When Mercy Rains (12 page)

Alexa seemed to drink in his words. “He died when I was very young. All I really remember is that Mom cried a lot and I felt bad because she was so sad.”

Why hadn’t Suzy come home for her father’s memorial service? Or for anything else, for that matter? Indiana and Kansas were far apart, but not so far the distance couldn’t be traveled. She’d missed her father’s memorial service, her brother’s and sisters’ weddings, the birth of nieces and nephews, all events worthy of a visit home. He considered asking Alexa what had kept them away, but he didn’t want to be nosy.

She looked at the picture again and released a wistful sigh. “I wish I could have known him.”

Paul couldn’t hold back a question. “Hasn’t your mother told you about him?”

Alexa bit down on her lower lip, consternation creasing her face. For a while he thought she wouldn’t answer, but then she spoke in a rush. “Mom doesn’t like to talk about her life before she moved to Indiana. The few things she’s told me were shared with such apprehension, I almost felt guilty asking. I’d
hoped when we came here I’d learn everything about my family, but—” She stopped as abruptly as she’d started.

Holding up the locket, she offered a wobbly smile. “Thanks so much for finding this and showing me how to open it. I better go inside and wash the mud from my skirt before it sets in for good.” She sidestepped gingerly around the dog and then dashed off.

Pepper whined and rose, but Paul said, “Pepper, stay.” The dog lay down and rested her chin on her paws, staring after Alexa and twitching in eagerness to get up and follow. Paul stayed next to Pepper until Alexa disappeared around the corner of the house. Then he shook his finger at the dog. “Next time, behave yourself. No jumping on people.”

Pepper leaped up and batted the leg of Paul’s work trousers with one paw. He chuckled and gave her neck a scratch before turning toward the house. Pepper trotted alongside him, her tongue hanging from her mouth and her ears flopping. Paul frowned. Although he’d never been one to stick his nose into other people’s business, he couldn’t deny the desire to understand why Suzy had been so secretive about her past with her daughter and why she’d never come home. Yet at the same time he resisted uncovering the reason.

He wasn’t naive. What he and Suzy had done in the barn loft was wrong. His parents had lectured him about remaining pure because giving in to temptation once made it easier to give in a second time, and then a third. Had his indiscretion led Suzy down a path of promiscuity, which in turn caused her to hold her daughter away from her grandparents and other family members? If so, he needed to seek forgiveness for more than he’d imagined.

Suzanne

“All right, that’s enough.”

At her mother’s brusque statement, Suzanne arched backward and pressed her hands to the small of her back. After leaning over the bed and rubbing her
mother’s calves for the past half hour, she needed a back massage. And a hand massage—her fingers were cramping from working Mother’s muscles. She made a mental note to add
able to massage cramping muscles
to the list of qualifications for the replacement nurse.

“Isn’t it close to lunchtime by now?” Petulance laced Mother’s tone.

Suzanne silently prayed for patience as she checked her wristwatch. “It’s a little after eleven. You didn’t have much breakfast so we can have an early lunch if you like.”

“No, no, if I eat lunch early, I’ll want an early supper, and then I’ll be hungry at bedtime. I can’t eat at bedtime. I get heartburn.”

Suzanne already had heartburn.
Dear Father, how will I last two months?
But she smiled. “All right then. We’ll wait until Tanya gets back from town. Do you know what you’d like?”

“Yes.” Mother narrowed her gaze and stared fiercely at Suzanne. “I’d like to know how you have a daughter when, right now in Sommerfeld, your cousin Andrew and his wife are planning a wedding for the baby I thought you gave up for adoption.”

Her baby girl was getting married? So many feelings swept through her at Mother’s blunt announcement—regret for having given her baby away, desire to know her, fury at her mother for the demands she’d made twenty years ago—she couldn’t decide which took precedence.

“Alexa told me she turned nineteen on the third of December. The same birthday as Andrew and Livvy’s Anna-Grace.” With each statement, Mother’s voice grew softer in volume yet harsher in tone. She nearly grated out a question. “So what I want is to know, is Anna-Grace your daughter or not?”

An acidic taste flooded Suzanne’s mouth. She swallowed. “Yes, Mother.”

“Then how do you also have a daughter with you?” Mother pressed her palms to the mattress and sat upright.

Suzanne’s answer came easily, the words having been uttered to Alexa countless times as assurance of her place in the world. “God gifted me with Alexa.”

Mother’s eyes widened. “Twins?”

Suzanne closed her eyes for a moment, gathering strength. Then she turned a pleading look on her mother. “In all honesty, this conversation is pointless. Discussing something that happened twenty years ago doesn’t change a thing. I did what you asked me to do—I gave Andrew and Olivia the chance to be parents. Can’t you simply accept Alexa’s presence with me and let it go?”

For long seconds Mother stared into Suzanne’s face, her expression unreadable. Then she released a noisy huff and tossed her covers aside. “I want out of this bed. It’s ridiculous for me to have to stay here all day just because I had a little fainting spell. I’ve taken worse tumbles in my lifetime and didn’t take to bed over them.”

Suzanne could have argued that in the past Mother had possessed two good legs to support her, but why argue? Mother won every battle. Fighting her was useless. And if she was willing to drop the conversation concerning Alexa and Anna-Grace, Suzanne would humor her. She hurried to the corner and retrieved Mother’s wheelchair.

She reached to assist her into the chair, but Mother slapped her hands away. “I’m not helpless. I can do it.” She transferred herself from the bed to the chair, landing at an awkward angle on the padded seat. Grunting a bit, she pressed her elbows on the armrests and righted herself. Once she was settled, she fired a smug I-told-you-so look at her daughter.

Suzanne responded with a tight smile. She released the brakes on the chair and aimed it for the doorway. But before she rolled the chair through the opening, Mother held up her hand and barked, “Stop!”

She shifted around to look into Suzanne’s face. Scowl lines marched alongside her mouth. “I gave Alexa my locket. You’re the oldest daughter, so it should have gone to you before being passed to the oldest granddaughter. But it would eventually be hers anyway, and her initials match mine, so I gave it to her.”

Although Mother’s face and tone were angry, Suzanne found the gesture touching. The gift indicated Mother had already accepted Alexa as a member of
her family. But it could cause problems with her siblings. She placed her hand on her mother’s bony shoulder. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

Mother snorted and faced forward again. “In this life, more often than not, we do what we have to instead of what we want to. You should know that by now.” She gripped the rolled edges of the armrests. “Take me out on the porch. I need some air.”

Suzanne

The morning proved so pleasant, Suzanne remained on the porch with her mother and Alexa. Mother sat in her wheelchair, and Suzanne and Alexa shared the old swing. The chains’ creak and the wind’s gentle whisper offered a peaceful accompaniment to their quiet conversation.

Tanya returned shortly before noon. She came up the walk with two pizza boxes balanced on one hand, a lumpy plastic bag hanging from the other, and an apologetic look on her face. As she plopped the pizza boxes onto Alexa’s lap, she said, “They’re only from the convenience store on the highway south of town so not nearly as good as homemade, but with the kitchen such a wreck we can’t cook.”

After the challenge of reheating coffee in the torn-up kitchen, Suzanne had wondered how they would prepare lunch. “Tanya, you’re a genius. Thank you.”

Alexa lifted the lid on the top one. A wonderful aroma escaped. “It sure smells good. What kind are they?”

Tanya wrinkled her nose. “Super Deluxe, I think they called it. I didn’t know what kind you liked, so I got the ones with everything. Just pick off what doesn’t please you.”

Alexa laughed. “I won’t pick anything off. Unless I find an anchovy.”

Tanya grinned. “I also stopped by the grocery store and picked up bread—”

“Store-bought?” Mother made
store-bought
sound like something poisonous.

Tanya grimaced. “I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine baking until Paul is able to put the kitchen together again. Remember, Clete and the girls said you’d have to make do while he worked in there.”

Mother snorted.

Tanya went on, “Bread, lunchmeat and cheese, boxed cereal, fruit, and bags of chips so you can prepare simple breakfasts and lunches. As for supper, Sandra, Shelley, and I will take turns bringing something out so you’ll have one good meal a day. Oh!” She held the plastic bag aloft. “I also got a good supply of paper plates, napkins, plasticware, and Styrofoam cups.” The look of apology returned. “I know it’s considered wasteful, but I didn’t know what else to do. Paul said he’d have to turn off the water in the kitchen, which means no washing dishes, so …”

Suzanne stood and took the bag from Tanya. “It’ll be fine. You thought of everything.”

Tanya shrugged. “We’ve had time to plan. It took nearly three months for Paul to clear his schedule.” She released a short laugh. “Of course, he’d have to find the time to work out here just as you arrived! And speaking of Paul, I’m going to ask him to join us. He brought a lunchbox with him, but he’d probably rather have pizza.”

Suzanne had secretly celebrated escaping a face-to-face encounter with him that morning—thank goodness for that plastic sheet!—and her stomach rolled over as she considered sitting with him on the porch where he used to join her for long talks in the evenings half a lifetime ago. She sought an excuse to avoid inviting him to eat pizza with them. “Won’t his wife be offended if he doesn’t eat the lunch she packed?”

Tanya shot her a startled look. “Didn’t you know? Paul lost his wife to cervical cancer several years ago.”

Pain stabbed Suzanne as if an arrow had impaled her heart. Paul was a
widower? Her discomfort was whisked away, and sympathy flew in to replace it. How tragic, to be left alone at his young age.

Tanya went on. “So he packs his own lunch. I doubt he’ll mind saving it for tomorrow.” She trotted off the porch, swinging a glance over her shoulder. “Alexa, want to help me put these groceries away?”

Alexa set the boxes aside and followed Tanya. Suzanne, her movements slow and clumsy given her inner turmoil, opened the bag and removed the paper plates.

“Don’t use those,” Mother snapped. “Tanya can take them back to the store. We’ll have water in the bathroom so we can wash dishes in the bathtub. I won’t have the town whispering about me using paper products. More than wasteful, it’s lazy.”

Within the Old Order sect, being accused of laziness was a terrible insult. But Suzanne would not wash dishes in a bathtub. She popped open the package of plates and forced a light tone. “Paper plates are perfect for a picnic, Mother. I’m sure people have more important things to worry about than whether or not you’re using paper products.” In all likelihood, Paul used paper products more often than not with no wife to see to the housekeeping chores.

Mother released a disgruntled huff and set her lips in a firm line, but when Tanya, Alexa, and Paul joined them, she didn’t refuse a plate holding two slices of pizza. Suzanne’s hands trembled slightly as she served Paul, her awareness of his loss still strong. He mumbled a thank-you, but he looked to the side rather than meet her gaze. As soon as he had the plate, he moved to the far end of the porch steps, sat, and leaned against one of the pillars. His long legs stretched across the risers.

When everyone had a plate, Tanya turned to Paul. “Would you bless the meal for us?”