The Forgiven Read online

  “I’m not finished.” Matt grabbed his arm. “Wait—”

  Simon twisted with an abrupt movement, trying to jerk his arm free. He swung his arm back, knocking Matt off balance. Matt stumbled, tripped, and fell backward. His left hand, flying out, hit the barbed wire, and the wire tore his flesh.

  Matt scrambled to get his feet under him, cradling his left hand in his right. Blood flowed from the jagged cut on his palm. Pain stung him.

  If his hand was injured, he couldn’t work. Fury ricocheted through him. He charged at Simon, his pulse pounding like a drum in his head.

  “Matthew!” Rebecca’s voice stopped him. Maybe it was the only thing that could. “What are you—” She stopped as she came even with them and saw the blood dripping from his hand.

  “You’re hurt.” She grasped his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip and transferred her glare to her brother. “What is the matter with you? With both of you? Out here squabbling and fighting like a couple of kinder. I’m ashamed of you. What do you have to say for yourself, Simon Lapp?”

  Simon managed to combine looking abashed and defensive. “It’s not my fault—” he began.

  “You were raising your hand in anger against a brother. I won’t have it.”

  “But he—” Simon made a vain effort to stem the tide.

  “Enough. I am ashamed of you. Think what Daad would say if he knew. But he’s not going to, because I won’t tell him. It would upset him to know, and that should make you feel even worse.”

  She interrupted her scolding to look down at Matt’s hand even as a drop of his blood splashed on her dark blue apron. “What a mess.” She tugged him. “Komm. We’ll go into the kitchen and get you cleaned up.”

  “I don’t need—” he began.

  “Don’t you start,” she said tartly. “I’ve heard enough foolishness from my brother to last me all day. You’ll get that cleaned and bandaged right now.”

  Matt had never heard Rebecca so assertive. Or so angry. She marched him toward the house as if he were Joshua’s age, gripping his wrist the entire time.

  Matt glanced back at Simon, who was studying his shoes, clearly not risking a look at his irate sister. We’re not finished, he promised silently.

  Once inside the house, Rebecca led him to the sink and turned the water on, letting it run cold over his palm. He was almost afraid to look at the cut. The pain wasn’t important, but his livelihood was his hands. Without them, he couldn’t help his uncle or himself, and his business would be over before it had begun.

  Rebecca pressed a folded-up dish towel against his palm. One hand held the pad in place while the other still grasped his wrist, as if she feared he’d yank it away from her. They were as close as if they were about to embrace. The curve of her neck was inches away from him, and the scent of her dizzied him for an instant.

  No. He couldn’t let himself feel anything, not when he’d just come so close to breaking all his promises and using violence against another person. No use saying Simon had started it. If there was one thing he’d learned the hard way, it was that that excuse never helped when all was said and done. If you couldn’t turn the other cheek to aggression, what kind of an Amish person were you?

  Rebecca eased the pad away from the cut and inspected it. Blood still oozed sluggishly, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared.

  “That looks better than I thought,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “Cuts to the hand do bleed badly. I don’t think it will need stitches, but if you want to see a doctor—”

  “Not unless I have to.” His head swam as she looked up into his face, the movement bringing her lips perilously close to his.

  Rebecca seemed to freeze for a moment, her gaze widening, her eyes growing darker. Awareness trembled in the air between them.

  And then she was moving, pulling him away from the sink and pushing him into a chair at the kitchen table. She turned to the stove, speaking without looking at him. “Just hold the pad firmly against it. I’ll get you some coffee, and we’ll check the cut again once you’ve rested a few minutes.”

  “Ja, Doktor Rebecca.” Keep it light, he cautioned himself.

  “You mean I’m being bossy, ain’t so?” She set a mug of coffee in front of him and pushed the sugar bowl within reach. “Women have to be bossy when grown men act like small boys. What were the two of you fussing about, anyway?”

  He couldn’t see any reason not to tell her. “I hoped that Simon might have some idea where Isaiah went when he left home. According to my cousin Sadie, they were always close friends growing up.”

  Frowning a little, Rebecca sat down in the chair across from him. “They were, I’d have said, but it seems to me that we hadn’t seen as much of Isaiah in the weeks before he went away. I suppose he might have been hanging out more with Englisch friends, since he was thinking of leaving.”

  “You’re probably right, but I have no idea who any of them were. Simon is my only hope of finding a lead to where Isaiah has gone.”

  She was silent for a long moment, still frowning just a little. “Maybe I can get something out of Simon after he calms down.” Her green eyes flashed. “Your method certainly didn’t do any good. Scrapping like a couple of kids on the playground. I thought better of you, Matthew.”

  I thought better of you. The words reverberated in his thoughts. Rebecca wasn’t the first person to say that to him.

  “You shouldn’t.” He ground the words out through the pain that had nothing to do with his hand. “You’ll be better off if you expect the worst.”

  Rebecca stared at Matt’s bent head for a long moment, turning his words over in her mind, unable to make sense of them.

  “Why?” she said simply.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, looking down at his hand. “I shouldn’t have said it. Forget it.”

  “I can’t.”

  Realizing he hadn’t touched his coffee, she dumped a spoonful of sugar into the cup and stirred. Sugar and caffeine seemed to help when someone had had a shock.

  She urged the coffee mug into his left hand and scooted her chair closer so that she could hold the pad against the cut. Judging by the stubborn line of Matt’s firm lips, she wasn’t going to get an answer to her question, so she changed it to a different one.

  “What made your talk with Simon turn into a fight?”

  He shook his head, not looking at her. “Don’t get involved, Rebecca.”

  “I am involved already.” Her voice was resolute. “Something must have led up to this business.” She gestured toward his hand. “I want to know what it is.”

  And she wanted to know why he thought so little of himself, but she’d have to work her way around to that question again.

  “Tell me.”

  Rebecca considered grasping his wrist again, but the memory of those moments when she’d looked into his eyes and felt something she’d never expected to feel again—no, better not. They were close enough to each other as it was.

  “Simon seemed to take offense at my trying to find out where Isaiah has gone.” Matt’s shoulders moved in the smallest of shrugs. “He seems to think I’m taking advantage of the situation, moving into Isaiah’s place.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said sharply. From everything she’d seen, Matt would be just as happy to give Isaiah back his job, so that he could get on with his furniture-making. “And I’ll tell him so. As for Isaiah . . . You mean his mamm and daad haven’t heard from him?”

  People left, jumped the fence, usually boys younger than Isaiah, but generally they were predictable about it. Their family had some notion, at least, where they were.

  Matt was shaking his head. “Nothing at all, and they’ve no idea where he’s gone. Apparently he left a note saying he wanted more than this life. They haven’t received any word since. Aunt Lovina . . . well, you saw how she is.”

  Rebecca’s heart
hurt at the thought of poor, confused Lovina. “I know. She can’t understand.”

  “She keeps searching for him.” Matt stared bleakly into his coffee. “I’ve tried telling her he’s working away, but then she wants to know why he hasn’t written. In the night I hear her weeping.”

  Her heart twisted in sympathy. “He should at least write. He should let them know he’s safe, even if he doesn’t want to come back.”

  “He should, but he hasn’t.”

  Rebecca couldn’t understand it. “Isaiah always seemed so . . . well, typical. At his age, everyone expected him to be getting baptized, joining the church, finding someone to marry. It’s not as if he was a sixteen-year-old.”

  Matt looked at her then, and Rebecca could see the pain in his eyes. “Sadie says it’s my fault. That he was copying me, just like he always did.”

  “That makes no sense at all,” Rebecca said quickly. Not that it surprised her to hear Sadie was taking out her pain and worry on the nearest available person.

  “She ought to know. They were always close.”

  Rebecca’s lips tightened when she thought of her own recent experiences with Matt’s cousin. “Sadie is too quick to blame everyone else when things go wrong. Think about it. You have been away from Isaiah for years. Any decision he made was formed recently, we both know it. You surely have more sense than to believe her.”

  Matt grimaced. “Sadie can be pretty convincing. And she knows I already have plenty of guilt where Isaiah is concerned.”

  “Why? How could you possibly . . .” She stopped, recalling nearly forgotten fragments of grown-up conversations.

  “You remember.” Matt studied her face.

  She shook her head. “Only that there was something people talked about. I don’t think I ever knew the rights of it.”

  “Your parents probably thought it wasn’t suitable for you to hear.”

  Was it guilt or bitterness he felt? She wasn’t sure. Maybe, if she treated it lightly, he’d go on.

  “Kids do foolish things every day.” She took the pad from his palm and studied the cut, not looking at him. “I don’t suppose you were any more foolish than most.”

  “Foolish, maybe. But they don’t all nearly cost someone’s life.”

  “Isaiah’s life?” she guessed. That was the only thing that seemed to account for his attitude.

  When he didn’t respond she rose, retrieved the first-aid box from the kitchen cabinet, and resumed her seat, trying not to betray too much curiosity.

  He watched as she dealt with his hand, not wincing when she applied the antibiotic cream to the cut. She could sense the struggle in him. He wanted to talk; she was sure of it. But she shouldn’t force his confidence.

  Folding gauze into a thick pad allowed her to focus on the task. If he spoke, it would be his decision.

  “Isaiah,” Matt said heavily. “He was just a kid then. I was thirteen—old enough to be responsible, so my daad said. I took him fishing over at Miller’s pond.”

  She nodded, fitting the pad over the cut. His hand, callused and strong, lay relaxed on the table. She forced herself to concentrate on the job, not on the warmth that radiated from him.

  “Isaiah must have liked going someplace with his big cousin.”

  Matt’s fingers twitched. “I guess he did. We were fishing down by the old dock. I don’t know if it’s still there.”

  “It fell down a couple of years ago,” she said. “All for the best, since it was so rickety it was a danger.”

  “It was dangerous then, too. I let Isaiah sit on the end closest to the bank, where it was fairly stable. Told him we couldn’t go farther out—it wasn’t safe.”

  Rebecca risked a glance at his face. He seemed to be staring into the past, probably at two barefoot kids sitting on a dock with fishing poles on a summer day.

  “Anyway, a couple of Englisch teenagers came by, looking to go fishing, too. Older than I was, with a cooler of beer and plans that didn’t include sharing the spot with us.”

  Rebecca found she was visualizing the scene as he spoke, and she didn’t have much trouble seeing what was coming next.

  “So they told us to get out. Said this was their spot, we shouldn’t be there, acting big. Isaiah . . . I don’t know if he was afraid or not, but he wanted to go. I said no. I said we had just as much right to be there as they did.” His fingers twitched again. “There was some pushing and shoving. I saw red. Lost my temper. Waded into the biggest guy with fists flying.” His right hand curled into a fist as he spoke, his fingers closing over the bandage.

  “Something happened to Isaiah,” she said softly.

  “Right in the middle of it I heard a cry, a splash—it was Isaiah. He’d gone clear out to the end of the dock, maybe trying to get away from the fighting. Backed into the railing, and it broke and went right into the pond with him.” Matt’s jaw was so tight it wondered her that he could manage the words.

  “We had an awful time fishing him out. He was tangled up in the broken boards and the reeds. Muddy bottom, so you couldn’t get a grip—” He was reliving those moments too strongly, and beads of sweat appeared at his hairline. “I thought he was dead when we pulled him to the bank.”

  “But he wasn’t,” she said gently, longing to comfort him but sure that words weren’t enough. “Isaiah is fine.”

  “No thanks to me. It was my hot temper that nearly killed him.” His gaze met hers. “You should know. You saw it in action just now. Every time I think I have my anger conquered, it crops up again.”

  “Everyone has some failing, Matthew. You’re only human.”

  “Human, ja. But Amish?” He pulled away from her, smoothing down the tape she’d put over the bandage. “I left the faith because I thought I could never live up to our beliefs. And I came back because . . . well, because I thought it was safer. But even here—” He gestured with his injured hand. “You see what happens.”

  “Matt . . .” She felt so inadequate to deal with what he’d said. “You’re not solely to blame for what happened. My brother bears an equal share of responsibility.”

  He only looked more stubborn. “He’s still hardly more than a kid, for all he’s doing a man’s work. I’m older. I should be able to control myself.”

  “We’re not meant to be perfect, Matt,” she reminded him. “Not in this world. That will happen only in the next.”

  “Maybe.” He stood, pushing his chair back, and his gaze focused on her face. “You’re a kind person, Rebecca. But you’ll be better off if you don’t trust me. The Lord knows I don’t trust myself.”

  Before she could find the words to reassure him, he’d swung away and strode out the door. Rebecca sat where he’d left her, turning the whole conversation over in her mind.

  Safer. What had Matt meant when he said he thought it would be safer for him to return to the Amish? She didn’t know, and she suspected he wasn’t likely to tell her.

  Lancaster County, May 1942

  Anna stepped over the strawberry plants, eyes searching the thick green mat for a sparkle of red. Nothing ripe yet, it seemed, but it wouldn’t be long. She stooped at the row of rhubarb and began to pull stalks, snipping off the fanlike leaves and dropping the ruby-red stalks into her basket. Maybe by concentrating really hard on what she was doing, she could keep her thoughts from running round and round after her worries.

  All the rhubarb in the world couldn’t do that, she feared. She waited daily for Jacob to learn his fate, praying and hoping and too afraid to talk about it. If only they’d let him stay here, where he belonged, and work the farm . . .

  Her gaze caught on her daad and brother, hoeing weeds away from the rows of corn seedlings. Was Daad talking to Seth again about applying, as Jacob had, to be exempted from service because of his religion? He’d been pushing Seth to start the process. So far, Seth had managed to evade the prompting. He�
�d evaded her, too, each time she’d tried to renew their conversation about fighting.

  She spun around at the sound of buggy wheels, spilling rhubarb from her basket. Jacob pulled to a stop, lifting a hand in greeting, and jumped down. By the time she’d gathered up the rhubarb, he was coming to meet her.

  “Jacob. I’m wonderful glad to see you.”

  His answering smile didn’t seem to reach his grave eyes, and a little chill settled on her.

  “Will you take a walk with me, Anna?”

  She nodded, her heart thudding. Had he heard something? She wanted to know, but she was afraid, as well. “Toward the woods or down to the creek?”

  “The creek,” he said, and fell into step with her. “Your mamm won’t mind waiting for the rhubarb?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just a small batch for supper. Will you stay?”

  “I can’t.” He was frowning, his gaze shadowed by the brim of his straw hat.

  The fear bubbled up. He couldn’t stay to eat. And he wanted to walk down by the creek, where the willow trees would hide them from view.

  “Has Seth gotten his notice yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet.” She hesitated. “I suppose it will come soon. Daad has been trying to get him to start applying for exemption, but he won’t.”

  What about you, Jacob? She shouldn’t ask. She should let him tell her in his own way.

  “Why not?” They were under the willows now, with the stream running smooth and high from the recent rain.

  “Oh, Jacob, I’m afraid of what he might do. He hasn’t talked to Daadi about it, but he spoke to me a little. He’s thinking that maybe it’s not wrong to go and fight if you’re doing it to help other people. I’m so afraid that if he’s drafted, he’ll go in the army.”

  Jacob turned to face her, taking both her hands in his. “I’m sorry. I know how much it must worry you.” He shook his head. “I guess every one of us has been tempted.”

  “Not you.” Her voice wobbled a little. “You couldn’t take up a gun against another person.”

  “I don’t think I could.” His clear blue eyes were troubled. “But sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m just a coward, not a pacifist.”