An Uncommon Grace (7 page)

His mind fastened on the many chores he had waiting on him back home. Hopefully by now, word would have spread, and his Amish brethren would be taking care of everything.

Once they knew his family was in trouble, they would find the time to care for his farm and livestock, along with their own heavy labors, and it would continue—without question—until he could leave Daniel’s side and his family could get back on their feet. That was the Amish way. No one was ever left alone during times of crisis. From boyhood on,
he had helped with others’ chores during family emergencies. It was one of the many things he valued about his people.

“Here.” Grace handed him a chilled bottle of water. He had expected her to bring him a paper cup of water instead of this blue bottle that she had obviously paid for. He wondered how much this fancy water had cost. This worried him. He hoped that the extra amount he planned on paying her for the trip would cover the cost.

“You’re back quickly.” He unscrewed the lid and took a long drink. It was delicious, much cleaner tasting than the water they drew from their well back home. “You didn’t eat?”

“There was nothing there I wanted.”

Daniel stirred and Levi glanced at the heart monitor. The baby’s heartbeat continued strong. Levi relaxed slightly and allowed himself to look more closely at Grace’s face. Dark circles were forming beneath her eyes. She looked weary. Today had been hard on her. He had not realized.

“You should go home now.” He dug out his wallet. “Will eighty dollars be enough?”

She looked perplexed. “Enough for what?”

“Enough to cover the miles you drove—and the water you bought.”

“What are you talking about, Levi?”

“
Englisch
drivers charge fifty cents a mile,” he patiently explained. “I watched the numbers as they changed beneath your steering wheel. We traveled seventy-five miles to get here.”

He extracted the four twenties and tried to hand them to her, but Grace backed away and looked at him with a hurt expression on her face.

“I’m not taking money from you.”

Again, he was puzzled. She had provided a service that an honest man should pay for. It was a business transaction.

“I owe you eighty dollars.” He again tried to hand the money to her.

“I’m your neighbor, for pity’s sake!” She put her hands behind her back and shook her head. “I wasn’t doing this to be paid. I did it because you needed help.”

He saw the determination in her eyes and knew that this was a fight he would not win. At least not now. For whatever reason, this
Englisch
woman was determined to give him this trip as a gift.

Daniel stirred again, as though bothered by the loudness of their voices. Levi glanced at the monitor, and his own heart lurched. The baby’s heartbeat was becoming irregular again.

Grace saw it at the same time he did. “I’ll be outside in the waiting room.”

“But you are tired. You should go home.”

“Yes, I’m tired.” She was already heading out the door. “But for now, I think I’d better stick around. I wouldn’t feel right leaving you here alone.” She glanced meaningfully at the monitor. “And you’d better hurry up and start singing that weird song again.”

Weird song? The
Loblied
was not weird! He had sung this song from the
Ausbund
hymnal while sitting on his grandfather’s lap during worship Sundays. He had sung the words at group singings as a teenager. This song with which he had been encouraging his little brother had been written by a Mennonite minister over four hundred years ago—and it was a good song.

What did she expect him to sing under such circumstances? One of those silly songs with repetitious words like he had heard coming from some of the
Englisch
church buildings he had passed on Sunday mornings? He wondered how they managed to hear themselves think—let alone worship—over the din of guitars and drums.

In his opinion, it was much better to worship in a freshly cleaned barn, or a friend’s home, or a neighbor’s workshop while joining with his spiritual brothers and sisters in lifting up the ancient words of their church.

The song he had sung to his little brother was
not
weird.

Grace was surprised to see Rose walk into the waiting room. She had removed the kerchief from her hair and donned a black bonnet along with a fresh dress that was a lovely sky blue.

Grace put down the ragged
Better Homes and Gardens
magazine she had been trying to read and stood to greet her.

“Hello, Rose,” Grace said. “Levi is with—”

“How is the baby?” Rose interrupted.

“Stronger.”

“Thank
Gott
.” Rose’s shoulders slumped in relief. “You say Levi is with him?”

“He hasn’t left Daniel’s side since we got here,” Grace said. “Are the children here, too?”

“My married daughter is at my home caring for them. They will be fine with her.”

“Have you spoken with Claire?”

“For the first time in ten years, yes—I have been to the hospital and talked with my twin sister.”

“If you don’t mind my asking . . .”

Rose put up a hand to forestall her question. “I know this must seem strange to you, so I will explain as quickly as I can. I was raised Swartzentruber Amish the same as my sister. When my husband and I chose to join with the Old Order Amish, we were banned from fellowship with anyone in our Swartzentruber church—even those who were our blood kin.” Rose smiled ruefully. “In my world I am considered the black sheep of the family.”

It was hard for Grace to imagine this lovely, modestly dressed Amish woman being the black sheep of anything.

“Then why is the rule suspended now?”

“It isn’t. But in times of family emergency, leaders will sometimes relax the rules for a very short while until the crisis lessens. I intend to help my sister and her family as much as possible until Bishop Weaver insists that I leave.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the Amish.”

“That’s one of the nice things about being
Englisch,
don’t you think?” Rose smiled. “You don’t have to.”

“That’s true.”

“I’m going to stay with Daniel now.” Rose was suddenly all business. “Levi should go home. My
Englisch
driver is waiting to take him. You must go, too. I will handle this now.”

“I can take Levi home,” Grace offered. “I’m headed home anyway.”

“No.” Rose cocked her head to one side and gave her an appraising look. “I think it would be best if you did not.”

“They are the strangest people,” Grace said later to her grandmother as she set out her evening pills and helped her prepare for the night.

“Not when you truly know them.”

“You’ve mentioned the Shetler family in the past, but I don’t remember ever meeting them when I would visit you.” She helped her grandmother climb into bed and then pulled the handmade quilt over her.

“Claire respected our time together and never came when any of my family was here. I deeply value the Shetlers’ friendship. They have been good neighbors to me.”

“In what ways?”

“Claire gave me this quilt one year.” Her grandmother
smoothed her hand over the dark-colored fabric. “Do you have any idea how much a hand-quilted Swartzentruber quilt is worth? This one is so intricately stitched it would probably sell for over a thousand dollars. It took her one whole winter.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“I should probably have it framed and put behind glass like they do in museums, but it makes me feel good to sleep beneath such a loving gift. Down through the years, they have tended to their own business while I tended to mine, but I always knew that if I needed them, they would come. So many times Claire has appeared when I was feeling poorly, carrying soup or a batch of herb tea. Often her concoctions helped. And then there was Levi.”

“What about Levi?”

“He was the loveliest little boy.” Elizabeth frowned. “Don’t you remember me ever talking about him?”

“Vaguely, but you’ve talked about a lot of people down through the years, including a whole bunch of long-dead relatives and most of your students. After a while everyone kind of blended together in my head.”

“Have I been that tedious?”

“Not at all.” Grace laughed. “You’re the only person I know who can walk into a grocery store and come out an hour later with no milk and no groceries, but worried sick about a new best friend you had just made.”

“The deli-counter woman was going through a nasty divorce and I was concerned,” Elizabeth said. “They patched things back together, you know. She still calls me from time to time to let me know how things are going.”

Grace grinned. “What about the man you met on the airplane with whom you still exchange Christmas cards?”

Her grandmother sniffed. “He was a lovely young musician and we enjoyed our two-hour talk tremendously.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have down through the years. Tell me about Levi. This time I’ll listen. I promise.”

“He reminded me of your father when he was a child. So curious and smart. I had an illustrated book on birds and we would sit together on my porch for hours studying it together and matching the pictures with the birds we saw around the farm. Of course that ended as he grew up and took on a man’s share of chores around the farm, but he still comes when he notices something that needs to be done around here. I never have to ask.”

Elizabeth gave a little sigh. “I always thought it was a shame that Levi was not allowed more than an eighth-grade education. There was a real brilliance in him. He could have been anything he wanted. Of course, it takes a very smart man to make a living on a small farm, and he seems content.”

Elizabeth yawned.

“You’re tired.” Grace kissed her forehead. “Call out if you need me. I’ll be on the couch.”

“Oh, honey,” Elizabeth said, “I don’t want you having to sleep there. I’ll be fine tonight. Go on up to your bedroom, child.”

“I’m not comfortable being so far away from you,” Grace said. “I hated leaving you alone this morning.”

“I was fine,” her grandmother protested. “Becky came home for lunch and when she saw I was alone, she stayed. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I had some company.”

“Who?” Grace positioned a glass of water so it would be easier for her grandmother to reach.

“One of the sheriff’s deputies came by.”

“Did he have any news?”

“No, but he asked if I had seen or heard anything suspicious.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him that if I knew anything about Abraham’s death, I would not have waited around for a deputy to come to my house. I would have called the sheriff’s office immediately.”

“Did he tell you if they had any suspects?”

“They don’t, but he assured me they wouldn’t give up until they found out who did it.”

“I hope they find whoever did it soon.”

Elizabeth yawned again. “Me, too.”

Grace turned out the light, left her grandmother’s door ajar, and then walked around the house making certain every door and window was locked. Not that it would really make any difference. A determined man could easily break into this farmhouse—but not without making noise. The doors were sturdy and the windows had the old-fashioned frames that would be nearly impossible to open without breaking both wood and glass.

She shook out an afghan and got as comfortable as possible on the living room couch. She was grateful that her grandmother’s bedroom was downstairs, opening directly off the living room. With Elizabeth unable to climb stairs, it was so much easier to care for her here on the main floor.

As she waited for sleep, she tried to picture the little boy Grandma had described. It was hard to imagine the taciturn, work-hardened Levi ever having been that child.

And yet, her grandmother had been a principal for an inner-city elementary school in Columbus for thirty-five years. If Grandma said a child was brilliant, he was.

The couch was lumpy, and the unaccustomed quiet of the country was unnerving. Sometimes in Afghanistan, quiet could be deceiving. Sometimes it was merely a precursor to an attack. Try as she might, Grace couldn’t seem to stop being
on constant alert for the next missile whistling overhead—readying herself for the next run for the nearest bunker. Even though Bagram was huge and well secured, the Taliban loved making her and the rest of the personnel jump, and sometimes the terrorists just plain got lucky.

Unlike people who lived near a railroad track and got so used to the clatter of the trains that they didn’t even notice when they went by, the sound of rockets or gunfire never lost its ability to thrust Grace into immediate action. Even when she was so exhausted from a mission that her sleep resembled a coma, the shout of “Incoming!” could propel her out of bed with her legs already moving at full speed. Her training and experience had made her hypervigilant, and she didn’t know how to find the necessary switch to flip that hypervigilance off. She got back up, peeked in on her grandmother, and checked all the locks again.

She had just gotten settled back beneath the afghan when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Every muscle in her body tensed, ready for fight or flight.

“Sis?” Becky called softly.

She relaxed. “Over here, Becky. What’s wrong?”

“It’s creepy being upstairs all by myself.”

“You can sleep down here on the other couch if you want to keep me company.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Even though Becky was seventeen, she was carrying her blanket and her favorite pillow along with her—just as when she was small and had crept into Grace’s bed when she was afraid.

Becky made herself a nest on the other couch. In spite of the adjustments she was having to make, Grace was filled with gratitude that she had been able to come home. There was a killer on the loose and she was grateful that she was here
to watch over the two people she cared for most in the world.

“I’m glad you could come home.” Becky fluffed her pillow and doubled it beneath her head.

“I’m glad, too. Good night, Becky.”

Instead of the roar of fighter jets overhead and the rattling gunfire of distant fighting that had permeated her sleep for so long, Grace heard the sound of her grandmother having a quiet conversation with God. Elizabeth had done that for as long as Grace could remember.