Hidden Mercies (6 page)

“I think it might be time to get this little one to a bathroom,” Levi said. “Our Daniel has not been long without diapers.” He hurried out of the room, holding the child at arm’s length.

Claire came in with a cup of hot soup. “You should sip this slowly until it cools.”

Up close, without a hint of makeup, Claire was still one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She had the sort of classic features that even a twenty-seven-year absence could not erase.

As he studied her face, he was glad to see laugh lines around her eyes. It gave him pleasure to think that she had had reason to laugh over the years.

He would have told her right then and there who he was, were it not for the presence of Amy and the older girl. This conversation, when it took place, needed time and privacy. He did not know how much anger she might still hold against him. The Amish were a forgiving bunch, but he wasn’t sure even Claire was that holy. For a young Swartzentruber girl to raise an out-of-wedlock child would have been unbelievably difficult. It would be impossible for there not to be a deep well of resentment toward him within her.

“What happened?” She inspected the bad side of his face. “To cause all this damage?”

“I was in Afghanistan and got too close to a suicide bomber.”

Levi came back in holding a much more content Daniel.

“A suicide bomber hurt this man.” Claire addressed her son, using the form of German peculiar to Holmes County Amish that many people referred to as Pennsylvania Deutsch. No doubt she assumed Tom could not understand a word. “What is a suicide bomber?”

“That is when someone places a bomb on their own body,” Levi responded in German. “And then detonate it. They turn their bodies into a sort of weapon. Grace told me all about it. They do that sort of thing in the Middle East. Tom must be military.”

“
Ach.
Another military one!”

Tom understood every word of the German they were speaking, but he gave no sign.

“They are coming out of the walls, these soldiers,” Claire said. “So many returning from that dangerous place—that Afghanistan.”

This comment made absolutely no sense to Tom. Holmes County wasn’t exactly a military destination.

Levi immediately took offense. “Good thing for
you
that they are,
Maam
!”

Now Tom was totally confused, and it wasn’t entirely the fault of the pain meds.

“That is not the point,” Claire said. “It is not an easy thing to have an
Englisch
daughter-in-law who cannot cook, sew, or drive a buggy. Being a soldier is not a good training ground for a wife.”

“No,” Levi said evenly. “But she can suture a wound, cool the fever in a sick child, and she saved your life and Daniel’s.”

“That is not much comfort when my oldest son’s belly is crying out for a decent pot of bean soup.”

Levi, exasperated, suddenly switched to English. “Elizabeth makes an excellent bean soup, mother. I don’t go hungry.”

“Your wife’s name is Elizabeth?” Tom felt safe in participating now that they were speaking English.

“Oh, no, no.” Claire also switched to English. “Grace is Levi’s wife. Her grandmother’s name is Elizabeth and she lives with Levi and Grace.”

“Actually,” Levi said, “we live with her. The house belongs to Elizabeth.”

“You could have lived here with me,” Claire said.

“And you would have bossed Grace around like you do me—and she would have bolted.”

“See? A good Amish wife—you would not have to worry about her running away.”

“If I had married anyone except Grace, I wouldn’t have cared if they
did
run away.”

Tom got the feeling that this was a conversation that had taken place many times between these two. Neither Amy nor the other girl was paying any attention to it.

Claire gave up on this particular argument and turned her attention to looking out the window. “Albert and Jesse should be home by now.”

“They are helping their teacher, and you know that Rhoda will watch after them,” Levi said. “That girl is part mother hen. She’s almost worse than you at keeping track of her chicks.”

“I hope Rhoda gets married when I turn sixteen,” Amy said. “I would like to teach at that school. I think I would be good at it.”

“You would,” Levi said. “But I’ve heard that Bessie Mueller is next in line for the job, if Harold Keim doesn’t get around to proposing to her first.”

Tom had forgotten this aspect of being Amish. They were so intimately connected and had so many people in their lives, it was nearly impossible for an outsider to keep track of all the names they tossed around as a matter of course. His head had begun to throb, and he rubbed his temples. He was starting to feel worse.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “Here we are, talking about people you do not know, and you are not well. Are you sure you do not want Levi to take you to the hospital?”

“No. No hospital.” He tried to get up again. “A few more minutes, and I’ll . . . leave.”

“You cannot drive. I am sorry, but you cannot. Where are you staying?”

“I have a room at Hotel Millersburg.”

“Well, then. Open up, please.” She surprised Tom by spooning a mouthful of hot vegetable soup into his mouth.

“Were you headed somewhere?” Levi asked. “Or was Holmes County your actual destination?”

“I—I used to live around here. This seemed like a good, quiet place to come while I heal.” At that moment, a young, pregnant woman burst through the door. She was about Levi’s height, with blondish hair twisted up in a clip, wearing a long, plain, maternity shift-like dress. He was no expert in
pregnancy, but she didn’t seem to be very far along. A small, blond Amish girl trailed behind her with a half-eaten cookie in each hand. The little girl looked exactly the way he remembered Claire at that age.

In spite of the woman’s matronly appearance, there was an air of professionalism about her. No doubt this was Levi’s wife. That would make her his niece by marriage. His family was getting larger by the minute, even though no one but him knew it.

“Hello,” she said. “You must be the tourist my husband called me about. My name is Grace, and I’m a nurse practitioner. If you don’t mind, I’d like to check your vitals.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Good.” She dropped a specially made basket onto a chair, went to the kitchen sink, and thoroughly washed her hands. Then she pulled a clean dishcloth out of a drawer, dried her hands, reached into the basket, and drew on a pair of rubber gloves.

“Levi says you’re military.” She bent to examine his face, touching the still-healing wounds with her fingertips. “Looks like you took some hits over there.”

“A few.”

“These are not completely healed. What did you do? Drive yourself all the way from Walter Reed?”

“Yes.”

She pulled a thermometer out of her bag and stuck it in his mouth. “Do you have a name?” He started to take the thermometer out to answer, but she hooked his dog tags out from beneath his shirt collar.

“Captain Tom Miller,” she read. She glanced at his face. “I knew a Tom Miller once. A helicopter pilot. Were you stationed at Bagram by any chance?”

He nodded.

“I was there, too, for a while and I remember your name,” she said. “You flew on several medevac missions when we needed a gunship escort.”

Now Claire and Levi’s tense conversation made sense. Levi’s wife had also been in the military. He could only guess at the drama that had taken place here before the marriage. Having an
Englisch
daughter-in-law was every Amish mother’s nightmare. Evidently, from what Levi had said to his mother, Grace had been involved in saving Claire’s life in some way.

He tried to remember seeing Grace’s face, but there had been so many troops and faces over the years. Thousands.

She took the thermometer out of his mouth and glanced at it. “One hundred two point four,” she said. A look passed between her and Claire.

“He must have an infection,” Claire said. “That is not good.”

“No.” Grace put the thermometer away and pulled off her gloves. “It is most definitely not good. I can get him some antibiotics, but I don’t think it’s wise for him to be left alone right now.”

Strange. He knew he felt bad, but had not known he felt
that
bad. Perhaps the relief of being home again, or his nervousness over seeing Claire again, had kept him from realizing how sick he was.

“Do you have any family here?” Claire asked.

“No.” It was true. He had no family here—at least not in the sense that Claire meant—someone who would be willing to take him off their hands.

Help from his father didn’t bear thinking about. The old man would never accept him back. Not unless he showed up in a windowless buggy with an untrimmed beard and a commitment to living the rest of his life in the 1800s.

Grace came to a decision. “Levi, I want to put Captain Miller in the downstairs bedroom at our house for a few days. He needs care, but not badly enough to take him to the ER. At least not yet. He just needs someone to keep an eye on him.”

Levi frowned. “You think taking a stranger into our home is a good idea?”

“Yes, Levi. This man is no stranger. His name was well known to everyone on the base. He saved many lives with his skill and courage. One of them was mine.” Grace pulled off her gloves. “Probably more than once. Tom Miller could get into and out of places lesser pilots could not. Our medevac helicopter was not armed, and it made us sitting ducks more than once. When bullets started flying, we knew that pilots like Tom would come in with guns blazing, buying us those extra thirty seconds we needed to get a wounded soldier loaded. His crew laid down gunfire more than once to give us a chance to pull combat soldiers out without becoming casualties ourselves. Helping this man isn’t just the right thing to do—it is an honor and a privilege.”

“I have a room in Millersburg,” Tom mumbled. He was feeling worse and worse. “I did not come here to be cared for.”

“And how lonely is that?” Grace said. “You can be our guest for a few days and heal, or you can go it alone until you end up hooked to IVs in some veterans’ hospital. I know you’re a tough guy, Tom, but I strongly suggest you stay with us.”

“Yes.” Levi rallied from his surprise at Grace’s making such a snap decision. “You must come home with us.”

Tom no longer had the strength to argue. Staying with his nephew and his nephew’s nurse-wife for a few days would beat lying alone and unconscious on the floor of his hotel room.

“I will pay you.”

“No, you won’t,” Grace said. “But Levi will need the key to your room so he can gather your things and check you out. Do you have it on you?”

He fished it out of his pocket and handed it to her. Even that small gesture took effort. No, it was evident that he did not need to drive back to the hotel.

•   •   •

“That poor man,” Amy said as soon as everyone had gone. “He has been hurt very bad. I think in many ways.”

Claire agreed, and in spite of the annoyance she frequently felt toward her son’s wife, she was enormously grateful for Grace’s presence today.

“What man?” Ten-year-old Jesse and his brother clattered into the kitchen, home from school.

Claire was always amazed at how disheveled this particular little boy could get in so few hours. The clean clothes she had sent him to school in this morning looked like he had rolled around in the school yard all day instead of sitting at a desk and then helping the teacher pick up windblown limbs.

“We had a wounded helicopter pilot fall down on our floor today,” Amy told him, all important with her firsthand eyewitness information. “Grace and Levi took him home with them.”

“A helicopter pilot?” Jesse was entirely too impressed for Claire’s comfort. “A real one? A man who flies these things?”

At that, he began to whirl around the room with his arms outstretched, making putt-putt-putt noises.

“That will be enough,” Claire admonished him. “We do not need for you to knock something over. If you think you want to be a helicopter, you must go outside.”

Twelve-year-old Albert was uninterested. He had other things on his mind. “May I go check on my chickens now?”
he asked. “I want to see if that new feed I’m trying has made a difference in their egg output.”

“Of course,” Claire said. With some relief, she noted that Albert’s clothes looked exactly as they had when she sent him out the door this morning. He would probably be able to wear them again tomorrow.

Albert had a mind only for his animals and for learning how to care for the farm. She felt at ease in her mind about Albert’s future. He would be content with his life as long as he could plow and plant and have livestock to care for.

Jesse was another story. Jesse, with those big ears of his, wanted to know everything.

It was good that Tom was at Levi’s and no longer in her front room. He and Grace could talk about soldier things to their hearts’ content. She did not want that sort of talk around her children—especially Jesse, who was entirely too suggestible. It was bad enough that Amy had to hear about such things as suicide bombers!

How could such things exist? How could the human mind come up with a terrible idea like that? Apart from
The Budget,
she read no newspapers or worldly magazines, nor did she watch television or listen to the radio.

This dribble of toxic knowledge that had come into her life today had made her especially grateful for the wisdom of their Amish leadership, which forbade such things. She did not want thoughts of war touching her children.

“I’m hungry.” Jesse had lost interest in pretending to be a helicopter.

“Of course you are,” Claire said. “You are a growing boy. There is some beef stew in the refrigerator. Ask Maddy to heat it up for you.”

Claire felt only a slight twinge of guilt about suggesting the stew for Jesse’s after-school snack. Grace’s last attempt at stew
had gotten scraped out into the pig’s trough, after dark, when she thought there was no chance Grace would see or know. Her daughter-in-law had a fondness for adding strange spices to her cooking. Perhaps Jesse would be too hungry to notice.