A Time to Heal

4



Chris lay staring at the ceiling, his arms folded under his head on the pillow. He didn't know where Hannah had gotten the idea that he'd come here with romantic fantasies about Jenny, but he sure hoped Matthew didn't think the same thing. He had enough problems without having his host think that was why he'd come to see her.

Jenny appeared so different from the way she'd looked last time he'd seen her. Then, she'd been pale, in pain, sitting in a wheelchair, and hyperventilating as she waited for the results of her medical tests. He'd been able to relate since he'd gone through the same thing.

Now she glowed with health, moved about easily, and looked so happy with her husband and her ready-made family.He felt a moment's envy that she'd found someone who loved her. Found a home. Found family. Found a community



He had a home back on the farm. Had family—his dad and brothers. He'd gone there after his release from the hospital, but it didn't feel right. He wasn't ready to settle there again. He didn't know when he would be.

Sleep eluded him. The burns on his chest still stung like crazy, but he felt so tired after the unaccustomed exertion of the day that he should have slept. Instead, his mind kept replaying the incident in the hayloft with Hannah.

He couldn't help but remember Hannah staring at him in shock, then disappearing from sight as she slipped from the ladder. His stomach clenched as he recalled jumping up and reaching for her, wondering if he'd be able to grab her hand or whether he would witness her fall to the ground below.

Then, when he pulled her up and she lay gasping for breath, he'd had an opportunity to look at her, really look at her. He thought she was one of the prettiest women he'd ever seen— with her clear ivory skin, wide blue eyes, and full rose-colored lips that bore no trace of cosmetics. Lips that had spoken such hard words of distrust just a short time ago.

No shy, meek Amish miss. Jenny had asked Hannah to show him around the area tomorrow. No doubt Hannah would be polite, as she had been this evening. But she'd watched him at supper, watched his interactions with her family, and now he knew why.

Well, she could believe what she wanted, but he wasn't interested in romancing her sister-in-law. He hadn't come here for that reason at all. And he didn't intend to tell her his reason for coming, either.

He wondered what the next day would bring. After so many months cooped up in a hospital, his injuries holding him hostage in a wheelchair, he wanted to live, not just exist. He hadn't fought all that pain and the surgeries and the depression and despair just to waltz through the rest of his life. He'd survived when others he knew hadn't.

That didn't mean he thought he was special and had some big purpose to accomplish—some big contribution to society to make. But it meant that he had to make the time he had been given worth something. Others hadn't gotten it.

He thought about that a lot. Especially after Vince had been killed and left him his Bible. Vince had talked to him about God and Jesus and about their love for him. Chris didn't understand why he'd lived and his friend had died. Vince had been the one with the connection to God. He was such a good person. Wasn't he more worthy of life?

His counselor called it survivor guilt. A lot of people— especially soldiers—felt this way.

Chris had no idea that he wouldn't be able to talk to Jenny alone. Now he had to think of how he could stick around without arousing suspicions.

And the woman he would be playing tourist with the next morning—he'd have to be careful around her if he didn't want to make anyone suspicious of his motives.

The burns on his chest had made wearing a shirt to bed a bad idea. Now, as Hannah had predicted, the night had turned cool and he felt cold under a top sheet only.

He reached for the quilt, unfolded it, and spread it over the bed. Pulling it up over his shoulders, he wrapped himself in the scent and soft fabric of bedding that had been dried outdoors.Finally at peace, he slept.

The next morning, Mary opened the door when Chris knocked. "Guder mariye, Chris." She smiled and explained, "It means 'good morning.'"

"Good morning to you too." He stepped inside and inhaled the wonderful breakfast aromas of bacon, eggs, cinnamon, and coffee.

He nearly stumbled over the suitcase that sat near the front door.

"Mamm's leaving for New York City right after breakfast."She shut the door. "Did you sleep gut?"

"Very gut, thank you."

She stopped and so he did too. "Chris? Do the burns still hurt?"

Chris stared at her. The child looked like a little angel with her long moss-green dress and almost white-blond hair worn in pigtails. Her big blue eyes gazed up at him.

"They don't hurt at all," he lied.

She smiled and slipped her hand into his. "Gut. Are you hungerich? We made cinnamon rolls."

"Sounds wonderful." He looked at her. "How do you say that in Pennsylvania Dutch?"

"Wunderbaar."

Chris said the word, and she giggled at his pronunciation.

"What's all this mirth first thing in the morning?" Matthew asked sternly as they entered the kitchen.

Then Matthew waggled his eyebrows and sent Annie into a fit of giggles.

"Silly Daedi," she said, sitting at the table. She scribbled in a notebook. "Mirth means funny. Right?"

"Right."

She looked up at Chris. "I'm keeping a book of words," she told him seriously. "I'm going to grow up to be a schreiwer like my mamm. A writer," she explained with a giggle.

Tucking her pencil into the notebook, she plunged her spoon into a bowl of oatmeal.

"That's a stupendous idea," he said.

Annie's eyes grew big. She pulled the notebook open and got out her pencil. "Stupendous! I don't know that word! I have to look that up. It sounds like it means really, really good.Right?"

"You bet."

"Help me spell it?"

"S-t-u-p-e-n-d-o-u-s." He hoped. For confirmation, he looked at Jenny who grinned and nodded.

"Have a seat," Matthew told Chris.

Jenny glanced over from the stove where she used a spatula to lift fried eggs from a cast iron skillet.

"Good morning." She picked up the percolator and walked over to pour him a cup of coffee.

Chris breathed in the scent. It smelled like heaven."Thanks."

"Hannah should be over soon. I'm not sure if she told you that she lives next door with Phoebe."

"Mamm?"

Jenny glanced at Mary and some unspoken message seemed to pass between them. Jenny nodded.

"Chris, how are the burns this morning?"

"Not a twinge," he lied. "The burn ointment you gave me worked really well."

Mary smiled and sipped from a glass of milk.

"I hope you like bacon and eggs?" Jenny asked.

"Love them."

They said a prayer for the meal and then passed around platters of eggs and bacon. The cinnamon rolls were bigger than a man's hand, warm from the oven, and they oozed spicy, sugary sweetness and ribbons of white icing. Chris took one and wondered if he'd be rude to take more. Manners kicked in, and he passed the basket.

"We made lots and lots," Mary told him shyly, giving him a conspiratorial smile as if she'd read his mind. "You can have as many as you want."

The children chattered about Jenny's trip but didn't seem worried about her being away.

"Mamm's going to talk to her editor about her new book," Annie told him. "It's not a storybook. It's to tell people what's happening to kids who aren't fortunous like us." She frowned and looked at Jenny. "Fort—fort—?

"Fortunate," Jenny said, her smile gentle as she touched the little girl's cheek. "They aren't as fortunate as us."

She took her seat at the table and served herself as she listened to the children.

Chris waited for the children to ask her to bring them back presents, things, the way kids he knew did when their parents had to go away for work. Instead, the children talked about school and chores and what they'd be doing while she went out of town.

All the while, he saw that Jenny and Matthew quietly held hands beneath the table and spent a lot of time smiling at each other. Even if he didn't know they hadn't been married all that long ago, he'd have figured them for newlyweds. But he hadn't expected an Amish man would display his feelings about his wife.

The front door opened and then closed.

Hannah walked in and noticed Chris sitting at the table eating breakfast.

She sighed inwardly. So, she was still going to have to play tour guide. Well, she'd do it for Jenny but she wouldn't like it a bit. The quicker he was gone, the sooner she could get back to her daily routine.

Hmm. How quick could she make it? She poured herself a cup of coffee and couldn't help smiling as an imp of mischief tugged at her imagination.

She made the mistake of looking at Chris just then and their gazes locked. His eyes narrowed as he studied her.

Hastily, she glanced away, and this time found Jenny watching her. Her sister-in-law's eyebrows went up, but Hannah shook her head.

"So do you have any idea where you want to go or what you want to see today?" Jenny asked Chris.

He cast a quick look at Hannah and then shook his head. "I think I'll let Hannah plan our itinerary."

"Itin—rarry?" Annie looked like a reporter as she held her pencil above her notebook.

Chris grinned at Annie. "Itinerary. It's a plan for a trip you want to take. You make a list of all the places you want to see so you don't forget anything. Your mother will have to help you spell that one, I'm afraid."

Jenny smiled and spelled the word for Annie.

"My mamm's going on a trip, right after breakfast," Annie announced. "And she's got lots of lists."

"I'm a little obsessive about being organized, I guess."

"A little?" Hannah teased.

"Obsessive?" asked Annie.

Jenny bit back a smile and then spelled the word.

Hannah gave in and placed a cinnamon roll on a plate.Jenny still didn't make a lot of different types of food but those she did she made well. Cinnamon rolls were in the top five best recipes made by Jenny, Hannah decided as she bit in.

Jenny made a face at Hannah. "So I needed some help adjusting to running a household with three children and helping Matthew with the farm where I could and still meet my writing deadlines. You were a tough act to follow."

Hannah shrugged and felt a little embarrassed at Jenny's praise. After all, she needed to do the same when Amelia, Matthew's first wife, had died.

"I enjoyed helping Matthew with the haus and the kinner. And I'll be happy to help in any way while you're gone."

She turned to them. "Starting now. Isn't it time to leave for schul?"

The children got up, took their plates to the sink, and then swarmed Jenny with kisses and hugs.

Hannah's heart warmed as she watched Jenny fight back tears while hugging them close.

"I'll be back in no time," she said. "I promise."

"We know," said Annie, and she gave Jenny a big smacking kiss on the cheek. "Bye!"

A quick scurry of feet, and the three children raced out the door. It slammed behind them and left utter silence.

"What a wonderful sound," Matthew said, grinning. He sighed and took a last sip of his coffee. "Let's get you off and I can have a nice, quiet house all to myself for a while," he told Jenny.

"Well!" she pretended to huff. "Maybe I'll just stay there a few extra days."

"Maybe I'll come after you if you do," he responded and her smile faded.

"That would be so awesome," she breathed. "Do you mean it? Just the two of us?"

"I can't manage it right now, during the harvest. But we can go away for a few days this winter."

"How would we manage that—" She broke off and looked at Hannah. "Do I sense a plot here?"

Hannah smiled. "See, I can keep a secret."

Jenny rushed to Hannah's side and threw her arms around her. "Well, I guess I won't mind this once." She sighed. "I feel like we're sisters, not just sisters-in-law."

The two women smiled at each other, and Jenny started clearing the table.

"Let us do that," Chris said, standing and picking up several plates to take to the sink.

"But you're a guest," Jenny protested.

"I'm used to doing chores," he told her. "I grew up on a farm." He returned to the table to gather up the silverware."Besides, you need to get going, right?"

"Thanks, Chris." Jenny stood and looked at her husband."Can you help me with my suitcase?"

He jumped up. "Ya, of course."

They hurried up the stairs, and the bedroom door shut with a click.

Hannah watched Chris glance down the hall. She was sure he'd seen the same suitcase by the front door she had when she'd come over this morning.

When he turned back, Hannah caught his look and smiled.

"They still act like newlyweds," she said with a reluctant smile.

"It's good to see her looking so different from the way she was at the hospital." Running water in the sink, he squirted in dishwashing liquid.

"It was a hard time for her," Hannah said, picking up a dishcloth and joining him at the sink. "Matthew told me that Jenny was injured when a car bomber targeted her because of her news reporting. He said they didn't want the truth to get out about how civil war had harmed the children there."

He rinsed a plate and handed it to her.

"Why were you in the hospital? What happened to you?"

"Enemy with a bomb," he said shortly.

"So the two of you have a lot in common."

She'd made it a comment, not a question. So she didn't feel any surprise when he nodded and stayed silent. But when he handed her another plate to dry, he looked into her eyes and he sighed.

"Yes." He handed her a cup, then pulled the plug and let the water drain from the sink. "That's it. Are you ready to go?"

Hannah knew when someone didn't want to talk. Obviously this man who'd been so free to talk to the kinner and Jenny and Matthew a few minutes ago didn't want to talk to her.

Well, he didn't want to talk to her about whatever had caused those awful burn scars on his back. It had always seemed to her that most people liked to talk about their physical problems.Emotional ones too. But this man was a mystery.

She loved mysteries. Okay, so maybe she was a little bit nosy. But there was nothing wrong with that, was there?

She hung the dishcloth to dry. "I'll get the buggy."

Chris watched her start for the door and then realized that he'd be kind of crass to let her go do all the work while he sat and waited for her to pick him up.

"I'll help you."

"I don't need—"

"I'll help you."

"Did you have horses on your farm?" Hannah asked him as they walked over to Phoebe's barn.

"Two."

She didn't wait for him to open the door like some women did but reached for it. Their hands touched and she jerked back and looked at him in surprise as if he'd given her a shock.Taking advantage of her surprise, he opened the door and followed her inside.

"This is Daisy," she told Chris. "And Daisy, this is Chris."

The striking chestnut mare had big, expressive brown eyes."Aren't you a beauty?"

"And such a flirt," Hannah said as Daisy rubbed her nose against Chris's hand.

He looked at Hannah. "I heard somewhere that sometimes people here buy retired racehorses to pull their buggies. Did Daisy used to race?"

Hannah nodded. "She's like the wind."

The horse looked bigger than he expected, but Hannah quickly harnessed her and led her outside.

Chris glanced up as he heard the wheels of an approaching buggy. Jenny waved to them as they passed.

When he returned his attention to Hannah, Chris whistled when he saw that she had finished attaching the buggy to the horse.

"That was fast."

"I've been doing it a long time." She climbed into the buggy and waited for him to take a seat.

The buggy felt like a flimsy contraption compared to an automobile, but Chris supposed that if it were made of the things that cars were made of, it would take many more horses to pull it. The inside looked spare, with simple, cloth-covered seats.

Hannah called to the horse and they were off, almost racing past farms and open pasture. Chris absorbed the clip-clop vibration of the horse's hooves against the road, the gentle sway of the buggy, and the presence of the woman who sat beside him in her demure dress. A woman who glanced at him from beneath dark lashes, a smile playing around her lips.

"So where is your list, Englischman?" she asked.

It took Chris a minute to focus on what she'd said. "List?"

"You said you were here to look around, to learn about the Plain people. Tourists come here with expectations, with a list of things they'd like to do and see. So where is yours, Chris?"

He shrugged. "I don't have a list."

"I see."

"I'm not here to steal Jenny away," he said, reminding her of her accusation the night before.

"Nee?"

"Huh?"

"No?"

"No. I just thought I'd play it by ear. Before I got your services as a tour guide, I mean." He met her gaze. "So I'll leave it up to you."

"Allrecht. I'll take you to the places I think you'd expect to see then."

"Great," he said.

They traveled a little farther without speaking. Then something made him glance over at her. He blinked. Was it his imagination that she looked like she was trying to hide a smile?

She must have felt him looking at her for when she turned her head and found him regarding her curiously, she carefully schooled her expression.

She took him to a bakery filled with tourists eagerly buying traditional baked goods, and they chatted with a friend who worked there.

Chris looked at the vast array and couldn't decide what to get. He'd never seen so many different varieties of cookies, cakes, and pies. A lot of people were buying something called shoofly pie. Chris took a sample, but it tasted overly sweet to him.

The door opened and half a dozen people swarmed in.Where had all these people come from? There were tourists everywhere.

And Hannah was right. There were groups of people— families and senior citizens—but no single men like himself.

"What do the children like?" he asked Hannah while he waited to be served.

She laughed. "Everything. I don't think I've ever found a sweet they didn't like."

"But what's their favorite? They must have one."

"Whoopie pies."

"How about you?"

"I don't want anything, thanks."

"What about Matthew?"

"My brother's a big kid. He'll eat a whoopie pie with the kinner if you bring him one."

He bought a dozen pies so there'd be enough for the children and anyone else who wanted them. Then they joined the throng of tourists who moved toward a store that advertised local crafts.

Hannah led him from shop to shop that specialized in Amish crafts, leather goods, and foodstuffs. He couldn't ever remember shopping so much in his life.

"I thought I might buy a quilt like the one on my bed, but I haven't seen any I like as well as that one."

"Don't rush. There are shops we haven't visited yet."

He groaned. "I thought we'd gone in every store in town."

"Such a faulenzer," she said, shaking her head.

"I have a feeling that's not a good name to be called."

She laughed and shook her head. "Lazy person."

When they finally returned to the buggy Hannah had hitched near the first shops, Chris sank onto the seat with relief. One of the bags in his hand slipped and landed with a plop on the floor, spilling out the handmade Amish doll he'd bought. He bent to pick it up and stuff it back in the bag when he saw the tag on its back.

"Made in China," he read.

Hannah tried to stifle her giggle. Chris lifted his eyes to stare into Hannah's and found them filled with laughter.

"You knew."

She covered her mouth with her hand and then dropped it and laughed out loud. "That particular shop is what some people call a tourist trap. I figured it would be the kind of place you expected."

He stared at her and nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Sometimes people only see the . . ." she seemed to search for the word. "Stereotypes."

"Like people sometimes do when they find out I served in the military," he said quietly.

Her smile faded. "Ya, I guess so." She was silent for a long moment. "I'm sorry. I guess I don't know what to think about you, Chris."

Leaning back in the seat, he glanced around, then met her gaze. "Why don't you show me what you love about your area?"

Hannah smiled at him. "Schur."

She drove him by several farms and talked about the crops that were raised here during the different seasons. She stopped the buggy and gestured at the fields in front of them.

"We have alfalfa and corn and soybeans and lots of different kinds of vegetables. Even dandelions."

"Dandelions?"

She nodded. "Lots of people love them in salads."

"They're weeds. I'm not eating weeds. Or flowers."

She laughed. "They're delicious in salads. And you should try dandelion gravy."

"Weed and flower gravy. I don't think so."

"If it was the right season for it, I'd make you some and change your mind."

Sighing, she called to Daisy and got the buggy moving again. "It's hard work farming, but the people who do it don't want to do anything else."

"Like Matthew."

"Yes, he's truly a man who loves the land." She fell silent for a moment and then she glanced at him. "And what about you?"

"I missed it—working the farm—while I was away."

"Are you going back?"

He dragged his attention from the passing landscape. "To the farm or the service?"

"Either."

"I'm not reenlisting in the Army."

A tense silence fell between them. He felt like a cloud swept over then, shutting out the sunlight.