The Harvest of Grace (8 page)

The clumsiness of her moves and the slur in her words indicated that she was more than a little intoxicated.

Aaron took the phone from her and ended the call before passing it back to her. “There won’t be any more drinking at the cabin, Frani. Not tonight or any night.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.” Trying to explain his new goals was a waste of time in her present condition. He looked toward the hidden parking area but didn’t see any vehicles. “Where’s your car?”

“Where it’s supposed to be. Don’t worry. Your folks won’t see it.”

“Kumm.” He headed toward the thicket where his old friends used to park.

“Wait.” She stumbled. “Me and some of the gang have been by the cabin lots of times in the last five months. It’s neat and tidy every time, but you were never there.”

Neat and tidy?

She pushed strands of dirty hair out of her face. “We’ve missed you.”

Before rehab, he might have believed they actually cared, and the power of that would have dragged him wherever they wanted. But now he saw a big enough sliver of truth that he understood. He hadn’t been missed—only the right to use the abandoned shack on his property.

He took her by the arm and started walking. “I’ll drive you home.”

When he got back here tonight, he’d board up the cabin. That should put an end to his old drinking buddies coming around.

When they reached her car, Frani passed him the keys. Before sliding into the passenger seat, she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her jeans pocket. She groped through the trash on the dashboard until she found a lighter, lit up, and stared out the window while filling her lungs with smoke.

Aaron ran his hand over the steering wheel and started the engine. He’d learned how to drive in this car, cruising dirt roads late at night, drunk with his friends. All of that was over now. He hadn’t joined the faith yet, but he intended to as soon as he and his family were living in Owl’s Perch.

While Aaron drove, Frani finished her cigarette without saying a word.

He wrestled with what to say to her. He wanted to bury the past. Everything he needed to accomplish—winning his parents’ approval, starting fresh, earning a little respect within the Amish community, avoiding having beer waved in his face—would be easier if he didn’t have to see her again.

But she deserved to have someone help her do what she’d always dreamed of—getting sober. Maybe she’d forgotten about that hope, but he bet that somewhere inside her that dream still existed. His sister might still be alive today if he’d had the clear thinking of a sober man. He had no way of knowing how the past might have played out if he hadn’t been a drunk, but he did know that if Frani stayed on this course, the possible disasters ahead were endless. And she deserved better.

As he pulled into a parking space in front of Frani’s trailer, a young woman with a fussy baby on her hip came outside. “Well!” the girl yelled.

“Home sweet home.” Frani sighed. “Thanks a lot, Aaron. Now that my sister knows I’m here, I’m stuck.” She held out her hand for the keys.

“I’m not walking home for the second time tonight. I’ll park your car in the usual spot and put the keys under the mat.”

“I’ll have to walk that far to get my car back?”

“That’s right. You need help getting inside?”

“No thanks.”

“Get some sleep, Frani. We’ll talk after you’re sober.”

She got out, taking her beer with her.

He left, determined to board up that cabin tonight. Since his parents were out for the evening, it was a perfect time to kick out anyone in it and to nail the shutters closed.

Once back at the house, he went to the pegs that lined the wall beside the back door. His tool belt still hung there, just as it had before he went away. Had his parents held on to it for him, hoping he’d return? Or had they simply not bothered to move his stuff?

He grabbed the lantern, lit it, and headed toward the path that led to the cabin. The trail was much clearer than when he’d left five months ago. Even if his parents remembered this cabin was here, they had no need to go back and forth from the cabin to their house or the barn. Either vagabonds or old drinking buddies were using it. Whatever the case, they had to go.

He climbed the two wooden steps to the cabin’s front door and turned the knob. Locked. The place was dark, so he set the lantern on the porch floor, withdrew his hammer from his tool belt, and tapped on a window-pane in the door. The ancient glass shattered. He reached inside, twisted the deadbolt, and opened the door, taking the lantern in with him.

Frani was right. The place showed no signs of the mess he’d left. No empty beer bottles or pizza boxes scattered about. Instead, three brown cardboard boxes sat in a neat row on the floor along the edge of the wall. He pushed one with his foot. It had contents. Other than the boxes, the rooms were as bare as ever. Except for the trash being picked up, nothing seemed different … until he noticed the table beside the front door.

Flowers?
Tiny blossoms, scrunched together and lying on a table. They reminded him of the ones his sister used to pick as a young girl and give to their mother. The depth of Mamm’s loss hit him again, and he drew a deep breath.

An aroma of gardenias surrounded him, but the smell hadn’t come from the scrawny, uprooted plants. Faint sounds of water dripping echoed against the quietness. He followed the noise, expecting to find a leaky faucet or broken water pipe.

As he drew closer to the bathroom, he noticed reflections on the hallway floor, apparently from candlelight flickering in the next room. The door to the bathroom stood ajar about two inches. He eased it open. A tendril of black smoke looped from an almost used-up candle. Bubbles, mounds of them, wavered in the tub as if someone had been there moments earlier.

He swung the lantern to cast light into the hallway behind him, making sure he wasn’t about to get clobbered by a stranger. He saw no one.

Water swooshed, jerking his attention back to the bathroom. A woman’s head and shoulders slowly came out of the water. She leaned back against the tub, wringing water from her long, black hair.

It seemed that she hadn’t heard the glass shattering or him coming inside. He took a step back, aiming to get out of the cabin before he startled her or before her husband showed up. As he slowly took another step backward, the floorboard creaked.

She screamed. Not a dainty, feminine scream or even a frightened one. She was mad.

He hurried through the living room. Almost at the front door, he tripped over something. His kerosene lantern went one way and his hammer the other. His palms landed in broken glass, sending pain through him. He jumped to his feet, grabbed a couch cushion, and used it to douse the burning wick from the broken lantern.

The woman bounded out of the bathroom, holding the puny candle and wearing a housecoat … 
his
housecoat. The one his mother had made for him as a Christmas present a few years back. She stood about five and a half feet tall and looked quite thin under that oversized housecoat.

She picked up his hammer and threatened to throw it at him. “I’ve told all of you before. Get out of my house!”

“Don’t throw that. And this is not
your
house, lady.”

She winged the hammer at him full force, and he jumped out of the way, but the tool still smacked him in the knee. “Ouch!” He rubbed his leg. “You’re the one who’s trespassing!”

“Why don’t you idiots try coming up with a new line? I’m tired of that one.”

“This
is
my place.”

“Yours? Really.” Her candle sputtered out. In the darkness she grabbed what sounded like a box of matches and struck one. She held it up toward him and gave him an unfriendly once-over. “That makes you Aaron Blank, I suppose.”

“Ya.” He wiped his slightly bleeding palm down a pant leg and then held out his hand. She didn’t take it.

“Your Daed said you wouldn’t be back.”

“Nonetheless, here I am.”

She tilted the match closer to him as if he might be a vision. “Great. This is just great.” She yelped and slung the match from her. Within a few seconds, she’d lit another one. She moved to a gas pole lamp mounted on wheels that stood in the corner. After lighting it, she glared back at him. “Of all the deadbeats I’ve had to deal with—people removing the screens and crawling through the windows or poking screwdrivers through the screen door and letting themselves in even while I’m standing in plain sight—none of them did this kind of damage.” She picked up the couch cushion and sniffed it. “Kerosene,” she mumbled and tossed it back onto the floor.

Aaron glanced at the mess he’d made. It wasn’t that bad. “Why did you say this is your home?”

Ignoring him, she went into the other room. When she returned, she had on shoes. She grabbed the kerosene-soaked couch cushion, and glass crunched under her soles as she walked to the front door and tossed the cushion outside. “Obviously, you haven’t spoken to your parents about the transformation of this place from hangout to homestead.”

“They know I used this place as a hangout?”

“Sure. And a lot more. Your Daed caught some of your
friends
here one night soon after you left, and they filled him in on everything.”

Aaron shuddered to think of all she must have heard about him.

The wheels on the gas pole lamp clattered as she moved the light closer to study him. She didn’t say it, but he clearly heard her:
Drunken louse!

“And you have their permission to live here?”

“This is a dairy farm. It’s not unusual to offer a place to live in exchange for help.” She went back into the kitchen.

He picked up the remains of his lantern. “I should be going. You can tell your husband I’ll have the glass in the door replaced.”

She returned with a broom. The image seemed fitting. All she needed to do was climb aboard and ride it.

“If I were a man, would you assume I had a wife?”

“Well … no. But you said …” He tried to think of exactly what she’d said that made him think she was married. “I guess I thought. I mean, Daed would not hire just a woman to help with the farm work.”

“Why? Because
just a woman
would do a worse job than you did?”

“You don’t have to get ugly about it. I know I’m no dairy farmer.” Aaron raised his hands. “I realize I got your dander up, intruding on you like I did. And rightly so. But can we call a truce?” He moved to the table and lifted the flowers toward her. “Please?”

She gave a disgusted sigh mixed with a faint laugh. “You’re going to offer me wilted weeds that I picked myself?”

He shrugged.

“Fine.” She took the pitiful-looking things. “Since you’re not a dairy farmer, we shouldn’t cross paths while I’m doing my job.”

“You’d have to take up that request with my Daed. The prodigal son isn’t supposed to come home unwilling to work for his meals and a place to sleep.”

“Michael and I have an agreement. No one comes into the barn during milking times unless I’ve invited them.”

“Then we don’t have a problem.” He went to the door. “I’ll get the glass fixed tomorrow. Wait. Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ll get it fixed Monday.”

“No need. But thank you anyway.”

“I really think I should.” He put a bloody hand on his aching leg. “Mostly as a way to ward off any would-be trespassers. It’ll protect them.”

He was fairly sure he saw a smile underneath her obvious frustration.

“Any chance you know where my parents are?”

“They said they were going to Abner Mast’s for the evening. Some kind of fellowship dinner’s taking place there tonight.”

“Okay. Denki. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He wondered if she milked the herd by herself, but he didn’t dare ask. If all his father had for help was a girl, talking his folks into selling the farm would be easier than he’d imagined.

S
ix

Aaron jolted awake and jumped off the couch. Sunlight filled the room, as did the sounds of his mother making breakfast. A familiar ache moved inside him. He’d tried to wait up for them last night. Before nodding off, he’d left a note on his Mamm’s pillow, telling them he was home and asking them to wake him when they got back.

They hadn’t, so he prayed for the right words and walked into the kitchen. Only Mamm was in the room.

She turned to see him, but no smile crossed her face, and she didn’t open her arms to hug him.

“I’m sorry, Mamm.”

She pulled three plates out of the cabinet and set them on the table. “You should be.” She backed away from him. “How could you just disappear like that? Your sister … died. And we needed you.”

He pulled out a chair and sat. “I know. But I couldn’t help anybody.”

“I didn’t even know you had a drinking problem until—”

“I’m better now.” Aaron wondered if either of his parents had even opened the letters he’d sent them while in rehab.

His Daed came downstairs, wearing his Sunday best. He walked stiffly past Aaron without more than a glance at him and took his place at the head of the table. Mamm set a cup of coffee in front of him.