A Wedding for Julia (24 page)

Ada’s hair was snow-white, and her skin was as wrinkled as a piece of paper that had been wadded into a ball and then smoothed back out. It reminded Sharon of the note she had attempted to write to her mother while on the long bus ride. In the end she had torn it from her tablet, wadded it up, and placed it in her purse to throw away. But in her room, before dinner, she’d smoothed it back out, carefully folded it, and placed it in the back of her Bible.

She tried not to stare at the condition of Ada’s hands. They were curved as if she were holding a ball in each one, only Sharon didn’t think it was something she could help. She didn’t think Ada could straighten her hands.

“I’ll take those,” she whispered, picking up Ada’s dishes as well as her own. She followed Julia into the kitchen, but not before she glanced back over her shoulder. Ada had moved to sit in her rocker in a corner of the room, pulled her Bible into her lap, and was slowly searching through the Scriptures.

Cleaning the dishes did not take long with the two of them working together. It didn’t take long enough. Sharon’s habit at home had been to tend to kitchen duties alone. She would stall, soaking her hands in the soapy dishwater until her skin resembled prunes and the water grew cold. After all of the dishes were washed, dried, and stacked in the cabinets—and they had a lot of dishes for nine people—she would begin to clean the counters, the stove, the table, and sometimes even the floor. She would do whatever was necessary to wait out the rest of the household. Eventually silence would settle around her, and she would know that everyone else was in bed. At that point it was safe for her to sit at the table, or stand by the window, or sometimes walk out to the barn. She would do anything to stay awake.

None of that was going to work with only four people eating the evening meal and Julia helping with the cleanup. They were finished before Caleb was back from the barn, and they all trudged upstairs together.

They passed an hour in the sitting room, where Sharon pretended to read, Julia worked on her lists, Ada again studied her Bible, and Caleb read the
Budget
. When the clock on the wall ticked over to nine, Ada stood and moved off to bed.

“I’m sure you’re exhausted,” Julia said. “You haven’t turned a page in the last half hour, and we’re probably keeping you awake. Is there anything else you need tonight?”

“
Nein
.”

Panic clawed at Sharon’s throat. She hadn’t realized how easy it was to hide within a large family. Now what? She couldn’t explain her fears to this woman she’d just met. She couldn’t explain them to anyone. If someone had asked, she couldn’t have said why she couldn’t sleep, why the mere thought made her stomach pitch and turn. She couldn’t explain it to herself. So instead she dutifully followed Ada to their room, changed her clothes, and crawled into the bed.

Which was exactly where she had longed to be two hours earlier. Except it was safe to lie down and hide in the daylight. She was able to stay awake then. Nighttime was a different matter. At night she had to fight to keep her eyes from closing.

And this evening was worse than most.

She’d been awake since four a.m., preparing for her trip. The parting with her mother had been emotional, and she had to push those memories away as she blinked, staring into the darkness. Ada’s soft breathing beside her was a rhythmic lull, pulling her down, and then there was the scent of the freshly laundered sheets. Unable to resist, Sharon felt herself drifting deeper into the abyss she feared the most.

The rain continued to fall in sheets. Sharon didn’t need to look down to know the
Englisch
clothes she wore were thoroughly soaked. She stood shivering beneath the streetlight. Joana had answered the phone. Her best friend had promised to send help. She had told Sharon to wait exactly where she was near the crossroads signal
.

Thunder cracked more loudly than a hunting rifle, causing Sharon to jump and glance around. Had lightning hit something? Would it strike near her next?

Maybe she should move away from the streetlight, but Joana had told her to wait there. When she tried to check her phone again, it wouldn’t even turn on. She should have checked to see if James had a car charger, but then James was the problem. She should have never left with him
.

So many decisions to regret
.

A car’s lights slashed through the darkness
.

Hope surged through her, but even as she stepped out onto the road, Sharon knew it could not be her father. She’d placed the call only ten minutes ago. There hadn’t been enough time for Joana to reach him and for him to find a ride. She stepped back to the shoulder, but it was too late. The car slowed and then it stopped
.

One middle-aged man was driving the large black car and another younger man was riding in the passenger seat. He rolled down his window and shouted for her to get in. Sharon shook her head and stepped back off the road, praying they would drive on
.

The rider, who she now saw had a scar on the right side of his face, opened the door, stepped out into the rain, and motioned for her to get in the car. Sharon moved even farther into the field. Her shoes slipped in the mud as she backed away from the strangers. The man with the scar turned and said something to the person driving. She didn’t hear what it was, but somehow she knew what he was going to do when he turned back toward her
.

She had been considering running down the road, but she knew instinctively he would catch her there. So instead she reversed directions and ran into the field at the same moment he lurched for her, his fingers trailing down her bare arm
.

Sharon stumbled through the field, through the darkness, zigzagging through the remains of the farmer’s crops. She heard him at first, following her, cursing, slipping in the mud. Then all she heard was the rain, the thunder, and the thudding of her heart
.

But still she didn’t stop
.

Running blindly in the darkness, she didn’t realize he was standing in her path until she ran into him. Somehow he had circled around and found a way in front of her. Too late she tried to change directions. This time her feet slipped in the mud and she fell, hard, against the muddy ground. He caught her then, and his hands closed around her arms in a viselike grip
.

Sharon struggled and kicked and fought to free herself, but she was no match for his strength. It was then she began to scream…

She woke curled in a tight ball, her hands covering her face and the sound of whimpering filling her ears. Soon enough she realized she was making the childish sounds.

She’d had the dream again. He’d caught her again.

She lay in the bed, willing her heart rate to slow and reminding herself it hadn’t happened…at least the last few moments of the dream hadn’t happened that way. The man with the scar had never caught her. She had run until she was so lost no one could have found her, which was part of the problem. It had taken her father and the
Englisch
driver hours of searching back and forth across the surrounding roads to locate her.

As she reached to wipe the tears from her face, she realized she wasn’t alone. She remembered she was in Caleb and Julia’s house, and she recognized the voice speaking.

Opening her eyes, she saw that Ada had awakened and pulled the single chair in the room closer to the bed. Her hands were on Sharon’s hair, gently touching the crown of her head, and her words, as soft as the sheet on her skin, were a balm.

“The Lord is your shepherd, Sharon.”

She pulled in a deep breath, closed her eyes again, and allowed Ada’s words to fall over her.

“He makes you to lie down in green pastures.”

Something inside of her unclenched for the first time since that night.

“He restores your soul.”

She eventually fell back into a dreamless sleep, with Ada’s hands lying softly on her head and the words of Psalm 23 ministering to her soul.

Chapter 20

S
he’s still not eating.” Julia washed the sandwich plates from lunch as she looked out the kitchen window. She had wrapped Sharon’s sandwich in a dishcloth. Caleb liked a midafternoon snack, so at least it wouldn’t go to waste.

“
Ya
, but she looked like she wanted to eat. That’s a step in the right direction.” Caleb put his arms around his wife’s waist, causing her to drop the cup she was rinsing back into the sudsy water.

Ada had gone upstairs to nap, and Sharon was outside taking down laundry from the line. The day was sunny and the temperature in the fifties. The sheets and clothes they had hung out early that morning were already dry.

She and Caleb were completely alone in the kitchen, but even so, Julia wasn’t accustomed to her husband’s displays of affection. She could hardly believe that perhaps he did care for her. Perhaps he hadn’t married her out of pity.

“I’m worried about Sharon.”

He kissed her cheek, peered out through the window, and shrugged. “She looks okay to me.” Moving to the cookie platter, he snagged two and leaned against the counter.

“Except she weighs twenty pounds less than she should.” Julia dried off a plate with a flourish and practically tossed it into the cabinet. “She barely speaks. And she wakes with nightmares.” A cup rattled as she set it next to the plates with a bit more energy than necessasry.

“I’ve been warned to beware of wives when the dishes start to shake, rattle, and roll.”

“Oh, you have?” Julia paused with another cup in her right hand and a dish towel in her left.

“
Ya
.”

“And who would warn you of that?”

“Can’t say.”

“Can I guess?”

“Probably, but that’s not the point.”

“What
is
the point, Caleb Zook?”

He moved closer, pulled the dish towel from her hand, and helped her store the cup more gently in the cabinet. “That you’re worried about my cousin, which I appreciate. And you’re trying to hurry the Lord’s work, which is useless and frustrating.”

Her hands free, she allowed herself to be pulled into his embrace, and when she did, Julia’s tension melted like the soap bubbles in her dishwater. “You think it’s the Lord’s work for her to be here? You think being with us will help her?”

“It’s Monday. She only arrived last Friday, but already she is smiling occasionally.”

“Maybe at
mamm
when she quotes the Psalms, especially the times they make no sense.”

“Which is something.”

Julia sighed as she rested her head on her husband’s chest, her face turned toward the window. Sharon had loaded the laundry into the basket and was carrying it toward the house. “She’s a
gut
girl, Caleb. I wish I understood what is bothering her. The letter from your
mamm
didn’t explain very much about what happened in Indiana.”

“It explained enough. She had a bad experience with a boy, was struggling through her
rumspringa
, and her parents thought time away would be best.”

Julia looked up at him. “A bad experience with a boy. What does that mean?”

“We don’t know. Maybe we don’t need to know. If Sharon wants to tell us more, she will. Until then, we’ll be family to her.” He bent his head to kiss her.