Love Redeemed (17 page)

“How can she be expecting me when I only just agreed to come?”

“We talked about it and we prayed about it and she said to go fetch you.”

“You talked about me?
Fetch
me?”

“As a favor to me, your friend, please just hear her out.”

Filled with that same awful, resentful, stubborn feeling that had weighed her down for weeks, Phoebe climbed from the buggy. “Where will you go?”

“For a nice ride. I might stop by and see Molly for a bit. She misses you, you know.”

“I don't want—”

“There you are! Phoebe, I'm so glad you could come for a visit.” Irene propped the screen door open with one hand and stuck her head out. “Come on in. I have a fresh pitcher of peppermint tea ready to be iced.”

Glowering at Rachel one last time, Phoebe pasted what she hoped passed for a smile on her face and tromped up the steps into Daniel's house.

“Let's go in the kitchen. I've got all the windows and the doors open, plus peppermint tea. Peppermint tea makes you feel cooler, doesn't it, when it's iced? Something about the mint.” Irene bustled through the house, the same bundle of energy Phoebe was used to seeing in Daniel. “The baby's asleep and the older boys went fishing with my husband. I'm hoping for catfish for supper. Adah's working. The little girls are playing with their dolls outside while Abram practices harnessing the Shetland. He's sure Ben will let him drive the buggy any day now. He's seven, so I guess it won't be long. Anyway, we'll have a few minutes to ourselves.”

Phoebe couldn't imagine why they needed a few minutes to themselves, but she accepted the glass of tea, thankful for the chunks of ice
Irene broke off with an ice pick and deposited in the tall glass. She settled into a wooden chair at the pine prep table and waited to see why she was here in this woman's kitchen.

Irene didn't seem to be in any hurry. As she laid chocolate chip cookies on a plate of thick white china and brought them to the table, she chatted on about the drought and her garden and the critters that kept running off with her chickens. Phoebe sipped the tea and let the words roll over her. Irene Knepp had the same soft brown eyes as Daniel and skin that tanned brown, never turning red with sunburn. She talked with her hands, almost spilling her tea, such was her animation. She seemed as nervous as Phoebe felt. She tried to relax and picked up a cookie. Her stomach settled. Irene didn't seem to have any interest in talking about the recent events. Whatever reason Rachel had for thinking Phoebe should visit with Irene, she couldn't see it.

“Did you know I had a baby who died?”

Phoebe inhaled too soon and the bite of cookie in her mouth lodged in her throat. She coughed and sputtered.

“Oh, dear.” Irene popped out of her chair, rushed around behind Phoebe, and began to smack her on the back. “Are you all right?”

Phoebe grabbed her glass and gulped down tea. Tears in her eyes, she coughed and cleared her throat. “I'm fine. I'm fine.”

Irene returned to her chair. Her somber gaze studied Phoebe. “Did you know I lost a baby?”

“Nee.” The word came out hoarse. She didn't want to know more. She didn't need to know more. “I never heard.”

“It was before you were born. Before Daniel. It was my fault.” Irene dipped her finger in the condensation pooling at the base of her glass. She drew circles around and around the glass. “I tried to save her, but she died.”

She. A baby girl. Phoebe laid the cookie on her napkin and swallowed, concentrating all her effort on not running from the house. “How?”

“Fire.” Irene met her gaze head on. Phoebe saw old scars in her eyes, but she saw something else too. Peace. How did one find that peace? “A fire I set.”

“I don't understand.”

“Neither do I.” Irene broke her cookie in half and raised the smaller piece to her mouth. Then she set it back on the plate. Her gaze lifted over Phoebe as if she were looking into some other, faraway place. “I'll never know exactly what happened.”

Her gaze came back to Phoebe. “Ruthie was six weeks old. She had been sick. She had a terrible cough. We both did. I don't know if I caught her cold or she caught mine. I'd been up with her two or three nights running. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept. All those hours of boiling water and making steam so she could breathe and sleep. She'd try to nurse but she couldn't because her nose was stopped up. Then she'd cry because she was hungry, which made the congestion worse. I didn't know what to do. I was new at being a mudder and I was tuckered out. Completely tuckered out.”

Her fingers brushed the cookie crumbs into small piles. “It was cold that morning. Ben went out to do his chores. Menno Weaver came by and said the wind had blown some of the roof off their shed and could Ben come help him fix it. So he went.

“We'd only been married a year. I wanted him to go. I wanted him to know I could hold up my end as his fraa, but I felt like I was sleepwalking. Ruthie fussed and fussed and fussed. I laid her in the cradle and started a fire in the fireplace. It was late November and it was cold. I remember being so cold.”

Her voice, never loud to begin with, softened. Despite herself, Phoebe leaned in, straining to hear. She didn't want to know this story, but she couldn't help herself. What had been started had to be finished. She knew how it would end. What it would feel like. She let Irene continue toward an end that couldn't be avoided, no matter how hard either of them tried.

Irene shivered despite the humid, heavy air in the kitchen. She ran her hands over her arms as if she could still feel the cold of that long-ago day. “I went into the kitchen to start the stew. I remember sitting down at the table to chop the vegetables. I remember thinking I would just lay my head down for a minute. Just a minute or two. The next thing I know I feel heat and smell wood burning and smoke is billowing into
the kitchen from the front room. I jumped up from the table, but I couldn't think, I couldn't think. What had I done? What had I done?”

She breathed, a ragged hiccup, paused, breathed again.

“I ran toward the front room, but flames were everywhere. Smoke. Black, ugly smoke filled the room. Somehow, when I started the fire, I didn't stack the wood right. A log must've fallen out and caught the rug on fire.” Irene stared at Phoebe as if she needed her confirmation as to what had happened in that house all those years ago. “I tried to smother the flames with a towel, but it was too late. It had spread to the curtains and the pillows and my sewing and the piles of laundry I hadn't taken up the stairs yet. I grabbed Ruthie from her cradle. Her little arms and legs were limp. She didn't fuss anymore. She didn't cough. She didn't cry.”

Irene swallowed and leaned back from the table. Her fingers trembled as she withdrew them into her lap where she clasped them, stilling their trembling. “I'm sorry. I haven't talked about this in a long, long time.”

“Why are you…” Phoebe cleared her throat. She didn't want to know about this. She didn't need to know about this. “Why are you telling me now?”

“The flames never touched her. She was still herself with her little round face and chubby fingers. The doctor said it was the smoke. He said her lungs were compromised—that's the word he used—by her sickness. She had pneumonia. And we didn't even know it. I thought it was a cold, just a bad cold.”

“How did you…” Phoebe couldn't put words to it. How did she live with herself? How did she sit here now with Daniel's little brothers and sisters playing in the backyard? How could there even be a Daniel or the other Knepp children after what happened with the first one? “How could you…”

“Grace.” Irene gave her a tremulous smile. “God's grace and Ben's grace. My husband carried me through it. We lost everything. By the time the volunteer fire trucks got there, the house was gone. Ben arrived home to find me sitting on the ground in front of the smoldering ashes of our home, our daughter dead in my arms.”

“And he forgave you?”

“He dropped to his knees and thanked God his fraa had survived.” Irene sounded amazed at this fact even after all these years. “Right there in front of me. Then he took our baby daughter in his arms and he cried. It's the only time I've ever seen him cry.”

“And then he forgave you.”

“Jah. He said our gift from God was back with her Heavenly Father where she belonged.” Irene stood. Her joints cracked and for the first time, she looked old. She swayed and steadied herself with one hand on the table. “Together we rebuilt our home with the help of our friends and family. Jah, there were plenty who looked at me like I was a bad mudder, a bad person. I saw it in their eyes at the prayer services and when I went into town to buy supplies. I saw it in my own relatives' eyes, but I learned to accept the words of our bishop, who told me God forgives and gives each of us second and third and fourth chances because He loves us so much and He wants us to be with Him. He's not looking for a reason to shut us out, He's looking for a reason to let us into His kingdom.”

“How long did it take you to get over it?”

“You never get over losing a child, Phoebe. You only learn to go on. But you
do
go on.” Irene gazed out the kitchen windows, lost in the memories that still had the power to hurt. “Your parents will learn. They will learn to appreciate the gift of the years God gave them with Lydia. They'll learn to think of the joy she gave them in those short years. They'll learn to think of her when the sun is shining and when the first snowflakes of winter fall and they'll learn to think of her when they see a newborn foal with its mother.”

Would they learn to look at Phoebe without seeing her terrible mistake? “Weren't you afraid of having more children?”

“Terrified.” Irene's smile held no mirth. “I didn't want more. I fought it. I kept Ben at arm's length until I realized how much it hurt him. He needed the comfort of his fraa. I couldn't withhold that from him.”

“I don't think I could have a baby after that.” Or having caused the death of a sister, however accidental. “I'd be too afraid.”

She was too afraid now.
Be good. Be good.

“That's what I thought until I held Hiram in my arms. God's gift to me of a new start. It's true I watched over him like a hawk. I was afraid to sleep at night for fear something would happen to him.” She pointed to the ceiling and the smoke alarm in one corner. “We have smoke alarms in every room. Some folks might say that shows a lack of faith in God's plan for our kinner, but I think God wants us to be good stewards of the blessings He gives us, including the kinner. The alarms are battery operated. Some man came around trying to sell the Plain folks fire alarms that don't take batteries, but Ben just waved him off. The fire had to melt the metal before the clapper went off. Battery-operated smoke alarms are just fine.”

The same salesman had visited Phoebe's house and gotten the same response, but Irene went on before Phoebe could speak. “Day by day I learned to trust in God, to have faith that whatever happened, I would be fine in the arms of God.”

“You'd be fine if something happened to one of your other kinner?”

“I would mourn and grieve, just as you're doing now, but I would have God to cling to.” She touched Phoebe's hand, a brief, warm touch. “Like Luke said at the funeral, life comes with an end. We don't know when that will be. Only God does. The day of reckoning could be a second or two away for any one of us. So we have to be ready now and make our peace now.”

Make peace. Phoebe tried to imagine her parents asking her forgiveness for leaving that day. Daed to go fishing. Mudder to fetch medicine for her arthritis. They owed her nothing. Michael? Jah, he'd convinced her to go into the woods, but she'd gone of her own free will, knowing she had a responsibility at the campground. She and Michael shared equally in the blame.

“God gave us free will, knowing full well, sometimes we would choose wrong.” It was as if Irene knew the welter of emotion and confusion that reigned in Phoebe's head. “All He wants is for us to choose Him, knowing what we know. Choosing Him in the middle of the messes we make—that's faith.”

“I don't know.” Phoebe bit the inside of her cheek, trying to ward off the tears that lived on the edge, ready to fall, every waking minute
of her day. She couldn't tell Irene what she really feared. She feared God had abandoned her. Fed up, irritated, irked, at His wit's end, He'd finally given up on her. “I don't know how I can.”

“All you have to do is choose Him and then hang on for dear life.” Irene brought the pitcher to the table and poured them each some more tea. “Eat your cookie. You're skinnier than a stray cat.”

“What happened to me is different from what happened to you.”

“It didn't happen to you. It happened to your sister.” Irene's face was kind despite the sting in her words. “I know it feels like it happened to you, but it didn't. You get to go on with your life. You have this life to offer up. What you do with it is up to you. My Ruthie didn't get to grow up, but I had a chance to make a family and raise other children to love their Lord God. Lydia won't grow up, but you will. My advice? Don't squander the chance to live a godly life.”

“What chance? The man I…the man I thought…the man who…he…I turned him away at the funeral and I haven't seen him since. My little sister doesn't talk, she doesn't eat, she won't play with the baby, she's barely breathing. My mudder and daed are hardly any better. As much as they say it's all right, as much as they try to forgive me, it's killing them.”

“It only seems like it.”

“You've had years to get over it.”

“True. I used to walk down the street in Bliss Creek sure every person I passed was looking at me with accusing eyes, thinking I was a baby murderer at worst, a terrible, careless mudder at best. I'm just hoping you won't spend as much time feeling sorry for yourself as I did.”