Gideon sat across the table from his father as they ate the noon meal. They had said very little to each other following Gideon’s arrival yesterday.
John Beiler was fifty when Gideon left the community. Now he looked like a man in his early seventies, his dark hair an equal mixture of brown and gray, his beard the same blended hues. The lines of time feathered from the corners of his eyes, attaching themselves to a road map of deep crevices. His body was worn from decades of hard work, but mostly from the last few years of grief. He’d stopped attending worship service the day his wife and granddaughter were killed, his faith shattered.
Gideon understood the angry feelings and loss of faith. Temporarily, he carried ill will toward the Lord as well. But over time he was able to accept that his mother’s and child’s deaths were the will of God, which was what he’d grown up believing—that everything that happened was part of God’s plan, His will.
He hadn’t been in the English world long before he learned that trusting solely in God’s will was not universal. He’d met plenty of people grieving, and a lot of them had walked away from God. Gideon understood his father’s initial reaction to the tragedies they’d faced, but he thought his father would have eventually turned back to God.
“The meatloaf was gut,” Gideon said after he finished the last bite on his plate. His father nodded. Gideon wondered how often his father ate meals that came frozen in a box. It tasted better than Gideon would have thought, but maybe that was because it was heated slowly in the oven and not microwaved in a minute or two. He recalled the many home-cooked meals he’d had in this house over the years.
Gideon inquired about various cousins he hadn’t seen since Grace’s and his mother’s funerals.
His father shrugged. “I’m not sure how many are coming.” Narrowing bushy eyebrows and squinting at Gideon, his father stroked his beard. “Why are you here? You wrote that you weren’t coming. What made you change your mind?”
Gideon wiped his mouth with his napkin. He already knew his father had no plans to attend the family reunion. Even though it was for Ruth’s side of the family, Gideon’s parents had attended in the past.
“I missed everyone. And I need to take care of some loose ends here. You know . . . the house, stuff like that.” He also needed to face Ruth, to apologize for the way he’d acted in the months following the accident. He’d also met someone, a woman in Ohio, who he’d been out with a few times. Technically he and Ruth were still married, and they needed to address that fact. Ruth had been the love of his life, yet they’d destroyed each other after Grace’s death, each picking off chips of the other’s last bit of sanity. Instead of clinging together, they tore each other to shreds.
As he looked at his father, Gideon knew it would have been him if he’d stayed—a bitter, lonely man without faith. He had needed distance from this place to heal.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been lost in thought when his father cleared his throat. “I take a nap this time of day.” The chair dragged against the wood floor as he pushed away from the table and stood. He shuffled across the room but turned back as he crossed the threshold into the living room. “I’m glad you’re here, sohn.” He didn’t wait for a response but continued toward his bedroom and closed the door behind him.
Gideon sighed as he stared at the wall. He sat there for a while before he stacked the dishes and carried them to the sink. He’d wash them when he got home from the cemetery. The delay wouldn’t bother his father. The house was a wreck, and dishes filled the sink when he first arrived.
He pulled his keys from his pocket and walked outside toward his white Chevy Silverado pickup truck. He’d joined a wonderful Christian church a few months after he moved, and he got a driver’s license and bought the truck a couple weeks later, after he saved enough money from working at the hardware store his cousins owned. He was blessed to have work shortly after he arrived. Staying busy helped him through his grief in the beginning, and he made a good life for himself in Ohio. But being back in Lancaster County filled him with a sense of regret about what could have been.
Gideon drove to a local florist and browsed the displays before he chose two arrangements, each a dozen yellow roses. He was thankful he didn’t know the young clerk who waited on him. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk. His first order of business would be the hardest. After he visited Grace and his mother, he would go to the house where he, Ruth, and Grace had lived and assess what needed to be done.
He parked at the cemetery next to the only other vehicle in the small dirt parking lot, a red SUV. Forcing the door open, he stepped onto the dirt, then gently closed the door. Taking deep breaths, he eyed the rows of plain headstones with no more than a name and date carved into the wood. They were all exactly the same, and Gideon allowed shame to latch on to him because he didn’t remember which row was Grace’s. That day had been a blur. He trudged forward.
He wouldn’t have brought flowers to a grave in his past life, but he’d been to several English funerals in Ohio, and there was an abundance of flowers at each one. It might not be the Amish way, but Grace and his mother had loved roses. They’d had several rose bushes when he was growing up and at the home he’s shared with Ruth and Grace.
In the distance, he saw a woman kneeling in front of a headstone. She wasn’t Amish. He could tell because she wasn’t wearing a head covering or a dress, but jeans and a tan shirt. Her face was buried in her hands as her shoulders shook.
Gideon shuffled forward, the roses dangling in one hand at his side. His chest tightened as he neared what he thought was Grace’s grave. When the woman turned around, wiped her eyes, and locked eyes with him, Gideon became caught in a magnetic field pushing and pulling him at the same time.
He fought the heaviness in his chest as he blinked at the woman. He took a few more slow steps, and as his wife’s eyes held his, he wanted to turn and run back to his truck. Or into her arms. He wasn’t sure. He stopped only a few feet from her, unprepared for this meeting. Gideon thought he’d at least have tonight to think about everything he wanted to say to her.
Dabbing at her eyes again, Ruth rushed to her feet, then moved quickly toward him.
“Ruth,” he whispered. “I-I can come back if . . .”
She shook her head, sniffling. Even with dark circles under her eyes and tearstained cheeks, Gideon thought she was the most beautiful woman on earth. Strands of her long dark hair flew below her ponytail as a strong breeze cut through the space between them.
She looked at the ground for a moment, then raised her head and gazed into his eyes, tipping her head slightly, like she might be trying to see through him, to read his thoughts. Gideon wondered if she would like what she saw. His journey was fraught with pitfalls, times when he’d lost his footing. What had her last five years been like?
Her eyes drifted to the roses at his side. “Grace’s favorite.” She blinked, then sniffled again before she locked eyes with him. “It’s good to see you.”
He took a deep breath. He’d made love to this woman, had a child with her, and loved her with all of his heart for so many years. But as he gazed at her now, he saw a stranger. A ghost from his past. He didn’t know anything about her, except that she lived in Florida. She didn’t know anything about him either.
“I-I’ve been here a while.” Ruth glanced back at Grace’s grave. There was a bouquet of yellow roses laid across the grass. “I can let you have some time with her.”
“No. Stay.” The words jumped from his mouth before he had time to think. He wouldn’t be able to hold back his tears much longer, and he hadn’t even been able to look directly at his daughter’s headstone yet. Did he want Ruth to see him this way?
Being alone seemed terrifying all of a sudden, though. As a tear trickled down his cheek, he placed one of the bouquets next to the flowers Ruth had left. Gideon knew Grace wasn’t there. She was in heaven. He wondered if she could see him. Did God give her glimpses of the lives that went on without her? Gideon hoped not. Grace would surely be disappointed in her parents.
“I miss you every single day of my life.” He squatted down and placed his hands on the grass where her body was laid to rest, recalling the images of his father, father-in-law, Amos, and two cousins lowering his beloved little girl into the ground. The tears came full force then, and even harder when Ruth knelt beside him and put an arm around him. She lay her head on his shoulder, weeping along with him. Then she tearfully reached for Gideon’s hand and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
There were things to be said, situations to handle . . . but right now, they were two parents praying over their daughter’s grave. Everything else could wait.
After a few moments of silence, they both stood. Gideon pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dried his eyes, embarrassed that he was trembling and crying in front of Ruth.
He wanted to tell her how sorry he was that he’d failed her, that he was sorry he hadn’t had the strength to provide the emotional support she needed back then. Did he tell her that during one of their phone calls that first year they stayed in touch? Surely he did. But his thoughts were scrambled, and he still needed to do one more thing while he was here.
“Do you want to come with me?” He nodded four headstones to his left. His mother was buried on the other side of his grandparents.
“If that’s okay. I’ve already visited her grave, but I’d like to go with you.” They’d both stopped crying, and the soberness and silence were deafening. Too many thoughts and memories slammed around in his head. He walked alongside Ruth to his mother’s grave, determined not to cry again, but his best efforts failed him. Ruth reached for his hand, and together they knelt and prayed. She trembled right along with him as he placed the other dozen roses beside the arrangement Ruth must have left earlier.
“Even after five years, the pain feels fresh.” He stared at his mother’s grave for a few seconds before he stood and offered a hand to Ruth. Gideon wondered if this trip would undo all his hard work to control his grief. He supposed it never went away, but time and prayer had helped. Being back here, seeing Ruth, it was all painful and confusing.
“I hope you’re doing well in Florida.” He cleared his throat and thought about what a dumb and casual thing it was to say when there was clearly so much more they needed to talk about. But now probably wasn’t the right time for anything heavy.
Ruth nodded. “I am.” She smiled a little, and he caught her looking him up and down. She’d never seen him in blue jeans and a T-shirt before. “I guess you chose not to join another Amish community.” Waving a hand at her own attire, she said, “Obviously, neither did I.”
“It didn’t feel right, even if another district had accepted me, I . . .” He shrugged. “I had forsaken God. But I found Him at a non-denominational church.”
“That’s good.” She kept her eyes cast down as they inched back to their vehicles. “I found a church, too, but . . .” She lifted one shoulder, then dropped it. “It’s not the same.”
Gideon wondered what was going through Ruth’s mind. His own thoughts were all over the place. Why did they stop talking and writing letters? The cease in communication wasn’t abrupt. The phone calls and letters became less and less until they just no longer existed.
As they walked, they didn’t touch each other, didn’t hold hands like earlier. Each stride felt shaky and awkward, but only a few minutes ago, they’d shown the most intimate parts of themselves when they’d cried over their lost loved ones. Should he hug her before they left? He wished their first meeting hadn’t been a surprise for either of them, but maybe this was how it was meant to be. Perhaps God knew they would need each other for this visit to Grace’s and his mother’s final resting spots.
Gideon walked her to her car and opened the door for her. She got in and turned back to him. “Esther said you had some papers for me to sign.”
He nodded over his shoulder toward his truck. “Oh, yeah. I do. They’re actually in my backseat. Hang on. I’ll get them.”
Returning with a large white envelope, he handed it to her. “I’ll give you time to look these over and see if there is anything you want to change or don’t agree with.”
She took the envelope but avoided looking at him as she set it on the passenger seat by her purse. “Okay.”
Ruth started the car, but Gideon wasn’t ready for her to go. “I feel like we have some things to talk about.” At the very least, Gideon wanted to hear about her life, where she worked, if she was happy. On a more personal note, was she seeing anyone? Had she been with anyone else? He probably didn’t have a right to ask about that.
She glanced at him briefly, then looked at the white envelope to her right. “There’s probably nothing for us to talk about. I’ll get this back to you soon.”
Gideon’s jaw dropped. How could she say that? She clearly didn’t have an inkling of love left for him. And just the opposite was true for him. He still loved her, as much now as ever, which could be a problem for him and the woman he was dating back home, but Gideon was willing to work through it to have another chance with Ruth.
Reuniting hadn’t been on his mind prior to seeing her today, but he’d begun to ponder the possibility the moment he laid eyes on her. If she didn’t think they had anything to talk about, he’d take care of business here and head back to Ohio.
But then she started to cry again, and Gideon was more confused than ever.