Stranger's Gift (33 page)

You're a nurse and Mennonite, Hester. These outsiders have their government to care for them. That is their way, not ours
, she could practically hear her father reminding her. But hurt was hurt, and these people were in pain. It sure didn't seem like their government would come to their rescue anytime soon, so where better to focus her skills? Maybe she could organize a walk-in clinic to serve the homeless population. She would speak to Grady about it as soon as he came back to earth and got through his first week of sleepless nights. Maybe there were federal funds available. Maybe John could talk to Liz. Maybe …

Maybe her Dad was right. Her habit of running from one project to the next had escalated in the years since her mother's death. Surely her grief should have begun to abate in all that time. But it hadn't. Her work had become her life, her way of escaping things that confused her, like falling in love and marriage and raising a family. Like managing a household instead of a community center. Perhaps in her zeal to save others she was really avoiding the obvious—the need to save herself.

“I was beginning to worry,” her father said when she wheeled her bike to a stop just outside the front gate. The fence had been repaired along with the house. Only the garden still showed signs of the flooding and wind damage that had accompanied the hurricane.

Arlen was sitting on the front porch, his wire-rimmed glasses pushed onto his forehead, a book in his lap. “How's the Forrest family?”

“Still a bit dazed but fine. Amy has both her mother and Grady's mom just chomping at the bit to help, and who can blame them? That baby is so precious.” She tucked a piece of hair that had worked its way free back under her prayer covering, and then cleared her throat. “I spoke with John's aunt. She was there visiting as well, and we walked out together. She told me the circumstances of his mother's death.”

“How did that subject come up?”

“We were talking about babies, and she mentioned that John's mother, Rachel, should have had more than just John.”

“I see.”

“It was an accident, Dad. John was nowhere near her when it happened.” She repeated the details that Liz had told her. “So I think I was right about John feeling guilty that he wasn't there and couldn't save her.”

Arlen took several minutes to consider this. “Still, he is a troubled soul, Hester. Perhaps we need to respect his need to work this all out himself.”

“Are you still asking me to stay away from him?”

“I think it best if we let John come to us when he's ready. Samuel tells me that he is a man of strong faith, and we have to trust that God will guide him through this dark period in his life, as He did you.” Arlen stroked her cheek. “As I recall, after Sarah died you needed your solitude.”

Solomon himself could not have found a more effective way to frame his decision. Arlen had found the one argument for letting John determine who he saw and when that Hester could not debate. For it was true that it had been months after her mother's death before Hester had opened herself to others. “You're right,” she said as she began taking ingredients for their meal out of the refrigerator. “I'll have supper ready in just a few minutes. I thought we'd have cold chicken and—”

“I'm having supper at your grandmother's,” Arlen said as he followed her into the kitchen. “But you go ahead and fix two plates. I invited Samuel to come by.”

Hester stopped.

“And you won't be here?”

“No, I told you—”

“Why not have Grandma come here?”

“Because you and Samuel need some time.”

“Dad, I really don't need you orchestrating my social life.”

“That's a matter of opinion, liebchen,” he said and tweaked her cheek. “But Samuel's purpose in coming here this evening is not …” He faltered, clearly trying to find the right words without giving too much away.

“Is not what?”

“Just keep an open mind, Hester.” He took his hat down from the hook next to the door and walked down the front walk. “You know where I'll be should you need to talk,” he said.

Samuel is going to propose
. Hester had never been more sure of anything in her life, nor had she ever been less prepared. She had thought she would have more time. But here it was. The moment of truth, as Jeannie would say. And why not? Perhaps this was the first step on the path to finding her true place in this community. She would still be able to volunteer. Samuel would never ask her to sacrifice that. And she had always dreamed of having children. Yes, perhaps the time had come.

Hester closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself standing next to Samuel as her father pronounced them man and wife. But the man she saw in her imagination was not Samuel Brubaker. It was John Steiner.

She shook off the image. Of course she would think of John. She'd been focused on him ever since he'd made his shocking confession to her that morning. Even the conversation she'd had with his aunt had done little to clear up the mystery, so naturally he would be the man on her mind, she reasoned. It meant nothing.

She set the table and prepared the food, then returned the serving dishes to the refrigerator as she waited for Samuel. The clock her grandfather had built chimed six. Maybe Samuel had gotten cold feet.
Please, God, let him get cold feet
.

The telephone jangled, startling her.

“Oh, Hester, hi,” Samuel said, his voice unsteady.

“Hi. Dad said you were coming for supper, but maybe he …”

“I'll be there. I just…Six thirty, okay? We can go out if you'd rather.”

“No. It's just cold chicken and such. It'll keep. Samuel, are you all right?”

There was a pause. “I am. I'm out at John Steiner's place. We got to talking, and I lost track of time. I'm really sorry, Hester.”

“It's fine,” she assured him.

“John's sending you some ferns for the garden,” he added. “See you soon.”

“Sure.” As she hung up the phone, she spotted the magazine she'd meant to return to the hospital waiting room. Now she'd have to make a special trip. It was lying on the table next to the phone where she'd placed it so she would remember to take it with her. She picked it up and went out to the porch to wait for Samuel.

W
hen Samuel stopped by, John was surprised that he was inordinately glad to see the man. He had come to a decision, and he respected Samuel as someone with a level head and as someone who was good at listening before he jumped in with an opinion of his own.

“I've decided to sell this place and go home to Indiana,” he said. When Samuel made no comment, he went on, laying out the facts that he'd already gone over dozens of times in the last hour. “The trees won't come back, and the vegetable beds need to be completely rebuilt. It'll take several truckloads of good dirt to fill them, and who knows what that'll cost. I'm pretty close to being broke, and I'm going to need to find work. So even if I could afford to keep working on the place, when would I do it?”

Samuel tipped his hat back with his thumb and looked around. “You truly think of Indiana—the life you left behind—as your home?”

In his calm, quiet way Samuel had identified the one sticking point of John's plan. For he did not think of Indiana as home. This was his home. This was the place where he had invested everything, where he had formed friendships that he hadn't even recognized as such until now.

“In time,” he said, “I will. I grew up there, after all.” Wanting to change the direction of the conversation, he looked around. “Of course, before this place can be put on the market, I've got a lot of work to do.”

“You could let us help,” Samuel said. “Arlen and me and the others. Zeke and some of his friends. With so many hands, you would have things back together in no time, and you could stay here…if your mind isn't made up, that is.”

“I was thinking about that….” John conceded. “Still, there's the matter of money.”

“Ja. There is that.”

“And even if I get the place back in shape, it'll still take time before any new crops start to come in.”

“Ja.”

“Selling solves my problem.”

Samuel frowned and set his hat back on his head as he looked directly at John. “Selling will be hard in this economy. Besides, I think you know as well as I do that your lack of income is not the source of your poverty, my friend.”

“I can't eat or keep a roof over my head without money, Samuel.”

“True. But if you leave this place, give it up as you did your farm and the life you once knew, how will you feed your soul, John? Your spirit?” He climbed into the cab of his camper. “I'll speak with Arlen about organizing a crew to help you.”

John had never before accepted charity on such a scale. It still went against all he'd set out to do. “No. Let me take care of it,” he said, his throat closing around the words.

“Das ist gut.” Samuel turned the key. “I'm late for an appointment, but I'll come back tomorrow, and we can speak about this some more if you'd like.”

John nodded. “I'd appreciate that.”

“Do you mind if I bring Rosalyn with me?”

The question surprised John. “Why?”

“Because she is someone like you who has been terribly wounded both physically and spiritually, and yet she has found her way through it. I just thought that perhaps she might be someone who could listen and understand.”

John moved away, stepping back from the camper, putting distance between himself and Samuel. “I'd really rather just…Could we just keep this between us for now?”

“Of course.” Samuel shifted the camper into gear.

“Wait,” John called as he ran to get a bucket filled with ferns. “Could you drop these off at Hester's? For her mother's garden.”

Samuel reached across and opened the passenger side door so John could set the bucket on the floor. “I'm on my way there now,” Samuel said. “We're having supper together.” He waved and drove the camper down the rutted lane.

John stood watching him go and thinking that it was odd the way he'd spoken of being late for an appointment when clearly he had a date with Hester. And then he thought how unusual it was that he had suggested bringing Rosalyn out to Tucker's Point when surely Hester had suffered the aftermath of nursing her mother through all those years, watching her grow more frail and dependent day by day, unable to do anything to stop the downward spiral. It seemed to John that in many ways his situation had far more in common with what Hester had experienced than what Rosalyn had gone through. And why would Samuel suggest allowing Arlen to help, and Zeke, and even Rosalyn—but not Hester?

After stopping at a gas station to call Hester, Samuel used the rest of the drive to practice how to tell her that he had fallen in love with Rosalyn. Perhaps he shouldn't mention Rosalyn at all. Perhaps he should just state the obvious, that he and Hester did not love each other and were unlikely ever to share such feelings. Perhaps he could phrase things in such a way that she would be the one to break off with him.

But that would be dishonest and manipulative. The gossips in Pinecraft would forever lay the blame for their failed relationship at her door. No, he was the one who wanted to end things, and he should be the one to say so.

“Dear God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight,” he murmured as he turned down Hester's street. “And hers,” he added when he saw her sitting on the porch.

He parked his camper and got out. “Good evening, Hester. I'm sorry to be so late.”

She was engrossed in reading a magazine. When she looked up at him, he understood that as usual something in that magazine had caught her attention so completely that she'd been unaware of his arrival until he spoke to her.

He thought about the way Rosalyn had looked at him after the doctor had stitched her forehead and she'd returned to the waiting room to find him standing there. Her eyes had widened with pure joy as she moved toward him, as if the distance was too great and she couldn't wait to be closer. There was the essential difference between the two women. One of them now openly looked forward to seeing him, having him near, sharing her day with him. The other gave him a distracted smile and waved her hand in dismissal at his apology for being late.

“It's okay,” Hester said. “Come on inside. It will only take me a moment to put everything on the table.” She walked ahead of him into the kitchen and started pulling dishes from the refrigerator. “How was John?” She pointed to the place he normally took whenever he shared meals with her and Arlen.

“He has decided to sell his place and return to Indiana for a fresh start.” He watched her scurry around the large kitchen, slicing bread and placing a plate of it on the table, then hurrying back to the refrigerator for butter and applesauce. She seemed distracted, and he wondered if she had heard him. She stood in front of the open refrigerator door for a moment, a jar of orange marmalade in her hand. “The applesauce is fine,” he said, “unless
you
prefer the marmalade.”