A Sister's Forgiveness (41 page)

Sadie thought a long moment while everyone else in the room glanced around nervously. “Then it can go to a fund to pay the court costs the judge mentioned. And what if I visit Tessa’s grave every week and make sure that there are flowers and no weeds and such?”

Emma glanced at Jeannie.

“We could go there together,” Jeannie said softly. “Tessa would like that.”

“Thank you,” Sadie whispered. She bowed her head to hide the sobs she could no longer hold at bay.

Rachel gave Sadie a moment to compose herself and then kept prodding. “What else?”

“What if Sadie had to do all my chores as well as hers?” Matt suggested.

“And how would you then practice responsibility?” Lars asked his son, but Jeannie could see that there was a hint of amusement in the way he asked the question.

“Just a thought,” Matt grumbled and folded his arms tightly across his chest.

Emma was right, Jeannie thought. Matt was not himself. He’d always been such a cheerful boy, always concerned for others, always eager to help. In the past, that exchange with Lars would have ended with a sheepish smile from Matt and possibly a murmured, “Worth a shot.” But now he had the sullen stare of the teenagers she had often seen when she attended functions at the school with Geoff. Young people making it perfectly clear that they would rather be anywhere but with their parents and teachers. Tessa had never been one of them. Nor had Sadie, and certainly Matt had never been that way—until now.

She continued to study Matt’s reactions as Rachel led them through the rest of the process. She was barely listening to the terms and conditions that Sadie had agreed to follow—even if the judge sent her away. Geoff would know what to do about Matt’s change of behavior, so as soon as they were finished here, she intended to find her husband and ask for his help.

“I want to add one more condition,” Sadie said when it seemed that they had formed the required contract.

“Be very careful, Sadie,” Rachel warned. “You have agreed to quite a list of things here. You have to keep in mind that right now you want very much to do everything you can to repair and heal what happened as a result of your decision to drive that day, but this contract is a long-term agreement. It will take years for you to fulfill all of the pieces—in some cases, like caring for Tessa’s grave, you are agreeing to continue this for the rest of your life.”

“I know, but Uncle Geoff isn’t here to… I haven’t heard from him about all the horrible ways I’ve hurt him, and well, if he can’t ever forgive me, then what’s the point?”

“We’re forgiving you, Sadie,” Emma said.

“You love me,” Sadie shot back.

Jeannie was stunned. “Geoff loves you, Sadie.”

If doubt had a face, Jeannie knew that she was looking at it when Sadie glanced up at her and then back at Rachel. “I just need to leave a place for Uncle Geoff to be able to have his say,” she said.

“That could take a long time,” Rachel warned. “And it might come at a time when you are finally beginning to feel as if you’ve achieved reconciliation.”

“I don’t care. I don’t even understand how Aunt Jeannie can be in the same room with me.” She turned to face Jeannie. “I killed Tessa,” she whispered.

Without a second’s hesitation, Jeannie opened her arms to this girl whom she had loved as her own. “Come here,” she said, relieved when Sadie willingly came to her, laying her head on Jeannie’s shoulder as the two of them stood rocking gently from side to side. “You didn’t kill anyone, Sadie. Your reckless behavior caused an accident—a horrific accident that none of us ever could have imagined. And yet it did. We can all find some blame in others—and in our own actions—but none of that will change what happened. We can only move forward, sweetie.”

“But Uncle Geoff…”

“Shhh, he’ll come around.” As she looked over Sadie’s shoulder, she saw Matt watching her closely. And she realized how very much he wanted to believe what she was saying. But then in an instant, his young hopeful face changed to that of a boy who had seen his world turned inside out by something he had no part in and could not have prevented even if he’d known.

Gently she pushed Sadie back toward Emma. “I have an errand,” she said as she turned to Rachel. “Can we get back to this maybe tomorrow? There’s something I really need to do.”

“Ja. Danke, Jeannie. I am so very aware of the courage it took for you to come here today.”

Jeannie stared at her new friend for a moment, thinking about all that Rachel had had to endure over these last months since her husband’s sudden death. “I may need to lean on you from time to time, Rachel. You’re a lot further down this dark road than I am, than Geoff is.”

“I’m here,” Rachel promised.

“Me, too,” Emma assured Jeannie. Lars nodded.

Jeannie looked at Matt, but the boy just looked down at his shoes and said nothing.

Outside, she mounted Tessa’s bike and headed for Geoff’s school. She had gotten too used to driving wherever she needed to go and had forgotten the feeling of freedom that came with riding a bike. The ties on her prayer covering playfully tickled her cheeks as she rode, and inside she felt the stirrings of the kind of lightheartedness that had always been her trademark. She knew she had a long and difficult journey ahead of her. She could summon the pain of Tessa’s death by simply remembering that moment when she had sat with Geoff on the driveway in the rain holding their child as her very life seeped out of her. But for the first time since that morning, she understood that somehow she would go on.

Geoff was running the football team through a scrimmage when she braked the bike, jumped off, and leaned it against the new storage shed. She couldn’t resist fingering the shiny lock—the one they had been searching for keys for that morning. What if they had not found the keys? What if instead of being in the driveway waiting for Sadie and Dan, Tessa had just that moment run to their garden shed to get the keys that Jeannie had hidden there?

And what then? Would the car have struck Geoff? And would her loss have been any less?

She heard Geoff call out a play and knew that whatever happened between them, she loved this man. He was a gifted teacher, a good coach, a loving father, and a tender and devoted husband. Watching him now as he ran onto the field when one of his players went down hard, she understood for the very first time the source of Geoff’s anger. He had not been able to save Tessa—he had tried and failed. And just as he took very seriously the fact that the parents of every player on his team had trusted their child to his care, how much more seriously would a man like Geoff take the responsibility of fatherhood?

As the hurt player limped off the field with the help of a manager and another player, Geoff dismissed the team for the day. He checked on the injured boy and was apparently assured by the team doctor—a parent of one of his players who had volunteered to be present whenever possible—that the kid would be okay. Indeed, the boy was almost walking normally by the time he headed for the locker room. Jeannie heard Geoff tease him about faking an injury so they could go home early.

The boy laughed.

And so did Geoff.

She stood on the sideline, savoring the sound of his laughter and relishing the way he took off his battered baseball cap and brushed back his hair.

Then he looked up and spotted her. At first he looked confused. He actually nodded politely and then started across the field, following the others. But suddenly he stopped and turned back, and this time he stared open-mouthed.

Jeannie waved and walked toward him. “It’s me,” she said, self-consciously fingering the ties on her prayer covering.

He met her halfway, his eyebrows raised in question.

She had come to plead with him to reconsider being a part of the program to reconcile with Sadie. She had come to plead with him to go and find Matt, have a long talk with the boy, and take him for ice cream. She had come hoping that he might see her and beg her to take him back.

But that was before she had seen him run onto the field to tend the injured player. That was before God had shown her what Geoff must have felt when all she could manage to consider was her own pain.

“Why are you… is something wrong… has something…”

She shushed him with a finger to his lips. “I just came to tell you that I’m sorry. Through all of this, I have thought only of my pain, my needs.”

He started to protest, but she again silenced him, this time with words.

“Oh, I convinced myself that I was taking care of you, defending you and your pain to those who didn’t understand. But the truth is that I didn’t understand—not until today. When that boy went down, I saw such fear in your face.”

“Can I talk now?” he asked, his voice the husky whisper of a man fighting to keep his emotions in check.

Jeannie nodded.

“What was different about today?”

“I told you—when I saw you with that boy,” she said and then shrugged. “Oh Geoff, maybe it wasn’t just today. I’ve had a lot of time to think and pray.”

He glanced at the white prayer covering. “You’re going back to your family’s church?”

“I don’t know, maybe. Clothes are just clothes, aren’t they? But right now dressing this way reminds me of how I was raised, what I believe, what we taught Tessa to believe. And I just began to think that the best way for me to honor who she was would be to find my way to forgiveness and to accept the kindness of others.”

Geoff frowned. “You mean the money for the bills?”

“That and other things. Think of it, Geoff. If this had happened to someone else we know—even if it had happened to a family you knew only because their child was in your class, we would be there. We would make food and take care of chores, and yes, we would give money if that was what was needed. Why? Because that’s what we do—that’s who we are—that’s who we taught Tessa to be.”

Geoff looked out toward the setting sun for a minute, his eyes damp. “I miss her so much.”

“Me, too.” She took his hand and brought it to her lips. “I love you, Geoff, and I’m so very sorry for—”

This time he quieted her. He pulled her into his arms. “Let’s go home, Jeannie.”

Jeannie had prayed to hear those words, and here they were. She looked up at him, her smile feeling as if it must rival the sun. She wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him.

“Hey, Coach,” one of his players shouted amid a background of whistles and cheers, “get a room.”

Chapter 44

Sadie

I
t’s over, Sadie. You’re free.”

That’s what her father had murmured after the judge accepted the recommendation of the probation team for sentencing.

Earlier that morning, Joseph had explained the procedure. “The probation team has interviewed people and studied the trial transcript. It’s up to them to give the judge their recommendation. The judge really has to accept this unless he can make a good argument for doing something else. There’s still the matter of him passing sentence, but given this report, that’s most likely to be probation and community service.”

But Sadie no longer trusted in such promises. So in spite of the relief that she could see on the faces of her parents—both looking suddenly younger and more themselves—and the twinge of relief she felt as well, she knew deep down that for her it would never truly be over. Tessa was dead, and however anybody explained it, the fact was that she was dead because Sadie had thought only in the moment and only of herself—her needs, her desire to impress Dan Kline, her certainty that nothing bad could possibly happen. It never had before, and she’d foolishly assumed that because they were all good people, nothing like this would ever happen to them. How wrong she had been.

She accepted the embrace of her parents and people from the community who were in the courtroom to support her. She looked around for her aunt Jeannie, but she had slipped out of the courtroom as soon as the judge adjourned the case.

“You’re free to go, Sadie,” Joseph Cotter told her. “Time to start living your life, building your future.”

And fulfilling the conditions of the contract I made with my folks, Matt, Aunt Jeannie
—
and hopefully one day, Uncle Geoff
.