her and Tom, anyway? Why couldn’t she have been wise enough to protect her heart? And the hearts of her children. She was old enough to know better.

Inside, Maddy was singing one of her interminable praise songs that she was learning at the New Order youth singings. Annette, her driver, who attended a nearby Christian church, had recently called it a “seven-eleven” song. When Claire asked why, Annette had laughed and said that most of them had seven words sung over and over about eleven times.

Claire had thought Maddy’s enthusiasm for her new religion would wear off, but it hadn’t. If anything, Maddy was even more involved in Joy’s church now than she was at the beginning. Claire did not feel a bit good about herself for being so annoyed with it all.

But then, she’d been annoyed with just about everything since Tom left. Oh, allowing him to live in Levi’s apartment had been a mistake in so many, many ways! Last week, without her approval or knowledge, Jesse managed to get his hands on a plastic helicopter model set. He’d found it at a local garage sale and she hadn’t known a thing until she followed the smell of airplane glue and found a half-finished model hidden beneath his bed.

With school dismissed for the summer, Albert had become the go-between with her family and Jeremiah. It was Albert who carried fresh loaves of bread, or extra fried chicken, or an occasional jar of tapioca pudding. There had never been anything but kind feelings between her and Jeremiah, and because he had lost a son, she knew he must understand her
decision to become Old Order Amish in order to be able to fellowship with hers.

“Maam!”
Albert came running back down the road. “There is something wrong with Levi’s grandpa! He cannot speak!”

Every other thought went out of her head as she ran toward Jeremiah’s.

•   •   •

Finding Tom’s cell phone number was not a problem. He had written it alongside his address when he’d sent it to her. Getting him to answer that cell phone was another thing altogether. She left message after message. It took two weeks for him to respond. By that time, she was completely disgusted with him. She knew he was busy and important, but this was his father!

“How is he?” Tom asked the minute she answered the phone. She had been outside in her garden when it had begun to ring in her phone shanty. He did not apologize, explain, or even say hello.

“A little better. The stroke was bad, but he is a strong one and is holding his own.”

“What is happening? Who is with him?”

“Faye was here for the first few days. Right now it’s just nurses. Some people from church have come. Bishop Weaver asked me to stop in. Levi has gone in spite of Weaver telling him not to. Faye will be back next week, and Ephraim is coming with her. They are planning to make arrangements to auction off the farm and the contents of the house, and then they are moving him down with them.”

A curse word came over the phone, followed by an immediate apology.

“I’m so sorry, Claire. The mission we were on was so top
secret, we weren’t allowed personal phones. Mine was here in the apartment.”

“Where have you been?”

“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry, Claire, but I just can’t. We’re heading out again—soon. I can’t tell you when over the phone—or where. It involves national security and . . .”

Oh, how important that one was! Too important to come home to see his father. Too important to stop his father’s home from being sold to the highest bidder. Tom had been right about Jeremiah’s son-in-law. Ephraim was circling that farm like a vulture, and Faye was too weak-willed to stop him. Only one person could stop him, and that was Tom, who had just let her know that he would not be coming home.

She no longer had any desire to talk to Tom Miller. She did something that she had never done in her life. She hung up.

When the phone began to ring again, she ignored it while she finished hoeing her vegetable garden.

•   •   •

It took a week to wrap everything up and go home. During that week, he kept tabs on his father by periodically calling the hospital to check on his status, and he had done more soul-searching than he had ever done in his life. The result of all that soul-searching was that once he went home, he would not be coming back to Washington.

It was not his father’s stroke alone that was pulling him there, nor was it Claire—although both weighed heavily on his mind—but he had forced himself to face the facts. He was no longer the pilot he had once been. No one knew that but him, but a time would come when it would be apparent. He’d lost heart for the profession he’d once loved.

His country deserved to have the best pilots in the world protecting their president, and he could no longer claim that
status. Not when all he could think about was the people he loved back in Mt. Hope, Ohio.

He was a Marine. He had sworn to protect the country from any and all dangers. It was one of the toughest things he had ever had to admit, but he had taken a good hard look at himself and faced the fact that he had become the danger from which he needed to protect his country. He should no longer be at the controls of
Marine One
. He was a good pilot, but he was no longer the best.

As he drove home, he made plans, devised actions, and organized everything in his mind in order of priority.

•   •   •

The first thing he did upon arriving in Holmes County Friday morning was to go see his father in the hospital.

Jeremiah was sleeping, but the nurse informed him that his condition had improved to the point that there was a good chance he would be going home when the doctor came in this morning. He would get to go back to his house with his daughter and son-in-law.

The next thing on his list was a visit to Bishop Ezra Weaver. After he got that out of the way, he would be free to go see Claire for a few minutes.

He had been to Ezra’s farm many times over the years, usually whenever the bishop and his wife hosted church. Like most Swartzentruber homes, it looked run-down and the yard was scraggly. It would never do for the bishop to appear proud.

Today, there was an interestingly happy scenario on the porch. He found the bishop and his wife sitting on the porch, each with a chubby, brown baby on their laps, and they were smiling. He did not remember ever having seen the bishop smile . . .

“Hello,” he said as he walked through the long grass to their house. “My name is Tom Miller. I’m the one who drove your daughter to the hospital.”

“Did I ever thank you for that?” Bishop Weaver said.

“There was no need,” Tom said. “I was glad to be able to help. It’s good to see the babies are thriving.”

The bishop’s wife’s face lit up when he mentioned the babies. “They are such good children!” she said.

“And beautiful,” Tom ventured.

Instead of correcting him, the bishop smoothed the curly hair of the little boy on his lap. “I’m afraid most grandparents are a little prejudiced when it comes to our grandchildren, but Mary and I do believe they are exceptionally fine-looking children. Healthy and smart, too! This one here sat up all by himself the other day, and his sister said
Grohs Dawdi
the other day.”

Mary laughed. “I am of the opinion that it was gas, but Ezra is quite certain she called him Grandfather.”

“I am grateful our daughter wanted to bring them to us,” Bishop Weaver said. “Even though the circumstances were regrettable.”

“God can make triumph out of tragedy.” Tom repeated something he’d heard come from his father’s mouth so many times.

“That is true,” the bishop said. “What brings you to our home, Tom?”