Reflection (46 page)

Michael kept a lock on his surprise. He hadn't been serious with that question.

“Do you have a conscience, Drew?”

Drew sighed. “Certainly not as refined and perfected as yours. You're so honorable all the time, aren't you? It's made me sick. It's been so…refreshing to hear you talk about wanting to get inside Rachel Huber's jeans. So
refreshing
to hear you sound like a flesh-and-blood man instead of some sort of saint. But you know”—Drew pointed a finger in Michael's face—”I was getting pretty sick of listening to you talk about how hung up you are on the…fucking bitch who's responsible for taking my son's life. Did you ever think about that? What that felt like to me, hearing you go on about what a wonderful person she is?”

Michael felt himself color, embarrassed that he'd exposed so much of his interior to a man who had been mocking him—
hating
him, it seemed—behind his back. He could imagine all in a flash the conversations Drew had had with Ursula about him and Rachel, and he suddenly felt sorry for his onetime friend. How terrible to have no clear sense of right and wrong, of good and evil.

“I don't think we have any more to say to each other,” Michael said. He began backing away from the car. “I hope someday you can find a way to be happy without harming other people at the same time.”

Drew's mouth curved into a sneer. “You self-righteous bastard,” he said.

Michael turned and walked down the driveway. Maybe Drew was lucky to have no conscience. He felt a little envious. He knew only too well the difference between right and wrong. It was choosing between them that was the hard part.

“YOU WANT TO DO
what?
“ Celine Humphrey's reaction to Rachel's proposal was so startled and disbelieving that Rachel nearly laughed into the phone.

“I want to go to Zaire as a Mennonite volunteer,” she repeated. “My background in Rwanda with the Peace Corps should be a plus. I'm nearly fluent in French, and my Kinyarwanda should come back to me. I know the people. I understand the culture.” She'd made up her mind the night before to see whether she could volunteer, and an odd peace had settled over her ever since making that decision.

“Well, you are a surprise, Rachel,” Celine said.

“Am I?” Rachel asked the question rhetorically. She worried that Celine, whose dislike for her was obvious, might try to stand in her way.

“Yes, indeed you are, and I don't pretend to understand you,” the elder said. “But I do believe your interest in helping out in the refugee camps is sincere. It will be tough on such short notice, but I'll do all I can to help you through the screening. You'll have to get your medical clearance quickly, though, and a hideous number of inoculations.”

“That's fine.” Rachel felt relieved.

“All right,” Celine said. “I'll get right to work on it, then. And God bless you, Rachel.”

It was Rachel's turn to be startled. “Thank you,” she said, and she hung up the phone with a smile.

SHE TOOK CHRIS TO
the airport the following day, and she was pleased when Gram agreed to come along for the ride. She didn't feel comfortable leaving her alone. Gram seemed to have aged a year in the past few days, ever since telling Rachel the truth about her marriage and the sad ending to her relationship with Karl Speicer. Apparently there had been nothing cleansing, nothing freeing in that telling. Instead, Gram seemed weighed down by the memories. She leaned on Rachel, clung to her, and Rachel worried that her grandmother was sinking into the sort of depression she'd experienced after cutting Hans from her life.

She worried, too, about how her grandmother would react to her decision to go to Zaire. She'd already spoken to Chris about it, and although he'd initially expressed surprised concern, he encouraged her to go. She would talk to Gram about it on the way back from the airport. And then she would have to tell Michael.

Chris leaned forward from the backseat as Rachel approached the crest of Winter Hill. “I want to see the church reflected in the pond one last time,” he said.

They reached the crest of the hill, but they couldn't see the pond at all.

“Something's in the way,” Rachel said. She squinted into the distance. Their view was blocked by something yellow, big, and bulky, like a trailer or a Dumpster.

It wasn't until they reached the center of town that they could make out the obstacles to their view: bulldozers, backhoes, and trucks littered the lawn around the western end of the pond, poised and ready for their attack on the forest.

“I don't believe it,” Chris said with the naiveté of someone young enough to still trust in the system. “How can they be here already? The vote's not till Tuesday night.”

“It's a fait accompli,” Rachel said. “The Hostetters obviously have no doubt how the vote's going to go.”

“That's disgusting.” Chris slouched down in the seat, and Rachel saw his look of dismay in her rearview mirror.

“I feel sorry for Michael,” Chris said. “His church shouldn't have to sit in the middle of a bunch of office buildings.”

Rachel wished Chris would stop talking about the development. She glanced at Gram, whose eyes were on the small militia surrounding the pond but whose face remained impassive. Rachel gently squeezed the older woman's hand. She didn't want her grandmother to feel responsible for this. She didn't want Gram to think she blamed her.

She felt sorry for Michael, too. Not only because of what was about to happen to the setting for his church but for the dilemma he was in, the crisis he was facing in his family and his faith. It was a crisis in which she played too great a role.

She was going to lose him, one more time. She'd heard it in his voice when they'd sat in the tree house the other day. He wanted to do the right thing. She knew what that was. They both did.

The road blurred in front of her, and she quickly shifted her thoughts to other things. She didn't want to cry with Chris and Gram in the car.

“Are you excited about your gig tonight?” she asked her son.

“Yeah, sort of,” Chris said. “The band needs a lot of work, though.”

It was the first negative thing she'd heard him say about the band.

“And Mom?” he asked. “I was wondering if I could call the piano tuner and have her come out?”

Yes
, she thought with a grin. She hadn't heard him play their own piano in far too long. “Of course,” she said. “Good idea.”

“Gram?” Chris leaned forward again, this time to talk to his great-grandmother.

“I was wondering something about
Reflections
.”

Rachel knew what he was going to say, and she held her breath as Gram turned her head toward the backseat.

“I was wondering if I could, like, adapt a little of it for my band,” Chris said. “Some of the themes. I know that might be asking too much.”

“I'd like you to do that,” Gram said. “Send me a tape so I can hear what you did with it.”

“Cool,” Chris sat back again, a broad smile on his face.

She and Gram said good-bye to Chris curbside at the airport. Rachel hugged him hard.

“I'm so glad we had this week together,” she said. “I loved having you around.”

“Me too, Mom.” He glanced at Gram, then whispered in Rachel's ear. “Take care of yourself over there, okay?”

Rachel nodded, letting go of him, and Chris immediately drew his great-grandmother into a hug. “Bye, Gram,” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Gram said, and there was a small but beautiful smile on her lips.

“I won't tell anyone the truth about you,” Chris said, “but I'm very proud to be your great-grandson.”

Rachel couldn't stop her tears this time. She had a terrific son.

She waited until they were a few miles from the airport before telling Gram her plans.

“I'm seriously considering going with the Mennonites to Zaire to work in the refugee camps,” she said, glancing at the older woman. “I would have to leave in a couple of weeks, though, and I'm concerned about leaving you alone right now.”

Gram was quiet. After a minute, she said, “You're trying to get yourself away from Michael so he can make a decision without you being a factor in it.”

“No,” Rachel said, although she knew that was part of it. A small part, though. She wasn't running away from Reflection this time. “No, I want to do this for myself. It felt right the second I thought of it. Regardless of what decisions Michael makes, I'm still going. There were people I loved in Rwanda, and it tears me up to see what's happening over there. I speak the language. I'm a little rusty, but it'll come back to me.”

“How long will you be gone?” Gram's voice sounded tight.

“A few months. But I won't go if you still need me, Gram.”

“It's dangerous there.”

“I'm not afraid. I only wish I could leave
before
Reflection Day.” She smiled to herself. Reflection seemed more dangerous to her than Zaire.

She stole a look at her grandmother and saw the sheen of tears in the older woman's eyes. “Oh, Gram,” she said, “will you be all right?”

“I'll be fine.” Gram reached out to touch Rachel's hand on the steering wheel. “I'll just miss you terribly, that's all.”

“I'll miss you, too.” She sighed. “I love Reflection, Gram. It's my hometown. But I haven't brought it anything but pain by coming back. I need to do something that makes me feel good about myself again. I need to do something that helps somebody.”

“I understand.”

They drove the rest of the way home in silence, and Rachel knew that the hardest part of her decision was still ahead of her. Telling Chris and Gram had been easy. Telling Michael would be something else.

MICHAEL FELT A HAND
on his shoulder and he rolled over in the darkness, struggling to pull himself back from sleep.

Katy sat on the edge of the bed next to him, her blond hair lit up from the light in the hallway. She moved her hand from his shoulder to her lap, as though she didn't dare touch him any longer. He could see her cheeks were wet.

“Please forgive me,” she said.

“I do.” He touched his fingers to her cheek. “Did you take a cab from the airport?”

She nodded.

“Why didn't you call me to pick you up?”

“I didn't want to bother you.”

She buried her face in her hands, and he felt sorry for her. He rested his hand on her knee while she cried.

“I felt like a part of me was missing,” she said finally, raising her head again. “No excuse, I know. But I worked hard to become a doctor and to become a success in my career. I wanted a child, and I had a child. It all just didn't feel like enough to me anymore. That's trite, I suppose. I felt like a doctor and a mother and a wife. And I guess I still needed to feel like a
woman
. Like an attractive woman.”

“I'm sorry if I didn't make you feel that way.”

“I think we've been together so long that we've started taking each other for granted,” she said.

“Probably, yes.” He felt remarkably calm.

“Then all of sudden, Drew was there, paying me compliments, looking at me like he…wanted me. I was terribly weak. I thought I was a smart person—”

“You're a brilliant person.”

“Then how could I do such a stupid thing?”

Michael sighed. “Affairs of the heart seem to defy intelligence and reason,” he said. He was living proof of that.

“I want things to work out for us,” she said. “They have to, Michael. We have too much to lose.”

He sat up in the bed, leaning back against the headboard. “I don't think we can base staying together on our fear of what we have to lose,” he said.

She sucked in her breath.”
Michael
. What about your ministry? You can't seriously be telling me you would throw that away? And we'd be shunned if we split up. It'd be subtle, sure, but it would be there all the same. You know that.”

“Yes, I know.”

Katy tugged idly at the edge of the blanket. “It's Rachel, isn't it?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. Not entirely.”

“You've always loved her.”

“I've always cared very deeply about her.” He thought of the incident at the after-game party when he was thirteen, of Katy turning her back on him, of Rachel coming to his rescue. “Do you remember that time when we were kids and I scored the winning point for the opposing team in basketball?” he asked her.

She looked at him blankly and shook her head. “I don't want to see her,” she said. “I just… I feel humiliated. And ashamed. I assume she knows about me and Drew? And I'm jealous.”

“You may not see her at all,” he said. “She's leaving for Zaire in a couple of weeks.”

He'd seen Rachel briefly on Labor Day, when they'd slipped—unnoticed, he hoped—into the high school to use the darkroom. She'd told him there, in the darkness, as they watched images of the countryside emerge before their eyes. Celine had pulled some strings to allow her to go, she'd said. Her plans had stunned him into silence, but only for a moment. It made sense for her to go, and it was important to her. He had heard the resolve in her voice. The peace. He was glad that at least one of them had come to a decision of sorts.

“Zaire?” Katy asked. “She's not going with the church, is she?”

He nodded, and Katy looked out the window.

“She's moved right into my life, hasn't she? Into my town, my church. And my husband's bed, I assume?”

“Katy.”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes.”

“Do you love me?”

“I feel a strong commitment to you, Katy.”

Katy closed her eyes and stood up. She ran the fingers of both hands through her hair. “Everyone hates her, Michael,” she said. “Drew said the whole town despises her.”