The Choice (24 page)

Carrie stood and backed away from him, first one careful step and then another. The barn door rumbled open as Andy led Strawberry by the halter into the barn. In the back of the pony cart was a large box filled with three hungry, angry owlets. Next to the nest was the mother owl, angry, feet tied together with twine. Her right wing was broken, bent at an odd angle. The hayloft ramp was nowhere in sight.

“In less than twenty-four hours, those baby owls have climbed out of their box twice to peck at my toes while I was feeding Hope and Lulu,” Emma scolded Andy at breakfast. “Then their mother comes running at me, full speed, dragging that broken wing behind her, trying to protect her babies. As if I wanted them pecking at me! And the way they screech!” She shuddered. “The whole lot of them have to go!”

“They’re part of our family! They need us!” Andy looked to Abel for support. Abel had set the mother owl’s wing with a makeshift splint and tried to keep her tied to a post in the barn so it could heal, but she kept pecking apart the twine that held her feet.

“Soon as she’s healed, Andy, they need to be set free,” Abel said. “Humans can’t really raise owls as well as their own parents. Fall is the time of year for great horned owls to raise a brood and teach them how to learn to hunt and fly. It wouldn’t be right to keep them locked up in a barn.”

“They can catch mice in the hayloft,” Andy said. “There’s plenty of ’em!”

“We can build an owl house and hope they’ll stick around, but they’re not pets.” Abel took a sip of coffee and cast a sideways glance at Andy. “Any idea where my gloves went?”

Andy widened his eyes in a useless effort to look innocent.

“Speaking of missing things, Andy,” Carrie asked, “when is the ramp coming back?”

Andy’s face scrunched up. “See, that’s a problem. I had to climb the ramp to get the nest out of the tree, but on the way down, it slipped.”

“What caused that mother owl to have a broken wing, anyway?” asked Carrie.

“Beats me,” Andy said, reaching over her for the raspberry jam. “Probably those English devil boys.”

Carrie gave her brother a look.

“Andy Weaver!” Emma scolded. “You should be pitying those boys for their lost ways. Not blaspheming.”

“Let’s take Strawberry and the cart and go bring back the ramp,” Abel said.

“See, that’s another problem,” Andy said, stuffing his mouth with bread.

“How so?” Carrie asked.

“Ramp fell into the water and sunk.”

Carrie covered her hands with her face.

Abel shook his head. “Let’s go down to Blue Lake Pond and you can show me where it sank.” He waited until Emma left the table, then whispered to Andy, “Might have to catch a fish or two while we’re there. Our last chance before the weather turns too cold. Feels like the wind is already practicing for winter.” Loudly, he added, “Then we’ll clean out the goslings’ pen for those owlets so they’ll stop thinking Emma is their mama.”

It was that gloaming time of day, nearly dusk, when Andy and Abel returned home, wearing cat-in-the-cream smiles. Her brother’s face, with its windchapped cheeks, shone with happiness. Andy preened like a starling, Carrie saw, feeling her heart swell.

“Took all day but we got the ramp,” Andy told Carrie, sounding like a man of the world. “Happened upon Abel’s gloves too.” He handed Emma a string of trout and tracked mud onto her freshly cleaned linoleum floor.

Carrie went out in the barn to help Abel with Strawberry. “Andy said getting the ramp took all day.” She picked up a bucket of oats to toss in Strawberry’s manger.

“The ramp took five minutes,” Abel said, slipping the bridle out of the pony’s mouth. “The fishing took all day.” He led the pony into the stall and grabbed her water bucket to fill it.

Carrie wanted to tell him how grateful she was that he spent time with Andy and helped him with his bird rescues. She knew Andy could be vexing. More than a few times, he had driven Esther to the brink of exasperation with his careless ways. She wanted to express all of her appreciation for what Abel did for them, but all that came out was, “Denki, Abel.”

He grinned. “A day like this is so
good
, it makes you want to praise God for his goodness, and thank him for giving you the life to enjoy it,” he said, watching Strawberry’s throat ripple as she drank. He turned around and leaned against the bars, crossing his arms against his chest. “Nicht wahr?”
Don’t you agree?

She looked at him, unclear about what he meant. “About what?”

“About God’s goodness.” He pulled the stall shut, latched it, and swiveled to face her. “Carrie, do you believe God is good?”

“Of course,” she replied without hesitating, hoping to stave off a preaching. She pulled her shawl around her shoulders. “I’ll see to warming your dinner.”

Abel put a hand out to stop her.

Oh no
, Carrie thought.
Too late. Here comes the sermon.

“For all of my growing up years, I only knew that hard side of God. His wrath and punishing ways, but I never really knew about the other side of God. The good side.”

“If he is so good, then why does he make us suffer so?” As soon as the words spilled out of Carrie’s mouth, she wanted them back, but of course it was too late. That was the risky thing about words—once said they couldn’t be unsaid. She closed her eyes, ashamed. How dare she question the mysterious ways of the Lord?

“Carrie, God doesn’t cause the suffering. He helps us bear it.” Abel spoke with such gentleness that it almost hurt to hear it. “There was a chaplain in the jail who taught me about the parts of God I had missed. He showed me how to study the Scriptures and learn about God for myself.”

Abel dropped his hand and crossed his arms again. He turned and looked straight at her, leaning one hip against the railing. They stood together in silence for a long moment. “That’s why I’m here. I want Yonnie and you and Andy to know about this side of God. I don’t want you to miss out.”

“Miss out?”

He put his hands on her shoulders and softly said, “On the part about life being hard but God being good, and not confusing the two.”

Her stomach did a flip-flop, with Abel standing so close and giving her such an intense look. Nervous, she said the first thing that popped into her head: “And Veronica McCall?” she asked in an accusing tone. “Do you want her to know about this too?”

He dropped his hands and tilted his head, genuine puzzlement on his face.

Instantly, Carrie regretted her words. What was the matter with her today, with her mouth flying ahead of her brain? What Abel did with Veronica McCall was none of her business. “She was here today, looking for you,” Carrie said in a kinder tone. “She was awful mad you weren’t at work today.”

He didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, “God cares about Veronica, if that’s what you mean.”

But Carrie saw that look flash across his eyes again, the look that said he was hiding something.

Spring training had started well for Sol, but once the season began, things had spiraled south. Other teams had wised up to his fastball pitch, and he was losing his effectiveness as a closer. He hadn’t struck anyone out in three straight games. The pitching coach had told him he was relying too heavily on one pitch. The problem was, he didn’t have another pitch. He hadn’t grown up spending years on Little League and school teams, like the other players did. He studied the pitchers to try to pick up their junk ball or curveball tricks, but when he would ask about their grip or delivery, they avoided answering him. He couldn’t really blame them. They were competing for the same playing time.

Rody, the catcher, had been his only true friend, often staying late to help him practice. Tonight, Rody finally threw down his mitt and took off his catcher’s mask. “I’m done for the day. I’m gonna go hit the showers. Let’s go meet up with the guys and grab a beer.”

Sol shook his head. “Thanks, but no.” When he first joined the team, he had gone out with the guys after practice, but the clumsy way he had played at practice the next day brought a quick end to late nights and beer. Plus, the players were like magnets for girls—fancy girls. Forward girls, who sat too close in their tight little dresses. One girl, Alicia, latched on to him and called or text messaged him on his cell phone a couple of times a day. When he got the bill that month, he couldn’t
believe
it! He had to pay a dime for every time she text messaged him, whether he wanted to read it or not. Amish girls would never act in such a brazen way.

He had quickly discovered that the party life of the English wasn’t all that different from Amish Rumspringa parties, and he soon tired of it. Anything that interfered with baseball just wasn’t worth it to him. He knew he had this one opportunity. The other guys had jobs to fall back on if they didn’t make the cut. Sol had an eighth grade education and one fastball pitch. If he lost this chance, it was back to the farm, mucking out stables.

Sol spent the evening in his sparsely furnished apartment, eating cold pizza, icing his shoulder, and reading a book about training tips for pitchers. He fell asleep in a chair, with the book splayed across his chest.

In the dark of an early dawn, Carrie went downstairs and set the coffeepot to brew. Abel liked to come in for a quick cup before breakfast to warm his hands. She found she looked forward to those moments she had with him, before Andy and Emma and Yonnie came downstairs and the day had started. Abel would discuss with her what needed to be done on the farm and ask her opinion before making a decision. She’d never had a relationship like that with a man before, not with her father, or Sol, or Daniel. She would catch herself, though, whenever she found herself relying on Abel, and pull herself back from the edge.

She put some eggs in a bowl and peeked out the kitchen window. The snow was falling thick and heavy. She saw Abel climb up the kitchen steps, stamping snow from his feet, his cheeks and ears raw from the cold. She met him at the door with a mug of steaming black coffee.

“Thank you,” he said, pulling off his gloves. He wrapped his hands around the mug and took a sip. “Best taste in the world.”

Carrie held three eggs in her hand. “How do you want your eggs cooked?”

Just then Andy galloped past Emma heading down the stairs and went straight to last night’s dessert, cutting off a hunk of cake. Seamlessly, Emma grabbed the knife out of his hand and used it to slice pieces of bread to toast in the oven. As Emma went to the table to get butter for the toast, she reached over to pinch some curls back into Carrie’s cap. “Those curls that keep escaping aren’t becoming, Carrie.”

“Actually, they’re quite becoming.” Abel promptly turned a shade of plum as he realized what had blurted out of him.

Carrie felt a little flutter of pleasure from what he’d said, though she knew such thoughts were vain. A deep flush spread up her neck and over her cheeks so she spun around to face the stove, clumsily knocking the hand that held the eggs. One by one the eggs landed, cracking on the linoleum, yolks and whites and broken pieces all running together. There was a moment of stunned silence, until Andy let out a hoot of laughter.

Abel stared down at the cracked eggs, then looked at Carrie. “Scrambled would be fine.”