Return to Grace

Bright blinking lights, a siren that went silent. People to help, medics. A little beam of light in each eye. Voices, words flying by she tried to grab. Seth’s voice, then these strangers’ words.

“… Can’t transport him … deceased … bled out. Bullet to the head. Crime scene. Sheriff Freeman should be here soon. He can call the coroner.”

“Wooster, E.R., we’re going to transport two females with gunshot wounds, shoulder, wrist … starting IVs … sending vitals …”

“Did you see what happened here, Mr. Lantz?”

Muffled words in and out of her head …

Lifted onto a gurney, carried, made the pain worse. IV in her arm, wrist bandaged. Two emergency vehicles, bloodred lights piercing the night, but so bright inside where they lifted her, slid her in. The sound of a buggy, a single horse’s hoofbeats coming fast, a voice she knew. Daad! Mamm, too! Was she dreaming?

“We saw the blinking lights from our house. Did a car hit a buggy? Can we help?” her father asked in English.

In their German dialect, her mother said, “Seth, Naomi’s with Marlena, so don’t you worry for that. Ach, what happened here?”

Before Hannah could hear an answer, with great difficulty, she lifted her head to look out past her feet. If she was going to die, to bleed out or never be allowed back here again, she was going to get a glimpse of her parents.

“Bishop Esh,” Seth was saying, “Hannah was here with worldly friends. She’s been hurt—shot, and she’s inside that one, right there.”

Her mother peered into the E.R. vehicle. It had been so long since Hannah had looked into her pale blue eyes. More wrinkles than Hannah remembered. Mamm looked grieved. Grieved for her.

“Oh, Mamm,” Hannah got out before bursting into tears.

Her father, white beard, intense stare, squinted into the brightness at her, and choked out his childhood nickname for her. “Hanni!”

Mamm climbed right up, came in and bent over her, holding her other hand. “I’m going with her,” she called out to Daad with Seth standing so tall behind him, though Hannah could barely make out their silhouettes in this brightness. “You tell Naomi to take care of things, Joseph.”

“Naomi,” Hannah heard herself repeat her younger sister’s name. “How is … Naomi?”

“Planning her wedding to Joshua Troyer in two weeks,” Mamm said, close to her ear. “You can help her with things when you come home and let that painted scarlet hair grow out to your real blond.” She stroked Hannah’s forehead, brushing her gel-spiked hair back. With her unhurt hand, before she remembered it was tethered by IVs, Hannah seized her mother’s wrist and held tight. If she did die, she thought as she began to slip away, she could at least go grateful: she’d seen Seth and he had helped her; Mamm and Daad at least still claimed her; and sweet Naomi was going to be married … going to be married.

Someone slammed the door and her thoughts went black.

2

HANNAH SWAM INTO THE LIGHT, THEN PLUNGED to darkness again, thinking, Naomi’s going to be married, going to be married.

Hannah had been certain she was going to be married, too. Seth Lantz was the only man she had ever loved. They’d been scholars together at the one-room schoolhouse. He had been her come-calling friend for years. They’d survived their rebellious rumspringa years and had planned to be baptized into the church at the same time. Whether they sang duets of the old hymns or “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” their voices blended beautifully, and their lives would, too. Hannah’s best running-around friends, Sarah and Ella, knew she and Seth were privately promised to each other. And then … and then …

She had been certain Seth was going to propose to her that sweet spring evening at the pond. He was so nervous, the big six-footer, one of the tallest men in the Home Valley. One of the handsomest, too, with his blond hair and sky-blue eyes, his square chin. Then came the words that had turned her well-planned life upside down.

“Hannah, I—I don’t know how it happened. I mean, I know how but not why,” he’d faltered. “I realize you and I have been waiting for each other—waiting to join the church, to bed together, to build a life, start a family, but I … It only happened once, but—I hope you and the Lord and the brethren can forgive me—but Lena Miller’s going to have my child. She’s sure—and I’m going to have to … to marry her.”

She had just gaped at him. The words didn’t register at first, but his stark, stunned expression did. She’d wanted to drown herself in the pond—she wanted to drown him!

“I—I will always love you,” he’d stammered, “and I hope you can forgive me….”

She had become so hysterical she was never certain what she’d said to him that night. She’d hit him, too, pounded on his big, broad shoulders when violence was not their way. But this was brutality. He might as well have beaten or killed her. Running back home across the fields, past the Kauffman farm to her own, blinded by tears of pain and fury, she’d wished the fresh-plowed earth would simply swallow her. Then that argument with her father, the bishop, no less.

“No, I can’t forgive him—never will!” she’d shouted. “Even if I could forgive, I could never forget! Don’t tell me I have to accept that and go on, see them together, see their children over the years, Lena in his house, in his buggy—poor Hannah, the castoff. He’s the one who should be sent away, but I’m the one who’s going! I’m going to sing for a career, I don’t care if you say I can’t. At least I won’t be shunned, because I’ve never joined the church, never been baptized, never been betrayed like this, either. I don’t care if both of them admit their sin before the church or the entire world, because I won’t be there. I won’t be anywhere around here!”

Her mother’s pleading, her sister’s tears, nothing stopped her. In her deepest, darkest dreams, she could still hear her father’s calm voice calling after her as she charged up the stairs to pack. “Hannah! Hannah Esh, you come back here!”

“Hannah. Hannah,” a voice called now, pulling her from heavy, sodden sleep. With great difficulty, Hannah slitted one eye open. Her mother, wearing a black bonnet and cape, was sitting by her bed. A hospital room. Hannah saw she was tied to tubes and monitors.

Her mother stood and leaned close over her, putting a warm palm on Hannah’s cheek. She spoke in their German dialect. “I thought you were waking up, dear girl. You lost a lot of blood, but they operated to patch you up and put some metal pins in your wrist. They say with physical therapy, you’ll recover most of the use of your hand, but it will take months. At least it’s your left one and not your right. I was praying you’d come back to us, back to life and come home to your family now. The police, even a government FBI man, are going to find out who shot at you and—and your friends. I’ll stay with you, stay right here in your room, and then you come home with me, oh, ya.”

Hannah tried to say, “Danki, Mamm,” but her throat felt raw, and nothing came out. What a mess she’d made of things. It all came back in a rush: Kevin dead, Tiffany and her shot while they were defiling the graveyard with their boos and booze. She’d lived through it, but whatever life she’d once had among her Amish family and former friends was surely dead, too.

Hannah floated in and out of strange sleep—pain pills, that was causing her problems, she told herself. When her thoughts settled, she wished she could take medicine to mute her mental pain, as well.

Once Daad was even here. They didn’t talk, even though they had so much to say. He mostly paced the floor, frowning, muttering to himself, even hitting his forehead with his hand now and then, as if he was blaming himself for the state she was in. But he’d also lifted a glass of water to her lips, and the strangest scrap of scripture had popped into her head: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Would all she’d said, all she’d done, make her father turn against her? He was an upright, stern man. Would he believe she had caused not only her own punishment but the harm that came to Tiffany and Kevin? Tiffany was recovering in a Cleveland Hospital, Mamm had said, and Kevin’s body had been autopsied and would be released by the authorities and buried in a few days. Liz and Mike had gone home to their families.

Later, Hannah wasn’t certain when Mamm told her that Sheriff Freeman had come to see her. “You sure you’re strong enough to talk to him?”

“Yes. I want to help any way I can. To know who would do such a thing and why.”

“Perhaps God only knows. I’ll sit in the chair in the corner, and you tell the sheriff or me if you get too tired or too upset to answer his questions. He’s been keeping some folks away from you, so we are grateful.”

“What folks?” Hannah asked, wondering if Seth had tried to see her.

“Newspaper and TV reporters. Don’t you fret, because there is a police officer outside your door to keep them away.”

If that was meant to be comforting, it only made Hannah more nervous. This was a double nightmare: not only had people’s lives been ruined because of her, but she was evidently in some danger. Surely a policeman wasn’t just to keep reporters away. Did the police think she could identify someone? Her people lived private, plain lives and now look what she’d done by bringing trouble to them.

Tall and straight, Eden County’s sheriff was an imposing man in his crisp black uniform. The Amish didn’t trust government officials much or even vote in worldly elections. But Jack Freeman, who was elected, got along with them just fine, although the Amish did not approve of his divorce. Still, word was, his wife had left him when he didn’t want her to, so maybe that wasn’t all his fault.

His brown eyes assessed Hannah, then took in the room as he thanked Mamm for her help. He pulled up the chair next to the bed and put his big-brimmed hat on the floor and a white bakery box on the bedside table.

“From Ray-Lynn Logan,” he said, referring to the worldly woman who ran the Dutch Farm Table Restaurant in Homestead, the biggest town in the Home Valley area, though that wasn’t saying much. “She remembers you liked whipped pies.”

“Oh, you mean whoopie pies. They’re more like cookies, like Amish Oreos with filling.” She couldn’t believe they were making small talk when she feared what was coming. “Please thank her for me—you, too, for bringing them.”

“She said she hopes you’re coming back home. Your family and friends want you to.”

She still had friends at home? The Amish might be great at forgiving sinners, but could they ever forget the things she had done and now had caused? Her dearest friend, Sarah Kauffman, had remained close, but she’d left for Columbus and was going to marry an outsider. Sarah had said that Hannah’s other once-upon-a-time good friend Ella Lantz, Seth’s sister, had been very critical of Hannah’s worldly life. Or could the sheriff possibly mean Seth had said he was still her friend? He must have also interviewed Seth about the shooting.

“Still, I can’t wait around for you to come home to get your statement,” he was saying as his voice tightened and his face became more intent. “Hannah, we got us a cold-blooded murder on our hands, and you two women shot. We don’t need any of this, not after the media mess with those barn burnings last spring.”

“I know. I’m sorry I brought my friends here—there, I mean. I just thought it would be a private picnic.”

Frowning, he took out a small notebook and flipped it open. “How ‘bout you tell me everything you remember happened at the graveyard?”

She went through things, step-by-step—why they came, their arrival, the loud deathrock music …

“Deathrock?” he interrupted, looking up from his scribbling. “That’s its name?”

“Yes, it’s very popular with goths.”