The Judgment (32 page)

After another long stretch of silence, Silas said, “I think we should call it a night, jah?”

Surprised, she glanced at him.

“Seems we’re getting nowhere,” he stated flatly. He hurried the horse, and when they came to a side road, he directed the animal to turn and then back up. Once they’d straightened again, he clicked his tongue and they sped back toward Salem Road.

As they approached her father’s house, Rose said softly, “I don’t know, Silas . . . if I’m not speakin’ out of turn, maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while.”

Silas didn’t reply—didn’t even reassure her with his wonderful smile. And, considering everything, she didn’t feel crushed by his silence as she climbed down, out of his courting buggy. In fact, his lack of a response right now seemed to point to the truth.

Chapter 31

H
en fingered the end of a loose strand of Mattie Sue’s blond hair that evening. “Looks to me like you need a good brushing.” She smiled down at her daughter.

“Oh, Mommy . . . do ya think I’m a pony now?” Mattie Sue giggled, prancing around her bedroom. “Giddyup, Pepper.”

“Pepper? Have you been riding the bishop’s horse?”

Mattie nodded. “Dawdi Sol took Beth and me riding on him this morning.”

Dad did this?
Hen was surprised. “But Pepper’s a driving horse.”

“Well, Dawdi says he’s the best horse for us to ride double on, since he’s nice and slow with the bishop’s littlest grandchildren, too.”

“Does Dawdi Sol lead Pepper along when you ride?”

“Jah, he wants us safe. And that way, Pepper won’t start trotting.” She giggled. “But Beth said she’d like it if he did.”

Hen reached for the brush on the dresser and sat on Mattie’s bed. She began to undo the bobby pins and let out the little bun at her neck. Down tumbled a cascade of thick locks. “Goodness, just look how long your hair’s getting.”

“Show me where.”

Hen patted Mattie Sue’s midback. “Halfway between your neck and your waist.”

“If ya brush it a lot, will it grow faster?”

Smiling, Hen said her own mother had always thought so. “When I was a little girl, I asked the same thing.”

“Did ya want your hair to grow real long . . . down to your knees?”

“No, not that long.”

“How long, Mommy?”

“Well, to my waist, like my grandma’s,” Hen replied.

“
Grossmammi
Sylvia?”

“No, Dawdi Solomon’s mother had the longest hair I’ve ever seen. It took nearly a full day for it to dry.”

Mattie sighed. “I don’t remember her.”

“I was just ten when she passed away . . . long before you were born, honey.”

Mattie fell silent, and Hen picked up the length of her daughter’s hair with her left hand and began brushing gently with her right. “Daddy’s not going to die, is he?” Mattie Sue asked softly.

A similar worry had plagued Hen when she’d first stepped into the emergency room critical care center. But now she believed differently. “Daddy has a wonderful-good doctor and nurses taking care of him. You mustn’t worry.”

“Why can’t he see?”

In terms Mattie Sue could understand, Hen explained that a blow to the head could hurt the brain and so affect other parts of the body. “Like Daddy’s eyes. But the doctor thinks Daddy’s sight will return soon.”

Mattie Sue turned and put her arms around Hen’s neck. “I really miss him.”

“It’s possible Daddy might be able to go home tomorrow. We’ll just have to wait and see.” She hoped that what the doctor had indicated today was correct—that Brandon was responding well to the neurological tests so far and might indeed be discharged. “He’ll have to rest quite a lot once he does go home,” she said.

Might be weeks before he can return to work, though.

“Will Daddy live at his own house again?” Mattie got resituated so Hen could finish brushing her hair.

“I’m sure he will,” she said, but suddenly she wondered how Brandon would manage.

Mattie’s questions ceased suddenly, and she remained very quiet until Hen tucked her into bed. “Beth wrote a prayer for Daddy in her notebook,” she said.

“How nice!”

“She read it to me,” Mattie Sue said, reaching up to kiss Hen good night. “I’ll miss her when she leaves.”

Hen hadn’t heard that Gilbert Browning was returning. “Did Beth say her father was coming for her?”

“Their neighbor came to see Aendi Rosie this afternoon.”

“Donna Becker did?”

Mattie nodded her head and rubbed her eyes sleepily.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll still see Beth plenty, sweetie,” she assured her, then kissed her cheek and blew out the lantern.

Downstairs, Hen sat on the settee with her Bible, reading in 1 Peter. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, her father was calling to her from the back door. “Come in, Dad.”

He joined her in the small front room and surprised her by saying that Mom had agreed to go to an orthopedic surgeon in York.

“Amazing! When will you go?”

“Next Friday morning.” He looked toward the window. “Honestly, I haven’t seen your mother like this since before the accident.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s surprisingly hopeful.” His chest rose and fell. “It’s so unlike her.”

“Many prayers have been offered for her through the years, Dad.”

“That’s the truth.” He then asked how Brandon was doing today.

“Well, his surgery was successful, so things are better than yesterday. Apparently, though, he’s lost his sight due to the blow he took to the head, but the doctor said it should be only temporary.”

Her father looked grave. “Temporary?”

She nodded. “That’s the expectation. Either way, the doctor said it really shouldn’t be much longer and he’ll be going home—maybe even tomorrow.”

“The Lord’s Day,” he said softly. “Will you visit him again?”

“Yes.”

He gave her a knowing smile. “You know, you’ve seen your husband more in the last two days than in the last two months.”

She realized suddenly he was right. “Between you and me, I wonder what’ll happen now to Brandon’s plans for divorce.”

“Honestly, I wondered the same thing.”

A soft thump came overhead, and Hen guessed one of Mattie Sue’s beloved toys had fallen to the floor. “Mattie misses him so much, Dad. Should I take her with me to see him once he’s released?”

“Well, that depends on how you think she’d handle the loss of his sight. She’ll certainly need you right there when she first sees him.”

“Surely by tomorrow he’ll see.”
Surely.
Hen couldn’t let herself think otherwise.

Later, after her father left for home, she made some warm peppermint tea and sipped it, thinking that if tomorrow weren’t the Lord’s Day, she would have invited her dad to ride with her to the hospital. His presence would provide a buffer, especially if Brandon was more alert and broached the dreaded topic of divorce.

O Lord, please let something good come from this accident.

Chapter 32

R
ose helped clear away the plates and utensils from the
table on Sunday noon. Her own words came back to plague her: the bold suggestion that she and Silas not see each other for a while. Why hadn’t he spoken a word in reply? Was Silas irritated at her for being so brazen as to broach it?

She went upstairs to her room and looked at the library books piled on her dresser. All of them were historical novels, just waiting to be read. Right now fiction was one of the best ways for her to deal with the turmoil swirling around the family. Hen’s pending divorce, and now Brandon’s accident and recovery—
and this awkward thing between Silas and me.

The book she was enjoying most took her far away from her worries, if only for a short time. Oh, the joys of living near an adventure-filled land as did Elnora Comstock—the lonely girl lived in the Indiana Limberlost and spent her leisure hours collecting and selling beautiful moths.
Nearly as forlorn as I am.

But Rose did not reach for the cherished book. Instead, she opened her dresser drawer and removed a small writing tablet and pen. Going to her chair and the side table near the window, she sat in her quiet room with the door securely shut. She stared out the window at the bishop’s house in the distance, through the windbreak of black trees.

Rose sighed deeply and stared at the lines on the tablet. In the past, when she’d been feeling this addled, she’d always poured out her heart to Nick—
he
had always understood her. Maybe she would be able to think through everything more clearly if she simply wrote down her thoughts to her best friend. It was worth a try.

Sadly, she began to write, knowing that at least the Lord would see this letter. All of a sudden, she hesitated—Rose hoped He would not frown upon her for these words. Truth be told, she was searching her heart, just as she’d told Silas to search his.

Dear Nick,

I might burst if I don’t write my thoughts here, though you’ll never see them. So much is bottled up inside me since I saw you unexpectedly in Philly. I wish I could talk to you like I always did when you were here. Oh, Nick, I miss those days!

When I saw you at the homeless shelter, I wanted to tell you that your bishop-father is in dire trouble with the neighboring bishops over his ordination—especially Old Ezekiel. I know nothing can be done now, and that his fate is in the hands of God. But still, it breaks my heart—Dat’s, too.

I told you in Philly that I found your note in the tin box. You wrote that you feel responsible for Christian’s death. And surely everyone here believes that you are. But I refuse to think, my dear friend, that no matter how angry you may have been that day, you would have taken the life of another. I simply do not believe it, Nick!

No matter what you say, God is surely watching over you. He cares for you . . . and so do I. I really wanted to tell you this before you left home. Maybe you knew it all along.

And even though it makes no sense at all, I realize more and more that I’m engaged to marry a man I might never love as I ought, and I love a man I can never marry.

I miss you, Nick.

~ Rosie

Rose stared at the shameless words, nearly shocked that she’d had the courage to commit them to paper. Carefully, she tore the page out of the tablet. Then, getting up, she placed the tablet and pen back in the drawer. She folded the letter in half twice and pushed it deep into her dress pocket. Finding her warm navy blue sweater, she slipped it on and buttoned it all the way down, then hurried downstairs to retrieve her heaviest wool coat and black outer bonnet from their hooks at the far end of the kitchen.

Rose did not tell a soul where she was going, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. No one could keep her from hiding this. Truth was, she knew the very best spot for the letter. Somehow, it felt like the right thing to do.

The best place, after all.

Rose went out to the haymow and found her old riding britches for under her dress and long apron. Then she went to the stable and got her favorite horse, George, taking him far out of her way just so she could approach the desolate ravine at one of the points where the road lay lower and closer to the creek bed. The horse picked its way over the snow-covered area near the frozen creek, and she eventually found the boulder where Mamm’s tin box was still pushed deep into the crevice behind the rock, concealed beneath the decaying leaves. She removed all of the money her mother had taken along eleven years ago to make change at market. Then, wadding up the bills, she stuffed them into her pocket and removed her letter to Nick from the other. Her fingers shook despite the warm gloves she wore.

A strange feeling came over her as she placed the letter where she’d found Nick’s unexpected note a month before. She firmly pressed down the lid and put the tin box back into its nest. Then she turned and mounted the horse to head back down the creek, amidst huge rocks and ragged trees, mere silhouettes now that their branches were barren.

The letter would be safe there, where no one would think to look for it. No one knew that Nick had found the abandoned tin box, the sole remembrance of Mamm’s horrid accident, or that he’d taken Rose there to show it to her . . . and to speak tender words of love. How astonished Rose had been!

Even so, Rose was fearful. She wondered suddenly what would happen if the note was unearthed years from now, perhaps long after she was Silas’s wife . . . and mother to his children. What then?

“What if all the People come to know how I feel at this moment?” she said into the frosty air, her breath billowing up to the sky. But she’d done what she had set out to do and was not going down there to retrieve it. The box had been untouched for more than a decade. Surely there was no reason to expect anyone would discover it now.

Once she was back up on Bridle Path Lane, Rose passed Jeb Ulrich’s little house. The poor man was said to be mentally unstable, and most of the time slept his days and nights away. There was no movement or even a single light coming from inside as the horse trotted past the tumbledown dwelling. Rose felt strangely comforted by the knowledge that not even Jeb had the slightest notion of her trek through the deep ravine that Lord’s Day afternoon.