A Rose Revealed (31 page)

I just had time to change out of my uniform before we sat down to supper. Jake was conspicuously absent. For once I was glad for the family habit of not talking much at meals. I could barely force myself to swallow, let alone talk. I pushed my food around and drank my sweetened iced tea and pushed my food around some more. Finally, Mary reached over my shoulder and took my plate. She patted me gently as she turned it away. I blinked back tears of embarrassment that she knew my plight, yet felt comfort that she cared.

“Rose,” Elam said over our dessert of cornstarch pudding, “Esther and I are getting married next Tuesday. We would like it very much if you would come.”

“Wow,” I said. “You aren’t letting much grass grow under your feet.”

They both blushed.

“If I can get the time off, I’d love to come to the big event.” I was curious to see what an Amish wedding was like.

“Good,” Elam said. “Jake knows where. He can bring you.”

Sure he can
, I thought.
He’ll love that
.

Suddenly I was furious at the man for treating me so inconsiderately. I began to simmer and stew. I felt my backbone start to straighten. Who did this man think he was to play havoc with my emotions? How dare he dump me!

I pushed my shoulders back and marched up the stairs, striking each tread with a firm foot. I would not let anyone, least of all Jake, assume control of me or my emotions. I was no one’s woman but God’s.

I had a full head of steam worked up by the time I reached my rooms. I all but stomped over to the window and stared outside, daring the dark to make me depressed. As I looked, a green van pulled into the drive.

A great wave of grief immediately overwhelmed me. I stood in my darkened room and stared out the window as Jake appeared from the other side of the van and rolled down the sidewalk. I imagined his black eyes laughing into mine. I heard him call me Tiger. I remembered his strong arms holding me. I felt his broad chest beneath my cheek. By the time he disappeared from view under the overhang of the front porch, all my anger had dissipated and I was an emotional wreck once again.

Oh, Lord, I’m dying inside
. I imagined myself picking up a valuable gift and handing it to Jesus.
I give Jake back to You. Hold him for me. And hold me, too. Please. Lest I die
.

Sam and Becky got married Saturday afternoon in Pastor Adam’s office. It was a bittersweet occasion in many ways.

Becky looked very pretty in a new cream-colored dress. Her hair hung long down her back, and she wore baby’s breath in a circlet on her head. She held a small nosegay of pink rosebuds and baby’s breath.

“Aren’t they beautiful?’’ she asked, holding her flowers up for me to smell. “Lauren got them for me.”

“You’re beautiful, Becky,” I said.

She blushed shyly. “Lauren says the baby’s breath is for Trevor.” Tears suddenly rimmed her eyes, and I had to blink too. I hugged her hard.

Jake was Sam’s best man.

“After all, you’re the first guy I met in Pennsylvania. You even let me sleep on your sofa for most of the past two weeks.” He laughed. “But I’ve got to admit that I like the bed in our new apartment more.” Since Wednesday he’d been sleeping in the little furnished apartment they had found over a store on 340.

“We’re staying here in Bird-in-Hand for now,” Sam said. “Because of Trevor. I’ll find work somewhere. God will provide.”

The service was short, but the vows given had been sown in love and grown in pain. The radiant looks on both of the young faces made me want to cry, especially since every time I looked at the couple, I saw Jake sitting just beyond Sam.

We ate a celebratory meal at Pastor Adam’s home, his wife Mindy serving us with a smile. She had gone out of her way to make the meal special, using her best china and silver, decorating the place with lovely flowers. Becky was delighted, and her smile never dimmed, even when she talked about Trevor, which was often.

Jake did his best to make certain he was never alone with me. He talked animatedly with Davy and Lauren, but with me he was cool and distant and painfully polite.

“Jake,” I said, the one time I found myself beside him with no one else close by. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

He looked at me coolly and with feigned surprise. “What makes you think there’s anything wrong? I thought the service went very nicely.” And he wheeled away.

“What gives with Jake?” Lauren asked me under cover of the wedding cake being cut.

I shook my head and shrugged.

“I’m sorry.” She squeezed my hand. “We had great hopes for you two.”

It was all I could do not to say, “Me, too.”

Amid hugs and best wishes, Sam and Becky left for two nights at the lovely Hershey Hotel up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a gift from the couple who had brought them both to Christ.

“Enjoy it, Becky,” I whispered as I hugged her. “It’s so elegant and beautiful. That is, if you can take your eyes off Sam long enough to look around.”

“I’ll look,” she promised. “Just for you. And thank you for all you did for Trevor and me, Rose. You’ll never know what your friendship means to me.”

I left soon after the newlyweds, climbing into my car alone and going back to the farm. I spent the evening trying to read, trying to watch TV, trying to do some needlepoint. The only thing I seemed capable of doing effectively was pitying myself.

My beeper sounded at 2 a.m. I fell out of bed and scrambled into some clothes. I sped to the fire hall, being careful to watch for Amish-men on scooters also responding. I slotted my car into a parking spot behind the fire hall at the same time as Harry. We climbed into the ambulance and went to the nightmare.

By the time I returned to the farm, I was numb. I climbed wearily out of the car and walked to the house. The quiet and peace of this place were exactly what I needed to restore my spirit. I leaned against the wall at the bottom of my stairs, trying to get the energy to climb them. I laid my head against the wall and closed my eyes.

“Rose?”

I opened my eyes and saw Jake coming through his doorway. I didn’t even have the energy to react.

“Are you okay?” His voice was soft and rich with the concern I used to hear in it.

I shook my head. “It was terrible. Everything I hate in a call. Kids drinking. Innocent people killed. Waste.” I slid down until I sat on my third step. I rested my head on my knees. “Terrible, terrible waste.”

Jake wheeled up until his chair made a T with my knees. “Tell me about it, Tiger.”

“Some kids were drinking and weaving all over the roads. A local cop saw them and drove up behind them with his lights flashing. The kids took off. The cop wisely did not pursue them. He didn’t want to cause an accident. There was one anyway. The kids came around a curve at high speed and there was a buggy. They ran into it and then into the tree just beyond it. The couple in the buggy was killed and so were three of the four kids in the car. So was the horse. The only survivor was a boy who panicked and ran. They found him about a mile from the scene, curled in a ball beside the road, crying like a baby.”

“Rose!” Jake looked at me, appalled.

I smiled wearily back. “Things aren’t usually this bad. Tonight’s an exception. It was a job for the coroner, not us.”

We sat in silence for several minutes, not touching physically, but I felt the emotional strength and warmth, the oneness, the passing of energy from him to me.

“Thanks, Jake,” I whispered. “You’re a special guy.” And I laid a hand on his forearm.

He started to raise his other hand like he would cover mine, but he stopped after moving mere inches. His hand fell, and in an instant I felt that barrier rise between us again. Gone was the man who had cared enough to wait up until I came back, and the distant stranger of the past week was back.

“I’m glad you’re fine,” he said in a chilly voice. With a curt nod, he turned and wheeled into his rooms, his door snapping shut with a finality that congealed my blood.

Chapter 17

I
ended up not attending Elam and Esther’s wedding.

My supervisor, understandably but disappointingly, wasn’t willing to give me any time off after my recent hiatus. I had mixed feelings about missing the great event. Much as I wanted to be there for Esther, I was just as glad to avoid Jake. That click of the door early Sunday morning had shattered something inside me.

Tuesday morning while everyone else was at the wedding, I had a patient to visit not too far from the farm. I drove down our road past the new construction in the woods. I glanced at it, thinking that the builders were making astonishing progress. It was like watching a barn raising, given the speed with which the project was developing.

As I looked, a familiar figure with light hair walked across what would someday be a front yard. I stared, surprised and pleased, as Sam disappeared around the far side of the rapidly appearing house. I smiled to myself as I drove on. Someone’s story was ending well even if mine wasn’t.

It was late in the day when I stopped at the supermarket at the junction of 340 and Business Route 30 for some sodas and snack crackers to replenish the stash I kept in my room. I turned down one aisle and bumped into a dusty, work-weary Sam, arms full of groceries.

“Hey, guy” I said, “I saw you on the job site today. Congratulations!”

He pumped his fist in the air and grinned. “Isn’t it great? And Becky got a job at the outlet mall.” He grabbed at the loaf of bread that was sliding off his armful, letting it dangle from his fingers. “Soon we’ll be able to get a car for her.” He leaned in close. “Then I won’t have to stop at the store anymore. I hate the store, any store.”

“Spoken like a man.” I grabbed the frozen orange juice that was sliding from beneath his arm and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “They have carts here, you know.”

He grinned sheepishly. I shook my head at him and said in mock disgust, “Guys! Just don’t forget this juice at the checkout or they’ll take us both away.”

Sam nodded his thanks. “I hear they took your bad guy away and he’s now in jail.”

“And what a relief that is!”

“I’ll just bet.” Suddenly Sam looked shy, even blushing slightly. “The Hershey Hotel is really nice.”

I was delighted at his embarrassment. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Almost too beautiful for us,” he said. “We felt funny just walking around, let alone eating in the dining room and all.”

I could imagine how the opulence affected a pair of country kids. “But it was fun for a special time, wasn’t it?”

He grinned. “It was great.” I didn’t think he meant just the hotel.

He started for the checkout counter and then turned and called over his shoulder, “Stop at the house sometime. I know you drive by it a lot.” I thought he meant his apartment at first. “It’s going to be a big rancher with wide halls and specific-height counters and stuff, all designed just for Jake.” He shook his head. “It’s going to be something special.”

I stared at his retreating back as my new heart wound bled fresh blood.

The new house was Jake’s.

And he’d never told me about it.

He’d never once indicated he had something as momentous as a specially designed house breaking ground. He’d always sounded as if he meant to live forever in the
grossdawdy haus
.

Of course I was glad he was moving out on his own. After all, I’d lectured him about being dependent often enough.

But a house with never even a whisper? Nothing could have told me more clearly where I stood with him.

At the checkout I picked up all the local newspapers I could find regardless of date. Tonight I would read all the rental ads and begin searching for that new apartment.

As I struggled against a breeze and full arms to open my passenger side car door, Pastor Adam and Mindy pulled in next to me.

“Here, let me,” Pastor Adam said as he scrambled to help. He pulled the door open, and I dumped my newspapers and bag onto the seat.

“Thanks. I had visions of the papers slipping free and carpeting the parking lot.”

“You look tired,” he said. “Hard day?”

More than he knew. “Every day is tiring, I guess. I think I need to get a heavier concealer stick for the circles under my eyes.” I smiled to show I was all right.

“One good thing,” Pastor Adam said. “Your friend Jake is a wonder.”

“He is,” I said, not quite a statement, not quite a question.

“He hasn’t missed a morning since we began our Bible study over a week ago. Six-thirty comes and there’s Jake. He is hungry for the things of God.”

If Sam’s revelation about the house had jarred me, this news knocked me to the canvas.

“Jake’s meeting with you?” My voice squeaked.

“Whoops,” Pastor Adam said. “I hope I’m not giving away a secret.”

“No, no,” I hurried to say. “I just didn’t realize it was every day.” Or any day.

“I love it when a man comes to Christ and then wants desperately to grow. He’s been a true pleasure.”

“Excuse me, you two,” called Mindy apologetically. “I hate to interrupt, but we’re going to be late, Adam, if we don’t get a move on.”

“Yes, dear,” he said like a henpecked husband, but he smiled at his wife with that you’re-something-special look Jake used to give me. With a nod in my direction, he and Mindy disappeared into the store, his arm casually draped around her waist.

I slowly drove to the farm in the dark of the early winter evening feeling very alone, more alone than I’d ever felt in my whole lonely life. It seemed that every time I thought I couldn’t feel worse, something happened and I felt worse.

As I went down the road, I was drawn to Jake’s new house. I slowed as I passed it, peering through the darkness, trying to assess the day’s progress. I noticed a crushed-stone drive, and on impulse I turned in. The beams of my car lights illuminated the wooden frame of the house. It sprawled in a great
U
with interesting roof angles and lots of windows.

With a deep sigh I imagined waking up and looking out those windows at the trees with their summer canopies in place, planting a garden and filling the house with flowers clipped fresh each morning, maybe swinging on one of those wooden swings hanging from a great tree. I imagined having a breakfast picnic on the back deck and sitting in the living room in winter before a roaring fire. And I imagined it all with Jake beside me, cheering me on, holding me tight, loving me.