Hidden Mercies (24 page)

This comment felt like an ice pick to his heart. His father could not possibly be trying to preserve the farm for
him
. Could he?

“Are you talking about Tobias?”

“Yes. For many years, Jeremiah has set a place at the table for his youngest son every day. Some Amish people whose children have left the church do that. It is a silent way of grieving their absence, as well as a sort of prayer that someday they will come back. Didn’t you notice?”

“I saw a few dishes sitting at the opposite end of the table from where we ate. I thought it was simply a few items he’d not bothered to put away. I had no idea what they were there for.”

“He washes those dishes once a week, and then resets Tobias’s place. If I know Jeremiah, he will not stop until he dies or Tobias comes back. It annoys his son-in-law. He has asked Jeremiah not to do that when they are visiting. He says that it upsets Faye, but I do not think it upsets Faye.”

“Why would the son-in-law even care?”

“Because Faye’s husband has a greedy streak. I believe he hopes that his wife will inherit property worth many dollars someday and does not like the idea of sharing.”

“And does Jeremiah obey his son-in-law’s wishes?”

“Jeremiah?” She chuckled. “No, he is a very stubborn man.
When his son-in-law comes to visit, Jeremiah adds a few extra dishes to Tobias’s place setting.”

•   •   •

Tom’s strength was coming back in small bits and pieces. He continued to go to his father’s early every morning, but recently he had begun to walk there and back, one mile round-trip, and the walk did not tire him. His milking ability was still negligible, but his attempts—although painful—were bringing about a little more flexibility in his hands every day. Getting up that early was not a challenge. His body seemed determined to wake him at 4 a.m. every morning anyway. It felt more productive to dress and go to his father’s barn than to force himself to lie in bed a few more hours.

In addition to bringing about some strength and flexibility, there was a deep emotional comfort in engaging in this daily routine. The flicker of joy he saw in his father’s eyes each morning when he arrived, always accompanied with a bit of gentle teasing about his
Englisch-
ness.

There was comfort in the sounds, sights, and smells of this old barn that had played such a large part in his childhood. In this familiar place, the ultravigilance he had developed in the Middle East lessened. It was unimaginable, even to his touchy subconscious, that an enemy would want to secrete an explosive device in this place.

Jeremiah encouraged Tom in his efforts to regain his strength and seemed to take a great deal of personal satisfaction out of every small milestone, measured by how much milk was in the bucket when they finished each morning. Tom had no illusions about being any real help, but he appreciated the old man’s enthusiasm.

After whatever other light chores he could help his father with, he would walk back, stopping long enough to purchase
yet another quart jar of Claire’s tomato juice. To make sure he had a good supply, the girls had stopped putting it on the shelves of their little store. Now Maddy went down into the cool cellar and brought up a fresh jar for him every morning.

As he rested on Claire’s porch steps with a quart jar of that ruby-red liquid in his hand, it felt like he was drinking pure sunshine and that his body had been ravenous for it. Amy, always happy for company, would show him her latest creation and would prattle on about her small world. Talking to Amy always left him smiling. It was impossible not to love that little girl.

A bonus to this routine was that Claire would frequently be employed in some outdoor chore at that time of the morning, when it was still cool. She would be sweeping off the porch, or hoeing in her vegetable garden, or hanging up wet clothes. She would inquire about his health or ask about Jeremiah. Then he would find out some small snippet about her plans for the day. She would mention the new dress material she planned on sewing up for one of the girls or a new recipe she’d tried at the house of a friend that she was going to try out. He felt honored the morning that she chose to confide her worries about her sister’s plight. From what he could tell, it appeared that Claire was pretty much singlehandedly keeping that family in groceries, while Henry stayed away more and more.

He did not tell her about having tried to follow Henry that day, but he did resolve to find reasons to linger around Lehman’s Hardware a little more often. He also resolved to keep his gas tank filled so that he could follow Henry all the way to wherever the destination was that was destroying him and his family.

Each afternoon, he spent long hours reading from Levi’s copious library, interspersed with more walks. Sometimes he would wander over to Levi and Grace’s. They were seldom
around during the day, but Elizabeth was always up for a visit. It was good to have one person with whom he could talk freely about the experience of being around his father and Claire under these circumstances. Elizabeth continued to counsel caution. She said that God would let him know when the time was right.

He confided to Elizabeth about his unexpected windfall, and how it worried him that he could think of nothing he wanted to buy or do with it. He was afraid it was another symptom of that PTSD diagnosis the doctors had been determined to pin on him. She told him there was a good chance the Lord had something else in mind for that money and to wait until God showed him a purpose. This thought appealed to him and was a relief.

He frequently stopped to talk to old Flora. She had grown to depend on an apple always being in his pocket and would come to the fence to get a treat and a good scratching behind her ears. Flora was definitely showing her age. Claire was aware of this and had begun hiring a driver more and more often.

He found great comfort in the company of Claire’s animals. The soft clucking of the hens as they sat on their nests eased something in his chest. Like Albert, he had been in charge of the chickens and eggs when he was young. One of the barn cats had a litter of kittens. He had never liked cats all that well, but in this new quiet in which he was living—this unhurried cocoon of time—he allowed himself to sit in the barn for hours, simply watching and enjoying the antics of those kittens tumbling and playing about.

Most days were good, though some days were a struggle. But one overcast day, when every bad thing he’d experienced or seen in the Middle East was jockeying for position in his mind, God sent him a gift.

He was sitting on the steps of his apartment that evening,
watching the barn swallows flit and glide—ever the accomplished aerial acrobats—when he saw a dog lurking on the edge of the field.

The dog was larger than a German shepherd and it had matted, shaggy white fur.

He looked at the dog, and the dog looked at him.

“Are you lost, boy?” he said.

The dog took a few tentative steps toward him, then lost heart and retreated.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

The dog whined and came a few steps closer, head down, its tail swishing back and forth.

Even though it was almost dusk, he could tell that the animal was pretty beat up. As it drew closer, he could see that it was male and had been in several dogfights.

“Whatsa matter, Rocky,” he said, thinking of the multiple fight scenes when Sylvester Stallone was the underdog and came out swinging. “You lose a few?”

The dog had gotten down on its belly now, and was crawling slowly toward him. It didn’t take someone who was fluent in dog body language to see that it was afraid to trust, but its need to be petted, to have human contact, was even greater than its fear. There were scars above its eye and several on its neck and body.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Rocky.” He held his hand out, palm up.

He held his hand out for a long time until the dog screwed up its courage, raised its head, gave his hand a sniff, and then gently licked it. The touch of its tongue was so quick, so light, he could barely feel it—but it was there. They were friends. He gently chucked it under the chin.

“You’re a good dog, aren’t you, buddy?”

At that moment, it did something he’d never seen a dog do
before in his life—it stood, came close, and laid its head in his lap, sideways, and then closed its eyes.

It was such a trusting, tender thing to do, like a tired child lying its head in the lap of a trusted adult.

The gesture brought a lump to his throat. He identified with the dog. He was pretty beat up himself, and some days it felt like he’d crawled on his belly all the way to Holmes County, hoping to have contact with gentle people who would treat him well.

For a few minutes, they sat like that, on the bottom step, dog and man, both battle scarred and weary. He smoothed his hand over the dog’s matted hair, and the animal gave a deep sigh of contentment as though he knew he was finally home.

As he ran his hands down over its sides, he could feel the ribs. The long hair hid an emaciated body. Rocky was not well fed. There was no dog food here, but he did have a package of hot dogs.

“You hungry, Rocky?”

The dog lifted his head and looked at him with such anticipation, he would have sworn the animal understood exactly what he’d said.

He made his way up the stairs with Rocky at his heels.

“Sorry, buddy. You can’t come in with me, but I’ll be right back out.” The animal immediately sat down on the small landing outside the door. Tom came back out and fed hot dogs to him one by one.

After eating eight all-beef hot dogs, Rocky lay down on the landing and fell asleep. Tom went to bed, hoping the white dog would still be there when he got up in the morning. He could use a good friend, and unless he was mistaken, Rocky could use a good friend, too.

•   •   •

It was growing dark and Claire had already put the smaller children to bed. Maddy had gone to a singing with some friends, Albert and Sarah were sound asleep, as was Amy. Jesse was reading under the covers with a flashlight and thought she didn’t know. His thirst for knowledge was as great as his older brother Levi’s.

She walked out onto the porch, intending to sit on the swing for a few minutes. Since the weather had gotten warmer, it had become her habit to say her nightly prayers out there. She found that praying in bed after a hard day of work was too conducive to falling asleep!

She’d been sitting there in the shadow of a trellis of morning glory vines when Tom walked down the stairway of his apartment and sat down on the bottom step. She didn’t move for fear he would see her. Chatting with him outdoors in broad daylight with the children running about was one thing. A conversation with him in the dark was entirely too intimate an act, and she did not want to be put in the position of pointing that out to him.

Then she saw the stray dog tentatively coming out of the shadows. She sat, transfixed, as Tom gently encouraged it to come to him. She watched as the dog crawled on its belly to him. Watched Tom coax it toward him. Tears sprang to her eyes when she saw it lay its head trustingly in his lap. She held her breath, hoping he would not frighten it away. Then she let it out when she saw him gently pet it, talking to it softly. She smiled when she saw him feeding it hot dogs.

The dog would obviously be a permanent inhabitant now. She supposed some people in her position would insist that her renter get rid of the dog—but she didn’t feel that way. The healer in her saw the probability of Tom and the stray dog finding solace in each other.

It was her opinion that you could tell a lot about a man
by how he treated an animal. Her trust ratcheted up a couple notches when she saw Tom responding so gently to the stray. It bothered her that he was a soldier—a profession of which she heartily disapproved—but there was a lot of goodness in that man’s heart.

She watched as Tom went back into his apartment, and she stayed put until the light went out. At that point she knew it was safe to get up and go inside her house without him thinking she’d been deliberately spying on him.

•   •   •

“You decided to stay, did you, boy?” Tom was delighted when he opened the door the next morning. Rocky was lying so close to the screen door that Tom had to nudge it to get the dog to move.

Even though his nudge was gentle, Rocky was up like a shot, backing into the corner of the small porch, looking at him with worried eyes.

Tom came outside, sat down on the top steps, and whistled a soft invitation. Rocky wagged his tail and came close enough for Tom to ruffle the fur on top of the dog’s head.

“Did you sleep good, boy?” he said. “Did those hot dogs lie okay on your stomach? If I’d eaten a whole package for supper, I’d have been up half the night.”

He could almost swear that Rocky grinned at him.

“Come here,” Tom said, gently pulling the dog closer. “Let me take a closer look at you.

“You’re pretty beat up, aren’t you, fella? Did someone make you do this? You don’t seem to be the kind of animal that would deliberately pick a fight with another dog.”

Rocky whined softly and lay down, his muzzle on his paws.

His best guess was that there were some illegal dogfights
going on somewhere in the state and Rocky had managed to get loose.

The thoughts of forcing dogs to fight one another made Tom’s stomach turn, but he knew it happened.

That one wound on the back of his neck needed to be looked at. A dog could lick a wound on its body and keep it clean enough to heal, but Rocky couldn’t reach this one.

Tom remembered the B&W ointment his father had given him. He’d been rubbing it into his own scars and—though it might be wishful thinking on his part—he thought it was helping.

“Stay right where you are, buddy.” Tom rose and went into the apartment.

He didn’t have any more hot dogs, but he did have some leftover bacon grease, which he mixed in with a bit of leftover cooked oatmeal. Then he broke a couple raw eggs over it, poured in some milk, and gave it all a good stir. It wasn’t gourmet, but it would feed the hollow inside of Rocky long enough to let him go for the morning milking and then to the store for dog food.