Love’s Journey Home (43 page)

A gust of wind brought with it the first enormous drops of rain. They were warm and
held none of the refreshing coolness he associated with rain showers in the fall.
Never mind. It hadn’t rained since the Fourth of July holiday. Its arrival should
be counted as one of this day’s blessings. From a bountiful God. This errand wouldn’t
take long. “Come on, Bess, let’s get this over with and get to work.”

The horse picked up her pace. The rain came down harder. Irritation crawled up Gabriel’s
neck, already damp with sweat. Seth needed to be more responsible. Gabriel should
probably leave his lunch and let Seth learn from his carelessness. No. He couldn’t
bear the thought of the boy, who’d grown three inches over the summer, going hungry.
Of course the other children would share with him, but Gabriel didn’t want them giving
up their food either.

Why was he obsessing over this? Because it kept him from thinking about other things.
Like the decision to stay in Bliss Creek. He had decided. In the middle of the night,
when sleep wouldn’t come and he’d grown tired of staring into the darkness and seeing
nothing but question marks hanging over him, he’d finally admitted it to himself.
He wanted to stay. He argued with himself that he wanted to stay because he didn’t
want to uproot the family again. But the truth was that he wanted to stay and he wanted
Helen Crouch to stay.

“Giddy up, girl!” Lightning crackled overhead, now too close for comfort. Gabriel
ducked, a reflex that made him chuckle aloud even though nothing about this situation
truly amused him. Thunder boomed and Bess nickered, a high, nervous sound whipped
and carried away by a wind now so strong that it knocked Gabriel’s hat from his head
and launched it into the back of the buggy.

Rain pounded his face. Turn back or carry on? Gabriel searched the sky. No roiling
clouds that signaled the formation of a funnel. Only blackness, thick and heavy as
molasses. Day had turned to night. His clothes were already soaked. No point in turning
back. He carried on, the strength of the wind taking his breath away. He wanted his
hat back. The rain slid from vertical to horizontal, smacking his face like a swarm
of stinging bees. Gabriel wiped at his eyes, trying to clear his vision. “Come on,
Bess, come on,” he shouted over the roar of the wind in his ears. “We’re almost there.”

The schoolhouse came into sight. It seemed to take hours to race across the last five
hundred yards. He needed cover for the horse and buggy. Having no barn meant leaving
them exposed to the fierce rain and wind. He settled for securing both on the east
side of the school where the building blocked a little of the westerly gale. “Sorry,
girl!” He patted the horse’s flank. “I hate to leave you out here, but I have no choice.”

Bent almost double, he fought his way around the corner. The wind knocked him back.
He wrapped his arms around the lunchbox and clutched it to his middle. Rain and hail
pelted him in a blistering fury.
Lord, have mercy
.

Hunched over, Gabriel climbed the steps and pushed the door open. It flew back and
smacked against the wall. One of the little girls in the front row screamed.

“Hush, Ruth Ann.” Bethel scurried across the room. “Gabriel! Let me help you with
the door.”

Together, they managed to propel it away from the wall. It took their combined weight,
but it finally clanged shut. Bethel leaned against it. “Whatever brings you out here
in this weather?” She gasped as she readjusted her kapp. “Surely, whatever it is could’ve
waited.”

“This.” Gabriel held up Seth’s lunchbox. “Seth left home without it.”

“
Ach
, no!” Bethel shook her head and laughed. “I suspect you aren’t real happy about his
timing on that.”

Grinning despite himself, Gabriel wiped at his face with a sodden sleeve. The children,
arranged like stepping stones from smallest to largest, front to back, sat quietly,
watching, their faces shining in the light of lanterns and candles that had been lighted
when day turned to night, he imagined. Gabriel sought out Seth, seated toward the
middle of the dozen rows of desks. His son wore a sheepish look on his face. “Sorry,
Daed.”

“Sorry isn’t enough, son. You must be more responsible. I should be at the shop now,
working.”

“I’ll do better.”

“Should we go to the basement?” Bethel interrupted. “It was a heavy rain so I figured
it wasn’t a tornado.”

“It’s raining too hard for a tornado and there’s no bank of clouds that I could see.”
Gabriel walked to the window and looked out. It was so dark he couldn’t see anything,
but rain and hail pounded in a staccato on the roof. “I’m no expert. You probably
know more about the weather here than I do.”

“Just an end-of-summer storm, I reckon.”

All of a sudden the windows shattered. Wind ripped through the room, bringing with
it a blinding rain. Boards creaked, groaned, and ripped apart. Lunchboxes, lanterns,
books, and papers whipped through the air. Children shrieked, the sound like sirens
mingling with the wind. Gabriel felt himself lifted and propelled forward. He tried
to stagger toward the little girls. He wanted to give them cover, but he couldn’t
seem to control his arms and legs. The force of the wind captured him and held him
captive.

The seconds seemed to stretch and stretch. Rain beat down on them and the wind whirled
and snatched at things and hurled them about with all the fury of an unseen foe. Desks
flew. Chairs knocked into children. Seth. Where was Seth? Gabriel had to get to him.
“Seth!” He hollered, but the wind swept up the word and sent it dashing against the
black sky overhead. The whirling wind sucked all the air from the one-room schoolhouse
as the small building came apart at the seams.

Screaming filled the air around him. The wind picked Gabriel up like a rag doll and
smashed him against a wall. Seth flew past him and hit a desk, his body limp. Gabriel
landed on his back. He tried to roll to his side, determined to crawl to his son.
Hail and rain pelted him. Tree branches smacked him in the face. He pulled himself
forward on his hands and knees, broken glass and wood grinding into his palms. “Seth?
Seth!”

Something hard and heavy slammed into him.

Seth. Son
.

H
elen hurled herself from the buggy and tore across the uneven ground. She stumbled
and fell to her knees. Thaddeus grabbed her arm and dragged her up again. She scrambled
to keep up with her brother. His long legs ate up the distance that separated them
from knowing the fate of their children. His four. Her three. And all the others who
belonged to their friends and neighbors. Her brother had arrived at her doorstep with
a message spreading across the community. Powerful winds had ripped through the schoolhouse.
Wind shears, he called it. Took the roof right off. He didn’t know any more than that.
But it was enough. They had to go. Peter and Tobias had gone ahead.

Rain puddles soaked her shoes and the hem of her skirt. She lifted it and climbed
over a mammoth tree branch that lay across the road. Ahead, she saw the schoolhouse.
What once had been the schoolhouse. The building no longer existed. The force of the
winds had sheared off the roof and shattered the walls.
Lord, have mercy. God spare them
. She prayed the same words she’d prayed over and over again during a buggy ride that
had lasted a lifetime.

Ambulances and a fire truck parked at odd angles served as more obstacles. Buggies
filled the spaces in between. More parents poured in with the same terrible fear driving
them along the road. Helen dodged an EMT and ignored the warning of another to keep
back. She couldn’t take it in fast enough.

“Naomi? Betsy! Ginny!” The names stuck in her throat. Little Mary. Lillie. Gabriel’s
Seth. Thomas’s Rebecca and Eli. Luke and Leah’s William and Joseph. And on and on.
Each child a precious son or daughter of a friend.
Ach, Gott. Please
.

“Stop, ma’am. Stop! You can’t go in there.” An Englisch firefighter put a hand out.
“The building isn’t safe. What’s left of it may collapse.”

“My girls. My girls were in there!”

“We’re tending to all the children. Please stay back, ma’am.”

She tried to circumvent the barrier he created with his body and he stepped in front
of her once again. “Who did you have at school today?” He looked down at a clipboard
in his hand. “We’re making a list so we can account for all the children.”

She drew a shaky breath and gave him the names.

“Mudder, Mudder!”

She turned and Naomi scampered toward her. A long, red welt snaked across her forehead.
Mud stained her torn apron, but she looked whole. “Naomi, my girl.” Helen enveloped
her daughter in a hug that held them both up. “Betsy? Ginny?”

“Betsy’s fine. She doesn’t even have a scratch on her. She’s with Onkel Peter and
his boys. They’re fine too. Just banged up. With bruises and bumps.” The girl began
to cry, quiet sobs she tried to hold back with a hand over her mouth. “They have Ginny
over there in that first ambulance.”

Helen’s heart ceased to beat. Light-headed, she tried to move toward the ambulance,
but her legs wouldn’t cooperate. They’d gone soft. They collapsed underneath her.
The firefighter grabbed one arm, Naomi the other.

“She’s not dead, Mudder. The EMT says she’s unconscious.” Naomi’s grip tightened.
“She has some broken bones.”

Together they managed to make their way through the crowd. Helen saw Thomas and Emma
huddled over Eli and Rebecca. Both seemed to be in one piece.
Thank you, Gott
.

Beyond them stood Peter and his wife, Cynthia, who gathered around their flock like
protective mama and papa birds. Betsy looked up from her seat on a tree trunk, saw
Helen, and ran to her. Helen hugged her tight. “Stay here with Onkel and Aenti,” Helen
whispered in her daughter’s ear. “You’re safe here. I have to see to Ginny.”

The words caught in her throat.

“Teacher helped us stay down on the ground. I wanted to run, but she kept us under
the desks.” Betsy hopped up and down as she spoke. “The ambulance took her away. I
want to go with you to make sure she’s all right.”

“You have to stay here with your onkel. I’ll let you know how teacher is. I have to
go to Ginny.”

Frowning, Betsy sank down on the trunk. Cynthia patted her back. “We’ll take care
of her.”

Helen nodded her thanks and moved on.

Thaddeus waved at her. “Mine are fine. Yours?”

She nodded and waved back. They’d be fine.
Gott, let Ginny be fine
.

In the ambulance, the EMT bent over Ginny. She had a brace around her neck that dwarfed
her face. Either the wind had taken her kapp or the EMT had removed it. Her blond
hair feathered around a face so white and still. Helen tried to breathe. It would
do her child no good if she fainted. She inhaled and climbed into the ambulance. “Ma’am,
you can’t be in here.”

“This is my girl.” She knelt next to the stretcher. “Ginny. Ginny, girl. Can you hear
me?”

Ginny’s eyelids fluttered. She moaned. “Mudder?”

“You’re fine.” Helen glanced at the EMT. He nodded in confirmation. Helen stroked
Ginny’s arm with a gentle hand. “They’ll take you to the medical center and get you
fixed up in no time.”

The EMT motioned toward the open doors. Helen squeezed Ginny’s hand and forced herself
to let go. Outside the ambulance, a second EMT took a look at the welt on Naomi’s
face. “This is superficial. It’ll heal in no time,” he said. He pulled a tiny flashlight
from his pocket and flashed it in Naomi’s eyes. “Any pain? Did you hit your head?
Anything fall on you?”

“Another doctor already looked at me.” Naomi leaned on the ambulance bumper and wiped
at her face with a shaking hand. “She said I was fine. How’s Ginny? How’s my sister?”

The first EMT turned to Helen. “It looks like your daughter may have a broken clavicle
and fractured left arm. They’ll have to do X-rays at the clinic to confirm. She took
a blow to the head. I’m not sure if she fell on something or it fell on her, but she’s
got a lump on her noggin and she’ll have quite a headache for a few days.”

“But she’ll be okay?”

“They’ll want to determine if she has a head injury, a concussion.” He smiled at her.
“The docs at the medical center are good people. They’ll get her fixed up in no time.
You can ride in with her.”

“Naomi, you stay here with your onkels and Betsy.” Helen forced her voice to be steady
and strong. She needed Naomi to be steady and strong. “Go home with them. I’ll come
for you when I can.”

“I want to go with you.” She clung to Helen’s arm. “Can’t we all stay together?”

“I need you to be strong for Betsy.” Helen held the girl at arm’s length. “You’re
her big sister. She’ll be scared.”

“I’m scared.”

“The storm is over.”

“The wind screamed. It knocked us around.” Naomi shivered and wrapped her arms around
her middle. “It even knocked over Gabriel.”

“Gabriel?” Gabriel couldn’t have been at the school. Shouldn’t have been there. He
would be at his shop working. Surely, he was at the shop. “Why would he be at the
school?”