Reflection (26 page)

Rachel nodded at the name of one of their high school classmates.

“They altered his medical record to make it look like he had a bad knee. They fixed Darren Wise's record so it looked like he had high blood pressure, and they gave him pills to take before his physical to make sure his B.P. would be consistent with his records.”

In spite of her shock, Rachel couldn't help laughing. “So that was their terrible crime,” she said. “That was why my parents turned their backs on them.” She could imagine her father's outrage over her grandparents' blatant disregard for the laws of their country as they struggled to save young men from the fate Luke had suffered.

“Why didn't they help Luke?” she asked.

“They would have, willingly, but he wasn't interested. I dragged him over to their house one time, and he was disgusted by the scam. He felt it was his duty to fight. He told me I was taking the coward's way out.” Michael's voice broke slightly on the last word, and Rachel reached across the table to cover his hand with her own.

He drew his hand away from under hers, slowly but deliberately, and for a moment neither of them spoke.

Rachel blinked back tears. She shouldn't have touched him. Not with Marge sitting right across the aisle from them.

“Oh, Rache,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

She felt the twist in her heart and shook her head. She didn't want to cry here.

Michael leaned forward. “I've been doing a lot of thinking and praying,” he said. “A lot of soul-searching. I'm coming to understand some things that are hard for me to face up to.”

“Like what?” Her voice came out in a whisper.

“I thought I'd turned to faith as a way to deal with Luke's death, and the loss of the children, and all those things that didn't make sense and hurt too badly to live with. Katy and the church made me feel safe and settled and forgiven. I thought I'd found answers, but I realize now that what I actually found was a way to…escape.” He looked out the window. The Mennonite church stood less than a block away, its steeple piercing the night sky. “I'm so insulated now,” he continued. “I'm insulated from everything that can cause me a moment's unrest. It was so hard not acting on my feelings for you back in the Peace Corps. A terrible moral dilemma for me. Well, now I'm very protected from having to make moral decisions. The rules and constraints on me are very clear, and I thought I was way beyond temptation. But then here comes Rachel, like a test.”

“I don't want to be viewed that way, Michael.” She was not certain if it was hurt or anger she felt over the use of the word ‘test'. “It makes me into an object—the evil seductress—instead of an old friend who cares about you. Who wants only good things for you.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes warm behind his glasses. “You're right,” he said. “I keep doing this, don't I? I keep looking for a nice, neat way to understand my life. If you're a test, then I can resist you. If you're just a good and caring friend, it makes it harder.”

She smiled. “You make it sound like you're the only one with a moral code. I've got one, too, you know. It's not elaborate and complicated. It's very simple: I would never move in on another woman's man. All right?”

He laughed. “I'm making this more difficult than it has to be, is that what you're saying?” He put a few bills on the table and stood up, nodding to her to join him.

They walked in a comfortable silence to her car, but she knew better than to give him a hug before getting in. Still, once she was in the car and watching him walk down the road, she felt the tightening in her belly and all the other shades of desire she'd been fighting all week. How easily that old feeling of guilt-edged longing could be brought to life again. Maybe this
was
a test after all.

HELEN WAS SITTING AT
the piano, picking out the melody of a song with her good hand, when she heard Rachel's car in the driveway. She abandoned the piano and sat down on the ivy-upholstered sofa, opening a book on her lap. It was a minute before she heard the car door slam, another before she heard her granddaughter's footsteps on the porch.

“Have a good time?” she asked as Rachel walked in the door.

“I can't believe Mom and Dad kept me away from you just because you were helping guys beat the draft.” Rachel dropped into a chair.

Helen smiled. So Michael had told her. “Well, I guess what we were doing seemed like a terrible thing to your parents. It would have seemed like a terrible thing to a lot of people, had they known. Your mother and father thought they were putting you in jeopardy by letting you spend time with us. Besides, we always had a house full of boys. They wouldn't want you over here.” She told herself she wasn't lying. Those were the reasons for the estrangement. At least in part.

Rachel looked toward the empty fireplace, and Helen turned her book facedown on her knee. There was hurt in her granddaughter's face. After all this time.

“We thought we were doing something that was very important,” Helen said. “Very necessary. I would never have given up the ability to have my granddaughter in my life if I didn't think what I was doing was critical.”

Rachel nodded. “I understand.”

“It was a difficult period of my life.” Helen raised her hand in the air and discovered it was trembling. She lowered it quickly to her lap. “I thought John—your father—would get over it. I never thought he'd cut you out of our lives for good. Forgive me, Rachel.”

“I don't think there's anything to forgive. It was just unfortunate. But I'm glad you did what you did. I'm proud of you for that.”

Helen was touched. “We felt good about it,” she said. “We were taking action instead of sitting around complaining.” She smiled to herself. “Peter got himself arrested a few times,” she said.

“Really?” Rachel nearly smiled. “And how about you?”

“Only one time for me.” She set her book on the end table, folded her hands in her lap. “So,” she said, “I didn't know you were going to see Michael tonight.”

“No, neither did I. We bumped into each other in town and went out for a cup of coffee. Oh! Guess what?”

“What?”

“Michael and I are taking you to Washington, D.C. on the nineteenth to hear the symphony perform an all-Huber concert.”

It took a moment for Helen to absorb what Rachel was saying. “An all-Huber concert?” she repeated.

“Yes. They're doing
Patchwork
and
Lionheart
and the Second Concerto. What do you think?”

“Who?” Helen leaned forward. “Who's doing it?”

“The National Symphony.”

“No. I mean who's the pianist?” She held her breath.

“Oh. It's Speicer, I think. Karl Speicer.”

The living room did a delicate spin, and Helen clutched the arm of the sofa. Rachel was immediately on her feet, dropping to her knees in front of her.

“Are you all right, Gram?”

The room snapped back into place, but her no-longer-trustworthy heart was beating hard against her ribs. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I'm all right. But the date. The date of the concert. I'm not sure it's going to work out.”

Rachel frowned, leaning back on her heels. “Do you have other plans?”

Helen shook her head.

“Don't you want to go, Gram? We thought it sounded like something you'd enjoy.”

Yes, she wanted to go. She just didn't know if she could survive the pain of being in that audience. She nodded weakly, resting her hand on her granddaughter's arm. “We'll go,” she said. “And you're right. It's a wonderful idea.”

LILY LEANED AGAINST HER
van where it was parked in front of Hairlights. She sipped the coffee she'd brought from home as she waited for Rachel. It was six in the morning, and the new sun cast a pinkish glow on the small buildings and deserted streets of Reflection.

Rachel had brought Helen into Hairlights the day before to have Marge cut her hair. Lily chatted with them about the farmers' market held on Thursday mornings near Leola, and when Rachel expressed interest in going, Lily suggested they go together this morning. There were those who thought she was crazy. Notably Marge and Polly and CeeCee. And she herself was not sure whether her attraction to Rachel was pure or perverse. Given the facts of history, Lily should want to avoid the woman. Yet she felt drawn to her.

Rachel had talked about the aerobics class while Helen was getting her hair cut. The class was great, she'd said, just what she needed. Rachel truly seemed unaware of the stir her presence in the class had created, and the resentment. Lily had heard that Ellie Ryan had even dropped out. But then, Ellie was a notorious hysteric, a prima donna. She hadn't even lived in Reflection back when everything happened. But she did attend the Mennonite church, and Lily guessed that was the real source of Ellie's discomfort with Rachel Huber.

There were rumors about Rachel and Michael, more each day. They'd been fairly gentle rumors at first. Someone had seen them together at Spring Willow Pond. Someone else had seen them riding their bikes. Nothing sordid. But in the last day or so there had been a notable burst in both quantity and tenor.

Marge said she'd seen them together in the Brahms Cafe Monday night. “They are in love,” Marge said with typical Marge-like certainty. “They were in a deep—very deep—conversation, unaware of anything around them. At one point, she was crying.” Coming from Marge, the story had to be taken with a grain of salt. Marge could make a soap opera out of Sesame Street. But the rumors made Lily squirm nonetheless.

She was worried about Michael. She'd told Ian that she wished Michael were not human. Ian, of course, completely understood her meaning, although she doubted anyone else would have. All she meant was that she
needed
Michael. She needed him as her minister. The church needed him, and the community needed him. And so the fact that he was vulnerable, fallible—that he was mortal—frightened her, now more than ever. If he was indeed spending time with Rachel, as he appeared to be, the danger was real. Rachel was the warm, cuddly type. You just had to watch her for half a second to know that. You just had to see her brush a strand of her grandmother's hair from her cheek, or see the gratitude in her eyes when Helen explained that it had been Polly's veterinarian father who had found her lying, lightning-struck, in her garden the night of the Fourth of July. Rachel had touched Polly's arm then, and Lily grinned at the love-hate war she saw going on inside her business partner.

Rachel Huber had warmth to spare, and Katy Stoltz was as cold as Spring Willow Pond in the dead of winter. And very absent. In a different world, Lily would have loved to see Michael and Rachel together; in the real world, though, the cost would be too great for all of them.

Michael's sermon on Sunday had been about forgiveness. It was one of his best, she thought. Ian said it was magic, his highest compliment. But everyone knew what Michael was really saying behind his soulful delivery of parables and Scripture. Everyone knew he was talking about Rachel and Reflection, and Lily felt the congregation tighten up as the sermon progressed. Not everyone thought it was magic.

She saw Rachel turn the corner by the bank building, and she waved.

“I feel sorry for all the people who are still in their beds and missing out on this.” Rachel called out. She raised her arms to encompass all of the town in its pink-and-gold early-morning glory.

“I know what you mean,” Lily said. “This is my favorite time of day.” She reached through the van window and pulled out a thermos. “I brought extra coffee. Want some?”

“I'd love it,” Rachel said.

Lily poured the coffee into a plastic mug and handed it to her.

“I've got a little addiction,” Lily admitted as she poured a second cup for herself.

“Oh, well. As vices go, you could do worse.”

They got into the van, and Lily apologized for the dog odor, if there was any. She doubted her ability to tell anymore.

“I probably wouldn't notice if there were, either,” Rachel said. “Eau de Rover's the customary scent at my house.”

“You'll have to come to the charity show I'm working on for the ASPCA,” Lily said.

“When's that?”

“The twenty-fifth. I'm working on some dog acts, and Ian's going to do his magic. It'll be tons of fun.”

“Sounds like it,” Rachel said.

They rode in silence past the Amish-Mennonite cemetery. Lily threw a quick glance in the direction of Jenny's tree-shaded grave, as she always did when she drove by, and Rachel suddenly asked, “What do you think would happen if I went to see Marielle Hostetter? Talked to her about the land?”

Lily laughed. “You'd be wasting your time.”

“Maybe,” Rachel said with a shrug. “Couldn't hurt, though.”

Lily didn't argue with her, although she couldn't imagine how anything could be gained by talking with Marielle.

She turned at the next intersection and, with the cemetery safely behind them, shifted the conversation back to dogs and the ASPCA show for the rest of the drive.

The farmers' market was bustling, as usual. They parked in the huge dirt lot and walked toward the stands. The market was half inside a huge warehouse and half outside. Lily and Rachel walked among the outside tables laden with fruits and flowers, vegetables and breads and jellies.

“Meats and cheese are inside,” Lily said.

“It's overwhelming,” Rachel said, clearly pleased. “I wish we had something like this where I live.”

The market was usually a social event for Lily, a chance for her to catch up on the lives of her friends and neighbors. The vendors would tease her, chat with her, pester her to buy their produce. But today was different, and Lily knew it was because of the company she was keeping. There was no denying it. She felt the coolness like a chill in the air, slipping around her shoulders, making her shiver. The only saving grace was that Rachel seemed oblivious to it all. She moved from stand to stand with a smile on her face, a greeting for everyone, accepting the stoic responses of the vendors in return. She didn't know any better.